10-hut!  No, not as in the ultra-nationalist goose-stepping “10-hut!!!”

No. We’re simply focused on 10 AM today.  Because that’s when a three-way (kinky econ?) split of financial attentions will occur.

• JOLTS report from Labor will give a sense of where the Jobs Picture is heading.
• Global Manufacturing PMI will hint at whether the Consumers are still buying enough (useless crap) to keep the Old Paradigm on life support for a while longer.
• And a factory orders report  will be fun because it’s like a small dinghy on Trump-tossed tariff tempest seas.

So, yeah – 10-hut we figure is the word of the day.

This doesn’t get us past our OTHER “jolt” report we expect to be upcoming – you know – the one about Earthquakes.  Because in “old man eyes” there’s a soft pattern to geomagnetic events and quakes shortly-thereafter.  But, no point getting off the center of temporal perceptions – it will be along when it is.

Markets Treading

Early Futures prices had the market still very-much stuck trying to figure out which way to jump.

With all this (and 10-Hut!) it promises to be a dandy morning.  But, for what it’s worth, the markets are looking a bit like Waffle Haus…

And let’s not forget, tomorrow is BSD.  Whether that means “blue screen of death” as in operating systems, or Bank (reserve) Settlement Day, is something we can unwrap Thursday morning.  Who knows? Might just be a “Boring, Stupid Day” too…

The Stupid Pile

Yes, gold couldn’t hold the $3,400 level, BTC is rolling $105,400.  And in Europe a mixed bag after a split decision out of Asian markets overnight.  Leaving us to ponder what “confidence shakers” might be lurking in outside the box land?

Walk with me…

Surely you won’t be surprised to learn that BREAKING: Explosives Used To Sabotage Russian Bridges Was Western C-4, can you?  Not like you can get it overnighted from Amazon, but there’s only so many places brewing the suff…

No, this doesn’t mean Montana is leaving the United States. But it does mean Missoula, Montana is giving a run to Seattle, Sideshow Bob, and San Francrisco: Missoula approves pride flag as official city flag in opposition of new law.

Not that it is a surprise, but gotta be more “normies” than we used to think when comes to clot shots: Mary Talley Bowden MD on X: “”It’s undeniable that this was pushed upon the American people with the knowledge that it was going to kill a significant portion of the people who took it.” So why isn’t the Trump administration pulling them from the market? Because of why deems don’t get prosecuted and Epstein files are still in limbo, and….(shrugs his shoulders, reaching for more coffee…)

Prosecutions that we should be reading about?  Like what?  FBI and Mueller’s Team Hid Russiagate Documents with Special Coding in FBI Case Management Database.  Yeah…well that’d be a conspiracy to overthrow, wouldn’t it?

Meanwhile, the radical retooling of racism continues as the Left worries about  More White South Africans Arrive In the US Under a New Refugee Program. Wait!  What about, oh, you know…equality?

And there goes our EV range concerns: China’s 1,000-Mile EVs Render Range Anxiety Obsolete – Bloomberg. Except, well, price points and charging stations still seem to matter. How many adapters will you need to carry, by the way?

Around the Ranch: The Ripples of Telecom

Back when we were flying our plane a lot, I used to spend hours going over FAA and NTSB reports on aircraft accidents.  Not because I had a ghoulish sense of curiosity (although, maybe from my younger news-chasing days…).  What I was after was a clearer understanding of how Life sets us all up for occasional accident chains.

An interesting “accident chain” happened here on Monday.

As you may know, we have one (residual) landline.  It’s a HDSL and voice-grade line.  Drives the wireless phones and it’s one of the Alexa voice-controlled data channels.

Anyway, point is the voie services part stopped working Monday around 3:30 PM – right about the same time there was a big power hit.  (5 seconds, black and then power popped back on).

Strangely, the internet on that landline was back working this morning, but no voice services.  Talk voltage yes, ring voltage? No.

Which had me on the phone about 4 AM with R&L: Trucking (great carrier) because we have a pallet of solar panels landing today.  Had to make sure our (usual) driver had the MagicJack over Starlink number and the cell phone (over Starlink because there’s no cell coverage here) in order to coordinate the delivery.

OK, here’s where the chaining begins:  The only day that Bitespeed (the reincarnation of CenturyLate) could get out here to repair things was on June 5th.

Chain link:  This is the same day that I am/was scheduled for a periodic BP check at our PCP’s office.

So , I asked Bitespeed  “I have a doctor’s appointment, so what time will the tech be out?”

“We can’t tell you…but we’ll call you that morning….”

“Call me on WHAT???? My phone doesn’t work…remember????”

“Well, do you have another number we can call on? Cell phone or work phone?”

“Hell no. Not unless you’re paying for it. See, around here, phones are tools.  For paying customers to call.  If you don’t pay for my cell phone, or are a friend, you don’t get the number.”

“Well, then we can’t call you. But we will have a tech out there Thursday the 5th between 8 AM and 5 PM…”

Now the accident chain adds a link.  I want to get in sooner than later (BP matters, meds matter, consistency matters, and this is crazy…).  So I get on with my PCP’s schedule on MyChart and her first appointment isn’t until August 6th.

Now, I have a very good vision of how this “AOG [aircraft on ground] accident chain would play out.”

Move the doctor.  Get the two backdoor phone numbers to the R&L driver – a really nice guy, by the way.  And run one more test to eliminate a bad DSL filter as a possible cause of NO LINE on the phones.

I already know how the “accident recovery” will work out:  My R&L guy with the solar panels will get a phone call from me mid-morning so we can rough out the time and set up to move the pallet from his truck to the back of the pickup so I can do the “last 1/2 mile” because big rigs on country roads is a PITA for the guys.  Get that.

Then, the Bitespeed tech will show up sometime Thursday, but maybe not.  See, when you live out at the “end of the wire” for almost 25-years, you know there’s a problem with the older “equipment cabinet” two roads down and it tends to blow out voice cards when there’s a lot of lightning around.  Yep, been here before.  Remember the 5-second blackout?
Started right then.

But it’s a fine discussion point over coffee, because everyone has these things happen (lifetime of shit piling up) and the FAA training on the recognition  – and prevention – of accident chains – is what makes a safe pilot.

Applies here on taxiway Earth, it helps a senior curmudgeon (ahem, moi) maintain their sanity and sense of humus while the whirled, and a state like Montana, are busy losing it’s mind.

And that’s a good thing.  But that’s only the start.

Just because you can spot one accident chain from a mile away, and have the correct alternative safe pathing into future penciled out, doesn’t ensure success.  Something else will go wrong.

Life is like that long-trained-for losing an engine on takeoff.  But, if you do, and it happens to be IFR, a second failure (like power out on the glass panel instruments) that’s when your future (and life) are at their most vulnerable.  Because anyone can be taught to see one accident chain.  But, although rare, second-sequential failures do happen.

Now, in my own “rest of week” I don’t know if it will be the R&L driver has to reschedule, the Bitespeed tech won’t have the voice card to repair Thursday, or if the BP will take me to an ER completely out of the blue.

BUT in behavioral economics class – working on multivariate future modeling – this is what keeps the course challenging.

And so it is.  Especially today.  Right on the heels of no antenna testing due to geomagnetic storming…Ah. the thunderstorms  and the squall lines in life, eh?

Write when you get rich,

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