Are we going to see…

Posted on by March 7, 2022

Gas lines again too???

Or will people have to decide between food and gasoline? Prices have jumped over $2.00/gal in Texas from what they were at the end of 2019. I saw the first prices over $4.00/gal yesterday.

Texas is RURAL state for the most part, and driving is an everyday part of life. There isn’t bus service, or subways, or metros out here in flyover country outside the cities.

AAA announced that the U.S. average gas price is now slightly more than $4 per gallon. Gas is at its highest since 2008. But before gas prices took a jump due to the first Green New Deal War, being hosted this year by Ukraine and Russia, there was Bidenflation, supply chain fiascos, COVID-19 lockdowns, and Joe Biden’s turn toward windmills and Chinese solar panels to fuel cars and planes. And because he took America away from making most of its own energy, we suckers in the provinces are staring down the barrel of $7-per-gallon gas.

Full article, HERE from PJ Media, which also blows up the administration’s claim that the oil companies are raking in all the profits.

I did a little more digging and found a report from the American Petroleum Institute from January of this year broken out by state for both gasoline and diesel taxes by state. It is rather interesting to see how much each state scrapes off in addition to the $0.184/gal that the Feds take for ‘road maintenance’… yeah, right…

Gasoline taxes-

Diesel taxes-

So we (they USA) have gone from energy independent to dependent on Russia and OPEC for oil in a year…

And Xiden et al are now going begging to Iran, Venezuela, and OPEC to beg them to up production/cut deals with stated enemies, rather than open up US production again. Buttboy’s answer was go spend $60,000+ on EVs because .gov is ‘going to fund’ nationwide charging stations…

Any bets on how long before we see nationwide $7.00/gal for gasoline? (Kommiefornia doesn’t count, they are already there)…

Dammit…

A little humor…

Posted on by March 6, 2022

We could all use a bit of it right now…

The Pastor’s Ass

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again.

The local paper read: PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.

The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline
The next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.
The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.                                                                        The next day the paper read: NUN’S ASS RUNS WILD.

And for us old farts, how many of you recognize this?

Y’all have a good week, and say a prayer for those who are dying in the Ukraine.

Different times…

Posted on by March 5, 2022

An old friend sent me this asking, “Do you remember being taught these things?”

I told him I did, and he said, “I tried to teach my grandson and his mother raised holy hell with me about it. She wants him to be ’empathetic’, dammit.” And it went downhill from there.

I wonder what the boys are being taught today by their parents/schools/others. From what I see, few and far between young men are being ‘taught’ what it is to be a man.

INSTRUCTIONS/RULES TO TEACH YOUR SON 
1. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down.

2. Don’t enter a pool by the stairs.

3. The man at the BBQ Grill is the closest thing to a king.

4. In a negotiation, never make the first offer.

5. Request the late check-out.

6. When entrusted with a secret, keep it.

7. Hold your heroes to a higher standard.

8. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas.

9. Play with passion or don’t play at all…

10. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them in the eye.

11. Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be.

12. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point.

13. Carry two handkerchiefs. The one in your back pocket is for you. The one in your breast pocket is for her.

14. You marry the girl, you marry her family.

15. Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like crazy underneath.

16. Experience the serenity of traveling alone.

17. Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room.

18. Never turn down a breath mint.

19. A sport coat is worth 1000 words.

20. Try writing your own eulogy. Never stop revising.

21. Thank a veteran. Then make it up to him.

22. Eat lunch with the new kid.

23. After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it.

24. Ask your mom to play. She won’t let you win.

25. Manners maketh the man.

26. Give credit. Take the blame.

27. Stand up to Bullies. Protect those bullied.

28. Write down your dreams.

29. Take time to snuggle your pets, they love you so much and are always happy to see you.

30. Be confident and humble at the same time.

31. If ever in doubt, remember whose son you are and REFUSE to just be ordinary!

32. In all things lead by example not explanation.

I’m sure there is a daughters version of this, but I’ve never seen it. But I have the same question about the young girls today. As a matter of fact, most kids these days seem to have no respect for any adults or anything… Sigh…

New flooring is in!!!

Posted on by March 4, 2022

The folks that showed up day before yesterday did most of the kitchen while two guys started on the planks. TWELVE work hours later, they were done!!!

What looks like tile is also laminate, 8mm thick as opposed to the planks which are 10mm thick. As some have said, it does wear and develop white spots. I hope that doesn’t happen, but I do have ‘spare’ tiles and boards if it comes to that.

The guys moved the heavy furniture, but now I’ve got 36 boxes of books to restock on the book cases. And extra stuff to take back for credit! Kudos to the installers from Midwest Flooring Installation! To their credit, they wasted very little material and did an excellent job on all 1200 feet of floor that they replaced.

Amazingly, the house is relatively square, and the planks were within a half-inch offset the length of the wall in the living room, which was about 25 feet long!

A question was posed yesterday as to why I didn’t go with an angled pattern. It was due to the amount of wastage you get when you do that. I had discussed it with the planner, and he said it would probably take another 200 sqft of planks.

I’m sleeping in this morning and hoping the Advil I took last night works…

Busy

Posted on by March 3, 2022

Getting new laminate flooring put in… Running from pillar to post.

So go read the folks on the sidebar. Hopefully full posting and commenting will return on Sunday or Monday.

TBT…

Posted on by March 2, 2022

Shipmate of mine sent me this…

It was definitely true when we were doing it… Hopefully it’s a bit better today…

And I know some scientists that are STILL arguing about the figures from experiments lo these many years later… sigh

Posted in TBT

Sigh…

Posted on by March 1, 2022

The results of sequestration continue to bite the Navy in the ass…

The U.S. Navy’s cruiser modernization program has been disorganized in its planning and troubled in its execution, service leaders have told Defense News. 

<snip>

Seven cruisers were put into a particular variation of the modernization program as part of plans to extend the life of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers: They’d undergo an initial maintenance availability to modernize areas like the galley; go into a reduced operating status with a skeleton crew of about 35 sailors watching over the ship pierside for several years; go into a one-year availability to prepare for dry docking; and then conduct an “extended dry-docking selected restricted availability” where the bulk of the work would be done.

The first cruiser, Gettysburg, is nearing the end of that process and will go to sea this year, after its 2014 entrance into the service life-extension effort.

Full article, HERE from Defense News.

Note that it has taken EIGHT years to do one ship… The one year avail is now in year THREE, because of the amount of work needed, and lack of planning for systemic integration of the upgrades… Sigh…

What isn’t mentioned is the whole sequestration, “Well, we don’t need cruisers anymore, so we can park them…oh wait, we DO need them. But we can reduce manning to get more maintenance done in port.” Which didn’t happen. What happened was the Navy got behind on basic maintenance due to lack of personnel and reduced budgets, which also impacted the ship availabilities to do upgrades, because operational ‘needs’ kept the ships running ragged.

This not only applied to maintenance, but to crew training… Grrr…

When you look back at the accidents that the Navy has had, most, if not all, can be directly attributed to lack of training in basic functions, like seamanship, ASW, damage control, and upkeep on the ships themselves. When you add in the different modification cycles the ships were on, it became a confusing mess…

And the consolidation/merging of rates into ‘new’ rating pools also caused problems with manning. One example was signalman, sailors who specialized in visual communications, such as flag semaphore, visual morse code, and flag hoist signaling being combined with quartermasters, who specialized in navigation and operations on the bridge and CIC. Now the QM rate has to do ALL of those things. But the senior people who got merged DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DO THE OTHER RATE’S JOBS! But they got orders without regard to the actual job they were being ordered into…

There are plenty of other horror stories of merged ratings and the problems ships, subs, and air units had as result of all this.

And now we’re in a situation where we need ALL of those ships and subs at sea, and airplanes in the air as a deterrent.

But it’s not going to happen thanks to sequestration and mismanagement at the highest levels.

Something different…

Posted on by February 27, 2022

I don’t post a lot of music because I can’t hear most of it anymore, but I stumbled across this yesterday in a research wiki wander…

Saw them live at Winterland in 73… They were originally from San Jose, and used to play up in the hills above Santa Cruz at a biker bar, and occasionally at the Odyssey in San Jose.

And some humor…

John Lennon’s Yesterday — variation for programmers.

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data’s gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday!

Y’all have a good week, and don’t get hooked on the news. The real story isn’t being told…yet…

I’m beginning to wonder…

Posted on by February 26, 2022

If there is something physically or mentally wrong with Putin. His speech earlier this week was, to put it mildly, over the top, even for him.

And now this…

Russia has threatened its close Arctic neighbours Sweden and Finland with ‘military consequences’ if they join NATO. 

It came as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine intensified today after a night of fighting in the capital of Kyiv especially. 

Sweden and Finland are the two closest countries to Russia in the Arctic Circle. 

Full article, HERE.

The ghost of Simo Häyhä is muttering and stirring at this, and calling for his ‘brothers’ to take up arms again. The Winter War with Russia in 1939 may have gotten Russia 9% of Finland, but the cost in manpower was horrendous and also caused Russia to be expelled from the League of Nations.

And Sweden is no slouch at winter warfare either…

This kind of crap is what makes me wonder what is going on in Putin’s head.

Posted in War

They died…

Posted on by February 25, 2022

Attempting to defend their country. May they rest in peace in Valhalla…

I believe the Russians will pay in more blood and death in the process of stealing the Ukraine than they expected to do.

The Ukrainian government has handed out full auto AKs and other weapons to the people, including the women, many of whom are vowing to die defending their homes.

I would also point you to this post, HERE, from the Lone Star Parson about the shakeup in the Orthodox church as a result of the Ukrainian church being recognized as separate from the Russian version.