Category: march to war

Sat. Aug. 3, 2024 – getting tired of the heat and humidity…

Another hot humid day. More reason to find indoor stuff to do. I managed some outdoor stuff, and some mostly indoor stuff yesterday but still managed to get a bit dehydrated.

I tried for balance, and for cool down periods. I didn’t go in the sun at all. Still sweated more than I realized. I was working in the covered carport, and in the garage. I’ve got the airconditioners running in the garage, but they can’t get it down below about 81F when it is 100F out. You’d think that was good enough, but it’s still sweat dripping off your eyelashes if you do any real work.

Still, despite my complaints I did get real stuff done yesterday. And I managed to do a load of laundry in between other things. Domestic bliss, even here.

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Lots of doom pron in the Daily Mail about the stock market downturn yesterday. Dunno if it’s real, but it feels too early for the really big hit. 2008 played out over the weekend so it’s possible for big things to happen very suddenly… Keep your eyes open, and some cash on hand…

Having said that, I raided my ready precious for $800 to buy 4×4 posts for my dock project yesterday. I hope I don’t come to regret not having the cash.

Can’t time everything right, and the universe tends towards maximum perversity. It would suck to have the financial apocalypse this weekend. We’ve made preparations, but there is always more you can do, and you always want more time to do it.

With that in mind, stack some extra. Consider this weekend a wake up call that things are coming apart. They do that periodically. Don’t get caught lackin, get to stackin’…

nick

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Fri. Aug. 2, 2024 – enough slackin’, time for work

Hot, still and again. But it’s the humidity that is killing me. Just standing still outside, in the shade, with a breeze, and I had sweat trickling down my spine and sternum yesterday. My thermometer said 101F, in mixed sun and shade. Dunno what the actual RH was but it felt like 95%. Probably get that again today.

I didn’t do any work during the day yesterday. I spent several hours just sitting and talking with my buddy up here. I did do some of it while moving some of the stuff out of my truck bed, and sweating with that little exertion, so I feel like I made the correct call about doing any work outdoors. I still could have done some stuff inside though.

Late in the day I did the string trimming, and I ended up blurry and soaked to the skin with sweat. Had to shower and it took a while to cool down. I was dumb, and pushed just a tiny bit too far. Good warning for taking it easier though.

Today I’ll be unloading the rest of the truck, picking up some posts I bought up here to use for dock repair, and doing some other stuff, indoors with A/C, as a break. I might even do laundry.

That should be enough to wear me out. The humidity is crippling. Well, very limiting at the least.

Working to improve my situation… and stacking stuff against future need. Like most days.

nick

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Thur. Aug. 1, 2024 – time marches on, gonna be school starting up soon…

Hot and humid, but first merely warm and humid. Supposed to be clear for a few more days, so the sun will heat it up soon enough.

I spent yesterday fixing my mower, and cutting the grass. I did my yard, and the HOA park next door. Took a long time as I had to go slow and take less than full swaths so I didn’t bog down the mower. Grass was really tall and thick.

Today I’ll probably trim and blow to finish the yardwork. Might try to burn some of the slash pile. Will find some projects that don’t involve baking my brain later in the day…

The world continues to get weirder, and march to war. Anyone got a good article about increased export controls? Heard someone mention it in passing as part of the difficulty for their business in this economy. Depending one what’s restricted, I’ll add it to my list of indicators that war is coming.

War or not, preps are a good thing.

nick

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Wed. July 31, 2024 – it’s getting hot in here…

Hot and humid at the BOL today, although slightly less than Houston, if I get lucky. It was hot yesterday in Houston, and dripping wet. Just standing around outside had my shirt soaked with sweat. The humidity just makes it miserable. We’ll get more too, before the summer is done.

I spent the day doing pickups, and running errands before heading to the BOL to do some work. I had to hit Lowes for some lumber and plywood, and grabbed some closeout plumbing supplies too. I always check the clearance aisle and yesterday I hit paydirt. They had a bunch of sharkbite fittings marked down to 1/4 or 1/3 of retail. Since I’ll eventually need to finish my master bath remodel, I picked up a bunch of stuff.

Also swung by the chiropractor, and the HEB for some groceries. Nothing really good on sale at the HEB this visit.

I also dropped the dog off at a friend’s house for the week, and loaded up the truck. By the time I got all that done, and did the minimum housecleaning that would keep me alive when my wife gets back, it was after 10pm. Kinda late to be heading up, but I figured at least I’d be here in the morning.

And I’ve got a bunch of work to do. The grass is knee high. It’s gonna be slow going bushwhacking that. Then I’ll start looking at the list, with heavy weight given to tasks in the shade or in the house. I do not want to hurt myself in the heat.

Maybe I’ll find some time to write and AAR for the past two months. I did learn a few things.

Always be learning new things. And stacking the knowledge as well as the stuff.

nick

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Tues. July 30, 2024 – Still home, but not forever…

Sunny and hot. Again. Dripping sweat hot. Again. Summer is still here.

Yesterday I started my day sweating in a storage unit. Got that job done, and decided to see my main auctioneer. They are still swamped with their own items, so I’m still holding off bringing them more.

Hit the Goodwill bins on my way home. Didn’t get much, but did pick up a couple of things for me, and a couple for the auction. Went to dinner with my sibling, and had a nice chat. W and the Ds are at her parents’ house for the rest of the week, while I’m headed to the BOL to work.

So today I’ve got pickups to make, supplies to buy, a truck to load, and a dog to drop off at a friend’s house. Then I can head out. By the time I get all that done, I might sleep here and head up later. I don’t want to shift another day, as it’s easy to slip the days… and I don’t know if we’ll have a sunny day later. Or in theory, I could take the wife’s minivan…

I just hope I am not dripping sweat the whole day.

I’ve added a couple of solar panels and an inverter or two to the stacks. I’m bidding on an inverter/charge controller and another panel today. I want to start slapping some sort of solar power system together, so I can start finding the unknown unknowns… as solar has moved up my list. I still need a good source for batteries though. Several of my lead acid leftovers no longer take a charge. Something is sure to pop up soon.

And I’ll stack some more when it does. Stacking is what I do.

nick

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Mon. July 29, 2024 – busy day today…

Cooler to start, but plenty hot later. Forecast says we’ll be in the clear after all the rain we’ve gotten, and I’m sure that will make the air hotten… or something like that. Rained gently off and on all day Sunday, so I stayed indoors and puttered.

I spent some time looking at laptops to find something to use at our upcoming convention for power point. I have a stack of lappys but one won’t boot, one has a black screen, one battery doesn’t charge… one is an atom based wimpy POS, and the others are win7 with ppt 2007 installed. I might have to use my new toughbook…

I did some more cleaning and organizing. I can now mostly walk in an L shape in my office… I pulled out two 3 foot stacks of books to take to the BOL and put on the shelf there. I’ve got another 6 foot to take there next trip too. I have a huge pile of stuff to take up there this week. I probably won’t be able to fit it all in the truck, but I’m going to try. It’s also been almost two months since I took anything to auction, so there is a bit of a pileup of that stuff too. I’ll get to it eventually.

Today I have some hobby stuff to do, then pickups, then send the females off to the east coast for a family visit. I’ll eventually head to the BOL but I have stuff that has to get done first.

There is always something that has to get done first…

Oh, and I have to hit the Lowes for materials before heading up too.

It’s a great life…

Stack some projects so you can keep yourself busy. And stack the stuff you need to do the projects. You’ll be glad you did 🙂

nick

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Sun. July 28, 2024 – bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Another rainy day in store if the weather liars get it right this time. Overcast, light rain, cooler… now look what I’ve done. It’ll probably be 100F and sunny, just to spite me. It spit rain and stayed overcast pretty much all day Saturday.

Did my thing in the morning, hit a couple of thrift stores and a pawn shop near my pickup. I’d never been in the stores before. The Goodwill was laid out differently than most, and had zero good stuff apart from a few t shirts. I need some new shirts as I’m wearing them out at the BOL. The non-affiliated but still churchy thrift had high prices but I still found a couple of LP albums. They had a dozen pipes and a rack with a humidor jar, but none of them were anything special and they wanted 3x what I was willing to pay. They did cut the price in half when I asked, but that still wasn’t really enough. Dr Grabow pipes are very common and were never expensive pipes.

Ran out the clock on the rest of the day doing laundry and messing around. I was tired and my brain was fried.

Today I’ve got all the usual stuff to do, and some stuff for my non-prepping hobby. Depending on weather, I will try to do some of the outdoor stuff too. Don’t think that is likely though.

I’m sleeping late today, trying to catch up a bit. Doesn’t really work, but it feels better.

Can’t make up sleep, and can’t use the preps you don’t have… so get to it.

nick

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Sat. July 27, 2024 – non-prepping hobby day, then auction stuff

Cooler, then warming later. Rain. No rain. Light rain. Who knows. We got all of them yesterday at some point. It is nice starting the day cooler, gotta admit that, even if it comes with the rain.

Did a bunch of driving around to pick up stuff. Did some kid chauffeuring too. DIDN’T do the prep I should have for my club. I’m supposed to be providing some laptops for powerpoint, and maybe signage. I’ve got ’em, just didn’t get them all loaded with PPT and ready. I’ve been busy with other things most days.

So I’ll do my meeting, run up north for a double pickup, then head home to do some stuff I should have done already.

Family is going to visit east coast relatives next week. I’ll be headed to the BOL for most of it. Nightraker, if you are still living in the same place, drop me a line? I think you are nearby…? I don’t like splitting the group, especially when air travel is involved, but we still have to live our lives, and seeing family is important.

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Had a chat with D1 while we were driving. It was mostly about my prepping philosophy and timing. And how hard it is to get the timing right, vis Jews leaving Germany ahead of WWII. Better to be too early than too late, I think, and how that applies to our lives and what I expect to see in the next few years. Hopefully it made sense to her.

She’s growing up before my eyes, and it should be helpful to have her ‘on board’ with the why as well as the what.

Times are changing. The system has inertia, massive amounts in most areas, but enormous forces are being brought to bear. The critical decisions have already been made and when we look back, we’ll be able to see when we crossed the line and the bad things became inevitable. The stage is being set, pieces moved into place. Even me and my wife, with small roles to play, are being manipulated. The other day I learned a new phrase, “one drop theory” and I encountered it twice, once online vis Kamel, and then from my wife’s mouth on the same subject. Not a co-incidence. Programming. Battlespace prep. Memetic propagation . Very sophisticated forces are at work and their goals are not my goals.

Stack. It’s hard to influence the flow of history, but we can take steps to shape our own role, and our own experience.

nick

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Fri. July 26, 2024 – not feeling the love…

Hot and humid, raining? Maybe. Rained all day yesterday, so why not today too? I’ve got things to do and would like to use the pickup truck, but don’t want everything to get wet… The rain did cool it down yesterday which was nice. Started at 72F and ended at 78F.

Got through a whole day without hearing about issues with my hobby website. Guess I did finally get the DNS fixed and everything critical working right. If it’s not, I’ll hear about it. Didn’t get a lot else done except auction stuff. I did get two small woodworking projects knocked out. That gets the pieces out of my office and the pile of stuff needing attention. It feels like work but it is really work avoidance.

The new fridge is nice and cold, but as it was wet and raining, I didn’t move it into the garage. I have the fridge and freezer on riser stands to make the tops level, and to raise them so it’s a bit easier to get into the back and bottom of the fridge. The new fridge is taller but narrower than the old one. I’ll need to remake the riser for it if I want them to match. I’ll delay that for a day or two and hope for dryer weather. I need to pick up some 2x4s or hit the piles of fence wood…

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Got a quote from a facebook guy to connect the whole house gennie. Keep in mind it’s 10 feet from the electrical service and the gas service. $3000. $700 for the gas line, and the rest for the electrical work. Yeah, I don’t think so. At least not yet.

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Today I’ve got pickups all over town, east side, west side, south side… and tomorrow, north side. I got some good stuff for the house and the BOL, and even some hobby stuff. I’m definitely shirking getting the house back together though.

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Dinner last night was a pork loin roast (frozen in 2023), sauteed zucchini with cheese sauce (fresh from store), and shelf stable sourdough bread. Ate about 2 pounds of the roast… For dessert, white chocolate macademia nut cookies, from mix with a best by of 9-21. All the cookies got eaten too. Tonight will be a nice chuck roast in the slow cooker, and another loaf of bread.

Stack some food and the means to cook it. And practice. Yum.

nick

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Thur. July 25, 2024 – ain’t no step for a stepper…

Hot again, but starting out cooler. 85F last night, but 100% RH. The cooler temps almost felt pretty good. It rained in the morning, and again throughout the day depending on where you were in town. Today looks a lot like that on the national map.

Did some clean up and putting away then I went out to do my pick up. The only thing I was getting was the fridge I won to replace the garage fridge that died. It’s big, in good shape physically and pretty clean. I got it home and plugged it in. We’ll see if it gets cold before I go to the trouble of moving stuff to get it into place.

I also hit the Deseret Industries thrift store since I was in that part of town. Nothing too good, one book and some vinyl…

The rain hit and I headed home.

Today will be getting the fridge into place, if it’s cold, moving the chest freezer out, and generally moving stuff around. I might do a pick up or two, if I won stuff in the same area. I try to combine the trips to save gas and tolls.

If I’m out and about, I might throw a pry bar and a big hammer in the truck. There are lots of piles of broken fencing all over the neighborhood, and some have the wood I need to finish repairs on my fence. I like to make fence repairs with similarly aged material just so it looks uniform. I won’t grab it if it isn’t good stuff, it’s easy enough to buy the material, but as I said before, it’s not really my fence, so I don’t want to spend money on it. But I do want it fixed. I’m really looking for some cedar 4×4 posts. They are crazy money at the Home Depot, and I’d like some for mail box posts and other stuff too. You never know, and it’s prudent to be prepared…

Speaking of which, I do have a pile of fence stuff in the back corner of the yard, behind the garage. Pickets of several sizes, and some other smaller repair pieces. Much easier to have the stuff and replace a broken picket than to go to the store…

Anticipating future needs is the essence of prepping. And then stacking stuff to take care of those needs.

Stack on my friends…

nick

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