Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I’m watching a little Spring Training baseball, trying to get in the mood after a frigid winter. There are a lot of things to write about today but I think I need a nap. Maybe I’ll do some late night writing after I get some early evening zzz’s.
What’s on your mind?
Despite suffering through our crappy Hudson Valley winter, I’m sitting here watching Living Alaska. Sigh.
Deja vu?
enjoying the comments on Aaron Schock’s resignation, evidently bilked the taxpayers out of $$ and rumor has it he’ll be on his way to jail.
of course listened to
No One as Irish as Barack Obama a few times, but missed the parade
From a month ago. Had to hold onto it as there wasn’t an appropriate thread to stick it in.
BNR EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Schock Sells Home Above Market Value to Political Donor
Not up to Schock’s Downton Abbey standards. Now he can say adios to Peoria as well.
the clincher it seems was getting reimbursed for 170,000 miles on his car, but when he turned the car in it only had total 80,000 mi. 57 cents per mile. I actually don’t understand what he was thinking
Not one of those things that’s open to interpretation. Expense account padding is common among the white collar set and surprisingly is rarely challenged. Most often used as an easy way to get rid of an unacceptable employee. Otherwise, fudging on company car allowances is tolerated because it costs the company less and gives the employee more than a salary increase could produce.
57 cents a mile is actually a lot. Businesses don’t give anywhere near that. Also, it’s dumb to claim 170,000 miles when the odometer only had 80,000. You didn’t even need Carfax to check that out. Hell Carfax is more used to make sure crooks aren’t rolling back the miles on a car.
Yes, that reimbursement amount is normal. I get reimbursed $0.55 per mile when I travel in my own car.
That’s good. It’s one thing Congress is doing right then. One area they haven’t set themselves above everyone else.
Claimed he drove 170,000 miles out of 80,000 (sic!) on government business. No chance of an error interpreting the rules here. Straight out criminal fraud. Should be arrested but IOKIYAR.
My company is about to file bankruptcy and I’m not allowed to see my daughter because my soon to be ex said so, I guess.
Beat that story, I dare you:)
Totally true, though:/
Trader Joe’s walnut recall. Guess it’s good that I delayed on making that carrot cake with the fresh walnuts I purchased a few days ago:
Product: Trader Joe’s Nuts Raw California Walnut Halves & Pieces – 16oz
UPC Code: 00943338
BEST BY: 12/2015
Lot Number: GU4346; GU4349; GU4356
Once upon a time, consumers had a choice between shelled and unshelled walnuts. Once the price of the former wasn’t significantly more than unshelled walnuts, thrifty bakers switched. Can’t return now to shelling my own (not that I want to) because they aren’t easy to find and more a luxury than a commodity good.
Kind of hard to grow your own too. Not easy like apples.
CA is a huge Ag state, but we very little is home grown. Mostly too dry and hot for apples, and there’s not much room for an apple tree once the pool goes in.
Have fond memories of a time when foraging blackberries was possible and bags of home-grown surplus apples were dumped on me. Turned it into the best ever blackberry jam and apple butter.
There are varieties that thrive in California. They were bred in Israel, so you might not like that. I know for a fact that peaches will grow in San Diego (fog makes up for lack of chill). And, of course, there is always Citrus fruit.
So many micro-cultures that there’s not much that won’t grow well in CA. I was speaking in terms of crop prevalence.
Fresh CA peaches (not sure where they’re grown) have recently become extremely good when in the past they were generally mealy.
SoCal oranges are still wonderful but not as plentiful — the groves were chopped down and replaced with houses. (The ants adjusted and remained.) Lemon and limes may be one of the more common homegrown fruits.
Ace Cider began in the 1990s with a small, neglected apple orchard. iirc most had been torn out and replaced with grapes. The Ace Pear Cider IMHO is the best.
The thing is that CA house lots are small and over the decades have gotten smaller. Not much room for a garden and droughts have become more frequent over that same time period.
Don’t know if you have a lot or if you are interested but you can do a lot with M-27 double-dwarfs and Bud-9, M-9, or Poland p-2 dwarfs. If you are interested, maybe you’re not. It’s kind of a hobby of mine. My 7000 sq ft lot is covered with trees. I realize that’s actually a big lot in SoCal, although pitifully small in the South.
Let me know if you are interested in backyard fruit growing. Apricots are another possibility, I think. I’d have to ask my apricot expert.
Always been interested. Houses with land meant no time. Apartments with time, no land and/or money. Very slight allergies ended my house plant days. Just checked on a house that I owned a dozen years ago with a 1/4 acre that I would very much have liked to landscape. Nothing’s been done to it. Same old huge expanse of crappy grass. What a nightmare that I don’t miss in the least.
About ten years ago I looked up a house I used to own near Dulles airport on .42 acres. Fifteen fruit trees and three grape vines. The Zillow picture looked like a rain forest. Actually, that’s good for Northern Virginia because you can sit in a lawn chair under the canopy and be shaded. Somebody had just bought it for half a million. I had sold it in 1979 for $71,000. Checked again five years ago. The guy who bought it in 2005 took a $300,000 bath. The new owner took down the fence and all the trees and had a monster RV parked in the back yard. Sad. They do say, “Don’t look back.”