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Category: computing

Fri. Nov. 19, 2021 – still plugging away

Cool and clear, damp. Still minor chance of rain. My client is out in the country (for now- housing developments are going in all around him ) and it was beautiful yesterday. So I was in a dim house, and a dim theater, and a dim rack room…

Made some progress but main tasks were held up until we got internet access back. That involved hard resetting the ATT DSL router/modem and re-entering account info. Ultimately it took a phone call to customer service by my client who knows how to escalate (he’s a C-suite guy, doesn’t normally hear ‘no’ without a whole lot of probing questions.)

I’m back out there today, trying to get enough hardware in line and on line that my erzatz partner can do some control programming remotely while I’m out of town. Enough has to work that my client can watch football over Thanksgiving. It is a challenge at this point.

But hey, challenges are why we do things, right?

And it all is money in the bank.

Which will help me stack all the things.

nick

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Mon. Nov. 15, 2021 – which is crazy, since that means we’re half way thru November

Cool and clear, with sun! Supposedly for the next few days the weather will be nice. I hope so. It was Sunday, with a bit of dark scattered cloudiness in the afternoon, clearing later.

I spent Sunday cleaning the house, hoeing weeds in the raised beds, greeting my returning pack members, and generally doing home front things.

Later in the evening, I sat down to do some quick drawings for my install this week. Oy vey. When I was doing it full time, I used a specialist CAD package tied to a DB for system layout drawings. I even bought my own copy when I went independent, for $1500 US. It’s been a while, and I don’t even have it installed anymore, but I looked and I can D/L the fully functional demo for free. So I did. And 8 years later it still sucks. The main selling point is their library of symbols for all the av gear you might put in the drawings. 1200 manufacturers, many thousands of symbols. And they suck. Balls. Still. Back in the day I ended up drawing about 1/3 to 1/2 of the symbols myself and I am still seeing the same thing. No rack gear symbol for Directv receivers? REALLY? They have schematic blocks for the DVRs, but no “front view” for the rack layout drawing.

Worse, the style of all the symbols is horrible. I’d need to print C size or bigger just to get text labels that were readable, and since that used to be one of the major problems with the software, I’m not even sure that would work.

I’ll be taking a big drawing pad to site, free handing the layout, and then drawing it from scratch in Visio. At least in Visio I can produce a good looking drawing that accurately and simply conveys the information needed. And once I get back in the groove, I’m almost faster producing the ‘stencils’ than looking them up in the other software and adding them to the drawing.

The same company also produced a tool that was the best in the business for what it did. It was called ‘Rack Tools’ and let you build drawings of equipment racks from their library of symbols, or easily add your own. I started my old version up, it phoned home (said there were updates, and asked, but I said Yes) and then bricked itself saying it wasn’t supported any longer. Flocking Axholes. I can’t even use the old version anymore? can’t open old drawings and print or copy them out…? I’ll reinstall the software, and not update, but iirc it phones home to ‘register’ so that might not even work. Who nukes your installed copy without warning? Jerks, that’s who.

Proprietary tools that self destruct are the absolute worst. And anyone who builds them that way sucks. I hope you get ransomwared out of business you jerks.

So that’s what I’m doing this week, starting today. Rip and replace, with some reused gear, that I’ll find out about today when I meet my partner on site. I don’t like ‘winging it’ for things like this. I like to solve as many of the issues before starting the work, because I know there will be plenty that arise as we go. But it is what it is.

Stacking some FRNs with this project, and for a while at least, they are a useful thing to stack.

Stack some of your own.

nick

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Sat. Oct. 23, 2021 – so much shorter when I’m tired…

Cool and damp until it’s hot and damp. Some chance of rain. Like yesterday only moreso.

Did my stuff on Friday. Even hit Micheals and JoAnnes to get just the right gold rope for D2’s costume. Of course, she didn’t want it when I got home. joy.

Had a fun evening at elementary school, see comments last night if you’re interested. Most of the people were un-masked, as we were outdoors. Two school district police officers assigned to us over the course of the evening. That’s down from similar events in the past.

Today, well, I’ll tell you about today later. Then I don’t have a bunch of predictions that are wrong… 😉

Get out into your community this weekend and participate in the secondary economy. Buy something from a street vendor/yard sale/flea market for cash. Start making regular withdrawals of cash for “pocket money” to build up what you’ve got on hand in order to loosen the surveillance net around you. You can use the money to buy your spouse a gift s/he doesn’t know about from a card purchase, for example. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

Most of all, figure out where your gaps are and fill them. I’ve never been much of a “put it aside for barter” prepper, but think about that. Small durable items that people would value far beyond their cost today. Something most people would run out to get at the last minute. Share your thoughts…

Stack it high.

nick

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Fri. Oct. 22, 2021 – no particular insights

Cooler, overcast, some chance of rain. Houston is in a very small “thunderstorms possible” area on the national map today and tomorrow, so someone will probably get rained on. I covered the stuff in the bed of my pickup overnight in case we got some showers.

Spent most of yesterday driving around and picking stuff up. One auction I got some radio stuff. One I got some more hand sanitizer. Two cases for $5/. It’s alcohol and water with a bit of hydrogen peroxide in a spritz bottle. Very light and clean, no sticky. I use it to clean all kinds of things. It’s my favorite for cleaning my hands when I get back in the truck. Does great on my desk and other surfaces, and it’s cheap because people are ‘over it’.

That’s why fugitives get caught, it’s why people leave school without a degree, it’s why they quit going to the gym by February… I’m not good at following through with some things, but there are others where I can “just keep swimming, just keep swimming…” for as long as needed. Whatever is coming is likely to be long and you’ll need to keep doing the right thing for a long time. It gets repetitive to keep hammering away at prepping, but – I think the need is great, and it bears repeating.

There are a lot of similar voices out there in the blogosphere all of a sudden. I even sometimes see my own words coming around, and I wonder if they are mine or the person got there the same way I did, and it just took a bit longer. No matter, as long as the message gets out. It’s frustrating when I can’t remember where I wrote something, only that I did.

Was it Cliff Stoltz that envisioned your computer keeping track of everything you did in a ‘lifestream’ that you could later move back and forth in? That would be handy for some stuff, that’s for sure. It would allow me to collect some of the stuff I’ve scattered around in various places recently and put it together into some sweet recycled ‘content’ with minimal additional effort 🙂 Maybe I need a keylogger. If there was one smart enough to group and stamp stuff that 99% of the time I don’t ever look at again, but could highlight it when I eventually search for it, I might be tempted. Or I guess I could ask the NSA.

If I could find it all, I’d collect what I’ve written about living in the secondary market, practicing for it, and how that’s all relevant to the coming unpleasantness. I’d collect what I’ve written recently about shortages and logistics too. Lot’s of people having those discussions in different places and my [meager] contributions are scattered around. IP is best when you can re-use it 🙂

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Anyway, today is a couple more pickups, radio stuff and household buys, then school activities until late. I’ve realized that I buy very little outside of food in traditional retail settings anymore. It gives one a very different perspective on what stuff ‘should’ cost when you see it selling for 1/3 or 1/2 of retail all the time. Now if I could do that with food too…

Then I could REALLY stack it high 😉

nick

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Sun. July 18, 2021 – “a [monkey] pox on your house”

Sunny, clear, hot and humid. Like yesterday. Despite predictions to the contrary. At least I hope so. Yesterday was a nice break from all the rain.

I need it to be dry enough to cut the lawn. I thought it was the week the service comes, because they weren’t here last week, but I guess not. Which means I need to do it. I like how it looks afterwards, and it’s not that hard, but it is one more thing in the day.

And I didn’t get much done yesterday. I felt weird all day. Kind of light headed, maybe just a notch below ‘dizzy’. Just didn’t think driving, climbing, or running power tools was a great idea.

So I spent some time with the puppy. We had several successful housebreaking lessons. Progress is being made, when the humans are on the ball.

I also sorted through some Goodwill stuff. Found a piece of gold jewelry in the bag of costume jewelry. Not a big piece, it’s a Kmart 25 years service pin. It’s probably worth more as a nostalgia piece than melt. It shows that people do miss actual gold and silver in the thrift stores.

I did a bit of laundry and dish washing too. Lots of domestic bliss, nothing with sharp edges, or potential for falling.

I am disappointed in myself for losing most of the day. Well, except for the time with the puppy. It’s hard to take any time when if feels like the hits just keep coming. I’m feeling far behind where I’d like to be, and don’t really know how to get there. I have a pathway, but there are a lot of forks and false starts. Still, I am FAR Far and away farther down that path than most people.

Which is good, because there is MONKEYPOX in Dallas. Not that it’s the end of the world, but plagues… war… famine… just sayin’.

So get to stacking while there is stuff to stack and places to stack it. We might need it sooner rather than later.

nick

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Thur. July 8, 2021 – flyin’ by…

Hot and humid, chance of rain. Might be sunny. Yadda yadda. Well, yesterday started cool, got hotter, got sunnier, and then ended hot and sticky. Lots of mosquitos in the yard too.

We are working on housebreaking the new puppy, which means sitting outside while he sniffs the entire yard looking for the perfect spot to NOT do his business, until we give up and let him back in the house. Then within a minute, he’ll have soiled something… so I’m getting reacquainted with sitting in the sun in the yard, swatting bugs. Joy.

Spent the day mostly not getting stuff done. I did get pickups done at two different auctions. One was half household stuff, the other half stuff for my non-prepping hobby, the other was all household. Got a tiny little dog life jacket for the new little guy. Fits him, and is even a bit big. He doesn’t like it at all, but if we ever find some lake property, we’ll need it. Got some pink safety glasses for the girls in my wife’s troops. If they’re gonna do woodworking with saws, hammers, and screwguns, they need safety gear. Got some small sized gloves for them too.

I did not get daughter two signed up for a day at the rock climbing gym today, but will get her in for tomorrow. She likes the gym and they had lots of day camps there the summer before wuflu. I will try to send the puppy to day care too. That should break me loose to actually do some work. And I REALLY need to get some auction stuff ready.

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Meanwhile, I think I’m starting to see the shape of the rest of the summer. The Dems in DC are establishing offices in other states for the DC police. Federal police force expansion cued up in 3, 2, 1 …

Chicago will ask for fedgov police or troops as the murders and lawlessness continue to get worse. They already have gangbangers trying to kill each other in the street with ARs firing 3 rnd bursts from 100 rnd Beta mags in broad daylight. I watched the video with my own eyes. Cops are saying “F this noise” and leaving or retiring on the job.

If Chicago falls, NYFC will be the next to ask for help. Cops in NYC are doing the same thing as cops in Chicago and elsewhere. Ie, leaving.

Whoever DC sends will just be more targets for the ‘bangers and revolutionaries who are already targeting cops (at least 3 that I can think of off the top of my head before the triple shooting in Chicago this week.)

NYC and Chicago are already blaming legal gun owners, and the gun manufacturers for the “gun” violence. The word they should be using starts with a “g” but rhymes with “bang”, and not “fun”. They’ll try to crack down even harder on the people who traditionally have just shut up and taken it. Only I don’t think they will this time.

Which should lead to even more sportiness, which the pro agitators will be sure to take advantage of. Their cadre has been blooded now, cycled away from the ‘front’ to share their experiences, and to gear up for the next wave. They haven’t gone home to tend their gardens and make war no more. They’re waiting, organizing, and equipping for the next skirmish.

Then there is the question of outside interference. Some people are concerned that China has used the foreign exchange student programs to pre-position tens of thousands of troops here already. We have a failed narco state to our south, that can move drugs, people, and guns over our border with impunity. THEIR fifth columnists are fully emplaced, dispersed to every city and town in the US, ready to provide an organized force either directly or as harassers. They are savage and have an ideological framework based on the Reconquista, and La Raza movements. If and when they are unleashed, the streets will run with blood and cities will burn.

There are many forces at work, they sense the weakness. Some of them have worked to create the weakness for decades. They’re looking at the fat, bloated, drug- addled Elvis, and they’re ready to kill the King and divide up the kingdom. My only hope is that we’ve been getting ready too, and no matter how much family fights, they all turn on the outsider.

The economy isn’t going to survive something like that. Personal violence is going to go through the roof. The economic engine of the world will stop, and then the whole world is in a world of hurt.

The elephants are dancing. I hope all the mice have a nice little bolt hole ready to hide in. If they don’t, what’s stopping you? Get to stacking.

nick

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Fri. June 25, 2021 – you never know

Today should be hot and humid, with some sun. Yesterday was until it rained in the late afternoon. That dropped the temp to 74F but the humidity stayed at 90%RH. I forgot how humid Florida can be, even compared to Houston.

Spent most of yesterday on the water, looking at water creatures or eating them, details are in the comments if you’re interested. I’m continually amazed at what people could just DO in the 50s and 60s that can not be done now, and what a great benefit we get from what was done. Walt Disney World couldn’t be built today and it’s construction put central Florida on the map and brings in $100s of millions. Sarasota had little islands turned into big islands, with hundreds of multi-million dollar homes on them, and all the good things that having money like that nearby brings. What are we missing out on because of all the restriction and regulation? What massive benefit are we keeping from our kids?

You never know what you miss by NOT doing something.

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Not sure what my schedule will be today but morning will be spent paying the rent. I’ve got stuff to install, stuff to fix, and some stuff to look at for next time. I’m not sure what an airBNB or something similar to this house would cost and I really don’t even WANT to know, but it would be a lot more than what I’ll be doing to help out while I’m here. If it wasn’t all in the family, I’d be pointing out the importance of meatspace, and intrapersonal relationships. Heck, even WITH family those things are still important.

Some of what you should be stacking is good will.

And food, water, resources, skills, and relationships, keep stacking those too.

nick

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Thur. April 22, 2021- the rules changed.

Cool and wet, possible rain. Yesterday was so nice though. So very nice and clear, moderate temps, and sunny… I don’t know how many more we’ll get like that.

I packed my day full of errands, and I did them this time. Two pickups, very near to each other, then on the way back, stops at my secondary (to unload some stuff), my rent house (to install the fridge), another auctioneer (to drop off sale items and pick up a check), and finally back home to get kid2 from school on time.

After that, I hit the grocery store for $330 worth of food security.

I don’t have quite as much on the schedule for today, nor are the times as tight, but I do hope to get a few things done.

I am getting the feeling that I might need to take some more drastic steps to clear out ‘stuff’ around the house. The plan was to start doing my own auctions, but it’s taking a long time and time is feeling short. I need to think on this a bit.

Time feels short because I think the rules have changed for how the world works. The interwebs are full of people saying that the difference between how antifa/blm and MAGA day in DC are treated, the outcome of the Chauvin trial, and a wide variety of other events show that Rule of Law or ROL is dead in the US. The corpse is still twitching, but it’s dead. People are saying that, but I don’t think they are following through and thinking about the rest of what that means. What you do and how you react to a country WROL* is going to be THE critical thing going forward.

Someone in the comments over at Sarah Hoyt’s place had this to say (minor edits for clarity)…

The rules changed.

All over the ‘net people are saying and saying and re-saying that ROL is dead in the US. Surprise! It’s been dead for a while now, and every case like this just exposes that to more Normies. So stop and think about what that means. Rule of Law is DEAD. Internalize that. REALLY internalize that. You (general ‘you’) have to start dealing with that idea. They can and will do whatever they want to us at any point that we come to their attention. No one will come to save us. No one will blow the ceiling and fast rope down to rescue us at the last minute.

What does history teach us about times like this? You must be ready to denounce the people that come to ‘their’ attention. You must expect your friends and relations to denounce YOU when they come for you. Why would you want them dragged to the gulag (real or virtual) along with you? If you want to have a chance at changing anything you have to remain free and effective. Your friends LIKEWISE have to remain free to act.

There won’t be any gofundme to replace a conservative’s burned out house. No gofundme to heal his daughter after she’s raped at school because her father is a ‘bad’ man and she deserves it. No gofundme to replace the lost job that feeds that daughter (and buys the guns and ammo and armor and radios and medical and every other needful thing.) There is no underground to move your family to safety after the mob catches you alone. There is no established safe haven for you to flee to. There is no way to start over in a new place with a new name once panopticon focuses on YOU and your family (seriously, look at any kid moved to a new school because of bullying or any other issue, the kids have the new kid doxed eight ways to Sunday within hours.)

The other thing that history teaches us is that This Too Shall Pass. You (Sarah) have even written about it here. They can’t hold it together. The Third Reich fell. The Soviet Union fell. Communist Cuba is going to fall. People SURVIVED those times and those places. They may have even acted to hasten the fall if they were able. There were lots who didn’t survive, and some of them included the principled, the committed, and ultimately the futile sacrifice.

[I don’t intend to sacrifice myself for an ideal, especially given the current legal environment.]

My daughter wants her Daddy. I want to be here to guide and protect her thru what’s coming. I can’t do that if I’m dead or destitute. It’d be cold comfort for her to know that her father loved an ideal more than her. I’d love to think she’d rally around my banner, but the more likely outcome is hating me for leaving her alone in the Brave New World, or only marginally less worse, raised by her lefty Kennedy worshiping [east coast] grandparents to hate me for leaving her alone.

The rules have changed. If we don’t survive, there won’t be anyone left to rebuild what was lost.

I intend to survive this.

Something to think about. While you’re stacking needful things.

nick

*this in no way means “without consequences”. The consequences of your actions are potentially more severe than ever.

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Wed. April 14, 2021 – things to do outside the house today…

Probably raining, probably warmish, although yesterday wasn’t rainy despite the forecast. It did start misty, and it did sprinkle later in the evening. Big fat lot of nothing during the day.

Spent the day arranging for my next dropoff and cleaning my office. Did two loads of laundry too. Had to stay close to home so I could pick up child 2 from school at 230.

Moved some stuff to storage, brought home a duffel I forgot about. Some stuff from the Goodwill Outlet, for the stack. While the vast majority of the outlet customers were fighting over 25c tshirts, I got an Orvis light weight fishing gear type long sleeve shirt, an Orvis heavy plaid long sleeve shirt, a fleece vest from Helly Hansen, and a rain shell from Mammut. The duffel was Eagle Creek. That’s about $500-600 new retail worth of stuff, all in like new condition. The whole bin was full of outdoor active wear, but most of it was cotton and (other than the plaid flannel shirt) I’ve stopped wearing cotton shirts. They must have dumped one guy’s donation box straight into the bin. It looks like it was never worn. If it’s raining later today I’ll be trying out the Mammut jacket to see if it’s really worth what they get for them. I paid $1.20 / pound. Better living for less, that’s me.

Quick update on my linux NVR… since reinstalling, and letting the update run for everything, it runs ok until it crashes. Seg faults, bo>virtual fail faults, and another one, happen at least once a day. The NVR server crashes, and just stops running. I notice that there aren’t any cam views displayed because the browser lost its connection to the NVR server, restart the server, and it works again. Well, I also noticed that 3 of my cam streams, all from the same model of camera, in the same aspect and resolution, were having visual artifacts. The bottom half of the image would ‘tear’ and turn into vertical lines, and jump around before looking normal. Watching the terminal output log, there were ffmpeg errors thrown at roughly the same time. Anyhow, I recall the install instructions talking about not using the ffmpeg that came with the distro, and there are instructions for getting the version they want you to have… which set me off to google to figure out how to downgrade or undo the update. Looking more closely at it though, the installed ffmpeg was from the correct place and was the same version. So what was different? Firefox updated too.

Guessing that FFox might be the issue, I installed chromium (the NVR developers preferred browser), and noticed there were ffmpeg helpers to install specifically for chromium, so I monkey punched the install, accepted whatever it offered or required, and started chromium instead of FFox to attach to the server… I haven’t had a crash or artifact in the stream since. If this keeps up, I may be finally to a stable and up to date state for the stupid thing. I had also installed chromium on the previous installation, but used FFox most of the time. Maybe the codec, or ffmpeg helpers or something needs to be there and they didn’t notice because they all just use chromium. Since I’m not using the browser for anything other than displaying the live cam views and managing the server, I don’t care what browser it is.

That messing around ate part of the day too.

So today I’ve got one pickup, some other errands to run, hopefully a visit to do some work at my secondary, and more office cleaning (which is also moving radio power supplies, UPSs, antenna feed lines, power strips, storage drawers, my vinyl cutter, monitors, and the huge pile of accreted ‘stuff’.) And that leaves off any attempts to get my old drives re-mounted in my new NAS (for recovery), or to get my existing NAS back under the desk and back on the network to run a good backup. I really don’t want to lose over 500 movie rips, or the hundreds of albums either.

I like civilization, and I really don’t want to lose it. Can’t get a backup in place…

So I keep stacking, and going through the stacks, and sorting, storing, and selling. You should too…

n

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Thur. Feb. 18, 2021 – losing track of the days…

Cold again, supposed to get a hard freeze tonight.   Yesterday felt colder than it was.   With the sub-freezing temps, it was very dry, but with the advent of the melting and the rain, humidity was HIGH and the damp cold felt REALLY damn cold.   (srsly, some of you are laughing but it hurt it was so cold.)  35F at 930pm down from 38F and higher during the day.

As I figured I would, I got the chance to help out a couple of neighbors.  (We are a neighborhood.   I live on a cul de sac, and about half of us are ‘chat in the street, talk about the kids’ friendly, especially after the storms and hurricanes, etc.  The other half we just never see except to wave as they drive by.  And that is a bit of an issue but not one to solve in a day.)

I helped the family across the street get their 1950s era gennie running.   It ran in the summer but wouldn’t start now.   There were a couple of minor things, the metal piece you touch to the spark plug to shut it off was too close to the plug and was grounding it out and there was water in the fuel and carb.   Drained a half cup through the carb and float bowl, reset the idle speed, and it fired on the 5th or 6th pull.   Ran pretty well too.   Put my meter on it, 57hz and 115v – so, well within range to be expected.   Small engine repair is a real world usable skill and being able to get and keep your gear running could save your life.   Youtube probably has someone fixing exactly your problem, but to learn small engine trouble shooting and repair in general, and be entertained by a guy who loves what he does, spend some time watching Mustie1.

Did a welfare check on the elderly couple down the block and found out  they didn’t have heat, or a way to cook food because of the power outage, so I brought them a gallon of already hot water, a single burner coleman stove, and a Mr Heater Little Buddy .  Unfortunately it looks like that single burner Coleman is out of production.   That is a real shame because it stores easily and uses the same bottle as the Mr Heaters and Coleman lanterns.    My wife loves it for Girl Scout camping.   I’ve picked up a couple at yard sales or estate sales and there are two on ebay for crazy money.   If you were going to standardize on 1 pound propane bottles, I’d recommend a small stove that uses the bottle, one of the Mr Heater Buddys, and maybe a lantern (and only because you won’t be caught with dead batteries).

The lantern is iffy, because the Streamlight lantern is so good, I can’t really recommend anything else as a serious area light.   Anything you’re going to be moving around with you and setting in different places will always be safer if it’s not fire.   I have a dozen of the cheap little battery powered LED lanterns from Costco, the kids use them at camp and around the house as toys.   They actually work pretty well, and like cheap flashlights, buy a bunch and scatter them everywhere for convenience.  But for disasters, when you need light, I love my Streamlight Siege.  Mine normally lives on the floor beside my bed within easy reach.  My wife loves her smaller Siege too.

Later in the day I got a call from my buddy about borrowing a space heater.    I loaned him the one from the garage.   It would have been pretty hard to say no to a friend with kids just to heat the garage (not that I would have.)  It does bring up a point.   Having multiples of items isn’t just a good idea for redundancy, what with two being one and one being none.  Unless zombies are eating people on your front lawn, you are probably going to want to help people in your circle/tribe/etc if you can.  Unless it’s truly TEOTWAWKI, people WILL remember your help or lack thereof, and it would be an extraordinary individual that wouldn’t look for payback later.   Just sayin’.  Help where you can.  Build your community.   Later you can help them build their own resilience.

Plan for today is more of the same, with some additional experimentation if possible.   We’ll see if I get to it.  And I just realized I was going to do a “why the 5 gallon bucket is the preppers multitool” post, but got completely sidetracked by my life…   Jeez, it’s like I’m on instagraam jumping around shouting “look at me!!!” in a bikini.   Now try to get that image out of your head.  You are stocked up on eye bleach right?   😉

Keep stacking.   And ask yourself the question I never asked about storms in winter, “What if the disaster comes when I’m NOT expecting it to?”

nick

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