Sat. May 23, 2020 – stuff to do, just pile it higher….

By on May 23rd, 2020 in decline and fall, ebola, personal, WuFlu

Hot and wet.

Yesterday was another hot swampy day here in the Bayou City. Just walking around the back yard I had sweat running down my back and front.

I did look at the gardens, they’re all doing about the same. Caterpillars were back on the grapevines so I sprayed them again. Then I set up the archery target and a backstop.

Much fun was had by #1 daughter, wife, #2 daughter and even me! I felt pretty good just hitting the foam block. My wife got a bull! and the kids both showed improvement after only a short while. Kid 1 also spent some time with her art supplies in the afternoon.

Yep, we’ve basically quit with the school work. Just like when they were attending full time, the last weeks are empty of learning.

I got out of the house and ran some errands. Picked up some auction items. Drove across town twice. Moved a 2ft cube of canning jars to my secondary, and a yeti style cooler. I don’t have anything to can at the moment, nor will I have any from the garden any time soon, so I got them out of the garage. The yeti style pelican cooler holds ice for a long time, but it’s freaking heavy and doesn’t hold much for the space it takes up. I am reorganizing some of my storage cabinets and I need the space the cooler filled for camping and GS stuff. I’ve got several normal coleman or igloo coolers for ordinary picnic stuff. If I need the high tech, I can go get it. In the mean time, I’ll be putting stuff away at home where my wife sees it every day.

Dinner was another one of the Prime sirloins I got for <$7/ pound. VERY tasty. Canned corn, leftover canned beans, and leftover rice filled out the meal. Birthday cake for dessert (and breakfast.) Other than the canned veg, and occasional box side dish, I'm really not burning through stored food. I'm running low on sliced sandwich ham, because EVERYONE is eating it for lunch, not just me and one child. That is something I didn't plan for. The CDC issued some guidance for schools if classes start up again. Pretty much unworkable. No shared anything, bring lunch from home, eat in classrooms, keep kids six feet apart, no touching, sanitize the playground but don't use chemicals near the kids... just as an example, they recommend skipping every other row on the school bus, and only having one kid per seat. That triples the number of buses or the time it takes to get everyone there and back again. Couple that with reducing classes to one third (to maintain distancing) and not having either the kids or teachers rotate to different rooms, and you've got a fantasy tale. NOT gonna happen. In other news, the State of Texas reminded me to file for my unemployment/ covid payment. I guess I got approved for something, despite not submitting a 2019 tax statement. We'll see if I get any actual money. My sales have been non-existent and I haven't been paid for anything I've done in the last two weeks, so maybe I'll get something. Either way, I'm not concerned. Wife is still working and my sales will either start back up or not. Not much I can do about it. It does point out the benefit of having your financial house in order as your number one prep. Speaking of prepping, keep stacking. The trucks are rolling, the stores have (most) stuff, and money is still worth more than the paper it's printed on. Think really hard about Fall, Winter, and next year. This will still be with us, along with an ever growing list of knock on effects. Few of them are likely to be good things. nick

48 Comments and discussion on "Sat. May 23, 2020 – stuff to do, just pile it higher…."

  1. Alan Larson says:

    https://www.lacortenews.com/n/gq-mocked-for-saying-segregationist-george-wallace-was-a-republican-he-was-a-democrat

    Tried to share to Facebook the above article about how GQ Magazine said that Former Democrat presidential candidate George Wallace was a Republican, but it was refused because the article did not meet their standards.

    I didn’t even try to post the 20 year old black nursing home attendant punching the defenseless 75 year old white man!
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nursing-home-abuser-made-video-asserting-black-people-are-supposed-rule-earth

  2. brad says:

    Last weeks of school empty – how odd. Seems like that’s when you should be putting the capstone on, tying everything together. Certainly that’s what I try to do (at college level).

    Speaking of which, apparently the UC system is going to stop using SAT and ACT, because the wrong minorities keep qualifying. Darned Asians, showing that hard work pays off. Whereas the black community thinks studying is “acting white”, but they deserve to get in anyway. So it’s the tests’ fault.

    Stormy here, rain incoming…

  3. MrAtoz says:

    Woof. I read Hertz just filed for bankruptcy. Will the rest of the big car rental firms domino? I’m watching for Mom & Pop “Wrent A Wreck” shops to pop up. I used them all the time as a newbie in the military.

  4. Pecancorner says:

    leftover rice filled out the meal.

    Leftover rice (when we used to eat rice before low carb) is my third most favorite thing in the whole world to dehydrate. I wish I had known 40 years ago. Dehydrate leftover cooked rice in the dehydrator. It rehydrates like a dream, and tastes like real rice (not that fake tasting packaged pre-cooked stuff). I wasted more rice over the years if we didn’t use it up right away. Store it in a jar… it will puncture vacuum-seal bags.

    Moved a 2ft cube of canning jars to my secondary

    Storage of empty jars is the second biggest problem I have with canning (storage of the full jars is first – they are so heavy they require reinforced shelving). That is a lot of bulk that must be kept in order to have them available. One thing I started a couple years ago is to sanitize the empties and store them with a new lid and ring on them, seal the whole box with saranwrap (another of those generic brand names) and label it “sanitized”. It saves a lot of time during the busy canning season. But where to put them is always a quandry. Right now they take up half of a walk-in closet in the back bedroom.

    @Alan Larson, even the President saw that nursing home video, and tweeted about it. He was outraged and was worried about how the victim is doing now.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Woof. I read Hertz just filed for bankruptcy. Will the rest of the big car rental firms domino? I’m watching for Mom & Pop “Wrent A Wreck” shops to pop up. I used them all the time as a newbie in the military.

    Hertz has been in trouble for a while. The relocation of the corporate HQ to Fort Myers, FL was a desperation move IMHO, loaded with state and local tax breaks, but it didn’t get spun that way.

    Used car prices are going to crater if the fleet gets liquidated. And eliminating Hertz means one less route for the manufacturers to unload new inventory via fleet sales. GM Arlington will have to find a new way to get rid of the $50k trucks — 90 month loans for everyone!

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Couple that with reducing classes to one third (to maintain distancing) and not having either the kids or teachers rotate to different rooms, and you’ve got a fantasy tale. NOT gonna happen.

    We are zoned for middle and high schools with some of the highest test scores in the state so naturally both facilities are overcrowded with special zoning exemptions while surrounding schools sit half empty, even the schools built specifically for the H1B housing.

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    The disruptions and changes are just getting started.

    n

  8. Paul Hampson says:

    Re Canning jar storage. I’ve got an insulated 8×10′ shed I put the canning storage shelves in, with enough space for both the full and the empty jars. There are also a couple of shelves in the kitchen area that I rotate the oldest canned stuff to so it gets used first. Seems to be working. Just the two of us and I’m a bit surprised at how often I have to lug the empties out. I like your idea for prepping the jars ahead, I’ve just been storing the empties upside down in boxes after cleaning.

  9. Greg Norton says:

    There are a lot of stay at home moms in our area who had very high achiever jobs before taking the mommy track. They are looking around and applying their quite formidable intellects and DRIVE to supporting their families thru this.

    I think there is as much panic buying as strategic thought. I topped off our bins early when I noticed the 50 lb bags of beans at Sam’s going untouched. They still are whenever I walk through that section of the store, but the canned ravioli palette slot has been empty for a month.

    “High achiever” jobs in Corporate America don’t always equate to high intellect, and I encountered a wide range of IQs and drive among the other stay at home parents when I was unemployed/underemployed. Where I currently work, we’ve added a bunch of big company-type jobs to the payroll in the last year, many making more money than I do, and I have no clue what most of the people actually do for our bottom line.

    I also don’t underestimate arbitrage. Back in the early 2000s in Tampa, the Islamic radicals raising money in and around the University of South Florida attempted to corner the market on canned baby formula powders, attempting to make the only place to buy the specialty powders a little convenience store near the school. Our son was on Enfamil AR, and I lived that for about a year.

    Baby formula!

  10. ITGuy1998 says:

    Our son was on baby formula as well. I joined Sams solely for that – saved me a small fortune.

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    “High achiever” jobs in Corporate America don’t always equate to high intellect, and I encountered a wide range of IQs and drive among the other stay at home parents when I was unemployed/underemployed.

    yes of course, but I’m not talking about them. One of our neighbors is a former virology researcher. Lot of chemists, biologists, and related medical science married to oil and gas, or med center husbands, and took the mommy track.

    I’ve watched them engage in the neighborhood, schools, local politics, and the HOA. Formidable and tenacious is where I’d start… some might have actual bodies buried in the back yards 🙂

    n

    added– for that matter, it doesn’t take a double scoop of brain to see what’s happening and react. Some will react in the way that they think will best protect their family thru simple common sense and/or cunning.

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    Anyone else notice that amazon third parties often obscure where the item is, and how long it will take to get to you? This is mostly in the context of epacket shipping from China on small cheap items. I have some sewing machine needles that somehow are showing 2 months until delivered. They were listed as “in stock” with a MUCH shorter shipping time. I don’t want them in 2 months, 1 month, or 2 weeks, I want them this week. No way would I have made this mistake again, but the original listing is now showing the super long delivery. I’d cancel the order and place a similar order with someone else, but now I don’t trust their delivery estimates either. FWIW the tracking shows it left Shenzen 2 days after I ordered it.

    amazon is poisoning the well by allowing sh!t like this.

    n

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    BTW, anyone else notice we’re living in the future?? My daughters are in a virtual shared world, playing a game with their school friends and chatting, and it’s free.

    n

  14. Greg Norton says:

    amazon is poisoning the well by allowing sh!t like this.

    The Legend of Jeff, average guy, drives a Honda to work and wears the same type of shirt every day …

  15. ITGuy1998 says:

    Anyone else notice that amazon third parties often obscure where the item is, and how long it will take to get to you?

    Yep. I am almost done buying anything on Amazon that isn’t fulfilled and shipped by Amazon. It’s not just them though, all major sites are doing this crap.

  16. ~jim says:

    amazon is poisoning the well by allowing sh!t like this.

    eBay lost my patronage by allowing shill bids to go unchecked. I finally gave up on it 4 or 5 years ago.

  17. ITGuy1998 says:

    eBay lost my patronage by allowing shill bids to go unchecked. I finally gave up on it 4 or 5 years ago.

    Same here.

  18. Greg Norton says:

    Yep. I am almost done buying anything on Amazon that isn’t fulfilled and shipped by Amazon. It’s not just them though, all major sites are doing this crap.

    I’ve had Amazon substitute third party seller items on “fulfilled and shipped by” listings. Those always go right back, either to the UPS Store or a locker near my house.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    GW-BASIC goes open source.

    I’ve noted here before that the legend is that the garbage PRNG in Visual C++ behind rand()/srand() was originally cookbooked out of Knuth by Gates for a version of BASIC that goes back to the days before DOS. I wonder if that routine is in this version. IBM guys were usually more on the ball about things like that back in the day, but, eventually, Boca Raton was hauled out to dumpsters, literally, around the time Gates became the richest person in the world.

    https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/

    UPDATE: I found my answer. Kinda. Knuth, but a higher quality of MAXRAND number than Visual C++ which is half of the one used by BASIC source. Still not stellar, but I doubt anyone tried to use GW-BASIC to generate RSA keys … Well, I hope that’s not the case.

    ;******************************************************************
    ;
    ; $RND GENERATE THE NEXT RANDOM NUMBER IN THE
    ; SEQUENCE.
    ;
    ; CALLING SEQUENCE: CALL $RND
    ; WITH THE PREVIOUS RANDOM NUMBER IN $RNDX
    ; AND DATA ITEMS $RNDA AND $RNDC SET PROPERLY
    ; METHOD: LINEAR CONGRUENTIAL FROM VOL. 2 CHAPTER 3 OF
    ; KNUTH – THE ART OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING.
    ; M=16,777,216 OR 2^24; [ A MOD 8 ]=5 AND
    ; [ C MOD 8 ]=3
    ; RND(N+1)=(RND(N)*A+C)MOD M
    ;
    ; THE DATA ITEMS A AND C CORRESPOND TO $RNDA
    ; AND $RNDC RESPECTIVELY AND WERE CAREFULLY
    ; CHOSEN TO MEET THE RECIPE IN KNUTH.
    ;
    ;**************************************************************

  20. Pecancorner says:

    Anyone else notice that amazon third parties often obscure where the item is, and how long it will take to get to you?

    Ran into that yesterday when I was at the checkout. Turned around and went back and found another that stated outright they ship from the US.

    We did not keep Prime when it went up to $120.00 plus sales tax. Too many of the shows we had it for moved into Acorn’s add-on, another $60 plus tax a year. We can buy a lot of used DVDs for $200 a year!

    In the past 6 months or so, for non-Prime free shipping, Amazon has begun dragging their feet deliberately – apparently forcing their vendors to queue these sales too, so that even those that the seller fulfills are not shipped until 5 to 7 days has elapsed. Since the shutdown, they’ve stopped delaying it, but it was an obvious ploy to ‘drive’ us to pay them monthly again. What the delay did, though, was ‘drive’ us to look at Walmart.com first!

  21. Robert V Sprowl says:

    I need a home alarm for my new house. I have a front facing the street, two back doors into the house and a door into a storage room at the back of the house. The storage room has my tools $$$ until I build a shop about 300 feet from the house.

    A total of 4 doors that I want watched with outdoor cameras that record when movement is detected. Maybe another camera in the house. Since I live alone will pay monthly for monitoring.
    I will want to add the op to the system late this summer or fall. Two more walk through doors. I would like to be able to have the system alter me when movement is detected.
    Suggestions?
    Thanks

  22. Jenny says:

    Amazon – I was having a tough time finding either the supplies to make wire cages, or the wire cages themselves, in town. The wire I could buy in town was too light a gauge. I found the style cage I wanted on Amazon, no Prime, fulfilled by PeteCo. The Amazon / Prime ship dates were mid-late June. PeteCo promised first week of June and were about 20% cheaper even after shipping. The cages I bought using the Amazon.com interface fulfilled by PeteCo arrived a few days ago, two weeks EARLIER than promised.
    I bought J-clips via Ace Hardware’s web site. I received the notification they’d arrived 5/15, went to pick them up 5/16 to be told ‘super sorry, Ace is stupid and emails when they predict they will arrive based off lower 48 standards – expect them in another week’. Picked up the J clips yesterday, a week after Ace corporate thought they’d be there.

    Canning storage. We ripped out the false front over the top of our cabinets in the kitchen and gained about 10 linear feet of additional storage. We moved the water heater / furnace to the garage when we replaced it, gaining about 50 sf for storage. It’s never enough and in my dining area I currently have several 5 gallon buckets and a box of canning jars to stash -somewhere- . Outside storage isn’t reasonable between the dust, winter temps, and high degree of brazen thievery going on in our town currently. We have a crawl space however it is too moist to be a good option. Although it is improved since we redid the weatherization a few years ago I don’t trust it. Attic space – forget it.

    Progress on the rabbit front. Lots of cages made. Improvements made to the watering system (added a clear tube to the 5 gallon water bucket so I could see the water level at a glance, added quick connects to the hoses, and installed a 10′ length of hose semi permanently to the 5 gallon bucket to reduce labor of refilling said bucket).

    In the category of Geeking and Procrastinating

    After I pulled out the two posts that supported the gate I went inside for coffee and to do some laundry. ( I pulled the posts because I want to shift the gate left and out about a foot – I pounded the posts in rather than concrete so that this would be an option – yay forward thinking me 10+ years ago).

    I found some data and made a spreadsheet to project our cost per pound for rabbit meat, based off 6 meals a month with 3 does, 2 bucks, (better case 3:1 for 5 pound / worser case 4:1 for 4 pound fryer) at current feed prices. My costs ignore my labor – bump the price by $5 or $6 per pound if you figure labor costs (15 minutes / day, 20 minutes per rabbit to process, $15 an hour for my unskilled labor rate).

    Costco is running a special on chicken thighs $1.89 / pound, organic whole chickens are $2.79 / pound, organic ground beef is $4 / pound except they don’t have any.

    Looks like home grown rabbit meat is going to cost us between $2.50 and $3.50 per pound.

    Bring on the Hassenpfeffer recipes.

  23. ~jim says:

    Canning storage. We ripped out the false front over the top of our cabinets in the kitchen and gained about 10 linear feet of additional storage.

    @Jenny
    And how do you get the jars down? “That’s what children are for!” 🙂

    Yeah I wash and scrub canning jars and Saran wrap the tops with lids and rings (not screwed down!) like Pecancorner. A rinse with boiling water to heat them up and Bob’s your uncle.

    Schlemiel schlimazl, Hasenpfeffer incorporated!

    (We slways had kartoffelpfannkuchen ;-p)

  24. MrAtoz says:

    I need a home alarm for my new house. I have a front facing the street, two back doors into the house and a door into a storage room at the back of the house. The storage room has my tools $$$ until I build a shop about 300 feet from the house.

    A total of 4 doors that I want watched with outdoor cameras that record when movement is detected. Maybe another camera in the house. Since I live alone will pay monthly for monitoring.
    I will want to add the op to the system late this summer or fall. Two more walk through doors. I would like to be able to have the system alter me when movement is detected.
    Suggestions?
    Thanks

    I’ve used Netgear’s Arlo cams for several years. You would need good WiFi. Battery based, but the Pro models can have an external power supply. You can get movement alerts even with the free version and a week of online vids (the last I checked). A paid version stores vids online for longer with more features. I liked them because where I was living, I couldn’t run Cat 6. I’m currently in a new/old house and have purchased cable, etc. to start running PoE to Amcrest cams. I’ll use a Mac Mini to run the software.

    There are other WiFi *cloud* cams on the market, too. The cheapest is one of those turnkey systems that Sam’s and Costco carry. Gotta run cable, though.

  25. MrAtoz says:

    I’ve been reading little articles popping up in the vein of “you should wear a face shield and a mask.” I shouldn’t have given away my flight helmet. I could by a protective mask and wear those two all the time. When will the Kabuki stop?

  26. MrAtoz says:

    Ha, ha! Judge Sullivan, the guy trying to stick a perjury charge on Flynn, was ordered by the Appeals Court to tell them why by June 1st. So he hires a ProgLibTurd lawyer to do it for him. I don’t even know if he can do that. He’s not being charged or anything. Can’t he just tell the AC why in a one page letter?

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    @Robert, if you want cams, there are lots of options. If you want an alarm system, you have to do it yourself, or hire someone with a license. I have an alarm system at my rent house (and used it while we lived there), but don’t have one here.

    Several of my cams and the open NVR software I’m using will send email alerts on certain conditions. The hard part is that they alarm ALL the time.

    I’ve got several new Speco cams that are pro-sumer level. They aren’t Homeland grade, but they are better than the boxed system you’d get at walmart or Costco. One of the features is “on board analytics” which let you alarm on object removal, object left in place, movement, line crossing, and other options. They have a web interface, and onboard recording using SD cards (micro.) It wouldn’t be too hard to just put cards in a couple of them, and set the alerting for one of the analytics… They do require PoE and connection to your network. They are reliable, and I’ve been using them for years. The cams I have are O8D6M (that’s letter o) and they are about$250 at B&H Photo.

    If I were making a recommendation to a neighbor who didn’t want a whole installed system, but would like a couple of cams and maybe some alerts, I’d recommend a couple of those. (or similar)

    nick

  28. Jenny says:

    @jim
    That’s what children are for
    So pleased the first time I caught kiddo climbing onto the counter by opening the lower cabinet doors and clambering up, fearlessly. Yay!

    Schlemiel schlimazl
    Thanks for the ear worm -eyeroll-

  29. Pecancorner says:

    Paul Hampson: I’ve got an insulated 8×10′ shed I put the canning storage shelves in, with enough space for both the full and the empty jars. There are also a couple of shelves in the kitchen area that I rotate the oldest canned stuff to so it gets used first. Seems to be working.

    That is what I really need: outdoor storage that nothing can get into. I found a baby copperhead on a high shelf last summer in the garage. Maybe a shipping container.

    I like Jenny’s “ceiling high” cabinets! Not an option here but that would be nice!

    Just the two of us and I’m a bit surprised at how often I have to lug the empties out.

    That surprised me too when I started pressure canning. The jars as packaging are much bulkier than commercial foods. On the other hand, our trash generation plummeted. We only have one kitchen bag a week now, and sometimes it is only half full, esp if I am consistent about composting veggie matter. I put all meat scraps & packaging etc in the freezer until trash day to keep the inside and outside cans fresh. Otherwise I’d have to carry out several times.

    Yeah I wash and scrub canning jars and Saran wrap the tops with lids and rings (not screwed down!) like Pecancorner. A rinse with boiling water to heat them up and Bob’s your uncle.

    Jim, I can’t believe how many years I stowed them in the garage, open, and had to wash the dirt off with the hose before I could bring them in to scrub! LOL! I am sometimes “too soon old, too late schmart”!

  30. lynn says:

    We are still trying to sell the old house in Sugar Land. We have had it on the market for two months now. I lowered the price yesterday by another $20,000 and got three more showings since then as a result. We are going to sell the house before summer ends no matter what !
    https://www.har.com/homedetail/2007-starlite-field-dr-sugar-land-tx-77479/11317583

    I know that people are buying homes right now. The house next to our new used house sold a week ago. The house catty corner to the old house sold four weeks ago. Interest rates are totally awesome right now, 3.00% for a 30 year loan, 2.5% for a 15 year loan.

  31. Nick Flandrey says:

    @jenny, friend tells the story of how his buddy got the nickname “One Nut”…

    as a kid, he jumped backwards off the kitchen counter, and a drawer was open just an inch or three…. if they pop, they need to be removed. ‘Course, that’s why we get two to start with…….

    Funny how many people I know with that condition. One guy in our woodshop caught a 4x4ft plywood sheet kicking back on the table saw, you guessed it, one corner right in the goolies. Instantly as big as an orange… or softball….

    Another was sliding down a metal roof on the farm and a nail head was sticking up just a little bit… his mom sewed up the damage and he went about his business, just a bit lighter in the shorts….

    The drawer thing gives me the willies, because I’ve done that action many times hopping down off a countertop.

    n

  32. Nick Flandrey says:

    The house three down from us sold and the new owners have just moved in. They’ve got a kid’s swing in the front yard, and rumor is he’s a cop. Both potentially good things…

    n

  33. SteveF says:

    On the other hand, our trash generation plummeted. We only have one kitchen bag a week now, and sometimes it is only half full

    When it’s just me because everyone else is in China or some other vacation, I use plastic grocery bags as kitchen garbage bags. Less than one a week, usually, and a bit less in recyclable styrofoam and cardboard and maybe a couple cans. (Plus another grocery bag of tissues if it’s allergy season. I don’t get colds or flus or much of anything, but pollen does its best to make up for that every Spring.)

    The drawer thing gives me the willies

    Pun intended!

  34. Mark W says:

    I’ve had a fun afternoon on Nextdoor… I got my post reported that said the USA is the free-est country in the world. The guy down the street appears to have been banned (again) for similar. One commenter said the reason for the lockdown was that people don’t follow the lockdown. What?

    I’ll go back to lurking there for a while. People aren’t smart.

  35. Greg Norton says:

    I’ve been reading little articles popping up in the vein of “you should wear a face shield and a mask.” I shouldn’t have given away my flight helmet. I could by a protective mask and wear those two all the time. When will the Kabuki stop?

    After the votes are counted in the election in November. Figure the beginning of December. The narrative to justify mail-in voting is that having people wait in line at a polling place is dangerous.

    Costco is going to drive the narrative.

  36. Nick Flandrey says:

    I vote in every election. I’ve never had to wait in line.

    n

  37. RickH says:

    Re: camera — you might look into buying a couple of Wyze cams – about $20-25 each. They are indoor cameras, but I’ve seen many people putting them outside under the eaves or even in custom built boxes.

    USB-based, wireless, record to their cloud, motion detection, full capture stored in their cloud for $1/month, SD card slot. I’ve had a couple for 1 yr+, and they just work. Infrared mode, app for your phone, and motion detection sent to your phone (and recorded to the cloud; about 10 seconds unless you have their monthly service, then unlimited). Works with ITTT (If This Then That).

    Motion detection pretty good, you can set up a motion-detection area. Only issue I have with the one that is pointed directly west (edited – not east; the east is my bedroom window, where the sun rises at 5:30am this time of year) is near sunset this time of year, when the sun is directly into the lens, causing some motion detection false alarms (but that’s only when the sun is directly east).

    They do have a way to turn the camera into a web-cam. Good company, good product, cheap prices. Cheap enough to try out. https://www.wyzecam.com . They’ve got some other products (face masks, no-touch thermometer, fitness scale, and more; haven’t tried any of those.)

  38. Greg Norton says:

    I know that people are buying homes right now. The house next to our new used house sold a week ago. The house catty corner to the old house sold four weeks ago. Interest rates are totally awesome right now, 3.00% for a 30 year loan, 2.5% for a 15 year loan.

    No worries. The Fed will buy everything.

    With the Hertz bankruptcy, a Cash for Clunkers 2.0 is practically a given. The West Coast states will make owning any vehicle more than 20 years old a costly proposition.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    I vote in every election. I’ve never had to wait in line.

    Texas has two weeks of early voting, and I never see a line at our polling place during that period. Even on election day, the longest line I’ve experienced is five minutes.

    Never let a crisis go to waste.

  40. SteveF says:

    Only issue I have with the one that is pointed directly east is near sunset this time of year, when the sun is directly into the lens, causing some motion detection false alarms (but that’s only when the sun is directly east).

    The sun sets in the east? You live in Oz?

  41. Lynn says:

    Did we transition to a vampire apocalypse and no one told me ? Walmart did a hard close at 83opm tonight.

  42. Lynn says:

    Some asswipe threw a nasty old stained roach infested double mattress on my office main road yesterday. I just threw it in my truck bed and into the dumpster. What a jerk !

  43. Nick Flandrey says:

    @lynn, cameras and infrared!

    n

  44. Chad says:

    It’s been noted by several other people that certain businesses are salivating at the opportunity to trim the hours they’re open and, in the case of restaurants, close their dining rooms and do it all under the blanket of COVID-19.

    There’s a reason the dining rooms at fast food restaurants are still closed (even in the states that never fully shut down and are rapidly reopening). It’s not because they care at all for employee or customer safety (despite their cheesy commercials). The majority of their revenue was always the drive thru. The dining room was just a waste of real estate, excess labor to keep clean, more maintenance, and so on. I’m guessing they’ll drag their feet as long as possible reopening dining rooms at fast food restaurants.

    Also, businesses of the world, rather than run nationwide television commercials and rent billboards telling your employees how they’re heroes and how much they matter to you, I’m sure they rather you spent that money on the employees you supposedly care so much about and not on advertisements poorly disguised as thank yous.

  45. Nick Flandrey says:

    “not on advertisements poorly disguised as thank yous. ”

    –second that. I noticed today while driving around that there were at least 4 big billboards on my route that all were big pats on their own backs…

    I am not so sure about the dining rooms. Several around here have signs up saying they’re open. While they can be a haven for the unhomed, many that I’ve been in recently have been extensively remodeled and looked great. You don’t do that if you want people to stay away, you do what mcd’s used to do… hard booths, uncomfortable chairs, bright colors, and noise.

    I’m pretty sure they’d like to get rid of the restrooms, but honestly that’s about the only reason I’d stop at fast food, and I see plenty of tradesmen doing the same thing.

    n

  46. Nick Flandrey says:

    Restaurants in particular are always running close to the edge. Most of them fail in the first year, and the ones that make it usually have a limited life anyway.

    I can think of a lot of businesses that were marginal or the owners were getting older, and just cutting their losses and getting out at this point has got to be pretty attractive. Fighting to stay in business for the next couple of years sure looks like hard work compared to early retirement with a built in excuse.

    n

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