What are /r/texas' favorite Products & Services?

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NY Times does a good job comparing Perry to the man he's supposed to replace

> Mr. Perry, who once called for the elimination of the Energy Department, will begin the confirmation process Thursday with a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee. If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.

>For Mr. Moniz, the future of nuclear science has been a lifelong obsession; he spent his early years working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-donald-trump.html?_r=0

Decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana has been part of Beto's platform since before he was in congress.

Somebody in another thread pointed out that he wrote a book on it in 2011

Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico

I spent a week over christmas this year up in the mountains. Our car met the minimum colorado tire requirements for winter weather - all weather tires with the M/S symbol.

However, we could not get up the drive way into the place we stayed at all. Slipped and slid and got ourselves stuck and finally parked on the road and hiked it in.

Meanwhile our three friends cars including a very unassuming honda civic zipped right up the damn driveway.

Of course she had $1500 snow tires, making a huge difference.

I had always thought it was mainly the four wheel drive that helped, and it does, but the tires are hugely helpful too to reduce sliding, improve acceleration and lower breaking distances

Add that to limited snow plow and sanding trucks down here...

So to everyone saying none of us can drive - yeah that's true too, but for this one its not (entirely) our fault

If any body with this info are reading this: Wikileaks is this way. Also for good measure, anybody at Baylor with access to the Pepper Hamilton report. These are the things Wikileaks was created for.

Give what up? Making valid points against your argument? Here's an article regarding how clean chicken is in case you thought I was making things up.

You are absolutely right. Muslims used to predominantly vote for the republican party, 70% voted for Bush in 2000 (http://www.metafilter.com/121606/70-of-Muslims-in-America-voted-for-Bush-in-2000). I doubt the Republicans will ever get those voters back.

I'm just showing people the awful things you have said. You still have your /r/ conservative safe space lol.

https://imgur.com/a/dBVTJkI

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I'd like to send him a photo of a skillet shaped like Texas with the pan handle being used, but sadly, that isn't how they're doing it. This thing makes me want to kick someone... (sfw)

This was a good article, really good, but I wish we could drop the assumption that health insurance = health care because for many it absolutely does not. I honestly do not care how many have health insurance if it does nothing preventative until they've needlessly suffered through it painfully for years and now its going to cost all of us an arm and a leg.

I have a friend who had weak teeth, couldnt afford preventative dental care. The county recently gave him a heart transplant because the resulting infection destroyed his heart. I brought this up to my hospital board.... this one quarter of a million dollar procedure (or more, I have no idea) could have provided preventative care for like a thousand people or more.

Even the ACA does little to address this. The preventative care list that all insurance plans are required to offer is a joke. So millions of Texans arent insured and thats bad. And some more millions of us have some kind of bullshit insurance plan. Well thats kinda good but its goddamn sure not "healthcare".

This is especially scary:

> Employer purchased group health insurance premiums for families in the United States are now in excess of $16,000 (which is shared between employer and employee). For a worker earning minimum wage of $7.25/hour over a 2,000-hour year, that premium now exceeds the worker’s annual wage.

So when you hire someone half of their "pay" goes to everything they need to survive in this world...food, shelter, water, heat. Things they absolutely have to have every single day. And the other half goes to a risk pool in case something catastrophic happens to them (like when/if they cant afford food or water, etc) so the rest of us dont have to pay. Thats fucked up.

Truth. Recommended reading to anyone here interested in this bit of history: https://www.amazon.com/Injustice-Never-Leaves-You-Anti-Mexican/dp/0674976436

Edit: If cost is an issue, Harris County Public Library, Houston Public Library, and Montgomery County Memorial Library System all own copies of the book for borrowing. Library cards are free for residents!

Man, I've lived in both San Antonio and the Houston area, and San Antonio is far less humid. You'll be fine.
Edit: Check out the average humidity graphs https://weatherspark.com/y/9247/Average-Weather-in-Houston-Texas-United-States-Year-Round vs https://weatherspark.com/y/7137/Average-Weather-in-San-Antonio-Texas-United-States-Year-Round Houston is about twice as oppressive as San Antonio.

really? where? 2014 explicitly states that the Tesla Model S was average.

http://pressroom.consumerreports.org/.a/6a00e551f37027883301b8d0854953970c-popup

I can understand that, somehow, unexplainably, the Texas shaped waffles just taste better. I'll agree it's not logical, but it also seems to be true.

Edit: For your Daughter... The Texas Waffle Maker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012A8AWW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ylu2DbMP007JF

Its called a Mesoscale Convective Vortex. It's a low-pressure center that can continue to produce rain long after the storm system dissipates. Think of it as a weak hurricane eye over land. I couldn't get the gif uploaded but here's a video showing the MCV. https://streamable.com/awp7

The skies may not turn green <em>because</em> of hail, but almost every time I've seen a green sky it was accompanied with hail or tornadoes.

>>But nothing actually happened to Kim Davis > >Not true. > > >She lost her State a lot of money to civil suits.

She doesn't give a shit about that, she's a republican, she could give a rat's ass about losing money for her state. The Y'all qaeda see it as fighting for a cause and don't care. The only people who suffered from that are the lower class people who use the state's abismall welfare programs and the state's various organizations.

She currently still holds her position and is probably going to win again because the county has no legal way of removing her nor do the politicians in that county even want to.

> >And better secured the law for same-sex marriage by making challenges and getting new case law to support same sex marriage > >That's a double loss for her cause.

I'm not really against that claim but do you have a source on that? It seems like that claim doesn't really have any bearing on anything past drumming up action with lawyers.

Obergefell v. Hodges was what allowed same-sex marriage in Kentucky in the first place. I guess it created new case law for clerks not doing their jobs but I feel that's a dubious claim at best.

> >Finally, She gained a larger following for a seat that was already 100% safe, sure, but now has a Democratic Challenger with a compelling story, win or lose, who gets followers for the cause of reason. > >https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/06/568881497/kim-davis-once-denied-him-a-marriage-license-now-kentucky-man-seeks-her-job > > A triple loss.

Hopefully she loses that seat, but with that Kentucky county being mostly rural, I'm heavily doubting the Democrats will win in such a red area.

If you go to the healthcare.gov website and check for a single person in Texas with an income below $11,700, you are informed that the level of income is not enough to qualify for Medicaid in Texas:

>"Since your state isn't expanding Medicaid, you won't qualify for Medicaid based on income alone. But you may qualify for Medicaid based on your income, family status, disability, and other factors."

You are also told that the income is below the range needed for a discounted price on the Marketplace plans:

>"Your income also falls below the range needed to qualify for savings on an insurance plan. If you wanted to buy a Marketplace plan, you'd have to pay full price."

This has happened because in Texas you must be poor <em>and</em> pregnant, a caretaker of children, blind, disabled, and/or 65 years old or older. It's not enough to just be poor.

lol. Really? You think someone who has passed all of the background checks, paid the fees, and taken the course is going to put their freedom at risk by using the CHL to purchase guns and move them to the black market?

You do realize that all a CHL does is allow you to bypass the already fairly-instant NICS background check right? There is no other advantage. There are no maximum number of guns you can purchase with or without a CHL, and there are no waiting periods with or without the CHL.

Sorry, but you are ignorant of the laws for which you argue against and have lost your credibility as a result. Just for your future knowledge, here is an eHow article on how to buy a gun in Texas: http://www.ehow.com/how_2060001_buy-gun-texas.html

Right here.

Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas by UT Press is a great start https://www.amazon.com/Anglos-Mexicans-Making-Texas-1836-1986/dp/0292775962

Almost every single English documentary is a distillation of Manifest Destiny narrative. Don't really consider that empirical or accurate.

Yeah, I'm not ashamed of this. I don't think Nazi sympathizers should be able to post cute cat pics and make jokes with the rest of us without people knowing.

Look at this persons post history.

And.....

https://imgur.com/a/dBVTJkI

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Get your alt right booty outta here

Not all Republicans are Nazis but all Nazis are Republican.

Also!.....

You ready?

Here we go! My favorite part!

https://imgur.com/a/dBVTJkI

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Unfuckingbelievable: Weather Channels Emergency Info for evacuees blocked by Cable Paywall.

I would hate for your kid's first Whataburger experience to be a reheated burger. Make it a road trip and I bet your kids will love it.

I will cover your hotel if you drive down there, for two nights. I'll be using points, so it will need to be a Hilton property.

If you want to take me up on this, just PM me the dates, your legal name, and the property you'd like to stay at.

*ETA: I've never been to Amarillo. If it's not worth spending two nights there, then any other city is fine. The only requirement is there must be a Whataburger there and it must be in Texas.

> The saying in Texas is "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute."

That phrase is actually used in basically every single location in the United States!

https://www.quora.com/What-place-uses-the-phrase-If-you-dont-like-the-weather-wait-five-minutes

>I would imagine that this phrase is going to become more and more popular when talking about the weather.

Yup. I could strap on my tinfoil hat and spitball for days about this.

Compare "feels like" temperatures - Houston is hotter, at least at the peak:

https://weatherspark.com/m/9247/8/Average-Weather-in-August-in-Houston-Texas-United-States

https://weatherspark.com/m/8004/8/Average-Weather-in-August-in-Austin-Texas-United-States

Two years ago, Anchorage got up to 90 degrees which struck me as pretty much inconceivable, having grown up there myself.

The US Army calls these battle drills. It's based off the doctrine of "train you fight". When under stress, humans revert to training. There's an AskReddit thread up right now about being on autopilot. That's what this means.

Training refers specifically to the things you do all the time. Humans love routine. Some call them rituals. For my wife, the act of washing her face makes her sleepy because it's almost always the last thing she does before bed.

Our brains are the most advanced pattern recognition machines we know of. In fact, we have a small amount of proof that habits, routines, and rituals are stored in a different part of the brain than other memories such that a person with brain damage that prevents the formation of new memories can still learn new habits, routines, and rituals.

I used to work for a guy who said "do routine things routinely". I translated that as "if you do it every time, you'll do it every time". That's what "training" boils down to: habits, routines, and rituals.

Pilots have checklists. Like, endless, boring, borderline insulting checklists. This is done on purpose. If you do it every time, you'll do it every time. As a result, airplanes have an extremely low death rate compared to ground vehicles.

Check out the book "The Power of Habit" if you'd like to know more. It talks about the science and research into habits, how they work, how to build ones you want, and how to break ones you don't want. It's really interesting.

But even that book boils down to this: if you do it every time, you'll do it every time.

Galveston doesn't get too crowded around spring break — the college kids head further south — but it's liable to still be pretty cold (for Texas) and overcast and rainy. There's camping available on the island at the Galveston State Park.

And for stuff to do, this ran in the New York Times today https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/19/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-galveston-texas.html?_r=1

The best I've found is this section in the book "Flash Floods of Texas" on Google Books:

September 1952 Pedernales River Flood

Key bits:

• Some areas of the drainage got 26" of rain in one day.

• Prior to the storm, inflow was less than 1k cubic feet per second. During the storm, it averaged over 600k cfs for 10+ hours.  

• Lake Travis went up 44 feet in 11 hours, and 57 feet in less than 24 hours; the volume of the lake tripled in a single day

There’s some exaggeration about bugs in here so I’m concerned you might think the temperature is an exaggeration too. It’s not. Here’s last September in nearby Waco:

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/waco/KACT/date/2021-9

Besides that, you’re going to want to take a shower to get ready for the wedding, and I seriously doubt the wedding venue will have a shower for you to use. I wouldn’t count on them having a room for you to get dressed in either, I don’t know what kind of venue it is but I don’t think that’s standard.

Lol, I think it's safe to assume by this comment that you don't know know what the word sensible even means. Fuck, you can't even spell it.

As I said I would earlier, I did a statistical analysis based on NOAA data. Last week was decidedly not average June weather. Highs ranged between 94-99 and 99; averaged 97. 97 is right at the 80th+ percentile for any given day in June. Statistically speaking, an entire week of days at the 80th+ percentile is “unusual”.

Despite reduced generating capacity, we were **never at a point of emergency. A conservation alert is a nonbinding advisory/request. It does not entail rolling blackouts, nor is it an emergency.

The hyperbole is unbelievable.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/dallas/75202/june-weather/351194

https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/o3ll0u/an_unusually_hot_june_to_put_the_recent_heat_into/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmf

In states that expanded Medicaid coverage, you can qualify based on income alone:

>"Whether you qualify for Medicaid coverage depends partly on whether your state has expanded its program.

>* In all states: You can qualify for Medicaid based on income, household size, disability, family status, and other factors. Eligibility rules differ between states.

>* In states that have expanded Medicaid coverage: You can qualify based on your income alone. If your household income is below 133% of the federal poverty level, you qualify. (Because of the way this is calculated, it turns out to be 138% of the federal poverty level. A few states use a different income limit.)"

By the way for all the folks going on about how it is the law and he is forced to get ACA insurance, the maximum fine for he and his wife both is $650 per year for 2015. For him a pittance. So you can stop pretending he will be sent to Guantanamo.

Source: https://www.healthcare.gov/fees-exemptions/fee-for-not-being-covered/

aaaand here's 2013

>At the other end, the high-tech, high-test-scoring Tesla Model S earned an average predicted reliability score, enabling us to formally recommend it.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/2013-consumer-reports-reliability-survey/index.htm

What's the climate like where you are coming from? It can be pretty intense here in the summer. Here is a source for average weather conditions in the area: https://weatherspark.com/y/145920/Average-Weather-at-Dallas-Fort-Worth-International-Airport-Texas-United-States-Year-Round

Fair enough. I can get down with that. But at the same time while you'd point to the FCC as being the main culprit I'd whole heartedly disagree and say that the financial backers of the particular institutions are the reason for the coverage. Even PBS hasn't been left untouched by corporate propaganda to pacify big name donors.

Edit:It is also worth noting that the media in the United States has been systematically deregulated starting in the 1980's. Even your link stated one of the provisions that was eradicated under the FCC. It is a stretch in my opinion to say that the reason our media is so corrupt is because of the government when the regulation of the media from the United States government is at a 60 year low.

Agreed. Love the quote by Ryan Dochuk, founder of a Toronto-based company called TunnelBear that offers Internet encryption services:

>Dochuk is guardedly optimistic: “Technology can move much faster than these governments, and I think over time, these groups will be successful getting information and freedom out.”

Here's a map of current national snow ground cover.

Not on that map, though, is the Cloudcroft area, halfway between Roswell and Alamogordo, where they are getting enough to open for tubing. Probably a few hours closer than northern NM for most Texans.

~~Only Texans will understand~~

"People pretty much everywhere will understand, with the possible exceptions of a few places where the temperature doesn't change much, like Hawaii."

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year carried out more than 72,000 deportations of parents who said they had U.S.-born children, according to reports to Congress obtained Wednesday by The Huffington Post.

Here

I guess the Huff was a right wing rag back then? Please...

>The reports show that even parents of U.S. citizens are among the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants being expelled from the United States each year. They hold particular significance as President Barack Obama faces pressure to change his deportation policies to keep families together. Obama’s deportation policies are under increased scrutiny by those in both political parties as the House stalls on immigration reform and the government scrambles to deal with an influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border illegally. While opponents of immigration reform have argued that Obama’s lax enforcement is attracting new unauthorized immigrants, reform advocates are turning to the White House to slow deportations.

By the way, will you admit now that there is a REAL crisis at the border? Are you still sticking with the "it a manufactured crisis by Trump" line that most of the left are running away from now?

Here is the number that I've found:

820 F.Supp.2d 1273 (2011)

Here's the link to where I found the number. There appears to be a large amount of information about this particular case available.

I don't have an answer to your question, but I was just at La Cantera Barnes & Noble last night and saw this book in the San Antonio/Texas section. Looks like it would have the history of a number of streets in SA. It was on the Starbucks side by the Nook display if you're interested.

Yeah, about Pedernales...

On the bright side, aside from the rain, it'll be pretty nice camping weather there this weekend.

There's a site that generates completely new 'people' mugshots with an AI. The people don't actually exist though. Use something like that.

Here. Just copy the image and refresh for a new one.

Depends on the steak. For the ribeye I'm just going to do salt, pepper, and oil.

My "secret" sauce, however, is a little thing called gochujang. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Gochujang Everyone loves it.

My other "secret" is to use shacha, but I like it more than most people so it isn't as big a crowd pleaser to some as gochujang. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shacha_sauce When I'm by myself though, I have two types of shacha and I use them liberally :-)!

Debbie Mckee did some detective work (eg called all their offices and asked if they supported it) and came up with this list): <https://www.facebook.com/notes/debbie-mckee/hb-1937-here-is-a-list-of-senators-to-pressure/10150206613282258>

Davis, Duncan, Ellis, Eltife,Gallegos, Hinojosa, Jackson, Ogden, Rodriguez, Seliger, Uresti, VandePutte, Watson, Wentworth, Whitmire, Zaffirini,

>EDIT: I just realized you linked to an article in Gawker. Are you serious?

Glenn Greenwald wrote the piece. It's not like I linked off to Sam Biddle or something. How about dealing with the article instead of bitching and moaning about where the article was posted. If it makes you feel any better:

https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/arrest-14-year-old-student-making-clock-fruits-15-years-fear-mongering-anti-muslim-animus/

Interestingly, according to Market Watch, the Cowboys are America's favorite team. And they polled almost 4x the number of people.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dallas-cowboys-are-again-americas-favorite-football-team-2011-10-05

It's too bad you don't like beans. My doctor told me it's mainly because I eat lentils and pintos instead of meat during the week that I'm able to eat disgusting, delicious, greasy beef and pork on the weekends without my cholesterol going through the roof. He was genuinely shocked that my bloodwork came out so well.

Have you tried borracho (drunken) beans? That's pintos made with beer. They are god-tier and really easy to make, especially if you have a crockpot.

(Also, I kind of addressed your questions about gravy and canned veggies when I responded to roastsnail's reply to you, below.)

I believe the source quote to this is...

"If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

• Mark Twain.

a source

https://www.amazon.com/dp/069621184X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_N1EQ3WCR8H0H4A2PHH36

There is also a plumbing one and general home improvement one. These are pretty solid books for beginners. They definitely won't make you a pro, but they're written by pros assuming zero basic knowledge and enough in them to make you competent

Here it is on Amazon.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B002SYP8SA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_cW4cFbTMHHATV

Also check the soffetts (vents that are under the eves of your roof). Some of mine were nothing but a hole punched out with a hammer and even clogged with insulation.

I took off each vent cover, took a reciprocating saw and cut out a hole big enough that the vents would just cover it. Also pushed back any insulation that would block the circulation of air.

No.

Sure, you'll probably get some jokes about not being from Texas.

I recommend "Fixin to be Texan"

https://www.amazon.com/Fixin-Be-Texan-Helen-Bryant/dp/1556226489

It's a fun book.

They documentary is partially based on this book. It was actually a well documented occurrence of the Rangers to do back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are several other books detailing them. Here's the trailer for the documentary

https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Biography-Houston-Texas-Classics/dp/0292770405

Boom. There you go. Excellent book covering the highs and lows and everything in between. Find it at your local library if you don't need your own copy.

Maybe not grocery stores, but you can def do it online.

tar

feathers

There's more than one way to charge a battery. Wind, solar, car engine, a small fire.

You can only plan for so much. The Generac is no good if the natural gas wells freeze over again like last time. You can't charge quickly off of solar panels if it's overcast. You can't charge with wind if it's too still. You can't charge off of your car if you're out of gas. We're all reliant on society coming back online at some point.

More long term I'm intending to get either a Ford Lightning or a Rivian. Those batteries are large enough to power a home on emergency power for a week (assuming you don't have to go anywhere). I'm also close to being done on my new home that's essentially a giant heat battery. That, combined with solar and very efficient HVAC should get us to the point that even if we lose power for a week it'll be comfortable in there. I'm working in there most evenings right now finishing stuff up and it never gets below 60 with 0 power, even with it being below freezing some nights. The heater in my current house is running at least an hour or 3 a day to keep the temperature even moderately consistent.

We're several years out from being complete, but eventually we should be in a good position to handle whatever the weather and an ailing grid can throw at us.

This one was so un-romanticized republicans sicced their purge culture on it. It's a surprisingly accurate while light-handed and fun read.

https://www.amazon.com/Forget-Alamo-Rise-Fall-American/dp/1984880098

Haven’t been to PK but I’ve used AllTrails for other TX parks and had good success - they have a set of trails and reviews for PK too: https://www.alltrails.com/parks/us/texas/possum-kingdom-state-park

Took me about 8 months to write. Another two months to edit. Published it three days ago, and now just trying to get the word out to people I think nah be interested! It’s free on Kindle Unlimited.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKLT4LW4

It is! Available on Amazon and Free on Kindle Unlimited.

Here's a quick blurb: When the people of Waxahachie, Texas wake to find themselves cut off from the rest of the world and surrounded by an unfamiliar and dangerous wilderness, they must work together to survive and unravel the cause of the mysterious 'seam'.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKLT4LW4

May I recommend a wearable umbrella?

Glad you liked it! I'm pursuing my Ph.D. right now and teach undergraduate courses so I enjoy pointing people toward information they find interesting.

For further reading on the topic, you can search for that paper on scholar.google.com and look at what publications have cited to the 2009 article. This will direct you to lots of other papers on the topic.

Additionally, if you're interested at all in the historical and comparative contexts of economics and how economic and social policies can effect national trajectories, I strongly recommend the book Why Nations Fail which is outside of my area of expertise but provides some really interesting perspectives!

P.S. - I promise I'm not the author of this book trying to make $$ lmao

Yup, Weather Underground has a nice tool as well. It starts hitting the 90's in March. Geez.

It was barely a high of 60° in the SF Bay Area today, was like 50° around 8pm when I was outside grilling.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/austin/KAUS/date/2020-3

I was curious and found this neat little tool.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/tx/austin/KAUS/date/2019-12-25

Last year it was 69 on Xmas and the year before it was 72. It’s not weird to have short sleeve Xmas here.

What part of Texas is this? It's 77 in Brownsville today with a low of 64.

> How can so many people support politicians like Ted Cruz and political parties like the GOP?

This tells you everything you need to know:

The Brainwashing of My Dad

The US Revolution did have a lot to do with slavery. I recommend The Counter-Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne. Problems in the Caribbean (largely from communities of freemen and escaped slaves) had England headed toward abolition slavery in the colonies and the founders knew it. It absolutely was a factor in the decision to revolt.

https://www.amazon.com/Counter-Revolution-1776-Resistance-Origins-America/dp/1536666777

Real question: Does anyone know of a Texas-shaped waffle iron that does the flip-to-cook thing? Like this: https://www.amazon.com/BELLA-13991-Non-Stick-Removeable-Stainless/dp/B00ESDVSTC? I have been looking for one for years.

Or forcing combined cycle NG plants that normally run 60% efficient to turn off the steam plant and run 40% efficient so they can quickly load balance the renewables when a cloud passes over. Or their REC sales, etc etc.

Great book that touches on the subject if you’re interested: https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric/dp/1735358002

Nope. Only when you look at the auction prices, which allow the renewable to undercut everybody else with their production tax credits, and don’t take into account all the shenanigans this forces others on the grid to perform for load balancing. Total system cost is getting ever higher.

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric/dp/1735358002

Goodbye to a River: A Narrative by John Graves

It's a memoir of sorts of times the author spent on/around the Brazos River. I haven't read it all yet, but it's well written and an enjoyable read. https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-River-Narrative-John-Graves/dp/0375727787

if your mini-fidge is peltier cooler instead of compressor based it might use as much as all your other fridges combined. Get one of these and measure how much your fridges use https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU

Chest coolers are by far the most efficient type. Some "normal" units are pretty bad in comparison. Mini fridges can be notoriously inefficient especially if they don't use compressors. For reference, my chest freezer uses 4X less power than my main fridge. And I used to have a small wine cooler without compressor that used more than both.

if your water heater electric? With 5 adults it can use a shitload of power, maybe as much as your HVAC. You can get a heat-pump based one that uses less than half the power. Since you have so many people make sure to get one with resistive grid auxiliary power since you might run over the heat pump capacity occasionally.

Electric dryer is another big use for a large family. Again, you can get a heat pump based one that's far more efficient. I would definitely start with the water heater though.

I would replace the small condenser with a high efficiency mini split and run it a few degrees cooler than main system to AC shift load to the more efficient unit.

Check out the EER of your condensers. An old one might be 3X less efficient than yours from 2013. It might save you a ton of money to run the small one maxed out and the large only when needed

Btw, buy one of these to keep in your trunk. Instant jump with no need for AAA or another car. Set a reminder to charge it about every 2 months... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DWSYYZR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Here!

It’s currently “unavailable” though. The H-E-B doesn’t show in the photo but I’m certain that this is the pack it came in.

We haven't had any issues with winds up to ~20 mph so far.

I used this hardware to anchor the four corners. I used the turnbuckles so if the wind kicks up too much I can easily unhook it and take it inside so it doesn't get damaged. I practiced and it took me more time to move the ladder around than it did to unhook it and move it inside.

I used metal cable to anchor the two ends opposite the house. Took about 20-25 feet total of cable for both corners. One of the anchor points is a post we put in to hold our railroad ties up and the other anchor is an old basketball pole that my neighbors had that they were throwing away. Cement for the bb pole was leftover from when I made a platform for our garbage cans so we didn't have to store them inside the garage anymore.

https://www.amazon.com/Texit-Texas-Will-Leave-Union/dp/1948035081

Texit is the first non-fiction book to delve into the motivations, the process, and the practicality of a modern-day Texas exit from United States. Channeling his 20 years of experience on the issue, author Daniel Miller, takes the reader through the historical and cultural foundations of Texit, its impact on mainstream politics, and plainly lays out the grievances expressed by many Texans that drive their support for an independent Texas.

Texit also addresses the most common objections with facts and sheds light on what a future Republic of Texas could look like.

This guy needs to understand the "mirror principal" as outlined in the Jim Collins book Good to Great.

If he truly wants to lead, he must take ownership. This is a great book on the topic.

Texas didn’t see a lot of action during the civil war. And the US was hardly interested with it joining in the first place. It took more than one try to become a state.

This book is okay, but I recommend it. I listened to the audio book. The first few chapters clarify Texas history in a way that 7th grade textbooks don’t.

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Hot-Cheap-Right-America/dp/1610393759/

Book is called Warden and it's written by Jim Willett. It gives an inside look at what goes in the Texas prison system during his 30 year career, where he presided over 100 executions. Gives detail account of what takes place in the death chamber and his observations about the death penalty and capital punishment in Texas.

https://www.amazon.com/Warden-Texas-Prison-Death-Inside/dp/1931721505/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1V0RWU2SUKYT4&amp;keywords=warden+jim+willett&amp;qid=1654541270&amp;sprefix=Jim+willet%2Caps%2C91&amp;sr=8-1

>Please define “assault weapon”.

Here's how the gun industry and trade press began defining it:

Starting with the July 1981 "Assault Rifle" Issue of Guns & Ammo Magazine, the firearms industry, manufacturers, and trade press started using "assault rifle" & "assault weapon" to mean a semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine and high rate of fire, primarily based on US military weapon designs of the m-16 ne. ar-15. Early in the sales cycle, these were military weapons modified for sale by disabling or omitting a linkage to defeat various burst or sustained fire modes.

The gun industry, after a decades long sales slump, was seeking new markets for civilian weapon sales, and seized upon shifting their ad campaign strategies from primarily hunting and sport shooting to promoting a neo-military narrative and glamorizing (modified) military issue weapons and a class of weapons designed to look like them.

In 1982 Guns&Ammo turned their Assault Rifle issue into an annual:

https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Ammo-Assault-Rifles-Sporting/dp/0822722348

And in 1984, Guns&Ammo press also published a hardcover guidebook called "Assault Weapons - full of the hottest hardware available today” capturing a broader category that included some weapons the trade press advertised as "assault pistols" - usual a folding-stock variant of an assault rifle.

One thing I would recommend you buy is a watt meter and make a list of the electronics that you would want to run and use it to gauge how many watts you'd need to run things. The cool thing is you can also calculate out watt hours, so if you wanted to try something like, say a jackery backup battery or something, you have a pretty easy way to see how long the battery will last for (for instance, if an appliance uses 200 watts per hour and you have a 200 watt battery...you can run the appliance for an hour).

You can also check out Will Prowse's channel on youtube about battery backup systems. These can be sized big enough now in all-in-one(ish) systems that can be a clean backup that charges from the grid.

But that's slightly tangential; Either the watt meter or the appliance's listed use will tell you how big of a generator you would want (although there's more to it like peak load when things kick in, etc.)

I haven't gone this route and just picked up a small generator from costco a year back, but the downside is cycling gasoline (I get pure gas and keep for like 6 months), and also making sure that the generator is going to run when I need it, so that means like once every month or so just running it with a small load.

My reasoning to go with a smaller genny with a bunch of long 10 guage extensions is that in my mind it's equivalent to insurance, and it didn't make sense to spend a lot of cash (yet) to prep for something with a relatively low chance to crap out on a state-wide level. If the state goes out, then there's no way to pump gas and feed the generators, and in that case, perhaps the thousands spend on installing a house system and switch would be better in a rainy day savings to leave the state towards a national grid connected area.

My daily reminder that all Texans should read this: https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric/dp/1735358002

Good article, but like most they are advocating solutions that would either do very little or make things worse. We need more dispatchable generation capacity.

Texas had lots of people who did not own slaves and did not condone slavery.

If you are interested in another great historical account of abolitionists in Texas and how they were treated before and during the Civil War you should read Brush Men and Vigilantes - <em>D Pickering &amp; J Falls</em>

This book tells the story of families living around the Sulphur River area in a large area of NE Texas. Union sympathizers were hounded and hunted during the war and many retreated into the thickets to live. There were plenty of murders, hangings, ambushes, and lots of families found themselves split when one son signs on with the Confederates and another signs on with the Union army.

This is an excellent book and there are lots of historical notes, a detailed bibliography, and dozens of names of participants so it would be a great resource for anyone researching their connections to that part of Texas.

It's readily available for purchase. As a college textbook, most libraries don't keep a copy around, but can probably get it via interlibrary loan for free.

Check out something like this for them. Its just a battery they can plug their concentrator into. Don’t have to worry about gas, starting, etc.

According to Ima herself, she was named by her father, after the heroine of a Civil War poem written in 1873 by her uncle, Thomas Elisha Hogg, who had died two years before Ima was born. In the poem, entitled The Fate of Marvin, the heroine is noted as:

"A Southern girl, whose winsome grace

And kindly, gentle mien, betrayed

A heart more beauteous than her face.

Ah! she was fair: the Southern skies

Were typed in Ima's heavenly eyes..."

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-fate-of-marvin-and-other-poems/ogHW921yWksqvw?hl=en

https://www.amazon.com/Fate-Marvin-Thomas-Hogg/dp/B000INN1C8

Actually, I was introduced to this product by a gardener friend. It's better by far than anything I've ever used, not oily, and not smelly. I use it throughout the summer and mix it with my lotion sunscreen to ensure good coverage of both. And yes, I put it on my face, too. You're right. The f*ckers absolutely go for the face. I'm in Austin, TX and mosquito repellent is absolutely a going concern.

picaridin based insect repellent

Don’t slash a fully inflated tire it could go bad for you.

Get a set of these tire deflators - after the air goes down some, then you can stick a knife in the sidewall. Or just cut the valve stem off so it screws them for the day but doesn’t cost a whole new tire.

Shit just letting the air out of two tires means they need to call a tow truck.

These are the ones I got: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08K88S9K2?psc=1&amp;ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

Since I posted them on another sub I was told they were too spiky and I should get something called micro spikes which might be more comfortable for longer walks. That said, I found mine to be more comfortable than expected and had ZERO slippage. The micro spikes I saw online didn't look like they'd do crap on a super slick sheet of ice.

I found the ones with fancy digital displays and remotes that have thermostats built into them tend to crap out after a couple years, at least, the electronics side of them. The compressors and mechanical bits seem fine. I ended up going back to a mechanical control unit and bought an RF based remote control thermostat to control mine and it's been running fine for half a decade now.

https://www.amazon.com/Nashone-Wireless-Thermostat-Temperature-Controller/dp/B08Y18TSLY

You can get these cheaper if you shop around. The programming steps are not intuitive, don't lose the instructions, lol.

We have little history of snow down here in Texas, so it's to be expected that many people here wouldn't see the feasibility of solar panel snow clearing, but solar is widely installed across this country where snow is much more common, and clearing panels is also more routine:

https://www.roofrake.com/resize/Shared/Images/Product/Extra-Soft-Snow-Pro/best-solar-panel-snow-removal-tool.jpg?bw=1000&amp;w=1000&amp;bh=1000&amp;h=1000

https://www.amazon.com/Avalanche-Original-Removal-System-inches/dp/B002TLSTH4

It's not particularly dangerous, not particularly unusual, not a big deal. I just used a push broom with an extended handle. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

Get you some history of Fort Worth - Hell''s Half Acre

Tenderloin districts were a fact of life in every major town in the American West, but Hell’s Half Acre – its myth and its reality – can be said to be a microcosm of them all. The most famous and infamous westerners visited the Acre: Timothy (“Longhair Jim”) Courtright, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Sam Bass, Mary Porter, Etta Place, along with Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, and many more.

https://www.amazon.com/Hells-Half-Acre-Red-Light-District/dp/0875650880

> Right not (just before midnight) it’s 90% humidity.

Right now, you mean?

Right now in Houston, it's 47pct humidity. 5:02pm Friday. And, it feels great!

This is getting tiresome.

Victoria County has a population of 91,319.

Coldest was 13

Experienced power outages and is not a part of ERCOT.

Yes, there were parts of Texas outside of ERCOT also experienced power outages. Of those areas that experienced power outages, can you find a location that, in comparison between with/without ERCOT 1. Has a comparable population 2. Had comparable weather 3. A place in ERCOT with colder weather that still had power.

Because I've proven all three with my "cherry picked" information. Victoria has a similar population, had colder weather, and still had power.

Bowie is not a part of ERCOT

On the 17th the lowers was -5

... looking at a graph of power outages that heavily match where ERCOT is is data.

The coldest El Paso got was 14 degrees.

Carson Texas was 27

Jog my memory, which one got a power outage? Oh right, Carson and not El Paso.