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Why Mosquitoes Don't Like Backpackers
As I've mentioned, we're getting flooding from up the hill. This morning I saw the little tadpole-like creatures that are actually mosquito larvae. As a backpacker, I recognized them immediately. As a backpacker, I promptly introduced their standing water to biodegradable dish soap.
Mosquito larvae did not like.
Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
EDIT: And when you're in the woods, it's good to be bear.
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Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
The state bird of Minnesota is the deer fly.
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The state bird of Minnesota is the deer fly.
Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
Are those the triangular (when they're resting) kind of iridescent green ones that bite like evil little demon bastards?
I hate those guys.
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Yeah, except for when you finally get the better-paying job, the thing that makes most sense in the short term is to pay down monster debts asap so the interest doesn't keep eating your soul. (Trying to do that now.) And when you get one paid off, use the money you were paying that one to double up on another one.
No lie, we're probably going to be in debt until we retire (eleven years of grad school for WW killed us), but we're slowly chipping away at it.
*Almost* the same boat here. Two years ago I took out the "final" loan on the house and used it to pay off all the credit card debt, so all my debt now is either tax-deductible (mortgage, HELOC) or being paid back to myself (401(k) loan).
Debt is a monkey that grows like a virus.
This is also me.
Never been able to live on 80% of my income.NOW I am getting close(Er), BUUUUUT,... We had so much debt built up while getting here, in the last 10 years I have managed to;
-Pay off all credit card debt, but have to keep re incurring it because cash is being used to pay off debt. >_<
-pay off student loans of both Mr & Mrs wizard (YAY!)
-I am now in a cycle of incurring debt on card(s) for Christmas & vacations, but manage have enough $$ on hand I COULD pay it all off at once,... but I dont just in case of emergencies. (Which we have constantly, because , you know, home owners) :P
I manage to make low/no interest payments and pay them off before no % expires. JUST in time to do it again next year! :P
But I am still in a MUCH better place than we were just a few short years ago. Sadly, usually we are still only 1 or 2 paychecks/months tops from being broke-@$$-broke if anything goes wrong. (Like I dont know, a pandemic causing us to lose our jobs?!?!) O_o
Being rich may not ACTUALLY make you happy,...
But it would at least allow me to choose my own form of misery! ;)
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So, Hermione and Teensy Valeros got grounded from "screens and sugar" for a week from last Saturday, because they were fighting and Val's head hit the leg of Hermione's desk chair and gave him a bleeding scalp injury, and of course, IT WAS NO ONE'S FAULT.
And they'd been so good for the past week that I actually suggested to WW last night that we might want to end their restriction a day early as a surprise, since tonight would normally be movie night.
And now today they're bickering and yelling at each other again, and so I just told them that, gee, it would be awful if their restriction got extended for another week, when Hermione's birthday is Thursday. No sugar would mean no cake.
There seems to be a momentary detente. Let's see if it lasts.
Do not test me right now.
The state bird of Minnesota is the deer fly.
Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
Are those the triangular (when they're resting) kind of iridescent green ones that bite like evil little demon bastards?
I hate those guys.
So, Hermione and Teensy Valeros got grounded from "screens and sugar" for a week from last Saturday, because they were fighting and Val's head hit the leg of Hermione's desk chair and gave him a bleeding scalp injury, and of course, IT WAS NO ONE'S FAULT.
And they'd been so good for the past week that I actually suggested to WW last night that we might want to end their restriction a day early as a surprise, since tonight would normally be movie night.
And now today they're bickering and yelling at each other again, and so I just told them that, gee, it would be awful if their restriction got extended for another week, when Hermione's birthday is Thursday. No sugar would mean no cake.
There seems to be a momentary detente. Let's see if it lasts.
[New Sulu]Do not test me[/New Sulu] right now.
FIFY
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just buy the shirtThe state bird of Minnesota is the deer fly.
Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
Are those the triangular (when they're resting) kind of iridescent green ones that bite like evil little demon bastards?
I hate those guys.
That was what I hated the most about Wisconsin in the summers. As if the mosquitoes weren't enough, we had deer flies AND horse flies. Big ugly orcs with wings.
The state bird of Minnesota is the deer fly.
Of course, this probably only matters in California where standing water is relatively rare. I suspect it would take a dish soap factory disaster to even touch Wisconsin or Minnesota.
Are those the triangular (when they're resting) kind of iridescent green ones that bite like evil little demon bastards?
I hate those guys.
Yup.
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FIFYSo, Hermione and Teensy Valeros got grounded from "screens and sugar" for a week from last Saturday, because they were fighting and Val's head hit the leg of Hermione's desk chair and gave him a bleeding scalp injury, and of course, IT WAS NO ONE'S FAULT.
And they'd been so good for the past week that I actually suggested to WW last night that we might want to end their restriction a day early as a surprise, since tonight would normally be movie night.
And now today they're bickering and yelling at each other again, and so I just told them that, gee, it would be awful if their restriction got extended for another week, when Hermione's birthday is Thursday. No sugar would mean no cake.
There seems to be a momentary detente. Let's see if it lasts.
[New Sulu]Do not test me[/New Sulu] right now.
I can't wait to see New Sulu in New Cowboy Bebop. He'll make a good Spike, I think.
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Hello, everyone!
Hiya, John!
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Blood work is back, and kitty just needs a change of diet. What's funny is that it's this ultra-specialized single-protein vet-only food...
...and it's over $1/pound cheaper than the high-end stuff I already started feeding her to try to fix her vomiting.
So yep. Out $2200 to be told, "Change to a specialized vet diet," that's going to save us money in the long run.
That's just plain sad...
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I can't wait to see New Sulu in New Cowboy Bebop. He'll make a good Spike, I think.FIFYSo, Hermione and Teensy Valeros got grounded from "screens and sugar" for a week from last Saturday, because they were fighting and Val's head hit the leg of Hermione's desk chair and gave him a bleeding scalp injury, and of course, IT WAS NO ONE'S FAULT.
And they'd been so good for the past week that I actually suggested to WW last night that we might want to end their restriction a day early as a surprise, since tonight would normally be movie night.
And now today they're bickering and yelling at each other again, and so I just told them that, gee, it would be awful if their restriction got extended for another week, when Hermione's birthday is Thursday. No sugar would mean no cake.
There seems to be a momentary detente. Let's see if it lasts.
[New Sulu]Do not test me[/New Sulu] right now.
unsure freehold is unsure.
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Normally I am pretty freaking conscientious when working from home.
BUT.
We've had two days of really intense meetings about the new school year and what the new health practices will mean for us (everyone in school-issued masks except the kids who are sleeping during naptime, cutting all of our classes in half so one teacher is in a smaller classroom with only ten children (we're building lots of temporary walls), children eating at their desks, no physical contact, I can't hug my students if they're upset or scared, nothing we think of as "normal"). So much of pre-K/Kindergarten teaching is about physical contact... to reassure them, to let them know they are loved, to connect with them and help them focus when they're bouncing off the walls... this is gonna be so freaking weird. And hard.
So even though I have a list of things I need to do that is longer than my arm, I just want to bake something and cry.
EDIT: This sounds stupid. And whiny. I am SO GRATEFUL to be able to continue teaching. At all. Not on video, but in person. I'm just worried.
Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
One of the negative aspects of human biology. We tend to live so long that a lot of issues and side effects of treatments we go through have all the time they need to develop.
Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
Honestly, I prefer the way the medicine works now than the way the medicine worked in the past.
"We have a new medicine! And it glows in the night!" "Ohhhh, shiny".
"Ma'am! We have a new cure!" "It works like a miracle"
*ok, the guy who lost his jaw was clearly abusing the radioactive substances, even in light of the limited medical understanding of his times.
Blood work is back, and kitty just needs a change of diet. What's funny is that it's this ultra-specialized single-protein vet-only food...
...and it's over $1/pound cheaper than the high-end stuff I already started feeding her to try to fix her vomiting.So yep. Out $2200 to be told, "Change to a specialized vet diet," that's going to save us money in the long run.
That's just plain sad...
How quickly Fluffernutter can devour 2200 pounds so you will see net gain on that endeavor?
(also, will it accept the new food?)
I'm lucky, insects hate me.
I can honestly say I don't remember if I was ever bitten by a fly.
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Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
Honestly, I prefer the way the medicine works now than the way the medicine worked in the past.
"We have a new medicine! And it glows in the night!" "Ohhhh, shiny".
"Ma'am! We have a new cure!" "It works like a miracle"
*ok, the guy who lost his jaw was clearly abusing the radioactive substances, even in light of the limited medical understanding of his times.
Ah, you're not familiar with the U.S. health care system. There are many, many effective treatments that are banned/precluded because of addiction/controlled substance fears.
Take codeine. GothBard reacts extremely well to codeine. She had it for her broken ankle and several other significant injuries in her younger days. She never got addicted, and it was extremely effective.
Along come the drug police, and codeine is no longer prescribed. She's given Vicadin instead. Which she reacts horrifically to, including nausea and dizziness. So she doesn't take the pain medication and resorts to the good old alcohol-and-ibuprofen combo.
Because codeine is bad?
No. Because codeine can be addictive.
And don't even get me started on pseudoephedrine, the single-most-effective decongestant on the planet that you have to have your photo ID scanned and go to a bank-vault-like facility just to get a pack because it's used to make crystal meth.
In the U.S., the "war on drugs" has also become the "war on effective medication".
Kitties get codeine. Humans get Vicadin. (And yes, pharmaceutical companies also push more expensive, less effective drugs to boost their profits, so it's really ugly. You have to research your medications yourself and demand them to get decent treatment. Otherwise you're getting whatever Big Pharma is paying your doctor to give you.)
Oops. Might have slipped a little into the political there...
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Today's special diet protein? Deer.
Because we all know that wily 8-pound cats frequently bring down deer in the wild...
...at least I know it satisfies the, "Meat she's never had before," criterion.
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And don't even get me started on pseudoephedrine, the single-most-effective decongestant on...
A signature syrup of my childhood was over-the-counter medicine. Many years later it was restricted into a recipe-only issue, though without taking such irrational security measures.
And yes, it was changed because of its use to produce metamphetamines by our cunning apothecary students (who were for a time considered the world's top synthetic drug makers).
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Blood work is back, and kitty just needs a change of diet. What's funny is that it's this ultra-specialized single-protein vet-only food...
...and it's over $1/pound cheaper than the high-end stuff I already started feeding her to try to fix her vomiting.So yep. Out $2200 to be told, "Change to a specialized vet diet," that's going to save us money in the long run.
That's just plain sad...
How quickly Fluffernutter can devour 2200 pounds so you will see net gain on that endeavor?
(also, will it accept the new food?)
Yay! Math!
4/6 days/cup x 4 cups/1 pound x 1 pound/$1.40 savings x $2200 = 4,190 days = 11.5 years.
OK, maybe I won't make it up in these cats' lifetimes, but definitely within the next generation's!
And, considering how long hate-filled calicos live, Little Miss Hates the World might even still be around!
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I could get multiple different medicines that contain codeine without recipe, including codeine+paracetamol, codeine+ibuprofen, codeine+coffeine+paracetamol... And so on, and on.
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I would offer to send a few bottles for GothBard but then we you would probably be all jailed for peddling restricted drugs.
EDIT: Well, I wouldn't do anything illegal (here).
4/6 days/cup x 4 cups/1 pound x ...
I am trying to grasp what does that represents...
Is that in 4 days, the Fluffernutter eats 6 cups?
Or is each cup lasting 4/6 of a day?
4/6 days/cup x 4 cups/1 pound x ...I am trying to grasp what does that represents...
Is that in 4 days, the Fluffernutter eats 6 cups?
Or is each cup lasting 4/6 of a day?
LOL.
According to various web sites, cats eat 3/4 cup of dry food a day. I have 2 cats, so that's 6/4 cups/day. Since I'm doing a dimensional analysis and I want days on top, I flip it to 4/6 days/cup. The cats take 2/3 of a day to go through 1 cup of food.
Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
Honestly, I prefer the way the medicine works now than the way the medicine worked in the past.
"We have a new medicine! And it glows in the night!" "Ohhhh, shiny".
"Ma'am! We have a new cure!" "It works like a miracle"
*ok, the guy who lost his jaw was clearly abusing the radioactive substances, even in light of the limited medical understanding of his times.
Ah, you're not familiar with the U.S. health care system. There are many, many effective treatments that are banned/precluded because of addiction/controlled substance fears.
Take codeine. GothBard reacts extremely well to codeine. She had it for her broken ankle and several other significant injuries in her younger days. She never got addicted, and it was extremely effective.
Along come the drug police, and codeine is no longer prescribed. She's given Vicadin instead. Which she reacts horrifically to, including nausea and dizziness. So she doesn't take the pain medication and resorts to the good old alcohol-and-ibuprofen combo.
Because codeine is bad?
No. Because codeine can be addictive.
And don't even get me started on pseudoephedrine, the single-most-effective decongestant on...
Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
Honestly, I prefer the way the medicine works now than the way the medicine worked in the past.
"We have a new medicine! And it glows in the night!" "Ohhhh, shiny".
"Ma'am! We have a new cure!" "It works like a miracle"
*ok, the guy who lost his jaw was clearly abusing the radioactive substances, even in light of the limited medical understanding of his times.
Ah, you're not familiar with the U.S. health care system. There are many, many effective treatments that are banned/precluded because of addiction/controlled substance fears.
Take codeine. GothBard reacts extremely well to codeine. She had it for her broken ankle and several other significant injuries in her younger days. She never got addicted, and it was extremely effective.
Along come the drug police, and codeine is no longer prescribed. She's given Vicadin instead. Which she reacts horrifically to, including nausea and dizziness. So she doesn't take the pain medication and resorts to the good old alcohol-and-ibuprofen combo.
Because codeine is bad?
No. Because codeine can be addictive.
Can be? Try "most definitely is". Only oxy is more seductive due to how it works in your brain/pain receptors.
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Can be? Try "most definitely is". Only oxy is more seductive...Speaking of the kitty, it really is depressing how much better medicine is for animals than for people, because vets don't worry about addiction or legal ramifications or whatever, they just give the animal the best-suited medicine for the job.
So Fluffernutter got shot full of steroids yesterday. And today she's running around as if nothing ever happened, eating like a horse, and totally happy, noisy, and purr-y.
If she were human, the doctors would've said, "Well, we *could* give her steroids, but... (mumble mumble mumble)" and they wouldn't have given her something half so effective.
Thank goodness for being a kitty!
Honestly, I prefer the way the medicine works now than the way the medicine worked in the past.
"We have a new medicine! And it glows in the night!" "Ohhhh, shiny".
"Ma'am! We have a new cure!" "It works like a miracle"
*ok, the guy who lost his jaw was clearly abusing the radioactive substances, even in light of the limited medical understanding of his times.
Ah, you're not familiar with the U.S. health care system. There are many, many effective treatments that are banned/precluded because of addiction/controlled substance fears.
Take codeine. GothBard reacts extremely well to codeine. She had it for her broken ankle and several other significant injuries in her younger days. She never got addicted, and it was extremely effective.
Along come the drug police, and codeine is no longer prescribed. She's given Vicadin instead. Which she reacts horrifically to, including nausea and dizziness. So she doesn't take the pain medication and resorts to the good old alcohol-and-ibuprofen combo.
Because codeine is bad?
No. Because codeine can be addictive.
I'll beg to differ insofar as a 1-week prescription to codeine to deal with a major injury or to recover from a major surgery is unlikely to establish an addiction.
Don't renew the prescription, problem solved.
GothBard had to exist in a HUGE amount of pain after her gall bladder surgery because they refused to give her anything other than Vicadin, and she can't take it.
EDIT: I'll admit, my personal experience is from GothBard, who would get 14 pills, use 7, and then keep the other 7 lying around for the next few years "just in case" she ended up in a lot of pain. We ended up discarding a lot of codeine until it became nigh-illegal.
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Watching Impus Major game the system is utterly hilarious.
Once courses went online, he missed a TON of psychology assignment. Both of my kids suffer massively from, "If you don't tell me to do something, then I don't have to do it," syndrome.
So after his final exam in psychology, he was at a 79.33%. He did a few late assignments to get it to 80.11%. His psychology prof applied her late policy to ALL his assignments (correctly; she wasn't being vindictive, just thorough) and dropped him to 76%. He did a bunch more assignments and got himself over 80% again. She marked them late and dropped him under 80. He did more and got himself over 80.
All that over the course of a single Friday afternoon.
I think she finally gave up and realized he was just going to keep doing work all day until she gave him that B-.
And this is why I despise "hard" grading cutoffs. Is a student who gets a 79.9% really a C+ student, as opposed to the 80.0% student who's a B- student?
(For the record, I always looked for 'clumps' of students in my grades and always found them, so I'd have a cluster from 74-76%, nobody at 77% or 78%, and then another cluster from 79-81%. So I broke grades based on significant breaks in scores. Until students complained that it was too confusing and I was required to go back to, "Sorry, 79.9% is a C+, 80.0% is a B-, because you complain if I do anything else."
So yeah, a bit of bitterness there. Being 'fair' isn't fair.)
Yeah, I just don't understand people who say Windows 10 doesn't have massive network priority issues.
Impus Major has a store-bought MSI laptop with its standard Windows 10 installation. Yesterday we turned on wireless to watch a video. This morning he moved the laptop back to its normal place and couldn't connect to the internet even though he was hardwired because the wireless signal was too weak.
Disabled the wireless adapter, everything ran beautifully.
It's happened on every Windows 10 machine I've ever encountered. If wireless is enabled and the wireless signal is too weak to get a good connection, you get NO network connection, even if you're hardwired. Work laptop. Home laptop. Impus Minor's HP. Impus Major's MSI.
It's just baffling and terrible. I live in a Faraday cage. I hardwired my house as a result. Can you please stop trying to do wireless, Microsoft?
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Anyone want to buy a weird/awesome house in Pittsburgh?
Love the living room and bathrooms, the smaller theme-rooms look very claustrophobic though!
Anyone want to buy a weird/awesome house in Pittsburgh?
Funny thing, this was apparently just outside Scint's house budget when she was looking. But she didn't see it then and moving to Pennsylvania wasn't on the table.
It is, without a doubt though, amazing and I'm a little envious of whoever gets it.
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Anyone want to buy a weird/awesome house in Pittsburgh?Funny thing, this was apparently within Scint's house budget when she was looking. But she didn't see it then and moving to Pennsylvania wasn't on the table.
It is, without a doubt though, amazing and I'm a little envious of whoever gets it.
Eh, little over, but I would've walked at the beach if the chair made from the flesh of Old Deuteronomy didn't scare me off.
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You do not want sand in the house.
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You do not want sand in the house.
Oh by Plagueis' undead balls! Don't get force ghost Anakin started on sand again...
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You do not want sand in the house.Oh by Plagueis' undead balls! Don't get force ghost Anakin started on sand again...i hear an ech0 fr0m the spirit realm
it is haunting and endless
it just says 0ver and 0ver
"saaaaaaaaand..."
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The house looks awesome,
Although I WOULD worry a LOT about having sand IN the house.
It's hard enough to keep it OUT of the house when I go to the (real) beach! ;P
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They are like concrete patios, but different.
They allow you to use some of your outdoor space as a "room" where you can place furniture; there aren't puddles after it rains; and the BBQ grill is level.
And you can create "walls" of lattice, or plants, or vines, if you live in a condo or apartment that has neighbors on each side.
Essentially outdoor living space for warm weather.