Category: Random Stuff

mid 70s and saturated, I’m sure. [74F and 99%RH]

This is the one year anniversary of the death of Dave Hardy. Frequent commmentor, keen observer, friend of the blog. Pray for the repose of his soul, and his wife and daughter. Raise a glass to absent friends.

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From a website aimed at cops, comes this article:

“As police and firefighter numbers fall, officials urge disaster prep”

A few pull quotes, but you should read the whole thing-

“”So even if you were the slickest agency in the world, and you dealt with disasters all the time … if you train every day, a disaster is still called a disaster for a reason,” said Amy Donahue, a professor in the department of public policy at the University of Connecticut. “Even if you devoted all of your resources to these rare events, you still would find yourself struggling to manage them.””

“We’ve learned through some of our exercises, through Cascadia, which was a national exercise, that maybe it’s more realistic to expect that help in a week and maybe two weeks,” Barrington said. “With those kinds of time frames, it’s very important that the citizens be able to have the resources available that they can survive and live for multiple days without help.”

“‘EVERYBODY IS A FIRST RESPONDER’

Last year, FEMA released its 2018-22 Strategic Plan for disaster response, which emphasized “shared responsibility across all layers of government down to the individual.” In other words, residents of the affected communities are their own first responders.

“If you’re talking about a sudden large-scale disaster, there will never, ever, ever be enough professional first responders right when they’re needed, right when a disaster strikes,” Simpson said. “Everybody is a first responder.””

…

“During a disaster, it may be up to family, neighbors and even strangers to save themselves and others.

“They’re saved by bystanders,” Simpson said. “That’s actually the frontline of first response in a large-scale disaster.””

“People, just individual, regular people like us,” Donahue said, “don’t tend to put too much, if any, energy into being ready in the most simple and basic ways for a disaster. If a whole lot of people were just a little bit more prepared, it would make a very big difference.”

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I got a few things done this week (and last).

I got wheels for my 40 gallon water tank.

I sprayed the grapevines for caterpillars, again.

Pruned the citrus.

Added food to the pile, moved several buckets of bulk to my offsite site.

Ate some of my stored food, tried some new recipes.

Bought a bunch of stuff- Build parts for gubs. Propane heaters. Water filter. Some other defensive items. Some medical stuff. All on the secondary market. No itemized receipts. Sometimes no receipts at all.

Put a case of Mountain House in the truck. Getting stuck at school with the kids was not on the radar. Looking more seriously for a boat. If I had to go get the kids in a high water emergency, I could walk in, but it would be better to have a boat of some kind.

Got another pair of wellies (big boots).

Working on installing a roof rack on the Expedition. Would work well for a jonboat or open kayak, or inflatable.

Reading through “Bushcraft First Aid- A Field Guide to Wilderness Emergency Care.” Can’t recommend it unless you are starting from absolute zero. His info on tourniquets is out of date and wrong. Makes you wonder what else is OOD and wrong…

Feels like there was some other stuff in there too, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

It feels like time is really short. Lots of bad things hanging by a thread, literally just a heartbeat away. Get some training. CERT, a PD CPA class, EMT, or self defense. Get your ham license, it’s easy and can be a lot of fun. Plus, you’ll meet people, many of whom are like minded. Meet some people. Go to your local county, city, or neighborhood meetings. Find a ham club. Go to the Show and Shine car show Sunday morning… get out of the house. Heck, just go yard sale-ing and chat with folks. Take the tenor of the tribes.

Don’t put it off. .Gov is late to every party, and even they are saying you need to do more to get ready!

n

Mid 70s and saturated, probably a good guess. [71F and 99%RH at 6am]

Older child was shivery, headache-y, and had a slight fever at bed time.  I hope she’s feeling better this morning, but if not, I’m home all day.   I have stuff to do here, but I was finally getting some momentum going at the secondary location…  which is pretty much what always happens.

I did get to my rent house.  Fixed the plumbing problem, checked on the AC (cleaned the condenser coil, changed the air filter), and confirmed the opening in the cabinets for a new range.  Sears Outlet had a bunch of nice ranges for around $500.  The scratches or dents were mostly on the sides, where they’d be hidden by cabinets anyway.  I’ll see what is there today or Friday, depending on child care and buy something.  I really hate shopping for appliances.

The cooler temps have been great for doing outdoor work.   I’m still sweating gallons, but the breeze feels awesome.  It’s definitely Fall.

Missed my ham radio lunch yesterday, but I was getting stuff done and couldn’t take the time.  I’m not doing training with the PD tomorrow night either.  I need to cover the homefront tonight and tomorrow.  I hope I’m not missing something fun like hostage rescue.

I’m watching the current mania with the young girl screeching about how the world has stolen her childhood with global warmening coming to kill us all.  Occurs to me that even if true, it would be her ADULTHOOD that got stolen, as she is having no trouble living through her childhood.  I guess expecting it to make sense is a personality disorder on my part.

And how is it that the VP’s son getting a fat check for work he’s manifestly unqualified to do, isn’t a crime, but asking a government to investigate that is?  Oh right.  In both cases it’s because of who his daddy is.  I thought we weren’t supposed to have royal families here.

Anyone planning their fall garden?  Anyone who bought RBT’s seed bank?  I’d like to hear about it…

I’ll update after checking on the child.

[no fever, so child is headed to school, don’t know what was going on last night]

n

Hoping that the cooling trend continues. [72F and 99%RH]  Still got storms in the Atlantic that could get us though.

Working on intake and uptake today, getting some of the stuff I bought cataloged and put away. I’ll also be going by the rent house and looking at stoves/ovens to replace the aged one there, and some plumbing issue in the shower. I definitely didn’t have rent house maintenance on my radar for the week or month.

The drain line for the kitchen and laundry at the main house needs its annual rodding too. None of it takes long in isolation, but the total of time, including trips to store etc takes all dang day. And none of it was on my calendar.

Having a pickup full of sales items is holding all that other stuff up now.

It never ends.

n

Cooler and drier? One can always hope… [75f And 99%RH, so not much]

Yesterday it rained cats and dogs on the north side of town. Pretty good rain in parts of the south too. And it still got hot. My whole load got wet, and as the boxes melted, the load shifted, and I almost dumped it all on the freeway. I’ve learned the hard way to put LOTS of straps, from different directions, on any load. That saved me this time.

One thing I noticed at one of my pickups- there are a LOT of people running auctions, consignment shops, thrift/antique/junque shops. Lot of people like me making a living in between normal commerce and with castoffs. Sarah Hoyt says that can only happen in a very rich country. If the amount of “richness” were to change, a whole lot of people hustling like me might be out of business and struggling- and that would be bad. I really hope it’s not like the joke about the two antique store owners… they are the only two people on an island, and both have successful stores…

I am getting a ton of preps at huge discounts, and that counts for something, even if I’m not getting anything that sells.

“It’s a hard knock life, for me…”

Off to the salt mines.

n

Cooler and damp, but I’m guessing.

We ended up getting about 3/4 of an inch of rain yesterday afternoon.  Some heavy, some misty light, but it sure added up.

I’m glad I got the yard work and pruning done when I did.

I’ve got three auction pickups today, and they are on opposite ends of town.  I’m going to be scrambling to get them done.  So OF COURSE the dog needs to go to the vet first thing in the morning.

And I have to give the state their ounce of flesh and get the truck inspected and registered before the end of the week.  And I really should get the pickup windshield fixed.  So I’m looking at a busy week.

On the plus side, the fan and AC dried out the water intrusion at my secondary site.  I sold my buddy a bunch of stuff from the driveway, and I picked up some hardware to move my roof rack project along.

Baby steps.

n

81F and 96%RH at 930am. I think it’s gonna get hot today.

I’ve got a bit of shifting stuff around in the driveway and going over to my buddy’s place scheduled for this morning. It would be great to get some of the stuff out of the driveway! We’ll see if he calls.

Slept late. Feel a bit dehydrated and sore. Not young anymore. Can’t really do everything at the same pace or time. I KNOW that, but I still bump up against the edges without realizing it. Gah.

Kids have eaten and are going out for a bike ride with my wife. I’M gonna take it easy until my buddy calls.

n

77F and 93%RH at 8am.  Not horrible, just ordinary.  There is a lot of saturated ground and standing water to be evaporated.  I hope we get some dry and windy days.

One of our neighbors finally asked for help.  I offered pumps (too late, wet but not standing) and fans.  I don’t have a dehumidifier.  Every auction they’ve gone for too much.    I also have a case of some sort of remediation biocide cleaner that I picked up cheap after the last flood, and a couple of cases of mold and mildew “armor” which is supposed to be hospital grade.  There are enough warnings on it to believe it’s the good stuff.

I did get some water intrusion at my secondary location.  I put out a fan and sprayed the mold armor.  I’ll check it again today.  Mainly the carpet near the door was soaked.

Lots to do and not enough time or motivation,

n

Wet.  Definitely wet.  Got an extra 1.25 inches of rain between my post yesterday morning and midnight yesterday.   Ground is getting squishy.

More  storms shaping up in the Atlantic too.

Don’t drive into flood waters.

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I am interested to see what we’ll be doing with the fifth graders this year.  We have at least 3 dissections planned.  We’re doing some other stuff too, like drones and rockets, but I don’t have any details yet.  Should be fun.  One thing I can say for sure, if you aren’t in a school this year or last, you really don’t know what is going on in schools today.  It’s not what you remember.  Volunteer and see for yourself.

In fact, as part of Meatspace Baby! get out and volunteer in your community.  You can be totally selfish in who you volunteer for too.  I’m not working in soup kitchens…  it will get you out of the house, and into your community.  LOCAL is where the problems will be, and where any solutions reside.  The dad I met yesterday is completely aligned with me politically on the issues we talked about.  He’s a CHL holder.  He might be a LMI and a good guy to know…  and I probably wouldn’t have learned that just bumping in to him at a PTA meeting.  Get out there.  Do something.   (Ham radio is good too.)

With that, I’m posting this and getting ready for school 🙂

nick

Raining, most likely. Cooler though. [75F and another 0.56 inches after midnight]

Today is my first volunteer day of the year at the kids’ school. I’ll be leading the 4th grade “Hands On Science” enrichment classes. Then tomorrow, I’ll be volunteering as a helper to the 5th grade program. Neither of my kids is in 4th this year, so I’m practicing for next year 😉 and the year after that with 5th…

I edited the power point and added some slides explaining “science” and “scientists” and what they do. Toned down the Metric system cheerleading a bit too. After all, the number of countries that put a man on the moon and brought him home again, that use the metric system is still ZERO. The chinese found a puddle of goo and the indians discovered it’s harder than it looks, and neither was manned anyway…

Yeah I get it, we use metric in science. Mostly. 80-something percent of our kids use the metric system in their home countries and at home, so that makes it easier, I guess. Like soccer, demographics is destiny.

My ham radio lunch follows immediately after my volunteering, and is on the other side of town, so I hope it’s not to flooded.

Rained steadily til at least midnight, with the gauge showing 1.59 inches before I went to bed. One power blink, and the sound a transformer makes when it shorts, sort of a whooommmmff noise, and I was off to bed.

Hope the financial world holds it together a bit longer…

n

added- the flood control district sensors show more than 5 inches in the south east of town, Friendswood [some parts of Friendswood are showing 7,5 and 7.9 inches of rainfall in the last 24 hours] and Clearlake areas.  They are at the outflow end of our bayou system.  Currently the map is showing very little rain in the Northwest, the start of our bayou system.  The channel map is showing the waterways in SW are coming up and are in “warning” status.  At least they aren’t looking at the whole bayou system draining into them tonight, but only have to deal with mostly local rainfall. [Two of the monitored bayous are out of their banks this morning]

https://www.harriscountyfws.org/

74F and 99%RH??  [77F and 50%RH]  Hopefully a bit cooler anyway. Yesterday was cool-ish but very humid, especially after the rain. I had to pause and catch my breath a couple of times.

I’ve got two auction pickups today, as well as a plan to drop off a pallet or more for my auction. A haircut would be nice too.

Most of my plans don’t involve rain, so I hope the NOAA forecast is wrong for my area.

The worldwide March to War ™ {brought to you by Snacky Smores} seems to be continuing apace. If they can’t stir up stuff in one part of the world, they try in another. More disruption, more famine, more disease, more destruction, more, more, more. Been a while since we had a big one, and it sure seems to be coming.

I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing- living. The futility of trying to ‘time’ the markets or disasters means I don’t do anything irrevocable as part of my preps, and try not to do anything irrevocable in my life. There are risks involved with that, but so far, I think they are less than the risks from, say, cashing out and moving off grid in the woods. Someone always gets caught holding the bag, I hope it’s not me. (and I make plans to keep it from being me.)

Anyway, time to make the breakfast, and lunches, and feed the dog and fish, and all the other life affirming things that start my day.

Keep stacking.

n