analog_kidd

Drove past the early voting spot in Oak Ridge this past weekend, and it was so littered with yard signs, it was beyond ridiculous. Some candidates put out dozens in a row side by side. Then their opponent put out dozens of their own. It was, quite frankly, an embarrassment, and an eyesore. I'll be glad when election season is over and all those signs come down.   Another rant: Sunday night, during the storm, we tried watching a show we like. Before it even got started, the local news broke in over the show and gave storm updates for thirty minutes. When the weatherman returned us to "regularly scheduled programming" they went into a 15 minute loop of local political ads, which was just enough time to get us caught up to the national commercials normally attached to the show. In the local commercial loop, I must have seen the same half dozen or so ads 5 or six times. 

  I have witnessed this great feat one time. I have tried myself many times, but never succeeded. 

Saw this on Facebook and it reminded me of this old thread. Thought I'd revive it...       http://youtu.be/Lq14KIgdJOA

We recently signed up for just Internet service from Comcast. When they came to install it, they dropped off a couple of the set top boxes. We said we weren't getting tv and he said that we would get the most basic tv service included in the just internet service, so they give out the boxes. He also said, "By the way, HBO is included for you for fee."   We never even hooked up the boxes, so i don't even know if it really works or not.

I've talked about it before, but I'll mention it again: Google Voice is awesome for this.   GV is a free service from Google where they give you a phone number. You can even pick it from a list of available ones, and they can be from any area code you like.When registered, you go in to the account settings and add all of you real phone numbers, such as your cell, home, work, etc. When anyone dials the GV #, all of those phones ring at the same time. Which ever one answers first, that's where the call is routed to.Picking a different area code is handy if you have family out of state, you can pick a number local to them, and it doesn't cost them long distance to call you, and the call is routed to you for free.   The feature pertinent to this thread is that you can set up contacts and group them into categories like, family, friends, work, etc., then set up ruleyous. The rules can be like: Family always rings thru to the phones. Friends only between 8:00am to 9:00pm. Work only on weekdays. And so on. But, you can also set up one that says if the number is not in my contacts, go to voicemail. There is an option where they have to announce who they are, then google calls you, plays their announcement adn you decide if you want to talk. You can also set up block lists, where the call never goes thru, and the caller is told they are on the block list.   The other feature I use alot is, if you call your own GV # from one of your own phones, it's smart enough to recognize that and it gives you a menu. One of the choices is to place a long distance call. You enter the # you want to call, and GV routes the call through, but all you have really dialed is your local GV# (assuming you picked a local area code). Free long distance for land lines. I use it from work, where personal LD calls are frowned upon.   Another nifty feature is any voice mails left are translated into text and sent to your email. Although I will say the translation code is mediocre at best. A lot of time the written text makes no sense at all because GV didn't understand what was said, and it makes a best guess.

Yep, this is not about "sanctions", but rather just furthering an agenda. If they wanted to impose real sanctions they would have stopped the import of Russian Vodka.

My favorite prank to play on phone marketers was this one: Lady calls me up and says Hello Mr. Analog, how are you today? I get all scared sounding and say "Well not too good. You see I'm in the witness protection program, and analog was my old name. Now somehow you got my old name together with my new phone number. If you found me then they can too."   Lady got all freaked out and went to go get her manager. I had to hang up I was laughing so hard.     The other one I used was with AT&T. When we moved here my wife arranged all the utilities, so they were all in her name. Get a call one night, "Hello, this is AT&T may we speak with Mrs. Analog?" I tell them, "Sorry Mrs. Analog's phone privileges have been suspended, she's not allow to use the phone right now." Blew their mind, they could not comprehend that an adult woman, my wife, was not ALLOWED to use the phone.   We got rid of our land line and our cells are on the Do Not Call list, so I rarely get any telemarketers calling any more. I do get a lot of rings with nobody on the other end when I pick up. I suspect those are robo-calls looking for live numbers.

Well, its not quite $40K, its actually only $39,999.98.   Seriously? When you get up to that price range, do they really need to drop the $0.02 to make you feel like you are getting a deal. Do me a favor and make it easy on my checkbook and make it a nice even $40k

OUTSTANDING!! If you've gone a month, you are home free, the worst is over. I quit probably 20 years ago after about 15 years of smoking. Now, I can't even stand the smell of them. Wasn't the case 20 years ago, though. Keep it up.  :up:

Back in February, we bought a house in the country, and for the first time ever we had a respectable sized garden. I've already made a dozen jars of pickles and a dozen jars of relish. The pickles are a bit sour, so may have to find a new recipe next year.   I've got about 3 gallon sized freezer bags of green beans and one or two of squash in the deep freeze.   We have a thornless backberry bush that has produced over a gallon of berries, and is still going strong, I froze them, and have been adding a handful of them to my oatmeal every morning.  :yum:   We just got a pressure canner, but have not had a chance to use it yet. We are going to have more tomatoes than I know what to do with, so I guess we'll be using the canner on them. We probably have 15 tomato plants, and they are so full and heavy with tomatoes that they are falling over.   We also planted a whole row of pumpkin. Why didn't someone tell me that is way too much pumpkin? It practically took over the whole garden. Fortunately we planted it next to a gap we left unplanted. It consumed all that space, and crept out under the fence. I guess we'll can some pumpkin, but I don't even like it all that much.

Just heard that James Garner passed away today. I loved watching reruns of Rockford Files. I went on a Safety Patrol trip to Washington DC when I was in 5th grade, and caught a glimpse of him in the White House, filming for something.   Gonna miss him.

If you got a 2nd one, it looks like you could hang the two on a wall and make some sort of rack. Perhaps a gun rack?

Ol' Ted is a bit eccentric, and full of energy, but he's passionate, and really believes in his message. If you were to take a transcript of what he says and polish off a few of the rough edges, his message is rock solid.   He's certainly no nuttier than those champions of Liberalism, Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson.

As a whitewater kayaker, I love it when it rains long and hard in the summer. It brings up the creeks and rivers. Although, I'm not sure this event is going to be quite enough. Probably will be great river levels on Monday, when I have to be at work.   Here's a song that is my kayaking mantra. Maybe it will pick up your spirits:   http://youtu.be/esEdC0c3YI4

I was really expecting to see an article written about "assault weapons", you know EBR's such as AR-15's, AK's, etc. I would not have been surprised to see an article about Hi-Cap pistols. I also thought it could have been about 3D printed guns. I could have respected an article about guns that may be poorly made and dangerous to the owner. Any of these topics at least had points that could have been argued why they are dangerous.   But, no. We find out the most dangerous guns are pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and (snicker) Derringers. So basically ALL guns are the most dangerous.   I submit that the five most dangerous tools of an idiot journalist are 1. Computer, 2. Typewriter, 3. Pen, 4. Pencil, 5. Crayon. 

One time, our dryer was taking forever to dry stuff, even though it was hot and spinning. We had maybe 15' of dryer hose running from the dryer to the flapper, all of it in the crawl space. I crawled back to the hose and noticed it was drooping in between the ties that fastened it to the floor joists. I felt them, and they were very heavy. I took a screwdriver and poked a small hole in one, and a couple gallons of water poured out. Not sure if it all came in from the flapper, or if it was moisture that built o\up over time. Regardless. the dryer worked much better after that.   I also replaced the hose, and noticed there was a ton of lint build up in the old hose.As mentioned above, you really need to keep them clean to avoid fires. And, teh longer the duct, the more lint build up you'll have. I know at my local Home Depot, they sell a brush with a long cable that you insert into the duct and attach to a drill, that will sweep it out. I think it only works if you have the solid sheet metal style ducts, not that flexible stuff made out of mylar.

My dad always says that the teen age years are God's way of helping to cut the cord, so you're ready for them to leave when they become an adult.

Looking at this link:    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_update/windows-update-failure-error-code-0x80070005/01b44c30-9ae1-4f10-b151-df1e610ee5df   It appears that you may not be the only one experiencing the problem. I found a few others too. This particular person discovered that it finally updated after waiting for a while.   Have you gone to the Control Panel / Windows Update and tried installing them one by one?   For grins, you might try this: Close all windows. Open My Computer. Right-click the C:\ drive and select Properties.Make sure you are on the General tab, and click on Disk Cleanup. From the window that pops up, click Clean up System Files. from teh next window that pops up, you can select a couple dozen options of junk to remove from your PC. Select anything you wnat, but be sure to select Windows Update Cleanup, and maybe Temporary files. When done checking boxes, click OK.   You might reboot once more, run that wuauclt /detectnow   command once more and see what happens.

You can also go to Start / Control Panel / Windows Updates and look there to see if any pending updates are waiting.

I'd reboot, then log back on and click the Start button. From the run box enter this: WUAUCLT /DETECTNOW       <enter>   That will force wi\\Windows to recheck for updates again. After a few minutes, look in the area over by the clock to see the Updates icon. Click on it and follow the prompts to install the updates. Hopefully the second time is the charm. Often an update fails because it depends on another update to be installed first. Hopefully those were installed in the first round last night.     Good luck

Is it just me or do they all look like they are 15 years old?

Just heard today that Pink Floyd will release "Endless River" in October. It's their first studio album since Division Bell 20 years ago. (Dang I feel old). It's supposed to be a continuation of some stuff they were working on during DB, but it's all new stuff. Of course Roger Waters will not be on it.   I wasn't a huge fan of Division Bell, but Floyd is my all-time favorite group. Just the thought of getting some new Pink Floyd material has me all excited. It may suck, but I don't care, it will be Floyd.   To me "The Wall" is a masterpiece that will never be topped. I could listen to that album on a continuous loop. I've listened to it thousands of times and still hear some new nuance in it somewhere.

There's an emotional aspect to renting your "home", as in a place you have raised kids, had Christmas at, etc. It's difficult to see someone else living there. We recently moved to a new home, and briefly thought about converting the old house to a rental. Neither my wife nor I could get past the idea of having to come to a repair and seeing someone else living in our home.   If it is an upscale home, with lots of nice stuff in it, then it's probably not going to be a good rental. Renters will not take as good of care as you did on the house. That pool that you took loving care of will be green and full of leaves. That beautifully landscaped showpiece backyard will be overgrown with weeds. They'll run the A/C at 60 degrees. They'll lose your garage remote. You get the idea.   Our rentals are very basic. They are comfortable, well maintained houses, but have no amenities outside of a dishwasher. I put a lot of blood and sweat into fixing them up, but at the end of the day, they are an investment and a way to make money. If a renter burned one down, I'd cash the insurance check and not shed a tear.

We have 2 rental properties, but they are right here in town, and we bought them to be rentals, so our situation is a bit different.   If I were in your situation and decided to rent it out, I think I would go with a management company. The renters won't even know you exist, they'll deal with the company. Of course the company will take probably 10% of your rent, plus you're still on the hook to pay for repairs.   If you're making $300 a month, I think I would put all of that into a savings account and get ready for a new roof / AC. Although 11 years old is not bad for a roof these days, and an 11 year old probably still has a few years left in it too. Keep in mind you can also deduct the repairs from your taxes.    Getting good renters is always the thing with rentals. We do all our own interviewing of potential renters, and my wife has a finely tuned BS detector behind her left ear, so we weed them out. We are very strict about no smokers or pets. I don't care if they have never once smoked in the house because their wife has emphysema, if they have even a hint of smoke odor on them, we won't consider them. Little Foofoo is the absolute best dog in the world and has never even laid on the carpet?. Glad you have a nice dog, see you later. To do that, I've left a house empty for a month while looking for the right renter, I'm willing to take that hit on income. Living far away from the property you may not have the luxury of personally interviewing each renter.   If you do rent it out, read up on "Depreciation of Basis". It's a tax thing, that you need to know about. Basically it's a break you get on your taxes every year, but then you pay capital gains on those breaks when you sell it. It's not terribly complicated, but the IRS expects you to claim it, and WILL charge you the capital gains when you sell it.   Good luck

Except for the vernacular, it sounds like that could have been written to our own government.   I'm ashamed to say, I can't recall ever reading the entire Declaration of Independence. I know I've read the first couple of paragraphs, but not the whole thing. Thanks for posting this!