Avocado Tree!

Just wanted to post a few pics of my avocado...

Adventures in Dry Wells on a Shoestring Budget... Part 1.

Picking location: 

I always was intrigued by dry wells as a way to retain water during wet periods and allow greater stability in the moisture content of the grounds. For people in Texas, the ground is either over soaked as the thunder showers can come at anytime of the year, or with over 100 degree days, the ground can start drying and cracking after these showers in days. 

This is not good for the structures we affectionately call homes as the ground is either contracting or expanding with the water content. This problem is compounded by the high clay content in the soils that expand and contract with the water saturation.

Thus my new house in Houston, TX has water pooling near the foundations with high levels water saturation. The first picture below was my first attempt at digging a dry well near the fence to draw the water toward the run off areas. Just to the left of the fence is a wetland for water retention and the grade is downward from there. 

I was like this hole should not have any utility lines. After seeing an ad that said to call first before digging, they came out and confirmed that that hole and following the fence was exactly where the gas and cable ditches  were. Ooops. 

I still wanted to have my first dry well near the fence so the outline of the final location is right near the fence below. 

I had been thinking about what to use as my drywells but also did not want to spend a lot. Then one day, I saw two of these traffic cones like out in the middle of a wooded field. I was like that is perfect as even beat up and cracked would be just as good as a fancy one. Below you see most of the water holes already drilled without regards to permeability.

I thought about how to apply the screens to the drywell to keep out dirt from filling up the dry well and thus defeating its purpose. It was suggested to use garden fabric as the screen. I just wrapped up my drywell with strips of construction glue and then wrapped the drywell with the garden fabric. That was a dollar or two for that, which was my only expense so far.

Next up: dig well and get materials for the drywell.

Singularity in Time: Drumpf's reality!

Singularity in Time: Drumpf's reality!

On the one hand it was expected that the New York Post would come to the defense of evil people like George Soros {at least in the mind of right-wingers} without mentioning his convictions and his time when he manipulated currencies that actually hurt whole nations and people. How Vilification of George Soros Moved From the Fringes to the Mainstream

Let me start with a post to a friend:

Soros is vilified because he is effective:

 Yes, the reporting was pretty good. Soros' convictions and disfavor with his currency manipulations could have been spelled out also.

I did not pay attention to to Soros until I got to Thomland, and he was only a counter weight to silly talks about Koch brothers. Researching his various organizations, I could actually see things I agreed with.

But now we are here, and this Drumpf wave points to another singularity. A point in time that can lead to collapse. We see this collapse as the destruction of democratic institutions. A place in time when we have a president that is not only a Machiavellian character but one that proudly states as such. ~~~"I won, thus I am correct."

Back to the article, it brings up Judicial Watch. I use to read them and they always seemed conservative but fair in its presentations. But now they are a propaganda and generator of false data. This trails right to Drumpf as "people say". {The list of conservatives that I use to admire has precipitously dropped to near zero.}

JW is nothing aside from a Drumpf prop, but this shows that organizations fall against the cult of personality and desire to be relevant when facts no longer matter.

 In a way this passage was a confession of our interactions before, and my feelings towards Soros. Soros also represented everything that Liberals/Progressives were complaining about for years. As noted, they were attacking the Koch Brothers, but it was a currency manipulator and a speculator that had money to influence elections in ways I did not appreciate. This was very much the same feelings that Liberals claimed on hearing the spending of Koch Brothers.

Also to contrast that, while no source of information is always correct, Judicial Watch has devolved into propaganda and fabrication of news. Dare I say it? Fake News! There were several examples of this fake news in the article but this one seems over the top:

In at least one case, the attacks made their way into United States government-funded media. The Spanish-language Radio Television Marti network, which broadcasts pro-United States content in Cuba, aired a report in May that is now the subject of a government investigation. The report called Mr. Soros a “multimillionaire Jew” of “flexible morals,” who was “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.”

I can safely say after studying the financial crisis of 2008, that Clearly Soros had no influence and he has never got into those markets to the degree it would take to manipulate trillion dollar markets. I worked in an independent equity research firm, that the financial crisis of course messed with our models, but this also lead us to read 100 page Federal Reserve documents on such events and countless articles.






The post quoted also makes mention of a collapse. While it mostly comes in regards to ecological collapse of systems, my thesis is that they occur when our democratic institutions collapse. This then leads to the collapse of social systems then so goes the environment.

#DotardDrumpf's Brilliant Ideas:

Drumpf's Brilliant Ideas:

'Let me impose a hidden, regressive tax which will never net as much as accounting tables will show as people are not rockets, and I am not a rocket scientist.

This lets me dole out the largesse of the government to those undeserving, unwashed masses that I determine are sufficient victocrats that will enhance my own ego. They will be judged not by merit but by how well they look on TV as victims.

I will destroy international trade as we have it now, but hey, at least we can now make MAGA caps in the USA!

By the time I destroy the economy, no one will even remember that Mexico was going to pay for the wall, and that we were at 21 Trillion dollars. Heck, people can't even count that high.'

Advice for Enrique Peña Nieto...

I doubt that Enrique Peña Nieto is going to read this blog, but if he did, I wanted to advise him and Mexico that he should actually try to negotiate with the great negotiator. Drumpf knows how to manipulate the situation and he often tries to do the "Madman theory" like Nixon and start with ridiculous negotiating positions and thus the final deal feels like a deal to the opposing side. 

Drumpf has staked out a ridiculous position that Mexico will pay for our security wall. Even if people chanted it endless times, does not indicate that it is reasonable. Enrique should sit Drumpf down and point out that the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico is shrinking and is at a 40 year low. Thus, the continuing flow of immigrants is coming mostly from Central America. Then tell Drumpf that he should pay Mexico for its wall along Guatemala and Belize. 

If parts of the US/Mexico border is remote and difficult to build walls/fences along, then the parts of Guatemala are impossible {Guatemala–Mexico border}. But if that is not unreasonable enough for the 577 miles of remote jungle hills and rivers, then the skies the limits for the Belize–Mexico border costs as Mexico could insist that their border wall be placed in the middle of the 155 mile long Hondo River. 

It would be ridiculous to ask for such walls, but then the two parties negotiate to having both sides pay for the border they want. Instead of insisting that Mexico will not pay, insist that Drumpf pay for a ridiculous wall and then laugh at him.

"Dumpf: The Art of the Deal"

During the primary and election seasons, there was plenty of information to base a logical decision to not vote for Drumpf, but now that the inconceivable became a reality, there is a need for conservatives {and every American} to discuss and discover what type of man-child is Donald Trump. When Donald Trump was running the Apprentice show, he showed positive aspects of his personality. When others mentioned how he might be a good president, I could see him as president, but I knew from experience that a TV personality is never a good judge for what he would do as a public figure not under constant editor and script controls.

Thus, this seems the time to explore what Mr. Drumpf wrote or thought about in detail, like in his book "The Art of the Comeback". From my experience, books about business success stories or methodologies for success assume the best about others in business and call upon the better angels of society. That success is based on working with others and it has more to do with cooperation than competition. So it seems odd that "Trump's Top Ten Comeback Tips" contains such winning strategies like:

3. BE PARANOID
8. BE LUCKY
9. GET EVEN
10. ALWAYS HAVE A PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT

 All during the primary and general election, Drumpf along with all his fanatic enablers implied or stated that he would be more presidential or that his strategies would align more with democratic institutions and norms. But clearly his book shows and he has demonstrated that he follows his own rules. It does not matter how his uncouth methods offend allies or encourage adversaries like Russia.

Many of Drumpf's tips could have been used in just about every article concerning Donald for the past year. Aside from the obvious strange way to success of getting even with your partners or competitors or anyone that slights Donald in any way, it would be strange getting married to someone that feels that his wife is not a helper in his success but someone that could and would drag him down. Instead of finding a wife that his equal, he looks for young and vulnerable women to take advantage of.

"Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic  period."

Salon: “What is Aleppo?”

It is almost hilarious as MSNBC has pilloried Gary Johnson and then Sophia Tesfaye at Salon has carried their shock that a candidate did not know the history of some trivial place on the map. {“What is Aleppo?”}

“This is incredible depressing,” MSNBC contributor Elise Jordan, a Johnson supporter, said after the presidential candidate left the MSNBC set. “I think it would be hypocritical of me to support Gary Johnson after I’ve been beating up on Donald Trump for his lack of basic knowledge,” she said, adding, “I don’t know where I’m left.”

Compared to not knowing what the Nuclear Triad was, I wonder why the F--- do voters care about the president being a Trivial Pursuit champion. Both main candidates seem to not even know about how servers work as Hillary thought she could wipe a server clean with a rag and Trump thinks Hillary used acid on the hard drives.

The MSNBC/NBC network had plenty of opportunities to ask trivial questions to the two main candidates. It might have been nice to ask each some trivial questions:

Who is Garry Kasparov and what is his connection to Putin and what is he most noted for accomplishing?
What is Keptocracy?
What is currency of El Salvador?
Who is the President of Honduras?
Who was ousted in the Honduran coup d'état in 2009?

 If Trump can not even explain his plan to oust and destroy ISIS, then why should a third party candidate know every trivial question? When the liberal bias of MSNBC shows their true colors, you have to wonder about their journalism standards?

At least someone on MSNBC brought up the completely idiotic idea of "taking the oil from Iraq" from the Drumpf.

Willie Geist now says that "the bar is at Aleppo. If you don't know where Aleppo is or what it is, you can not be president of the United States." Strange that in his journalistic standards, he has not risen that triviality question to either of the other two candidates. This clearly shows bias in the news media, but also we have to wonder if he truly wants a Jeopardy winner or an actual commander in chief. It's not like: Donald Trump Doesn’t Quite Know the Difference Between the ‘Kurds’ and the ‘Quds’
or:

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with CNN. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.”

... or maybe it is.

Update: Now MSNBC says that Gary Johnson's response was a "Major Mistake". They certainly need to get the pillory out and start using it again.


Ann Coulter Plugs Her Book, Gets Booed, Heckled by Pete Davidson at Rob Lowe Roast