Category: Random Stuff

73F and saturated. Had some spotty rain yesterday, but I managed to avoid most of whatever fell on Houston. I’m hoping to do the same today.

Another week gone in an eyeblink.

I got the pop up tasks (mostly) done at my rent house. There are a couple of little things they need, but at least the dishwasher is in, and so are the tenants.

I got nothing done in the garden, and nothing further on the gennie or the solar. I got a little bit further on my office clean up, but there are still piles of stuff everywhere in the house.

Ugg. I better get some of this stuff finished…. There is so much else to do too.

Please tell me you guys have done some prepping this week!

n

NOTE- for any new visitors, welcome! The way this place works is the daily post by me is usually just an ‘opener’ to open the door this morning, and kickstart the conversation that mostly happens in the comments. Please feel free to join in or ask a question, let us know you’re here. There is a ton of info here in past posts and comment discussion about prepping, science, computers, radio, work in various high tech industries, and politics. Look around, search, or ask if you can’t find something. NO abuse [of other participants] is allowed and we don’t know you well enough for kidding yet…. Politicians and prog scumbags are a different story, fire away.

74F and wet. Yuck. We have been getting several hours a day of sunshine despite the rain. That is nice.

Well, as the week speeds by, now I’ve got a right arm with stitches in it, and limited use. Could have been worse. The urgent care system worked beautifully. Really no waiting that wasn’t filled with paperwork. The facility administrator chatted with me while I was waiting from my xrays to be read. Very pleasant and efficient visit. All of them should be that way. Funny what being in competition for you customers dollars will do.

Better get started on the day. Hungry kids waiting….

n

73F and wet again. And for the foreseeable future.

Houston has “National Night Out” a bit later than the rest of the nation. We did it last night. The idea is to get to know your neighbors and show criminals that you are united against them. Here, we also focus on hurricane prep.

So I ate some homemade sausage and chatted with the neighbors for a couple of hours. It was nice. Several of our constables stopped by to say hi and chat too. Got a bit of a crime report, and talked to the shift supervisor about the chatty cathys on the radio. He said they don’t have any evidence that the bad guys monitor the radio. OK then….

He also said they need cameras pointed at the street to get vehicles and license plates to help them when there are crimes reported. Hey, I can do that!

Pecking away at my list today. Install at the rent house (hopefully only one trip to Home Depot), ebay, various clean up things… we’ll see what gets done.

OH, and don’t forget the test of the emergency alert system! 2:18pm and 2:20pm EDT. Don’t let people lose their minds…

n

71F and wet this morning. This has been a very wet year in Houston.

Yesterday we learned of the passing of a friend of the blog, Dave Hardy, known here also as OFD (O being ‘Old” and D being ‘Dave’, you can choose the middle.) Although no one here ever met Dave in person, we all knew that part of himself that he shared, and we DID think of him as “Friend.”

This is the amazing thing that the internet has enabled. Communities of the mind and spirit, that could not have existed before. Oh, there were correspondences, and if you were in the same area you could meet at a coffee house, or a university or college, but where and when else could an ex-soldier, someone who fought through substance abuse problems, who lived in a small rural town, be celebrated and valued for his esoteric knowledge and his thoughts?

It’s a marvelous thing to find peers, companions on the journey, and it’s a tragedy to lose them.

Rest in peace Dave, you’ve more than earned it.

nick

73F and saturated, again.

Rain chased me away from my chores yesterday, and I expect the same today. At least there were a couple of breaks when I could get stuff done outside.

Indonesia will fall out of the news pretty quickly, and there isn’t even ANY coverage of the ongoing disaster in NC and SC. The world’s attention has moved on. Or at least the established media’s attention.

If your disaster plan counts on people outside your area caring about you, and helping you out, I’d suggest rethinking that. Not only are you on your own during the initial aftermath, NOBODY will be there for the long haul of your recovery either. OR your aid shipments will rot on the dock because your local politicians would prefer to have desperate victims as leverage. Or your local trucking union might decide that this is the best time to extort a new contract out of TPTB.

You are on your own, except for whatever ‘tribe’ you’ve managed to build, or can attach yourself to.

n

75F and wet. Yuck.

Had a weird coughing fit last night. Woke me up and got me out of bed for an hour or more. I feel like I’ve been beaten with sticks this am.

Some meatspace obligations today, that would be better without rain. Don’t know yet if I’ll just have to suck it up, maybe it will dry out like yesterday.

Oh well, kids need breakfast. The demands of others are the rhythm of my life.

n

75F and threatening to rain.

Of course we have a soccer game this morning!

I’m doing a deep clean on my office and all my work areas as part of a deal with my wife. I get this mess cleaned up, and she doesn’t throw it all out…

Part of what I’m finding (and the part relevant to prepping) is all the books I’ve been picking up for my PA library. I’m putting them in subject piles in the hallway, and will put them on shelves when I figure out how… because I’ve got about 15 ft of shelf in my office, and 30 ft of books. I’ve managed a really good attempt at the ‘bucket list’ of after the collapse books – https://zerogov.com/rekindling-the-flame-after-the-collapse-by-bill-buppert/

I don’t want to bury mine in buckets, I want it out where I can get to it.

My subjects-
woodworking
metalworking
construction
surveying
math (emphasis on workshop math)
health and medical
sailing (also ropework)
radio and electronics
outdoors (camping, survival, scouting, outdoor living)
food (cooking and preserving)

And separately I have a pretty good collection of the classics of western literature and thought, and a huge sci fi book collection.

I’m a bit heavy on some (6 ft of metalworking, and 3ft stacks of woodworking, outdoors, electronics, construction, and radio) and very light on others like animal husbandry, law, modern lit.

Surprising how much I found and bought for $1-2 each. SERIOUS textbook styles of book too, most vintage except in the medical and woodworking areas.

Overkill? Craziness? Or just an excuse to indulge a love of books?

nick

What what what??? I look at my thermometer and it says 69F! Still 91%RH, but FINALLY below 70F. Fall MUST be here. That means I’m late with the garden.

Interesting comment tossed off yesterday, that the 90’s would be weirder than the 60’s and mentions the destructive power of media, MTV in particular.

LOTS of food for thought there, including the rise of Rap and Hip Hop culture, Beavis and Butthead, Mike Judge and the Sick and Twisted Film Festival, latch key kids, cocaine/crack and AIDS, and the movie Wall Street. As a child of the 80’s I can say that it was a very strange time.

As part of the cultural, political, and sociological shifts we are currently living through, the concepts of the swinging pendulum and the turning wheel are very useful. I see the pendulum of history/fate starting to swing back everywhere I look. (Crudely, but since the porn industry is often a leader of culture and tech, even the Daily Mail noted that female grooming habits are shifting toward a more natural look [for an adult].) As porn gets more violent, extreme, and de-humanizing, there is also a swing counter to it, with a new prudishness and delays in sexual activity starting.

Vehicle colors are shifting again. New colors are coming out that aren’t red, black, white, or silver.

We’ve had plenty of discussion here about the political changes going on.

The problem is, as one era ends, it often engenders/indulges in an orgy of excess. Manias sweep the culture. Bizarre becomes commonplace. Fringe acts as if it was center. And then suddenly, everything changes.

Where will you and yours end up after the change? Will you be winners or losers? Victims or survivors?

What did you do to prep this week? How in particular will your FINANCES get through the coming seismic shift?

nick

A cool 70F and drippy this am…

And it’s already Thursday again. Jeez. And I got new stuff added to my list. Dishwasher needs replacement at the rent house. It’s probably 20 years old and a latch has failed. Seems a shame to not to just fix the latch, but it’s 20 years old and not a particularly good one anyway. Depending on the actual latch, it could be 1/4 the cost of replacing the whole unit. Le sigh…

https://www.zerohedge.com/ is full of doom this morning, and confirmation bias…..

Well, this list ain’t gonna check box itself….

n

Woke to the sound of rain…

Currently 76F and light drizzle. Forecast calls for more. I hope we get a break as I have a riding mower to sell today.

More work, more listings, more cleanup.

I will say that I can see progress in areas, but it’s still just moving stuff around. The real change will come when some of this stuff leaves the house.

Time to get a gennie install company out here to look at connecting the gennie and transfer switch…

And I’m going ahead with some of the security upgrades. Even if these two guys weren’t doing home invasions, it was a wake up call for the wife and neighbors.

Better get going…

n