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Wed. Jan. 15, 2025 – oh, so you wanted it to dry out a bit…

Another cold wet day is in the cards, if today will look a lot like yesterday. It started clear enough, but progressed to overcast and then scattered drops by nightfall. Never really got rain at the house, but had to use the wipers running the kid around town. Since the national forecast showed a rain blob encroaching on SE Texas over the next couple of days, I’m going with “cold and wet” again. C’est la vie.

Did some stuff. Did a couple of pickups. Talked to some cops. Adjusted my storage unit rent. Got the senior discount. First time for that…

Yep, while I was out doing pickups, I got a call that one of my storage units had been burgled. Turns out they broke the latching mechanism since they couldn’t cut my lock, rolled up the door, and took the first stack of black and yellow bins. That was ebay stuff mostly. They looked at a stack of books but didn’t take any that I could see. They took some stuff that looked like vintage electronics, but was not worth much, and left stuff that would have been an easy sell… They robbed 5 units in half an hour while the manager was off property for lunch. Turns out I have insurance, so I’ll make a claim. No deductible, and I won’t get near my limit. It’s better than a sharp stick in the eye.

That put me finishing my errands during rush hour which cost me extra time due to traffic. I’m not thrilled.

Today, youngest gets her braces off her teeth. She’ll be bouncing around all day. It’s me taking her to that appointment and then back to school, so my morning is full. My afternoon is catching up with stuff that I didn’t do yesterday. And I should probably cook something nice for dinner. Domestic bliss. Honestly wouldn’t miss it for the world, but it does mean I’m fooling myself with some of the other stuff.

It’s good motivation for stacking though. I’ll include some, even if just a little bit. Do what you can, when you can.

nick

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Tues. Jan. 14, 2025 – even more of the same, with even less of the different…

Cool and damp. Yesterday was cold, but so clear, and a beautiful sunrise with pinks and oranges… at least I get a light show while waiting for the school bus. Still dang cold at 42F though. And there were puddles on the ground so despite the clear air, there must have been quite a lot of humidity. Of course at 42F that’s relative.

I’m expecting pretty much the same today. I am hoping things dry out a bit more so I can put them away. That was one of the things that didn’t happen yesterday. I got several auction pickups done though, and because D1 came home sick, I didn’t have to be home at 3pm to get her from school. That helped me get more done. Did a dump run, with some debris from the BOL that was in the driveway.

Spent some time talking with the auctioneer I use most often to sell, and they’ll be ready for some of my stuff next month. I’m calling the other auction house today to try and move some stuff this week. I need to get it out of the house, and I’d like to have some selling options. One of the houses I used to use left the business, and the first one has been focused on their own inventory, while my industrial guy hasn’t been taking consignments and when he did, I lost money. It’s a mess. Time to start cleaning it up.

I need to do some ebay selling on my own too. And maybe some Craigslist. I’m trying mightily to avoid fakebook marketplace.

Today I’ll be working on all those things and MOAR! I sometimes wish I was in mom’s basement cranking out dank memes and getting on watchlists… and playing video games until I got motion sick. Then I remember how much I like my life.

Stack some things to like. So that you can remember.

nick

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Mon. Jan. 13, 2025 – back to it…

Warmer, and damp but maybe not wet. It was misty,drippy and grey most of Sunday, but it did get a little bit of blue sky before dusk. I’m hoping the blue was a harbinger of today’s weather. But if not, I’ll deal.

Spent yesterday casually doing stuff around the house. I was poking at my office cleanup, watching some auctions close, putting Christmas decor away, and half a dozen other things. W did get the tree stripped and the bins loaded for the attic. I put them away at the end of the day. It’s opened up the foyer and living room… and if I can get some of my auction stuff out of here it will open up even more. That’s the goal anyway.

Today I’ll be on the phone making some appointments, if I can. I’ll be trying to get an auction set up too. And I might head south to do a pickup, so that I don’t have to go in opposite directions tomorrow. I’m sure some domestic bliss will happen too. Then it’s a kid pickup in the middle of the afternoon, and the other kid in early evening. I have to build my schedule around that. Finally, if it’s dry enough, I’ll get the last of the outdoor decor down. Or maybe I’ll go back to bed, and spend the day reading. Probably not.

There is always work to be done, and preps to be stacked.

So I’ll get to work, stacking.

nick

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Sun. Jan. 12, 2025 – written at 12:12 on 1-12, hmmm…

Another cold but sunny and dry day? Dunno. Hope so. Yesterday went a long way toward drying out my remaining Christmas decor. I’d like to have today to dry out the rest. And not freezing all day would be nice. It was below freezing with frost on the ground and cars yesterday morning. I think I’ll sleep late to avoid that today.

Yesterday was my non-prepping hobby meeting day. It was nice to get together with everyone. Several people who I didn’t get to see or talk to last month at the potluck dinner were there Saturday. It was a good day to just hang out and talk a bit. No one can believe the incompetence displayed in Cali, and no one found the idea that it could be intentional at all scoff worthy. We’re at a point where anything could be true. Or all lies. It’s very disconcerting.

Afterwards I came home, napped for a bit, did some domestic bliss, and avoided doing any major cleanup.

Today I’ll be paying for my slackitude. We need to get the house back together and get my stuff sorted out. I’ll be talking with a new auction to sell some of my stuff, and hopefully getting some of it out of the house. W is starting to send my articles about the negative effects of clutter and disorder… and it’s past the point where I should have been more proactive.

So that will be a priority, once I actually get my thumb out and get started.

The reorganization of my office and workspace needs to continue too.

Lots of opportunities coming up to miss deadlines and fail to complete tasks…

But the stacking will continue, at least a little bit, and mostly ‘targets of opportunity.’

I urge you to do so too.

nick

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Sat. Jan. 11, 2025 – non-prepping hobby day, hooray…

Cold again, but maybe no rain… Yesterday managed to stay dry after starting out with nightime rain. Everything was still wet when I got up, but it must have stopped sometime after 1am. It stayed overcast all day though. Wind picked up and was throwing the trash cans around. That was BONE CHILLING cold. By southern US standards anyway. Some of you are laughing as you wear shorts and flip flops to cross the crunchy snow to get more firewood for the stove…

I did get a few things done. I made progress on my big item. I got it working by moving a serial number dongle to another USB port. Something is wrong with its normal port, and it’s nothing I can see. I might reflow the solder in case it cracked or whiskered, but then again, I may just disclose the issue in the listing. 15 yo tech always has some issues.

I did my pickup, and talked to them about doing some consignment with them. I’ll talk to the boss on Monday, and maybe I can get some stuff out of the house and the storage unit next week. The deal would have to be pretty bad for me to NOT take it.

Hit the HEB for fresh veg and sundries. Picked up ground chuck at $4.05/lb, but no other meat. Got a few Knorr pasta envelops for side dishes. They were on sale. Nothing major jumped out at me other than there were a lot of “placeholder” displays like in the wuflu supply chain issue days. They don’t normally have an open top cooler end cap just filled with bagged lettuce. It’s usually filled with a featured “meal deal” combo. There were several bins in the produce section that were filled with boxes instead of fruit and some bins had a layer of filler so the items were only one layer deep. Dunno if it means anything, just making the observation.

I added the pasta and some box meals to the stacks.

Gas was $2.49 at HEB. That’s low.

Today I’ve got my monthly meeting, and then a pickup and dump run afterwards. We’re home this weekend and still trying to get the Christmas stuff put away. W will be working that if she can get her nose out of the Dungeon Crawler Carl book…

We’re already almost half way through January, and that is amazing. Don’t slack off on stacking though. Still lots of ways for this to go wrong and they all seem to be pushing them.

Head on a swivel, stacks nice and high…

nick

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Fri. Jan. 10, 2025 – doesn’t feel like we’re only 2 weeks in…

Cold and wet. Probably still raining. It started with a light drizzle in the afternoon, and continued all night. Temps rose a bit, then fell to mid 30s F. I don’t think we got near freezing though. I expect the suck to continue.

I had a fairly productive day yesterday for all that I didn’t get done. I did two loads of laundry and started a third. Did some cleaning and putting away, but didn’t get anywhere near done. I was in both attics stacking decor. I even got the leaf blower and blew out the whole house. It’s amazing how much hair, dust, and little bits of paper will accumulate, and how much better it looks when that mess is gone. You can’t even really see it, but you are aware it’s there.

I spent the longest part of the day doing electronic troubleshooting on the thing I want to put on ebay. I REALLY want it to work as that will double the value. I was hoping for a configuration error on my part, but my wife was able to rule that out, mostly. We did find some indication that there might actually be a hardware problem at the root of all the unrelated issues. I’ll talk to tech support today. Hopefully they can point me to the solution, and maybe I’ll even spend a bit on repairs if it’s not too much. It’s older gear but well supported. Wife has some diagnostic tools at work that she can bring home too. I normally don’t pull her into my reselling, but she’s got the experience, and it’s worth a couple thousand dollars more if it works. That kind of money is worth spending some effort…

Today will be more of the same. Clean, put away, work on getting stuff ready for ebay (and out of the living room, toy room, and kitchen). Maybe I’ll even get some other stuff done. There will likely be more domestic bliss too.

Not sure I’ll stack anything today, but I will be working on stacks. Some days that’s enough.

nick

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Thur. Jan. 9, 2025 – whoa Nelly! Stuff is happening fast…

Cold again. It gets better later in the day but it sure starts cold. Of course. it’s Winter, and that is what Winter is in the Northern Hemisphere. It did clear somewhat and warm a bit yesterday, but it was back to bone chilling cold at sunset. We have the extra special joy of a forecast that says “rain” today or maybe Friday. We’ll see what my microclimate does.

I got off to a bit of a slow start yesterday, but eventually got out and got some stuff done. Did my pickups. Stopped at the southside Goodwill outlet. Scored a bunch of Christmas and Halloween decor. Got some other stuff too.

Came home and took down some of the display stuff. Got the inflatables down, and some of the lighting. If the rain comes, at least that stuff won’t be wet, and I can put it in the attic today. Made grilled lamb chops for dinner. Heated some naan, and made some black beans as a side. Meat was from 2021. Delicious.

Today I should be at home all day, doing all the stuff I didn’t do yet. I’ve got laundry to do, and a lot of cleaning and putting away… It’s time to get the house back in order and put the holiday decor away. If I’m particularly efficient and motivated, I might even get some stuff ready for ebay. Don’t count on it though.

There is a bunch of new year IT stuff I have planned, and end of year paperwork stuff that needs to be done. I’ll start fitting that into my days soon.

And I need to talk to one of my other auction houses and see if I can get some stuff consigned with them. I need to get stuff moving. The cash would be nice too. There is a bunch of stuff to get out of the house…

I’ve got a lot to do. Not a lot of energy to do it with. We’ll see how it goes.

And I’ll still be stacking ‘cuz those preps aren’t gonna stack themselves.

nick

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Wed. Jan. 8, 2025 – ah, Wednesday, what have you and Pugsly gotten up to this time?

Cold. Cold and dry, for the swamp anyway. It’s still something like 50%RH, I think. It got all the way to ‘comfortable’ in the afternoon. Hardly like a deadly global climate change killer polar vortex at all. Good thing the earth is warming, or we’d be well into the next ice age.

So I did some stuff. Mostly I did a pickup in Montgomery. That used to be a small town north of Houston, that was mostly out in the country. Now the amount of new development is staggering. Every couple of miles there were signs for a new residential development. The most telling aspect was the infrastructure upgrades, new power lines, and a lot of marker flags on the ground for where they pushed pipe for new gas and telcom. The infrastructure is long term… not flash in the pan.

I did make it home in time to get the kid from school, then did some domestic bliss. Not much. I ate too much baklava and the sugar made sure I had a nap… Tuesday is a busy evening with the kids coming and going and D2’s hobby meeting.

Today I’ll do some auction, some domestic bliss, and then some more stuff around the house. If I was a “real” prepper, I’d be bidding on a bunch of dentistry stuff, just in case. There is a “mobile dentistry” lot in the medical auction, and I’d need to sit at the computer and watch the bidding if I really wanted it. I keep telling myself it won’t get that bad. I sure hope I’m not kicking myself or pulling my own teeth in a couple of years. The question of what is prudent prepping and what is moonbattery does occasionally arise.

I already pick up a lot of low cost, low commitment, low probability stuff, with VERY high payoff if actually needed. But dentistry office tools? That’s a step beyond picking up medical books and references, and the odd surgical kit or suture tray…

Hope I’m not wrong. REALLY HOPE. Mainly because for that to pay off, about 6/10ths of the US population has to die. Only a deranged lefty would be looking for that to happen.

I have stacks. I have skills. I have friends. I don’t have a crystal ball.

You can always use more of those things. Get to work.

nick

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Tues. Jan. 7, 2025 – wasn’t a revolt. that’s coming later.

Still cold. Still clear and dry. It was a brisk winter day yesterday and should be another one today. Colder at that BOL by a few degrees whenever I checked too. It’s handy having the new weather station working and online…

Yesterday morning I mostly did auction stuff, with some domestic bliss mixed in. My guts were still a bit out of sorts from the travel and all the massive amounts of sugar I ate. In the afternoon, I did a couple of pickups. After the auction pickups, I got the hairiest member of the family from the dog sitter. He was a furry missile and general nutburger. Dervish comes to mind. He likes the sitter, but he LOVES his girl.

Today I’ll do some auction stuff too, after getting the kids out the door. Later I’ve got a pickup to make in Montgomery, which is a bit farther north than I’d like, but the deal was too good. I’ll probably spend at least a little time in the afternoon taking down Christmas decor. D2 wanted to leave it up longer, but W wants it down. The wind has been blowing the inflatables all over and putting them right several times a day is getting bothersome. I will try to leave the lights up for a bit at least. Maybe to the end of the week.

I should probably get the generators running too. And the natgas heater I intend to plumb into the fireplace gas line… I’ve got no way to gauge whether this cold will produce the same outages as before, be a nothing burger, or create a whole new set of problems. I should probably do something “prepper-ish” though…

Stacking isn’t enough, you have to be ready to use the stuff, and it has to work. I could do a bit more in that area, I’m sure.

Get some practice with your preps, but keep stacking too.

nick

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Mon. Jan. 6, 2025 – join our intrepid hero as he attempts incredible acts of ordinariness

Cold and windy. There is winter happening across the nation, and we’re getting some here in the swamp. I’d like to remind the chattering masses that we’ve had snow on the ground around Christmastime three times since I moved to Houston. And that I was in Dallas when we got 14″ of snow overnight. In other words, it gets cold and snows in winter. Sometimes it does that a lot.

Sunday was spent playing games with family and reading until it was time to head home. Our flight was uneventful. There were signs of rain and high wind when we got home, but no real damage. It was chilly though.

Today I’ve got to catch up on a couple of things, and I think I’ll probably have to do a pickup or two. Kids are still off, so I’ll also be trying to get them to get ready for the start of the new semester. I’m sure piles of domestic bliss also await my attention. In other words, time to get back to it.

It was a nice break, and nice to spend time with my mom and sibling. But it also took time away from the Holiday break that we would spend closing out the year and getting ready for the new one. There are always trade offs in life, and this time I chose family time. I don’t think anyone ever said “I wish I’d have spent less time with mom and bro, and more time cleaning the driveway.”

The other thing I haven’t done is New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t generally put a lot of energy or effort into them. They don’t usually make much difference in peoples’ lives. But it is a convenient time to try to make changes in one’s life. SO. I would like to do some work on my physical conditioning. I will try to find a time and method to do that. I will try to raise money by selling more of the stuff I have to sell. That will contribute to the last- I will try to reduce the amount of stuff I have stacked around that is NOT contributing to a good life for my family.

There you have it. I’ve stacked up three resolutions…

Stack some of your own!

nick

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