More hot and humid. Can’t fool mother nature, and it’s very natural to have heat and humidity in the Houston swamp. Over 100F in the shade, and 106F in the sun… and again probably today. It was a bit cooler at midnight, only 85F with some gusting winds.
I did nothing all day. I laid on the bed, stretching and reading most of it. I can’t help feeling bad about it, while acknowledging that some part of me must have needed that. We’ll see, but I did do a whole lot of physical work with little sleep, and a whole lot of being out in public and talking to people which is taxing in its own right.
Today though, I really need to get back in the swing of doing things. I think I’ll have to get the fence repair at the rent house done, at a minimum. And since the utility guys have called for a trim crew, I should cut any stuff along my property line if I want to save any of it. And I do, because it provides shade and some isolation for the back yard.
I should also move toward getting A/C going in the office at the shop, and the portacool set up there for the warehouse area, and start digging a path through the garage to swap out the A/C in there, which is definitely not making cold…
And I’ve got cameras to install. I’m moving one drop and upgrading that cam to look at the back yard, and I need to get the cam to spy on the halfway house driveway installed. Every time I think no one is home to observe and object, someone pulls up. They seem to swap out guys at the end of the month, so I’ve got a good window coming up.
It’s gonna be another day of sweating in the heat. My ice pack cool vest should help.
Lots to do, and stacks to work from and on. If you’ve got the stuff, you should use it once in a while…
nick
I though I was supposed to be retired, but I have way too much to do. For the next two months or so. Grrrph. I’ll pop in here occasionally, but likely only very irregularly…
They save you a bit of money by providing some power. If they’re cheap, why not?
They are not designed to be independent systems – if the power is cut off, they must stop generating. Otherwise, they might electrocute an electrician doing work. Also, not having to run independently, their inverters can be a bit simpler – they just have to sync to the grid. So not suitable for a building that isn’t grid-tied.
We’re moving from that kind of inverter on our roof solar, to one that can run independently, and adding in batteries and more panels. Where we lived before, there were rarely power failures. Here, for whatever reason, they happen a lot more often. Plus, with the extra capacity, we should be able to cover our power needs except maybe a week or two in deepest winter.
As I wind down with my old school, I have done just that. It’s a pain. Two years ago, when I still had a full teaching load, I spend two nights a week in a hotel. Last year, half-retired, I stayed just one night in a hotel. This year I just have one course, so I take the train there, teach, and take the train back. Not fun, but I am done, done, done after this semester. Future teaching only at the local trade school.
A 100% in-office policy would be brain-dead stupid. Why should the school care, where you prep your courses, grade your exams, etc.. Nowadays, even most meetings with students are easily held remotely.
Of course, I started spending ever less time in the office a few years ago, when they took away our fixed workspaces and created a huge room full of identical, shared desks crammed next to each other. You can’t leave things lying around, and you have zero privacy. And honestly? Call it ego, but as a full professor I figured that I deserved better than that. That was the end of the limited time I did spend in the office.
“Future of work” by McKinsey, said the school administration. Why does anyone pay attention to those idiotic consulting firms?
That’s a fine question. Managerial FOMO? Weak minds, easily persuaded? Managers’ desire to be among the cool kids who know what’s coming?
Or possibly it’s nothing but a scam from top to bottom. At one place I consulted, a state agency, the branch manager’s pet went to the conferences a couple times per year, each time getting a work week in Las Vegas or other convention city. And each time she came back and babbled the latest Big Thing. Never mind if it contradicted the Big Thing from eight months ago.
The professionals, those paid by government or insurance companies or school systems or allegedly-private foundations, sure don’t seem to accomplish much, at least not in terms of their alleged mission.
ref Terrence Popp, “Redonkulas”. (One of his YouTube channels. Also on Rumble, Locals, etc) Retired military, nasty divorce, daughters turned against him. His mission now is to keep men from committing suicide. He was talking with a counselor or psychologist or something one day and mentioned that (at the time) he figured he’s saved a hundred men, doing it part-time by talking to them on the phone while working his regular job. The counselor was astonished because in a decade of doing it full time, he’d prevented maybe a few suicides.
Or ref myself. I taught my stepson English, bringing him from zero to fluency in a couple months of an hour in the evening after work, reading stories, going over the week’s vocabulary list, and just talking to him. He had an “ESL specialist” in school, who spent at least as much time with him and didn’t accomplish a whole lot. The pros had figured two to three years to bring him to fluency, with an ESL instructor and then a reading specialist every school day. The stepson gets a lot of the credit, of course, because he’s very smart.
Or also ref myself. I used to help teens and young adults, mostly just by talking with them. The talking was sometimes just listening to them vent about their parents, sometimes advice on how to present themselves when applying for a McJob, sometimes advice that they really need to get away from their thug friends if they want a stable future for themselves. Often I’d give them a meal, occasionally let someone stay in one of my apartments for a month while they arranged something longer-term. Years later I was grumbling to a former social worker about my low success rate, maybe one in three, in getting the young adults to get and keep a steady job or to stay away from their thug friends. The social worker was astonished. “One in three? We were happy with five percent!” That’s after years of training and lots of resources to call upon. To be fair, I was able to be more selective in who I helped, a teen in my martial arts class or the son of one of my neighbor’s scumbag sister, while the pros had to take whoever they were assigned. But still, some untrained jerk on his own was able to do at least as well as the pros with backing.
No offense to Lynn, but Victoria isn’t exactly a garden spot of the universe and a ~ 2 hour drive from where most of the faculty would probably live – if I had to guess – in the West Houston exurbs like Katy means that the faculty wouldn’t be there outside of class hours absent the rule.
An “A&M” is a land grant school which is subsidized by taxpayers with the intent to build the overall state skill pool and the community in which the campus location sits.
The big problem with the rule is more likely unequal enforcement, with white and white adjacent males receiving most of the grief from the DEI hire administration.
I’ve lived mid-tier Texas university politics over the last decade. The professors make decent money, but most never envisioned being tied to places like Victoria or even San Marcos, where I went to grad school and the region’s NFL team will eventually play.
I imagine a lot of A&M faculty don’t even like being in College Station. Likewise Tech and Lubbock.
A lot of the state university faculty are simply unhappy outside of UT Austin. No “culture” (read: alcohol).
My grandma taught adults to read. She must have been pretty good at it, as she did it for years while running a small family owned business. My experience volunteering in the kids’ elementary school wasn’t inspiring. Even gifted kids missed out on programs if they didn’t have an advocate and the kids falling behind didn’t get any extra help, and our district is considered to be a very good one.
If a kid doesn’t get that basic literacy and numeracy, they’ll always be behind, with all the self esteem issues that causes and the behavioral issues that follow.
“Fat dumb and drunk is no way to go through life, son.” got replaced with the opposite.
———-
Kids are poked. Snack is made. Sun is coming up and warming the swamp.
I think I’ll start the coffee and my day.
n
Fat, dumb, and drunk will eventually start using Borrower Defense to get their college loans forgiven when the Dems realize that delivering blanket forgiveness on most of the paper issued by the Federal GSL program since 2011 cannot happen without a very complex act of Congress which may arguably break Reconciliation under which Obamacare happened.
I think part of the talk of the Socialists to eliminate the Senate is to prevent a Court clash over Reconciliation which has been used to pass multiple bills out of the chamber in the last 20 years.
My guess about the faculty rule is that the A&M Victoria administration sees this coming.
Unless some big law firm of ambulance chasers gets involved, I don’t see Borrower’s Defense ever going anywhere. It takes knowledge, effort, and action. Three things in short supply with kids who didn’t finish (50% of admitted don’t graduate) or who took on large debt for marginally useful degrees. IOW, someone will have to do the work for them. Kinda like their education.
——-
Coffee will help my attitude.
n
TAMUV looks like a dressed up community college.
https://www.tamuv.edu/
The website is aimed at fat brown kids and the occasional fat white kid, with an emphasis on what used to be described as ‘first in family’ college attendees.
They are part of TAMU so there should be some rigor, but who knows?
I’m a supporter of Community colleges and the regional extensions of big schools as they really can provide a path to a better life. I’m not convinced that degrees associated with gaming are the future though.
n
I’m gonna bet the “office only” policy comes from a need for control from the underqualified DIE hires in administration. I’ve seen the kind of people that end up in those jobs in low tier schools and it ain’t pretty if you are actually skilled, knowledgeable, or competent.
n
I was just about to say “You’re, like, all cynical n stuff.”
@lynn, this auction has some S&W revolvers…
https://hibid.com/catalog/771064/montgomery-estate-liquidation-online-auction
n
I hope this works out:
Fort Hood selected for nuclear microreactor project
BTW, all the Army Forts plugs The LastTM got changed for PLT/DEI reasons, were changed back by tRump.
All Hail tRump The FirstTM!
Vance→DeSantis→Rubio→Barron!
All Hail Mr. SteveF! Er, I put that in because I love my Sweet, Summer PaPa!
I looked at that auction. Do I really need another Charter Arms Undercover?
No. But there it is, staring at me.
Yeah, I look because I don’t have any wheelguns…
And some scoped hunting rifles wouldn’t be a bad idea…
——-
Still only 87F with light overcast.
I think I’ll cut some bushes.
n
Fort Hood still has the problems of rape and murder of young enlisted personnel, but the name change was reversed thanks to someone finding a Kansas-born WWI artillery officer with that last name who received a Distinguished Service Cross in battle and later survived Pearl Harbor.
LMAO!
Trump renames Lake Ontario to Lake America as Canada trade war takes ugly turn
I wonder if Google Maps will follow suit, as it did with the Gulf of America?
I don’t know where the guy gets the energy to do this shit. LOL.
Rabbit hole Of The Day:
I started looking for a location to dump used shingles. I am now reading legal opinions on Constitutional Law to see if there is any way to use a 2nd Amendment claim for legal asylum. I could not explain that thought path for the life of me.
I don’t think Trump was seriously proposing to change the name of Lak Ontario to Lake America. I think Trump was merely trolling Carney, who has ZERO sense of humor and who is WAY too impressed with his own importance, by suggesting that.
He has issued an Executive Order to do that. You’ll find the order on the Whitehouse.gov site.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see him renaming the Pacific Ocean to American Ocean. Or even Trump Ocean.
The Trump Admin Just Found a Pressure Point That Could Disrupt Antifa’s Entire Network
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/08/26/portland-antifa-connected-to-hamas-irans-irgc-in-new-action-n2206092
from the embedded link to FoxNews:
EXCLUSIVE: State Dept reveals Portland Antifa connection to Hamas, Iran’s IRGC in sweeping terror action
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/exclusive-state-dept-reveals-portland-antifa-connection-hamas-irans-irgc-sweeping-terror-action
Finally.
Now we get to see if they got the “screening’ files and the master list of account holders.
Canada can call it Lake Ontario. The US can call it Lake America.
What’s the big deal? We say Germany and the Germans say Deutschland. Ditto for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and all the rest.
Watching all of the exploding heads stamping their feet and saying “he can’t do that!” is entertaining.
My guess about the faculty rule is that the A&M Victoria administration sees this coming.
Texas State Law passed by the legislature a while back says that the full time faculty must work at the school five days a week or something like that. No remote is allowed. I do not know about the part time faculty.
TAMUV looks like a dressed up community college.
https://www.tamuv.edu/
The website is aimed at fat brown kids and the occasional fat white kid, with an emphasis on what used to be described as ‘first in family’ college attendees.
They are part of TAMU so there should be some rigor, but who knows?
I’m a supporter of Community colleges and the regional extensions of big schools as they really can provide a path to a better life. I’m not convinced that degrees associated with gaming are the future though.
n
When I went to TAMU College Station, you had to attend the main campus to get an Aggie Ring. Mine is a 2.5 ouncer, gets confused for West Point outside Texas a lot since it is knocker ring with a cannon with crossed saber and rifle on the right side.
https://www.aggienetwork.com/ring/
Now you can get an Aggie Ring at any of the TAMU colleges is my understanding. A friend of mine just got a MBA from the TAMU business college here in Houston. She is now sporting a new Aggie ring even though she did not get her undergrad from TAMU.
You do have to have 90 hours of college credit to buy an official Aggie Ring so two year degrees are left out. The rings are heavily subsidized by the Former Students. I paid $820 for mine in 1980, the class of 2026 is paying $1026 for their rings.
TAMU is a military college and graduates more officers for the USA military than West Point or the Naval Academy. The TAMU Band is a military organization made up of two artillery batteries.
@lynn, this auction has some S&W revolvers…
https://hibid.com/catalog/771064/montgomery-estate-liquidation-online-auction
n
If I buy any more guns, my wife will smother me with the pillow over my face some night. My gub room at the office is unreal.
“Remembering one of the great – albeit underappreciated – actors of the last half-century”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/08/remembering-one-of-great-albeit.html
“Yesterday actor Tim Curry died in Los Angeles at the age of 80. He’d been wheelchair-bound since a stroke in 2012, which curtailed his acting career.”
“Curry was an absolute master of different roles, characters and persona. Here are just a few of his many roles over the years. Of course, we have to start with the one that made him (in)famous: Dr. Frankenfurter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show“.”
Yup. I thought his role of the doctor on “The Hunt For The Red October” was the best.
Overcast, 95F, apparently a few thunderstorms are passing over since we just got a few drops.
Naturally I had left my tool bag out after this morning’s exertions and the windows of the truck rolled down.
Just a few big warm drops, no harm, but it has been so long since we got anything remotely resembling rain that I didn’t actually recognize the sound at first.
He can call it anything he wants, nobody outside the states will give a shit.
The province was named after the lake not the other way around. It doesn’t matter what he calls it, we’re still here and it really doesn’t matter..
There’s an Ontario in NY state and one in California. Is he renaming them as well?
Just more noise from the bloviator in chief.
The Fancy Lad schools and their political allies have yet to reach the end of their bag of tricks to postpone the day of reckoning.
With Touchdown Jesus being the current owner of the Payola seat on the Supreme Court, that day of reckoning may be a long way off, regardless of how strongly Barrett opposed Biden’s scheme.
The MS in Computer Science program reads like a typical mid-grade Texas school’s OPT diploma mill.
New rules came down recently about those, however.
“Sued For Peace (The Kurtherian Gambit)” by Michael Anderle
https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Kurtherian-Gambit-Michael-Anderle/dp/B0CHL4DRBX?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number eleven of a twenty-one book science fiction and paranormal fantasy series. There is also an eleven book follow on series and many other books related to the The Kurtherian Gambit Universe, over 200 books in total. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2016 that I bought new on Amazon in 2026. I have ordered the next three books in the series. The related series are listed at:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?46598
The series is a cross between science fiction and paranormal fantasy. A thousand plus years ago, an alien space ship crash landed in the Baltics. A man, Michael, found the space ship, went inside, and was forever changed into the first vampire using alien nanocytes. However, there were werewolves and werebears already existing on Earth and they still exist.
Michael has sired vampires and they have sired vampires. But only one of the vampire “children” is a daywalker like Michael. And Michael enforces strict rules among the vampires and the weres, no blood drinking, no letting humans know of them, etc. Violators of Michael’s rules face swift termination.
But it has been thousand years since Michael was changed and he now sleeps for years at a time. Michael’s helpers found a young woman named Bethany Anne working for the USA government who is dying of a rare blood disease. Michael took her to the alien space ship to become the second first generation vampire on Earth. Bethany Anne has created a huge workforce and they are swiftly moving ahead with incredibly advanced AI and space access technology. Now the nation states are concerned and want the secrets of the gravitic drives and the other technology that the TQB Enterprises have created. And they are willing to do anything including outright piracy and murder to take the technology.
This series is real pulp like old science fiction with lots of action and dialogue. I love it !
Warning: this series might be damaging to your savings account since there are so many books.
The author has a website at:
https://lmbpn.com/
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,479 reviews)
Lynn
My undergraduate ring got confused for a TAMU ring all the time when I still wore it daily.
I picked up a massive infection in that finger during my time at the tolling company, and the scarring from the swelling means I can’t wear the ring until I have a jeweler look at resizing.
I will take care of that in my copious spare time.
Before “Red October”, Curry was amazing as Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 ABC TV miniseries version of “It”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ZbnfXEuyc
Hollywood chose to ignore that adaptation as part of Woke, but the DVDs and even a BluRay are out there.
And, yes, Harry Anderson. Richard “John Boy” Thomas and Tim “Venus Flytrap” Reid too!
Everyone was good in “Hunt For Red October”. Failure was not an option when making that flick.
Blink and you’ll miss Gates McFadden beyond hot as a proper Dr. Caroline Ryan.
Seems Carney bent the truth and got found out:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/08/27/carney-sideshow-continues-what-interesting-things-were-learning-during-the-syrupean-snit-fit-n3818435
He must not have seen it coming, else he would have forbid the press from reporting.
Canadian oil from Alberta ships to the east via US pipe lines.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/08/27/carney-sideshow-continues-what-interesting-things-were-learning-during-the-syrupean-snit-fit-n3818435
Eh????
“Cutting off Alberta energy would hurt Eastern Canadians long before it would trouble anyone else. “
Hey Canada, it’s ok. Don’t let a little lake rename bother you. You guys keep doing your important work…
https://www.foxnews.com/media/cbc-tells-journalists-not-call-9-11-terrorist-attacks-internal-guidance
Boy it got hot fast once I went out to trim the stuff under the utility lines. 87F when I started, so I didn’t get out my cool vest. Next thing I know, my heart rate is elevated and I’m headed inside to cool down. It was 97F.
I did get most of the trimming done, but IDK who is going to move the pile from the back to the front so heavy trash can get it. It’ll probably sit there for a couple of months.
Then I did my auction pickup. Coffee and two aquatainers. I’ve bought about 8 or 10 new ones now. They do fail if any sun hits them at all, so not bad to pick up new ones.
Went to the rent house and fixed the rot rail of the fence. The whole thing needs replacing but I’m not interested in spending that money and I won’t do it myself. It’s not hard, but it’s a long day.
Got home and I’m making some ribs from 2020 for dinner. There are some dark clouds and rumbling in the distance. Figures. We’ll get clouds and rain on the night of the eclipse.
n
Ms. Rachel Said Black People Don’t Hang Themselves. Then the Cameras Rolled
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2026/08/27/ms-rachel-black-lynching-dont-happen-n2431751
Wrote the whole article with no mention of JuicieS.
Why Do We Care So Much That Pluto Isn’t a Planet?
https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/08/27/why-do-we-care-so-much-that-pluto-isnt-a-planet-n3818371
It is a planet.
We care because:
A few “astronomers” with a bully pulpit made up a new set of rules for the express purpose of kicking Pluto out of the club.
Pluto meets two of the three criteria, and only fails the third after asterisks, footnotes, and tables are added.
They waited until Clyde Tombaugh had passed, knowing that the button-pushing computer-crutching latte-sipping dilettantes that pass for astronomers nowadays aren’t fit to be in the same room or claim the title.
Having the team leader of the Eris debacle as a prominent supporter of the name change doesn’t pass the smell test.
Somehow We Might Have Two Lions on the Loose in Rural Indiana
https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/08/27/somehow-we-might-have-two-lions-on-the-loose-in-rural-indiana-n2682046
Another bit of trash plumbing the depths of stupidity.
Illustrated with three photos that have nothing to do with the reports, and two are incorrect from the facts as known.
“a lioness and her cub”
Two stock photos showing an adult male lion, and another unidentified stock photo.
And the obvious question …
You’re a grand old flag
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/08/youre-a-grand-old-flag.php
Stomp him flat and run him up the flagpole. Use a rustlers knot.
Tombaugh was American. The three credited with discovering Neptune were German, French, and British. Significant? I have my opinion.
Canada’s CBC instructs staff not to call 9/11 a ‘terrorist attack’ in news coverage
https://nypost.com/2026/08/27/media/canadas-cbc-instructs-staff-not-to-call-9-11-a-terrorist-attack-in-news-coverage/
Apologies to @ dkreck for the repetition.
Sounds like something from “Great White North Reads the Babylon Bee from Their New Studio in an Ottawa Mosque”
Is Ringo #3?
I saw a video linked from Letterman’s YouTube channel, but checking quickly Ringo appears to be ok.
Ringo or McCartney would be bigger than Dolly.
THE MOON IS ALMOST TOTALLY ECLIPSED !
I forgot that was tonight.
Solid white cloud cover here, no moon. I’ll have a tiny little fire and wait for a bit and see if anything changes.
n
Just a little bit ago the clouds finally cleared out and I could see the moon. I’d let the binos acclimate and I got to see it go from ⅓ covered to nearly uncovered before the clouds moved in again. At one point you could very clearly see the curvature of the shadow.
I’m using the Canon image stabilized binos I cleaned up and restored and the image stabilization makes a huge difference. It doesn’t stop the movement but it takes out the ‘shake’. Very nice.
——–
And with that, I’ve absorbed enough heat that I’ve sweated thru my underwear so it’s time for a shower and bed.
n