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Category: Random Stuff

Fri. May 8, 2020 – Friday so soon?

Cooler and windy. Maybe. [80F at 9am, I suck at this, worse than random guessing.]

Yesterday got to be pretty dang nice. Gorgeous even. I ended up not doing my list though. I’ll be doing that today. Couldn’t get to my client’s house in time to get any work done, so today’s the day.

I ended up doing some little things, including moving food and continuing to organize my storage shelves. I have a plan for reorganizing my back corner in the garage, where the shelves for my food storage, my big 40 gallon water storage tanks, and my work bench for gub work, and maybe my non-prepping hobby will take place. I will be moving a couple of tool boxes, and adding shelves. That should result in more stuff in the same space.

I was busy the rest of the day but for the life of me, I can’t remember what I got done.

Dinner was leftovers with some additional pasta and cheese sauce.

Today should be busy…

Money helps with staying in, staying safe, and stacking. Go get you some…

n

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Wed. May 6, 2020 – not a drinking holiday

Hot and wet?  Or just hot? [I suck at weather prediction, 73F and sunny]

Yesterday got pretty hot.  Started overcast, then cleared to sunny and steamy.  Mid 90s at least.

I worked mostly on the sprinklers yesterday.  I spent way longer than it should have taken to put a new rain sensor on the system.  I’ve had it for years, never installed it.  Finally did today.  Haven’t TESTED it yet, but it’s pretty simple.

Then I spent 3 hours getting the two zones for the front yard working.  I never have winterized the system and only replace what’s broken each year, whenever  I get to it…  which is lazy and all kinds of wrong, but then I’m not super motivated by how my yard looks.   It does make it easier to keep the veg gardens watered though, which was my primary motive this year.

So, fire up the system and see what doesn’t work…

Two zones with 4 heads each shouldn’t take three hours to touch up.  But it did.  As the mechanisms age, they wear, and the sun causes parts that are supposed to be behind a cover to break down.  Those little parts are like limit switches as the head pans back and forth.  I ended up messing with those A LOT.  I had to swap parts around from heads I’d retired in previous years (hooray <s> hoarding </s> preparedness.  Then a couple of the plastic parts needed some heat to reshape them a tiny bit… and I needed to dig out the valves because the handholes had filled  up with debris over the years.

In any case, years of slapdash maintenance and patchwork replacements caught up with me.  Still, I was able to get them all running and wetting the areas they are supposed to wet without any trips to the store or ordering parts.   Today if it’s not raining I need to confirm they work with the control system and then get the other 3 zones sorted out too.   The front yard will keep the neighbors and the HOA happy, but the other zones will all end up watering my gardens for me (and also keep the back yard nice for the kids.)

I’ll have to change out some heads and move some stuff because I’ve moved beds, and put a great big generator right in front of a head… which really shouldn’t have water sprayed into it every other day.  I’ll steal one head to water my ‘window box’ planters too.  More projects.

I’m also still ordering bits and pieces, and receiving them for the repairs and upgrades at my client’s house.   I still need some income, and that’s a good way to get it.  Not perfect as I have to leave isolation, but it pays well and keeps him happy.

Ebay sales were starting to get going again, and then the lockdown hit.  I’ve sold only a few items since.  I do have a bunch to list, and getting them sold and out of here would be a Good Thing ™.

WRT the wuflu, things are still changing.  Blood clots may be the way it actually kills you, either the first time or the next.  And it may have mutated in a way that changes its severity, as it appears we might have two main strains here, one on the west coast, one on the east.  No idea what those of us in the middle might have. The economic impacts are just starting to arrive.

Disney posted a huge loss of income, United Airlines and American both posted ~$2Billion losses, Virgin is looking for buyers, and the others will be following soon.  I was a proponent of the ‘pent up demand’ theory that the economy will come rushing back.  Now I’m not so sure.  Think about what it would take to get you on a plane, if you didn’t know you were immune?  How about a trade show or a theme park?  Cruise ship?  Gold’s Gym is filing for bankruptcy protection, can 24HourFitness be far behind?  Sitting in someone else’s @ss sweat didn’t have any appeal for me BEFORE it could kill me.  Certainly doesn’t now.  My wife is sure that pro sporting events will bounce back, because fans are crazy anyway, but I’m not so sure.  They are a huge terrorism target, and attendance has been falling with the players’ political shenanigans.  I don’t feel the need to sit in the nosebleeds, eating $15 hotdogs, just to see the ants move around in real life…

I’m pretty sure the world has changed for good, and we’ll be watching how those changes play out over the next decade.  Short term, people try to cling to what they know, until forced to change.  Things will continue on, degrading a little at a time, until they finally change.

Start planning for that.  There will be opportunities.

Dinner was ham slices, mac n cheese, and the canned carrots left over from the previous day’s curry. Dessert was frozen cookie dough, heated up and oh so good…..

Stay in, stay safe, keep stacking.

 

n

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Thur. April 23, 2020 – I’m goin’ in.. er, I mean out….

Possibly T-storms and nastiness. [79F sunny and clear at 9am, but lots of wind]

Yesterday was overcast, opening up into  a nice day.  A bit on the warm side, but still pleasant, in a humid, dripping with sweat way.

I wasn’t as productive as I could have been.  There does seem to be a bit of a malaise to my life at the moment.  I’m just not as motivated or quick as I could be.

I got some small stuff done.  Nothing worth writing home about.  The instacart issue had not been resolved before I went to bed.  If it had gone well it would be astounding.  Order groceries at 11pm have them at your door before breakfast!  If I’d been ready and the order had been fine…

I did lose hours to moving my cams to new NVR software.  So far, it’s been a lot more stable than the old software since it went belly up.  I’ve got some more settings to change and confirm and I need to actually watch some of the video to be sure it’s solid, but it looks good so far.

I had an ebay sale- the last of the PoE injectors that I’ve been selling off for the last couple of years sold.  That makes 4 or 5 that sold since I isolated, vs 0 in the six months prior.  Weird.

Dinner was a premade meal from Costco, Hawaiian chicken served over leftover rice.   One of my favorite short notice meals.

I’ll be headed over to my client’s house later today.  I’ve got to at least get eyes on the problems.  I’ll be PPE’d up and bring a can of spray.

Stay in (as much as possible), stay safe (as much as possible),

 

nick

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Sat. April 18, 2020 – ah the weekend, finally some time at home with the family…

 

Warm and damp, chance of rain. [I was WRONG, 68F!]

Yesterday was ominous and oppressive all day. Sweaty.

I did get a bunch of stuff done outside but I was definitely hot and wet doing it.

I cut the grass. I planted all that I could, based on the TX A&M ag extension guide for our region. That amounted to acorn squash, watermelon, zucchini, and cucumbers. This year I put the zukes and cukes in separate beds. No mutant giant bitter weird cross breeds this year. I didn’t have the right kind of peas, and I missed my chance for beans. I can still do a bit of salad greens in the window boxes, and maybe replant the radishes which haven’t sprouted. Other than that, I’m done planting until September.

Texas is going to try to reopen over the next few weeks. Schools will remain closed through the end of our normal year. Don’t know what that will mean for our swim team and our pool. A lot of smaller community based orgs are going to have a real hard time raising money and paying the bills. Hopefully we won’t have an increase in rate of infection. Texas has been managing so far, and Houston isn’t predicted to ever exceed our ICU capacity. This is mainly because they’ve kicked everyone else out, and built new temporary capacity.

Dinner was kielbasa sausage from the freezer, one large turnip from the last run, cubed and boiled, and 5 potatoes cubed and fried in my cast iron fryer pan.  Daughter 2 loves the fried potatoes.  “Best dinner of the virus lockdown.”   I’m glad she likes it.

I’d love for this to be over, but it’s not. It is still expanding and growing. The second wave is starting to spread through asia and china, and the third world is starting to show some real issues.

Stay home, stay safe,

nick

 

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Sat. April 11, 2020 – gonna be Easter soon, hope the bunny is ‘essential’

 

Cool and clear, rain in the forecast.

Did not get as much done I hoped. Spent time reading fiction during the day. I don’t usually do that, because I’d get nothing done at all if it became a habit.

I did get a low voltage power line run through the attic to the back of the house. I got the IR emitter hung and thought everything was good to go. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing much IR in the camera image at night. There is a BIT of foliage, but not enough. Maybe the camera doesn’t have good IR capability. In any case, not the slam dunk I hoped for. (Looking at a different camera with good IR capability, it looks like a floodlight is on, so I think it’s the camera. Bummer. One more thing to look at changing.) In the process though, I found a setting that needed to be changed on the other camera that is looking at my front porch, so net-net it was a positive.

Started to get kinda warm up in the attic in the afternoon, despite the cooler outdoor temps. I managed to run another network line for new camera number two, if I can find a good way to mount it on my chimney. It’s the other new 8mpx camera to cover the other end of my street. With possibly sketchy neighbors on that side, I would like to have more coverage of the street. Camera’s not doing anyone any good sitting in a box, I might as well hang it.

Still have a lot of outdoor stuff to do, so I’m hoping the rain holds off again.

Dinner was leftovers. Wasting food is a lot more of an issue when you’re in a lifeboat…. which is the metaphor I’ve been using with the kids.

Take a bit of a break this weekend. Recharge mentally and physically. Do something nice with your other shut-ins….

Stay in, stay safe.

n

 

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Thur. April 9, 2020 – hopefully a nice day

 

Warm and damp.

Yesterday was hot and steamy. Started out reasonably enough but soon was hot. And steamy. Did I mention steamy? And hot?

Morning was still overcast and rain was forecast so I didn’t do much outside until after lunch. Then it was yard work, garden, and trees.

If the trees weren’t going to shade the garden, I’d have left them, but I need the sun on the raised beds. And with hurricane season only a short time away, I went ahead and trimmed near the utility lines, since I had the saw and ladder out.

I’m debating whether to do the tree trimming on the oak in the front yard or not. I usually trim back the branches over the house, and every couple of years I get out the rope saw and take down some dead wood high up in the tree. There are other things that are a priority but if I’m in the zone and have the tools out anyway….

I need to get back to my driveway/garage storage and organize party. I need to get whatever seeds I hope to plant this year in the ground. I usually plant seedlings from Lowes or HD, but I’m not going shopping ATM. I’ve got seeds. I’m a bit surprised at some of the stories I’m seeing of seeds being sold out, both in the stores and online. I guess maybe I’m not the only one hoping to get a garden in this year. Whatever the motivation, I’m glad that others are planting. The learning curve is steep.

Chickens are sold out too. Hmm.

Too many people are too invested in particular outcomes for me to believe 99% of the reporting on wuflu right now. I’m just going to stay the course, watch for primary sources of indirect and secondary indicators, and act as if my life depended on it.

The wuflu won’t be the end of everything, nor will the economic impacts, nor will the cultural impacts. As a nation we’ve been through worse versions of all those things. WE may not survive, and WE may not return to a world we expect, but PEOPLE will. And they will muddle through or prosper or not. I intend to make it through. What’s on the other side I can’t predict, as I think this is one of those times when everything changes. I thought that last year, and haven’t changed my mind. War, pestilence, and plague. They were overdue.

I don’t know how long it will take but think about the changes in one lifetime, from 1900 to 1965. Who would have predicted the destruction of the British Empire, the rise of America, the Cold War, and Communism? Or look at 1965 to 2020. Who would have predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of China, the changes wrought by PCs and the internet? The massive financialization of everything? Or the destruction of western culture?

Things change, this is just the pebble that started the boulder rolling down hill. Something would have. It was time.

Stay in, stay safe.

nick

 

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Sun. April 5, 2020 – time is on my mind, yes it is

Cool and wet again.

Yesterday was sub-60s in the morning and night, with slightly warmer temps during the day. Rain throughout the day. Buckets have about 2 inches in them but we got less than that by the gauge.

Spent the day cleaning and organizing indoors, mostly in my office. Didn’t get much of it done to be honest. Did get some stuff up into the attic, and checked the attic roof for structural damage. We had that huge explosion in the neighborhood a few weeks back and some of our friends are discovering that they have damage they didn’t know about. Mainly roof structure that cracked and broke. They are closer to the blast site, and iirc blast force is inverse square law, so if they saw 1/2 the force , we saw 1/4, for any given force. In any case, I didn’t see any broken sheathing, or rafters.

Wife and kids watched the first Harry Potter movie. I watched some of the beginning. Everyone looks so young. Of course they were young then and so were we.

Time is passing very strangely here. It feels like forever since we isolated, but the last week flew by. And counting the days to check if my wife could have an exposure, fewer days have gone by than I would have guessed. So micro time is flashing by but macro time is dragging. Huh.

Dinner was canned chili, with sweet onions, shredded cheese and Fritos. Not quite Frito pie, but not bad. Can was best by 2014 and was delicious. Well, as delicious as canned chili can be.

Stay in, stay safe.

nick

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Sat. April 4, 2020 – day 983 of my captivity…

Cool and raining, if the forecast can be believed. [58F and occasional drizzle]

Yesterday was partly sunny, mostly overcast all day. Finally about 7pm some small spattering of rain came. Later, it rained a bit heavier, and some thunder and lightning happened while I was reading to the girls. That tapered off fairly quickly though.

Yesterday’s chores involved continuing to put away and organize the food I brought home from the secondary location (stored mainly in the big black tubs), and food I bought before the shutdown, and food from my older stores here in the garage. I’ve got a LOT of kirkland canned corn. More canned chicken than I thought too. Lots of beans in cans. Less flour than I thought, but then I don’t use it for much. It’s there for bread machine bread, and possibly homemade pasta, and tortillas if I run out of mix. More spam than I remembered buying. At least it’s a mix of flavors. Pure SPAM is pretty salty.

Most of it will fit on three sections of industrial metal shelving (2ft x 3ft) I added under our patio roof, just outside the back door. That is about the coolest and darkest spot, with the garage being a bit cooler at night but hotter during the day. Unless I install a window AC unit in the garage, I think the patio will do fine for a while. Some food will remain in the garage, and either some of the bulk in buckets, or the non-perishable items will go on the shelves I used to use for food. I’ve also got 2 “towers” of the shelving set up in the driveway with paper products and the newest food. I will probably move some of that around too, but I want the oldest stuff in front for now.

I covered each of the towers with new heavy black plastic sheet. I wrapped the three sides and the top with one piece, then added another piece as the ‘door’ side, and wrapped it over the top as well. Then the whole thing (the two ‘towers’ are back to back) gets covered in a new tarp, which is silver to keep some of the heat off the contents. I’m hoping that it is water tight, and relatively cool. The tower full of paper goods shadows the other tower with the food and cleaning supplies.

For the canned goods on the patio shelves, I’m using a product I initially didn’t like. It’s the Can Tracker can organizer. Some time ago I picked a section up at goodwill and just couldn’t find a place for it. I ended up putting it back in our ‘donate’ pile. Then wuflu hit and I pulled it out of the pile. I put it on the patio shelf, filled it up, and liked it. Bought another section, and liked the result, so I just bought two more sections. It was terrible for storage. It’s bulky and will be partly empty most of the time. You can fit a LOT more cans in your pantry if you stack them on flats, or in bins. What it is excellent for is USE. It puts your cans at your finger tips in an easy to use and easy to see format. Now that I’m transitioning from STORING preps, to EATING preps, it is very handy. Seems tough, and was easy to assemble. For cans you will be using, I’m giving it a tentative recommendation.

I must admit, I’ve very nervous about having it all in one place. I’m hoping it never gets to the point where ‘inspectors’ are going door to door to ‘requisition’ ‘excess’ goods and materials. I never thought the whole country would be on house arrest either though. Cuomo is going to be doing that with ventilators and medical supplies, stripping the state and countryside to keep NYFC going for an extra week. He clearly doesn’t care what that will do to the communities he leaves bare. I wonder how that’s going to play out for him long term. Still a lot of guns in NY outside of the hive and we’re still planning to have elections. For now anyway. Something to watch for- I’m sure there will be talk before action, and that will leave a small window to act if needed.

Stuff to do today, mostly more of the same. So I better get busy.

nick

( My favorite thing! Played in the yard! My favorite thing! Got to play ball! My favorite thing!)

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Tues. Mar. 31, 2020 – some stuff got done, but progress is slow

Cooler and possibility of rain.

Yesterday was overcast and partly sunny late, but didn’t rain. So humid that the concrete was wet though.

I did some work on the pile in the driveway, and cleaned out a couple of my “window box” planters on the fence. If they dry out today, I’ll get some new dirt in them and some veg planted later.

I did get the second potato tower planted, and my onion starters in the ground. I had to remove some chives and some grass that had invaded the bed.

I had a small tree with two trunks die on one half, so I got out the saw and trimmed that back. Looks like woodpeckers made holes, then ants got in. They started attacking the remaining trunk too, so I shaved away the loose bark and sprayed the wound with nursery sealer. Hopefully that will save what’s left. It’s a nice ornamental tree in front of the house and I don’t want to lose it.

While I had the saw out, I did some pruning and cut up some medium sized branches that were waiting for me to get to them. There are a bunch of crepe myrtles and japanese cherry trees in the back yard that constantly need cutting back. They are under the utility lines and grow fast. I try to do all that sort of thing at the same time, so even if it wasn’t top of my list, I needed to do the dead tree in the front, which means spending a bit of time in back too. It’s always something.

In other news.

If you haven’t looked at the numbers for the wuflu in a couple of days, please take a look. This thing is growing and spreading. We MAY be slowing the growth, but that only extends the time it will take to get to saturation, it doesn’t prevent it. NYFC went from one case to 100 to 67K with 1300 deaths so far. That’s like 1 in 100 diagnosed, and more deaths to come. People are not being smart about this. They lined up to see the hospital ship FFS. They are loading bodies into freezer trucks. In NYC. In the USA.

Aesop has had cases in his ER and more are coming. Several people here have mentioned one or two degree of separation cases. Meanwhile, TPTB are working their way through the CDC’s Pandemic Checklist. They haven’t gotten to the part where they bring staff families inside the perimeter and fort up, but they are headed down the list toward that. https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2018/02/16/fri-feb-16-2018-pandemic-flu-preparedness/ Read that to see where this could be heading.

While I don’t think this is a panic engineered to allow the Deep State and tyranny to take over the US, it’s undeniable that certain people are using it to advance their long standing agendas, and the Constitution be damned. I encourage you all to push back against that without pushing any other agenda. Just point out the places where they are overstepping. And just in case, look to your arms. Figure out where you stand and what, if anything, you are not willing to tolerate.

No matter how this plays out politically, it’s already changing your local security situation. Jails are being emptied, and cops have stopped trying to control crime. They want to live through this as much as anyone, and I can understand that, even as I curse it. You may be much more responsible for your own safety and security than you are used to being. Get your mindset ready. Get your tools ready.

Whether a nothing burger or a society killer, this thing is here and the world around us has changed. I don’t know if we can get back to where we were, or even farther towards where we wish we were, but I know that right now, right here, it’s different. Get your head in the game and get used to the new rules.

Stay in, stay safe.

nick

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Sun. Mar. 29, 2020 – almost done with March

Cooler and wet.

Never really got rain yesterday but it stayed wet all afternoon and evening. Kids and wife ‘camped’ in a tent in the back yard. I hurt too much to do that if I don’t sleep in my bed.

I got some work done in the garden despite the heavy mist. Cleaned up an area next to a raised bed, transplanted 3 tomato plants, planted one trash bag potato tower.

My cabbage is currently thriving, but my broccoli has ‘bolted’. I cut it back and am hoping for a second growth.

Meyer Lemon tree has flowers already. We just picked the lemons a week or so ago.

Blueberry bushes flowered and look to be setting berries. I worked on the bamboo to support the bird netting. The bushes aren’t exactly thriving, but it’s neat to have some berries in season. The bird net means I’ll get them and not the thieving wildlife.

Old pepper plants continue to fruit. New peppers need transplanting. Maybe today.

No sign of sprouting for my radishes or turnips yet, nor the mixed herbs.

I need to get my onion sets in the ground and get some other veg in too. Maybe today.

If the weather clears I’ll be working in the driveway moving stuff around too.

Breakfast today is hillbilly donuts. Tube biscuits, cut with a shot glass to donuts and holes, fried up in peanut oil in my cast iron. Then shake in a bag of powdered sugar, cinnamon, or chocolate powder. Or do all three. Special treat for the family. Makes a mess with the oil, but I filter and save the oil just for donuts. It lasts a long time.

Dinner last night was spiral slice ham, baked potatoes, cabbage saute’d with onion, and mango cobbler for dessert. All but the cabbage and cobbler mix was from Costco.

I better get to it.

Stay in, stay safe. Get your garden started!

nick

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