Storm the Field

A good response I saw to Elon's proposal was "let's also strip voting rights from divorced fathers over 50. They have no stake in the future."

In the midst of fucking up Twitter yesterday, Elon also spent the day engaging in some good ol' fashioned xenophobia and arguing for significant limitations on suffrage. That was in response to an infamous anti-Muslim activist posting about how France had ruined itself with immigration. Then followed up with this.

Alright, back from picking up the new ride. Initial thoughts after driving home from the dealership and then making a quick trip to HEB earlier. 1. My word, the difference in turning ability going from an older model with a 6.5' bed to brand new with a 5.5' is night and day. Felt like I was driving my wife's small SUV when it came to the parking lot at the store. No more having to look for a spot way in the back where I can swing out wide. Parking at my office garage is gonna be much easier too. 2. Today was a really good day to appreciate having a brand new AC system. Ice cold. 100% improvement over my trade-in, which has to be at full blast to even get to tolerable at temps like we've had lately. 3. One thing that will take a little while to get used to is how much "tighter" a new truck is vs old. Just like driving someone else's car you're not used to. Had a few hard stops and jerky takeoffs. Otherwise, the ride is infinitely smoother and quieter. 4. Couple of things left to do to get it the way I fully want it. Gonna go get a spray-in bedliner ASAP, and definitely want to add a tonneau cover eventually. Will probably make that my Xmas gift this year. Also gonna replace the old-timey 21' antenna with a compact version. Hate those things.

'23 Lariat FX4 5.0L V8. Agate Black with Baja Tan interior (pictured below). 360 camera and some other random perks thrown in.

36 more hours of suck and then a small bit of relief for Houston area. Finally getting some cloud cover. High on Sunday is only 96 and then not a single high over 95 next week. Pretty decent rain chances starting mid-week through Saturday. Central Texas gonna keep baking, but temps at least look to stay mostly in double digits next week. Looks like y'all getting hosed on precipitation though.

3% is the new 2%.

Based off difference between window sticker for this package ($69,150) and final sales price, right around $7650. Definitely worth it to look at dealerships out in little country towns. The big dealerships in town ain't cutting many breaks that I've seen. This is 2 straight purchases where I'm gonna drive ~75 miles to save thousands.

Just wrapped up the haggling. Going to pick her up Saturday morning since it's out at a dealership way out in the sticks.

High today only gonna hit 98, heat index of 108. Finally, a cool front!

Where are you located? My firm (not me) has an IP group here in Houston. We've done hundreds of trademarks. Shoot me a PM.

Haven't weighed myself in months, but decided to hop on the scale this morning. 194, which is about 14 down from where I started back in January. More importantly, the way it's distributed has significantly improved. When I was at 208, I had to be at least 30% body fat. I'd guess currently I'm somewhere between 20-25%. So, I look at it like I've lost ~21 lbs of fat and replaced with ~8 lbs of muscle. Back to comfortably wearing size 34 pants, and some of my belts are now only useable on their tighest notch. Hoping to finally get down to original goal weight of 188 by Labor Day, but as long as I keep grinding, adding muscle and dropping body fat, I'm not terribly concerned with the number on the scale.

Consumer confidence on the upswing again. Best reading in 18 months.

Current forecast on weather.com saying Houston "only" gonna hit 100 today and 99 tomorrow. Just a few days ago they had us at 102 today and 103 tomorrow, which would have set or tied records. Heat indexes should stay at 110 or less, which is awful, but not as bad as previously thought. Staying in "excessive heat advisory" rather than "excessive heat warning".

You should be looking on the NMOCD GIS map, reasonably easy to use. PM me if you need help, I'm very familiar with NM O&G. All the well spacing is on there, it will show what tracts are included. Was coming here to say the exact same thing. https://ocd-hub-nm-emnrd.hub.arcgis.com/

I've always said that the worst part of Houston summers isn't really the high temps during the middle of the day. I mean, most of us are sitting in offices where they keep the AC blasting. It's that you never really get any relief in the mornings or evenings, unlike places with less constant humidity. Towns that aren't located in coastal swamps actually have noticeable differences between night and day. Get home at 6:00 and it's 99 degrees. Go outside around sunset at 8:30 and it's still usually around 91 and will feel like 104. Get up early at 5:30 or something and even if it's only 80 degrees, it will feel like it's in the 90's. Tomorrow morning at 7 am, it will be 79 in Austin and feel like 84. In Houston, it will be 82, but feel like 92. At some point in my life, I'm just no longer willing to spend my summers here. Hopefully before I get old, I'm able to pack up from Memorial Day-Labor Day for somewhere with a max temp of 90 during the day and then at least down to the low 60's in the morning and evenings. And mountains, or at least hills. Been thinking more and more seriously about getting a short-term rental and spending a week or two working at my firm's Denver office sometime later this summer. Kinda want to see how that goes and maybe make it an annual thing if it works out.

Austin forecast has "improved" a little in the past 48 hours. As of Friday, was looking at 6 straight days of 105+. Now just 2 days at 104 on Tuesday and Wednesday, then 102 or less thru Sunday. Pretty weird to be excited to see 6 straight days (7/4-9) of "High of 95, but 50% chance of scattered storms" on the long range forecast for Houston. Just gotta tough it out until next Monday. July might actually be closer to a normal uncomfortable summer than this hellish June has been.

If this is anything like your baseball predictions, I need to bet the farm on Wagner.

Shepherd/Durham?

Final week of June looking downright apocalyptic. Supposed to hit 111 in Midland Sunday and Monday. Austin with 6 days at 105 or 106 starting Monday. At least there appears to be something resembling an end in sight. Forecast for first week of July is pretty standard "mid 90's but maybe some rain" vs. "might as well be in Phoenix"

I-95 has already been re-opened. Took just 12 days to restore to useable condition. Surly's beloved Gritty was one of the first passengers to cross this morning. I've long said that the one major area where the US is not a first-world country is the glacial pace at which we build vital infrastructure. The I-95 repair demonstrates once and for all that it's not impossible to get these things done quickly, but rather that we've designed a system that fosters delays and cost overruns. State/county/municipal construction projects have got to be one of the last bastions of institutionalized corruption in America. There seems to be no incentive to get roads built in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. On the contrary, it's likely more lucrative for the companies that land these gigs to stretch out projects for as long as possible. CR sidenote: PA Gov. Josh Shapiro gonna get a lot of calls to run for POTUS in either '28 or '32.

My Dad has the patience of a saint when it comes to shit like this. I wish I had inherited his ability to sit there and zone out while pretending to listen as my Mom drones on about whatever. Dude's been pulling it off for close to 50 years! My wife does this thing where she'll be quietly floating in the pool or watching tv or (insert literally any leisure activity) and I decide to join in on some peaceful relaxation and she takes this as a cue to empty her brain of every passing thought in a rapid-fire stream of consciousness. I can only sit there for a few minutes before I hop out of the pool or whatever and get a "that was quick, where are you going?" and stupidly blurt out something like "well, I didn't exactly come out here to get yammered at", which, shockingly, does not tend to be received well.

A pool's better than no pool when it's this damn hot, but holy hell, hopped in on Sunday and it was the warmest the water in my pool has ever felt. Floating thermometer looked like it was about halfway between 90 and 91. I don't ever recall seeing it above 88. Bath water.

After talking about it for close to a year now, hopefully gonna finally pull the trigger on buying a new F150 next weekend. Got 6 1/2 good years out the lightly used 2014 KR I bought at Xmas 2016, but I keep inching closer and closer to 100K miles and the AC is beginning to struggle in this extreme summer heat. Really don't want to put any more money into it. Should still be able to get solid value on the trade-in at this point. Buying new for the first time ever in my life, but the difference right now between lightly used and new is not enough to justify, and lots of dealerships offering 0% for 36 months on 2023 Lariats. All gonna come down to whether the specific truck I'm looking for (4X4, black or gray exterior, baja tan interior) is available at an acceptable price when I'm ready to pull the trigger. Crazy how hard it is to find one with that combo. Almost every dealership I've looked at has 30+ Lariats available, but 99% of them have the standard gray or black leather.