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Thur. Aug. 10, 2023 – and time is flying by…

Hot and humid as summer continues here in the South. Likely to keep being hot and humid until it’s not… That will happen fairly suddenly, but not really soon.

We are counting down the days to the start of the new school year. It’s funny how at different times in your life there are different rhythms and different ways to organize your time. With our kids, it’s now “school” but even that changes as they get older. I’m sure the pace and timing of D1’s life, and subsequently ours, will change again now that she’s entering High School.

I spent yesterday driving around doing pickups. Had a chat with one auctioneer about the economy. I noticed this week that prices in the auctions for estate sale type stuff seemed really low. She agreed and thought it was because people are running out of money to spend. The amazon and store returns auctions seem to be holding higher prices for the moment as more people discover them and shop for everyday items. I bought bars of soap and pens at one auction this week. Missed out on dozens of other things because my bid was a bit low. Is it worth it to buy something cheap and simple like that? If I can combine trips with several auctions, yes. If I had to make a special trip? No. The extra time and mileage offsets any savings. I try to bid on and buy enough things that the savings more than pay for the gas and trouble. Other people seem to be discovering the same thing. Of course the best thing is to save a whole lot of money, then it isn’t even close.

Today I’ll do another pickup, go by the rent house* and do a bit of staging for the photographer. They won’t open blinds or shut cabinet doors, so someone has to be there if you don’t want bad photos. Today that will be me. Then I’ll try to do a drop off at my other auctioneer. Some of the stuff I dropped off last week already has good bids, so I’m happy. I would like to get a whole lot more listed too.

I’ll try to make my Costco run today too. I don’t want to put it off. Seems like suddenly time is flying by. The pause was brief.

Back to stacking, scrambling, and a full schedule.

Get your prep on!

nick

*meant to do this on the last post. I have no idea why a rental house is called a “rent house” here in Houston, and throughout the South, but it is. It’s very consistent and people looked at me funny until I adopted the usage. Grey man and all that… even though it sounds bad to my ear.

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Wed. Aug. 9, 2023 – another hot day, filled with exciting white hot action…j

Hot and humid. Yup. Again. Sunny too with no relief in sight according to the national forecast. Oh well. Summer. I will say it’s bloody hot. Better to do inside work than outside.

So I spent all afternoon yesterday finishing up outside work at my rent house*. Fence, parking space, roof flashing, all hot and in the sun. Sweated until I was soaked to the skin. Not kidding, feet were pasty white and wet, same for my ‘undercarriage’. Not quite waterlogged with wrinkles, but dang close.

Today will be a bit different from the last several and more like my normal day. I’ve got several pickups to do, mostly stuff for the BOL and household items. I’d like to do an auction drop off, if I can fit it in, and I’ve got to make a Costco run too. I haven’t been making them as often as I used to and it shows in the state of my stacks.

Last night I had to go to the store for TOILET PAPER. Yup, prepper fail. Kids have been burning through it so fast I thought someone was stealing it, and my normal storage areas are being used for other things (so my inventory management by looking at the stacks isn’t working.) Then we took some to the rent house, and I’ve been taking bulk packages to the BOL to build up stores there. I have TP at the secondary. If the stores were closed I’d hit that backup… but the bale I thought was TP in the garage was Bounty paper towels. So down to the last roll in the house, and that won’t cut it. HEB was open late. Funny though, it’s more expensive, with fewer rolls in the “mega pack” and they are narrower than the Costco sourced Charmin.

Oy, I’m so ashamed. Had to make a special trip just for toilet paper at 10pm… I’d have felt pretty stupid if I got myself shot or robbed doing it, or if I’d had to drive around looking for some and an open store. You let your guard down for just a bit, and it’s amateur hour all of a sudden.

[hangs head]

Well, needs must… I’ll hit Costco today or tomorrow.

There’s a bunch of domestic bliss to attend to also. Normal everyday life. Best if I get started sometime this morning.

Stack it up, and make sure of your inventory!

nick

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Thur. Aug. 3, 2023 – well, you guessed it, more work to do…

And yes, it is hot out. Likely to be humid too. And sunny. Because it’s summer. I was reading my rural electricity co-op provider’s magazine while at the BOL, and had grabbed one out of the stack from LAST summer. Guess what it said? Yeah, conserve electricity because of the high heat. Also they were raising our rates because of inflation. So this year is pretty much just like last year. Hot.

Somehow we forget. Like the pain of childbirth.

Despite the heat I ran a couple of loads to my local auction house. Picked up one lot I’d won in a more industrial auction. That was for resale. I will try to run at least one more good load to the auction today before heading over to my rent house to start work on it. The ceiling needs repair. I’m going to end up doing the patch in the wall, instead of the painter… and the porch floor has some rotten boards that will need to be replaced. I have to do that every couple of years.

Then I have to seriously consider what to do about the fence. Some of it is pretty worn, as I discovered when the strange neighbor drew my attention to it. I’m tempted to do the absolute minimum, just add a board so I can re-nail the rotten bottoms of the pickets. That will buy a couple of more years for the fence. I don’t want to put thousands or even hundreds of dollars into it. I’ve power washed it a couple of times though, and it’s pretty worn out. Western red cedar 5 inch pickets on pressure treated posts and rails is the default fencing here, and it holds up pretty well, better with washing and sealing, but it doesn’t last forever and that fence is over 15 years old. The joy of property ownership. It’ll be hot out, no matter what I choose to do.

I do think that having a revenue stream from a rental property is a good idea, and a decent hedge against inflation. As long as you can count on .gov to honor property rights, and insist that tenants pay you what you are owed, that is. We’ve seen that we can’t actually count on that in most places. Still a good investment in theory, and for us, in practice. I’d prefer to have some commercial rental property too. It’s easier to get rid of bad tenants, but if the economy goes south, it’s harder to keep good ones. Everyone needs a place to live, businesses can condense down to ‘home based’ if needed, or they go broke completely leaving commercial landlords with empty properties. Every investment involves trade offs, and different risks.

Even cash buried in jars involves risk.

The only way I know to reduce the risk is to diversify, and I don’t mean by holding 10 different stocks. Diversify your investments. Diversify your income. Diversify your suppliers and sources. Diversify what you stack. And hope that the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down all at the same time.

Even if it does, if you’ve stacked, you’ll still be able to eat. Stack it up.

nick

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Mon. July 31, 2023 – worka while you can monkey boy…

Hot. Humid. Scorching hot in the sun. Like Sunday.

At one point yesterday afternoon, the outdoor thermometer said 114F, but it was in part sun. The inside one, with the sensor in shade, said 104F. Either way it was hot. My head was in part sun after all.

I spend Sunday afternoon working on the deck, after going to Lowe’s for more plywood and screws and paint in the color the boss ™ specified.

The Lowe’s trip ended up taking almost 3 hours between driving and waiting for staff to help. My wife finished the painting by work light. Stock continues to be spotty. This Lowes had the breakers I need, including the GFCI, but not the panel box. They only had one kind of rigid foam board, and it was the cheap nasty EPS white stuff. Not as dense or durable as the stuff I used for most of the deck. It’ll work though, for what I need. The plywood and screws were a little less than Houston, so that was nice.

This whole project should be less than $1000, which is pretty good for an almost 500 sqft deck. Even if it is “temporary”. Scare quotes because I expect it to be more than a year before we do something permanent. The staircase from Habitat adds another $800. Still pretty good for a stair made from metal and wood that is 13 ft long and has about 8 ft of rise. I think it looks like a lot more money than it cost.

I’ll be doing some remaining trim and steps to the doors today. And waiting for the appliance guy.

The appliance repair guy is supposed to fix the dishwasher. We described the symptoms, and error codes, but I’ll be shocked if he has the parts with him. I hope he does, but I’ll be shocked… I’ll be doing small jobs all day to fit in as much stuff as I can before heading home.

Then it’s time to pull stuff for the auction. Which is great. I might have mentioned that I have stuff. Lots of stuff.

All in all, a good weekend’s worth of work, even in the crazy heat, and with only the half day Saturday and Sunday.

It’s not stacking, but it is needful. If you can’t work on improving your situation, you can still stack.

nick

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Tues. July 25, 2023 – time to do some pickups.

Hot and humid. Can’t get much more humid than raining, and it did rain a little bit yesterday. That’s despite my comment about being on the edge of the predicted area. Didn’t stick, and the temp went right back up. I’m guessing more of the same for today. 100F or more, 80% RH or more.

Spent most of the day on auction stuff, and digging through paper on my desk. I’ve been neglecting paperwork and mail because I’ve been out of town, and busy. I’m also going through stuff I’ve piled around the office and the house. I’ve got a lot of stuff.

So today I’m going to get more! Yeah, but some is for my upcoming sale, some is for the BOL, some for household use, and there are a couple of things for future projects. I’ll stack those. It would be great if it didn’t rain today as I’ll be driving around with a truckbed full of stuff. I got medical supplies (burn gel lidocaine dressings and trauma pad dressings, OTC meds), stuff for the dock, a backup for the propane tankless hot water heater, stuff to sell, food items, cleaning supplies, and some ham radio stuff (antennas). Even got some sprinkler parts. Everything comes through the auctions eventually.

I can’t do most of the pickups until later in the day though, so the morning will be more desk/office/house cleaning and bills. Oh joy. Maybe I’ll even do a load of laundry. Ah, domestic bliss. Well, it’s the reality of being the stay at home dad, and the reality of my life. No axe reviews or free laser cutters for me.

Plenty of stacks though!

No worries about rice. Or wheat. Bugs in my sugar so maybe I’ll pick up 20-50 pounds. India exports sugar too. As times get tough, people and countries will be taking care of home first… and there will be shortages. If you needed a reason to add some bulk food to your stacks, you have only to look to India, and the Ukraine. When the global system of trade breaks down, people will go hungry. Don’t be one of them.

Stack it up.
nick

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Sun. July 23, 2023 – can’t think of a thing…

Hot and humid. It was 104F in the shade yesterday afternoon when I got home. Told my wife I’d cut the grass when it cooled down. Couple hours later it was still 102F so I gave that nonsense a pass… I’ll cut it when the temps drop, and if that’s December, so be it…

I started the day building my temporary deck at the BOL. It will give us a good feel for size and shape, and keep us out of the red sticky mud when it does finally rain. So far I’ve only got 6hrs of driving, $100 trailer rental, and $120 in material into it. It’s almost 3ft high and about 600 sq ft, so that’s pretty cheap. I spent a couple hours putting down what I have so far. It will need some furring strips and then a plywood skin, so add a few hundred more bucks. That should work for a while and still be easily removable for access by the foundation guys when we get the hill stabilized or the helical piers installed for the real deck. Quick, relatively cheap, and temporary. There are a couple of things like that up there now.

Speaking of temporary, I did manage to win a couple more garden hose sprinkler heads. That’s a good thing for my temporary watering system. Couldn’t find the pipe I needed at Lowes. I’m going to have to find a local irrigation supplier, or hit the web I guess.

I’m about 90% decided how to clean up the electrical supply in the little workshop and what feeds the dock, dockhouse, and another shed… and it won’t be 1950’s salvaged fused disconnects and antique breaker panels that have been on fire. Whatever I do, even if it is using masking tape and bread bag twist ties to replace everything there, it’ll be an improvement, and safer.

I’ll be doing work here at home today. Mostly paperwork, bills, and invoicing, but also the outside stuff if it’s not too hot. I can cut the grass in 20 minutes or less, but even that can see a 10 degree temperature rise. That caught me yesterday morning working on the deck. It was a reasonable low 80s when I started, but 98F when I finished. I had to go inside and cool off at one point. Snuck up on me.

It’ll be worth it in the end. It’s already worth it for the redundancy and backup, as we can live there full time if needed. And if the world somehow avoids the conflagration, we’ll have a nice place to hang out on a beautiful lake in our “golden years.”

Find yourself some place to go if you have to. Work on getting out of the big cities, out of unfriendly communities, away from potential trouble spots. Trouble IS coming. There is no other way out of the hole our ‘betters’ have dug. And the world is going spastic and insane. IN PLACES. In other places, life goes on, mostly the same, and you can point and comment about the other places. But fires have a tendency to spread, and so does the social madness that seems to sweep the world every few decades. EVERY place is going to be affected. Do what you can to minimize the damage.

And stack stuff. Can’t hurt. Will probably help. Might save a life.

nick

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Thur. July 20, 2023 – lots of driving today

Hot and humid again and still. Well over 100F in my driveway yesterday but I missed the peak. It was still 99F in the shade at 7pm. Today will likely be similar. Which should be miserable.

Didn’t do much yesterday. Got my trash and debris from the BOL disposed of. Took D1 to an appointment. Mostly caught up on auctions. Several things I need are in this week’s sales. Hope I get a few.

Today will mostly be eaten by picking up a trailer, heading to San Antonio, picking up a load of stuff there, and heading home. Should be about 7 hours round trip, once I have the trailer. I’ll be driving the Expedition as it has more towing capacity. It’s more comfortable, but drinks more gas. At least I’ll have the Jim Butcher audio book to listen to. Should be pretty close to the end by the time I get home.

I ordered a set of the first 4 books in the series since I’m liking this one so much. I’ve read them, some more than once, but I’m laughing at the humor and turn of phrase. There is a lot of detail in the books, and knowing where the story goes, it’s easy to see where some of the arcs start. One inconvenient thing is that the set is MP3 audio on CDs. I’ll have to convert and rip to regular CDs to listen in my Ranger, it doesn’t play mp3. I think it’s about 10 hours per book, so it will take me a while to get through the first ones, after I finish the current one. The MP3 sets are MUCH cheaper than standard 10 disc CD sets. 4 disks vs 40 is a dramatic reduction.

It might be easier to move them to my phone and play through an FM modulator. That’s how I have my XM radio attached in the Ranger. Or move them to a different phone… android really doesn’t handle concurrent audio from different sources very well. I’ll lose the turn by turn navigation, or the audio stream. Or I could swap out the older factory radio for something more capable. I’ve got the upgraded radio, that will play mp3s, on the shelf as a backup. Nothing is ever as easy or straightforward as it should be though, and I’ve got more projects than I can get to already.

———————————–

All the chattering aside, the work on the BOL will be eating up the majority of my time for a while. Somehow I’ll have to fit in the changeover to new tenants and all that entails at the rental house too. Got to keep that income stream flowing. That’s a backup too. And doing all the stuff around the house here, and the vehicle maintenance, and getting the kids started in the new school year…

Yeah. Don’t weaken. Don’t falter. Get ready. Stack.

nick

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Mon. July 17, 2023 – New week, same work…

Hot again, and humid. The little bit of moisture from the sky we got yesterday didn’t help anything, just made it more humid. And when it finally cleared up in the late afternoon, it was hot and sunny, and humid.

I was fortunate to be mostly working in the shade, and I did set up the pop-up canopy for the area not covered by the roof, which helped.

I got the pump tested, the pump discharge pipe fixed, extended, and reconnected. It was mostly repairs and not much pipe in places. I built a manifold for the valves. Connected that. Mounted a couple of valves. Didn’t want to fire up water under pressure until today when the glue has really cured. Cleaned up and switched to yardwork.

Did a bit of weed-wacking around the dockhouse. Used the battery powered trimmer, which I still like for small jobs. Rigged up a pump and hose to water the bushes next to the dockhouse. I watered them all last summer as they were transplants and needed it. So far they were fine but showing some signs of stress, so I watered them. I just dropped a submersible pump in a bucket in the lake and fed a hose. The hose was connected to last year’s drip irrigation for those bushes. I’ve been meaning to try it out, but didn’t have power at the dock…

The lake level dropped a couple more inches yesterday. We really need some rain.

Called it a day before the sun set, and got some fishing in. No catching, one nibble. Tried 4 different baits. Oh well.

Today we’re still here, so I’ll be working on the sprinklers. Should be able to get the zones set up, at least with hoses and temporary heads. That will be enough to do what I need, and to test the system. Wife will be trying to work remotely. Kids will be sleeping late and playing the new Zelda on the Switch. So it should be a good day.

Fix something, learn something, meet someone, or stack it up. Or all of the above.

nick

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Sun. July 16, 2023 – yeah, it’s still hot, and I’m still working in it

Crazy hot again, but at least the RH is a bit lower. In some ways that is bad, because I didn’t notice just how hot it got. I stayed a bit too long in the heat and ended up having to take a break to cool off. Today should be about the same, but I’m taking the afternoon off if it’s that hot again. 97F in the shade with a breeze is pretty dang hot.

I did get work done, just not as much as when it’s a bit cooler. I have lights and power at the dock and the dock house again. I did have to jerry rig the main breaker in the workshop to feed the dock area, but I’ll clean that up on my next trip. For now, there is power down there.

Today will be cleaning up the install, putting covers on everything, then doing some more work on the sprinklers. I did get the pump motor wired up, the pump relay in place, and the control box mounted. The new breaker panel is up and working. I need to strap up some of the conduit, and put the extra bits and pieces away too. Then I’ll look at the output from the pump, and see if I can build the manifold and install the sprinkler valves.

If I can get a couple of zones working, I’ll run hoses and oscillating sprinkler heads to the areas that need it the most. There is still a ‘trunk line’ of pipe running up the fence line to the front yard that I’m going to try to get back into service. That will save me a ton of work trying to get irrigation to the top of the hill. Then I’ll do more hoses and temporary heads up there.

If I can get sprinklers working on this trip, it’ll be a major accomplishment and we can get some grass going in the front yard. That’s gonna be critical if we don’t want all the red clay dirt to dry up and blow away. Eventually we will get some rain, and it’ll be just mud without grass. The lake is down about a foot from normal levels so the rain is overdue.

Nothing like last year, yet, but if we don’t get some rain, it will continue to recede.

@brad said I have a lot of energy, but that’s not quite right. It’s more that I’ve learned to focus and just keep pushing when that’s what the job requires. Jenny is the one with all the energy!

I did push a little too hard yesterday afternoon, and had to go inside and lay on the cool concrete floor for a bit. Harder to judge the state of my body without sweat dripping from my nose and eyelashes…

So I’ll take it a bit easier today. Still working though, still stacking. Recommended.

nick

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Mon. July 3, 2023 – back to work slacker.

Hot and humid is the order of the day. It was a little bit cooler yesterday or I’m adapting, because I didn’t end the day soaked to the skin. I only had sweat dripping from my eyelashes and nose twice.

With the late start, I got on the machines in the afternoon. Stripping the side patio back is going well so far. Finished the day at a good point, and there wasn’t really room for more in the dumpster anyway. They are supposed to swap it out again this am, and it needs it.

Played board games with the family before working and after, yesterday. Extra kid is fitting in well (D2’s friend, not X1) she’d been kinda quiet and reserved previously. Smack talking and elbow throwing now 🙂 (metaphorically speaking)

We played “Code Names” after breakfast. It takes partners with a shared cultural frame of reference to do well. When paired with my wife, we do very well. When paired with D1, I don’t win. We played “Ticket to Ride” after dinner. That is one of my favorites. I recommend it for any group, including mixed ages. There are a couple of different strategies, and styles of play. You have to make decisions and build off them but also be willing to abandon a plan and find a different choice.

The kids were playing Rumikub most of the day. I like it too, if you have players that don’t take all day on every turn.

Wife painted trim when she wasn’t playing with the kids or moving my stuff around. (kidding, I kid…)

A good day, until the plumbing mess at the end.

Stack up the good times, they can sustain you in the bad.

nick

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