Not Much Here

I, sort of, got a picture of the aurora!

Thanks to all the ambient light in the neighborhood we get just a hint of pink to the north instead of red.

Naked eye you can see a faint glow around the tree.

It's Not That It's Actually All That Cold

What makes 50° weather in Florida seem so damn cold is that it's normally mid-80's the previous day.

So dropping to the low 40's in three hours from sunset accentuates how it feels.

In a couple of days we'll be used to wearing socks again and it won't seem so cold.

Wrong Day Sir

I have checked my calendar.  It is not May 17th.  It is not May 26th.

It is November 11th.

Today is not for the fallen in the USA.

Today is not for those who still serve.

They've their own days that we do observe.

Please let us have this one to ourselves.

Record!

Global warming caused the weather to break a 133 year old temperature record last night!

In 1892 the low was 40°F in Tampa.

Last night it was 38°F!

I blame SUV's and cow farts. 

Veteran's Day

Today, in the USA, it's Veteran's Day.

A day set aside for those who went in and came out.

It seems odd to have to say it, but today is not for the fallen in the USA; that's Memorial Day.

It isn't for those whom are still serving; that's Armed Forces Day.

If you know a vet, buy them a beer, take them out to dinner, get them laid.

Remind them of all the freebies available!

When you hit the places giving out freebies, be gracious and buy something that's got big margins (like a beer) because it wasn't so long ago that nobody but us and the post office remembered Veteran's Day at all.

Plus!  Tip the wait staff like you'd paid for the meal, not on just the cost of the beer.

Also, let the stolen valor people go.  This is the only validation they're getting in their pathetic lives, can you think of a harsher punishment than letting them be what they are?  Don't save them!

It Was Science Fiction

I've been re-reading Twilight:2000.

Movie announcer voice:  "In a world where..."

The Soviet economy worked and their weaponry performed like the CIA thought it would.

The USA supplied Communist China like we're supplying Ukraine today.

You have to really hold your nose from today's perspective to get that willing suspension of disbelief going; though once you get the situation rolling it still holds together.

It's just the triggering events and the reactions that lead to the Twilight War are just so implausible in hindsight even if they were possible from a 1985 perspective.  Even making them possible is a bit of a stretch but...

The point was to have the conditions as declared at the start of the game and it didn't take THAT much handwavium to get there.

At least no laws of physics were broken...

No Material Effect

I am sitting here looking at 41 days of the government being shut down and except for the ATC slow-down...

I'm not seeing any ill effects.

And the ATC slow down doesn't really affect my non-flying ass.

It's really making me scream, "If we don't need it, why do we have it?!"

Moar Magnets

The spiffy case that allows for wireless charging also has a MagSafe compatible ring on the back.

That let change the mount in The Beast.

That done, I realized that it'd be nice to mount my phone up where the camera could record fun things like a lap at Daytona.

The mount that does that ALSO has wireless charging in it and it uses the same USB-C cord I've been using and is already in the car!

Win win!

The big decision is whether to keep the other MagSafe mount or just use the camera friendly one.

But I'm Too Ugly

"I will grant you a handsome reward!"

But I'm ugly...

Happy Birthday Jarheads!

A completely true and totally not made up documentary about where the first Marine signed on the dotted line.

Sometimes You're Speaking Gibberish

"I meant what it said.  If I could have said it any differently, I would have."

- Stanley Kubrick

That was Mr Kubrick's response to being asked what he was trying to say with Barry Lyndon.

With that answer in mind, you have to assume that gibbering like a mad man was what Mr Kubrick mostly intended to say with a couple of his films. 

Victim Of The End

From what I've been able to find...

We transitioned to the M1A1(HA) just before the Berlin Wall came down.

I question this transition actually happened with my memories being so very messed up from my very bad evening when the wall did fall.

I know we did the training, and I'm reasonably sure the tank I took a swan dive from was an A1...

What makes me doubt my recollection is that 1st Infantry Division was GONE from Panzer in 1990.  Mere months later.

What makes me sure of my recollection is we had no idea Cold War was ending and the change to newer tanks was long planned.

Considering how hard it is to find ANYTHING on 3-34AR, it's hard to confirm or deny my memories.

I definitely remember rolling out the gate when the "unrest" in Berlin started and staying out at the company maneuver area for the next three days and learning about The Wall coming down while we were camping.

And falling off the tank while we were packing up to head back to post...  Though for years I had trouble reconciling the dates on my records with events.  Trauma does that to your mind, in case you didn't know. 

Gotta Save This For Twilight: 2000

Divisional Org Chart for the 1st Infantry Division in 1989.  One of the few things I've seen that admits there was ever a 3rd battalion of the 34th armor regiment.

I hope you can read that, it might embiggen if you click on it.

My Old Ride

The M1(IP) I was assigned at Panzer Kaserne taken just before the unit started getting M1A1(HA)

 

I've always had a soft spot for MOPARs...

The location of this photo is now a PX! 

Happy Birthday!

Guinness for strength!

Jameson for courage!

Happy birthday (posthumous) to our dearly missed Captain Carrol "Neptunis Lex" LeFon (USN Ret).

As long as we remember them, they're not quite gone.

Anniversary

36 years ago, today, I stopped being being able to walk without a limp!

Oh, and the Berlin Wall came down too. 

Is Hitler Cool?

I would say that it depends on the weather and how deeply buried his remains are.

At times I'd say he's quite cool.  Others, he's rather warm and still others, quite cold.

The important thing is that he's dead and good riddance!

The prick added genocide to the lexicon and he isn't even in the top five for most murders by the leader of a government.

So, piss on his grave (if you can find it) and a pox on anyone who agrees with his ideals. 

Non-Anon

The comments policy and the non-anonymous anonymous posting was formed from dealing with dickheads and assholes.

I didn't want to do it.

If I just let every anon comment post, you'd see maybe two or three a day with my normal traffic.  And most of them have excellent points or good observations.

The policy came from disagreeing with, Aesop, for example.  He and I, more or less, civilly disagree and post to our own spaces to spar about it.  I only go to his blog when the traffic sources in the stats say I'm getting a lot of hits from his place.

I call them the flying monkeys.

They post anonymously and break my rules.  They forget they are guests.  They are rude.  They don't stay on topic as they post gigantic diatribes.

Filtering the good from the bad got to be too much effort and it seriously affected my desire to blog.

Since blogging is a release valve for me, it's something I need to do.

So I nuked anonymous comments to make sure I would still post.

I did toss the people who refuse to make a Google account a bone!

If you put a little signature after your comment you're 95% likely to have your comment posted.  Several readers comment this way successfully!  Just make your last line your name and voila! you're not anonymous any more!

This also works if google logs out you for some reason. 

Found It!

Not the same truck, but; there's the location of the starter button I pictured in this post.

The earlier pic didn't really show the angle well, but this one shows the size well.

I figured it was a starter button and not a high beam switch because it was shiny on the top, like it was being used a lot, and the bellows seal.

AI Bots?

Some older posts with no relation are seeing some traffic in the stats.

Some AI building a large language model from this place?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Considering how incoherent I can be, garbage in, garbage out! 

It's Not That

It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's just that I keep finding that I've already said it and forgot.

Like using gravity to create an artificially larger lens to extend laser ranges in Traveller.

Or someone has moved from theory to application about phased arrays in visible and shorter frequencies.

Pizza Pizza

The big pizza chains are having problems with the delivery apps because you can now get ANYTHING delivered not just pizza and Chinese.

Even pizza that's actually good!

I have three excellent local places that knock the big chains socks off, but they don't deliver and their closed by 10.  The food delivery apps list all those places if I'm really too lazy to go get it myself.

Oh, and they're a lot cheaper than the chains too.

Better, cheaper, sign me up.  Even having uber eats bring the cheaper pie is cheaper than Dominoes.  And Dominoes charges me a fee to do pick up now too.

Never mind the increasing number of policies that make me look to the locals.

Like Dominoes won't take a delivery order over $20 if I'm using cash.

So I'm reading this and thinking, adapt or die motherfuckers. 

I Said That Already

I just spent half an hour typing out a story about how I stopped being friends with a particular group.

Then realized that I'd already mentioned them moving my pistol from the agreed upon storage place to a place I didn't know.

Already posted about being invited only to show another member they could be replaced.

I think I forgot the pizza fiasco.

The normal breakdown was everyone kicked in X for an equal portion of a pizza.  It worked out to two slices each.

But, being allergic to mushrooms, I couldn't have a slice from the deluxe they always ordered.  Gods forbid they skip the mushrooms for me!

So I asked if I could skip the share and just pay for my own pizza.

No problem they said.

Then they proceeded to take one slice each from both pies.

I'm like, "hey! gimme back my pizza!" and they were all "but we share around here."

You paid for half and there's two half pizzas left, why are you complaining?

Because I can't eat half of what's left and you eating MY pizza wasn't part of the fucking deal!

I am somewhat amused in hindsight that they kept betraying my trust and kept acting like I couldn't be trusted. 

Chest Pain And Panic Attacks

Since I put The Precious into a tree, my sternum can be put into a position where it will give a good sharp pain.

For a while now, I get bouts of heartburn.

The lizard portion of my brain does not wait for the monkey portion of the processor to report, "it's just heartburn and we bumped the sternum," before hitting the panic button and pumping my system full of adrenaline.

This is a panic attack.

Then I get to ride it out until the chemical dump is burned off.

Yay?

Happily, this is a known issue for me and I have a bottle of, prescribed, meds that change it from a multi-hour ride to about 40 minutes.

Battery Back Up

If you have one of those clever secret shelves...

Make sure you can get at the emergency plug while it still works.

Because the builder might not have left you enough space to get access to the plug's end; or enough room to get it out to be plugged into the emergency battery pack.

Happily, it's a standard 3.5mm cord and readily replaceable when you tear off the end trying to fish it out the too-small gap in the front. 

Not So Smart After All

Remember this diatribe?

Turns out that Mr Cantwell wasn't an anarchist or libertarian at all!

He was a full on bigot!

WOW.

I am so glad I am on record disagreeing with him. 

Gifted

A long, long time ago, my local school did IQ tests on everyone.

If you scored really well, you got put into the "gifted" program, which was a "work at your own pace" kind of deal and I started it in 4th grade.

Except for math, I was doing 7th grade level stuff by the end of 5th grade.  I was still at 4th grade for math.

Then my parents divorced.

The school in my mom's parents hometown, where we relocated, didn't have a gifted program, so I was put into classes with my age group.

6th grade.

I complained bitterly that I'd already absorbed this material and I was bored out of my fucking mind.

But I KNEW the material and it was easy to get A's without doing any work.  So I stopped doing work.

I was fine until we moved again and I started 7th grade.

I'd forgotten how to do the work.

My grades plummeted, though I did finally manage to "get" math.

By the time I'd relearned how to learn, I got dumped onto my father and into a school that was two years of being bullied for being the outsider.

But now I knew how to learn again, but I didn't learn the classes.  I learned how the school itself worked.  That makes it a lot easier to get over on the teacher.

At the very end of living with my dad, I also learned how to deal with bullies.

Just in time to move back to Mom's and teach the bullies who'd forgotten me while I was away...

The Iowa schools were so much easier to game than the Minnesota schools too.

Simple things like spotting that the detention teacher doesn't know you're supposed to be there unless you take the slip from the office to them.  And the office trusted me to do so.  As long as the teacher that put you into detention didn't spot you and remember you...  It was a period of doing anything I wanted.

It should be noted that none of my clever machinations did a thing to help my grades.

I was a C average student leaving High School, and I didn't care because I was going into the Army and not college.

And, having blown the curve on the ASVAB, I selected combat arms.

If I ever get a time machine I am taking young McThag out behind the woodshed and beating some sense into him and forcing him to change his MOS to something useful outside the military.  And erasing my existence, I am sure. 

I Just Realized

I got a flu shot at my local VA clinic on the way down for my last neuro appointment at the VA hospital.

It's interesting that they're open.

I remember when Obama shut down the government in 2013 and having to rearrange appointments.

Without Packing

While there was doubts about my mental faculty, I abstained from carrying.

It took some getting used to.

Conceal carry is a lifestyle change and I'd made that change.

But...  I sure didn't want impaired judgement causing me to do something stupid.

Now I know I need to keep my nutrition going.

That's A Weight Off

Had my neuro follow-up today!

I do not have dementia.

Why didn't I mention this sooner?  I must have forgot... ;)

Harvey had noticed I was being irritable and forgetful.

I looked up symptoms for dementia and made an appointment at the VA.

They are not fast.

Got electroded.

Played some kindergarten memory games.

Answered some questions.

Came out clear.

Based on my blood work, I was just not getting enough B12 in my diet and the change to the One-TWO-A-Day gummies improved everything.

This has been stressing the shit out of me, because I didn't notice anything amiss; but Harvey sure did. 

Who Has The Keys?

Dick Cheney has passed on, but did he leave the keys for the hurricane control machine where we could find them?

Why No News

A cartuber I occasionally watch has flown his own plane down to Jamaica with relief stuff and he's saying the West end of the island is just gone.

He's confused that it's not in the news here at all.

So am I.

Especially after all the coverage that Haiti gets whenever their unprepared asses get nailed with even a small storm. 

Wireless

The new phone has wireless charging.

The old phone had it too, but my choice of case prevented its use.

The new case for the new phone allows it!

Kinda nifty to set the phone on the plate and let it charge.

Saves wear and tear on the USB-C port, I guess.

Some People You Just Can't Help

Marv and I have a friend with a POS car.

It's a 2009 Ford Taurus X.  That fucking 'X' is important.

She had a tail light out and the brake light is monstrous LED assembly that Ford wants $142 bucks for.  Or $25-$40 on ebay.

It was dead because the taillight capsule had leaked and filled with water.

Entire assembly, $150.

So we replaced that.  All is good, right?

Well no.

It overheated the other day.  It was, for some reason, down "a jug and a half" of coolant.  They'd recently had a radiator hose replaced and I suspect they didn't get all the air out and it'd been running on low for a while.

This is where the "can't help" starts.

Her dad, who "owns" the car, is convinced that it's the fan.

She wanted a second opinion and we're decent mechanics.

So we did a basic check of things.

The fan does not come on with the AC like it is supposed to.

If you let the car idle long enough, it will kick in.  We let it idle that long and it kicked in, the temp gauge never left the happy middle area.

Clearly something is wrong, but nothing to keep it from being driven.

Her dad commanded her to stop driving it and had it taken to his favorite shop.

The diagnosed the fan as the problem and gave a quote.

She said she couldn't afford that and her dad told her it was her problem.

So she picked it up from the shop and every warning light was on the dash!

So I went over with my scanner and found the mass-air-flow and intake air temperature codes were set.

Popped the hood and...  The air filter and duct were completely disconnected.

I reassembled those, plugged the MAF/IAT sensor back in, connected my scan tool in live action mode and we went for a test drive.

Idling in the drive, we were at 212°F.  Driving around it dropped to 185-195°.  It barely broke 197° sitting in the driveway later and leaving it in D.  The cooling system is working, even if the fan is suspect.

So we call dad.

He's adamant that the fan be replaced and the coolant changed because it's too much water and not enough anti-freeze.

Marv and I know how to swap a fan, and he offered to pay for it.  This was on speaker.

Marv ordered the fan, it showed up, and her dad had ALSO ordered a fan.

He denies ever saying he'd pay us back for the fan, only that he was going to order one from Rock-Auto.

We're still willing to install it, Marv ordered from Amazon and they have easy returns, so using Dad's fan is no biggie.

This is apparently where the fight between our friend and her dad gets really heated.

Turns out dad doesn't own the car.  It's still in her recently deceased grandmother's name (dad's mom).  Her aunt (dad's sister) is the executor of the estate and our friend was supposed to get the car.  Not dad.

Update:  The Taurus X is his car.  The car that Nana left her was sold by the aunt instead of going to our friend.  That'd make me more bitter.

Apparently none of this is in writing.

Dad and the aunt are control freaks and are using the loan of Nana's car as leverage to get our friend to do things their way.

So she, in a rage, took the car back to her dad's, handed him the keys and her husband took her home.

She's ghosting her dad and no longer has a car to get to work.

We really wanna help, but this is a gordian knot of family drama! 

The Comments Prove It's Nothing

I mentioned that SNAP adds up to about $55 a month and noted that I couldn't stay fat on that.

Several of you mention all of the other sources of food funding someone with SNAP is eligible for and it puts lie to the idea that these beneficiaries are going to starve without it.

Thanks!

Though, it needs to be said that a lot of state programs are actually the states managing the disbursement of federal funding.  Some of those might be drying up from the shutdown as well.  I expect that they're not drying up soon because the press would be detailing all the lost programs in attempt to paint Trump as an evil grinch. 

The Law Of Small Numbers

Some napkin calculations...

SNAP is $9.2 billion a month.

There are 42 million people on the program.

That's a bit less than $220 per person per month.

$220 a month doesn't seem like a lot.

But I noticed something about my grocery bill and comparing it to $55 a week.

I sure wouldn't be fat if I could only spend $55 a week on groceries.

And I know how to cook from raw ingredients, the cheapest way to get food.

I've also noticed that the only skinny people I see using any kind of SNAP or EBT card are the extremely elderly or the obviously tweaking.

How do the others get and stay fat on this?

Even buying candy won't sustain it because candy is very expensive per calorie. 

Quantify Your Statement

“I knew it was coming, I have been preaching this stuff for 30 years, everything we’ve said about climate change has come true."

--Harrison Ford

Considering that I've been watching prediction after prediction about global warming and climate change fail for about 40 years, I am wondering what the dancing monkey is talking about.

It's especially irritating to listen to someone with a private jet lecture about anthropogenic climate change.

But he's made a claim, can he quantify it?

Here's a top ten list from 1970 to 2009...

1) In 1970, S. Dillon Ripley, a wildlife conservationist who served as secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, warned that 75 percent to 80 percent of species would be extinct by 1995. Wrong.

2) In 1970, Kenneth Watt, an ecologist and professor at the University of California, Davis, warned that “there won’t be any more crude oil,” that “none of our land will be usable” for agriculture, and the world would be 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. False.

3) In 1970, biologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University warned that by the end of the decade up to 200 million people would die each year from starvation due to overpopulation, life expectancy would plummet to 42 years, and all ocean life would perish. Extremely false.

4) In 1970, Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, predicted that “world population will outrun food supplies” and “the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine” by the year 2000. Didn’t happen.

5) In 1971, Dr. S. I. Rasool, an atmospheric scientist at NASA, predicted the coming of a “new ice age” within 50 years. Incorrect.

6) In 1975, Ehrlich, the Stanford biologist, warned that 90 percent of tropical rainforests and 50 percent of species would disappear within 30 years. Erroneous. 

7) In 1988, Hussein Shihab, environmental affairs director of the Maldives, warned that his island nation would be completely underwater within 30 years, which wouldn’t even matter because experts also predicted the Maldives would run out of drinking water by 1992. False.

8) In 2004, a Pentagon analysis warned of global anarchy due to climate change. Major European cities would be underwater by 2020, at which point Britain would suffer from a “Siberian” climate. Extremely false.

9) In 2008, Bob Woodruff of ABC News hosted a two-hour climate change special warning that New York City could be underwater by 2015, among other apocalyptic predictions. Didn’t happen.

10) In 2009, former vice president and climate activist Al Gore predicted the Arctic Ocean would have no ice by 2014, which is the same thing Greta Thunberg said would happen by 2022. Nope.

I ended a friendship over globull warmering because I got sick of being lectured on shit they were making the fuck up.

The East Anglia scandal should have ended it right there.

The repeated instances of data and methods being destroyed "inadvertently" so that experiments cannot be recreated should also stop the debate.

It stops being science when you cannot replicate the experiment to confirm the results. 

Isn't That Odd

I have several digital scales.

I have never used any of them to weigh fingers.

Strange. 

Slow Year

We love Halloween here.

We decorate and we give out little plushies instead of candy.

We only had 40 people stop by this year.

We're a little bummed.

Trunk-O-Ween events are killing trick-or-treating.

But we stay open late, just in case the kids wanna go out after they get home from the strip-mall.

However, there's just 365 days until Halloween...

Ha!