Category: personal

Warm and wet.   Damp and overcast for a while, then maybe some sun?  Just guessing, but that’s all the weather liars do.   They think they know, but not really, and especially not for Houston.  After all, the day finally cleared and  the sun came out in the late afternoon yesterday.

Did some cleanup and housework.   Made a nice dinner for Mother’s Day.   Watched movies as a family.   A good day.

Today I’ve got to kick @ss on some cleaning and organizing, if the rain stays away.   If not, it’s more piddlefarting around with maybe some pickups thrown in.   This week is looking like it’ll be pretty busy, with prepping for D1’s birthday, swim team, and all the normal things.  Plus I might have to make a quick trip to the BOL to meet with the septic guy.  All the rain has an alarm on the system activating, and I might need to get with him to resolve whatever is going on.  This weekend was the second time it’s tripped.  Time to figure out what the issue is.

School year is winding down for the kids.  Lots of testing, then a beach trip, then make work to run out the clock on the year…  I can’t believe it’s already summer.

I am glad for the time, as lately I am finding issues, gaps, and failures in my preps.   I was doing pretty well, but time and loss of focus took their toll.   Now I’m playing catchup again.  This is not where I want to be, so I better get busy changing it.

If you aren’t where you want to be, YOU better get busy too.  No one knows the what or when but we can be certain that there will be something.  It’ll be better to meet it with a stack of preps.   So get stacking.

nick

A bit cooler, but still wet.  Forecast is for more rain, possible storms…  but still just on the edge of any serious weather.   Like yesterday.  Just wet enough to keep me inside most of the day.

Did my swapmeet/sale/non-prepping hobby meeting.   Good turnout, maybe double our normal?  And a couple of new club members from last month came back for more.  It’s hard to grow a club.   The ham magazine is full of advice, which tells me most clubs aren’t growing and don’t know what to do about it.   Attrition is a factor in most of the clubs I’m interested in.  Tempus fugit, momento mori, and all that.   No one gets out alive.   It’s nice to share an enthusiasm with other people.  We are social creatures after all.   It’s also important to mix with people outside your normal day to day groups, so you can get a wider picture of what is going on in the world.

After the meeting I mostly piddlefarted around  the house.   Domestic bliss- cleaning and laundry, cooking dinner, etc… and auction stuff.  I did do a bit of tech.  I found a ubiquiti Nanostation Loco M2 I’d removed from service and decided to see if it was recoverable to use at the BOL.   It wasn’t.  Deader than a  dead parrot.  I opened it up and looked at the board, but didn’t find any smoke releasing components.   Lightning killed it, and left no trace.   So I ordered a pair of new Nanostation M5s.   We’ll see how they work.

Today is Mother’s Day, so I will be working on that all day.  I think we’ll be cooking a beef ribeye roast, potatoes, asparagus, and homemade bread for dinner.   I hope the one I had in the freezer is big enough.   Dang kids are eating me out of house and home.

It used to be the case, don’t know if it still is, that Mother’s Day had the heaviest call volume of any day of the year.   Don’t let it pass unused.

Stack something, use something from your stacks.  Say Hi to Mom, if you still can.

nick

Warm and damp.   Sun came out and it got hot yesterday and I see no reason that can’t happen again today.  National forecast has us on the edge of some bad stuff, but that’s just par for the course.

Yesterday ended up nice.   Overcast to start, but sunny in the afternoon.   I spent the morning working on auction stuff, mainly vintage audio gear, then went to do my pickup.   Hit the goodwill bins, since I was right there.   Got two pairs of expensive vintage cowboy boots as the main score.  Got a campstove toast rack too!   Now I can burn bread over a Coleman stove.   Lots of DVDs too.  It’s hard to believe that there are still DVDs I want but don’t have.

Stopped by my storage unit and got some stuff for my non-prepping hobby club meeting today.  I hope some stuff sells.   It would be nice to not bring it all home.  There are days when it feels like the joke about the two antique dealers alone on a deserted island.  One is having a ‘going out of business’ sale, the other is buying up ‘inventory’…   It’s always fun to spend time with people who enjoy the same stuff you do, even if they aren’t buying.

So that’s how I’m spending the morning, amongst fellow enthusiasts.   I’ll spend the afternoon doing house stuff, or auction stuff.   There’s always more to do.

Hopefully I’ll be stacking up a little money today.  Nothing else is likely to be added to the piles.  YOU should stack something though.  Water treatment or food, your choice this week 😉

nick

Warmish and damp.   Not pleasant at all.   That’s my prediction based on last night’s conditions.   It was pretty damp during the day yesterday too.   It was especially unpleasant when the sun came out in the afternoon.   Gah.  Just like summer.

I did several pickups.   Didn’t go to the massive ‘man stuff’ estate sale.   I’m going today though if I can make the timing work… did hit the cr@ppiest of our local Goodwill Outlet stores.   Picked up a NIB Colman camp stove oven, some stainless steel “steam table” trays (101 uses), and some other stuff for home and away.  Got a nice North Face midweight technical jacket.  Seems like we never have enough jackets at the BOL.  It does get damp and cold on the dock at night.  Picked a vintage turntable to part out to pay for the other stuff.  Chatted with a young kid who approached me about finding stuff to resell there.   Kid asked about the ‘vinyl playing thing’ I had in the cart, did I find it there.   Yes, I did.   I had the vintage turntable and one of the new “Victrola” brand record players.   They are like the old portable players, and have bluetooth and an aux in so you can use them with other media too.  They are cheap and cheesy but they get the kids listening to vinyl… D1 uses a slightly better model for her listening.  Now D2 wants one too.  They are a convenient way to listen to vinyl if you’ve gotten rid of your turntable and big system.

Wife and D2 have a GS thing today and tomorrow which leaves me with D1 AND a school friend who “needed to be out of her house for a day because it wasn’t safe there”.   Hmm.   I’m gonna need more details so I can decide if the ‘unsafe’ could follow her and rub off on me.  In the mean time, we fed her dinner and they crashed out last night.   They  want to meet some school friends at the mall and look at dresses for the end of year party later today.   I want to go to an estate sale.   I guess we might both get our wishes, if the timing works.

I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not just houses that need maintenance and attention, and surprise expenditures and commitments.  (Kid lives in the most crime ridden big apartment complex near us, so I’m not terribly surprised if life with her single mom sometimes gets out of control and she needs a break from it, but I want to know it’s a legit issue and she’s not playing us, and that none of it will splash on me.)

Meatspace can have some downsides too.

But hey, we’ve got stacks and can feed an occasional stray, and provide a night of quiet and calm.

Because I’ve been stacking it up, and because our lives are in good order.   Not bad goals, btw.

nick

Cool and damp leading to rain later?   We are forecast for possible rain and thunderstorms… but as always, we’ll see.   It was a bit overcast most of yesterday but then did get sunny later.  I believe the highs were in the mid 80s F.

And once again I found myself outdoors.   This time I was fixing the vacuum breaker for the sprinkler system.   It’s almost summer, and we need to start irrigating soon.  The VBP had “popped” during the freeze and was fountaining when my neighbor saw it and shut off the water.   Good neighbors.  For some reason we weren’t home when it broke.   I’ve let it be until I could get a replacement.  Since they are $140 in the store, I waited and several showed up in the auctions.

So I got the one I won and headed out to see what I was going to have to do to replace the bad one.   The thing is about 10 pounds of brass or bronze, and very sturdy.   The part that broke is plastic.  Hmmm.   The replacement is the exact part that is installed, and I’ll have to cut PVC pipe and splice the new one in… unless….   yes, the broken parts are meant to be replaced.   The 15 or more year old one didn’t want to be removed.    It’s marked “Hand tight only” but it was very secure.   My huge pipe wrench didn’t budge it, even after liberal application of Kroil.  I test the new one and yep, the plastic parts do come out.   So.  I ended up cutting the plastic part out of the threaded socket, and breaking all the pieces out.   The guts of the new part went in easily enough, and worked.   Hooray.  Didn’t have to cut any pipe or glue any splices.

Started testing the zones.   Realized I’ve got 7 zones, but can only find 5 valves.   Hmmm.   That’s a problem for another day.   I got the two zones in the front yard checked before I ran out of time.   Kids had stuff to do after school, and I was the one tasked with enabling that…   All in all, pretty straightforward for a plumbing project.    I might even order the parts kit and put the ‘new’ one back together, but that will wait for a while.  I’ve got another bronze one for the BOL system from the same auction, so there isn’t any rush.

Today I’m headed to  my client’s house.   I will work on getting the ethernet over coax installed and tested.   There may be digging involved.   If it’s pouring rain, I’m going to be cancelling and finding something else to do.   The other project there (replacing another bit of dead gear) is delayed by shipping.   The part was supposed to be here by now, but is currently showing delivery for tomorrow .  So if I can’t work outside, there isn’t much point in me driving out there.

For what it’s worth, the part is an interface box from Crestron and part of the AV control system.  I bought it on ebay when my search finally alerted on a new item listing.   It’s been unavailable from the manufacturer, and un-fixable under warranty for MONTHS.   This part is definitely grey market and I hope it works.   It’s listed as new in box but who really  knows.   It’s a $450 gamble that I hope pays off and gets the system back to 100%.  [cor blimey, that’s a lot of declarative statements in a row, someone should take me to task for that!]

Ah well, I’ll probably never be a New York Times Best Selling Author…

I will be stacking stuff though.  Lots of stuff. I better get to it.

nick