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Month: October 2025

Tues. Oct. 21, 2025 – early start today

Cool and kinda damp, but maybe we’ve turned the corner more solidly into Fall. It was 57F yesterday morning, but still 75F at midnight. No rain in the forecast for at least a couple more days though. That’s starting to be a problem. A grass fire somewhere in town seems pretty likely under these conditions. Everything is turning brown.

I didn’t get anything done yesterday morning. I had a roll with my egg for breakfast and the carbs put me to sleep at my desk. I got up a couple hours later and did my service call. It was another failing input port on the home theater Denon receiver. Denon must not be what it used to be, I’ve got a stack of failed units now. They are far more fragile than they used to be. The enshittification of everything continues.

I got home and did some piddlefarting around, after stopping at HEB for groceries. Kid snacks and soda, with some clearance wine marked down 50% really added to my ticket total. I filled the cart without a lot of sale items and it showed. Some random guy even commented that I had a huge load in the cart.

Dinner, internet, and some reading rounded out the day.

Today, D2 has to be at school an hour early for a competition. Joy. I’ll be getting up to make sure she has what she needs, and a ride. I won’t enjoy getting up early, but it’s great to see her thriving and committed to the activity.

I’ll spend the rest of the day doing pickups and working the list.

And if I can get to Costco, I’ll be adding to the stacks. TP isn’t on sale as often as it used to be, and my stock runs down faster than ever. I’ll have to make two trips buying the limit when it’s on sale to keep up. It should be on sale this period.

Our needs and wants evolve over time and with changing conditions. We need to adjust our preps and stack accordingly.

nick

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Mon. Oct. 20, 2025 – back to it

Cool, warm, hot, what does it matter? Well, I can plan for the heat and do stuff in the morning or evening… and I can chart the passage of time. We are definitely cooling overall, but still getting warm in the afternoon. It was in the 90sF yesterday, and still 80F at 8pm.

I got some stuff done. The drywall mud was still wet in spots, so no more work on that but I painted a media storage tower to be used as a lego kit display. I couldn’t take the fake woodgrain so after a second coat, now it’s ready for use. I also sorted some cordsets and other bits for the generator connection project. For some reason, all the commercial cords have a 4 prong twistloc with a tit that points in, while my generators have a tit that points out. I do think I have all the parts now to do the connection, just waiting for a little bit cooler day.

Oh, I did find my spare propane bottles. I filled three the other day, and I thought I should have more around, since W couldn’t find spares at the BOL. I figured the three were from the BOL, but didn’t see more here. WEEELLLL, they were in the driveway, in a corner, behind some stuff. Three more full bottles. I’m guessing that there are plenty of bottles still at the BOL, they’ll just be in the heaters, so three will go back to the BOL along with 20 or 25 gallons of gasoline on the next trip.

Finally got a chance to pull the fake logs out of the fireplace and see what I need to do to put in a quick connect for a MrHeater. I was thinking about a valve so the fake logs would be usable, but I found a big vertical crack in the firebox. Until that gets fixed, no fire in the box. I’ll just disconnect the logs and attach the quick connect if needed. Of course, I have the hose here, but left the quick connects at the BOL. The actual heater is at my secondary location, but I’ll bring it here and put it in the attic soon. Then I’ll put it all together in one place so we can connect it if we have another cold snap that takes out the power too.

Today I’ve got to do a service call at my client’s house. I’m guessing we’ve got another bad hdmi port on the Denon AVR. He says there hasn’t been any bad weather, so it’s probably not a surge, but we’ve already lost one port on that receiver. I think it’s time to start looking for a replacement for the Denon receivers. They’re too dang fragile anymore, and not cheap. Failing that, I might stick a cheap piece of gear between the endpoint and the Denon, like an audio extractor or a 2:1 splitter and hope it eats the surge. The system is pretty solid at this point, only having issues after bad electrical weather, at least typically.

Then I’ll work on the list some more. Unfortunately, my voice was a bit husky last night and my throat glands are a little swollen and sore. D1 may have infected us all… If that’s the case, I’m not getting much done in the next week.

Stack while you can, you never know what’s coming next.

nick

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Sun. Oct. 19, 2025 – hope I can get a few more things underway

Cool-ish, then warmer, maybe all the way to hot. It was very nice yesterday, with some clouds but no rain. Forecast has us in the clear for a couple more days. I did some flood watering of the front yard yesterday, and I have to check the sprinklers today.

I got a few things done yesterday. Not finished, but steps on the path toward finished. I put another coat of drywall mud on my laundry room repairs. I watered the yard. Cleaned the water feature and got the pump reconnected to the little waterfall thing. I think I’ll add some goldfish this week as there were little tiny worms in the filter material. The sound of the water is nice.

I also did some minor rearranging in my office, adding some mini wire shelves to stack some of the radio and test gear a little more neatly, which gave me some more room to put stuff away. It also got the shelves out of the kitchen where they were [temporarily] stored. A couple of other small jobs got done too. It was more productive than just sitting around, but while it was progress it wasn’t huge. I did keep me moving toward the goal.

Since the tasks are big, even small steps are helpful.

Today I’ll do some more and hopefully several ‘in process’ tasks will complete to make some real progress. There is so much to do it’s a bit overwhelming and disheartening. It’s taken a while to overcome the inertia so I want to keep making progress.

I’ll also be getting some of the Halloween stuff out. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, after all. Being part of the neighborhood and community is important.

D1 is sick again. Swollen neck glands, and a constricted throat. Doc in the box prescribed antibiotics because the flu test is only about 70% accurate. If she responds well, we’ll know it was an infection, not a virus. She is confused and unhappy because she never really got sick as a little kid and she doesn’t like it.

By the time I was her age, I’d had the real flu with all the puking, serious fevers, a couple dozen stitches, nose bleeds, a black eye, strep, mono, and chicken pox. I’d had an infection of my optic nerve, and various other things, including serious burns, and before I left high school, a few car accidents, and some traumatic brain injuries, and dozens of hangovers. Oh, and severe allergies and chronic bronchitis. I tore something in my shoulder wrestling, and was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, although we went with physical therapy and not surgery. I knew the receptionist at the local hospital by name and even tried to date her later on.

Oh, and a full series of rabies shots.

FWIW, it didn’t get any better over the next few years either. My list of injuries just grew from there.

My siblings had much the same. My cousins too, and worse.

I’m glad my kids haven’t had all that, but hearing her cry last night because a cockroach landed on her makes me wonder how she’s going to cope when Real Life ™ gets around to kicking her in the teeth. It’s especially worrisome because of what I believe is coming for us all.

But that’s a different sort of prep, one that isn’t really solvable by stacking. Stacks will make everything else better though. Get to it.

nick

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Sat. Oct. 18, 2025 – the weekend is just two more days to work

Cooler days, but just days. Well, slightly cooler days, and slightly cooler nights. We did almost have rain yesterday. The clouds were there, and in parts of town, a little mist hit my windshield, but no actual rain fell on me.

After a dump run and a stop to fill up three propane bottles, I did my pickups and decided to return home rather than head to the BOL. I looked at my list and decided to keep working on the stuff here, rather than a new project with limited time at the BOL.

Of course, I had to do stuff like fix my truck first. The door handle on the driver’s side stopped actuating the latch. It’s happened before and I know what failed. There is a little plastic clip that holds the rod to the mechanism, and it fails. It caused me some trouble when I locked myself out of my running truck at one pickup. Fortunately I know how to bypass the handle and lock on the passenger side, so I did get in.

When I got home I took the door apart, confirmed that it was the little clip that failed, and went looking for the replacement. I was pretty sure I’d ordered spares last time, and I store like with like, so I looked in the door of the parts truck, and in the box of spares behind the seat, but couldn’t find the part. I looked in my truck too, both the console and glove box. Just when I thought I must have lost the parts, I found them in the map pocket of the door. 10 minutes later that was fixed, but by then it was dark out.

I had the part and it was a simple and short matter to fix it. Prepping for the win on this one.

I’d also done a fair bit of domestic bliss in the last 2 days- I did two loads of laundry, cut my hair, shaved, and booted the TiVO for the first time in years. I am hoping to sell it. The laundry folding took some time, as did the other messing around, so I wasn’t in a big hurry to load up the truck and head out by the time that was all done.

All in all, I’m hoping for a productive weekend here. That’ll all be on me though, so while I’m hoping, I wouldn’t bet on me…

Stacks made my truck problem into a minor issue that was easily resolved. Stacking up the propane bottles will be good for cooking, heat, or running a gennie. Stacks are good. Get you some!

nick

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Fri. Oct. 17, 2025 – if you got a problem, yo, I’ll solve it…

Cool and then warm. Hot even. But overall, cooler. Which is fitting for the times. Late yesterday the light got kinda yellow green and the clouds looked like rain… but it never came.

I did my pickups in the late morning. Then I hit up IKEA for my pantry cabinets. They are heavy. Heavy enough that I was ready to open the box and carry the biggest pieces inside one at a time. I got D1 to help me instead.

I spent the afternoon putting mud on the joints, and assembling one of the two cabinets. The second will have to wait until the wall is repaired, and I don’t have to move the cabinets to get to it. Dinner was a heat and eat meal with rice. Tasty, easy, quick. Not cheap, but cheaper than takeout. Just another tool in the box.

There is a crazy amount of work to do here, and I’m picking at it a little at a time, so of course I want to drive up to the BOL and do stuff there. It’s a lot of work keeping two properties in good shape, especially if you have stacks of stuff everywhere and let things get out of hand. It would be easier to just keep up with it but that ship sailed a long time ago.

So I am working to improve my situation, both at home and at the BOL. Physically and metaphorically.

Do something every chance you get. Try to keep up. Stack.

nick

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Thur. Oct. 16, 2025 – oh oh, we’re half way there, oh oh livin’ on a prayer

It’s a good thing you can’t hear my voice when I sing. Continuing with the cool morning, warm afternoons, with overall cooling trend. Also supposed to be clear for the next couple of days. That’s a lot of clear, dry days in a row. My grass is crunchy and the grass over the septic field at the BOL is probably completely dead. That’s not good.

I did a couple of the things on my list, but avoided drywall mud again. It’s messy and I have to move stuff to do it, as well as diving deep in the garage for the tools… so I’ve been putting off what is a short and straightforward job. I have to get better at this. Picked up my stuff yesterday, with some stuff for the BOL, and a couple of household things. I’m stacked up on “pet stain and odor” remover. Damn dog.

Now to move a couple of things along, and then collect my stuff today. More stuff for the BOL, as well as some gub stuff. I won some mags and refills for the hole puncher. I’m stopping at an estate sale this morning to see if I can’t get some more. This sale also has a bunch of pews and a few dozen cans of freeze drieds… guy had some of his priorities straight.

The brand of FDs is unfamiliar to me, but matches the typical “buy this and you’ll be set” exploitive strategy employed by pretty much everyone but Auguson Farms and Mountain House. In other words, it’s all carb heavy, but still under caloried, and about half is breakfast or side dishes rather than main courses– with no real main courses except the few additional Mountain House cans. “Mac and Cheese with meat” is not dinner. A serving of meat, with a side of mac is. Soup mixes and oatmeal, cereal and pasta dishes are not really the best way to spend money on freeze dried foods, and are just in the kits to bulk out the days they can claim, and to extract extra money from your wallet.

Little protein and no fat isn’t going to keep you working in the fields all day. That’s one of the reasons I save all my bacon fat in jars. Fat is good energy and helps you feel full. The Oregon Trail cookbook I read has a surprising number of recipes that start with “melt 5 pounds of bear fat”. Heritage breeds of pig have about twice the fat of modern piggies (iirc), and the fat was more important to the household than the meat in the old days.

If you don’t have fat stored, you might want to reconsider that. You can buy ghee, lard, bacon fat, and beef tallow in the store and they all keep a really long time, especially if you put them in the fridge or freezer until they are needed. Fat can be used to preserve food too, as ‘potted’ meat for example. Saving your own is not only easy, but you paid for the fat when you bought the meat, so why NOT keep it?

Stacks don’t have to be separate from your normal life, and it’s a lot easier if they are just part of it. Put some back for later…

nick

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Wed. Oct. 15, 2025 – time to buy some candy

Cooler weather is nice. Forecast says ‘clear’ for a couple of days at least, and while it is getting hot in the afternoon, overall, it’s cooler.

Yesterday was nice. I even had the windows down on the truck for a while. Sunny and warm in the sun, but very nice. I did my pickups and took some of it to the shop where I’m piling up stuff for the BOL. I think I’ll head up this weekend by myself. Anyway, after that, I came home and made some steaks for dinner. One was from 2020 and was very tasty. The other was only from last year, so no big deal.

I didn’t get a layer of mud on my drywall seams so I’ve got that to do this am.

Then it’s a pickup or two, and a trip to IKEA for my pantry flat pack. It’s supposed to be ready at 1pm. I hope I get some sort of confirmation email in the morning.

Lots of stuff to do, and not a lot of motivation or energy. Time to grind.

Still stacking. Still working on improvements. Still lagging behind…

nick

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Tues. Oct. 14, 2025 – I wouldn’t mind an open source version of Shotspotter ™

Cool. Then warming. Still no rain. Well, not for me. I’m pretty sure some of those dark clouds that were roaming around rained on someone. It did stay relatively cooler all day though. I could actually do a little bit in the attic without overheating.

I was up at a reasonable time, and made breakfast for D2 before her friends came over. They spent a few hours watching Hamilton and singing along. I read while that was going on. Afterwards, I got busy with my pantry project.

I cleaned up the cutout drywall, insulated, and hung new drywall to close up the wall and ceiling. Of course it wasn’t as simple as that, and it took a quick trip to Lowe’s for spray foam. I picked up some screws and a fresh bucket of drywall compound while I was there.

I had the insulation stored in the attic, some from the bathroom project, and some stored there waiting for me to rip and replace the nasty 50 year old blown in insulation. That isn’t a job I’m looking forward to, and I’d just pay someone to do it if I didn’t have all the stuff stored up there in the way.

After I vacuumed up the drywall dust and assorted old insulation, I changed out the A/C filters. I’ll change them again after I’m done with all the mud and sanding too, but that is for another day.

While in the attic, I moved some stuff around, found more ebay ‘inventory’, and tossed out some rat poison baits.

I really hate doing anything with fiberglas insulation. REALLY hate it. When I do the attic, I’ll fully gear up in protective measures, but yesterday I just wore gloves and was very careful about what I touched.

Today I’ll do the first layer of mud and tape on the drywall, and do at least two pickups. I won a couple of things for next summer at the BOL, and some more supplies for projects there. Some small random things too, since I was making the trip.

Sometimes I just pick up things that might be useful later. They almost always turn out to be something I need in the future. I’m pretty sure I’ll need the foam version of a toilet wax ring, for example. Other stuff ends up coming in handy. IF I can find it and remember I have it…

Stacks are good. Skills are good. Friends are better.

nick

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Mon. Oct. 13, 2025 – Bringing civilization to the savages day.

Cool. Later it’ll be warm to hot. Although the hot isn’t as hot and the cool keeps getting cooler. It was really a very nice day yesterday despite some occasional dark clouds. No rain on my patch.

I slept in and decided to do some work around the house. D2 wasn’t excited about heading to the BOL, and I convinced myself it wasn’t a good use of time. I wouldn’t get an real projects done with the late start. That’s my story anyway.

I did clear out a spot where a pantry cabinet is supposed to go. It’s the corner where the water heater used to be. I haven’t done anything to advance that project because I only tacked up the drywall repair because I needed to do some plumbing and insulating behind there. Then a dark stain appeared on the ceiling and I was sure something died there, which I really didn’t want to disturb.

Turns out, it was just from water coming down the open exhaust vent from the old water heater. Once I close that up, I can fix the ceiling. And once I insulate, I can fix the wall. Of course, the fractal nature of my tasks means that I REALLY want to put some pex in that wall and up into the attic while it’s all open. At some point I’ll need to make the connections, when I pex the whole house, and re-opening the wall would be dumb. Especially if there is a cabinet full of stuff in front of it.

So, I’ll try to stub up into the ceiling for the hot water line to the rest of the house, and the cold water line that feeds the heater. And I’ve got to install some hardware cloth to close up the wall and attic from the open soffit. I know that critters used it as a highway around the house, and they used the open wall to enter the house and eat dog food. That situation needs to be addressed. My tasks are fractal in nature.

So is prepping at an advanced level. Once you have the basics covered, you see that to advance there is always something else than can be done first, or to support the prep, or to leverage the prep. It’s like the first time you write an algorithm in school*. Pretty soon you realize that every task can be broken down farther into tasks which can be broken down farther…

Since there is an infinite number of things to do, you better get to stacking….

nick

*in my school daze, it was “write the algorithm for changing a car tire.” ‘Take the old tire off, put the new tire on’ expands pretty quickly…

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Sun. Oct. 12, 2025 – off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard

Cool and warming later. Probably getting all the way to hot and sticky. It’s cooler at night and in the morning, but still getting well into “Summer” by most peoples’ standards.

I got a very early start yesterday getting D1 to her activity. I eventually picked her up a little after midnight. Long day for the kid but they took 3rd place out of 23 schools. Pretty good considering their size and lack of resources.

I spent the morning at my non-prepping hobby, which was nice. Good turn out and a fun day. I napped and read for the rest of the day. I was wiped out. I’m not as good at going without sleep as I used to be. Even just 15 years ago I could still push through an all nighter and be functional the next day. Not ‘normal’, but functional. I don’t think I could do that now, even though I seem to need less sleep overall.

Today I’ll let the kid sleep in as she didn’t get much more than me, and then later we’ll head to the BOL. We won’t be taking her friend with us, but there is already one extra kid there.

I’m debating taking the new 12v cooler and leaving it there as backup. I can make the case for using it here as backup or using it to transport food from here to there. I’ve got a couple of smaller 12v thermoelectric coolers there, but this would increase capacity. I’ve already got one bigger cooler here, and several of the smaller ones.

If you have something that needs to be kept cold to keep you alive, like meds, I think you should absolutely have a small 12v cooler as a minimum prep. On the other hand, a solar panel and inexpensive inverter, with a car battery, will keep most 3 and 7 cubic foot freezers running and you get to keep the freezer full of food…

Whatever your solution and the scale of it, having a way to keep stuff cold is a critical prep.

Stack what you need.

nick

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