Category: march to war

Ok, it’s cold. Winter has fallen across the US, and it’s cold in a lot of places. Mid-January. Not really a surprise. Not record cold either, or record snowfall, just “cold”. Yeah it’s unpleasant to be out in the cold. Yeah, it’s more difficult to drive safely, which btw isn’t actually a concern for a large part of the population even on a sunny day, judging by what I see on the road. Yeah, some people always die when it’s cold. They die when it’s hot, and they die when it’s perfectly average. I am tired, tired, tired of people attempting to manipulate me and the rest of the country. FFS. Do what it takes to deal with the reality we live in. This used to be called common sense.

And there endeth the rant.

Nothing new here. Kids are home, because the roads are slick and the buses aren’t set up to deal with it. Neither are the parents for that matter. The rarity of the situation means that prudent stewards of our tax money didn’t spend it “just in case”. Well, they spent it on something else, with even less chance of solving any issues, unless their issue is a lack of hookers and blow, but in any case, it doesn’t make sense for Houston to have stockpiles of salt, and snowplows. I was quite shocked to see the tollroad spraying something on the road surface Sunday as part of their “protocol.” Shocked that they had the spray rig, shocked that they had anything to put down…

But hey, someone was doing some disaster planning, and they actually bought stuff, trained on its use, and deployed it, instead of leaving the plan in a three ring binder on someone’s shelf. I’m kinda impressed.

Spent yesterday doing small jobs around the house.

Supposed to do a pickup today, maybe more than one, but I’ll bet they wave us off. In that case, I’ll do more stuff around the house.

There’s always stuff.

Year end adds additional stuff too.

Do some stuff today. Inventory, polish, clean, read a manual, touch base with a friend, or stack. Or just do some relationship maintenance…

nick

Cold and clear. Winter. Some places are getting a lot more of it than they are used to. Hmm. We’ll see how cold it will get in Houston. There were reports last night of snow in the Dallas area. They get snow more often than we do, but even Houston gets snow occasionally.

Yesterday I slept very late, and then did my pickup in Kingwood, which is an area north and east of Houston. Still pretty rural, although there are a lot of mega-developments up there, think giant planned communities… The prices I got on the stuff I bought made it worth the drive. And really it’s only about 40 minutes without traffic.

On my way home, I hit the goodwill bins, with a bunch of resale stuff and stuff for the house and BOL finding it’s way into my cart. I also hit the HEB grocery on my way by. The pharmacy has been nagging me to get my prescriptions, but I was 12 minutes too late. Slackers. The store was pretty wiped out. Don’t know if that is typical for Sunday evening, or if it was storm related, but there were HUGE gaps. 20ft of shelving empty in the ramen noodles section. Cream down to a couple scattered containers. Frozen food picked over. The on sale meat was almost gone, but I did grab another tube of pork loin at $2/pound and a brisket at $2.50. I’ll figure out how to cook it, without spending three days smoking it. There was a whole display front cooler in dairy that was empty, and most of the eggs were gone, except for the organic at twice the price.

I only stopped in for the ‘scrip, but figured I’d grab some meat if there was any. I did notice more downsizing of sale units. The ribeye (lowest quality) was marked “thick” but was only 1/2 inch. That gets the total price down for that unit, and I saw the same thing on other cuts of meat- less meat in the package. Coffee is straight up shrinkflation with smaller packages. 12oz in a bag now, not 16, and cereal boxes are so skinny they barely stand on the shelf, but the thin sliced meat is killing me. You can’t shrink the animal, or the iconic cuts, so you have to slice thinner…

Which brings me to some unpleasant thoughts. Even if you are ok, if most of the people around you aren’t, it’s going to affect you by limiting you too. If no one can afford a ribeye, even sliced to half thickness, there won’t be any for sale, even if YOU can afford one.

It extends more generally too. You’re in a blue city, but have kept your head down, and think you are going to be ok. Then things get sporty, some insurgent spikes your electric substation, drops the water main that crosses over the highway, or does something else in the battle between rural and urban, and lo! suddenly YOU have no water or power either. If one side or the other starts shooting cops, there won’t be any cops for you, no matter what you personally think about cops.

The rule about not standing next to stupid people doing stupid things, is going to be applied in spades, whether you chose to stand next to them or not. Where you are is going to determine about 90% of what your experience of the coming troubles will be like.

Think about that, and plan for it.

Stacks will surely help.

nick

That’s my plan anyway. Cold and windy, getting colder. Well we’ll see about that. Supposed to. Should. Might not.

Did my meatspace stuff on Saturday. Had a movie night with the kid. Put away some Christmas stuff. Put the tree out on the curb. Stayed up too late.

So today I’m sleeping in. Then I’ll do some stuff around the house so it won’t be a wreck when my GS troop leader and D2 get home.

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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am a bit, by some of the other blogs I read. They are all somewhere on the red pilled, prepper spectrum, and yet said stuff like “I’ll go to Home Depot tomorrow and get one of those Mr Buddy heaters” or “I’ll go out and get some propane.” Nope, probably not. Probably sold out the day before the big bad cold… WHY PEOPLE?? At this point if you go out for stuff it should be for topping up or correcting some unfortunate timing issue in you use/replenishment cycle. It should not be for getting a critical backup item. One guy had his wife browbeat him into letting preps go. I get that. BUT. Dammit, it’s your job. It’s not rocket science, and everyone’s been talking about it for years now.

Even in my ham radio QST magazine there was an article by a guy who has spent 20 years doing emergency support activities as a ham, who admitted that his own preps never got done, despite preaching preparedness for years. His plan seemed to be “deploy to his ham assignment” and when he couldn’t, it turned out he didn’t have any plan at all. What did he think his family was going to be doing while he played radio?

I fall far short of the ideal, and even of my own goals all the time, but I’m trying. I’m living the life, and doing the stuff… and sharing to show that you can, because if I can do it, you can too. But you have to DO IT.

Don’t keep putting it off, or finding excuses not to get prepped for your local hazards, and then for the bigger stuff. They will come. You will be glad that it all turned out to be a minor issue after all, especially if it was minor because you had preps in place. If you haven’t already, take that first step, and then the next, and the next.

Stack the stuff. For realz.

nick

Cold and windy again. The wind never stopped blowing yesterday. Chilly and windy. At least the sun helped. Today should be the same, jackets and long pants, maybe even hats during the day. But no rain.

Did some auction stuff, but mainly had some gastric distress most of the day. Dunno what I ate, but I wish I hadn’t. Stayed close to home all day. Then did kid school run stuff in the afternoon. Not much actually accomplished. I did break down 10 pounds of pork loin for the freezer. Sliced some chops out of it, and made thin, breaded and pan fried pork chops for dinner. With pork being so cheap, I’m looking for new ways to cook it. I imagine I’m not the only one. Family liked it.

Speaking of cheap meat, I went back to get more of the cheap rib roasts, both pork and beef, but they were already gone. Missed that, much to my chagrin. Goes to show how important it is to get it while you can. I’ve got very little freezer space left here anyway, but I’d have found a way to fit more until I could transfer some to the BOL. I’m almost full up there, but I can use the freezer I had earmarked for the neighbor, and I’ve got an upright there I haven’t even plugged in. If the opportunity arose, I’d try to fill them too.

Today should be catching up what didn’t get done yesterday. Kid stuff in the afternoon, auction in the morning. Clean up and domestic bliss somewhere in there too.

It’s a great life if you don’t weaken, right?

Stay strong, and stack on!

n

Cold and probably wet. We’re in a “possible” rain zone today, but should be clear again tomorrow. And I don’t think it will warm significantly. So, cold and wet. Yuck. Stayed clear all day Sunday though, an it was on the chilly side of “warm enough”.

Spent the day doing little things. Domestic bliss. Maintenance. Some work for my client. Some auction stuff. Doesn’t feel as good as remodeling the bathroom, but it was all stuff on the list.

Today is “family visits the dentists” day. We see a father/daughter team practice, and we all go at once. Saves time. As RBT used to say, we’ll be getting our fangs cleaned.

Then the children will be returned home while I pick up the stuff I won. Good stuff for the BOL mostly, with a thing or two for the house here.

Pennies on the dollar at best, dimes on the dollar at worst. It’s worth the time it takes, to me anyway.

Time to get moving on the bigger projects too.

Do what you can when you can. And stack.

nick