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eff4freddie · 24 days

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After She Left | Nine

Words: 5k

Joel leaves Shauna to race to the mess hall, trying to prevent an attack that will obliterate half of Jackson. You keep Ellie safe while Joel is out for blood. Tommy has his suspicions.

Chapter warnings: Angst, again. Slow burn. Joel continues to be bad at feelings.

A/N: Thank you again for your support of this series. It's putting the slow in slow burn, but these two idiots just refuse to give any ground. Joel is starting to soften, slowly, but will Teach let him in?

Eight | Series Masterlist

Joel’s legs were moving almost completely without volition. He didn’t even hesitate, taking off towards the mess hall screaming, bellowing, over his shoulder for Shauna to run to Tommy and tell him. There wasn’t any time, there wasn’t any knowing how much time there was, but there were families in that mess hall, there were some of the town’s best men and women and their children and he was going to make damn fuckin’ sure not you. Not Ellie. Not you.

He could feel his breath coming in hard and sharp, the comparatively warm night air doing absolutely nothing to stop his lungs feeling as though they were shredding right there in his chest. He was stumbling, must have looked completely mad, as he ran to the centre of town. Shauna had said the gas line ran over the street. In rebuilding Jackson with next to no equipment they wouldn’t have been able to pull up the concrete to bury it, not with the little tools they’d had. It would have made sense to install all the services above ground without a digger to get them under, but now they were just exposed. Jackson had been built on a fuckin’ fuse and he’d stood at the gates while the guys with the match marched right past him.

Jesus, he’d failed. Again, he had failed. If that mess hall went up before he got there he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to live with himself, knew in his heart he would have to take himself off to a mountain somewhere and let the elements have their way with him. Walk into a horde of clickers. It would be fair and it would be just in this lawless, gnashing world.

Breath coming in too fast to catch it, pulse too hard to hear anything else he rounded onto the main street, bellowing at the top of his lungs to clear the area, waving with his hands over his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tommy running from the other direction, his eyes wild, raising his own hands over his head and bellowing a warning when he saw what Joel was doing. A few other men appeared on Joel’s periphery, confused but on alert regardless, and he screamed to them as he ran past ‘MESS HALL. GONNA GO UP. GET ‘EM OUT. GET ‘EM ALL OUT.’

He was dimly aware of people staring at him, gaping at him as he streamed past. He yelled in their faces to get clear, having to restrain himself from physically pushing them out of the way as he wrenched open the door to the mess hall just as Tommy appeared at the bottom of the steps.

It was all just pure instinct. He’d never been a fire warden, had done safety training for the job sites more than twenty years ago. Didn’t need instructions or a manual, just stood in the doorway as the hall fell silent around him, cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed ‘OUT OUT OUT’.

Tommy pulled him aside, gesturing people to the door now that Joel wasn’t obstructing it anymore, and later when Joel had the wherewithal he’d curse himself for being so stupid as to block the only exit he was screaming at people to use.

The place emptied in minutes. Town Council had a thing about practicing drills: clickers, raiders, fires and floods. Being the only safe haven at the end of the world a fair amount of effort went into preparing for disaster, and everyone was assembled at the muster point by the gate within minutes. Maria was busy doing her headcount.

Out the front of the mess hall Tommy held Joel by his trembling shoulder as he relayed to his younger brother everything that Shauna had said. Tommy sent a bunch of men under the floor to check the foundations, ran his own eye up the gas line because he didn’t trust any of the men, got Joel to do it too when he was done shaking. Whatever Steve and Wren had been planning they hadn’t pulled it off yet. There was still time. Joel felt himself exhale for the first time in an hour.

Over Tommy’s shoulder he saw the townsfolk of Jackson lined up along the street at a safe distance. Moms holding their babies to their chests, husbands with their arms over their wives’ shoulders. He saw you in the crowd, your hand held fast in Ellie’s, and he felt something settle in his chest as his girls watched him work. His girls.

Not his girls.

But in that first moment, before his legs had taken him in the direction of the mess hall, he’d fought a traitorous urge to turn around, head back to your place, pack you and Ellie up in blankets and hunker down with you in your bedroom, let the whole fuckin’ place burn to the ground around him so long as he had you both safe.

He blinked. There was fury bubbling in his belly, he could feel the fire rising up his sternum as he tried to swallow it down.

‘Where they at, Tommy?’ he grunted, his brother having already been anticipating that this would be Joel’s next move, once he was confident the town was safe.

‘Sent Guillaume and a few of the boys to round ‘em up,’ Tommy said, hoping this would be enough for Joel and knowing it wouldn’t be.

‘Gollum?’ Joel said, almost spitting the name in disdain. ‘That fuckhead’s the reason we in this mess. I bet you my life they were the ones skulkin’ around out there that time I saw the tracks, I bet you anythin’ they been planning this for months and I fuckin’ told Golllum…’

‘Ok, easy, easy,’ Tommy said, raising his hands, watching the heat blooming on his brother’s neck. ‘I know, Joel, but we got a proper process.’

Joel scoffed, rolling his eyes, clenching his fists. He was spitting acid now, the left-over adrenaline mixing with bile and misery. ‘We’re a civilisation, Joel,’ Tommy said, almost pleading with him to see some kind of reason. ‘That means we gotta be civil.’

‘I’ll be real civil with ‘em, brother,’ Joel said, his voice low and heavy and full of venom. ‘F’they behave themselves I might even make it quick.’

‘Joel, enough,’ Tommy said. ‘This ain’t…this is for Town Council-’

‘The HELL IT IS’ Joel bellowed, the people still milling around on the street flinching and glancing back at him. He cleared his throat and lowered his gaze.

‘You can’t cut me outta this, Tommy,’ he said, his turn to plead. ‘S’my family they messin’ with.’

‘All our families they messed with, Joel,’ Tommy said.

‘What you think they been doin’ to Shauna all this time?’ Joel said, and Tommy blanched a little. There wasn’t any evidence, Shauna had always implied more or less that she’d agreed to whatever it was they got up to on the side of cold mountains, but Joel knew how to push Tommy’s buttons, having spent the better half of his little brother’s youth installing them himself.

There was a shout over the hill leading down to the stables, a cry and a string of insults that, even though neither Tommy or Joel could make out the words, were nevertheless unkind.

Tommy pulled on Joel’s arm to try and hold him back, but Joel was already streaming over to the sound, his longer legs striding strong despite his older years, his eyes narrowing. Tommy knew this look. It was the look Joel got when he was ready to do anything to defend what was his. He stumbled after his brother, motioning for Maria in the hope that her cooler head might prevail.

Joel could see Wren being held between two of Guillaume’s men, his shoulder bent at what appeared to be a truly uncomfortable angle.

‘They’ve dislocated my shoulder!’ Wren screamed, looking a little green, Joel thought.

‘That’s the last of your worries,’ Tommy said, catching up to Joel and a little out of breath. ‘Wanna tell us about the mess hall?’

‘What about the mess hall?’ Wren asked, and Joel was ready, in that moment, to rip his dislocated shoulder clean from the rest of his body.

‘You fuckin’ sick piece of shit, going to blow it all up with all those kids in there, all those women. People’s fuckin’ families?’ Joel was aware he was spitting, that his face was red, that he was forcing his finger into Wren’s face, but the shock was wearing off now, and pure blind rage was seeping in where it had left, and he couldn’t stop thinking about pulling Ellie’s charred little body out of the wreckage, trying to figure if it was her by her shoes and her proximity to you.

He was going to vomit if he didn’t stop thinking about it. He steeled himself, let the world spin around his head for a moment longer before he pulled it all back into focus by sheer force of will.

‘You and Steve, you sick fucks, been planning this the whole time? When we fed and clothed ya, gave you fuckin’ jobs!’

‘Joel, easy,’ Tommy said, because he could see that Wren was near tears, that the younger man looked dumbfounded, and that dealing with 200 pounds of Miller in the form of a man-sized fist wasn’t going to get them to a resolution.

‘What are you…’ Wren was asking, but then there were more footsteps, and Steve was being dragged along the street to join the party by another of the patrol, and this time Shauna was trailing behind him, eyes wet and hands wringing in front of her. She moved straight to Maria, who wrapped her up in her arms.

‘Just fuckin’ confess to it so we can get down to the punishment,’ Joel was saying, even as Tommy was trying to pull him back so that the Council could form a proper impromptu trial.

‘We didn’t do fuckin’ nothing,’ Steve said, because he was quicker on the uptake it seemed. ‘Whatever she’s said to you it’s fucking bullshit.’

Joel looked at Shauna, who was starting to sob.

‘They said if I said anything they’d kill me,’ she said, eyes on the ground as Maria practically held her up. ‘They said I had to do it, I had to get the plans, I’m so sorry,’ she said.

Wren was shaking his head at her, panic on his features, but Joel was too far gone to notice or care, too interested instead in punching his features through to the other side of his skull.

‘But I couldn’t let them hurt the kids,’ she stuttered, turning her eyes to Joel now, who held her in his gaze. He could feel some of the fury ebbing away at the sight of her so distraught. Could feel a kind of inevitability settling in over his bones, a sadness and an understanding of what had to be done.

‘You fuckin’ lying whore!’ Steve screamed at her, his neck straining from the force of it. Shauna shuddered and took a step back and Joel found himself moving over to her, taking the other side from Maria to help hold her up, as Shauna transferred to his shoulder and buried her face into his neck.

‘You don’t talk about the women of Jackson that way,’ Tommy was saying as Maria nodded her head. Robert, who had been watching the proceedings and taking it all in, pulled Tommy, Maria and a few of the other Councillors aside.

In the silence, Shauna continued to whimper, reaching up to hold firm to the front of Joel’s shirt. He could feel his heartbeat settling, could feel the ache as he breathed over scorched lungs. ‘I’m so scared, Joel,’ Shauna whispered to him, and he rested his chin on the top of her head.

‘I know, I gotcha,’ he said, as he wrapped both arms around her shivering form. He cast a glance at Wren, who was staring at the ground unable to move with his shoulder sustaining what Joel now saw was likely a bad break, and then at Steve, who was watching Shauna with a cold intensity that set Joel’s teeth on edge.

‘Get your fuckin’ eyes off her,’ he hissed, and Steve, instead, raised his eyes to him.

He started to shake his head, slowly. ‘You cunt-struck fool,’ he said to Joel, almost with pity. If he hadn’t been holding Shauna up, Joel would have knocked him out then and there.

Robert cleared his throat, the conference apparently over.

‘For conspiring against the town of Jackson and its citizens, you are banished,’ he said, simply and quickly. Efficient and without fanfare.

‘That’s it?’ Joel said, sputtering. ‘They could still get back in here, the fuckers know the place like the back of their hands. They’ve got plans.’

Shauna whimpered again a little in his arms. No thanks to you, Joel thought, and then felt bad about it.

Robert continued to address the men. ‘Tomorrow morning you will be taken on horseback to a destination two and a half hours ride from here. You will be dropped off with no supplies or weapons. You will not return. Should you attempt to darken our gates again you will be shot on sight. Do you understand?’

‘Just shoot us now, you fuckin’ cowards,’ Steve said, the fight receding from him so that now he was just sort of swaying in the arms of the men. ‘Don’t just let a clicker do it.’

‘The Town Council’s decision is final. You will be placed in remand until the morning. We will ride out at dawn.’

Robert nodded to his councillors and to Joel and strode off. Joel was angry but he had to admire Robert’s composure. He considered, not for the first time, that Robert was exactly the man for the job he held.

Guillaume and his men dragged Steve and Wren away. Wren was gently weeping, his legs not working so well anymore now that he was almost bent double from the pain. Shauna didn’t lift her head from Joel’s chest to watch them go. She stayed, practically glued to his hip, until Joel had no other choice but to take her home.

You’d seen the look on Joel’s face, had ushered Ellie under your arm and away from the crowd before she had to see him rip those two men apart with his teeth. He was furious, like an adder poised to strike, while Tommy stood beside him and tried to keep a level head. Rumours were already swirling about what had happened at the mess hall by the time you turned up your street with Ellie behind you, and you blocked them out. The truth would become apparent whether you got caught up in the eddying flow of it.

Your main concern was just Ellie. You did the only thing you could think to do with a stressed-out teenager in your house: you fed her. Standing at the bench with her peeling potatoes the two of you discussed absolutely nothing at all – what air conditioning used to feel like, how loud planes were in the sky, what it was like to go to the mall and spend the whole afternoon just looking at clothes – knowing that Joel would come for her.

After a long silence, while you lay the potato slices down in a pan and poured cheese over the top to bake, Ellie finally spoke.

‘Was he a bad man?’ she asked you, and you sighed.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t know him all that well.’

Ellie looked at you sharply, surprise on her features.

‘What do you mean? You’ve spent nearly every day with us.’

You felt the thud of realisation in your chest. Joel. Was Joel a bad man.

‘Ellie, why do you ask that?’ you questioned, but she turned away from you, her shoulders rounding over. You watched as she tugged on her long sleeves, even in the heat of the kitchen.

‘He gets that look…’ she said, and you found yourself nodding.

‘He would never hurt you, or people he cared about. That looked to me like a man fighting to keep his family safe.’

‘Which family?’ she asked. You put the tray gently on the bench, to take a moment, to steady yourself.

‘Ellie…’ you started, but there was the sound of the front door opening, and heavy footfalls in the hall. Ellie was already moving towards him.

‘Ellie!’ he was calling, booming into the quiet of your house.

‘In here!’ she called back, and they met in the doorway, nearly toppling over with the force in which they collided into each other, Joel holding her fast to his chest.

‘Are you alright? Are you hurt?’ he was saying, and she was shaking her head. He pulled her away from him, cradling her head in both of his hands as he studied her, from her scalp to her toes. ‘Nothin’? Nothin’?’ he asked again, and she stilled in his hands.

‘What was that, Joel?’ she asked, and you watched as his eyes slid closed, pulling her into his body again.

‘Nothin’ babygirl, it was nothin’.’ He muttered.

You swallowed harshly, something thick and hot in your throat suddenly making it hard to breathe. He finally noticed you, his brown eyes snapping to yours as you watched him cradle his daughter.

‘You alright?’ he asked you, genuine concern written over his face.

You nodded. ‘We did just fine,’ you said, quietly, but he shook his head in response.

‘No, you,’ he clarified. You weren’t sure if you were alright, actually. Weren’t sure if you could instruct every cell in your body to stop screaming for him to reach out for you, grasp your wrist so gentle in his hand and pull you into his chest to stand by Ellie, your nose tucked in under his jaw and feeling the heat of his pulse there on your skin.

You exhaled, slowly, steeled yourself. It hadn’t been anything, and it wouldn’t be. You nodded your head at him, not trusting your own voice under the strain of the moment.

He seemed satisfied, his eyes gently closing again as Ellie wriggled out from under his arms, straightening her shirt and wiping her eyes with her sleeve, trying to hide it by turning away from you both.

‘What’s gonna happen to them?’ she asked, and he sighed.

‘They’re gettin’ kicked out,’ he said, and you watched the anger bloom over her face.

‘That’s it?’ she asked, her voice rising as she worked herself up. ‘That’s bullshit! They nearly killed like 50 people!’

‘Easy,’ Joel said, raising his hands. You watched as his brows saddled.

‘Ellie, come help me set the table,’ you said, trying to divert her. She was still caught up in the indignation of it, though, like all teenagers when faced with an injustice.

‘That’s crap though, they shouldn’t be allowed to live!’

It jarred you for a second, a teenager calling for the death penalty, and you wondered for the first time in a while what the world had become. Such that it was, such that it would ever be again.

‘Enough,’ Joel said, quiet but deadly, and Ellie jutted out her lower lip, but stopped. You could see a well-worn dynamic playing out in front of you. You felt out of place in the middle of it.

‘We oughta get goin’,’ he said to her, and he looked exhausted all of a sudden, far older than his years.

‘We made dinner,’ Ellie said, angry and pouty still.

‘I won’t eat all this, I can bring some around,’ you offered, and realised you had already betrayed her, that you were supposed to campaign for them to stay. You faltered, looking between her and Joel. Did you want them to stay? Was it a good idea? To even offer? ‘Unless you…’

‘We’ve imposed enough on Teach tonight,’ Joel said, not looking at you, and you felt the sting of the rejection even though you had been expecting it, had been reminding yourself not to hope for any different.

Ellie stomped down the hall, and you heard your door swing open so hard you wouldn’t have been surprised if she wrenched it free. Joel looked at his feet, his eyes only ever flitting in your direction, his face pink.

‘You doin’ alright?’ he asked.

‘Nothing for you to feel guilty about, Joel,’ you said, quickly, and he sighed. You watched him flex his fingers once, twice, on his left hand. He pulled it up to his chest and rested it over his heart.

‘-nk you for still seein’ her,’ he said, and you shrugged.

‘I care about her, Joel. More than I care about you. Or me.’

He nodded. He knew it was true, he had always known it, and he knew he had used it against you when it suited him, when it meant he could wonder closer to you, when he could feel the heat of you gentle on his skin.

‘M’sorry…’ he started, but Ellie was calling for him from the front porch.

‘We goin’ old man OR WHAT?’ she yelled. You hid a little smirk, which Joel returned. Suddenly you were both shy, but some of the weight had shifted. You stood firmer on your two feet.

‘G’bye Joel,’ you said. ‘I can bring some of this around if you need me to…’

‘Shauna’s cookin’,’ he said, without thinking, and then suddenly thinking too much when he looked up and saw the look of shock pass over your face.

‘Oh…’ you said.

‘She ain’t good at it…’ he tried, to see if he could get the lightness back, to see if he could get you to smile. He could get through it if he just got you to smile.

You felt yourself falter. You hated it, hated the feeling and yourself for letting yourself feel it, for putting yourself in the position to.

Joel stared at you, helpless and deflating. The back of his neck ached from tension, his hands still tremoring from the adrenaline, from the fury.

‘Y’know you’re welcome over anytime,’ he said, because you were suddenly so still, your breath so light he could barely see your chest rise and fall, and he hated the idea of you over here alone, hated the idea of you missing your family, your friends, Ellie and maybe even him a little bit, if he still deserved it. He coughed, clearing his throat, trying hard to ignore the sound of Ellie pacing on your front porch. ‘I know I don’t deserve any more of your time, and I ain’t askin’ for it, I just…’

You watched as he seemed unable to decide what to do with his hands, digging them into his pockets, pulling them out again to rest on his hips, crossing them over his chest. You watched his hands because it was easier than looking at his face, easier than having to look him in the eyes while he actively, outwardly pitied you.

‘You know I had a life here before you got here, Joel,’ you said, your voice clear and unwavering. ‘You know I was here a long while before you? Don’t look at me some lost little puppy now that you’ve decided not to play with me anymore. I have a job and…friends and…enough memories of a family that loved me to fuel me ‘til my last sunset. I miss them and I love them but I’m not sad, Joel.’

You lifted the pan of potatoes and slammed them, a little more forcefully than you intended, into the oven. ‘Go home to Shauna, whatever she’s cooked up for you. You do what you need to do, Joel.’

He cared about you, he knew it then by the way he wanted to wrap you in his arms and kiss you until dawn even while you told him off. By the way he would let you yell at him every minute for the rest of his days if it just meant you were talking to him, if it meant you got firey and animated and more yourself.

He knew you were shooing him away. And he would go, in just a minute. ‘I ain’t sorry for it,’ he said, when you looked like you might have been ready to listen. ‘M’sorry for how I treated ya, for how I reacted when…everything changed. But I ain’t sorry for kissin’ ya, and I ain’t sorry for that…’ he gestured to the couch over his shoulder, and you resolutely didn’t look where he was pointing. ‘I’d do that every day of the week, sweet girl, if it weren’t for how things are…and if I thought for any second y’might let me.’

He came forward and you stood, hypnotised, unable to step back even as he lifted his hands and cradled your head in them, just as he had minutes ago with Ellie, just as you had wished, quietly, and only so that Rose could hear, that he would hold you the same.

‘I regret nothin’ about you, only how I handled it, and for that I’ll be sorry for the rest of my time.’ He stared into your eyes, not wavering until he could see that you had understood, that you had heard him. You felt tears threatening, and you were so fucking sick of crying over this man, but right then you wanted him to kiss you even though you knew, for all the heat of his gaze, he was really saying he never would again.

‘Enough now…’ you said, taking his hands from your face and settling them back down at his sides. He nodded.

‘I know, baby,’ he said, quiet as he leant forward anyway and rested his forehead on yours. ‘Enough,’ he agreed, his words mingling with the hot tears on your cheeks.

Joel stood next to Robert, Tommy and Billy at the gate. He watched, closely, as Steve and Wren were dragged into their saddles, their arms still tied behind their backs. Wren had gone eerily quiet, apparently having passed out in the night from the pain, and he looked sweaty and pale now. Joel knew that sending him beyond the gates in this state was a death sentence, but he was finding it hard to care. His mind kept turning time back to the moment Shauna’s words hit him – mess hall, gas line – and the way he had immediately thought of Ellie, and of you. He would kill these two men a thousand times over if it meant he never had to feel that again. He was getting too old for it. He couldn’t bear a new way to fail his girls.

Not his girls.

Shauna had stayed, tucked up in his bed while Joel offered to take the couch, and he rubbed at the crick in his neck now as a result. There wasn’t fanfare, just the creak of the opening gates as Guillaume and his men rounded on them.

‘Follow the river, two-three hours West, there’s some mountain ranges, some rapids. They won’t get back,’ Billy instructed, and Guillaume nodded. Steve glared at Joel from the saddle. He stared, impassively, back.

‘Town’s a shithole anyway,’ Steve said, and Joel grinned at him.

‘Yeah, but this shithole still ain’t yours,’ he replied, because he couldn’t help himself.

The horses took off, Billy pulling the gate closed behind them. Joel stood watch until the sound of the hooves ebbed away.

Robert tipped his hat to the brothers. Tommy turned back towards the stables, and Joel followed on his heels.

‘Thank God that’s over,’ Joel said, and Tommy clicked his jaw a little. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Don’t feel right,’ Tommy said, without elaborating. Joel felt the urge to roll his eyes, his emerging need to believe it was dealt with for a moment overpowering him, before he remembered Tommy had never dismissed him even when he came, panic stricken, believing there to be monsters beyond the gate.

‘Tell me,’ he said, and Tommy sighed.

‘The look on Wren’s face…’ Tommy started, and Joel interrupted almost immediately.

‘They were guilty as sin, course he looked…’

‘Were they, Joel? We didn’t exactly investigate. He looked…surprised? I don’t know, confused?’

‘He thought he’d done such a good job of stitchin’ up Shauna he never figured she’d tell…’ Joel reasoned. ‘He was surprised because she said somethin’, is all.’

‘He seem like the scheming sort, Joel? The kind of fuckin…mastermind…’

Joel thought back to Wren, the way he was quiet and liked tending the animals, the way he was kind of reedy, kind of skinny, in a way that was more than just about starving half to death on the side of a mountain and somewhat genetic, somewhat constitutional.

‘Steve, though…’

‘Yeah, Steve,’ Tommy agreed.

‘Nasty fucker.’

‘Mmm.’

The two brothers fell into step, and then into silence.

‘Don’t see why she’d throw ‘em under the bus, she ain’t like that.’ Joel said, answering his brother’s unspoken question.

Tommy looked up at his big brother, at the way Joel’s eyes were narrow, resolute, in the early morning light.

‘You’re probably right, it was just the heat of the moment, I guess,’ Tommy said. ‘So much happenin’ at once.’

Joel nodded at him, satisfied. They arrived at the stables, Tommy reaching for a pitchfork and handing it, without ceremony, to Joel.

‘Whatchu doin’ with that, brother?’ Joel asked, refusing to take what was offered to him.

‘Muck out,’ Tommy said, nodding at the stable floor. Joel backed away, his hands in the air.

‘No, sir, that ain’t my job.’

‘Ain’t mine either but we got our best men out there right now, who else is gonna do it?’

Wren would have done it, Joel thought. Wren probably had been doing it, quietly, for weeks.

‘C’mon big man, you ain’t afraid of dirt,’ Tommy said, goading his brother with the absolute certainty that it would work.

‘Ain’t the dirt I’m worried about,’ he said, but he was grinning now, and Tommy was grinning back at him. He reached over and took the pitchfork.

It had been a while since he’d done this kind of honest, grunt work, Joel thought. There was a kind of poetry in it. Maybe all this time things were just leading to the eventual inevitability that he would have to shovel shit.

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seat-safety-switch · 1 year

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This is important, and it could save your life: the firefighters say that you should replace your smoke detectors every ten years. A whole-ass decade is a surprising amount of time for any electronic device these days to last, even when legislated to the nines. Although I don’t know that for sure, it probably isn’t this way out of guilt, at least.

Throwing something away after a mere ten years is antithetical to my very way of life. Every single thing has value, even when it might potentially malfunction when it comes time to keep you from dying. Even I will shoplift a new armload of the bastards (albeit wearing my most Home Depot-y shirt as I do so) and install them as need be.

Due to my hobbies and general dislike of throwing things away, I tend to have more risk of fire in my home than most. This results in a large surplus of sorta-good but untrustworthy smoke detectors, which slowly pile up in the corners of my home, unable to be banished at last to the municipal dump, who I am no longer on speaking terms with, ever since they didn’t let me take that old ceiling fan out of the junk pile. The foreman tried to taze me, even. Me, who has thought about paying taxes on at least two occasions this year. Customer service is awful these days.

What do you do with the old smoke detectors, you ask? Unfortunately, modern detectors no longer use exciting radiation sources as their emitter, so you can’t collect several thousand of them and then become the subject of a magazine article about how you got a new kind of cancer while trying to unlock the secrets of nuclear fission (it involves atoms.) That said, a “used-up” device is still an important safety device, but the kind of safety it provides has somewhat shifted. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to get the most basic ones: wheel chocks for when your parking brake (and transmission) don’t work on a hill. Imitation landmines to keep Bobby By-Law off of your property. Something to plug that open sewage pipe in the middle of what used to be the previous owner’s bathroom, so you stop falling in when you get up in the middle of the night to check if the power company has finally cut you off.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other ideas, but I only have like two working smoke detectors, and – due to the intransigence of the aforementioned power company – they’re both currently powered by a gas generator that I have welded onto the trunk of my Plymouth. It takes awhile to pile them up if I can only replace them every ten years. Maybe those eggheads in the government should consider cutting it to five years, give me some real inventory to work with. Hell, I bet if I had enough of these, I could use them as a tazer shield.

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allthecanadianpolitics · 1 year

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Promoters unveiled the first proposed offshore wind project for Nova Scotia in Halifax on Wednesday.Nova East Wind wants to install 20 to 25 floating wind turbines 25 kilometres off Goldboro on the province's Eastern Shore and supply up to 400 megawatts of electricity to the province's power grid by the end of the decade.

The company is a partnership between majority owner SBM Offshore, a global ocean energy service company based in Amsterdam, and developer DP Energy of Ireland.

Ambroise Wattez, SBM director of project development, told reporters the project will cost between $1 billion and $1.5-billion.

The electricity is intended for domestic consumption to replace energy currently generated by Nova Scotia Power's coal-fired plants, which must close by 2030. The electricity would be transported along the ocean bottom by an undersea cable. The route follows an abandoned offshore gas pipeline corridor. [...]

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #Nova Scotia #renewable energy #budget plans #Halifax

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dailyanarchistposts · 2 months

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The Basis of the Environmental Crisis

There is a fundamental problem here: The dynamics of capitalism have an inherent tendency towards ecological devastation. To understand why this is so, we need to look at how firms are constantly searching for ways to minimize their expenses. This is how they ensure the firm can make the maximum in profits. Because capitalism is made up of relatively autonomous firms, they are in competition. If a firm doesn’t continuously seek ways to make profits, they won’t be able to expand their business, move into new markets, invest in new technology. Other firms will out-compete them. And minimizing expenses is central to the pursuit of profits. Thus minimizing expenses is central to survival for the capitalist firms. And to do this, firms do cost-shifting at the expense of both workers and the environment.

First, companies try to keep compensation to workers as low as they can get away with. They may look to cut taxes that support services working class people rely on. They try to find new forms of technology or new ways to organize the work that reduces the number of worker hours it takes to produce a unit of output. They might automate a production operation with robots, or they will seek ways to intensify work through “lean production” methods. For example, they’ll use computer tracking of a warehouse worker picking items for an order so that they have no rest time after finishing an order but are pushed to a new task through computer control. Work intensification and computer monitoring puts workers under more stress which can have damaging health effects over time. This means the employers are imposing a human cost on workers. If workers in a furniture factory are constantly breathing in finishes or paints being sprayed on furniture in the open, or electronics assemblers are breathing in solder fumes, these are also cases where capital is shifting costs onto workers. And these are cases where the costs could be avoided. For example, there are soldering tools that have a vacuum to suck off solder fumes so workers don’t breath it, but a firm may not want to pay the expense of installing that equipment. These are examples of how the capitalist mode of production tends to shift costs onto workers.

Second, emissions into the air and water are another form of cost-shifting. A utility firm may burn coal to generate electricity. This creates emissions that damage the respiratory systems of people in the region and also contributes to global warming. But the power firm is not required to pay anything for these damages. These costs to others from emissions are “external” to the market transaction between the power firm and its customers who pay for electricity. This is an example of a “negative externality.” Externalities are a pervasive feature of the capitalist mode of production. The fossil fuel industry generates many “negative externalities.” Fracking operations insert chemicals underground which can pollute the underground water sources. A large gas field or leaky oil refinery will generate large amounts of volatile organic compounds — including carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. Studies of gas fields show effects in the surrounding area such as goat herds and barn cats losing the ability to have viable offspring, due to the endocrine disruptors. Gas fields also contribute to global warming by leaking large amounts of methane. Contrary to gas industry claims, gas power plants contribute as much as coal-fired power plants to global warming due to all the methane leaks.

You’ll notice here that I’m focusing on how environmental devastation is rooted in production — not consumption. Some environmentalists try to suggest that we should understand the global warming problem by looking at consumption practices, and they use ideas like a person’s “carbon footprint” to focus on personal consumption. But consumers of electric power don’t have control over the decisions of power firms on the methods of electricity generation, or what technology firms rely on to move cargo around in the global supply chains.

Another useful concept here is throughput. The throughput of production consists of two things: (1) All the material extracted from nature for the production process, and (2) all the damaging emissions (“negative externalities”) from the production process. In addition to the damaging emissions into the air and water, capitalism is an extractivist regime with a long history of land-grabbing to minimize expenses — as in the US government handing over mineral wealth to mining companies, lands for commercial ranching and extraction of logs and wood debris from forests for the lumber and paper industries. The search for short-term profits can lead to unsustainable practices such as clear-cutting of forests or use of huge nets to scarf up all the fish in a coastal region without regard to the future of that fishery.

With the concept of throughput, we can define a concept of ecological efficiency. If a production process is changed in ways that reduce the amount of damage from emissions (or amount of extracted resource) per unit of human benefit, then that change improves ecological efficiency. And here is a basic structural problem of capitalism: It has no inherent tendency towards ecological efficiency. If nature is treated as a free dumping ground for wastes, there will be no tendency to minimize damaging emissions per unit of human benefit from production. Also, there will be no tendency to minimize materials extracted from nature except to the extent firms have pay for these resources.

A production system that could generate increasing ecological efficiency would tend towards reductions in pollution and resource extraction. This would require a non-profit, non-market type of eco-socialist economy where production organizations are held socially accountable — required to systematically internalize their ecological costs. Capitalism’s tendency to ever greater environmental devastation happens because firms have an incentive to not internalize their costs, but dump them on others.

The devastation wrought by the cost-shifting dynamic of capitalism is not limited to global warming. Capitalism has favored the evolution of agricultural practices that aim at highest output at lowest financial cost to the firm. Intense competition has led to ever-greater concentration in ownership of farm land. The capitalist setup allows the growers to rely on labor contractors to pay laborers as little as possible and get rid of workers who try to organize. Growers often own lands in various locations and pursue different crops to minimize their risks. With encouragement from the chemical industry, growers have adopted industrial production of a single crop in a large field with increasing usage of pesticides and inorganic fertilizer over time. Inorganic fertilizers typically provide some mix of nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium. Over-use of these fertilizers has led to excessive runoff, polluting water courses and leading to ocean “dead spots” around the mouths of rivers. Destructive effects on fisheries is thus one of the negative externalities from capitalist agriculture.

Since World War 2 chemical pesticide production world-wide grew from 0.1 ton to 52 million tons in 1976 and 300 million tons in 2015. Pesticides produced by the chemical industry are damaging to the health of farm workers, and pollutes water courses, and leaves residues on food. Pesticide overuse also destroys the natural predators of insects and breeds pesticide-resistant pests. This leads a kind of agricultural arms race as more and more pesticide is needed. As Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams report in Creating an Ecological Society, pesticides also reduce “presence in the soil of organisms that stimulate plants to produce chemicals to defend themselves.”

As with pesticides the chemical industry has also vastly pumped up the production of petroleum-based plastics which do not biodegrade but end up as vast scourge of pollution in the oceans. Plastic bags have grown in use because they take a lot less energy to produce than paper bags, and thus cost less. Production has increased from less than 5 tons in 1950 to over 340 million tons by 2014, according to the Plastics Europe trade association. At least a third of all plastic produced is not recaptured, but mostly ends up in the ocean where it is destructive to living organisms. The plastics industry does not have to pay for the negative effects on living things in the oceans.

If we bring in our definition of throughput, pollution and dumping of wastes are one aspect, but we need to also look at the destructive extractivist tendencies in capitalism, such as clear-cutting of forests or over-fishing. According to a 2003 study, “90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world’s oceans in the past half century,” since the onset of industrial fishing with huge nets in the 1950s. “”Whether it is yellowfin tuna in the tropics, bluefin in cold waters, or albacore tuna in between, the pattern is always the same. There is a rapid decline of fish numbers,” according to Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax. To address the problem, many countries have banned long drift nets and untended longlines, and have instituted elaborate systems of licensing, and have instituted quotas and third party observers working on boats. Nonetheless, capitalist fishing outfits frequently ignore or evade these rules.

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usafphantom2 · 1 year

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Phantom pregnancies: F-4 variants that never were

Hush KitSeptember 15, 2017

February 13, 2019

mcdonnell_f-4fvs-06-680x536Everyone loves the F-4 Phantom, a brutal smoking Cold War monster that polluted the sky in an apocalyptic belch of black sooty thunder. As thrilling as the actual Phantoms that entered service were, there is a tantalising family of F-4s that almost made it into the real world. Several of them were cancelled for being too good and threatening sales of newer aircraft — and one succeeded in its role as a unique test aircraft. Here are some of the Phantoms that never were.

RF-4X Mach 3 Hellraiser rf-4x_3.jpg In the 1970s, the Israeli air force wanted a reconnaissance aircraft capable of carrying the extremely impressive HIAC-1 camera. The F-4 was considered, but the G-139 pod that contained the sensor was over 22 feet long and weighed over 4000 pounds – and the Phantom did not have the power to carry such a bulky store and remain fast and agile enough to survive in hostile airspace. One solution was to increase the power of the engines with water injection, something that had been done for various successful F-4 record attempts. This combined with new inlets, a new canopy and huge bolt-on water tanks promised a mouth-watering 150% increase in power. This would have allowed a startling top speed of mach 3.2 and a cruising speed of mach 2.7. This level of performance would have made the F-4X almost impossible to shoot-down with the technology then in service.

rf-4x_4.jpg The F-4X would also have been a formidable interceptor – something that threatened the F-15 development effort, causing the State Department to revoke an export licence for the RF-4X. Even with the increase in power, the Israeli air force was still worried about the huge amount of drag, but a solution came in the form of a slimmed-down camera installation in a specially elongated nose. This meant the interceptor radar had to be removed, which assuaged the State Department’s fears and the project was allowed to continue. However worries from the F-15 project community returned (as did worries about how safe the F-4X would have been to fly) and the US pulled out. Israel tried to go it alone but didn’t have enough money, so the mach 3 Phantom never flew.

f-4x03.jpgF-4E(F) ‘Ein Mann’

RAF F-4M-GA PHANTOM FG3.02_zps0yrydewe.jpg The Luftwaffe are cheapskates: historical examples including their desire to procure a Eurofighter ‘Lite’ with no sunroof, stereo or defensive aids — and the fact they kept the F-4F in service until 2013! To be fair, their less than zealous desire for free-spending militarism is probably a good thing considering the 20th century. Their Deutschmark-saving instincts for poundshop versions of popular aircraft applied to the Phantom, and a simplified single-seat F-4E was considered. This intriguing option was passed up for a simplified F-4E, dubbed the F-4F (which later became formidable). I couldn’t find any illustrations of this variant so have included a mock-up of a speculative RAF single-seater.

The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes will feature the finest cuts from Hush-Kit along with exclusive new articles, explosive photography and gorgeous bespoke illustrations. Order The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes here

RF-4M ‘Big nosed Brit’ McDonnell Report B617 RF-4M When the RAF ordered Phantoms they considered a dedicated reconnaissance version. McDonnell (it being 1966 — a year before the merger with Douglas) proposed a F-4M airframe with internal reconnaissance equipment. Known as the RF-4M (model 98HT), the longer camera nose would have made the aircraft over two and-a-half feet longer longer than a F-4M. Range would have been greater than a Phantom with an external recce pod, as this left the centreline station free for a drop-tank — and the removal of the Fire Control System and AIM-7 related hardware reduced weight. After considering the cost of such an undertaking, the RAF instead opted for an external recce pod meaning that any airframe in the fleet could perform the reconnaissance mission without sacrificing a beyond-visual-range weapon. Fascinating interview with a British Phantom pilot here. F-4T Phantom ‘Not a pound (or Deutsche Mark) for air-to-ground’

c65d7712966b318e30b0a7f82f03b1be-img00002.jpg In the late 1970s McDonnell Douglas proposed a dedicated Air Superiority variant of the F-4E, the F-4T. More spritely performance was expected as all systems associated with the air-to-ground role were to be removed, making a significant weight saving. It was to be armed with M61A1 cannon, four AIM-7 Sparrows and four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, or an alternative war-load of six AIM-7 (as seen in this computer generated image). Additionally, a new digital computer would have been at the heart of its weapon system. It is unclear who the intended launch customer for this variant was — Iran, Britain, Israel, Japan or West Germany may all have found the type useful. No customer went for the T as either a new-build or an upgrade — as those air arms requiring a high level of Air Superiority could turn to the F-15 Eagle which was already in production (and was significantly more capable the proposed F-4T even its it early iterations).

Read why the F-4 was the world’s best fighter in 1969 here.

F-4 (FVS) The Phlogger and the Phitter mcdonnell_f-4fvs-06-680x536

The US Navy’s F-111B project was looking distinctly shaky in the mid-1960s. It was too heavy and too sluggish, so the Navy looked around for alternatives, a search which would eventually led to the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The McDonnell company offered an unsolicited solution, a variable geometry wing variant of the hugely successful F-4 Phantom II. An assessment of this proposal, given the provisional designation F-4 (FV)S, revealed that this it was lacking in several key areas, notably combat effectiveness: the AN / AWG-10 radar and AIM-7F missiles would be a significant downgrade from the desired AN /AWG-9/AIM-54 combination. Scorned by the Navy, McDonnell offered the aircraft to Britain as a cheaper alternative to the Anglo-French AFVG then under consideration. This aircraft would have been powered by the British Rolls-Royce RB-168-27R and given the designation F-4M (FVS). This promising project never left the drawing board.

mcdonnell_f-4fvs-08-680x576Boeing PW1120 Phantom/IAI Super Phantom

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By the 1980s, the Phantom’s geriatric J79 powerplant was a liability — its poor thrust-to-weight ratio, mass of smoke and Oliver Reed-esque thirst did not belong in an age of efficient powerful turbofans. Replacing the J79 with the Pratt & Whitney PW1120 (a derivative of the F-15’s F100 for the abortive Israeli Lavi) was an obvious solution – offering a massive 25% increase in dry thrust and a whole 30% greater thrust in reheat. The new Phantom would have been a hotrod: capable of Mach 1+ speeds in dry thrust alone. The aircraft would also have an 1,100 US gal (4230 litre) conformal fuel tank under the fuselage, offering an increase in range. The proposal was cancelled early on as some thought it was a threat to F/A-18 and F-15 sales. Despite this, Israel Aircraft Industries liked the idea of PW1120s in Phantoms, partly as this promised parts commonality with the Lavi and partly because Israel had a big Phantom force. IAI’s F-4 Super Phantom or F-4-2000 was displayed at the 1987 Paris Air Show, but, like the earlier US concept, was also quashed. YRF-4C PACT demonstrator CCV ‘You canard handle the truth!’ fbw_phantom

Aircraft 62-12200 was a very important airframe, after life as the RF-4C prototype it did the same for the cannon-armed F-4E project. Its testing life was still not over — in 1972 it became part of a fly-by-wire (FBW) research effort. A FBW system was fitted to what was now known as the Precision Aircraft Control Technology (PACT) demonstrator. Following the successful completion of the FBW tests, it was fitted with a set of canard foreplanes mounted on the upper air intakes. In order to shift the centre of gravity to the rear and to destabilise the aircraft in pitch, lead ballast was added to the rear fuselage. It is not known if this aircraft was the source of the continued American distaste for canards!

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crazyintheeast · 1 year

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Ok but just imagine the carjacker that Shauna nearly killed, the dude is a hardened so while he is terrified for a few hours soon the fear is replaced by anger. He convinces himself that she had been merely playing him and he decides to take revenge. Considering he had her car it’s not that hard for him to find out who she is and when he googles her.......well suddenly he finds out her story, he reads all the comments about how surely those girls must have eaten their friends and the fear is back again. Holy shit she was a cannibal she might have killed him for real !!?? He decides to just forget all about her and not think about it anymore. Then a few days later he is talking a buddy from another car service when they see the news. The information about Adam’s body has leaked including the horrifying pictures of his dismembered body. The carjacker’s buddy tells him that holy shit he fixed this guy’s car just a few weeks ago. As he goes deeper into the story he immediately our carjackers recognizes the description of the woman .who had been with Adam and the fear is back and stronger then ever. Holy shit it was her! Not only did she murder a guy over a simple traffic accident but she dismembered his body Our carjackers is panicking and super paranoid. He installs many many locks on his house, a new security system and he begins to sleep with a gun under his pillow having nightmares of her coming back to finish him because after all if she can do this to someone who accidentally bumped into her what would she do to him. He follows the case religiously and tries to discretely google anything about her so he can stay as far away as possible when the news finally hits. The cop who was investigating the case is dead and there at the back of the footage he sees....her. Holy shit she killed a cop. First dismembering bodies now cop killing? Only the cartels were crazy enough to do shit like this. The cartels and her apparently He immediately leaves town, he doesn’t even hesitate. If she is crazy enough to go after cops she would be crazy enough to come after him as well. He has no idea where he is going, he knows he just wants to get as far away as possible. He stops in the middle of nowhere to refuel and then....horror. It’s her. She is at the gas station....the whole world fades out of focus as he can only see her. He screams and immediately goes back into his car and hits the gas. How did she find him!?!? He drives as fast as possible but soon his gas runs out and he gets stuck at the side of the road. His phone is out juice so he can’t call for road assistance so he tries to hitchhike. No one would pick him for over two hours until finally someone stops. They are a bit of a weird looking couple, a short guy and an equally short woman with blonde curly hair and large glasses. They seem friendly and even offer him a drink. As the blonde keeps blabbering on he suddenly feels very tired and then the blonde turns and looks at him and her eyes.....he had seen eyes like this. The insanity, the fire in them it’s just like HER but even more intense “You know it’s really not nice to steal people’s cars, especially my friend’s car” And that ends up being the last thing he will ever hear

#yellowjackets

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industrialgasgenerator · 1 year

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Sustainable Power Generation: Renewable Energy Solutions

Total Power Solutions

Kaltimex Energy is a well-known company in Bangladesh that specializes in providing engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services, particularly in the energy sector.

Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh is involved in various projects related to power generation, including the installation and maintenance of power plants, electrical and mechanical works, and other energy-related services. They have been involved in the development of both conventional and renewable energy projects in Bangladesh.

Kaltimex Energy has been working in the field of power plant business for over 2 decades. They deal with natural Gas Engine, Industrial Gas Generator, Diesel Generator, Exhaust Gas Boiler, Gas Fired Boiler, Vapor Absorption Machine (Chiller), Thermal Fluid Heater, Transformer, Radial Gas Turbine and Steam Turbine for power plants on turnkey basis projects from concept to commissioning within stipulated time period & budget.

MWM, HTT, VIESSMANN, VOLTAS, ENMAX & MAXWATT, and others are marketed brands.

#Gas Engine #Power Generation #Power Plants #Natural Gas Engine #Industrial Gas Generator #Diesel Generator #Exhaust Gas Boiler #Gas Fired Boiler #Vapor Absorption Machine #Industrial Boiler #Thermal Fluid Heater #Transformer #Radial Gas Turbine #Steam Turbine

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coramoliason · 2 years

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Jim's Transcript

Among the collection of Park Service-funded oral histories on the Tennessee Valley Authority that took place in Jackson County, AL between 1996-2002, Jim Howard's transcript is the most cited in Bradford's seminal work, "Stars Fell on Alabama." Interview conducted by Colleen Bradford and release authorized by Bradford (contact for signed consent form) and NPS.

In the Estillfork County Tapes, multiple landowners describe work crews and equipment that does not correspond to any TVA or local utility program. To date no record of any machines, components, physical evidence, or disruption of the land consistent with what is described has been found through direct searches or through a full survey of satellite (Landsat-9) imagery for the corresponding period, but landowner testimonies are remarkably consistent about the time and nature of the installations purported to be installed by "TVA crews" or "TVA boys." What follows is the transcript of Jim Howard's interview with Colleen Bradford during her time with the Park Service.

[Begin recording]

Bradford: You want to tell us a little about it?

Howard: The towers they put in? Or the teardrop lookin' ones?

Bradford: I meant the transmission lines - what's that you're talking about?

[Sounds here like they are referring to the field behind Jim's house - the two talk about "skinny towers" for a few minutes here 0:10-1:02]

Bradford: Out there?

Howard: Yeah, out there. Towers.

Bradford: Phone towers?

Howard: No, they ain't phone. They were for the grid. Fire and steel and rings at a million degrees. And they just kept growing and expanding [piecemeal?] puttin' 'em up.

Bradford: I don't think we did anything out there, Jim.

Howard: They were firey. Lit up the whole house at night.

[Jim was taken with a lot of the infrastructure the TVA brought to the valley here and talks on it for the next few minutes - this is mostly consistent with the veridical improvements made by the TVA during the late 90s except for what follows. He rehashes most of it here so I'd skip this part 2:04-4:47]

Howard: Red. Red. The countryside. It was red. At night when you'd drive, if you'd drive ... See maybe ten or twelve of those things [sic]. Out there.

Bradford: I don't think I follow - what was red?

Howard: The meal teardrops the TVA put up. Dark and light at the same time. Red. Little red lights and that dark red glow around them. Squeezed light. Angry light. Took 'em down last December.

Bradford: That was at your old house? Down Hartselle by the creek? Where they put up the transmission towers?

[The TVA is responsible for a small cluster of radio antennas in Hartselle, AL - Jim resided here during the early 90s but this does not sound like what is being described]

Howard: No. That was here. The TVA men came and over the span of about one, two months, they put these red things up all over our property. Made all the streetlights red too.

Howard: One of the boys, he came and he told me, each and every of those things was a star. Little spaces between roads and forests covered in those stars. Those angry, red stars. I don't think we were supposed to see light like that. Have power like that. But they said they had the boys out to take care of them.

Bradford: The TVA people?

Howard: Yes.

[Jim and Colleen notice talk about the squirrels on the bird feeder 7:10-7:21 - skip]

Howard: Everywhere. Every gas station. All red. All the same color. And you'd think, where'd it go? This isn't what I remember. I remember the world looking a lot more like this. And people just lived in that dark, red world like it was how it'd always been. Kids growing up under the glow. Scattered weird. It was dark but you couldn't ever see the real stars. Red pamphlets, newsletters. Star-red brands. Red trim on buildings, exterior lights. Every other color just sort of dropped out of fashion, like.

Bradford: And then gone in December?

Howard: Beats me. I mean I'm sorry I can't be more help to you.

Bradford: No, this is great Jim. Thank you.

#Stars Fell on Alabama #Estillfork County Tapes #Podcast #NPS #TVA #writing #flash fiction #alabama #regional gothic #90s

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smart-heating-hub-ltd · 5 months

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#Boiler Installation & Servicing #Boiler Changeovers #Boiler Breakdown Diagnostics Specialist #Boiler Efficiency Diagnostics #Gas Cooker and Oven Installers #Gas fire Installation & Servicing #Gas Leak Detection and Repair #New Bathrooms Fitted #boiler #⁠new-boiler-installation-prices/ quote #best-combi-boiler-prices #best-boiler-brands-manufacturer #best-buy-boilers #Best Buy Boiler / Best Brands #Best Combi Boiler Prices #New Boiler Installation Prices/ Quotes #Find a Local Boiler Installer #Best Boiler Brands Manufacturer #Boiler and Central Heating Replacement Quotes/Prices #Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-Dudley.#Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Walsall.#Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Wolverhampton.#Boiler-and central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Gloucestershire.#Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Telford.#Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Stoke.#Boiler-and-central-heating-replacement-quote/prices-in-Birmingham #Best-boiler-brands-manufacturer #Best-combi-boiler-prices

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maines-electrical · 1 year

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Smoke Alarm Service Brisbane: Safeguarding Your Home and Family

Smoke alarms are an essential safety feature in any home. They provide early warning in case of a fire and can save lives. However, smoke alarms need to be installed and maintained properly to ensure they are working correctly. This is where smoke alarm services in Brisbane come in. In this article, we will discuss the importance of smoke alarms, the services provided by smoke alarm professionals, and how to choose the right service provider.

Why are Smoke Alarms Important?

Smoke alarms are crucial in detecting smoke from a fire and alerting occupants to the danger. This early warning allows people to evacuate the building before the fire becomes too dangerous. Smoke alarms can also detect carbon monoxide, a deadly gas that is produced by some fires. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, making it impossible to detect without a working alarm.

According to the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES), working smoke alarms increase the chances of survival in a house fire by up to 60%. The QFES also recommends that every home should have at least one working smoke alarm installed on each level of the house, including the basement and attic.

What Services do Smoke Alarm Professionals Offer?

Smoke alarm professionals offer a range of services to ensure that your smoke alarms are working correctly. Some of the services provided by smoke alarm professionals in Brisbane include:

Installation: Professionals specializing in smoke alarms are capable of smoke alarm installation in your residence. They will provide recommendations on the most suitable positions to install the alarms and guarantee that the installation process is carried out accurately.

Maintenance: Regular smoke alarm maintenance is essential to ensure they are working correctly. Smoke alarm professionals can provide maintenance services, such as cleaning the alarms and replacing batteries.

Testing: Smoke alarms should be tested regularly to ensure that they are working correctly. Smoke alarm professionals can test your smoke alarms and provide advice on what to do if the alarm is not working correctly.

Replacement: Smoke alarms have a limited lifespan and need to be replaced after a certain period. Smoke alarm professionals can advise you on when to replace your smoke alarms and install new ones.

How to Choose the Right Smoke Alarm Service Provider

When choosing a smoke alarm service provider, there are several factors to consider:

Experience: Look for a service provider that has experience in installing and maintaining smoke alarms. An experienced service provider will have the knowledge and skills to ensure that your smoke alarms are working correctly.

Qualifications: Ensure that the service provider has the necessary qualifications and certifications to install and maintain smoke alarms.

Reputation: Look for a service provider with a good reputation in the industry. You can check online reviews or ask for references from previous clients.

Cost: Compare the cost of different service providers and choose one that offers a reasonable price for their services.

Smoke alarms are an indispensable component of home safety as they provide early warning in case of a fire, which can ultimately save lives. Smoke alarm services in Brisbane, such as Maines Electrical, offer a wide range of services to guarantee that your smoke alarms are functioning correctly. These services include installation, maintenance, testing, replacement, and smoke alarm repair. It is important to carefully consider factors such as experience, qualifications, reputation, and cost when selecting a smoke alarm service provider. By entrusting the installation and maintenance of your smoke alarms to professionals like Maines Electrical, you can ensure that your home and family are protected from the hazards of fire.

#smoke #alarm #services #brisbane #australia #smokealarmservices

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ritewayinsulationcompany · 2 years

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youtube

Business Name: Rite Way Insulation

Street Address: 200 Wake Forest Dr Suite 1

City: Warner Robins

State: Georgia (GA)

Zip Code: 31093

Country: United States

Business Phone: (478) 213-9485

Website: https://ritewayinsulationcompany.com/insulation-company-warner-robins-ga/

Business Description: Spray Foam certified! Family owned and operated experts in residential and commercial insulation installments and removal. Blown, Batt, Spray Foam and much more. Call today for a FREE INSPECTION!

Google My Business CID URL: https://www.google.com/maps?cid=968713817358641365

Business Hours: Sunday Closed Monday 9am-5pm Tuesday 9am-5pm Wednesday 9am-5pm Thursday 9am-5pm Friday 9am-5pm Saturday Closed

Services: Insulation Removal, Batt Insulation, Blown Insulation, Cellulose Insulation, Faced Batt, Fiberglass Insulation, Fire-resistant Insulation, Natural Insulation, Spray Foam Insulation, Thermal Board, Vapor Barrier, Attic Vents, Crawl Space Encapsulation, Thermal Imaging, Total Home Efficiency

Keywords: Insulation Contractor Warner Robins GA, Insulation Removal, Batt Insulation, Blown Insulation, Cellulose Insulation, Faced Batt, Fiberglass Insulation, Fire-resistant Insulation, Natural Insulation, Spray Foam Insulation, Thermal Board, Vapor Barrier, Attic Vents, Crawl Space Encapsulation, Thermal Imaging, Total Home Efficiency

Location:

Service Areas:

#Youtube

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idealinsulationcompanyga · 2 years

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youtube

Business Name: Ideal Insulation

Street Address: 10 Glenlake Pkwy NE Suite 130

City: Atlanta

State: Georgia (GA)

Zip Code: 30328

Country: United States

Phone: (404) 775-4979

Website: https://idealinsulationcompany.com/

Description: About Ideal Insulation IDEAL Insulation Company installs high-quality insulation and encapsulation in Metro Atlanta. The professionals at IDEAL Insulation Company are all fully bonded and carry comprehensive workers compensation and liability insurance. Our technicians are trained in the most current insulation techniques and undergo continuing training and education.

Google My Business CID Url: https://www.google.com/maps?cid=15534902755294962477

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myhahnestopinion · 2 years

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THE 2022 AARONS - Worst Film

I could make a long, elaborate joke here about needlessly bad movies, but I’d rather get right to the category than Babylon. Here are The Aarons for Worst Film:

#10. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

A Final Girl spends decades preparing for a rematch with the masked killer who murdered all her friends? You’d be forgiven for thinking you saw this film before. Billed (once again) as the one-true sequel to the seminal 1974 horror film, 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre (once again) butchers the franchise. Linking a lazy approximation of the ‘legacy-quel’ format popularized by 2018’s Halloween to generational trauma, gun culture, and gentrification, the film’s skin-deep themes are even more meaningless than the original’s nihilism. No amount of gore can mask the fact that this franchise has clearly run out of gas.

#9. Firestarter

With Stephen King setting movie-goers on fire in the wake of It, there was every reason to think returning to his other early works would yield similar results. The problem is that the 2022 adaptation of his 1980 novel doesn’t know where to start with updating the story to present day. Following a pyrokinetic girl and her father on the run from government forces, the movie makes no mention of modern expansions to the surveillance state, and its simplistic tale of gifted individuals feels helplessly quaint in a culture dominated by superhero cinema. The music, composed by the legendary John Carpenter, is admittedly straight fire, but the movie’s murky cinematography snuffs out any other remaining appeal.

#8. Choose or Die

Choose or Die has a clear survival instinct, opting to throw anything and everything at the screen to keep its thin premise alive. The only real winner in the film about a cursed 1980s video-game contest is horror icon Robert Englund, cashing in on his clout with a few minutes of voiceover work. Everyone else struggles to jump through the hoops of its inconsistent rule-set and inadequate budget (The on-the-fly filmmaking has all the visual-flair of the text-based adventures it’s inspired by). The prize for powering-through is the offer of a prospective franchise; Netflix browsers would be better off choosing any number of the streamer’s other options.

#7. Halloween Ends

Heavily promoted as the final confrontation between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, the thirteenth Halloween ends not with a bang but with a wimp named Corey Cunningham oddly hogging the spotlight. Spending the majority of its runtime on a coming-of-age Romeo-and-Juliet romance, the film’s shake-up of franchise formula is a smug trick on the audience that never turns into a treat. Hypothesizing on why evil endures, Ends is undone by an inability to express its ideas intelligibly, and by robbing agency from its most important character. Despite its definitive title, the latest installment will almost certainly not be the last, but it does leave the franchise in bad shape yet again.

#6. Margaux

Margaux is a smart house; Margaux is a dumb film. To be fair, even a regular brick-and-mortar building would seem intelligent compared to the group of college students lured into the titular deathtrap. Not even self-aware jokes at their expense can turn the characters, played by a collection of CW stars, into tolerable company. The only other expense not spared by Margaux is the budget for its nauseating white goo, the sickly sustenance of a house-wide 3-D printer, that swamps every frame of the film. The oozing substance is reflective of Margaux’s unsound foundation: an utterly illogical series of events is what brings down the house.

#5. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone

It was always going to take an inspired touch to bring Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to life, and John Lee Hancock couldn’t answer the call. The Blind Side director delivers a dreadfully faithful adaptation of Steven King’s short story, a hodgepodge of the author’s familiar hang-ups including a decade-late technophobia around iPhone applications. The script does no service to stars Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell, both doing their best to sell an undying connection between a rich, cranky old man and the young boy who reads to him. In a clear-cut generational divide, King’s son undisputedly took the crown for phone-based horror last year; curious parties should just call up Joe Hill’s Black Phone instead.

#4. Umma

Umma isn’t the mother of all bad films but is highly-derivative of far better ones. The horror film manages to be only the third-best film from 2022 about an Asian-Immigrant mother overcoming generation trauma to become less overbearing to her daughter (The others being Aarons-Winner Everything Everywhere All at Once and Pixar’s Turning Red). This familiarity doesn’t stop at just one medium either: the mother’s self-induced electro-phobia also invites unfavorable comparisons to the TV show Better Call Saul. This all might be more forgivable if Umma wasn’t so neglectful of its jump scares, putting in only the minimal effort needed to raise the film up to feature length.

#3. Grimcutty

The Hulu-Original horror film starts off looking especially grim but is ultimately a cut above those worse fears: the meme-based movie is merely incompetent, rather than incompetent and ignorant. Writer/director John Ross is well-aware that the bygone Momo Challenge his concept is based on was a hoax but that seems to be the extent of his comprehension, especially when it comes to the basics of filmmaking. His laughable script and languid pacing spread thin the legend of the Grimcutty, a lopsided monstrosity that’s meme-material for all the wrong reasons. The film is successful in at least one regard: it will unquestionably convince viewers that cutting back on screen-time isn’t always a bad thing.

#2. Morbius

Yes, it’s Morbin’ time. The maladroit movie Morbius turns The Living Vampire into a lifeless vestigial entry in Sony’s speciously-named Spider-Man Universe. Despite decades of comic history to draw from and even more years of tragic movie monsters, the anti-hero’s origin offers viewers absolutely nothing to sink their teeth into. The dramatic tension is as hollow as the character’s bones, as the story constantly shies away from any moral complexities to receive a wide-appeal PG-13 rating (which didn’t stop the movie from bombing… twice). If there was any remaining doubt, the desperate post-credits scene makes it obvious: this is the work of vultures scavenging their IP for everything they can get.

AND THE WORST FILM OF 2022 IS...

#1. After Ever Happy

One after another, the adaptations of Anna Todd’s Wattpad novels have lowered the bar for romantic movies and romantic partners everywhere; the fourth film doesn’t break that cycle. Encompassing everything from arson to overdoses, After Ever Happy untethers the unceasing ups-and-downs of Tessa Young and Hardin Scott’s relationship from any semblance of structure. Starting with a sensible climax for the last entry and hanging up its hat without resolving any of its new plot threads, the franchise’s footage seems to now spill over from entry to entry with no rhyme or reason. As such, the fifth film is now mandatory viewing, if only because one can never be happy before confirming this story is over for good.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST DIRECTOR!

#film #TheAarons #TheAarons2022 #TheAaronsFilm #worst of 2022 #bad movies #worst film #texas chainsaw massacre #firestarter #choose or die #halloween ends #margaux #mr harrigans phone #umma #grimcutty #morbius #after ever happy

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