Good morning!!!!

[Bird]

Kyle, Giddings is reporting ZERO visibility. it must be very foggy there this morning, be careful.

We have more fog than I've seen in a long time; but quarter mile visibility is not nearly as foggy as Giddings this morning.

 

[CWB Wyo]

It's overcast this morning and 28°. Yesterday was cloudy and in the mid 30's. It looks like today will be partly cloudy with a high around 40 and the wind 10-20 mph.

Not much planned today. I'm still going through stuff in the watershed and the garage.

Hope everyone has a nice day.
CWB.

 

[jbrumberg]

Good Morning Everyone!!!

A brisk 18ºF/265.4ºK with wind gusts ~25-35mph; windchill in the single digits to start the day. I’m probably wearing more layers of clothing than a street-wise schizophrenic going outside. Today’s high should reach 24ºF/268.7ºK

Roy- Good luck with Bela’s veterinarian’s evaluation. I post for myself, but I am sure all of us here hope Bela’s examination goes well.

Phil- You have a good day plan. I have more tree debris down this AM; I bet I had ~40mph gusts here based on what’s on the ground. My open north facing field channels the wind gusts “rather nicely.” Winds should slack off later today. I see a lot of rain in our futures starting Thursday night through Friday. We might see a dusting of snow Christmas eve into Christmas.

RonJ- I am happy to read the PT and doctor examination went well. I agree about the mutual waste of time and $ lost with Medicare.

Drew- Good luck with the “muffin run.”

Admissions always started to increase after Thanksgiving and peaked around Christmas through to the New Year and stayed “above average” until Saint Valetine’s Day. This is a stressful time of year for everyone. I hope Ed and his family are alright and all of us are managing.

RNG- I am happy to read the judge accepted you hardship exemption for jury duty.

Don- Good luck with Mom.

I hope that everyone has a decent day today.

My + thoughts, wishes, and prayers.

 

[Jim Nelson]

And that's the reason I just quit going to my doctors.

My rheumatologist came up with a new drug for gout, it's a bi-weekly infusion of a drug called Krystexxa. Works great, my uric acid has been <.2 since the first treatment. The original plan was to do this for 6 months then go back to taking Allopurinol to maintain while checking blood levels periodically.At the 6 mo. point he decided I needed to continue for another 6 mo. with no explanation.
I went to MyMedicare.gov. to check on another doc's charges and found that this new gout wonder drug was being billed @ $19,487.00 per infusion. I called and cancelled my appointment for today and set up an appointment to talk to the doc.,as I think this is obscene.

 

[jbrumberg]

Jim-

Welcome to this thread and good luck with the doctor. Your charges and how Big Pharma manipulates drug costs should be considered criminal.

 

[wngsprd]

Eric, it was a little cooler here this morning than Whitchurch... 269.817 K going to 281 K.

Got many of my honey-do's done already this morning while she is off to her Yoga Christmas gathering. While I was out feeding the birds at 7am, what should arrive, but the US Postal Service lady in her SUV filled to the roof with Amazon boxes...with one for me with an Eco-Fan...it will never pay for itself, but I'm intrigued by the technology, and thought it would be good to give our neighbors in Ontario some revenue.

Don, sounds like you did a good thing with your mom. You have me talked into your neighborhood, if I could live on a ranch on the outskirts, and drive into the clubhouse for the fun.

I hope Mrs PJ and Farmer (last Sunday) had enjoyable birthdays.

Spent 4.5 hours removing and replacing window trim yesterday...used a new type of caulk and liked it much better. Then ran a race to get a box to the UPS store before it closed - I had promised my wife I would ship it for her.

BEF, I called our Geo loop guy for help - I checked our records and saw that the last time any diagnostics done on the loop/pumps was 2004. He did confirm it is pressurized. Waiting for him to come out today. I pay our separate HVAC company for an annual maintenance contract, but they do only the heatpump portion, they don't get into the ground loop portion or the hot water generation...not even checking via the P/T plugs. The Geo loop guy encouraged me to insist they do that. Yep.

Kyle, 85 mph highway sounds great. I drove I-15 in Utah and was surprised the legal speed was 80. I had a hard time getting used to it...for the first 60 seconds.

 

[lostcreekranch]

45° here and zero visibility from fog. Doesn't seem like it will be gone anytime soon. Forecast is for 65° this afternoon.

Formula: (45°F − 32) × 5/9 + 273.15 = 280.372K

(65°F − 32) × 5/9 + 273.15 = 291.483K

In case anyone was wondering?

Looks like you East Coasters will be catching it this winter.

Polar vortex may be on the horizon, scientists warn

Polar vortex may be on the horizon, scientists warn | Fox News

I've been trimming trees so ........ lots of piles of branches laying around waiting for ground to get dry enough for tractor/grapple work.









Hope everyone has a great day.

Prayers to all.

 

[300UGUY]

Roy, good luck with Bela. Our Sara is getting bigger by the day, she plays with our terrier, she is bigger than him, but they never hurt each other. They even eat out of each other’s dishes. One thing with our boxers, we keep them out of the sun, they go outside, but we don’t let them sun themselves outside. My Bubba loved to sun himself, but after he died from skin cancer, I won’t let my dogs lay out in the sun.

Cloudy and cool here, just about 273 kelvins.....

Have a good one!

 

[txdon]

And that's the reason I just quit going to my doctors.

Thats what my mom says too but she still keeps going for her 6 mo. dr. visit. The Dr. said to come back and medicare is paying.

 

[toppop52]

45° here and zero visibility from fog. Doesn't seem like it will be gone anytime soon. Forecast is for 65° this afternoon.

Formula: (45°F − 32) × 5/9 + 273.15 = 280.372K

(65°F − 32) × 5/9 + 273.15 = 291.483K

In case anyone was wondering?

Looks like you East Coasters will be catching it this winter.

Polar vortex may be on the horizon, scientists warn

Polar vortex may be on the horizon, scientists warn | Fox News

I've been trimming trees so ........ lots of piles of branches laying around waiting for ground to get dry enough for tractor/grapple work.

View attachment 583445

View attachment 583446

View attachment 583447

View attachment 583448

Hope everyone has a great day.

Prayers to all.

I did that two weeks ago, cleaning up the branches is the pain, literally, mine were all holly trees! Actually, I hardly touched any.

That polar vortex is what I was saying might get us after the January thaw, and now it looks more like it will. Not looking forward to that.

 

[toppop52]

Monthly breakfast with the guys this morning, serious BS session. 36 ° early, 43 ° now, looks like we might hit mid 40s today, very breezy.
I took the old Monte Carlo for a long ride yesterday, hadn’t been run in over a month. Always a good time.
Trying to finish my Christmas shopping and cards finished, couple of cards are hard to find.

Christmas is going to be complicated with my new normal, involving multiple families, two moms in nursing homes, two sets of kids, my grandsons, etc... but, it’s not about that, is it?
Happy day guys, God bless.

 

[jbrumberg]

There has been more weather chatter about the potential for a colder air mass as Randy and Rick have posted.

This pending 12/21-22 weather event will help draw the arctic cold which has been on the other side of the northern hemisphere to our side.

This year the weather pattern seems to be the upper level jet stream driven low pressure systems and lower level driven lows track across the CONUS and never really completely phase which is classic el Nino weather. It appears the "driving energy" over the Pacific will be starting to lessen. There still is that split jet stream modeled, but models are very poor 10 days out. Who really knows???? We'll see. I would like to see more snow. 19.75" of snow so far this season. I still have 3"-5"'s of snow pack. I doubt this pending warming trend and rain event will melt much.

Randy- Your Holidays read as a major logistic challenge; but connecting/reconnecting with families is an important Holiday theme. Good luck.

 

[sodamo]

64 °F and 0 rain. Looking to be a good day in the dirt.

Sorry to read about your Aunts, Don. Sounds like you gave your Mom a terrific day.

Congrats to the birthday ladies.

Looks like interesting guitar project, looking forward to the pics.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[Jim Nelson]

Jim-

Welcome to this thread and good luck with the doctor. Your charges and how Big Pharma manipulates drug costs should be considered criminal.

Thanks for the welcome Jay,I'm actually a long time lurker but seldom post because of "oldmanitis"and poor typing skills. Sometimes something like this comes up and just makes my blood boil, the idea that Medicare pays for it is ludicrous and we should all just refuse this kind of abuse by big pharma and the medical profession.

 

[txdon]

Don, sounds like you did a good thing with your mom. You have me talked into your neighborhood, if I could live on a ranch on the outskirts, and drive into the clubhouse for the fun.

I think you have a winning combination there. I need to talk to Del Web about that as a new additional neighborhood, with 10-30 acres in that wild land to the North of us.

 

[txdon]

Christmas is going to be complicated with my new normal, involving multiple families, two moms in nursing homes, two sets of kids, my grandsons, etc... but, it’s not about that, is it?
Happy day guys, God bless.

You are right it's not about family, but . . . . I can see your complications and your attempt to be there for everyone, it could get exhausting. Take care, this is your first "new normal" Christmas what you do now will set the tone for future Christmas.

 

[LouNY]

Thanks for the welcome Jay,I'm actually a long time lurker but seldom post because of "oldmanitis"and poor typing skills. Sometimes something like this comes up and just makes my blood boil, the idea that Medicare pays for it is ludicrous and we should all just refuse this kind of abuse by big pharma and the medical profession.

I'm going to rile you up a bit.
The last 13 years before I retired and for several years before that I performed calibrations for a Pharmaceutical company.
I was amazed at the millions of dollars and years of time to get a new drug approved by the FDA.
Several clinical trials lasting years each, phase 1, phase 2 then finally phase 3 then submittals and a few more years.
Tons of documentation to be submitted in both technical pharmaceutical terms and also government linguistics and
bureaucratic nonsense.
On top of that hundreds of ideas don't get to trials, thousands are dropped after stage 1 or 2, many at stage 3 and then
more are rejected by our FDA or other countries equivalent.
So the few successful ones are supporting all the failed one and the ones under development.
Are some of the charges high yes, but what is the alternative.
Or should we stop all of the new advances?

 

[jbrumberg]

Lou- I fully appreciate the costs of business, R&D, legal support, etc.; and understand how the profits of successful meds fund operations. It is the "government linguistics and bureaucratic nonsense," unexpected sudden profit driven exponential increases in medication costs, as well as outright abuse of Medicaid and Medicare by producers, providers, and consumers that gets my undies in a bunch.

Having typed this I fully appreciate the costs of my care and treatment when I got sick.

 

[toppop52]

You are right it's not about family, but . . . . I can see your complications and your attempt to be there for everyone, it could get exhausting. Take care, this is your first "new normal" Christmas what you do now will set the tone for future Christmas.

Precedent and protocol, right Don? :thumbsup:

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

"I gotta go to the butchers today and the PO, that is all"-----LFN

Looking, you probably shouldn't use 'butchers' and 'PO' (parole office) in the same sentence! :laughing: