Hi all,
This week makes ten years since I moved from the harsh scrublands of Texas to the temperate woodlands of upstate NY. I still like snow (and chipmunks).
The week starts off with the same Mars-Jupiter buzzkill that’s been hanging on and with continuing MERCURY RETROGRADE. But shit doesn’t start to really hit the fan until Thursday. On that day, we get Saturn retrograde – Sol – Venus (in Gemini), the most precise meaning of which is “meeting the person who winds up destroying your love,” so if your significant other introduces you to someone new, get the separate bank account set up and set side a few bucks for the PI. Just to make that day super shitty, we will also see a four-planet alignment bringing the two most fuckdoodly signs (the new moon and MERCURY RETROGRADE) between the sun and the earth, so please PLEASE don’t do anything foolish (like attack the new person your SO just introduced you to). At least not until Saturday. This strife alignment will break up by Friday, but MERCURY RETROGRADE is still in a position to play havoc with your domestic life until at least the 15th.
Mixed signals otherwise — betrayal (MERCURY RETROGRADE in Gemini) drought (Saturn retrograde in Aquarius) but also a great time to hunker down at home with someone you love (Mars and Venus in Cancer).
Gemini: Queen of Cups reversed -Distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.
Cancer: The High Priestess reversed – Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge.
Leo: Page of Wands reversed – Anecdotes, announcements, evil news. Also indecision and the instability which accompanies it.
Virgo: The Devil – Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality
Libra: Queen of Swords reversed – Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.
Scorpio: The Hanged Man reversed – Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.
Sagittarius: 6 of Swords – Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient
Capricorn: Judgement – Change of position, renewal, outcome
Aquarius: 4 of Wands – Country life, haven of refuge,repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace
Pisces: 9 of Coins – Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment.
Aries: 3 of Wands – Strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery, able co-operation in business
Taurus: Page of Cups reversed – Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
I’ll believes it when I sees it.
Pisces: 9 of Coins – Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you can exercise the first two to your life’s content — the latter two don’t necessarily follow.
Ah. I see we’ve returned to our normal programming.
So does that mean I should apply for a new job or does it mean that this job will turn out alright?
I’m considering selling the house at a profit (it’s alleged appraisal value is far higher than what we paid in 2018!), moving to a cheaper, freer state, and renting for a while until the housing prices crash again.
I’ll not have as high a salary as I make in California but I won’t need to either. But where….?
Can’t answer those for you, but in honor of new kitty: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka8e77CJqGg
I think I may end up a nomad. Staying mobile seems like a good thing.
I still like snow (and chipmunks).
??!?!?!?!
Leo: Page of Wands reversed – Anecdotes, announcements, evil news. Also indecision and the instability which accompanies it.
A normal week.
No snow but plenty of chipmunks. Only one sat still long enough for me to get a picture. I’ll have to trim out a bunch of unrelated foliage so people will be able to tell it’s a picture of a chipmunk.
Unless I want to have them try to figure out out…
I had no idea I had so many chipmunk tenants until I started spending time outside.
I’m just happy they don’t try to live in my house.
Chipmunks are cute, striped gophers, pocket gophers and red squirrels, not so cute
I’d much rather deal with the squirrels (who enjoy living in the large oak and maple trees) then the chipmunks (who want to live in my yard, and try to burrow into my foundation).
I’m fencing off part of my woods as habitat, but there will be zero chipmunks living in the area for the pup to patrol. She’s an impressive digger.
Pocket gophers are my nemesis. They make the mounds all over in the yard, around the foundation, in the garden, then the stripeds run in the tunnels. Fortunately I’m a good trapper and usually can catch the mound makers a day or two after I see the evidence
That euphemism’s a new one on me.
WHERE ARE THE PUPPY PICTURES?! I NEED MY PUPPY PICTURES!
Just kidding, thanks for writing every week.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Lily-may-24.jpg
Four months old, 40#. Webbed feet.
Housebroken yet?
Unfortunately no.
Are webbed feet normal for the breed?
Yes, for her dad.
Quite the cutie pie. 🙂
Thanks
Haven’t had a whole lot of opportunities for pics lately.
Aww
“Aquarius: 4 of Wands – Country life, haven of refuge, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace”
I will take this.
The fuck?
Leo: Page of Wands reversed – Anecdotes, announcements, evil news. Also indecision and the instability which accompanies it.
The news is evil these days.
That China bioweapon one from the am lynx certainly was.
And the reveal that our government agencies paid for it while skirting regulations.
First they came for the Horoscope believers but I didn’t care
Then they came for vaccine non- believers and I didn’t care, hey, hey, hey, lemme go, this is a free country. Blam-blam-blam!
…this is a free country.
Lol. Good one, Fourscore!
Besides here, I haven’t heard that phrase uttered in over a decade.
My front driver’s side turn signal is out. For a while it was intermittant in that some times when I turned on the signal I got the steady blink of both lights working instead of the double-time blink of only one working.
What are the chances it’s anything other than the bulb? I ask because on previous occassions when I’ve had a bulb go it didn’t occassionally work again.
When something like that has happened to me, my mechanic always tells me I need more blinker fluid. And if you can’t trust your mechanic, who CAN you trust?
Are you driving some sort of classic? They banned the use of blinker fluid in the 00’s. Something about it being made up of ground-up endangered snark.
No, my car’s a ’15 Subaru. Has my mechanic been lying to me??? ::bursts into tears, runs from room::
And dont neglect to drain your tires of that winter air and refill them with summer air.
You laugh, but the girlfriend freaked out the first time she got into her (at the time new) car the first morning in winter where there was a big temperature drop. She couldn’t understand why her car was telling her she had low pressure in all four tires.
Jugsy has a camaro with tire pressure sensors.
Every winter I need to explain the ideal gas law to her.
“Pivnert”
OK! ***SNIFF***::wipes nose:: Thanks, homey! ::grabs tire gauge and a roll of quarters, heads to BP station::
You’re going to need a sock for that roll of quarters.
Oh.. you meant to put in the air machine. Never mind.
Sounds like a poor ground, often in the bulb socket. Corrosion from the . Take the bulb out, clean the bulb contacts and socket contacts. Check the bulb to see if its burned out
🙁 Getting the bulb out of a modern car is unfun. I don’t even know if I have the tools required for this model. Or if I have to take off the whole frontend. It was bad enough when I changed the bulb on a focus, got it back together and had parts left over.
That’s the reason I know the Ford guy on a first name basis
What’s really bugging me is hearing it blink doubletime gets on my nerves, and I have at least the drive back home before I can look into it. I don’t think I have an ‘avoid left turns’ setting on my gps.
The rate of blinking is dependent on the RC (resistor-capacitor) time constant of the circuit. The bulb filament serves as the resistor. So when it’s blinking double time, that bulb’s filament is effectively not “in” the circuit, just like it is burned out.
That means it is an intermittent connectivity problem. Question is where.
You are so goddamn hot.
Careful, NA — if she breaks out and start quoting from The Art of Electronics, you’re a goner.
Cost me $100 to have the bulb in one headlight changed, because you have to take off the whole bumper to do it. Then a few months later a deer took out the whole headlight casing anyway. But the damn cat caused even more damage, $400 to fix the AC and $360 to replace the radiator. Modern cars are made of tissue paper apparently.
Did you hit a cat, or did one decide to use your car as a scratching post?
A cat ran out in front of me on the highway when I was doing about 70mph. Put a dent in the bumper (since it’s plastic it popped right back out) took out my AC, damaged my radiator so that it sprung a leak a week later, and knocked out a plate that covers the holes for the fog lights, if they aren’t on the model. (That plate was the cheapest fix, $23 on Amazon)
Ages ago (the 1980s) a buddy of mine hit a chicken in his chevy 1/2 ton. The thing went through the plastic grill, pushed the radiator into the fan which took out the water pump.
All from a yard-bird.
…and worst of all, we’ll never know why he was crossing the road.
Likely suicidal.
Or he was trying to prove to the possum that it could be done. And you see how THAT turned out.
Nuts and bolts will break my bank
Turn of the Century Fords had (have) a problem with #5 cylinder coil burning out. I don’t even know what that means, truck runs fine but occasionally under load will miss. 15 years ago it was a $400 job to fix, had it done 2X with the same truck.
I had a tail light assembly crack from a parking lot accident. Ford wanted $80 plus labor, on line was $20 for the complete assemble, bulbs included. Reasonably easy, with skinny screw drivers or something and about 45 minutes and I was gooder n’new. Hardly expended much of my vocablary
I replaced the headlight assembly on the car I had before that was a few model years older. It was a chore, but I got it done. This one, there is no way to do it without taking off the whole front end. Progress!
I don’t even know if I have the tools required for this model.
Sounds like an excuse to order more tools.
I’ve got a burnt out headlight bulb in my car, looking online to see what I would need to do to change it, I’m going to pay someone for that. The more concerning is that I’ve got (I believe) an electrical issue where the unlock all commands are no longer unlocking the trunk. Thankfully, the trunk only unlock still pops it open, so I’ve got that going for me.
Sagittarius: 6 of Swords – Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient
I don’t even own a boat.
I was actually thinking about a run to Pocatello today, but I talked myself out of it. It’s not like I have nothing else to do.
There are a few properties which look interesting (one extremely so) but I should wait until I am close(r) to closing on my place here.
That’s….enigmatic. The forecast for everybody certainly sounds ominous, but at least we’ll all be in it together.
Whatever happens, it can’t spoil the lovely weekend I’ve been having. We just arrived home from two nights at Maumee Bay State Park Lodge at the west end of Lake Erie. (Close to Toledo, but not TOO close.) The weather was perfect, the view from our second floor lakeside balcony was lovely, the food was delicious and much too plentiful, and the staff was gracious and helpful. (I didn’t mention it earlier because it’s my policy not to advertise on the Internet that I’m away from home.) I can highly recommend it to travelers considering a jaunt to NW OH. If some of the pictures I took turned out OK, I may post some Imgur links with which to bore you to tears.
Thankfully, the cats neither burned the house down nor killed one another, so for the moment, at least (takes another look at that horoscope) life is lovely.
One view from our balcony last night. Water in the foreground is a small fishing pond. Water in the background is a really great lake.
There’s this great big tree in the way.
Yeah, I would’ve loved to be further out toward the end of the wing our room was in, which would have afforded an even better view of the lake, but there were TWO weddings at the lodge yesterday, so all those rooms were probably booked long ago.
Not the view from my hotel, but one of the better ones I took today.
The clouds photobombed your picture of that stream.
(Nice!)
UCS, I know that same spot from my life as a kid, only it was in Northern MN. That picture took me back to 10 years old, fishing the slowly meandering water, catching sunfish, an occasional small bass.
It was a great time, young, no responsibilities, I could walk down there in a couple minutes, no older brother tagging along. Alone, solitude, the making of an introvert.
I’m glad it evoked positive memories.
But it isn’t a Great Tree.
My front driver’s side turn signal is out.
Probably computer-related.
Or a tumahh.
it’s not a tumah
Had an excellent match today. I’ll write it up in the range reports section. But there was a major breakthrough in how fast I was able to acquire a legitimate sight picture (as opposed to my normal USPSA technique of “kinda sight-picture-ish and rip off a double tap.” )
I beat a whole lot of people that are much better than me.
Yay you! 😀
*flexes*
And hit factors >5 are just fun.
You used a Game Genie?
No, those aren’t allowed under these rules.
Excellent.
Nice!
I had a mental fuckup on the first stage, but the others went really well. There was a Texas Star that was half blocked off by barrels, I cleared that in six shots. There was a special drill (8 targets, one shot each, reload, one shot each one handed). I almost double-tapped the second target out of habit, by the fourth, I realized I was going much slower than I needed to. But at the end of the day, I would up taking second on that stage.
“I beat a whole lot of people that are much better than me.”
Any given Sunday, etc., etc. Breakthroughs are always nice, though.
I was less than a second/stage behind the guy that won it, and picked up 86.6% of the possible points. Finished the match at 96.78%.
Next weekend I may have a match with my IRL boss.
Your company adopted the Terran Empire system of advancement?
So over the past couple days, been checking out what stores are doing what. Most place have torn down the plexiglass and dividers and look like the before times again (with the exception of still printed paper menus or QR codes because they’re in the process of redoing menus anyway). One brewery that I really like has unfortunately kept up with the dividers, and masked staff, and movable plexiglass on the bar. I may have to shift my consumption to some of the other local breweries I like just as much.
Got my hair cut today no masks for the first time in a long while. Last hold out in our area are the doctors offices and hospitals.
Except for my first haircut after “non-essential” businesses reopened, I did not wear a mask for any haircut. I pretty quickly got leads on places which were ignoring the masking orders.
I may have to shift my consumption to some of the other local breweries I like just as much.
Yes.
Somebody has either joined the “blue card club” (aka retired) or is about to. This article will not be taken lightly by the current leadership in the Department of Defense.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-problem-with-a-woke-military/ar-AAKKZnr?ocid=msedgdhp
The rate that the number of talented people hanging up their hats and retiring or separating keeps going up. The PLA and Russian military must be licking their chops. First the US gave them a two decade long window to modernize their militaries, and now is actively forgetting the purpose of a military.
Its by design. The nations Top Men are courting a total takeover of the US by either of them. And they hope that their positions/jobs/asses will be spared in the revolution.
Speaking of Top Men- Im watching Raiders of the Lost Ark with Tres Ver. 2.0.
It holds up.
Making missile girl with two mommies proud?
Go back 45 years. Project 100, 000 plus integration of women into Combat Service Support units. It was tough enough at Ft Hood, we ran into a new problem every time we went to the field and never solved the previous ones.
Pregnant team member? SP4 _________’s daycare wouldn’t accept a sick kid? Pvt_______ can’t carry her 1/2 of a 90 lb roll of field wire? Separate billeting area/shower time for the ladies?
The Spirit of the Bayonet is to Kill! Even if it destroys your manicure. I like girls, there are places where they excel but lugging artillery rounds is not one of them.
It’s funny how one perceives things that were already in place when you start somewhere. We’ve had the discussion here before about what a recent contrivance the Army Values are.
Apropos of nothing… I wonder why the night games at the French Open are being blackouted.
First yesterday, now today. Tennis Channel (“first ball to last ball coverage”) went to re-runs with no explanation. It’s not on any other channel that I can see. Even the ATP website is showing nothing.
The French Open website is showing the match in progress with scores.
WTF?
How’d that get here??
They’re on Peacock.
Ah. Well, good for Peacock. I guess the NBC Sports channel I already pay for wasn’t good enough.
That’s fucked up for Tennis Channel to more-or-less pretend those matches aren’t happening.
In the AM links, Stinky Wizzleteats described Gavin Newsome as
I think that’s probably the best description of Newsome I’ve ever heard.
Car Salesman-Televangelist.
A difference with little distinction.
True, but evangelists do usually have bigger hair.
Televangelists have more money.
. . . and usually more brains.
A used car salesperson is trying to sell you a tangible thing you can drive off the lot.
A televangelist is selling you on believing in what many consider a Fake Sky God … some Orwellian guy who is literally acting like the Inner Party Ingsoc sociopath leader and watching everything you do and think, and will torture you for eternity if you don’t follow his sick and twisted rules.
You may have noticed a slight cooling in my sympathy for LDS leadership there, though they are nicer than Yahweh and would reward me with The Second Best Heaven TM.
As soon as America was a thing, Jesus was like, “I have to go back”.