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Category: WuFlu

Monday, May 25, 2020 – Memorial Day

Cooler and wet.

Yesterday was hot and humid until the big front blew through later in the day. Finally got the rain in earnest, about 1.32inches according to the gauge. It was 67F when I went to bed.

Didn’t do much all day. Woke up feeling beat up, and with the pressure changes, most of my joints were aching and my hands were like paddles. Some days are just a pain.

Dinner was hot dogs and whatever greens I could find in the fridge. Dessert was the last of the birthday cake.
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Today is the day we put aside to remember our dead. Veteran’s Day we celebrate and thank all those who have served, but today is for remembrance of those who gave all…

ARLINGTON, VA – MAY 27: Mary McHugh mourns her dead fiance Sgt. James Regan at “Section 60” of the Arlington National Cemetery May 27, 2007. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Light a candle, raise a glass, smokem’ if ya’ got em’, but spend a short while in remembrance.

Absent friends.

nick

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Sun. May 24, 2020 – still no rain

Still hot, still no rain.

We did get the occasional spatter, but nothing more than a few seconds yesterday and it was HOT. 100F in the shade. Humid too, sweaty like a fat man’s thighs.

Mostly I just hid from the heat. I did have to run out to my secondary location and get some gloves that I sold on ebay. Listed for over a year, been months if not a year since the last ones sold, and suddenly I sell a pair. I must have sold the last ones I had here at the house, so off I went. While I was there I did some cleaning.

On Friday while I was there, I got some misc. electronics and stuff to bring home. One of the neighborhood families has kids who are currently interested in taking stuff apart. I’ve got stuff. When the mom sent out the appeal, my wife voluntold me to go and bring some home. So I did. I brought home an old daisy wheel IBM typewriter, a dot matrix printer, document camera, video snapshot printer, hard drive, and some other small stuff. There should be some fun stuff in there for them to discover. I started out taking stuff apart myself and I still enjoy it. It’s a gateway drug to all kinds of learning and fun.

Maybe with kids having all this unstructured time at home, they’ll be able to do some of the stuff I did as a kid. Stuff that involves getting dirty, breaking things, and taking time to explore. Or maybe they’ll just play Minecraft all day.

Elsewhere in the world, if you don’t think things are cracking apart and shifting, what are the live fire exercises in the Persian Gulf? Stuff is breaking loose all over. We’re not the only ones dealing with this wuflu, we are just actually better prepared than a lot of places. WE might be the ones taking advantage of a situation. It would be nice to have the House of Saud unable to meddle quite so much in world affairs. Unfortunately a cornered animal is a dangerous one…

Keep in mind the stories we’re NOT hearing about lately. What has the left hand been up to while the right hand’s been busy and distracted?

Keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs. Stored pasta and frozen HEB italian meatballs. Garlic toast. Birthday cake for dessert. Yum.

Stuff is just getting started, keep stacking.

nick

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Sat. May 23, 2020 – stuff to do, just pile it higher….

Hot and wet.

Yesterday was another hot swampy day here in the Bayou City. Just walking around the back yard I had sweat running down my back and front.

I did look at the gardens, they’re all doing about the same. Caterpillars were back on the grapevines so I sprayed them again. Then I set up the archery target and a backstop.

Much fun was had by #1 daughter, wife, #2 daughter and even me! I felt pretty good just hitting the foam block. My wife got a bull! and the kids both showed improvement after only a short while. Kid 1 also spent some time with her art supplies in the afternoon.

Yep, we’ve basically quit with the school work. Just like when they were attending full time, the last weeks are empty of learning.

I got out of the house and ran some errands. Picked up some auction items. Drove across town twice. Moved a 2ft cube of canning jars to my secondary, and a yeti style cooler. I don’t have anything to can at the moment, nor will I have any from the garden any time soon, so I got them out of the garage. The yeti style pelican cooler holds ice for a long time, but it’s freaking heavy and doesn’t hold much for the space it takes up. I am reorganizing some of my storage cabinets and I need the space the cooler filled for camping and GS stuff. I’ve got several normal coleman or igloo coolers for ordinary picnic stuff. If I need the high tech, I can go get it. In the mean time, I’ll be putting stuff away at home where my wife sees it every day.

Dinner was another one of the Prime sirloins I got for <$7/ pound. VERY tasty. Canned corn, leftover canned beans, and leftover rice filled out the meal. Birthday cake for dessert (and breakfast.) Other than the canned veg, and occasional box side dish, I'm really not burning through stored food. I'm running low on sliced sandwich ham, because EVERYONE is eating it for lunch, not just me and one child. That is something I didn't plan for. The CDC issued some guidance for schools if classes start up again. Pretty much unworkable. No shared anything, bring lunch from home, eat in classrooms, keep kids six feet apart, no touching, sanitize the playground but don't use chemicals near the kids... just as an example, they recommend skipping every other row on the school bus, and only having one kid per seat. That triples the number of buses or the time it takes to get everyone there and back again. Couple that with reducing classes to one third (to maintain distancing) and not having either the kids or teachers rotate to different rooms, and you've got a fantasy tale. NOT gonna happen. In other news, the State of Texas reminded me to file for my unemployment/ covid payment. I guess I got approved for something, despite not submitting a 2019 tax statement. We'll see if I get any actual money. My sales have been non-existent and I haven't been paid for anything I've done in the last two weeks, so maybe I'll get something. Either way, I'm not concerned. Wife is still working and my sales will either start back up or not. Not much I can do about it. It does point out the benefit of having your financial house in order as your number one prep. Speaking of prepping, keep stacking. The trucks are rolling, the stores have (most) stuff, and money is still worth more than the paper it's printed on. Think really hard about Fall, Winter, and next year. This will still be with us, along with an ever growing list of knock on effects. Few of them are likely to be good things. nick

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Fri. May 22, 2020 – yet another week gone with little to show for it

Hot, humid, maybe rainy.

No rain yesterday, but the air was damp enough for a sponge bath… and hot. 100F in the shade hot. Enough wind that I thought the storm would blow in for sure. Thank gnu for a bit of overcast.

I really didn’t get much done except birthday stuff for daughter 1. She had a good day. And that’s not a bad day for me.

I did the tiniest bit of garden weeding, and moving my protective screens around. Did I mention it was hot?

Yeah, it was ‘hide in the house’ hot.

I did get up before the alarm, with a little help from an excited 11yo. That makes three days in a row. Leaving aside my lack of work yesterday, I’m hopeful that my productivity will increase.

If it doesn’t rain, I’ll get the archery set up for daughter 1. I’m curious to see if I can hit anything!

Dinner was lamb rib chops (2019, from the freezer), and brusselsprouts saute’d with onion, bacon, and truffle oil. Dessert was birthday cake (2019,box from storage) with homemade butter cream frosting. The lamb chops are my “Heinlein” dinner. Wasn’t it him who said every man should have one really good meal they could make for company? The marinade and grilling are mine. I can do it for family, or dress it up and plate it restaurant style…

The world is definitely changing. Geopolitical shifts are happening. At home we’re in the middle (or more likely the beginning) of a major disruption. The rest of the world is too. Lots of places won’t have the money to feed themselves, let alone meddle in other countries affairs. That might include the US, by the way. I expect that we’ll be a long time getting back to “normal”, and really probably never will. We never got back to 1932 normal, did we? It’s been my contention for some time that we were headed into one of those periods where everything changes. Like pre-WWI and post-WWII. Like post-USSR vs the Cold War. Think about that and see if you agree, and if you do, how do you position yourself and your family to get through, and get set up for success? Or is it enough to survive?

I want to thrive.

nick

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Thur. May 21, 2020 – older daughter’s birthday today

Hot and humid, chance of rain. Yuck.

SUPER hot yesterday. 107F in the driveway, in the sun. Humid as a greenhouse too. I stayed inside most of the day.

I spent much longer than I wanted to or expected to getting the video out of my NVR and in a form that my neighbors and the Constable’s deputies can use. There was more than one victim on our street, and we’re not the only street these guys hit. Since there was a firearm stolen, they want these guys. Felony charges, minor in possession to start with, are worth going after. They lifted some prints, and collected a handkerchief with DNA on it. I’ve got the guy on video with the rag… HPD might not be chasing crooks, but our Constable is. That is why we pay him after all.

I changed some settings on cameras, so I hope I do better at capturing the events I want to capture. I need to get working on knocking down my list and get the other new camera up. It would have given me good coverage of the breakin. FWIW, my plan to have the cams record with high sensitivity on internal SD card, and highest resolution, while the NVR has slightly less aggressive settings worked pretty well. It’s easier to scrub through the video on the NVR, and I have much more stored time, but the higher rez of the camera and the shorter time balance out. It also means I’ve got two chances to catch a transient event. Someone running across your lawn at 4am is a pretty transient event.

Older daughter’s birthday is today. We’ll be opening presents and having special meals. No party or get together with friends is a bummer, but we’re trying to make it a special and fun day anyway. She’s a good kid and I like spending time with her. Decorations went up last night, and presents were wrapped. The forearm guards didn’t arrive yet, but the arrows did. Of course the first thing I did was hit my arm with the string… I’m giving her all three bows as a set, so she can share with her sister when it’s time to shoot.

The School District thing I started doing before all this happened it going to try to have a Zoom meeting tonight. Topic is the special response (academically) to COVID-19 and the abrupt shift to online learning. I’ve got some observations about that, and an interest in what they’ve got to say, so I’ll try to attend, even though it’s in the middle of dinner time.

Dinner was homemade hamburgers, on fresh buns. Since I was doing a store order, I got buns, hun… sides were canned baked beans, and the rest of the corn relish my wife made. I really like ‘backyard burgers’. There is something different about the taste that just says ‘summer’ to me.

I woke up yesterday before my alarm and was awake enough to get up. The lethargy I’ve been feeling seems to be going away, finally. I’m gonna blame depression rather than wuflu, since I didn’t get a fever at any point. Maybe I’ll start getting more done in the day, like I used to.

Keep stacking,

nick

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Wed. May 20, 2020 – got some stuff to do

Hot again, rain possible. STORMS possible. We’ll see…

Yesterday was danged hot. 101F in the driveway. Hot in the garage. Hot in the yard.

Spent most of the day inside. Woke before my alarm, and was feeling awake and good, so I got up. Wasn’t completely over the neck thing. Had to be careful not to re-trigger it all day and night, but it is improving. This was the first day I woke up ready to go and early in a month or more. I’m hoping for more of the same going forward.

Cut my hair for the third time since the isolation began. I’m getting better at it. The clipper set has officially paid for itself now. Next cut will be free, but I intend to go back to my barber as soon as I can (without feeling squeamish.) He’s faster than me, better at it, and a friend in meatspace. All good reasons to get back to normal.

Speaking of normal, having disasters while you are in the middle of one is normal. People in Michigan, Tennessee, and even Chicago all found that out this week. Wuflu does complicate normal disaster response though. Don’t let your normal guard down just because we’re already in a slow motion disaster. Hurricane season is coming, to name just one hazard.

Child 1’s birthday is tomorrow. Presents are already here but will need wrapping, cake and dinner will need to be made, and some decorations will have to go up later tonight. Both girls have adapted to our current circumstances very well and I’m very proud of them. It’s been hard on them to have school just sort of taper off, and to not see any of their friends daily. We should be gearing up for swim team and other summer activities, as well as getting ready to transition to middle school. That’s gonna be weird for Oldest- her friends and classmates will all be going different directions next year,and they won’t have had a real chance to say goodbye and transition their friendships to different levels. The possibility that this disruption will be ongoing at the start of the new school year hardly bears thinking about, and yet, I don’t see a clear path to restarting school, so I’m thinking about it. That’s our job, isn’t it? Think about the future, make some choices, act on them.

Dinner was cheap prime steak from HEB, via Instacart… cheaper than stew meat for Pete’s sake. Delicious too. I will be watching the prices on prime meat. If it is in the counter too long, they appear to be marking it down dramatically. They’re not listing it as markdown or short time, but it was clear from the oxidation on some of the steaks that they were ready to be sold… If people can’t afford the good stuff, it sits around longer, then needs to be marked down. Hooray for me- I’ve made room in the freezer. It’ll be worth checking up on it online daily to score some more. The rest of the meal was some fresh but very low quality asparagus, leftover scalloped potatoes, and my wife made a corn relish/salad. Very tasty and refreshing. Dessert for me was a Klondike bar. Danged peculiar disaster when you can get fresh food and icecream delivered to your door.

Keep stacking, keep backfilling any gaps, and stay safe,

nick

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Tues. May 19, 2020 – just hot

Hot today.

Hot yesterday. REAL hot in the later half of the day. 106F in my driveway in the sun. I was pretty sweaty in the garage.

I’m making slow progress on a couple of areas in the garage. Too hot to work in the driveway yesterday.

Kids are interested in some mods to their play structure. They’re both getting older and I took down the spiral slide last year. Never replaced the slide. I am thinking about a climbing wall, maybe a crack machine. I picked up a bucket of climbing holds at some point, so I just need to figure out structure and how to make it work with what’s already there. Wife is talking about setting up my apocalypse water collector (ie. kiddie pool) and taking down the play structure completely. I think it’s a bit too early to do that. The pool, on the other hand, might need to kill some grass in the shade of the tree. Grass looks so nice I hesitate… we did get word from our swim team and Rec association pool. No swim meets this year, some training for team, while maintaining distancing. Not sure how that’ll work. Pool will open next week with cleaning and distancing rules in place. Sounds sketchy to me. So a wading pool might be necessary, or just wanted. As an aside, the mom’s club FB pages are full of people trying to get an above ground, or fiberglas in ground pool put in pronto. They aren’t gonna be swapping spit at the local rec association pool…

So that’s a long term effect. It might kill some neighborhood pools that were struggling with membership issues or damage from Harvey.

I really don’t see what the endgame and way out of this is, unless it dies out naturally, there is immunity and a reliable test, or a vaccine.

And Hey! Hurricane season is coming! I really need to find my motivation and get busy. I’ve got lots to do still.

And I bet you can think of some stuff to do too.

So get busy, learning, stacking, sorting, and figuring out how to get ahead in this new world.

nick

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Mon. May 18, 2020 – another week, home school, home work, home sweet home

Nice, sunny and cool.

Yesterday was cool to start, without much sun, then got hot and sunny, but turned into a picture postcard evening. Comfortable and a pretty pink sunset, with breezes for cooling. Nice.

I got a couple of things done moving toward having a work area in the back corner of the garage. Moved some stuff out of the way (20+ coleman lanterns of all fuels and vintages), and added some plywood to the back of a shelf. The plywood will be a tool board eventually. It’s all a bit fussy and low criticality, but that’s about all I’m feeling up to at the moment.

I did cut the grass, and was soaked through when finished. Looked at the gardens a bit, but don’t have the weekly report until tomorrow.

Breakfast was instant hash browns with a BB date in 2016, seasoned and served under fried eggs… yum. Also chocolate chip muffins from mix. Dinner was one of the ready to eat main courses from Costco. We eat a lot of the lamb shanks, but this time it was mexican grilled chicken thighs. Added half a can of corn, a can of beans, and some tortillas for a nice and low effort dinner. I freeze the main courses so it takes a bit longer than 7 minutes in the microwave, but they last much longer that way.

The news that several sailors tested positive for Covid-19 after having previously tested negative more than once, and returning to duty, is alarming to say the least. We’ve had other reports of similar cases, but there was always a way to deny it. They are arm-waving that the tests may not be good, etc. but it looks like pretty strong evidence you CAN get this a second time, or that it doesn’t go away but just goes dormant for a while. This is very bad if that is the case. Think about what will happen if it becomes undeniable that we WON’T get immunity, and that the second time can be worse (as we see in Korea and China). Pretty much everyone’s plan for getting back to normal involves immunity in one form or another. We don’t currently have a lot of time with the people who have recovered to see what long term or even medium term consequences might be. We might be in for some more unpleasant surprises in the coming months.

Which means, keep prepping. Lots more bad stuff can be coming down the pike. This is a pretty good rehearsal and test of our systems. While the trucks are still rolling, and the system is still mostly intact, restock, stock up, and keep stacking.

nick

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Sun. May 17, 2020 – well that was a bust

Cooler and dreary. Maybe some rain? [71F and grey at 9am]

Yesterday was quite cool at around 70F and generally dreary all day.

I had quite a bit of pain and limited range of motion, so I was moving slow and doing very little. Took more tylenol yesterday than in the last 6 months. About the only thing I got done was to clean the oven and bake some cast iron at the same time. The oven really needed the self clean cycle, and I had some cast that was in the garage that needed a touchup. Two birds, one stone.

Another blogger calls it ‘piddlefarting around’. That’s what I did. Bunch of little things of no real consequence that ate the day. My wife even made the dinner. I did do a couple of pieces of shipping, one ebay sale to Canadia and some masks to my sibling. Yeah, not the one that said I was ‘killing first responders’ by ‘hoarding’ masks, that was a couple of weeks ago. This is the sibling that basically did all of the things I suggested before this hit, but secretly and without telling or thanking me, ‘cuz I’m a paranoid prepper. Grrrr. If they weren’t individually wrapped I was going to take a sharpie and write on each one, “you were right”. But I didn’t because the important thing is that my loved ones are safe and better prepared than they were. It does occasionally stick in one’s craw…

Worked on a puzzle with the wife. Ate, watched Pippi Longstocking -1973 made in Sweden version. Kids laughed and enjoyed it. I don’t think it was the version I remember from my childhood, but we’ll see on the next book’s film. It’s dubbed in english, which is effective, but there is just something half a bubble off about the timing or something that makes it seem very strange to me. The ‘character’ accents they chose for the dubbing are very strange.

Today I’ll either bite the bullet and go to the chiropractor, or I’ll feel better. I know which one I’d prefer…

Dinner was marinaded and baked chicken from the last delivery, baked acorn squash (one of my favorites to have in the cabinet as they last forever and are easy to cook), and steamed rice from storage. More Easter candy for dessert.

If it weren’t for a totally rational desire to avoid infection, I’d have gone to the chiropractor days ago, and been back to normal by now. That sucks. I’m also thankful that I can make a choice and that it isn’t life or death.

Keep stacking, keep learning, keep prepping.

nick

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Sat. 5/16, 2020 – more than a quarter, less than a half

Cooler, with rain later?

Yesterday was hot and muggy until the thunderstorms, then it cooled off. Not sure how much rain we got at home. I was at my secondary location cleaning and organizing. We got hammered there so bad it shook dust from the ceiling. There was a LOT of water in the bayous I drove past on the way home.

Home looked pretty wet too.

So I did get some cleaning and organizing done, just not much. I also picked up a couple of auction items. I let a lot more go, that I probably would have bid more aggressively if it weren’t for the CV issues- like no one has money for cr@p on ebay.

I’ve been spending money on ebay. Amazon too. I’m possessed with the urge to buy some small things, but they add up. In the last week I’ve bought some leather working tools. I’ve been collecting leather working and cobbler stuff for a year or more. I didn’t have any of the hand stitching stuff that you need for heavier things. You can also use the heavier needles and holders for stitching web gear, or similar things. I hope to do craft projects, not shoe repair for the foreseeable future. But that’s the problem isn’t it? It isn’t really foreseeable, and what I can see doesn’t look good.

I also bought a bunch of machine and hand sewing needles. I’ve got a couple of sewing machines, including a serger and an embroidery machine. I have had some training in the fabric arts, including making my own trenchcoat from scratch as my Costume Shop practicum while at university. It’s been a while, and I don’t have much experience with making patterns, but I can run the tools.

I don’t knit, crochet, cross stitch, or weave, but the kids are interested in all those. I might have to learn. In the mean time, I bought 6 new pairs of merino wool socks. I wear thin wool socks exclusively and it makes a real difference in foot health and comfort. I have worn my heals and Achilles tendon area threadbare on most of my current pairs. I like the Kirkland Hikers but have to buy them on ebay when they aren’t in the Costco, or if I don’t really want to go into the plague factory… Fortunately, I’m not the only one who likes to buy this seasonal item out of season, and there are a lot of retail arbitrageurs to make it easy for us. (yea interwebs and ebay)

It’s all part of my desire to have repair stuff at hand for all the sorts of things I might want to repair. Oh, I’m going to use the embroidery machine to work with the kids on computer skills, robots, etc. and the sewing machines for realizing their paper designs into physical clothes for their dolls, but I have them to fix things. (and so that my personal makerspace – mad scientist workshop – would be complete.)

Speaking of fixing things, I finally thought of a useful item to print on my filament printer- the cover caps for my lawn sprinklers. They are mostly flat and round, but have enough detail in them with reliefs, holes, and a beveled edge, that printing makes more sense than reductive machining. It also makes sense to create the missing pieces because the $40 heads will last longer with the covers in place. Whether I ever get to actually making them, that’s up for grabs, but it probably won’t be soon.

Today should be more cleaning and organizing, with a few tiny projects thrown in. Forecast calls for more T-storms in the area. That will keep me inside. My freaking neck and shoulders are keeping me in too. I’m moving at half speed because of the pain, which is better than a day ago, but still not recovered. FFS, I’m taking tylenol, and I almost never add anything to my normal daily regimen. I stocked pain meds and OTC snivel meds DEEP. Because pain control is one of the modern marvels.

Dinner was frozen battered tilapia. Yeah, I know it’s the pool skimmer for the catfish tanks. Wife likes it, I like it, kids will eat it if they scrape off the seasoned batter. Canned corn, and leftover mac n cheese rounded out the meal (with sliced avocado for green color) and fresh from the oven frozen cookie dough chocolate chips were dessert. Not many of those bad boys left on the cooling rack before bedtime…

If you’re prepped up, fill in some gaps. If you aren’t, fill in some shelves. Keep stacking.

nick

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