Redhorse cafe

[Broken Arrow]

Chuy, I need the medicinal chocolate, please.

Hm, I found the duplo in white. They can calm down my nerves. Than they are medicine. Please, here they are:

My AC broke yesterday. For the first month I that I ran the new heater, they were out twice a week. Same when I started the AC.

It is the first time since June anyone has been in my house.

I'm still freaked out. When this is over, I'm going to need a shrink for my new case of germaphobia, LOL.

I can recommend my second domestic service craftsman. My first sold us a system which was repaired and lasted five years and with a lot of repairs ten more. The new one runs now for fifteen years and the only change is demanded by a changed law.

May be a lot of free and open space can help with the right ventilated housing. May be cold in the winter, Can't tell you, no experience.

I miss the trees changing. We don't really get a colorful change. One day in late Oct the leaves will be green, the next day a sickly yellow, the third day I'll be raking, LOL.

We are not an Canada but where we have deciduous tree, you have a lot of slowly changing colours from green to yellow, red, light brown. With the sun shining it is nice to see and walk through.

I need to get ready for my grocery delivery. I can't find my left shoe. My three legged kitten has using it as a portable blind while hunting her toys.

This morning it must be under the sofa or something....

As long as it warm, you may not need that particular shoe at home. I am waiting that the delivery is done by drone.

They are talking now about flying taxis at Düsseldorf within the next five years.

[OLChemist]

Our furnace is going on 16 or more years old ! I worry every year that this will be the year it gives up ! Then if it does I have to hope the bank will be generous enough to finance the new system and I know they're not cheap !

My old one lasted 18 years. The AC freaked out a couple times over the years. But the first time the heater died; it was also the last. They couldn't get the part it needed. The company that made the heater was dead.

Yeah, a whole house system will set you back some. They run about 10-15K down here, in the land of industrial strength AC that has to run for 7-8 months.


I still have to have my preheating season check. It comes with the warranty. I usually don't have to turn mine on until late Oct or early Nov.

To be fair about this problem... It was a partially blocked condensate drain. The float switch would cut the system off after 2 mins of operation. Then after 5 mins the water level would drop and it would turn back on. If I hadn't been afraid to have them out to do the free pre-start check, they would have blown out the line and put in a pan tab. This probably wouldn't have happened.

After all the problems I had, the company waived the weekend and emergency up-charges anyway. It cost all of $49 to fix. The tech go to me in under an hour. And he changed the filter for me, so I didn't have to pay my handyman, who charges me way more to drive out and climb into my attic with the heater. (He's been weird that way ever since he ran into the raccoon in the attic.)

All I have left are medicinal w&ws ,if you eat them while standing on your head they'll be m&ms ! LOL

LMAO!


BA, thanks for the candy.

[Broken Arrow]

I have no AC at home but if the summers get warmer, that may become necessary.

We have gas heating and warm water. Its called "Brennwertheizung" which may be translated as codensing gas boiler heating. It should last 25 years but you can now regard you as lucky if it survives 15 years of sercie. Heating may switch to on even in nights even in August and May. This morning 10:00 12°C while at 16:00 27°C.

There are about 7 brands of such heating systems but the electronic control units are made by only one corporation for all. That does not make them interchangable.

[OLChemist]

We won't get that cold at night for another few weeks. Tomorrow and Tues are supposed to be rainy, it will be cold -- 67 - 63F -- for this time of year. We're in Texas, we don't do cold. It was 60F one morning last week, I saw two people wearing parkas on their morning walk.

[Broken Arrow]

32°F and below are rare. 15°F is rare in my city. The times that there was ice on the rhine is more than 60 years back. It was 1942.

[OLChemist]

Chuy, I need Milk Duds -- lots of them....


One of the things about lapidary work that I really am having trouble with is the deep infiltration of the New Age into the rough rock market. Places that were dusty, cutting oil-scented roadside rock shops back when I was in school are now sporting posters about chakras and reeking of burning copal, sage and lavender. I've replaced a couple of my old reference books. The new editions now have sections on the "metaphyscial aspects". These are filled with an unblushingly, facile mix of Hindu, Wicca, and various folk beliefs about of gems and minerals. It's become ubiquitous in the marketing of gem stones and gem stone jewelry.

Seeing this stuff bothers me. In some cases, there is outright appropriation. In others, it is seems there is cynical, commodification of religion. It gives the same queasy feeling I got in Europe seeing all the vendors outside Notre Dame de Lourdes or outside Vatican city. Or seeing pipes in a Rapid City or Santa Fe gallery. You don't pay to pray. Now, I'm not saying religious practitioners shouldn't make a living wage, or that items used in ceremony shouldn't be exchanged in trade or sale. But, there is a line somewhere that is crossed by smudge kits, crystal wands and how to videos, or Our Lady of Lourdes refrigerator magnets.

*Rose, Rose dear get to the point.*

I've been contemplating buying some cabs and some slabs of charoite. The business is in Sedona, AZ, which is an epicenter of the New Age. At first the place seemed like a regular slabs and saws rock shop. As I browsed before checking out, I stumbled across smudging kits and reiki wands. So I'm in a quandary about granting tacit approval by buying stones from this place.

[Broken Arrow]

For my friend though you might restrict to one package per day



You will walk the right way.

[ches]

OL go with what you are comfortable with.

[gilisi]

In others, it is seems there is cynical, commodification of religion.

This piqued my interest. I'm inferring an overall attitude against faith of any kind?

Sounds annoying.

[ches]

What does “commodification” mean?

[subeeds]

Rose, when I made jewelry, I used to get a lot of stones from an online shop called magpiegemstones. They are reliable and have quality stuff. I just did a quick look, and they have charoite. I also saw some stones listed on etsy, but didn't look at them and can't vouch for them.

We didn't get as much rain as they forecast, but we got a bunch. Road came close to washing out in a couple of spots, and the rest of it was like driving over a washboard. We've been dealing with a northeaster for the last few days and it's been cloudy, but not too rainy. It got cool here this morning, too-around 65 and is supposed to be around 58 in the morning. We heat with LP gas, so I will probably call and order some in the morning. They only come out this way once a week, and I like to get it early before the price jumps up. A few years ago, it was around $400 for 75 gallons. I have no idea what it is now. I think the most we paid last year was a little over $200 for 100 gallons.

[OLChemist]

What does “commodification” mean?

Bear with me, Ches. I'm not sure if you're inquiring about the definition of the word itself or what I mean in this context. The word itself means: treating something as a mere product that can be bought and sold.

As for what I meant... I guess I can best explain with an illustration. Pipestone has been quarried by Native people since the flood. It had been traded and given to peoples who lived far away from the deposit. In the 1970's when I was a kid, you'd occasionally see vendors at powwows selling it. But, it was traded and used within a particular cultural milieu that wasn't strongly consumeristic.

Then along came the non-Indian. First in the 1860's the Northwest Fur Company "mined" -- in violation of treaty -- pipestone to make pipes for the Native and a limited non-Native trade. Then came the railroad, town, etc. There were tourists, Indians, hobbyists, New Agers.... And there were Native craftspeople who made pipes and other items for sale to non-Indians. This mix resulted in part from people who exploited a sacred resource for their own ends, sometimes by directly selling pipestone and products made from it, sometimes by exploiting the draw of an "exotic" spirituality.

This profiting from the faithful by selling literal scared items and/or a brush with another people's spiritual experience is what I meant by commodification.

I'm inferring an overall attitude against faith of any kind?

Forgive me if I misunderstand and am being overly sensitive. Do you mean, I have an attitude against anyone having a faith?

I'm all for faith. Mine, yours and most other peoples. I have a lot more trouble relating to the atheists that are so common the hard sciences. I can't figure out how one can grapple with quantum mechanics, look though a telescope, study the conformation of an enzyme, engage with exploration the physical laws underlying the universe in any way and not see the thumbprints of the Creator. My deepest experiences with the sheer majesty of the Creator have occurred in the lab. Eminence dwells within the intricacies of the universe.

What I dislike is those who exploit the belief of others to line their pockets. I find this particularly odious when the exploiter is not a person of faith.

[OLChemist]

Subs, I'll check them out. Thanks!

[gilisi]

Forgive me if I misunderstand and am being overly sensitive. Do you mean, I have an attitude against anyone having a faith?

.

No not at all! I'm just trying to understand what you meant by "Cynical commodification of religion" I was attempting a deeper insight to what you saw.

Forgive me for not communicating with more clarity.

[OLChemist]

Sorry, I was making everything about me, LOL.


Let me be very clear, I don't know anything about this specific store or the motives of the owners. I'm commenting in general.

Since 2011 when I resumed making jewelry and silversmithing, I've been shopping for gemstones and rough rock for the first time since the 1980's. The emergence of this marketing of spiritual aspects of stones took me by surprise.

It seems to me that some of the vendors just add on some spiel about energies and chakras when romancing a sale. I've talked with folks who are very dismissive of the "mystical junk" when they're not behind the sales counter but when it comes to making a sale, they will tout exactly what they were dismissing. They don't believe in it. They're just exploiting another person's belief to make a sale. To me that is cynical.