analog_kidd

Thanks for the offers to borrow a carboy. I'm set up with several of my own, as I make a fair amount of wine already. I was just going to use the gallon jugs to make a couple different recipes, instead of making one 5 gal batch. Can't say that I've even ever had mead before, and I'd like to see if there is one recipe or another that suits me. Do any of you all have a recipe to share?

I have a couple gallons worth of honey from 2 years ago that crystalized for some reason. I'm going to be making mead out of it here soon. I want to try a few different recipes, so I'm drinking down a couple 1 gal jugs of wine to use as carboys for each batch. The wife said that was a lot of wine to have to drink up, I said "challenge accepted"

We stayed there a lifetime ago, and really enjoyed it. My son actually moved there a year or so ago, and they love it. When we went a long time ago, we stayed at a bed and breakfast. It was in a really old house in the historical district. They had bikes to use, and we would ride them all over town. It was great. If you have never done a B&B, you really should try it. You won't forget it. There is a horse drawn carriage ride that leaves from the Fort and drives all around the historical section. We really enjoyed that. It's all along cobblestone roads, so you get the clack, clack, clack of the wheels on that, plus the horses hooves. Makes for a neat experience. If you like to camp, Anastasia State Park has a campground right on the beach that is amazing. We've thought about going to the camp ground and not telling our son, just so that we could spend the week there all by ourselves (kidding).

In 5 minutes or so of poking around the Internet, I didn't really find any plug and play kits, but I bet there are some out there somewhere. That link you posted is NOT what you are looking for. That is for a digital display that you add to your Raspberry Pi to give you status update. Totally not needed for a Pi-hole setup. The novelty of looking at that display would wear off in a couple minutes. There is a website built into the software that is much better for getting stats. Something like this RasberryPi 3 on Amazon would be what you need. That plus a 16gb or so MIcro SD card is all you need. If you don't have them already, a spare USB keyboard and an HDMI cable to connect to a monitor or TV is also needed. The one I linked is the version 3 model of the Pi. There are newer version 4 ones, but they are more expensive and for a Pi-Hole, the cheaper one is all you really need. They make a Nano version of the Raspberry Pi that is even cheaper, and I think it runs on that board too. The full sized Pi just has more features. I'll be honest, setting it up from scratch is more than a trivial thing. You have to assemble the Raspberry Pi, download the OS, write it to the SD card, then install the Pi-Hole software and get it on the internet, Then you have to configure your computers to use it. BUT all of that is a part of the fun. Learning something new is a good thing.

If you are a little tech savvy and want a fun project, put together a Pi-Hole DNS server for your home. It runs on one of those raspberry Pi mini computers (they are just fun to have no matter what) that cost maybe $50. You don't even need the latest greatest Raspberry Pi either, it will run fine on previous gen hardware. Here are the basics: The Internet runs on IP addresses. We humans can't remember them, but we can remember words. So for example, XYZ.com has an IP address behind it. We use DNS servers to convert friendly words that make up a website name into the ip address that is behind that name. So, when I type in xyz.com, your computer talks to the DNS server that you have configured, and asks that DNS server what IP address to use. All this happens under the covers of your computer and you never even have to think about it. What the Pi-Hole does is it becomes your DNS server, so to speak. It has a very long list of web site names in it that are on a blacklist. If your browser tries to query DNS (the Pi-hole) for the IP address of a site on the black list, the DNS server returns back an empty value. This means your browser will not display that bit of the web page. It could be the whole web page (say a malicious site, or perhaps something you don't want your kids looking at), or it could just be an ad that is displayed in a frame of the web page. Any web site that is not in the black list, the Pi-Hole will forward that query on to another DNS server out in the Internet somewhere. It could just be your ISP's DNS server, that you are probably using today, or you can pick from a list of others that may offer you yet another layer of security. What ends up happening is thousands of web requests are just dropped as your computer makes these queries for IP addresses. It saves you bandwidth, but more importantly, you get way less ads in your browser, and relative to this thread, you block many of these tracking sites. It always surprises me when I visit a web page of a site I go to frequently, and I'm not protected by my Pi-Hole. The pages look completely different because of all the ads. There is really nice dashboard that you can view on the Pi-Hole, and what an eyeopener it is. Mine is blocking crap 24 hours a day, thousands per hour. I kid you not. Crap you wouldn't even think about, like Alexa, or your Roku, or your cell phone, YOUR TV, are all talking to something all day long.

Been listening to this couple all afternoon. They have some good stuff. Little Hurricane

I checked out NewsMaxTV today, and I gotta say I was happy with the content. It's obviously a conservative leaning outlet, but it seemed less drama-tastic than Fox News. The guests were thoughtful and well spoken, and one thing I really liked is they seemed to give them plenty of time to talk. Not like other stations where they bring someone in, give them 30 seconds and then say "We gotta leave it there", right in mid sentence. I'm not aware of any carriers that broadcast it, it's not on mine, but we use Streaming devices to watch TV and they have an app. The app is well done, and easy to use. There is talk that, just like blocking out Parler, the likes of Apple, Amazon, Google, will remove the app from their stores, so that people don't even have the option. I would recommend that if you have one of these devices, at least install the app now, just so you have it on your streamer. Otherwise you'll have to side-load it later, and that is not something that the average TV watcher is going to do

These guys are definite up and comers.

You mean I have to be a grown up and choose for myself whether or not I want to read / engage a poster, without someone moderating that viewpoint or censoring it all together, or telling me what is a good or bad things to say / read? No Thanks!

I still laugh that the Knoxville Dicks is on Peters Rd. Everyone I know calls it Dicks on Peters.

On the bottom of the laptop will be a service tag number. Go to Dell.com and click support, and enter that number. It will take you to a downloads page. You may find an option to download a recovery boot image. If it is there, you can download that, and install it to a thumb drive and boot from it to reinstall the OS. If there is no recovery image, you can probably go here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 from a different PC and download the actual Windows 10 installer, and create a boot thumb drive. Since you have already activated your license, Microsoft will read the signature of your PC and cross reference it to their database, see that it has already been activated, and will just automatically reactivate it again. No need to purchase a new license. As someone mentioned, you may need to go set the boot order in the bios, but usually there is a prompt as the PC is booting that says something along the lines of "One time boot option". A lot of times it is the F12 button, but may be different on yours. You gott abe quick, adn pay attention, the prompt happens quickly and goes away. I usually have to reboot a few times before I can catch it. Press that key when prompted and select the Boot from USB option. That should boot the thumbdrive and allow you to reinstall Windows. You may have to go back to that Dell Download site and download the drivers for the laptop. Bear in mind these are all destructive and will wipe your drive before reinstalling. You will lose all your files. If it were me, I'd buy a new SSD drive and replace it. Reinstall to the new drive. Then if you want, look on Amazon for an external SSD drive enclosure (here is just the first one I found, shop around: Drive Enclosure). Your drive is probably a SATA, but make sure you buy the right kind (same goes for replacing the old hard drive). You can put the old drive in the enclosure, and plug it into another PC, or the freshly rebuilt laptop and see if you can see the files on it. If so, copy them over to the laptop. As a bonus, once you have the files copied off, format the old drive and use it to back up the files on the laptop periodically.

We currently have a Boxer. All you people saying they don't live long just need to shut your mouths. She is probably the best dog I have ever owned. Very smart, loving and playful. Never once even looked funny at the grand kids, no mater how much poking or pulling. But, be a stranger and she will puff up and growl and put herself between them and us. We have a Dachshund too, who is suffering from severe doggie dementia (that is another story altogether) and the Boxer takes care of him just like in the video. She puts up with his crap, and is always gentle and kind with him. Sticks with him when he gets lost in the fenced in yard and guides him back to the house. They are an awesome breed. I can't imagine owning any other kind of dog.

I can't be too critical... My generation is responsible for the Valley Girl way of talking. Like, Oh Ma God, gag me with a spoon, those were bad times.

When I was young, and first married and absolutely stupid about money, I asked my dad for advice on what I should be doing. Sadly, the only advise he had was to go get some life insurance. I did just that, but bought he wrong kind (Whole life, not Term) , and did nothing with investing. I had a 401k at work, but didn't really care to understand it. All I cared about was they were taking money out of my paycheck that I couldn't spend now. Around my early forties, I woke up and got interested in what I was doing financially. We took a Dave Ramsey class and that set us on a much better path. I read anything I could get my hands on, invested in some real estate and made much better choices with my 401k / IRA. I feel like we are in a much better place now, but cringe at how much better we could be if I had just been smarter early on. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it would be to invest early, and be disciplined about doing it. If you are reading this and are in a similar boat as the young me, please, please, please take the time to evaluate your financial situation, get smarter and take action. The government will not be there to bail you out, and even if Social Security is still around, it will not be enough to live comfortably on. At the bare minimum, you should be putting enough into your 401k to meet the full employer match. You really should be putting in 10% of your own money, or 15% even better. I know it seems like you can't swing it, but you can. The older version of you will thank the today version, trust me. If you have 401k's from old employers, roll them all into one IRA. You'll get way better options to invest in from an IRA than you will in an employer 401k. Plus it's easy to do. Most Financial Advisors will do most of the work for you and all you have to do is sign a few papers. Once you have that IRA, anything over what it takes to get the 401k match from your employer, invest in the IRA. Again, you'll have better options and probably get better returns. If you have the option to do a ROTH 401k, take it. You'll pay the tax on the money you invest, but when you cash it in during retirement, no matter how much it has grown, it will be tax free. Same with an IRA, if you invest in one, make sure to do it ROTH style. THAT was the advise I wanted MY dad to give.

Yeah, that is exactly what I'm talking about. Something that has it as part of the fund as a collection of different stocks, I could probably play dumb on. I might be able to do the investing from my Wife's IRA. Not sure if they would even care, as long as it wasn't in my name. Not sure I want to chance it either.

So, I'm really interested in cannabis stock. Whatever your feelings on the product, it's gonna make money and it's gonna be here to stay. You can either be in on it or not. That said, I hold a government clearance, and they do background checks. I know how they feel about using weed, but not sure how they would feel about investing in it. So, I would like a stock that would be legit on the open US market. Maybe a mutual fund that has cannabis as a major percentage of it's holdings, but has other stuff too. Any recommendations?

Well, actually I did let it ride. I figured it would come back. But to be honest, I had not been tracking it that closely. And you are right, it's more than doubled now. I track my total portfolio balance nearly every week, and as long as it is still going up, I just smile and close the page. But I don't pay a whole of of attention to the individual stocks (other than Amazon, cuz I like to keep reminding my guy about that one)

Yeah, several years ago we had a pretty good economy for stocks. Everything was up for the year. I admit, I didn't pay a lot of attention to my portfolio balance, but one day I got a wild hair and went and looked at my EJ account. In a booming year, I pretty much broke even. I called my EJ guy up and said WTH? He said, "yeah we probably should have moved some things around". My point was, I'm paying him to manage my money, why didn't he at least look ONCE all year. I immediately pulled my money and went elsewhere. I pay a LOT more attention these days, and my new guy calls me at least twice a year to see if we need to tune anything up. Couple years ago, I told my new guy "I buy a lot of crap on Amazon, and I know a lot of other people do too. Buy me some of that." He said that he didn't think Amazon was going to go anywhere, and it was $1000 per share. I said, I didn't care and buy me a few shares anyway. Today that stock is over $3000 per share. He called when it hit $2000 to eat crow. THAT time I just got lucky, I'm no stock guru. I had him buy me a few other things that did not turn out so well. Like Nvidea stock, a company that has video cards in EVERYTHING, and the next week a self-driving car powered by Nvidea chips ran over a pedestrian, and their stock tanked. Its a crap-shoot.

Takes them a minute to wind up, but it gets pretty good

I found this video to be more captivating than the song. This one is actually #3 in a 10 song series that details several generations of the fictional Sparks family. If you go back and watch them all, it plays like a mini movie. It's a good time-suck for about an hour of your day if you choose to go down the rabbit hole. The story is a tragic telling of the horrors of addiction.

Rival Sons...

I can't stop listening to this. What a great cover.

Larkin Poe is my favorite new group this year. So many good songs. Here is one of their latest.