It was supposed to have been professionally cleaned but it was not. There was dust and traces of cat everywhere in the wall-to-wall carpet, so we cleaned: six rooms, five closets, and four ceiling fans. And then we cleaned them again. The Costco Rug Doctor Went through almost two whole bottles of concentrated carpet-shampoo (with anti-allergen stuff!), and a new Oreck vacuum cleaner helped capture the fur that was everywhere, even six-feet up on walls where the A/C had floated it.
The big 20″x30″x1″ A/C filter looked like it had never been changed – not in a year at least, and dripped soot and dust and crud all the way from the hallway to the outside garbage can when I removed it – after that our exploding eyeballs and sinuses started to settle down, but we went through three boxes of Aloe-lotion Kleenex and my nose still looks sand-blasted.
I’m not allergic to anything as far as I know and I’ve been medically tested – but the overwhelming quantity of dander and dust and soot and everything airborne and encrusted and embedded and perfumed was still too much for my system. We’ll probably peel-up the 21′x14′ family-room carpet, and while hoping to find wood underneath will install it if it’s not already there – but the carpet is shot.
I don’t hate cats, but I’ve never been a “cat person” or had one as a pet, and never will now. I don’t suppose a couple of dogs would have been any better but hardly much worse either, two indoor-only fluff-balls can do a lot more damage and leave more “residue” than most people would even think possible.
The chimney guy said it was pretty bad after he got through cleaning it. Duraflame fire-logs don’t burn hot enough to remove their own waxy residue, but hot enough (or enough of them burnt) that the bottom of the firebox was cracked and needs replacing. We’ll get that done on another trip.
Good news is the termite damage and dry-rot was all cut out and replaced, and there was about three gallons of exterior paint remaining in the basement that was still in good shape to re-paint, so all the major considerations are done and complete including the new washer/dryer that was delivered on Friday. What a week!!
The sunset views are spectacular from the enormous deck, and you can see more stars and constellations than I remember from Boy Scouts – stuff you just don’t get down here in The Valley or by The Bay. The people are super friendly and the children are well behaved. We were on constant shopping expeditions in between cleaning, and saw a lot of young moms with kids in tow. There was not one instance of a pitched-fit or even a kid with an electronic pacifier. They played quietly or watched silently or walked hand-in-hand, and interacted freely if you made a face at them. They said “Yes sir” and “Yes Mam” and “Please” and “Thank-you” at ever appropriate turn. In fact a young girl walking and talking with her dad at Safeway in the evening came past us, and as I moved the cart to accommodate their passage, without hardly missing a beat in her conversation with her dad she paused and said, “Thank you,” having noticed. I was simply astonished. Low expectations maybe, but I think I’m gonna like it.
Author Archives:
Again, in case I forget…Gunblogger Rendezvous!!!
See the link on the right. It’s gonna be GREAT, Mr. Completely says so and he’s never been wrong.
Once a year Gun Bloggers, Gun Blog Readers, gun writers, shooters, gun association folks, and industry representatives from around the country gather in Reno at the Silver Legacy Hotel & Casino to visit, socialize, compare notes, discuss everything firearms related, and get in three range days covering everything from long range rifle, steel shooting, Cowboy Fast Draw, and more. At the Gun Blogger Rendezvous there is something going on from breakfast to well into the night! 2013 will be the Gun Blogger Rendezvous’ Seventh Anniversary.
I hope all this moving around is done by then too.
Alsooo… Part I of Mr. Completely Competes at the European Steel Challenge!
Making Moves
We’re pre-packing a bunch of stuff for a load-out trip, and I was thinking of what services we want at our next location.
We’ve never had cable or satellite, and generally avoided any monthly entertainment service with re-occurring costs including Netflix – just any subscription-based enterprise. Having worked in that end I know how the nickle-and-dime effort goes – just kick-in for the lifetime-buy (like NRA Life membership!) and swallow the anchor once instead of many times.
Not having CableTV or even a Smart-Phone Contract (our phones are stupid pay-as-you-go and without even GPS) has saved us thousands of dollars in the budget and enabled yearly trips to Hawaii, so I’m really reluctant to go off the Reservation, but out on the fringes we still want Internet connectivity.
AT&T says they don’t even serve the area with just DSL and no-phone, and are pulling up stakes whenever service ends – so no more Internet from that gang.
The previous owners had DirecTV (or Dish?) and I think there’s a pizza-box dish bolted to the deck railing, but we’re also in a location where a plain old broadcast antenna should work quite well.
I’m really at odds with buying a service that has lots of content that I’m completely uninterested in – Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, Discovery KIDS! – WTF? The whole channel package/bundle is too exhausting to even begin analyzing, especially when you know it’s been assembled by some GSB (Grad-Skool of Biz) genius who’s massaged a dozen 300-column spreadsheets to find a way to extract every possible penny out of your pocket, with the least amount of effort and service expended.
Dish network is attempting to entice me with something I don’t even want – an iPad? The only Apple product we own is an old iPod Classic – it doesn’t do anything except music, and it not-does it nicely. I really hate iTunes anyhow, the device is more of a storage unit than anything.
There’s (always) the hideous specter of Comcast lurking like an evil troll in shadows behind a rock – but I really-really hate them.
And today I guess Verizon is TOTALLY out of the question, for any purpose whatsoever. DEAD to me.
UPDATE: Went to the mail-box. I don’t know who keeps issuing this stuff, but I scored another patent-award – #8!! Yay me!
Moto Maniacs
Thanks to Rick of Traction Control we are introduced to a marvelous blog named “The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys” operated by the good maniacs at Sippican Cottage.
And herewith some wet pleasure, The Ulster Grand Prix.
Gettin’ with it – sorta not
The 100-degree fever broke yesterday, but my throat still feels like it was hit with a blow-torch and the ropes of yellow sinus goop are still running down the hawse pipe. Bleh.
So, more and more information emerges despite the Media whiteout about the IRS investigating political enemies and other out-of-control administrative agencies? It just sounds like another day in One-Party-Rule Californicopia. Meanwhile the idiots in Sacramento are continuing their illegal and UN-Constituitional charge against the 2nd Amendment, competing just to see who can lay a bigger turd then the other. It’s way past being a San Francisco bathhouse pissing-match among the Chicken-hawks anymore.
UPDATE: Good news is that in an ENTIRELY Grassroots effort, Colorado suck-weasel Sen. John Morse has two-times the number of required re-call signatures and is TOAST – Recalled: The recall is the first recall of a Colorado legislator in the state’s history.
The Recall Morse effort was 100 percent grassroots. Rob Harris, the leader of the effort, has never been involved in politics before. What got him involved was Morse’s dismissive attitude towards an email he sent Morse about gun control laws. “He said it was abusive,” Harris says, “which it wasn’t.” Refusal to listen to his constituents is par for the course for Morse, who on national television described how he counseled fellow senators to ignore their constituents’ email and calls and vote for the gun control bills.
That arrogant attitude was cited more than any other by people signing the recall petition. A large number of people signing the petition said they had voted for Morse and wanted to fix their mistake.
“We want a representative, not a ruler,” Harris said. “Morse has tried to be a ruler and we’re firing him.”
We need some of that here in California, that’s for damn sure – but the lotus eaters just get a dreamy look on their faces and with a limp finger swipe at their magical self-reflection devices…
Chimp Feet Moi
I haz ‘em too, and can pick-up things with ‘em. Always have been able to do that and their flexibility (and spontaneous movement) seems to bug She Who Must Be Obeyed…
But, after three weeks walking around Paradise just in flip-flops they’s a bit sore from all the flatlander pounding I put to ‘em – so I got some orthotics to put in the boot. Weird. Superfeet insoles I’m familiar with, but these have a strange-feeling additional cushion in ‘em at the ball of the foot. We’ll see how it works out. Makes shifting the 530i feel a bit strange, but today I must since the Furd is in the shop having its 65K Spa-day. Also, both the great Lowe boots’ interiors are now flat as a pancake after two, two-day exercises with Mr Louis on plain unvarnished concrete, and are in need of some re-cushioning…
In other news, beyond craft-brews we seem to have a local craft distillery making fine new head-popper products: Essential Spirits Alambic Distillery. I am especially interested in their Sergeant Classick Rum, made from 100 percent Hawaiian molasses from the island of Kaua’i! At my favorite Costco while in Paradise one could buy the most excellent Kōloa Rum Company products, including the Kaua`i Dark – which I put to quite good use while visiting… So this new (to me) local venue bears some comparative testing.
And just because, GUNS!
QOTD – Kristophr
In comments at SayUncle’s post, “Because we don’t base law on the emotional reactions of freaked out victims” this pithy analysis on the cognitive dissonance of the hysterical anti-gun mouth-breathers:
No amount of logic will get someone out of a position that logic did not get them into.
Communism Day
The Communist love of death is quite strong – almost as strong as the Islamist death-lovers. From Paul Bogdanor comes just a few reminders, and there’s really so much more at the link.
Pre-Stalin Vladimir Medem, On Terror [PDF]
Sergei Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia [PDF]
Sergei Melgunov, The Record of the Red Terror [PDF]
Nicolas Walter, The Legacy of Bolshevism [PDF]
Genocides Inquiry Reveals Lenin Unleashed Systematic Murder of 200,000 Clergy Communist Reign of Terror Killed 200,000 Clergymen Victims were “crucified on royal gates and shot in the basements of the Cheka, scalped, strangled, drowned and submitted to other bestial tortures.”
Soviet Order to Exterminate Cossacks is Unearthed Peter Holquist, “Conduct Merciless Mass Terror”: Decossackization on the Don, 1919 Bolshevik genocide against the Don Cossacks. Samuel D. Sinner, The Open Wound: The Genocide of German Ethnic Minorities in Russia and the Soviet Union Samuel D. Sinner, The German-Russian Genocide: Remembrance in the 21st Century [PDF] Atrocities included “mass rape of the elderly, women and children, mass drownings, prolonged torture sessions, mutilations, hacking up of bodies, mass shootings of hundreds, even thousands in a single action, the holocaust of entire villages – including the burning of all inhabitants and building structures.”
Famines Roman Serbyn, Famine in Ukraine
Summary of the 1921 and 1933 famines. Kazuo Nakai, Soviet Agricultural Policies in the Ukraine and the 1921-1922 Famine [PDF] Roman Serbyn, The First Man-Made Famine in Soviet Ukraine, 1921-1923 Forgotten communist famine, in which millions died. Simon Ertz, The Kazakh Catastrophe and Stalin’s Order of Priorities 1929-1933 [PDF] Yedige Magauin, A Tragedy Kazakhstan Must Never Forget Forced starvation killed a third of the population of Kazakhstan. Raphael Lemkin, Soviet Genocide in Ukraine [PDF]
Afghanistan Afghan Driver Says He Saw Soldiers Blind and Strangle Children [PDF] Afghans Disclose Deaths of 11,000 Communist mass murder in the pre-invasion years. Atrocities and Violations of Human Rights and International Law in Afghanistan [PDF] Eyewitnesses to Afghanistan at War [PDF] Accounts of terror bombing and other war crimes. Rosanne Klass, Lifting the Curtain on Afghanistan’s Horror [PDF]
China Two Millions [PDF] Human Rights in Mainland China [PDF] Uncounted Millions: Mass Death in Mao’s China Scholars Continue to Reveal Mao’s Monstrosities The communists slaughtered many tens of millions in China through massacre, slavery and famine. Jasper Becker, Ex-NPC Chief Admits Maoism Killed Millions Vaclav Smil, China’s Great Famine: 40 Years Later [PDF] Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Leap to Famine How the communists created the greatest man-made catastrophe in the history of the world.
Mongolia Mass Buddhist Grave Reported in Mongolia The communist slaughter in Mongolia.
North Korea Jack Rendler, The Last Worst Place on Earth: Human Rights in North Korea [PDF] From Henry D. Sokolski, ed., Planning For a Peaceful Korea [PDF]. An excellent overview of this totalitarian slave state, where millions have been starved to death or murdered in concentration camps. Jack Rendler, Horrific Conditions and Suffering Make It the Last Worst Place on Earth A shorter and more recent account. Fiona Terry, The Deadly Secrets of North Korea Forced starvation has claimed millions of victims, primarily the elderly, the young and the sick. David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag [PDF]
Vietnam – Pre-1975 Lam Thanh Liem, Ho Chi Minh’s Land Reform: Mistake or Crime? 50 Years On, Vietnamese Remember Land Reform Terror The bloodbath inflicted during the North Vietnamese land reform was effectively whitewashed by far-left activists in the West, but the victims were not so quick to forget. The Blood-Red Hands of Ho Chi Minh Stomach-churning accounts of communist mass murder during the Vietnam War. The Massacre of Hue In this communist massacre, thousands of men, women and children were slaughtered. Stephen T. Hosmer, Viet Cong Repression and its Implications For the Future [PDF] Detailed analysis of Viet Cong mass murder campaigns. The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam [PDF] Compilation of research and newspaper reports on communist terror in Vietnam.
Post-1975 Le Thi Anh, Let the Vietnamese Speak For Themselves[PDF] M. Stanton Evans,Westerners Ignore Vietnam Gulag [PDF] Ginetta Sagan, Vietnam’s Postwar Hell [PDF] Concentration camps and mass murder in post-1975 Vietnam. Declaration of Disinherited Vietnamese on Human Rights [PDF] Testament of Patriotic Prisoners in Vietnam [PDF] Victims of state terror beg the outside world for help. Nguyen Cong Hoan, Human Rights in Vietnam I [PDF] II [PDF] Nguyen Cong Hoan, Why I Escaped From Vietnam Defector’s account of totalitarian slavery in post-1975 Vietnam.
Laos 40,000 Reported Held in Harsh Laos Camps [PDF] Tens of thousands of political prisoners were sent to die in concentration camps. The End of the Hmong Lao Human Rights Council, White Paper on Genocide in Laos The Vietnamese and Laotian communists waged a genocidal war against Hmong tribespeople.
Cambodia - Civil War The Agony of Phnom Penh [PDF] Khmer Rouge’s Bloody War on Trapped Villagers [PDF] “I Watched Them Saw Him 3 Days” [PDF] Priest Won’t Leave Refugees Despite Khmer Rouge Threat [PDF] The savagery of the Khmer Rouge was easily discoverable before 1975. President Ford, News Conference on Cambodia [PDF] President Ford warns of “an unbelievable horror story” if the communists capture Cambodia.
Fear of Cambodian Bloodbath Seen Key to Senate Vote on Aid [PDF] More bloodbath predictions; anti-war leftists in Congress successfully cut off the aid shortly afterwards. John D. Lofton, On Genocide in Cambodia The refusal of the aid opponents to take responsibility for the expected consequences of their actions. Killing Fields Yin Savannary, Diary From Darkness [PDF] Asian Blood Bath [PDF] Cambodia: Work Hard or Die Cambodia – An Outlaw Nation [PDF] Early reports from survivors and journalists. Leo Cherne, The Terror in Cambodia [PDF] Leo Cherne, Cambodia – Auschwitz of Asia [PDF] The chairman of the International Rescue Committee describes the mass murders. Craig Etcheson, The Number: Quantifying Crimes Against Humanity in Cambodia Bruce Sharp, Counting Hell Studies demonstrating that the death toll was in the millions.
Hipster Che – I’m 2 sxy 4-my T-shirt!
Duuude!! Totally!! 
From Frum
Update: title goof-off on the racist dead Communist loser/murderer.
Some assembly required: Dirtopia
Got this package off the Brown Truck of Happiness: the bed-extender/ramp. It’s heavy and there are many pieces. I should have used a drill with a 4mm hex but I didn’t want to strip the nuts, I can always strip them by hand!
It took a while and about a whole tube of blue loctite, but in the end it’s as strong as my Little Giant ladder and about as heavy.
