Category: lakehouse

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day… I’ve got stuff to do, and I need to use the pickup truck to do it. Don’t want to get everything wet. Oh well, it will be what it is. I came pouring down yesterday. Started with some dark clouds on the horizon, but went to full on bucketing down. The cells were localized and moving throughout the day so I’d bet that most of Houston and surrounds got rain. My yard was squishy with too much water. Anyway, national forecast says it’ll be more of the same today.

I did my pickups, chatted with one auctioneer for a bit, then got a text from D1. She wanted to move her pickup time forward an hours, since her sportsball practice got cancelled. I decided to head over and skip some of what I had planned to do. D2 got in on the act wanting to be picked up if she stayed late. All in all, I spent an hour and a half on that nonsense. On top of that, because we got home at 430pm my day was shot. So I did some stuff around the house.

I put a new power supply in the machine I picked up a week or two ago that was a near clone of my main machine, only slightly newer. I got a thermaltake, new in box, for $15 in an auction and it went in perfectly. Learned that the 4 pin connector comes ganged with another, and one of my old psu had that set up and would have worked in the PC if I’d known. Not having the directions or even a box with “features” shown, I didn’t know what I had or how to make it work. I’ll save the psu for the next one and keep using the new thermaltake psu. I spent some time changing settings for win10 and used ninite.com to install a basic software package. Not sure what I’ll use the machine for, but I’m sure something will present itself. Meanwhile, it’s a backup for this main pc.

What did Jerry used to say? You need n+1 PCs to keep n PCs running? I’ve got n+x where x is bigger than 10 and smaller than 20, of course not all of them are actually running… I may take at least one of the older machines and send it to auction. I’ve got monitors and k/m to include and old win7 systems are still selling for $50-100. For most people, win7 era performance is more than enough. I put a lappy in the auction but it hasn’t listed yet. That will tell me if I should bother with more.

Today I’ve got to rearrange the truck, do a pickup, or possibly two, and get ready to go to the BOL Saturday. I’ve got so much stuff waiting to go, I can’t fit it all in the truck. It almost makes sense to rent a small trailer. If the weather improves maybe I will. In any case it will be a quick up and back the next day. My buddy says the grass grew 8 inches in the last two weeks, and the tree guy was supposed to come by and drop two trees and clear up the burn pile. So, I’ve got stuff to do up there, in addition to just making the delivery.

And I’m sure the kids will want to be chauffeured around too. Busy day.

Probably should get cracking.

And stacking, it all counts as stacking this weekend.

n

Cold and clear again, warming later, again. Nice days though, a bit cool to start, but nice. Great for working outside, if you are so inclined.

Spent most of yesterday afternoon doing pickups. One interesting thing about new players entering the market is that they don’t have a lot of bidders, and you can get some great deals. Bad for them while they get established, but great for me. I scored some good tools, and more importantly, some batteries and a charger for tools I already own. Dropped by my favorite gub store, but just left them some Halloween candy. Didn’t buy anything. Had to get D1 from school.

D2’s play and other kid stuff ate the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Today I’ll be picking up some more stuff. I won a couple more solar panels and a charge controller. I really want to get something set up at the BOL, and now I’ve got around 300-400 watts of panel to use. I got some other stuff for the BOL at the same auction. That fabric that keeps weeds from growing through your landscaping is crazy expensive at the store, considering it is just some non-woven plastic. I’ve been buying rolls in the auctions for huge savings, when I get around to finishing the cosmetic stuff at the BOL. Everything comes through the auctions eventually.

I didn’t drop off anything for sale this week though. I was busy Monday and Tuesday, and they asked me to wait for a week as they were filled up. I hope I haven’t missed my chance to keep unloading stuff by breaking my streak… clearing stuff out and turning it into money is a good thing.

Lots of not good things happening in the world. Take your joy where you find it, and stack…
n

Cooler than before the weekend, but it’s still Houston. Humid too. It was beautiful at the BOL. Mid 80s in the afternoon but with a cool breeze. Sunny and clear. I can hope that today will be similar, but that would be asking a lot. We’ll see how it goes.

Wrapped up my work at the BOL yesterday. Did a bunch more small stuff. Took one of the sliding patio doors off the track, cleaned and adjusted the rollers, replaced what I could. It works nicely again. It’s very worn, but they will all be replaced at some point.

Cut the grass, weed wacked, blew all the hard surfaces clear. Put everything away. Decided to take one more look a the irrigation pump to see if I could figure out why it lost prime. The check valve in the lake was working well. So I set up to backfill the line with water. This time, the answer was clear. The pipe had come loose from the discharge side of the pump. Oy. Given the lateness of the hour and a desire to not trudge up the hill to get my box of fittings, and a crazy idea that I should install a union fitting so the next time it needs to be removed it won’t require a saw and a repair fitting… I left it for the next visit and just shut off the controller. I’ll add a suitable union fitting to the shopping list. Maybe two fittings.

Today D2 has an orthodontist appointment in the morning, I’m supposed to get a load together for my auctioneer, and I’ve got to do a housecall for my client’s network issue. Wednesday I’m fasting in the morning for my PET scan in the afternoon, so I won’t want to do much, which means I better get my stuff done today.

Add an incipient cold to everything and I’m not feeling energetic and motivated. I almost always get sick if my nose is cold for any length of time, and it was while watching the movie. I started the Airborne last night. Runny nose and tiredness along with sneezing. joy.

Sleep will help. I’ll have to try to get some.

Some things you can’t stack. For everything else though, you should get busy…

nick

Another cool and clear day is on tap. Sunday was beautiful. Cool, clear, sunny. Warm in the sun. Cool in the shade. Just nice. Chilly at night though. 56F during movie night.

Made a “Picanha roast” for dinner. It’s just the cap off the sirloin given a new name. It’s a tasty cut, but best served thin sliced. The sirloin has a lot of nice flavor, but the swirling grain can make it chewy too.

The burn pile for the lower part of the property got burnt up. Did it in the big fire ring so we had a nice bed of coals for a campfire with s’mores, then we watched Serenity for movie night on the dock. It was pretty dang chilly at 56F over the water. I fired up one of the patio heaters and was still cold.

I didn’t get my main project done, or even started, but I did get a bunch of small projects done that had been on the list for a while. Mostly electrical, but there were a few sort of “hey it’d be nice to get this done” things too. Played a couple of rounds of pool while piddlefarting around in the garage. Easy enough to sort, clean, and move stuff while waiting for my turn.

Used my pole saw on a few trees. Two smaller trees on the HOA lot, and a couple of saplings, all killed by something and starting to drop limbs were turned into firewood and brushpile. A couple of my tree limbs got trimmed too.

Changed out two light fixtures.

Even had a chance to fish for about half an hour.

Steady, if slow, and low priority tasks, but work got done.

Today the appliance repair guy is supposed to fix the dishwasher. I sure hope so. I’ll be doing some more things on the list, depending on when in the day he gets here. I will definitely be mowing before I leave for Houston.

There are a few more things I found that I need to move up here, and a hole or two that should be filled. I think I’ll move about half of my serious medical preps up here too. All the long term wound care, and more heavy duty, I don’t necessarily know how to use it but someone else might’ stuff should probably live up here. At some point soon I need appropriate storage for some other needful things, and all the accessories and accoutrements that go with them. I’m overdue on that last, but there is a tough balancing act involved.

In fact, equipping another place has a lot of decisions that boil down to “where should this primary stack live?” “What about this thing that is most useful in this or that scenario?” I’m assuming I won’t be able to use a U-Haul to bring it all with me if we do in fact BO to this L. At that point, it’ll either be here, or it will likely be lost.

Don’t want to strip my primary residence though, lots of scenarios have us staying there, or trapped there. Plus, if I’m there most of the time, I’m more comfortable having some things near at hand. Short of equipping everywhere identically, decisions must be made in a world of limited resources.

It’s an interesting and challenging situation to work through, and the consequences of getting it wrong could be dire. I’m leaning toward, “every place is mostly equal, with some specific to the location scenarios supported as needed.”

However your situation shapes your choices, stack them up…

nick

Cool. Really cool. Below 60F overnight. 52F when I went to bed. That is pretty chilly. Today should be cool and clear too.

Spent most of the day getting the pool table set up. It plays just fine and looks pretty good. Wife loves it and that was the goal. There are a lot of memories from her childhood linked to playing pool, so this was more important than I knew.

Today I’ll be working yesterday’s list. If no one opens the canned sunshine. Bloody hell.

Top up your preps. Stack your stacks.

nick

Starting cool and a bit overcast. Not supposed to be raining in Houston today, but by now we all know how that can turn out. It was cool yesterday, and mostly overcast, with occasionally rain, mostly depending on where you were. Typical Houston.

The rain did keep me from working in my storage units, so I only took a bin or two worth of stuff to auction this week. He’s definitely on board with me bringing another load next week so that continues to be good. I’ve got stuff, and it needs to move. And even though prices are low compared to previous auctions, my stuff is still selling. For now.

With money getting tight, I am a bit late unloading my stuff. I should have been doing it for the last year, as I’ve said many times. Well, the hard times are here. They will get far worse I’m sure, but it’s already started. The typical ways out of the dilemma are ‘fight a big war’ and ‘issue new currency’. That’s after the price and wage controls are implemented but fail to solve the issue. Neither one of those sounds appealing to me.

Revolution, or at least ‘uprising’ often happens in there somewhere too.

No matter which path is chosen, a whole lot of people usually end up dying.

I really don’t see a path that avoids one of those other than a paradigm breaking event (like aliens revealing themselves, and really only by doing it in a way no one can armwave, like by dropping big rocks on population centers) or a messianic leader with huge support and iron will, ALONG WITH a big world altering event.

So I stack, and upskill, and network. Because people will make it through and I intend to be one of them. Along with my family and friends.

Join me on the journey, and we’ll get to the other side together. [but only if you stack too.]

nick