Something Random

[ArAfGo]

An excellent summary, Chewy509, and that point in your last paragraph about the number of firearms already out-and-about is quite significant. That one has been a thorny issue in my brain since I first started giving this apparent dream idea full thought processes.

Now, I suspect that a good island to go to in these deep waters (I've already jumped off the very, very high board [you know, the 'jumping off point']) - - - so I have jumped into deep water and need an island and maybe Wikipedia is a good island to pause and study what they have gathered.

Wait 'til you see their "References" & "Bibliography" lists.

Still, spending too much time studying the works of others isn't going to help achieve the impossible. The homework is good, but actually coming up with valid ideas to achieve this lofty goal is what I am about here. (I know, some of you think I'm just floundering around and will drown. Heh! Isn't there a yummy fish named 'flounder'?)

 

[jtr1962]

After hearing Trump's inauguration speech I was reminded of this:

Grand Moff Tarkin : The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.

 

[sedrosken]

I bore witness this afternoon to something that will likely be a once, maybe twice in a lifetime event for my neighbors -- accumulating snow. It's still snowing. Some of my neighbors had literally never seen it before.

 

[jtr1962]

Lots of parts of the south got more snow than NYC had. And there were blizzard warnings also. This is a first in my lifetime. Reminds me of the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

 

[sedrosken]

That movie came out when I was a kid and it gave me nightmares.

It's all going to melt today it looks like -- we're supposed to get up to the mid 40s today when the sun's out. Shame. I could have done with a bit more of a break.

 

[ArAfGo]

I bore witness this afternoon to something that will likely be a once, maybe twice in a lifetime event for my neighbors -- accumulating snow. It's still snowing. Some of my neighbors had literally never seen it before.

This brings back a partial memory; and I use the vocabulary "partial" because the year escapes me. But I was on leave when on active duty and returned to Miami where I had done my high school years and one of the mornings out of maybe just a few days I had there, it actually snowed in Miami and my cousin was a notary public (I think the word is 'public') and so she notarized a copy of the Miami Herald for me that had a big front page thing about snow in Miami. It might have been the first time, but I'm not sure. Well, "first time" for when humans (us western type humans, that is) were living in that area. I'm rather sure that was in the early 70s. I carried that notarized front page around with me at many duty stations, but lost it at some point and maybe when I had to be sent back to the States under medical supervision. Personal belongings can get lost when that sort of thing happens. I suppose that Miami snow thing would be logged on some web site on the Net now, but I just saw your post, sedrosken and I'm not in great condition for doing that Net Check stuff. Had a kind of bad day at the hospital today. In fact, I kind of escaped from them and I think they tried to call me a few hours ago, but they know I have no trouble paying my hospital bills, so they won't be too worried about money. The admin folks there don't much like me, so I reckon they were only trying to call about today's bill. That director there really, really dislikes me.

Sorry, the topic is snow. That was snow around that airfield area? Wait 'til there's snow down in the Everglades! Now that will really be something. Snow in Alligator Alley!! Them alligators will freak out.

We're having an odd warm spell in this area of Japan that started a few days ago and looks like it will go on until the end of the month. This is the Kanto area where Tokyo sits. But I and my family are spread out over the western hills of Kanto and we shouldn't be getting this warm stuff these days. And dry, too. Saw the two main rivers today on the way to the hospital and they sure aren't flowing with lots of water. Dry non-humid weather in winter is not good.

 

[Mercutio]

There's a foot of snow in New Orleans right now.
I also found out how much worse the new windows are in my apartment compared to the old ones. My back bedroom was 55 degrees with the thermostat at 68. I wound up stapling a bunch of blankets over the windows just to get the temperature up inside. It's been as low as -12, so it's not like this should be a common occurrence but I am not happy at all about it.


One of my friends had a baby last week and while I don't normally share pictures I take, I was exceptionally proud of this one. The baby is about seven hours old.

 

[jtr1962]

Very nice picture!

Regarding the windows, cellular shades (the double cell type) would help. Or if you don't care about light get 1" foam insulation board and put it in front of the window. Surprised new windows would be worse. Are there any air leaks? Sounds like it could be a botched installation job.

I turned the heat off in my house in the beginning of March last year. Temps got as low as 50 on some of the colder days. My house generally holds about 15 to 20 degrees above outdoor ambient temperature. With a heated mattress pad 50s indoors is semi-tolerable for me.

 

[sedrosken]

Yesterday was the first time all winter I'd turned on my heat aside from testing to make sure it wouldn't burn my place down a couple times -- got some scary dust-burning smells but other than that, no issues. That was just because it had dropped below 54 -- I'd been tolerating upper 50s in the early mornings and late evenings since roughly the middle of December. I have a very old, very inefficient electric central heat installation, so I limit how much I use it.

 

[ddrueding]

We've had a total of about 35 hours of snow on the ground here this winter. Crazy to think that ya'll might beat that.

 

[Mercutio]

Regarding the windows, cellular shades (the double cell type) would help. Or if you don't care about light get 1" foam insulation board and put it in front of the window. Surprised new windows would be worse. Are there any air leaks? Sounds like it could be a botched installation job.

My theory is that there must be an air gap somewhere but I don't particularly want to look for it right now. I don't see any places where I can see light from outdoors; I briefly lived in a (new) home that had its foundation buckle and it was immediately obvious where the problems were. The windows are still a problem either way. I went from double pane to single and there's a huge difference in temperature within ~1m of either of the windows I have, possibly as much as 10F. I'm sure the building owner cheaped out, which is insane given what they're charging new tenants here.
I'm told it's now cheaper to actually live in Chicago than it is to live where I do.

We've had a total of about 35 hours of snow on the ground here this winter. Crazy to think that ya'll might beat that.

But climate change is a globalist conspiracy to reduce human population and prevent the second coming of Jesus! Something like that.
The winter of 2024 was so mild where I live that I didn't wear a coat in 2024 until December.

 

[sedrosken]

Oh but it got cold! The globe can't be warming! It's a environmentalist hoax because they want to take away my gigantic skullcrusher family-hauler truck (where I constantly keep my brights on because fuck the vision of everyone else on the road, I need to see for the next mile!) and gas stove! And that's if I even believe in a globe anymore, because flat-earther-ism is in!

</s>

Unfortunately, this is how a large portion of the main demographic down here actually legitimately thinks.

 

[jtr1962]

My theory is that there must be an air gap somewhere but I don't particularly want to look for it right now. I don't see any places where I can see light from outdoors; I briefly lived in a (new) home that had its foundation buckle and it was immediately obvious where the problems were. The windows are still a problem either way. I went from double pane to single and there's a huge difference in temperature within ~1m of either of the windows I have, possibly as much as 10F. I'm sure the building owner cheaped out, which is insane given what they're charging new tenants here.
I'm told it's now cheaper to actually live in Chicago than it is to live where I do.

I didn't know anyone was even still making single pane windows now, much less that a building owner would be dumb enough to install them. Really, that's Trump level stupidity. Now to mention I'm pretty sure it's illegal under the building codes virtually everywhere in the country.

Nowadays 3 and even 4 pane are starting to get mainstream.

I noticed a huge difference when we got rid of our 1950s era single pane windows in 1994 in favor of double pane. I think our annual heating oil usage dropped by like half.

 

[Mercutio]

I didn't know anyone was even still making single pane windows now, much less that a building owner would be dumb enough to install them.

This is Indiana and if there are only two states where something is legal, one of them will be Indiana.

I was treated to a bunch of my Tampa friends dealing with the low-40F weather posting their "cozy vibes" outfits, the sweaters and stocking caps they never wear, yesterday.

40F here and I might very well still have a window open.

But for real, Global Warming was a branding issue. It's technically correct on a global scale, but since many dimwits can't see anything beyond the community where they lived, the terminology shifted to "Climate Change" specifically to address the "If it's getting hotter, why is it still cold sometimes?"-people. Like Jim Inhofe, who brought a snowball onto the floor of the US Senate to refute the idea of that the Earth is getting hotter. Yes really. Look it up.

It'll be hilarious when the gulf stream collapses and ocean currents that normally take centuries to change instead happen in a couple decades. Nothing bad will come of that at all. It'll be even funnier when the "currently hostile to the most benign concepts of immigration" advanced economies of the global North and West watch the people living in huge chunks of Asia and Africa swelter and die and some staggering percentage of biodiversity just vanishes due to changing conditions. But like 20 billionaires will be really happy, and that's what really matters.

 

[sedrosken]

Had to print my boarding passes for my flight to Ottawa tomorrow as the "mobile" pass for the second half of my flight up failed to load. Good job United, very cool. My laser printer thanks you for giving it a reason to turn on.

I called them wanting to correct a spelling mistake on my name -- they had added an extraneous S to the end of my first name -- but apparently it's my middle initial and that's just how they file names in their system for pulling boarding passes. That's pretty dumb. I was worried because this is my first time doing international travel, even if it is to our neighbors up north and I'm arguably running on easy mode.

And my hotel prompted me to inform them of my checkin time -- their options only went up to 6:30PM -- I'm not going to even land until 9:30 at the earliest. I called them, too, to make sure that would be okay and that I hadn't accidentally booked at some boutique outfit that had all sorts of stupid rules and a curfew.

I outright had to change my vehicle reservation a couple weeks back as I learned the company I was originally renting from closes its offices over an hour before I'm due to land. The company I ended up going with instead, well -- they're open until 1AM, I'm hoping that's enough of a buffer for any delays especially since I'm connecting in O'Hare.

 

[Mercutio]

For some reason, neither Spirit nor Frontier boarding passes load properly in Gmail or Outlook mobile, which if I had to guess are probably two of the top 3 most widely used email applications on Android. They even tell you this in the email.

My solution is to screenshot whatever I'm given in the mobile app for the airline/hotel/rental agency (I don't typically rent cars, but it's happened) and then I make an album of paperwork for my trip. I make sure that's sync'd on both my phone and tablet.

Also: I HATE renting cars. I've been in everything from a Versa to a Mustang to an Expedition. 90% of the time, the infotainment system (which is also the maps interface) only wants to talk iphone and is filled with other people's crap. I've also had the sheer terror of having a car where I couldn't find the wiper controls. If they aren't on the stalk on the right side of the steering wheel, somebody already fucked up. If I have to stop the car to look at the manual, that's probably bad enough that it's going to kill people. I've also had the "late night, this is the only car available" argument and it turns out that I don't want to drive a goddamned Ford Land Behemoth anywhere, especially since the only places I travel are big cities.

As another annoying aside, Spirit stopped all its routes to Denver last month and that annoys me because it's a place I like to go.

Just to not be completely negative, there's a hotel chain called Sonder that I absolutely adore. They don't rent hotel rooms. They rent apartments, or things that look enough like apartments to not quibble. I've stayed in them in six different cities. The per-night rates are low because almost everything is self-service, and the locations tend to be extremely convenient. I'm a huge fan.

 

[ddrueding]

Just a heads-up, most of the things here now use animated QR codes (that rapidly alternate between a few) and prevent screenshots from working. I just use the app from whatever airline to get the boarding pass, another advantage is that it typically automatically maxes the brightness of your screen and prevents the phone from sleeping.

The downside is more apps that have more of your data, but I'm convinced that this is prevalent enough (especially in the US) that there isn't anything they don't have.

 

[jtr1962]

Can you still go to Canada without a passport these days? I only went there once, in 1973, to Montreal, with my parents and siblings. Actually that was the only time I was ever out of the country.

 

[sedrosken]

Just to not be completely negative, there's a hotel chain called Sonder that I absolutely adore. They don't rent hotel rooms. They rent apartments, or things that look enough like apartments to not quibble. I've stayed in them in six different cities. The per-night rates are low because almost everything is self-service, and the locations tend to be extremely convenient. I'm a huge fan.

I’m actually going to be staying at a Sonder location. It’s a small single bed room but it’ll be fine.

I’m not very well going to be able to fly my RAV up and I don’t want the wear and tear and salt of the trip on my car anyway. I have an iPhone so I don’t care if their infotainment only speaks that, but I’d also be just fine with Bluetooth only as well. I don’t even know what I’m going to end up in, I just know I selected an economy car.

You need a passport, jtr, but for stays below a certain threshold you don’t need a Canadian visa at least.

Yeah, my boarding pass was basically just a pair of QR codes. I have the first one on my phone, the second one didn’t load, so I just went ahead and printed both.

 

[Mercutio]

Can you still go to Canada without a passport these days? I only went there once, in 1973, to Montreal, with my parents and siblings. Actually that was the only time I was ever out of the country.

It's been Passport required since 2004 and Passport REALLY STRONGLY SUGGESTED since about October of 2001.
On the other hand, my passport has yet to get a stamp in it because everywhere I've been has been somewhere in the Caribbean and apparent they just don't care if you show up on a boat.

I’m actually going to be staying at a Sonder location. It’s a small single bed room but it’ll be fine.

I'd love to see pictures of where you stay, actually.

Sonder locations also nicely solve the problem I have of finding home-like places to take pictures of people for the sort of photography I do. They typically have a nice view and very tasteful decor.

 

[sedrosken]

As we speak my flight to Chicago is delayed because they're all grounded for the blizzard. I may or may not make my connecting flight to Ottawa. If I don't, I'm stuck there until the morning when the next one is. May or may not get to see my mom because of it, we'll see. I've already called ahead to clear my potential late arrival with my car rental agency and with the Sonder.

Merc, I take horrific pictures. You do not want to see any of it, for real, haha.

 

[sedrosken]

Yeah, I’m stuck in Chicago for the night. Going to get a hotel room. I have to be back here by 5:30 to have enough time to make it to my only flight option for tomorrow.

 

[ArAfGo]

That post up there about needing a passport to go to Canada was/is quite a surprise to me. I haven't been in North America since about 1977, so I haven't had to go from U.S. to Canada, but I . . . well, last I remember I was probably active duty and just showed a driver's license and the military ID card. Then again, I started having to use a passport overseas back in the 70s, also. But for Asian nations. In fact, even made it to Hong Kong before it was turned over to the new masters. That sure was an interesting place under British rule. I've technically been into the DPRK, but up high; not on the ground. And that was illegal, sort of. Was ordered to, so semi-legal. I think. Long time ago, so statute thingy might save me if UN cops read this.

Anyway, passport to enter Canada surprised me. Anyway, I'm in no condition to be going there. Uh oh, I'm feeling a little shaking. Hope it stops. Had a similar shake from Ibaraki-ken yesterday or the day before. We have been shaking a lot in Japan recently. No fun.

 

[sedrosken]

That was one of the most miserable nights I think I've ever had in a hotel, and I'm hesitant to say it's entirely their fault. I'm one of those people that need a fan blowing in their face overnight, both for airflow and for noise, and that room was so ridiculously stuffy and hot (and the climate controls were locked) but I think the real issue at hand was that I was so scared of oversleeping and missing my one chance to get out of here today that I was awake every twenty minutes.

Those bozos at United took my suitcase and held it to put on my next flight -- which at time of landing was in 12 hours. That wouldn't be the worst thing, but their app said to look for it at the carousel, and so I did, for most of an hour, before I finally went up to the baggage desk for them to tell me that it was being held for my next flight and while I could request a retrieval, that could take another hour. I told them never mind, though it turns out I may as well have let them, because then my shuttle to my chosen hotel for the night left right after I walked up and I waited another half hour for that.

I guess at some point I had to stop rolling sixes with regards to good flight experiences but I guess I also have some lessons to learn here:

- keep an emergency change of clothes in your carry on, you never know when you'll need them -- regulations made it so my carry on had my devices and medicines and toiletries, at least, but having a change of clothes on hand would have been killer
- always have more money on hand than you think you'll need in case you end up stuck somewhere (this I had by accident by virtue of having some spending money to blow through for food and shopping)
- flat out just don't fly in winter if you can avoid it, there's a reason those tickets are cheap

There's definitely a non-zero chance my flight out today gets cancelled, too, but if that happens I'm biting the bullet and ubering out to see my mom. I can't be stuck here two days and not see her. The only reason I told her to hold off on getting me was because my one singular chance to get out of here today leaves at 7:30 and I didn't want her to drive an hour and a half both ways for me to sleep on her couch for 5 hours at most and have to go back at the asscrack of dawn. Not to mention I don't want her driving in this at all if I can help it.

 

[ArAfGo]

Well, I have no right to be writing this, as we sure don't know each other, BUT I hope the remaining days/hours of this trip you are taking are a whole bunch better! Your next update will delight us with great information about a great change in fortune, yes!!?

 

[Mercutio]

The weather here yesterday was not NEARLY as bad as forecasts suggested, but since we're talking about air travel, it didn't have to be bad HERE if it was bad someplace between here and where you were going. Flying is definitely better safe than stupid. They said we'd get 6 - 8 inches of snow. We got around 2 inches where I live.

Conditions are NOT bad on the ground today and I've already been as far west as Harvey, IL and far east as Chesterton, Indiana since I got up this morning. I'm assuming you're at ORD and not MDW but it turns out that if there's one place where they're serious about making snow not a problem, it's the airports.

 

[sedrosken]

Yeah, I was at ORD.

Well, I left on time this morning and got here on time, but I was pulled aside for extra screening in customs I think -- I declared the laptop I was bringing up for my girlfriend, but apparently I did my math wrong and should have also claimed the figure I got her -- but it was moot anyway since their collection system was down. The officer kinda looked at me, shrugged and said it was my lucky day.

Not that it feels it. I paid extra for snow tires on my rental and I really did need them -- I like it, actually, it's a nice little sedan even if I'd never buy a GM product. Parking here is paid and I didn't know that going in, so that was very annoying. I've spent probably 300 dollars extra that I wasn't expecting to by now all told. Or whatever it is in US dollars. I think that pretty much wiped out my budget for any shopping I wanted to do for me.

I got stuck in a bank twice trying to get into their parking -- to be fair, I had the wrong lot both times, but it still doesn't fill me with confidence for going anywhere today. I made the executive decision that I'm going to try in the morning after they have a fresh plow come through, these roads are terrible. I'm sliding at every stop light. But, at least I have some crucial things in walking distance.

 

[Mercutio]

I typically fly to places where someone is either willing to drive me around, or where I can just get a cab/lyft/uber to city center and deal with public transit. Having a car seems to just lead to costly mistakes. My partner wasted an ungodly amount of money trying to deal with parking to have a car in Manhattan.

San Antonio was the last place I really had to have a car, but that's because I went back and forth to Austin a couple times on the same trip.

 

[jtr1962]

My partner wasted an ungodly amount of money trying to deal with parking to have a car in Manhattan.

Didn't you tell her driving in Manhattan is slower than walking? Real NYers never drive into Manhattan. Besides being the most congested place in the US by a large margin, it also has the greatest public transit system by far. The only parking in Manhattan is insanely expensive garages.

 

[sedrosken]

See, I wouldn't have bothered either, but she doesn't live in Ottawa, she lives an hour outside it, and she doesn't have her own car.

 

[Mercutio]

Didn't you tell her driving in Manhattan is slower than walking? Real NYers never drive into Manhattan. Besides being the most congested place in the US by a large margin, it also has the greatest public transit system by far. The only parking in Manhattan is insanely expensive garages.

I wasn't with her on that trip. The people she was working for paid for everything, but car caused a lot more problems than it solved.

 

[jtr1962]

I wasn't with her on that trip. The people she was working for paid for everything, but car caused a lot more problems than it solved.

Cars in NYC generally always cause more problems than they solve, starting with finding where to park them. Lots of reasons why I never owned one, even though I have a driveway to park it.

 

[sedrosken]

Well. To give you an idea of how that went, I'm going back home on the first flight out, which is tomorrow morning.

 

[Mercutio]

Double posted somehow

 

[Mercutio]

Well. To give you an idea of how that went, I'm going back home on the first flight out, which is tomorrow morning.

If you felt the need to get home on Valentine's Day, you're better off getting home. It's a tough break but sometimes things just don't work out. Sorry man.

 

[jtr1962]

I second Mercutio's sentiments.

 

[sedrosken]

I don't travel to travel, so when things unraveled between us when we finally met in person after ten minutes... yeah. I just want to be at home in my own bed.

 

[sedrosken]

I got rerouted twice more. Eventually my way home ended up being YOW->YUL->ATL->PNS. I got lucky -- apparently they practically shut down YOW not long after I got out, something about another round of winter storms.

I made it home Saturday night around 1 in the morning. Delta lost my suitcase on the last leg of my flight; had I not installed a tracker in it to tell them exactly where it'd ended up (Terminal B at ATL) I likely would have been in for a much longer ordeal -- they delivered my bag to me from, I'm assuming, my local airport (VPS) about 8 hours after I called. Dad wasn't expecting me to have it back for over a week.

 

[Mercutio]

The first time I ever flew, I made the rookie mistake of putting my car keys in my coat pocket and packing my coat because it was unseasonably warm in Philadelphia in February. My bags wound up on the wrong plane and when I landed in South Bend, there was a raging blizzard. I was eventually (~8 hours later) able to get my brother to drive out with my spare car and housekeys. I didn't get my luggage pack for two weeks. My laptop was destroyed and it was clear someone had gone through everything else in my suitcase.

These days I take a backpack as a carry on and if I need anything more than that, I'll buy it when I get where I'm going and ship it back if I care enough to bother.

 

[jtr1962]

I'd probably just ship my luggage to a UPS store near my final destination where they can hold it until I get there. All this lost luggage stuff honestly sounds like yet more reasons to just take Amtrak if I ever start traveling.