Take that…

Posted on by May 12, 2021

They said we couldn’t do it…

Doing renovations at the local American Legion, kitchen style…

We received a ‘donation’ of a brand new oven/microwave combination for the kitchen. BUT, there was no cabinet. We were told we needed to go buy one.

Challenge accepted…

ONE piece of grade A plywood was $59.00!!! ONE 2x4x8 #2 was $9.47… sigh

The cabinet need to be 24 inches deep, 28 inches wide, and 63 inches high. Measured three times, marked it, measured again, and finally ripped the plywood. And the sides matched! Yay!  Next was building the shelf to hold the combo at a ‘working height’. Measure, measure, how high is the total unit? Remeasure… Okay, got it. Cut it…

And that gives us a half inch clearance all the way around, so the ‘trim’ will fit and we ‘should’ be able to get it in the cabinet. Should…

Meanwhile the electrician was running power to a box behind the cabinet for power and we’re trying to figure out how to get the @#%$%$#@ armored cable to feed up the back of the unit in the slot while stuffing it in the cabinet.

Gotta love Seabees… Loop a piece of string around the cable, keep it taunt as the unit is shoved in the cabinet. I’m qualified to do that…

It got wired up, the working party lifted, groaned, cursed, shoved, and we finally got it IN the @#@%(*& cabinet…

Lastly, attached the two pieces of stainless steel ($44 ea) to the side of the cabinet next to the stove (which will be moved back once everything is complete). The only thing left is to build a bottom shelf, stick it in, and paint it.

Less than $200, three hours of work, and voila! 🙂

Where’s my Aleve???

 

It’s getting interesting in Maricopa Co…

Posted on by May 13, 2021

Apparently the county is refusing to turn over routers to be checked for IP protocols during the 2020 election…

Kory Langhofer, the attorney for the Senate, said he will be issuing subpoenas Monday, May 10, for all five Maricopa County supervisors, demanding they appear to explain why they won’t surrender certain equipment and information for review as part of the audit of the 2020 General Election returns. Langhofer also said the Senate wants to hear from Scott Jarrett, the county’s director of election day and emergency voting.

Full article, HERE.

What are the dems/left so afraid of???

All they have to do is follow the stepping stones…

Unless they know there is a problem…

TBT…

Posted on by May 13, 2021

Words… That you don’t hear anymore…

I came across this phrase yesterday ‘FENDER SKIRTS.’ A term I haven’t heard in a long time, and thinking about ‘fender skirts’ started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like ‘curb feelers’ and ‘steering knobs.’ (AKA) suicide knob, Neckers Knobs.

Since I’d been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 60 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember ‘Continental kits?’ They were rear bumper extenders and spare  tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.

When did we quit calling them ’emergency brakes?’ At some point ‘parking brake’ became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with ’emergency brake.’

Here’s a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore – ‘store-bought.’ Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress, suit, or a store-bought bag of candy.

‘Coast to coast’ is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term ‘world wide’ for granted. This floors me.

On a smaller scale, ‘wall-to-wall’ was once a magical term in our homes. In the ’50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When’s the last time you heard the quaint phrase ‘in a family way?’ It’s hard to imagine that the word ‘pregnant’ was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company, so we had all that talk about stork visits and ‘being in a family way’ or simply ‘expecting.’

Apparently ‘brassiere’ is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I guess it’s just ‘bra’ now. ‘Unmentionables’ probably wouldn’t be understood at all.

Most of these words go back to the ’50s, but here’s a pure-’60s word I came across the other day – ‘rat fink.’ Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

Here’s a word I miss – ‘percolator.’ That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? ‘Coffee maker.’ How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like’DynaFlow’ and ‘Electrolux.’ Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with ‘SpectraVision!’

Some words aren’t gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most ‘supper.’ Now everybody says ‘dinner.’ Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. If they show up, feed them! 🙂

Posted in TBT

Sigh…

Posted on by May 11, 2021

Pictures worth all the words…

And in one more ‘instance’ of globull warming, it’s in the 50s the last two days, raining, and lousy weather… In MAY in TEXAS… FFS…

According to Valentina Zharkova, the Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling. Her research has been on the money with predictions over the last few years, and looking at her paper from last August, I think she’s onto something… Link in first comment.
When you look at the attached chart, you can see the cyclic temperature changes over time, and the lack of solar flares is definitely a player in the global warming cycles. As Zharkova has predicted, we are in a low flare cycle, possibly the least flares in 400 years!
May be an image of text that says '1366.8 Solar irradiance reconstructed 1366.4 1366.2 1365.6 1365. 1365.0 1364.8 1364.6 1366 1366 1366. 1364.0 1365 1363.4 1363.0 1364.8 1364. 1364. GBPPAGESWorid Data Center for Paleoclimatology 11 1363 1363 1363. Maunder Dalton 10 Tasene 1880- 1915 1945- 1977 1660 1680 1700 1720 1740 17601780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 YEAR'
Her full research paper is HERE.  And Stephanie Osborn, our own NASA scientist has a book out that is rather ‘interesting’ on the effects of the sun on our atmosphere/temperature…  Click the cover for the link.
Trust me, this globull warming (cooling) is NOT the result of ‘Anthropogenic climate disruption’, which is the latest ‘buzzword’…

What ever happened…

Posted on by May 10, 2021

To herd immunity???

We were ‘told’ we would have herd immunity this year. Now, nobody is mentioning it either from the administration or from the CDC…

It’s enough to make one wonder what is really going on. We were ‘told’ the minimum needed was 70% inoculated/recovered to meet the CDC’s requirement for herd immunity. According to the chart below, we should be there in August…

The 9 May data shown indicates 114,000,000 have been fully immunized so far. So what’s going on???

This is from the Mayo Clinic, concerning herd immunity ‘issues’…

The U.S. is currently making progress toward herd immunity through a combined approach. The number of fully vaccinated adults continues to rise. In addition, more than 31 million people in the U.S. have had confirmed infections with the COVID-19 virus — though, again, it’s not clear how long immunity lasts after infection.

Given the challenges, it’s not clear if or when the U.S. will achieve herd immunity.

However, the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at protecting against severe illness requiring hospitalization and death due to COVID-19. Even if it isn’t currently possible to stop transmission of the COVID-19 virus, the vaccines are allowing people to better be able to live with the virus.

Full article, HERE.

But all the media can spout is the catastrophe in India, where less than 2 percent of Indians are fully vaccinated and less than 9 percent have received their first shot, thanks to a major COVID-19 vaccine shortage.

Full article, HERE.

And the flip flops from the CDC and administration are doing nothing but confusing us… Texas and Florida are and have been open, yet show much lower infection rates than states that are still locked down. In other places, masking, social distances, etc. seem to change day to day, with no proven results or ‘science’ behind them.

And people are justifiably leery of some or all of the ‘vaccines’ due to the side effects and the CDC’s refusal to say those vaccinated can now move about/interact with others.

There is this from the BBC concerning FB/YT actions…

It said any videos that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities, such as the NHS or World Health Organization, will be removed.

It follows an announcement by Facebook that it would ban ads that discourage people from getting vaccinated.

However, that restriction will not apply to unpaid posts or comments.

YouTube had already banned “medically unsubstantiated” claims relating to coronavirus on its platform.

But it is now explicitly expanding the policy to include content relating to vaccines.

Fake news or??? We’ll never know. Full article, HERE.

OSHA has also come out with new guidance that if the vaccine is ‘required’ by the employer, it is now a fillable report and a workman’s comp claim if a worker has an adverse reaction/death…

Soooo… Companies are melting down, as this will hurt their bottom line if  a bunch of employees have adverse reactions…

And the ‘other’ elephant in the room is how far are they going to push ‘vaccine’ passports? It’s one thing if you’re travelling overseas/to another country, but it’s totally different here at home. NY and some other locations are ‘pushing’ for these passports to attend events, travel, etc.

I don’t have any good answers to any of this, since I’m not a intarwebz/FB ‘expert’. I’m just a grumpy old man that is confused… sigh

Where do YOU think we’re going? And why is this handcart picking up speed???

I made a mis’steak’…

Posted on by May 10, 2021

Grrr… scheduler didn’t work… sorry for the delay!

Saturday night was my turn to cook for the North Texas Pilots, Shooters, and Writers assn.

I had told folks I was going to do ribs, donated by John Van Stry… But… I went brain dead Friday night and forgot to take them out of the freezer, like an idjit…

So, the scrambling began, since I don’t boil ribs, it takes me about 6 hours to actually prepare them correctly.

I’d threatened to do Steak Diane before, and since we had a fairly good head count this time, I decided to do that, using my old Ordnanceman’s recipe that he used to fix on the airplane (yes, we ate well!). I also did bacon wrapped asparagus on the grill, since I was using the burner on the grill (not setting the pan on fire in the house (kinda contra-indicated).

Bonus points were that the pan wasn’t an electric skillet, it wasn’t bouncing around, and wasn’t rushing to fix/eat in 15 minutes…

It may not look pretty, but it came out pretty well, and there were NO leftovers! Yay!!!

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Posted on by May 8, 2021

To all you ladies of the ‘motherly persuasion’!

Without y’all, none of us would be here!!!

May your breakfast in bed be edible, and the kitchen be NOT totally destroyed!!!

Hmmm…

Posted on by May 8, 2021

An ‘interesting’ situation is coming to a head in France…

“Every Frenchman, whatever his belief or non-belief, should everywhere be at home in continental France [l’Hexagone]; there cannot and must not exist any city or district where the laws of the Republic do not apply.” — From an open letter signed by 20 retired generals, a hundred senior officers more than a thousand other members of the French military, April 21, 2021.

Full article, HERE.

When you look at areas in Paris and Marseilles that are ‘off limits’ to not only the police and military, but the French population in general, it appears the resentment is getting closer and closer to boiling over into…something… And that something could be a civil war, either openly or covertly.

And Sweden is now pushing back against the immigrants, HERE.   From the Brookings Institute, we have the Polish take, HERE.

And we know Turkey has ‘threatened’ Europe with flooding them with muslim refugees. What I’ve always found interesting is that NONE of the middle eastern countries have taken in ANY significant numbers of ‘refugees’… Especially none that were outside their particular sect of Islam.

I’m thinking we’re gonna need a LOT of popcorn if the top blows off over there. Just sayin…

Um…

Posted on by May 5, 2021

Didn’t we see this once already??? CHAZ/CHOP or whatever the hell they were calling it in Seattle?

Article from December 2020, HERE. March 2021, HERE, and then there’s this…

The Minneapolis Police Department apparently will not enter the so-called “Free State of George Floyd” to respond to crimes.

In the early morning hours of April 29, a woman was pushed out of a window during a domestic dispute on the corner of East 38th Street and Elliot Avenue, sustaining multiple injuries, according to a police scanner watchdog. The woman dialed 911 to get help but was told that police would not come to her aid because she was inside George Floyd Square, an autonomous zone which has designated itself “cop-free.”

Full article, HERE.

Four dead so far due to inability of LEOs/EMTs to get to them…

But I’m thinking MPD’s bosses are so hinky about anything happening, they have given up and are ‘letting’ the Crips run the zone. I truly feel for those who live and/or work there. What kind of lives/businesses do they have now, if any?

Edit- Apparently it has now expanded to 4 square blocks that includes a predominantly black area with a mix of businesses and homes.

Update…

Posted on by May 6, 2021

Murphy from Lagniappe’s Lair is alive and well, stayed with me last night. He’s on the road, travelling, but is having problems with his laptop.

He said to let everyone know that as soon as he gets that unscrewed, he’ll be back on the net. He’s travelling with Merida on this trip, and she was a good puppy last night, to everyone’s amazement. She’s also an attention… well, you know what I mean. And lurves her some treats! She and Obi even got along, surprising all of us!

Bottom line, he will be back…