Month: February 2026

Sun. Feb. 8, 2026 – a day of rest

Cool to start, and gorgeous later. That’s the plan anyway. Yesterday worked out that way and it was a beautiful day.

I spent most of the day ferrying kid and friends around. I did do a little sorting and domestic bliss, but didn’t get anything off the list. I’ll try again today.

About the only thing related to prepping was trying to back up more of the stuff on my phone. I didn’t realize that the camera was using the internal storage instead of the sd card, and that a lot of stuff wasn’t being backed up to the cloud. I pulled the card and copied it to my pc, and it took over 5 hours. That’s crazy long for just 32GB of data. SD card, through an adapter, and then the card reader in the pc is not quick. I’m not sure where the bottleneck is but it’s significant.

Today I’ll sleep late, and then do some more cleanup. I found more of the electrical parts I need for the whole house gennie, so I might move that up the list, just to get something done and marked off.

Or I might not. With beautiful weather, I might move stuff out of storage.

Plans, I’ve got ’em. We’ll see what really happens.

Stack some preps. It’s good for the soul.

nick

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Sat. Feb. 7, 2026 – up early for the kinder…

I guess I’ll see how cold it is at 7am. Probably 50F. Then warming throughout the day, much like Friday. In fact, Friday afternoon was really nice. Warm, sunny, clear… really nice. And I’m hoping for some more of that today.

I did office stuff in the morning, then did a pickup in the afternoon. Stopped and got a propane bottle filled, went by the secondary location, stopped at the shop and spent a couple of hours sorting and organizing. Didn’t get to storage, but did make progress so there might be room for it when it does come over.

Today I’m up early to get youngest and two of her friends to a school thing, then get them back home after. Then I need to get her to school for another thing that will go all afternoon and evening, with an afterparty…

W and D1 are headed to look at a college, with W continuing on to the BOL. She’ll stay the night and then pick up the kid on her way home. Kid will be staying with a friend. I’ll be home shuffling D2 around and working on the list.

It’s hard to complain. I will anyway. But by any metric I’m a blessed man. Gotta remember that.

Stack something. Count your blessings.

nick

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Fri. Feb. 6, 2026 – 02062026 – jenny don’t change your number…

Cold again, and probably nice later. Which is what yesterday turned into. I was in shirtsleeves by the middle of the day. Since today is supposed to be clear and sunny, I’m betting on the same weather striking twice.

Did my pickup in the morning. It was a bargain*, but it was also 2 hours of driving. Then I met with a neighbor about a place for my non-prepping hobby to meet. I’m hoping that works out as it’s closer to my house.

Didn’t get to my storage unit or my shop. Kid was supposed to need a ride at a specific time, and that just wouldn’t work with shop time, so I went home and waited. I did get a good nap, which mollified me slightly when I found out 2 hours later that she didn’t need the ride.

Everyone but me had stuff to do last night, so I ate leftovers and fell asleep from the carbs.

Today, well, I’ll try once again to make some progress. Sisyphus. Some days I’m Spartacus, but most days I’m Sisyphus. NOT syphilis. Sisyphus… Or maybe liver-pecked dood. Dood is good food**. Now I won’t be able to convince anyone that my brain isn’t rotten from syphilis.

Stack! There you go, classic me.
nick

*bargain is a weird way to spell that word, and just looking at the letters, it doesn’t even seem like a real word. Do I need a tag for silliness? Or Sisyphus? Or syphilis? and really, who decides when it’s a y and when it’s an i? or an -is or an -us?

**three different sounds for the same ‘oo’ WTF?

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Thur. Feb. 5, 2026 – two wongs make a white

Cool, but maybe warmer later? The national forecast says Houston, and most of the country, will be clear for the next several days. Could be all the heat rises and it’s cold but clear. Could be something else. I’m going for cold and clear. Maybe mid 60s? We’ll see.

Yesterday was a mess. Didn’t get any sleep, so had to nap most of the morning. Then other stuff got in my way. I did get a couple of small things done, and made dinner, so there was that.

Today I’ve got plans to do a pickup and a venue visit, so I need to get moving this morning. After that, maybe the load from storage that didn’t happen yesterday? We’ll see.

In any case, SOMETHING will get started, worked on, or, if the universe is feeling kindly, finished.

I just can’t predict what.

So stack as that’s easiest, and get stuck in.

nick

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Wed. Feb. 4, 2026 – too many good post titles…

Warm and wet. It’s like winter never happened all of a sudden. I’ve got to run the defroster in the truck to see because it’s so damp. That’s pretty unusual for Houston. We had rain yesterday, depending on the time of day and where you were, and I’m pretty sure some people had a sunny day, while others got gloom and rain. I got some of each because I was driving all over the north side of town.

And there were lots of cops and not a few accidents. I did get my pickup done. Mostly it was things for the BOL. I took them and staged them at the shop, then spent a while sorting and organizing there.

Today I’ve got another pickup, on the far south side of town this time. Nothing to combine it with either. Oh well, it was a great deal on a machine for my hobbies. I’m also going to see a potential new meeting space for my non-prepping hobby. Both things should be done in the morning though. If it’s not raining, or threatening rain, I’ll probably try for another load from storage. I just got charged another month’s rent and it stings.

I need to get rid of the “inventory” I’ve built up by buying stuff to sell, but then not selling it because I’m too busy. Buying is more fun, and less work. Let that be an example to everyone. You aren’t running a store, you don’t need inventory. Buy it, then SELL it. It’s called ‘flipping’ for a reason. And I forgot that.

It’s not stacking when it’s stuff you didn’t intend to keep in the first place.

Do some real stacking. Clear the decks for it.

nick

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Tues. Feb. 3, 2026 – hot diggity dog diggity oh what it does to me…

Maybe not so cold today. It did get into the 70sF yesterday, and it was 60F at 10pm, the last time I looked. Overcast and kinda dreary for much of the day though. Hmm, today, mid 70sF, overcast, threat of rain. That’s my guess.

I didn’t get a lot done yesterday, but I did get another load from the storage unit to the shop. Spent some time talking to a friend on the phone. Did some non-prepping hobby tasks. I’d been putting them off for a while so it was good to get a few done.

One thing that ate far more time than it should have was that I filled up the internal storage on my phone. I thought both my internal and SD card were being backed up to my google account online, so I weeded and deleted a bunch of stuff. Didn’t matter. Even after I dealt with “unresolved conflicts”, I hadn’t cleared any pics off my internal storage. Couldn’t move them to the SD either, because no working space… no messaging, no opening the camera to tell it to use the SD, lot’s of stuff broke when the internal storage filled up.

So I tried connecting to the pc by USB cable to move files. Nope. Tried a half dozen cables, none did anything but charge. I think the USB-C port on the phone must be buggered. Lots of time spent and I couldn’t text my wife, so I found and deleted all the pix the ebay app stored when I used the visual search function. I wanted to keep them, because it was every album and pokemon I’ve looked up, and a nice record of purchases, but with the USB not working, I was kinda stuck.

Anyway, deleting the ebay photos cleared enough space I could use the phone again. But it does have a lesson. The camera was storing to internal for some stuff, and that stuff isn’t being backed up. And I haven’t backed up the phone itself or connected by USB in a LONG time. I’ll spend some more time dealing with that later.

Today, I might do a pickup in The Woodlands. I’ve got a couple of other errands to run too, like picking up an Rx and dropping off a check. If it’s not raining, I am hoping to get another load to the shop.

It doesn’t sound like much when I lay it out, but it is keeping a couple of things moving forward, and it’s picking up some things that have been back-burnered for too long.

Maybe when I pickup the Rx, I’ll check the meat cooler and finally be able to stack some more meat. Hope springs eternal… Stack!

n

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Mon. Feb. 2, 2026 – for the band on the run…

Cold again. And damp. And there is a chance that it won’t be clear. Clear and sunny really helps. It helped yesterday. I had a few hours of nice enough weather to do some outside work.

I was able to cut the grass in the back yard. I’ve been slowly cleaning up the patio so I can get back to using the shelves and cabinets to store food and supplies. I did a bit more of that before the sun went down. That was followed by some computer time. Not a lot of stuff got done, but I had some gastric issues and didn’t want to be far from home.

Sometimes it be that way.

Today though, I need to get some stuff done. Even if I’m only poking at little things, I have been making slow progress. I just need to keep moving.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

Just keep stacking, just keep stacking… but … remember the reasons why.
nick

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Sun. Feb. 1, 2026 – second month already

Cold and cold. Hopefully clear so that it gets a little warmer later. Yesterday didn’t get much warmer. It was 40s and 50sF all day and the breeze was bone chilling.

I did get a couple of things done. Got up at a reasonable time, for me, for a weekend. Did some cleanup. I cleaned a felt hat for me that I picked up a while ago. It’s been in my storage unit since then. Now I’m wearing it. It’s a soft felt packable fedora, with a wider brim than my other ones. Took some work to get the spots off of it but it looks good now. And I cleaned a pair of shoes for resale. Nice Prada driving moccasins. They’re too small for me but look nice after cleaning, reshaping, and conditioning.

Did some other home stuff then did my pickup. It was just down the road so it wasn’t a big commitment. I got three new galvanized steel buckets. Buckets are an important but undervalued prep, and plastic ones will break or degrade and then break. Long term prepping says “you better have some buckets that will last.”

Took a load from storage to the shop too. I’ve still got a lot of stuff in the unit. I made some more room in the shop with some more sorting and condensing, so maybe today I’ll get another load or two taken over. I should do some work on the patio or the driveway here too, but the cold makes it very painful to work outdoors.

No matter what else I do, I’ll find something on the list to chip away at.

Stack something. Learn something. Stay busy.
nick

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