Category: decline and fall

Today should be cooler to start, then warm. We might finally get some of the rain that has been threatening. Yesterday got hot and humid before the front moved in and stirred everything up. That helped with the temps, but the humidity stayed high.

I did auction stuff in the morning, although I blew off my pickup. He’ll wait and I didn’t feel like doing the round trip for two items, even if one was a solar panel. When I finally got out of the house I took a load to my shop, did a minimal amount of sorting there, and then hit Costco.

Charmin is not on sale this period. Paper towels were, so I grabbed one bale of them, and only one bale of TP. The Charmin blue is slightly less than $1/mega roll when it’s not on sale. It’s over $1 at the HEB store. I bought a three pack of LED headlamps. I’m using them all the time while working on projects or in the attic. Having the extra light where I am looking helps a lot. Since they were on sale and very bright, I grabbed the pack.

The rest of my basket was normal shopping- and Halloween candy. Our store has adopted a new (relatively new) checkout where you leave as much as possible in the cart and they scan it with handheld readers. I’ve gotten pretty good at stacking the cart with all the UPC labels visible and it really speeds up checkout. You do have to grab a few empty boxes so that when you unload into your car, it’s not all one big pile instead of having the items stacked in boxes at checkout.

I’m sure it reduces the physical strain on the checkers. When I asked if they liked it and if it was faster, the checker waffled a bit, saying it mostly depended on the cart. I can see that. I stack and orient everything to help with the process, but if you didn’t, they have to dig around in the cart and move stuff.

It’s good that they are still trying new things.

Today I’m sleeping in a bit, then working the list. I’ll also do some more Halloween decorating. I’ve got some blacklight stuff I’d like to use, but don’t have a good idea or plan for how, or what I really want to do with it. I’ve also got some fog effects I’d like to try if I have time to modify the machine. There is a guy on youtube that uses ultrasonic mist generators to turn the smoke machine fog into low lying fog. If I can get that to work, it would look great. The traditional methods of chilling the smoke don’t work particularly well outdoor.

Kids have Homecoming stuff to do later today. It’s a fun time in the school year.

It’s important when prepping to take your joy where and when you can. And stacking. That’s important too.

nick

Cool, warm, humid, but less so than a week ago. Still trending downwards. Hooray. And we got a little rain yesterday in various parts of town. Not my house, but downtown got a bit. Several times I used my windshield wipers for a few seconds. We need some more too.

I did a couple of pickups, and made two trips to the shop to drop stuff off. Ended up not having time for Costco, so that will move to today. I made a potroast in the slow cooker, but I’m the only one who needed dinner. Oh well, it’ll be good tonight.

Today I’ve got one pickup, more solar, and one I will try to do close to home. Costco is high on my list as I don’t want to go on the weekend. I need gas in the Ranger too. And I need to work the list, at least one or two items… it’ll be disjointed, like this post.

But it should result in adding to the stacks, which is a good thing. Get you some of that too.

nick

Cool getting warmer later. A bit more cool and a bit less warm. And the seasons slowly turn. It was really nice yesterday. Even in the sun it wasn’t crazy hot, although it was 90F at one point. I like Fall. It’s not the sweater and jacket weather I grew up with, but it’s nice when it finally gets here.

I did stuff around the house yesterday. That puts a pickup or two off to today or tomorrow, but it meant getting some stuff done, which is a good thing. I did some rearranging of laundry machines, redid the dryer exhaust, and sanded and primed my drywall repairs. Then I did some cleaning. LOTS of thick dust under my bed. I noticed I was coughing in my bedroom, and the dust has certainly been contributing. Some I vacuumed, some I used the leaf blower and chased it out the door.

Hairballs as big as softballs are no joke, yo.

It’s little stuff but it feels like I’m holding on to a little of the momentum.

Then in the late afternoon, I put out some Halloween decorations. I actually threw away 4 inflatables that weren’t working. I’ve had them for years, they were pretty rough looking, and they had been through at least one round of repairs, so it was time. Still goes against my grain…

Now I need to continue making progress and even accelerate what I’m doing. I think I can crank out a high impact, medium effort task or two and get an emotional reward for doing it. We’ll see.

Today I’ll do a pickup or two, then work the list. Maybe some paperwork first. And I really need to go to Costco.

This stuff isn’t gonna stack itself.

nick

Cool and kinda damp, but maybe we’ve turned the corner more solidly into Fall. It was 57F yesterday morning, but still 75F at midnight. No rain in the forecast for at least a couple more days though. That’s starting to be a problem. A grass fire somewhere in town seems pretty likely under these conditions. Everything is turning brown.

I didn’t get anything done yesterday morning. I had a roll with my egg for breakfast and the carbs put me to sleep at my desk. I got up a couple hours later and did my service call. It was another failing input port on the home theater Denon receiver. Denon must not be what it used to be, I’ve got a stack of failed units now. They are far more fragile than they used to be. The enshittification of everything continues.

I got home and did some piddlefarting around, after stopping at HEB for groceries. Kid snacks and soda, with some clearance wine marked down 50% really added to my ticket total. I filled the cart without a lot of sale items and it showed. Some random guy even commented that I had a huge load in the cart.

Dinner, internet, and some reading rounded out the day.

Today, D2 has to be at school an hour early for a competition. Joy. I’ll be getting up to make sure she has what she needs, and a ride. I won’t enjoy getting up early, but it’s great to see her thriving and committed to the activity.

I’ll spend the rest of the day doing pickups and working the list.

And if I can get to Costco, I’ll be adding to the stacks. TP isn’t on sale as often as it used to be, and my stock runs down faster than ever. I’ll have to make two trips buying the limit when it’s on sale to keep up. It should be on sale this period.

Our needs and wants evolve over time and with changing conditions. We need to adjust our preps and stack accordingly.

nick

Cool, warm, hot, what does it matter? Well, I can plan for the heat and do stuff in the morning or evening… and I can chart the passage of time. We are definitely cooling overall, but still getting warm in the afternoon. It was in the 90sF yesterday, and still 80F at 8pm.

I got some stuff done. The drywall mud was still wet in spots, so no more work on that but I painted a media storage tower to be used as a lego kit display. I couldn’t take the fake woodgrain so after a second coat, now it’s ready for use. I also sorted some cordsets and other bits for the generator connection project. For some reason, all the commercial cords have a 4 prong twistloc with a tit that points in, while my generators have a tit that points out. I do think I have all the parts now to do the connection, just waiting for a little bit cooler day.

Oh, I did find my spare propane bottles. I filled three the other day, and I thought I should have more around, since W couldn’t find spares at the BOL. I figured the three were from the BOL, but didn’t see more here. WEEELLLL, they were in the driveway, in a corner, behind some stuff. Three more full bottles. I’m guessing that there are plenty of bottles still at the BOL, they’ll just be in the heaters, so three will go back to the BOL along with 20 or 25 gallons of gasoline on the next trip.

Finally got a chance to pull the fake logs out of the fireplace and see what I need to do to put in a quick connect for a MrHeater. I was thinking about a valve so the fake logs would be usable, but I found a big vertical crack in the firebox. Until that gets fixed, no fire in the box. I’ll just disconnect the logs and attach the quick connect if needed. Of course, I have the hose here, but left the quick connects at the BOL. The actual heater is at my secondary location, but I’ll bring it here and put it in the attic soon. Then I’ll put it all together in one place so we can connect it if we have another cold snap that takes out the power too.

Today I’ve got to do a service call at my client’s house. I’m guessing we’ve got another bad hdmi port on the Denon AVR. He says there hasn’t been any bad weather, so it’s probably not a surge, but we’ve already lost one port on that receiver. I think it’s time to start looking for a replacement for the Denon receivers. They’re too dang fragile anymore, and not cheap. Failing that, I might stick a cheap piece of gear between the endpoint and the Denon, like an audio extractor or a 2:1 splitter and hope it eats the surge. The system is pretty solid at this point, only having issues after bad electrical weather, at least typically.

Then I’ll work on the list some more. Unfortunately, my voice was a bit husky last night and my throat glands are a little swollen and sore. D1 may have infected us all… If that’s the case, I’m not getting much done in the next week.

Stack while you can, you never know what’s coming next.

nick

Cooler weather is nice. Forecast says ‘clear’ for a couple of days at least, and while it is getting hot in the afternoon, overall, it’s cooler.

Yesterday was nice. I even had the windows down on the truck for a while. Sunny and warm in the sun, but very nice. I did my pickups and took some of it to the shop where I’m piling up stuff for the BOL. I think I’ll head up this weekend by myself. Anyway, after that, I came home and made some steaks for dinner. One was from 2020 and was very tasty. The other was only from last year, so no big deal.

I didn’t get a layer of mud on my drywall seams so I’ve got that to do this am.

Then it’s a pickup or two, and a trip to IKEA for my pantry flat pack. It’s supposed to be ready at 1pm. I hope I get some sort of confirmation email in the morning.

Lots of stuff to do, and not a lot of motivation or energy. Time to grind.

Still stacking. Still working on improvements. Still lagging behind…

nick