Monday, January 24, 2022

Getting older, refrigerators, fence posts and whole-virus Covid vaccines

One of the things I miss about my youth is that when I hurt I could usually remember what stupid thing I had done the day before and could remember if I enjoyed it. Now, I hurt and I cannot remember back the two-or-three days it takes for delayed onset muscle pain to appear.

I THINK I slipped on some ice two days ago and strained some muscles in my levitation and the subsequent, gravity-defying recovery.

Mom
I got to visit Mom today. She was lucid. She was in "Activities" where she was watching some of her floor-mates play tennis with balloons and fly-swatters.

Lunch was not her favorite but we had a good visit.

Refrigerator
As reported earlier, I was able to type in the refrigerator model number (ABB1921DEW) into the search engine and get hooked up with parts. The site also has repair videos.

The same parts are vastly cheaper from other suppliers so it is a moral dilemma. Do I get the parts from the place that gives away the free information or do I get the parts at the least expensive source?

I went cheap. I have four parts coming for a total of $62. Two of them are expected to arrive tomorrow.

Mrs ERJ has been a real trooper about this. The refrigerator is pushed back into its cubby until the parts show up.

Black Locust fence posts
I had a question in comments earlier this week asking about Black Locust fence posts.

I judge them by the amount of heartwood since the heartwood is the portion that is rot resistant. Since they always break flush with ground, the important measurement is the diameter of the heartwood two feet from the butt of the post.

Since I have no convenient way to measure that, I go by the diameter of the heartwood at the butt with 2" diameter being my GO/NOGO. I also look at the diameter of the stick at 24". It does not bother me to have a 5" stick "Y" at three feet and have the untrimmed arm drop down to 3" above the "Y". That is above ground level and is not exposed to the same levels of decay.

Hoarding
Stock up early. Beat the rush.

If hoarding propaganda stresses you it means where were slow on the trigger.

I am looking at beefing up my supply of fertilizer, seed and pesticides. The city people are hyperventilating because they cannot find single-serving size bags of snack-food and frozen, microwaveable convenience "foods". In a few months they might be thinking about bulk, cost effective foods like rice, dried beans and gallon jugs of vegetable oil. If your shelves are a little skinny on those items there is still some time to fix that.

I wonder if the press would label me a "Hoarder" because I picked up and process walnuts that would have otherwise gone to waste. I wonder if they would call me a "hoarder" because I grew, dug and stored hundreds of pounds of potatoes. My gut-feel is that they would.

COVID
Kubota is getting run through the ringer again.

He has to get tested AGAIN before he can return to work.

COVID Vaccine
Valneva, a French company, is in Phase III of their traditionally developed, whole-virus vaccine and intends to seek approval in the European market by April 1, 2022.

Valneva hit a roadblock after lab data indicated that three doses of Valneva whole-virus vaccine were required to provide +90% protection from Omicron. It took the markets time to digest the fact that three (even four) doses of Pfizer and Moderna were NOT providing that level of protection against Omicron so it really was not the show-stopper it first seemed.

I wonder if US regulators will accept Valneva vaccine as a "booster" since they now accept the others in mix-and-match mode.

Sinova, the Mainland China Covid vaccine is also an inactivated, whole-virus vaccine.

9 comments:

  1. Don't forget to get some Roundup as it won't be available anymore without a license sometime this spring according to what I've seen.
    You might already be a little late on fertilizer.--ken

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  2. Those Chinese vaccines aren't harmless either. My mother-in-law has a friend fighting an autoimmune disease acquired from the Chinese jab.

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    Replies
    1. I have no desire to get the Sinova vaccine but would entertain the idea of the French one.

      The cynic in me says it will not be approved in the US because it will not profit "the right people".

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    2. I'll not take any vaccine for this Gain of Function Flu (The GoFF), not even one traditionally developed. The main reason for my refusal is the overall survival rate of better than 98.5 percent. Additionally, if one does not have any of the comorbidities noted as being heavily weighted in those who have succumbed to The GoFF, which I do not, it just does not make sense to me submit to such a jab, even a traditional jab. I suffered mightily from The GoFF almost the entire month of October 2021, and just yesterday I had The GoFF anti-body blood test completed, in conjunction with other blood work for a not related problem, and my GoFF antibodies are off the chart. My trust in the medical establishment continues to wane.

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    3. Pfizer will buy Valneva, raise the price 1000% and all will be well with the world.

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  3. Thanks for the tip about roundup, hadn't thought about killing things, just growing then. Local Co-op here is still in good shape, but I'm not the only guy I see buying fertilizer in the middle of winter.
    Dunno how far Kubota wants to roam, but here outside Knoxvegas we don't have a lot of testing requirements for most jobs. You're sick, go home, don't come in. Big nat'l companies have rules about that stuff, everyone else shrugs and ignores it: thats your problem.
    $15/hr to start at several construction companies on-the-track to a skilled apprentice position after 90 days (then bennies kick in, too). Want to be a plumber or electrician? I can have him a job Monday morning... Thats about 540/wk in your pocket. At 18 with no skills (gotta pass a whiz quiz). In 2 years you're a foreman making $22 w/ a company truck. These guys don't do more than 3-4 hours of actual work a day, the rest is breaks and coffee time.

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  4. We have Pilgrim Pride plant that just announced that they are hiring at $16.50 per hour and I've heard scuttlebutt of signing bonus. They lost a lot of people due to our tornado.

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  5. Black locust fence posts should last 60 to 80 years. I looked on wooden.com and there are several suggestions on how to use locust fence posts. Main thing is to skin the bark off immediately after cutting. A suggestion was made to build a long narrow fire and char the bottom three feet of the post. That's supposed to seal the cells and kill any potential fungus that might cause rot.

    I've seen locust posts over a 100 years old as sound as the day they were put into the ground.

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