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Category: politics

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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Thur. Jul. 21, 2022 – nope, nothing to see.

Hot and humid.   For a while yet too.  Because “summer in Houston’.   The rest of you might have some reason to complain with your unseasonably warm temps, but not us.  Not really.  Hot yesterday, hot today, hot tamale’.

Spent most of yesterday doing other things.  Did pickup some stuff.  Did get the girls from their day camp leadership thing…

Today I’ve got more of the same, and some prep to do to head back to the BOL for another weekend.

Interesting that the Brits are changing their leadership, and now Italy looks about ready to change theirs.   We certainly wouldn’t mind changing ours.   Germany came pretty close to it in the last month or so too, didn’t they?  No coalition at the moment if I understand it.   Sri Lanka and soon Pakistan and maybe the Philippines too….

Sometimes, everything changes.

Stack up some insurance against the upheaval and uncertainty.

nick

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Sun. Feb. 13, 2022 – Friday the 13th falls on a Sunday this month…

Cold again, and still damp.   I could barely walk yesterday morning.  And it was blowing to beat the band.  Today should be more of the same.

Did my stuff yesterday.   Been doing a lot of driving around so I’ve got various audio books in the vehicles to keep me interested and awake.  I am finding that I really like it, if I like the reader.   In the pickup, Frozen Heat, Richard Castle.  Melodrama in the pretend style of pretend author, spun off [or filled in?] from the TV show Castle.  Nathan Fillon in the original role, and I keep trying to hear his voice, but the reader does a good job despite not being Fillon.   It’s silly, and very much a ‘play within a play, within a play.’   Really liked the show, and I’m enjoying the silly book.  It has some easter eggs, like a cop duo named Malcom, and Reynolds and it doesn’t take itself seriously.

In the Expy, Einstein, Walter  Isaacson.  Well read, it’s a bio of Einstein along with an explanation of his ideas.  Very accessible, and I’m learning things.

Also in the Expy, when the kid is in the truck, The Magician’s Nephew, Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis.  Produced by Focus on the Family, it’s a dramatization and is fully produced with voice talent, sound effects, etc.   I read through the Chronicles many times, but don’t remember this one so it’s fun to hear it.  All of the discs in this set are well done, with the exception of a VERY strange vocal acting choice for Aslan.  Recommended if you liked the stories.

I ran out of the Louis Lamour stories, but I found some more of the Sherlock Holmes, and I’ve got a couple more of the Richard Castle books too.   Audiobooks on CD are cheap on ebay, and I’m really enjoying listening to them, which I really didn’t expect.  Beats the snot out of AM talk radio….

 

I’ve talked to a lot of people this week, during my errands.   Most of them thing wuflu is about over, and certainly treating it as a special ongoing disaster is D O N E done.    There is a broad awareness of coming hard times.  People see the shortages, they feel the pinch of the inflation.  Let’s Go Brandon got a return chorus from the group at my hobby club meeting when someone mentioned inflation.   There are a lot of retired technical specialists and small business owners in the group, but this is the first year there has been much mention of politics.  It’s normally a politely politics free space  focused on our common interest.   I spent about 10-15 minutes talking to one of the guys about lakehouses, rent houses, and how he’s selling stuff off and getting out of his investments.  He figures property is about as high as it’s really likely to go, and interest rates will kill it.  I’m kinda inclined to agree.  And everyone was talking about supply chain issues and scarcity impacts on construction, repair, and the economy.

 

Do your own research, draw your own conclusions, but I’m betting on “much worse before it gets better” and while I can’t pick a specific time, “soon” seems about right.   Stack all the things.   It’s gonna get sporty.

nick

 

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Sun. Sept. 12, 2021 – big storm coming, better get ready

Nice day in the forecast for today. Cooler and sunny, not crazy hot. Sat. was similar, although it did get hot in the afternoon.

Went to my meeting, had a good time. Went shopping. Came home.

Plan for today is sleep in, then either do some stuff around the house, or sort stuff in storage and get it ready to take to the auction.

There is a big storm coming. Both literally and figuratively as it turns out. The Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, and even parts further east are about to get up to 20 inches of rain if the forecasts are right. That’s several days of downpour and flooding with lots of damage.

So I’ll be topping up the day to day and getting ready to not have my pickup truck for moving stuff that can get wet.

In the figurative sense, we’ve been talking about the coming troubles for a while. I don’t see any way to avoid it at this point, and these things tend to kick off with very little warning. Use what time you have well. Hey, maybe it will be months or years. Good. Our stacks will be higher.

I quoted author Larry Correia yesterday, and I think one part of his advice bears repeating. Make yourself useful to your community. I’ve been slowly coming around to the importance of this. RBT thought he could position himself as resident wizard, but I thought that trying to do this AFTER the Fall was pretty difficult. (We had one discussion about this wrt ham radio.) He did get out into the community more at the new house than he ever mentioned at the old.

Other people in the blogosphere have been hammering on ‘tribe’ and community for a while, and on the folly of being a ‘lone wolf’. In our isolated and fragmented and mobile lives, it’s a difficult thing to do- becoming part of a group, part of a community IRL… we’ve found online substitutes but too often neglect the local, local, local aspects.

Hence part of my push for meatspace activities, real world training opportunities, group activities, and civic participation. We don’t have lodge brothers anymore. We don’t have high school friends nearby, or even poker buddies. Use what opportunities arise. Get out there and meet some people. Leverage what you have.

And stack it high and deep.

nick

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Thur. Aug. 26, 2021 – month is winding down

Hot and humid. Chance of rain. Almost a surety that it will rain SOMEWHERE in Houston. It got pretty hot yesterday. I think my weather station topped out at 104F in the sun. It was still over 80F at dinner time, and just 80F at midnight. I did drive through some rain during my errands too.

Did a lot of running around yesterday. Did some thrifting too, since I’ve got a guaranteed auction coming up and he’ll take the stuff to his warehouse. There were a couple of good scores.

Today I’ll be packing up stuff for my non-prepping hobby show this weekend. So far they haven’t asked me to help load a truck today, so it’s all my stuff to get ready. I really hope some or all of it sells.

Moving the stuff is the important part, getting some money is second. Hanging out with people who share an enthusiasm is pretty cool too.

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I got a funny phone call yesterday. Out of the blue, someone from the local Republican party called and asked if I wanted to be a precinct chair. It turns out the precinct is basically my neighborhood, and a couple of blocks around it. The duties seem to be trying to get out the vote, shaking hands and knocking on doors. I’m actually considering it, since I encourage all y’all to get involved with local politics. Well, if not involved exactly, at least familiar with the people and the process. IDK if I would be good at it, or want the exposure, or would be acceptable to them. Everything they said about Kavanaugh could have been said about me… only the names and places were different. The 80s were a great time to be coming of age…….. Anyway, no one’s had the position in years. This tells me that the local R’s might be trying to up their ground game.

That they think they can overcome fraud with effort is funny. And I don’t actually care about most of the R’s, since they turned out to be politicians first, deep staters or quislings second, and generally not people I’d put in charge of a Prom Committee, but they at least aren’t actively pushing socialism. We can continue to pretend things are normal for a while longer. And it might lead to some good insights… or a spot in front of a pock marked wall. That last being the important bit. Hard to be the grey man when people know you as part of a political machine.

I’ll put it in the ‘meatspace baby’ pile for now and give it some thought. I don’t see much upside to doing it, and a lot of potential downside.

We’ve still got some time, use it wisely. Stack all the things!

n

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Wed. Aug. 25, 2021 – nut cuttin’ time is getting closer

Whoooeeeee, it shore got hot in the sun yesterday. Gonna happen today too, reckon. Oh, it’ll start out slow, but I’m betting on ‘hot’ and sunny later. At least the humidity was slightly lower. It wasn’t so low I didn’t sweat through my shirt in minutes outdoors, but it was better than the last few days.

Since I spent yesterday morning and early afternoon dealing with power issues here at Casa de Nick, I didn’t get very far on my list. Most of that will have to push to today. Also, most of the prep for my non-prepping hobby convention and swapmeet needs to happen today. I’ll be doing prep for my role in things Thursday, and actually doing the things Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Posting will be as normal but commenting will be light.

On the plus side, now that my service drop is replaced, my electrician buddy should be willing to do the gennie hookup.

On the minus side, there is a smell in the garage like the rat poison worked. No ratons in the traps, so he’s somewhere else. Unlike the house, he can get into the walls in the garage. I’m really hoping that isn’t the case. I’ll know more in a day… Whether I’ll be able to do anything about it is another question.

Whether the world holds together is starting to be a good question. Portland has another ‘autonomous zone’ taken over by antifa thugs. They seem to be entirely without introspection as they’ve named the area the “SSPAZ”. Maybe the ‘kids’ are so well conditioned that they never called anyone a spaz and they just don’t get the reference. Elsewhere shootings and public violence continue to increase. An example of the unequal application of the law has the leader of the Proud Boys facing jail for stealing and burning a flag, while looters, BLM thugs, and antifa punks roam free. Oh, and he had a “high capacity” magazine with him in DC, while antifa tries to literally blind cops and gets away with it.

As well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

Disruptions to supply lines continue. Disruptions to the food supply continue. Remember last year when people were saying “don’t worry about the poor crops, we’ve got plenty of grain in storage…” well, this year that grain is probably mostly gone, and it looks like we aren’t going to have bumper crops.

People are talking and advocating for vax status to determine access to and level of medical care. Think about that one for a second. Now extend it out a year or two… what else will they want to use to discriminate against you? There will be shooting when that costs someone a loved one. And honestly, I don’t think it will take a year. You will need tribe and like minded folks to get access and resources. What will you bring to that exchange?

Black market, grey market, secondary market, informal market, whatever you call it and whatever nuances there are between them, start looking. Start practicing. Swapmeets. Yard sales. Garage sales. A guy who knows a guy. You might find yourself locked out of the main economy. Yeah, things would have to be pretty bad before that could happen. Illegals already live that way though. It’s not that big a step and the legal framework went in years ago. There were articles about it, and the pretext was ‘extremism’, but they promised not just to lock you out but also anyone who would do business with you. I don’t know where such a scenario fits on a risk matrix, but it’s on there. And we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the early stages of a civil war. Just sayin’. Planning. Some preps. Some people. Some practice. Just sayin’.

And stacks. Tall stacks.

nick

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