Aquatic Vehicle Opinion Bleg

I haven't done a lot of kayaking, but I've enjoyed what kayaking I've done. In Florida, specifically, the Lower Santa Fe River and the Gulf from Cedar Key to Atsena Otie Key and back. I've also enjoyed canoeing, running stealth ops with Zodiac rafts in the Marine Corps, etc.

I've always rented kayaks/canoes, but I've been noticing inflatable kayaks in the $100-150 range. They're advertised as fitting in (and usually coming with) backpacks, and I suspect would, except for the paddles, fit in my motorcycle top box (some of them seem to come with backpacks that the paddles fit upright in, or I could rig some kind of side bracket on the bike).

So, I could have my very own boat, which I suspect would cause me to make an effort to spend more time on the water, which would probably be a good thing.

I'm a bit skeptical, though. If I had my own boat, I'd likely venture further out into the Gulf (or the Atlantic) ... and half a mile or more out in the ocean seems like a less than ideal place to have to deal with a leak in inflated vinyl. I don't think the swim to shore would be too terrible in and of itself, but the ocean (and, in Florida, the rivers) is predator-heavy.

Any readers have experience with these kinds of water vehicles? If so, how do you like them? Are they prone to leaks? Are the leaks hard to repair while afloat? Would a Zodiac-style raft be a better idea than a kayak? Should I maybe just buckle down to having a truck and "real" boat on a trailer (or perhaps small enough to strap on top of the camper and just drag that along), or even just get a fixer-upper houseboat, rent a slip, and live on the ocean part-time?

I Never Bothered with a Wifi Range Extender Before ...

... because at both of my previous residences in the wifi era, my computer was located within a few feet of the router and I just ran an Ethernet cable, only using wifi for laptops and other devices.

But at the new place, with my office rig located across the house and then some (in the camper in the back yard) from the Starlink router, I tended to get a fairly weak signal, and didn't feel like running Ethernet from the router, under the house, and out back, probably doing buried conduit to protect it between house and camper (and having to redo things if I decide to move the camper).

So I bought this (not an affiliate link).

There were cheaper -- much cheaper -- options, but the reviews on them tended to emphasize difficult setups and spotty performance. Better to spend $34 right off the bat than have to return/replace one or more $10 devices.

It's located about halfway between the router and the camper, and improves signal strength to the kitchen/dining area as well -- Tamara keeps a laptop on the "bar" in the kitchen, and will probably end up putting her desk at a spot with line of site to it; there's also an Echo Show in the kitchen for the moment, bu it's old and slow, so I may replace it with either a Dot or an Alexa-enabled tablet).

The signal strength to the camper went from "usually no higher than 40%" and occasionally just out, to "usually no lower than 70%, and no drops yet." Setup was reasonably simple, although at first my desktop seemed to have a problem with it (it would connect to the new network but not via that network to the Internet; a reboot fixed that).

So, if you have a need for this kind of device, I do recommend this model.

Wordle 1656 Hint

Hint: Emergency vehicle noisemaker.

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First Letter: S

NFL Week 17 Results

Wow, that was a pretty crappy week for my predictive abilities -- seven right, nine wrong. As a result, I moved down a whopping 0.1% in ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em game, from the 79.6th percentile to the 79.5th. So I guess a lot of other players had bad weeks too. Correct picks in green, incorrect picks in red:

• Dallas Cowboys beat Washington Commanders
• Detroit Lions beat Minnesota Vikings
• Denver Broncos beat Kansas City Chiefs
• Houston Texans beat Los Angeles Chargers*
• Green Bay Packers beat Baltimore Ravens
• Cincinnati Bengals beat Arizona Cardinals
• Seattle Seahawks beat Carolina Panthers
• Pittsburgh Steelers beat Cleveland Browns
• Tennessee Titans beat New Orleans Saints*
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Indianapolis Colts
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Miami Dolphins
• New England Patriots beat New York Jets
• Las Vegas Raiders beat New York Giants*
• Buffalo Bills beat Philadelphia Eagles
• Chicago Bears beat San Francisco 49ers*
• Los Angeles Rams beat Atlanta Falcons

While I'm not terribly enthused about the post-season, I'm glad that the Jaguars will make the playoffs (wild card berth if they lose to the Titans and the Texans beat Indianapolis in Week 18; otherwise, the Jaguars take the AFC South).

Wordle 1655 Hint

Hint: Elements of room style.

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First Letter: D

One Reason I Continue to Wait on Purchasing "Smart Glasses"

I've been thinking about it ever since they became a thing.

If I didn't wear prescription eyeglasses, I'd have likely purchased some with e.g. bluetooth mic and speakers and a built-in camera, and probably have them set up to use either Alexa or Google Assistant.

But once I've factored in the need to purchase prescription lenses and have them put into the frames, they're just a lot less attractive -- especially since I don't wear glasses while at my desk or around the house. In theory, I could wear bifocals, but my prescription is such that it's easier to just put on glasses for distance vision, and take them off when at my desk, etc. Not worth the cost and inconvenience (including changing prescription lenses, potentially after every eye exam) if I'm only using them the very few hours a day when I'm neither asleep nor at my desk.

The technology is coming along, but not quite here yet (at least at my preferred price point), such that eventually I'll be able to get smart glasses with all the bells and whistles (two-way bluetooth audio, good camera, good voice control instead of having to tap things, augmented reality functions, etc.), that also automatically focus for me, based on my prescription. When I'm on the motorcycle, I see well at a distance. When I'm at my desk, I see the screen perfectly. And everything in between.

Then I'd just wear them all the time ... and they'd be worth putting significant money into (especially since instead of replacing frames or lenses when my prescription changes, I'd just change the prescription ... assuming that the glasses themselves didn't conduct their own eye exams for me and save me that cost).

I suspect that consumer-priced models of something like that will be available by 2030 at the latest.

Wordle 1654 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is an apples and oranges comparison, but it's about how they're the same, not different, things.

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First Letter: F

Wordle 1653 Hint

Hint: Monastery shot-caller.

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First Letter: A

Speaking of Chinese Crap ...

Last week, the FCC announced that it's banning the importation of Chinese (and other foreign) drones because !!!NATIONAL SECURITAH!!!

On a quick AI check, yes, that does seem to include the small, el cheapo consumer grade drones that your kid flies around the yard or "Bob" uses to get a camera peek into the bedroom window of that guy next door who obviously spends lots of time at the gym.

So, of course, I immediately ordered one before the prices of existing stock skyrocket. Normally $30-something, on sale for $18.99.

If I can figure out how to use the damn thing, maybe I'll post some aerial video of the new homestead or whatever.

I'm Always Considering Computer Changes ...

... and I'm a little disappointed that the next mini PC will not be a Raspberry Pi 5.

The "problem":

My current cheap Chinese mini PC runs an Intel N100 CPU with 16Gb of RAM. It's not too slow, it handles what I need it to handle, it's been a good machine for a year.

Lately, however, it seems to be running a little slower and a little hotter. I've made sure the physical internals are clean, that it has unobstructed airflow for cooling, and that, insofar as I can figure out how to, all the software is optimized for efficiency so that I'm not burdening the CPU any more than necessary.

I'm not really worried, just a little concerned that it may be reaching what I consider a fairly early end-of-life, perhaps components are breaking down under usage, etc.

My previous computer of choice was a Raspberry Pi 4B, upgraded to 8Gb of RAM. It did what I needed it to do as well, just a little slower.

I've been looking at mini PCs with faster CPUs and 32Gb of RAM, but the price point is still a little more than I want to spend (I like to keep my PCs under $200; the cheapest plausible machines I'm seeing with those specs are $300+).

I was hoping the newer Raspberry Pi 5, even at 16Gb of RAM (its max capacity), might be the next daily driver machine, but after comparing CPU benchmarking, its Broadcom ARM CPU isn't as good as what I'm running, and requires bulky cooling under any significant load (one thing I love about the Pi is that it's generally about the size of a pack of cigarettes).

The Raspberry Pi 6 is supposedly coming in late 2026 or early 2027. I expect it will have a faster CPU and support more RAM ... but by that time the competing mini PCs with the specs I want will have probably come down to within my preferred price range.

I'll keep watching for those price drops, or for Pi-like alternatives.

Wordle 1652 Hint

Hint: Multiple like things as a single unit (as in cookies or data processes).

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First Letter: B

A Second Day of Christmas

This year's first Christmas present got a good reaction, in which a substantial portion of the more than 100 comments were real/substantive rather than servings from the Bob's Troll Farm Value Menu. Enough so that if someone cares to work at it a little, it can serve as a coherent argument/response thread, which is what I wanted to get out of the whole thing (I may go back and clean up some of the BTFVM material to make it even more useful).

Here's a second thread, from which I hope to get the same kind of return on investment. It launches with a claim from commenter "White Men Can Trump," that:

Knapp will I'm sure claim that everyone who disagrees with him in that issue [immigration] is not a libertarian

Along with "invasion" and "replacement," that makes a third thing WMCT seems very sure of which happens to be untrue.

I consider it an obvious and non-controversial fact that someone can be a libertarian while holding a non-, or even anti-, libertarian position, including on immigration, for the same reason that one can be a basketball player and miss a three-point shot, or be a mathematician and incorrectly solve an equation, or be a skilled driver and get in a one-car accident attributable to driver error.

It's even obviously and non-controversially true that any of the above actors might honestly, if incorrectly,  attribute the event to something other than their own error and insist that they got it right.

Why might those things happen? Any number of reasons.

In WMCT's case, the reason seems to be that he's alarmed by (and hence clamorous to be led to safety from) two of Mencken's "endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" -- "invasion" and "replacement" -- and that that kind of irrational terror just isn't very susceptible to reason.

But there could be other causes, so I think it's worth discussing the question "how/why do libertarians arrive at positions which conflict with libertarianism, sometimes even sticking to those positions when corrected while still, for the most part, agreeing with libertarianism?"

Have at (I'm back and forth between old house and new today getting the last of the moving done; I'll try to be more uniform and timely in deleting BTFVM content so that there maybe be an enlightening discussion).

Wordle 1651 Hint

Hint: Dennis Hopper demanded it and Sandra Bullock maintained it.

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First Letter: S

OK, the (Internal to This Blog) Market Seems to Demand an Immigration Discussion

So here it is. Rather than doing a roundup from the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of blog posts, social media comments, op-eds, etc. I've done on the topic, I'll just lay out my own position in brief.

• The freedom to travel on unowned property, and to bring that property into ownership, and to travel or stay on owned property with the permission of the owners (no other permission required) is an inherent human right.
• My definition of valid property ownership is that asserted by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, appended below.
• States, being nothing more than jumped-up street gangs / protection racketeers, do not and cannot own property. Their turf claims and other such demands create no property rights
•  With particular respect to the United States, Locke's proviso -- "at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others" -- remains applicable, as the population density within the US government's criminal turf claims (including both its "borders" and its fraudulent claim that it and its subsidiaries "own" near 40% of the land within those borders) is incredibly low and the technology for making that land useful is well-advanced (it is now possible to live a technologically advanced lifestyle in, and plausibly travel to and from, a remote cabin in the mountains of Alaska or an adobe geodesic dome in the Mojave Desert).
• The very rules that the US government claims to go by, as codified in the US Constitution, forbid it to regulate immigration. While I do not subscribe to constitutionalism, those who claim to subscribe to it should operate within its strictures or change those strictures, rather than just ignoring any strictures they find inconvenient.
• Therefore, restrictions on travel and immigration by the United States are not only evil, immoral, and illegal, but fuck-silly.

The Lockean assertion as mentioned above:

Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.

OK, have at.

Happy Christmas, Etc.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas, of course, but for those of you who do, have a merry one. Others celebrate different winter* holidays, or just enjoy the well-deserved break those holidays provide even to free riders on the various beliefs. Hope you're having a good time as well.

This is the blog's 726th post of the year, beating last year by one and establishing its new record for posts in a single year.

According to Blogspot's/Google stats, KN@PPSTER has received 1.76 million page views in the last 12 months.

About one million of those views were from within the US, nearly 150,000 each from Brazil and Singapore (I'm assuming a lot of those were bot or troll VPN views). Other listed countries with significant numbers include Norway, Vietnam, Hong Kong, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The vast majority of visitors used Windows as their operating system and Chrome as their browser, but significant percentages used MacOS, Linux, and Android / Firefox, Safari, and Edge, with smatterings of other OSes and browsers.

As for what posts all those visitors were reading, the daily Wordle hint seems to be the blog's real workhorse with -- so far as I can tell based on the limited stats Blogspot produces -- 1.5-2k visits each day. A lot of the other visits were clearly search engine referrals on particular keywords/phrases. As for devoted daily readers, my guess -- based on comments -- is that there are about 10 of you (I'm only counting "Bob" and his numerous sock puppet troll personalities as one).

Anyway, thanks for a good year here at KN@PPSTER!

* Yes, I know it isn't winter in the southern hemisphere, but the vast majority of this blog's visitors are from (or at least visit from IP addresses in) the northern hemisphere.

Wordle 1650 Hint

Hint: Artificial rainbow creation device.

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First Letter: P

NFL Week 17 Picks

It's Christmas week in the NFL, with three games scheduled for the holiday itself. My picks:

• Dallas Cowboys beat Washington Commanders
• Detroit Lions beat Minnesota Vikings
• Denver Broncos beat Kansas City Chiefs
• Houston Texans beat Los Angeles Chargers*
• Green Bay Packers beat Baltimore Ravens
• Cincinnati Bengals beat Arizona Cardinals
• Seattle Seahawks beat Carolina Panthers
• Pittsburgh Steelers beat Cleveland Browns
• Tennessee Titans beat New Orleans Saints*
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Indianapolis Colts
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Miami Dolphins
• New England Patriots beat New York Jets
• Las Vegas Raiders beat New York Giants*
• Buffalo Bills beat Philadelphia Eagles
• Chicago Bears beat San Francisco 49ers*
• Los Angeles Rams beat Atlanta Falcons

"Upset" picks --  predicted outcomes that go against the majority picks among those playing ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em game as of the time I make my picks -- are marked with asterisks. If I change any picks, I will do so before the games in question kick off and clearly mark changes as changes in updates to this post.

NFL Week 16 Results

In Week 16, I did a little better than usual -- 11 right, five wrong -- and moved up to the 79.6th percentile in ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em game. Correct picks in green, incorrect picks in red:

• Los Angeles Rams beat Seattle Seahawks
• Philadelphia Eagles beat Washington Commanders
• Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers
• Buffalo Bills beat Cleveland Browns
• Los Angeles Chargers beat Dallas Cowboys
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Tennessee Titans
• New Orleans Saints beat New York Jets
• Minnesota Vikings beat New York Giants
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Carolina Panthers
• Miami Dolphins beat Cincinnati Bengals*
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Denver Broncos*
• Atlanta Falcons beat Arizona Cardinals
• Detroit Lions beat Pittsburgh Steelers
• Houston Texans beat Las Vegas Raiders
• New England Patriots beat Baltimore Ravens
• San Francisco 49ers beat Indianapolis Colts

It gets a little weirder from here on out: Teams that have assured their playoff berths/seeds -- or been excluded -- may rest their usual starters and lose games they'd have normally won.

My expectation is that the Kansas City Chiefs, with a busted season, will  largely use their last few games as auditions/tests for players who've seen little or no game time this year. In addition to Mahomes and Minshew being out with injuries and Kelce likely retiring, they've got other players who are on the injury list or who may be looking at the door. So Andy Reid will try to get a jump on putting together the 2026 squad. That doesn't mean they necessarily WON'T win any more, but I'm not really expecting them to.

Wordle 1649 Hint

Hint: If you get all wound up, like thread or fishing line, it will be around this.

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First Letter: S

F*CK the Kansas City Chiefs

After more than half a century at Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs are going on the corporate welfare teat and moving across the border from Missouri to Kansas as of 2031 ... to collect nearly $2 billion in corporate welfare for a new stadium.

On a quick search, the Chiefs seem to have turned a profit of more than $100 million last year, and that number seems to have been rising annually over time.

But they want taxpayers to buy them a new stadium.

They could have set aside a buck per ticket from the outrageous prices over the years, or earmarked branded merch profits for the "building fund," or whatever, but no ... they're not asking their fans to help them out, they're commanding the non-Chiefs-fan taxpayer to fork over because REASONS.

Boo. Fuck that. Fuck them.

When the Cardinals baseball franchise pulled that shit on me as a St. Louis-area taxpayer, my response (submitted to, but not published by, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) was that they should at least be willing to commemorate the mugging by renaming themselves "the St. Louis Welfare Queens"), and I never bought another ticket.

My hatred for the (now Los Angeles based) Rams is based entirely on them getting a taxpayer-funded stadium in St. Louis, then fleeing the state when they couldn't get ANOTHER one while the first one was still functional.

Yeah, I know other teams do it too. But the Chiefs are supposed to be better than that.

Wordle 1648 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is sparkly and sometimes found in an eye.

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First Letter: G

The Camper Climate Control Plan

This morning when I got to "the office" (the Jayco 806SD pop-up camper), it was in the 40s. I turned on a very small, very modern, very safe (no exposed filaments or anything like that) space heater, and the office quickly became toasty warm.

Yesterday, when the temperature hit the mid-70s, the office became just a little uncomfortably warm, even with a fan running, so when we get into real Florida weather, I'd expect it to be nearly intolerable. The rooftop AC unit on the camper didn't seem to do much except throw a house breaker, and now it is tarped over anyway.

No problem -- I happen to have a "portable" air conditioner in storage. While (according to my measurement estimates) it would fit inside the camper, I'm actually expecting that I will place it outside, either next to one of the windows or under one of the pop-outs, with an improvised duct to direct the cold air into the cabin. It's a 12.5k BTU unit, which should be more than sufficient to cool the area in question. I'll need to figure out where its temperature sensor is, though, if I want to be able to just set its thermostat instead of manually turning it on and off.

Other than some additional weather-proofing, getting the ergonomics right for my desktop set-up, and perhaps hanging a better cabin light (solar), I've got this thing about where I want it. I plan to use it for at least six months, and more likely a year, before deciding if I want to move up to something bigger.

Wordle 1647 Hint

Hint: Independence Day falls on April 23 in this Florida Keys republic.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1646 Hint

Hint: A two-layer blanket, or the key process in making it.

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First Letter: Q

Cold ... For Florida

It's hard to complain with a straight face. Right now, it's 44 degrees fahrenheit, and it will reach 70 degrees according to the forecast. That's north central Florida for you. I've seen it hit 85 degrees on Christmas.

As an office work environment, 44 degrees isn't ideal. The camper theoretically has heat from its rooftop AC unit, but I've got that tarped over now, I've disconnected from "shore power," and anyway, the one time I did test it it threw the house breaker before putting out any noticeable heat.

This morning, I'm running a very small space heater (on the extension cord I had been using for "shore power" -- everything else is on a UPS, plugged into a heavy-duty extension cord running direct to a house plug on a higher-amp breaker).

I'm going to have to grab a bigger space heater (I think we have one in storage), and do some more work sealing and insulating this place. We always have a few sub-freezing nights per year, occasionally even something down in the 20s, and I get up and head for the office around 4:30am. The lowest temperatures here usually seem to hit between 5am and 7am.

Other than it being a wee bit cool, though, I like the office setup. I plan some tiny future improvements (e.g. nicer bench cushion, stronger overhead light), but it works.

Wordle 1645 Hint

Hint: Yes, Florida has Christmas -- but in recorded history never this kind of Christmas.

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First Letter: W

The Camper's First Rainy Day and Night ...

... revealed one small leak in the main cabin (the pop-outs are tarped and that worked out, at least for fairly light rain and fairly low wind).

It's a very slow drip coming from a (drilled) hole in the bottom of the front-to-rear ceiling beam. Maybe a pint of water over a 12-hour period, with perhaps three hours of actual rain.

Of course, where it comes out of the beam doesn't tell me where it got into the beam, but the first and most obvious guess would be the points at which the beam bolts into the actual roof. Just sealing that little internal hole wouldn't fix it -- the water would just build up inside the hollow beam and come out somewhere else.

I'm planning to do the whole roof with elastomeric sealant Real Soon Now, but for today I will probably hit all the bolts, seams, etc. where anything attaches to the camper roof with a spray sealant and see if that fixes the specific problem.

Today is Move The Home Office Into The Camper Day.

Update, 8:30am: I'm posting this from the camper. The home office move is about 90% complete. Both computers are moved, set up, and connecting to wifi. The other 10% is waiting for my new extension cord to arrive -- I'm using the "shore power" cord to test things out -- and finding or building a right arm rest to support my elbow when I'm using the mouse. I may also extend or replace the table so that I can move the monitors to a friendlier angle as well. But except during hurricanes, I expect to be working out here from now on.

Wordle 1644 Hint

Hint: As a gift, it's right up there with gold and frankincense.

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First Letter: M

NFL Week 16 Picks

Week 16 of the NFL season starts tonight with the Los Angeles Rams vs. the Seattle Seahawks. My picks:

• Los Angeles Rams beat Seattle Seahawks
• Philadelphia Eagles beat Washington Commanders
• Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers
• Buffalo Bills beat Cleveland Browns
• Los Angeles Chargers beat Dallas Cowboys
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Tennessee Titans
• New Orleans Saints beat New York Jets
• Minnesota Vikings beat New York Giants
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Carolina Panthers
• Miami Dolphins beat Cincinnati Bengals*
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Denver Broncos*
• Atlanta Falcons beat Arizona Cardinals
• Detroit Lions beat Pittsburgh Steelers
• Houston Texans beat Las Vegas Raiders
• New England Patriots beat Baltimore Ravens
• San Francisco 49ers beat Indianapolis Colts

Yes, I expect the Chiefs to beat the Titans, even with Mahomes and three offensive linemen out with injuries and two key defensive players questionable.

Why?

Most importantly, the Titans are 2-12 so far this season and I don't expect them to suddenly and massively improve.

But the Chiefs also have advantages. Gardner Minshew is a very competent quarterback to step in for Mahomes. The backups for all those other injured Chiefs are going to be highly motivated to show their stuff so that maybe they won't be backups next season. And their opponents for this week have to figure out how to beat a team they haven't seen before -- all their game tape and planning are for the Chiefs of Week 15 and earlier, a team which no longer exists. Andy Reid and his coaching staff are great at improvising to meet new situations. Reid is now working on putting together the 2026 Chiefs, and he gets to test his ideas, which are usually good, in real season play.

But I could be wrong. Maybe, having gone to shit across 15 weeks, the Chiefs will just be shit for the rest of the year. We'll see.

Wordle 1643 Hint

 Hint: An alickidoo doesn't play this sport, but is a member of the club that does.

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First Letter: R

NFL Week 15 Results

This week, I picked eight games correctly and eight games incorrectly, and dropped from the 78.7th percentile among players in ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em Game to the 77.8th percentile. Correct picks in green, incorrect picks in red:

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Atlanta Falcons
• Chicago Bears beat Cleveland Browns
• Baltimore Ravens beat Cincinnati Bengals*
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Los Angeles Chargers*
• New England Patriots beat Buffalo Bills*
• New York Giants beat Washington Commanders
• Philadelphia Eagles beat Las Vegas Raiders
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat New York Jets
• Houston Texans beat Arizona Cardinals
• Denver Broncos beat Green Bay Packers
• Detroit Lions beat Los Angeles Rams*
• Carolina Panthers  beat New Orleans Saints
• San Francisco 49ers beat Tennessee Titans
• Seattle Seahawks beat Indianapolis Colts
• Dallas Cowboys beat Minnesota Vikings
• Miami Dolphins beat Pittsburgh Steelers*

The big story of the week, of course, is that the playoffs will be Kansas-City-Chiefs-free for the first time since 2014. And even if they weren't excluded already, a season-ending injury for QB Patrick Mahomes (torn ACL) would have probably stopped them at the wild card round instead of taking them to the AFC championship game for the eighth year in a row, or the Super Bowl for the fourth year in a row.

A poor season for the Chiefs makes the NFL generally less interesting to me, but I'll continue to make picks, and to cheer for my second favorite team, the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Wordle 1642 Hint

 Hint: Some people mow it and some people smoke it.

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First Letter: G

Work In Progress ...

Both ends are now tarped. How well? I'll know when 1) wind and 2) rain test them.

Now it has a "porch," thanks to some free pallets in reasonably good shape, too.

Instead of framing exterior walls to replace the canvas and vinyl on the sides, I'm first going to experiment with cutting plywood to fit (I have some leftover 3/8" stock lying around unused, so it's a "free" experiment) and working out a clamping mechanism to hold it in place. If that seems to work well, I'll cut suitable window holes out of the plywood and put in either clear plastic of decent weight, or maybe go full plexiglass. While wind resistance and waterproofing are obvious priorities, my ambition is to come up with a set of walls that are easily popped in and out so that the camper can still be closed up if I want to move it or if a hurricane is inbound.

I've not really done much with the interior yet other than hanging a plastic curtain on one side (to be replaced with heavier "blackout" panels, probably) and some cleaning (including spraying various canvas surfaces with vinegar to kill as much mold as possible, even though most of the canvas will hopefully be coming out).

My target date for moving my home office into it is Friday, as that's when I have a heavy-duty extension cord arriving to power my computer, monitors, etc. That won't be a big power draw -- probably less than 100 watts and maybe 2 or 3 amps for the Mini PC, Raspberry Pi, and either two or three LED TVs-as-monitors combined -- and the camper's internal setup might handle that ... but it might not, and even if it does it's a 35-year-old power setup that's been sitting outside for (checks notes) 35 years. I'll probably use the internal system for nothing heavier than an Echo Dot, a USB charging tower, and maybe a lamp.

Even if the roof (crossed fingers) doesn't leak, I also plan to apply rubber sealant to it in the near future, before I start in with rooftop solar.

Wordle 1641 Hint

Hint: Can we just move on to the next thing?

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First Letter: S

We Have The Technology ...

Yesterday, two items arrived from Amazon -- canvas repair tape and a bulb for the camper's overhead light.

The light isn't working. I'll see if I can figure out why; if it's not an easy fix, I'll get a solar "shed light," put the panel on the roof, and go with that. The little USB desk light I stuck in there until the bulb arrived isn't bad, but it's a little anemic.

By the time I got back from family outings -- during which I bought two tarps and a shower curtain -- it was too dark to mess with the tarps or the tape. I'll probably do some of that today.

The shower curtain was an experiment, and it seems to be a successful one. The camper has fittings for the rods on each side; I did the door side, and it covers pretty much everything except the pop-outs. I'll replace the shower curtain with a heavier cloth curtain, and run velcro strips down each side so that I can seal up the camper at need but just pull the curtain back for window light, etc. otherwise.

I'm thinking I may need to run a heavy extension cord directly into the camper to supplement its internal power hookup. A little "fan heater" threw the internal breaker yesterday, so I don't know that that system can support even my energy-efficient computer/monitors.

Not a big deal -- I can just use the internal setup for lights, an Alexa speaker, etc. Or I may switch the camper's internal over to the 30-amp hookup after getting a 30-amp breaker installed in the house (by an electrician -- I'm not one).

Wordle 1640 Hint

Hint: YOU may not be evasive and suspicious, but today's Wordle is.

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First Letter: D

Starlink at About One Month ...

 ... is still proving a satisfactory (and less expensive) replacement for cable Internet.

That's fairly typical, although it's showing a higher latency than usual.

I've noticed essentially no down time (I think there was an outage of a second or two last week -- by the time I finished reading the "you aren't connected" box when trying to load a site and hit "refresh," it was back up). The wifi unit built into the Starlink router reaches the whole house (and the camper) without any need for boosters/repeaters.

My "when it makes financial sense" shopping list includes a second set of the gear, so that my service isn't down if something fries or whatever.

When will it make financial sense? Perhaps when I've earned a couple of months of free service via my affiliate link. If Starlink seems to fit your needs and you use that link to sign up with them, you'll get a free month of service and so will I.

I suggest shopping around for the equipment. Prices seem to change frequently, but when I bought my "Gen 3 Standard Kit" it was cheaper from Amazon than directly from Starlink. Walmart also carries Starlink gear.

Couldn't Resist ...

I decided to sleep in the "new" camper last night.

Not bad. The "pop-out" bed felt a lot more stable than I expected. The weather was mild (40 degrees or so), so I didn't need heat.

If I decide to do much of that, I'll want a real mattress (the existing ones are about 3" thick).

And of course I'll need to get the thing sealed up better. Canvas repair tape arrives today, but I'll almost certainly be looking at tarps and either permanent framing or temporary wooden inserts (more likely the latter -- I'd like to be able to pop it down for hurricanes) to get the thing reasonably weatherproof.

The AC is a little too much for the 15-amp breaker I'm connected to. I may set up a 30-amp system, but probably not. I don't see any reason why a fan wouldn't be sufficient.

I'm pretty sure the heat runs on propane. I will probably not even try to hook that up. A 35-year-old propane furnace in a trailer with plenty of flammable components ... what could possibly go wrong? A small space heater should be more than sufficient if I decide it's too cold.

Based on some measuring and the way things are laid out (bench seats that I don't want to remove, wheel-wells, that I can't remove, etc., I will probably use the "dinette" table as my desk rather than try to fit my current desk in the trailer. My two computer monitors should fit easily, and for the Raspberry Pi based podcasting rig I'll look into hanging one of my old 19" monitors from either one of the pop up stanchions or the ceiling beam. In fact, I may get that part set up today (partially, anyway -- my uninterruptible power supply won't move out there until I move my entire office setup out).

The front pop-out deck will be used for storage so that Tamara can stop whining about how much space my guitar collection takes up, etc. Obviously I'll want any guitar storage area good and waterproof first. Inside, I'll cover that pop-out with a green screen curtain so that if I want to do video podcasts I can do so "from" other locales.

So far, I've seen no reason to install the vinyl flooring the guy included in the deal. The current flooring is fine -- some kind of black tile in most of the trailer, the original linoleum where the stove/sink used to be -- and I'll probably cover that area with some kind of cabinetry.

Wordle 1639 Hint

 Hint: Mark Knopfler's sultanate.

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First Letter: S

It's Here.

It's parked. It's popped up. It's popped out. It's level. It's braced.

Canvas could use some work? Oh, yes. That will factor into my decision as to whether to keep it "pop-out" or frame it in. The guy did leave me a partial roll of canvas repair tape, so that's all good.

He also left me two boxes of vinyl flooring -- I'll have to decide if I want to bother with that or not.

All it seems to be missing is one pair of the poles for bracing the pop-out beds. I'll find some of those, or just make my own.

As big as I'd like? No. But big enough to be a home office / podcast studio, and the price was definitely right.

Updates, Saturday afternoon:

It wasn't missing the brace poles for one pop-out after all -- they were under the mattress at that end, perfectly logical but I didn't think to look there. Found them while cleaning.

The AC works, but the house breaker I'm on doesn't carry enough amps to sustain it. Since I'm not that big on AC, not problem -- it has a "fan" setting. I expect the breaker will be plenty to handle my energy-efficient computer, energy-efficient monitors, lights, etc.

It had a "roll it out, set it up" awning on the side, but it wasn't in good repair, so I just took it completely off. If I want outdoor shelter, I'll buy one of those cheap pop-up canopies.

I'm undecided as to whether I'll use the included "dinette" as a desk, or pull it out and put my actual desk in its place. Gotta do some measuring.

The canvas is pretty hammered in places. I'll get some canvas repair tape, but may also just tarp over the "pop-outs." Since I have not travel plans for the camper, I can pretty much improvise as I please. So far I'm very happy with what I got for what I spent.

Wordle 1638 Hint

Hint: Penny-pinching skinflint.

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First Letter: M

Wordle 1637 Hint

Hint: Depending on what kind you get, today's Wordle might pickup other things, dump them, tow them, etc.

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First Letter: T

Camper: The Deal Is On

The new (to me) camper will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. 

Until it's actually here, I won't be purchasing what I need for it because I won't know what I'll need for it. Description from the listing:

Jayco pop up camper with electric pop up working ac and title in hand also comes with 2 boxes of new lvp flooring for the inside was used at a hunting camp so inside is gutted other than beds and table and the canvas could use some working on

On query, the seller responded that it does come with the correct adapter for connection to household power. Since the guy is towing it to my house, the tires will have to be holding air. Other than that, who knows? I don't know if if it has leveling blocks, but I suspect not -- based on its previous usage, I suspect it was "let's shove a 2x4 under that wheel ... looks about right!"

I've got canvas repair tape, a "speedy stitcher" sewing awl with thread for canvas,  etc. on my Amazon shopping list and have been watching videos on various aspects of setting up, maintaining, and remodeling that particular type of camper. 

Best case is that I'll have it cleaned out, any major/immediate canvas repairs done, and a nice office / podcasting studio arrangement up and running in it by next weekend. Then I'll decide whether I want to keep the canvas, or frame it into a "hard shell" camper. And after that, I'll start planning a solar conversion.

I found out more about the specs -- it's smaller than I thought. But not too small. Not quite 12' when packed up, a little over 16' with the pop-outs popped out. I don't expect it to be cramped, especially since at least two of the three "bed" spaces won't be used for beds. The shorter than expected length actually works better for where I intend to site it.

Photos, packed up and popped up:

    

Wordle 1636 Hint

Hint: Chad Allan and the Expressions became Who?

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First Letter: G

A Camper, Maybe

It will definitely be a "renovation" project, with the renovations already partly done. It's an old Jayco pop-up that's been used as a hunting cabin. If I get it -- and I'm leaning toward that -- the price will be $720, including the guy towing it to my house instead of me borrowing a friend's truck to go get it.

The renovation jobs that have already been done relate to "gutting" the thing. The sink and stove have already been removed. Since I would have done that anyway (I won't be living in it, just using it for "man cave" and maybe home office/podcast studio functions), that just means some junk I don't have to haul off.

From photos, the floors don't look great ... but the guy is throwing in two boxes of vinyl flooring to address that, and I already have some flooring anyway (our new house got new flooring recently and there was some left over).

The canvas "needs work," because of course it does. But my tentative plan is to get rid of the canvas and frame in "real" walls. I think I can do that for $200 at most -- plywood, a large plexiglass sheet for a nice window, and some hardware to make things collapsible so that the pop-up can still be popped down (more likely because a hurricane is coming than because I want to take it anywhere). I even have some paint (again, left over from the remodel of our new house) if I want to give it an interior paint job, and a friend with the requisite commercial spray equipment if I want to do the exterior.

About 16' collapsed, about 21' popped up and out. I may leave the pop-outs in canvas but refurbish them rather than trying to frame collapsible stuff for them.

Bonus features: The AC works, and it comes with the adapter to let the thing use household power.

I don't plan to use household power forever, though. Once I get the thing remodeled the way I want, the next step will be collapsible rooftop solar.

Still tentative, but if the deal happens I'll post before, during, and after photos of the renovation.

NFL Week 15 Picks

Week 15 of the NFL season kicks off tomorrow night with the Atlanta Falcons going up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My picks:

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Atlanta Falcons
• Chicago Bears beat Cleveland Browns
• Baltimore Ravens beat Cincinnati Bengals*
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Los Angeles Chargers*
• New England Patriots beat Buffalo Bills*
• New York Giants beat Washington Commanders
• Philadelphia Eagles beat Las Vegas Raiders
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat New York Jets
• Houston Texans beat Arizona Cardinals
• Denver Broncos beat Green Bay Packers
• Detroit Lions beat Los Angeles Rams*
• Carolina Panthers  beat Los Angeles Rams
• San Francisco 49ers beat Tennessee Titans
• Seattle Seahawks beat Indianapolis Colts
• Dallas Cowboys beat Minnesota Vikings
• Miami Dolphins beat Pittsburgh Steelers*

"Upset" picks --  predicted outcomes that go against the majority picks among those playing ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em game as of the time I make my picks -- are marked with asterisks. If I change any picks, I will do so before the games in question kick off and clearly mark changes as changes in updates to this post.

Wordle 1635 Hint

Hint: There's a Wordle hint here now, but if I made that hint go away, that would be today's Wordle. 

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First Letter: E

NFL Week 14 Results

Eight right, six wrong for the week. Meh.  Apparently many others had a pretty meh week as well -- I moved up from 77.4th to the 78.7th percentile among players in ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em Game. Correct picks in green, incorrect picks in red:

• Detroit Lions beat Dallas Cowboys
• Seattle Seahawks beat Atlanta Falcons
• Cleveland Browns beat Tennessee Titans
• Washington Commanders beat Minnesota Vikings
• Miami Dolphins beat New York Jets
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat New Orleans Saints
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Indianapolis Colts*
• Baltimore Ravens beat Pittsburgh Steelers
• Buffalo Bills beat Cincinnati Bengals
• Denver Broncos beat Las Vegas Raiders
• Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers*
• Los Angeles Rams beat Arizona Cardinals
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Houston Texans
• Los Angeles Chargers beat Philadelphia Eagles*

Wordle 1634 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is insulting, but indirectly. 

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1633 Hint

 Hint: Neither biscuits nor mashed potatoes are the same without it. 

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First Letter: G

Wordle 1632 Hint

 Hint: A wind instrument, or a wine glass. 

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First Letter: F 

Definitely Worth The Outing

Yesterday, I put on my yellow track suit with black stripes and rode my yellow motorcycle down to the theater to meet reader GregL, where we took in all four hours and 41 minutes of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

I'd only seen it on DVD/streaming before -- when the two halves were released, I had young kids, so most of my big-screen viewing was of movies you'd take young kids to.

Definitely worth seeing at the theater ... if it's your kind of thing in the first place.

It's my kind of thing. I've been a fan of Quentin Tarantino's movies since Pulp Fiction; that film and Kill Bill are my two favorites (Tamara seems to prefer Reservoir Dogs and Inglorious Basterds).

I'm a little bit younger than Tarantino, and I grew up in the midwest while he grew up in LA, but I think we have a shared a sense of nostalgia for the early 1970s in general and its movies and TV in particular. Even when he's being cagey about precisely what period one of his films is set in (my two favorites seem to hop back and forth in terms of cars, clothing, set items, etc.), most of them, most of the time, feel like they are set in that time period, could have been made in that time period, or both.

Also, there's just a different feel between movies shot on 35mm film and movies shot in digital, and it's been a long time since I've seen the former at the theater.

Wordle 1631 Hint

 Hint: The "24" component of the "ideal hourglass" figure. 

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First Letter: W

Camper Recommendations Bleg

I'm thinking about buying a camper trailer.

That's kind of a compromise.

For quite some time, I've thought I'd like to find and buy an old trailer and build a tiny house on it. The original idea was that my youngest might get involved and then decide to "move out of the house" and into it, and if not then I'd just use it for man cave activities (playing guitar, perhaps setting up a little studio and going back to podcast), maybe even using it regularly as my home office.

But really, by the time I found an appropriate trailer, bought the lumber, etc., and framed the thing up, I'd have spent a lot more money than if I just bought a used "pop-up" or 17- or 20-foot camper. And the latter would probably be easier vis a vis title, plates, etc. I'm seeing "pop-ups" from $500-$1000 and regular camper trailers in reasonably good condition for $1-2k in my area.

Thing is, the last time I had anything to do with campers, it was as a kid and they were the kind that you put on over the bed of a pickup truck. So I know very little about them.

The only specs I'm firm on is that I want a trailer-hitch-towable (not "fifth wheel") camper, not a motorized RV, and that I want at least a 16-footer and not more than a 23-footer.

I suspect a "pop-up" may be less desirable simply because I'm less interested in towing the thing to camping spots than I am in setting it up semi-permanently and using it on a daily or near-daily basis. But I could be wrong on that. Maybe a "pop-up" would be just fine. Probably less hurricane-damage vulnerable, as when one was coming I could just pop it back down until the storm passed.

I'm not too worried about plumbing. It would be parked convenient to the house, so I would likely not even bother with whatever's involved in hooking that stuff up. Electric needs would likely be minimal -- computer/TV stuff, but once again, near the house so no fridge needs, etc., and if it's too hot or cold I'd probably just stay inside rather than run heat or AC out there.

Anyway, y'all got recommendations based on experience? If so, please share. Right now the two campers on my radar are a 17' 2004 Fleetwood "pop-up" and a 17' 2001 Keystone Cabana.

Wordle 1630 Hint

 Hint: Today's Wordle is surrounded (and of the same class as that which surrounds it). 

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1629 Hint

Hint: Tiny Tim tiptoes among its plural. 

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First Letter: T

NFL Week 14 Picks

Week 14 of the NFL season starts tomorrow night with the Cowboys vs. the Lions. My picks:

• Detroit Lions beat Dallas Cowboys
• Seattle Seahawks beat Atlanta Falcons
• Cleveland Browns beat Tennessee Titans
• Washington Commanders beat Minnesota Vikings
• Miami Dolphins beat New York Jets
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat New Orleans Saints
• Jacksonville Jaguars beat Indianapolis Colts*
• Baltimore Ravens beat Pittsburgh Steelers
• Buffalo Bills beat Cincinnati Bengals
• Denver Broncos beat Las Vegas Raiders
• Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers*
• Los Angeles Rams beat Arizona Cardinals
• Kansas City Chiefs beat Houston Texans
• Los Angeles Chargers beat Philadelphia Eagles*

"Upset" picks --  predicted outcomes that go against the majority picks among those playing ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em game as of the time I make my picks -- are marked with asterisks. If I change any picks, I will do so before the games in question kick off and clearly mark changes as changes in updates to this post.

I don't follow "sports analysis" very closely, but I came across this "power rankings" column yesterday. It's ... interesting. I disagree with the inclusion of the Kansas City Chiefs as "strong challengers" to go all the way to the Super Bowl.  I suspect they'll make the Wild Card playoff round by the skin of their teeth, but I'll be very surprised if they make it to the AFC Championship Game, let alone the Super Bowl.

At this point, I expect the AFC Championship to come down to either the Broncos or the Jaguars against the Patriots, and the NFC to come down to either the Cowboys or the Bears against the Rams. But things could change.