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Category: march to war

Mon. Mar. 28, 2022 – let’s start another week, ‘cuz we got nothing else to do…

Cool but clear, sunny and warmer later.   I hope, because yesterday up north was like that and I want more.   Spring is here, and it’s too short.

Slept in to 8am yesterday, after going to bed early.   Unfortunately, I’m awake at the 5 hour mark out of habit, and had only fitful dozing after that.   Still, dozing in bed is not bad…

Got up and did some cleaning and more cleaning, and a bit of auction stuff online.   Met three new neighbors while out in the yard and garden.   I didn’t want to start any big projects or do anything that could go wrong.  And anyway, an early boss once told me “if you have nothing else to do, clean.”  Working in a kitchen, that was good advice.   I had a later boss, while working as a carpenter in a shop, tell me he never wanted to see me cleaning.  ( I was the highest paid guy in the shop.) He wanted me doing tool maintenance or shop improvements, ie ‘extras’ outside my normal work.  Either bit of advice is good advice depending on the situation.  Yesterday I cleaned.

Another drive home and some catching up online, and I was good to go for the coming week.

I have to do some focusing on basics this week.  NEED to get to the store and fill a couple more buckets.   I have also been running down my stocks of OTC supplements that I take daily, because there haven’t been any great sales.   I really need to build those supplies back up and pretty quickly.  I wasn’t paying attention.   I don’t have  a formal inventory system.  And I didn’t look closely for too long a period.

I’ve been neglecting my ebay stuff too.  Sold two items over the weekend, and they need to ship.  A whole bunch of new items need to list too.   And of course, I’ve got to get the next set of bins to my local auctioneers.   Getting the BOL together is more sexy fun than listing, or sorting, but it won’t pay the bills.

Normal life stuff happening right now includes- car repairs, dr visits, jury duty summons, and all the normal ‘domestic bliss’ stuff that piles up.

Add the ever increasing likelihood of expanding the conflict with Russia, rumbles of food and diesel shortages here at home, and all the falling skies, and it’s all we can do do keep running in place.  Can’t stop for  a minute without falling behind.

 

Keep improving your position.  Keep stacking.  Don’t lose sight of the goal.

 

n

 

(and shout out to Harold Combs, who DID unplug, at least so far, and for a while…)

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Thur. Mar. 10, 2022 – moar preps! moar stacking! Do it!

Less cold and damp, more sunny.  I hope.  It was pretty nice yesterday considering.  I was outside in shirtsleeves, but my nose and fingers were cold.

My plan for the day needs it to not be raining, so, fingers crossed.

I got most of what I wanted to get done finished at my client’s house.   There are a couple of  things remaining, but I need some remote support from the programmer to make progress with them.

Today I’m hoping to move at least a truck load from the one unit to my closer storage unit.  During that move, I’ll try to get another truckload for the local auction sorted out and delivered.

Spring Break is next week and my wife wants to spend the week at the BOL, doing work and exploring the area.  I know the work needs doing, but it does take me away from my endless lists of stuff to do for a week.  Like I said before, I’m going to have to step up my game.

Y’all need to think about stepping up your game too.   Things are already worse than a week ago, and two weeks ago.  There aren’t many things happening to make them better any time soon.   We may not get to Mad Max, but I bet we get to ’30s depression, or WWII levels of scarcity.  And it could be worse.   So get to stacking…

nick

 

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Tues. Mar. 8, 2022 – busy day. Busy week.

Cold again.  Probably just cool and damp later, but cold this am.   We got drizzle yesterday, despite the weather liars at openweathermap.org assuring me that we would not.  The national forecast had us in the rain zone.   It wasn’t bad really, or long, and as I headed north I was back in sunglasses pretty quickly.

Gas prices are rising pretty quickly even here in Texas.  Markets are pretty distorted, and demand is all over the place.   I don’t see any reason for it to get better anytime soon, and lots of reasons for it to get worse.

In fact, that sums up my outlook on pretty much any subject at the moment.  I don’t think sanity and practicality are going to break out.   I see a doubling down on the insanity instead.  And I see it building to a head, and then coming apart kinetically.

Now some people around here have chided me (in the spirit of goodwill, I believe) that I was too negative-  “the end is nigh” ” the end is nigh-er”…   but I don’t think it’s “the end” that’s nigh, but a massive disruption, a massive change in pretty much everything, except human nature.  I did not know the mechanism, but pestilence, war, and famine are always good bets.    Current world events seem to be supportive of that belief, if not yet settling on the mechanism.  And don’t forget to embrace the power of ‘and’ when it comes to mechanism.

I find myself wondering if I was negative enough.  My recent lull in prepping and lack of enthusiasm in the face of everything would seem to indicate that I wasn’t taking it seriously.  Well, now we seem to be at the elbow of the curve for  a lot of things, food prices, gas prices, violence, and I’m feeling a bit anxious that I let too much time slip away.

If you are feeling that too, I think we need to shake it off, take the time we have and USE it.   Anything that improves our position is worth it, with any prep being better than none.   I’m still living by my requirement that nothing I do can be irrevocable, but I’m willing to burn a bridge or two if I have to now.  Nations are starting to do the same.  Several have now announced bans on export of food, or fertilizer, or fuel.  If shortages are coming, nations and people are acting to secure their own needs first.   I recommend doing the same.   DON’T be that guy, faced with empty shelves, crying “why didn’t you leave any for me?”

Unless you are someone’s minor child or legal ward, no one has any obligation to put your needs ahead of their own.  That is not the way many of us are used to thinking of the world, or even living our lives, but that is the base reality.   No one is coming to save you.  Plan to save yourself.  After that, if it’s what you want, plan to save others.

All of it is a lot easier with stacks of needful things.   Get busy.

n

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Sat. Mar. 5, 2022 – time keeps on slippin’ into the future….

Cool, overcast, damp, but not actually raining… except the forecast says possible rain.  I hope for some more clear time to move stuff around.

I did some of that yesterday.  Picked up stuff, and moved stuff.  Back was sore last night, and is sore again today.   I’ve been wearing some lightweight tactical boots and they have both good support and good cushioning.  It seems to be making a difference in how bad I feel after lifting and toting.

D2 has a function for her school club this morning.  Mom is going to take her.  I hope to sleep in a bit.  Not too much, I’ve got too much to do.

And some of it will get done.  Some of it will not.

I didn’t get to Costco on Friday, and I’m loathe to go on the weekend but needs must, if I can find the time.

I can use the extra stacks.   It’s feeling like that sort of a decade.

Stack something this weekend.  Or go all Scrooge McDuck on your piles, and check them over.   But do something.

 

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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Mon. Feb. 28, 2022 – early to bed and early to rise…

Cool, if not cold, with clear skies, maybe.    Yesterday started cold but turned into a very nice day.  I’m hoping for the same today.

Spent yesterday with other enthusiasts, learning more about our hobby.  About a baker’s dozen of us, no masks, decent sized room.   Felt very normal.  We do still have a couple of members limiting their contacts and avoiding crowds, but we’ve been meeting for around a year now without incident.  Mandates may be reinstated in Cali Lite (Austin) but they won’t fly down here.   People are making a personal choice every day and in every different situation, which is as it should be.

Didn’t get anything else substantial done this weekend.  Feeling a bit guilty about that, but such is life.

Will do some stuff today, hopefully some of it will be advancing my goals.  Short day though as it’s my afternoon with D2.   Given that we are once again under nuclear threat, something I thought was going to be limited to fanatics with improvised devices and limited reach, spending time on building “the good old days” is more important to me than ever.  Bloody hell, I was hoping we were past this sort of thing.  On the other hand, I did say this was one of the times of big change.  Can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs, amiright?

I’ve got empty buckets that need to be filled.  I better get busy on that.  And this is probably as good a time as any to rotate a few gas cans.

Keep stacking my friends.

n

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Sun. Feb. 27, 2022 – Another class day

Cold again.  Maybe some rain.  Probably grey and overcast, but I’ll be inside anyway, just like yesterday.   3pm felt like 6 pm …

I was in class all day, then home.  Didn’t get much done other than that.  Sometimes it be that way.

Plan for today is the same.

Plan for Monday involves some grocery shopping.

Also loading up some bins for a local auction.  I’ve got a lot of that to do.

Meanwhile, the players continue their dance.   The ‘western’ allies voted to cut Russia off from SWIFT, but Russia’s been planning for that for some time.  We’ll see how that plays out.  Could turn out to be the end of SWIFT and the petrodollar.   Force people to come up with an alternative to your fully captured system, and when they do, you are a dead system walking.

It’s important to remember that none of the things we expect as “the way things are” are actually written in stone.   There was a time before the Fed.  There was a time before fractional reserve banking.   There was a time before NATO.   A time before just about anything you care to name, and there can and WILL be a time AFTER too.

Whatever is coming after, that’s what I intend to see, and get through, and get my kids through.

Stack the things.  All the things.

n

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Sat. Feb. 26, 2022 – class all day

Cold and damp, chance of rain.  Friday was cold all day, and grey too.  Not a nice day to be driving all over the place but better than pouring down rain…

I did make my pickups though.  Among them, an inflatable stand up paddle board, and a “septic tank riser ring.”   No idea what the septic tank part is, but it was cheap, it was the first septic tank part I’ve ever seen in the auctions, and I just bought property with a septic tank.   Like the irrigation water pump, I figured that the way my life works, I should probably buy it when I see it.  So I did.   Got some double wall stove pipe too.  That makes 3 or 4  stove pipe pieces so far, cap, pipe, heat exchanger box, and something else too.  Again, my life works in a way that I felt like those things would be good to have.   There is an outbuilding that I’d love to have a woodstove in for heat…

Today my non-prepping hobby has a repair class.  I took it a couple of years ago, so this is a refresher, and a chance to get together with people.  Meatspace baby.

Did not get to the store today.  Did fill up the Ranger with gas.   $3.20/gal at Shell.   Not the cheapest store around, but wasn’t crazy expensive before this.   Most of the signs I passed were $3.10/gal.

Lots of people aware of the world situation.  Not many interested in going to Ukraine to fight .

 

The situation can change in a hurry.   Keep your head on a swivel, and keep stacking.

 

n

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Thur. Feb. 24, 2022 – war, violence, pestilence, plague–all coming soon to a city near you!

Cold again, mid to high 30s Fahrenheit early then slightly warmer and plenty damp.   Yesterday started warmer but cooled all day long.

Spent most of the day doing pickups.  After taking the dog to the vet for vax that he needed to continue going to his training class.   Then I was feeling poorly so I laid down for a bit.   Phone didn’t stop ringing during that hour.  Didn’t ring before or after.  The b@stards know.  All in all, not super efficient use of time.

Picked up D1 and spent the late afternoon thrifting.  She needed some stuff for the theater, so we looked while I picked up a bunch of media, and some resale items.   B&W speakers, for example.  Even with the scuffs they should sell for $175-200 the pair.  They were in the bins at the Goodwill outlet.  There were several other “good score” items as well.  D1 was impressed.   We didn’t get her props.

Took the dog to his last ‘training’ class.   The woman teaching is incredible with the dogs.   They WANT to do what she tells them.  All the dogs made good progress, and their owners learned a bunch of stuff too.

Today I’ll be headed out to my client’s house.(assuming nothing bad happens to my back while I sleep)

My back finally ‘popped’ while stretching in a parking lot, and the worst of the pain abated when everything was properly aligned once again.  Took an extra day  because I didn’t want to use the pain reliever.  Lesson learned. On the plus side, the yoga roller and the inversion table worked to get me back on track without chiropractic visits.  One of my goals was to have the stuff and the knowledge to deal with the situation without recourse to pro help.  Now to get started on prophylaxis.

I like western civilization.  I know a lot of people that wouldn’t be around if not for our high level of civilization.   But.   It is under threat from within and without.  Make your plans for doing without.  Without rule of law.  Without enough food.  Without solid and dependable utilities.  Without civilization in fact.

Stack the stuff you can’t create or replace or do without.  Stack it high.

n

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Wed. Feb. 23, 2022 – 02232022 – Still funny numbers

Warmer, damp.   Misty drizzle or real rain, maybe.   Got some mist yesterday, but no real rain.  Which was ok with me.  Hoping for same today.

Back was killing me, so hanging speakers from a ladder and crawling around in an attic was contraindicated for me yesterday.   We’ll see how it goes today after some pain meds at bedtime.

I did get some pickups done.  Lots of stuff for the BOL.

Will do another pickup today, and swing by the Habitat reStore.  Then if my back is solid, I’ll go out to my client’s place.   If not, it might have to wait another day.

This pattern of working one day, injured the next couple, is not going to let me do all the stuff I need to do at the BOL.  I need to get rehabilitated.  Not sure how that will happen, but I think I’ll start with Tai Chi and stretching.  As soon as this episode is over.

Physical condition, I’ve either been fooling myself, or there’s been a drastic change in the last year or two.  Either way, gotta fix it.

Can’t stack up health, so stack up health aids.  And labor aids, like rope, pulleys, hand trucks, wheelbarrows, carts, winches, and power tools.  You’ll be glad you did.

n

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