Font Size:     

Category: ebay

Thur. Dec. 9, 2020 – if I were a rich man, deedle deedle deedle diedle dum..

Cool and windy.  Getting warmer later.  Basically nice.

Wednesday was cool to start but got to 84F in the sun.  Still pretty damp, there was water in the buckets from days ago, and condensation on the concrete.

I started my day with a fresh from the tree grapefruit.  Ruby red and sweet.   Success at last!  There are about a dozen more.  There are a couple of oranges on the other tree that I’m giving a bit more time.  The lemons are ready, but I leave them in place as long as I can.  Broccoli is doing ok, and I might harvest some spears in a couple of days.

I spent a good part of the day going through ebay/auction stuff, moving it from bin to bin and getting some ready for the next auction.  They stood me up on meeting to get my check and do my dropoff so I’ll have to reschedule.  Next week I’ll have stuff in 3 of the local auctions, and it still won’t have made much of a dent.

I didn’t get much else on my list done, so that all slips into today.  If I’m away from the keyboard, I’m working my list.

Interesting thought experiment, what would 2021 look like if there are aliens here?  They have been here for a while, they haven’t dropped rocks on us, they are either in a lifeboat or have some business with us.  What might it be?  What would the confirmed announcement do to current social issues?  I bet they’d get the blame for wuflu…  What the heck would they want?  Botanicals?  Slaves?  Food?  Fuel?  Colonization has always been about resource extraction for us, or later new markets, and cheap labor.  What would prepping look like for benign aliens instead of zombies?

My suspicion is that people would lose their shirt and we’d want to stay quietly at home for a while, just like a lot of other scenarios.  Couldn’t hurt to be prepped up.

Which raises another issue.  If you didn’t have to worry about budget, beyond some reasonable amount (no buying Yard Moose Mountain) what would a serious prepper look like and be stacking?  Vs an ‘ordinary’ prepper, or a beginning prepper?  What do you start stacking when you realize that 2 weeks while waiting for FEMA and the outside aid to get there isn’t going to be enough?

What makes one serious?  Is it building a “Rebuild society” library?  Or stocking fish meds?  A suture kit?  Injectable drugs?  Having a stocked root cellar?  Livestock? A garden measured in fractions of an acre?  Bushcraft knowledge?  Foraging for food?  Hunting/fishing/trapping?  Butchering your own food?  A pantry measured in “person-years”?  More than one gun safe?  Off grid power?  Off grid property?

I consider myself pretty serious, but there are things in that list I don’t even have plans for.    Ok that’s a lie.  But there are things in that list I don’t have serious plans for 😉

Get to work.  Stack something today.  Even if it’s just knowledge.

nick

Read the comments: 65 Comments

Tues. Dec. 8, 2020 – work, work, work. And more work.

Cool and sunny, lots of wind.

That was Monday to a ‘T’.  Still not drying outside even with only 35%RH.  I’ve still got standing water on my driveway from 2 days ago.

Well, I took 6 more bins of stuff to the auctioneer yesterday.  And I didn’t even get into the driveway, much into the garage, or at all in my secondary or my storage unit.   I’m going to continue pulling stuff today, and I’ll either get one last drop off today (if I can get away with my wife at work) or I’ll take some to my other auction tomorrow when I go to do my settlement with them.  It won’t be before Christmas, but it will be ready to go right after.  I’m finding stuff I forgot about which is nice but also horrifying.   I found some model train stuff, and some nice Hot Wheels cars from the mid and late 70s.  They should do well.  I wish I had a thousand of them though.

My industrial auctioneer is still listing a few items they didn’t get in the last one, but he’s already told me twice he doesn’t want more stuff from me until next year in January.  I’ve got a ton of stuff for him, but I can’t force people to take it.

On a personal level, I’m feeling very anxious while out driving around.  Everywhere I look I see new bums panhandling.  I see more new For Lease signs.  I saw workers taking down a big sign on a business today, and a whole strip development on what is a pretty busy street with ALL the businesses closed.  There were several- a chinese buffet, and ‘alkaline water’ boutique, some other salon, and a phone or tech repair place.  All gone this week.  Lots more trash in front of several stores too.  Goodwill is parking trailers full of stuff in front of the Outlet.  They can’t process the stuff fast enough to get rid of it.  Even the temporary ‘day’ labor provider across from the Goodwill closed down.

On the sorta prepping front, my wife did most of the jewelry badge with her Girl Scouts this weekend.  I was able to provide a dozen sets of pliers, wire, jump rings and clasps, different stones charms and bits from old costume jewelry, and some of reference material, even a ring sizing mandrel (one part of the badge is learning about the tools.)  I had accumulated the stuff with an eye toward craft projects with  my kids.  I had plenty to share…

And I went into Costco today.  I needed to pick up the Christmas cards, so I walked through the store too.  Not much Christmas merch left on the floor.  And they reorganized the whole place since I was last there!   It looks like they did a major upgrade to their cooling system, made dairy and eggs a big walk in cooler, and tied all their display coolers together- there were pipes linking them that weren’t there before.    They still had a guy wiping cooler door handles, and aisles seemed wider.  I could see marks on the floor that showed that the stuff HAD moved.   They had a whole corral set up for TP, mostly piles of Kirkland, but they had Charmin blue label, so I bought some.  $23 instead of $16 on sale, but it’s time to start building the stack up again.   The only other prices that jumped out at me were $1.87/lb for spiral sliced ham, and in the other direction, $6/lb for Kirkland organic ground beef.   It’s been on sale to match their normal ground beef in the past.  Normal hamburger was ~$3/lb which is a good price.

The TP was my only purchase.  I’ll do instacart for my normal stuff.

The lot was not full, nor were there lines for gas, but it was a Monday afternoon, which is normally a slower time anyway.  During my other dropoff I drove right past what should have been a busy shopping area, but it was not.  In person retail is in trouble if that’s any indication.

All this is to say, even here, in one of the strongest local economies in the country, with ‘sensible’ restrictions from COVID, I’m seeing evidence that the economy is in trouble at ground level.  Big trouble.   We’ve found our local charity for the season, the Stagehand’s local has an emergency fund and present collection for their members.  Yes, they are union pukes.  But they’re OUR pukes… (my wife was card carrying for years) and entertainment is in our blood as well as being part of my wife’s business.  I encourage you to find something local and direct that you can help with this year.  And if you need help, get it, there are resources out there.

Local local local, and Meatspace baby!

Keep stacking.  You can’t help others if you aren’t ok yourself.   And there will be others.

nick

Read the comments: 88 Comments

Sat. Dec. 5, 2020 – it all depends on the weather

And it will probably be cold, and damp again today, but maybe the rain will hold off.

It was cold-ish yesterday and certainly damp.   I put on a fleece jacket and I was sweating inside buildings and cold outside.

Someone asked a while back if I was still hitting the Goodwill stores.  No, not really.  I haven’t hit a thrift store in months.  I AM still hitting the Goodwill outlet.  I mask up, N95, and glove up, and maintain a distance from people.  I am hyper aware of what I touch and change gloves as needed.  I use the clorox wipes before getting back in the car too.  I’ve grabbed some great stuff lately, and it will mostly be going to the auction on Monday.   You can’t really beat a men’s Kenneth Cole leather jacket for $3.  Especially one that’s in perfect condition.  Or a lady’s wool trenchcoat from the mid 80s that still brings $85 on ebay.  Or 70 pounds of vinyl LPs that have been averaging 8-12$ apiece on ebay.  I’ll send them to my local auction,  and get a whole lot less, but won’t have to deal with shipping or returns.

The outlet gets the weirdest things.  I’ve found a low power ham radio transceiver kit, arduinos, gun parts, glock 43 magazine extensions- NIB, and today I found a milsurp cold weather sleep system and a watch battery change tool kit.  Not expensive, but exactly what I needed.  I could have a complete set of the Harvard Classics of literature.  I’ve grabbed all the ones I thought I’d personally like.  Some of the editions bring $10+ per volume…  One day I found a gun guy’s library.  A bunch of Paladin Press sort of books, and coffee table gun history books too.  “Modifying your MAC-10” kinds of things….  The funniest thing for me, I can find great stuff AFTER the locusts have gone through the bins.  They’ll fight over 25c t shirts and leave an ORVIS jacket, new with tags (headed to ebay or the auction this week).

My best estate auction score this week was probably a Western Mountaineering down sleeping bag for $4.  Even counting the half bottle of down tech washing soap, that is a stunning value for what was a $400+ bag new.  The kids and my wife have used the heck out of the expensive USA made down bags I got at an estate sale 2? years ago for $5.  There are certain things that people just don’t seem to recognize the value.  That’s where I come in 🙂

And some people do weird things too.  I grabbed a couple of fishing poles yesterday, one complete, with the last loop missing, one just the lower half.  I didn’t find the top half so I put it back in a bin, and the other one, I’ll just clip 1 inch and the existing loop will be the end one now.  🙂   Later I noticed a couple of young ladies standing to the side with a dozen poles.   They were looking up the poles on their phones.  They spent a while doing it too.  Obviously not experienced resellers.  The poles weigh less than a pound.  So they will cost $1.20 each.  BUY EVERY ONE.  There isn’t a new fishing pole with a reel for less than $20 anywhere.   These poles were new, still in plastic.  Grab them and GO!

The other customers are all masked, some even wearing them correctly.  Staff wears masks correctly.  As a side benefit, no one out in public is sneezing or coughing.  No runny noses either.

Today I’ll be going through stuff getting more ready for the new auctioneer.  And if the weather is good, I’ll finally get some Christmas decor up.  But that will be after sleeping in.

And then I’ll do my grocery order, and stack some more.  Because everything is changing, and we don’t know who will come out the other side.  If we’re distracted and weakened by a civil war, declared or not, someone else will have a chance to rise.  It might take a generation to recover.  Maybe more.  Gonna be hard times if that happens.  Think about that for a while.

And keep stacking.

nick

 

Read the comments: 32 Comments

Fri. Dec. 4, 2020 – ayup, FLEW by.

Cold again, still damp. Maybe some sun though.

I was cold enough yesterday to get my jacket out.  Of course by the time I got to my later appointment, I was sweating and took it off until sundown.

I got some bins of stuff dropped off a my newest local auctioneer.  He was surprised by the amount and actually expected more.  I had the impression he didn’t want a truckload so I didn’t bring one.   I’ll be bringing another load down to him on Monday.   He also took a look at my Pokemon cards and we figured out that I DON’T have a $10K card.   The version I have is $45.  The version with the printed difference (a missing drop shadow) is the one that brings the big money.   It’s likely that it’s the same error that is NOT on my other big money cards too, so no $1200 cards either.  Probably.  I still have to go back through them looking to see if I have any with the missing drop shadow.    Not a lottery winner anymore, but still worth about 40x what I paid.  Funny how that feels disappointing.

I picked up a small but important defensive training item too.   I paid less than online prices, but 50%  more than I would have in January.  I think it will be another 50-100% higher come this January.   It’s very clean and fills a gap in the progression from BB to airsoft to Cricket (gap) to black scary gub.  The store where I picked it up had inventory.  Expensive inventory, slightly more than online sellers, but he had stuff on the shelves and in the display cases.  He said his purchasing manager has been scrambling to find stock.  Much of it is used or consigned too.  Friendly guys and right down the street from one of my auction sellers.

Today I’ll be loading bins, sorting, doing a pickup, and hopefully getting some Christmas lights up.  I used to be the only one on the street with lights, now there are a dozen houses that are already decorated.  I’m the slacker!  I love seeing the change.  BE the change you want in the world.  It’s not just for hippies.

Now I need to get to it.  I’ll leave the politics and conspiracy to everyone else today.  Unless it rains.  Then I’m gonna drive this keyboard like a rental.

Keep stacking.

nick

Read the comments: 100 Comments

Tues. Nov. 10, 2020 – oh joy. more stuff to do

Cool but still crazy humid.

Like yesterday.  At least it wasn’t so hot in the attic.

Did some work yesterday, after picking up a small window AC unit and a 7cuft chest freezer.  The freezer was scratch and dent, never even turned on.  Still looking to sell it on, rather than fill it up.   I might though.

Today I’m chained to the house.  I’ll make the best of it.  Plenty to do after all…

keep stacking.

n

Read the comments: 73 Comments

Mon. Nov. 2, 2020 – New month, counting the year down

Cool, but clear and sunny.

Sunday was another gorgeous day.  Comfortable temps, clear and blue sky.

So I did a little work outside, picking up some of my decor.   Then did some plumbing (see yesterday’s comments) and then some pressure washing.

Today I’ve got one ebay sale to ship, an auction pickup, pressure washing to finish, more decor to take down and put away, and all the general stuff of the week…  We’re supposed to have a couple more dry days so I want to get all the decor in.

The weather is finally nice enough to do some work around the house too, so I have projects moving off the back burner.  Naturally, just about the time I’ve worked up a good head of steam, we’ll be driving to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with my mom…  I better get some stuff done before that.

I couldn’t really imagine what “election day violence” would look like.  I didn’t have to courtesy of BLM and antifa.  This is going to be a wild week.  Hold on tight and hunker down.

(and keep stacking, although skills and connections might be more practical than shopping this week.)

nick

Read the comments: 97 Comments

Fri. Oct. 23, 2020 – home again today

Cooler with a chance of rain.  We got some short but strong downpours yesterday.  Different parts of town had very different weather.

Spent yesterday driving around and doing some errands.  Had some auction stuff, a radio for me, some household stuff, and I needed to get my ebay item out of storage and packed up. Everything was very spread out geographically.  Very poor planning on my part.

I had to buy a special box to ship the big ebay item in.  It will eventually end up in Germany so it took a while to safely pack it.  Still, nice profit on a quick flip.  $275 on $25 investment, not counting taxes and fees on both sides.   I sold another case of disinfectant too.  Maybe my sales are picking up?  That would be nice.  The UPS guy seemed happy to see me twice in the same week.

The stuff I put in my local industrial auction went for about a dollar a lot.  It was a blowout.  I’d have been better off dumping it in the trash.  No idea why prices were so low.  They were generally low for all the items in the auction, not just mine, but mine were exceptionally low.  Yikes.  I hope he will accept my next load of stuff for consignment.

I didn’t watch the debate.  I’ll look at clips today if there was anything surprising.  I’m betting ‘not’.

FWIW, far more Trump Pense signs in my area than Biden.  Lots of signs for the Dems in lower and state offices though.  Clearly the battle is local.  Vote.  Even Bob voted in the last Presidential election, and he was pretty convinced of the futility of it.  Vote.   Especially for Sheriff and Judges.  Local.  When everything blows up, local is what’s left.

And keep stacking.

 

n

Read the comments: 57 Comments

Thur. Oct. 22, 2020 – lots of weird looking dates this month

Cooler, maybe some rain.  Certainly humid.

Almost 10F cooler outside than in my  office when I wrote this late last night.   During the day it got into the low 90s in the sun, but it took longer, and it didn’t stay there very long.  I expect the same today, only there is a bigger chance of rain.

Daughter one got on the right bus twice yesterday and got where she was supposed to be first try.  Nice change of pace :-/   She’s still adjusting to being at school all day.  She says “it’s exhausting”.   Daughter two likes virtual better than in person, but is getting bored being chained to the lappy.  The district (passing the buck to the state) has managed to crush the best aspect of remote learning by requiring the kids to stay in sight of the lappy camera for their  required time.  No more finishing your work and taking out a book… no  more working ahead either- by diktat of the district.

I managed to sell a couple of items on ebay, so I’ve got shipping to do today.  One is easy, just a medium flat rate box.   The other is sensitive and going to Germany, so needs a sturdy and large box.  I hope I got the weight right, for the buyer’s sake.  He’s pre-paying for the shipping based on what I had in the listing.  I was offering free shipping so I didn’t worry too much about the weight I listed.  Hmm.  I wonder what happens if it weighs more than I thought? Never came up before.  Nice to have some items selling though.

Spent a bunch of time getting some stuff ready to list.  It ate more time than I thought, so I still don’t have my NVR running on linux.   It’s running under windows, even if I can’t see the live cam view, it is still saving the video files so I’ve got coverage if something happens.  I got really used to just glancing up to see what’s going on outside though.  I can still access the stream from the cameras individually, it just takes another couple of steps.   Carry that task over to today.

Not much movement on the campaign trail, given the explosive nature of the allegations against the Bidens.  There must be some frantic activity behind closed doors.  If the stuff in the emails is true, and no one seems to be saying it’s not, then the only way to avoid jail is to win the Presidency, or hope that being the failed candidate is a shield, like it was for Hillarity.   Or fake a medical issue and then retire to ‘spend more time with family.’

Uncertainty is not good for markets.  The markets and the ‘financialization’ of our economy have gotten us into a lot of trouble and will likely get us into more.  I feel better with food in the freezer and a big pile of stuff to use if the going gets tough.  I think it’s probably a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’, so keep stacking.

n

 

 

Read the comments: 95 Comments

Sat. Oct. 17, 2020 – non-prep hobby meets today…

Cooler and damp.

It was 58F when I went to bed last night, and it was about that cool most of the day.  Overcast and misty rain finally burned off late in the afternoon.

Most of what I picked up yesterday was household related.  Of the prepper stuff, the Dometic porta-jon was brand new in the box.  The RV inverter wasn’t.  It was the old 12v power supply module from whatever RV old boy updated later with the part that came in the box.  It looks intact and included a fused multi-circuit 12v distro panel.    It will make a great 12vdc power supply for my ham radios, whenever I get around to it.  Lemonade from lemons and all that…

I harvested an actual lemon from my lemon tree.  The other citrus is getting yellower every day.  I hope some is not woody and hard, but I’ll take a dozen fruits, even if they’re not great this year, and hope for better next year.  Planting trees is an act of faith that there will be a future.

No other visible sprouts, so I’ll try replanting with different seed packets.  My neighbor at my secondary location is getting a good fall garden, so it isn’t just a bad year in Houston, it’s me.  Try try again.  (And buy more canned food.)

Lots of articles out there about people bum rushing to rural housing, buying lots of guns and ammo, and stocking up.  The flip side is I’m seeing weird stuff in the amazon (and other store) returns auctions.   Most of the online and brick and mortar stores just take their returns and auction them off in bulk to wholesalers.  The wholesalers sometimes auction smaller bulk pallets, and sometimes auction individual lots.  That’s what I mean when I talk about ‘returns’ auctions.   Well, in the last couple of months, I’ve seen some interesting stuff.   Chicken coops (reviews were that they were too small.)  Chicken waterers.  Chicken nesting pads and nesting boxes (lots of people trying to grow chickens.)    Small animal nesting and bedding.   Farrier starter tool kits (several in this week’s auction.)  Farriers!  Moon cups (reusable menstrual supplies are a prepper staple.)  Solar panels.

Of course I’m seeing lots of other stuff that speaks of the lockdown, exercise equipment, bikes, and home reno bits and pieces, home decor too.

One puzzler is the TONS of child safety gates.  I mean TONS.  Every auction has dozens of lots.   And just general human debris, as summer ends a lot of yard tools are being returned.  Freaking thieves and returns fraud.  Tents and camping gear are being returned in bulk as well.

Firearms and ammo are showing up in the consignment and estate auctions.  Not much in the way of modern defensive arms, (except Hi-Point pistols- the modern ‘Saturday night special’.)  Most of what I’m seeing is single shot rifles, old single shot shotguns- unloved brown rifles in other words.  The ammo is usually sort of “cleaned out a drawer” quantities and a lot of non-defense calibers.  It all sells for high prices, and defensive ammo or modern defensive arms are bringing eye watering prices compared to a year ago.

Surprising me, there are a couple of campers/trailers in this week’s auction.  I figured people would hold on to them as a last resort living arrangement, but there must be folks who don’t expect to get to that point, who are looking to cash in on high demand.

On another note, I drove across all of Houston Friday, all the way to Baytown, and then up to IAH.  Today I’ll be going down to Dickenson and back up through Bellaire.  I crisscross Houston fairly regularly.  I’m seeing a LOT of empty commercial buildings.  I’m seeing a LOT of ‘For Lease’ signs.  I even saw two new ones a few blocks from my house.   The landslide has just started rumbling, a few pebbles are starting to roll down hill…  I’ve got a feeling that ‘we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’  But not in a good way.

Keep stacking, and keep your eyes and mind open to opportunity.   There are always opportunities.

 

nick

Read the comments: 50 Comments

Thur. May 28, 2020 – more storms

Wet and windy.

Yesterday was a mix of rain and storms with nice sunny blue sky and cool breezes. Lot of rain and wind though.

And the trunk I left open to dry out after I left it open through a storm?? Yep. Left it open through a storm again. I hope it will be dry at some point today.

Didn’t get much done on the bigger projects but I did do some more work on a couple of smaller things. Didn’t end up going to my client’s house yesterday but will be out there later today.

My wife decided that we needed to proceed with some sort of above the ground temporary pool. Only problem is, they are sold out everywhere. EXCEPT— in my auctions. Amazon returns and damaged in shipping auctions had several of the Intex pools. I ended up buying one, 15ft x 42″ high. After fees and taxes it was slightly more than list price- for an open box I didn’t inspect. I figure I can MacGiver around any issues. One other pool went for $100 more than mine, and the last one went for $200 more than mine. It is a seller’s market for above ground pools at the moment. Funny thing is, I picked up a pump/filter a couple of auctions ago thinking it could be a gross filter for my “water tank” inflatable kiddie pool, and I got 3 filters for it too. So even if the filter part of the set is missing, I’ve got it covered.

I’ll be doing pickups at four auctions today before heading over to my client’s house. They had another power outage, and half the stuff is offline, plus AT&T should be there to fix the DSL. The auctions were for some tactical accessories and camping stuff, toilet paper (don’t need it, but figured if I could restock with a good brand, I might as well), the pool, and a weird mix of photography LED lighting and backdrops and a couple of antennas.

The ‘weird mix’ auction seller is new to me. They are perhaps the second worst at it I’ve ever come across. Their pictures suck, what few there are, and their descriptions are all the same- general merchandise. By looking at all the listings, I could tell what some of the unidentified items were despite the bad pix and no description. If the stuff is actually there in the lots, I might have done really well. 20 lots for $109 is great pricing. The two antennas would have been most of that, and I got a bunch of other useful stuff, including practice arrows! The photography stuff should help me get better pix for my new listings. Turns out there is a whole slew of photo lighting and backdrop stuff aimed directly at youtubers. You wouldn’t think that would be a big enough market, but you’d be wrong. It is super cheap cr@p but should be fine for the limited use I’m putting it to.

One of the items in with all the tactical stuff was a marine rescue rope in a throw bag. We were talking about swimming the other day. I didn’t mention that I have self inflating life vests in my truck, and now I’ll have a rescue throw rope too. I’m not a strong swimmer, so I prep…

Dinner was frozen hamburger patties from 2017, and a couple of skewers of frozen shrimp. I opened a jar of sweet peppers I ‘cold canned’ a few years ago. They’ve been un-opened in the fridge this whole time. They are crunchy and delicious. The commercial jar of pickled beets from a couple of years ago is starting to fade, and the beets are maybe a little softer than originally, but they are still tasty and good eating.

I found two more buckets of bulk in the garage, one 25# bucket of salt, and one 25# bucket of flour from 2017. The salt is fine for sure, and I don’t want to break the seal on the flour, so I’m just putting it back on the shelf. That HAS to be all the food in the garage at this point. I don’t have that much more area to go through.

—————————————————————————–

In the wider world, China is pushing India AND Hong Kong. And, at the same time, locking down new cities because of new wuflu outbreaks. There are so many ways this can go wrong.

Russia is getting frisky in the air with our pilots.

There seem to be some riots going on from the usual crew, for the usual reasons in MN and LA. If it spreads like it did a few summers ago, things will be getting sporty soon. Avoid crowds. Make sure you can get out of one if you get caught up.

And people all over the US have lost their dang minds. For now, I’m going to let someone else poke their finger into the flame to see if flames are still hot. I’m holding steady (although I admit to looking at auctions again, and doing the pickups – curbside.) We should know in just a couple of weeks what effect the changes in restrictions will have, if any. I’ll reassess my stance then.

Nothing I see is changing my mind that things are going to get a lot worse before they start to get better. Keep stacking. Don’t let fatigue make you lower your guard.

nick

Read the comments: 72 Comments
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // end of file archive.php // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------