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Category: linux

Sat. Feb. 21, 2026 – At the BOL, supposed to be working

It is supposed to be clear today. It was hazy and 60F when I got here last night. No idea what the temp should be like but I’m hoping for “not too hot” as most of what I’d like to get done is in the attic. It was a warm and moist day in Houston yesterday. It’ll probably be warm and moist here.

Did my auction pickups yesterday, then loaded my truck. Hit the Lowe’s for some supplies, and eventually got on the road. Lotsa cops on the road last night.

Today I’ll like to get started pulling in the electrical for a couple of bath fans, a reading light over the toilet, a towel warmer, a space heater for the hall bath, and power to my ‘server closet.’ If I can get all that in, and my buddy can be my safety officer while I do the connections, then I can maybe start on networking and cams. That is the overall goal for this weekend and maybe Monday. There is plenty to do besides that, if I need more or different work.

There is always more.

But I’m improving my situation and that’s a good thing.

If you can’t work, stack.

nick

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Fri. Feb. 20, 2026 – puns are no phun

Warm, possibly clearing and turning into a nice day. It never really did yesterday, staying warm and humid, but overcast or cloudy. Still, not really winter. I had the windows down while driving, and it was nice enough.

I did auction stuff in the morning, winning two things for the BOL, then pickups in the afternoon. I followed that with a couple of hours of sorting at the shop, then dinner at home. Then more auction stuff, with a whole lot of lots in an estate sale. All home and household stuff, all at steep discounts. I’ll be picking that up today.

I have the estate sale to pick up, and then I’ll try to load the truck and head to the BOL in the late afternoon. I’d love to get through The Woodlands before 5, and I can do a pickup on the way if I do.

I’ll need to do some shopping before heading out though. I want to be sure I have what I need to do the electrical work I want to get done this weekend. Turns out it will just be me there, so I should be able to crank out some work. I’ve got bath fans to install, lighting to install, a heated towel bar, and some outlets. If I get that done, I can start setting up the networking and cameras.

There’s plenty of other stuff to do there too, including yard work, so I don’t think I’ll lack tasks. I’ll have to put away all the stuff I bring up with me too.

All in all, the next couple of days should be very busy.

It’s a good life if you don’t falter. Plus, I’ll get to use some of the stuff I’ve been stacking! While also adding to stacks. Win – win!

Join me in stacking, won’t you?

nick

Read the comments: 45 Comments

Thur. Feb. 19, 2026 – paperwork, I’ve got piles.

So it never really cleared up yesterday and was quite dark and dreary by late afternoon. It felt like it would rain at any time, and the humidity was stifling. Didn’t rain though. I have no idea what today will be like, but the national forecast has us in the clear.

I did auction stuff in the morning, and then finally got out of the house (after some needed personal maintenance) to do my pickup. One of the things I got is a little 3d printer that is marketed as sort of “kid’s first printer”. It’s mostly made from plastic and has a small build envelope. I’ve got to see if it’s all there, and see if it actually works. The whole thing fits in about 1 cubic foot. It’s cute. $14 wasn’t much of a risk.

Today I’m not even making plans. I’ll just do what I can, where I am, with what I have.

All with the goal of improvement, and stacking.

n

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Wed. Feb. 18, 2026 – capon, kapo, Kapton, kapok, capo

Silly me, tricks are for kids. And today is supposed to be trick free and very nice. Clear and moderate, mid 70sF, maybe into the low 80sF? Nice. Yesterday I had the windows down for most of my driving around and it was refreshing. This mild weather has been a treat.

So I didn’t get much done in the morning besides auction stuff. And my afternoon pickup was not something I could combine with anything else, so it was like last year when I spent the whole afternoon doing pickups. I had hoped to get a second in, but the traffic was going to make a normally reasonable trip into a 2 hours round trip. I will get that one today.

I did hit the Goodwill for a pair of shoes and some media. Turns out I already had ripped 6 of the disks. Oh well, I’ll send them to the BOL, and maybe we’ll watch Young Frankenstein off the DVD instead of the server.

I feel like I’ve been fighting off a cold, or maybe it’s allergies, but I’m sure blowing my nose a lot and sneezing prodigiously… bit of brain fog to accompany the snot too.

Today I’ll do a couple of pickups and some work at the shop. No child to pick up after school, and more flexibility with dinner, so I can work a bit later if needed.

I did vac seal the sirloin I bought on sale an froze it a couple of days ago. It was nice to be stacking meat instead of drawing down the stacks. I still need to go through my canned goods and triage out the damaged and failed cans. I really need better storage conditions. And I should pull all the fruit and tomato cans at the BOL before they mess up my storage there…

It’s always something. Usually several somethings, and I don’t work hard enough to keep up.

Speaking of which, I’m skipping the Houston area hamfest this year. It’s this weekend, which is also the first time I can go to to the BOL in months, and the last time for another month, unless I go mid week. It’s a month early, and I don’t have much new stuff to sell this year, and no time to get ready before Saturday. First time I’ve missed it since I started going, and I feel weird about it. People seem to look for my load o crap in particular, and it’s a great day to see and chat with people. I won’t even be going to check out the show, which would be a lot of fun, because I’m gonna be in the attic pulling wire at the BOL. I’ve got to get that done before the heat really arrives.

There is never enough time for everything, and sometimes the choices suck. It’s also funny that two guys from the community at the BOL are guys I only see at the Hamfest… I won’t see them this year.

Oh well, I need to be working to improve my situation at the BOL right now. And stacking. Always stacking.

nick

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Sun. Feb. 15, 2026 – nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

It’s supposed to be clear and a bit cooler today, after yesterday’s overcast and then rain. We didn’t get the big storm that was predicted, but some people did. I guess we’ll just wait and see if it’s a nice day.

I had my non-prepping hobby in the morning Saturday. Sold a few things, but didn’t make any real money. Still nice to move some stuff along. I did buy one thing too, and it was an impulse purchase, and over my normal limit for that sort of thing. Oh well.

After that, I put stuff back into storage, and went home. Did a couple of things, then took a nap. Dang glucose intolerance.

Messed around on the computer, waited for D2 to finish her school thing, and then went out for takeout dinner. By then it had been raining a while but was starting to taper off.

Rain gauge says we got about 2.5 inches. That’s more than I thought.

Today I’m sleeping in and working the list. If it’s nice, I’ll do outdoor stuff, if not, indoor. Pretty prosaic.

Plodding even. But incremental improvement is still improvement.

Work on your stuff, and yourself. Stack.

nick

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Sun. Nov. 26, 2023 – less than a month ’til Christmas…

Cool and clear, sunny. Yesterday was pretty dang nice. Some clouds, and overcast at the Ren Faire most of the afternoon, but nice temps. It would be great if today was the same.

My summary of my day at the Texas Renaissance Faire is in comments yesterday. I enjoyed it. Not a cheap day out, but a day out in the woods, and there was certainly plenty to look at. D2 enjoyed it, which was the main point.

Today I’m hoping to get some Christmas decor and lighting set up. I’ve got a bunch of new lights and some other stuff for this year, and I don’t have a clear idea of what I have or how to use it best, so I have some experimenting to do. I’m also looking at getting a bunch of cheap artificial trees and setting them up outside as part of the display. A forest of Christmas trees, as it were. We’ll see what I end up with. Figuring it out on the fly is part of the fun for me.

I think that public participation in the rituals and traditions of our culture is vitally important, not only for my own kids, but for the continuation of our culture in general. We celebrate a secular version of Christmas, not a religious one, and yeah, I get the issues with that, but it’s what we do… and Americans basically invented most of that from the whole cloth, or stole bits and pieces shamelessly to suit ourselves. It works for us and provides a framework for the coming month. It builds family memories and traditions too. These ARE the ‘good old days’ so do your best to make sure they are “good”.

We are fighting for our very existence culturally. I’ll take every thing I can that helps.

Stack it up, go the extra mile, be the force for change.

nick

Read the comments: 95 Comments

Mon. June 14, 2021 – a fresh new week!

Hot and humid. Possibility of rain. Yada yada, Houston, mumble… Yeah well it got to 107F in the sun at my house yesterday so that’s pretty stinking hot. And I mean stinking, especially after working outside… Today should be similar, with rain possible in the national forecast. It was still high 80s when I went to bed, so if the front moves in and brings some cooling with the rain, I guess I’ll live with rain.

Spent yesterday doing stuff around the house, and not much of it. Other than cutting the grass in the hottest part of the day, I mostly hid in my office. I did get two of my radios finally connected back up to their antennas and power supply, so that was something off the list. They might still have some cabling clean up in their future, but for now, I can at least listen again.

My auction pickup was vintage camping gear. There was a vintage sleeping bag (Comfy, Seattle Quilt Co) that might be worth some money, and a brand new lantern that I have to take a good look at. Styled like a coleman, but all shiny chrome, some research is in order. With the vintage pair of Filson boots I picked up at Goodwill, all I need is a red flannel shirt and I’m all set to hit the woods, 60s style.

While I was in and out of my office, I ripped another 20 or 30 CDs and 15 or 20 DVDs. Haven’t figured out why the Bluray disks won’t rip, but I haven’t looked too hard given all the other stuff on my list.

I updated my NVR linux install. It hasn’t been stable at all, but it’s the MS dotnet stuff that keeps crashing. At least once a day I get a seg fault or some other error, so I decided to try running update. I de-selected all the “move to the next version of dotnet (5)” stuff because it broke the NVR last time. That left the linux stuff and the fixes to dotnet 3. If it hasn’t crashed by later this morning, there has been an improvement.

In-laws were safely delivered to the airport and JetBlue’s tender mercies, so I have my house to myself again. Didn’t make MIL cry this visit, so that’s a win. Didn’t really talk to her at all about anything though. Didn’t say much to FIL either. My wife and I both love our families but there are reasons we live 2000 miles away. I wish it were different but if wishes were horses, we’d all be eating steak.* I try very hard to not get between them and the grandkids, except when my kids need protecting from their bizarre ideas. Fun to eavesdrop when oldest supports Trump in conversations with them. They dodge and bail on the subject pretty quickly. When a 12yo sees the truth, it’s pretty obvious and only the willfully blind refuse to see.

Today I’m stuck at home with the kids so I’ll be doing office and PC stuff. There is plenty of it to do. And when I get stressed, I’ll play with the puppy.

Keep stacking.

nick

*or living on a spaceship

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Thur. June 3, 2021 – these short weeks confuse my sense of time

Wednesday stayed nice all day. We were on the edge of the forecast storm area and once again missed it. Even openweathermap.org had us getting rain around 4pm… and they were both right and wrong. Right on time I got about 4 drops on my windshield, and that was it. We got a spatter at 7pm, but never really got any significant rain. I’m hoping for similar results today.

I have a pickup or two to do, and it would be easier to drop the kids at the pool than listen to them in the car for an hour. Unfortunately my pickups are near the airports, one each, so not a short drive. Worth it though for the stuff. One estate sale netted me an item at below market, even after tax and transfer fees. Unless I missed something in the pictures, I got a good deal on something that is in high demand and somewhat short supply.

I didn’t get any ammo in the auctions this week though, as the prices are still at retail or higher, for old and mismatched rounds.

Speaking of mismatched, I have enough accessories that I can’t sell on ebay (or use myself) that I’m considering selling on gunbroker. Anyone have experience with the actual process? I mostly use them for price checking.

I’d put some of the stuff in local auctions but my “household stuff” guy shut me down for a while. I WON’T be dropping off this load until they clear out some room in their warehouse. And THAT sucks dead bunnies. I’m getting a bit desperate to move some of this stuff.

In other news, I got another dozen blueberries off the bushes yesterday. I think I’ve passed last year’s total harvest now… The tomatoes are taking over the plots and the kitchen. Now my wife is looking at taking a half bushel to the local food bank today. They supposedly take garden produce.

Speaking of food banks, the state wants to give us another SNAP card for the school lunches we won’t be getting – because school is out for the summer. I ended up using the last one to buy food and donate it to the food bank for Thanksgiving meals. I think I will do the same with this one. We qualify (regardless of income) because our kids attend schools that offer free breakfasts and lunches to every student (because we have so many kids that qualify, they give them to everyone). Bread and circuses. F the world.

And WRT the world, I don’t know WHY we’re seeing all the china flu revelations, or why FauxXi is suddenly not receiving cover from the press, but I like it. I do want to know what they are distracting us from seeing though. They’ll be reporting on it, just not emphasizing it, or featuring it. It will be there though, so they can point back to it later. Crypto and debt currently not featured… hm.

Stack what you can. Lots of people are late coming to the party but there are still seats at the table and canapes’ being passed… we’re definitely in the ‘new normal’ though. Increased prices, increased violence, increased awareness, and increased shortages. The trend lines don’t look great to me. Anyone who can offer a counter narrative, I’m willing to hear it, indeed, I WANT to hear it, but there has to be some factual basis for the narrative. I may object to the facts, or to the interpretation, but I would like to hear it, if ya got one.

In the absence of other instruction, keep stacking.

nick

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Wed. April 14, 2021 – things to do outside the house today…

Probably raining, probably warmish, although yesterday wasn’t rainy despite the forecast. It did start misty, and it did sprinkle later in the evening. Big fat lot of nothing during the day.

Spent the day arranging for my next dropoff and cleaning my office. Did two loads of laundry too. Had to stay close to home so I could pick up child 2 from school at 230.

Moved some stuff to storage, brought home a duffel I forgot about. Some stuff from the Goodwill Outlet, for the stack. While the vast majority of the outlet customers were fighting over 25c tshirts, I got an Orvis light weight fishing gear type long sleeve shirt, an Orvis heavy plaid long sleeve shirt, a fleece vest from Helly Hansen, and a rain shell from Mammut. The duffel was Eagle Creek. That’s about $500-600 new retail worth of stuff, all in like new condition. The whole bin was full of outdoor active wear, but most of it was cotton and (other than the plaid flannel shirt) I’ve stopped wearing cotton shirts. They must have dumped one guy’s donation box straight into the bin. It looks like it was never worn. If it’s raining later today I’ll be trying out the Mammut jacket to see if it’s really worth what they get for them. I paid $1.20 / pound. Better living for less, that’s me.

Quick update on my linux NVR… since reinstalling, and letting the update run for everything, it runs ok until it crashes. Seg faults, bo>virtual fail faults, and another one, happen at least once a day. The NVR server crashes, and just stops running. I notice that there aren’t any cam views displayed because the browser lost its connection to the NVR server, restart the server, and it works again. Well, I also noticed that 3 of my cam streams, all from the same model of camera, in the same aspect and resolution, were having visual artifacts. The bottom half of the image would ‘tear’ and turn into vertical lines, and jump around before looking normal. Watching the terminal output log, there were ffmpeg errors thrown at roughly the same time. Anyhow, I recall the install instructions talking about not using the ffmpeg that came with the distro, and there are instructions for getting the version they want you to have… which set me off to google to figure out how to downgrade or undo the update. Looking more closely at it though, the installed ffmpeg was from the correct place and was the same version. So what was different? Firefox updated too.

Guessing that FFox might be the issue, I installed chromium (the NVR developers preferred browser), and noticed there were ffmpeg helpers to install specifically for chromium, so I monkey punched the install, accepted whatever it offered or required, and started chromium instead of FFox to attach to the server… I haven’t had a crash or artifact in the stream since. If this keeps up, I may be finally to a stable and up to date state for the stupid thing. I had also installed chromium on the previous installation, but used FFox most of the time. Maybe the codec, or ffmpeg helpers or something needs to be there and they didn’t notice because they all just use chromium. Since I’m not using the browser for anything other than displaying the live cam views and managing the server, I don’t care what browser it is.

That messing around ate part of the day too.

So today I’ve got one pickup, some other errands to run, hopefully a visit to do some work at my secondary, and more office cleaning (which is also moving radio power supplies, UPSs, antenna feed lines, power strips, storage drawers, my vinyl cutter, monitors, and the huge pile of accreted ‘stuff’.) And that leaves off any attempts to get my old drives re-mounted in my new NAS (for recovery), or to get my existing NAS back under the desk and back on the network to run a good backup. I really don’t want to lose over 500 movie rips, or the hundreds of albums either.

I like civilization, and I really don’t want to lose it. Can’t get a backup in place…

So I keep stacking, and going through the stacks, and sorting, storing, and selling. You should too…

n

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Tues. Mar. 30, 2021- not a completely lost day…

Cool and sunny, chance of rain. Yesterday started cold and wet but ended up very nice. Some threatening skies to the south, but nice at my house! Huge full moon glowing low in the sky at 7am when I took child one to the bus.

I didn’t enjoy the day much though. Felt “off” and went back to sleep after getting the kids out the door. Woke up a couple hours later, so dizzy I could barely walk or stand. Thankfully that passed and I just felt tired, slightly dizzy, and a little nauseous. More ‘achy’ than the day of the shot too. We’ll see how today shapes up. By all accounts, I should be over most of my symptoms soon.

Spent what was left of the day ripping DVDs to disk, poking at my linux box, and getting paperwork in order for tax preparation. I actually got things done in all three areas. The NVR is finally back. It looks like someone put the required packages back where they were, and everything installed and started running. It took a bit of google and poking at it to get my settings to look right, and get the stupid thing saving video in the right place. It looks like it’s working, and without the previous issues.

I got some of the huge pile of paper I need to go through organized too. Today I’ll do more with that. Maybe I’ll do my mileage too. That will help get us ready to file our taxes. I’ll have to actually pay my TX business taxes before we can file the Federal income taxes. No state income tax in Texas though. and some years we get a deduction for the sales tax we paid. Still a huge pain in the backside to do all the required filing and recordkeeping.

There is stuff going on in the world of finance that could be the beginning of the great unwinding, or could be just one more signpost on the way. Better minds than mine will have to decide, but it’s time to look around and pay attention to it. Decide for yourself it it’s a stumble or a fall. I’m no financial genius, and this isn’t advice, but consider taking profits if you have them. I was chatting with a young woman in the checkout lane at the Goodwill Outlet and she showed my how she uses an app called Cash App for her finances. She bought $10 of Tesla while we were standing there, with cash she got from reselling thrift store items. She gets ‘loyalty’ money from the app in bitcoin… which is also available inside the app. I didn’t have a chance to ask her if she ever sells, and what kind of reporting the app gives her for tax purposes, but consider that there are likely 10s of thousands of people just like her poking away at the market, and crypto, and that they likely have very little understanding of what’s really going on. It felt VERY much like talking to a virgin house flipper in 2008…. Be warned.

My stacking lately has been limited to items that are expensive and difficult to find locally. I feel like I’ve got a good base of the basics, and if opportunity knocks with specialty items I should answer the door. That said, waiting just 3 weeks to rotate my gasoline before hurricane season is going to hurt my wallet. My delay in replacing my truck will cost me more than if I’d bought two weeks ago. Inflation? or simple supply and demand? Who can be sure, but prices are going up around here.

If it is inflation, turning money into goods is generally a good strategy. If it goes hyper, you can’t do it fast enough. Can’t happen here? I’m sure the others who have experienced it thought the same thing.

No matter the current reason, I think it’s almost always a good idea to keep stacking (durable things, long lasting things, things you absolutely need, or things that are very easy to convert to other things). You know the drill…

nick

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