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Category: politics

Sun. July 14, 2024 – shot heard ’round the world…

Hot and humid, although it would be nice if the temp stayed under 90F like yesterday. Took overcast and rain to do that, but it helps to not broil the brain in the skull…

I’m still running my two little portable A/C units to take the edge off. I’m spending $25 per day just for that. It’s worth it.

Didn’t get much done. I spent most of the afternoon working on my new Toughbook CF-54. I won it in an auction but haven’t had time to crack it and get it set up for me… so I started that. Because I had a bunch of software out of the hall closet sitting on the kitchen table, and thought “why not?”

I tried the normal route, booting from install media, changing utilman.exe to cmd.exe and then using net user to change passwords, but it didn’t work. Acted like it worked, but I never could get to the actual cmd window. So I tried a program I picked up somewhere, probably the goodwill bins. It’s a pc password changer program on a USB drive. Worked like a charm. Turned on the admin account, cleared passwords for everything I could, rebooted and was in. The guy who returned the notebook to amazon or wherever didn’t have any files on it. So I killed that account and started poking at win10 config stuff.

I’ll run some av, and malware detectors, and hope the cracker didn’t rootkit me. I will ease into using it as my primary lappy over the next few months. It’s bigger, faster, and yet thinner and lighter than my CF-30. I hate win10, but I like the hardware upgrade. I may still install the panasonic recovery media from bare metal. I would like a bigger SSD anyway. But for now, it’s good enough.

I need to get some stuff picked up and put away before the Mrs. gets home. And do some cleaning.

The Centerpoint outage tracker says we’ll be back up Wednesday. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Meanwhile, stack the critical things. The world has taken another step down the path … and it doesn’t end in skittles and beer for the likes of you and me.

Eyes and ears open, head on a swivel.

nick

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Thur. July 4, 2024 – Independence Day

And it’s going to be a hot one. Yesterday was hot and humid with fluffy clouds for an occasional break in the brain boiling sun. Maybe today will have some clouds too.

Whatever the weather, we’ll be taking some time to acknowledge what we’ve had, and what we’ve lost. Tomorrow we’ll have a community celebration that will involve lots of fire and explosions. Hooray!

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I did get a bunch of small things done, and then our guests arrived. I got the A/C in the garage plumbed in, and closed the holes in the ceiling. Two units are running, but it isn’t cold, it’s cooler, but not as much as I hoped.

I did test the irrigation pump, and despite being under water for two or three days, it ran. I need to prime it and finish the intake pipe change I started to make, and test it to see if it is still moving water, but at least it spun up, and didn’t sound any different from before the flood.

I took some time to decorate my dock with red white and blue bunting. I’m flying an extra flag today too. We are across from our neighborhood fireworks show, so a lot of people will see my decorations. Love my country, hate…

Hung a string of lights back up over the deck. They are pretty and festive, and useful as the deck has steps.

Did some small and general “yard work” things including killing a bunch of wasps and soaking their nests with poison. One stung me, so I ended them. The roll-on version of “Fire Out” topical analgesic doesn’t last as long as the product with little glass ampules that you break and wipe on your sting. Helps, works great while it works, but doesn’t last. I’ve mentioned the other product before, when talking about my septic guy and fire ants. (Can’t find a package at the moment to look at the name.)

I’m getting really annoyed with the people who are suddenly saying “oh my, look at bidden, he’s a confused old man!” We’ve been saying that for a long time, but NOW you decide to notice? Either oblivious or mendacious, neither is good when considering the President’s fitness for office. In other words, you should have noticed before now, or you are a lying sack of sh!te.

Next week I’ll take up shouting at clouds and shaking my fist at the sky.

Meanwhile, I’ll stack. In an uncertain world, where everyone seems to have gone mad, or is getting mad, it makes me feel better to know my family can eat well.

It’ll make you feel better too!

nick

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Fri. May 31, 2024 – School’s out for summer… school’s out for ever….

Or not. But it is summer and summer temps are here. Not quite on the 10s which is my own phrase for when it’s 80F at 800AM and 90F at 900AM, and 100F at 1000AM… soon though. And rainy, probably for the next 4 days. Just what I need.

Spent the day at my client’s poking at things. What details there are in yesterday’s comments. Basically I hate “automagic” programmer BS. That’s probably the root cause of why I’m not an apple fanboi. I certainly had exposure to them during my formative years. Never ‘took’ for me though. I did make progress and fixed a number of issues. It’s always nice when I can do that.

Today is going to be a couple of pickups, and also me attempting to get my truck registrations up to date. We’ll see how long that takes. While I’m doing that, I’m going to apply for the Radio Operator plates too. There is a small opsec issue with the plates, but anyone sophisticated/knowledgeable enough to look them up can probably dox me anyway from my regular plates. The advantage is having the same plate on both trucks, and having only one renewal date.

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In bigger news, they found Trump guilty of something. This is surely someone’s red line, and signal to go active. And if not this one, then sometime soon, and someone serious. I’m looking for “terror” attacks on infrastructure, and around NYFC in particular. Could be anything though. Might take a bit for them to update plans, etc. Or they might be ready. Or we could see a false flag, since I’m not the only one speculating…

And the flip side is that it will surely embolden both our domestic lefties and foreign devils. Watching the crowing on tv yesterday was kinda bizarre. No one ever thinks they’ll be out of power, or out of favor, but history shows us that the pendulum swings and what is sauce for the goose quickly becomes sauce for the gander. In 10 or 20 years I hope they think it was worth it to destroy what we had to get the orange man.

In any case, ordinary folks are going to be in a world of hurt when it all kicks off.

You’ve had time to prep, use the remaining time wisely. Stack all the things, and keep your personal awareness level HIGH.

nick

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Fri. Apr. 26, 2024 – wow, this week blazed by…

Warm and humid, overcast, possibly clearing later, or possibly raining. No one knows. We did get a little dusting of moisture from the sky yesterday afternoon. Just an occasional spot hitting my face as I walked across the parking lot, or unloaded stuff at home. The national forecast has us possibly getting rain today and this weekend.

I’m really hoping for no rain at the BOL, as we’ll be there and so will 5 of D2’s friends. It’ll be pretty crowded and intense if we’re all in the house all weekend…The forecast looks like the BOL is right on the edge of the weather, and at home that almost always means we don’t get the bad stuff.

Yesterday I mostly did domestic bliss in the morning, and shopped and cooked in the afternoon and evening… which was fine as dinner was a success, with everything coming out as planned. Even got to use my cast iron to sear the seafood, and if my “winging it” sauce was a little bit salty, it still tasted nice and worked well with the scallops.

I ended up getting my wife an OLED nintendo Switch. I went for an “amazon renewed” version in white as I saved $60 which is a significant percentage… I hope I don’t live to regret that, but it looks great so far.

Now that the anniversary stuff is out of the way, I can do a couple of pickups today, then load up for the BOL. Me, D1, and the dog are headed up today to make sure everything is ready for D2 and her friends. We’ll do her birthday when we get back, with just family. I need to giftwrap her presents today, so they’re ready.

I should also hit Lowes while I’m out and get a few more plumbing things for the irrigation system, which might not be working again. This time I’m going to change the angle of the intake pipe, and try to make it float, so the end can’t get stuck down in the silty lakebed. Some McGivering might be in order.

All in all, my day looks pretty ordinary. You’d never know I was a subversive threat to the nation, just because I want honest government, and more self reliance, while opposing immigration, and decrying the increase in crime and criminality. Why I’ve even started a garden without registering it.

The world is getting crazier by the day, and the violence is already getting started for the summer. BLM had some good ol’ new fashioned whitey hate, and race rioting, this summer seems to be going with the old standby of Jew hatred, along with two-faced P-islam…shouting that they’re the religion of peace and if you don’t believe them, they’ll kill you. Coming soon to a city near you.

Get your stacks built. Learn some skills. Meet with likeminded people. It’ll be getting a lot worse before it starts getting better.

n

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Fri. Mar. 8, 2024 – another week passed without TEOTWAWKI. Hooray!

Warm and damp. Probably wet and overcast too. Might even rain. Yesterday was overcast most of the day, with some sun in the afternoon depending on where you were. Some people and places even got rain in the evening. Well, hard to call a few drops “rain”, but they did make the windshield wet.

Spent the day doing some domestic bliss- laundry, haircut, picking up stuff around the house… Spent the rest doing auction pickups. Same stuff as most days, except for the haircut. I did get a little bit of moisture from the sky on the truck as I was coming home.

Hit the HEB for some lunch stuff for the kids. Picked up some onsale prime sirloin, vegetables, and stuff to take to the BOL next week. There were a few things on sale but not many.

Today will be auction pickups, namely the ham radio I won last night, and some other things from the same estate sale. I’ll do some more poking at the hobby web site, as I’ll be demoing what I have for the group on Saturday. I didn’t get much done yesterday. So I’ve got some more to do tonight.

I watched the State of the Union address last night, and commented here as I did. Joe held it together longer than he has in the past, but the address itself was classic Joe, more government, more taxing, more fighting issues most people don’t care much about, and more blame for anyone but the career politicians sitting in the room. What I didn’t see was anything to unite the nation, to heal the rift between Right and Left, woke and conservative, sane and insane… I didn’t see any grand plan to make any significant changes, just more of the same, harder.

I don’t think that is going to work. I think we’re on the same path we’ve been on, and I think it leads to disaster for the nation, and a whole lot of dead people.

In short, keep prepping. Stack it high, in several places. Find the people you can trust. Be a trustworthy person. Get ready for change, lots of it, and most of it unpleasant. But know that just as there are still Romans in Rome, we’ll get through whatever is coming.

Preps will help.

nick

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Thur. Jan. 25, 2024 – maybe no rain today :-)

Yaknow… It’s Houston. It’s a swamp. In winter it rains. In summer it rains. I decided shortly after I moved here that if you were going to do stuff in Houston, you would have to get used to doing it in the rain. Still sucks when it’s coming down at 1″ per hour or more, the streets are flooded, and you are soaked. So these last few days of rain have been unpleasant, and not much work got done on my part. Today should start changing that, as the forecast is for clear.

We’ll see.

I did drive around and do pickups. A couple of my auctions will only hold your winning lots until Wednesday, so that’s kinda my ‘drop dead’ for picking up. I threw a couple of black and yellow bins in the back of the truck to keep stuff mostly dry, and it mostly worked. Some small stuff fit in the cab. Despite needing to hustle to get all my stuff done, I spent a bit chatting with one of the new guys. VERY red pilled. Clearly reads the same news, and follows the same stories. Two of the big auctioneers have massive preps in place. One has asked me for advice and links to getting caught up on prepping. This guy is politically aligned but IDK where he is in prepping. That’s a lot of people in one field all doing the same thing…and sharing similar attitudes.

Today I’ll be doing a couple of things around the house. No pickups that absolutely need to be done, no chores from the family, and yet, the best use of my time is probably staying home… Gah. Can’t get out of the house some days when I need to, can’t STAY at home others. And then choosing to be home on the remaining days.

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The border thing, and sharing the pain, and now a possible Constitutional crisis brewing… can you all guess what I’m going to advise?? Class? Bueller? Yep. Get prepped up. Keep stacking and be ready for some more crazy shite to be zooming toward a fan.

It takes a long time to get all the pieces moving in the same direction. Read Germs Guns and Steel for a discussion of the run up to WWII for an example. Then SUDDENLY everything changes. We’re headed toward a Pearl Harbor moment. Or Tomkin Gulf. Or Kent State. or Day of the Jackal. Be ready to pull in and wait to see where the chips fall. You should be able to stay home for at least a week, and better if it’s a lot longer than that. Or be ready to go, if you have somewhere to go to. Better too early than too late.

No matter what happens, and something will, it’s just building and building, you can feel it, having stuff, being self sufficient in most things, at least for a while, will help.*

Stack it up. Touch base with your friends and relations. Gather the clans.

nick

*whew, that’s a sentence….RBT always poked me for using too many commas…

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Fri. May 5, 2023 – Stinko de Feo

Cool.  Damp.   Maybe raining.  Then humid and hot later.   It was overcast all day Thursday, but the rain held off.  Until later, and at my client’s house.

I did my auction stuff in the morning, and waited to see if my piece of gear would arrive.   Finally gave up and headed to my client’s house.   I grabbed my shovel, pick, and underground wire locator and was on my way.    It was hot, still, and humid.   At least the sun wasn’t beating down.

I spent a couple of fruitless hours.   Well, I did determine that the buried coax was unusable.   I found about a 50 foot long air gap…    When a second garage was added, the conduit and cable run was cut.  I traced it from both directions and it ended at the foundation for the garage.   The phone line was in the same conduit, which rules out that as any kind of option too.

So we’re back to using a wireless link.   Should be fine, but I’ll get with the gate contractor today and see what was really driving the request for a hard line to the network.

My timing was pretty good.   Just after I filled my last exploratory hole, and put my tools away, and went inside to look at other network stuff, the skies opened up and the rain came down.   40 minutes later the sun came back out and the temperature was 10-15F lower.   Really cleared the air.

Cleaned up a few notes, had a nice chat with my client and his wife, and headed home.   Found out it didn’t rain here… that’s Houston.   And the wind was blowing hard and steady off the gulf, pushing the weather I saw earlier even farther away.  It made for a nice cool evening.

Today will be working around the house.   Wife and D2 will be doing a Girl Scout thing this weekend, so I’m debating taking D1 to the BOL.  I’ve got lots to do here, but I’ve got lots to do there too.   I’ve got a couple of auction pickups to do in town, nothing far away or on the way to the BOL.   I think I’ll play it by ear.  I have avoided cleaning up my canned goods….

Out in the world the dominoes continue to fall.  More banks are at risk or are collapsing.   Russians are advocating a decapitation strike against Ukraine… Crime and violence are escalating here at home, and the illegal invader crisis is about to explode.

Stay frosty my friends.   And stack it high.

nick

(and a month or two of expenses in cash at home might not be a bad idea, just in case some Monday we wake up to a bank holiday.)

 

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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

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Sat. Sept. 3, 2022 – plugging away

Hot and humid, but less so than Houston.    It was mostly in the high 80s low 90s yesterday.   Lots of humidity, but overcast kept it comfortable most of the day.  Unless one happened to be engaged in physical labor, then it was miserable soaked to the skin sweaty hot.

Like it was for me.   Every stitch of clothing soaked completely with sweat.   Lost track of the gatoraid I drank, and used my cool vest 3 times.   The gas line is in the trench, enters the garage, runs to a manifold.   I started work on the supply side of the water plumbing too.   Discovered I need 4 specific pex fittings that I don’t have.   May head into town to see if Tractor Supply has them, if not, I’ll work the other end of the system.

Family made it here safely.    Had dinner.

Brand new gallon of costco milk was sour when opened.  Seal was bad under the intact cap.   I might go into town for milk, and just stop by the hardware or TS store on the way.  I’m not the only one with milk going off before its time lately.   One more thing failing amongst many.

I REALLY am feeling pressure to have this place ready as a real refuge.   Politics are getting more divisive and the rhetoric is escalating.   Pretty sure the current president just declared war on more than half the population.  Since he said last week that we’d need more than guns, and finally stumbled around to saying we’d need F-15s, that sounds a lot like he intends to use the Armed Forces against us.    Wonder how that will work out?   Nice for the heads up though.

You aren’t stacking enough.   Get busy.

nick

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Wed. Aug. 17, 2022 – aye, que loco

Slightly less hot today, but clearing with less chance of rain.

Kids start a full day of normal classes today.

After the late start yesterday, I got some stuff picked up.  Went by the Habitat reStore looking for stuff for the BOL.   The southside store used to have a great selection of doors, but they were pretty much all gone.  Their tile selection was meager too, and it used to be extensive.  Most of what they had appeared to be from a closed Ace Hardware.   The whole reStore system is dependent on donations, and it looked a bit sparse the last couple of visits.  Could be there is less slack in the system, could be people are being more careful so they don’t have excess to dispose of, or it could be people are buying the store out…

 

The thrift stores are looking a bit sparse too.   And I noticed a couple of closed strip joints, and in my neighborhood, a closed pawn shop.   I think things are probably worse than they look economically.    The closed auto dealerships and especially the little used car lots are another bad sign.   Even one of the big Ford dealers is still spreading cars and trucks out to fill the lot.

 

Today I’ve got fence to fix at the rent house, and a few more plumbing items to find for the BOL.   I’ve got stuff in deep storage that I need for there as well, including the pex compression tools I bought years ago, well in advance of need.  Later I need to get to the bank and have my septic permit application notarized so I can get it to my contractor this weekend.  Septic is the only thing you need a permit and inspection for at my BOL.  While that might make some things easier, remember that the  inspection is to protect you, the building owner.  It’s another set of eyes to make sure your contractor is doing the work to minimum standards.

I did notice that Lowes had 2×4 studs for just under $5, which is down from just under $8 not too long ago.   The reported record number of home buyers walking away from their contracts and the slowdown in home sales might be contributing to that.  Make of it what you will, but rising home prices make people feel good (owners and sellers) while falling prices make them nervous.   Some price lowering in general should help with inflation, but if it is really the beginning of deflation in the non-core sector, then bad times are right around the corner.   I mean, worse times.   Given the recent increase in crime and violence, and in costs,  I’d say we are already in bad times.

There is still food in the store and stuff to buy, and generally if you want to work you can.   That can change, and if it does it will change rapidly.  Preps are a cushion against rapid change, especially when it’s for the worse.

So stack it up.

nick

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