We had wildfire yesterday afternoon about 2.5 airlines in the National Forest. It's still March. A bad omen.
Started by a lead bullet ricochet against our stoney rocky soil or a rock. Maybe a metal target (dumb idea here). Ammo sparking has caused numerous wildfires. But I don't recall one this early.
The Forest Service, along with a multi agency Wildfire coordinating group (Federal and state) run sophisticated calculations on dryness, fuel load, indicies" to help create an "objective" decision to close target shooting (never hunting) in the Forest.
Alaska. The NRA, with some nicer shooting groups (Ducks Unlimited) and another 5 or 6 shooting organizations, called the Shooting Roundtable, have a preemptive MOU with USFS, USDA, BLM, Interior to pre approve such a closure.
Pretty anti-conservative eh? Taking local control re public safety away from the local agencies and letting these "non-profits" determine our local fate and safety.
Hopefully, this early wildfire will provide.some evidence of the wildfire risk.
They close target shooting, but also all camp fires. Of course to the semi read, fireworks and the explosive mixture of tangerine are illegal.
Good morning. At my mom's, finishing up enough sorting to talk to the estate sale guy later this week. I keep misplacing my coffee cup.
The crazy stuff that turns up: a magnetic turtle puzzle from when I was a child. I started putting it together to see if all the pieces were there, only to be hit with a cloud of old familiar frustration: there is no picture of the turtle, the colors are only borderline logical (the tail is white?!) and the shapes of the pieces are only subtly different. I have no memory of ever putting it together.
Placido Domingo, everyone. Vlad won Wingspan last night. Then he went home with Thor. They plan to go to thrift stores today, because Vlad wants new-to-him clothes.
Today is Drama Queen's birthday. There is a plan that young adults will go out for Karaoke tonight. I will go up to their house to stay with the baby until whenever - a procedure that involves napping on the couch, I think - and then bring Fang and Vlad home at a post-midnight hour.
Illinois, who knew. I went there only in Texas. Ice cream and onion rings and a Diet Coke, the best thing to keep you going driving across that endless state.
I started to share a story about Christy today, but I didn't, the timing seems off (it's an awkward story). I've promised a story on Pam buying a house, but I am gonna post that probably Tuesday as it would be her birthday, a milestone birthday; 21,915 days (but who is counting?). Ironically, I only knew her 3,037 days.
Not necessarily: it may feel the right time, but it may not be. We really only know afterwards.
Last summer I shared a story with Christy's parents I thought I'd never share (it's not a bad story); her mom didn't reply, so I don't know if it upset her, or if responding was too awkward for her. As a result I'm debating now whether for her mom's birthday to share a painful letter Christy wrote me (every year on her Mom's birthday I send a card, plus a letter Christy wrote: I have about 20; 15 are cheerful, upbeat, playful; 4 are insightful (discussing the illness), and 1 is very painful. At first glance avoiding the painful letter seems easy; yet it in many ways reveals Christy at her best, worried about me (mistakenly so). Long story short was I avoided a drama queen, who told Christy lies about me, including one where I was suicidal; that prompted the letter. I seemed withdrawn because I was avoiding the drama queen, not because I was depressed! Christy and I addressed it, and it really deepened our relationship.
Thanks, Marque...it is ok, it is not life-threatening, just a bunch of household mini-disasters, a crazy cat, and some stomach issues...seems better today
On yesterday's G-File he posted a lecture/orders that The Dispatch is supposed to comply with, i.e. to stop being deranged and to "confess error." A few replies but no likes, as usual.
A couple of hours ago he posted again, a one-sentence comment:
"There is as much diversity of thought emotion in these Comments as there is on The View." The word "thought" has a strikethrough.
I'm waiting for news of some fed up Fed worker finally going ballistic and sending out not "5 bullets' worth" of what they did last week but rather 5 plain ol' bullets instead. 21st century version of the 20th's "going postal".
It's not available to play from the Dispatch website. I can tell there is one by poking around on the Dispatch site, but I don't do appleapps and that stuff. So apparently I don't actually count as a paying subscriber, because I should just get with it and it's my own fault if I don't. Sigh.
And because I can't get into it, then I can't leave a comment saying "I can't access this podcast."
Further update: I finished listening to the podcast. It was a good one. Then I posted a comment about an obnoxious commercial. Jonah himself replied to me with an explanation of where the commercials come from, and that went some way to making me feel better, just because I now know he's aware of the downside and where I draw the line.
Also, separately I posted that I'm fine with his use of the word "fudge," so presumably he saw that too.
I use my 30-second skip on YouTube music to avoid ads. Don't always catch them if my hands aren't free, but I avoid most of them.
It was nice of Jonah to respond. I've been emailing my comments to him once a week or so, mostly on the order of, "That was a good article," or "I liked the podcast," but sometimes with additional discussion. He has emailed me back with, "Thanks," or "I'm glad you liked it," more than once.
That's interesting that you have a back channel of sorts. I avoid e-mailing Jonah, because I don't want to seem like one of those annoying idiots who e-mail him all the time. (I stick to comments that I don't figure he'll read, but then sometimes he does read them.) But clearly you are not one of the annoying idiots, since he gives you positive responses, and you were already known to Dispatch management for your special contribution to maintaining a healthy commenting ecosystem.
Apparently not every active commenter is part of the weird blob to him. While I have had sporadic interactions (all positive) with him over the years, I don't know how much of an identity I have, and I don't aspire to stand out from the crowd, only to be able to get a legit concern addressed once in a while without being seen as a troublemaker. It's amazing he can keep any of it straight in his head. And for that reason I will not push too hard. If any piece of what I express to him gets passed along to the underlings, that's good enough. I wouldn't want to wear as many hats as he does, that's for sure.
I've come to his attention sufficiently to be mentioned on the podcast as that lady who cleans her stove. I think he likes me, since I've mentioned that I've been reading his stuff since we were both in our 20s, and when I disagree I do it in the best conservative way, "I don't agree with 'this' because 'facts and logic.' "
I think I did hear that mention of the lady who cleans her stove, and thought "hmmm." Yes, it makes sense that he likes you. You have earned it.
Here's a piece of really ancient history. When National Review Online first enabled comments, they had a delay in the posting for most people, so that a moderator could review everything before it went up. (This was a long time ago.) But somebody from NRO could give you a gold star, which meant you were a trusted commenter and your comments would post automatically. One day, I made a comment that apparently struck Jonah as an indicator of trustworthiness, because he gave me my star that day. That commenting system didn't last long, and eventually I departed the NRO comments altogether, but getting the star made me feel part of something that just might be worthwhile--and that it would be important to behave accordingly.
Speaking of commercials / advertising... the talk here the other day of ongoing sniping between Dispatchers and Bulwarkers (I've been with the B almost since the jump, and subscribed to TD for several years after their launch after reading a recommendation to do so by a Bulwark writer, for Cripe's sake)... it brought to mind the following. But first let me say that while I know a little bit about the apparent ongoing bad blood being promulgated there, I think it's all a bunch of ego crap and I pay no heed to it from either side, since I know it's a complete waste of my time to do so. Which doesn't say much about how valuable the parties involved think their own time is. But I digress.
Anyway, for some time now I've subscribed to another Substack (at the recommendation of... wait for it... The Bulwark) called The Reload, which is a good, clear source for keeping up with the politics of firearms legislation and litigation and other gun related news if that's of interest to someone, which it is to me, since Stephen Gutowski - the publisher - is both a firearms enthusiast and also an excellent non-partisan reporter of such things and an excellent aggregator of news sources from all over the mediascape, both mainstream and otherwise.
And recently I noticed his newsletter was posting advertising - clearly labeled and identifiable as such with no click-baity ads anywhere to be seen, which is another reason I like this guy - from The Dispatch. And you *all* will be pleased to know that as current members - and maybe some as former members who have presumably only temporarily taken leave of their senses and left - that, per the ad copy:
"The Dispatch is For the Silent Majority of Self-Directed Thinkers"
Wow. Y'all sound like kind of a high falutin' bunch, which I would not have guessed from some of the stuff written in this space. Nor do I find much silence involved. But I digress again. As usual.
That clear Declaration of Independence of Dispatch Thinkers is written below a graphic that says:
Above the Fray
Right of Center
Get the news without the drama when you join The Dispatch.
Other ad text includes:
No insulting clickbait, no false outrage...
Well, I was going to say something about truth in advertising, but I guess that last must not necessarily be meant to apply to the comment section, at least from what I read about it here on occasion. (I was a freeloading subscriber and didn't often peruse comments there since if someone had pissed me off, I'd be unable to scream back at them in a white-hot rage as is my wont when engaging the Silent Majority of Self-Directed...
Ahh. Even more digression. Well, at least I admit it.
Anyway, long way around the barn to say I have to say the whole "news without the drama" thing makes me laugh good and hard when I read of the uppity ups and DQs "above the fray" at TD and the B slugging it out on Twixter or wherever it is that they've declared their latest battlefield and staked out some mole hill or another to shed blood over.
I'd just liken to grab 'em all, give 'em a smack and say "Grow the F up. We all got bigger fish to try to fry these days."
Are you involved in shooting? One of my Missouri relatives - Dad's cousin's husband - was very involved with reloading, black powder shooting, and other technical stuff.
John Wilken. We called him "Mr. Jay". He and Dad's cousin Barbara got married in December of 2001, right when my son Sheldon was born. It was Barb's first marriage, and she was in her mid-50s. Mr. Jay had been married before. He had worked for the phone company and been a union rep. Very nice man.
I was never a "gun nut", but yes, firearms used to be a significant part of my life due to my interest in hunting and sport shooting, which was developed in my youth growing up in Ky.
My very first gun of my own was a Remington 870 Wingmaster 16 Gauge pump shotgun, bought brand spanking new for a whopping $85 from a gun shop in my hometown for the purposes of dove and rabbit hunting, and sold to me by the owner at a discount off the $125 retail price that reflected the deposit another buyer had put on it and then failed for a year to come and complete the transaction despite numerous calls from the shop owner to do so, his loss becoming my very happy gain.
It wasn't long before I had a small Lee Handloader kit to reload shells for it myself, which was kind of nice, since I got it just about the time 16s were starting to fall from favor with hunters and sport shooters because of the proliferation of 20 Gauge interlopers, and the factory ammo selections in 16 were thinning out as to shot size and just general availability.
Still have that gun more than 55 years later along with some extra barrels purchased after I moved up here to Michigan, where some kinds of hunting required a different choke than the "modified" one in the original barrel, and custom "screw-in" switchable chokes at that time cost more to have installed in a barrel than the cost of two or three new regular plain barrels all together.
I've had many firearms - rifles both modern and black powder (one of the latter of which I built myself), shotguns and handguns - come and go over the years, scratching an itch here and then again there, but always have hung onto that old 16, which today, being in the excellent shape in which I've maintained it all these years, would be worth north of $1000 if I wanted to sell it. Which I don't, even though my days afield hunting are likely over due to a couple of reasons.
So, yeah, I've been involved in shooting but don't really fit the mold of a "shooter" in today's current gun milieu, since although I have a safe full of rifles, shotguns and handguns, there's not an AR or AK or semi-automatic anything save a .45 ACP and small .380 pistol for self-defense / concealed carry in the whole lot.
I used to regularly make the rounds of gun shops in the area looking at what might be on the used racks (I love "classic" guns of yesteryear) and new models of this and that on the shelves with their "technical" improvements. But I gave that up years ago when the environment therein changed from hunting and sport shooting-centric to "self-defense"-centric and the casual inter-customer talk went from hunting and sport shooting stories and discussions of down-range performance of various calibers and bullets on game to up close and personal performance of various calibers and bullets on human beings.
That's interesting about the ad from The Dispatch. Sounds like they gave some thought to how to position it, and they're not wrong.
I manage to avoid most of the drama and conflict and bad-blood stuff you are alluding to. But I guess it's helpful to know that it's a factor.
As far as drama and conflict in Dispatch comments, I don't think it's out of control. There are people who post nonsense, but they don't prevail. I get annoyed when people who you would think are on the same page start taking little potshots at each other for no reason. But those two things don't happen all the time, and it usually doesn't derail or overwhelm productive discussion. Maybe I'm a glass-more-than-half-full person. Especially when I think of the kinds of troll problems I have seen in other comment environments.
Yeah. Bulwark commenters in the newsletters where I hang out have a fair number of disagreements but seem to keep it pretty civil most of the time. Perhaps because whoever it is that monitors the comment sections has proven pretty reliable as far as riding herd on comment ruffians and deleting comments - and commenters when necessary - who cross the lines of heated 'debate' or spirited disagreement and start in with the ad hominem attacks. Even other commenters have been known to call out purely rude, self-serving trollist behavior in a manner befitting serious people of basic good will with only a few exceptions that I've seen.
When I think of some of the kinds of behavior problems I myself have seen in other comment environments, I think perhaps the commenters are suffering from several glasses overly full of their favorite - as my old man used to call it when I'd ask what he was drinking when I was a little whippersnapper - kick-a-poo joy-juice.
Good theory as far as a lot of them go, I believe. Now all we need are a few practitioners of applied science to prove it. Or lacking those, applied common sense will likely work. 🤔🙄
Update: It just appeared. Took about 2 hours from my e-mailed complaint. I haven't received a reply yet. But at least I can start listening.
What's interesting is that there were zero comments, until I posted "testing, testing," which I then changed to a note of what time it became available.
Some podcast apps have a "review" function, but commenting directly on The Dispatch podcasts can only be done on the website when the website is working as it should be.
That explains why there were zero comments even though people had been able to listen on the apps. It also means that the Dispatch people perhaps will learn that it is not a good idea to omit posting the podcast on the website, even if they are sure only stick-in-the-muds listen that way.
This time I e-mailed The Dispatch. I usually can't remember the e-mail address or even remember where to look for it, but today I remembered how it starts so I could get my e-mail to complete it. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
Someone should be assigned to check these things. Possibly they just needed to be reminded that some people listen via the website because they can't listen any other way, even if that concept seems weird and ancient to The Dispatch. I am proud to be weird and ancient--and my money is normal and current.
I've never been online for much of anything other than reading news. I've been poking my nose into a few of the online comments sections the last couple months, and I think I know why everything is in a kind of fever pitch nowadays.
Everyone used to be crazy all by themselves, and had to yell at the TV in isolation.
We have about a 100 Saguaro cacti across our property. Maybe half are mature, a fourth teenagers and another forthcoming in small nursing shade and growing.
The white blossoms are grand.
The nice article on the Mexican long tongued bat is good. But I took away from the video, a sense that only bats pollinate the white flowers and only at night. The blossoms stay open during the day as well. Bees and birds can be seen all over the blossoms. Hummers, Woodpeckers.
Thank you for the additional information. My articles are introductory, not comprehensive!
We were looking up a native plant - "camas," a member of the lily-and-onion family - and D clicked on "Pollinator of the month" at the Forest Service website.
I like bats too. It took a while. Several would get into the house. Initially, it was a freak out. Then, after a few, I'd put on a heavy glove, wait for them to light someplace, grab them and throw them out. Up close, they're both frightening and cuddly. Bizarre combo.
I'm not a paid subscriber to The Free Press, so I was intrigued when I got a free article featuring my town of Evanston, IL. The episode described really is every bit as stupid and awful as the article reports. I almost became a paying customer so I could write in the comments. Almost.
This whole online comments section thing with everybody talking at everyone else at the same time is weird and scary.
The FP article is a sad sad story. I have a son in Chicago, recently married. He moved there after UMich for a job. In one of life's surprises, the job is so good he may be stuck in Chicago for a while - something he never expected. He's starting to consider where to move in Chicago once they have kids, and what schools might work. His wife is Jewish, and the kids will be too, complicating things even more. He will do fine, but it makes me sad his family will have to deal with all the politics and racial backdrop. Things were much simpler growing up in TX. I'm aware some would argue because our time in TX was all white privilege. I think it was more just normal families playing baseball, having cookouts on the weekends, and trying to raise kids.
White Privilege is simply taking for granted things we enjoy that others do not. We don't consider it a privilege because it is normalized for us. But I don't see an issue with "normal". I think normal is normally normal for a good reason.
I have a friend who bought a house in a gentrified neighborhood in Indy. Someone busted out a car window, and he was angry about it. He grew up in the suburbs, where the only time that ever happened was when someone hit a foul ball at the little league game. He has hopes of changing the culture of the surrounding area. He'll be disappointed.
To elaborate, I think it's time for the word "privilege" to get a lot less use. For me, at least, it carries a negative charge.
For example, a recent survey for parish volunteers at my church included the question, "Does your group need kitchen privileges?" I think that, since the only reason for the church to have a kitchen is for the use of the various ministry groups staffed by volunteers, that using a kitchen, if it exists, is a right.
When I translated the survey for the Spanish-speaking groups, I changed the wording to, "Does your group need to use a kitchen?"
Sadly, progressives view privilege as a negative, except on campus, where faculty demand privileges. 🙄 I don't use it as negative, so I am an oddball on campus (in more ways than one). I prefer to think of privilege as a gift, and to be thankful for it, without feeling superior about having it. In that sense I don't think it's a negative, but I am in the minority on that usage.
Tears ago when I was a camp director, I attended a meeting where they told us roughly half the kids at the camp came from homes without two parents. An above average father was married to the children's mom, had a responsible job (not necessarily high paying, just steady), didn't abuse others nor drugs. So that made me above average. That just seems a low bar for being "above average".
One benefit of being widowed was that I was a single parent for three years. I appreciate better the struggles other single parents have, as a result. I was given Katie as a gift, my oldest benefitted greatly from it. My younger two, that's their mom as well; they view the oldest as their brother, not half-brother or any of that.
"White Privilege is simply taking for granted things we enjoy that others do not."
I would say that works better without "white" in it. Everyone in my neighborhood, regardless of "race" or nationality, is living in this neighborhood, and whether they "enjoy" it depends on them and their character: it's not about any external factor.
I can think of a few 'burbs that are reasonably normal. In the city, it's gotten stupid. Commutes are something big to think about. A lot depends on where his office is.
I think the real problem with people not wanting to come back to the office is that by the time the pandemic hit, white-collar workers were being squeezed into ever-shrinking office space like sardines. Cubicles, which had been a downgrade from an office with a door, became a luxury for the privileged. Workers now have desks barely wider than they can extend their elbows and are expected to like it. Trying to work with a constant racket interfering with concentration is not good for quality and productivity. "Collaboration" is called for sometimes, but it isn't everything. Spreadsheets produced at home tend to be better, even with the possible distractions, because one can usually find a door that closes. So now if the businesses want people to come back, they might have to spend some money on real estate.
Willis doesn't own the building. They asked for the naming in a lease negotiation and didn't even expect it to be agreed to.
To me, this is an example of ignoring a marketing truth: When it comes down to it, names of public places belong to the public as much or more than anyone else. You can't make private individuals use a name, because they were not a party to the naming contract. So if the name doesn't make sense to them, you won't have them on board.
Unless he want to be dropping $50k+ a year on private schools and engage in all that weird politicking that starts before preschool to get a place in line for the private schools in his neighborhood, he's going to be looking north, NW, or far west burbs to get into a suburban environment that's reasonably normal. The trains do run on time, but the Metra has gotten kind of pathetic too.
If he's a very early riser, from the North, the commute in by car down Lakeshore drive is just fine if you can be on the north end of the drive before 7am. The car commute from the West is heinous; I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The train from Hinsdale is actually pretty quick and easy to get to Willis. Glen Ellyn is next to Hinsdale, same story. I had a lot of clients going in from those 2 burbs.
There are actually a lot of nice suburbs; it's all about the commute and what he can handle. There's a lot of research necessary for figuring out where to reside. I could write a small book on the topic. I spent my career working in every corner of the metro area, I know it pretty well.
What a terrible story. It seems there are so few reasonable adults these days. (Maybe it was always like that, and we didn't realize it ...).
"During one [anti-racist "processing"] session, the teacher said she asked her sixth-grade class if they knew what nooses symbolize. “Only two of the students had any knowledge of the fact that nooses had any kind of racialized meaning,” she said. “Every single other student thought that a noose symbolized and represented suicide.”
** “He’s never going to trust adults in education. And I don’t blame him one bit,” said Melissa. “He cannot go into a public school building and have any trust in any adult. It ruined his educational career.” **
The more one knows about the unionized and bureaucratized educationalist industry, the more reasonable this seems. Maybe the parents can help guide their son into training for a skilled trade, so that he can have an adult career even if "educational career" didn't work out.
One of my tenants was a history teacher at the school. One would have a hard time finding anyone more progressive than her, and yet even she was so horrified by the whole episode and the systems actions, she quit and found another job out in the Western burbs.
It was a very fair picture of the stupidity of the public school system in Evanston.
You can probably intuit most of the story. It was like a compendium of all the worst elements of the racist/anti-racist tropes that ricochet around nowadays.
"Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker of Fort Smith, Arkansas:
** Judge Isaac C. Parker, known as the "Hanging Judge," was a federal judge in Fort Smith, Arkansas, who presided over the Western District of Arkansas, including the Indian Territory, and was notorious for the many death sentences he handed down, with 79 executions carried out during his tenure. **
And before that, Judge Jeffreys in the reign of James II of England:
When you're a hammer (not you personally, Kurt), everything looks like a nail. And if you're a myopic, *true believer* of a hammer, as so many are, you easily become as bigoted, closed-minded or otherwise morally flawed as the *real* nails out there that need driving. And that goes equally for any hammers on any issue on either side of the political divide. All their errant blows do no good at all for whatever cause for which they're being struck.
The only hammers I have any use for are in my toolbox. And even with those I try to be pretty judicious in how I swing them and at what.
Through inheritances, I now have 13 hammers. Finish hammers, ball peen, claw hammers, mallets of multiple sizes, and even some sledgehammers.
I have to be judicious just to remember where I put them! 🤦♂️Okay, technically, they're all "in the garage" but my wife likes to point out how that doesn't narrow it down much at all.
I have a bit of a collection myself, from tack-to-sledge size. With the exception of the one general purpose claw hammer I keep in the house, the rest are "in the barn", and so ditto on the "narrow it down" part, since a number of them were in my toolboxes I used in my trade but have become, shall we say, dispersed since I had to quit working a year and a half ago and brought home the tools I couldn't readily sell to people in the shop where I'd been employed part-time for the previous couple of years.
Wasn't hard to get rid of my precision machinist's tools; between the shop employees and the shop owner those along with the toolboxes went pretty quick. But anybody that's not just starting out as a toolmaker or machinist usually already has lots of "hand tools", so those all came home with me.
Hope to re-home a lot of them through a barn sale eventually.
Good morning, everyone. We went to a concert last night, first time we'd been to the Spectrum Center where the NBA plays. We were in the nosebleed seats, but directly across from the stage, which was nice.
We saw Molly Tuttle, a rising bluegrass musician; followed by David Lee Murphy, who had some big hits in the 1990s but kind of faded, although he continued writing songs that were big hits for others; and finally, Brooks & Dunn, also from the '90s.
All the shows were excellent, and observing the phenomenon of country music fandom at a big event was also really interesting.
My husband bought the tickets because Molly Tuttle was performing, and he was disappointed that her segment was so short. I pointed out that the downside of touring with Brooks & Dunn is that you don't get as much stage time as you would in a solo show. The upside is that you get an audience of thousands instead of dozens.
I saw a concert on TV a few weeks ago; it was Ringo Starr with a bunch of other people, performing at the Ryman Auditorium. The concept was to sort of pay tribute to the fact that he was into country music and got some covers of his favorites onto Beatles albums back in the day--which was something I didn't quite understand at the time, but now I get it. If you were in Liverpool or Hamburg, you would be exposed to music from America and other places, because sailors brought their vinyl records and stuff to those port cities.
Anyway, I noticed he used this concert to showcase some younger performers I had never seen or heard of, and they were good. I don't remember their names, though. But I like that he is using his fame in this way.
We had wildfire yesterday afternoon about 2.5 airlines in the National Forest. It's still March. A bad omen.
Started by a lead bullet ricochet against our stoney rocky soil or a rock. Maybe a metal target (dumb idea here). Ammo sparking has caused numerous wildfires. But I don't recall one this early.
The Forest Service, along with a multi agency Wildfire coordinating group (Federal and state) run sophisticated calculations on dryness, fuel load, indicies" to help create an "objective" decision to close target shooting (never hunting) in the Forest.
Alaska. The NRA, with some nicer shooting groups (Ducks Unlimited) and another 5 or 6 shooting organizations, called the Shooting Roundtable, have a preemptive MOU with USFS, USDA, BLM, Interior to pre approve such a closure.
Pretty anti-conservative eh? Taking local control re public safety away from the local agencies and letting these "non-profits" determine our local fate and safety.
Hopefully, this early wildfire will provide.some evidence of the wildfire risk.
They close target shooting, but also all camp fires. Of course to the semi read, fireworks and the explosive mixture of tangerine are illegal.
Wow. Fire from bullet sparking rock never occurred to me.
We are still under a statewide burn ban. I passed four small wildfires within a roughly 10 mile radious in a coastal county last week.
Re the decision making process: I don't think conservative means what it used to. :-/
Human caused here - 80 to 90%
Of Human caused - target shooting at least half
Good morning. At my mom's, finishing up enough sorting to talk to the estate sale guy later this week. I keep misplacing my coffee cup.
The crazy stuff that turns up: a magnetic turtle puzzle from when I was a child. I started putting it together to see if all the pieces were there, only to be hit with a cloud of old familiar frustration: there is no picture of the turtle, the colors are only borderline logical (the tail is white?!) and the shapes of the pieces are only subtly different. I have no memory of ever putting it together.
It is "A child guidance toy".
I did succeed, only one piece was missing.
That reminded me of some things we bought for our children that didn't work out as advertised.
Good morning on Sunday. in th 60s and rainy here.
Placido Domingo, everyone. Vlad won Wingspan last night. Then he went home with Thor. They plan to go to thrift stores today, because Vlad wants new-to-him clothes.
Today is Drama Queen's birthday. There is a plan that young adults will go out for Karaoke tonight. I will go up to their house to stay with the baby until whenever - a procedure that involves napping on the couch, I think - and then bring Fang and Vlad home at a post-midnight hour.
We'll see how it goes.
Morning! Sounds like heavy-duty mom duties. Best wishes for DQ’s birthday.
Um... You're a little early, aren't you?
https://www.tastingtable.com/1801503/first-ever-dairy-queen/
Illinois, who knew. I went there only in Texas. Ice cream and onion rings and a Diet Coke, the best thing to keep you going driving across that endless state.
She's 25.
I started to share a story about Christy today, but I didn't, the timing seems off (it's an awkward story). I've promised a story on Pam buying a house, but I am gonna post that probably Tuesday as it would be her birthday, a milestone birthday; 21,915 days (but who is counting?). Ironically, I only knew her 3,037 days.
Tautologically, Jay, what you share and when you share it will be the right thing at the right time.
Not necessarily: it may feel the right time, but it may not be. We really only know afterwards.
Last summer I shared a story with Christy's parents I thought I'd never share (it's not a bad story); her mom didn't reply, so I don't know if it upset her, or if responding was too awkward for her. As a result I'm debating now whether for her mom's birthday to share a painful letter Christy wrote me (every year on her Mom's birthday I send a card, plus a letter Christy wrote: I have about 20; 15 are cheerful, upbeat, playful; 4 are insightful (discussing the illness), and 1 is very painful. At first glance avoiding the painful letter seems easy; yet it in many ways reveals Christy at her best, worried about me (mistakenly so). Long story short was I avoided a drama queen, who told Christy lies about me, including one where I was suicidal; that prompted the letter. I seemed withdrawn because I was avoiding the drama queen, not because I was depressed! Christy and I addressed it, and it really deepened our relationship.
I see your point.
That kinda choked me up.
Cool bats and videos
We have bats, and have seen them at night once in a while...but have no idea what kind they are, probably some kind of common bat, not too exotic
I am having a really crappy day and have nothing inspiring or useful to say
So, everyone have an awesome Sat
I hope your day worked better than expected.
Thanks, Lucy, unfortunately, it got worse...
Sorry to hear that. Maybe today will be better.
Thanks, Marque...it is ok, it is not life-threatening, just a bunch of household mini-disasters, a crazy cat, and some stomach issues...seems better today
Troll pschneider is getting frustrated.
On yesterday's G-File he posted a lecture/orders that The Dispatch is supposed to comply with, i.e. to stop being deranged and to "confess error." A few replies but no likes, as usual.
A couple of hours ago he posted again, a one-sentence comment:
"There is as much diversity of thought emotion in these Comments as there is on The View." The word "thought" has a strikethrough.
Maybe his funding is being cut?
Maybe he's supposed to demonstrate to his employers that he's persuading people or revamping website content.
"What did you do last week?"
No, what FIVE things did you do last week.... :-)
I'm waiting for news of some fed up Fed worker finally going ballistic and sending out not "5 bullets' worth" of what they did last week but rather 5 plain ol' bullets instead. 21st century version of the 20th's "going postal".
That was the original version. But there has been some leeway in how it is phrased in jokes and satire. I think that is OK.
Can't listen to the Ruminant podcast today.
It's not available to play from the Dispatch website. I can tell there is one by poking around on the Dispatch site, but I don't do appleapps and that stuff. So apparently I don't actually count as a paying subscriber, because I should just get with it and it's my own fault if I don't. Sigh.
And because I can't get into it, then I can't leave a comment saying "I can't access this podcast."
No, it's not there on the page where it should be.
Further update: I finished listening to the podcast. It was a good one. Then I posted a comment about an obnoxious commercial. Jonah himself replied to me with an explanation of where the commercials come from, and that went some way to making me feel better, just because I now know he's aware of the downside and where I draw the line.
Also, separately I posted that I'm fine with his use of the word "fudge," so presumably he saw that too.
I use my 30-second skip on YouTube music to avoid ads. Don't always catch them if my hands aren't free, but I avoid most of them.
It was nice of Jonah to respond. I've been emailing my comments to him once a week or so, mostly on the order of, "That was a good article," or "I liked the podcast," but sometimes with additional discussion. He has emailed me back with, "Thanks," or "I'm glad you liked it," more than once.
That's interesting that you have a back channel of sorts. I avoid e-mailing Jonah, because I don't want to seem like one of those annoying idiots who e-mail him all the time. (I stick to comments that I don't figure he'll read, but then sometimes he does read them.) But clearly you are not one of the annoying idiots, since he gives you positive responses, and you were already known to Dispatch management for your special contribution to maintaining a healthy commenting ecosystem.
Apparently not every active commenter is part of the weird blob to him. While I have had sporadic interactions (all positive) with him over the years, I don't know how much of an identity I have, and I don't aspire to stand out from the crowd, only to be able to get a legit concern addressed once in a while without being seen as a troublemaker. It's amazing he can keep any of it straight in his head. And for that reason I will not push too hard. If any piece of what I express to him gets passed along to the underlings, that's good enough. I wouldn't want to wear as many hats as he does, that's for sure.
I've come to his attention sufficiently to be mentioned on the podcast as that lady who cleans her stove. I think he likes me, since I've mentioned that I've been reading his stuff since we were both in our 20s, and when I disagree I do it in the best conservative way, "I don't agree with 'this' because 'facts and logic.' "
I think I did hear that mention of the lady who cleans her stove, and thought "hmmm." Yes, it makes sense that he likes you. You have earned it.
Here's a piece of really ancient history. When National Review Online first enabled comments, they had a delay in the posting for most people, so that a moderator could review everything before it went up. (This was a long time ago.) But somebody from NRO could give you a gold star, which meant you were a trusted commenter and your comments would post automatically. One day, I made a comment that apparently struck Jonah as an indicator of trustworthiness, because he gave me my star that day. That commenting system didn't last long, and eventually I departed the NRO comments altogether, but getting the star made me feel part of something that just might be worthwhile--and that it would be important to behave accordingly.
Speaking of commercials / advertising... the talk here the other day of ongoing sniping between Dispatchers and Bulwarkers (I've been with the B almost since the jump, and subscribed to TD for several years after their launch after reading a recommendation to do so by a Bulwark writer, for Cripe's sake)... it brought to mind the following. But first let me say that while I know a little bit about the apparent ongoing bad blood being promulgated there, I think it's all a bunch of ego crap and I pay no heed to it from either side, since I know it's a complete waste of my time to do so. Which doesn't say much about how valuable the parties involved think their own time is. But I digress.
Anyway, for some time now I've subscribed to another Substack (at the recommendation of... wait for it... The Bulwark) called The Reload, which is a good, clear source for keeping up with the politics of firearms legislation and litigation and other gun related news if that's of interest to someone, which it is to me, since Stephen Gutowski - the publisher - is both a firearms enthusiast and also an excellent non-partisan reporter of such things and an excellent aggregator of news sources from all over the mediascape, both mainstream and otherwise.
And recently I noticed his newsletter was posting advertising - clearly labeled and identifiable as such with no click-baity ads anywhere to be seen, which is another reason I like this guy - from The Dispatch. And you *all* will be pleased to know that as current members - and maybe some as former members who have presumably only temporarily taken leave of their senses and left - that, per the ad copy:
"The Dispatch is For the Silent Majority of Self-Directed Thinkers"
Wow. Y'all sound like kind of a high falutin' bunch, which I would not have guessed from some of the stuff written in this space. Nor do I find much silence involved. But I digress again. As usual.
That clear Declaration of Independence of Dispatch Thinkers is written below a graphic that says:
Above the Fray
Right of Center
Get the news without the drama when you join The Dispatch.
Other ad text includes:
No insulting clickbait, no false outrage...
Well, I was going to say something about truth in advertising, but I guess that last must not necessarily be meant to apply to the comment section, at least from what I read about it here on occasion. (I was a freeloading subscriber and didn't often peruse comments there since if someone had pissed me off, I'd be unable to scream back at them in a white-hot rage as is my wont when engaging the Silent Majority of Self-Directed...
Ahh. Even more digression. Well, at least I admit it.
Anyway, long way around the barn to say I have to say the whole "news without the drama" thing makes me laugh good and hard when I read of the uppity ups and DQs "above the fray" at TD and the B slugging it out on Twixter or wherever it is that they've declared their latest battlefield and staked out some mole hill or another to shed blood over.
I'd just liken to grab 'em all, give 'em a smack and say "Grow the F up. We all got bigger fish to try to fry these days."
Or at least we should have.
Are you involved in shooting? One of my Missouri relatives - Dad's cousin's husband - was very involved with reloading, black powder shooting, and other technical stuff.
John Wilken. We called him "Mr. Jay". He and Dad's cousin Barbara got married in December of 2001, right when my son Sheldon was born. It was Barb's first marriage, and she was in her mid-50s. Mr. Jay had been married before. He had worked for the phone company and been a union rep. Very nice man.
I was never a "gun nut", but yes, firearms used to be a significant part of my life due to my interest in hunting and sport shooting, which was developed in my youth growing up in Ky.
My very first gun of my own was a Remington 870 Wingmaster 16 Gauge pump shotgun, bought brand spanking new for a whopping $85 from a gun shop in my hometown for the purposes of dove and rabbit hunting, and sold to me by the owner at a discount off the $125 retail price that reflected the deposit another buyer had put on it and then failed for a year to come and complete the transaction despite numerous calls from the shop owner to do so, his loss becoming my very happy gain.
It wasn't long before I had a small Lee Handloader kit to reload shells for it myself, which was kind of nice, since I got it just about the time 16s were starting to fall from favor with hunters and sport shooters because of the proliferation of 20 Gauge interlopers, and the factory ammo selections in 16 were thinning out as to shot size and just general availability.
Still have that gun more than 55 years later along with some extra barrels purchased after I moved up here to Michigan, where some kinds of hunting required a different choke than the "modified" one in the original barrel, and custom "screw-in" switchable chokes at that time cost more to have installed in a barrel than the cost of two or three new regular plain barrels all together.
I've had many firearms - rifles both modern and black powder (one of the latter of which I built myself), shotguns and handguns - come and go over the years, scratching an itch here and then again there, but always have hung onto that old 16, which today, being in the excellent shape in which I've maintained it all these years, would be worth north of $1000 if I wanted to sell it. Which I don't, even though my days afield hunting are likely over due to a couple of reasons.
So, yeah, I've been involved in shooting but don't really fit the mold of a "shooter" in today's current gun milieu, since although I have a safe full of rifles, shotguns and handguns, there's not an AR or AK or semi-automatic anything save a .45 ACP and small .380 pistol for self-defense / concealed carry in the whole lot.
I used to regularly make the rounds of gun shops in the area looking at what might be on the used racks (I love "classic" guns of yesteryear) and new models of this and that on the shelves with their "technical" improvements. But I gave that up years ago when the environment therein changed from hunting and sport shooting-centric to "self-defense"-centric and the casual inter-customer talk went from hunting and sport shooting stories and discussions of down-range performance of various calibers and bullets on game to up close and personal performance of various calibers and bullets on human beings.
Bad juju. And I don't want any part of it.
That's interesting about the ad from The Dispatch. Sounds like they gave some thought to how to position it, and they're not wrong.
I manage to avoid most of the drama and conflict and bad-blood stuff you are alluding to. But I guess it's helpful to know that it's a factor.
As far as drama and conflict in Dispatch comments, I don't think it's out of control. There are people who post nonsense, but they don't prevail. I get annoyed when people who you would think are on the same page start taking little potshots at each other for no reason. But those two things don't happen all the time, and it usually doesn't derail or overwhelm productive discussion. Maybe I'm a glass-more-than-half-full person. Especially when I think of the kinds of troll problems I have seen in other comment environments.
Yeah. Bulwark commenters in the newsletters where I hang out have a fair number of disagreements but seem to keep it pretty civil most of the time. Perhaps because whoever it is that monitors the comment sections has proven pretty reliable as far as riding herd on comment ruffians and deleting comments - and commenters when necessary - who cross the lines of heated 'debate' or spirited disagreement and start in with the ad hominem attacks. Even other commenters have been known to call out purely rude, self-serving trollist behavior in a manner befitting serious people of basic good will with only a few exceptions that I've seen.
When I think of some of the kinds of behavior problems I myself have seen in other comment environments, I think perhaps the commenters are suffering from several glasses overly full of their favorite - as my old man used to call it when I'd ask what he was drinking when I was a little whippersnapper - kick-a-poo joy-juice.
Very interesting. The journalism persons often provide evidence for my theory that the audience they truly care about is one another.
Good theory as far as a lot of them go, I believe. Now all we need are a few practitioners of applied science to prove it. Or lacking those, applied common sense will likely work. 🤔🙄
I understand that Jay Janney is a business data analyst of some sort.
Update: It just appeared. Took about 2 hours from my e-mailed complaint. I haven't received a reply yet. But at least I can start listening.
What's interesting is that there were zero comments, until I posted "testing, testing," which I then changed to a note of what time it became available.
I didn't see it when I looked, which indicates that others couldn't either, and couldn't comment.
Can people comment if they use the app things? Or only if they listen through the website?
Some podcast apps have a "review" function, but commenting directly on The Dispatch podcasts can only be done on the website when the website is working as it should be.
That explains why there were zero comments even though people had been able to listen on the apps. It also means that the Dispatch people perhaps will learn that it is not a good idea to omit posting the podcast on the website, even if they are sure only stick-in-the-muds listen that way.
This time I e-mailed The Dispatch. I usually can't remember the e-mail address or even remember where to look for it, but today I remembered how it starts so I could get my e-mail to complete it. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
Someone should be assigned to check these things. Possibly they just needed to be reminded that some people listen via the website because they can't listen any other way, even if that concept seems weird and ancient to The Dispatch. I am proud to be weird and ancient--and my money is normal and current.
I've never been online for much of anything other than reading news. I've been poking my nose into a few of the online comments sections the last couple months, and I think I know why everything is in a kind of fever pitch nowadays.
Everyone used to be crazy all by themselves, and had to yell at the TV in isolation.
Nice article on my lovely backyard!!
We have about a 100 Saguaro cacti across our property. Maybe half are mature, a fourth teenagers and another forthcoming in small nursing shade and growing.
The white blossoms are grand.
The nice article on the Mexican long tongued bat is good. But I took away from the video, a sense that only bats pollinate the white flowers and only at night. The blossoms stay open during the day as well. Bees and birds can be seen all over the blossoms. Hummers, Woodpeckers.
https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Flowers%20and%20Fruit.php
https://bouqs.com/blog/arizona-state-flower-saguaro-cactus-blossom/
Looks to be another miserable sunny 80f day 🐾🐾🐾🥚🥚🥚🥚🐪☺️
Thank you for the additional information. My articles are introductory, not comprehensive!
We were looking up a native plant - "camas," a member of the lily-and-onion family - and D clicked on "Pollinator of the month" at the Forest Service website.
My pleasure. We love our bats. They even swoop about 18" over the pool and ..my face!
I like bats too. It took a while. Several would get into the house. Initially, it was a freak out. Then, after a few, I'd put on a heavy glove, wait for them to light someplace, grab them and throw them out. Up close, they're both frightening and cuddly. Bizarre combo.
Small, nervous, twitchy things are freaky.
Seems to be their only defense.
Some of them bite. Also, being nocturnal is a defense.
Something you need to know.. not really. Happy weekend
How to tell the difference between the long nosed bat and the long tongued bat.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/mexican-long-tongued-bat.
I'm sure we have both but I can't tell. Bats roost under our north and south facing porch overhangs.
And no doubt it will be again!
Same bat time, same bat channel!
Bat time comes around fairly often, as does cat time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLcMS2LF-WE
Manul!
That was funny.
Always a pleasure to see Manul...
Thank you for the bat story. The videos were fantastic.
I'm not a paid subscriber to The Free Press, so I was intrigued when I got a free article featuring my town of Evanston, IL. The episode described really is every bit as stupid and awful as the article reports. I almost became a paying customer so I could write in the comments. Almost.
This whole online comments section thing with everybody talking at everyone else at the same time is weird and scary.
The FP article is a sad sad story. I have a son in Chicago, recently married. He moved there after UMich for a job. In one of life's surprises, the job is so good he may be stuck in Chicago for a while - something he never expected. He's starting to consider where to move in Chicago once they have kids, and what schools might work. His wife is Jewish, and the kids will be too, complicating things even more. He will do fine, but it makes me sad his family will have to deal with all the politics and racial backdrop. Things were much simpler growing up in TX. I'm aware some would argue because our time in TX was all white privilege. I think it was more just normal families playing baseball, having cookouts on the weekends, and trying to raise kids.
White Privilege is simply taking for granted things we enjoy that others do not. We don't consider it a privilege because it is normalized for us. But I don't see an issue with "normal". I think normal is normally normal for a good reason.
I have a friend who bought a house in a gentrified neighborhood in Indy. Someone busted out a car window, and he was angry about it. He grew up in the suburbs, where the only time that ever happened was when someone hit a foul ball at the little league game. He has hopes of changing the culture of the surrounding area. He'll be disappointed.
To elaborate, I think it's time for the word "privilege" to get a lot less use. For me, at least, it carries a negative charge.
For example, a recent survey for parish volunteers at my church included the question, "Does your group need kitchen privileges?" I think that, since the only reason for the church to have a kitchen is for the use of the various ministry groups staffed by volunteers, that using a kitchen, if it exists, is a right.
When I translated the survey for the Spanish-speaking groups, I changed the wording to, "Does your group need to use a kitchen?"
Sadly, progressives view privilege as a negative, except on campus, where faculty demand privileges. 🙄 I don't use it as negative, so I am an oddball on campus (in more ways than one). I prefer to think of privilege as a gift, and to be thankful for it, without feeling superior about having it. In that sense I don't think it's a negative, but I am in the minority on that usage.
Tears ago when I was a camp director, I attended a meeting where they told us roughly half the kids at the camp came from homes without two parents. An above average father was married to the children's mom, had a responsible job (not necessarily high paying, just steady), didn't abuse others nor drugs. So that made me above average. That just seems a low bar for being "above average".
One benefit of being widowed was that I was a single parent for three years. I appreciate better the struggles other single parents have, as a result. I was given Katie as a gift, my oldest benefitted greatly from it. My younger two, that's their mom as well; they view the oldest as their brother, not half-brother or any of that.
Yes, I was thinking my answer was not very good there. Cynthia says better what I was trying to get at.
"White Privilege is simply taking for granted things we enjoy that others do not."
I would say that works better without "white" in it. Everyone in my neighborhood, regardless of "race" or nationality, is living in this neighborhood, and whether they "enjoy" it depends on them and their character: it's not about any external factor.
I can think of a few 'burbs that are reasonably normal. In the city, it's gotten stupid. Commutes are something big to think about. A lot depends on where his office is.
Willis Tower downtown. He currently lives in Lincoln Park.
There's no such thing as "Willis Tower."
"The Willis Empty Tower"? or have workers come back yet?
I don't know.
I think the real problem with people not wanting to come back to the office is that by the time the pandemic hit, white-collar workers were being squeezed into ever-shrinking office space like sardines. Cubicles, which had been a downgrade from an office with a door, became a luxury for the privileged. Workers now have desks barely wider than they can extend their elbows and are expected to like it. Trying to work with a constant racket interfering with concentration is not good for quality and productivity. "Collaboration" is called for sometimes, but it isn't everything. Spreadsheets produced at home tend to be better, even with the possible distractions, because one can usually find a door that closes. So now if the businesses want people to come back, they might have to spend some money on real estate.
I didn't want to correct him...
Like David French is dead to Jonah. Yes, I admit I had to look up how to spell it and was tempted to be lazy and just say Sears.
Willis doesn't own the building. They asked for the naming in a lease negotiation and didn't even expect it to be agreed to.
To me, this is an example of ignoring a marketing truth: When it comes down to it, names of public places belong to the public as much or more than anyone else. You can't make private individuals use a name, because they were not a party to the naming contract. So if the name doesn't make sense to them, you won't have them on board.
Unless he want to be dropping $50k+ a year on private schools and engage in all that weird politicking that starts before preschool to get a place in line for the private schools in his neighborhood, he's going to be looking north, NW, or far west burbs to get into a suburban environment that's reasonably normal. The trains do run on time, but the Metra has gotten kind of pathetic too.
Thank you, I'll share that with him.
If he's a very early riser, from the North, the commute in by car down Lakeshore drive is just fine if you can be on the north end of the drive before 7am. The car commute from the West is heinous; I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The train from Hinsdale is actually pretty quick and easy to get to Willis. Glen Ellyn is next to Hinsdale, same story. I had a lot of clients going in from those 2 burbs.
There are actually a lot of nice suburbs; it's all about the commute and what he can handle. There's a lot of research necessary for figuring out where to reside. I could write a small book on the topic. I spent my career working in every corner of the metro area, I know it pretty well.
Om the other hand, you gave him the experiences he needs to infiltrate the craziness, be subversive, open new avenues of possibility in a crazy place.
What a terrible story. It seems there are so few reasonable adults these days. (Maybe it was always like that, and we didn't realize it ...).
"During one [anti-racist "processing"] session, the teacher said she asked her sixth-grade class if they knew what nooses symbolize. “Only two of the students had any knowledge of the fact that nooses had any kind of racialized meaning,” she said. “Every single other student thought that a noose symbolized and represented suicide.”
** “He’s never going to trust adults in education. And I don’t blame him one bit,” said Melissa. “He cannot go into a public school building and have any trust in any adult. It ruined his educational career.” **
The more one knows about the unionized and bureaucratized educationalist industry, the more reasonable this seems. Maybe the parents can help guide their son into training for a skilled trade, so that he can have an adult career even if "educational career" didn't work out.
One of my tenants was a history teacher at the school. One would have a hard time finding anyone more progressive than her, and yet even she was so horrified by the whole episode and the systems actions, she quit and found another job out in the Western burbs.
It was a very fair picture of the stupidity of the public school system in Evanston.
"Every single other student thought that a noose symbolized and represented suicide."
Once upon a time "everybody" knew that the noose was used to execute criminals. Some knew it was used in lynching.
The idea of killing yourself was alien to the vast majority of people, probably unknown to most kids this age.
I have used up my free articles so I couldn't read the whole thing.
Humans.
You can probably intuit most of the story. It was like a compendium of all the worst elements of the racist/anti-racist tropes that ricochet around nowadays.
"the noose was used to execute criminals"
"Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker of Fort Smith, Arkansas:
** Judge Isaac C. Parker, known as the "Hanging Judge," was a federal judge in Fort Smith, Arkansas, who presided over the Western District of Arkansas, including the Indian Territory, and was notorious for the many death sentences he handed down, with 79 executions carried out during his tenure. **
And before that, Judge Jeffreys in the reign of James II of England:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jeffreys,_1st_Baron_Jeffreys
He is the subject of a riveting character sketch in "Captain Blood".
Ft. Smith. That's where the movie True Grit gets started. It was a rough place.
The whole episode was misinterpreted and then weaponized by radical racists in the Kendi X vein, to push a narrative that was a lie.
When you're a hammer (not you personally, Kurt), everything looks like a nail. And if you're a myopic, *true believer* of a hammer, as so many are, you easily become as bigoted, closed-minded or otherwise morally flawed as the *real* nails out there that need driving. And that goes equally for any hammers on any issue on either side of the political divide. All their errant blows do no good at all for whatever cause for which they're being struck.
The only hammers I have any use for are in my toolbox. And even with those I try to be pretty judicious in how I swing them and at what.
Through inheritances, I now have 13 hammers. Finish hammers, ball peen, claw hammers, mallets of multiple sizes, and even some sledgehammers.
I have to be judicious just to remember where I put them! 🤦♂️Okay, technically, they're all "in the garage" but my wife likes to point out how that doesn't narrow it down much at all.
I have a bit of a collection myself, from tack-to-sledge size. With the exception of the one general purpose claw hammer I keep in the house, the rest are "in the barn", and so ditto on the "narrow it down" part, since a number of them were in my toolboxes I used in my trade but have become, shall we say, dispersed since I had to quit working a year and a half ago and brought home the tools I couldn't readily sell to people in the shop where I'd been employed part-time for the previous couple of years.
Wasn't hard to get rid of my precision machinist's tools; between the shop employees and the shop owner those along with the toolboxes went pretty quick. But anybody that's not just starting out as a toolmaker or machinist usually already has lots of "hand tools", so those all came home with me.
Hope to re-home a lot of them through a barn sale eventually.
Good hammers are getting hard to find. Hang on to them.
Cool bat videos. The slow motion one...with the blue powder thing...is cool.
Good morning, everyone. We went to a concert last night, first time we'd been to the Spectrum Center where the NBA plays. We were in the nosebleed seats, but directly across from the stage, which was nice.
We saw Molly Tuttle, a rising bluegrass musician; followed by David Lee Murphy, who had some big hits in the 1990s but kind of faded, although he continued writing songs that were big hits for others; and finally, Brooks & Dunn, also from the '90s.
All the shows were excellent, and observing the phenomenon of country music fandom at a big event was also really interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x4rCPWtsRM
That’s fun! I would rather go for a Molly Tuttle concert, too, though.
My husband has been a fan of hers for a while, too. We saw her at IBMA in Raleigh a while ago, pre-Covid, I think. She's come a long way.
Live music...righteous. Good video.
My husband bought the tickets because Molly Tuttle was performing, and he was disappointed that her segment was so short. I pointed out that the downside of touring with Brooks & Dunn is that you don't get as much stage time as you would in a solo show. The upside is that you get an audience of thousands instead of dozens.
I saw a concert on TV a few weeks ago; it was Ringo Starr with a bunch of other people, performing at the Ryman Auditorium. The concept was to sort of pay tribute to the fact that he was into country music and got some covers of his favorites onto Beatles albums back in the day--which was something I didn't quite understand at the time, but now I get it. If you were in Liverpool or Hamburg, you would be exposed to music from America and other places, because sailors brought their vinyl records and stuff to those port cities.
Anyway, I noticed he used this concert to showcase some younger performers I had never seen or heard of, and they were good. I don't remember their names, though. But I like that he is using his fame in this way.
Molly's banjo player in that video is superb. I'm still a bit of a bluegrass fan. I used to be fanatic.
Good morning. 62 degrees here and predicted high in the 70s.
I would be more worried about the saguaro cactus than the bats. A flowering plant with blooms open for only one night is definitely vulnerable.
I think the saguaro are threatened—they are so unique and beautiful but thrive in a very small ecosystem. Too many people, sigh.
It's true.