Saturday, 25 March 2017

By on March 25th, 2017 in personal, prepping

09:49 – It was 48.4F (9C) when I took Colin out around 0700 this morning. He and Barbara are outside right now, getting started on Trump’s Wall. She hauled some rock up from the backyard yesterday to put a small drystone wall around the flower bed at the corner of our garage. It’ll be only five or six feet long and 6 or 8 inches tall, but I feel comfortable that it’ll be enough to discourage any illegal immigrants from taking up residence in Barbara’s flower bed.

Barbara drinks orange juice every morning. She buys Tropicana in those 1.75-liter PET wide-mouth bottles (weight: 59 grams w/o lid; 71 grams w/ lid) that are so useful for repackaging LTS food, particularly fluffy stuff that’s hard to get into the narrow-mouth 2-liter bottles.

One aggravation for Barbara over the years is that I don’t discard or recycle any potentially useful bottles, so at times she feels as though the house is being taken over by bottles. Hundreds of them. Big yard-waste bags full of them. (I did point out once that our house was about 30,000 cubic feet, which meant we actually had room for about 600,000 2-liter bottles, but that didn’t seem to help.)

So I was proud of Barbara when she returned from Winston Thursday. She had a Tropicana bottle half full of iced tea. Al had made too much iced tea, and gave her some of it in the OJ bottle to take home. She mentioned that we saved those bottles for repackaging bulk staples. Al asked if she wanted them to save them for us, and Barbara thanked him and accepted. Barbara getting more bottles for us. Heh. Now all we need to do is get them all full of bulk staples and shelved. We’re gonna need more shelves.

* * * * *

66 Comments and discussion on "Saturday, 25 March 2017"

  1. SteveF says:

    Looks like we’re gonna need more shelves. a bigger shelf.

    FIFY

  2. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    We don’t have room for a shelf that big. Right now, we have roughly a person-year’s worth of bulk LTS food on built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves in the unfinished area of the basement, another 18 person-months’ worth in one of the downstairs bedroom closets, and another 2.5 person-years’ worth in that bedroom itself, mostly on steel shelving units, but a lot of it just in cases stacked on the floor.

    I’m reasonably content with where we are on LTS food storage, although I’ll continue to add to it incrementally–eat X amount, replace it with 2X or 3X–until we get maybe two to three times what we have now.

  3. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    And even at that, I’d consider us to be only moderately prepared. I use the older recommendations of the LDS Church as my guideline. Originally, they recommended seven years’ worth of LTS food storage. They cut that back to two years’ worth a long time ago, and then cut it again to one year’s worth.

    I know a fair number of Mormons. Most of them ignore Church guidelines, and are little or no better prepared than the average person. Maybe 10% of them are at the currently-recommended one-year level, but a small percentage of them have much, much larger pantries. One I exchanged email with was at five years’ worth just of LDS #10 cans for her family, plus a lot more that they’d repackaged themselves.

  4. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Barbara just called me outside to look. She and Colin have already completed their section of Trump’s Wall. It turned out much larger than I’d thought: about 10 feet (3 meters) long and about a foot (30 cm) tall. Let ’em try to get over that one.

    I actually suggested she top her wall with some razor wire, but she said it’d be fine as is.

  5. RickH says:

    Currently 69F here, mostly blue skies, after some T-storms and tornado warnings nearby last evening.

    Did I mention that I am in Katy-Fulshear TX? Not too many tornadoes in my usual AO in Washington.

    Visiting wife’s sister and mother here for a week. Then driving back to SLC with MIL’s car (she doesn’t need it any more now that she is in the Alzheimer’s home). Going to give it to first granddaughter (17 and a high school senior).

    Will be required to stop by Waco on the way home. Because “FixerUpper”. Total of 25 hours of driving over 2-3 days to get to SLC from here.

  6. MrAtoz says:

    Will be required to stop by Waco on the way home. Because “FixerUpper”.

    Waco is still on our list for a third property. Just like Bernie, but no cottage on the water. Yet. We are still on schedule to look at property in Mexico. Add Kentucky and Tennessee to the list.

  7. Robert B Thompson says:

    You’re considering relocating to a third-world country?

  8. Dave Hardy says:

    “You’re considering relocating to a third-world country?”

    And failed state. Yikes. I almost fell off my chair when I saw that. Pictures of decapitated and chopped up bodies swam through my already nightmarish mental landscape. No matter what Brother Fred says about how great it is.

    I’d snap up whatever in Kentucky or Tennessee in a hahtbeat even it was a Quonset hut on cinder blocks.

    31 here and breezy; prepping included picking up more flour (both whole-wheat and white), cornmeal, canned albacore tuna in water (on sale), and more wotta. Thought very highly of myself and then read RBT’s post above.

    Working on the FFL and some other revenue stuff now; reading the Tech license stuff on the can, a chapter per sitting.

    Meanwhile I have my list of cleanup scut and grunge ops going on throughout the house, never ends.

  9. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “Thought very highly of myself and then read RBT’s post above.”

    Don’t sweat it. Remember, I’ve been a prepper since 1962, literally.

  10. Miles_Teg says:

    Mexico? Can I have your guns please?

  11. Miles_Teg says:

    “I actually suggested she top her wall with some razor wire…”

    Broken glass would do…

  12. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “I’d snap up whatever in Kentucky or Tennessee in a hahtbeat even it was a Quonset hut on cinder blocks.”

    Kentucky wouldn’t be my first choice, but then that’s evident from where we decided to move. I remain convinced that the best area is northwestern NC, eastern Tennessee, and far southwestern Virginia. A lot of preppers obviously agree with me, including a pretty high percentage of well-known PA novelists.

  13. Dave Hardy says:

    Mrs. OFD will be in Johnson City, TN in early May, and possibly in far southwestern NC as well. I may still find a way to go down with her, but in any case, one or both of us will do some recon investigating while there. A bunch of her cousins live over in Jamestown and surrounding area in VA, but of course that is not even close to being decent prepper territory.

    Ironically, some of my long-ago cousins settled there circa 1609; the northern Yankee bunch hit Plymouth and Boston in 1620 and 1630. I have the paperwork in progress for Mayflower Society membership, which I did for a lark but also because it would be a real kick to show up in Plymouth in 2020 for the Quadricentennial. A couple of “our” houses are still extant there, too, as is true of several houses on Nantucket Island.

  14. MrAtoz says:

    Mexico? Can I have your guns please?

    No lack of guns in MX, just gotta know where to get ’em.

    In five years, Mexico will look like the FUSA and the FUSA will look like Mexico. A home in Cabo on the cheap is a great vacation spot. President tRump is going to save us all.

    The Lexington area reminded me of my home of Rhinelander, WI. I could live there. Getting used to the cold again would take a while.

  15. lynn says:

    We are still on schedule to look at property in Mexico.

    Just remember the old cliche, the USA sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold.

  16. lynn says:

    Did I mention that I am in Katy-Fulshear TX?

    You are just 20 miles north of me.

  17. Dave Hardy says:

    Here is MrAtoz’s new newspaper:

    http://www.gringogazette.com/

    Ve con Dios, amigo mío …

  18. Dave Hardy says:

    Shazzammm!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4348284/Las-Vegas-Bellagio-lockdown-reports-gunman.html

    Gee whiz, maybe MrAtoz is absolutely right to GTFO of town….

  19. MrAtoz says:

    I almost missed this one while travelling. A “shotgun bullet“? Really? Tell me schools aren’t commie fukstik controlled agencies of pussification.

    This is what zero tolerance Libturdian policies get you.

  20. MrAtoz says:

    Gee whiz, maybe MrAtoz is absolutely right to GTFO of town….

    I was running low on cash, so …

    Viva La Raza! Viva Carlos Slim! Once you go Brown,…you down, mofo!

  21. Dave Hardy says:

    “Tell me schools aren’t commie fukstik controlled agencies of pussification.”

    The key quote from Mom:

    “I still was expected to pay tuition, of course. And a threat that if his enthusiasm for guns continued, he’d be permanently expelled.”

    @Mom: take the kid outta there ASAP and either find another skool or do the homeschool thang.

    “Viva La Raza! Viva Carlos Slim! Once you go Brown,…you down, mofo!

    Yo, right on, hermano! Viva Nuevo Aztlan! Viva La Raza!

    Uno te va marrón como un hombre malo, como un perro grande …

  22. MrAtoz says:

    The usual celebriturds are out trashing President tRump over health care. I doubt any of them have ObolaCare. Leviathan sucks the life out the middle class to pay for low life scum health care. $5k deductibles, monthly premiums heading over $1k. All so you can get free birth control, condoms, breast exams, etc. which all responsible peeps have done all along. Not good enough for the elite celebriturds. Illegals should be shot on site/sight when entering an ER. I’m not giving “trigger warnings”, not even for illegals, lol!

  23. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “Mrs. OFD will be in Johnson City, TN in early May, and possibly in far southwestern NC as well. I may still find a way to go down with her, but in any case, one or both of us will do some recon investigating while there.”

    If you guys drive instead of flying, give me a call.

  24. paul says:

    I finally bought a few cans of Keystone products:
    Keystone All Natural Beef, 28 oz, 3 @ $7.74 each.
    Keystone Ground Beef, 28 oz, 3 @ $6.28 each.
    Keystone: Heat & Serve Pork, 28 oz, 3 @ $6.28 each.

    Samples. If we don’t like the stuff, not a great loss. Wal-Mart also showed chicken and turkey but when added to the cart neither were available with my selected (or any) shipping option. Not a big deal, while I like the canned chicken I have tried, it falls apart into mush worse than cheap tuna. I bought enough for free shipping but I went with in-store pickup. If the cans are dented, quick and easy refund.

    Plus I have the new gate-opener installed (the old one broke a couple of years ago) and UPS hasn’t figured out how to push a doorbell button to open the gate. “He” dropped the last package over the gate, right in the way of the gate. I say “he” because we get a lady driver once in a while and she’s freaked by the dogs.

    I don’t have the keypad that everyone seems to use. A simple doorbell button is enough. Also $6 versus at least $45 with the need to change batteries. Plus how is anyone to know what the code is?

    The gate is to contain critters and discourage unwanted visitors that drive down random dirt roads, aka my driveway, to look at bluebonnets or whatever, like find a secluded place to spark at night..

  25. Ray Thompson says:

    “Mrs. OFD will be in Johnson City, TN in early May, and possibly in far southwestern NC as well. I may still find a way to go down with her, but in any case, one or both of us will do some recon investigating while there.”

    If you guys drive instead of flying, give me a call.

    Yeh, give me a shout. We might could all meet for lunch and let RBT pay the tab.

  26. Dave Hardy says:

    If we both go down there, it’ll mos def be a flight from up here to probably fucking Newark and then over to whichever landing strip in TN. Wife makes all these arrangements and has it down to a science, much like Mr. and MrsAtoz, I reckon. From there we’d drive to Johnson City and stay at an Air B & B and while wife is teaching, I’d be doing recon in the larger AO. If she stays a second week for a class at that folk center in extreme southwest NC, same deal; I’m out doing recon there, too.

    Chances are, though, that I’ll have to hold the fort again up here. But we’ll see; I’d mos def let you guys know well in advance.

    What’s that you say? RBT is paying the tab? Outstanding!

    We’d have to triangulate, I guess.

    Then there’s that steam festival in north-central Vampire State; I’d like to get to that in early August somehow.

    Could be all kinds of groovy get-togethers…

    ….surry down…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CfSgsvqJE

  27. Spook says:

    At risk of another topic: TENTS !

    My 3yo tent is still the same price ($130~).
    Six “man” and quite nice for one (or two, but that’s a bit youngish for this old guy), and plenty for regular casual camping.

    The shtf issue for tents, though, is why not for earthquake, in particular, and so on.
    Pack a large cheap tent or three for the ‘hood, just in case. Make one a cook tent (carefully, please) and so on…
    Beats a TARP of course, especially for bugs and such, and of course everybody already hoards TARPs, right??
    Even in major snow and worse, a TENT beats nothing!

    Modern tents (I mean family / car camping sort) tend to be polyester fabric with silicone(??) waterproofing, so they have much better shelf life than the old urethane coatings that got sticky, stinky, and useless in few years.

    TENT !!
    Use it for fun outings meanwhile…

  28. Spook says:

    Somebody said “steam” and I recalled something I thought of during the previous locomotive and traction engine discussion…
    Seems I’ve heard of regular farm folk (nobody here?) having a pretty good tractor of moderate size that had a PTO (power take off) option that worked nicely with an appropriate electric generator. Stories I heard had the utterly reliable tractor running (at idle) for useful time frames cheaply (gas or diesel) to charge batteries, and so on, in the emergency generator context.
    They have the tractor engine anyway, and presumably lots of fuel for the farming, so a generator would be a relatively cheap addition. Good thing to have in the ‘hood, for sure.

  29. Dave Hardy says:

    We have a tent we’ve never used somewhere in the attic; I was just up there earlier and I have my work cut out for me clearing up and organizing chit there. I forgot all about the TENT but will take a look for it.

  30. paul says:

    “Seems I’ve heard of regular farm folk (nobody here?) having a pretty good tractor of moderate size that had a PTO (power take off) option that worked nicely with an appropriate electric generator.”

    I have two tractors. One is a Yanmar. The new (as in still making payments) other is a Mahindra w/ a Mitsubisi engine. Has a bucket on the front, handy that. But I like the Yanmar better. Probably just familiarity.

    Both are 20 or 25 horse. I dunno, they do what I want.

    I’ve shopped some PTO generators. Expensive. And you don’t run them at 600 RPM idle speed. It’s a trade of between idle speed and the red line on the tach for power output. Price kicks in pretty hard for the larger PTO gens.

    Crazy stuff. Easier to just buy a burner gennie from Wal-Mart.

  31. Spook says:

    And that’s why we throw out our crazy ideas…

  32. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “I finally bought a few cans of Keystone products”

    Good for you. Barbara is extremely picky about food. She was initially skeptical. The first time with the ground beef, she said it didn’t taste right, but now she happily uses the ground and chunk beef, the pork, and the chicken.

  33. Dave Hardy says:

    “Barbara is extremely picky about food.”

    Hah. She hasn’t met Mrs. OFD. Taste? Fuggetaboutit. It’s the smell. If you guys are having any kind of meat or fish down there in NC that’s just a teensy bit “off,” she’ll notice it from up here.

    I can’t wait until SHTF and we’re into our stored canned food. “Hon, did you notice the expiration date on this can of beets?” I’d also bet any amount of money that she’ll never touch powdered eggs.

    All this talk of tractors; my next-door neighbor goes back and forth a dozen times a day between his two properties here on his John Deere with all kinds of trailers and attachments and loves to play with it. As I glanced out the window coming upstairs it occurred to me, not for the first time, how close the street is to our house, and how 150-180 years ago, it was horses and carriages going by outside. And not too many of them, either; this was the only house on the street with a marsh right in back of it up to what is now our back yard, with boats moored there.

  34. Spook says:

    I’ll try to measure again, but I’m pretty sure my front door is 35 feet from the white line at the edge of the road that gets 3500 vehicles per day… including dump trucks and semis at 50 mph.

    Quit whining!

  35. Dave Hardy says:

    Yikes!

    The only whining I’m doing is how I often wish it was just the hosses and carriages again, with the road and park in back of us gone and a nice quiet marsh again, too.

    I’m guessing we have about ten feet to the street. But nowhere near your traffic. Guessing again, maybe forty or fifty vehicles a day, and most of those either us and our neighbors and/or the special school up the street from us. (for what we used to call “problem” kids).

  36. Ray Thompson says:

    Just ordered a couple new iPads. Wife’s is an iPad 2 without the retina display, about seven years old, and thus only 32 bit. Mine is an iPad 4, about five years old, but is still 32 bit. Most of the apps are going to 64 bit so it was time to upgrade.

    Ordered them from B&H, $10 less than Apple and no sales tax. Thus saving me about $120 for both. Both are 128 G of memory, mine is gray, hers is silver so we can tell them apart. Neither are in stock but should be shortly.

    We both use our iPads, mainly as data consumption devices, watching movies on planes (how long that will be available is anyone’s guess), and a few other small tasks. If I want to do real work I use my Surface Pro 3, which I will probably upgrade to a Surface Pro 5 when, or if, it is ever released.

  37. Spook says:

    “”The only whining I’m doing is how I often wish it was just the hosses and carriages again, with the road and park in back of us gone and a nice quiet marsh again, too. “”

    Yeah, sorry. Not blaming my situation (which could be worse) on you.

    Over 30 years ago, it was not so bad…

  38. Dave Hardy says:

    “Over 30 years ago, it was not so bad…”

    No kidding. I was talking to an older party (so that means pretty dahn old) at the post office a while back and he knew the history of the house and the neighborhood and mentioned it was a lot quieter back then (1940s and 1950s). I remarked how it would be nice to have that again and he agreed wholeheartedly. He said it was kinda rare to see any cars be-bopping around then and he knew about the boats in what is now our back yard and the state road (VT 36).

    WRT tablets and fablets and suchlike, I’ve been pretty happy with my Kindle Fires and use them mostly when I’m gonna be away from the house for a while and sitting on my ass somewhere; email, looking stuff up, and a chit-load of books. No complaints in several years of use.

  39. nick flandrey says:

    Back from the hamfest and my volunteering for our rec association.

    @spook, before rural electrification, it was common for farms to have a wind generator (just an alternator, but they are highly prized by modern homesteaders) for charging batteries. Or they’d have a generator that ran via belt from their single cylinder mobile engine, like a ‘hit and miss’ engine. You’d move it to power a variety of other machines.
    Or so I’m told. The story is also that as rural electrification progressed the agents made it a point to have the farmer destroy his generator, since he’ll be getting power that they went to great expense to provide.

    @rickH, oh my we almost had a super critical concentration of commentors here in meatspace. I was in Rosenburg, Lynn in Sugar Land, and you just up the road…anything could have happened.

    Hamfest swapmeet was pretty good. After getting hammered with storm last night, I got up a couple of times to check the weather. I wasn’t gonna take the truck and stand around in the rain and dark. So I got a late start. Ended up clear, cool, a bit breezy, and sunny. Great day to be outside, with a bit of shade.

    Sold a bunch of stuff. Made a bit less than I’d hoped but more than the previous 2 shows. I’ve still got to see how it nets out, but a good day, well into the black. Got to chat with a bunch of hams. Lot of people generally concerned about the direction o the world, but you expect hams to be conservative and reactionary, and tending toward preparedness.

    I’m beat up. Tired from shifting all the crates of gear, sore feet, aching back, and a bit crunchy from the sun despite the sunscreen and big hat, and eventually the shade pop up canopy.

    i’m gonna shower and get to bed. Didn’t even unload the truck. I hope it stays clear tonight.

    nick

  40. Spook says:

    “”…as rural electrification progressed the agents made it a point to have the farmer destroy his generator…””

    Supporting my observation that the “electric coops” or whatever are a commie
    scam…

  41. Spook says:

    There used to be a common claim that a GM (rather than Ford, say) alternator worked well for wind or hydro power. This should be looked into, I’m sure.
    I continue to figure that a pretty good home DC set-up might be just enough for news (radio etc.) and maybe comms and lighting, in a crisis.

  42. Dave Hardy says:

    The commies have done a job on us here in North Murka, almost a full century now of their depredations and insidious influences, but when you bring it up, peeps look at you like you have three heads. They think it all disappeared with the “fall of the Soviet Union” and then all the nifty and wunnerful “color” revolutions. And the job has been done on us without firing a shot. While most peeps are blithely unaware and ignorant.

    We can see how it’s worked in Europe; the commie gatekeepers opened wide for the musloid hordes; Pius V, Don John of Austria, Chuckie Martel, and Jan Sobieski must all be spinning in their graves.

  43. Spook says:

    “”Or they’d have a generator that ran via belt from their single cylinder mobile engine, like a ‘hit and miss’ engine. You’d move it to power a variety of other machines.””

    I think what I heard was about running an old tractor (not Mahindra, for example) that could idle for hours on very little fuel, with “gearing” (belt pulley ratios) to spin the generator faster…
    Diesel or even gasoline might be better than wood or coal (back to that traction engine or whatever) in a pinch, if you have the big full tank (versus lots of chain-saw work).

    It does bear mentioning that a Prius is supposed to be a pretty good power station, too.

    And, well, I would hope that one of those little Harbor Freight generators and a few gallons of gas might be a good bet, cost versus benefit.

  44. Dave Hardy says:

    A lot of this conjecture and planning and storage and learning of skillz will or will not be germane depending on just what kind of future we’ll be dealing with here. Maybe it will be just a long slow slide into dystopia and near-Turd-World levels in many areas. Or it could be cataclysmic or anything in between, with perhaps not all areas affected.

    Still, I would not care to be in any cities nor in any part of the Clinton Archipelago. Regardless of what kind of future.

  45. Spook says:

    Actually, the electric co-op employees are the most flag-waving red-neck bigots out there. Anti-green, anti-private property rights… lots of contradictions, but they consistently run fascist all over the individual.
    They say, hey, you signed up for basic electric “service” therefore we own a big swath of your property, and so on.

    One of my favorite stories is about a lineman whom I warned about creosote…
    Told me he had had creosote all over his hands for years, and no cancer there.
    Duh, check your liver, moron!

  46. nick flandrey says:

    “one of those little Harbor Freight generators and a few gallons of gas might be a good bet, cost versus benefit.”

    There are VERY FEW items at harbor freight that are a good bet, or a good value. And the one’s I’m thinking of are things like metal trailer parts, wheels, cheap chip brushes, and possibly gloves. (no one needs to comment on their free LED flashlights.)

    I’ve no first hand experience with their generator, but there has been some comment online to the tune of ‘whatever you spent, you threw away.’ I’m sure there are pages on it in the GarageJournal.com forums.

    (That’s a great place for anything that is used in or around a garage, workshop, mancave, etc. I used to spend way too many hours in their forums, even getting ‘super user’ status for quantity of posts. Haven’t been there in a while…..)

    nick

    (and using a different persona)

  47. Spook says:

    Yeah, mostly agreed about Harbor Freight (though their FLASHLIGHTS hold up well for me, but I don’t trust them for critical uses)…
    I guess I might try their little generator, but I’m more inclined to just keep a few old car batteries charged (off AC, for the time being) and hope for the best when those run out.

  48. H. Combs says:

    Negotiating with mother-in-law for her property in Oklahoma. Fourty acres twenty miles from the nearest town, two ponds, a good well, pasture, and several barns and outbuildings. She lives there now but wants to move into a care facility since her husband died. I am asking she leave the farm equipment, she has an old Ford 8n and a nice 2014 Kubota tractor that her husband bought with all the accessories but has been sitting rusting since he passed. We would have to haul off the two double wide trailers that are there and put up a steel frame building to retire to. The trailers are trashed and I wonder how she can stand to live like that. But retirement is getting closer and I will take over my ATM and storage business in nearby Shawnee to give me retirement income.

  49. Dave Hardy says:

    Sounds like a plan, Mr. H. Combs; best wishes for carrying it out.

  50. Spook says:

    An option might be to get a cheap little generator, test it (working it pretty hard) and then either return it or clean it out real good and store it very carefully, as a $100 bet against a month of crap in the future. Still have to store (and preserve) gasoline, so it’s all complex enough that I don’t actually think I’ll try this.
    I have managed to accumulate a small pile of automotive batteries, and I need to more carefully keep them charged (possibly well enough to start a car) and I just have to assume that at some point small electric devices just won’t matter, if it gets that bad.
    But, yeah, I have AA batteries and all that stashed, too, so I won’t be completely in the dark (literally, and regarding news radio), for quite a while.
    Eventually, it gets down to rendering the fat of zombies for lamp oil, so…

  51. Spook says:

    “”We would have to haul off the two double wide trailers that are there and put up a steel frame building to retire to. “”

    I have been looking at a quonset hut (mentioned earlier today by somebody) as a basic shell for living space (insulated inside the hut) and lots of storage.

    Best hope and luck on this general concept to Mr. H. Combs !

  52. Spook says:

    @ H. Combs…

    Not to mess wit’ yo’ bizness, but with 4o acres you could just let those ragged mobile homes set, just in case…
    I’m hoping you can locate your new home (with that creative construction, metal framing? that I hope to discuss with you) just far enough from the old trailers to be clean, but still near easy to run utilities…
    I’m trying to work out something along these lines myself, like a metal or even pole barn building on an appropriate lot (large parcel would be nice) and use the major part of the building for storage and garage… and build a nice living space inside the larger building…
    I feel no need for a “normal” house and I just want a relatively large simple building with low maintenance and storage space and then build a little cabin or apartment inside for actual living space.

  53. Nightraker says:

    I’ve been lusting after those 2000 watt Honda gensets for some time now. I have a link here somewhere for a propane converted model for ~$1200 each. OTOH, I don’t really have another corner to keep ’em till that day and the impracticalities of operating such things in an apartment, they stay on the “Nice to have” list.

    Keystone beef and Rice-a-roni for dinner today. Not bad at all. Mebbee my Lay’s Potato Chip trained tongue, but the beef needed some salt.

  54. Dave Hardy says:

    I wouldn’t mind having the two paired Honda gensets at some point and a joint down the road near where I do our dump runs has them. No $ for that now but later, maybe. Meanwhile still lobbying for a house-sized genset w/dual-fuel capability, gas and propane.

    No dinner for me today. Had a decent breakfast and drank a lotta wotta. Trying to dump off my inner tube/20 pounds.

  55. Spook says:

    “”Keystone beef and Rice-a-roni for dinner today. Not bad at all. Mebbee my Lay’s Potato Chip trained tongue, but the beef needed some salt.””

    Easier to add (and store!) salt than to remove it.

    I’m also pretty happy with the Keystone beef, so far. Beef can vary, from a nice fresh rare steak, to that stringy Keystone that’s like Mom’s over-cooked roasts years ago. Put it in front of me and see what happens to it.

  56. lynn says:

    No dinner for me today. Had a decent breakfast and drank a lotta wotta. Trying to dump off my inner tube/20 pounds.

    Don’t worry, I ate enough for the two of us. We celebrated the wife’s 59th birthday tonight at our local Mexican food restaurant (I had the beef, chicken, and shrimp fajitas) and then retired home for the wife’s homemade vanilla cake with chocolate cream cheese icing (I may have had three pieces). I told the wife I was going to get her a cake at HEB last night but she got up this morning and had the cake in the oven by the time I got up.

  57. Dave Hardy says:

    Oh my! Fajitas! And cake! Yikes!

    I’ll have a manly breakfast in the AM, though. Hash, bacon, eggs, grits, English muffins, fruit juice and fruit, etc., etc. Usually three or four eggs.

    Mass first, though. And a little trip to Price Chopper to buy chit on sale w/coupons.

    Now off to the Land of Nod again…

    Pax vobiscum, fratres; tempus fugit; semper paratus…

  58. MrAtoz says:

    I can’t wait until SHTF and we’re into our stored canned food. “Hon, did you notice the expiration date on this can of beets?” I’d also bet any amount of money that she’ll never touch powdered eggs.

    I remember having powdered eggs (B Rations) all the time in the Army. Tasted alright to me. The Twins inspect anything in a package for the expiry date. I finally got them to smell milk to see if it is still good. Anything that says “best used by” gets thrown out. Geez.

    We both use our iPads, mainly as data consumption devices, watching movies on planes

    Because I’m an Apple snob, sniff, and wanted a ticket to Apple’s Elysium spaceship, I have the big and small iPad Pro. I’ve been able to do work on those (didn’t need to be Pro’s). Mainly in Quickbooks as Intuit updates their app. I like OneNote and am trying to convert to it with the Pencil instead of Evernote. I have an iPad 4 (Touch Sensor) that I retired from work and use solely for drone flying. That works great on the Inspire and Mavic drones. I keep my Kindle charged, but only use the small Pro with the app. I really like that. When at bingo, I read in landscape side by side pages. Overkill for reading, but net access is great for looking up words and Wiki stuff. Plus full color.

    I’m looking at the SP5 to keep up to date with Windows. I could switch to a SP5 when MrsAtoz decides we are going to live in an RV. lol!

    There are VERY FEW items at harbor freight that are a good bet, or a good value.

    My HF solar setup is still functioning even with the busted ass frame. I also have one of those hydraulic lifts I use to work on the gennies or heavy stuff. I also have a folding aluminum ramp for my truck. I’m not sure about buying any powered tools from HF and get brand names from where ever.

    My gennies are the matched 2K Hondas.

  59. SteveF says:

    still functioning even with the busted ass frame

    What’s an ass frame, supportive underwear? I saw a picture of Madonna from a while back, wearing something that might have been attractive on her 35 years ago but probably not even then: cheeks hanging out, with kind of a harness around and under in a failed attempt to make you think she’s still got it. (Where the only “it” she had in her backside was 20 pounds of Crisco.)

    I could say I was sorry about putting that imagery in your head, but we both know it would be a lie.

  60. Dave Hardy says:

    Yes, we all know it would be a lie. Thanks so much…again.

    I’ve seen pics of her when she was an allegedly nubile teenager and 20-something and thought she was a skank crack ho even then. I also don’t get all hot and bothered over Lady Gaga, either. Beth Hart, maybe, and she’s got more talent in her little finger than those two skanks put together.

  61. Miles_Teg says:

    “I finally got them to smell milk to see if it is still good. Anything that says “best used by” gets thrown out. Geez.”

    I drink milk upto two weeks past use by without even sniffing. If it’s older than two weeks I sniff first. What is it with wimminz?

  62. Dave Hardy says:

    “What is it with wimminz?”

    There it is, folks; the $100 million-dollar-question. (inflation)

    It’s undoubtedly what Adam asked himself after they got jammed up over that apple.

    And remember, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, hahaha, that still cracks me up!

  63. H. Combs says:

    Mr. Spook; I have been looking at “steel shop building homes” for a while. There’s a lot to like about the construction. There’s several in the central Oklahoma area from huge 8 bedroom monsters to more reasonable 40 X 60 ones with garage downstairs and living space upstairs. Cost per square foot is reasonable if you can do most of the interior work yourself.

  64. Nick Flandrey says:

    Women have a better sense of smell than men. Add men are just less picky weather nature or nurture.

    N

  65. lynn says:

    Mr. Spook; I have been looking at “steel shop building homes” for a while. There’s a lot to like about the construction.

    “steel shop building homes” == Barndominium ???
    http://www.wdmb.com/texas_barndominiums.aspx

    I like barndominiums but the windows are expensive since you have to build a one foot thick steel structure for each window (the windows go thru the inner 2×4 structure and the outer steel skin). My office warehouse has one external window in the office, a two ft wide by 4 ft tall window. But there are several interior windows.

    I have toured a 6,000 ft2 barndominium. It had a 3,000 ft2 home and a 3,000 ft2 workshop with two drive thru 10 ft wide by 14 ft tall doors. And a big ass fan. Our Costco has four big ass fans over the checker stations, feels like a hurricane in there.
    http://www.bigassfans.com/

    The wife and I are kind of talking about building a barndominium on our office property instead of a stick and brick house.

  66. Dave Hardy says:

    Lotta talk on here lately about big asses.

    I’m concerned.

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