Do you need to vent about things COVID-19?

[Arielle Popstar]

4 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes...they want to be separate from federal government influence and so have no connection to the east and west power grids. A major city in southern Texas can connect to the east and west grids though, and is doing fine. Los Alamos, I think.

The way the CEO of ERCOT mentioned it, the reasoning is more to do with that by staying isolated from other grids, they don't share in their blackouts either. That might be a valid justification if the neighboring ones are not overly stable.

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Like the Quebec ice storm of 1998

in these situations is usually best to look in our yard rather than point at somebody else's yard

Texas has been here before in 2011 after which ERCOT came out with a voluntary weathering compliance code for the industry, which most entities didn't care to comply with being voluntary. Some few entities did tho, like El Paso. Most tho never

[Ceka Cianci]

8 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You're talking about country folk that don't live in town. I'm talking about the country folk that live in town. 🤭

There are those who still have to get out in it and work. My father was one of them, especially if a city main broke. Since the family company are the ones who laid most of the underground utilities in that town, we had the plans and all the files from when the work was done.

Where I lived is a lot further south than Tennessee. lol

No I'm  talking about where we live.. Where we are, the weather is always changing in the winter time..We're right on the cusp of warm and cold in winter all the time, where we could get any kind of weather in the winter..

We're in the foothills part of Tennessee close to the tip, where to the west of us is flat lands then mountains, to the north and south of us is flat lands and to the east is where the mountains start ..

We're right in that zone where the fronts do all kinds of crazy stuff before and after hitting the mountains..

The best way I can describe it is, the next time you're in your car, stick your hand out the window and ride the air.. tilt it up just a hair and feel what is going on with the turbulence as it hits your fingernail on your index finger.. That's about what happens where we are.. It's like getting hit by part of the current and getting some from the backside coming back around for a second  shot..

When I refer to around here I'm meaning foothills.. To me everything other than the mountains east is flat lands..hehehe

The rest of the north and south and west around us is flat lands, where in the towns around here, everyone lives in the hills..

After living in the hills for so long, I don't think there is too many flat land surfaces that I couldn't just jump in my jeep and navigate.. Where if it were the other way around I sure couldn't say the same thing..

All I'm really getting at is, Nobody is coming from the frozen flat roads of the north, like say Chicago and gonna run through the frozen hills around here,  just because they are used to the winter road conditions up there.. If they do, it's a really good chance they're about to be humbled..

On more than one occasion, I've had friends in my jeep from up north that came down for a visit.. If it's nice out, We'll get in the jeep and take a nice relaxing ride through the hills..  Some of the expressions on their faces  when we are heading downward and coming to a curve and they can't see the ground on the other side of the curve.. Some look like their butt stars are about to go super nova..

What we call a hill, they call mountains..

We have some really good  hills on our land that I call the mountains as well.. it's mainly because of the cuts in them and the sharp drop offs. I don't want them getting lost and out there when it gets hard to see and walking off one of them..

I'll tell friends that want to go up there on their own, just stick to the hills over there and stay off the mountains over there .. We don't want to have to go looking for you tonight.. hehehe

You get to a certain part of the day where the suns out of the trees and things start to go 2 dimension and you can easily lose your path with the forest blending together..

 

Aaanyways enough of my midnight rambling on..hehehe

things are supposed to start to warm up tomorrow and hopefully we can get all this behind us sooner than later. I'm about to go crazy not being at work.. hehehe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Ceka Cianci

[Love Zhaoying]

18 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Homes are like lovers. The best way to lose one is to fail to understand it.

I suddenly understand the Commodore's "Brick House" a lot better!

[Luna Bliss]

14 hours ago, Walelu Summerwind said:

Luna.. shame on you for implying that I am delusional. I told Ceka that I am praying for her and you spew hate just because I don't see my world the same way you see yours. This is what is wrong with America today. I don't participate in group think. I'm sure that my words will have no impact on you. I am sorry for people who feel the need to to lash out at anyone who doesn't go along with their narrative.. so sad.

Your "narrative" harms people -- it kills people -- it stunts their lives...and this is why it deserves to be challenged. When you believe delusional "narratives" like Covid is actually just a bad flu, or not really as widespread or causing as many deaths as some 'manipulative force' wants us to believe (as you stated clearly on another thread), then you are delusional -- you have chosen the very "group think" that you accuse me of by allowing yourself to be brainwashed by Covidiots...and the spreading of these lies has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of lives.

When you choose to believe cockamamie stories the authorities in Texas spew, claiming the energy fiasco in Texas was the result of the alternative energy championed by their political opponents, IT HARMS PEOPLE. We must know the real cause of a problem before it can be solved, and if we choose to believe defensive excuses, a clear politicization in an attempt shift the blame off of themselves and champion the fossil fuels they benefit from, then the people of Texas will encounter this fiasco again and again, and all the world will suffer in the future as the earth burns up from excess fossil fuel burning.  Oh wait, I'm sure you don't believe in climate change either (kinda goes with your "narrative") or have a clue that the dissing of alternative sources of energy has anything to do with the fat pockets of fossil fuel beneficiaries.

Wrapping these destructive attitudes in {{{huggies}}} and prayers doesn't work for me.

[Luna Bliss]

13 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The way the CEO of ERCOT mentioned it, the reasoning is more to do with that by staying isolated from other grids, they don't share in their blackouts either. That might be a valid justification if the neighboring ones are not overly stable.

I don't know why you would believe the CEO of an energy company under attack for negligence and faced with loss of profit. I mean, I certainly never believed the CEO of the tobacco companies when they touted the belief that smoking wasn't bad for you.

No, these particular officials are obsessed with individualism and maintaining separation from federal powers. Texas is the epitome of this kind of thinking, placing far too much weight over the individual vs looking for community solutions via connection with the rest of the U.S. I wouldn't expect you to understand the mindset of much of Texas as you don't live here, but they are kind of a joke regarding their obsession with independence and all the noxious attitudes that go along with it. Most egregious is brainwashing their constituency into believing health care is some kind of socialism, and many suffer without care because of it.

Back to the energy issues, these officials receive vast amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry and are beholden to them, and exhibit little transparency in regards to how they manage the Texas energy grid. It might be that the average Texan will have to pay a bit more because of the upgrades they need, but I think it far more likely those benefitting from the fossil fuel industry will take a big hit, and so this was their motivation not to upgrade the grid.

Anyway, if you want to see a good sample of this 'rugged individualism' so common in Texas, take a look at this one Texas mayor responding to the crisis Texans were experiencing. Bottom line...never elect an official to government who does not believe in the importance of government!

https://ktxs.com/news/local/gallery/colorado-city-mayor-resigns-after-controversial-facebook-post#photo-2

Edited February 19, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

No I'm  talking about where we live.. Where we are, the weather is always changing in the winter time..We're right on the cusp of warm and cold in winter all the time, where we could get any kind of weather in the winter..

We're in the foothills part of Tennessee close to the tip, where to the west of us is flat lands then mountains, to the north and south of us is flat lands and to the east is where the mountains start ..

We're right in that zone where the fronts do all kinds of crazy stuff before and after hitting the mountains..

The best way I can describe it is, the next time you're in your car, stick your hand out the window and ride the air.. tilt it up just a hair and feel what is going on with the turbulence as it hits your fingernail on your index finger.. That's about what happens where we are.. It's like getting hit by part of the current and getting some from the backside coming back around for a second  shot..

When I refer to around here I'm meaning foothills.. To me everything other than the mountains east is flat lands..hehehe

The rest of the north and south and west around us is flat lands, where in the towns around here, everyone lives in the hills..

After living in the hills for so long, I don't think there is too many flat land surfaces that I couldn't just jump in my jeep and navigate.. Where if it were the other way around I sure couldn't say the same thing..

All I'm really getting at is, Nobody is coming from the frozen flat roads of the north, like say Chicago and gonna run through the frozen hills around here,  just because they are used to the winter road conditions up there.. If they do, it's a really good chance they're about to be humbled..

On more than one occasion, I've had friends in my jeep from up north that came down for a visit.. If it's nice out, We'll get in the jeep and take a nice relaxing ride through the hills..  Some of the expressions on their faces  when we are heading downward and coming to a curve and they can't see the ground on the other side of the curve.. Some look like their butt stars are about to go super nova..

What we call a hill, they call mountains..

We have some really good  hills on our land that I call the mountains as well.. it's mainly because of the cuts in them and the sharp drop offs. I don't want them getting lost and out there when it gets hard to see and walking off one of them..

I'll tell friends that want to go up there on their own, just stick to the hills over there and stay off the mountains over there .. We don't want to have to go looking for you tonight.. hehehe

You get to a certain part of the day where the suns out of the trees and things start to go 2 dimension and you can easily lose your path with the forest blending together..

 

Aaanyways enough of my midnight rambling on..hehehe

things are supposed to start to warm up tomorrow and hopefully we can get all this behind us sooner than later. I'm about to go crazy not being at work.. hehehe

 

I'm only gonna say one thing and let it go. If I ever move back east and don't go back home, I'm moving back to Townsend. 🙃

[Luna Bliss]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:15 AM, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'm surprised by all the frozen pipe damage in Texas. Apparently people there don't know how to drain their plumbing in advance of a freeze.

 

[kali Wylder]

16 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i have been reading up a bit on the Texas power system. Seems that power generation uses a JIT model driven largely by buy-sell contract pricing with a spot market to deal with surge demand

main problem going forward is that with this model there is not enough generation capacity to meet the surge demand in these extreme case. Even if all the generators were working and and all the lines were up and functioning. Seems there was an about 30MWH shortfall. So the early warning notifications of rolling blackouts.

is a going forward problem as nobody, other than the State itself or by State subsidy, is going to build/maintain generators and/or maintain a battery farm, which just sit there offline doing nothing until they might be needed in the extreme times. Either the Texas State does this, or Texas connects to the wider US grid. Either is a political issue. Not sure what the outcome will be. Mostly likely tho, given the current state legislature's aversion to US federal regulatory oversight then will be state subsidy I think for battery farms

JIT - just in time inventory methods were a scam dreamed up by grasshoppers who found that they could reap mighty profits by using up all the ants "prudent reserve".  It was the darling child lauded by stockholders who didn't think tomorrow would ever come.  Surprise!

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

27 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

JIT - just in time inventory methods were a scam dreamed up by grasshoppers who found that they could reap mighty profits by using up all the ants "prudent reserve".  It was the darling child lauded by stockholders who didn't think tomorrow would ever come.  Surprise!

During my career, Just-In-Time often became Nearly-In-Time. The results were sometimes devastating. The solution was to insert an electronics distributor warehouse inside our facility to smooth out the bumps by warehousing the most volatile items just feet from our manufacturing floor. The overall system looked JIT on our books, and 100 years old from above.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

I'm only gonna say one thing and let it go. If I ever move back east and don't go back home, I'm moving back to Townsend. 🙃

I'm gonna let it go also with this.. When my posts get really long and start to sound like they are all over the place..It's usually because it's late at night and everyone is asleep and I'm bored out of my mind with too much time on my hands..

I'm just so ready to go back to work! \o/

hehehe

[Arielle Popstar]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I don't know why you would believe the CEO of an energy company under attack for negligence and faced with loss of profit. I mean, I certainly never believed the CEO of the tobacco companies when they touted the belief that smoking wasn't bad for you.

No, these particular officials are obsessed with individualism and maintaining separation from federal powers. Texas is the epitome of this kind of thinking, placing far too much weight over the individual vs looking for community solutions via connection with the rest of the U.S. I wouldn't expect you to understand the mindset of much of Texas as you don't live here, but they are kind of a joke regarding their obsession with independence and all the noxious attitudes that go along with it. Most egregious is brainwashing their constituency into believing health care is some kind of socialism, and many suffer without care because of it.

Back to the energy issues, these officials receive vast amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry and are beholden to them, and exhibit little transparency in regards to how they manage the Texas energy grid. It might be that the average Texan will have to pay a bit more because of the upgrades they need, but I think it far more likely those benefitting from the fossil fuel industry will take a big hit, and so this was their motivation not to upgrade the grid.

Anyway, if you want to see a good sample of this 'rugged individualism' so common in Texas, take a look at this one Texas mayor responding to the crisis Texans were experiencing. Bottom line...never elect an official to government who does not believe in the importance of government!

 

ESCOT is a non profit so you need a new conspiracy theory.

ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation,[10] and its members include consumers, electric cooperatives, generators, power marketers, retail electric providers, investor-owned electric utilities (transmission and distribution providers), and municipally owned electric utilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas

From what I see, Texas has one of the lowest consumer KW/h rates in the USA so that's a good thing. And I may not live in Texas but I find nothing wrong with some individualism and self reliance. It makes for people who don't fall apart when facing a few challenges from man vs man, man vs nature or man vs him/herself. All that entitlement you seem to promote is just not healthy. I did see that tweet already yesterday and though it sounds rather harsh, he does make some good points. He was not directing his comments at those who are in true need but at those who are more then able bodied enough to be able to fend for themselves during challenging times. You on the other hand seem to want everyone completely dependent on handouts from the government. That sort of socialism only works until the money runs out.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

During my career, Just-In-Time often became Nearly-In-Time. The results were sometimes devastating. The solution was to insert an electronics distributor warehouse inside our facility to smooth out the bumps by warehousing the most volatile items just feet from our manufacturing floor. The overall system looked JIT on our books, and 100 years old from above.

When I saw JIT, I thought about modern JIT compilers. One of the newer JIT-ish acronyms I liked (it was Microsoft) was: "IJW", "It Just Works".

[Love Zhaoying]

43 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

ESCOT is a non profit so you need a new conspiracy theory.

ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation

They sound nice, I like EPCOT.

[Arielle Popstar]

16 hours ago, Mollymews said:

in these situations is usually best to look in our yard rather than point at somebody else's yard.

For the same token we shouldn't discount the lessons to be learned from watching other people's backyards. The trick is to have the humility to not think we would do any better if faced with the same challenges. Only then can we select the appropriate  path to hopefully avoid a similar occurrence.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

23 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

It makes for people who don't fall apart when facing a few challenges from man vs man, man vs nature or man vs him/herself. All that entitlement you seem to promote is just not healthy.

Gosh, this would make for a rip-roaring story! Man vs. nature, with nothing but his trusty crossbow and his faithful hunting dog!

You do recognize, though, that one's ability to be "self-reliant" is heavily dependent upon one's resources and level of privilege? I'm not talking about those who elderly, or homeless, or ill, or disabled . . . but rather the large percentage of people who live literally pay cheque to pay cheque, who still have to go to work, maybe at two jobs, every day . . . People who might not have a nice nest egg that they can use to buy a home generator, who have to shovel the snow themselves because they can't afford someone to pay for it . . .

What, for you, constitutes "needy" exactly?

23 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

those who are more then able bodied enough to be able to fend for themselves during challenging times.

And what, exactly, in this context does this really mean, Arielle? How does being "able bodied" make a difference here? Are they going to wrestle that snowstorm to the ground with sheer able-bodiedness?

Surviving this kind of challenge in this day and age really doesn't require having "gumption" or "grit" or get-to-itness.

It requires having money.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Mollymews]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

For the same token we shouldn't discount the lessons to be learned from watching other people's backyards. The trick is to have the humility to not think we would do any better if faced with the same challenges. Only then can we select the appropriate  path to hopefully avoid a similar occurrence.

is broadly true this in the general sense

a thing tho is that in any given situation we stuff something up, recognise this and put a remedy in place which we then ignore. The same situation occurs and because ignore we stuff it up again. When so and when we aspire to be self-reliant and responsible people we have to look at ourselves and change our behaviour. When we don't then our view of ourselves as self-reliant and responsible people is pretty much nonsense

[Drayke Newall]

16 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

We must know the real cause of a problem before it can be solved,

Thought it was obvious. Climate (not climate change either - a polar vortex instead) caused the outage. A unprecedented 1 in 50 year event (last one was seen in Texas was 1983 or in some areas 73 years ago) occurred where freezing temperatures over a period of timed caused a massive infrastructure failure. Whether it was traditional or renewable or enviro friendly energy sources all failed, all are to blame and I guarantee you that regulations on all infrastructure were skimped on.

[Jordyn McGregor]

17 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

We must know the real cause of a problem before it can be solved

 

4 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Thought it was obvious. 

Me too @Drayke Newall.  I thought the answer to the causes of all the world's problems were...in no particular order...

1. Trump
2. White privilege
3. Men

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Jordan Whitt said:

 

Me too @Drayke Newall.  I thought the answer to the causes of all the world's problems were...in no particular order...

1. Trump
2. White privilege
3. Men

 

Just in case you'd like to see the correct order.

1. Men
2. White privilege
3. Trump

🤭

[Scylla Rhiadra]

A smallish protest (maybe between 100 or 200 people) just marched down my street yelling to "reopen the city."

Ok. There is real debate about the efficacy of lockdowns, and who gets closed (and who does not). We can have that discussion.

Except about one in ten of these marchers were wearing masks.

Idiots.

[Horus Salubrius]

I had my first jab at lunch time today.  I can see the outline of an ear starting to grow on my back, other than that all is ok ! 

( & I really did have my first jab today )

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Horus Salubrius said:

I had my first jab at lunch time today.  I can see the outline of an ear starting to grow on my back, other than that all is ok ! 

( & I really did have my first jab today )

Yay you!

I'm thinking they'll get to me sometime in . . . August? Roll out here has been a bit slooooooooow.

[Horus Salubrius]

18 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yay you!

I'm thinking they'll get to me sometime in . . . August? Roll out here has been a bit slooooooooow.

Yes, so I read.   Canada has ordered more vaccines than any country in the world but doesn't have any manufacturing capacity itself .. which is rather odd !     

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Horus Salubrius said:

Yes, so I read.   Canada has ordered more vaccines than any country in the world but doesn't have any manufacturing capacity itself .. which is rather odd !     

It is. And we seem to have found ourselves near the back of the queue.

Apparently they are now, a wee bit late in the day, working to rectify the manufacturing issue. It's weird, given Canada's profile in medical research, that we don't have it already.