Category: polemic

Thur. Nov. 16, 2023 – and now we’re half way thru November. Yikes.

Cool and clear, maybe even sunny and warming later. Yesterday turned out quite nice. Sun stayed out, and it warmed up, but not so much that you started sweating. Having today the same would be great. Also great if I could enjoy it, instead of just moving through it.

Did a bunch of stuff yesterday, only some of it actually on my list. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, meeting with the tiger mom who is buying our piano, picking up the place–domestic bliss in other words. Then I did an auction pickup, went by the car repair and tried to get my Expy in for service. Nope, missed my chance, too busy. I guess I could try another place, but in my mind this guy has replaced my long time service place that shut down. Unfortunately he’s short staffed, which makes everything harder. Lotta that going around btw.

Went to a school thing later, a banquet for student athletes. BBQ was pretty good. More white coaches than there were white students in the room… My 5′ 8″ blondie gets a lot of attention from the short and dark student body. I’m getting the impression they think she’s “exotic” but not “wife material”. That’s fine with me. We’ve been invaded. It will only get worse from here.

I spent some time talking with my cleaning lady. She’s legal, but an immigrant. She told me that all her customers think really bad times are coming and they are getting ready. She is too. We’ve talked before about vac sealing and freezing meat, and she’s not dumb, she sees the stacks. She asked me what I thought, so I told her. Violence. Shortages. Upheaval. Massive inflation. Economic collapse. (something that is FAR from unthinkable for anyone from south of the border, btw. It’s the normal state of affairs they’ve lived with their whole lives. They have no reluctance to consider it as a possibility.) She said she is trying to sell one of her trucks, the one she considers a “personal” vehicle. “It’s just sitting there, not earning anything.” And she is thinking about taking her money and going back to Mexico, to one of the American expat communities. If she does, it will likely work out better for her than the expats, when the S hits the Fan. It’s easier to be poor in your home town, near family and friends.

Without considering any moral arguments, think about that.

And make plans. Because some of the invaders will be STRONGLY incentivized to stay, even if some do leave. Native born citizens are sorting themselves geographically, and a reverse dust bowl pattern is already emerging. I’ve talked to and seen other people who are moving back to family and familiar places. S is getting real, yo… (to use a meme.)

Who you are with, and where you are, is likely to make a huge difference in your life for the next 2, 5, or 10 years.

And what you’ve stacked, of course.

nick

Read the comments: 54 Comments

Wed. Oct. 11, 2023 – auctions and pickups and imaging oh my

Cool and cloudy, chance of rain. It rained off and on all day yesterday, albeit only in some spots and very lightly. I had the truck windshield get wet several times as I went through my day.

Did my kid duties in the morning, went to earn my daily bread in the afternoon.

Solved most of my client’s current problems over the course of the afternoon and evening. Got home around 8pm.

Which means there are a couple of things I should have done yesterday that will now push to today and tomorrow. I’m supposed to fast this morning, get my imaging done at 330pm and so I have to fit the rest of my day around that. I’ll be doing two pickups in the morning. I’d rather be sleeping late, and moping around the house waiting for my appointment. But I don’t get to make all the choices.

Speaking of choices…

Everyone has a choice to make. Take some responsibility for your life, or don’t. If you DO, you need to make plans for the future, to the best of your ability. Some of those plans should be for bad things happening.

The people of Israel had a bad thing happen this week. Their lives will always have a dividing line- before the day and after the day.

JFK’s assassination. The 9-11 terror attacks. The moon landing. Those are some of the shared “lines” in the USofA. There WILL be more “lines” – some will be universal, some will be very personal. Some will be good, some bad. The bad ones tend to have a bigger impact on the world and groups of people than the good ones do.

I expect there will be a bunch more bad days and bad dividing lines. So I prep. I accept that there will be bad things that happen and I do what I can to minimize the effect they will have on me and the people I love. I know there will be things that happen that I didn’t think about, that I didn’t consider could or would happen to me. I prep generally for those things and hope it will be enough.

I have taken responsibility for my life, and my future, and I’ve acted in a way that I think will lead to the best possible outcomes. I continue to evaluate, to plan, to consider, and yes, to STACK the things I know I’ll need and the things I think I’ll need, and even the things I might need.

I could be struck down tomorrow and it will have been for nought, say some. But I say, no. It’s ALREADY made my life better. It’s ALREADY led to better outcomes. It’s ALREADY paid off, and even if I’m not here, it will continue to pay off for my family, my friends, and the people who have taken responsibility for themselves and their loved ones because of my influence, however small it might be.

I’m feeling a bit poetic and dramatic because I’m facing my own very personal dividing line. Today’s testing is a part of that. A follow up appointment next Thursday will likely be the day, if there is to be one. Until then I will be watching and preparing for other, bigger events, as I have been for years.

The world is changing, as it constantly is, but the rate of change, and the magnitude of the change isn’t constant. They both seem to be getting bigger at this point in time. Bigger changes, happening faster. Be as ready as you can.

Stack.

n

Read the comments: 82 Comments

Tues. Oct. 3, 2023 – slouching toward the future…

Slight coolness to the breeze in the morning, not quite as high temps in the afternoon, it must be Fall, finally. 90F+ is still plenty hot, and I don’t want to be in the attic yet, but I can tell the day is coming. I will end up doing all those things I’ve put off.

I spent the day Monday doing paperwork. Tax stuff. Billing. Bill paying. Nothing at all interesting, other than the observation that round trips to the BOL pretty much doubled the miles I drive in a year. My wife is doing about the same number of trips in her Honda too. So we’ve increased our mileage expense dramatically, especially when gas was at the peak.

The other observation is that I haven’t been keeping up my rate with my remaining client. I bumped it up for this invoice, and I’ll be bumping it again on the next one. I need to get at least a thirty percent increase just to stay even, and I’m not close yet. Raising rates is hard, even with good, long term clients. It might be harder actually, as you can more easily raise rates on strangers than someone you’ve been working with for a decade. He’ll understand, and he’s not pinching pennies, but he didn’t get to where he is by writing a bunch of checks. I think my position is pretty secure as I know more about what’s going on there than anyone, but I also don’t want him to put off calling when there is an issue. It’s tough, and it’s going to be tougher.

Today I’ve got to do the stuff I blew off yesterday, and I’ve got to finish before 4pm. I’ve got a doctor appointment for more prodding this afternoon. There was a week without anything, but now I’m busy again. Still, better to get any issues identified and treated before things get really bad.

And make no mistake they are getting bad. Lawlessness in our major cities, feral youth running wild, imported criminal cartels busy getting set up and established, and a flood of illegal dependents pushing aside citizens will continue to worsen our standard of living and cause anger and resentment in a way that hasn’t been seen in decades. You need to start asking yourself, what are you willing to put up with? What are you willing to do? Would you join a lynch mob? Chase down and beat a thief? Burn down a nuisance property? Report your neighbors who you think might be doing those things? Will you join a neighborhood watch? or an armed militia? Will you become a police auxiliary, or volunteer with the Sheriff? Time to start thinking about lines in the sand.

And stacking. Always improving.

And for your sake, get out of big cities…

nick

Read the comments: 60 Comments

Sun. Aug. 13, 2023 – Serendipity

Of course it’s hot and humid today. It’s summer. It’s a bit hotter than usual, but not hotter than EVAH!11!1! And it looks like it will continue to be hot here for a while…

Did my thing yesterday. Met with people and shared our common interests. We’re counting down the days until our regional tradeshow/swapmeet/convention, and our pre-registration numbers are stronger than last year. There was talk about people still coming out of their covid ‘shell’…which is frankly amazing to me. We’ve been back to “normal” for long enough I find it hard to remember when we weren’t. I’m not sure what I feel for the people who are still living under the cloud of the chinese bioweapon, sadness? Pity? Both mixed together with a dash of disbelief? I hope they come to Texas and see how they could be living again.

After that I loaded up the truck and headed to the BOL. And when I got here it was HOT. The wind was blowing and it felt like leaning into an oven. I was going to mow, but decided to take the dog for a walk and see my friend the fisherman, and take a look at the work he’s been doing on his house. We ended up sitting in the air conditioning and chatting for a couple hours. I’ll mow today. Meatspace.

Made my dinner and went down to the dock. It was still in the low 90s and the lake wasn’t feeling cool, but sitting still in the gentle breeze wasn’t too bad. The sky was a bit hazy, but the Milky Way was out, and there was the tail end of this week’s meteor shower to look for. I saw a couple dozen shooting stars, about half were dim and short, but almost a dozen were really bright and long ones. One I could see go from white streak to orange red as it broke up. Really pretty nice.

That kept me down there past my cigar, listening to the radio and watching the sky. WRMI Legends, playing all the hits of rock and roll from the last several decades. They even do “instant requests” playing stuff the audience picks from their song library through the website. Shortwave radio on 9.455Mhz. Their playlist is very eclectic. The DJ was in a mellow mood last night, but where else can you hear “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”, “Cat’s in the Cradle”, “the Tracks of my Tears”, “Rag Doll”, and dozens of others in the same hour? Fleetwood Mac to Bobby Darin? I love the serendipity of radio. After 50 plus years of listening to popular music, there was very little I couldn’t sing along to, and very few songs that I wasn’t happy to hear.

Serendipity plays a big part in my life. I need something and it shows up in the auctions. I need a job, and someone who knows someone I know gives me a call… I get back in touch with a girl I knew because of an email address on a fund raising appeal that was cc’d to me and I end up married to her… Stuff that pushes the bounds of probability happens to me all the time. Serendipity and synchronicity. It’s a charmed life now, but it wasn’t always. I can appreciate it now, knowing how it used to be.

And I want it to continue, to see where it all leads, but there are people and forces who want to bring it all down. We don’t get to choose when we live, or what happens in the world, but we do get to choose how we respond. I choose to get through whatever is coming, and to see what the next era looks like. My grandmother saw the birth of manned flight, and men landing on the Moon. I can’t predict what my kids will see but I want it to be more than flickering shadows on the walls of our ruined civilization. So I prep, to give them the best start in whatever comes next.

You can too. Stack it up.

nick

Read the comments: 56 Comments

Tues. Apr. 25, 2023 – time flies when you’re having fun

Cool and clear, damp, and maybe a chance of rain… so mostly just Houston.  It was another great day at the BOL following the rain.   A bit on the humid side, rapidly warming in the sun, but nice.

Met with the tree cutting guy.  Got a bid for the needed work.   Need to find time in the coming weeks to execute… not cheap, but seems reasonable for a crew of 7 and the work done.

Got a couple more small tasks knocked off the list.  Things like “change 2 of the outlet covers on the dock, to keep from electrocuting someone…”   Not high priority, but needed doing.   Poisoned some more fire ants.   Planted most of the blueberry and dewberry bushes.

When I used the hose to water in the bushes, I decided that I will have to add mechanical fasteners to the hose bibs, foam isn’t enough by itself.  I really don’t understand how they are meant to be fastened, the holes that look like screw holes are too small for any real hardware.  I’ll have to do some googling.  Details.   They’ll kill you.

Today I’ve got pickups, groceries, one drop off, and getting some dinner cooked.   I’ll be frying up the fillets my fishing buddy gave me.   Should make some other fried food to go with them.   Hope they’re delicious…

Got the annual bill from XM radio.  We have three subs, one for each vehicle.   The bill was over $1000.   Yeah it’s less than a dollar a day for each vehicle, and we both listen to XM by preference, but times are tight and getting tighter.   Wife called to cancel or downgrade plans… and they offered 70% off for a year, if she switched packages.   Ok.  There was still a big savings and we still don’t have to listen to commercial radio.  Win win, for now.

I mention it because of the belt tightening aspect.   We’ve got some big expenditures coming, so we are looking to save what we can where we can.  I work pretty hard at it in fact.  We’ve been coasting on things like subscription services though.   I bet a lot of people have, and I bet a lot of them will be cutting back soon if they haven’t already.

Jerry Pournelle always said storytellers would do ok in bad times, so “entertainment” will continue to get money.   I’d bet that (smart people) will be looking at the value they’re getting and reduce spending.   I get pretty good value out of a used book, it costs far less than $1/hour of use.   Some people get good value from a streaming service, watching more than enough shows to get under $1/hour.  Full price video games give outstanding value per hour, if you start with a used copy the cost is even lower.

Used DVDs are double that $1/hour, and movies and dinner out are WAY more.   Concert tickets, travel, and “experiences” are about to become the province of the well off.    Shopping as entertainment (“retail therapy”) is going to run up the credit card debt, or run up the return rate, but is likely to be cut back dramatically.   Doordash and similar services are convenient, but at some point even the innumerate will see that $15 on top of a fast food order isn’t doable.

Personal services, and “pampering” are almost sure to be cut back.  Fewer haircuts, massages, spa days.  Longer between nails and then less expensive procedures when you do get out…  except a certain parasite class that already overdoes these things on the tax payer’s dime.   When the tax revenues drop, even social programs should be cut.  Don’t know if they will, because of the rioting that would ensue, but I’d expect cuts in all the programs, even if they are just passive cuts, by not keeping up with inflation.

The result of all those spending cuts is job losses, which lead to more cuts, which lead to more jobs lost.  And then suddenly you are in a Depression with high unemployment.  Add the social unrest and the political upsets coming, and the malaise and hopelessness of unemployment, to the sudden appearance of obvious foreigners (as the lily pads covering the pond double seemingly overnight) and you’ve got a dangerous toxic mess.

I can’t be sure what’s coming, but for this summer, I’ll quote Ralph Wiggum from The Simpson’s – “It tastes like burning…”

Stack it up.

 

nick

Read the comments: 79 Comments

Wed. Apr. 5, 2023 – The posts are mostly irrelevant…

Warm and damp.  Chance of rain.  Maybe a lot of it.  Depends on which forecast you look at.   I’m going with “someone will get some rain”.   Yesterday the wind out of the Gulf seems to have blown the predicted system north of us.   We had overcast all day but no precip.

I finally got up on the roof and replaced the batteries in my weather station.  And it didn’t make a difference in the “77F and 84%RH” displays.   Time to dig out the backup.  While I had the ladder out, I cleaned off the roof.   The pollen pods (like little caterpillars) were clumping and filling the valleys.  The sharp leaves from one of the oaks were also collecting and forming dams.   It all looks a lot better now that it’s clean.  Cleaned the domes on a couple of the cams. Then  I noticed that I have to do my annual ‘cutting back of the tree’ too.  Might be bi-annual this time around.  There’s a lot of growth too close to the roof.

I did a bunch of sorting and binning for the auction, but couldn’t do a drop off.   No reply from the auctioneer, and then I’d missed my window.   Had to pick up the kids.

Won a couple of things for the BOL and the house in yesterday’s auctions.   There is always something more I need, and an endless flow of stuff through the auctions means I eventually get a chance to bid on it.  Sometimes, I win.

Today I’ve got pickups to do.  Hopefully the rain holds off, but I think I can get everything in the Expedition if it’s pouring down.  Before that though, I have to get the house cleaned up.   My organizing and sorting means there is a ton of stuff piled up around the house.   No way can I leave that for my wife to come home to.   Wouldn’t be prudent.


We continue to head down the slope.   The arrest of Trump while Hillarity walks free, while epstein’s client list remains a state secret, while the Bidden crime family enjoys all the incest, hookers, and blow they can pay for with chinese money, is but one more step on the road to hell.  Trump doesn’t have to advocate for violence.   The left exercises violence as a means of intimidation and control every day, and the ruling junta uses the threat of violence with impunity.   Well, mark my words, that impunity won’t last.  They THINK they can control it, harness it, USE it.  “Look what you made me do!” but they’re wrong.   They always underestimate their opponent, and overestimate their own capability.

When it all goes live, it will happen in an eyeblink, and the whole world will change.   Get yourself as ready as you can be.   Stack the things you’d have to venture out to get.   Stack the things you need to be safe.   Stack what you need to KEEP the  things you have.  Stack.

And keep your eyes open and head down.

nick

Read the comments: 114 Comments

Thur. Mar. 30, 2023 – where does the time go?

Cool and damp.   Supposed to rain.   But it’s Houston.   I got some rain on me yesterday.   It didn’t actually rain as such, which is why I say I “got some on me.”   I had drops of water from the sky hit me at various times of the day, in various parts of the city.   But it never actually rained.  It was even briefly sunny in places.

I spent most of  the day running around.   Did my pickups.  Gas is mostly between $2.89 and $3.09.   Went to Costco.   Costco had many of the things I missed last time back in stock.   Still missing the smoked almonds though.  Selection of rice and flour is still reduced.   Pork was reasonably priced (~$2.50/lb) and chicken was too, so I got some of each.   There were items on sale, just like pre-wuflu, although not as on sale.  They have something that looks like king crab for sale at only $25/lb. which is a huge decrease.  Of course it is ‘golden’ crab, and not actually Alaskan King Crab.  Mostly the same, almost as big…

And that seems to be the state of the world at the moment.  Mostly the same.  Almost as big.  Somewhat fewer choices.  And drab.  FFS, it’s drab.   Cars are all the same silhouette.  And selling in the same drab colors – black, white, red, dark blue, silver.   Houses are black and white.  I’m astounded by how many new buildings are black, white, and grey.   The store complex with our local Spec’s liquor store, Starbux, and various small storefronts just painted the whole brick complex white and black.  It was red, cream, brown, and natural brick  and stone colors.   The lack of color in the built world tells me that people are not happy and optimistic.

I’m seeing more homeless, and they are bolder.   They are sleeping and setting up housekeeping right in the open, right in the heart of commercial areas.  I’m also seeing more vacant commercial space at the same time there is an explosion of residential construction.   All those people moving here are going to need jobs, eventually, when their excess cash from selling in Cali but buying here runs out…

And don’t get me started on what passes for pop music.  What isn’t violent and nihilistic hedonism is depressing glorification of mental illness.

Nowhere is there conditioning for restraint, self control, or self sacrifice.   Those are three of the pillars that built and supported  western society.  And they’re gone from our stories, our heroes, and our culture.  That idea alone is probably worth an essay and a deeper look.

We grew up with those ideas firmly in place.   Our parents sacrificed so their kids could have a better life.   Their parents did the same, and sacrificed their bodies and minds in war in the belief that they had to, to build a future to live in.  Our stories and culture were suffused with the ideas of self restraint and self sacrifice, with the ordinary man expecting that to lead to success, and while for the hero the outcome was often his death, he did it anyway.  As individuals self sacrifice didn’t always lead to good outcomes, for society, SELF -restraint and -sacrifice, done by choice, led to a better world for everyone else.

And that’s almost entirely gone.  There are pockets.  Farmers.  Soldiers (warriors).  Parents. Teachers.  But in the ranks of those, the numbers decrease every year, replaced by parodies of what was.

It makes me sad to see fundamental changes like this.   There isn’t an easy or quick fix when something so vital (in retrospect) is removed from the culture.   I doubt that it’s even possible to get back to a point where those things can be restored, without a complete and massive destruction of what it’s become.   Things never “go back to normal.”   We are all of us and always changed by what happens to us and around us.

Stack all the things.  It’s going to be a while.

 

nick

Read the comments: 82 Comments

Wed. Jan. 18, 2023 – well, that could have gone better.

Warmish, and certainly damp.   Although the national forecast shows clear for a while, I expect some minor precip at some point today or tomorrow, if only because it feels like it.  It was not bad at all yesterday, with highs in the sun in the low 80s.   Felt like spring.

I did get out of the house and made my trash run.   Went by my storage unit too.   Didn’t get half what I wanted to get done, done.  {wow, that’s an awkward construction}

It’s much easier to not do things than to do them.  Especially when you are tired, or bored, or melancholic… or you have unbalanced humours and too much black bile in your spleen.   Or it could be the siren song of teh intarwebs.  Whatever.   Slacked off again and got too little done.   The bill for that WILL come due, and be higher because of it.

It’s hard to maintain momentum and forward progress.  My whole working life was very project oriented, and the nature of the work was very ‘bursty’.   Work hard for a while, then have time off.   Even working full time for BigCorp I was traveling to customer sites where I’d work, or the office in Canadia, or fighting to get my expense and travel report in on time…. all of which took bursts of hard work, focus, and sometimes dogged determination to just get through it.  But then there would be some time where nothing was required of me or the level was so low I could phone it in.   Sprints rather than marathons (although the sprints could last as long as a marathon), quick anaerobic strength moves, not aerobic workouts.

Lately though, and coming after 3 years of not normal, it’s been a never ending slog.   Anyone else noticed we don’t do the ‘what have you done to prep this week’ topic any more?  Because we’ve been living the disaster for the last three years.   But this one is really fading to black, despite the spasms and paroxysms of the powers that be.   Problem is, no formal end.   No closure.   No doing the expense report, AAR, “lessons learned” meeting.  No putting the files away and cleaning up the workspace… and moving on.

But there is another disaster coming.  There is ALWAYS going to be another disaster coming.  To riff off of JimB, the end will be ‘nearerer’ again sooner or later.  Flooding and mudslides in Cali, and an earthquake, barely ping our awareness.   Tornadoes and freak storms in the mid-South hardly register.  Maybe we’re all fatigued, disaster fatigued.   That would be bad by the way, because we wouldn’t be thinking straight, we’d be mentally pliable and subject to manipulation.   We’d be looking for someone to make it end.  And that ain’t good.

I’m not sure what the answer is.   Kinda making this up as I go along today, but I think some of us (me) need to reset our baseline expectations.  Accept that what we’ve got now IS normal, and move on to living in it, and getting ready for whatever comes next.  Just about everything is harder now, takes longer, and costs more than 3 years ago.   But humans are nothing if not adaptable, and adept at telling ourselves stories that justify or excuse or motivate.   In a sense we will our personal reality into shape around us.   We enter and leave relationships, surround ourselves with people and things, spend our lives doing stuff, and shape our experience of the world.

The world goes on doing its thing regardless of what we’re doing.   The elephants will dance while we mice hope we can avoid being stepped on.  And one day we realize that the dancing changed the shape of the world around us.   There are still mice in the world though even after the elephants have trampled everything flat.

And mice gotta eat, so stack some food.   Stack the means to get more.    Stack dancing shoes, if you think that will help.   Stack books on living with elephants while avoiding their big stompy feet.   And get ready to get through the NEXT disaster.

nick

 

Read the comments: 92 Comments

Mon. Dec. 5, 2022 – ho ho ho, who wouldn’t go…

Sunny and cool, warming later.  I hope.  That describes Sunday pretty well, with highs in the 70s.  To bad I was inside all day.

I did get a bunch done.  Had the water off for 8 hours.  Never could have done that if the kids were here.   I summarized what I got done in comments yesterday.  Despite the late start, and late finish, I feel good about it.

Today should get me that much further along, and maybe I’ll have time to do some cleanup so the bride doesn’t walk into a mess with her folks next weekend.   Working kitchen and bath, oh my.  I’ll give it the old school try…

The sense of urgency hasn’t left me.   I noticed that I haven’t been posting much in the way of prepping.   I think it’s because we’ve been living in the slow motion disaster that was chinkyflu for the last (almost) 3 years.  We were prepping for that, and prepping for it to get worse.   Then we got into a sort of holding pattern where we were just glad it was getting better.  With no clear end, it wasn’t like a storm that passed and now we can cleanly move on.   So it drags.

Meanwhile, I’ve been focused on my personal life, getting the BOL up to speed mainly.   This year flew by.  It’s pretty clear though that we are in an economic downturn (at best) or the beginning stages of an economic collapse, (bad), or the early part of a world changing war (worst).   There is plenty of prepping still to be done for any of those scenarios or all of them.   It just looks different than prepping for a specific event.

Conserve your money and resources.   Accumulate everything you think might be in short supply, including friends.  Plan for a long period of badness, with varying intensity.   Think about WWII on the homefront, the Great Depression, the Carter malaise… all those things were survivable, and most people did.  Some didn’t.  Some people did very well.   Some lives were changed completely.  The WORLD changed, and it will again.

Will some new place become ascendant as the US did after WWII?   We survived with our manufacturing intact, greatly expanded in fact.   And we absolutely killed it in a time when making stuff was the basis of prosperity.   I don’t know what comes next, but I’m pretty sure it will be different, and very few people will see it coming.

Plan to get through what is coming.  Vow to not just survive, but to THRIVE in what comes next.   To my mind, that’s a lot more inspiring than just enduring.   But.  If all you can do is endure, then do that.  Do it better than most, and make it through.   That is key.  Be here for the boom that follows.

Stacks will help.

nick

 

Read the comments: 52 Comments

Thur. Nov. 17, 2022 – don’t know about you, but I’m ready for ’22 to be done…

Cold and damp again.  40s to start the day, warming a bit.  Sunny, if we’re lucky.   It was clear yesterday but the sun wasn’t out much.  We might get a high in the low 70s.

Spent the day sorting auction items.   Didn’t get anything dropped off at my auctioneer.  That slipped to today.  I’ve got a pickup this morning, so I’ll be out of the house and moving earlier than usual.  That will help me get my stuff done.

I got some paper work done, and some household stuff done.  Not much, but a little.   Perhaps today will be a bigger work day.

I haven’t been commenting much on the election, the war/ongoing money laundry in Ukraine, or any other politics, because I’m worn out.  My ‘give a flock’ is all used up.   A while ago I mentioned someone observing that people were ‘pulling in’ their circles of friends and attention.   They are focusing on issues and people closer to home.  I think that is what is happening to me too, and I didn’t really notice at the time.   It seems pretty clear now though.

When times get tough, your attention and what you care about condenses.   I once asked my mom what her experience of the Vietnam war was.  She married in 1965 and started having kids.   She replied that she didn’t pay much attention to it.   She had several babies in diapers and then toddlers and young kids for the duration.   Her brother was serving overseas, but not in country, iirc.   To look at media from the time, you’d think everyone was involved in the war in one way or another, but that’s simply not true.   It AFFECTED everyone, but didn’t dominate at home, for a new wife and mother anyway.

Times were tough, and her attention was focused inward.  It’s hard to care about other peoples’ troubles when you have troubles of your own.

I’ve also not been posting a lot of basic prepping stuff.   That’s mainly because at this point, Bob or I said most of it.  Have food, water, shelter, defense, and meds.  As much as you can.   Avoid trouble if you can.   Get your house in order.  That means relationships and networks and circle of friends too.  ESPECIALLY circle of friends.  They are the people who will help you get by, or dime you to the Feds.  VERY important to get that right.  Far more important than I ever thought it was when I started this journey.

Remember too that life is what happens when you are doing other things.   These are the ‘good ol days’.   Live them.  Pay attention.  Don’t be so focused on the future that you miss the present.   My prepping is so intertwined with my daily life that I barely think of it anymore as something separate that needs to be done.   Equipping and preparing the BOL brings some of it to front of mind, and I try  to share that, but otherwise, it’s just normal every day life.  As I meet more of my neighbors up north and talk with them I see that “prepping” is really just “what we’ve always done” for a whole lot of people.  If you aren’t one of those people, you really need to look for them and learn everything you can from them.

I am convinced more than ever that this is one of those times when everything changes.  There will be disasters along the way, and plenty of strife and hard times.    But there are still Romans in Rome.  We’ll get through this.   It just won’t be pretty or easy.

Preps will help.   Stack ’em up.

nick

Read the comments: 47 Comments
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // end of file archive.php // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------