Category: polemic

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

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

Not really cool, and certainly damp.   Then not really hot, and still damp, although actual cool is supposed to be coming.  Just not today, or yesterday.   It was 93F in the sun at my house in the afternoon, according to my unfortunately placed weather station.   Radio said 80F at 5pm, so I’ll take that as more accurate, but still, 80F!

Oh well.  Mostly caught up on auction stuff.   Fewer bargains as more people find the auctions and bid.   Fewer bargains at the thrift stores too.   The stores have raised prices (as they do periodically, when they get jealous of resellers), and they are FULL of resellers looking for a “come up”.  They are having the same staffing issues as the rest of the working world, and so shelves are a bit bare and the stores are disheveled.   Signs of the times.  Eventually the flow of free stuff to the thrifts will reduce or cut off, and there will be a shakeout in that industry too.   The ‘returns’ reselling space is getting very crowded with some of my long established auctioneers dipping their toes in this month.   The ‘little  guys’ might have a chance if their overhead is low, but the big guys have the capital and the staff, and can gobble up bigger lots.

As a nation, we can’t just open boxes from China, we can’t have an economy based on giving each other massages and haircuts, and we can’t just keep reselling the same cr@p to each other, ’round and ’round.   We have to make stuff, adding value to it as we do.   When I see all the stuff we used to make domestically in these estate auctions, it depresses me no end.   Clocks- we had dozens of manufacturers.  Ditto for radios, tools, household goods, textiles, white goods, appliances.  You could build your house, furnish it, park your car in it, and EVERY SINGLE THING would have been made by your neighbors and your countrymen.

It wasn’t just us.  Even Canada had a domestic industry for housewares, and even TVs.  Now we have chinese drywall, brazilian lumber, iron work imported from INDIA, clothing from vietnam, electronics from china and singapore, gasoline from Norway, and food from Chile.   We enrich the middle men, support virtual and ACTUAL slavery, while impoverishing our neighbors.   What can’t go on won’t.

Big changes coming.  Lots of people will be grist for the mill of change.

Try not to be one of them.   Live through to the other side.

Stack some stuff, then stack some more somewhere else.

nick

Hot and humid, another sunny day.  It got pretty dang hot yesterday.  I was sweating and pretty dehydrated after working at my storage unit for over an hour.  I had some water with me this time, and that helped.

I took a pickup truck load to the auctioneer, and picked up a lot to flip to my “non-prepping hobby” guys ( I hope) on Saturday.  I will be picking up a few things for the BOL today, and heading up there Saturday afternoon.   I was just too tired and had too much to do here to head up yesterday.

—

The post title is about what we are facing and what I think you need to get through it, besides massive stacks of course.  There was a shortage of used vehicles, and I bought a truck.   There is a shortage of rural properties, and I bought a nice one.   There are ongoing shortages of food, cleaning supplies, parts, construction materials, and skilled labor.   I’ve had a chance to buy some, and am still waiting for that chance for others.

What let me get what I wanted was knowing what a good deal looked like, having the resources available to act immediately, acting immediately, and a willingness to compromise on what I was getting.

We’re still in a period where you can get what you want, maybe even precisely what you want IF you can search for it, and wait for it to become available.  And if you can afford it… but that is rapidly becoming less common, and NOT being able to just walk in and get what you want, right here and right now, is becoming the norm.

We have a culture of abundance.   We are entering a phase where some things, many things, are no longer abundant.  That is a pretty big change and one that some people are going to have a hard time accepting.   It’s going to be critical for your own success at seeing this through to the other side to recognize the change in our reality, and to develop new ways to deal with that fact.

It may mean carrying more inventory than you are used to, either at work or in your domestic arrangements.  A full and deep pantry is going to ease a lot of misery around shortages of foods.   Adequate spares for your critical systems need to be on hand, and not in someone else’s control.  You may need to plan ahead, order early, and you may need to pay immediately, rather than on the terms you are used to.  That means having access to more cash or bigger credit lines than you might have had last year.  And it means accepting less than you would really like, because that’s what IS available.

That last point is going to be really hard for some people.   The personality that likes to research thoroughly before a purchase, that likes to mull over a decision, is going to suffer if they don’t change.  Do the research, make the decision, but then act decisively when the opportunity presents itself.  Be open to alternatives.

And be open to alternative sources.   The secondary economy is booming.  Resellers are making hay.  Used, damaged, fixable, or cleanable may be your best choice.  Traditional retail and traditional supply lines will not be able to supply all your needs.  Start exploring your other options now, while there is still time to climb the learning curve.

Finally consider the changes in culture.  Respect for the law and for law enforcement is crumbling.   Violence is increasing and occurring in areas that were formerly safe. Some people LIKE chaos and strife, it breaks down social norms and increases their freedom to do what they like doing.   Some of them like hurting other people, taking their stuff, and destroying whatever strikes their fancy.  Some people will go along to get along.  It won’t matter to you if they guys running the roadblock are doing it for love or to feed their family, you lose either way.

It’s going to get tough, but we can get through this.

Stacks of stuff will help.

nick