Thursday, January 31, 2019

Someone owes me some degrees

It was a bit cold this morning.

Fortunately my wife talked me into buying a new winter coat a few months ago so I was prepared for this.

And you'll be glad to know that my daughters car started just fine despite sitting in -21ยบ temps for the last few days.


Tomorrow is Friday. The day after that is Saturday. The day after that is when the SuperB owl will be played.

So we got the to look forward to.


While I enjoy my new furnace with it digital thermostats, you can click on these:

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Baby, it's cold out there

Remember yesterday when I said my daughter was going to experience some cold air?


That was the temperature in Ames, Iowa at 6:30AM central time. When I chatted with her at noon, she said the wind chills were around -45°. But she has Saturday/Sunday to look forward to when it will be rainy and in the 40s.

It's all heading this way but not quite as cold. We will get to enjoy below zero temps but not that far below zero.

Probably -1° or -2° with windchills around -19°.

Yay!


Here are a few links that you can visit:

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

It's going to start getting cold

The Polar Vortex is heading our way.

It is currently over Iowa, where my daughter and her little dog are huddling in her apartment trying to stay warm.

This is what The Weather Channel says the current and next 36 hours look like for her:

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure a high of -9° is cold and a low of -23° is freakin' cold.

Her mom and I have asked her to please not go for any walkabout's. She assures us that she has no intention of going outside other than the take her dog out for a quick pee. Knowing her dog, it will probably be a very quick pee.

Her little dog is used to being comfortable and has no desire to be outside in the cold.


While I worry about my little girl, you can click on these:

Monday, January 28, 2019

Venezuela is a mess

The country of Venezuela hasn't been the most stable place for the last few decades and this past month has made it worse. It's gotten so bad down there that Maduro should find some place that offers him asylum and go for it.

Someone is going to assassinate him and if it happens, I'm betting it's not going to be someone from Venezuela...


You should consider these links:

Sunday, January 27, 2019

No, I did not watch the Pro Bowl

I could care less about Russel Wilson or Andrew Luck.

Besides, I'm saving all my football watching juju skill for next Sunday.


My daughter spent two hours at the local Walmart automotive place to get her 7 year old battery replaced because they are predicting air temperatures around 40 below where she is. I'm pretty sure relying on a 7 year old battery to hold a charge when the temps are 40 below is a big mistake.

She called to mention the two hour wait and I told her two hours in a Walmart waiting room is way better than two hours on the side of the road waiting for AAA.

I don't care how heavy and warm your coat is, people die when the air temps get to 40 below zero


Enjoy these links:

Saturday, January 26, 2019

My basement is dry

My dehumidifier did not freeze up  and I managed to remove another half gallon of water from my basement by using it. The concrete floor is now completely dry.

We did have one wooden cabinet (actually, it's pressboard) that got pretty wet and the base began to swell. My wife, brilliant woman that she is, said, "Why not cut the wet icky stuff of the bottom and then turn the cabinet upside down?" I said I thought that was a bright idea and set about to cut off the bottom stuff. Then I attached a few strips of wood to what used to be the top to act as "legs", flipped it over and voila, all is well with the world.

If it gets wet again, I'll just bust the thing up and toss it in the trash. I'm sure we can find some place else to store all those old Disney movies on VHS tape....


We are now one week away from SuperB owl 53 and I'm kind of hoping that the Patriots make swift & decisive work of the Rams. I suspect they will because, well, they've got that guy Brady who seems to be a petty darned good quarterback.

Vegas has the Patriots at -2.5 which means they expect the Patriots to win by at least 3 points (you can't score half a point in football...) even though initially they had the Rams at -2. Apparently the heavy hitters all think the Patriots will win and that's where the smart money is.

If I had a spare $1,000, I'd probably put it on the Patriots to win by at least 3 points.

And if I had a second spare $1,000, I'd put it on the Miami Dolphins to win SuperB owl 54. Vegas futures has them at 100/1 odds and that means if the 'fins win the 2020 SuperB owl, I'd win $100,000.

There are, however, two very good reasons why I won't make that bet. 1) - I don't have a spare $1,000 and 2) - the Miami Dolphins are not going to win SuperB owl 54 because they suck.


You can click on these if you want:

Friday, January 25, 2019

The dehumidifier is running

Today was my Martin Luther King day off and I managed to take 40 gallons (8 trips at 5 gallons per trip) out of my basement this morning. That removed the majority of the water and left me with some major damp spots.

I started up my dehumidifier and so far, it's managed to take damp spots down to basically a stain. I figure by tomorrow morning, I'll have a dry basement.

As long as the dehumidifier doesn't freeze....


Once the basement was as dry as I could get it, we ran some errands and then I went over to Tommy's to remove the software I installed last meek.

Seems the time clock software was way more intrusive than he wanted.


Here are a few links:

Thursday, January 24, 2019

My basement is a little damp

I came home to find a few puddles in my basement but nothing drastic. As a matter of fact, I decided to leave it until tomorrow morning because I figure if I clean it all up now and it keeps raining, I'll just find more tomorrow.

Might as well wait and clean it up all at once.


While I watch the rain fall and the snow melt, you can click on these:

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

No castigation today

The Wall Street Journal had an article today that basically said, "There are few things uglier than a righteous leftist mob". Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal is a pay sight so I can't link to the article.

The more I got to thinking about the whole social justice thing the more it bothered me. I decided to find something humorous to help offset my rage and I found this.

Yes, I know it's juvenile but it's funny. Shut up and turn your sound up.


Here are some links:

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Social justice is rapidly taking away our right to real justice.

I'm getting a little sick and tired of this whole social justice movement that seems to be nothing more than medieval villagers with pitchforks and torches. The people behind this "movement" have decided that real justice is no longer an option - you are guilty when they say you are guilty.

The teenager that "faced off" and disrespected the "poor innocent Native-American Vietnam vet" has been castigated by the media, received death threats and been told he might be expelled from school because he is a terrible human being.

He was not given a trial, he was not allowed to present evidence (which, by the way, shows the drum-banger as the one who did the approaching and disrespecting) and he certainly wasn't given the positive media attention that the drum-banger was given despite the fact that he did not do anything negative to the guy who was in his face, chanting and banging a drum.

But here we are with the media and all of the social justices saying, "He's guilty! Drag him out of his house and burn him at the stake. Then burn his family as well because they are nothing more than privileged white people, scum of the earth!"

I'm beginning to hate what is happening to our society.

And so should you.


Here are a few links you can visit:

Monday, January 21, 2019

That was some pretty damned good football

Both championship games, the NFC and the AFC, went into overtime yesterday. That is an indication that the teams were all pretty well matched up.

In the case of the Rams / Saints game, if I were a Saints fan, I would be pissed. I watched the entire game and from what I saw, the officials were on the payroll of the Rams ownership. There were not only some pretty bad calls, there were a lot of non-calls.

In particular, there was one blatant pass interference that included a helmet-to-helmet personal foul that occurred right in front of an official who never threw a flag. The Rams player even admitted after the game that he committed the foul. I believe he said, "Oh, hell yea it was a penalty!"

As for the Patriots, in case you didn't hear already, they won in overtime. It was a great game and both teams played some serious football, sending the game into overtime tied 31-31.

NFL playoffs are sudden-death with the only stipulation being the opening receiving team must score a touchdown to win on the opening downs. After the ball is turned over to the other team, it's fair game and any point scored wins the game.

With that in mind, the wining team is probably going to be the team that wins the coin toss.

The Patriots won the coin toss and then used 13 plays & just under 5 minutes to drive the ball into the end zone. The game ended with the Patriots winning 37-31

It was a hell of a game and I think the SuperB owl is going to be a great game to watch.

I also think the Patriots are going to open a can of whoop-ass on the Rams but hey, that's just me.


It was a bit cold here this morning.



So because the game went into overtime last night, it didn't end until a bit after 10:00. That's past my bedtime and that means I'll be falling asleep on my couch soon.

While I do that, you can click on these:

Sunday, January 20, 2019

So much for the 8-12 inches.

We got, at most, 5 inches followed by some sleet and then a little freezing rain.

This didn't even come close to what they were predicting.


Caution: Snob Rant Approaching...

The town I live in, Wilbraham, has an ordinance that forbids overnight parking of a motor vehicle on any public road. To be clear, here is the specific by-law and section:
    SECTION 706 PARKING PROHIBITED (Reg., Art V, Sec. 1)(ATM, Art.24, 5-17-04):
      20)    On any street, highway or way for a period of time longer than one (1) hour between the hours of 1:00am and 7:00 am of any day.
Now for the record, that by-law is not really enforced unless a complaint is filed with the police.

I bring this up because there have been times when I was close to calling and asking the police to issue citations to my neighbors. Three of them each park one or two cars in the street all the time and it pisses me off.

If I wanted to live in a place where everyone parked on the street, I would have moved to a city where no one has driveways. Instead, I chose to live in a town that discourages parking on the street because we all have one or two car garages and six car driveways. There is no reason to park in the street.

My wife, however, told me to stop being a dick and just leave it alone.

I followed her advice but I gotta tell you, I would love to be a dick just once and slap them all with $15.00 parking tickets and a note that reads,
    "Put your damned car in your damned driveway and stop lowering my damned property values. And tell your kids to put their shit away instead of leaving it on the side of the road.

    Heads up Bubba, this ain't the Ozark's.

    Sincerely,
    Everybody that lives near you.
    "
This completes todays snob rant.

We now return you to our normal, everyday rant.


Found this on the interwebs today and thought it was funny:


I'm gonna watch the Patriots hopefully make the Chiefs look bad.

While I do that, you can do these:

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Guess who likes having the government shut down

Seems like Peloschummer is not going to do anything to open up the government until she gets her way.

This is like watching two spoiled children who should be playing a game of catch but instead are both calling each other names, taking their respective ball and going home.

I hate all politicians.


Look like we can expect more ice than snow tomorrow. They have lowered the snow totals but keep warning us about ice and power outages.

I have several full gasoline cans, a full tank in my snowblower and my generator is good to go.

As long as the cable doesn't go out, I should be all set. The game is on at 6:30 and I'm hoping any outages are cleared by then. If that isn't the case, I'll have to rely on my over-the-air antenna to pick up CBS during a snow/ice storm.

Something tells me I'm not going to fair well.


I'm going to eat some dinner and then fall asleep watching bad television.

While I do that, you can do these:

Friday, January 18, 2019

And the war continues...

Peloschummer bought a bunch of airline tickets so she could sneak out on her junket and the media found out about it. Her first words were, "The White House leaked it" without any evidence or idea.

Here's a thought Nancy: Why are you not sitting in the White House telling Trump you want to negotiate? Why are you planning on running away from this shut down debate?

You are the Speaker of the House. You wanted the job, you ran for the job and you accepted the job. NOW DO YOUR GODDAMNED JOB!

Man, I hate politicians.


The weather is going to suck this Sunday and they are predicting snow and ice. More importantly, they are predicting power outages.

This will suck if the power goes out during the AFC Championship. It will suck even more if the cable goes out during the AFC Championship.

I better make sure my gasoline cans are filled and my little TV antenna is working.


Here are some links that you might find interesting:

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Today was payday

I've decided I like payday.


The government shutdown has gone hot:

The other day, Peloschummer told Trump that he should postpone the State of the Union or plan on doing it from the White House.

Today, Trump told Pelosi she should postpone her trip abroad or plan on flying commercial.

That is what is known as Shots Fired!


While I eat dinner and then study up on how to hook up Tommy's new employee time clock, you can click on these links:

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

It's gonna snow!

The gigantic talking head on ABC news always says the same thing: "Millions in the path of deadly storm!" when it snows.

I've come to the conclusion that the gigantic talking head has never seen snow and he is terrified every time it a storm develops.

I have some advice for Mr. Gigantic Talking Head: It's snow, get over it. It happens all the time and we've all seen it before. Maybe you should just crawl back into bed and pull the covers over your head until the veil snow has gone away.


Yes, the government is still shut down.

The union for the Air Traffic Controllers issued a statement that said it has genuine concerns about the safety of air travel as there are some understaffed control centers and towers.

Get ready to see the airlines cut back on the number of flights they offer.


You can click on these if you want:

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Big push to help

I keep reading about all federal employees that aren't getting paid and there are certain ones that people are trying to help.

The Coast Guard is one that comes to mind. They are all on the job and not getting paid. People want to help those kids out. On the cape and along the Connecticut coast, a lot of "food banks" have sprung up near the bases that any Coastie or their spouse can go in and pick up some free food and essentials.

Another group that people are helping are the Air Traffic Controllers. Those people are all on the job but not getting paid. I belong to several online flying groups and we are all discussing what we can. A lot of pilots are flying in to an airport and delivering food and other essentials to the towers.

And while it's nice that people are trying to feed these people, they have mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc... to pay and none of our elected officials seem to give a shit.

I personally think that's a pretty crappy way for our elected officials to treat it's citizens.

The democrats are blaming Trump and the republicans are blaming PeloSchummer.

I'm blaming all of them. Every Single One Of Them has a hand in this shit and I'm not happy with any of them. They all suck.



The talking heads / weather dweebs are saying we might get some snow. Or maybe rain. Or possibly sleet. And we'll get it on Friday. Or maybe Saturday. Or possibly Sunday.

Get your milk, bread and batteries!

Or check these links:

Monday, January 14, 2019

I feel like I ate a lead ballon

I think maybe I shouldn't have eaten that half pound of cashews yesterday during the football game.

I love me some unsalted cashews and now I'm paying for it.


While I figure out if I want some white toast for dinner or just some water, you can visit these links:

Sunday, January 13, 2019

And the New England Patriots will be.....

.....heading to Missouri to take on the Kansas City Chiefs next Sunday at 6:30.

The Patriots opened a can of whoopass on the Chargers in the first half, going into half time 35-7.

Brady was throwing the football better than I've seen him do all year. He made his passes quickly and on-target. The offensive line worked to give him as much time as possible and he was finding his targets and hitting them square. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure Brady wasn't hit once during the first half.

As for the defense, they made Rivers look like a tackling dummy. He got sacked once and had several hurry-up moments that caused him to just plain look bad.

The second half wasn't quite as impressive but it was still some pretty damned good football and the game ended with the Patriots winning 41-28.

So now all they have to do to advance to the SuperB owl is beat the number one team in the AFC, the Chiefs.

It's gonna be a hell of a game.


You can visit these links if you want:

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Time for some stats

When I first started using the internet, back in 1990something, I connected to my ISP with a dial-up modem and I was happy if I managed to get 14kbps. Because the town I live in had really crappy phone lines back then, most of the time I only got 10 or 12kbps. Even after buying a new ultra-fast 56kbps modem, I still only managed 28 or 30kbps

Pat and I would play Quake or Doom with each other and comment on how bad the lag was. Back then, the word "lag" was tossed around by us digit-heads like it had real meaning. It didn't have any meaning but we used it anyway. It made us look cool.

Loading those new-fangled "webpages" would happen at a reasonable speed as long is it was just text. The minute some "webmaster" added an image, the load time dropped to 30 or 40 seconds as I sat and watched the picture paint itself line-by-line on my screen.

Man, those days sucked.

I ran a speed test this morning:
The screen shot above was taken on my laptop which is connected via WiFi to a router in my basement.

To paraphrase the old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial: We've come a long way baby.

Who knows what we'll be looking at for down/up speeds in 10 years. Maybe it'll be measured in gbps and I'll be complaining about how bad it was when I was "only" getting 100mbps speeds.


I also took a snapshot of the weekly activity on this blog and found that Firefox seems to be winning the browser wars.
Looking at the total numbers during the past week I see it was a little under 400 which sounds like a lot until you realize it's the total number of page views, not the number of unique visitors.

For instance, when Pat visits the blog to find out what dumb things I've done lately, he opens the main page. Then, for shits and giggles, he might click on one of the links to a posting for a single day. Then he might click on a link for an entire month of postings. That counts as three pageviews for one visitor.

I don't, for one minute, think there have been 400 individuals visiting my blog in a week. I personally think there are less than 100 visitors clicking on 4 or 5 different pages. Maybe there are only 5 visitors who click on 100 pages.

Who knows.


So anyways, both my wife and myself are feeling better today. We've decided that maybe the pizza we ate the other day didn't really agree with us.

I'm thinking the combination of the over-cooked sausage, the under-cooked onions and the raw peppers may have contributed to the overall "not feeling all that great" thing we had going on yesterday.


You can enjoy these links if you want:

Friday, January 11, 2019

Once again...

...I'm tired.

And my wife does not feel well.

I'm wondering if maybe we might have a cold or something.


Here are some links:

Thursday, January 10, 2019

I'm tired.

So what else is new.


I went to the dentist this morning and man, I hate going to the dentist in the winter. My bottom lip split open and started bleeding a few weeks ago because of the dry air. I did everything I could to get it to heal and I was successful last week.

After todays trip into the world of dental care, it split back open.

I go through this every year. My lip splits in the same place every winter. You would think that the scar tissue would build up and make my lip look the bottom of my foot.

I've never made it a secret that I hate humidity but right now, I could use a little humid air.


The government says it is still shut down but that's a lie. The government is still fumbling around and spending my tax dollars without a care in the world. The only thing that is shut down is the bureaucracy that was created by the government.

The Government is just fine, it's the poor bastards that work for a living that are shut down. The ones I feel really bad for are the Coasties.

The Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force are all still being paid because they all fall under the DoD. The Coast Guard, however, falls under Homeland Security and they are not getting paid.

Most of them are paid crap and are at the poverty line to begin with so I would assume their savings are pretty thin. Not sure how some 24 year old kid with a wife and one or two children is going to survive without being paid.


Here are todays links:

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

And they're back at school

We delivered our daughter and her little dog to Bradley airport this morning where they boarded a plane and made their way back to Iowa.

The Dog is a bit mopey and is following closely behind my wife everywhere she goes. He goes through this every time they leave. But I don't think my wife minds having him following her because she's not really happy that her daughter has gone.

She likes having her daughter home.

After that I went to work where I spent four hours being a productive guy.

As for my daughter, she managed to leave here without her keys. That would be the key to her apartment, the key to her car, the key to her mailbox, etc...

Fortunately for her, she has a spare key to her car out there and she has a friend who has a spare key to her apartment. That means she was able to get into her apartment and she can drive her car. My wife took her keys over to the post office and sent them to her.

It's always something...


As promised, I did not watch any of the "my politics are better than your politics" show that was on last night. I have no desire to be lied to.


Here are a few links:

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Another quiet day.

No, I won't be watching either Trump or Pelosi and her lap dog, Schummer, give their speeches this evening. Every time one of them opens their mouth, I feel like I am being lied to because, well, they're lying. I personally have no desire to be lied to via my television.

Maybe if we decided to ignore all of them, they'll either go away or get their shit together.


Here are some links:

Monday, January 7, 2019

Had to break out the winter coat today

It was 14ยบ when I was getting ready to leave my house this morning and I felt that merited a heavier coat. I'm not as immune to the cold as I used to be.

I'm old.


Not much going on today so how about we just get to the links:

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Looks like the Patriots will be playing...

...the Los Angeles "We used to live in San Diego but it didn't have enough smog for us" Chargers.

The Baltimore "Years ago we were called the Colts and we were good" Ravens made a run at it in the fourth quarter but ended up one touchdown short. The Chargers beat them 23-17.

That means that next Sunday at 1:00, the Chargers will show up in Foxboro and take on the Patriots in the divisional playoffs. Hopefully the Patriots continue their dominance of the Chargers and move on to the conference playoffs on January 20th.


My wife uses crescent roll dough to make a chicken and broccoli thing where the dough is wrapped around the chicken mixture and then baked. We got to talking about it and decided that maybe we could make some calzones using the dough.

So that's what we did.

Layout the dough and spread some pizza sauce on it. Then layer some cheeses, pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers and fold it up into a calzone-kinda shape. Bake it until golden brown and, voila, you have...

...the worlds worst calzone.

Trust me, don't do it.

It bakes up okay but the flavor of the crescent roll dough is about as far away from pizza dough as you can get.


You can enjoy these links if you want:

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Rainy day

My wife, saint that she is, decided to take down all the outdoor Christmas decorations on Friday. If she hadn't done that, I would have to take them down on Sunday and spread them out in the basement to thaw & dry.

I don't have to do that now.


Elizabeth Warren, the woman who we just re-elected as our US Senator, is busy campaigning to be President instead of doing whatever it is our US Senator should be doing.

Personally, I think having her NOT doing things is a good thing because her and I do not agree on what needs to be done. But still, she ran for office4 and then immediately decided to not do her job.

That kinda pisses me off.


Here are a few links to satisfy your link cravings:

Friday, January 4, 2019

Well, maybe I can retire

The DJIA closed up 750 points today. That should bring it back up to where it was yesterday.

Yay!


I have no links for you today.

Deal with it...

Thursday, January 3, 2019

I am never going to be able to retire

The market dropped 660 points today.

That's a lot of points.


Crazy Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House again.

I bet that brings great joy to Donald Trump.


The Small Emergency Backup Dog continues to improve but is still a bit whiney. Hopefully she continues to show improvement because in 5 days, my daughter is getting on a plane to fly back to Iowa and she would really like to take her dog with her.

Her contingency plan is to drop some doggy downers into her and let her sleep the entire way to Iowa.


See if there's anything here you find interesting:

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Back at work

The college is still on break so there aren't a lot of us on campus. It's pretty quiet and because of that, we're getting some things done. It's kinda nice.

Don't get me wrong, the ten days I just had off went by damned fast and I'm not jumping for joy to be back at work but it's still nothing to complain about.


The thing I do have to complain about is that whole, "Stay awake until midnight to bring in the new year" thing. I'm paying for staying up that late. I'm tired and I'm cranky.


The Small Emergency Backup Dog is still whining but we've decided that's because she's a whiner.


I found these links for you:

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

We made another successful revolution around our star!



I'll be back later on with some words and links.


I'm back!

I spent the entire day watching the Twilight Zone marathon and eating snacks!

And now I'm going to eat some more snacks and then fall asleep early. I have to go to work tomorrow morning and that whole staying up till midnight thing is for the young.

Us old guys need our sleep.


I did find time to look for some links.

Here they are: