CaptainRon

Boating and boaters: I have heard it said that the two happiest days in a boat owners life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it. I think this might be true for those who probably should not ever own a boat. Those who buy a boat thinking it would be romantic to sail into the sunset, those who think it would be a great write-off for business, or a second home deduction, those who cannot fix things themselves and have to hire out everything from changing lightbulbs to washing down the hull and changing the oil. In the years that I towed and salvaged boats for a living, I saw many of these people. Dead batteries, out of fuel, on the rocks, no charts, and knot a clew (sailor joke there). I believe that if you buy a boat, you should be ready to learn everything about it, study about engines, drive systems, rigging, sails, charts, rules of the road ESPECIALLY rules of the road. Understand how the electronics work, RTFM! Use your RADAR when it's sunny outside. Those who go into it with the idea that boating is all rosy summer days and romantic sails into the sunset with a cocktail will be gravely disappointed. I have met folks who bought a sailboat, having never been on a boat before and expected to sail around the world in a few weeks of training. They tend to be the most disappointed that it was harder than it looked on TV. I love the movie Captain Ron, it's in my top 3. But it is so un-realistic how they took a near wreck of a boat and made it bristol while sailing it in the Caribbean. I can't do any project without 3 trips to Englund Marine. I'm not saying don't go boating or be scared off by this, but at least do your research and learn what you are getting into. YouTube is not going to save you in the fog with rocks nearby. I have loved with a passion every boat I have ever owned (well except one that was left on my hands that I had to cut up for scrap). I cried when we sold my first big boat, the Carver 32', to move up to the 36' and I miss that boat too, when I moved aboard the big workboat. Boating is my full time job and I love it. I think it takes a special kind of insanity to do what I do. Our friend John just bought a near basket case tugboat built in 1944, he has that insanity in spades. I have owned in my life first at 12 years old, an 8 foot fiberglass over plywood dinghy that was powered by oars or a small electric trolling motor. a 13' FB over wood with 5.5hp johnson 5 different Jet Ski or PWC's 3 inflatables under 10 feet 2 inflatables at 15' with 50HP outboards 2 RIB's 21' a 19' sailboat that I raised up from the bottom and the owner gave it to me and I sold it 30 minutes later for $100. Another 14' sailboat that was given to us that was scrapped. A 16' aluminum skiff with a jet outboard 2 21' Triumphs CRMA workboats A 26' twin aluminum cruiser 32' Carver Mariner 36' Carver Mariner 42' Canoe Cove and my current full time job, the 80' workboat charter. edit...and another 15' inflatable, with a 40hp. 24, now 25, boats over the years, I have a special version of insanity. So...why am I looking on YachtWorld right now...LOL Happy Boating Captain Ron.

@Grunt2A and batman get folded, spindled and mutilated

@ZeeCaptainRon Some men just like to watch the world burn.....

Let's check on how my 3D printed Batman I ran overnight came out.... oh my.... well that is suboptimal 😁

@JeffreyMoo8788 @RossKneeDeep no scandals... 🙄

I always thought he did a pretty good job. He stayed out of trouble with no scandals or special prosecutors needed. I personally benefited from Obamacare via my daughter's and other family members who received medical care they wouldn't have otherwise received. His grandparents and mom were as white as mine and he is a fellow Illinoisan.

I've gotta say this. Because it's what I think. I think if Obama were white, he would probably be considered as one of the greatest presidents ever.

@MrSonicAdvance I am captain foresight, because I prepare for these things.

@ZeeCaptainRon Pipe down, Captain Hindsight.

During the 2022 Buffalo blizzard, Jay Withey went door to door asking for shelter. Ten times, he was turned away. So he broke a window at Pine Hill School and led 24 stranded strangers inside, including seven elderly people whose cars had run out of fuel. He found cereal in the cafeteria, gym mats for makeshift beds, and gave everyone a way to survive the night. Before he left, he wrote a note: “I’m terribly sorry about the window. I had to save everyone. Merry Christmas, Jay.” Police later asked the public to help find him. Not so they could arrest him. So they could thank him.

@kova2066 @gothburz it's AI slop funded by the chinese dude. Look at the response, it's not human.

Dam homey, I needed an LLM to cut through all the circumlocutory geopolitical PowerPoint fog just to realize the whole thing was basically satire about optics replacing substance. In a nutshell: The piece satirizes modern geopolitics as a giant PR machine where vague buzzwords, optics, and headline management replace actual strategy or results. Its style is intentionally over-detailed and bureaucratic so the reader feels buried inside the kind of euphemistic institutional language it’s mocking. Gave me a horse of a headache too

I am the Director of Summit Outcomes for the Presidential Advance Team. My job is to land in a foreign capital and leave with a word the President can say on the tarmac. We landed in Beijing 6 days after rolling back the tariffs we spent 4 years imposing. 145% to 30%. The average rate before the trade war was approximately 3%. In Geneva, we called this "creating the conditions for productive dialogue." The conditions were that we had already conceded. I want to be clear: Beijing was a success. We went in with 7 objectives. We left with 3 photo categories, a tentative agreement China has not confirmed, and a bag of burner phones we threw off Air Force One on the tarmac. Diplomacy. My team prepared the deliverables matrix in March. 241 line items organized by urgency, feasibility, and what we call "headline potential." The President reviewed it for 4 minutes. He circled "big deal" and "historic" and wrote "MORE" next to the Boeing section. That became the strategy. Boeing was the centerpiece. 500 aircraft was the White House number we briefed to reporters before departure. 300 was the floor. The Chinese offered 200. Their commerce ministry released the number before we could brief the press. Boeing stock dropped 4.73% that afternoon. Boeing referred questions about the order to the White House. The company receiving the aircraft could not confirm it was receiving aircraft. We called it "fantastic." In Washington, "fantastic" means the other side named the number and the market already priced in your failure. I should note: in 2017, the President announced $250 billion in deals during his first China trip. 300 aircraft. An $84 billion shale gas investment in West Virginia from China Energy Investment Corporation. I can tell you the exact amount of that investment that materialized. Zero. The shale facility was never built. The 2017 Boeing order was renegotiated twice and partially canceled during the trade war the President started 8 months later. There is a binder in my office labeled "2017 OUTCOMES: DO NOT REFERENCE." It is 3 inches thick. It has not been opened in 4 years. We do not reference it because the outcomes are the reference. The agricultural package was what we call a "scaffolding commitment." Billions in purchases over 3 years, structured so the announcement is front-loaded and the verification is someone else's administration. U.S. Trade Representative Greer said "double-digit billions." Beijing's Commerce Ministry issued a statement about "deepening cooperation in agricultural trade." Those are not the same sentence. By design. My deputy maintains a glossary of every term we have invented for agreements that are not agreements. It is 41 pages. He updates it after each summit. Last quarter he added "scaffolding commitment," "streamlined licensing framework," and "mutual recognition of shared concerns." He is in line for a promotion. NVIDIA was the quiet win. H200 chips approved for approximately 10 Chinese companies. We don't say "approved." We say "under a streamlined licensing framework." The chips ship. The export controls remain "in effect." The framework is the loophole wearing a lanyard. The controls exist because these chips in Chinese hands threaten American national security. The chips are shipping to Chinese hands. The controls remain in effect. Both of these are true. Fentanyl was discussed for 9 minutes. Both sides agreed it was a problem. Both sides agreed to continue discussing it. We added it to the deliverables matrix under "ongoing mutual engagement." The previous version of the matrix also listed it under "ongoing mutual engagement." That was in 2023. I copied the line item from the 2023 matrix into the 2026 version. Changed the date. The language was identical. But Taiwan. Taiwan was the deliverable we didn't put on the matrix. I watched the Taiwan exchange from the overflow room on a 12-second delay. I had the contingency statement drafted in 3 versions: "productive exchange," "frank discussion," and "both sides reaffirmed their respective positions." I used none of them. There was no contingency for silence. Chairman Xi released his remarks before the meeting was over. While the President was still seated across the table, Chinese state media published the transcript. "Clashes and even conflicts." His bluntest language on Taiwan in the history of the relationship, released to 1.4 billion people while we were still pouring tea. We called this "sequencing." The President was asked whether he would defend Taiwan if China attacked. He chose not to answer. We wrote that down as "a strong listen." The $14 billion arms sale. Already approved by Congress. The largest in the history of the Taiwan Relations Act. Taiwan's parliament spent months appropriating the $25 billion to proceed with this package and the $11 billion tranche approved last year. They finally secured the funding this month. The President told Fox News it was "a very good negotiating chip." He used the word "chip." Referring to the defense of 24 million people. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense sent our office a letter requesting clarity on the delivery timeline. 3 pages. It referenced specific weapons systems by name: F-16V Block 70 fighters, HIMARS launchers, Harpoon coastal defense missiles. The letter was addressed to me. I filed it under "pending." On Air Force One, a reporter asked about the 1982 Six Assurances, the framework in which the United States committed not to consult with Beijing before selling arms to Taiwan. The President said: "What am I going to do, say I don't want to talk to you about it because I have an agreement wrote in 1982? No, we discussed arms sales." 44 years of bipartisan Taiwan policy, dismissed in 2 sentences at 38,000 feet. We are calling this "a modernized approach to alliance management." Our readout mentioned trade, agriculture, energy, and regional stability. It did not mention Taiwan. I wrote it. Their readout opened with Taiwan. I have staffed 7 summits across 2 administrations. This is the first where I could not draft a single deliverable as a success without a qualifier. In my office there is a laminated card that lists every synonym for "undecided" that polls above 40% approval. "Active review" is 3rd. "Determination" is 7th. Both tested well with independents in the Midwest. He also said: "Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit." He was eating a cheeseburger. He said this while eating a cheeseburger. Secretary Rubio told NBC that Taiwan arms sales "did not feature prominently." This is accurate in the same way that the iceberg did not feature prominently in the Titanic's itinerary. Representative McCaul, Republican of Texas, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States must "arm Taiwan so they can defend themselves." He said Xi was "very aggressive" regarding Taiwan during the summit and that "most of what Xi talked about was Taiwan." Representative Meeks, Democrat of New York, ranking member of the same committee, said Xi has "leverage over the president" but not "over the United States Congress and the American people." He noted that Congress already approved the package. "The president is the one that's holding it up." Representative Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, compared Taiwan to Ukraine. He called both "fortresses of democracy on the front lines." Speaker Johnson said Taiwan needs to "stay independent and secure." The bipartisan consensus was that something had gone wrong. The bipartisan action was press quotes. No vote. No resolution. No hearing scheduled. 4 members of Congress from both parties said the right words to reporters and then went to lunch. That's how the system processes alarm. I monitor 14 accounts we classify as "aligned messaging amplifiers." Within 4 hours of the Taiwan exchange, 9 went silent. 2 pivoted to fentanyl. 1 posted 3 words: "Not like this." It received 280,000 impressions in 90 minutes. He deleted it and posted about the border instead. The President patted Chairman Xi on the back 7 times during the Zhongnanhai garden walk. We counted. He called him "my friend" in 4 languages, 2 of which he does not speak. He asked if other world leaders had been invited to the compound. They had. Putin was there last year. The President asked if his tour was longer. 15 CEOs flew with us to Beijing. Their combined net worth approaches $1 trillion. Cook. Musk. Jensen Huang. Larry Fink from BlackRock. Jane Fraser from Citigroup. David Solomon from Goldman Sachs. Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone. Kelly Ortberg from Boeing. The CEO of Visa. The CEO of Mastercard. The CEO of Qualcomm. Illumina. Micron. Cargill. GE Aerospace. Musk and Huang rode on Air Force One. The others flew commercial. Tesla's Shanghai factory produces approximately half of the company's vehicles worldwide. Musk's presence on Air Force One was noted by my counterintelligence liaison. No further action was taken. We organized the state banquet seating chart by net worth. I am told this was the President's suggestion. They came for market access. Xi told them China would "open further to American business." That was the deliverable. Those 5 words. No specifics. No timeline. No sectors named. 15 chief executives flew to Beijing and received a sentence. Chairman Xi has delivered this sentence at every summit I have staffed. It has not once been followed by a named sector, a timeline, or a specific commitment. It is received as news each time. 43 lobby badges in a Ziploc bag. That's what my team collected from the CEOs after the garden tour. Standard protocol. The badges were embossed with the Great Hall of the People seal. Several executives asked if they could keep them. We said no. One asked twice. 15 executives with combined access to American financial, defense, and technology infrastructure had spent 3 hours inside the Great Hall of the People. We secured the lobby badges. The S&P 500 futures dropped 1% on the morning after the summit. The KOSPI fell 6.12%. China's CSI 300 fell 1.12%. UBS told clients that "much increasingly scarce jet fuel has been burned to produce nothing of real substance." Fortune's headline was "Wall Street sees nothing of real substance." The markets liked the anticipation. The markets did not like the deliverables matrix. Iran was the item we listed as "mutual recognition of shared concerns." The President told reporters they "feel very similar." Xi sat in silence. China's Foreign Ministry did not comment on any commitment regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The President then told reporters the United States "doesn't need the Strait of Hormuz open at all." Oil hit $109 per barrel. Deutsche Bank flagged it as a market-killing statement within the hour. The President described Iran as "a little bit crazy." This was during a toast. Over Peking duck. Rare earths. I prepared a 40-page brief on critical mineral dependency. Supply chain maps for 14 minerals. $1.2 trillion in dependent U.S. industries. Roughly 4% of GDP. The President circled the GDP figure and wrote "big." In the meeting, he asked Chairman Xi if rare earths were "the things in magnets." They are. They are also in every F-35, every Patriot missile battery, and every MRI machine in the country. The discussion lasted 11 minutes. 3 of them were about magnets. No agreement on export licenses. China exposed our dependency last year and has not let us forget it. The Supreme Court struck down our tariffs separately, which was helpful context for the discussions. Fentanyl received 9 minutes. Magnets received 3. We are calling the rare earth outcome "a foundation for continued engagement." There is a poster in the Advance Team office that says "A foundation is not a building." It has been there since my first summit. No one has removed it. On the flight home, my team collected every item the Chinese government had distributed. The credentials. The pins. The keepsakes. The rose seeds Chairman Xi offered for the White House Rose Garden. Standard counterintelligence protocol. All of it went into a bag and off the plane before wheels-up. We threw away the roses. We kept the talking points. The Boeing order grew on the flight home. 500 before departure. 200 in Beijing. 750 somewhere over the Pacific. Boeing had not confirmed 200. The President told reporters on Air Force One it was "a pretty historic couple days." I wrote the line that preceded it: "Tonal reset with significant forward momentum." He used "fantastic" instead. In previous administrations, a tonal reset preceded the deliverables. In this administration, the tonal reset is the deliverable. He has used "fantastic" for every summit since 2017. I have not checked whether the word still polls well. I am told it does. Beijing has not confirmed any of the agreements announced by U.S. officials. This is consistent with the 2017 visit, where $250 billion in deals were announced and an estimated $10 billion materialized. It is consistent with the October summit, where pledges were also made and also not fulfilled. We have a term for this in the Advance Team. We call it "precedent." I have already labeled the binder for 2026. We go back in September. Same matrix. New line items. The verification will be someone else's administration. The President has already asked for the word "monumental." I am told it polls well.

@RonnieAdkins We all wanna be rockstars. No blame from here.

For clarity, I carry a gun every day so I don’t really care if someone thinks it’s weird I listen to Nickelback and Creed unironically.

Yeah, we have ice storms that knock out power for days. Had one 5 years ago that took out 100 trees over a 50 mile stretch of coast highway. No power for 5 days. Me, generator running with thousands of gallons of diesel in the tank. You can be prepared too, or you can point fingers instead and be wrong.

@ZeeCaptainRon @gcramer30 @WolfofX The thruway was closed in that area for days. Nobody can heat their car that long without running out of gas dude. Enjoy your nice weather in the Pacific Northwest though lmfao.

Yeah dumass? I rolled into the back end of a 28 car pileup in a blizzard in Montana a few years ago. Weaved in between a few jackknifed trucks so to not get rear ended and was stuck there for 6 hours. Ran my pickup for 10 minutes every half hour to keep us warm. Had snacks and drinks and 3/4 of a gas tank. No problem. Could have easily gone 6 more.

@ZeeCaptainRon @gcramer30 @WolfofX Okay asshole, i hope you get caught in that exact scenario but unlike the other people stuck in their cars you enjoy the slow creep of lethal cold and the realization that no one ifls coming to save you. Prick.

@Snarkage1 @WolfofX They were not victims, they were volunteers. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm asking questions about the complete lack of preparation and personal responsibility. Parents used to teach kids about this stuff. I could see a few people getting caught out, not 24 in one place.

@ZeeCaptainRon @WolfofX If your immediate reaction is to blame the victims, you are an asshole

@VekaFitzfrancis @gcramer30 @WolfofX A car should run for 8 hours or more at idle on a full tank, longer if it's intermittent. Quit defending stupid people

@ZeeCaptainRon @gcramer30 @WolfofX Did you miss the part that said 'elderly whose cars had run out of gas?'

@VekaFitzfrancis @gcramer30 @WolfofX 7 out of 24

@PioneerMama Mother Jones is your source?

I live in Tahoe and can tell you Big Chem messed with the wrong community. Now that the recent Mother Jones article exposed the massive levels of glyphosate currently being sprayed on our forests by the US Forest Service and their plans to spray the Caldor Fire burn scar in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the fight is on. @glyphosategirl Everyone can help! This is both urgent and a long game so stay tuned for evolving calls to action. This takes 10 minutes to call & tag: The US Forest Service plans to spray up to 75,000 Acres in the Lake Tahoe area with glyphosate, including campgrounds, trailheads and ski areas. They are doing so to purportedly accelerate wildfire recovery. The reality is that they are killing deciduous trees, native shrubs, flowering plants, and anything that competes with the commercially attractive conifer trees used by the timber industry. Additionally, the suggested benefits of spraying glyphosate for wildfire prevention can be achieved through other, non-chemical methods that don’t kill entire ecosystems. We need your help. Please call all of these offices and tell them why you do not want glyphosate sprayed. Leave a message if they don’t pick up. TRPA (775) 588-4547 Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit 530-543-2600 Tahoe National Forest 530-265-4531 (Option 0) Plumas National Forest 530-283-2050 Lassen National Forest 530-257-2151 Eldorado National Forest (530) 622-5061 A sample script: I am calling because I do not want glyphosate or any herbicide used in the forest. There are other ways to manage forest regrowth and fire prevention that do not involve carcinogenic chemicals that will contaminate the entire area and kill ecosystems. This plan to spray is unacceptable. Finally, please go and tag these accounts on X: @LakeTahoeUSFS @EldoradoNF @Tahoe_NF @LassenNF @USFSPlumas @forestservice @USDA @SecRollins @TahoeAgency Instagram: @trpa_tahoe  @SecRollins @usda

@klara_sjo You have to know the right people.

How do I become a scalper do I apply somewhere or just start cutting peoples heads?

@ShamashAran If the Beatles came out today, they would not sell a single album. They are that awful.

The beatles feel overrated because they single-handedly popularized every single trope that made Rock music what it is for the last 60 years.

@Mollyploofkins yeah, just let it fester, like biden did.

Trump shouldn't be able to unilaterally do shit like this to our national monuments.

@cajun_exile drive through back and forth fast, then head for the car wash, rinse and repeat.

"A swarm of approximately six billion termites surrounded a deputy's vehicle..." You do not despise the intellectual laziness of the media enough...

@gcramer30 @WolfofX but really? 24 in one place? Now all walking through snow instead of staying in the car with the heat on? insanity

@ZeeCaptainRon @WolfofX A lot of us do all that. But not everyone. We get a lot of visitors to things like the falls. It is truly impressive how bad it can get and just how fast. Go to leave somewhere because it looks like it's getting bad. Get stuck on the highway because of out of staters wrecks etc.

@MichaelAArouet because we are not sheep, like you? Do you like being manipulated by propaganda? Cause THIS is what that looks like, genius.

Can someone please explain why there are people out there still seriously denying man-made climate change?

@1LaNotte @AtheistJerk @amitylee13 he doesn't even know who you are, yet, you are obsessed with him over an outright lie. brilliant you might want to rewrite your bio, this one is pathetic

@AtheistJerk @amitylee13 Trump is pathetic

He doesn’t give a sh!t about you.

@AtheistJerk @amitylee13 you can't even lie convincingly asshole

@amitylee13 He sure loves China, though