Good morning!!!!

[Popgadget]

Good morning
It’s 74 and climbing to the mid 90’s today.
No rain forecast until tonight and most of the day tomorrow.

Yesterday was an easy day, trip went well, stopped at a friends shop, he sells Stihl, Honda, ExMark and a batch of others as well.
I picked up a few chains for my Makita saws, and had a nice visit.
Next stop was the ATT store to check out new phones. I had no intention of getting one, but wanted to see what my upgrade options were, as my present iPhone was getting old.
I left with an iphone 12pro max and my monthly bill went down by $45. They gave me $700 for my old phone, which still has me scratching my head.
Got a little work done in the shop when I got home.

Today I’m going to pick up a plane from maintenance in Washington, PA. Son will fly, I’ll be in the right seat, grandson and DIL will be in the cabin. First plane ride for grandson.
Then back to the shop when I get home.

 

[Alien]

Mostly-gas. Lockdown is 'supposed' to give the gov't time to do their contact tracing whilst limiting public movement.
Too much contradiction between State and Federal governments statements here that just leads to confusion. General concensus is that the 'experts' have no idea what they are doing.

 

[Thomas]

Thomas too big for 1 stick?

Always remember popsicles were 2 sticks and today it's hard to find 2 stick popsicles and good tasting one.

 

[Thomas]

71F morning clouds mid 80+ for high tad cooler chance t-storm afternoon.

Outside chores done E muffin time.
Mother Doe with her fawn and mother fox with her 4 pups show up last evening while setting on the deck,fawn keep real close to mom.

Today last day of mask policy than as they say it's free for all....hmmm.

Plans for today... trip to town for critter food couple other stops,other than that take the day as it comes.

Enjoy your day all.

 

[MoKelly]

Good morning.

Wife leaves today for Little Rock to visit family.

I stay to hold down the fort.

Kitty will not be pleased again that his favorite human is away. But, she’ll be back Saturday.

Youngest son turns 23 on Sunday. A July 4th baby.

Rain today then, hopefully, mowing can commence Thursday. It’s been 10 days and grass looks like it needs a cut.

Stay safe.

MoKelly

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 77F @ 4:30AM. Abundant sunshine. High around 100F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
The Excessive Heat Warning expired last night, but I'm not enough of a snowflake to tell the difference between 101.3F (yesterday's high here) and a mere 100F (which is apparently below the EHW threshold).

Sounds like you got a pretty good deal on the Max, Paul. Enjoy! FWIW, my Verizon bill went UP when I went from the old SE to the Max, even though I purchased the phone outright.

Popsicle "progress", Thomas? All I see in the grocery store out here are the ones in plastic sleeves, and they're not even in the freezer section. Somehow the taste of plastic will never replace that of syrup soaked wood...

Comparing the infection rates between our two countries, Doug, I'd say your authorities have done a much better job than ours.

I have old Echo yard tools, a string trimmer and a blower, that have also been replaced with newer versions. Yesterday I got them out and tried to get them started so I could sell them, too. The blower was first, and I couldn't even get a pop out of it. The plug has spark, but it looks pretty weak, and the carb leaks. A knockoff carb is $15 on ebay, so that's probably what I'll do there. The trimmer started right up, but wouldn't take any throttle. I drained the gas, put a little Chevron Techron in the tank, and ran it until it shutoff, thinking Techron might unplug whatever's causing the problem. But it's probably gonna need an ebay carb, too. Between all that cord pulling and wrestling with the billboard tarp, that was enough outside work for a hot summer day.

Got in another siesta, then after looking at yet another indecipherable PG&E bill, decided to call them and get some help. The guy on the other end was very helpful, explaining the acronyms and answering a boat load of questions. The bottom line seems to be that they count killoWatts I buy and sell, and at the once a year True-up date, tally one against the other to see who owes what to who. If I owe them, they go through the rate plan and convert kWh to dollars at about $0.30/kWh (it varies by season and time of day). If they owe me, I get a credit of $0.027/kWh. Apparently their electricity is much more valuable than mine! We also spent a lot of time looking at the various rate plan options, all of which boost the cost of power in the late afternoon and evening (which they call Peak Hours), just when the output from the solar panels is falling off, and demand from the A/C system is peaking in the heat of the day. Funny how that works to their advantage, huh? I'm allowed to change rate plans twice a year, which may or may not trigger a True-up, and the rate plans may or may not have a lower Baseline rate for the first dozen or so kWhr/day. If they had set out to create the most Byzantine rate structure imaginable, they have succeeded well beyond anyone's wildest dreams. My head was literally hurting by the end of the conversation. The only saving grace is that the system here as accumulated a bit more than a mega Watt of credit since last July when it was first connected to the grid, and even though the A/C is chewing through the surplus, it's probably big enough to get to the True-up date.

I recuperated with a big bowl of chili and a glass of wine while watching a '50s era SiFi thriller, complete with advanced aliens, flying saucers, monster slaves, and a hysterical female scientist. To balance that out, a more recent Tom Cruze movie called "Oblivion" showed that the good guys still win in a post apocalyptic world.

Happy Hump Day, folks!

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, still hot and muggy here.
Got the flail roller adjusted. Chainsaw cleaned up and the gardens watered.
Too hot for much else.

Randy - sorry to hear about Missy. We miss having cats here.

LS - hope your knee gets better, Insurance companies own us :-(
Hope Kassie pulls through ok.

Our dog is doing better, finishing up the antibiotics- she loves getting medicine since we put it in almond butter.

Bird sorry to hear about your daughter-hope operation goes perfect. But she will still lose most of the summer.

Caught the squirrels up in the peach tree-probably won't get any for us again this year.

20" bar on my chainsaw (2 of them) keep choking up the nose when cutting up the dead ash, 19" bar does not do this. Tried upping the oiler a bit, did not help :-(

Stay safe and be well.

 

[txdon]

due to inability in getting my new Ridgeline in, still no word at all, looking at Volvo's large SUV tomorrow with a friend. Have a good deal where another
friend's son has a truck and closed trailer, I can call him up any time I need a pickup, so as much as I want a truck, maybe I can make do with a larger suv.
My size audi is too small for me and I need a bigger door opening to get in without gyrations to my fused neck. I basically need a Tahoe sized door but don't want
overall vehicle that size. This is just not a good time to be buying cars, everything being sold at top profit. But a good excuse to meet a child hood friend for lunch
and then we go look at cars together. He's 6'3" and a perfect "size" guy to bring along.

Drew have you looked into the new Ford Maverick. Hybrid. It is supposed to be here in the Fall. I might have bought this instead of my Ranger. I really liked the hybrid Prius and the Maverick is supposed to get 40mpg in city. It also has lots of goodies standard.

https://shop.ford.com/configure/maverick/model/customize/xl

 

[kenmbz]

Is it my imagination or are the truck beds getting shorter ?

 

[daugen]

The new Maverick has a similar small bed to the Ridgeline and gets phenomenal gas mileage though thankfully it is offered with same
more powerful four as in Ranger. Yes Don, looks good but I'd be a totally early adopter and I'd rather stick with tried and true Honda.
I need this truck big enough to drive cross country in it and not sure the Maverick is suited to that. But I saw that too and agree the packaging
is very close and very competitive. Hyundai is also making one but it's even smaller and more like the old Subaru Brat. Yes, you can make the bed so small
the thing does get kind of useless...

Used to be 6 foot was minimum truck bed size and 8 feet was the long bed so that lumber/building materials could lay flat.

Remember the Ford Explorer that tried to chop the back off and put a tiny cargo bed back there? It just wasn't big enough apparently for even the suburban warrior.
I think they called it a Sport Trac. So it wasn't a truck...it was a sports action adventure transportation module.

I don't need to haul heavy loads or carry a lot of weight, so front drive/awd unibody setup is ok for me.

PT went well, hurt but ok, now out to trim a bunch of forsythia bushes before it gets even hotter out.
Yesterday I felt flushed and surely was when I came in with a very red face. Today I'm not pushing it...