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Category: WuFlu

Wed. Sept. 2, 2020 – jeez, Wednesday? already?

Hot and humid.  Yep.  Again.

Didn’t see the high yesterday, but it was hot.  High 90s in the shade for sure.

I took a few minutes and got a coat of Thompsons colored water seal on the teak table.  I was sweating by the time I was done, despite being in the shade, and hardly exerting myself wiping the oil on…

After that I did a couple of pickups.  Talked to my auctioneer and he put me off until Friday.  He’s busy.  Picked up a hundred 12ga rounds at one auction, and some dental tools.  I intend to use the tools for working with clay not teeth 🙂   I also swung by my secondary location, and picked up some stuff.  Both kids want second monitors for their school laptops.  The teacher sends links to content during the video call, and there isn’t room onscreen for everything.   I’ve got lots of monitors, so it was no biggie, but I’m betting most of the other kids don’t have a <s>hoarder</s> prepper for a dad.   I grabbed #1 daughter a keyboard too.  I didn’t have a USB port replicator or dock, since their lappys are all USB C.  That’s too new for me.  Once again though, backups for the win!

I also picked up a black and white laser printer for me.   My HP P1005 finally stopped working.  I had a pallet of old laser printers I paid $5 for some years ago.   My intention was to swap printers instead of toner.  I liked my P1005 though, and bought one $10 toner for it.  I’ve got 2 HP lasers left.  I hope the one I brought home works still.  I’ll find out later today.  I must have scrapped out the rest of the pile at some point.  I don’t remember.  I probably kept the toner carts though…

Yeah, there is a cost to keeping all the cr– ,  er… stuff.  I get that.  But it’s immensely satisfying to just grab something that will get the job done, without any drama or time used.  If we were further down the slope of the collapse, I can imagine situations where what you’ve got is all you can safely get…  a big chunk of the world works that way now.  Thank Gnu we’re not there yet.  It’s Wednesday and already I’ve pulled a couple monitors, cables, a monitor stand, a printer, keyboard, can of spray sticky, some decorative fabric, and a variety of other stuff off the pile and put them to use.  That’s cool.

Speaking of cool, I received the fridge monitor someone recommended, I’ll be installing that today.  Thanks for the tip.  So far, touch wood, everything has  been fine in the fridge zone… trust, but verify.

I also got most of my gennie parts, so that’s on the list today too.

I’ve got a vet appointment for my little guy this AM.  He’s due for heartworm and some other shots, and we want to talk to the Dr about his fairly sudden hearing loss.  It seems like it happened in a matter of weeks that we noticed something, and now he’s almost entirely deaf.  Maybe there’s some reason besides old age, and we can help.

Grid’s up, and bodies aren’t stacked in the street.  USE the time you have, and stack it high.

 

nick

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Tues. Sept. 1, 2020 – yikes. September.

Hot and humid.  No really.  I know you can’t believe it but it is true.  Hot and humid again.

Monday was a tiny bit less hot but still so humid stuff wasn’t drying until later in the day.

Given the heat, I decided that I could put off work in the garage and do more powerwashing.   I actually need to do two things in order to move other stuff along.  I needed to powerwash the chimney so it can be tuckpointed, and I needed to wash a teak patio table so we can either use it or sell it to make some room on the patio.   So I did.  The chimney actually went very fast, despite me moving in slow motion so I wouldn’t slip on the wet roof.  It has one side with really deep erosion of the mortar, and a brick or two that might even need replacing.  The cap needs to be re-parged, and a new metal flue cap could be installed.  I’m calling a neighborhood guy.  If his price is at all reasonable, I’ll job it out.  It’s been a long time since I worked for a bricklayer, and I don’t like being on the roof.

The table is back in good nick, and just needs a few coats of oil to be good for another year.  Teak is great but it does need maintenance.   All patio furniture does better with an annual wash and preventative coating.

After the table, I did the gutters and siding on the back side of the house.  I did the heavy black yuck on the concrete patio too.  It looks so much better, and my wife was pleased.

While I had the washer out, I used it on the two water tanks on wheels I have sitting in the yard.   They are roto-molded plastic, about 30 or 40 gallons, and are on wheeled carts.  They were used for team drinking water in high school athletics.  I pulled the individual hoses and nozzles off, but left the 12 volt pumps in place.  I might join one to a propane on demand water heater to make an outdoor shower, and the pump will be just what is needed.  I thoroughly blasted the interior and exterior of both tanks then treated them with dilute bleach water inside.  They are ready to fill before the next set of hurricanes in the Gulf.

I started to blast the fence, meaning mostly to run the gas out of the washer and call it quits for the day.  I powerwash and treat  with Thompsons every two or three years.  The fence looks better and lasts longer if you do this.  (Fence is western red cedar pickets, 6 and 7 foot high.)  The power wash makes it look almost new again, and the Thompsons keeps it that way for longer than untreated wood.

Oh, I cut the grass in the back yard too, and used the string trimmer.  I didn’t have to pick up any pecans, I guess the squirrels have ruined and dropped all the nuts for the year.

Flipped one auction item to a local guy for $100 profit.  He picked up at the house.  He was driving a Maserati.  The resale game is treating some people better than it’s treating me apparently.  Chatted in the street for about half an hour and could have talked longer.  We share a lot of the same interests, and buy in the same auctions.  Nice to talk with people.

So while I didn’t get anything done in the garage or driveway, I did get a lot of work done on other projects.  Cabin fever is hitting my wife and kids (wife dyed her own hair yesterday, now my soul is in peril) and the kids are grumpier since school started and they are reminded that they can’t touch their friends.  I figure a couple of high impact ‘appearance’ projects should help by changing the environment at least a little.  Or it could be that I like to get soaking wet in the heat of the day….

Whatever else you do today, keep stacking.

 

nick

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Mon. Aug. 31, 2020 – second week of school

Hot and humid although we might be on the downward side of the hill.  I think it only got to 107 in the driveway yesterday.

Regardless of the high temp, I hid inside most of the day.  All hail Mr. Carrier, without whom, life in Houston wouldn’t be tolerable for most people.

I did some exploration on the honda gennie in the late afternoon, and either found or created an issue with an O ring, so I’ll be waiting for the parts to come in before trying the thing I just discovered.  I took my own advice and searched on youtube with a slightly more general string, and the first hit described two things that historically fail on this model, and how to fix them.  This was the first time I saw the particular info, and I suspect it’s my problem.  I was almost there with my exploration before I obviated any more work by tearing the O ring.   There is a filter INSIDE the tank that “looks fine” but the mesh swells with time and exposure to gas, and restricts flow.   I was getting steady flow out the bowl drain when I emptied the tank of old gas, but maybe it wasn’t enough.  There is also ANOTHER filter inside the fuel petcock, that needs to be replaced sometimes.  Both filters are in the petcock replacement kit.  According to the YT creator, these are a common but hidden and non-obvious problem with old eu3000 gennies.  F me.  I hope that replacing those works.  They’re not even expensive.  Ebay has the petcock kit for ~$30.  I went ahead and bought a new spark plug, the O ring, the fuel level gauge, and I’ll get the petcock if cutting a hole in that filter solves my problem.  (keeping in mind that this is a ~$2000 gennie new, it’s worth fixing.)

I also spent some time with the manual for my inverter, and started actually planning my little mini-backup battery solution.  It looks like the inverter only works as a charger when connected to shore power (120v AC) and not from solar panels.  I’m willing to work around and compromise, since I am getting the stuff piecemeal and cheap.  It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.  Some time ago I got rid of the big pile of commercial UPSs that I was using as battery backup.  The batteries finally failed and I wasn’t interested in rebuilding what was only a temporary measure anyway.  Plus, I had a running generator…

My wife asked how many backups I planned to have.  The quiet gennie, the bigger noisier gennie, the whole house natgas gennie, and eventually installed solar…. with individual inverters and car batteries to back that all up, as well as LiON jump boxes, 7Ah gel cells, small solar USB charging panels, and maybe a biofuel fed peltier USB charger.*  Kinda like my plans to keep cooking…

There is no overkill…

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, right?

More cops killed this weekend, more civil unrest.  I’m long body armor, bear spray, and staying away from crowds.  That means stores too.  Which you can do if you keep stacking…

 

nick

*I have all these already, but don’t have them all in working condition or ready to run.  That’s what I’m working on now with a renewed sense of urgency.   I’ve listed my plans for cooking before, starting with my electric range and going all the way down to open fires.

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Sun. Aug. 30, 2020 – daily grind, and not the delicious arabica kind

Hot and humid.  So much of both.

It was a little bit less hot and humid yesterday, with thunder, lightning, and some light rain late in the day.

I did some work on the Honda gennie.  Cleaned the carb, checked out the starting system, but didn’t solve the ‘runs for about a minute then dies’ problem.

Spent some time cleaning the pool, naturally, since it’s a pool.

Didn’t cut the grass or work on the gardens.  I’ll do that today.  There is always something to do around the house.

I really want to get at least one gennie running.  I’ve got a lot of food and money in freezers…  I do have the batteries and various and sundry inverters to run stuff if I need to but I’d prefer less of a rigged up solution.  I’m mentally moving the solar panel project up the list too.

Pulled some stuff out of the stacks to solve issues for wife and kids this week.  That’s satisfying, I can tell you 🙂

Thanks to the alt-media and blogs, the MSM has had to start at least flirting with the truth of the Kenosha events.   The original perp did have a knife.  There is a pic of him holding it during the arrest.   His background as a real scumbag and the reasons he and the cops were all there (he violated a restraining order) have come out.  The kid who shot the rioters is finally getting aggressive defense with truths coming out about the scumbags who attacked him too.  There is a ton of video and once you get walked through the video, it’s pretty clear what really happened.   If people can be convinced to actually watch the vids, the kid has a chance.

In MN, the Coroner’s report has come out and casts a different light on the situation leading to Floyd’s death.  The cop might get a break too.  I am not a proponent of a lot of the things that the cops have done, and this looked really egregious, but the reality of the series of events may turn out to be quite different than the initial story.  The community anger and the destructive power of the mob will remain though.

I’m not the only one who has noted the seeming increase in people ‘losing their sh!t’ over seemingly minor stuff.  If you’re going out, Remain Calm.  De-escalate and move away.  If you can’t, be prepared to act violently and decisively.  Pay attention so you have time to make a choice.  Have an exit plan, don’t get boxed in.  Carry.  Better to have it and not need it, than the opposite.  Best case, don’t be there.

And keep stacking…

 

n

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Sat. Aug. 29, 2020 – hey, second weekend of the week…

Hot and humid.  Probably crazy hot.

Certainly hot yesterday.  And then rainy in the evening.   So hot and sunny in fact that I got little done outside.

I did confirm that the Honda gennie dies after about a minute even with a charged battery.  I also confirmed that there was enough oil, and that the oil monitor light wasn’t coming on when it dies.  I suspect that it was trying to drop to idle, and the idle circuit in the carb is blocked.  Maybe today I’ll pull the carb and clean it.  Unless it’s so freaking hot my brain boils in my skull.

I’m glad I left the tarps on everything.  It rained HARD in the late evening.  It didn’t last very long though, which is good as there would have been flooding.

Other than the work on the gennies, I’ve got my normal stuff to do, still putting the garage back together.  Still pulling stuff for auction.  Maybe even yardwork, since it’s finally the weekend.

In Kenosha, the plain facts shown by the video evidence are finally making it into the press, the kid has representation, and is getting financial support.  The first and second will be a cause celebre’ but not the next 10 or 20 or more.   Don’t get caught up in it.  Avoid crowds.  But if you do have to act, act appropriately.  You will be on video.

Keep in mind you won’t get caught up in the crowd if you don’t have to go out and play in it.  Get what you need together now.

Keep stacking, but also take time to enjoy these, the ‘good old days’….

 

n

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Fri. Aug. 28, 2020 – School’s back in session

Hot and humid.  Sunny and bright.  Probably.

Yesterday was hot, but also very nice when I wasn’t dripping sweat.  I chose to leave all the covered stuff covered.  We were forecast to get some of the trailing weather from Laura Friday or Saturday.  I guess we’ll see about that but it left me some time to work on the portable generators.

Neither was running at the end of the day.  Neither had the issues I thought they had.  Parts are ordered for the older one.  I’ll be exploring issues on the Honda today.

That wasn’t a lot to get done, but I am beat up and needed a ‘recovery’ day.  Sore in places that I’d forgotten about.  I really need to work on this actively.

The civil unrest and lawlessness is increasing.  People in general seem to be closer to violence than previously.  I don’t see that getting better anytime soon, and I can think of a lot of scenarios where it gets a whole lot worse.  Add politics and the election year, and we’ve got a mess brewing.

Consider what might happen in the next month, 3 months, and year.  Make some plans based on your thoughts.  Start working your plan.  And whatever it is, it’s likely to work better with a big stack backing you up.

Keep stacking.

 

nick

 

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Thur. Aug. 27, 2020 – wave as it goes by…

Hot and humid.  Probably.

Yesterday was both, although the humidity was the bigger issue.  No cooling off with sweat if your sweat won’t evaporate.

I spent the day in the garage, driveway, and back yard.  I moved, grouped, covered, and put away a bunch of stuff.  And it looks like Laura will completely miss me.  I’ll have to undo some of the work to get to stuff after today.

But, for the moment, I’ve got momentum going and I’m going to stay with it.   I’ll keep working in the garage and on prepping the gennies.  That should keep me busy.

I have no idea what the aftermath of Laura looks like as I write this.  The storm just made landfall, and I’m headed to bed.  I’m so beat from being in the sun and working all day that I intend to sleep in.   I’m sure it’s bad, and I’ll update anything when I get caught up.

They arrested the shooter from the rioting in Kenosha.  He’s 17 according to reports.  Blogs are trumpeting that it was a righteous self defense shooting, based on video from the scene.  The other media, and the prosecutor- not so much.  I guess time will tell, but Ol Remus’ advice should be taken to heart- Avoid Crowds.

And keep stacking.

n

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Wed. Aug. 26, 2020 – well, better get ready

Hot and humid.  Sweaty like a fat guy’s thighs.

I did move some stuff from the house to storage yesterday.  Not enough.  Not nearly enough.  I’ve got so much loose stuff laying around that I can only hope we don’t actually get high winds, or whale oil beef hooked.

Both of my auction contacts pushed me off on taking them loads of stuff.  Jeez.  I can’t get rid of this stuff.

I did spend some time in meatspace chatting with my buddy and his wife at the gu–  toy store.   He’s gonna consign a couple of things for me.  He’s still doing a brisk business in transfers, but what happens when ALL the inventory is gone and no one can buy anything that needs transferring, and there is no new inventory?  Other people have commented elsewhere that in the short and medium run, gu— toy stores are in economic trouble, despite high demand and prices.

There was a steady stream of people looking for ammo, and not finding it.  I’ll drop a small box by today if I get a chance to sweeten the deal on one of my items.

School is cancelled for today and tomorrow, with Friday still up in the air.  It all depends on Laura, and what she leaves in her wake here in Texas.  I’m hoping for a non-event.  Prepping for a big one, but hoping for small.

And I’m watching the insurgency spread.

At some point in the not too distance past, the move toward ‘officer safety’ started.  Cops began training to avoid going ‘hands on’ to prevent them from being injured*.  At the same time, someone decided that it didn’t look good for cops to be hitting The Usual Suspects(tm) with their fists or ESPECIALLY with sticks.   So someone made a change to policy, and the end state of that is cops are trained to shoot rather than grapple or fight.  Guns are stand off weapons.  Nightsticks, batons, etc, are close in weapons.  The cops can now keep their distance, but changes in doctrine let to changes in tactics.   Policy changes led to us being where we are today.  The same people that don’t want to see a cop with a stick hitting a suspect now cry out when the cop uses the tools and tactics he’s been trained to use, and shoots instead of strikes.  How’s that working out?  Ripples turning into waves….

Speaking of that, John Wilder throws out a number in his recent post, saying ” the dollar losing 7% of its value in three months”.   Without knowing where he got it, I was caught off guard because it was the first time I saw it put so starkly.   It’s what you’d expect when .gov makes the money printers go “brrrrrrr”.  It’s what you see when you’re paying more for everything, especially metals like gold and silver.  But upon reflection 7% seems way too small.  TP is almost double.  Gold went from $1500/oz to almost $2000.  Silver went from $17 to 26 (with higher spots in the last week).  Ammo and gun prices are sky high.  Granted that a lot of the increase in consumer goods pricing is due to scarcity, the metal pricing is more purely inflation for monetary reasons.  Either way, it looks like the dollar is buying a LOT LESS than 93% of what it did in March or June.  Taking a step back, that ripple looks like it could be a really big wave if it gets going.   Ask yourself why it isn’t front page news.  And why no one is framing that decline in purchasing power in terms of inflation.  Venezuela here we come.  Everyone will be shocked when they realize we’re suddenly there “without warning”.  Consider this (and the last couple of years) your fair warning. **

Everything’s better with bacon.  And butter.  And a full pantry.  Keep stacking.

nick

 

* also about the same time, physical fitness standards were relaxed, and the recruiting pool was broadened.  A whole lot of cops were produced that couldn’t go hands on if they wanted to.

**I’m no financial guru and nothing I say is “financial advice” but I’m certainly taking a hard look at what my condition would be if all my cash and cash equivalents bought me half as much stuff, or one quarter as much, next year.   It might be a good idea to turn some of that cash into something that holds value a bit better, especially if there are bargains to be had.  Assuming I had any cash tucked away…

 

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Tues. Aug. 25, 2020 – more school, more to do, wind coming

Hot and humid, slightly less so.

Monday was a tiny big cooler and dryer than the last few days.   It still got pretty hot especially once the sun came out.  It was ‘roast your scalp’ hot then.

So when it got hot I did my errands.   Picked up my client’s dead projector.  Still dead.  Picked up my auction items.  Went by my secondary storage.  I really need to get stuff to auction.  I’ve got piles here and I need to get them under cover or out of here before the big wind.  Both of my local auctions are not returning my calls, which means they are super busy with their own stuff.  Bummer for me.

I’ll be trying to get a bunch more stuff into the garage and out of the driveway today.   I’ve got a bunch of stuff sitting on the patio that I don’t really want torn up by the wind either.

On the other hand, the pool is sparkling clean now.  Keeping the pecan debris, and the squirrel waste out helped a lot.  Of course it will be messed up by rain and hurricane wind.

I’m debating what to do with my antennas.  I might try to get the big one down.  The little ones should be ok even if the wind gets high.  I will see what kind of time I have after doing the other ground based stuff first.

Lots to do in little time.  Time to get the lead out.  I was really hoping to do this in an organized way but I think it’s going to come down to chucking stuff in a pile.  Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

Second day of school too.  We’ll see how that goes this time around.

I did get some stuff taken over to my secondary.  I’ll work on building that back up and it will help me to get some of the stuff out of here too.

Always something that needs stacking…  gotta keep it up.

n

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Mon. Aug. 24, 2020 – first day of school, remotely

Hot and humid, although perhaps not as hot as last week.

Hurricanes on the way though, so that weather is going to suck.

Yesterday started a bit cooler, so I decided to do my outdoor work.  It did get to 108F in the sun in my driveway though.

I did a bunch of stuff outside, mostly in the shade.  It was a sneaky kind of hot that I really didn’t notice until I came in to drink and let my brain cool down.  THEN I could feel that my head was dumping heat into the room…

I did go back out and finish the yardwork.  I’ve got a ton of stuff to secure before we get hurricane winds though.  I’ll get started on that today, but I’ve got two pickups later in the afternoon.  And I’ll be getting an early start- it’s the first day back in school for us.  Middle school, 6th grade, for the older one, 4th grade elementary for the little one, who is getting a growth spurt and isn’t particularly little.

It will be interesting to see how their day goes.  I’m guessing no real learning for a few days.   Their in person first week is all filled with rules and procedures normally, but since they’re not in school, they don’t need to practice fire drills.  Presumably they’ll have distance learning specific stuff in place of that.

With hurricanes in the Gulf and soon to be in the Gulf, I need to concentrate on that for a bit.  In the mean time, the insurgency is getting more serious in Portland, and now Colorado too.   It’s organized, and anyone willing to do the grunt work of stuffing balloons with sh!t and p!ss is willing to do a whole lot more.  We are seeing the beginning, not the end.  In the end, it’ll be blood in the streets, assassination squads, arson, general strikes, and a bunch of innocents will be caught in the crossfire.  Plan accordingly.

You won’t need to worry about getting shot at the quickee mart if you’re prepped… so keep stacking.

 

nick

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