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Month: January 2023

Wed. Jan. 11, 2023 – can’t think of a single funny thing to say…

Cool, but not too cool.  Damp.  Maybe still clear later, but also maybe some ‘early morning low clouds’ as they put it in Cali when I lived there.  In any case, I’ll be out in it until the bus gets here.  It did get to be very nice yesterday.   We had a bit of rumble and overcast around dusk, but no actual rain.

I spent the afternoon at one of my storage units, the biggest, organizing, sorting, and assembling more shelves.   I really need to get at least one of the other units into this one, and get more stuff out of the house.    I should have about 6-8 bins of stuff going to my auctioneer this week, if he’s in.  Getting some of the stuff out of storage and up to the BOL will help too.

Since I took advantage of the nice weather to work at the storage unit, I didn’t get the Christmas decorations down.   They were a bit damper than I’d have liked after the fog, so maybe if it’s not so wet I can take an hour and get them put away.   The fact is I’m not being as productive as I’d like.   I’ve got to work on that.  Cold and damp weather provides an excuse with all the aches and pains it brings, but that isn’t all of the issue.  I’m tired and looking for excuses.

Identifying the problem is the first step to fixing it, right?   So I better get to it.

Stack some stuff.  Don’t put off to tomorrow what should be done today.  Tomorrow has its own work waiting.

nick

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Tues. Jan. 10, 2023 – All the news that’s fit to print.

Cool and damp.   That time of year.  Winter, I think you call it up north.  60F when I went to bed so ‘cool’ not ‘cold.’  It turned into a very nice day yesterday and I’m hoping for the same today.

Got my trailer rental returned.   They had the wrong trailer assigned to me, and that one got returned on time, which left me with a completed reservation, and nothing to turn in.    They got it straightened out.  Didn’t take long.

Hit  the Goodwill on my way home and witnessed a full on scrum over some comic books.   They ended up wrinkling and ripping them as they fought to grab as many as they could.   Savages.   What value there might have been was lost in the fighting.   The one I spot checked was only 99c plus shipping, and after witnessing the fight, the cashiers were not inclined to discounts, so the comics would have been 3/99c.   Not much profit at that rate.   There might have been some valuable books in there, but I didn’t join in.    I did swoop in afterward and pick up a board game that is selling for $65 – 75 and a SCSI adapter in the box that should sell for about the same, maybe a bit less.   I’ll let them fight over pennies.

Came home and did some ‘domestic bliss’ stuff around the house.   More of that today and maybe some plumbing…  or head to my storage unit to take advantage of the clear weather.

Sold one of the freezers to my fisherman buddy.    That leaves the two with more damage to be sold.  Maybe I’ll pick those up today.  Or maybe I’ll do vehicle maintenance.   Or not.   We’ll see.  I’ve got to do a Costco run too.  A whole bunch of stuff I buy is on sale this month so it’s time to add to the stacks.

Had a good conversation with D1 about how the media lies, how they have been lying, and how to look at an article and a picture critically.     She also expressed some concern that with all the illegal invaders, maybe white people (us in particular) would get forced out, or made into the slaves this time around.   I told her that even if we had to die surrounded by piles of spent brass we’d never be slaves.  And to watch for them seizing the guns, because they take the guns when they want to do something to you that you would shoot them for trying…

Conversations are getting interesting.

Stack it high, sporty times will be very difficult to avoid.

nick

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Mon. Jan. 9, 2023 – ah the smell of a fresh new week….

That will almost certainly be cool and wet, although warm and wet could happen.  That’s the joy of living near the Gulf…  It was pretty chilly yesterday morning at the BOL, but it did warm up and it was a beautiful sunny day.   Got chilly again when  the sun went down though.   National forecast has us in clear weather for a couple of days anyway.

I did get some smaller things done.   Got two sets of shelves up in the garage, and some stuff moved to them.  Took down a rickety old shelf ‘thing’ that was left behind for us.   It worked for a while, but if not wedged into the corner and held in place by a metal cabinet, it wouldn’t have stood for 10 minutes.

Took a few minutes and broke some more concrete.  I feel that in my arms today.

Took an hour and worked on my  truck.   On the way up I noticed that only a little bit of water was spraying out of the window washer.   Topped up the tank, but it was mostly full.  Since I  had the compressor at the BOL, I thought I’d try blowing air back through the nozzles to clear out any blockage.   Didn’t work, but did reveal the issue.   There is some sort of check valve in the line, and it was broken.  Cracked at first, then  40 psig air blew it apart.   Had to take a couple of panels off to get to the part, and replaced it with a 1/4″ barb fitting from my drip irrigation parts box.  How’s THAT for a prep!  Well, a lucky improv anyway.   Cheap brittle plastic part.  (edit- it may have frozen, I haven’t driven the truck much.)   I’ll look it up today and see if I can get a replacement.  If not, I’ll just run with the barb.

This was the first time I’ve really towed anything with the new expy and it did fine.   Better than I did after moving all that rock by hand.

Today will be moving stuff around, going through auction stuff, returning the trailer, and sorting some stuff out.   If it’s dry, I’ll start taking down outside Christmas decorations.   Maybe I’ll do some stretching exercises.   I really need to get back in the habit.

And of course, I’ll be stacking things.  Why don’t you join me?

nick

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Sun. Jan. 8, 2023 – all work and no play…

Cool and damp, or warm-ish and damp, but certainly damp…   we got a rainstorm right in the middle of the afternoon yesterday.   Before that it was sopping wet.  During it was pretty wet.  After it was pretty wet…  definitely a theme yesterday.

So I got less outdoor stuff done than I’d have liked, but I did get the stone unloaded from the trailer.   I don’t get much practice backing up trailers.   I’m amazed I got it under the cover in the dark with only a bit of to and fro.   Took me about 12 tries to put it back in the same place after pulling it out to clean all the debris out of it.  If I can look out the back and SEE the trailer, I can do it no problem.  With mirrors and backup cam, well, it must have been entertaining for any watchers.

That’s me, entertainer of the year…

Today will be some tidying up and some stuff from the list that doesn’t involve a lot of time or commitment.   There should be no shortage of jobs.

Then it’s back home.  I’ll return the trailer Monday morning.   Truck pulled the trailer no problem.   ~5000 pounds and I was doing 80 when I didn’t pay attention.   The gas mileage widget said 10.5 mpg though.  Putting the cruise control on, and dropping to the limit of 75 mph got me 11.6 mpg.   Truck normally gets about 15-18 mpg the way I drive and with the extra stuff in the cargo area.   No way an EV truck would work for me.  And as a BOV, an electric is a complete non-starter.

The world situation continues to get more dire.   The US has political prisoners.  Canada has quasi-government agencies that wants to re-educate an outspoken and contrary person because his beliefs don’t match theirs… We’re sending even MORE hardware and weapons to the proxy war in Ukraine, escalating that conflict.  In far too many western countries “mohamed” has become the most common baby name.  The new owner of the ‘public square of the internet’ has joked that almost every conspiracy theory about it was true [that would be the publishing service that banned a sitting President’s speech.]   And our food and energy situation isn’t any better than it was last year.

So plant a seed.  Literally and figuratively.   Stack food, friends, and skills.

nick

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Sat. Jan. 7, 2023 – supposed to get gas today…

Warmer than Houston, and damp, but still chilly.  Had a nice clear day to get my stuff up here, now I need one to unload.

Made all my appointments yesterday, but by the skin of my teeth.   The Uhaul reservation had the wrong pickup time, so that was a challenge.   Then their checkin system now needs pix of everything, including me “for their facial recognition system” so they “can tell who’s driving”… with pix of the DL and a scan of the data fields on the back.   And 15 opportunities to upsell services, and 12000 or more times to be goaded into taking their insurance, which I managed to decline eventually.

One thing I couldn’t do was get my pallet jack on the trailer.  Couldn’t get it out of storage.   I will be unloading the stone piece by piece I guess.  Not the first time, as mentioned before.  Just takes a bit longer.

I am supposed to meet with a driver and a gas truck in the morning.   Maybe leaving a message that I’d hook up BBQ bottles prodded them along.  Whatever, as long as they fill the tank, and we can work something out about the pipe.  All this ‘provide your own infrastructure’ business is a pain.

Wife plans to put down flooring in the master bedroom today, and I’ll be doing something, probably electrical and plumbing, but certainly moving stone.

Work.   Work.  Work.  Joy.  Joy.  Joy.   Time to make the donuts…

 

Stack it up,

 

nick

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Fri. Jan. 6, 2023 – pickups, deliveries, lots of driving…

Cool and damp again.  Hopefully clear, as that will make all my driving nicer… It was 50F when I went to bed.  National forecast is for more of yesterday, so I should be ok.

Didn’t get much done.   It’s mostly mental, but I’m still not 100%.  I feel better, but tired, and weary.

Plan for today is pick up rental trailer, use it to pick up two pallets of stone, and some geotextile, then pick up my pallet jack, and whatever else I can get on the trailer and head to the BOL.

If everything goes well, and I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get there in enough time to meet the gas guy and maybe we can work out some temporary reprieve so we can at least have hot water while I get the line replaced.

Which is sub-optimal but may be unavoidable.

Family will join me later today if there is hot water and heat….

I’ll be bringing up a few bins of stuff including about half of my OTC meds.   I went through and divided up the stuff I stocked up on 2 years ago, and I might end up with it all at the BOL, because I have normal stuff here already, but for now, I’ll just send half.    I need to split up the first aid and wound care stuff too.  To be an actual BOL, it needs to be stocked as if we weren’t coming back to Houston.  Yet, I need enough stuff stacked here to stay if we can’t or won’t leave….   It’s an interesting balancing act.   One consideration is that we won’t USE the stuff up there at anywhere near the rate we use it here, and so turnover will be a lot slower.  More spoilage, more waste.   Oh well, we’ll figure it out as we go.   Or we’ll get caught short.  But I hope to get  it at least 80% right.

One solution would just be stacking all the same stuff in the same quantities, starting from scratch so it’s not already aging out…   and I’m trying to take the newer stuff up there, not the oldest, but I can’t afford to simply double everything at this point.   As I said, interesting balance…

One thing for sure, keep stacking.

 

nick

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Thur. Jan. 5, 2023 – and I’m still typing 2022 automatically…

Cool and damp.   46F when I went to bed and saturated.  Don’t expect that to change much in a couple of hours.   Yesterday it did get a bit nicer over the course of the day, but still pretty wet out.

I did do a couple of errands.  Drove around.  Took a bunch of trash and got rid of it.   The city decided to just skip recycle pickup the week of Christmas.  The week when most people have a ton of paper and cardboard trash…   Fortunately I have access to some dumpsters that I do use occasionally for construction debris, or when we make more trash than the city picks up.

Ordered the trailer rental for getting the geotextile and stone  I won up to the BOL this coming weekend.   Stone is about 3000 pounds worth according to the seller.   Dang.  Guess I better bring my pallet jack to move the stuff off the trailer.   Worst case, I unload it piece by piece.   I did have to do that once before when I bought a couple pallets of flagstone for a walkway.   No help loading.   No help unloading.   Moved every piece from the pallet to the truck, and then from the truck to a pallet in the driveway when I got it home.   It’s not fun but you might be surprised what you can do if you do a little at a time or break a big job down into little pieces.

That is prepping in a nutshell, btw- a massive job that you accomplish one smaller task at a time.  There are ways to shortcut the effort or time, copious amounts of money applied to the problem will make it a whole lot quicker and easier, for example.  But for most of us, it’s a gradual process, with mostly continuous forward progress.   Might not be smoothly continuous progress, it might go in fits and starts, but as long as it’s progress toward the goal, it’s good.  And there will be reverses as well, but they are ‘learning opportunities’ and a chance to fix a mistake and be better for it.

So get busy.  Start on the little things that will lead to the big thing getting done.

And stack it high.

nick

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Wed. Jan. 4, 2023 – grumble grumble, not feeling great

Supposed to be clear and moderate today and tomorrow… it did clear up yesterday.   Temps were in the 80s according to the weather station, and I believe it.

Did a couple of pickups in the afternoon.   Felt punky all day.   Caught a nap before going out.   I usually try to push through, but didn’t want to drive feeling that out of sorts.  My guts were already churning from WAY too much sugar on Monday.  All told an unpleasant morning, and only marginally better afternoon.  Other than the GI distress, it feels like a cold coming on.  Probably the ‘rona.  Hope not.

Today will likely be more of the same, despite my ever lengthening list.   Just can’t be helped.

Plans.  I’ve got ’em.  And they don’t matter much.

Other than stacking.   That is always appropriate.

n

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Tues. Dec. 3, 2023 – kids back in school today, grumpy grumpy kids…

Warm and damp again.  It stopped raining after a bit yesterday, but stayed wet all day.  No Christmas lights were taken down.  Today should clear, if the national forecast is correct.

I spent the day doing computer stuff and wasting time on the internet with my friends.   Last day of vacation, so a bit languid…  I did get my accounting done for my one client.

Not much else of a useful nature got done.   Some days it be that way.

Today though.   Today I need to start cranking on some of the list.  I know I’ve said that more than once, but ‘this time for sure’!

I have to say that it’s been a bit melancholy around here.  I’ve been going through files and especially pictures on my computer, sorting, and cleaning up, and I’ve come across several pics of people who have “preceded me in death” as the obituaries put it.   My dad, some family friends, a great co-worker, and while it is nice to see them and remember them, it’s also a bit sad.  It’s the time of year for it, to be sure.  Add frequent commentor here, Pecancorner, to the list, and it’s triggered a little more reflection and introspection than I’d normally engage in.   I don’t think any of them would want anyone to wallow in it, but we’re not quite rational beings, are we?  I’m not anyway.   So I’m indulging myself in a little bit of down, to go with the up of the season.  The grey weather hasn’t helped.

Keeping busy and making progress will help though.  Cleaning helps.   When stressed, I find myself cleaning.  Cleaning is productive and you can see the result immediately.  If you come to my house and it’s clean, if the service hasn’t been here, tread softly. Just sayin’.

Anyway.    Things to do, people to see.   Stuff to buy, sell, and fix.

Stuff to stack too.

Time to get to it.

nick

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Mon. Jan. 2, 2023 – 01022023 – a whole new set of numbers without any significance at all….

Warm-ish and damp with possibility of rain… probably just enough that taking down the outdoor decorations will be contra-indicated.   Or maybe not.   I’m in no hurry to take them down.  I love the lights.

I spent the whole of the year so far doing computer maintenance stuff, and not critical stuff at that.  So much for making inroads on the list.   Having extra kids in the house meant any plumbing work was ill-advised and that is the most pressing issue.  Given the extremely late night the kids had, everyone was content to spend the day mostly vegged out, even the dog.

Today though, I’ll have to get started on actual productive stuff.   School starts back up tomorrow, and some kids who have been staying up late will be very grumpy.  I’ll be harassing them today so they don’t sleep in too long.

I did cancel all my ebay listings that I had any question about where the item was, or if I hadn’t seen it while looking for the missing item.  I’ve got to get some new listings up, and I’ve decided to start with higher value things.   I usually just do whatever is close to hand and easy to list.   I’ve been accumulating stuff that is worth more though and I need to sell it, not stack it.  Time to get D1 to start listing the easy and cheap items like calculators, books, and remote controls.   New year and a new broom and other mixed metaphors, and all that.

So let’s get to it.  We’ve all got stuff to do, and stuff to NOT do.   Ready, GO!

 

n

(stacking should continue)

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