Mon. Jan. 10, 2022 – another busy week ahead

By on January 10th, 2022 in culture, decline and fall, personal, prepping, WuFlu

Cool and clear, damp but later drying out, I hope. Yesterday was damp and overcast all day. Not much dried, and there was a lot of standing water around the house and yard. Never got particularly warm, although the house warmed up to the point I turned the A/C on. It was 55F when I went to bed, and still 84%RH.

Spent the day indoors anyway. Slept in after being up late keeping an eye on the storm. The tornado warning that I ignored resulted in a tornado in Humble, about 15 miles NE of me, and it did some damage. Went right over my head before forming up apparently.

Other than the mud where the high water mark is, you wouldn’t know there was any flooding last night.

After a leisurely brunch of sliced Spam, fried frozen hash brown patties, and for me, an egg, I spent the rest of the afternoon doing a bit of clean up, restocking the house, and I cut my hair. I’ve been giving myself haircuts since the beginning of the chinaflu lockdown. I’m getting faster at it, although I’m not sure I am better at it. The Wahl clippers have paid for themselves several times over at this point. Yep, I bought them as a prep when I considered how to stay home for months at a time.

I wanted to go back to my normal barber, but he lost his lease to gentrification and I’ve got to find him again. In the mean time, it’s faster for me to do it. Clipper cut with the numbered clipper shields makes it relatively easy, and it’s basically the same cut I was getting from the barber for years, #4 on top, #2 on the sides, blend and clean up the edges… it’s a style that suits me and it’s easy to maintain. Like a lot of simplification and cutting back, it fits with the circumstances.

I’ve got a set of hair scissors and a straight razor too. The razor is a DEEP fall back as I normally get several months of infrequent use from every disposable blade set. The scissors would work for the girls too. Deep prep. But easy to buy, store, and have if needed. Cutting the kids’ hair or gnu forbid, the wife’s, is NOT something I’m going to practice though. I’ll just accept that if things are that desperate, I can’t make them much worse even if I have to ‘learn on the job.’

Hygiene and grooming are important. People feel better when they’re clean and look good. And morale is important. Make sure you have prepped for that too.

One more pile of things to add to the stacks!

n

74 Comments and discussion on "Mon. Jan. 10, 2022 – another busy week ahead"

  1. nick flandrey says:

    50F and 73%RH.   Fitful sleep due to sore shoulders.   Tired is at 11 today.   

    n

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Hygiene and grooming are important. People feel better when they’re clean and look good. And morale is important. Make sure you have prepped for that too.

    My wife and I worked every single day of last February's storm event. As I headed to the shower that Monday, Presidents' Day, my wife said, "Don't use the shower. The MUD (utility district) just sent out a boil water alert and a request to conserve via SMS. The water treatment plant didn't have a backup generator."

    "Well, I've been drinking the water all morning and the lights in the offices at the MUD were off at 8 PM last night knowing full well what was coming. They aren't working, but I am. I'm taking a shower as long as we have water. I’ll be fast."

  3. Ray Thompson says:

    Well, I see shot girl has tested positive for Covid. The one time I would hope it is fatal.

    8
    5
  4. nick flandrey says:

    STAY WITH THE VEHICLE.   and the corollary Never split the party.

    Virginia father, 34, is found dead four days after leaving his snowbound car during blizzard to try to walk six miles home in 17 degrees and sending final text to his mom saying that he was lost

    • Jacob Whaley, 34, was found dead roughly 200 yards away from where his family said he would be on Greene Corner Road in Virginia on Thursday 
    • His vehicle broke down around 8.30 on Monday after sliding into a ditch and he decided to walk the nearly six miles home to be with his son, two
    • Around 9pm, he texted his mother that he was lost and his family contact authorities, who sent a search party out after his phone died 
    • They were unable to locate him and spent four days searching before finding him on Thursday 
    • The family is now saying the police didn't do enough and protested outside the Louisa County Sheriff's Department on Saturday  

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10385521/Virginia-father-34-dead-four-days-leaving-snowbound-car-blizzard.html

    n

  5. drwilliams says:

    He could text his family, but no one could give him a ride or call in a uber?

    Who was is that didn’t do enough?

  6. Greg Norton says:

    STAY WITH THE VEHICLE.   and the corollary Never split the party.

    The Solstice-related Schaedenfreude is really cruel this year. Britain ran out of stupid people?

  7. MrAtoz says:

    RIP Bob Saget. Only 65. Wow.

  8. nick flandrey says:

    I should add– if you live where there is winter, you should have stuff in your car for dealing with winter.   If you live where winter is a cool glass of icewater, keep desert and heat stuff in your car.

    A case of mixed mountain house is $75 (or less for the cheap stuff) and about a 1 ft cube.  A box of Clif bars or PowerBars is even smaller and will give you enough calories to stay warm.  A blanket or cheap sleeping bag is about the same size, and half the cost or much less used.  Ditto for water. 

    a roll of plastic survey marker tape has additional uses, but is great as a bright orange/pink/yellow "HERE I AM" marker.  Unspool a dozen long streamers from a bush or tree….

    If I was driving in rural snowy areas, I might have a squeeze bottle of construction chalk in a fluorescent orange in the kit.   Foof some of that around on the snow and you're a lot easier to see.

    Chemical hand warmers (and foot warmers) are not expensive, last forever (unless the packaging is damaged), and don't take up much space.

    A simple rain jacket will stop wind and trap heat and takes almost NO space.  A yellow rain jacket/pant combo for construction workers is the size of a clip board or portfolio and is bright colored as well as wind and water proof.

    I'm not endorsing this product, but it doesn't get much easier than this… Wise Company 5-Day Survival Camo Backpack.  There isn't enough water in that, but you can easily throw a case of bottles in the trunk.

    For a more in depth and serious look at winter vehicle preps, see Commander Zero's blog.

    n

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    WRT Bob Saget, I was shocked to read that he used to "work blue" in his stand up act before he found tv success…   No tv exec today would have taken that risk.

    I found the guy to be vaguely disturbing.  I got a strong sense of 'just not right' that could be from him suppressing his natural tendency to swear and be obscene…or something else.   His timing was absolutely hideous, although his audience for the Full House shows and the America's un – funny videos programs must have found it effective.*

    My kids have been watching "Fuller House" and laughing out loud, so it's funny to 10 year olds…

    n

    *I used to work as production manager/lighting guy/video guy/sound guy for a stand up comedian who toured and worked Vegas, so I have some small bit more additional insight more than johnny six pack.

    added- “Police say there were no obvious signs of foul play or drug use, but a toxicology report is yet to be carried out. He was found hours after posting jubilantly about returning to the stage,” I can’t help but wonder if he posted about being jabbed and recently boosted…

    5
    2
  10. MrAtoz says:

    case of mixed mountain house is $75 (or less for the cheap stuff) and about a 1 ft cube.  A box of Clif bars or PowerBars is even smaller and will give you enough calories to stay warm.  A blanket or cheap sleeping bag is about the same size, and half the cost or much less used.  Ditto for water. 

    I like those lemon “life boat” ration bars. 400c each. I opened a pack to try. Tasty and designed not to suck up the moisture in your mouth. Supposedly safe in car heat. 5 year shelf life.

  11. brad says:

    his family contact authorities, who sent a search party out

    Yes, he was stupid to leave his vehicle. That said: This is literally what mantrailing dogs are for. Any half-decent trailer could have found the guy in the woods – that is the easiest of all terrains. Point the dog to the car seat, sniff, trail. A snow storm is irrelevant; in fact, it probably makes the trail easier to follow. My wife teaches this stuff, and I've seen student dogs trail in all kinds of weather. I’m often the lost guy, getting soaked in the rain :-/

    If the police don't have such dogs, there is almost certainly a local dog club that does, and the police should know about them. If the dogs are available, they can help out in a lot of situations: dementia-granny wandered away from home, a kid got lost hiking, whatever. It may not always work, but when it does, it's a lot faster than sending people out to search.

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    @brad, my first reaction, based on decades of conditioning is that you probably can't send dogs out to track them down because dogs were used to hunt runaway slaves….

    Seriously, that's how people here think, and other people take that into consideration.  I'd bet that there has been a serious decline in the number of tracking dogs. 

    In the old days, judging from movies/books/etc. they were fairly common.  You never hear of their use now.

    n

    6
    1
  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Scanner has the same team in Pearland getting ready to do something at the house they were watching.   They've been getting a team into place and are watching the building now.

    Whoever their target is, he must be pretty high value to someone, as it's a big, coordinated effort.

    n

  14. Nick Flandrey says:

    @MrAtoz, I've got some of them in my Expy.   I haven't tried to eat them though.  

    For powerbars or similar, plain works best, and chocolate worst.   Plain powerbars hold up well to the vehicle environment.   They do get hard over time, but are still edible.  The chocolate ones get nasty when the chocolate melts.

    If I have clif bars or some other tasty and soft bar in the truck, I tend to eat them when I'm out driving around and get hungry.   While that helps rotate stock, it also means that when I forget to replace them, I've got nothing (hence the backup  lifeboat bars in the bottom of the bin.)

    n

  15. Greg Norton says:

    WRT Bob Saget, I was shocked to read that he used to "work blue" in his stand up act before he found tv success…   No tv exec today would have taken that risk.

    All of the professional pretenders are risks of some sort. Who would have thought that Lori Laughlin would be the "Full House" cast member sent to prison?

    Go look at Tim Allen's past if you really want to be disturbed.

  16. Nick Flandrey says:

    Tim Allen has always been pretty open about dealing blow and doing time for it.  Was there more than that?

    n

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well the PD team is moving on the guy they are grabbing.  So  far nothing has gone wrong…

    n

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    And I've finished reading thru an account of setting up ubiquiti unifi networking, not from a point by point menu click pov, but thru a WHY and how for a complex home network.

    I got the email that my gear is ready at the store.

    I'm going to put in 4 new APs,  two of the lite, two of the pro, and a new PoE switch in the attic for some of the gear.   If I have time, I might poke at the security gateway.

    Wish me luck.

    n

  19. Nick Flandrey says:

    Gambian father reveals he pulled daughter from burning mattress and fled with his eight kids but accidentally left front door OPEN

    Sounds like a slum lord tenement house.  How many immigrants can you stack in an apartment?

    n

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

     

    US COVID cases triple in two weeks and hospitalizations hit near-record high of 130,000 BUT deaths remain low: CDC director Rochelle Walensky admits that 75% of people who die of the virus have at least FOUR comorbidities 

    Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, says that the world should be able to control Covid and even return to normal in the future – but only if people receive an annual vaccine.

    –FOUR.  And case count doesn't matter, nor does positivity rate as they tell us nothing useful.

    –that should be enough links to keep anyone that doesn't have a hobby busy 😉

    n

     

  21. MrAtoz says:

    –FOUR.  And case count doesn't matter, nor does positivity rate as they tell us nothing useful.

    That right there tells me the death count numbers are bogus. You could say the same about the flu, but you didn't die from the flu, you died because you were fat. Our goobermint sucks dead bunnies.

    7
    1
  22. Greg Norton says:

    Tim Allen has always been pretty open about dealing blow and doing time for it.  Was there more than that?

    No, but lately he has been among the majority of comedians doing what I call "apology tours" for his past material. He even talked about driving an EV while showing off his "Redeye" Charger during his last "60 Minutes" profile.

    I don't think Allen wants a late night gig like the younger guys, but, up until about a year ago, it seemed like Disney was close to putting "Home Improvement" back on the air.

    I remember clearly Allen on Howard Stern circa 1994 giving Stern a full hour about his past.

    Doing those kind of interviews used to be Howard Stern's job. God only knows what it is now.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    Sounds like a slum lord tenement house.  How many immigrants can you stack in an apartment?

    I lived in a complex in Issaquah which catered to the H1B holders working at Microsoft. It wasn't a tenament, but if you drove through the parking lot after 10 PM on a Sunday night, it was obvious that the apartments were way over capacity, 3-4 living in one bedroom and multiple generations of families living in the larger units.

    I usually had to park in the parking lot of the under construction Safeway next door and risk towing. Fortunately, towing never happened, but there would have been a dozen more cars coming out of the lot if they had enforced the “No parking” sign.

  24. SteveF says:

    That right there tells me the death count numbers are bogus.

    That's been obvious since summer of 2020, by looking at "all-cause mortality in the United States" and similar numbers. Numbers have been within normal variance, meaning that the screams of "300,000 people died!" are wrong.

    To be clear, 2020 all-cause deaths were on the high side of the year-to-year variance, but still within "normal". Also, all-cause deaths in the US have been trending upward, which I assume has to do with a generally older, fatter population. There's also some confusion because some numbers are for US citizens, with it not specified whether this means citizens in US territory or anywhere in the world, and some are for everyone in US territory. (It's tempting to think that the CDC is deliberately obfuscating numbers, but it's probably just a matter of too many subdepartments, too little communication between them, and too many less-capable flunkies doing the work.)

  25. Ray Thompson says:

    How many immigrants can you stack in an apartment?

    Well shiver me timbers. Tight pack or loose pack?

  26. lynn says:

    Sam's run today. The soda aisle was totally out of 2 Liter bottles. Everything gone.

    The aisle of late Christmas toy shipments seems to be expanding. Need a $30 "The Child" (Baby Yoda), complete with the requisite fake Williams-Sonoma cookies?

    Made an HEB run last night after the 70 mile round trip to visit my mother in Methodist at the med center.  I got there late and had to listen to the blue shirt imploring us to leave so he could close the front and dismiss the checkers.  I've known the blue shirt for several years and we talk quite a bit.  He told me that he got written up last week since he had to keep two checkers for 15 minutes overtime while people were checking out after 11pm.  I told him that I was sorry and I will try to get there earlier in the future.  He is a UofH college student and working on a business degree very slowly since he works 60+ hours per week and gets paid for 40 hours since he is "management".  He is incredibly conscientious and nice and I hope that he goes far in the organization.

    The HEB had bare holes all over it, especially in the dairy and cereals.  And no Diet Dr. Pepper in cans.  The stockers and manager have been telling me that the Houston warehouse has been riddled with the koof and there are days when they get zero trucks instead of the normal 7 or 8 trucks.

  27. lynn says:

    The wife has listed another rent house for sale in Garland, TX. Neither her nor her sister want to deal with it

    I can understand why. I am stunned that it could sell for 200K. Seems a little high to me with my limited knowledge of real estate in that area. Looks like it needs a lot of work.

    The wife just got a cash offer for $220K.  The neighborhood is blue collar transitioning to knockdowns with mini mansions.  The real estate agent figured either knockdown or small investor to live in one side and rent out the other side.  The house is only two blocks away from the DART heavy rail station that goes all over the Dallas metroplex.

  28. CowboySim says:

    WRT to number of immigrants in an apartment:  In the town next to me there were 7 hispanics living the the garage of a single family residence when a fire broke out.  At least one fatality and subsequently the city council voted to reverse the garage mandate and make construction of a new house with a garage illegal.  Well, not being 100.0000 % stupid, shortly thereafter they did reverse the non-garage idiocy.

  29. drwilliams says:

    “He is a UofH college student and working on a business degree very slowly since he works 60+ hours per week and gets paid for 40 hours since he is "management".”

    One of the longest running business scams. 

  30. ech says:

    The FB post has an image of the cover (movie poster?) .

    That's the book cover. The rights were (in 2013) held by a company that has pivoted away from films to doing theme park shows and the like. The IMBD page is only open to subscribers, so no data on who has the rights now.

  31. ech says:

    WRT Bob Saget, I was shocked to read that he used to "work blue" in his stand up act before he found tv success…   No tv exec today would have taken that risk.

    He worked blue as of a few years ago. He was one of the standups that did a version of one of the dirtiest jokes around for the film "The Aristocrats".

  32. Greg Norton says:

    The HEB had bare holes all over it, especially in the dairy and cereals.  And no Diet Dr. Pepper in cans.  The stockers and manager have been telling me that the Houston warehouse has been riddled with the koof and there are days when they get zero trucks instead of the normal 7 or 8 trucks.

    My wife is home this week doing VA televisits. This morning, it was all Covid.

    If you are a VA patient and concerned about privacy, I never hear names.

  33. Alan says:

    >> I don't think Allen wants a late night gig like the younger guys, but, up until about a year ago, it seemed like Disney was close to putting "Home Improvement" back on the air.

    Tim, with Richard Karn, did ten episodes in 2020 of a show called "Assembly Required." It was a 'makers' competition show and was painful to watch. April Wilkerson was the host/eye-candy.

  34. Greg Norton says:

    Tim, with Richard Karn, did ten episodes in 2020 of a show called "Assembly Required." It was a 'makers' competition show and was painful to watch. April Wilkerson was the host/eye-candy.

    This was more recent, when Allen's last show wrapped last year.

    Disney has the final word, however, and Bob Cheapek isn't going to do it.

    I viewed the “Last Man Standing” finale as the end of several eras.

  35. lynn says:

    Over The Hedge: Peloton Entertainment

       https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2022/01/10

    She looks like there is a visual image behind her. I don’t think that they have that option, yet.

  36. Alan says:

    Noticed the  highlighted part on the "Contact Us" page for General Mills – gotta cover all bases…

    Our policy on suggestions and idea submissions

    All comments, suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, recipes or other information disclosed or offered to General Mills by this site or in response to solicitations in this site shall be deemed and shall remain the property of General Mills. You understand and acknowledge that General Mills has both internal resources and other external resources which may have developed or may in the future develop ideas identical to or similar to the suggestion or comments to suggestions and that General Mills is only willing to consider the suggestion on these terms. That, in any event, any suggestion is not submitted in confidence and General Mills assumes no obligation express or implied by considering it. Without limitation, General Mills shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the suggestions of every kind and nature throughout the Universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the comments for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise without compensation to the provider of the suggestions.

  37. ITGuy1998 says:

    throughout the Universe 

    Suckers. They didn't say anything about the Multiverse…

  38. lynn says:

    I should add– if you live where there is winter, you should have stuff in your car for dealing with winter.   If you live where winter is a cool glass of icewater, keep desert and heat stuff in your car.

    A case of mixed mountain house is $75 (or less for the cheap stuff) and about a 1 ft cube.  A box of Clif bars or PowerBars is even smaller and will give you enough calories to stay warm.  A blanket or cheap sleeping bag is about the same size, and half the cost or much less used.  Ditto for water. 

    I carry a 24 bottle water case of Ozarka water in all my vehicles.  $4.50 at HEB and no sales tax in Texas. The wife argued with me about it for a while and has now accepted it.

  39. lynn says:

    How many immigrants can you stack in an apartment?

    Well shiver me timbers. Tight pack or loose pack?

    When we first moved to Houston in 1972, the 2/1/1 (bed/bath/garage) house next to us had around 17 people in it.  Mom and Dad with five sons, three or four sons were married.  My buddy Pete was the youngest, he had a lower bunk in a corner of a room, one of his nephews had the upper bunk.  His mom made the best flour tortillas from scratch. 

    Our rent house was a 2/1.5/1.  I slept in a twin bed in the dining area and thought I had it made after seeing Pete's nightmare.

  40. dkreck says:

    Got my usual calendars for the winter holiday this year. A wall one full of pics of my family but mostly the grandson. A Far Side desk one and a Dad Joke one that this year have a single sheet for the weekends on both. I fell like I’m being shorted 104 jokes this year.

    This weekends Dad joke…

    A ship carrying red paint and one carrying blue paint collided this week. Both crews are reported marooned.

    9
    1
  41. lynn says:

    “He is a UofH college student and working on a business degree very slowly since he works 60+ hours per week and gets paid for 40 hours since he is "management".”

    One of the longest running business scams. 

    Yes, it is.  As a junior engineer I seldom worked less at the plant than 80 hours per week for three years and got paid for 40 hours.  Some weeks I worked 120 hours.  I learned an incredible amount though.

    Mr. HEB Blue Shirt is slowly wasting away as he is 6 foot and 120 lbs.  He was 140 lbs five years ago.  He skips too many meals running back and forth to school.  I suspect a lot of his pay is going to mom and dad but I don't ask.

  42. lynn says:

    I am porting our calculation engine to a modern Fortran compiler capable of building 64 bit executables and DLLs.  The port is going slowly since I converted the calculation engine to 64 bit internally a little over 20 years ago using some programming tricks.  Some of those programming tricks are having to be reversed.  The first Fortran compiler I tried was GFortran inside Simply Fortran, that has failed since the debugger does not do what we need it to do.  Now we are using a mix of Visual Studio C++ and Intel Fortran.  My previous two attempts at using Intel Fortran failed due to compiler crashes (850,000 lines of code with 300,000 variables is tough to deal with).  The Intel Fortran compiler programmers swear that they have the problems fixed now.  I need some luck on this one.

    I had a guy complain that my open source steam table software does not work with Excel anymore a month ago.  Several of the nuclear power plants in the USA use my old software since it adheres to the 1967 ASME Steam Tables that those plants were designed with.  He happened to mentioned that they were using the new Excel in the cloud.  I investigated the problem and found out that Excel in the cloud requires 64 bit DLLs.  Since I published the C source code for the steam tables on our website, he is going to build a 64 bit DLL and see if it works in 64 bit Excel. 
        https://www.winsim.com/steam/steam.html

    Obviously, 64 bit Excel is going to be problem for the people calling our calculation engine from Excel in the near future so I am going to try to release both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of our calculation engine in version 17.00.  I just told a customer June which is a total SWAG.
     

  43. Greg Norton says:

    Yes, it is.  As a junior engineer I seldom worked less at the plant than 80 hours per week for three years and got paid for 40 hours.  Some weeks I worked 120 hours.  I learned an incredible amount though.

    I spent most of the 90s working 100 hour weeks at GTE. In retrospect in light of the fallout from the Verizon merger, what happened after 9/11 and The Great Recession, I consider the time spent to have been a huge waste of my 20s.

    Friends at GTE hid how my last manager was canned for the better part of a decade after I left. They were concerned I would gloat. They were right!

    Sweet Schadenfreude. Its the UK genetics. 🙂

  44. lynn says:

    "SpaceX Sidesteps Amazon Spat, Eyes March Launch for 2nd-Gen Starlink Satellites"

        https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-sidesteps-amazon-spat-eyes-march-launch-for-2nd-gen-starlink-satellites

    "The company is no longer asking the FCC for approval for two configurations of the second-generation Starlink satellite constellation, which will span nearly 30,000 satellites."

    You know how you tell who the pioneers in an effort are ?  From all the arrows in their backs.

  45. Brad says:

    @brad, my first reaction, based on decades of conditioning is that you probably can't send dogs out to track them down because dogs were used to hunt runaway slaves….

    Good God, I never would have thought of that. I mean, that was 160 years ago. If the progs weren't so intent on keeping racism alive, that would be a footnote in the history books.

    To not use an incredibly valuable tool, because of something so long ago…that's…really dumb.

  46. SteveF says:

    that's…really dumb

    That right there describes a plurality of the American public.

  47. lynn says:

    @brad, my first reaction, based on decades of conditioning is that you probably can't send dogs out to track them down because dogs were used to hunt runaway slaves….

    Seriously, that's how people here think, and other people take that into consideration.  I'd bet that there has been a serious decline in the number of tracking dogs. 

    In the old days, judging from movies/books/etc. they were fairly common.  You never hear of their use now.

    n

    I thought that Texas EquuSearch would use dogs but I see no mention of dogs on their website.

        https://texasequusearch.org/

    One of my wife’s uncles was a K-9 office in upper New York State. He was called out to search for lost people with his dogs several times in the 1970s to 1995 or so.

  48. paul says:

    60+ hours per week and gets paid for 40 hours since he is "management". 

    ZERO sympathy from me.  Yeah, it might be a 60 hour week across five days.  But if shrink control works and sales are good, along with keeping overtime down, he'll get an $6000 "profit sharing bonus" at year end.

    I have seen several folks do the same.

    As for being written up for having overtime, well, have at it, I ain't signing anything.  Of course I have overtime when the evening cash controller calls out sick (because she can't get a baby sitter) three days this week.  Yeah, 6AM to about 9:30PM.  Thank You Very Much for telling me FIFTEEN  MINUTES before my shift ends.  "Oh, and you aren't taking your lunch periods!" 

    Ok, listen Boss.  I have my stuff to do, my basic job.  The Business Center partner called out so I get to cover /both/ jobs.  Because closing the Business Center at all, much less for an hour (my lunch and the gas station lunch) is a no go thing, Front End Manager oh so "graciously" with a lot of "I'm doing you a big favor by letting one of my baggers help" lets a bagger work the gas station breaks and lunches.  Which lets me take my lunch exactly how? 

    The look of stupidification was almost a stoyak thing.

    The customers were cool if they waited a couple of minutes at the Business Center.  "Hi, sorry, I had to duck across the hall to the restroom."  I actually had customers that waited for me to help them. 

    Same as when I was a checker.  That really annoyed the folks directing people to the "shortest line".  I'd have six in my line, full carts, one bagger but she's slowly wandering around the parking lot collecting carts, and the checkers on each side of me would have two in line and guess who's standing around looking handsome while they are working on their second customer?

    That would be me.

    And then I get the speech of "you need to make conversation with the customers" and I'm like what?  Beyond "Hi!" and "Your total is $xx" what?  The weather?  Grandkids?  What?  Who goes to the grocery store to have a conversation with the checker?  Tell me who.    I'm busy scanning and bagging groceries.  My plan is to get their ass out the front door as fast as I can. 

    Oh.  "Did you find everything?" is a stupid thing to ask.  Yeah, I know where almost everything is but what?  I shut down to go fetch that item you couldn't find, that no one on the floor bothered to ask if you needed help?

    One time a couple of elderly ladies, might have been all of 50, were in line.  And they got to talking gossip about church and grandkids.  Having a good time, it seemed.  I scanned and bagged and put everything in the cart and just sort of stood back and listened to their chatting.  All of a sudden, she looked and said "aren't you going to check out my groceries?"  "I have,  I'm done a few minutes ago, I didn't want to interrupt the conversation".   Nice lady.  One of the six or eight waiting in my line after that.

    I miss the job.  I don't miss the management BS.  I sure don't miss being at work at 6AM.

  49. Greg Norton says:

    I had a guy complain that my open source steam table software does not work with Excel anymore a month ago.  Several of the nuclear power plants in the USA use my old software since it adheres to the 1967 ASME Steam Tables that those plants were designed with.  He happened to mentioned that they were using the new Excel in the cloud.  I investigated the problem and found out that Excel in the cloud requires 64 bit DLLs.  Since I published the C source code for the steam tables on our website, he is going to build a 64 bit DLL and see if it works in 64 bit Excel. 

    You aren't doing any funny business with speeding up integer calculations that will be a problem with 64 bit int?

    The new Microsoft compilers have their own form of DLL hell in the form of the build number UUID. In theory, MSVCRTs can differ with build numbers, but make sure that you don't alloc inside the DLL that could be free-ed outside and vice versa.

    Lenovo T series laptops seem particularly sensitive to the problem. It manifests in the form of core dumps.

    Unfortunately, I have zero experience with 64 bit Mingw.

  50. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    "75% of people who die of the virus have at least FOUR comorbidities"

    not all people–vaccinated people

    referring to this report:

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm#contribAff

    3
    1
  51. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    Yes, it is.  As a junior engineer I seldom worked less at the plant than 80 hours per week for three years and got paid for 40 hours.  Some weeks I worked 120 hours.  I learned an incredible amount though.

    Mr. HEB Blue Shirt is slowly wasting away as he is 6 foot and 120 lbs.  He was 140 lbs five years ago.  He skips too many meals running back and forth to school.  I suspect a lot of his pay is going to mom and dad but I don't ask.

    Engineers are one of the largest groups of scammed. Entry-level engineers are not management by any stretch, and still aren't after the first couple promotions.

    My advice to anyone working 40+x and getting paid for 40 is: 1) keep good records of your actual time, 2) review the definition of management in labor law, and document how you do not have the requisite authority in your job.

    Sooner or later the worm is going to turn. Kunflu may be the impetus.

    4
    1
  52. drwilliams says:

    The aversion to dogs in rescue situations involving some minorities is a little more recent than 160 years ago:

    https://www.newsmax.com/scottrasmussen/bull-connor-kennedy/2019/05/03/id/914480/

    1
    1
  53. lynn says:

    You aren't doing any funny business with speeding up integer calculations that will be a problem with 64 bit int?

    Nope.  I converted all my single precision floats to double precision reals in 2000.   But since I have four byte integers equivalenced to my 8 byte reals that caused a problem.  So I created an eight byte structure to replace the integer arrays all over the place.  And there is the problem with converting to a modern compiler.  Old compiler, I could pass a double precision array to a subroutine and treat the argument as a 8 byte structure.  New compiler says wait a minute jack, that ain't right.  Even though it is right.  Fortran 77 was not picky in the slightest.  Intel Fortran 2018 is very picky.  And IVF is correct, just a pain in the rear.  About 2,000 pains so far and counting, this is the worst port ever.  And I still have half a million lines of Fortran code to go through.

  54. TV says:

    @Nick

    "75% of people who die of the virus have at least FOUR comorbidities"

    not all people–vaccinated people

    referring to this report:

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm#contribAff

    Which is a very good indication of how useful the vaccines are.  You need to be close to walking dead (4 co-morbidities!! Good Lord!) for the vaccine to not provide an effective protection from severe consequences.  In Ontario, we have roughly 84% of the population that qualifies at least partially vaccinated. Roughly 50% of those admitted to hospital are non-vaccinated – 3.5 times their representation in the population. Those (insert really offensive pejorative of your choice) are driving the hospitals and their staff into the ground.

  55. lynn says:

    The new Microsoft compilers have their own form of DLL hell in the form of the build number UUID. In theory, MSVCRTs can differ with build numbers, but make sure that you don't alloc inside the DLL that could be free-ed outside and vice versa.

    I ship three DLLs in our software.  200 KB, 3 MB, and 12 MB.  I do not cross the streams, I learned that lesson a LONG time ago.  Everybody cleans up their own mess. 

  56. lynn says:

    Engineers are one of the largest groups of scammed. Entry-level engineers are not management by any stretch, and still aren't after the first couple promotions.

    Don't forget about the management track and the technical track games.  I was promoted to senior engineer with a 2% pay increase when I had been there at seven years.  I was equivalent to a junior plant manager but at half the pay (and no company car).  I was upset when I found that out.

  57. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well, it turns out that if you start with box fresh access points, and a clean  version of the management tool, the ubiquiti unifi tool will "just work".  At least for access points.   The freaking thing is PLUGGED INTO a unifi switch, but doesn't see any switches.

    I put in $700 worth of wifi today.   Got good coverage thru the house now, at least on 2.4 ghz.   I'll need a better tool to see if the 5ghz stuff has seamless coverage.  

    I still have some weirdo gear on site.   Luxul genius WAP to cover the second floor of the guest house.   It's too far above the plane of the UAP AC Pro, which is mounted in the eaves of the garage.  Not much comes off the back of the ACs.   I replaced 2 of the Lites with Pros.  More antennas, another RF chain.  They are covering the outdoor areas.   I put a Lite over the home office and over the master bedroom.   I've got one more lite next to the living room.    If I need more, I'll just keep throwing APs at it.  5ghz doesn't go thru walls very well, especially the plaster covered stout ones needed for 14ft ceilings.

    n

  58. Nick Flandrey says:

    Roughly 50% of those admitted to hospital are non-vaccinated – 3.5 times their representation in the population. Those (insert really offensive pejorative of your choice) are driving the hospitals and their staff into the ground.

    it's neither the number of vaxed in the population,  nor the total population.

    Half is half.   If hospitals are crushed at 100 patients, and half of them have one characteristic and the other half have another,  BOTH halves are having the same impact on the hospital.  Do you curse the fat people in the cardiac unit?  or the blacks with diabetes?  How about the 'first nations" with their OVERWHELMING propensity to have fetal alcohol syndrome far out of proportion to their percentage of the population. 

    All they have to do is not drink during pregnancy and it saves a LIFETIME of the state picking up the tab for the child's  medical, physical, emotional and social issues.  Tell the dirty fuxxers to put down the bottle. 

    It's a slippery slope to start down…

    n

  59. Greg Norton says:

    I ship three DLLs in our software.  200 KB, 3 MB, and 12 MB.  I do not cross the streams, I learned that lesson a LONG time ago.  Everybody cleans up their own mess. 

    The build UUID is deceptive in that you will think you got away with it … until one T series ThinkPad comes along and blue screens the moment your DLL routine gets called.

    I don't know why it is Lenovo. However, I recently upgraded the BIOS in my kids PC running a (relatively) old AMD Ryzen 5 1400 and suddenly the heat sink was inadequate with the improvement in the CPU performance.

  60. Nick Flandrey says:

    My client had a healthy 30yo male friend of the family drop dead last week.  Standing around at a restaurant, then dead.  No known health issues.  Funeral this Friday. I can count the number of times I've heard of that happening before in my social circle on none fingers.

    n

  61. Greg Norton says:

    I forgot that Bob Saget's delivery of the money line in the "How I Met Your Mother" pilot is the reason I hit "Get a Season Pass" after the show ended on the first night.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwq4fh8eabU

    We had the same reaction as the kids.

  62. lynn says:

    "Coldest air in three years coming to parts of the country"

        https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/coldest-air-three-years-coming-parts-country-rcna11618

    "Wind chills as cold as 45 degrees below zero are possible across the northern tier. Meanwhile, New York and Boston are set to see their coldest temperatures since 2019."

    Wait, I thought that all the winters were going to be warm and that no snow was going to fall in the lower 48 anymore ?  Al, Al, where are you Al Gore ?

    I am so glad that I live in south Texas.

    Hat tip to:

       https://www.drudgereport.com/

  63. SteveF says:

    Which is a very good indication of how useful the vaccines are. … Those (insert really offensive pejorative of your choice) are driving the hospitals and their staff into the ground.

    Would these numbers be coming from the same source which has been demonstrated to have lied repeatedly in the last couple years?

  64. SteveF says:

    re bare shelves, I've seen a few around here but for the most part the bare shelves are disguised as often discussed here, mainly by spreading out the cans or boxes so they're twice as wide as before, and only one item deep. Note that I go almost only to grocery stores, and occasionally to a hardware or auto parts store.

  65. Alan says:

    >> Engineers are one of the largest groups of scammed. Entry-level engineers are not management by any stretch, and still aren't after the first couple promotions.

    My advice to anyone working 40+x and getting paid for 40 is: 1) keep good records of your actual time, 2) review the definition of management in labor law, and document how you do not have the requisite authority in your job.

    Being a "manager" is really not the definition of not being paid OT. It's whether your position is defined as Exempt (no OT) or Non-Exempt (eligible for OT). Exempt employees are paid a salary rather than by the hour, and their work is executive or professional in nature.

    At my last place, all the IT teams, although 'exempt,' were required to track their OT. The MDs wanted to know which teams were stretched and which were just trolling along. When compliance wasn't at a reasonable level the message came down that anyone just booking 40 hours week after week obviously was under-utilized and would be assigned additional work.

  66. Alan says:

    >> re bare shelves.

    The wife had curbside pickup today at Wally Mart and then Albertson's for a few items Wally's doesn't carry. Between the two stores at least 5 or 6 of our regularly purchased items were OOS. Thank goodness for the stacks.

  67. Alan says:

    >> https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bare-shelvesbiden-trends-alarming-number-people-report-empty-shelves

    How much of this is truck drivers off the road with the Crud? IIRC only about 15-20% of our food supplies come from other countries, so the port issues aren't the primary cause. Just glanced at my box of Kellogg's cereal and it's "Hecho en Mexico."

  68. lynn says:

    How much of this is truck drivers off the road with the Crud? IIRC only about 15-20% of our food supplies come from other countries, so the port issues aren't the primary cause. Just glanced at my box of Kellogg's cereal and it's "Hecho en Mexico."

    "Kellogg's strike ends after workers vote to ratify new contract"

         https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellogg-strike-ends-workers-labor-agreement/

    "Kellogg's employees who have been on strike since early October have voted to ratify a tentative labor contract at the company's four U.S. cereal plants."

    The strike started Oct 5 and ended Dec 26. The managers have been keeping the cereal plants going … kinda.

    I foresee several new automation projects at the Kellogg cereal plants in the near future.

  69. drwilliams says:

    @Alan

    Being a "manager" is really not the definition of not being paid OT. It's whether your position is defined as Exempt (no OT) or Non-Exempt (eligible for OT). Exempt employees are paid a salary rather than by the hour, and their work is executive or professional in nature.

    At my last place, all the IT teams, although 'exempt,' were required to track their OT. The MDs wanted to know which teams were stretched and which were just trolling along. When compliance wasn't at a reasonable level the message came down that anyone just booking 40 hours week after week obviously was under-utilized and would be assigned additional work.

    Being salaried does not automatically exclude a worker from overtime pay. Government projects is one example where OT is required regardless.

    And what constitutes "exempt" now is not what was contemplated in the original Act, but the abuse that has been written into the law by corrupt pols at the bidding of corporations. The dual definition of exempt that was in effect for over half a century (and routinely ignored by corporations) was replaced in 2004 by a salary test that defined "exempt" as making over about $24k per year.

    "When compliance wasn't at a reasonable level the message came down that anyone just booking 40 hours week after week obviously was under-utilized and would be assigned additional work."

    And there's the definition of abuse right there.

    Ca. 1995 a friend was working in an IT organization of a large coporation, and like many other computer professionals at the time, did not have a 4-year degree. He was one of the top Hot Skilz gurus in the organization, but was hourly (aka "non-exempt") and routinely getting OT on 60 hour weeks.

    We had several discussions where I told him that a degree didn't matter diddly when there ain't no degree in the specialty, and lack thereof was not a barrier in the right organization.

    Then management (aka the "exempt" that were really Exempt) had the brilliant idea to pad their yearly bonus by reclassifying his job as "exempt", paying him 40 hours to work 60, and saving lots of money.

    And since they were doing it mid-year, they also had the brilliant idea of retroactively clawing back a bunch of the OT already paid by counting it as salary, albeit paid a bit early.

    He had a new job within a month, and three large pay bumps within the first year based on performance. He picked me up for a drive after he got back from Bowling Green with his new ride.

  70. Nick Flandrey says:

    Remember when I was observing how odd it was that no one in officialdom was ever talking about treatment, only prevention?

    “Well, as that was happening in September, the federal government decided to seize control of the monoclonal antibodies and cut supplies to Florida and Texas, mainly,” DeSantis said.

    DeSantis said Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services balked at providing more treatment options to the state.

    “Oh, Florida, you use too much of it,” DeSantis said.

    “Well, part of the reason we use more than other states is because we’ve actually embraced treatment,” DeSantis said. “Most of these other governors and the people like Fauci and the federal leadership, they basically say get a shot, wear a mask, and they never talk about treatment."  

    Now that they have a drug they can make money on, now they are starting to talk about treatment.

    And in the other "I swear I was talking about this weeks ago" news….  suddenly the news is full of people talking about how it's time to move to the 'endemic' stage and figure out how we just live with this.

    This is terrifying to me, because of the OTHER stuff I've been talking about too.  I really don't want to be right.  I don't have enough food or distance from other people.

    n

  71. drwilliams says:

    "Job titles, job descriptions, or the payment of a salary instead of an hourly rate are insufficient, standing alone, to confer exempt status on an employee."

    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-09-27/pdf/2019-20353.pdf

    A lengthy but fascinating document, recommended only for those with time and a strong stomach.

    One of the most interesting parts is the method of setting the level for exempt salary at the 20% percentile of the average for the lowest wage Census Region.

  72. lynn says:

    "University of Houston: More Renewable Energy to Prevent Another Texas Ice Storm Outage"

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/10/university-of-houston-more-renewable-energy-to-avoid-another-texas-ice-storm-outage/

    "My first reaction was to wonder what they are putting into the drinking water in the University of Houston. Anyone can tell just be looking at the output graph (above) that renewables performed dismally during the ice storm. Solar energy dropped away to almost nothing, and wind turbines froze solid."

    So, what is ten times nothing ?  Answer, it is still nothing.  Adding more renewables is not the answer.  Adding five to seven days of fuel storage at the power generator sites is the answer.  That fuel storage can be in the form of diesel, LNG, coal, compressed natural gas, etc.

  73. Nick Flandrey says:

    Ummmm.

    Bob Saget, the American actor and stand-up comedian who was best known for his role as beloved single dad Danny Tanner in the sitcom ‘Full House’, was found dead from ‘unknown causes’ in a room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Orlando on Sunday, just a month after getting his COVID booster shot.

    Beloved actor and comedian Bob Saget passed away shortly after receiving the COVID booster shot on December 11th

    Saget’s sudden death has left fans around the world stunned. Despite being 65 years old, he appeared to be in good health and had just finished performing the night before his death at a comedy show in Jacksonville, Florida.

    I guess 30 days is 'shortly'.    Guess I'm not the only one that wanted to look thru his tweets and see…

    However, the beloved actor confirmed in a Youtube video on December 13th that he had indeed received his booster shot two days earlier on December 11th, saying:

    “Yeah, well, be careful out there and do whatever you got to do to be safe. And I’m not even going to preach. I try not to preach.

    I got my booster shot. I’m 65. So I got it yesterday…uh…the day before, and I was hurting.”

    http://ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.com/2022/01/shock-as-legendary-actor-bob-saget-dies.html#more 

    Just saying.

    n

Comments are closed.