Tennessee

This is my fourth visit to Tennessee.  My first was a 1980 corporate trip to support introduction of the GenRad/Futuredata in-circuit emulator product. This was a product well ahead of its time. Some day, I will engage in archaeoengineering that will fill all your nerd requirements for the year by telling you about it. I barely remember thst trip except getting Salisbury Steak dinner on ceramic plates with metal utensils on an airliner. I was fortunately not in the smoking section. (At the dawn of time: the pilot wore a leopard-skin loincloth.

The word pilotess would have been incomprehensible and unneeded.)

My second trip was to speak at Lincoln Memorial University School of Law. I think it was in the 2000s. I no longer remember what my presentation was about.  I met Dr. John Lott at this event. 

My third trip was to look around last year in preparation for considering the move with our daughter. 

This is my fourth trip and the first as summer hits.  What a summer! The positives:

1. People are friendly and polite.  Only a couple of drivers that make me say, "Go back to Los Angeles!"

2. Everything is so green here. Northern Idaho is like this, too. But the Boise area is completely brown right now except where irrigation has corrected the problem. That picture i took yesterday from what I hope will be my backyard really shows what the adjective verdant means.

4. Gasoline runs from $3.13 to $3.28 per gallon depending on location. 

Downsides:

1. Hot and humid. Between May and September, I expect my daytime will either be indoors, in a car, or in my pool. Of course, right now in the Boise area, the situation is just about as bad. It is dryer but temperatures often exceed 100 degrees.  Misery is similar.

2. Houses are different here. Most houses here have small windows.  Even though electricity seems similar in price (loss of hydroelectric) they build as though every kilowatt is being rationed like your life depends on it. I think it is because they are generally poorer here.

3. Houses are often built with a colonial facade but interiors are quite similar.  Lots of basements. Idaho has them also but not so abundantly.  Partly this is using earth cooling. Partly this is hoping thr rare tornadoes will let you survive even without a purpose-built tornado shelter.  The basement in the new house could be retrofitted into a combination fallout and tornado shelter will a lot of cinder blocks and some concrete. It has a toilet, sink, and shower. It could be turned into an expedient fallout shelter in a few hours, I think, but we are downwind of Oak Ridge National Laboratory so probably not very useful. 

4. Those basements come with staircases that range from worrying to terrifying. They are narrow, steep, and in some cases there is nothing to prevrnt you from falling out on to the floor. Many of these would not be up to code if built today, but most building codes grandfather them in. If inspection report does not screech about these, we will spend the money to retrofit something safer.  

5. The existing staircase has the correct run/rise ratio.  Rebuild so the steps are less steep and end in a landing followed by a 180 degree turn and more steps to the bottom. Add studs from joists to floor on which sheet rock goes and another banister.  It will be a little claustrophobic but less scary and safer, especially for the dogs. 

Today's Tragically Bad Phishing Email

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY


1500 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20220
TELEPHONE: +1(202)256-4380


COMPLIMENT OF THE DAY, OUR DEAR ELIGIBLE CUSTOMER
FIRST OF ALL, WE ARE VERY SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE OF THIS LETTER. IN CASE YOU ARE ALIVE, PLEASE WE NEED CONFIRMATION! NOW TO START WITH, I'M MR. SCOTT BESSENT, THE NEWLY APPOINTED UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. SO, I AM DUE RESPECT AND HUMBLED TO WRITE YOU THIS VERY E-MAIL FOR WE TO KNOW THE FACT OF ALL THIS INFORMATION AS IT SOUND SO BITTER TO OUR EAR WHEN WE HEARD ABOUT THIS UGLY NEWS THAT YOU HAD A TERRIBLE DISEASE ACCIDENT CALLED (CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE) THAT LEAD YOU TO DEATH, THAT IS THE CAUSE YOU'RE SILENT SINCE. OF THE TREASURY

Is there any better sign of not mastering English?

Worst Hotel Stay of My Life (I Am 69)

Red Roof Inn Kingsport, Tennessee. When we arrived, rhe front desk was unmanned. Ten minutes later, the clerk arrived. He gave the same excuse for the empty pool that he gave my daughter two weeks before: "Severe weather." This might explain closing the pool but not the absence of water.

In the morning, my wife attempted shower. It would not start. While attempting to get it going, the faucet came out of the wall. She tried to clean up water on floor. It became obvious the floor had not been cleaned in sometime. 

I went to front desk to check out and get a refund for subsequent days. My wife had checked us in so I had missed the warning signs that something was amiss. 

One sign said rhat they would not rent to anyone who lived in a 60 mile radius.  This suggests that drug dealers, prostitutes, and people whose money ran out before their month did were trying to live here. The other emphasized that you could not stay there on a promise to pay. When we arrived, I had heard a rather angry argument a few doors down.

While waiting for rhe desk clerk, the guy aheadv of me complained th as soon as it started raining, water came through the ceiling. The clerk gave me the phone number for Expedia to arrange a refund.  We had made the reservations through Hotels.com. We had not prepaid.  Expedia tried to talk sense into the clerk who could only say his manager would be in on Monday.

Fortunately we ended up in a lovely Hampton Inn the next night.

UPDATE: I called back to Red Leaking Roof this morning.  Again, they refused to refund the unused nights. I called corporate.  Still waiting for a response. 

UPDATE 2: Never again with Red Roof or hotels.com.Red Roof corporate wanted proof that I stayed in another hotel. They also insisted that Expedia cancel the reservation first. Hotels.com needs an itinerary number to talk to a human. I do not have that in front of me.

UPDATE 4: Hotels.com canceled the reservation and the hotel from hell promised a refund for the unused nights. (The real test will be of refund comes through. Always used credit card for dealing with organizations of uncertain trustworthiness.) 

Hotels.com made this harder than needed but did come through.  Red Roof Inn, about whom I used to have a pretty high opinion, is now on my below Motel 6/random roach motel list.

I Think We Found Our New House

Sufficiently close to Kingsport to be on city water but in forested mountains.  The driveway is steep enough that we will probably uaes ice tires in winter. It is about an acre with a 36' x 18'  salt-water system pool. It has an 20' x 30' shop.with a garage door leading out to an adequately wide enough expanse of sky. Other parts of the property are forested. I may need to pour a level concrete driveway for the telescopes.

It is fully fenced for the dogs. 

It is nominally 2671 sq. ft.; a little small. It has a substantial partially finished basement with a bathroom but no windows. While the staircase down to this part is scary enough that we will probably hire an engineer to design a less scary staircase (turn in half on way down losing a small amount of room), that can wait for old house to sell. The basement connects to the garage which has a less worrisome staircase.  We will add banisters to the left side on both staircases also. It looks like a two car garage but one bay is so deep that two cars will fit head to tail. $489,000.

There are lots of houses for sale here. Many are impressively beautiful in a ostentatious way like my current house but too many staircases for us to enjoy.

Some are just weird. This house had the most impressive view:

Unfortunately, it was on a cliff. It was mildly scary looking down. The oartially finished basement had a 15' ceiling. It was bigger than some houses we have owned. There were doors leading to sections that were not even quite at the partially finished stage. $620,000 for a showpiece where our dogs would not have a yard.

$3.19/Gallon Gasoline

Tennessee must be close to refineries. 

At Some Point, I Hope to Get Rich Enough to Stop Flying Commercial

I hate flying in a cattle car.  Charter only. Probably at the $5 million invested level.

One Way RV Rental

My wife and i have toyed with the idea of renting a small motor home for our cross-country trip with deranged doggies. While there are one-way rentals available, they are from high-demand cities to others in the same category: Los Angeles to Chicago, etc. 

Do any small towable trailers have bed, stove, and toilet? The attraction of bringing home with us is the prospect of trying to get our dogs to not bark in our hotel rooms.