Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Politicians: Perfect time to give money to the middle east.

Here is an example. This far north of us but there are numerous areas that look like this or similar.

This is before


This is after in the same spot

We have CNN on one of the TVs near the lunch room and it is just constantly spewing stuff about the conflict, I have not seen anything about the hurricane on it. I have to believe they cover the hurricane, just not as much as they due the conflict.

Also related note there was a back and forth war for a few months where someone would set the TV to FOX and then someone would set it to CNN, guess the CNN person one haven't seen it set to FOX in a while.

That is wild, seems like it will be a long while until the area returns to anything resembling normal.

I have a lot more photos but time is limited, I'll post them all when I get back. It's absolutely insane and some areas in TN, VA, SC, and smaller parts of NC are in a bad state. It is unbelievable.

Man, it's wild that a hurricane can come that far inland and still wreak that much havoc.

Wishing you and everyone in those areas the best.

Its predicted path was supposed to come my way, and I'm very thankful that it didn't.

The hotel I work at had a ton of folks come shelter in, thinking the hotel would be safer/have a generator etc (it doesn't). I think the only family I agreed with on the concept was the ones who were worried about being crushed by the trees surrounding their house.

yeah it surprised me too, I would have thought they were inland enough to never have to worry

Fred was really bad up here also, we had a lot of major damage from that one that was just finished being repaired in the past year or so.

Normal is past tense. This is the new normal.

But don't worry, very soon things will get much worse.

Full disclosure: While this post may be flippant it is not hyperbole.

This looks like alot like the old twin peaks show area lol

Did Biden build back better?

I think the issue here is less that we've not had damage like this before, but more that it's never been this widespread. I would tend to agree this will be a more normal occurrence but likely on a smaller scale.

The only source of information I had for 3 days was my CB radio, I checked the wx radio every 4-5 hours and they would list off records of river and lake heights. All records were broken by this storm but you'd be surprised how close the figures were. The difference here is that every record everywhere was broken, the impact was more widespread. Fred did catastrophic damage to Pisgah National Forest and areas of town for instance, but most areas were not as heavily hit across such a wide area. It was more isolated, but Helene just wrecked everything in a wide area.

One of the most terrifying things I heard them say, and wish I had recorded, was "Lake Lure dam is imminently failing, if you are downstream of Lake Lure dam seek higher ground immediately". This went on to list just about every dam in the area, to say it was about to fail and to get to higher ground. Thankfully they didn't fail but Duke power opened all the gates and everyone was told to gtfo immediately. Frustratingly, they and just about everyone else tell you to "go to http://www.blahblahblah.com"; for more info....but no one had any cell or internet service...If I did I wouldn't be listening to the CB radio like it's *** 1950

We had to clear out my Dad's house today. During the storm he called me at about 5a to tell me a tree hit the house and knocked out his kitchen. I lost cell signal about 30min later and didn't hear from him until I got him out around 5pm. I told him to turn the gas/electric off and shelter in the basement, but even in that short span the place was a mess. We had heard FEMA is starting to evaluate homes on Friday so we wanted to get some of the important stuff out and it was insane how bad the damage became across a few days. It seems the tree has settled in more and the mold growth has become unbearable. We're having similar issues with mold due to the lack of power, our dehumidifers can't run, and I'm fully expecting insurance to do jack ***. Small problems compared to what I've seen so far, we're so fortunate. We're supposed to have power back by tomorrow PM, Duke reported >10k power poles down.

One hard part in the aftermath is going to be housing people. We already had a massive housing crisis due to a lot of factors: post-COVID remote work, vacation homes, STRs, desirable place to live, and issues with building due to topography and restrictions building near national forests. This is going to compound that problem considerably. I have friends who lost their house and they probably won't be able to find anywhere to live.

FEMA and local gov't is reporting no gas shortage, which is horse ***. I don't know what planet they live on but it's been short since the day before the storm. After, no stations had power and only Marathon was back up a day later. Once they opened there were 6+ hour lines for gasoline and they ran out quickly. Tons of diesel though. They are still rationing gas as of today and limiting people to $20 in cash only. I'm buying a diesel vehicle as soon as possible as a result, my wife things I'm crazy but having both seems to have some value. We had full tanks but the risk of getting stuck on a closed backroad was high and not being able to make it back, so we were stranded. Apparently fuel canisters in nearby SC are hard to locate now. I'm hoping to get down to Atlanta or somewhere and stock up, some rescue orgs are running low in smaller towns apparently. I had hoped to start running down for supplies sooner but we wouldn't have made it. We did what we could but were down to under a gallon in all our cars from doing what we were able the first two days locally.

Many are still stranded. FEMA/NG/etc are all here but I haven't seen them anywhere near us. They are (rightly so) focused on harder hit areas north. We have rescue swimmers coming to the fukin mountains from the coast to facilitate rescues and some of the organization has come from managers east of us who came to the mountains from the coastal areas. All of the relief in my small town is either organized by individuals or churches. Lots of free food, water, shelter, etc. Barber shops offering free hair washes, anyone with wifi opening networks, etc. People with Starlink are setting up hotspots in parking lots. The Waffle House was open by Friday PM, I guess the rumors are true, it never closes. Everyone is doing everything they can to help each other. The situation with the roads in/out being so badly damaged left us all feeling like help was a ways out and, people are doing what they can, but it was accurate. Stuff didn't start rolling in for at least 3-4 days. The relief has been flooding in though and apparently towns are going from being empty to passing things on to the next area. The needs change moment to moment but it's messy in some of the smaller areas.

I had a moment of epiphany yesterday when I was out and a handful of Ospreys flew over, the ground shook but something about the aesthetics of those aircraft just sent home the reality of what was going on.

Other Dave Barry hurricane advise.

huh, not really a down side I ever thought about for an electric car but after a natural disaster the thing is hardly even a good place to sleep, let alone what you are going to do with no power for days on end. And with the refueling times like they are now a 6+ hour line for gas would be so much worse as a line to charge your EV

Funny timing, I was just having this discussion with someone else. I saw a few Rivians running around the first few days but yea, I imagine they have to remain parked.

The other curiosity is what the environmental impact is of having that many EVs disposed or destroyed when they are flooded or severely damaged. Honestly not something I know anything about but a curiosity compared to an ICE vehicle

One thing I learned early about buying used cars. Look under the floor mats, especially in hidden corners, for mud. That is a sign of a car having been underwater. In used car terms that's an alligator. There's going to be a LOT of alligators on the market next year.

Salt water alligators are the worst.

Nothing in my vaguely remembered physics or chemistry has anything to do with lithium battery powered alligators, sorry.

Real battery powered alligators:

best show ever

also no plus 2 for 10 runs :(

Hurray we're panic buying again.

One day of strike and the whole *** system explodes.

*** dem longshoremen

Join a union.

Or perhaps try negotiating your salary one on one with your CEO.

We humans seem to have but two modes in this regard. Complacently or panic.

Do people actually think we import TP rather than make it here?

Well the strike just ended, so that should calm people down.

https://x.com/Nerdrotics/status/1841893668669538491



I'm not the biggest LOTR nerd, but in which book does Sauron cry?

The same one that has orc families.

Im currently replaying YuGiOh Forbidden Memories.

I had bought FF Crystal Chronicles and Shiren to play on Switch, but the first had massive bad reviews, and the latter got me bored as hell with 2h of tutorials, and when I said f*** that and lets do a dungeon... the first dungeon was ANOTHER tutorial...

FFCC is my favorite FF, and the remake is awesome, the added content added a lot to the game while keeping the base mostly the same*.

like adding more magic rings, second forms of each dungeon and the mimic system letting you look like various npc through out the game.

As someone who knocked out 200+ years in the original game, I think it was an excellent remake and I really enjoy the added variety of the new dungeons. And I absoultely love the mimic system letting me play as princess fiona

And while it is probably mostly nostalgia, the damn music just makes me smile all the time, much like ffxi music does.

* They did remove the bit that the gamecube had where you could connect a gameboy advanced as a controller and get a individual mini map per player with unique info on it depending on which player you are, this also worked in single player but the map shown was dependent on how you panted the moogle

Im so fed up with marathoning data science.

I just dont give up because the exam is in about 10 days, and giving up all the effort made in the past months would be very regretable.

Only a little more than 10 days, and there is no chance i will review the entire program. The exam literally asked data science from the very basic calculus up to visualization, covering in the way all statisctics, programming, etl, ml models, etc.

Im pretty sure the exam will be the hardest data science test that ever existed in this country, because of sheer amount of content asked, and because its offering a top salary from the start, aside offering 7h/5d work, and supposelly a low stress job, because its a estate bank.

"When in danger or in doubt run in circles scream and shout."

And buy ALL the TP.

Well deferred until negotiations break down again in January

The key is to strike in December and hold everyone hostage for Christmas. Rookies