Posted on by April 29, 2022

And…we’re off and running…

You can go HERE for the website and see the programming and the panels. We’ve already done a couple of panels each yesterday, with more to come over the next two days.

We did a virtual panel via Zoom with Gordon and Nancy Frye, along with Ian and myself on Cowboys, what Hollywood got right and wrong. That one was recorded and we will be putting it up on the NTT YouTube channel as soon as we get a copy.

It’s also great to see old friends, have time to chat, and the usual scramble for food, liquid refreshment, and figuring out who is supposed to be where… LOL

The tribe is gathering…

Posted on by April 28, 2022

Or is a troublemakers, are or whatever you wanna call us… 🙂

The ladies are working hard on the ‘booth’ set up, and they really deserve all the credit!!!

This is just the back half of the booth, and it’s nice to see what happens when a professional marketer gets her hands on our stuff! More to come tomorrow, there’s a Contacts off starting tomorrow at noon.

Reality…

Posted on by April 27, 2022

Is jumping up and smacking folks in the face as far as food costs are going…

Kat sent this one out yesterday…

Eight months ago- $5

Six weeks ago- $8.58

Yesterday-

Yep, you read that right- $13.56!!!

And there was this one in our little rural town yesterday…

And Peter ‘might’ have said something about firing up the grill… Sadly I was down at the Post working, otherwise… Sigh…

Off to Tulkon for a couple of days up in Tulsa. Blogging will be light and commenting lighter. Go read the folks on the sidebar.

Last but not least, say a prayer for New Jovian Thunderbolt’s family. He succumbed to cancer a couple of days ago.

And now it begins…

Posted on by April 25, 2022

Elon Musk is officially buying Twitter!

And of course the left is coming after him, first and foremost Jeff Bezos…

Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos on Monday mulled whether China has gained leverage over what happens on Twitter now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secured a $44 billion deal with the social media company. 

Full article, HERE from Fox News.

And there was this…

Twitter explodes over plenty of news, but perhaps never to the degree it did Monday over the news of its stunning $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

The tech wizard, entrepreneur, and self-described free-speech absolutist is set to take the company private after the board accepted his monumental offer, and the takes came flying in left and right, from fear of the idiosyncratic billionaire’s coming changes to anticipation over certain deleted accounts returning to shrugs at Twitter making a bigger deal out of itself than it really is.

Full article, HERE.

I’m going to go pop more popcorn and just sit back and watch… LOL

Rut Roh…

Posted on by April 24, 2022

About that ‘smart home’ you…had…

The smart home company Insteon has vanished.

The entire company seems to have abruptly shut down just before the weekend, breaking users’ cloud-dependent smart-home setups without warning. Users say the service has been down for three days now despite the company status page saying, “All Services Online.” The company forums are down, and no one is replying to users on social media.

Full article, HERE from ArsTechnica.

I know I’m a dinosaur, but I just flat don’t want a ‘smart’ house. I don’t want someone to have the ability to hack my house and make it do things ‘I’ don’t want it to do, much less open the house to robbery, etc.

I do have an alarm system, not by choice, but required to get a low interest mortgage. But I also back it up with plain old smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers, along with other ‘home’ safety measures.

There are plenty of reports, or were, of hackers using ‘smart’ tech including electric meters, water usage, etc. to figure out when homeowners were gone and using that information (or selling it) to allow the house to be robbed.

YMMV, but those are ‘my’ thoughts.

h/t Stretch

Hmmm…

Posted on by April 23, 2022

This is…odd, to put it mildly…

Two Russian oligarchs, their wives, and their children were found dead just a day apart, prompting police investigations into whether the incidents were suicides or a result of foul play.

Full article, HERE from the Washington Examiner.

I’d think there is a ‘backstory’ there somewhere, this is just a ‘bit’ too ‘convenient’ for lack of a better term.

It’s a question of who knew what, and when. Putin is already lashing out at FSB and the generals, is this the ‘next’ step? Taking out those who might be a threat to him? The sad part is the wives/children are also dead.

What did they do/know? Or was this plainly vindictive/a lesson to ‘encourage’ others?

We can haz…

Posted on by April 22, 2022

An anthology live!!!

Click on the cover for the Amazon link!!!

The blurb-

Help feed us starving writers! 🙂

 

Book giveaway!!!

Posted on by April 21, 2022

I’m participating with DJ Butler in his monthly book giveaway!

The link is HERE.

I have a jammed thumb, so light blogging/commenting for a couple of days. That sucker HURTS!!!

TBT…

Posted on by April 20, 2022

Back in the day, I was stationed at NAS Moffett Field in California. I went through training in VP-31, then headquartered in Hangar 1 there. Originally built to house the USS Macon, it is HUGE! 600 yards long, over 200 feet high, and until the VAB was built at Cape Canaveral, it was the largest free standing building in the world.

Today, its been leased by Google and they have skinned the building due to corrosion, asbestos, and lead paint. They have now started to reskin it (finally)!

And here’s a video from one of the local TV stations with some background and pictures from back in the day!

There is also a small museum on the base, and a couple of acft, including a P-3 that is open for tours. If you’re in the area, it’s worth going by to see it, if for no other reason than to goggle at the sheer size of it, and remember that it was built without computers. Slipsticks, printed blueprints, and visionary architects built something that is coming up on 100 years old!

Posted in TBT