Yes, I’m Back… Sorta

Since our PDG (Pretty Darned Good :-)) deal on our fridge (38% off a price that was already nearly 12% lower than MSRP), we’ve decided to keep an eye on large appliance prices just for kicks, and we’ve noticed something interesting.

In an economy where inflation is a fact of life and the dollar is worth less and less every day, both because of price inflation in general and because of the Fed’s devaluation of the dollar via flooding the economy with paper money coming off the presses far faster than the economy justifies, we’ve noticed something interesting: in general, prices are falling at the retail end on many major appliances from most manufacturers.

Why? I can only surmise at this point that the fact that consumer purchasing is way down is seriously impacting cash flow at these companies. They apparently feel they cannot absorb the costs of warehousing excessive inventory.

Expect more fall-off in manufacturing, leading to more layoffs and lower consumer purchasing, leading to… etc.

Unless the grossly obese “feddle gummint” chimp riding the economy’s back is forcibly removed (and put on a stringent diet), this cycle will likely continue.

Get yours (whatever that is) while the getting’s good. Just sayin’.

Link 1

Link 2

Go ahead. Do your own searches for “Emergency Preparedness,” “Survival,” etc. Then, if you’ve not already taken steps to increase your chances of pulling through Obama’s Great Depression of 2012, get moving on it. Now.

I Do Love It When a Plan Comes Together

So, this was to be the summer when we purchased a new fridge. The one we have has served us well, but it entered this house two owners back and has definitely reached the effective end of its service life.

The glass shelves are still good, though. *heh*

So, we looked around, doing our due diligence, researching options on the web, and selected one from a Big Box home improvement center, the same one where we bought our Whirlpool washer/dryer set and nice Bosch dishwasher last summer. Yes, we would like to have purchased a new fridge last year, but we prioritized things a bit, ran the numbers and decided not to spend the cash that way last year. Instead, we lump summed out of our mortgage.

Now, with more than enough cash on hand, we decided to purchase the fridge we’d selected in July. Then, two days ago, my Wonder Woman noticed that it had gone on sale “through June 27” for $300 off the price we’d decided was our sweet spot. So, we went in to make the purchase and arrange delivery, instead of ordering online (because I needed some plumbing and electrical supplies and because I like making sure the salespeople there get their commission. Makes ’em glad to see me coming *heh*. It was no surprise they had none in stock. No problem as they could order it in. But while we waited for the salesperson to finish up with another customer, we looked around a bit anyway.

Oh. Wait. My Wonder Woman saw a fridge that had been on my own short list but t aprice point we didn’t want to (not couldn’t but didn’t want to) pay. The manufacturer was running a (apparently, “Gotta clear out our inventory!”) special: $610 off, placing it, with nearly 8 cubic feet more storage and a couple of other gewgaws and gimcracks, at juuuust under the one we’d come to purchase.

Got it. The four year extended warranty was also less. Got that. The plumbing kit for the icemaker (to replace the old, old line now semi-installed *heh*) was also less. Heck, with the savings on the bigger fridge with more doodads (features), etc., my additional plumbing and electrical supplies only brought us about even with what we’d been planning to pay for the fridge alone.

Not too shabby.

I love it when a plan comes together. I’m also thankful that “lucky” can still beat “planning” every now and then. 🙂

I Just Hate It WhenThis Happens…

… no, I REALLY hate it.

Bought a window AC unit for that never-cool-enough room. Long story. Unboxed and installed it. Plugged it in and followed the directions to turn it on, checking off the steps in the owner’s manual (cos it had a hi-tech remote sensor unit and a buncha other gewgaws and gimcracks and I wanted to make sure no one sneered at me later, “RTFM!” *heh*).

Nope. DOA. Ran through the simple troubleshooting checklist in the back that’s designed for people who are too stupid to even be able to read it. Nope, of course I had plugged it into a live circuit of the correct voltage and amperage rating. *sheesh!* Who did these people think they were talking to? An idiot?

After I got through being insulted by the troubleshooting page, I dialed the toll-free number listed right after the words, “If these solutions fail, call… ”

Yep. Nothing but an automated line directing me to call a toll line for support.

Now, I’m not just insulted but pi**ed off.

Rude cretins and beating down on me with a stupid support process.

So, I finally got some nice lil gal with a checklist to make sure I had already done allthe things in the insulting “troubleshooting” checklist in the owner’s manual. Finally, I had to tell her what was wrong, since her lil list ran out of things. The “reset” switch on the plug was dysfunctional. She offered me three “solutions” to that, and then deleted one for some inexplicable reason.

  • 1. Send me a new cord.
  • 2. Send me a new cord and make an appointment for a service person to come and install it.
  • 3. Give me an RMA number for the AC unit.

And guess which one she deleted from the list? Right, just sending me the cord. I had to talk her back into that one. *arrggghh!*

So, the cord I know would solve the problem will be here next week. And? I already replaced it with one I had laying around. (I just had to recall I had it and go get it.) 20,000 screws (well, it felt that way *heh*) and some finicky and delicate plastic clips later, I had a functional unit. The cord I used had the same circuitry for line test and overload/reset, so it fit just fine. Now, I suppose I’ll just have a spare when the other one comes in. And since no provision was made for return of the dysfunctional cord, I’ll have that to play with (and probably repair when I get around to it).

But that was time I’d rather have spent on something else than a BRAND NEW DEVICE that came from the factory broken. Oh, and the dimensions on it were 1/4″ larger (height) than the listed specifications (both at the seller and the manufacturer–I checked). I had to disable the lift mechanism on the aluminum-framed window I installed it in–in addition to removing the storm window. If I’d had the 1/4″, I’d not have had to do that.

I just hate it when companies can’t get their products or their facts right and it costs me, with no real repercussions for the company.

Oh, Frigidaire. The unit had good reviews and ratings, but the company probably changed the production line after the reviews to save $0.25 per unit and invalidated all previous ratings and reviews…

Tightwad Electrical

OK, I’m a patzer in the area of electrical work (OK, perhaps just lacking the practice necessary to own a high level of skill, ‘K? :-)). I know that. It means, for one thing, that I work very, very slowly when working with electrical wiring, etc. BTDT as a young kid with the live socket thingy. *heh* It also means… tools. As in, my better tools are designed for car mechanicking, plumbing and wood working.

The “proper” tools for doing electrical work are fairly expensive. I’m talking about the screwdrivers and pliers, etc. (I have circuit testers that work for the simple electrical circuits I work on around the house. Yeh, they’re overkill, but I’ve also found them useful for electronics stuff.) Since the electrical work I have planned will end when everything at twc central’s finished, I didn’t want to spend $20 for a pair of pliers, etc., but just have some tools that’d do the job–safely. Of course, almost all of it could be done with uninsulated tools as long as I were pretty darned careful (shut down circuits, etc.), but rewiring electrical panels w/o detaching the meter (detach meter=get the electrical company pi$$ed off at me) does require working around some hot lines, so…

Bought some new, cheap-a$$ed tools and wrapped the handles with some self-fusing silicone/live rubber tape rated for high-voltage electrical wire wrapping that I always have laying around.

Works. Cost me about $2/tool. Added to the $1/”cheap-a$$ed” tool price, I came out of the operation with tools as safe (electrically) as $10-$20 tools (screwdrivers in the “pro electrical” range are still expensive) for about $3 apiece. Yeh, yeh, the tools backups. I already have one designed for wiring work (has the nifty lil wire bender for socket/junction box, etc., installations built in–and it’s had its insulated handle beefed up by rubber tape wrap, just ‘cos) and a couple of better wiring pliers, but @$3 apiece, making sure I have one to leave behind at one end of a run can be really handy for my work style.

Besides, if I “lose” one of these, I’ll not weep and moan and gnash my teeth as badly as if I lost one of my better (still not “pro” grade) tools.

Oh, first up? Running a new circuit off an outside circuit that’s been unused for ten years or so. Still not planning to use it for the purpose it was once used for (above ground pool, now gone), so re-routing it inside as a new, dedicated, circuit for the overloaded kitchen. There’s another unused circuit available on that panel (it’s a simple two-circuit sub-panel) that I think I may dedicate to the freezer or the dishwasher, just for the heck of it. Three more unused circuits on another outside panel that may get used outside in the near future, but they’ll just have to wait.

Some strange stuff in this house’s wiring already, so I don’t feel too weird about these lil projects, even though I know it’d be best to just rewire the whole house “correctly”. I’ll settle for safe, for now. Heck, four years ago, I started tracking down a “mystery circuit” that was wired in the main breaker panel but didn’t feed to anything in the house I could find. It was in a terminated box, unused, coming out of the basement ceiling. It’s now serving ONE room downstairs… Son&Heir’s electronics only. Gotta love 12-gauge Romex. (Strangely, that circuit was wired with 12-gauge from the box, whereas the rest of the house 110 has 14 gauge wiring… weird. I kept that circuit at 12-gauge throughout.)

I’d like to pull new wiring, circuit by circuit, throughout the house and rationalize some of the weird layout, but that’s something I’ll just have to do a teensy bit at a time, I think. May take me the rest of my lifetime, as I have plenty of other projects to complete around here. *heh*

Anywho, the “proper tools for the job” don’t always have to be expensive, special-purpose tools. As I did with these, they can be common tools adapted and repurposed to very closely approximate the special-purpose, “pro” tools while maintaining both functionality and essential safety features. Less expensively.

After all, I don’t plan on making a living with ’em, nor do I plan on willing ’em to my heirs.

Little Things–Good Music

One of the weaknesses of “indie” music is sometimes a lack of good editing or perhaps a too narrow creative view. Of course, that can also be a strength if the artist can look at their own work both with a passion that allows for some creative fire and a dispassion that can allow serious criticism. As an example I’d like to offer perhaps my fav from Heather Alexander, March of Cambreath. It has really stirring lyrics, a great driving beat and… a weak melody and a wee weakness in prosody, which Alexander almost overcomes with a very, very strong performance:

[audio:March_of_Cambreadth.mp3]

By the last verse, she very nearly repairs the prosody problem by anticipating the beat with “How” in “How many of them can we make die,” but never quite makes it into a stronger line by placing the “how” directly on a pickup to “many”. And the melody itself is still very nearly boring, and would be absolutely boring without her strong performance of it (which is as I asserted above, very, very strong).

Still, as I said, it’s my fav of her work, and it is very good, even though I don’t view it as among her best musically. And it has a worthy place in the martial repertoire of modern soldier/warriors, IMO, especially since the boring melody probably wouldn’t get in the way at all, at all of any “hell runs” in PT. *heh*

Disgust Redux

I’ve said it before, but I’m giving into the temptation to reiterate what runs through my mind every time I hear or read the phrase, “It’s only semantics”.

Semantics is the single most important thing about language. Without it, spoken language becomes nothing but (tautology alert!) meaningless whistles and clicks and moans and grunts and written language becomes nothing but weird squiggles, signifying nothing.

Now there abide these three:

Phonemes (sounds and their and written phoneme analogs)
Syntax (structure) and
Semantics (MEANING), and the greatest of these is semantics.

“It’s only (or just) semantics” is an utterance by an idiot, full of sound (and whimpering), signifying nothing* (at least nothing useful, save for confirming that the one saying it has no argument or defensible position).

Insincere apologies to The Bard and all that…


* Aside: For something with much,much more sense than the “nothing (useful) conveyed by the idiotic “It’s just semantics” try this disquisition on Nothing. Not all that edifying, but it did keep me in stitches for days after I first read it. Imagine breaking out in laughter in the middle of a Greek class. The prof was understanding once I had explained and shared the article with him. Nice guy.

I’m Not Complaining… Honest!

The Joplin tornado event took down our ISP for a couple of days. Seriously. Only a couple of days. A tornado plowed right through the infrastructure it uses (cable) and took out tons and tons of essential infrastructure, and it was back online in a couple of days’ time.

Not bad.

So when I post the access speeds below, I’m NOT complaining. Heck, they still beat the heck out of DSL “speeds” from our local baling wire and tin cup telco–and at lower cost–so I have nothing to complain about, but I still can hardly wait for stutterless video feeds, etc…


OK, I am going to bitch a bit about these “speeds”:

*sigh* Gag me.

Hot-Cha-Cha!

Well, the (only) four habanero plants I put out this year are getting some great growth (all this rain, I suppose) but not yet flowering. OTOH, one (of the 28 *heh*) jalapeño plants has not only flowered but is bringing on peppers, already. Hot-cha-cha! (You really have to envision Jimmy Durante’s slightly different utterance for that to work properly. 🙂 OK, here…)

The tomato plants are just getting huge; no flowering or fruiting yet. But growing like gangbusters.

And my amaranth, sown from seed–the same seed I cook up for a “cereal”? REALLY growing, fast! Like it! We’ll just have to see how that stuff produces. I’ll likely have to thin the plants out quite a bit, but that just means greens and shoots (and stems to use sorta like rhubarb).

Not much of a garden, but it has things that please us. Oh, and mixed in are marigolds (also a lovely plant) and my Wonder Woman’s impatiens (and the morning glory she loves that I’m letting come back a little). Gone is almost all the mint and finally nearly all the Virginia Creeper. Sadly, our dandelion crop has been sparse this year. I don’t know why. Plenty of wild onion, though. Yum.

Now, how to make best use of all the “yard vine” in the back yard… hmmm… it’s said to make a nice topical analgesic, so…

Slim Pickin’s*

Here it is not even halfway through 2011 and names are being thrown about, tossed in the hat (and thrown back out; Newt, I’m talking to you, you jackass) and bruited about for potential presidential runs. Republican/Repugnican’t names only, of course, as The Zero has said, according to Billary, that he intends to win in 2012 “And then we’re done.” (Would that make the Biden presidency begin the day after the election? *heh*) But choices of decent candidates from the supposed “Right” are slim pickin’s*.

On one key issue, illegal immigration (or, as I prefer, “alien invasion”), Michele Bachman is the only potential candidate whose name has been floated so far who passes muster on this one of my three critical issues. (If Bobby Jindal’s name were to be raised–haven’t seen it so far–he’d make number two.)

Any candidate fielded for any national office who can articulate sensible policies concerning 1. Eliminating–or very nearly so (not controlling or limiting) illegals, or “alien invaders” 2. Revenue and expenditures (big points for balanced budget and FairTax stances) 3. U.S. energy independence will get not just my vote but my enthusiastic support.

Solutions to these issues aren’t exactly rocket science: most are pretty simple and straightforward, requiring only the ability to spit in the eye of the entrenched political elites and their co-conspirators, fellow travelers and useful idiots. The only really tough weed in my three critical issues is expenditures by the feds. So-called “entitlements” (grants of special privilege to gain political power from voting blocks) are the big bugaboo. But even Social Security and Medicare “grants of special privilege” issues can be dealt with. After all, families cared for their aged loved ones for millennia before those programs came around to suck the life from young workers’ paychecks. Positing less “feddle gummint” meddling overall, families could do so again today, especially if American citizens grew up and took responsibility for their own care and feeding back from the “feddle gummint”… or were required to because someone jerked the “safety net” out from under their lazy-assed, greedy, “grasshopper” feet.

Oh, but what to do about the “grants of special privilege” to the locust class (generational welfare “families”)? Screw ’em. While I can grant that States have authority to engage in some sort of charitable efforts to alleviate situational poverty, supposing of course that the particular States’ constitutions provide for such, despite the lies libtards have sold for a generation or more, the federal Constitution does NOT give the “feddle gummint” authority to practice charitable acts with public funds. Let local communities, State agencies, private groups and associations handle the matter. And if “welfare queens” and their courts object, ship ’em to Mexico.


*Orthographic note: No, I did not misuse that apostrophe. And no, I did not mean to make “pickin” possessive, and nor did I mean “pickin is”. As you no doubt rightly inferred, the apostrophe is there because I extracted the “g” from “pickings” simply to effect a colloquial pronunciation in readers’ ears.

🙂


I thought to myself, “Meself, mayhap ‘t’would be a Good Thing to expand on, “not exactly rocket science.” So, herewith the third world county central fixes for the thee Big Issues:

1. Eliminating–or very nearly so (not controlling or limiting but eliminating) illegals, or “alien invaders”

a. Build the damned fence already.
b. Place machine gun nests with interlocking fields of fire and ROE that demands “shoot to kill” on the border
c. Go after those who employ illegals. Seize ALL the assets–including “sheltered” family assets–of ANYONE who employs illegals and cannot PROVE they made BEST faith efforts (not just “good faith”–exhaustive efforts) to eliminate alien invaders from their employ.
d. Pay a bounty to citizens ONLY for ratting out illegals and employers of illegals.
e. Refuse ALL government services, save emergency services for immediately life-threatening health care to any and all illegals and place bureaucraps who circumvent this on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones.

THEN

Streamline LEGAL immigration for those seeking to enter the country who can demonstrate that they will both not be a burden on society and are likely to benefit our nation.

2. Revenue and expenditures (big points for balanced budget and FairTax stances).

a. Pass a balanced budget amendment, even if it takes working to defeat every spendthrift asswipe politician from now until the Trump of Doom sounds. Never give up. Make one provision of the amendment that politicians *gag-spit* who want to institute programs that exceed revenues must pay for those programs out of their own pockets.
b. Pass the Fairtax already. Any and every argument I’ve seen against it (save one) has been disingenuous to the point of outright lies. The only honest argument I’ve seen against it is that it would remove so much power from the “political elite” that they’d never pass it. So? Work to put their asses on the unemployment line and get some people in who are willing to have less power at their fingertips. Take the brakes off the American economy, aready!
c. Yeh, start being honest with folks about “entitlements”–we can’t afford ’em, and we for sure can’t afford to keep expanding them. For folks already addicted to ’em, let ’em sunset, slowly, but with the two provisions above in place, that’d be possible, because everyone who worked would have more in their pocket to handle such things, either as family or via real charities as opposed to government “charity” which is simply stolen resources bestowed on those who don’t earn them.

3. U.S. energy independence.

a. Put all the whining greenies that bitch and moan about how awful nuclear power is and place roadblocks to oil, gas and coal development and play NIMBY with new refineries out in the wilderness with a fishhook and a pocket knife and leave ’em to starve. (Feel free to go ahead and pity the wildlife.)
b. Go ahead and drill baby drill, build a few (hundred) pebble bed reactors (or any of the other exciting new nuclear reactor designs), put a thermal depolymerization plant in every tiny lil community that wants to actually MAKE MONEY via turning their sewage into oil, open up exploration and development of ALL hydrocarbon energy supplies, oh, and go ahead and remove roadblocks (as if there were any) along with artificial supports to development of “alternative energy sources”.

Oh, and as to the “drill baby drill” meme, check this:

There. Third world county central’s prescription for three big issues (we’ll leave The Biggest** for the Second Coming or perhaps the Twelfth of Never (sigh*) that face us.


**The Biggest: *@^^^3* politicians who either stupidly and ignorantly OR wittingly and venally violate the Constitution… just because they can, all the while either lying about what they want to do being constitutional or just not caring at all whether it is or isn’t (Yeh, Newt, I’m looking at you, too).

Third World County Flood Updates

First two pics from a town ~12 miles south-southwest [of twc central–ed.]. Keep in mind that the clearance between the river and the bridge is usually 15′ or more. One of four ways into town, and two others are flooded out as well. So, that’s one town in the county where most of the kids can’t get to the schools… IF they can get out to go, as pics further down illustrate. Fortunately, given the river’s use for recreation, there are a lot of boats in the area:

Oh, and do keep in mind that the routes in as far as these pics were taken are also still flooded in several places. Pics below are of a road washed out nowhere near low land areas, in fact in an area elevated above one of those other accesses to the same town that’s closed due to flooding. The dirt/gravel road, one of many here in America’s Third World County, is THE access to a group of about 30 homes on a rise above a (very minor) state highway:

Most of the folks in the county do NOT live in the towns but out, mostly away off paved roads. ANY place with “Hollow” (e.g., Thief Hollow) or “Creek” (e.g., Buffalo Creek) in its name is sure to feature several washouts or flooded areas similar to those pictured above. Most of the photos I have access to (lots more than these) are from school bus drivers attempting their routes in 4X4s.

I’ve driven most of the county over the years–it’s a great “mini-vacation” to explore a new-to-me area on a weekend afternoon, for example–and there are more than a few areas that I know folks are breaking out the emergency generators and feelin’ pretty good about the root cellar being well-stocked, because, 4X4 or not, they are NOT getting out for a while.