God Bless Small Towns

Today included two trips to Detroit Metro Airport.

One by Mrs ERJ to pick up Southern Belle and Quicksilver. Their plane from Miami landed at 4:00PM.

I also made a trip to Detroit Metro to pick up Belladonna at 7:00PM when she arrived from Nashville. We got back to Casa ERJ about 9:00.

Pulling into the driveway, we noticed that Zeus was still in his kennel and Vinnie (Mrs ERJ's ride) was not in the garage. Something was not right.

Bella is quicker with her phone than I am. Visions of mayhem filled my head.

"Where are you?" Bella asked.

I heard Mrs ERJ's voice over the phone "We are in the house"

The story is that Vinnie Van Go become Vinnie Van Not-Go. Vinnie, faithful steed that he is, had carried them all the way from Detroit Metro to Downtown Eaton Rapids before blowing out the nipple that connected the heater-core coolant hose at the engine. I can forgive Vinnie. He has 295k on the odometer.

At one instant in time, there were three vehicles vectoring in to rescue Mrs ERJ, Southern Belle and Quicksilver, one driver was orbiting in stand-by mode*. Three strangers stopped to render aid...one offered to buy antifreeze, another to apply jumper cables and a third provided the diagnosis of the heater-hose nipple blowing out.

I know that Mrs ERJ is a comely lass and that may have had something to do with all of the help. But I think that a little bit of credit has to go to the nature of small towns.

All this on the second day of deer season. I can only imagine the traffic jam that would have resulted almost any other time of year.

*Thanks Jeff, Kris and Donna and Janet.

Quick questions to the handy people out there

 

I was volun-told to assemble some baby furniture. One feature about baby furniture is that babies outgrow it and it is disassembled and sometimes handed down to other families.

At first blush, most of the furniture is held together with M6 screws and barrel-nuts.

Loctite or no-Loctite?

 

Blue or Purple?

 

What torque?

 

Security straps on dressers: If being passed on, leave them attached to the dresser? 

 

Just a quick note about the author. His body did not want to get out of bed this morning. The dog did not approve and his cows are yelling at him.

My day in pictures

 

The view from the blind

Seen behind a local, mid-western diner. No, those are not my deer.

I don't have anything lined up for Clayton and Krystal tomorrow. Maybe something Friday.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

S Curve Manistee River

Today's artist is Jeffrey Randolph Bond, an artist who lives somewhere near Grayling, Michigan. He gave me permission to post some of his pictures.

Mr Bond is notable for his eye for color and for producing pictures that are not fussy.

I like that he includes enough detail that I can identify many of the bushes and trees and even make a stab at the exact time of year when he painted the picture.

North side Memorial Building, Hartwick Pines

Mr Bond captures the sullen light of our cloudy, Michigan winters. He is spot-on for the grays of snow that thawed and then refroze, creating ankle-breaking hazards for walkers young-and-old.

Beaver Dam Across Upper Manistee River. Painted from the back of a canoe.

I asked a couple of buddies to look at his work and see if any of the images spoke to them. i was surprised that there was no over-lap between the three of us.

Coyote Ken, another Michigan guy, selected

Lucas from Nova Scotia picked these

Mr Bond's art can be viewed, and purchased here:

Plein Air Landscape Wall Art
Still Life & Floral Wall Art
Studio Landscape Wall Art

"Ball-busters"

 In some circles, it is widely accepted that today's men have less testosterone than in days of yore.

There is no shortage of factors to consider.

Two factors that don't get a lot of air-time are Testosterone/Estrogen ratios and the effect of non-alpha maleness.

Many biological chemistry issues are related to ratios rather than absolute levels. It might be ok to have a high "bad cholesterol" level if you have a very high "good cholesterol" level.

Some foods are high in chemicals that mimic estrogen. Soybeans are the prime example. It may be that it is the ratio of Testosterone to Estrogen that is important. The appellation "soy-boy" may have something to it.

The second consideration is that studies of wolf-packs show that the alpha-male has significantly higher testosterone than lower-status, male wolves. It is reasonable to suppose that a society that lionizes "ball-busters" should not be surprised if many of its males exhibit symptoms consistent with low Testosterone.

The plasticity of social animals continues to amaze. Verbally kicking a man in the gonads has the same effect as physically damaging them.

Ball-busters hate those of us who do not submit to their dominance games. A man is best judged by looking at the quality of those who count him as their enemy.

Jackson and Hillsdale county schools closed due to cyber-attack shutting down heating

The Jackson County Intermediate School District reported the outage to the system used by school districts in both counties occurred over the weekend, Nov. 12-13, and affects critical operating systems, including but not limited to heating, telephones, and classroom technology.    Source

I suppose it also might control locks and access.

Stupid games with numbers

 

Average life expectancy for a 40-year-old living in a household with 10th percentile income is approximately 78, 83 for 50th percentile and 86 for 90th percentile.

I am going to commit a statistical sin right in front of your eyes. I am going to switch to wealth which is accumulated income.

According to the US Census, a household in the 10th percentile OWES $1,450 while the 50th percentile household has net assets of $140k and 90th percentile has net assets of $1.4M

Now, let us suppose that $1.0 Trillion (1.0*10^12) in wealth evaporated. What would that look like if the relationship between wealth and life expectancy held?

If it only hit households in the upper quintile it would slide 7.7 million households to the 50th percentile and result in a loss of 46 million years of life (assuming two people per household).

If it only hit the bottom half of the wealth curve, it would essentially put everybody in debt and would impact 55 million households and erase an average of 1.5 years from the lives of half the population of the United States.

An inconvenient fact is that the upper half of the income/wealth curve subsidizes the health-care of the bottom half. You cannot penalize the wealthy without some leaking down and negatively impacting the less wealthy.