When I moved to my small Vermont town in the late 1980’s practically the first thing I did was ask my apartment landlord, who was a real estate agent, about small lots (a few acres) of undeveloped land within walking distance (a few miles) of the town’s central village. He invited me into his car, drove 10 miles to an adjacent town, stopped and gestured at a 100 acre farm with a decrepit farm house a few feet from the road, and expressed genuine astonishment when I declined to get out of the car. To this day I have no idea what he was thinking.
Next he showed me a 10 acre strip lot in the Missisquoi River valley about three miles from the village. I liked it and had him prepare an offer for the asking price of $8100. A week later he told me he’d made a mistake. The lot he showed me was already sold. The lot still for sale was adjacent to it. I didn’t see any difference in the land along that section of road so I told him to cross out “Lot #12”, substitute “Lot #13”, and resubmit the offer.
A week later he told me the offer had been rejected because $8100 was the asking price for already sold lot #12. The asking price for lot #13 was $7900. I told him to cross out “$8100”, substitute “$7900”, and resubmit the offer. A week later he told me the offer had been accepted.
I think I’m the only person in the history of the world to have a real estate offer rejected because it was too high.
My cabin is made from logs of spruce and balsam cut flat on three sides by a local sawmill. They’re piled on top of each other curvy/bark side out and secured together with stakes that look like huge nails. The logs weren’t dry and I expected gaps to form as they shrank but many tubes of silicone caulk fixed that.
I also expected the bark to eventually fall off but I wanted to waterproof the exterior as much as possible to prevent rot. I bought a power paint sprayer and for two consecutive years hosed down the surface with Thompson’s WaterSeal. It was that time the cabin had repeated infestations of big black carpenter ants. I could kill off a nest when I discovered it but another would be established almost immediately. It was really annoying.
The Internet was new back then and I think I was experimenting with this thing called “AltaVista” when I discovered there are two kinds of ants: sweet eating ants and wax eating ants. This is why the better class of poison ant traps contain two kinds of bait. Then I discovered Thompson’s WaterSeal is paraffin dissolved in a solvent. The solvent evaporates leaving a thin layer of water-repelling wax. For two years I’d been spraying the cabin with carpenter ant food. When I found and killed an ant nest I’d follow the ant trail as far back as I could and hose it down with insecticide. One trail used a fallen tree as a bridge over a swamp and extended into the adjacent lot on the other side. The cabin must have been attracting ants for miles.
Previously I’ve related how, when I moved to Vermont, I was adopted by one of my town’s prominent families. Sadly the patriarch died two years ago of turbo cancer leaving his wife, two adult children, and five grandkids. In some respects I’ve assumed the grandfatherly duties of giving hopefully educational gifts and making startling declarations of age-old (Or is it old-age?) wisdom. I’m also trying to forge memories.
The mother of three of the kids and I have our birthday in the same month. Last year she was 31 and I was 63. I approached the adults with a plan to have a combined birthday celebration with a cake having 94 of those trick candles that relight after you blow them out. The kids were to be in on the trick, the mother and I weren’t supposed to know. The idea was when we couldn’t blow out the candles we’d call in the kids to help and when that didn’t work the mother’s brother would grab the cake, toss it on the ground, and blast it with a fire extinguisher. Then the real birthday cake would be brought out.
I found a seller of trick candles on eBay and ordered enough packets to get 94. The grandmother agreed to bake the sacrificial (no frosting) and real cakes. I also got a cheap water-based fire extinguisher and five long-tip lighters. I thought the kids could help light the candles.
So after dinner up at the family camp I invited the mother to sit next to me on the camp’s deck facing out to admire the view across the valley while stuff we couldn’t see happened inside. At one point I mentioned I had a bottle of celebratory champagne cooling in the camp’s propane-powered refrigerator and moved as if to get up to fetch it. One of the kids, the most observant, jumped up to say he’d bring it. Shortly after “Happy Birthday To You” started behind us and the brother brought out the cake.
It looked like a layer of plasma was floating over it. Events happened just as I scripted except I burst out laughing when the brother was wielding the fire extinguisher because he did it from the hip and it looked like he was peeing on it. The kids hadn’t been told about the two cakes and some of them were upset the birthday cake was ruined.
The kids couldn’t have all gone inside to help light the candles without making it look like something was up so the brother did it. He told me everything was fine until about 80 candles when the flames all seemed to join together. A few weeks later I got a recall notice from eBay saying the candles were hazardous, I should dispose of them safely, and what to do to ask for a refund. I didn’t apply for the refund, the candles were perfect in all respects.
You have to make them look as authentic as possible, so people won’t notice they’re fakes.
Ya know, when I was composing this and came up with the word “forge” for that sentence I thought of you because of your articles about the ironwork classes you took. The Internet’s third definition of “forge”, counterfeiting, never occurred to me.
If it had, I’d have had to come up with a different joke 😁
That’s so funny, English is. Happened to me, too, and we both obviously know both, all three, meanings. Was thinking they couldn’t all come from the same root. So:
“Its rich, centuries-long history traces back through multiple languages:
*Latin Root: Originates from fabrica, meaning a workshop or the craft of making something, which stems from faber, meaning a workman in hard materials or a craftsman.
*Old French: Shifted into Old French as forge (a smithy) and forgier (to construct or work metal).
*Middle English: Adopted into the English language in the 14th century.The transition to meaning “to counterfeit” (as in forging a signature or currency) also occurred in the 14th century. It likely stemmed from the medieval practice of minting coins, which evolved into a pejorative term for falsely imitating”
That also makes such sense! I probably could’ve put that together, had I thought about it, but I just got in from playing ‘Get the ball stuck in the tree’ with the 5yo. He *loves* it. And he made friends with a cat, which he named “Mittens.”
Humans are such funny animals, to tie that all together.
“ Then I discovered Thompson’s WaterSeal is paraffin dissolved in a solvent. The solvent evaporates leaving a thin layer of water-repelling wax. For two years I’d been spraying the cabin with carpenter ant food.”
I hate it when that happens.
Should have used something much more toxic.
Since then I discovered and became a big fan of the insecticide permethrin. It’s oil soluble and I think would play well with Thompson’s. I wonder if I tried it I’d have drifts of dead ants around the cabin.
I just looked it up and the town I am probably moving to appears to be “xfinity” territory. I have never used that outfit. Uh oh.
For years at my office in town I’ve had Comcast Business for my Internet service. I started with the adjacent town’s scrappy cable company when they first started providing Internet service and kept them when Comcast bought them out. Comcast/Xfinity has a horrible reputation but I’ve always been happy with the pricing and support of their business service.
I’m glad, embarrassed, and scared cuz I’ve never had to deal with any phone/ internet company in America. I pay for my phone, I suppose. I’m only now having to deal with them, come to think of it. They didn’t set up a voicemail box with my new phone. WTF?! I can’t do it over the phone, and yesterday I couldn’t get hold of a person before they closed. I think this has been detrimental.
(The old one tragically died in a tragic roller coaster accident. Remains, undiscovered.)
I think voicemail is a Tool Of Satan so neither of my cell phones (I’ve got one on AT&T and one on Verizon because cellular coverage in Vermont is so shit you never know which one will work.) have it but I’m pretty sure that setting it up is something that’s supposed to be easy to do on a new phone, like pressing (star) (number) (number) and following the instructions easy.
My work switched carriers and as a result, zapped the existing voicemail. I still haven’t set up the new one. I’m kind of waiting for my boss to say something, but it doesn’t seem to be as necessary with texting and Teams.
Calling the automatic thing didn’t work cuz it rejected my own phone number. So I have to call and talk to a person, apparently.
Getting a phone was awfully easy in Asia. Had a contract and it worked from there. In Korea, the internet often came with the apartment. I had MLB.tv most of the time, but I didn’t bother getting a TV. I’ just set up a tablet on my desk and use that as my screen.
Poor kids.
One of them should have said “That’s a terrible waste of perfectly good cake”.
I bet that they enjoyed the real cake.
I like to take the first piece of cake out of the middle. Although that seems to upset adult women the most.
That’s how I cut banana bread and my family’s patented applesauce cake. I start with a slice from the middle where it’s best and work my way out to the ends. That way I always get the best slice.
You people are savages.
Right? The edge pieces have maximum frosting.
The heals are the best.
I like the cut of your jib.
Jib-saw?
Thanks.
Hmmm, I used to have carpenter ants and I was using Thompson’s on the deck. Now I don’t see any ants and I haven’t used Thompson’s for 10-15 years. Deck is high off the ground, looks shabby but still solid. It was green treat as I recall.
Thanks, Richard, hopefully you didn’t add anything spicy to the HH Glib treats. Your neighbors seem to be friendlier than mine. Mine keep trying to run me off the road.
Rural Vermonters have a reputation for abrasive standoffishness but I was made incredibly welcome when I moved here nearly 40 years ago. Maybe it was because I had, by local standards, a really good paying job and would be spending my money locally, the Internet not existing at that time.
40 years ago was when I started my journey out of NH.
From what I recall, it was the new neighbors that wanted to change things that got the abrasive treatment., (and tourists)
My former apartment landlord and real estate agent was quite a character. He was very elderly during the COVID incident and on nice days liked to drive around town in his Ford Model T. One day he came across me hiking back to the cabin and offered me a ride. “I don’t give a shit about the virus.” he said. When he dropped me off his pleasure at the fact I couldn’t figure out how to open the car’s door was immense.
Some of my wife’s best dog grooming clients were elderly in assisted living facilities during the height of the VID scare. All had the attitude you described.
Even in the woods people here were covering up if they left their own premises. One old good friend even closed his gate, with a sign “No Visitors”. Most were gettig the jab but not all.
The Missus and I had no masks/no jabs. Some old people we knew were horrified and scared we’d bring something if we visited. They will not admit they were suckered in.
Ants, insects of all kinds, need water. If you have infestation in your walls you also (most probably) have a leak issue. Check your roof and pipe boots and any/all flashings.
At the road level the lot I ended up buying, not entirely sight unseen, is a peninsula of ledge rock with water springs on each side flowing down to the river. Infestating critters’ access to water is not a problem.
Don’t tell the Vermont Department of Conservation this but my driveway is a filled in swamp, or wetlands habitat as it’s called now. It took 17 loads of gravel to become civilized.
Did the Corps of Engineers survey that to give you a permit? You may have to haul out 16 loads.
I don’t know if they’ve lightened up any but I bet the Army Corps of Engineers would have classified my spring seeps as Navigable Waters at some point.
Points for broaching an actual Libertarian topic!
Idaho knows this all too well.
Brief off-topic posting:
Dang, Hurricanes score in 25 seconds. Also, started with some Scorpions, so 👍
<— Cup remains in USA, don't care who wins, but will love to see Vegas go down again. There is a reason they are the most hated team in the NHL.
Then you’re in luck! I loathe the “canes” too. I stopped paying attention a few weeks ago.
Go Game 7!
I thought the realtor was going to drop you off at the other town and leave you there.
(Channeling my inner SugarFree)
..leave you there tied to the decrepit farm house’s warped dining room table bloody and bruised in a manner that STEVE SMITH would judge 7/10.
The neighborhood trash panda is hanging out on my porch. My cats are entertained.
Next post submitted. It’s done enough.
“When I found and killed an ant nest I’d follow the ant trail as far back as I could and hose it down with insecticide. One trail used a fallen tree as a bridge over a swamp and extended into the adjacent lot on the other side. The cabin must have been attracting ants for miles”
Apparently they were listening to your…
WaxTrax.
Comments like this are why I read every one of them.
It was a quite unusual tale.
Why isn’t a vingette just a very small vinyard?
A vingette is one of those small French wine decanters on the table that one uses for Continental Breakfasts. Shows your new in-laws that you have taste.
I thought a vignette was a young lady who has yet to taste the product of the vine. Or barley.
It’s not a salad dressing?
“To this day I have no idea what he was thinking.” Maybe he thought you were loaded.
===
“I think I’m the only person in the history of the world to have a real estate offer rejected because it was too high.”
Hrm. *makes grubby gesture that may get one suspended from sports* May check out after all. He wants a happy customer.
===
“My cabin is made from logs of spruce and balsam cut flat on three sides by a local sawmill.”
Okay. Yep. Ya build artisanal. He wants you to build a nice mansion after razing that shack. Convenient access, too! (“Make it gated!”)
===
*furrows brow* I’ll continue reading.
Apparently your realtor has a cousin out here, also a realtor. My now wife told him what she wanted and he insisted on showing her the type of houses he thought she should buy. She found the house herself and basically did all of the leg work for the bum.
She let him live!?
She doesn’t like killing insects so she did. Also, she didn’t have the acreage. Now…
“with a cake having 94 of those trick candles that relight after you blow them out. ”
DAAAMN! Famous family story: We had those at one of my birthday parties, young but don’t know how old I was, and *I* was the victim of that prank. (Maybe 6-7?) And those bastards just kept not going out! I made a highly entertaining stink of it all. Not a tantrum, but prolonged, profound ranting that the others like to tell. I still side with myself! Those were special relighting candles. Above /beyond.
You don’t get your wish if the candles won’t blow out. It’s just unfair.
I have a 24 acre piece on the market right now. Road access, can be sub-divided into 2.5 acre lots. Out of curiosity I priced it on the high side, so far not much interest.
I think a lot of people are concerned about the war/economy. We shot a lot of deer off that property.
I’m waiting for the 10 acre strip lot I originally put an offer on to be up for sale again. Combined it would vastly increase the value of my two current lots. I’m not inquiring of the owner however. I want to buy from a seller, if you get what I mean.
So he’s almost dead.
ZWAK news update:
Once again, I have spent money on something stupid
https://postimg.cc/yWFDPtZt
This is an early 1920s Dalton lathe, 7×24 if you know lathes. 440 pounds before the mast and motor are counted. I don’t really need another lathe, especially one over 100 years old, made by a company that folded during the great depression. But it is dead cool. And compliments my shop of misfit toys, vintage power version.
440 lbs is hefty for 7″ (compared to modern chinesium)
The thing is a beast. Even the chip pan is cast iron.
I am happy for you, Zwak.
Do they let you operate that in your storage unit? 😮
That pic is from the ad, so I don’t know about that one. Some do, but they have to have power somewhere.
lol I was funnin’. I can’t imagine it being very useful there.
That’s neat.
It’s only money, don’t work yourself into a lathe-er about it.
That is different.
It looks like a robot bartender. I strongly approve of all of this.
You’d probably get along with my dad.
I burst out laughing when the brother was wielding the fire extinguisher because he did it from the hip and it looked like he was peeing on it.
Perfect.
I had these black ants all around the soft maples in my backyard. But they were really skinny.
I called them Karen Carpenter Ants.
I’m sorry to inform you that you can’t use that joke any more because I’ve stolen it.
Go forth!
Public Use and all that…
Too soon!
We know that Tres only wants his BBA’s.
That was a sweet story Richard.
Grew up in the log house my dad built.
Originally sprayed with a varnish.
Has had a sikaflex product in it for twenty years. The Norwegians like their orange log houses. It’s kind of ugly now.
https://ibb.co/fYWZb793
Oooh! The Carmel Fire Dept got called out to my Meijer tonight. “Hazardous materials response.”
That’s kinda exciting! I flaunt my flatulence, but I’m not that powerful.
So, a spill in the laundry detergant? Or the doritos aisle?
At least three trucks went out for it, but the store’s right next to a fire station.
I’ll find out tomorrow, back in the dark bowels of grocerial shipping. (It really is dark back there. Ya don’t notice it, but I’m blinded like an ill-patched pirate when I venture outdoors.)
I was unaware that carpenter ants prefer oil-based foods (makes sense, they’re high-calorie items). The thought of you unintentionally creating Vermont’s largest carpenter ant magnet made me chuckle.
Carpenter ants occasionally venture into our house. I’ll have to keep in mind what I just learned from you about them.
The unextinguishable candle story was also fun.
The day of humping is upon us.
🐪🏝️☀️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kjz89xYmS4
🎶🎶
So, you’re not doing phrasing any more?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWfYF-XwugY
Good morning, Sean, U, Ted’S., Grumble, and Roat!
California remains the dumbest fucking state in the union.
That is all.
There’s continuous healthy competition for that dubious honor.
Poor Porter and Swalwell. Will Becerra be worse than Newsom?
It looks like Pratt(r) is just behind Bass(d) in LA, and Hilton(r) leads Bacerra(d) for gov.
The cracks in the machine are real.
Don’t worry, the mail-in graveyard vote will cover those gaps soon enough.
The Ds will tribe up in the general. They avoided the double R advance. Will calls to end the jungle primary die down?
Has no one accused the term “jungle primary” of being racist?
They have days and days of counting to do.
“Oh look, we found more!”
$50,000 seized from Dulles travelers with cash stitched inside underwear, CBP says
It’s none of your fucking business how much cash I have on me.
But the money is guilty of some crime.
Bills of Cocaine!
“You look like you may be associated with illegal activity. Come with us.”
2 researchers charged with smuggling monkeypox into the US
I get that papwerwork is a hassle and getting approval to import diseases is a royal pain, but you are trying to bring diseases in to the country, and smuggling them in isn’t the best idea.
suh’ fam
whats goody
“An all-suffusing misplaced sense of propriety shouldn’t stop us from seeing the truth. Mr. Trump’s presidency, even its useful accomplishments, owes all to the unnatural, self-sabotaging moronitude of his opponents.”
And this is why I always read Holman Jenkins even though I disagree with him at least 40% of the time. (He’s also a big corporate welfare guy.)
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/dont-blame-jill-for-joe-2024-186eb721?st=MxLX7t&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I wish it had more to do with the voters’ rejection of his opponents’ destructive, hateful, and anti-American policies but here we are.
Last night there was discussion about inmates in prison with cell phones.
There is literally zero excuse for this. The technology to stop this is not very expensive, and actually would be beneficial even if they didnt need to block anyone.
Simply installing their own cell site (known as a stingray in law enforcement) and putting a whitelist on it would shut the entire thing down.
Prisons probably have bad cell service anyway, so local cell “towers” would ensure legitimate users have access.
We installed devices that do this from Verizon and ATT at church because parts of the building could get no service from those carriers. T-Mobile installed their own tower on the roof and paid for the access. Damn, their 5G is wicked fast at the church.
Anyway, the point is that intercepting cell signals is not rocket science. I dont know for sure, but I would expect that the carriers would be happy to work with the state on this and provide some of these services directly.
Years ago I read the reverse. The carriers didn’t want folks messing reception for legitimate subscribers. They were quite explicit about it.
If you put a “man in the middle” device in place to find the people who shouldn’t have a cell phone you have privacy concerns with legitimate subscribers.
The church might be able to better get around this as it is completely private and people going to it are members as well. The church is an interesting use case.
The devices come from the carrier. It is basically a wifi router… except for cell signals. They manage the device. It is for dead spots.
Since links look a bit delayed.
The chart comparing Elon’s wealth to the other BSD shows just how huge it is.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/3-6-million-an-hourand-other-ways-to-measure-elon-musks-fortune-04e590a5?st=YyjnMF&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The big thing here is that his wealth is purely “i built this industry”.
There was no EV car industry. Just a handful of bespoke vehicles sold at a loss. He was the first mover and he won huge.
There was no commercial launch industry. There was only military contractor NASA cost plus providers that also did commercial launch. He invented an industry and as first mover, he brought costs down more than an order of magnitude.
Plus, he kept controlling interest in his companies for much longer than other entrepreneurs.
There was an interview the other day with one of his engineers. He talked about a time when he was asked about working with Elon and he said it was a fantastic opportunity and compared it to having a chance to work with Howard Hughes – of course you take it.
When he realized that the comparison might look like he was talking about the crazy recluse version, he mentioned it to Musk.
He said Elon thought a long time and said he didnt like the comparison because Hughes wasnt trying to transform the world.
He literally believes this. Money is nothing to this guy. All those “how much is enough” greed based attacks are dumb.
This guy tried to put a little terrarium on Mars to inspire the world to look to space again. He failed because the world stood in his way.
So he pivoted and created a rocket company that lowered cost of space access so he could take us to Mars.
He believed in electric vehicles to transform our energy economy. So he created the Tesla Roadster to demonstrate that electric cars are cool. That was all. And when nobody else could do it, he created a manufacturing giant to compete with the big boys.
Two companies worth a trillion each, but created not because he wanted to have a yacht and mansions all over the world – but because he wanted to make transformations to the entire society to make life better for everyone.
He doesn’t have money. He has companies that are unique and transformative and therefore are worth a lot.
If you look at him through this lens, he makes a lot more sense. He lost tens of billions on a bad Twitter purchase simply because he was pissed about the death of free speech and horrified at the thought of what that does to society.
(And probably made a hundred billion later)
He is the opposite. A guy like Soros gets money to have power so he can control things so he can transform society. Musk seeks to transform society by building a better mousetrap, and then gets money for it
And I can’t fathom how you calculate a $2bn NPV from this catalog.
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/garth-brooks-considers-sale-of-music-catalog-seeking-roughly-2-billion-c80c2af2?st=YYUVM8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Sure – the current set of tariff regulations may have been blocked by the courts. We will just dust off some “feel good” piece of Congressional pork and use that instead.
It’s genius and just proves how many unnecessary laws we have.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/u-s-proposes-at-least-10-tariffs-on-trading-partners-after-probe-into-forced-labor-511511f5?st=TETQgH&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The next “burn it down” politician needs to take this on. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Eliminate laws, regulations, departments…. get back to bare bones and build fresh.
Going back to passing actual budgets would be great.
Pelley interrupted new executive producer Nick Bilton during introductory remarks at a “60 Minutes” staff meeting Monday, according to people in attendance.
Props for firing him for cause!
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/60-minutes-correspondent-scott-pelley-out-at-cbs-news-8c1ee2ea?st=uBfttc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink