A classic

Just because it's not only great, but to celebrate the recent successes of a friend. Good job, Eric!

 

Karate Kid theme - You're the Best

UMs: Murder/Unexplained Death part 2

Well, another month is here and it's time again for more mystery stories, but not without playing the best version of the song in the background! This time around we are revisiting the murder/unexplained deaths again, and we my do so again next month as well.

Crying is heard coming from a man's basement, as a result, nothing good is discovered:
 https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/o9vabk/in_2000_police_investigate_a_man_after_reports_of/

It started with a discovery of local dogs being murdered, but then more was found:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/k0vo1n/in_1983_people_in_a_neighborhood_in_nola_noticed/

A high school girl sets out to catch her teacher admitting to molesting students, including her, on tape. Then, she turns up dead:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8hm9cq/unexplained_death_emilie_morris_wore_a_wire_to/

Man buys a foreclosed home in Florida, but inherits a dead body along with it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/9v2t6x/the_silent_disappearance_of_kathryn_norris_a/

In 1974, a woman forms a cult, and well, I think you can guess what happens later:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/bsxkkk/in_1974_terri_hoffman_founded_a_cult_called/

In 1937, a cult is discovered in Japanese occupied Korea, and things get crazy: 
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/o4cdxh/the_white_white_cult_in_1937_the_japanese_police/

That's it I'm moving

Because I want to become the lord of war:

Ukraine’s National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) has declared that captured Russian tanks and other equipment are not subject to tax declaration. 

Yeah, war zone or not, that's some serious money to be made right there. Long term dream almost within reach now.

The nearly abandoned

A photo taken more than 10 years ago from the CLUI site.

On the less populated, western desert side of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, not far from the rail line causeway, lies a very well maintained concrete building that has laid nearly dormant for more than 30 years. It is full of machinery, pumps, and forgotten office equipment from the 1980s to combat a threat that has since disappeared. No, it's not a relic of the cold war, but rather a water pumping station. 

A picture of the construction effort from a recent KUTV news article.

Back in the 80s, there was so much runoff from record snowfall, that the lake had seen an unprecedented rise in it's shoreline to the point it was threatening to even affect the nearby airport. The Utah leadership declared a state of emergency and allocated 60 million dollars for the project to be fast-tracked to fruition in less than a year. 

Completed in 1987 by the Utah Division of Water Resources, the station ran their pumps for two years and reduced the water line of the lake by more than two feet. Then, due to a sudden lack of contributing fluid to the previously rising water level, it ceased operations in 1989. 

A picture of the massive engines used inside the station, also obviously taken from the KUTV article. 

The state currently maintains the facility in a mothballed state with regular maintenance and personnel testing the engines and pumps. It currently costs about $10,000 annually to maintain the facility in the event it is needed in the future. In that event, it's estimated it may make take approximately six months and more than 2 million dollars to bring it up to full capacity and refurbish/modernize the office spaces. 

As quoted by a member of the Division of Water Resources, the water level fluctuations that caused the need for the station was an increase of 20 feet in a 20-year period, and 12 of those within a 5-year period. Being that those fluctuations can happen so suddenly, it's not unlikely that the station may be needed sometime again in the future. Go ahead and also check out that brief KUTV article about it as well for more interesting info on it.

A picture of the station in it's prime.

You can't save Star Trek because it's dead, Jim.

...but you might be able to get revenge! Just found out that there's a petition on Change.org to ensure any work of Kurtsman's is removed from canon. 

Designate Kurtzman Trek as Non-Canon

There's not a lot of people I have a genuine hatred for. Communist and Socialist leaders like Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Xi Jinping, Che Guevara, Castro, and Mao Zedong all make the list because they actively tried to hurt humanity. So then why not hold those responsible for killing Star Trek, a show made to help people make the future more optimistic, in the same regard?

Do I really think a change.org petition will change anything? No, not much. But if enough people sign it, that will at least show CBS/Paramount/Viacom that they are killing any chance of making a profit with these retards at Bad Robot running the actual shows.  

Sign the petition and show those corporate heads why the jackasses writing/producing modern trek were laughed out of Hollywood hangouts. 

Hat tip to Doomcock for the pic and letting me know about the petition.

Good hunting, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Pretty sure I've mentioned the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games here before, and it goes without saying that I'm a huge fan. It's an extremely well crafted alternate history, sci-fi, horror, open world shooter that takes place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. To this day, I have never played a game that has such an immersive and fascinating environment, and no other horror game has actually managed to make me scared while playing it. 

I'm super eager for the sequel to come out later this year, but who knows if that'll actually happen considering they are a Ukrainian studio. So in the meantime, I've been delving back into the insane number of huge mods for the game. 

One of the best out there is a standalone mod, meaning you don't need the original game to play it, and it's totally free! Stalker: Anomaly is available over at ModDB and is one of the better experiences available due to it's extremely high level of customization to the gameplay and difficulty. By itself, it's campaign is a bit abbreviated, but it does have a separate one for each of the 9 factions in the game, and you can join any one of the factions you want, while choosing multiple starting locations and gear. It also includes a plethora of visual and UI enhancements over the original game. 

This is just the beginning, as you can not only choose that, but you can adjust how much the weather changes, how dark nights are, how high the mutant and human population is, how often cataclysmic events happen, how effective armor and weapons are, how much weight you can carry, how often traders restock, exchange rates, and so much more. Beyond the settings included, the game is built to be able to take a number of additional add-on mods that can add more quests, refine the dynamic relations between the factions, new NPCs, add better skins, or add new models, and just about anything else you can think of. 

So hey, it's free, so what have you got to lose?

Like I said, it just keeps on giving

 Seems the latest trend on TikTok is Ukrainian civilians giving instructions on how to operate abandoned or stolen Russian military equipment. I love it. Also, in case the embed isn't working right, here's a direct link to the video.

@nastyatyman Если вам попадётся свободный или брошенный БТР - держите лайфхак как его запускать☝🏻 #настятуман #авто #бтр #автознания ♬ оригинальный звук - Туман Настя

Instantly wins the internet for me. 

Do the Dairy

 Another local place I love that I'll take time to tip my hat to, is Gossner Foods up in Logan, Utah. They are a local dairy with a fancy for a European flair in their logo and local outlet store, with the farms located in the famous Cache Valley area. 

Nice little Alpine-looking storefront. 

Being a dairy, they obviously have a huge variety of cheeses, milk and cream to choose from that are all of a high quality. What I did not know until recently, is some interesting facts about the company history. 

The founder's name was Edwin Gossner Sr., who was born in Switzerland and emigrated to Wisconsin in 1930 to work in his brother's cheese factory, that unfortunately burned down several years later. He worked for a while in another cheese factory in California, until he decided he wanted to go into business for himself. 

So, in 1941, he opened his cheese factory in it's current Utah location of Cache Valley. Supposedly, he specifically chose the spot due to the area's climate and elevation resembling that of his homeland of Switzerland's. Later, in 1966, the company was reformed into the Gossner Foods as it is known today. 

Today the company has another location in Idaho in addition to the headquarters at the Utah location. Another neat fact, is that Gossner has a government contract to supply ultra high temperature milk to the US military. So, if you are in the neighborhood, check 'em out.

Beauty queens blowing chunks everywhere

The phrase takes on a whole new meaning in Ukraine. Beauty queens are generally the least likely topic I would bring up here, the only one of note I can think of off the top of my head would be Miss Utah Jill Stevens from 2007. She was more than cool because she was not only not your typical contestant, she was an Army vet who served in Afghanistan. It's still the only time I could be bothered to ever watch the Miss America Pageant. 

But the wife recently pointed this newer story out to me, so it's funny how I missed it. It appears that a certain Anastasiia Lenna, who had competed to win the title of "Miss Grand Ukraine" has taken to twitter to announce she has kitted up to join the fight on the ground there. Looks like Jill found an unlikely successor to her awesomeness, and I hope Anastasiia manages to live to see the end of the conflict out there. 

Another interesting thing to note, is that since arming the citizenry and creating a reserve out of them, Ukraine now has 36,000 women serving in the military, which is now the most women of any current military.

Supply chain issues

It's been a hot topic in the news for quite some time, between inflation, quarantines, production issues, hoarding, and everything else going on in the world, it has resulted in some interesting shortages. Across the nations there are all sorts of people posting empty or near empty shelves in stores and supermarkets. 

One small thing that has been impacted that I find particularly odd, is that is darn near impossible to find a solid grape soda anymore. Soda companies in general have been affected, but it seems most of the companies, big or small can get their primary ones on shelves, except for anything grape flavored.  The only thing I can find is Crush and Sunkist grape, which isn't too tasty to me. As for the actually tasty brands, Welch's no longer makes a grape soda, Mountain Dew discontinued it's Pitch Black and it's grape Kick Start, Arizona stopped their grape lime rickey line, and Fanta is supposedly discontinuing their grape flavor as well.

I mean, it's totally a first-world problem, but why is it that all my favorite stuff always ends up going away?