I keep coming to the inescapable conclusion that the leaders of my state are trying to kill it’s citizens. Texas resembles a failed state more every day. Some hidden agenda seems to be more important than the truth, or even the lives of it’s citizens.
Author: Steven Guccione
30 Kinds of Stupid
My first thought was: wow, lots of words for stupidity in italian. Then I realized there are probably more in English.
How to Say ‘Idiot’ in the Italian Language: 30 Different Ways!
Electric Mower Blade Covers
I glued the PVC pipes for the blade unit and even painted it all black. I needed some way to cover the blades, mostly to prevent accidents. Not likely these little blades will be throwing rocks around. I found some plant saucers on Amazon that looked like they could do the job. The problem is how best to attach them. I bought some aluminum strips and decided to bolt them together. Some cutting, drilling and bolting and I made a nice little cover for the blades. Bought some u-bolts to attach the cover to the PVC pipe, which is going to require just a little more drilling.
I went back and re-installed the big handle to raise and lower the blades and re-purposed some of the mechanism used to lift the original deck. Instead of four offset lift points, I now have just two parallel to each other. The last job is to figure out how to connect the whole blade unit to these lift points. It needs to be offset to give some overlap in the blade paths so that there aren’t uncut stripes in the grass. Also hope the whole arrangement is flexible to handle a bit of collision but not so flexible that the blades move around in normal use. Almost there.
Robot Mowers
I’m have had a Worx Landroid mowing a part of my back yard for about five years. I like it but it is expensive. I think I paid $700 but today they cost even more. You can spend as much as $2,500 on one. Why, I don’t know. This article has a quote that should be repeated. This is about all small engines.
… according to California’s Air Resources Board, operating a commercial lawn mower for just one hour emits as much pollution as driving a Toyota Camry about 300 miles. For a commercial leaf blower, one hour of operation emits pollution comparable to driving a Camry about 1,100 miles.
Texas Bluebonnet
Today is Easter, so it seems I missed the official Holy Thursday gumbo Z’Herbs. I didn’t realize Easter was so early this year. I still have the small garden growing and I still plan to make some green gumbo but it will probably be toward the end of April. When is Orthodox Easter?
Also found this Bluebonnet sprouting in our front garden. This garden is basically xeriscaped and suitable for cactus. And the Big Freeze killed most of the plants, including a nice palm. Funny the last couple of years I bought big bags of wildflower seeds and put them in the middle of the lawn, but never got a single flower.
Veggie Avocado Ramen
Early in the pandemic I started these Lockdown Ramen postings. It was mostly using up leftovers and dealing with eating all my meals at home. Today we didn’t have any leftover meat, but we did have an avocado. I decided to go in a different direction and make a vegetarian or perhaps avocado ramen.
This may also be my last official Lockdown Ramen. Next week I will be getting my second Moderna shot and this pandemic, at least, should be over for me. I suppose I may post some ramen for “Special Situations”. This one was pho noodles, garlic, ginger, soy and an egg. Some fresh parsley, carrot and acocado, topped with togorashi and furikake.
The Internet of Annoying Things
Our old refrigerator died early in the pandemic. We found out that there was some sort of appliance shortage and it took a while to get a replacement. But all in all the new fridge is a big improvement. It is “internet enabled” and I installed the app, which was fairly useless. I suppose I can check my fridge and freezer temperatures remotely, if I ever have the urge.
I actually found the published REST API and was able to write some python to contact the refrigerator, but alas, I wasn’t able to get it to do anything. Couldn’t even get it to send me back a temperature reading. Did a bit of googling and it seems nobody else out there could get it to work either. No matter, I don’t need to be writing code from my kitchen appliances anyway.
Yesterday I noticed a red light on the panel inside the door. It seems out ice maker has a filter that needs replacing every few months. Ok. Read the docs and it turns out you need to turn off the water to the ice maker to change the filter. I’m not sure how other houses do it, but the water connection and valve are behind our refrigerator. I would have to pull the refrigerator completely out to replace the filter.
Surely this can’t be true. But it is. Reading the comments by other owners discuss this. Many turn off the water to their entire house to change the filter. Ok, a little better, but not much. People also warned not to try to change the filter with the water on, or you would get sprayed and fill the bottom of your freezer with water.
Screw it. I’m just going to go into the app and turn off the little red nag light. Except I couldn’t. Further googling indicates that this part of the app is broken, but the manufacturer says if you unplug the refrigerator for 15 seconds it will go off. Ok. Maybe some other time.
I decided to just ignore the red flashing light inside of the fridge. Went back to reading (Thomas Pynchon’s “Beelding Edge”) when my pad began beeping. An alarm from my fridge. Time to change the water filter. I turned off the audio beep alert, but I keep getting text warning alerts. I suppose I could turn then off all together, but not much point in having an internet connection fridge at that point.
Reunify the Dakotas
With all this talk of making Washington D.C. a proper state with senators, one thing concerns me. How do you make a flag with 51 stars? Plus you will need to change the seating around in Congress. I have a modest proposal that could take care of this and fix an historic wrong. When we add Washington D.C. we should combine North and South Dakota into a single state called “Dakota”.
It turns out that a single Dakota was part of the original plan, but politics led to a last minute change. From Wiki:
On February 22, 1889, outgoing President Cleveland signed an omnibus bill that divided the Territory of Dakota in half. North Dakota and South Dakota became states simultaneously on November 2, 1889. President Harrison had the papers shuffled to obscure which one was signed first and the order went unrecorded.[12] The bill also enabled the people in the new Territories of North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as the older territories of Montana and Washington, to write state constitutions and elect state governments. The four new states would be admitted into the Union in nine months. This plan cut Democratic New Mexico out of statehood and split Republican Dakota Territory into two new Republican states. Rather than two new Republican states and two new Democratic states that Congress had considered the previous year, the omnibus bill created three new Republican states and one new Democratic state that Republicans thought they would capture. The Dakota Territory was divided into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota on November 2, 1889.
As far as population, North and South Dakota are two of the bottom five states in population with only Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming having fewer people. Combining them would only move them to around number 39, between Hawaii and West Virginia. Maybe pick a new capital, or maybe just alternate every other session in Bismark and one in Pierre. Let the people of Dakota sort it out.
Steven A. Guccione 