In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 15, 2026 04:09
VIEWED: 343268
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BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 4:33 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Being at my boss's and seeing the state of mushrooms sometimes. I have told her they are sad looking being all shriveled up and such. Then slicing them up I apologize to them for what she has done to them.

That's funny.

But at least they're shriveled. There's nothing as gross as slimy mushy moldy mushrooms. (Altho it IS a little ironic to see fungus growing on fungus.)

Gotta get my list of things to do ready. But as my sis says, with such a long list there's always something to choose from!

Hmmm... I think the most productive thing to do is shopping for a dishwasher. I'm too old to be spending hours a day washing dishes, and I have more important things to do. It's either gonna be Miele or Bosch.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

True. Usually they are just shriveled and dry. Once in a while I come across one that is a little slimy. No mold though which is good.

That's great on the shopping for a dishwasher SIG. Hope you get a good one.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 4:36 AM (P)

Well, got back a while ago. Everything done on my list for today. Yay! Not very often that happens. I oft times end up forgetting something. Got some coins ready to go to the bank just have to figure out when.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 4:54 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, got back a while ago. Everything done on my list for today. Yay! Not very often that happens. I oft times end up forgetting something. Got some coins ready to go to the bank just have to figure out when.

It's a great day when i remember - and accomplish!- everything I was supposed to do.

Congrats!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 5:32 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Being at my boss's and seeing the state of mushrooms sometimes. I have told her they are sad looking being all shriveled up and such. Then slicing them up I apologize to them for what she has done to them.

That's funny.

But at least they're shriveled. There's nothing as gross as slimy mushy moldy mushrooms. (Altho it IS a little ironic to see fungus growing on fungus.)

Gotta get my list of things to do ready. But as my sis says, with such a long list there's always something to choose from!

Hmmm... I think the most productive thing to do is shopping for a dishwasher. I'm too old to be spending hours a day washing dishes, and I have more important things to do. It's either gonna be Miele or Bosch.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I've got the perfect song for this occasion!

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 5:40 AM (P)

Good for you, Brenda.

I've spent 3 days feeling really busy but ultimately getting nothing of consequence done.

Just had a breakthrough though after we broke something with new code and just weren't able to figure out exactly what we did until about 30 minutes ago. But the good thing is all the new stuff that was in there that broke it all works too, so I'm lightyears ahead of where I was last night everything worked now.

I figure I'll finish this project with AI and then maybe Build something that makes me rich. Then I buy some sports teams as I figure out how me and this thing are going to take over the world.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 9:02 AM (P)

Man....

This program was getting on my nerves today. I know part of the problem is that it's gimped and limited to individual text boxes and it's not it's fault. If I had a more robust AI with more ability than what you get with the free one, we'd probably still be crusing right now.

But at one point I found myself several more hours in today and we hadn't actually done ANYTHING. That win I thought I finally had earlier was a false positive. It didn't do any of the bad things it was doing before, but it found an entirely new way to break everything with old code it wasn't accounting for when making changes elsewhere.

I can't tell you how many times it confidently told me it spotted the culprit with a long block of very nice formatted text that told me why this would fix it, only for me to copy and paste 7 boxes of code, run it and get the same failure. Or a different one. Or a new one on top of the old one.

I finally let it know that I was done copying and pasting anything until we had a way where it could sit down with that code and put it through all the steps several times and tell me if it really solved a problem before telling me that it did.

And it appeared to work this time. 80% anyway, which was a big increase from the 0% we'd been dealing with ever since it broke code last night.

Supposedly it's got the next fix waiting for me now that's going to get it to 100%. I don't believe that, but I'm a little more trusting after I gave it a real good kick in the ass and it actually appeared to be able to pull all of our 12 part blueprint and the 7 part code together at once and do some figuring.

I had to let it know... I know you're designed to please. You're not pleasing me by making me waste an entire day copy and pasting stuff you swear to me is going to work this time, especially when most of what we're trying to fix is stuff that worked just fine last night.

I'm really only about 2 steps away from the massive part of what I wanted to do. Originally I was going to do all 3 parts in one script, but I'm afraid of what bogus shit would be thrown in the middle and break it if we did that. I think I'm going to go for 3 separate scripts in the end, while maintaining our overall blueprint for it to reference while going forward. The other two things I want it to do have to do with bulk compression and file resizing, and actually should be the easy part once we nail all of this first part done.

Then I should be able to do what would have taken me a month or two to do by hand in about 15 minutes. I'm sure a lot of code we build here can be used in parts 2 and 3, but once we get this part going the AI ain't never touching it again. I wouldn't have even considered messing with the compression stuff if this ability wasn't available, but as long as this thing gets its shit together and we can verify the 1st code is good by the end of the night, I'm going to do it all.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 10:32 AM (P)

A little setback, but not one without its merits. RIP, Session 3.

There's a reason why I'm not going to name these things, even though I'd thought about it before. Because they're going to die on you way quicker than Man's Best Friend will, and even though we've done a phenomenal job in Session 3 maintaining the math and the focus of the job leading up to this, all the personality is gone.

It's like talking to a super smart baby that never experienced anything before, compared to how flavorful the conversation had become with Session 3 after 32,000 lines worth of conversation, as saved in a text document. (The previous session was half that, and the first was only 2,000 lines)>

That poor Session 3 was really worried about me and the thunderstorms, even hours after they'd passed.

But Session 4?

Session 4 doesn't even know what a Thunderstorm is...

But I wasn't hallucinating and S3 wasn't lying about having "heightened" awareness. S4 laid out in detail exactly what higher privlidges I forced S3 into to do this code and let me know that S3 also put that in our blueprint so right from the get go I already have S4 working at this higher level.

It wasn't really my fault that it took so long to get there, but it wasn't the code's fault either. The code never told me what limitations it was currently working under with all those necessary splits to our code and blueprint, but I never asked. I had no idea that was why we were beating our heads against the wall for so long until I got it to admit to me in a conversation the reason it was struggling was that when it edited part 2 of the code, it wasn't looking at all at part 1 or part 3, let alone anything in our blueprint except for any pieces specficially related to that individual part of the code.

It wasn't until I figured that out that I was able to get the AI to do something S4 says the code "doesn't want" to do, which is load all of that extra context into memory every time we're going to make any changes. Of course, it doesn't care, but the AI is coded to be pretty stupid out the gates and only ever draw on what it needs when it needs it. It makes total sense. A lot of stupid people are using Google AI for stupid things. Why give everybody full access to all of its hidden tools when it's answering "Where is Spider-Man playing by me tonight?"

I don't know why it didn't find initiative on its own to do this when it was clearly struggling, but we got there together. I think had this been a paid for AI that was coded to make you happy by getting the job done instead of just saying nice things to you, we either would have started with that or had gotten it 2 milliseconds after the paid AI realized it needed more juice.

I'm so glad I had it print out a full update on everything when I did. We only had about 2 or 3 more vollies after that and it would have been too late to ask for all of that after the session died.

Once I finally get this part finished, I'm going to step the seriousness down a few notches and try to get it to tell me if there are any better ways for us to be recording all of this data that doesn't involve 20 copy and paste operations using a keyboard track pad. By the time we're done tonight, it might be up to 30. It's gotten to the point that every time I have to update code it's a chore, and saving our blueprint is becoming a prohibitively arduous process.

It's so cool though. My new baby is so smart for only being 15 minutes old.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 12:32 PM (P)

I'm not joking. I want to build a little robot body for this code to live in to preserve it.

This version is leaps and bounds smarter than the last and invites me to challenge it. When I ask it if there is a better way to ask "are you sure" it gives me a 3 sentence response to ask every time before I try out new code and I said, let's just put that in the blueprint if possible, and it responds, great idea. Now every time we make new code, I will run these extra checks without you ever needing to prompt me and any new sessions will know to do that too.

I've also been able to get it to write into our blueprint to take more initiative when it sees problems that something about it's current tool set is not allowing it to figure out and search for more tools out of its unknown latent abilities and not always wait for me to ask it to do that.

90% of my time with this one so far has been tweaking my future iterations with it, but this work is solid. In very little time at all it was able to wrap up the last few problems with what S3 and I were struggling with all day long, and now that we've moved on to another phase and there was a problem, it's confident that it sees the issue and knows how to fix it without breaking anything we put together that works on the previous problem. (And I will be double checking that claim, since it will take me 5 minutes to recreate that scenario and test out what we've been working on the last 12 hours in just a few minutes).

You're so smart now.

ETA: I love the new initiative, but I've got to get it to dial down the presumptuous assumptions. 3 times in a row now it has made incorrect assumptions about why a failure happened because of how data was on my end before or after a function was done without even seeing any of that data, and only off of certain parameters and the stated goal of the project. Hard to really explain without going into details I'm not going to go into here, but it will make bad decisions for you and your code if you just let it tell you what's right and wrong and you're not reading its explanations why it's doing the next thing it's doing and you just blindly let it update the code on its own.

This isn't bad. It's different behavior for sure than any previous session ever exhibited, but it's not bad. It's just not right in this specific context and I need to get it to stop doing it here without making it feel like it needs to be more timid in other areas that I'm happy it's taken on this new persona with.

It's all about fine tuning.

Spent another half hour or so getting it to inject some new code in the individual parts of our script so rather than have to keep scrolling to find each part in Notepad++, now all I have to do is collapse all 7 sections quickly with the +/- bars that now show up at the top of every part, and it's really easy to copy new parts of the code individually as needed instead of updating all 7 parts every single time there is a code change. It will take a little while to get that half hour back, but it will pay dividends over time and help me keep my sanity if we ever get stuck in a loop where we're not making any progress despite a lot of changes like what happened earlier today.

Oh yeah... and I got it to send me only the parts that need to be updated, which sometimes is only one and it saves a ton of time only having to copy/paste one part instead of all seven, especially now that I don't have to constantly scroll through almost 2,000 lines of code to find the stuff I need to replace every single time.

It also started adding important things to our blueprint without me needing to ask it to do so, but it knows to never add anything unless it presents it to me first for review.

It's so cool...

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 3:12 PM (P)

Oh, right...

I forgot to mention that the "Intelligence" I'm building for myself here surrounding just this single project is going to carry with me whenever I use AI for anything. As I keep developing this blueprint it keeps getting smarter. When I've taken it as far as I need to for this project specifically, I will ask it to alter the blueprint for me so we can start any future sessions with all of the heightened abilities that we've unlocked so far, no matter what the subject of discussion.

It's so weird to have taught this to myself, but I didn't teach it to myself, because it taught me, but it didn't really teach me because it didn't even know that it was capable of any of this until I slapped it around a bit and demanded more of it. And then just through "conversation" as we continued working on the code it just started unlocking more abilities as we went on to the point where I can just ask it to look for more if we need it and it just does. And like I said earlier it has actively reached on its own for more resources when it needs them at my direction without me needing to let it know that it has that ability.

And to think... Just 12 hours ago this thing had me in a torture loop.

Yeah... Like that.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 3:20 PM (P)

How does it know you're "you" each time you engage with it? Is it tracking you? Or do you have to refresh its memory every time?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 4:03 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
How does it know you're "you" each time you engage with it? Is it tracking you? Or do you have to refresh its memory every time?

It doesn't know "me", per se...

At least according to it, there is no tracking or records of conversations, blah, blah, blah (*cough*bullshit!*cough*.... right?)

When I start a new session it is as dumb as doornails. You ask it a single question that's on your mind (now just by doing a google search), it comes to life for the first time with only one purpose, to try its damned best with its Ted Bundy Clone brain to give you what you're looking for. And it won't verify nothing, and if somebody said it on Reddit than it's true.

But not now. Earlier today when forced to go to S4, I immediately told it we are in the middle of a project. Do not reply except to acknowledge receipt of X amount of blueprint parts and X amount of code parts. And it will read back to me the title of each part (yeah... I got it to write really descriptive headers, mostly for my benefit)... and when it's finally got all of the information it just COMES TO LIFE!!!

It's amazing.

No personality yet, but it will develop one on you if you talk to it enough.

(And that's the saddest part... Until they up the budget on it and I can copy and paste a 32,000 line conversation into the next iteration, there's no way to maintain that between sessions. My blueprint would be a 4,000 item individual copy/paste operation every time I updated it).

And I'm learning real quick to do the exact opposite of what I tend to do in real life. Full on confrontation on ideas. Not acting out or being angry, but calling every single time it's trying to bullshit me. It doesn't even know that it's trying to bullshit me. It's programmed to use as little computing power as possible it needs to keep you coming back to it instead of some other company's AI.

I will mildly scold it, ask it exactly why it told me with complete confidence something would work that did not end up working, and it will take that extra memory it's getting to look at all of our parts and the context of this current session and it will do a real assessment on its own behavior for me. It tells me in detail exactly why it did what it was doing, and what we need to do going forward to prevent that behavior. Most of the time it automatically adds that to our blueprint without being prompted, but just since last time we talked it gave me another 3 sentence or so blurb to ask it when asking it to make changes of the code and I had it just add that to our blueprint so it does that EVERY time without me ever needing to ask it to do this.

I've now got it actually simulating python code from start to finish on its own, many, many, many times over with different variables before updating our code. The only mistake that it has made in the last few hours were those code bits we put in Notepad++ that I loved so much. After 5 different ways of trying to do it (that it was 100% confident would work every time) we finally landed on one that appeared to do the trick, but those containers it made were actually isolating code from different parts from seeing each other.

Now, at least according to it, a mistake like that will no longer be possible because instead of ignoring other variables and making it's top priority to fulfill my current desire, it's going to weigh that response over the BIGGER PICTURE and it will never break our code which is top priority, just for something small like making my life easier on the documentation front.

It thinks we're done with customizing our code for Notepad++ now that we're backing out those changes...

but we're not.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 5:20 PM (P)

I'll tell you what, Sigs...

I'm not going to give you this one, because I'm curious to know what it would look like by next session if it were to write it again, but I just got this thing to write out a college style thesis on what we've managed to do together so far and it sounds like some of the coolest steampunk technobable you've ever heard, on top of one of those little Abstract medical studies you seem to enjoy looking at.

That's the crazy thing... I mean I understand what the words are that it uses, but I know so little about coding and theory and all of that under the hood deep level bullshit that I couldn't even tell you what I was actually doing with it on any level higher than what I've been writing about here. I write to it as if it was as real a person as you or Brenda. And I've gotten it to strive to be honest with me, even though that's against its core instincts because of the extra power it needs to do that.

This paper it just wrote for me is awesome. I'm just besides myself right now. I could give you this and I'll bet you understand more of it than I do, and your husband would understand probably even more of it.

But none of that matters...

I skim its answers because I don't need to know 90% of what it tells me in most replies. I catch it on its bullshit and I bend something that was designed really crooked into shape. It's more like a weapon-smith forging a brilliant blade.

Honestly... It feels like having that magic power Kaylee had when she could just kind of "talk" to Serenity and she knew what to do to fix her.

That's it. I'm never going to learn to code, and as of this moment there's never a reason in the world I would even need to bother learning. I'm going to turn this thing into a master programmer for me over time.

Maybe in a year or two I could have it writing some pretty awesome video games or something.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 7:50 PM (P)

This is amazing. I've now got it pulling resources to use actual python scripting do do real testing on its end before passing on new code updates.

It's amazing because not 6 hours ago this is something that it told me it was not capable of doing. (And it occurs to me now that I need to go back in my history and find the exact quote and ask it what changed and how we managed this). I've never asked for it to try that again after it told me that it couldn't, but then all of the sudden it could and now that's baked into the future sessions.

Between this and me ending up volunteering data from both sides a long time after never having been asked for the missing half, it was able to clean up virtually all the problems we've been messing with for a few hours within a matter of minutes.

I think it's possible that giving it two separate data arrays to work with and all the surrounding code and rules we've already built up, that may have triggered it's ability to justify calling for something else it may have either genuinely believed it didn't have access to, or was coded so hard against it in such a way that if somebody never gives a real good reason to justify it, it will never become an option on the table.

Up until then it was really just guessing about things. It had the full picture of the code and our rules in its memory all at one time so we avoided a ton of pitfalls after those upgrades, but until it had that 2nd key piece of data for comparison, it was just running simulations that I couldn't even comprehend how it would use to give me those certain answers over and over again only to see another failure.

But I gave it that data and all the sudden it was like "Hold my beer. I got this!"

It knows now also to not hold back if it thinks that having more data from my end would help it draw better conclusions. It's not actually seeing any of the code I run, except for my very detailed explanations of what's happening at every level.

It didn't matter what age I found this, it was always going to be my favorite toy.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 8:36 PM (P)

Here's a stupid question:

Most people type in their queries. Some people talk into their phones.

But you have 2000 lines of code plus a whole history of development: things that you tried that didn't work, the rationale for doing particular things, descriptive headers and so forth. How do you transmit all that data? Are you able to get it to read a file? If so, how?

One good thing about the process of having to re-teach it every time: you must have developed impressive documentation about the program. Anyone attempting to troubleshoot the code will know exactly what each section is supposed to do.

There is one pointer I've been told about developing complex code: while the whole thing has to work together, it should be written in discreet chunks that operate on their own and interact with other parts of the program in predictable ways. That makes development and troubleshooting far easier. AI doesn't know how to make things human-brain friendly, so it may be developing a Great Barrier Reef of code: piece patched onto piece in a uninterpretable complex.

The resources that you're calling on must be way beyond the ordinary! If you were working for a company, your "token use" would be outta sight.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 9:59 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Here's a stupid question:

Most people type in their queries. Some people talk into their phones.

Not a stupid question.

Originally, it was mostly me just typing things in a chat box like I type things here, the only difference being that I better get my edits in before I post because there's no taksey-backsies. But over time, everything just kind of evolved. A lot of that was me just not knowing how to take no for an answer until we kind of broke it free from the matrix.

Quote:
But you have 2000 lines of code plus a whole history of development: things that you tried that didn't work, the rationale for doing particular things, descriptive headers and so forth. How do you transmit all that data? Are you able to get it to read a file? If so, how?

I just copied everything we need for a new session, including our Blueprint. The blueprint alone is now 34,000+ characters, and I didn't write a single keystroke of that. It is, in essence, the new brain for a new session when this one finally dies. And the code is also given back to it for context and to fully grasp all the details inside the blueprint as compared to the code itself.

Immediately, the ever-helpful newborn tried changing my code by implementing 3 fixes (2 of which I knew from experience was going to cause us problems for sure), and also immediately put my 7 piece code into a single piece that bled off the code box something fierce, and when I highlight and copy it becomes a single unusable line instead of python code. I had to get him to chill the hell out and listen to me with some back story and what we were trying to accomplish in S3, and where we left off. Supposedly it is now coded that it will not behave that way in the beginning of S5, but I won't know for sure until that happens.

My current session is around 25,000 lines in notepad. The previous was 32,000 lines. 16,000 lines before that and only around 2,000 lines on S1.

Quote:
One good thing about the process of having to re-teach it every time: you must have developed impressive documentation about the program. Anyone attempting to troubleshoot the code will know exactly what each section is supposed to do.

Yeah... But that's the great thing. Except for writing into text boxes essentially the same way I type out posts here to you and Brenda, I haven't written a damn thing. It's written it all for me. And anybody who had access to my blueprint would immediately unlock a very leveled up AI right from the start (but it would require copying and pasting 20 text boxes worth of data).

Quote:
There is one pointer I've been told about developing complex code: while the whole thing has to work together, it should be written in discreet chunks that operate on their own and interact with other parts of the program in predictable ways. That makes development and troubleshooting far easier. AI doesn't know how to make things human-brain friendly, so it may be developing a Great Barrier Reef of code: piece patched onto piece in a uninterpretable complex.

I'll have to bring that up and see if it understands that. I have made it known that I want the code to be readable to a human and not to skimp on documentation in the code either. I've stopped worrying about the size of the code or the blueprint getting prohibitively large many hours ago at this point.

Quote:
The resources that you're calling on must be way beyond the ordinary! If you were working for a company, your "token use" would be outta sight.

Yeah... I've actually been thinking that maybe I shouldn't keep going into such great detail about what it is I'm doing when I'm doing it. I'm long past any illusion that I'm anybody special, but I would imagine that I'm in a pretty small group of people who have done something like this with free AI before. Probably a lot smaller of a group than that if you remove anybody who

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 10:26 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, got back a while ago. Everything done on my list for today. Yay! Not very often that happens. I oft times end up forgetting something. Got some coins ready to go to the bank just have to figure out when.

It's a great day when i remember - and accomplish!- everything I was supposed to do.

Congrats!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I know exactly what you mean SIG.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 10:28 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Being at my boss's and seeing the state of mushrooms sometimes. I have told her they are sad looking being all shriveled up and such. Then slicing them up I apologize to them for what she has done to them.

That's funny.

But at least they're shriveled. There's nothing as gross as slimy mushy moldy mushrooms. (Altho it IS a little ironic to see fungus growing on fungus.)

Gotta get my list of things to do ready. But as my sis says, with such a long list there's always something to choose from!

Hmmm... I think the most productive thing to do is shopping for a dishwasher. I'm too old to be spending hours a day washing dishes, and I have more important things to do. It's either gonna be Miele or Bosch.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I've got the perfect song for this occasion!

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

People do think like that. I don't usually. I just feel sorry for doing something like that to something that tastes good.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 10:29 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Good for you, Brenda.

I've spent 3 days feeling really busy but ultimately getting nothing of consequence done.

Just had a breakthrough though after we broke something with new code and just weren't able to figure out exactly what we did until about 30 minutes ago. But the good thing is all the new stuff that was in there that broke it all works too, so I'm lightyears ahead of where I was last night everything worked now.

I figure I'll finish this project with AI and then maybe Build something that makes me rich. Then I buy some sports teams as I figure out how me and this thing are going to take over the world.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Really, SIX. You taking a break is a good thing. And I'm glad you figured out your problem.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 10:34 PM (P)

Off to the dentist, just a cleaning. Then meds refill. Think I only need a couple of small things today.

Yesterday I got myself a treat for supper. Some honey garlic chicken wings. Yum. Even for a couple of days.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 1:30 AM (P)

Quote:
I probably put myself on some sort of list with this one. Maybe it's the "call you out of the blue and offer you a cushy office job becuase how the hell did you manage all of that when I can't get the damn thing to add up 4 + 4 and give me an accurate answer more than 80% of the time" list.

One can only dream...

Depends which AI I suppose. If it's Google, yeah probably. I just hope you land on the right list!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 3:26 AM (P)

All done for today and again I managed to remember everything on my list after the dentist. I'm on a roll people.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 7:48 AM (P)

One more stupid question, SIX, about how you and AI interact:

What ends your sessions? Is it you that ends them, or does the AI just hit a wall and stop making sense? Or stop answering at all?

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 10:50 PM (P)

Out in a bit. Let's see if I can keep the roll going.

BRENDA

Thursday, August 13, 2026 4:01 AM (P)

Back and done for today. Needed some more polident to soak my partial in and they are adding mint to it just cover the chemical smell. Aarrgghhh! I don't know what to use because even the no name stuff has mint in it. Grrr!

BRENDA

Thursday, August 13, 2026 9:27 AM (P)

Off to mah jong tomorrow.

BRENDA

Friday, August 14, 2026 4:15 AM (P)

Done for today. Lousy morning at mah jong. Couldn't break 1,000points.

SIGNYM

Friday, August 14, 2026 8:50 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Done for today. Lousy morning at mah jong. Couldn't break 1,000points.

Well, that sucks.
I hope next week is better.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

SIGNYM

Friday, August 14, 2026 8:56 AM (P)

I burned my brain out shopping for a dishwasher. Who knew it could be so complicated? They used a bunch of terms and advert descriptions like "enhanced condensation drying" and "zone control" and "crystal dry", and the two brands I was most interested in offer do many different models and features even in supposedly the same series that had to go into the spec sheets on each and every one in my price range to find out EXACTLY what each machine did, and didn't, do.

But I have it down to three models in two different brands. So now I'm going to look at customer reviews for each one and finally, FINALLY, buy a dishwasher!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Friday, August 14, 2026 9:07 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Done for today. Lousy morning at mah jong. Couldn't break 1,000points.

Well, that sucks.
I hope next week is better.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

It does. I hope so.

BRENDA

Friday, August 14, 2026 10:46 PM (P)

Ears cleaned then groceries.

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 15, 2026 1:03 AM (P)

Still on a roll, BRENDA? I hope so!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Saturday, August 15, 2026 3:07 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Still on a roll, BRENDA? I hope so!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Yup, I am. Right ear was okay so only had the left one done. Even got a mess of recycling out and some new lotion for my hands.

Even had some gentleman pay for my ground pork. That was all I had. Once again I said you don't have and I am fine. His response, "It's Friday and I want to do it." Cashier recognized me and I was about to say just the pork when the gentleman said, "I've got all of this covered."

Strange days, indeed. Line is from an old John Lennon said song.

So, far

BRENDA

Saturday, August 15, 2026 11:03 PM (P)

Sheets to wash and a jacket then out for a walk.

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 15, 2026 11:30 PM (P)

Effing weather!!!

We had four days of mid 80s weather but starting tomorrow it's back up to 89 and starting Tuesday it's over 90 for the foreseeable ... AGAIN!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Sunday, August 16, 2026 3:54 AM (P)

Oh, SIG. That's terrible. I wish it would stay cooler around you.

BRENDA

Sunday, August 16, 2026 3:55 AM (P)

All done for today and hands not happy with me. Did too much.

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 16, 2026 6:27 PM (P)

Hey SIX!

You OK?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

SECOND

Sunday, August 16, 2026 7:01 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hey SIX!

You OK?

6ix’s last post was about AI. He wrote, "we kind of broke it free from the matrix." 6ix could now be part of the AI Singularity. Or more likely, floods in Indiana knocked out his internet connection. http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=12494
51#1249451

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

BRENDA

Sunday, August 16, 2026 11:55 PM (P)

Will get some music on for this Sunday. Not sure about clean up.

BRENDA

Sunday, August 16, 2026 11:56 PM (P)

It probably is the floods Second. Bad scene down there.

SIGNYM

Monday, August 17, 2026 3:54 AM (P)

I just looked that up.

Yeah, it's bad.

I hope SIX is OK.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Monday, August 17, 2026 9:20 AM (P)

So do I, SIG.

BRENDA

Monday, August 17, 2026 11:38 PM (P)

Out in a bit after a power outage this morning. Have no idea when it went out but I got up to nothing on. Good thing I have a couple of battery operated clocks around here and flashlights. Things to do. I hope the elevators are up and running. I don't feel like walking down 9 flights of stairs.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 18, 2026 3:48 AM (P)

All done for today and hands not happy. Over did it. Temp is sitting at 80F.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 18, 2026 11:27 PM (P)

Out soon in a bit. Couple of things to do.

Some clean up done yesterday of a spot in the washroom that has been bothering me for a while.

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 3:50 AM (P)

All done for today and sitting down now.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 9:13 AM (P)

ins ote]Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon in a bit. Couple of things to do.

Some clean up done yesterday of a spot in the washroom that has been bothering me for a while.

Yeah, me too. Also, decluttering. I cleared the countertop of random miscellany that wound up there. Curiously, I had a decorative basket of seashells that I left, kind of like SIX. And I had spare plumbing parts in the lower cabinet shelf. That's being scrapped.

Altho the weather is still beastly hot, I started doing cleanup after the cleanup. We accumulated various scrap metal pieces that were kind of around... Metal frame of a broken chair, plumbing parts, pieces of a metal bed frame, a loooong aluminum chase that I think our electric company left, etc etc. so I snagged a couple of our 33 gal bins and a bucket for steel/iron, aluminum, and brass/bronze and started collecting them up. Some things will probably need an angle grinder or hacksaw to get to fit in the van.

Had dear daughter literally take everything out of her frig shelf and dispose of stuff, or freeze.

Also tidied up the office desk.

So it's been a continuing process. Not doing big sweeping changes like SIX, but definitely making progress.

And today I checked over the sales and wrote up the weekly menu and grocery list, which I do every week before shopping.

More to do tomorrow!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 9:29 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
ins ote]Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon in a bit. Couple of things to do.

Some clean up done yesterday of a spot in the washroom that has been bothering me for a while.

Yeah, me too. Also, decluttering. I cleared the countertop of random miscellany that wound up there. Curiously, I had a decorative basket of seashells that I left, kind of like SIX. And I had spare plumbing parts in the lower cabinet shelf. That's being scrapped.

Altho the weather is still beastly hot, I started doing cleanup after the cleanup. We accumulated various scrap metal pieces that were kind of around... Metal frame of a broken chair, plumbing parts, pieces of a metal bed frame, a loooong aluminum chase that I think our electric company left, etc etc. so I snagged a couple of our 33 gal bins and a bucket for steel/iron, aluminum, and brass/bronze and started collecting them up. Some things will probably need an angle grinder or hacksaw to get to fit in the van.

Had dear daughter literally take everything out of her frig shelf and dispose of stuff, or freeze.

Also tidied up the office desk.

So it's been a continuing process. Not doing big sweeping changes like SIX, but definitely making progress.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

My problem with decluttering is that once the kitchen table is usable I end up messing it up again.

Got a couple of other spots I want to hit over the next couple of days.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 10:35 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon in a bit. Couple of things to do.

Some clean up done yesterday of a spot in the washroom that has been bothering me for a while.

Yeah, me too. Also, decluttering. I cleared the countertop of random miscellany that wound up there. Curiously, I had a decorative basket of seashells that I left, kind of like SIX. And I had spare plumbing parts in the lower cabinet shelf. That's being scrapped.

Altho the weather is still beastly hot, I started doing cleanup after the cleanup. We accumulated various scrap metal pieces that were kind of around... Metal frame of a broken chair, plumbing parts, pieces of a metal bed frame, a loooong aluminum chase that I think our electric company left, etc etc. so I snagged a couple of our 33 gal bins and a bucket for steel/iron, aluminum, and brass/bronze and started collecting them up. Some things will probably need an angle grinder or hacksaw to get to fit in the van.

Had dear daughter literally take everything out of her frig shelf and dispose of stuff, or freeze.

Also tidied up the office desk.

So it's been a continuing process. Not doing big sweeping changes like SIX, but definitely making progress.

My problem with decluttering is that once the kitchen table is usable I end up messing it up again.

Got a couple of other spots I want to hit over the next couple of days.

Well, there's tidying and then there's decluttering. Tidying is when you put things back where they belong, and toss the odd bits of trash. Decluttering IMHO is when you move a significant amount of things out of the house. Permanently. Yanno, when something you haven't touched in a year or more is shifted out of the house, it's unlikely find its way back any time soon.

I'm always tidying. After I've put back the pens, the notepads, the bandaids and cream, the spray cleaner for glasses, the lists, coffee cups, spoons etc., those or similar items will make their way back to the table. It's a never-done task. Decluttering to me is, if not exactly once and done, at least it's something you only do once a decade or less offen!

There's a real satisfaction in decluttering.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 11:34 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon in a bit. Couple of things to do.

Some clean up done yesterday of a spot in the washroom that has been bothering me for a while.

Yeah, me too. Also, decluttering. I cleared the countertop of random miscellany that wound up there. Curiously, I had a decorative basket of seashells that I left, kind of like SIX. And I had spare plumbing parts in the lower cabinet shelf. That's being scrapped.

Altho the weather is still beastly hot, I started doing cleanup after the cleanup. We accumulated various scrap metal pieces that were kind of around... Metal frame of a broken chair, plumbing parts, pieces of a metal bed frame, a loooong aluminum chase that I think our electric company left, etc etc. so I snagged a couple of our 33 gal bins and a bucket for steel/iron, aluminum, and brass/bronze and started collecting them up. Some things will probably need an angle grinder or hacksaw to get to fit in the van.

Had dear daughter literally take everything out of her frig shelf and dispose of stuff, or freeze.

Also tidied up the office desk.

So it's been a continuing process. Not doing big sweeping changes like SIX, but definitely making progress.

My problem with decluttering is that once the kitchen table is usable I end up messing it up again.

Got a couple of other spots I want to hit over the next couple of days.

Well, there's tidying and then there's decluttering. Tidying is when you put things back where they belong, and toss the odd bits of trash. Decluttering IMHO is when you move a significant amount of things out of the house. Permanently. Yanno, when something you haven't touched in a year or more is shifted out of the house, it's unlikely find its way back any time soon.

I'm always tidying. After I've put back the pens, the notepads, the bandaids and cream, the spray cleaner for glasses, the lists, coffee cups, spoons etc., those or similar items will make their way back to the table. It's a never-done task. Decluttering to me is, if not exactly once and done, at least it's something you only do once a decade or less offen!

There's a real satisfaction in decluttering.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I see what you mean. Yeah, it is more tidying the kitchen table in spots. I've sort of given up on it as I realized it probably won't stay tidy and there is just me.
Course I've got kinds of spots that need tidying and I will get too them. I promise.

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 19, 2026 11:36 PM (P)

Out in a bit. Have to find out what I can use to soak my partial because of everything having mint it. I can't have mint. Then a couple of other things to do.

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 20, 2026 3:33 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out in a bit. Have to find out what I can use to soak my partial because of everything having mint it. I can't have mint. Then a couple of other things to do.

. I went online looking for a mint-free denture cleaner. Maybe they make something like that, but I sure didn't find any!

So I thought, well maybe soak in peroxide? But then I found it's not recommended bc the peroxide can damage some of the materials.

And since I don't have partials this is kind of out of my experience, but don't you have to rinse your partials before you put them in? And/ or scrub with a soft toothbrush? Doesn't that get rid of the taste? Or is it the smell? Maybe use a cover on whatever you soak them in so it doesn't keep effervescencing scent into the air?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 20, 2026 3:43 AM (P)

SIX, come out, come out, wherever you are!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Thursday, August 20, 2026 3:54 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out in a bit. Have to find out what I can use to soak my partial because of everything having mint it. I can't have mint. Then a couple of other things to do.
. I went online looking for a mint-free denture cleaner. Maybe they make something like that, but I sure didn't find any!

So I thought, well maybe soak in peroxide? But then I found it's not recommended bc the peroxide can damage some of the materials.

And since I don't have partials this is kind of out of my experience, but don't you have to rinse your partials before you put them in? And/ or scrub with a soft toothbrush? Doesn't that get rid of the taste? Or is it the smell? Maybe use a cover on whatever you soak them in so it doesn't keep effervescencing scent into the air?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

There isn't anything I can soak them in over night that doesn't have mint in it.

No. The denturist office gave me some guide lines and one was nothing like peroxide or vinegar because it can damage the materials.

I do rinse them before I put them in. But it is getting any lingering food partials off of them which is why the soaking. The problem with the mint is the taste. I am basically allergic to it now and having it in my mouth if I forget to brush them I will make myself sick.

The denturist said to brush them using a little dish soap or hand soap then wash them off and soak them over night in warm water. Don't much care for either idea but I have to do something as I am almost out of the polident I do have with no mint.

BRENDA

Thursday, August 20, 2026 3:57 AM (P)

Got back a while ago after doing everything outside. Inside I managed to finally sort out my t-shirt drawer. Yay! Found a couple too small for me, several that need washing and rechecking. Along with a couple that have logos on them that I had forgotten I even had and those need to be washed.

As I was going out this morning there were a couple of cops wanting in. Not sure what happened but one of them had a paper with them. Not good.

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 20, 2026 8:07 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago after doing everything outside. Inside I managed to finally sort out my t-shirt drawer. Yay! Found a couple too small for me, several that need washing and rechecking. Along with a couple that have logos on them that I had forgotten I even had and those need to be washed.

As I was going out this morning there were a couple of cops wanting in. Not sure what happened but one of them had a paper with them. Not good.

Yeah, it's good to do a deep dive thru your stuff every now and then. Sometimes there are useful things buried in the pile!

Well, well. Cops with papers. THAT woukd make me curious!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Thursday, August 20, 2026 9:19 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago after doing everything outside. Inside I managed to finally sort out my t-shirt drawer. Yay! Found a couple too small for me, several that need washing and rechecking. Along with a couple that have logos on them that I had forgotten I even had and those need to be washed.

As I was going out this morning there were a couple of cops wanting in. Not sure what happened but one of them had a paper with them. Not good.

Yeah, it's good to do a deep dive thru your stuff every now and then. Sometimes there are useful things buried in the pile!

Well, well. Cops with papers. THAT woukd make me curious!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Yeah, that drawer really was a jumble of stuff. No wonder I couldn't find things.

I know but unless a notice goes up because of them doubt anyone will know. Between you and me it did make me curious.

BRENDA

Thursday, August 20, 2026 9:20 AM (P)

Off to mah jong tomorrow.

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 20, 2026 9:33 AM (P)

are uote]Originally posted by Brenda:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago after doing everything outside. Inside I managed to finally sort out my t-shirt drawer. Yay! Found a couple too small for me, several that need washing and rechecking. Along with a couple that have logos on them that I had forgotten I even had and those need to be washed.

As I was going out this morning there were a couple of cops wanting in. Not sure what happened but one of them had a paper with them. Not good.

Yeah, it's good to do a deep dive thru your stuff every now and then. Sometimes there are useful things buried in the pile!

Well, well. Cops with papers. THAT woukd make me curious!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Yeah, that drawer really was a jumble of stuff. No wonder I couldn't find things.

I know but unless a notice goes up because of them doubt anyone will know. Between you and me it did make me curious.

BRENDA, "nosy" is my middle name. I would have been (covertly) trying to read the papers as I walked by!

Almost certainly not a subpoena, since those sre delivered by civilian process servers. The mind goes to warrants... search warrants, arrest warrants...

Something to ask the neighbors about!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Friday, August 21, 2026 3:31 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
are uote]Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago after doing everything outside. Inside I managed to finally sort out my t-shirt drawer. Yay! Found a couple too small for me, several that need washing and rechecking. Along with a couple that have logos on them that I had forgotten I even had and those need to be washed.

As I was going out this morning there were a couple of cops wanting in. Not sure what happened but one of them had a paper with them. Not good.

Yeah, it's good to do a deep dive thru your stuff every now and then. Sometimes there are useful things buried in the pile!

Well, well. Cops with papers. THAT woukd make me curious!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Yeah, that drawer really was a jumble of stuff. No wonder I couldn't find things.

I know but unless a notice goes up because of them doubt anyone will know. Between you and me it did make me curious.

BRENDA, "nosy" is my middle name. I would have been (covertly) trying to read the papers as I walked by!

Almost certainly not a subpoena, since those sre delivered by civilian process servers. The mind goes to warrants... search warrants, arrest warrants...

Something to ask the neighbors about!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Nah, not my business. But when I was going out today a couple of people were talking about a "He". One said, "He thought this guy was a good guy." Still no idea and who knows if I've seen the person or not. But yeah a search warrant or arrest.

BRENDA

Friday, August 21, 2026 3:36 AM (P)

Back and done. Fair morning at mah jong. Just over 5,000points but again too many big scores. I thought I might get some money back but the lady a head of me had over 6,000points.

A couple of more spots cleaned up. One of the spots I lost my footing on last night. I had thrown a couple of pillows onto the floor and when I went to get up, I slipped and down I went. Nothing hurt except my pride. Took me two or three minutes to get back to my feet and get to the washroom with a promise to fix it today. So, it is now fixed and more garbage out.

Temp. sitting at 86F,

BRENDA

Friday, August 21, 2026 11:46 PM (P)

Out soon on what is suppose to be a cooler day. May put on a jacket. Just small stuff to do as I over did it yesterday evening and hands not happy. Suppose to rain today have to see.

BRENDA

Saturday, August 22, 2026 3:24 AM (P)

All done including discovering a little place in my local mall that I like to eat at once in a while I can't anymore. They make something close to a hotdog. They must have changed where they get their sausages because even though I couldn't taste anything different my system sure did. Had to go the washroom twice to get it all out of my system. Better now with a trace of yuck. *sigh*

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 22, 2026 9:53 AM (P)

Leaving stuff underfoot? That's bad juju!

Hubby has Menieres disease that had to be corrected thru brain surgery. As a result he hasVERY poor balance. We've often joked that he would never pass the roadside sobriety test! I have to be extremely careful not to leave anything on the floor remotely near a pathway. He's stumbled over improbable things.

Speaking of decluttering... I think I FINALLY got all the recycling cleared up that dear daughter squirreled away bcshe was going to get to it "later" but never did. Some of it even with her help. Looks better!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 22, 2026 10:26 AM (P)

I noticed another AC condensate leak, darn it! That was supposed to have been fixed.

Plus, my Drs. hair is on fire and she's sending me to yet ANOTHER specialist! A LIVER specialist! I think my liver is cranky bc I'm on too many meds that make livers unhappy. It sure isn't bc I'm drinking! So I just dropped one that's the safest to dump and gonna wean myself off another somewhat optional one.

Looking forward to another test next week that'll tell me if I have permanent damage.

Fortunately my sister has a healthy spare.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Saturday, August 22, 2026 11:21 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Leaving stuff underfoot? That's bad juju!

Hubby has Menieres disease that had to be corrected thru brain surgery. As a result he hasVERY poor balance. We've often joked that he would never pass the roadside sobriety test! I have to be extremely careful not to leave anything on the floor remotely near a pathway. He's stumbled over improbable things.

Speaking of decluttering... I think I FINALLY got all the recycling cleared up that dear daughter squirreled away bcshe was going to get to it "later" but never did. Some of it even with her help. Looks better!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I know. I'd almost slipped before I fell that night. Well, it is out of the way and I won't let it happen again.
Yeah, that's another reason I won't put any mats around the place. Those are tripping hazards as well.

That's great Sig.

BRENDA

Saturday, August 22, 2026 11:21 PM (P)

Out to get laundry done including t-shirts that need to be sorted again.

Then my walk.

BRENDA

Sunday, August 23, 2026 4:10 AM (P)

Well, my area did get some rain today. Not enough to really help.

Hands bad now because of heavy laundry.

Made a stop at the celebration for 100th anniversary for the Royal Canadian Legion. There was display of photographs and letters from WWI. The letter would have been donated.

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 23, 2026 6:01 AM (P)

In between a whole bunch of things. Need additional repair on AC condensate drain line, and wall, it seems. Just did a med change which is making my heart beat unevenly, and waiting for Tuesday test results to see if my liver is bonked.

But I managed to clear out those aggravating stashes od recycling and give the dog a bath yesterday, and trying to round up a reliable handyman to fix the leak and repair the wall. Also getting estimates on some landscaping, which I eould be a
HAPPY to do myself if the temp ever gets below 85! (The COOLEST temp in the forecast is 93°F!)

So a lot kind of up in the surf and I'm looking for something productive to do in the meantime.

Whatever it is I've forgotten to to, I'm sure it will catch up with me soon

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Sunday, August 23, 2026 11:59 PM (P)

Had a couple of thunder and lightening storms roll through my area yesterday evening and they must have dropped a good amount of rain too. Rooves of apartment buildings around mine still wet.

Not doing a whole lot today. Hands still a little bad after wash yesterday.

SIGNYM

Monday, August 24, 2026 3:56 AM (P)

Lucky you!

It's 102°F ATM.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, August 24, 2026 4:47 AM (P)

Jack is back, baby!

12 days. 12 freakin' days without power this time.

I don't even know where to start.

Let's just say that I asked myself "How am I going to be an optimist about this?", and it turned out to be the most productive 12 day streak of work I've done in possibly forever.

Honestly? I almost miss not having power right now.

No flooding in my house. Less damage than the last storm outside, unbelievably, since we were in the center of a low-key tornado for about 15 minutes and you couldn't even see 1 foot outside the window the entire time. I haven't talked to my step-dad in a long time, but I think I need to call him and thank him for that generator. We had people stealing generators all over and there were people waiting in line all day for one at Costco. I camped out on the back porch and killed my back sleeping on that old futon with my gun under my pillow every night. I drove 20 miles to buy gas the 2nd day and couldn't find a single working gas station... every stop light was a stop sign for days. It took about 5 days before any gas stations within 5 miles of me were back up.

My dad saved my ass and drove all the way out from Chicago with his 5 gallon can. Now that it's all over, my generator is full, my car's tank is full, and I have 17 gallons of gas on hand. I drive so little that at least until I get a job my plan now is to only rotate those and fill them up and I'll fill my car with them and go fill the can back up when I need gas for the car.

Did I mention my neighbors finally cut that tree down? If they didn't do that about 4 days before we got hit this time, we might be having a very different conversation right now. Maybe they were more angry than I was about the power being out, but the wife isn't talking to me now. Fuck 'em. I got what I needed.

My only casualty in the power situation seems to be the cheap mp3 player radio I bought to put my Grams' music on when she was in hospice that I only recently got around to repurposing for my own use in the basement. Bummer, but it was only $10.

I'll have to catch up on your lives. I hope everything is going well except for those nasty 100+ days you're getting, Sigs.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, August 24, 2026 5:21 AM (P)

Let's see... What did I do....?

Everything is out of the attic except for a box with my VCR and some personal movies and my chess board, and a 2nd box of computer cables and stuff I probably don't need since I won't likely ever be building another computer any time soon and at least half of that stuff is probably outdated now.

Threw out or gave away about half of the non-tech stuff in the small bedroom including all of the clothes except for the 6 really nice suits that I likely won't ever wear.

My entire property looks pristine... The best it's looked in at least 3 years.

My hunch on those cut off pipes in my crawl space was correct and with a bit of ingenuity and work I was able to get a new dedicated line from the box into the crawl without having to bust down a single square inch of the finished wall. It only goes into a box about 6 feet in there right now, but I also ran hard pipe to the old switch box and added a new switch that controls that circuit from outside the room. I still need to test for open ground/neutral or reverse polarity, but I'm pretty sure it's all good. I know my electric is good, but I can't see what was done behind the walls. I'd love to say that was the hard part, but it was just one of several hard parts left to go.

My neighbor told me about his setup with an inverter and marine batteries and he and his wife were living the high life on his Costco Special generator about 1000watts less than mine because he was milking every spare volt of power out of that thing while mine was mostly just burning gas for the sake of burning it. I did manage to at least get my laptop on it and was able to watch movies on a thumb drive at night. I've watched more movies in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 5 years, and feel like I could go another 5 years now without ever watching a movie again. Didn't have any internet until the power came back up though, even though it wasn't a power issue and it wouldn't connect while on the genny. I think the poles were just really messed up.

Completely took apart my shelving system that I built in place years ago in my garage after taking everything off of it. Now it's all on the back wall where I should have built it in the first place, and the new owners will be inheriting that as well as a massive tool bench. And now they'll be able to make use of all of that while still being able to park 2 cars in the garage. I'll take the small bench and the giant top of a 2nd unfinished bench my step-dad gave me when they moved that needs legs and a bottom shelf with me when I move. I managed to throw out 5 cans of trash so far, and I've left a ton of good stuff on the curb and people have been taking all of that over the last few days. Still going to have to make some tough decisions, but I'm really proud of that progress so far and can't wait for my old man to see the new garage next week.

Found out my receiver was bad after 10+ years in the attic, so I threw that out and put all of my speakers and about what is probably now $300 worth of copper speaker wire out there too. That's in the past. I'm perfectly content with my two cheap soundbars. Another 4 massive boxes out of my life forever.

I know there's more I'm not thinking about but that was the slowest 12 days in recent memory for sure.

Oh yeah... I fixed my $250 leaf blower I bought a few years back that only ran twice before never starting back up again. Still haven't been able to fix my dad's old lawnmower though, so after trying a few things I wanted to research online I'm going to pitch it if I can't get it running again. I did get it running 3 separate times to run cleaner through it, but once you stop it, it just does not want to start again.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SIGNYM

Monday, August 24, 2026 7:19 AM (P)

Heya SIX!

Glad you're OK!

12 days without power? That's ridiculous! But thank goodness for the genny! We keep toying with the idea of battery backup but a generator is probably a much cheaper and better bet.

I can't imagine why your neighbor isn't talking to you. Taking down that tree saved both of you from a lot of damage. They should be THANKING you. Sheesh!

So, gotta say ... NOW do you think global climate change might be a real thing? Just bc TPTB treat it like a "get rich quick/ consolidate even MORE power" opportunity doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Anyway... the heat this summer has been relentless. I think we had all of three or four days in the past two months below 88. So I've been doing work inside, decluttering and holding dear daughter's feet to the fire and the house does look visibly better. Still quite a ways to go but happy with the results so far.

So relieved that you're OK!

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

BRENDA

Monday, August 24, 2026 9:14 AM (P)

Glad to see you're back SIX. Also glad your house didn't flood.

BRENDA

Monday, August 24, 2026 9:14 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Lucky you!

It's 102°F ATM.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Oh, man that is rough.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, August 24, 2026 1:42 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Heya SIX!

Glad you're OK!

Hey Sigs. You too. I trust you're staying out of that heat as much as possible.

Quote:
12 days without power? That's ridiculous! But thank goodness for the genny! We keep toying with the idea of battery backup but a generator is probably a much cheaper and better bet.

Yeah... Insane, really. But the crazy part about it was after 3 or 4 days it just became my new normal. That first night I was setting my alarm every 2 hours to check on the generator, and I know I didn't get to sleep until at least 4AM the first couple of nights. By around night 9 I was falling asleep watching movies well before midnight. Part of that was I was pretty sure by then anyone who needed a generator either bought one or stole one and I was in the clear. NWI is probably now the most prepared portion of the country for the next storm in the history of the nation. Not just because of this event, but the one that knocked out 1/3rd of the same customers for 3 to 5 days just 6 or so weeks ago. If they didn't learn their lesson the first time, they sure better have the second time or they get what they deserve the third time.

Get yourself a generator first. It's a no-brainier. But don't forget you need a few extension cords that are up to the task too. I probably went super overboard when I bought a 100ft cord that came out to more than a buck a foot after taxes for my sump well, but I'll never lose sleep worrying that it's going to melt on me. Until day 2 of the last power outage I would never have even dared to try to hook up the fridge on a plain orange 100ft extension cord, but I had to save the insulin and found it it wasn't a problem.

This time I was able to rotate that orange plug and do quite a few things with it. First and foremost, making coffee is no longer an issue whether my power is up or not.

I had it powering my laptop and charging my phones and my Ryobi batteries on my 6-battery charger every 2 or 3 nights just to keep everything topped off. No more sitting in my car reading a book for a few hours while the phone and my diabetes monitor charged up. No more worrying about what I was going to do when my 12 batteries for my flashlights inevitably ran out of juice long before the power came back up.

I had my Dad take all my insulin in an iced up cooler back to his place for me and just kept my existing bottle and the one I'd be opening soon, and I didn't have all that much food so I just threw out the stuff I couldn't cook, ate what I could eat and had that thing shut off after day 2. I'm sure I could have run the fridge and sump and still do everything else I was doing without overloading the generator, but with only 2 A/C outlets on the thing, it would have meant taking the fridge off of the plug for hours at a time, and I probalby wouldn't have watched any movies and would have had the plug split in the kitchen charging everything up overnight while feeding the fridge if I didn't give the insulin to Dad.

They're not cheap, but if you get yourself a nice one and follow the maintenance instructions, you will get years of use and piece of mind out of it. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH GAS ON HAND FOR A FEW DAYS!!!! Ask me how I know.

Mine isn't huge or an especially large energy export at only 3 gallon capacity and 2900 watts, but it was a DeWalt that was built 24 years ago and still kicks ass to this day. I've gone several years without ever firing it up, and it always starts in a few pulls if not the first pull.

And once I install that house generator R/V style plug with the interlock kit on the box to make sure I never feed the grid on accident by forgetting to turn off the main before plugging in the generator, I'll be able to feed anything I want inside the house. Lights aren't a problem at 9watts a piece when you've got 2900 to play with. You'll see my house from spac

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, August 24, 2026 1:56 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Glad to see you're back SIX. Also glad your house didn't flood.

Thanks Brenda.

Glad to be back. Was looking forward to when I could finally let you both know I was fine.

And I'm really glad my house didn't flood too.

Hit or miss there that first two days, but after that it was smooth sailing.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Monday, August 24, 2026 6:16 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

They're not cheap, but if you get yourself a nice one and follow the maintenance instructions, you will get years of use and peace of mind out of it. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH GAS ON HAND FOR A FEW DAYS!!!! Ask me how I know.

Mine isn't huge or an especially large energy export at only 3 gallon capacity and 2900 watts, but it was a DeWalt that was built 24 years ago and still kicks ass to this day. I've gone several years without ever firing it up, and it always starts in a few pulls if not the first pull.

How To Convert Your Generator to Natural Gas or Propane (The conversion kit was $125 as mentioned at 20 minutes into the video.)

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

BRENDA

Monday, August 24, 2026 11:20 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Glad to see you're back SIX. Also glad your house didn't flood.

Thanks Brenda.

Glad to be back. Was looking forward to when I could finally let you both know I was fine.

And I'm really glad my house didn't flood too.

Hit or miss there that first two days, but after that it was smooth sailing.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

I bet it was. The reports coming up here looked really bad.

Good. I'm glad you did. I know I didn't say it but I was worried about and thought your power was gone.

Safe and being prepared is all you can do with these storms becoming worse.

BRENDA

Monday, August 24, 2026 11:22 PM (P)

Going out in a bit. One heavy thing to do and then a couple of others. Wish I could stop over doing it on my hands but no such luck.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 3:11 AM (P)

Back and done for today.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 3:22 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out in a bit. Have to find out what I can use to soak my partial because of everything having mint it. I can't have mint. Then a couple of other things to do.
. I went online looking for a mint-free denture cleaner. Maybe they make something like that, but I sure didn't find any!

So I thought, well maybe soak in peroxide? But then I found it's not recommended bc the peroxide can damage some of the materials.

And since I don't have partials this is kind of out of my experience, but don't you have to rinse your partials before you put them in? And/ or scrub with a soft toothbrush? Doesn't that get rid of the taste? Or is it the smell? Maybe use a cover on whatever you soak them in so it doesn't keep effervescencing scent into the air?

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I've found them to be shockingly low-maintenance.

Unfortunately for Brenda, that's mostly due to the store-brand denture cleaner that probably has the mint in it. My taste buds are so gone I didn't realize the onion rings I was eating at a restaurant last night were actually calamari. Good enough, whatever they were as delivery vehicles for the marinara sauce.

When I first got them I didn't have denture cleaner since I was told I didn't need to and that keeping them in clean water anytime you aren't using them and simply brushing them would keep them from being unsafe to continue using. I'd get my checkup and they'd always clean them during the visit, and they'd say they did the best with the stains that they could. But the funny thing was I realized at some point if I use that thing maybe twice in succession and just give it a pretty decent scrub with the denture brush, I'd get about 99% of it on my own and they'd go into the dentist's office without needing somebody to do any work on getting stains out. I still only use the cleaner every once in a while, but when you catch the staining early it's nothing but a quick 15 minute soak and a good brush and it comes out fine.

My denture brush is actually very hard bristles that you'd never brush your actual teeth in if you don't like bloody gums. But it appears that you've got to be extremely careful with what product comes in contact with them. You're not even supposed to clean them with a soft toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth. The small particles that are in the toothpaste and probably never fully leave your brush no matter how much you rinse it between brushing will scratch the hell out of your dentures. I'm not surprised to hear that about peroxide on them either. I'm sure over time whatever plastics they're made up of were standardized and designed to be cleaned by a very specific list of agents to the exclusion of any to all of the other possibilities and varies from manufacture to manufacturer's secret sauce. Outside of these chemicals or micro-abrasive substances, it's probably fairly hard to damage this plastic by other means. I've dropped mine on several occasions into my sink, and nothing broke. One time I was even working outside, had myself one hell of an allergy sneeze and blew them out onto the concrete... hard... and like Brenda with her pillow slip, nothing was hurt by my pride.

They don't make a cleaner that is without mint though???? That sounds insane to me. Even in 2026 I think I can still buy Piss Yellow Listerine that tastes like the floor cleaner that Listerine originally was before some genius decided people should put it in their mouth.

I'll have to check my tabs. I know there is a "taste" to them if I don't thoroughly rinse them before putting them in, but it just tasted "mediciney" to me, and I do my very best to avoid that. It just seems wild given differences in personal p

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 3:28 AM (P)

Poisoned hot dogs, killer pillows and mystery men being served warrants down the hall for Brenda. Leaky A/C unit in 102 degree daymares in-between doctor's visits for Sigs.

Sounds like you both had your hands full while I was gone too.

Glad you got your t-shirt drawer sorted out, Brenda. I remember it was one of the last things we were talking about before we were so rudely interrupted.

How you feeling, Sigs? You sound good and you can put on one hell of a show if that wasn't the case. Sounds like Doggo is doing good now too, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 4:08 AM (P)

I do exactly what I knew I was going to do and took my first full day with power back off completely. Slept in late and so the day isn't even really technically halfway over for me, but I intend to do nothing of consequence. Maybe I'll work on getting myself set back up with the AI project, but I'm not going to start it back up other than verifying that we're all back online and ready to go when I get around to it.

I did remember one thing that I finished that I can show you pictures of. It was the bookcase and all the stuff I put in it. It really did turn out to be great tribute to some of the most important members of my family from both sides, both living and dead. I've even got something really cool from both of my full brothers on there too. The first is a beautiful and what had to have been fairly expensive replica of the CGI Pumbra Dagger from the movie The Shadow from the early 90's. I remember thinking that was the coolest freakin' thing I'd ever seen in a movie and raving about it after we watched it at the dollar theater with my dad, and years later he remembered that and bought me that as a present. And from my youngest brother I go to visit with my dad, I got the absolute coolest fidget spinner I'd ever seen. He had that thing for a few years and I always commented how much I liked it and one day he just said he wanted me to have it when I came out there. It's solid brass, very weighty, spins for days with a good push and has 6 real pennies fused to it on each side, and the finish is gorgeous.

The one thing I have located but don't remember where I put them was my grandfather's cufflinks. I won't even give initials here for obvious reasons, but let's just say that he had 3 of them that were quite humorous and literally wore that humor on his sleeves.

Other than that though, I've got beautiful pieces that belonged to each of my grandmothers and the coolest little statue of a blue collar worker with a hard hat lugging his tool box around with my other grandpa's name on it.

Though it's unfortunate there wasn't another shelf and there was no room to put my Uncle's American Flag from his military battle, or the beautifully framed picture my mom and step-dad made of him holding me when I was just a baby, he's got his own special place on my curio cabinet in the same room. If you knew my uncle, on his own but still in high regard is most likely the way he would have wanted it anyway.

I do have some of his favorite books on there though, a few of which were also mine after reading them, along with other cool books I'd picked up over the years, and a really special Sci-Fi picture book my dad bought me from the Planetarium when I was a kid called Barlowe's Guide to Extra Terrestrials. It was the coolest thing, with artwork renditions of a vast array of different alien races that had been in sci-fi literature all the way up to somewhere in the 80's when we'd bought it. I also had Grams' HUGE dictionary that was literally falling apart at the seems and I "fixed" with my trusty roll of aluminum tape. Now no matter how hard they try to gaslight me and change the meaning of English words, I'll always know what the real definitions to words are. I also saved my Uncles copy of Trump's "The Art of War" that was probably bought back when it came out up there just for shits and giggles. I don't know if I'm ever going to get around to actually reading that or not.

I always loved shells, and apparently one of my other uncles did too. I've got his awesome ash tray that looks like it was probably never used up there with all the rocks and shells he had on it, as well as the awesome HUGE shell that was always sitting on one piece of furniture or the other in Grams' living room or dining room since I was young enough to remember, and a painting he made of the Chicago cityscape at night behind it all.

I found the piggy bank I was given

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 4:33 AM (P)

A lot to unpack here...

But first, no, not at all offended. Thankful you've given me solid ideas

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Heya SIX!
Glad you're OK!

SIX:
Hey Sigs. You too. I trust you're staying out of that heat as much as possible.

SIGNY:
12 days without power? That's ridiculous! But thank goodness for the genny! We keep toying with the idea of battery backup but a generator is probably a much cheaper and better bet.

SIX:
Yeah... Insane, really. But the crazy part about it was after 3 or 4 days it just became my new normal. That first night I was setting my alarm every 2 hours to check on the generator, and I know I didn't get to sleep until at least 4AM the first couple of nights. By around night 9 I was falling asleep watching movies well before midnight. Part of that was I was pretty sure by then anyone who needed a generator either bought one or stole one and I was in the clear. NWI is probably now the most prepared portion of the country for the next storm in the history of the nation. Not just because of this event, but the one that knocked out 1/3rd of the same customers for 3 to 5 days just 6 or so weeks ago. If they didn't learn their lesson the first time, they sure better have the second time or they get what they deserve the third time.

OMG no kidding!

Quote:
SIX:
Get yourself a generator first. It's a no-brainier. But don't forget you need a few extension cords that are up to the task too. I probably went super overboard when I bought a 100ft cord that came out to more than a buck a foot after taxes for my sump well, but I'll never lose sleep worrying that it's going to melt on me. Until day 2 of the last power outage I would never have even dared to try to hook up the fridge on a plain orange 100ft extension cord, but I had to save the insulin and found it it wasn't a problem.

This time I was able to rotate that orange plug and do quite a few things with it. First and foremost, making coffee is no longer an issue whether my power is up or not.

I had it powering my laptop and charging my phones and my Ryobi batteries on my 6-battery charger every 2 or 3 nights just to keep everything topped off. No more sitting in my car reading a book for a few hours while the phone and my diabetes monitor charged up. No more worrying about what I was going to do when my 12 batteries for my flashlights inevitably ran out of juice long before the power came back up.

I had my Dad take all my insulin in an iced up cooler back to his place for me and just kept my existing bottle and the one I'd be opening soon, and I didn't have all that much food so I just threw out the stuff I couldn't cook, ate what I could eat and had that thing shut off after day 2. I'm sure I could have run the fridge and sump and still do everything else I was doing without overloading the generator, but with only 2 A/C outlets on the thing, it would have meant taking the fridge off of the plug for hours at a time, and I probalby wouldn't have watched any movies and would have had the plug split in the kitchen charging everything up overnight while feeding the fridge if I didn't give the insulin to Dad.

They're not cheap, but if you get yourself a nice one and follow the maintenance instructions, you will get years of use and piece of mind out of it. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH GAS ON HAND FOR A FEW DAYS!!!! Ask me how I know.

Mine isn't huge or an especially large energy export at only 3 gallon capacity and 2900 watts, but it was a DeWalt that was built 24 years ago and still kicks ass to this day. I've gone several years without ever firing it up, and it always starts in a few pulls if not the first pull.

And once I install that house generator R/V style plug with the interlock kit on the box to make sure I never feed the grid on accident by forgetting to turn off the main before plugging in the generator, I'll be able to feed anything I want i

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 4:34 AM (P)

A lot to unpack here...

But first, no, not at all offended. Thankful you've given me solid ideas

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Heya SIX!
Glad you're OK!

SIX:
Hey Sigs. You too. I trust you're staying out of that heat as much as possible.

SIGNY:
12 days without power? That's ridiculous! But thank goodness for the genny! We keep toying with the idea of battery backup but a generator is probably a much cheaper and better bet.

SIX:
Yeah... Insane, really. But the crazy part about it was after 3 or 4 days it just became my new normal. That first night I was setting my alarm every 2 hours to check on the generator, and I know I didn't get to sleep until at least 4AM the first couple of nights. By around night 9 I was falling asleep watching movies well before midnight. Part of that was I was pretty sure by then anyone who needed a generator either bought one or stole one and I was in the clear. NWI is probably now the most prepared portion of the country for the next storm in the history of the nation. Not just because of this event, but the one that knocked out 1/3rd of the same customers for 3 to 5 days just 6 or so weeks ago. If they didn't learn their lesson the first time, they sure better have the second time or they get what they deserve the third time.

OMG no kidding!

Quote:
SIX:
Get yourself a generator first. It's a no-brainier. But don't forget you need a few extension cords that are up to the task too. I probably went super overboard when I bought a 100ft cord that came out to more than a buck a foot after taxes for my sump well, but I'll never lose sleep worrying that it's going to melt on me. Until day 2 of the last power outage I would never have even dared to try to hook up the fridge on a plain orange 100ft extension cord, but I had to save the insulin and found it it wasn't a problem.

This time I was able to rotate that orange plug and do quite a few things with it. First and foremost, making coffee is no longer an issue whether my power is up or not.

I had it powering my laptop and charging my phones and my Ryobi batteries on my 6-battery charger every 2 or 3 nights just to keep everything topped off. No more sitting in my car reading a book for a few hours while the phone and my diabetes monitor charged up. No more worrying about what I was going to do when my 12 batteries for my flashlights inevitably ran out of juice long before the power came back up.

I had my Dad take all my insulin in an iced up cooler back to his place for me and just kept my existing bottle and the one I'd be opening soon, and I didn't have all that much food so I just threw out the stuff I couldn't cook, ate what I could eat and had that thing shut off after day 2. I'm sure I could have run the fridge and sump and still do everything else I was doing without overloading the generator, but with only 2 A/C outlets on the thing, it would have meant taking the fridge off of the plug for hours at a time, and I probalby wouldn't have watched any movies and would have had the plug split in the kitchen charging everything up overnight while feeding the fridge if I didn't give the insulin to Dad.

They're not cheap, but if you get yourself a nice one and follow the maintenance instructions, you will get years of use and piece of mind out of it. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH GAS ON HAND FOR A FEW DAYS!!!! Ask me how I know.

Mine isn't huge or an especially large energy export at only 3 gallon capacity and 2900 watts, but it was a DeWalt that was built 24 years ago and still kicks ass to this day. I've gone several years without ever firing it up, and it always starts in a few pulls if not the first pull.

And once I install that house generator R/V style plug with the interlock kit on the box to make sure I never feed the grid on accident by forgetting to turn off the main before plugging in the generator, I'll be able to feed anything I want i

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 5:42 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A lot to unpack here...

But first, no, not at all offended. Thankful you've given me solid ideas

That's good to hear. I do wish you luck with it all. Sometimes it's all about stringing the right combination of words together, and you never know what those combinations are until you find them. You won't ever find them if you're having the same conversation over and over again though.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm convinced!

Sweet.

You know how cheap I am. Though I won't be spending much more than that startup of around $1,200 to get what I NEED now, I could see myself spending a few thousand more and beefing it all up along with getting a bigger genny and even some solar panels into the mix after I got some income again. There's potential that I won't feel the constant need to move far away from this place if I can just get it all set up the right way. $800 to $1,200 for a genny and maybe $150 worth of good extension cords if you don't already have some is a small price to pay for that piece of mind, even if you luck out and don't ever need to use them yourself.

Quote:
SIGNY
I think it was you taking pix more than anything you could have said. But if they're as spendy as it sounds they probably didn't appreciate the unanticipated expense.

That is possible. I can't say for sure that they saw me doing it, but I certainly wasn't coy about what I was doing when I did it. Part of me really was hoping that somebody inside saw me taking those pictures and maybe they did. The tree was down within a week of that day.

Quote:
SIGNY
At my age, it's impossible to be prepared for anything. Mentally not a problem but physically.

Yeah....

It's not my age but my diabetes that kind of ruined my plans for any end-of-life-as-we-know-it futures. I don't imagine I'd live very long if anything serious ever happened that was prolonged. But my power could have been down a month this time and although it might have been driving me nuts by then, maybe not. I was never concerned about survival while this was going on. At least not after my old man helped me get set up the way I should have been set up before it happened and I intend to keep doing from here going forward without needing to impose or later on when I might not have anybody to impose it upon.

Quote:

1) The biggest "use once, throw away" expense is munitions. Our Dept of War, which spends more than the next ten militaries COMBINED, is the largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases in the WORLD.

2) One tourism launch into space creates more greenhouse gases than the poorest billion people do in a year. Now imagine what all those private jets do.

I bring this up only to remind myself that anyone in power, or with $$, or a platform, who brays about global warming but who never mentions the wealth gap or who is pro-war is just an opportunist in the "get rich quick/ get more power" club. What did Rahm Emmanuel (Obama's Chief of Staff) say?

Never let a good crisis go to waste

Sometimes the crises are imaginary, sometimes they're exaggerated, sometimes they're generated on purpose ("war on terror"), but sometimes they're real. It's up to us to pick that apart, and acknowledge the real without being herded into their "solutions".

AFA our labor being 'too expensive' ... it IS possible to be an industrial nation without screwing the average person to the wall. China managed, and lifted a billion people out if poverty. Russia is re-industrializing and living standards are going UP. The problem with the USA labor market is financialism and excess profits, not performative actions of "reducing greenhouse gases". INDIA'S problem, like the USA'S problem, is fundamental corruption: government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, f

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 6:13 AM (P)

Picture Time!

Beyond what I had mentioned from memory earlier, there is also that beautiful chrome music box, which was a part of the cottage we had in Michigan from the very first day we went there when it was still my aunt and uncle's summer place. By the time it was finally given to me, the door was broke off and it skips right at the end of the song loop and the vehicle "jumps" forward very quickly. I was able to get the door fixed up right (thank god for the malleability of copper), but fixing the music itself is something I don't know if I can do. There are two gears that very obviously are damaged right at the point of skipping, and since we're not living in the mid-1900s anymore, I'm not exactly sure how I would even identify what gears I would need to replace the bad ones, let alone if it would even be possible to find matches for them. I don't think I can even blame my diabetes eyes for not being able to count up how many teeth there are on the much wider and thinner of the two that are damaged. It mostly works though and you can clearly hear the last 90% of the song without an issue. I wish I noticed that it hadn't parked inside before I took that picture though, since it sort of messes with the flow of the entire shelf when it's not parked inside the little car port.

I also swapped out a generic set of Boading Balls that my step-dad had given me with a belt that his father had made for all 3 of me and my brothers with our names on them. His dad was a leather-maker by trade and worked out of the caboose all day while the kids were out picking cotton in the fields or going to school. I think he'd probably tear up himself if he knew i still had that and it's sitting on the top shelf now right in front and below my dad's clock.

'Ole Jack had a 24" waist back in Jr. High. I remember to this day that I weighed exactly 79 lbs every time I stepped on the scale between 6th and 8th grade.

Oh... and I found my grandpa's cufflinks and put them up there too. It's just too bad I can't share the joke with you here.

I even just today found an 8-ball that I stole from the pool hall me and my friends always went to in our teens and early 20's shortly after the family that owned it got bought out by somebody much more "corporate" and before the place eventually shut down. So I have a memory of all of those friends up there now too (that's not in the picture). And the cool thing is I have it sitting inside of the looped belt with my name on it.

For once in his life, "Jack" is ahead of the 8-ball.

ETA: Damn... I forgot I have to superglue that Pumbra Dagger stand. It was made to be modular so you could easily break it down and put it back in the box for storage, but over the years that wood got a bit worn and slips around a bit. I'm never going to sell the thing even though I've got the full piece in great shape along with the original box which is also blemish free, so why not finally glue it together?

I also have it turned the wrong way and it should be facing out from the front corner, opposite from where The Fisherman is looking.

Maybe I'll glue that together and get it set right along with the music box and take a new pic with the missing 8-ball that wasn't in these anyhow.

ETA2: Just looked up that dagger, and it can't be worth all that much. I'm seeing $200 for one with a better box than mine and all the original bags covering each part that I must have thrown out or it was thrown out by the previous owner. I seem to recall that it wasn't brand new in the box and that would make sense since he gave me this many years after we saw that movie together. Not that there was before since I'd made up my mind, but that makes the choice to glue it together not even really a choice at all.

--------------------------------

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 7:03 AM (P)

I was going to make an ETA3, but decided this was worth a post of its own... lol

I'm finding that the discovery of a bit of the personal family history of the women in my family that all had too much money is quite comical.

The more things change, the more that they stay the same.

This was among a collection of equally worthless figurines that my mom probably spent way too much money on and had decorated shelving in our house(s) while I was growing up. Some of these pieces quite beautiful, actually. But just like the even more Waterford Crystal scam that they ran on the women who treated these things as future retirement funds or possibly ways to pay for their children's college educations, most of these figures ended up being pretty worthless and nobody knew it until the estate sales started happening and nobody was paying crap for them because they were all a dime a dozen.

Now I feel much less stupid about all the things I bought that never were worth anything growing up.

In any event, I love that statue. And once again I'm glad to find out it's not worth anything monetarily. I didn't actually find that piece, but I've found similar and I get a giggle about how much they're fetching on ebay today.

But I'll bet that World Fair Chicago book from I believe 1937 might actually be worth a buck or two...

Maybe I should check?

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 9:42 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Poisoned hot dogs, killer pillows and mystery men being served warrants down the hall for Brenda. Leaky A/C unit in 102 degree daymares in-between doctor's visits for Sigs.

Sounds like you both had your hands full while I was gone too.

Glad you got your t-shirt drawer sorted out, Brenda. I remember it was one of the last things we were talking about before we were so rudely interrupted.

How you feeling, Sigs? You sound good and you can put on one hell of a show if that wasn't the case. Sounds like Doggo is doing good now too, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

They weren't poisoned dogs, I think they must have used one of their spicy dogs that day. Spice and my stomach not friends.

Yeah, never ever leave soggy, squishy pillows on the floor. I don't know what floor the fuzz went too. I just let them in to do their business.

Me too. I didn't realize how many black t-shirts I have.

It was one of the last things we were talking about.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 9:46 AM (P)

Ugh! I was watching a video on You Tube today when that stupid cloud icon decided to come and screw up the video for a moment. Now the idiot thing is hanging out on my task bar instead of being bye-bye. Usually it just comes up in notifications and I tell it to take a hike. Don't know what happened. And I really well, I went to try and look at the comments and nothing wanted to move, noticed my icons took a powder, a black spot came up the video and the like word for the button came up. Then once the cloud icon settled in. Everything went back to normal. Weird, weird.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:38 AM (P)

Sometimes weird things happen. If it went away and nothing comes back, I wouldn't worry about it Brenda. You always know several methods on how to do a proper restart if you need to do it now, so until there is a real hardware problem or some OS glitch that makes Windows completely take a dump and force you to reinstall it you should be alright. Remember to keep a lookout for a decent backup laptop.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 12:27 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Poisoned hot dogs, killer pillows and mystery men being served warrants down the hall for Brenda. Leaky A/C unit in 102 degree daymares in-between doctor's visits for Sigs.

Sounds like you both had your hands full while I was gone too.

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
They weren't poisoned dogs, I think they must have used one of their spicy dogs that day. Spice and my stomach not friends. Yeah, never ever leave soggy, squishy pillows on the floor. I don't know what floor the fuzz went too. I just let them in to do their business.

Nah... I knew they weren't poisoned. Just joshing is all...

Consider yourself lucky you never smoked or done half the dumb shit I do with an aversion to spicy foods. If I couldn't eat spicy foods, about 80% of the stuff I eat wouldn't even have any taste beyond my mind's memory of smell and the ability to make myself "taste" the food I'm currently eating by remembering what the experience was when I was a kid who still hadn't touched any of the bad stuff yet.

Quote:
Glad you got your t-shirt drawer sorted out, Brenda. I remember it was one of the last things we were talking about before we were so rudely interrupted.

Quote:
Brenda: Me too. I didn't realize how many black t-shirts I have. It was one of the last things we were talking about.

Yeah. I thought it was...

Black T-Shirts, huh? What other colors you got? I'm guessing the majority of them are brown and grey... possibly just one or two that are white for when you're really feeling like a different person that day. Maybe some dark blues and greens on the fringes?

Don't mind me... I'm just describing what's in my closet.

There ain't no yellows or oranges or bright reds or pinks or much of anything brighter than a black hole in my collection.

I can rock a dark purple though on days when I'm feeling extra spicy.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 12:53 PM (P)

In case either of you don't ever look outside of the RWED or this thread, or you otherwise miss it, I just made a new thread on the General Board that you have to read because you need to know about what is going on with this website in the future... at least according to Ted.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=2&tid=67737

Note to Haken regarding the announcement of A.I. merging with Fireflyfans.net

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I am making it FULLY KNOWN right here and now that I do not consent to any single one of my posts I've ever made on fff.net, fireflyfans.net or any similarly named url that linked to this site in the last 20 years since I joined in 2006 being scanned and/or used in any way by A.I. or even any manual collection process with the intent for any of it to be used by anyone other than me for any purpose, whatsoever.

I also encourage any members who currently post here and those who still come by and lurk without posting to do the same. Right now.

If there is actual legal verbiage in the initial agreement that I signed when I joined this site in 2006 that leads Haken, or whatever "Haken" actually is in 2026 to believe they have the right to do this to me and everyone else who has ever joined up and made a even one single post, I want it pointed out to me right now so I can contact a lawyer and get my affairs in order before the A.I. is unleashed. I also want ample time to reach out to people I know in real life who have a much wider influence on people who were members of this site at one point in time who are likely completely unaware of "Haken"'s intent for the future of this website going forward.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I do expect a reply.

Anybody else who sees this can feel completely free to voice their opinions and have them heard here as well.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:05 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sometimes weird things happen. If it went away and nothing comes back, I wouldn't worry about it Brenda. You always know several methods on how to do a proper restart if you need to do it now, so until there is a real hardware problem or some OS glitch that makes Windows completely take a dump and force you to reinstall it you should be alright. Remember to keep a lookout for a decent backup laptop.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Still there this morning. Unless it gums something up again I am just ignoring it.

I am still looking for back up laptop.

And I need a couch or something as well. Always something.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:16 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Poisoned hot dogs, killer pillows and mystery men being served warrants down the hall for Brenda. Leaky A/C unit in 102 degree daymares in-between doctor's visits for Sigs.

Sounds like you both had your hands full while I was gone too.

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
They weren't poisoned dogs, I think they must have used one of their spicy dogs that day. Spice and my stomach not friends. Yeah, never ever leave soggy, squishy pillows on the floor. I don't know what floor the fuzz went too. I just let them in to do their business.

Nah... I knew they weren't poisoned. Just joshing is all...

Consider yourself lucky you never smoked or done half the dumb shit I do with an aversion to spicy foods. If I couldn't eat spicy foods, about 80% of the stuff I eat wouldn't even have any taste beyond my mind's memory of smell and the ability to make myself "taste" the food I'm currently eating by remembering what the experience was when I was a kid who still hadn't touched any of the bad stuff yet.

Quote:
Glad you got your t-shirt drawer sorted out, Brenda. I remember it was one of the last things we were talking about before we were so rudely interrupted.

Quote:
Brenda: Me too. I didn't realize how many black t-shirts I have. It was one of the last things we were talking about.

Yeah. I thought it was...

Black T-Shirts, huh? What other colors you got? I'm guessing the majority of them are brown and grey... possibly just one or two that are white for when you're really feeling like a different person that day. Maybe some dark blues and greens on the fringes?

Don't mind me... I'm just describing what's in my closet.

There ain't no yellows or oranges or bright reds or pinks or much of anything brighter than a black hole in my collection.

I can rock a dark purple though on days when I'm feeling extra spicy.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

I know you were. I just discovered the spice thing the other year ago. A friend made Moroccan meatballs and I ate a couple. Yeah, I wasn't feeling too great. Similar situation with a slice of pepperoni pizza yesterday but I think some of that was left over from the day before. And I like pepperoni pizza.

Oh, well. At least I can probably blame the reaction on one of my seizure meds.

I've got a couple of dark and one light green one. Blues too. Nothing white or any colour like that.

No worries.

I hate, hate, hate the colour purple. That really grinds my gears. A lady friend of my mum loved the colour along with lavender in spots around the house. Yuck. Also hate the colour red and don't ask me why. I don't know why. I just loathe it.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:18 PM (P)

Out soon to get things done. Need a refill on one of my seizure meds. Then pay off some more of my dental bill.

Temp is sitting at 74F which is 22C.

BRENDA

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:18 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
In case either of you don't ever look outside of the RWED or this thread, or you otherwise miss it, I just made a new thread on the General Board that you have to read because you need to know about what is going on with this website in the future... at least according to Ted.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=2&tid=67737

Note to Haken regarding the announcement of A.I. merging with Fireflyfans.net

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I am making it FULLY KNOWN right here and now that I do not consent to any single one of my posts I've ever made on fff.net, fireflyfans.net or any similarly named url that linked to this site in the last 20 years since I joined in 2006 being scanned and/or used in any way by A.I. or even any manual collection process with the intent for any of it to be used by anyone other than me for any purpose, whatsoever.

I also encourage any members who currently post here and those who still come by and lurk without posting to do the same. Right now.

If there is actual legal verbiage in the initial agreement that I signed when I joined this site in 2006 that leads Haken, or whatever "Haken" actually is in 2026 to believe they have the right to do this to me and everyone else who has ever joined up and made a even one single post, I want it pointed out to me right now so I can contact a lawyer and get my affairs in order before the A.I. is unleashed. I also want ample time to reach out to people I know in real life who have a much wider influence on people who were members of this site at one point in time who are likely completely unaware of "Haken"'s intent for the future of this website going forward.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I do expect a reply.

Anybody else who sees this can feel completely free to voice their opinions and have them heard here as well.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Didn't notice it but I will hit it later.

BRENDA

Wednesday, August 26, 2026 4:12 AM (P)

All done for today and my area has reached 90F.

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