Wednesday’s Theme Music – Rock & Hard Place

Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, June 3, 2026.

Pleasant valley Wednesday. 66 F, sunshine percolates through some clouds. Rain and a high of 76 F are expected.

Mom and my sister went through a rough day yesterday, spending over eight hours at ER. Classic ER scene as the staff attempts to help everyone but there are so many who need help. They got home early in the AM this morning.

We’re not sure what’s going on with Mom. She had a CT scan but no results have been shared with us. At one point, they asked her if she wanted or needed anything, then added, but nothing to drink or eat. We all knew that usually means surgery. But surgery was never mentioned. She went home tired, thirsty, hungry, and sleepy.

Home: her shared room at the assisted living facility.

The US — or Trump, specifically — is between a rock and hard place. After Trump claimed he would end the Russia – Ukraine War, it continues with fresh strikes by Ukraine on Russia today.

Over in Iran, where Trump decided to start a war and declared it over, Iran launched an attack on a Kuwaiti airport.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who said this was a small operation back in March, was not available for comment. Trump’s Iran War was supposed to be over in weeks if not sooner, according to Republicans back in March. Now the war has been going 95 days.

Without too much surprise for me, I read that the Trump administration is dragging its feet on refunding Trump tariffs as ordered by the courts. Meanwhile, Trump dropped more tariffs on 60 nations, claiming it’s because they use forced labor.

Over in World Cup news, a Swiss player is waiting to see if he’ll be taking part in the games because the US has not said he’s allowed in yet, and the Iranians are worried about their team’s ability to come and go to the US.

The US mint announced FIFA World Cup coins. McDonalds announced a World Cup meal so the poor can get in on the excitement. Papi announced he’s taking a World Cup nap. It’s World Cup mania! Except ticket sales are flat and FIFA is being accused of using unofficial resale sites to cut prices.

The Epstein files aren’t completely released, and the Epstein ballroom is still short of funds but under construction. Under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, Trump is now not worried about it as a ballroom, but as a drone port. It’s all about the nation’s defense!

Of course, as I understand it, arming the White House to the teeth basically raises its value as a military target. After all, that’s what the US did in Iran: we went after the drone and missile launch sites.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

What hyperbole. Trump blasts a judge and rants, “we can no longer defend Washington, D.C., with rifles and pistols, alone.”

No kidding, Trump. You just proposed a 1.5 trillion-dollar defense budget, the largest in history, and you think D.C, us being defended by ‘rifles and pistols’?

Let’s face it, too; if the US has reached a point in a conflict that we’re depending on drones on top of the White House to defend us, we’re pretty screwed.

Today’s music comes out of the thought stew bubbling my brain this morning. Spying on me, The Neurons brought the Rolling Stones and “Rock and A Hard Place” to the morning mental music stream.

Sample Lyrics:

We’re stuck between a rock
And a hard place
Between a rock (yeah) and a hard place

This talk of freedom
And human rights
Means bullying and private wars and
Chucking all the dust into our eyes

And peasant people
Poorer than dirt
Who are caught in the crossfire ain’t nothin’

To lose but their shirts, yeah

May your day be carried forward with peace and grace.

Cheers

DIY: La Pink Stuff

My wife has been on a continuous improvement kick. The main event is death cleaning. She’s going drawer by drawer, room by room, closet by closet, a household version of the Terminator, focused on a mission.

Part of this mission is finding new things for the house. It started with the lights. We’ve put in new light fixtures in five areas. The old ones went to Habitat for Humanity. All were in good condition.

The pillows were changed next; smaller pillows were purchased. Pillow cases were changed. The old stuff found their way to local Hospice Boutique for resale to support hospice patients.

Last week, a package arrived. Inside were two slender pieces of metal. Each had an edge about an inch wide and look like stainless steel.

“Those are for the stove gap,” she said.

Yes, I got that immediately. The ‘stove gap’ is the space between the range and the counters. Why, it’s almost 3/16″ on either side. Things get spilled in there. Unacceptable! These were the solution for them.

After installing them, I admit, they looked good and closed that gap. Exactly matched the stainless-steel range. They use metal cutouts that are springy which create tension when they’re spread and put into the gap. Yep, I’m impressed.

Next was La Pink Stuff.

This arrived Sunday. Its real name is “The Pink Stuff“.

“It’s supposed to fix the cracks in the glaze in our ceramic dishware,” my wife explained.

The stuff is a pink paste. Comes in a jar, less than 18 ounces. You’re supposed to use it undiluted on a soft cloth or sponge, but don’t let it dry, they warned. After gently rubbing it in, rinse with hot water, then dry.

I tried it on a plate.

Didn’t work.

“Oh well,” my wife said. “It’s only six bucks. Worth a shot.”

I agreed.

“It’s supposed to work on stainless steel,” she added.

I checked online. “Consumer Reports advises against that,” I reported.

CR called it ‘liquid sandpaper’. Reading about it, I decided to try it on the stainless-steel sink.

“But that’s stainless steel,” my wife said.

I shrugged. “It is, but it’s different. The sink’s bottom is scratched. So using this stuff will be okay.”

The results blew me away. It took only fifteen minutes on each sink. I did the disposal side first and showed my wife.

“Wow,” she said. “It looks brand new.”

“Yes, it looks great,” I agreed.

I had another target already in mind and was going off-piste.

Our water supply is hard water.

We have a walk-in shower with tiles and glass doors. The hard water clings to both. The hard water buildup is so ugly.

I’ve tried a dozen different cleaners and methods to get them clean. Most have marginal and temporary results.

I took to the glass door with The Pink Stuff to do a small test area. I’d noticed a difference when working with it with water in the stainless-steel sink. Leaning on that observation, I wet a small toothbrush, dipped it into the pink stuff, and scrubbed a small section of the glass door.

Holy cow.

Encouraged, I expanded the test area.

It looked fantastic. And there was no mess, no nasty smell, all that.

I abandoned the toothbrush for a wet cloth. While that worked great, some of the harder water buildup areas were still visible. A dry cloth with the pink stuff was used.

Rinsing it off and drying it, I stepped back and gawked in amazement.

The Pink Stuff really worked.

I did an entire panel and then brought my wife in so she could verify that I wasn’t imagining the improvement.

Her eyes went big. “Wow. That looks great. At last, something that cleans that hard water off that glass.”

Beaming, I was nodding along, saying, “I know, right?”

“Well, that’s certainly worth the six dollars,” she said, leaving.

By day’s end, I’d completed the glass portions and tried it on the hard water on the tiles.

Worked there, too.

I wholeheartedly recommend The Pink Stuff. Just test small areas first.

I still have 3/4 of the jar left. Next up for it: the grill on the patio.

Crash…No More?

TL/DR: I think I fixed my laptop crashing issue. The power brick was the culprit.

A little more:

My Dell laptop computer is less than a year old. Windows 11 is the OS.

Tabs, browsers, and even the OS frequently crash on me, disrupting thinking, writing, typing. I’d end up clenching my jaw and swearing on so many days. I had to remind myself to save, save, save work lest I lose it from a crash.

Gmail was the worse but only marginally so over SFGate, BlueSky, Canvas, Facebook, Amazon, the NY Times, Daily Kos, financial sites, ESPN, and WordPress. The crashing also took down Word. It happened with every search engine I tried, and every app I used.

The net crashes happened in every browser. I tried incognito, private, and stealth modes. Same results. I turned off ad-blockers, encryption, VPNs, firewall, anti-virus.

Things still crashed.

I ran diagnostics. Chip test and ram tests. Keyboard, processors, etc.

No problems found.

Researching, I disabled all extensions. Cleared and cleaned caches. Disabled graphic accelerators. Close, opened, shut down, rebooted…uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers, perused forums, reached out to Dell, Microsoft, Firefox, Google…more. I closed tabs and kept fewer tabs open. The crashing continued.

Meanwhile, I took my laptop to the coffee shop. I often wasn’t plugging in there and realized, I never crashed there while I wasn’t plugged in.

Yesterday, I went back home and recharged my laptop. Booting up with the laptop plugged in, I opened a browser. Went to NYTimes since it’s a known crasher.

Crash.

I unplugged.

Completely stable. I opened all known offenders.

None crashed. I opened ten tabs, eleven, twelve.

Nothing crashed.

Plugged in the power supply.

Crash, crash, crash.

Unplugged again and operated the rest of the day without any crashes.

I thought, maybe it’s the house wiring or my network. Then I remembered: I was on vacation last week. Stayed in two different hotels and crashed there. So — not my home setup or environment.

I’ve ordered a new brick. It’ll be here next week.

We’ll see how it goes. I’ll let you know.

Awesome! Jolly! Monday!

Jill Dennison has done it again on Jolly Monday!

I listed my favorite five below. Hope you go check out the rest!

Yes, that was seven.

It’s Trump math.

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