Cool, wet, maybe rain.
Yesterday got pretty wet late in the afternoon. The forecast called for about .2 inches, and I’m not sure what we ended up getting, but it was cats and dogs for a while.
A couple of things conspired against me and my list. My wife had errands to run, which I didn’t expect. That kept me home until 2pm. I got one pickup and one drop off done. Didn’t get my settlement from last week’s auction, the auctioneer was having a company meeting. I should get a check in the mail from the industrial auction some time next week. That’s good news.
The other thing was the rain. Pouring rain meant no Christmas decor went up. Stuff is slipping like Fox’s ratings.
While I was waiting for my wife to get back I wasn’t UN-productive. I cut my hair. Went through some more stuff and put it in the auction box. I pulled two parts and shipped them for an ebay sale. Tested some stuff with an eye toward listing it or sending it to auction. Tried to test an XBox360 and discovered I was missing the IEC cordset. M$ doesn’t use a normal cord, theirs has a ‘key’ at the bottom. I went through a box of cords and didn’t find one. But I just need to test it so I got out a gouge and made my own key slot. FTW! Didn’t get a chance to use it yet. I’m sure it will need some additional “adjusting”.
Today is the monthly meeting of my non-prepping hobby. I think I would like to go. I’m feeling ok, it’s probably raining so I can’t work outside, and I miss the club. Seems dumb to have waited until the numbers are all record high to finally break down and meet but that is the state of the state. Nothing makes sense or feels right.
Later today I need to break down and vac seal and freeze all the meat I bought this week. Costco was out of turkeys by the time my shopper got there. They were showing stock when I ordered. The price was good so I guess they ‘flew’ out of the store. Instead, I got a lamb roast for Christmas dinner. I think I’ll cook the whole 6 pounds instead of breaking it down to halves. Then we’ll have yummy leftovers. Normally I’d be thinking about a ham, or maybe a ribeye roast, but my wife suggested the lamb. Since we all love it, it was a no-brainer. I think there are some traditions that involve lamb at Christmas, just not in our families. Lamb is a good choice for economy- you can get very good lamb for the same price as mediocre beef, or at least we can get it here. If we were post-apocalyptic, lamb and sheep would be front and center on the farm, just as they were throughout history. Very useful animal, your sheep.
Protein in the freezer. Veg in cans. Pasta, and the stuff to make bread in buckets. Ammo in cans. Gubs in the safe. That all feels pretty good, but I’m still anxious. I checked the ammo sales, and nobody had any. PSA had almost nothing at all in stock. What they had was really unusual calibers, big game rifle ammo, and blanks. Some was $5/rnd, most was over $1/rnd. They might have had one or two boxes of bastard stepchild pistol ammo- cowboy revolvers, and .32 cal. It’s getting short out there.
And time is getting short too. The holidays are keeping some stuff under control. The election stuff hasn’t played out yet, but it’s looking more like Sleepy Joe and the town bike every day. Legitimate election or not, his policies will not be good for you and I. That should be terrifying everyone much more than ‘Orangeman bad’. I can only hope that he’s stymied at every turn, but based on their RINO history and never Trump activism, I bet that ‘in the interest of healing our nation’ there is a flurry of cross aisle cooperation. If you think “it won’t be that bad, we’ll survive it like everything else”, I’d like to point out that we didn’t ‘survive’ it. Compare today to 20 years ago, 40, 60. Culturally and politically we are not living in the same country we were born to. *
Maybe it’s because I’ve got young kids, but I’m appalled at what we’re building for them. That deserves a whole long post of it’s own, and I’ve got other stuff higher on my list.
Check your list. Check your assumptions. Check your stack. Check your gear. Check your friends and acquaintances. And keep stacking.
nick
*for a perfect example, consider the band 2livecrew and the massive outcry and censorship of their album and song, ‘Me so horny’. Now consider the song WAP, for which Cardi B is widely lauded. The official video on youtube has 300 million views, the audio released first has 181 million. Dozens of other versions have 10s of millions of views. The song is flat out obscenity. There is a radio edit. It gets airplay. I’m not linking to the vids, it’s bad enough reading the lyrics. People think it’s FUNNY. If you feel compelled to listen to it, watch the vid of the girl signing it. ‘wap cardi b sign language’ None of it is SFW. Every aspect of our culture has been degraded. Every one of our freedoms has been limited. And it all happened a little bit at a time.