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Category: march to war

Sun. Jan. 10, 2021 – it continues to get worse

Cold.  Supposed to be rainy.

Yesterday was cool to cold all day but was sunny and dry.

I did get my pickup done, and went by my secondary to do some  more clean up and to get ready to go back over there later today.

Then I got home and looked at the news, and HOLY FREAKING HELL.   The control freaks are moving FAST.  EVERYONE should be condemning this.  What goes around comes around, and someone once said, never ask for a power for yourself that you wouldn’t like  your worst enemy have.  I guess they think this is the end of history.   In their mad rush to power, and you can’t really describe it as anything else, they are doing even more damage to the social norms that made this country great and they are glorying in it.   Does no one see the parallels to the worst regimes in history?

We were sliding down the slope toward the cliff, but now they are running as fast as they can towards it.  NO WAY does this end well.  The boot is coming down.  If you think I’m crazy, or overly dramatic, please make your case in the comments.  NOT just assertions.   An actual reasoned case.   I’d LOVE some reassurance right now.  Every thing they’ve done in the last few days makes it even more certain that there is no way to avoid the violence and bloodshed.

Speaking of avoiding bloodshed, where is the Elder Statesman ™ hoof in mouth Joe urging calm, praising free speech, lauding tolerance, and taking control of the party?  Are you really gonna love his presidency?  All 3 months of it?  Was getting rid of Trump worth empowering Pelosi?  Waters?  Kammella?  Look up Pyrrhic Victory so you’ll understand what you’ve done, when there is nothing left worth fighting over.

Anyone actually had eyes on Trump in the last day or two?  Is the staff at his home gearing up?  Secret Service barracks getting a good brush up?  Something ain’t right.  He should be spitting nails.

And are we really going to let them gaslight the nation?  There was NO call for insurrection, let alone a call for ARMED insurrection.  There were 10s of thousands of people at that rally that did NOTHING MORE than stand around on the grass.  Where is the video of demagogue Trump calling for armed insurrection?  If they had anything at all we’d be seeing it non-stop to convict him in the press.

Anyone out there who was still on the fence about whether conservative voices were being suppressed in the public square should be pretty well convinced of the truth of it now.  Kinda too late though.  They will come for you though eventually, given enough time.  It’s what they do.  What they ALWAYS do.

Anyone who couldn’t see the hypocrisy of the left should see it clearly now.  A baker has to serve all customers, but twitter/facebook/amazon/go daddy don’t.   They can object to  words, and not even the customer’s words, but third party words their customer can’t/won’t/ and SHOULDN’T police* and deny them the same service they offer to others.   Many of those others engage in much more violent rhetoric, so we know that words about violence are not the issue.  No one is more filled with hate than the leadership of Iran, and yet they still have a voice.  Violent leftist thugs use social media to organize rioting and crime sprees, raise funds, and spread their message of hate for others without censure from the ‘platforms.’

Remember the bit about how things change very slowly until they change all at once?   People ended their work day Friday, and when they start back up tomorrow, look at the change.   Consider the last year.  And consider the last week.  Seriously take a step back and look at it, thing about what you were doing at various points, and what you were reading about.  Compare that to today, where ONE GUY has decided that he can and should control what the President of the United States gets to say and who he gets to say it to.  That’s some big balls, but he’s getting away with it for now.  And when the President DOES try to move in the ‘free market’ to another, friendlier platform that would welcome him?  Nope.  Sorry not sorry.  We don’t want your kind in our place, and we don’t want your kind in any other place either.

The media blitz has been so intense, that even through the tiny little hole that I use to view it, there were a couple of times when I thought “what if this, or what if that?” and then I thought about the people involved, and thought “almost got me, but then I remembered who you were”.  If it could happen to me, it’s happening to others too.  Help your friends, ask them questions to lead them to it, telling them won’t help at all. * *

When I looked up this quote (I do do SOME fact checking/research/confirmations while writing) I found that Trump re-tweeted it after he was exonerated in the impeachment sham.   “When you strike at the King, you must kill him.” -RWEmerson.  That was February.    How unfortunate and ironic then that Trump struck at King Deep State, but didn’t kill him.

I’ll have a bunch to say about prepping issues coming up.  There is nothing this mouse can do now that the elephants are dancing, except to stock my bolthole and pull my  head in (figuratively, and a bit literally).

Don’t forget that we are in the midst of a massive increase in sick people too.  The wuflu hasn’t gone away, and while the percentage is small, when enough people  get it, even that tiny percentage with bad issues will get to be a really big number.

And I discovered that the NSAID I take daily for back pain is a fever suppressor as well, so I probably shouldn’t be quite so sanguine about my lack of fever when I’m coughing and headache-y.

In the mean time, avoid crowds, figure out what you have and what you need, and get to work stacking up needful things.

 

nick

*Note that this website and most other websites are not services.  You are not customers here.  (especially here, where you are friends and colleagues) No one here is under any obligation to provide anything other than courtesy, and that obligation is self imposed.  Trolls be warned.

 

** “Why on earth would the capitol cops move the barricades and let the people in if there was a riot?  Why wasn’t one of the most important and secure areas of our government guarded on this day of all days?  Why would someone as experience and seasoned as Pelosi leave her computer on and logged in if she was afraid the building would be overrun?  How many fires were there?  How many businesses were burned to the ground and looted during this ‘riot’?  Why are the headlines suggesting the rioters killed 4 people when two were medical emergencies -a stroke and a heart attack- one was an unarmed woman killed by cops, and the fourth was accidentally trampled or crushed in a crowd?”  Any one of these should plant a seed.

 

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Sat. Jan. 9, 2021 – so much bad stuff coming down the pike

Cold, and maybe wet too.  Can’t wait to find out.

Cold all day Friday.  I wore long pants and a fleece jacket except when I was active.  Chilly willy.  39F when I went to bed.

I did make my drop off.  I’ve made arrangements for another load of stuff on Monday or Tuesday too.

Today I’ve got all the usual weekend stuff, plus taking down the Christmas decor if it’s not wet out.  I’ve got a couple of pickups too.  They are radio related items so they do still fit into my new restrictions on what I’m buying.  It needs to contribute to our survival, or be immediately re-sellable to contribute to our economic survival.  I’ll probably stretch those rules but that is my new baseline.

I don’t know what the timeline is but I feel like it’s getting shorter.  The cries for retribution against the right will not get quieter after the inauguration.   If anything they’ll get louder.  They have already called for Trump’s resignation, arrest, prosecution, and have shut off his access to the social media that was his counter to the MSM and a way to go directly to the people without filter.  There have been calls to expel the congressmen who supported OUR SITTING PRESIDENT.  There are calls to go after their families- with law-fare at this point.  There have been calls to ‘cleanse’ America of Trump supporters.  To re-educate them.   To deplatform, hound out of work, and attack in their homes.  THAT MEANS ME by the way.

I’m taking this very personally.  I didn’t LIKE Trump, but I SUPPORTED him.  That means that it’s ME and MY family that they are howling for.  Many of you  too.  It’s not some straw man or the imaginary boogie man, it’s YOU- Trump supporter.  And demagogues rarely indulge in subtlety.  They are really more ‘all or nothing’.    If you showed ANY support at any time for any reason, they mean YOU.  Sure, it’s not all of them, but you don’t have to worry about the ones that DON’T hate you, there are plenty that do.   And a whole bunch of people are going to hate you when the economy collapses because you supported the bad man who DESTROYED AMERICA ON THE WORST DAY EVER.  I sure hope I’m wrong, but I haven’t lived here on the Gulf just ‘hoping’ the hurricanes wouldn’t come.

The flip side of this howling for blood from the left is 70 MILLION voters who think their votes were negated, and an election stolen.  IT DOESN’T MATTER IF IT’S TRUE.  I see elsewhere and even here people still going back and forth over this point.  It’s DONE and it no longer matters that YOU don’t think there was fraud.  A REALLY BIG percentage of those 70 million DO.  THEY ARE GOING TO ACT as if it IS TRUE.   I really can’t emphasize enough that the time for debate is over.  Accept the fact the election was stolen or don’t, it doesn’t matter.   What matters NOW is the continued belief that it was, and the actions of the left as they seize any opportunity to attack the right while they have a chance.

We’ve already seen that the left has boots on the ground that are willing and able to commit violence.  We’ve seen neighborhoods destroyed, buildings burned, cops attacked with projectiles, fire, blinding weapons, chemicals, and explosives.  In 2018 we saw them occupy the very same capitol building, only with hundreds of people, to intimidate lawmakers.  They have been gearing up for this time for YEARS.  They see this as the culmination of their hard work and sacrifice.   They WANT this craziness.

What you may or may not understand is the way a large number of those 70 million Trump voters feel.  In addition to seeing the left attack everything they hold dear and GET AWAY WITH IT, they feel like this commentor over at Aesop’s…

DeWalt said…

Watched a young Air Force vet, a woman and mother get executed by some coward because she thought she should stand up for her country, for her oath.

Four tours of duty and she died drowning in her own blood on the floor in the nations capital that she Honorably served. Words escape me.

If you are more prepper, or programmer than “patriot” (here on the web) you might not know the history and ideas that are prevalent in the ‘patriot movement’, 3%ers, Oathkeepers, militia, or other parts of the ‘liberty-sphere’.   If you can’t discuss Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge, David Koresh and the ATF at Waco (without mentioning religion or the word ‘cult’), and Ammon Bundy and the Malheur Wildlife Refuge; and you don’t understand why the deaths in these places, by the hands of our government, ENRAGE those people, you need to do some reading.  You need the context.  You need to at least be aware of the Venn diagram for these groups and their shared narrative.   Otherwise, you might not believe the warnings. 

One guy had all of LA county’s LEOs running around like their pants were on fire, shooting up innocents.   Two guys had the DC area living in fear of catching a random sniper round.  One guy in Dallas killed five cops and injured 9 others and two civilians.  Two guys and some fireworks packed into a pot killed 3, wounded over 250 more and triggered authorities to throw any notion that the people of Boston were citizens with rights into the trash.  I could go on in this vein for PAGES.

If ONE TENTH of ONE PERCENT of that 70 million decide to act, all hell will break loose.  Do the math.  It’s nearly 1 in 10 for every  sworn law enforcement officer IN THE ENTIRE NATION.  So, what’s 1% of 70 million?  Think there won’t be violence?  How long will it be, before those numbers start to sink in for the people inclined to act?

When I hear people calling for me and my neighbors to be hounded out of work, school, and the public square; to be ‘cleansed’ from America; to be denied a representative in government; I BELIEVE THEM.  I BELIEVE THAT IS IN FACT WHAT THEY WANT.  I believe that they will DO IT if they have the power.

That’s the question then.  Do they have the power?  If not, can we count on them not getting it in the future?

This has focused my mind tremendously.  On top of all the other cr@p that 2020 dumped on us, now we have this.  Think HARD about what it means to you personally to be a potential target of the howling mob.   Get yourself ready.  Decide what you need and keep stacking it.

nick

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Fri. Jan. 8, 2021 – the disaster is headed our way now for certain, just a question of how long and how bad

Cold.  Hopefully clear though.

Yesterday stayed cool all day.  It was clear and dry but never really warmed up.  It was 40F when I went to bed.

Didn’t really get much done yesterday.  Watched my local auctions throughout the day, and watched the news stories roll in.

Didn’t do super well in the auctions.  One was a disaster.  I had lots of items sell for a couple of bucks that should have sold well.  I even bought one of my own items the price was so low and I’d actually spent money on buying it originally.   I won’t be using that auctioneer again.   The lego sold well.  The k’nex sold badly, some bulk even going unsold.   40 year old concert T shirts brought $30-$50 EACH.  Crazy.  Hot Wheels and train stuff brought what I was hoping for.  Kitchen stuff- corel and pyrex sold ok, not super, but not bad.  Purses sold poorly.  The photos were really bad.  When a genuine Coach handbag, in simple black leather goes for $3 something is terribly wrong.

The stuff I dropped off Wednesday should list for next week in the better auction.   I’m supposed to take a load to my ‘industrial’ auctioneer today.  That’s why I’m hoping for clear weather.   It will get more stuff out of my storage and that’s a good thing.

I want to accelerate getting stuff sold.  I think the economy will not survive Biden and his plans.  Not at the ‘man on the street’ level, not in the financial markets.

It’s possible we might be going to look at a couple lake properties on Saturday.  I really want to accelerate that plan now too.

Lots to do, little time.  Hurricane in the Gulf time… gotta get ready.   Well, more ready.

Stack all the things.

nick

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Thur. Jan. 7, 2021 – turns out it will probably live in infamy too

Cool but not so rainy.  Maybe.

Yesterday the rain held off until mid-afternoon.  Then came down with a vengeance.  Thankfully it didn’t last long.  I got a bunch of stuff dropped off at my auctioneer, picked up the kids from school, and went by the gun store to drop off a Christmas present and touch base.  Turns out a bunch of stuff did happen in DC.

We’ll know today or tomorrow just how badly it’s going to turn out.  Until then, I think a bunch of people got played.  They still thought they could exercise their rights, petition for redress, make themselves heard.  And they got punked.   Those are going to be some angry people when they realize how badly they were done by…

 

Which brings me to the rest of this post.  I wrote it last night in response to a comment from a long time, educated, engaged, and knowledgeable commentor here.   It’s TO him, but not ABOUT him, and it’s also to everyone else who might be feeling the same way.  Because I think feeling like that is REALLY shortsighted.  I’m also breaking one of the informal rules here.  Bob discouraged swear words not from any prudishness, but because he didn’t want to trip any nanny filters and deny people access to the good information and discussion here.   We’ve been pretty good about keeping up the tradition and it does make a difference in tone.  This is not a change in policy or intent.   All that said,  I’m gonna swear a lot below.  Because it’s an evocative word and really the best way to convey my meaning and feelings.  It’s a bit less than ‘polished’.

“This was a riot by Trumpkins.”

— even if it was a riot, and was ‘trump supporters’, you don’t get to pick your supporters, anymore than the lefty bands get to control who plays their music.

A few dozen attention seekers get suckered into entering what is normally a very secure building without any real resistance (except for the AF vet that they essentially murdered- unarmed and not a threat) and they take selfies. Did they destroy the artwork? Paint ACAB on every surface? D/L anything from the completely unsecured computers? Start any fires?

And SO WHAT? What about the [really huge number because I don’t want to debate what it was or wasn’t] of ordinary people that were there? They don’t count for anything because there are a couple of grandstanding jackasses? That’s internet argument technique #12, find one reason to dismiss everything else…

I find it hard to be gleeful about the destruction of the country I love, because it will also take down Trump. Destroying faith in the electoral process has destroyed something that can’t be put back together. This stopped being about Trump a long time ago and started being about the kind of place the US would be for the rest of my life, and probably for a good chunk of my kids’ lives.

70 MILLION people feel some degree of the same thing. NO ONE ANYWHERE that I’m aware of has suggested that Trump’s votes weren’t legit. So. 70 million. How many have to say “fuck it” and do something before it ALL goes to shit? Wrong tank cars get added to a train, no corn syrup for you- or the few hundred thousand boxes of cereal your plant makes. Fuck it. Tape measure gets dropped into the grinder at the packing house. All of the last 48 hours of production needs to be destroyed because there is metal in the hamburger? Fuck it. Time to run the TPS report so the line workers can get checks? Drop_table what? Fuck it. Mercury thermometer gets dropped into the bioreactor at Merck? Fuck it. That was baking soda not chlorine? Fuck it. Hello UPS? Someone called a tip line and says they shipped 6 bombs to random people. No, we don’t know who or where from. Fuck it. EVERY Fusion Center in the US got a package full of white powder? NO SHIT? Fuck it. Someone is taking pot shots at the big spherical tanks along I 10 in Baytown? Fuck it. Every three days someone throws 5 pounds of roofing nails off an overpass onto the freeway at rush hour? Well, fuck it. Every tip line and fusion center in the US gets calls about bomb threats. And six bombs actually go off. Rinse and repeat. Fuck it.

I could do this all night, but fuck it, I’m not that motivated right now.

70 million people. Mostly in jobs that actually do something besides moving electrons or money around. LOOK at the pictures of the “protests” all over the US. Those are some serious looking folks who are just about fed up. Not the tacticool tommies with their guts hanging out* a baofang radio and morale patches on their airsoft web gear. Look at the guys in gimme hats from trucking firms or ag supplements, guys in carhart jackets or company windbreakers. Women standing next to them looking just as grim. Those women don’t care about some guy on a tape talking trash about tramps sliding up to money, they are worried about where their kids will work when NAFTA II ships the rest of the factory jobs to third world slavers. They’re worried about raising their grandkids while their sons or daughters are passed out on chinese fentanyl or doing time for possession while inner city “youths” get a free pass.

So if you’re inclined to dance a jig, because the wicked witch of the west is dead, you might want to think about what comes next. And pray that the guy at the water treatment plant, or the pharmacy, or the rail yard, or any number of invisible but important places, doesn’t just say Fuck it.

And since we/I spend a lot of time talking about preparedness issues, it’s time to get serious about stacking what you can’t do without, if you aren’t already well along the way.  I was stream of consciousness when I listed the ‘inconveniences’ above.   It took almost no actual thought at all, and I really can do it all day.  I’m surely not the only one.  70 million.  A good portion of them aren’t going to be looking for inconveniences, but for deadly consequences.  The only real thought I put in was to avoid that for now.

This has the potential to get really ugly, really fast.  If it starts, it WILL escalate.  It always does.  The irish didn’t start out throwing hand grenades into lines of school kids waiting to go into class, but they got there.

Oh, and the rest of the world isn’t likely to just stand idly by either.

So keep stacking.

 

nick

 

*a PSA rifle that’s never been sighted in and will only fire once before jamming will still kill you dead when fired into a crowd.  So will a .38 revolver from the sock drawer, or a $150 HiPoint from the pawn shop.  You don’t have to be able to ruck for days with 2x your body weight to snipe from your car, or throw rocks off an overpass either.  Something to keep in mind.

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Wed. Jan. 6, 2021 – some stuff happening. Some stuff not happening.

Moderate temps, decent weather.   Well, yesterday and tomorrow, but the national map was calling for rain in Houston.   I will wait and see.

Spent part of the day yesterday doing auction stuff.  Went to my industrial auctioneer and got him to take some more stuff.  I’ll be delivering a pickup or two Thursday or Friday.  I went and made a mental list of what would fit, and I’ve got enough stuff for two loads, easy.

Today I’m supposed to take a few more bins to my other local auctioneer.  I have NO TROUBLE AT ALL filling those bins.  I’m going to add some of the Mr Buddy heaters I picked up last year that didn’t sell.  They should do a lot better now than in June.

Spoke to my troublesome neighbor last night.  They’re moving out.  He has a conflict with the landlord.   I get the feeling he has conflicts with people all the time.   The landlord is a nice guy, but hates the house for emotional reasons, and really doesn’t want to be a landlord.  He should sell it and be free, but he won’t.   FWIW, if you remember the weird incident with the ‘contractor’ in the front yard and then climbing up onto the roof?  The landlord says it wasn’t his guy.  So some stranger was just hanging out in the yard, and then got up on the roof?  Yeah, the camera pointed that way just moved to the top of my ‘do this next time you are at home long enough’ list.  The license plate camera and bluetooth logger are moving up the list too.

 

I don’t have anything at all to say about the DC ‘meetup’ from a philosophical point of view.   I’m going to be busy but will try to check the sites to see what’s going on throughout the day.  I don’t think there is anything good that can come from this.  A whole bunch of people are about to get entries in their files, and a bunch will be getting files for the first time.  Some others are probably going to need stitches and dental work before this is done.  Avoid crowds.

Camo and group maneuvers in the field aren’t going to be the way forward.  Grey men, snipers, arsonists, and most of all partisans are probably the way to go if you are inclined toward action.    Paris or Ireland, not Red Dawn.  And it won’t be long before someone moving around without a cell phone will get highlighted automatically, and moving around WITH a cell phone will be just stupid.   It’s wouldn’t be impossible, but I’m thinking Bracken’s idea of one person, one action, and then never again is the only way to do it.  I’m not advocating it, just making an observation.  You will need to stay aware of what’s going on around you so you don’t get stuck in the middle.  One way or another, we’re past the point where this can  end without bloodshed.

Interestingly, in a  sort of ‘meta’ way, SUDDENLY the alt-right blogosphere seems to have woken up to the idea that the cops are probably not going to be on the side of light in what comes.    Hmm.  Coulda told ’em that.  “Remember that the people hiding Anne Frank were breaking the law, and the people who turned her in were upholding it.”

And isn’t that a cheery way to start the day?

Keep stacking.  Really.

nick

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Tues. Jan. 5, 2021 – nuthin’ ta do Abe, nuthin’ ta do…

Nice and sunny, reasonably warm and some breeze.  That is my fervent wish anyway.   Basically I want it to be just like yesterday.

Monday I got a slow start to my week.   Kids were home, wife was home, and my plan was to not be home.   I did my instacart orders from Costco and HEB.   No bulk meat this order.  Prices were a bit high.   I did try to buy a turkey from Costco, but once again they were out when the buyer actually tried to get one.     I was supposed to head out after that, but for ‘reasons’ it took longer than I wanted to to get clear of the house.

Once out and about one of my tasks was to meet with my barber and pick up some things.  He was trying to sell some stuff for me (we split the proceeds) and then wuflu hit, and anyway, it was time for me to get the stuff out of his store.  I’ve been going to him regularly for about 18 years now, and consider him a friend.  He’s pretty well connected in the community as he was born and raised and lived his whole life in the area.  Anyway.  He said almost all of his extended family have caught the covid now.  He had it in April, before re-opening his shop.   He’s lost 5 members of his extended family to it since then.  Many of his family had classic symptoms but no hospital and no tests.  That means they weren’t counted.  Something to keep in mind when complaining about all the extra deaths and cases in the totals,  is that there are a bunch that aren’t being counted either.

Anecdotally and locally, we are being told that our hospitals have plenty of capacity, but patients are being diverted to as far away as San Antonio according to neighborhood red bus drivers.  They also might have to wait in the back much longer than normal before being admitted.

Shifting gears, January 6 is going to be an interesting day in DC.  It should be a great opportunity to collect some intel and see first hand what 2021 might look like.  I think I’d recommend Ol Remus’ advice, Avoid  crowds.  And the venerable, don’t stand next to the guy doing stupid sh!t, or some might spatter on you…   If anyone here does go, or gets a first hand account, if you can write it up and email me, I’ll put it up.

Today both kids are going to start “in person” learning for the Spring semester.   That will give me some more time to get out of the house, but will also mean being back in time to get youngest from the indoctrination center when her daily session is over.  My wife will be seeing they get to their schools in the morning.   Specifically today I’ll be headed back over to my secondary location for more cleaning, scrapping, and throwing out… so I’ll be AFK for most of the afternoon.

We may have a few new readers join us, Commander Zero kindly added our little part of the intarwebs to his blogroll.  Please make them welcome if I’m not around.

Bonus geek points if you know what I’m quoting in the post title…

nick

 

 

 

(ps.  Keep stacking.)

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Mon. Jan. 4, 2021 – ah, love the smell of fresh new year…

Probably quite nice out today.  Low 50s when I went to bed, and forecast is for sun and moderate temps.

Sunday was very nice out after late morning.  I ended up doing inside stuff, and not much of that before I headed out to my secondary location.   Once there, I went through some stuff and made some plans for today.   Kids are still home from school until tomorrow, but my wife’s office went back to everyone working from home due to the upswing expected in wuflu cases.  They can work from home so why take the chance?  She’ll be watching the flock from home today while I’m out.

Anyway, I’ll be headed over to clear out some more stuff.  So much stuff.  A lot piles up over 17 years.  This is going to be the longest I’ve ever lived in one place, including my childhood if we make it another year.  If you  move every few years, you get a chance to go through all your stuff and cull.  I’ve been too busy/lazy/preoccupied to do the culling on my own, so now it’s a daunting task.   The reward is there at the end.  If I can  make enough room to run my own online auction sales, I get to keep 40% more of the money.   I’ll be doing 80% more of the work, but them’s the breaks.  TANSTAAFL after all.

 

With the new year, it’s traditional to make some goals.  I’m not big on Resolutions ™ but  I do have things I want to work toward, if the universe is headed in the same direction.  If it’s not, no amount of work on my part will overcome that.  So, what goals?

Broadly, improve our living situation.  Improve our physical and  mental condition.   Improve our future.

I’m starting by getting all the superfluous stuff out of here.  That is number one.   Congruent with that is turning a bunch of it back into cash.    Then get somewhere to go, if it becomes wise to go somewhere else.  That goal has a large input from my wife, so compromise is the name of the game.  It will be an escape hatch, not a primary residence.  We are tied to this area for the foreseeable future with work.  If that changes, then other possibilities open up.

We’ll also continue improving what we already have here.   That means secondary power system up and running, and maybe a tertiary system as well.   It means doing upgrades to the house and grounds like finishing some remodel stuff, possibly doing some security upgrades, and doing some other projects that improve our current lifestyle and harden us against future problems.   We’ll be proactively doing some maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure too.  And I’ll be working on the gardens in the spring because hope springs eternal…

It also means working on myself and the family.  My wife is anxious to do more physical activities with the kids.  I’m realizing that I have to WORK at maintaining my physical self, or I will lose abilities.   I can’t afford to lose much 🙂  A bit more biking, hiking, boating, and certainly STRETCHING is in my future.   It means staying healthy.  It means working on new skills.  This is a good year to introduce the kids to firearms and to other defensive pursuits.  Both have expressed the interest, it’s just a matter of doing it now.  I’m no spec ops ninja but I can get them started with the basics.  If we can get some bushcraft/camping/fishing/hunting in, that will be even better.

All of those things can be applied to ‘working for the future’ too.   My planning horizon expanded dramatically once we had the kids.  I went from being a guy who wouldn’t commit to a multi-year magazine subscription to being a homeowner with college savings plans for the kids.  11 years has gone by in an eye blink.

GET STARTED by the way.  Whatever it is, in 5 years you’ll be well along the way if you just GET STARTED.  Continuing to accumulate stuff, skills, friends, and options is what I believe will give us the best chance of getting through what’s coming.  YMMV.

Seriously.  If you’re single, turning everything into cash (or equivalent) and becoming a modern nomad might be a better choice than digging in harder.  Or the two of you buy a boat and start the endless cruise…or RV…  or get into politics and join the parasite class.   If the rise of islam is inevitable, converting early and wholeheartedly makes the most sense- so there are other approaches than mine.

Whatever is coming it won’t be the end of THE world.  It might be the end of my world or your world, but there will be someone on the other side of it, just like the Civil War, WWI & II, the rise of the Soviet Union, and whatever happens here next.  Stick it out.  Get through.  Look for opportunities to thrive.  And keep stacking.

 

nick

 

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Sun. Dec. 27, 2020 – even fewer days left in the year

Cold in the morning, warming throughout the day.  Sunny and clear.  We all hope.  52F and breezy at midnight.

Saturday was a bit of a mixed bag, wrt to getting stuff done.  I had a guy I was supposed to meet to sell a 3d printer, but he stood me up.  Flakes.  Had to reschedule for Tuesday.  So I did some other small stuff around the house.   I took the package I couldn’t ship on the 24th to UPS.  I took a small item I sold on ebay to the USPS and dropped it in the box at the station.  That’s two sales in 3 days.  I hope things are picking up.

I did a little bit more yard work.  Poked around in the garage a bit, trying to fix a couple of minor things.  Put one of the new batteries on the smart charger to top it up.

After dinner played “Pit” with the kids.  The new hearing protectors came in handy for that…

Took two bins of pool stuff to storage.  Still need to take the pool itself out of the house, but won’t have anywhere to put it until I get rid of more stuff.

That is the plan for today.   Head over to the secondary location and get rid of stuff.   More cutting and trashing is in order.   I have to make room for my forklift before January.  And get stuff out of the house to keep my promise to my wife.  So I will be AFK for most of the afternoon.

In the course of my travels, I drove past our local mall.  Not particularly busy.  No lines of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot.  Not much going on at the strip/cluster development around our ‘big’ HEB, or the Lowes/BestBuy/costco development across the street.    Traffic was light too.  I don’t think there was much ‘day after Christmas’ shopping going on.  That doesn’t bode well for the economy.

The explosion in Nashville is very strange.  Disgruntled employee?  Proof of concept?  Opening shot?  We may never know, but we did learn that some of the infrastructure is a lot more vulnerable than one might expect.  You can work that info from at least two different perspectives…..  Several people have taken first pass looks at the event with what’s currently known.   If you can’t find them on your own, I’ll post some links later in the comments.

And you need to think about second and third order effects.   You might want some ham radio.  You might want a sat phone.  You might want to join with some local hams and get a mesh network up in your area.  You might want a cell that uses a different carrier’s network than your primary phone.  (I carried sprint and att when I was traveling for work both before and after 9-11, and my Skytel satellite pager.  On 9-11 in NYMetro area only Skytel worked.  I don’t have that level of redundancy anymore.  Might need to order the sim for my satphone.   We’ll see if this happens again.)   You might want something like goTenna to keep your family cells working as more than flashlights.

Alternate  comms and a disaster comms contact list should already be part of your plan.  Time to check through the plan again.

Been a while since the muzzies attacked something too…

And winter is happening in the north and northeast.

Lots of reasons to keep stacking.

nick

 

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Mon. Dec. 21, 2020 – 12212020, kinda cool.

Cool and clear, maybe a chance to dry out.

Yesterday was beautiful.  Clear, sunny, blue sky.

I did get over to my secondary location and threw out a bunch of stuff.  I filled one big dumpster, and part of another.  Took three loads in the Ranger to shuttle it to the trash.  I had to cut it into 2-3 foot pieces to get it out, since I didn’t want to spend more time on the forklift.   I’m making progress.  Slow but still progress.  Of course today I’ll be paying the piper with sore muscles and scrapes that burn.  Both forearms and my shins are scraped up.  I’ll live.

Number one daughter gets her first orthodontia installed today.  Oh my.  Half way through 6th grade.   Seems early to me but I’ll let the pros make that call.  It’s come a long way since I had mine done.

I’ve got a bunch of stuff to pick up today and some to drop off.  About four more bins worth and still barely a difference… but it’s progress.  Pickups are mostly household and Christmas stuff, but there are some gub parts and accessories.   Several boxes of 3m respirator filters.  GOJO dispenser refills.  Some other stuff.

Still need to get some Christmas lights and decor up outside.   I got the ‘base layer’ up, but there is more cool stuff to do, if the weather will just hold for long enough.

There’s something wrong with the wuflu numbers coming out of Cali.  If they were at capacity last time around, and now we’re double that, but still not maxed out, someone is lying, or the reporting sucks.  Or, embrace the power of ‘and’.  Not sure, don’t care enough to dig, but I’m calling shenanigans.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe Aesop as ‘boots on the ground’ about the reality and severity of the problem, but something doesn’t add up.   As I’ve said before, I’m treating this as the disaster is HERE, so do what needs doing to deal with that reality.  No point in looking at storm tracks and models anymore, LOTS of reason to clean up the yard and fuel up the gennie, so to speak.  The pebble is in motion, the avalanche is coming, everything moving will continue to do so until they all come to rest.  I don’t see that happening for a long time.

The election and transfer of government happens next, or doesn’t.  Again, nothing I can do to affect that, so work the things I can.  The vaccine rollout and the surge are going to come crashing together for the next month or three at least.   The possible mutation in Europe and round two of the CV lockdowns will be sloshing around for at least a couple of months, possibly followed by vaccine v.2…  but in any case people are not going to stay home without a LOT of fear, more than anything to date.     That fear is going to have to be based in at least the appearance of truth, and it’s going to have to be convincing.  All this points to more extremism on every front.

If Biden is sworn in all bets are off.  SJW will be emboldened and the cries for blood will be loud.  The right will be very upset.  Whether that will translate into action is a good question.  It depends on the left and what they do.  If Biden doesn’t survive in office past March, expect it to be turned up to 11.

If Trump is sworn in some bets will pay some very long odds.   And the left will explode in rage.  That much I feel confident saying.  The right will say “come get some” and then we risk losing it all.

No matter which happens, it won’t be fun for most of us.

I’m thinking that we need to be ready to pull back, reduce our exposure, keep our heads down, but be ready for when that fails to protect us.

 

Whatever happens, having food in the fridge won’t hurt.  Ditto for lawyers, guns, and money.  And friends.  And skills.  And health.  And stacks.  Keep stacking.

 

nick

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Sat. Dec. 19, 2020 – 2021 ain’t gonna save ya

Cold and wet.  But not freezing.

Yesterday was cool all day but sunny in patches.

I got some stuff done.  Got out to my remaining client’s house and got him all back working.  Combination of failing gear, gear that got reset to initial state, and changing settings.

While there I learned that my client and his wife both got covid.  Mild and short cases, but classic symptoms.  He brought it home, likely from the hospital.  Protocols failed somewhere.  While working through the issues there with my sometimes business partner on the phone I learned that his actual business partner got it and died.  200 pounds overweight was probably the co-morbidity.    He was no longer inclined to joke about covid.  His partner was 42.   That increases the number of people in my circle, one or two degrees of separation, that had it, and it increases the number that died from it.  I’ve never had anyone I know die from flu.

Daughter’s school had a kid and staff member test positive this week.  That’s a small sample but it’s double the week before and 4x the two weeks before that.  IOW, it appears to be increasing in frequency.

The Solarwind penetrations look worse and worse.  NO way to every trust those systems again, the attackers had too much time in them.  And they were in everything important according to first reports.  Given that first reports are almost always wrong, it’s hella early to be calling for war with Russia.  Someone needs to be ‘reprisal-ed’ but we better be sure about the target.

Still two weeks to go in 2020, I’d like to get through them WITHOUT adding “hot war with Russia” to the list of unbelievable bad shirt happening.

It’s a list that includes actual honeypot physical spy stuff and assassination.

All the stuff set in motion this year will still be moving next year.

Anyone still doubt this is one of those times when everything changes?

From the masthead at WRSA–  “How will you improve the survivability of your people this weekend?”

Think about that for a while, then start working on it.  Keep stacking.

 

nick

 

(anyone else think the timing of the Solarwind revelations is just a TAD suspicious?)

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