Category: Barbara

Fri. Aug. 23, 2024 – first day of my hobby get together…

And it will still be hot. And it will still be humid. Weather? We’ve got both kinds.

It was crazy hot again yesterday. It’s not the absolute temperature that is the problem, it’s the combination with crazy high humidity and lack of breeze. And it was hot.

Did my running around and errands but it was 800pm by the time I was done, except for finishing the trailer load. That went for another couple of hours as I sorted and pulled stuff from my office. Having to wash out two coolers, and replace the hinges on one added some time. I’ve got a lot of cooler repair parts, as they are cheap and I buy used coolers, or find them on the street. Hinges take almost no time, clasps, retaining straps, and even drain plugs are easy. If you’ve got the parts at hand, it’s simple to fix the things when they need fixing. That’s pretty much true for most things.

I’m actually preferring the enclosed trailer to the Ranger. I don’t have to worry about rain, or security. So it’s working out. The cost of the fixes for the Ranger, and the additional rental for the trailer will kinda suck, but that’s life too.

While I was out doing my errands, we apparently lost power for about 1/2 hour. Centerpoint says it was due to “a safety hazard prevention”. That sounds like a tree trimmer made a mistake. There was some localized thunder, and even some spatter of drops, but not on me and it didn’t seem like it was in our neighborhood, so not likely to be weather related, even without the weird turn of phrase from Centerpoint.

Today I’ll head to the hotel to help with set up and then load in. Eventually I’ll set up my own tables, and then we’ll open the floor. Commenting will be thin as I’m going to be busy all day. You’ll have to talk amongst yourselves.

And if you find yourself with some spare moments, say a prayer for Barbara’s swift and complete recovery. She says she’s doing fine, but a sudden and unexpected heart attack is never a good thing.

Stack too, if you can.

nick

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Sun. Jan. 1, 2023 – Happy New Year!

Cool and damp to start the new year.  It stayed pretty nice yesterday, and was 59F near midnight.  Not super cold, and certainly not ‘warm’.


 

So.   Happy New Year!  I am sincerely grateful to everyone who comes by,whether you just read or comment and participate in the discussion; whether you come by every day or just once in a while.  Thank you to Barbara for her continued support, and to Rick for his.   It’s been an interesting and challenging year, personally, generally, and here at the Daynotes Journal.

I’m not much for navel gazing, but I do think it’s important to reflect on what you’ve done and what’s been done to you.   It’s important to learn lessons from that, change what needs to be changed, do more of what needs doing, and to keep making progress toward your goals.   I think it’s important to have goals, and this time of year is a traditional time to set goals, evaluate progress toward them, and to focus on changes.

This past year, I finally started making progress toward one of my major prepping goals- getting somewhere to GO when it’s time to go.  Call it a BOL, a retreat, a ‘country place’, or a lakehouse… it’s somewhere to go when the time comes.  It’s also a lot of work  and a new dimension to my prepping journey.  It has eaten a lot of my ‘excess’ energy and time, which has resulted in much shorter daily posts that previously.   There should be some good blog fodder coming up though.  I’ve got big ideas and goals.

To wit, I want to look hard at water treatment, starting with storing more at the BOL, and getting set up to treat more.  I want some off grid back up energy generation.  Start with a fueled generator, add solar and possibly wind, and include battery storage.  I want to get some wood burning heating set up.  I’ve got two wood burning stoves, I’d like to get at least one of them installed.  THEN I’ll need lots more stored wood… I want to get my radio shack and antennas set up for backup comms.  I want to make more progress learning about harvesting food from the environment, to include fish and other creatures from the lake, deer and pig hunting and processing, and getting a productive garden set up.  I want to get a workshop set up and a full set of tools up there so I can be productive and make or repair what needs to be made or fixed.

On a more day to day level, I need to continue making progress on the repair and remodel of the BOL and all  the grounds and outbuildings.   I also need to get some of the neglected projects here at home finished.  I need to focus on selling stuff and having my business make money this year to pay for all the other stuff that needs doing. I also need to be involved in my kids’ lives and education.   That might mean a lot of volunteering at school, which takes more time.   My other volunteering for the Constables and HPD needs to be increased too.  I made those contacts and started building relationships, but let it go for too long.   Time to re-engage in that community.   Time to start meeting with my fellow hams again too.

Oh, and a little physical fitness, maybe some martial arts or other self defense classes, particularly with the kids, and more shooting are all “wants” for the new year.   Yep.   Lots to do.  Much of it is just expansion of what I am doing or resumption of what I was doing, but some of it is new, and all of it will be taking place in the context of work and time spent at the BOL.

Nothing like setting some goals 🙂

My outlook for the coming year is the same as it was.   Dumpster fires to continue and worsen.   I expect more economic woes, more political shenanigans as the existing order falls apart.   I am more convinced than ever that we’re already sliding down the slope into what Bob called the long slow economic collapse.   I’m also convinced we’re currently entering one of those times in world history where everything changes.   The world will look very different in a few years.  I can’t even begin to pick a likely scenario, but I’m going to do my best to get through it, and come out the other side.  If bare survival is all I can manage, I’ll take that as a win, but I’m shooting for positioning myself and my family to thrive in whatever comes next.

Part of that positioning is having somewhere to go if we have to leave here.   Part is increasing the stacks NOW while the stuff is available.   IDK what the next ‘toilet paper’ or ‘N95 mask’ will be, but something that is common and cheap now will certainly be in short supply or even unobtainable later this year, and in the coming years.  Part is getting out and networking, meeting and making myself useful to other people.  Who you know is always important, but when things go really pear shaped, who you know and who knows you can make the difference between working or not, getting help or not, being safe or not… Part of it is building skills.   A vague plan to ‘live off the land’ won’t help if you don’t know how to do it, and haven’t the stuff needed to make it possible.  Fishing is turning out to be harder than gardening, and I’ve positively sucked at gardening…

Prepping is a journey.   It’s also fractal in nature, so there is always more to do, learn, or stack.  I’d love it if you all keep hanging around, sharing my journey and taking one of your own.

Here’s to a safe, healthy, and prosperous New Year for us all!

nick

 

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Mon. Aug. 15, 2022 – stress, truth, addiction, duty, love

Hot and humid.   ‘Natch…  as it has been with little relief.  But that’s Houston in the summer.

An observation.   8 more hours in the day to do things did not mean I got things done.


 

So, what happened, what has been learned?

1700 daily posts, with differing topics and amounts of effort over the course of more than four years.   Over 12000 comments.   When I last bothered to add it up, I figured over 1.5 million words on mostly prepping related stuff, mostly here but also in comment sections across the web.   Add a few more hundred thousand since then.    That’s  a graduate degree, maybe two.  That’s a dozen novels, maybe more.   At 8 hours a day (while doing other things, and spread out across the day) it’s 13000+ hours- well past the mythical 10K hours needed for mastery, and I didn’t start from zero with the skills.   All that is just to say that I’ve been doing this for a while now.  In another year, I’ll have the same number of posts as Bob (in this iteration of the site).

When Bob first asked me to contribute, I was flattered, and a bit nervous, but also, it wasn’t that different from posting long comments.   I liked it as I like sharing, teaching, and I think the material was and is important.   When Bob suddenly got sick, I had the access and the desire to help keep the doors open, so we’d all have a place to wait for him to get better and return.  So I did.  Barbara and Bob were both well aware of what we were doing here.   When Bob passed, and Barbara wanted to keep the site going, I was flattered and a bit awed that she let me continue, asking me to do more than just ‘open the door’ in the morning.

I felt a strong sense of duty as well, but I wasn’t just a caretaker for a memorial site, I felt a strong duty to contribute, to build on the knowledge, to keep the site as a living growing evolving site, so that new people could and would discover all the great stuff here, and the great group of people who hang out here.  The depth and breadth of the knowledge held by this group is astounding.   I felt, and still feel a strong sense of conservator-ship and I regularly re-read old posts and old comments to keep the continuity of tone and focus.

It’s Bob’s site.   He brought most of us here, and the environment he fostered kept most of us here.  I’m flattered that some people have  joined us since I started daily duties, and have chosen to keep coming back and to contribute when they can, or to ask for help when they needed it.  It’s inevitable that as I became more comfortable in the role, and had the ever increasing number of posts, that the daily blogging part of the site, the heart that is Daynotes Journal, should come to reflect me more than Bob.  I hope that the style and tone have continued to reflect what readers and commentors enjoyed coming here for.   I have made a conscious effort along those lines.

It was therefore quite a shock to discover that someone who I thought I understood seemed to  think little of everything I’ve done and tried to do for the last 4 plus years.   Not a certain troll.  I don’t actually care about him at all, only the disruption he causes.   But the stress on the system caused by the troll led to the revelation and it kinda blew my mind.  How could I be so blind?  Was I wrong about other things too?  Why the F was I spending 8 hours or more a day on something that didn’t matter?

So I closed my browser and walked away.

It was a busy couple of days.  School is starting today, new school for one kid, last year of Middle of the other.  Friday was the 4th anniversary of my father’s death.  Saturday was my non-prepping hobby meeting, and the last chance to plan for our yearly swapmeet/tradeshow/annual meeting which takes place in two weeks.  Plus all the normal things and FINALLY making some progress with contractors at the BOL.

It was hard to stay away.  I realized I miss my friends.  I miss sharing ideas and the stuff I’m doing.   I miss the collegiality, the conviviality of the group.  I’m in the habit of thinking “oh, that’s something I can build a post off of”, or “oh, that story will get people talking”, or “holy cr@p that went badly, someone will enjoy hearing about that mess….” but I had no outlet for it.   I also missed hearing about what you all were up to, what was happening in your lives.

I realized that the site is a labor of love, as well as a duty.  I realized that there were LOTS of people who do think what I’m doing and trying to do has value.  Barbara assured me that she is one of them and wants me to continue.  So I will.  The past few days have been longer than I’ve ever been away from the site, even as just a reader, since long before I started posting.   I read through the past days comments and I’m gladdened by what I saw, people communicating and hanging out, sharing, and helping.   Thank you to those of you who reached out privately too.

So, I will continue to feed my addiction by coming here every day and sharing my life with you, and sharing in yours as well.

To make that happen, I have reassurance from Barbara that Bob wouldn’t have tolerated the sort of disruption that we’ve seen lately.  Anyone who claims to love Bob, or the way things were, has no standing to cause disruption as that is the OPPOSITE of what Bob would have wanted.    I have Rick as a partner on the technical side.   And I’ll deputize anyone willing and able to make things happen if that becomes necessary.

What does that mean?  I’ll do whatever is needed to preserve the tone and atmosphere  here as it has been for the last decade.   It means that there might be some ‘rough and tumble’ as we are all (to the best of my knowledge) adults and sometimes adults have exchanges that they later regret.  We’ve had those in the past and I expect we’ll have them again.  I think everyone knows how to disagree without being disagreeable.    It also means that most of us should “assume positive intent” when reacting to each other (as has been the case for almost 190K comments).

That does not apply to trolls.  They have demonstrated negative intent consistently, repeatedly, and willfully.    One will be deleted on sight.  The other has acted in bad faith by my reckoning but has the tiniest sliver of possibility left.  I have technical reasons to think they are not one in the same despite 90% or more congruence.   I’m putting him on notice here.   Do not push this.   If your whole story isn’t a thin tissue of lies then you know how to behave here.   Failure to do so will just prove your bad intent and ill will and we will all delete you on sight too.  And that goes for any new trolls too, we’ll assume bad intent and just delete them.

For reasons that are wider than this site and what Rick can easily do, blocking trolls a priori has challenges.  Therefore, Rick or I, or one of our deputies, will delete offenders and their comments as soon as we see them.  I don’t want to leave even a note in their place, as that is disruptive too, and takes more time and effort than is worth spending on it.  If there isn’t any interaction with them, removing them won’t leave anyone else scratching their heads wondering what they missed (hint)… and it may be that if I’ve deleted the original comment, I might delete the reply, especially if it quotes the original.  Unless it’s particularly clever, then I might leave it.  I’ve said before that I don’t need reasons other than my whim, and several of you have affirmed that.   If you make a reply and I delete it too, please don’t take it personally, I’m just trying to reduce the value of attempting to disrupt us, and the rewards he receives for doing so.   I definitely don’t want you guys competing for the cleverest response to a troll.  Seriously.  Engage as little as possible, and know it might all vanish.

If the trolls come around, our response won’t be seamless, but it will be final.  Have patience as we work on it.

It has been my honor and privilege to continue walking the path that Bob started on, and I expect to continue doing so for some time.

 

nick flandrey

(oh, forget about the drama and get back to stacking!)

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Wed. Mar. 30, 2022 – whistling past the graveyard…

Cool but damp morning, turning into rain later.  Or something like that.   We never did get the rain yesterday although we had a lot of gusty wind, and broken clouds.

Took almost 200 pounds of scrap steel fencing from the BOL to the scrap yard.   Got 16USD for it.  That’s 4 gallons of gas.  Had to be removed and disposed of anyway, so why not recover some value from it?

Did a pickup and hit the Habitat for Humanity reStore on the north side of town.   They had a couple of doors I can use, some cabinets that might work (although it’s a bit early to be looking at cabinets), and some other stuff the would end up at the BOL.   I also grabbed  a vintage turntable, a Garrard Lab 80, to part out.  I should be able to use the proceeds to buy some other stuff for the house.  It is case-less and lid-less so it makes more sense to part it than fix it.  Plus, I don’t need any projects.   Running, it would be a $500 turntable.  The parts will easily make back the $10 cost and put me squarely in profit.   You never know what you’ll find.

Didn’t get to costco or the grocery store, that has slipped to this morning.

This afternoon, I’ve got some more pickups, mostly stuff for the BOL, some stuff for here, and a couple of general preps.

WRT the water dripping from my ceiling, my wife is talking with yet another HVAC contractor about doing the update.  And she called an electrician about getting the hot water heater permanently set up.   So much stuff to do.  All of it takes time, money, and attention.

If you’ve got a list of things to do, or fix, or upgrade, you should probably start that process.   The wait times for parts or product are getting very long, even for commodity items.

And if you haven’t started stacking, you should.   Anything you already use is a good starting point.  Build from there.

nick

 

and if I failed to mention it, or you missed it, Barbara is home and doing well, getting ready for the next step on the road to recovery.

n

 

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Tues. Mar. 15, 2022 – The Ides of March. Beware! If you’re Caesar.

The rest of us can probably not worry much.

Cool and wet in Houston.   Last I heard from up north a storm was rolling in at the lake…  but because of the complete lack of comms there, I’ll find out when I get back up there later today.

 

Regarding Barbara… I put up a post on her site and did an update comment late yesterday.  Long story short, her knee got infected (some MRSA variant) the knee replacement implant was removed, and she’s at a facility where they are both managing the infection and doing PT to get her strong enough to return home.  She is doing ok, better than the last time this happened, almost exactly 2 years ago.   She expects to be at home in a couple of weeks, and will probably not post until then.  If I have any news I’ll post here and at her site.

 

Regarding my adventures in BOL land… no comms.   My older cell booster couldn’t see anything.  The neighbor says his booster works ok, but only with verizon.  I’ll try my newer booster, but even if it works, someone in the family will be getting a verizon phone plan.   The neighbor is amenable to sharing his starlink service if it ever arrives, so that should ease things a great deal.

My wife spent the day painting out 70s plywood paneling.   I was messing with the antenna and booster most of the afternoon.   We got a late start, and wanted to take the first full day there a bit easy.   Kids were inflating stand up paddle boards, and kayaks.  Maybe we’ll get out on the lake today, if the weather opens up.   It was cool in the morning but got uncomfortable in the sun by afternoon.

I came home to reload the trailer and make a second run.   I also brought a bunch of scrap home to dispose of here.  No trash service up there.   I spent the evening loading up, and will load a bunch more stuff before leaving this morning.  I’ll unload and head back to Houston in the afternoon.  I have to return the trailer before 6pm.  I will probably spend tonight in Houston like last night, and head back up Wednesday morning.   I’ll load some more in the pickup, if it’s not raining.

It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL.  No AM radio during the day, only a few FM stations, mostly church stations, and a country station.  No news breaks that I heard all morning.  I’m taking a shortwave with me today.  Funny if that works better than local.   I can also take my XM radio.   I will be putting up a tower at some point, for TV, cell, and ham radio.    We don’t have to watch or listen, but that’s a bit different than not being able to.    At some point I might try my DirecTV “camping” system.  It’s a dish on a ground supported tripod with 50ft of cable.   I’ve got plenty of DirecTV gear, but no active subscription.   It didn’t occur to me yesterday morning to try the XM in the car.  In any case, the world survived another day.  Gnu willing that will continue.

 

Busy days, lots of driving, and WWIII rumbling in the distance…  interesting times.

Stack something new today.

n

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Tues. July 21, 2020 – another day…

Hot, but maybe a bit less.

Yesterday never got as hot as the weekend.  The overcast and rain kept it a bit cooler.  Miserable humidity, but cooler.

After running around all day, getting and fixing a flat, picking up and dropping off, just when I was really getting started in the garage the rain shut me down.

So the plan for today is start back in with that.  Meet the guy from ebay for his pickup, then do some errands.  Easy peasy.

Much easier than helping my 9yo deal with not seeing her friends for months at a time.  She was really upset last night.  It’s not just us, the other kids’ parents don’t want to get together for a virus swapfest either.  Things aren’t ever going back to “normal”.  We’ll adapt to the way things are.  I better figure out how to get the kids started on that.

And myself too.

Keep stacking,  and drop Barbara a note…. AT HOME!  She’s headed home today.   HOOORRRAAAY.

email me if you need the address.

nick

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Tues. July 7, 2020 – ay, que loco

Hot and humid, but maybe less so.

Yesterday was cooler in the evening than last week.  Hot during the day though.

I didn’t get much done.  Had to go to my storage unit to get an ebay sale item, then pack and ship that.  Grabbed some useful stuff from the unit while I was there.  On the way home, I cruised the heavy trash piles and easily could have filled the pickup with free firewood.  As it was I grabbed mostly 6-8 inch diameter limbs, all oak, and about 4 feet long.  I’ll get them cut and stacked soon enough now that I have the racks in place.  Having the pickup truck makes it easy to do some things that would be much harder without it.  Scavenging, and transporting building supplies are two that leap to mind.

Today I need to drop off a projector for service, hit the Habitat reStore to see if they have a door that will replace my patio door, and do a quick site visit for my client.  He lost about half his wifi in the house.  I think I probably messed up the PoE or net connection when I was over there last week.  I think I’ll mask up, or at least be back to wearing gloves on site, as I didn’t want to be there for a couple of weeks while the covid cooties died off.

Hopefully I can also find time to drop off some auction stuff too.  Most of my errands are in the Northwest metro area today.   I try to “clump” errands to save driving and time.  Can’t always, but I do try.

Thanks to whoever recommended the Alex Verus magic books, both my wife and I enjoyed them a lot, and are looking forward to the next one.   Harry Dresden and Alex Verus both have new books in the series out this Fall.  That seems a long time away at the moment.

Dinner was mostly leftovers.  A bit of ham steak rounded out the meal.   In times of hardship and privation, throwing out food is very undesirable.   Cooking portions that all get eaten is a learned skill.  Eating the leftovers just takes doing it.  So much easier, and yet I know people who don’t and won’t eat leftovers.  I hope they can continue to be so choosy.

In other news, I had a long conversation with Frances about Barbara’s condition and status.  Good news.  They are transferring her to a rehab facility.  That means that outside of the picc line, she’s off of IV meds, and the infections are taken care of.  The exception being the one in her spine that is causing the pain and disability.  She’s looking at 6-8 weeks of treatment for that, hopefully with prompt and continued improvement.  They are not setting a schedule for when or under what conditions she can return home, she needs to get more mobile, get daily living chores under control, and get the pain under control before then.  However, she’s making progress, and getting out of the actual hospital.   Once she’s settled into the new facility, I’ll pass along contact info for cards or treats.  She’s aware of and grateful for the concern and support from our community.  I should have another update in a day or two.  (and Colin is doing fine with Al as his personal body servant)

And that’s it for this morning.   Keep stacking.

 

nick

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Thur. June 25, 2020 – here I sit…

Hmm, warmer?  Humid.  Really humid.  Wet even.

Yesterday did warm up but didn’t get scorching hot.  The sun never really came out for most of town.  Parts got hammered by rain- I could see the cell dumping on the north side when I was out running errands.  Only spatters here at home though.

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Turns out I won’t be buying a new Lexus for the Orthodontist this fall.  The doc said to wait for a while longer before Daughter 1 needs braces on her teeth.  That is a relief for us all.  My wife took her and was impressed with the lengths the orthodontics office went to to prevent infection.

Speaking of, we won’t be going to swim team practice today.  We’ve decided to pull back a bit.  One kid with headache and sore throat, the other with ‘itching’ throat, and everyone seems to have forgotten to even try to distance themselves.   We’re going to be prudent, cautious, and considerate.  I think having a family we know all come down with wuflu has ratcheted up my wife’s concern level dramatically.  She’s quoting local hospitalization rates and available ICU beds to ME….

I have other stuff to do.  With the 4th of July coming, my client wants all his stuff working, and the new stuff all installed.  He’s even got my conduit trenched in.  I thought waiting for that to happen would buy me a lot of time.  So today I have to get up in the attic and pull some cables.  I’m hoping for rain and lower temps out in the country.  Then tomorrow I’ll finish up the install and commissioning of the new stuff.  That’s the plan anyway.  It does mean I’ll be entering the Costco to buy a new TV for him.  He’s tired of waiting for the service guy to make a decision and proceed with the replacement.  When Concierge services does get around to it, we’ll have a hot spare for the next dead tv.

I’m debating whether to do my Costco shopping or not since I’m in the store.  Big difference in my mind between entering, grabbing a TV and exiting, and spending an hour shopping.   I’m leaning toward instacart.  Costco is back to discounts on a bunch of my normal purchases this month, so I’m definitely either ordering or shopping.   I was also thinking about hitting the HEB in person.  There are some items I buy that aren’t listed on the Instacart app, that I’d like to restock.  But again, if we’re pulling back, this is not the time to be returning to the stores.

Am I being consistent or stubborn?  Consistent or unwilling to adapt to changing conditions?  I know which I think is true.

Dinner was mostly leftovers with a bit of rice added, and cookies from mix for dessert.  Mix was BB 2020, so right on time, half a decade early by my usually standards.


I got a brief update from Frances regarding Barbara.  She’s doing better, sitting up, talking, had some of the medical stuff removed, she’s even being funny, but no timeline for her return home has yet been discussed.  They are continuing to test and check for other issues, but it sounds like she’s responding well to the current treatment plan.  Let’s hope that continues.


It’s important to remember that the people driving the BLM movement, Antifa, and the other grab bag of protesters and rioters are still out there doing their thing, or getting ready for their next thing.  Even in Madison WI, one of the most progressive places I’ve ever been, and also a tiny little place on the edge of nowhere, they’re pulling down statues and pummeling state senators.

If anyone here has a credible scenario for how we get back to “normal” by Christmas, feel free to share in comments.  I can not think of what would need to happen for that to work out.   I can think of LOTS of ways things are worse then than now.  So, unless you can do the math, and show your work for how this all ends before the end of the year, it behooves you to make some preparations.

This stuff has a life of its own now, and it won’t want to die.

Keep thinking.  Keep prepping.  Keep stacking.

nick

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Sun. June 21, 2020 – Fathers’ Day

Hot and humid.  Possibly rainy.

Happy Fathers’ Day to all the dads.  Becoming a dad and raising my kids has been the best thing that ever happened to me.  It definitely changed my planning horizon  🙂

Yesterday did finally cool off a bit late in the day, but otherwise was hot and oppressively humid.  I was north of the city running my errands, and could see the storm cells south of me.  I did finally move south and got hammered by rain at my secondary location.  As I moved away from there, only a mile west, it was dry as a bone.

I stopped at an estate sale, with a seller that I like whose prices are always good, and LO! the upright freezer they had listed was still there.  Second day, discounted to $200.  It’s older but a good brand and was plugged in and very cold, so I grabbed it.  I’ll have to move even more stuff around in the garage to accommodate it…  Funny thing was, as I was chatting with one of the helpers (who I see and talk to fairly often at sales, and is a friend of a friend) he looked at me and said “how you gonna fill it with meat? Cuz prices are crazy and you can’t get a lot.”   It’s funny because I’ve been wondering the very same thing.  If nothing else I’ve got some redundancy and excess space for a while.  I am going to try to fill it though.

Dinner was beer brats on the grill, with cookies and cupcakes for dessert.

Followed dinner with family game night.  One easy quick game of Sequence, and one long three way battle that ended in a draw.  It’s a fun board game that uses playing cards, and even younger kids can play effectively with adults.  Definitely recommended, and best played with two teams of two.

Sequence is one of my favorites, and I also really like Ticket To Ride.  I’m always up for one or the other.

Later I got an email update from Frances.  They have decide that Barbara has a staph infection and they are going to treat that with antibiotics.  It will be a couple of months if everything goes well until she’s finally done, but hopefully she’ll see some improvement right away.   We’re still holding off on cards and flowers.   I’ll let you know if that changes.

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Out in the wider world, we’ve moved to full on third world behaviour.  Mobs are pulling down statues of our country’s founders and military heroes.   Armed insurgents have captured and barricaded off an area inside one of our cities.  They’ve held it, and plan to continue holding it.  Make and adjust your plans accordingly.

Keep stacking.

 

nick

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Sat. June 20, 2020 – another week gone

Slightly cooler, humid, might be some rain.

Yesterday we got rain almost everywhere I wasn’t.    I could see the cell moving across the north side of town as I drove around, but I never had any significant rain hit the truck.  It did rain here at the house according to my  wife,  so I won’t have to water the gardens.  Streets were dry by the time I got home though.

Juneteenth was a nothing burger.  I’ve lived here since ’03 and never was aware of any particular celebration even though it’s supposed to be a Houston thing.  I certainly never heard anything about it in all the years I’ve lived elsewhere.  The scanner had the cops following and keeping an eye on various groups throughout the day, but I didn’t hear about any violence.  I guess it could have gone a different way, and it did bring home the value of the scanner for at least a heads up, since I was completely unaware until I heard the first discussion about the gathering crowd.  I chose a different route for my errand and avoided any potential threats.

Today I’ve got a couple more things to pick up, and then I’m battening down the hatches again.   Too many stories of people who just HAD to go out and break the distancing rules, who are now getting sick.   I don’t feel super anyway, so I’m not risking it.  YMMV.  I am ADVOCATING that you all continue to isolate as much as possible.  I could be wrong and often am, but the downside risk is huge for this one.

Kids are at swim team practice with the wife this morning, and then (possibly) staying for some free swim.  I’m not the boss of her and I know she’ll TRY  to stay separated.  It will also let her take the tenor of the (female half of the) tribes.  Perhaps she’ll get home with renewed commitment to isolating.

It could happen.

Dinner was stewed chicken thighs, in the slow cooker with a sauce packet and veg.  I didn’t have what I usually put in, so I went with onion, turnip, beets, carrots, and apple.  It tasted great.  Just a bit of extra sweet to go with the savory of the spice packet.  Dessert was a cupcake.  Daughter baked cupcakes for our friends with covid, and another family we haven’t seen in  a while.  They dropped them off as a drive by act of kindness.

Some of you know from yesterday’s comments that Barbara is sick in the hospital, which is why she hasn’t posted this week.  Please see my post over at her site for what details we have.  I’ll be passing along whatever she or her sister Frances would like me to.  Please keep  her and those who love her in your prayers.

The one scenario/ contingency I can’t remember Bob ever discussing planning for was his absence.  Give it some consideration in your own situation and planning.

Keep planning, and stacking.

 

nick

 

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