On the plus side, I usually get more done when I’m up here alone. As long as the heat isn’t too bad. Which it probably will be. If yesterday is anything to go by, it was over 100F and saturated. I was sweating just walking in the shade.
Did a bunch of stuff. More ceiling repair. Some work on my arm chair. Various small things around the house. String trimming and branch clearing… W did network and IOT things. Most important was getting the water sensors connected and in place. Under the washing machine, under the A/C unit, and under something else that she picked. They did need 2.4ghz wifi. All low bandwidth, so that’s ok. When I get the ubiquiti stuff set up it will be even easier to segregate them.
Today I’ve got some more outdoor work and cleanup to finish, and we’ll see what else strikes my fancy from the list.
Then it will be back home and back to the school week.
And stacking. There’s still some of that going on.
nick
Just remember, O gloaty retired folks, that you will never again have the pleasure of a day off work!
New PC is still running, after being on overnight.
Your comment prompted me to look st storage capacity. It seems I actually bought a unit with a 512 GB SSD, of which Linux Mint is using about 23 GB after installation. I have yet to copy over my user data from the old machine, so we’ll see how much extra that takes. Most of my important stuff is documents, not music, photos or videos, so my storage needs are pretty modest, which appears to be a blessing, looking at the price of disks these days…
Have a good Tuesday!
I’m a big fan of winches securely mounted to the solid metal front bumper.
In the Army, we were also showed how to attach something to the exposed wheel studs of the drive wheels on a deuce-and-a-half or five-ton truck and “drive” our way out of being stuck. I never did that for real so I don’t know if it worked in a real situation and the “something” wasn’t a normal part of the trucks’ gear.
Yes! Front and rear winches, or one winch that can be transferred from one to the other. A slightly off-centreline tow hitch on the front of the vehicle is super useful too.
Gilliam has a bunch of weird flicks in his filmography. “Brazil” barely moves the needle compared to some of them.
I have “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” on my 7″ Kindle Fire for long trips, but that isn’t a film to watch on an airplane.
“The Defective Detective” will apparently be Gilliam’s last film. That’s an old script of his which has been floating around for years, but Paramount is “Under New Management”.
I have both. I have yet to use either. Hopefully it will snow this winter and I can drive down my street and back just to use the features. Then I stay off the road with the other fools.
I grew up on a farm with lots of mud and snow. None of our vehicles were 4WD. We got stuck many times and using tricks could get unstuck. If all else failed then we got a tractor.
I did get a D2 dozer stuck in the creek. High centered the beast with water half way up the engine. I got the neighbor and he brought a long cable, bolted one end to one of the tracks, the other end to a tree. Slowly reversed wrapping the cable around the track. Worked well.
https://hotair.com/generalissimo/2026/09/08/the-laboring-iranian-regime-had-another-rough-week-n3818754
Something like this, I’m guessing. I’ve seen homemade versions on several off-roaders’ 4x4s and mudders.
I was told long ago to use 2wd to go in, and when I got stuck to use 4wd to get out. Then go home, because you’re done for the day.
Well, at least my back doesn’t hurt any more than normal. That’s actually great considering the work I did.
It’s 90F in the shade, and there is little shade.
Still got some indoor cleaning to do, so that’s top of list.
n
Looks like the Somali hospice fraud has reached Texas also. My state senator, Lois Kolkhorst, reports that there are now 1,366 licensed hospice providers operators in Texas as of March 2026. This is a 98.5 % increase from Jan 1, 2020. This means that our state has nearly doubled the number of hospice providers in six years without a commensurate increase in population or patient need.
Out of those 1,366 Texas hospice providers, 998 are listed by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services as Medicare providers. Importantly, we know that 859 of them serve fewer than 11 Medicaid patients, which is the threshold below which CMS does not require patient reporting. With 10 or fewer patients, a hospice provider is able to bill the federal government about $60,000 per month, $720,000 annually, while remaining completely unmonitored for quality of care.
Unreal. Leave a little hole in the regs and these scumbags will drive new BMW through it.
I was told long ago to use 2wd to go in, and when I got stuck to use 4wd to get out. Then go home, because you’re done for the day.
I use 4wd to go in and lock the rear axle to get out when needed.
And so it starts…
Illinois mom sent twisted text about Lindsay Clancy before hanging her own son, 2, court told
But, but, but… postpartum, Ambien, etc. I was crazy for 5 minutes, so I’m not guilty.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/09/08/real-men-of-genius-cure-the-anxiety-that-ails-ya-how-bout-a-nice-gas-engine-for-that-ev-n3818769
Ford announces F-150 “Sparky”.
I am one trade away from being Fordless.
Texas also has “learning centers”.
Just out of curiosity, I ran a query against the database for my zip code, and I found a “daycare” provider around the corner from my house in a newish Colonist development.
No, I have not gone out to look first hand. Sooner or later, I believe these fraudsters are going to start shooting geeky white men who venture too close to their facilities.
You Devils all look alike to me … except for your Orange King. We gonna hang him first.
I despise Xfinity/Comcast/(Worst Company). My main cable box died. That made the other two boxes non-operational. The box would start, give the spinning dots, then just die. I went to the Xfinity store, a 15-minute trip, each way, to get a replacement box. I get the replacement box home and the box will not even power on. No greeting, no spinning dots. I change ports on the TV to a known, I get a new HDMI cable, I use another power outlet, nothing works.
Back to the store, another 30-minute round trip to swap out the replacement box for a replacement box. This second replacement box does work, with the existing port on the TV, on the existing HDMI cable, and on the existing power outlet. The problem was clearly in the replacement box, or most likely the power brick.
Apparently, no one at Xfinity/Comcast/(Worst Company) bothers checking the boxes before stuffing the boxes into the supply chain. Many years ago, when the bigger boxes and spinning hard drives were the norm, I got a replacement box that had dead cockroaches inside the box along with heavy smoking residue. That was quickly returned to the store and a manager informed. I suspect there was probably meth residue involved in that box in addition to the roaches and smoke residue.
Then I had to call Hyatt Hotels to change a reservation name into my wife’s The online system will only allow my name as the primary guest, not the wife. I am talking with bot. I have to give the bot my reservation number, my name (spelled), and what I needed to accomplish. That bot refers me to a human. With whom I have to repeat the reservation number and my name (spelled). Why go through all that initial crap if the information is going to be discarded? Idiots in charge of “automation”.
Of course I got a human, overseas, whose command of the English language is doubtful. With the heavy accent, lack of comprehension, what should have been a simple task takes 25 minutes.
Back when I worked for National Bancshares Corporation the company was installing a voice response system. I was responsible for interfacing the box into the banking system. I also provided input into the menu structure. Others involved were incredibly short sighted and had little grasp of how people would use the system. Some of my ideas got downvoted only to later be implemented when the others, short sighted in logic, was a mess.
Anyway, the bank was looking for a name. The bank had an ATM card called “MoneyMate”. I suggested the phone system be called “PhoneyMate”. That name was not well received.
Shoulda left the “y” out, but kept the pronunciation.
Texas also has “learning centers”.
Just out of curiosity, I ran a query against the database for my zip code, and I found a “daycare” provider around the corner from my house in a newish Colonist development.
No, I have not gone out to look first hand. Sooner or later, I believe these fraudsters are going to start shooting geeky white men who venture too close to their facilities.
You Devils all look alike to me … except for your Orange King. We gonna hang him first.
Learing Centers.
“James Talarico Combines Marxism and Heresy Into a Dangerous Concoction”
https://jdrucker.com/james-talarico-combines-marxism-and-heresy-into-a-dangerous-concoction/
“James Talarico wants Texas to believe he is a Christian seminarian with a Bible in one hand and a workingman’s lunch pail in the other. What keeps falling out of both hands is the actual gospel, and what keeps landing on the table is a stew of class warfare and religious mush that would have made the old mainline liberals blush.”
“Breitbart pulled the latest clip. In a resurfaced video, the Democrat running against Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate does not merely soften the edges of the faith. He denies the center of it. Christianity and Islam, he says, are “equal pathways to truth.””
200 years ago, people would have executed “six genders” Talafreako for heresy.
The USA was built for Christianity. Mostly honest and hard working people. As far as I can see, these non-Christian people coming in are mostly dishonest and lazy people. They are stealing from our social safety net and causing it to go bankrupt. And blaming the baby boomers.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Differing time preference and low trust society. It’s your fault for being so easy to take advantage of.
n
On the plus side, I usually get more done when I’m up here alone. As long as the heat isn’t too bad. Which it probably will be. If yesterday is anything to go by, it was over 100F and saturated. I was sweating just walking in the shade.
I replaced all of the 16 outside light bulbs yesterday at my office complex on my two office buildings. It was 100 F when I started and 90 F when I finished. I thought I was going to die even jumping in and out of my truck with the a/c running to reposition it under each of the bulbs so I could use my truck as a mobile ladder.
And one of the bulbs has died or come loose already. I am going to drag a ladder outside about 7pm or so and check on it. I guess the name GE does not mean anything anymore.
@Lynn – have you looked into using this for changing your high light bulbs?
Hasn’t for decades, at least so far as consumer products go. I don’t have current knowledge of GE Power Systems’s* generators and transformers.
* or whatever they changed their name to**
** I could look it up but don’t care. Let every GE company drown for all I care.
The page requests on my website are running about 6,000 a day. Somebody or something is really hitting my website. Like I said before, I am wondering if all of the AI machine are learing from my website.
Yes, Apple wouldn’t let me type “learing center”.
It took me four tries to get “fraudsters” out without correction.
Regardless, Texas has a bunch of fraudsters, and nothing is going to get done about them regardless of which candidate wins the Attorney General election in November.
@Lynn – have you looked into using this for changing your high light bulbs?
Yup, I have one of those. You would be amazed to find out how many bulbs I have dropped with that rig.
Only four of the outside bulbs are straight down. The others are at a 45 degree angle.
All of my bulbs are at nine feet. A seven foot ladder or a pickup bed is just fine.
I believe Talafreako will lose. The Dumbocrats will spend 10’s if not a 100 million on him. He is Temu Butto.
Just remember, O gloaty retired folks, that you will never again have the pleasure of a day off work!
I am not retired! I have four (4) businesses (2 real estate, 1 engineering software, and 1 software royalty) and I work for a living. I am trying to sell the two real estate businesses though.
I told the wife in early 2025 that I wanted to retire. She told me that we would talk about it in 2027 AFTER I turned 67. I already know what the talk will be, “get back to work right now and we will talk about it in 2029 when you turn 69”.
There are ‘deny’ statements you can put into your htaccess file to deny the user agents that the AI machines use. A bit of research might find articles about that, or you could look at your access logs for unique user-agents that you might want to block. There are some good open-source/free access log analyzers you can use to find the user agents. Even the standard log file tools from your hosting place might work.
One open-source analyzer to try might be ‘GoAccess’, which provides real-time analysis. https://goaccess.io/ .
New PC is still running, after being on overnight.
Your comment prompted me to look st storage capacity. It seems I actually bought a unit with a 512 GB SSD, of which Linux Mint is using about 23 GB after installation. I have yet to copy over my user data from the old machine, so we’ll see how much extra that takes. Most of my important stuff is documents, not music, photos or videos, so my storage needs are pretty modest, which appears to be a blessing, looking at the price of disks these days…
Congrats on the extra capacity. 512 GB is usable.
Arlo And Janis: Retirement
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2026/09/08
Yeah, I think I’ll pass on retirement. It is easier to go into my office complex and goof off.
I retired almost 3 years ago from MrsAtoz’s business. I am still doing financial stuff. That is work to me and I may have to put my foot down in 5-10 years.
I haven’t taken a dime for about 15 years, MrsAtoz just increases her salary and gives me an allowance (now and then).
There are ‘deny’ statements you can put into your htaccess file to deny the user agents that the AI machines use. A bit of research might find articles about that, or you could look at your access logs for unique user-agents that you might want to block. There are some good open-source/free access log analyzers you can use to find the user agents. Even the standard log file tools from your hosting place might work.
One open-source analyzer to try might be ‘GoAccess’, which provides real-time analysis. https://goaccess.io/ .
I do not want to accidentally block any prospects from my website. And my web serving capacity is about six million page requests an hour so I am good.
https://www.pair.com/ forced me into a dedicated web server after one of my used to be frequent Iranian web attacks about 20 years ago. The cost is about $350/month.
The last time they attacked me, they were using a 32 bot farm to grab one PNG file from website over and over again. They were pulling that one PNG file about a million times an hour. Then pair starting blocking their IP addresses (all here in the USA) at their outer switches and life got better.
Just another reason why I host my corporate email over at gmail. Any attack on gmail would not even be seen until they got a million or so bots attacking them.
“I recently posted that parents whose kids miss too much school should be fined. There were those who were incensed- why should THEY be fined because their little angels had an unavoidable series of absences?”
“A week ago, I posted that EBT is a travesty because it isn’t my responsibility to pay for someone else’s bad decisions. Nearly everyone who commented was in complete agreement.”
https://areaocho.com/labor-day/
There should be NO EBT. If you need food then we should stock a healthy 2,000 calorie soy based MRE at the post offices. Anyone who shows up at the Post Office and says that they are hungry should be handed one MRE. If they have kids with them then hand them the appropriate number of MREs.
Simple and probably WAY cheaper than SNAP and WIC because it means that people will have to get out of their recliner and do something. But, we will never do this.
Well, I still think that looking at the access logs to see the culprit would be interesting. You could at least see what pages they are acessing.
Just about all AI and ‘chatbot’ have unique user-agent values that they use, so it would be unlikely that blocking those AI user agents would block a potential customer.
For instance, this directive (used on this site) is blocking ChatGPT’s user agent (there are quite a few similar blocking commands for AI/Chatbot agents used on this site):
# Blocks ChatGPT bot scanningUser-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /A quick check of the log files would give you info that would allow you to block whoever is hammering your web server. You can then decide if it is worth the effort to block them.
But, your site. I’m just presenting some information that might be useful.
I would add the MRE has to be eaten in a large tent next to the Post Office. Too many fraud bums out there. I’m looking at you, Haiti, Somalia, etc.
At a minimum, EBT cards should not be accepted to buy pizza at Papa Murphy’s.
I never saw anyone in the Papa Murphy’s near our house after we moved to Texas.
In Vantucky, Papa Murphys had a line out the door on Friday nights.
IIRC, 20% of the Portland Metro was on some kind of “food assistance” when we left 12 years ago. I’m sure the figure is higher now.
While on the subject of barely edible fast food, I noticed Taco Bell was moving into the abandoned Jack in the Box building near the hyper-competitive corner at the entrance to our subdivision.
To paraphrase Robin Williams:
“(S)he’s got the handsome face, but the eyes are going ‘Helter Skelter’.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJSRFWALTI
I would add the MRE has to be eaten in a large tent next to the Post Office. Too many fraud bums out there. I’m looking at you, Haiti, Somalia, etc.
I can just imagine the trash and half eaten food. It would be a madhouse.
Oh. We can have EBT. But go back to the booklets of fake money. So EVERYONE sees you using food stamps. No more “swipe a card” to pay.
Bring back the shame of being such an eff-up that you need welfare to buy food.
To paraphrase Robin Williams:
“(S)he’s got the handsome face, but the eyes are going ‘Helter Skelter’.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJSRFWALTI
Something is really wrong there. She never blinks.
Lynn, MREs are EXPENSIVE. If I try to buy them at the Lackland AFB commissary store, they’re about $12 each. No. Give people day-old bread and surplus government cheese, and tell them to make themselves a sandwich.
OldGuy is right about the .htacess file. Doesn’t mean the bots pay attention…. But it’s about all you can do without blocking the IP addresses from various countries.
Man, had a crazy day so far. The lawn mower dude managed to slide his Scag ZTR into the back pond with the engine half submerged. The back pond is about five feet deep right now.
He pulled it out with his F250 4×4 and then started it with a bunch of water coming out of the muffler. He ran another circuit around the back 9 acres and then loaded up. The engine keeps on dying with a code on his dash. I have a real bad feeling. He thinks it is just a bad sensor.
I grew up on day old bread. 10 cents a loaf vs 50 cents. Mom was like “it’s a day old the day after I buy it”.
Ya know?
Up the screen, why the down vote? I’m curious for “why?”
Yeah. I’ve seen it plenty while checking at HEB. They roll up with a full cart of shit I can’t afford and order carton of cigarettes. Swipe a card to pay for the food. Swipe another card to pay for the beer and cigs.
And then they want a bagger to tote their stuff to their Cadillac version of a Suburban…. complete with paper tags and leather upholstery. Don’t even have enough English to say “thank you”.
I think one should be embarrassed using food stamps.
Lynn, MREs are EXPENSIVE. If I try to buy them at the Lackland AFB commissary store, they’re about $12 each. No. Give people day-old bread and surplus government cheese, and tell them to make themselves a sandwich.
I am ok with that also. But I really want a meal that does not have to be refrigerated that a 70 IQ person can hand out. Each Post Office should have hundreds of thousands of these meals in storage in a 18 wheeler trailer or three.
Make them really cheap like a hungry man meal. Really really cheap, 2000 calories.
The bread I buy, Mrs. Baird’s, is so loaded with preservatives that it takes a WEEK or more to go stale, and I don’t think it EVER mildews. And since most of the bread I do eat is in toasted or grilled sandwiches, that’s not a big deal.
HEB store brand starts turning moldy within a week. I’m talking the 99 cents white and wheat bread.
I buy the cheap wheat bread. Tastes good. I keep it in the fridge. I do like rye bread but 99 cents vs $3.60 per loaf for something to contain sandwich meat, yeah…
The rye bread molds quickly.
But yeah. Mrs Bairds and Buttercrust are so full of “stuff” you can taste it.
“GE does not mean anything anymore”
There are some things manufactured under contract in the U.S. or good foreign sources using the old specs, but mostly not.
Haier owns all of the appliance lines.
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/09/08/teen-sentenced-to-probation-after-shooting-mall-gunman-n1233737
Considering that he was addressing a man who had just shot a criminal shooting up the mall, this may be a solid entry for the most asinine, tone-deaf, idiotic statement by a U.S. Judge in 2026.
Anyone putting himself at risk by successfully using a handgun to neutralize a threat to others should get a federal Gold Carry Permit that is good anywhere in all 50 states that the FBI is allowed to carry–they just passed the test and aced it.
I can tell the EBT card by the number of key presses. Then there is the two transaction person. One transaction for a cart full of expensive food and steaks, along with bags of chips, soft drinks, cookies and Hostess pastries. The second transaction is for the beer, wine and cigarettes. Then a quick stop at the lottery ticket machine where the person spends $50 on scratch-off tickets.
Well, there are a few items that GE still produces that people buy:
https://www.geaerospace.com/military-defense/engines/lm2500-plus-g4
I think the first generation were about 25,000hp, now they are 47,000.
Well, there are a few items that GE still produces that people buy:
https://www.geaerospace.com/military-defense/engines/lm2500-plus-g4
I think the first generation were about 25,000hp, now they are 47,000.
There are about 300 (SWAG) of these in Texas as six minute emergency power generators using either natural gas or diesel. More are coming.
The gas turbine is a descendant of the old Boeing 747 engine with many enhancements. The simple cycle efficiency is an incredible 35% due to its 2,600 F firing temperature.
“The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)” by Mike Carey
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-You-Know-Felix-Castor/dp/0316511765?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number one of a five book dark fantasy (horror) series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Orbit Books in 2006 that I bought in 2019 from Amazon. I have ordered book #2 in the series.
Mike Carey is the author of the acclaimed “The Girl With All The Gifts” book and the DC Comics “Lucifer” series. “The Girl With All The Gifts” was made into a successful movie based on his screenplay. This is a just as dark series by him of Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist in London, England. The setting of the book is after the dead started rising in London a couple of decades ago as ghosts. And demons from Hell are appearing now and everyone hates and fears them with a passion.
Felix Castor can see dead people. And they can see him. Mostly they just haunt places but some of the ghosts are downright nasty. Or, vindictive. People call Felix a ghostbuster but when they have a ghost in their home or their business, they will call him for help. And there have been lots of dead people in London.
If you are a big fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books then you will probably like this series. I know that I did.
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,542 reviews)
Lynn
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/09/08/teen-sentenced-to-probation-after-shooting-mall-gunman-n1233737
Considering that he was addressing a man who had just shot a criminal shooting up the mall, this may be a solid entry for the most asinine, tone-deaf, idiotic statement by a U.S. Judge in 2026.
Anyone putting himself at risk by successfully using a handgun to neutralize a threat to others should get a federal Gold Carry Permit that is good anywhere in all 50 states that the FBI is allowed to carry–they just passed the test and aced it.
They should have given the young man a medal. And the judge should have declared the Michigan law that does not allow 18 to 20 year olds to carry weapons to be null and void.
“The impending collapse of California’s transportation fuel infrastructure”
https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-impending-collapse-of-californias-transportation-fuel-infrastructure/
“With the loss of transportation fuel supplies from Asian refineries resulting from the Iranian War and California’s huge dependency, the 4th largest economy in the world is on the precipice of an unprecedented, self-inflicted logistical and national security catastrophe. Driven by adversarial state policies and aggressive litigation from activist groups, the state’s domestic refining capacity has already been crippled, and has led to the most expensive transportation fuels in the nation for its California residents.”
“California is the 4th largest economy in the world and an “ENERGY ISLAND that is separated from the other 49 States by the Sierra Mountains. There are no pipelines over those prestigious mountains.”
“California demands 58 million gallons of transportation fuel DAILY:”
“If those transportation fuels are not made in California, they have to be made in refineries located in the Gulf or East Coast, or in foreign countries with grossly polluting refineries and shipped across the Pacific Ocean via polluting tankers. However, the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland are NOT designed to import those humongous volumes of transportation fuels”
Once the merry go round stops (it is barely rotating now), it will be difficult to restart it in less than a year. Or two.
Trump is considering a forced restart of the refineries using the Defense Production Act. I dare say that California will probably fight him on this.
Home safe. No cops tonight and traffic was very light. Still, set the cruise control at the speed limit all the way home.
——-
Got the mower running. The main drive belt was worn out and I couldn’t go up the steep hill anymore. It’s about an hour long fix, not hard, just laying on your back under the machine. I didn’t want to do it last time. This time, I had time. Then I mowed the parts of the yard that grew, and the park next door. About 2 hours of mowing total.
I got the mower belt in an auction some time ago. Stacks for the win.
——-
Did a couple of other cleanup things. Put the scaffold away. Folded the tarps. I’ll use them when we do the ceiling texture.
Even had a half hour of dusk to float and soak the filth off of me. Then it was time to head home.
It was a productive day, even if there weren’t any super big jobs.
——-
Had a snack, now it’s time for a shower and bed.
n
I dare say that California will probably fight him on this.
– they fight him on everything.
The ridiculous thing is that Cali has oil pumps in peoples’ back yards. They’re all over the place. They might have shut them down since it’s been 23 years since I left but you could see them going up and down as you were driving around.
Leaving Cali was the best thing I ever did (and I’ll include marrying, because I had to leave Cali to get married, she was not coming back to Cali, Cali…)
n
“aggressive litigation from activist groups,”
DOJ needs to look hard at the funders. Smells like enemy action.
And since those funders have a lot of overlap with the Democrat Party, there should be a $100 million ad buy explaining to everyone why they can’t get gas.
The federal government should treat this in two stages:
First, ensure the supply for military and federal purposes, as well as industries vital to defense.
Two, put the California government on notice that if state government fails the state of California will be dissolved and returned to territory status under federal control.
As a territory the residents of the former state of California will be able to subdivide and petition for statehood, with part of the requirement a plan for rescinding failed policies and ensuring election security.
But the first consequence should be every illegal alien out within seven days. No funds, no baggage, only skin.