A New Refrigerator and That Man

Greetings Earthlings!  How are you in this time of trial and tribulation?  Jim and I are fairly despondent about the state of things.  It seems to be getting worse everyday.

We got the new refrigerator last week.  The frig itself is an improvement, but boy howdy was the install flawed.  We paid for a white glove delivery.  The two meat heads that brought it did not white glove it at all.  

First, they left the packing tape on the inside of the refrigerator as well as the plastic enclosing the drawers and shelves.  When they left, they were practically running for the front door, telling us that "code" would not allow them to put their hands in the refrigerator and we would have to deal with it.  They also did not tell us that we should pull the tape before cooling it down.  Not knowing this, we left and went to Costco, leaving it to cool off.  This was not good.  The tape would not just pull off, it left layers of tape behind.

See how the color lightens at the end of the strip?  When it reached that point, we were scraping it off with our thumbnails.

These two little remnants were difficult to remove.

This is it, it's a terrible photo. 

We have so much more space in the refrigerator side.  The freezer is about a push on capacity.  The ice maker is way better, and does not spit ice on the floor.

Their second sin was they delivered it in sleep mode.  We couldn't understand why the light for the ice maker wouldn't stay on.  After several readings of the manual, we deduced that the box was sleeping.  To take it out of sleep, you push two buttons at exactly the same time, and hold it for exactly 5 seconds.  That was time consuming.

We saw this at Costco.  Potato chips cooked in Wagyu beef fat.  Who thinks this is a good idea.  Oh right, RFKJr thinks we should all be eating beef tallow, and no seed oils.

47 continues to run off the rails.  He's back to bombing Iran and closing the Strait of Hormuz.  Yesterday he announced that he's opening up Bear's Ears and the Escalante National Monument to mining.  He wants to close an additional 30 monuments for mining.  

Trump just shrunk Bears Ears by 91% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 90%. Bears Ears was the first national monument co-managed by tribes. Five tribes spent years building that partnership. It's been walked back. 100,000+ archeological sites now exposed to mining and drilling.
Posted by Rebecca Nagle

A year ago, CDC made Cyclospora surveillance optional. It had been tracked for 28 years. Today: ~3,000 cases across 31 states, no confirmed source, and CDC’s own count (843) is trailing what states are reporting by thousands.  At present, they're thinking it's in bagged salad.  This is not good, bagged salad is a dinner staple on the way to Tucson.  That's assuming we still have gas available in October.

So, Lindsay Graham died.  Many people have had many things to say about that.  I think this is the best statement.

And then there is Mitch McConnell.  He's like Schrodinger's cat.  Is he dead or alive?  Who knows.  His proof of life photo was not convincing.  Snopes rates it as AI generated.

Other than the destruction of the democracy and the breaking of the planetary economy, there's not much to report.

The Lake and the World in General

It's hot now.  Riding must be done earlier than we like.  However, tomorrow is off the table since the new refrigerator is being delivered.  I have HAD it with the old one; the ice maker throws ice on the floor, the chute is always getting plugged up with multiple cubes stuck together which means I have to stick my arm in there and fish them out, plus the the freezer is a drawer and finding anything that sunk to the bottom is difficult.  So the new one is going to be a side by side.  Buying a frig is an information free zone, they're not on water in the store so who knows how the flow rate is for the water dispenser.  Our time slot is 8:30 to 10:30, so it will not spend the entire day sitting on a hot truck in the sun.

There has been riding.  The milfoil is now blooming.  It's that yellow streak on the water.

These people live on the water, near the park.  They pretty much have housing perfection.

This a pit toilet at the parking lot of the trail head.  This sign went up a little bit or so ago.  I'm not sure why this needed to be said.
 

So 47 was at the NATO meeting, sleeping through meetings, being belligerent, and bombing Iran.  He called the Iranian people scum, and was generally unpleasant.  When he went to Turkey, he took the new plane that was a gift from Qatar.  It was refurbed somewhat, but it's lacking in defensive capability.  The real planes have missile detection, chaff dispensers and like that.  The current AF1s also have in air refueling, the new two do not.  I think that was a grievous error in judgement.  Anyway, after hostilities started up again, a current AF1 was sent to fetch him, since he has created hostile skies with his actions.  The Qatar plane was taken to Europe so the troops could see it.  Right.

The US is wondering if Mitch McConnell is dead or alive.  If he's dead, then a special election must be called to replace him.  If he dies after August 3, then there is no special election and they wait until mid-terms.  The republicans don't want a special election because they fear Thomas Massie will run as an independent, win, and join the Senate to bedevil 47. 

This is a good tweet on that subject.  "Don't forget that the establishment kept a deceased pregnant woman alive, against her family's wishes and medical evidence, to incubate a fetus to viability like a science experiment... They would certainly keep a dead senator warm if it meant hanging on to power."
Posted by Jezz

Other than a new appliance, there is not too much happening here.  The marmots are eating our neighbors' flowers.

Belgium Beats the USA

 I do love this.  From the Washington Post:

After the game was over, the team did Trump's signature dance in the locker room while singing YMCA.

Congratulations, Belgium.  The 4-1 score was pretty dang impressive.

The Fourth

Happy 4th for those who observe.  We do not.  We did go for a walk, which was warm, but good.  We need to walk more.  Our neighborhood is largely elderly, and many of the men are losing the ability to walk well.  They take very guarded tiny steps.  Jim's mother did this towards the end, she traded in her long stride for baby steps.  My current theory is that we need to walk more to avoid that.

There are approximately 400 Proud Boys parading through D.C. today.  It's hotter that the hubs of hell and some of them are suffering from the heat.  People on the streets are yelling at them, telling them to take their stupid Confederate flags and go home.  I support this position.  Here is an interesting photo from the subway.  The photo is by Cheney Orr, who is a freelance photographer.

Those people are just disgraceful.

We went to the John Finch Arboretum Wednesday.  It's a very pleasant aspect, with the exception of I90 running along its border.  The noise was ferocious.  They have many kiosks telling you about water management in urban areas and the importance of trees. 

It's difficult to see, due to the harsh sun and shadows, but this is a very large tree that was either hit by lightning or high winds that is currently broken.  There are two outliers now that used to be upright.

There are many marmots there.  Many.  They dig holes like this and then burrow.  Marmots really have no predators in Spokane, so they are multiplying.  

The creek, so there is a water supply for the critters.

Another house was re-roofed last week.  It was a huge roof.  Progress was slowed by this tire on their trailer blowing up.  It sounded like a bomb.

The chords are visible along the top of this photo, they sort of look like teeth.  They're big, that was a very heavy duty tire.

We saw this on the walk today, it's clever.

Other than this paltry offering, I have nothing to say.

It Started With a New Smoke Detector

Aaargh, it has been a few days.  On the Summer Solstice we changed all the smoke detector batteries.  It's an annual event for us.  In 2022 we did them, and the highest one in the house would not stop chirping afterwards.  They're aging out.  That detector was installed over a painted surface.  Jim took it down and put a blank plate over the hole, and then all was well.  This time, the second highest detector started chirping and would not stop.  Unfortunately, it was not on a painted surface.  The contractors painted around it, so there was white paint showing after it was removed.  As we have previously learned, thou shalt not put a 10 year battery smoke detector over the place where a hard wired one lived.  The white paint was too large to be covered by a blank plate.  

We don't have the paint codes for the ceilings.  The color is close, but not identical to the walls.  So, we decided just to use the wall color, this house is so poorly lit, it would not be all that noticeable.  Except, of course, for the entry into the room that has no purpose.  It's 40ish inches wide, and we needed to span the gap with a straight paint line.  We got a 1x2 piece of stock.  I sat on top of the ladder and held it against the walls and the ceiling, and Jim cut the paint in.  Since our paint was different, we had to paint the entire ceiling for one little piece of white paint.

We've never painted a ceiling before, especially such a long one.  This is Jim, on the ladder cutting things in.  Rolling the ceiling was a pain.

Anyway, the line over the entry way to the other room turned out ok.  It's there, but who looks at the ceiling.  What I find so weird is the hall ceiling, and the walls are the same paint code.  Look how different they look depending on the light. 

I hate working on ladders.  They're just exhausting.

Today we went to a landscaping materials place and bought rocks.  They're basalt, and they are very heavy.  We have marmots.  The miles of basalt cliffs are not good enough for them, they must tunnel in my yard.  They go up through the basalt boulder retaining wall and then burrow into the yard.  AI tells us: Marmots are large, ground-dwelling rodents in the squirrel family that construct vast and complex burrows. Their burrows can stretch up to 200 feet long and dive over 5 feet deep. These intricate tunnel networks act as living spaces, nurseries, and hibernation dens.  We don't want this in the front yard.  There is already a small section in the yard that is collapsing due to them digging.  So, rocks are being employed to try to block their access.  We're going to have to go back and buy more, we need little ones for wedging them in.

We're really hoping we don't have to mortar them in, I just do not want to do that.  When we had the RV and contemplated buying a house, we used to wonder what would we do all day.  This, this is what you do.

And this is where you go to scavenge small pieces of basalt.

It's hard to believe it's the end of June.  It's cold, it's overcast, and it's raining some.  It's better than being in Europe where they are baking, but summer would be nice.

Life and the G7

We've had a bumper crop of baby marmots this year.  We drove by a facility on Indian Trail Road, and their yard was full of them.   We've got one trying to establish a burrow in the front retaining wall.  This will not stand.  Lest you think I am unfeeling about critters, there are miles of basalt cliffs behind the neighborhood that are very tall, and they could all be happy there.  They do not need to be here digging.

There is not too much happening here.  The guy across the cul de sac is getting a new roof.  His crew keeps odd hours.  The house up the hill from us has a crew that worked until 9pm last night.  Different work ethic.  Across the cul de sac crew is doing other work along side the roof so they're part time, that would annoy the living snot out of me.  

It has warmed up.  We're riding.  There is a lot of this blooming in the park.

47 went to the G7 where he lost his way several times.  The other attendees would go get him and bring him back to the fold.  There was a fair amount of this, as well. 

We're not convinced he knew where he was, or why.

Macron invited him for dinner at Versailles.  That is where Germany signed the surrender papers after WWI.   While 47 was there, he signed surrender papers to Iran, as well.  We don't think he understood the optics of signing there.  Macron played him.

Meanwhile, the Reflecting Pool is full of algae, the blue coating is coming up due to the use of hydrogen peroxide to kill the algae, and the entire thing is becoming a lost cause.  Uniformed officers of some sort are arresting tourists who are reaching in to get a sample of the floating blue coating.  I have no idea what they're charging them with.

Other than that, life moves on and the ice maker has quit making ice.  I am very annoyed about this.