Begone, Bag O' Wipes

Story time with Brian.

See that bag of wipes flopped over in the hallway? We've had it since Covid Times. The hallway is where it lives. Though I know that is where it lives and occasionally use a wipe from the bag, I am also constantly tripping over it or kicking it and having to put it back into place.

Also, the wipes have dried out a bit, so they're more of a slightly abrasive pad than a wipe, but we do not throw things away in this house.

Today I took a wipe out of it, and noted there is only one wipe left.

I will be glad to see it go.

Super Intelligence?

I want to talk about the trickle-down we got at work today about having to say "super intelligence" rather than "artificial intelligence" but I'm still hung up on the fact that one of the forwarders of the message included what looked like a Donald Trump emoji in the email chain.

It's an Affront to not Use Affresh, and other Linguistic Musings

I've been amused of late reading the product names for various items coming out of Asia. I know they make fun of Westerners - and rightly so - when we get tattoos of their word characters that mean something along the lines of "giraffe pimp" and not what the tattoo artist says it means, but I think it's just as fair to mock their mangled English as they try to sell the output of their factories.

Here are some of my favorites:

I remember watching Bob Ross put paint to kamvas in PBS. I guess this is a digital thing.

This might be my favorite. My first thought is toxin, but if you feel it's more in the medicine field you're not far off, as the -oxin suffix is, in Greek, related to the heart. So maybe this is either heart-friendly or poisonous stuff.

Comedian Daren Streblow talks about a son with a speech impediment, who added -oy to a lot of words. I guess he's working in marketing Chinese products now.

It's an affront not to use Affresh. Some of the ad copy just writes itself.

Jackery. So close to hackery. And given this is Chinesium, the name is probably chillingly ironic.

 

From the Hudson's Bay Company to Parachuting Beavers

History, of course, is written by the victors.

And, in some cases, by researchers and writers who don’t hesitate to deliver a few delightful, backhanded gallantries at events big or small, at personages eminent or obscure, and at enterprises holy and grotesque.

Thus I read in Elizabeth Haroldsen Lovell’s “Benjamin Bonneville, Soldier of the American Frontier.”

Lovell takes some jabs at the Hudson’s Bay Company in the book.

On Page 66, this:

In their own bailiwick in Canada, the policy of Hudson’s Bay Company was to harvest judiciously, but of areas open to both Great Britain and the United States, company officials wrote “The country is a rich preserve of Beaver, which for political reasons we should endeavor to destroy as fast as possible.” Peter Skene Ogden and Joh Work with their Snake River brigades had obeyed orders, and by 1833 the results were painfully evident.

She also elicits a jab at the American mania for progress, seen today in the likes of SpaceX and Silicon Valley and such ilk. On Page 118:

The country had gone mad with railroad building. Earlier, it had been canals, but even before many waterway projects were off the drawing boards there was talk they would soon be made obsolete by the railroads. To get somewhere quickly was an obsession which grew in America as naturally as hickory and maize, only faster. It was a stylish thing to “go by the cars.” Engines glistened with bright paint; passengers cars made up a “brigade.”

Lovell tells Bonneville’s tale well, intermixed with an excellent smattering of history much more broad than the soldier/adventurer’s life.

I picked up this book at a local thrift store and enjoyed reading it, seeing as I live in a county that bears Bonneville’s name. The book may be a little dry at times, but Lovell does her best to bring in livelier bits and to help us see one man’s story in context with the growth and growing pains of a nation.

And her stabs at Hudson’s Bay Company were comic.

Puts the parachuting beavers of the 1940s into some interesting historical context.

 

That Devil Weed State Legislature

We're coming up on the November election, and I'm seeing some interesting things online.

One of the things to consider: A proposition to allow the state legislature - and the state legislature only - decide whether to legalize marijuana.

I might be in favor of medical marijuana. I'm not thrilled with the prospect of recreational marijuana. I'm totally against the state legislature getting any more power than they already have.

Earlier this year, they slashed budgets and, in part, cut mental health funding for in-home care. At least three people died as the result of this cut in funding, which they hastily restored after the deaths and the associated brouhaha.

What they want to do is carve out part of the citizen initiative process to allow only the legislature to make decisions on marijuana. I don't trust them. All it really is is a foot in the door in shutting down the initiative process, consolidating more power in a state legislature that's already pretty power-hungry.

Yes, we can contact our representatives to let our thoughts be known. I've done that a lot. But there is no guarantee they'll listen to anything but what they already believe or what they want to hear.

Handing this power to the legislature rather than keeping it within the direct purview of voters adds a level of gatekeeping I'm not comfortable handing over.

There are many in the legislature who are openly hostile to the initiative process. Give them a little power and they become emboldened to take a little more.

Who cares if the initiative process wasn't part of how the state set up its laws originally? That's a pretty weak argument to make. "Gee, you didn't have this power before you asked for it, so let's just take it away." That's all I'm hearing in that quarter.

Dear Elder Davidson No. 5

4 October 2026

Hello Isaac,

Do you know what’s fun? Taking a car in for an alignment and after it’s done having two of the dashboard warning lights that’ve been on for a very long time turn off.

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or what, but after the Red Herring alignment was done, the light for the VTM-4 and the evap system turned off. Maybe without the alignment and the suspension parts that got replaced it was just enough out of kilter to trigger the sensors to light up. But now I’m just down to the airbag light and, occasionally, the TPMS.

Also, we’ve had the Blood Brother to Kevin and back as well. There was an ABS warning light on the dash, and a message that the all-wheel drive system was, as a result, not operational. It seemed important to get that looked at before winter sets in, so when we had to pick up the Red Herring we left it there. As Kevin was looking around, he saw a sensor that had been taped up. He poked at the tape and the wire it was on crumbled under the pressure. So he replaced the wire and got things fixed up.

And hey, here’s some excitement: I finally found the part I needed to fix the Camp Chef. Behold:

I know. This is exciting stuff. And I’ll tell you the story. Liam and I went to Lowe’s to see if we could find what we needed. We found something we thought would work, but when I got it home I realized it wasn’t going to work. So the next day I went back to Lowes and got a different item. But when I got it home, it also no worky. Third time back to Lowe’s and I couldn’t find what I needed, so left defeated. I decided to try Home Depot one more time before I gave up. What worked there was finding a very helpful young man who knew right where to find the part I needed. AND IT WORKED. So the Camp Chef is now completely reassembled, just in time to stow it for the winter. What I’m actually going to do is store it in the garage so maybe we can use it later in the year. I still have the other one to repair, but as I’m not really sure what’s wrong with it, that may take a while. I’d like it to just disappear, but that’s not going to happen. By the way, some of my Facebook friends said I was making a bong.

I hope you’re enjoying Conference. We never got to see much of Conference when I was in France. It did get broadcast to certain chapels in our mission area, but they were typically pretty far away from where I was serving so we didn’t get to see much of it. Sometimes we got to see recordings of it months later, and that was nice. But mostly we had to wait for the magazines to come so we could read the talks. I’m sure missionaries and members all over get to see them a lot more live than we ever did. Technology has marched on.

I really liked Timothy Farnes’ message – he’s the Young Men’s President. He talked about ministering, of course, but what he said at one point really hit me: We just have to see the person God puts in our path. Seeing enables compassion. I’ll try to remember that as God puts people in my path.

You may need to brace yourself for this: Mom did a dog toy purge and Dottie’s tequila bottle is now in the trash. She (Dottie, not necessarily your mother) loved it to death, but it’s really dirty and slightly stinky. So I’ll be on the lookout at TJMaxx for a replacement.

Also, for some reason the clothing bar in your closet broke into three pieces. You’ll remember it was made of wood and they kind of stitched it together out of different piece of wood. The seams popped in two places. So I’ve replaced it with a metal bar. Hopefully that’ll hold up better.

As you can see, you’re missing a lot of high-level excitement around here.

For fun on Friday (speaking of excitement) I made a long chore list and thought I’d see how much I could get done from it. It mostly involved moving stuff from one place to a different place, but stacking things more strategically so I could cram more stuff in the same space. I swear people are smuggling things onto the property because I came across some stuff I’m not sure I remember ever purchasing. That did include clearing off your workbench so I could put Mom’s dragon mask back on it. I need to get it wrapped up in plastic again because it’s been moved around a bit this year and parts are starting to fall off. I tried clearing enough stuff I could get it put on a shelf in the garage, but that didn’t work. I’ll probably have to stow it in the utility trailer with Mom’s Jeep this winter . . . I am making efforts to preserve it, though. She put a lot of work into it, and it has been used a few times since she made it.

We had Lexi and Keaton over for games tonight. One of these days we’re going to do a game day on Monday and we’ll call you up so you can whoop us all at Five Crowns. I don’t know if that’s kosher with your mission president, so maybe don’t give him a heads up first.

I should probably end this letter now. It’s after 9 pm, past my bedtime, and I still have to prep my BYUI class for the new week.

So, be a good missionary. I know you will be.

Love, Dad

Finally!

Finally.

After a third trip to Lowe's, where I left defeated, I tried Home Depot again. Found a very helpful young man who took me right to what I needed.

So today, not only did I fix the manifold, I got it put back on the Camp Chef, just in time to put it away for the winter.

I'm happy it's fixed. So is Mrs. Tweedy.

Still Working on the Camp Chef

So yes, I'm *still* trying to fix the manifold on the Camp Chef.

Thought I'd hit the jackpot at Lowe's today when Liam and I found a brass tee with the requisite dimensions. But, alas, when I got it home, I could see it wasn't going to work.

So while on the home from another errand, I took the tee back and found one I thought would do the job.

Alas, no. The dimensions are perfect, almost. But the threads are fine, not coarse, so it won't. I get to go back tomorrow and see if I can find yet another alternative.

Scam Mathematics

Here's another reason to despise groups that post mathematical brain-teasers on Facebook: They don't care about your math brain, they just want you to spread their message so they can change it to sell to your friends.

Here's one, still in math form:

Because that 79 isn't a non sequitur answer. It legitimately (or not; I'm no mind reader or math whiz) answered the quiz question under a post that purports to offer discounts from Walmart on their crap, but goes, of course, to someone selling, at best, Chinesium, or at worst, nothing but they hope to get your money before you know it.

This is all that appears on the site from the first photo above:

They use the Walmart name in *some* of the posts, but this is more likely cutting out the middleman and sending you straight to Asia-based scammers.

Social media has become a cesspool of this kind of stuff because . . . they get engagement and eyeballs and probably money along the way, and waaaaaaaay down on their list of priorities is stopping scams, because hey, free dummy.

Bo Shooda

Michelle is in the next room seemingly free associating about O Cedar sponges. I came into the room and said I associated O Cedar sponges with Jabba the Hutt, because he says "Bo chooda" a lot, and it sounds like O Cedar.

I'm not really sure that's what she was hoping to get out of the conversation. But I never really know what's going on anyway, so what the heck.