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Category: lakehouse

Tues. Mar. 22, 2022 – 0322022 – think about infrastructure…

Rainy and wet, with an unknown number of bad things happening overnight.   Unknown because I was asleep, and if I don’t directly experience it, it must not have happened, right?  Oh, yeah, that’s not how my team thinks.

Spent the day doing auction stuff, while waiting for septic service guys and foundation repair guys to call back.   The good news is I have an appointment to meet the septic guy on site – Thursday.   I can even sleep in my own bed, and drive up there for the meeting.   And if the toilets flush and the shower drains flow, I might stay up there and work.  If I can get the foundation guy there during that time, I’ll feel like king of the world.

Today is pickups and a lot of driving around.   Lots of stuff for the new house, some ham/radio stuff to use and to resell, and various bits and pieces.    I have an item that I sold 16 days ago, shipped USPS Priority Mail, and it still hasn’t been delivered.    It showed as “unknown” until today when it popped back up in the system in St. Louis.   Hopefully it will be delivered in a day or two.    The buyer has been very patient.    He didn’t even let me know it wasn’t there yet until a couple of days ago.   I was going to ship replacements today, but since it popped up, he said to hold off on that.   Mail is getting weirder, and not just for me.

 

Breakdowns in previously reliable services are just one of the signs of a slow collapse.   If it’s really happening, you’ll be responsible for more and more of what USED to be provided by others, or you’ll have to be content with whatever you get, whenever you get it.  Think about the systems and what you can do to replace them or smooth the ups and downs.   I’ll look at this in a bit more detail later but my mind is foggy today.

Stack stuff you will need for infrastructure or services, even if you don’t put it into use today.  Stack it high.

n

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Mon. Mar. 21, 2022 – stuff to do, stuff to do, stuff to do…

Supposed to be nice in Houston today, but some possibility of rain.  The week at the BOL was very nice.  It warm in the sun, and cool at night.  Perfect for campfires and getting out on the water.  Not great for getting IN the water, but the kids managed to have a splash-fest anyway.

Between the work and the unfamiliar bed, I’m pretty sore.  Kinda late in life to be starting another project like this with a body in the condition mine is in, but sweat equity is the only way to make it work.  And hey, now I get to learn about alternative sewage disposal, and I’ll be ahead of the game when city services stop….    Or I’ll dig a slit trench.

Houses are a lot of work.  Houses in a distant location are more work.  Houses in a distant location that is also rural are a LOT more work.

So, accomplishments so far…

– provide some of own comms infrastructure.

– mop up sewer water.

– paint, and a lot of scraping.

Still to do…

-everything.

Water and food are next while working the other issues, primarily sewage and foundation.  For food, I will move some buckets of bulk up there, and some cases of cans.  Just enough to get started.   I’ll be looking for a chest freezer too.

I’ve already started thinking about rain collection.  The gutters need to be redone anyway, so why not have them dump into a collection system?   The roof is metal and smooth, relatively clean.   Sure there is a whole lake of water, but it’s 40 or more feet lower than the house and the garden.    It would be a good idea to have some potable water barrels in place too, in case the lake got contaminated with radiation or a chemical agent.  Having some water in tanks would be a good hedge against that.  They’d be closer to the house too.  And as it happens, I’ve got a couple of tanks that I have empty at the moment.  More stuff for the ‘transfer it to the BOL’ list.  Oh, and filters.  Need more filters.

The BOL will be a long term project, but there is a need to get some short term solutions in place.

Speaking of water filters, there was a BigBerkey in one of the amazon returns auctions locally.  It ended up selling for $110.   Deals and gear are out there.

Of course, I’m a week behind on every thing here that I was supposed to be doing too.  So there is that.  Like the title says, stuff to do.

 

I’m behind in the news, but I’m sure we’re not further from world conflict, economic collapse, and all the  troubles of the world.   So stack, stack, and restack.  You’ll be glad you did.

nick

 

 

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Sun. Mar. 20, 2022 – well, we knew there were issues

We probably should have met with the septic guy right away…..

Beautiful day yesterday.  Kids and wife all got out on the water. I played lawn Jarts with D2.

Much work was done.

Then we played the Lord of the Rings version of Monopoly. More fun than regular Monopoly.  The tokens are movie character minis in metal. Neat.

Today is cleanup and secure for departure.  And I’ll be back up here to meet with the septic guy as soon as he’s available.   And a foundation guy.   No surprises, but I was hoping we had some time before needing septic service.   We did get the propane filled, and system inspected.

We’ll be upgrading gas stuff as we go too.

More good neighbors.  They have a plan to isolate the development for the zombie apocalypse.  They are thinking about it and at least jokingly planning… Which is a good thing.

Keep stacking my friends.

n

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Tues. Mar. 15, 2022 – The Ides of March. Beware! If you’re Caesar.

The rest of us can probably not worry much.

Cool and wet in Houston.   Last I heard from up north a storm was rolling in at the lake…  but because of the complete lack of comms there, I’ll find out when I get back up there later today.

 

Regarding Barbara… I put up a post on her site and did an update comment late yesterday.  Long story short, her knee got infected (some MRSA variant) the knee replacement implant was removed, and she’s at a facility where they are both managing the infection and doing PT to get her strong enough to return home.  She is doing ok, better than the last time this happened, almost exactly 2 years ago.   She expects to be at home in a couple of weeks, and will probably not post until then.  If I have any news I’ll post here and at her site.

 

Regarding my adventures in BOL land… no comms.   My older cell booster couldn’t see anything.  The neighbor says his booster works ok, but only with verizon.  I’ll try my newer booster, but even if it works, someone in the family will be getting a verizon phone plan.   The neighbor is amenable to sharing his starlink service if it ever arrives, so that should ease things a great deal.

My wife spent the day painting out 70s plywood paneling.   I was messing with the antenna and booster most of the afternoon.   We got a late start, and wanted to take the first full day there a bit easy.   Kids were inflating stand up paddle boards, and kayaks.  Maybe we’ll get out on the lake today, if the weather opens up.   It was cool in the morning but got uncomfortable in the sun by afternoon.

I came home to reload the trailer and make a second run.   I also brought a bunch of scrap home to dispose of here.  No trash service up there.   I spent the evening loading up, and will load a bunch more stuff before leaving this morning.  I’ll unload and head back to Houston in the afternoon.  I have to return the trailer before 6pm.  I will probably spend tonight in Houston like last night, and head back up Wednesday morning.   I’ll load some more in the pickup, if it’s not raining.

It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL.  No AM radio during the day, only a few FM stations, mostly church stations, and a country station.  No news breaks that I heard all morning.  I’m taking a shortwave with me today.  Funny if that works better than local.   I can also take my XM radio.   I will be putting up a tower at some point, for TV, cell, and ham radio.    We don’t have to watch or listen, but that’s a bit different than not being able to.    At some point I might try my DirecTV “camping” system.  It’s a dish on a ground supported tripod with 50ft of cable.   I’ve got plenty of DirecTV gear, but no active subscription.   It didn’t occur to me yesterday morning to try the XM in the car.  In any case, the world survived another day.  Gnu willing that will continue.

 

Busy days, lots of driving, and WWIII rumbling in the distance…  interesting times.

Stack something new today.

n

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Sat. Mar. 12, 2022- non-prepping hobby meeting today

COLD.  Windy last night, cold today.  40F when I went to bed with temps falling.  Hopefully clear and warming later.

Short shrift today as I was very tired and went to bed early.

I’ve got my hobby meeting today, then loading the vehicles, and then possibly heading up  to the BOL.  I say possibly because I’d like to do the driving on Sunday instead.   I might have to ‘stub out’ all the week’s posts too, in case I don’t find any internet, so that at least the door gets opened and the light’s turned on…

 

Spent yesterday doing errands to get ready for next week, and finishing up at my client’s.   Stopped at the bank to do some business too.  This time there wasn’t a line.  Needed cashier’s checks for an application with an agency.  In this day and age, no internet payment option, no credit cards accepted.    Pain in the backside.

(See, I’m living as if there will be a tomorrow, following the rules, because most often there IS a tomorrow.)

I really want somewhere outside the city to go, if I have to go, and this is all working toward that.

So stack what you can, learn what you can, and get ready for whatever comes.

nick

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Wed. Mar. 9, 2022 – more work, less talk

Cold and wet, but less wet than yesterday when there was misty drizzle or light drizzle most of the day.  It was 46F when I got up and 44F when I went to bed, and stayed pretty cold all day long.  I really hope today will be warmer, and drier.

My plan for yesterday got switched to a degree with the plan for today.   The rain stopped me from doing stuff at my storage, or secondary, and it would have been nasty at my client’s house.  So I did smaller things and picked up the kid from school, and drove around.

Today I need to be finishing up at my client’s house.  I need to get done and paid, and I need to change gears and get stuff done at my secondary and start work at the BOL.   We wired them money, signed some papers, and possibly today, or tomorrow, we’ll officially own the new place.  Then some real work can get started.

Stuff continues to worsen on the world stage.  Lies and misdirection continue to be foisted on us.  Prices are still going up.  The body politic is more divided than ever.  People are running wild in the streets of our big cities.   All bad things.

Work your list, improve your position.   Get out of the big cities.  Don’t be distracted from your goals by the spectacle around you.   Stack all the things.

n

 

 

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Fri. Mar. 4, 2022 – If it weren’t for disinformation, there’d be no information at all

Cool but not cold, still damp, and maybe sunny later.  It was finally sunny after noon yesterday and I actually got a little sunburnt standing around outside while doing my errands.   Now I’m itchy and sore.

I decided to consolidate some of my storage units to one closer to the house.  Besides being burgled, and not having any video or suspects, the company recently posted a slew of ‘no guns’ signs.   They are legally posted, legal wording, and I’m ignoring them completely.  They weren’t in the contract, so since I’m unable to end the contract before my monthly anniversary date, I consider them to be invalid.  No way I’m going to be unarmed on the property when they can’t even keep thieves from robbing my unit.

I’ll be sorting for ebay and local auctions while I move the stuff to the new unit.  And of course, it needs to happen immediately so I don’t end up paying for an extra month on the old unit.   As a side note, there are a lot more storage units available now than there were a year or two years ago.  Don’t know why.

Took another couple of bins to one auctioneer, and he says he wants more stuff next week.   He’s expanded his business and now he needs to keep feeding it, so he wants my stuff.  I got the check and report from the last auction and I made money.  Most of the stuff that sold well came from the Goodwill outlet store  (the ‘bins’).   If I could double the gross, and do it twice a month, it would be a really nice part time income again, just with the one auctioneer.

Sold one item this week on ebay, that has been listed for 3 years.  It’s the first sale of the item that I can recall, and I’ve got 79 more listed.  Made 12$.  Ebay has not been paying off for smaller items like I’d hoped, but my daily listing stopped, and that kills you in the search results.  I’ll take the blame for now.

Today I really need to end up at my client’s after I do a pickup or two.

Then home to do weekend stuff.

We still don’t have an actual “closing date” for the BOL, but there is a plan to do the paperwork, transfer, and handover separately, instead of doing it all on one day, in person.  Should work ok.   We just need to actually DO it.

Once I can start the process of moving and fixing at the BOL, I’ll feel better, although the work will be harder.  I do better when I have more external deadlines.

The world seems to be imposing some deadlines on all of us.  We don’t get to see the timeline, but the feeling is very strong that there IS one.   I think things will be getting very ugly, and it has already started to accelerate.   I’m reminded of the thought experiment about the pond and the water lilies that double in number every few days.   The question is, how much of the pond is covered the day before the last doubling?  And the answer is “half”.    The pond goes from half covered to fully covered in one final doubling.   It takes a while to get to ‘half’ but only one additional period to get to ‘full’.   “It happened overnight!”  “It came out of no where!”   We’re in the early stages, but the end will seem sudden nonetheless.

So stack food, fuel, and friends, plus whatever else you are still short of.  I’m increasingly sure we’re gonna need ’em.

nick

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Tues. Mar. 1, 2022 -… makes a man healthy wealthy and wise…

Cold again, getting warmer throughout the day.  And then back to cold at night.   It ended up being a gorgeous day yesterday, once the sun warmed everything up.  Hoping for more of that today.

Did my pickups, and spent  the afternoon with my daughter.   We did go grocery shopping at the “small” HEB store near our house.    There were a lot of empty spots on shelves.   I’ve never seen the veg and fruit area with so many empty areas.   They flipped the trays over to take up the space, something I’ve never seen before, so they weren’t just slow restocking.     They were putting the items on the front of the shelf with nothing behind too.

The weirdest thing though was the meat cooler.   They usually have about 6ft of cooler for beef steaks, and featured cuts.   Yesterday they had ONE foot with a couple trays of NY strips for $12/pound, choice grade.  They had filled the rest of the space with packaged food from other parts of the store.   There was still beef in the “cheap” section of the upright display cooler, lower grade and lower cost cuts, but not the usual number of choices either.

Canned veg was stocked as it has been, there was some dried pasta on the shelf.  I was able to get the last 4 bags of egg noodles, which have been out of stock for a long time.  Soda was ‘new normal’ or maybe a bit better.  Snacks had big holes in every category.   Seafood was in the cooler but prices were crazy high, snow crab clusters were $17/pound.  They used to be $7.    Cat food and litter was back on the shelf, with gaps scattered throughout.

The milk cooler had brands I’d never seen before as well as the usual.  Eggs were stocked but limited choices.  Still no cinnamon rolls or regular biscuits in the fridge rolls.

All in all, the absence of choice or better grade beef was the most disconcerting, with the flipped over trays in the fruit and veg display areas coming in a  close second.   Never seen that before.

Dinner was hamburger helper beef stroganoff flavor and grilled skewers of chicken hearts.  D2’s favorite.

Today I’ll be pulling stuff for a local auction, and dropping that off, then doing a pickup.   I won a bunch of scanners in another auction, but don’t know yet if I have to go get them or if they will transfer them to Houston for me… it’s a mix of analog handhelds and digital base/mobile units.  Most I will list on ebay, but several will be added to the ‘shack’ here and at the BOL.

Speaking of the BOL, the title company is moving forward but we still don’t have a closing date.   It’s been a month, and that’s without inspections or bank financing.   I don’t remember this house taking that long, and I don’t know if the title company is dragging their feet  or just swamped with work.

I did notice a bunch of newly closed businesses around town.  There are some new places opening, and new construction continues in some areas, but the level of trash on the ground, car parts in particular, and on the  roads is higher than at any other time I can remember.  The empty storefronts, and signs with the company name removed are definitely increasing, at least in some areas around town.  There seems to be a lot of illegal dumping too.  The slide is continuing.

 

In the face of continued shortages, buy what you can when you see it.   With the idea that it’s getting worse, not better, stack it high.

And keep your eyes open and brain engaged.   Things are getting stranger and more desperate every day.

n

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Tues. Feb. 15, 2022 – some days it’s just a journal…

Cold changing to cool, changing to really pleasant later in the day.   I really enjoyed yesterday afternoon.  Blue sky, nice breeze,  moderate temps.  I’ll love another couple of days like that.

Spent the morning at my desk then on a pickup in Sugar Land.  Then on to my secondary location.   After that it was pick up the brat (couldn’t resist the rhyme, but she’s really very sweet).  We went grocery shopping, picked up some cards, then got dinner started.  Played my third game of chess and lost.  Made a stupid mistake and didn’t defend my king properly.  We replayed from that point on and I eventually won, but it took a lot more than the 3-4 moves I initially thought it would.   I’m liking playing with a 10 yo.  Probably wouldn’t like playing with someone who knew all the games and moves for thousands of variations by heart.

Today I’ve got a whole bunch of pickups in the same general direction, so I’ll do a big loop.   It’s mostly stuff for this house or the BOL.   I keep bidding on kayaks but I don’t want to pay!  I’ll get one eventually for cheap enough that I can afford it AND the foundation work…

Speaking of fixes, at the BOL they have a system to pump lake water into the grass sprinklers.   That pump is about the only thing I’m worried about freezing last week.  Anyone know if a ‘shallow well jet pump’ is what that might be or if such a beast is appropriate for that job?   There are a bunch of them in the auctions this week, and it seems like the universe telling me something…  Signs and portents, they are everywhere.  It’s just one of a thousand small jobs that might or will need to be done pretty soon after we take possession.  The list of stuff is long.  The house didn’t have much maintenance for the last dozen years, and no style or tech updates in 40…

There’s always something more to do.  The plumbers came back and finished their work, so now the rest of putting the wall and ceiling back together is on me, as well as the siding and any sort of dressing up that the piping needs.  I hope my wife will arrange the electrician, or I’ll be doing that too.  I need two of me.

It’s all in the service of getting set for what’s coming.  Old water heater was failing in 2008 when we bought the house.  We got our money’s worth but it was WAY past time to replace it.   Same with the HVAC system.  The trick will be finding a replacement as sturdy, simple, and long lasting.  The shortage of very high end systems may work in our favor there.  I don’t need a Lambo, I need a Ford truck.

There’s always more to stack, another skill to learn or practice, more gear, more parts… more people.  Get busy!

 

n

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Sat. Jan. 29, 2022 – Life is but a dream, shiboom shiboom…

Chilly willy today.  Supposed to be clear and breezy.  It was pretty chilly all day on Friday, and was 38F when I went to bed.

Did my pickups, did some messing around.  Auctioneer did not set a time when I could bring down some more stuff.  I did get the breakdown for my sales with his last auction.  Stuff did better than I thought and there was a lot of it that I didn’t realize was mine when I looked at the listings.   I’ll get a check next week.  The big surprise was books with a local theme.  I grabbed several last week so I’ll try to get them into an auction too.

Purchase of the lakehouse is proceeding.  The title guarantee is the next delay as they do the search.  They aren’t in any hurry.

Today’s plan, sleep in.  I’m definitely running on empty sleep wise. Then I need to get to work.

I have lost track of what’s going on in Ukraine, so if anyone can summarize below, that would be cool…

Divemedic has been posting about some radio traffic and flight tracking that makes me think that the words are just words as they pick their moment.  When that kicks off, it’s going to make some really big waves.

So stack some things.  Chances are you’ll need them.

n

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