Category: march to war

And it will be hot while I do it. It got plenty sweaty during the day Tuesday, and stayed in the 80sF all night. I think we’ll get more of that today.

Did my pickup in the afternoon, then took the stuff to my shop and unloaded it. I’ve got some steel scrap to drop off today. No money really but it will be out of the shop. I’ll throw some batteries and some bits of other non-ferrous on the pile too.

Spent the evening assembling my new gantry. I’ll finish up with that today, I think. I’ve got to pick up the second load of stuff from the auction too. Three COWs (computer on wheels) from one of the local hospitals. I’ll scrap them, and see what kind of laptops they left in them. Might be decent, might be old.

The ipad I picked up yesterday was a 9th generation. The dang thing has a pin lock, even though the auction pictures showed the settings screen. I hope the auction can tell me the code, as I’d like to use it if possible. The kids’ old middle school uses one to control their sound system and the district IT staff was going to take their ipad away. If I can unlock and reset it, I’ll give it to the theater department. Apple makes it hard or impossible to repurpose their itoys if they haven’t been released by the previous owner, unlike windows and PC based stuff. I guess that’s good if you are worried about theft. Makes it hard to get money for old gear, or to keep it working.

So that is the plan for today, second round of pickups, maybe unlock the ipad, and finish putting the gantry together. I’m sure something will be added to my list as well.

Always be working. Even if each task is fractal. And stack, it’s easy!

nick

Hot, but maybe the front will make it just a bit not as hot? It was certainly hot yesterday before the rain came with the front. Lots of thunder, lots of local lightning strikes. Much drama. Not much rain though. We’ll see how today shapes up.

Did my pickup. The gantry crane will be useful for my truck repairs. The cameras turned out to be analog and nothing I want to spend time messing with. Did my normal returns auction pickup too. Didn’t do much else.

Today I’ve got another surplus pickup to do. I got a bunch more of the roll around laptop cart things from the hospital, so I’ll break those down for scrap, inverters, and batteries. I also got a bunch of open frame telcom racks sold as scrap that I’ll bring to the next hamfest. Racks usually sell well for me. And if not, they are aluminum C channel, and could be re-purposed or scrapped. IDK if I can get everything in one trip, but I’ll know after I try today! I’ve still got tomorrow if I have to make a second trip.

And in order to make room for this stuff, I have to continue my organization and clean out of my shop. Which will be sweaty and tedious. But hey, they call it ‘work’ not ‘playing around’.

Always be working… and stacking.

nick

Still hot, still really humid. But the national forecast has us in the ‘thunderstorms likely’ zone for the next day or two. Some rain would probably break the streak of hot and humid. And we could use the rain. It is getting cooler at night, which is welcome.

Spent the day not doing much productive work. The anniversary is a difficult one for me and it’s easier to just piddlefart around alternating with reading fiction.

Today will start with my monthly meeting in meatspace. We’ve got financials to review, and hopefully at least a hot wash of our yearly event. One thing I know we should/will talk about is doing our own online event registration, instead of letting the national org do it. It’s easier to let them, but there are issues. It would mean more work for me, but I did most of it a couple of years ago, building a store and the reg forms.

After the meeting, I have one or two pickups to do, then I’ll be home to work on some part of the list. Maybe I’ll get my new Bluray drive installed. I just am not looking forward to the process of digging the PC out of the place it lives under my desk. It’s cramped and hard to work in… and there is a lot of stuff in the way. Probably needs to have the dust and dog hair blown out of it anyway.

Keeping everything running around here is a full time job, done by a monkey with a poor work ethic and minimal skills. I definitely envy JEP who had an assistant to come in and help with stuff. At least I get some satisfaction from fixing stuff.

And stacking. That’s comforting too.

nick

Still hot and humid though. I guess Summer didn’t get the pink slip yet. More of the same is still on the menu for at least a couple of days. Some parts of town seem to have gotten some rain yesterday, but nothing at the house. Houston. Weird little microclimates.

Did my pickups. Well, some of them. Did a trash run while I was out. Then I spent time sorting and packing stuff at the shop for my next auction dropoff.

Had a nice chat with my mom. Her 86th anniversary of her birth was this week. She just bought a house and is mostly done renovating and updating it. The pictures look nice. She says she hopes to get past 100 and I hope so too, as long as her brain and body holds up. She’s from tough old hillbilly stock, without the lifetime of hard labor and alcohol abuse, so she’s got a good chance at it.

Today I’ve got my pickup in Alvin to do. It’s a gift for D2, so I’m kinda motivated. The price was right. Good enough to counter the long drive. Prices in the auctions have been low this last few weeks, after rising a bit for some items. IDK if back to school spending is limiting peoples’ available spending money or if this is a bigger trend as people run out of money in general. I hope it’s just back to school. Otherwise, this holiday spending season is going to be a retail bloodbath.

Gas was $3.69 when I filled up yesterday. That’s a pretty big jump for the holiday week. And my mileage is down enough that I’m wondering if something is wrong with the truck, or if they’ve increased the alcohol in the gas. I only got 16 1/2 mpg this last tank of all highway driving. I used to get around 18 on the highway. I even changed the air filter when I noticed it a week or two ago, and that has improved it a bit. Something to keep an eye on.

So that’s the plan for today, we’ll see how it actually goes.

Stack the tools you need, the supplies you’ll use, and practice the skills…

nick

Hot, still, and overcast, without the relief of rain. Probably. It is possible we’ll get some rain and that will help. It was sticky and hot all day yesterday though.

Did some office stuff then did 2 pickups. I wanted to do 4, but left the house too late. Got the tv installed at the house. I thought it was nice not having it for a couple of weeks, but W was insistent.

Today youngest child and I have dentist appointments in the morning, so I’ll probably end up having a productive day. I’ll be up, dressed, and out, so might as well keep that momentum, right?

Always be working. Always stacking. and your health is a prep.

nick

But still hot and humid. Even mid 80sF can wear you out. And it was hotter than that yesterday. The overcast did help, and the intermittent showers probably cooled some areas down. I didn’t see any widespread rain or even a thundershower in Houston, but I might have missed something localized. I only saw a few smatters of rain, and widely dispersed between my house and my client’s.

I did some office stuff and then went to my client’s house. Found and fixed a couple of issues, but nothing definitive. I am leaning toward corroded cables and bad connections at this point. I hit them with deOxIT and we’ll monitor the situation. I will pickup a spare and I’m installing a Ring doorbell at the gate, so that will be another paid day. After that, it felt like today was a weekend and I had to remind myself that I have kids to get to school today.

So normal day for me today. Some auction pickups, and maybe a dump run. Maybe pull my main pc and replace the DVD drive. The bluray drive got here yesterday. There’s always more to do.

And always more to stack.

nick

Still got some way to go with the weather though. Hot and humid again yesterday, although the cloud cover kept the high down a bit. Only mid 90sF. Supposedly we’re gonna get some weather today, possibly a tropical storm or even a small hurricane. Nothing to get as worked up about as the people seem to be though. Our ISD sent several emails about “monitoring the situation” and even my auctions sent emails about possible alternative pickup days if the weather is unsafe to move around in. Seems like massive overreaction to me.

I didn’t get to my client yesterday so that is my main focus today. I spent the day doing office stuff, with a little scrapping and grocery shopping at the end of the day.

Today, I’ll be driving around, and maybe even making a pickup or two if my site visit doesn’t take all day.

Earning money is a prep…

And I’m a prepper.

Stack.

nick