Category: personal

Cool and damp. Maybe some precip? It was kind of grey most of yesterday, with some patchy blue sky later in the day. Didn’t ever rain on me though. It got hot enough that the attic was uncomfortable, although it was pretty nice if you were just in the yard.

I did get a few things done. I got most of the Halloween decor put away. The remaining stuff lives outdoors anyway so it won’t matter if it gets wet. (it looks like we got some rain overnight) I pulled some of the Christmas stuff, with the intention of sorting it into trash or recycle, or possibly use again… it’s stuff from the back corner of the attic, and mostly strings of lights. I have been upgrading as I find them cheap, so I will cull anything that is iffy. I need space in the attic for new stuff.

The holiday decor suffers from the same issue as a lot of my prepping. I don’t get to go through the stacks every year, so I forget what I have, and where it is. Sometimes, it gets old/faded/rusted/damaged or has issues from animals. I budget for losses on the preps, not so much for other areas of my life. I need to try harder to keep up. I really should be taking some sort of inventory every year, even if it’s just “so that’s where that went” or “oh yeah, I need to put that somewhere else/somewhere more permanent” as I put eyes on it.

Managing all this stuff takes work. And I sometimes don’t do the work.

That is one of the reasons to organize in a way that you can determine what you have, at least casually, easily. I like having stuff where I can look at it. I don’t like drawers or cabinets for that reason. Whether in my pantry or my workshop, I prefer to see at a glance what I have. That means shelves and literal stacks for the most part. Wife hates the clutter that results. So I’m trying to shift some of the stuff into cabinets. At the BOL it’s especially important to not have everything out and on display, so I’ve gotten started up there. Changing my local environment here at home will be a lot harder. Baby steps.

And maybe there is a little bit of progress. That’s all it takes, a bit at a time. Over time it will pay off. Do a bit of organizing and sorting yourself… and stack some new.

nick

Cool and damp, warming to hot and damp. It will probably be damp… for all that it started out sopping wet, yesterday ended very nice. It was low 70s and comfortable at dusk. I enjoy driving with the windows down when I can. It would be nice to get a little more Fall before Winter arrives.

Did some household stuff, some auction stuff, picked up one kid, then went to the dress rehearsal for the other kid’s school musical. Spent a couple hours doing audio tweaks and teaching the mixer board kid how to listen and adjust EQ. Hit the HEB for some “show buddy” treats that D2 needed to pick up. They had choice beef chuck roast on sale cheap, so I bought a couple. Ground chuck was only $3.75/pound, so I got some of that too. Even the beef jerky I eat was $1 off with in store coupon…so it was a decent trip despite being unplanned and out of order.

Today I’m headed into school to set up a monitor speaker for the Music Director, so she won’t demand changes to my front of house mix. Then I’ll do some auction stuff, and finally go back to second dress rehearsal, so that I can show the Musical Director how to adjust her monitor, and so I can keep working with the kid mixing the show. There is an alternate casting of the 4 leads and this is their rehearsal. First time to set mics for them. And the kid needs encouragement to stick to his guns and keep the volume levels below painful, even when a Musical Director wants to mess up the whole show so she can hear better…

Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in… /end Pachino voice

It’s not a prep, but I get to use skills and knowledge and gear that I have had in storage for a long time. And it’s meatspace, engaging with my community.

Stacking is easier and takes less time.

nick

Muggy, warm and damp. Possibility of rain. Yuck. Weeks of dry and cool and the day thousands of people will be out walking around and it is wet and warm. Yuck. We actually had dripping from the sky most of the day yesterday, although it didn’t really puddle, it did get everything wet. And it was very warm.

I did some stuff around the house, then got one pickup done. It was lots from several auctions, so it was time to get the stuff. Then I headed to school for D2’s rehearsal and my volunteer hours. At her school, parents are expected to volunteer time throughout the year to help the kids or the school activities. My wife and I help in the theater program, since that’s our background. I’m doing sound this time, even though that was very secondary to my work and school experience.

The school has a very capable system that hasn’t really been maintained, adjusted, or properly configured for years. It’s been slowly added to and modified, and cruft from second hand knowledge and minimal training and understanding has built up to the point it needs to be cleaned out and reset. And I guess I’m the man to do it. Joy.

On the plus side, the system has built in features that should make their lives easier and shows sound better once we get them configured and active.

On the minus side, a lot of that will be opaque and not at all obvious to the incoming users, who will probably start making changes based on their ignorance and the need to get stuff done.

I’m headed there this morning for a couple of hours to get started.

Then I’ll be putting finishing touches on my Halloween decor and getting ready for trick or treaters. We get about 120-140 kids most years. I’ve got big bags of candy… and I’m not afraid to give it away.

It’s a weird holiday, but one I enjoy a lot. Hope you do too.

n

(not much stacking for me, but should be some for thee..)

Cool and clear in the morning, warming later, but not getting hot hot. Just warm hot. Probably not even more than 90F… which describes yesterday too. And probably tomorrow as well.

The cool morning helped me do a couple of small things outside. I did a repair in the garage, poked around the yard. Looked for rat carcasses (and didn’t find any). Did my pickup, got the kid… did some small things around the house. But mostly I was looking at hurricane stuff, talking with mom and my sibling, and trying to figure out what will be happening this weekend.

I’m betting on a lot of wind, water, and devastation. I’m hoping the people I know and love avoid at least one of those three. It seems to unlikely that they’ll miss them all.

Today I’ve got one pickup and one dropoff. The pickup is a 55 gallon rotomolded water tank. The dropoff is a “safe” I opened and fixed for one of my auctioneers. I like opening the cheap “safes” and making them work again. It usually doesn’t take much to open them. Don’t use them to secure anything important. I consider being able to get into stuff, like “safes” or lockboxes, or vehicles, or doors, to be an important skill. Bypassing locks, brute forcing them, or “picking” them, are all fun and fascinating things to learn about and do.

Skills, I’ve got a few, and they are quite varied… stack some skills, and some stuff.

nick