Another day like the last two. Warm, damp, threatening rain. Windy. Grey. I’ve been moody the last several days and I think at least part of it is the lack of sunny days. It would be nice to have an itsy bitsy spider day…

I did get a couple of things done yesterday. In the morning I fixed one of the TVs I have laying around… I’d bought the boards a couple of years ago in an auction for a dollar or two, but couldn’t remember where I put them. I saw them in my storage unit the other day, while picking up something else, so I grabbed them and got one thing off my list. The TV is going to the dockhouse at the BOL, which will get another thing off my list. Got a couple of other small things done too.

Then I had a meeting with one of my auctioneers. Well, really I just went to get my money for some consignment items he sold for me, and chat. Turns out they are changing their focus from returns auctions to estate auctions… and I’ve got the kind of stuff they will be selling sitting in piles pretty much everywhere. We’ll work something out and I’ll have a new place to consign items and finally start moving some of this stuff again.

Their rent has been killing them, and they have been paying more for stock as there are new players bidding up the wholesale part of the business. It’s been a truism in the resale auction market for as long as I’ve been doing it that when prices go up, it’s because new people and new money are coming in. It happens on the retail buyer’s side, and on the wholesale buyer (the seller) side. The new players don’t understand they are paying too much, or they know but feel they have to to get stock. On the buyer’s side, the new buyers are happy to pay more because they are still getting a good deal, but they don’t understand that it’s usually an even better deal. It’s a bit more nuanced than that, but it explains why pricing moves in waves. It’s self correcting over time. The buyers become more picky about what they’ll pay and what they’ll buy, and the auctioneers that pay too much for stock go broke and get out of the business.

Anyway, today I’m doing a pickup in the afternoon, mostly stuff for my non-prepping hobby. I’m debating whether to spend the morning doing stuff around the house, since I intend to head to the BOL later tonight or early tomorrow, or do a quick trip to my client’s house to install the new theater receiver. I am leaning toward taking care of my client, but doing the house stuff takes care of my wife… money or marital guilt units? Which do I need more?

BTW, I’m feeling the effects of crawling around in the attic and pulling cable. My arms, shoulders, and lats are all sore. I’m old and weak… poor me…

I should stack up some more stretching and maybe a workout.

I’ll add it to the list.

Stack something.

nick

Another warm, damp, and probably overcast day. It wasn’t a 10 at 10 day yesterday after all. It took quite a while to really start getting warm, but it was mid 80s F by afternoon. I had the windows down, but the air on “blast” too. And today should be more of the same.

I did stuff around the house yesterday morning, then did most of my pickups. I missed one, but it’ll only cost me $8. I hate that. I didn’t print the invoice, so when I was in that area, I didn’t remember to hit that seller too. Dumb mistake as I even had time.

Then it was kid taxi duties, until the younger one’s band concert. We’d all forgotten about it, thinking she just had her normal Tues/Thur thing. Good thing we remembered. I wasn’t looking forward to the Beginning Band portion, but it turned out fine. Didn’t even need my earplugs. The Band Director is a genius with bringing the kids along. He’s building quite a group in just a few years. The Beginners were good. They even did multipart numbers. The Advanced Band (really just kids with prior instruction, or second and third year at the school) rocked the house with Peter Gunn, and Oye como va, among others. The difference as they’ve progressed is stunning.

Ate dinner at Chuy’s which has condensed their menu even further, if I’m not mistaken. Food was good, and not crazy high priced, but they don’t seem like they’re on the way up. Kid loves the food there though.

Today I’ll either do some cable pulling at my client’s house, or push that to tomorrow and do a couple more pickups. I’m leaning toward pickups, just because of timing, and because I don’t have the replacement gear yet. I like to combine trips and spend more than an hour or two onsite as it’s a one hour round trip for me. OTOH, I can get there early, pull the cable, then leave before getting sucked into issues and still make my pickups. That has the benefit of being cooler in the attic too.

I’m going to play it somewhat by ear.

In any case, I’ll be stacking some do re mi, and that is a good thing.

Get you some!

nick

Warm, damp, even hot later. It got well into the 80s yesterday, and didn’t cool down until dusk. I expect the same today. I’m hoping for more clear though. I like seeing the sun.

I spent yesterday running around. I did a pickup early, then went to my client’s house. After troubleshooting, I decided that it wasn’t something easy to fix, like smoked gear, it was the cat cable that connects the stuff in the front attic to the network switch in the rack. That is not an easy cable to run… so replacing that is on my list now too. Then it was kid taxi service, dinner, and a few videos before bed. I did manage to get a couple of small things done too, including portioning the hamburger I bought, and getting it bagged and frozen.

And wasting time on the internet with my friends.

Today I’m doing home stuff in the morning and pickups in the afternoon. I need to order some stuff for my client too, and I don’t have time to get back to his house and run the cable today. Too many kid things in the early afternoon. I’ll get back there Wed. and hopefully be able to swap out the rest of the damaged gear too.

Too busy to engage in tomfoolery or play the jackanapes today. But keep it in mind when out and about… others might.

I’ll be working on improving my position, with cash, and stuff. And I’ll stack it, like every good boy and girl should.

nick

Supposed to be clear in Houston, and that means also in the mid 80s by afternoon. Humid as a swamp too. Spring has sprung, and we’re on our way to Summer. It never got sunny yesterday, and it was 86F at one point, all while being about 90% RH. Just generally unpleasant.

I stayed home and fought with computer and website stuff all day. It kept me in and out of the humidity. I was really unmotivated to drive up to the BOL, so I didn’t. Spent part of the day doing auction stuff, part learning about wordpress, part looking at tax stuff, and part watching videos. I didn’t even sit by the water feature/storage pond and have a tiny little fire.

Today, though, I’m gonna jam. Really. For sure. Maybe. In any case, I have a couple of things I need to do, and a couple of pickups. Then there will be kid taxi services, as D1’s sport has ended- meaning she needs the earlier pickup, and D2 has rehearsals after school with no late bus.

I’ll try to fit my stuff around theirs. And I’ll try to get some of the home list done. There are things I can do. Always.

Perhaps easier to stay on top of things if you do them when you have time. Perhaps not.

Try to keep up. Stack.

nick

It was not the weather we were forecast yesterday. I know, big surprise… It started damp and overcast but ended warm and damp. There was some sun in between too. Today is forecast by some to be clear, and by others to be raining later. We’ll see.

I didn’t end up going to the BOL yesterday. Mainly it came down to mood, and some gastric distress. I got off to a slow start, and wasn’t really interested in loading up the truck. My back was hurting again, and I didn’t want to trigger it further.

I did get to the chiropractor, and did some shopping at Lowes, but I didn’t load the truck. The solar panels I intend to bring to the BOL are big and heavy. So is the floor tile, the fire ant killer, and some of the other stuff I have waiting for a ride to the lake. Carrying stuff in front of me is part of what triggered this attack.

So I did small things. Shopping. Changing the A/C air filters. Some paperwork. Some auction stuff. Some personal maintenance… It was a down day and I’ll regret the time later but I felt off all day.

I’ll be playing today by ear. I may head up to the lake after all, just not with the solar panels, or I might take them. We’ll see. I’ve got stuff to do around here as well as the pile o stuff up there. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of stuff to do.

I don’t actually want to run out of stuff to do, and end up sitting on the couch in my clean and organized house, staring at the TV wishing I had something else to do…

Fortunately, I don’t see that happening. UNfortunately, I also don’t see me getting half of what I need to do done.

Balance. That’s what’s needed. Right? Oh, and a shite ton of work.

Stack. Work. Live.

nick

Only if the weather is clear. I have to load up the pickup truck, and I don’t want everything to get wet. It’s supposed to be clear. Yesterday we were supposed to get hammered with rain, and we didn’t. I’m not counting on clear, until I see it. The weather liars lie without consequence.

That said, we did get rain, just not much.

I did a bunch of stuff yesterday. Lots of driving. Client, pickups, kid taxi service, you name it. It was a tight schedule but I made it to everything. I could have spent a couple of hours at my clients, and I might have actually solved the issue instead of just replacing gear. Turns out, most of it lit up, but there is still a problem as the stuff in the attic doesn’t show up on the network… Could be the link at the attic end, or the port on the switch in the rack could be smoked. That is a troubleshooting visit for another day.

I finished the day at home topping up fluids in my trucks. For some reason the Ranger is low on radiator juice. Dunno where it goes, but some went. That is the one fluid I don’t usually stock either, so I’ll have to buy some. Washer fluid got topped up, wiper blades got changed, and the oil was checked. I don’t spend much time or effort on vehicle maintenance or cleaning, but I don’t want them overheating and blowing up either. So it tends to happen in spurts, usually prompted by something needing attention. I had a thought that D1 would help me and it would be a teaching moment, but she was busy at a friend’s house. It will happen, eventually.

I am hoping to load up the truck and head out later today. I want to sleep in a bit, and get a slow start. I may even try to hit one of my ‘next week’ pickups on the way, if possible. It’s nice to combine trips and some of the stuff I won should got straight to the lake.

Wife’s plan for the day is car shopping. She’s ready for something new, and to pass the minivan to the kid. I’ll wish her luck. Her car and what she does with it is something she handles and I stay out of. It’s better that way.

Some might call it division of labor, but I call it ‘minding my own business and staying out of trouble.’

I’ll spend my time and energy on something else, like stacking.

nick

Wet and cool, then damp and warmer… or pouring rain with flooding streets. IDK who to believe. It would be nice if it wasn’t pouring down. We started yesterday with some misty drizzle, and ended with threatening skies, but in between we even saw some blue sky and sun. The streets even dried off for a while. Seems a shame to get wet again…

I hit the Costco for a replacement TV and then headed to my client’s house. Got the physical change done expeditiously. Then I started chasing issues. Turns out there was a lot of damage from the nearby lightning strike. The main switcher lost an output channel. That’s a new card for the cardframe. Lost the video output from a Denon home theater receiver. That makes about 4 times we’ve had that particular failure following lightning. Lost a PoE switch in the attic. Again. I’ll be replacing that today and then seeing if we lost the attached WAPs … He also lost a control board for the pool filter system, and the keypad system for the driveway gate.

Lightning is hard on gear. We’ll have more failures over the next couple of months.

I was able to fumble my way through the IDE and make the control programming changes to integrate the new tv and to work around the blown output channel. Imagine my surprise when I finally figured out that the new sony/googletv doesn’t have any IR input for the remote control… it’s bluetooth linked. Most of our control system is still based around IR emitters for each piece of gear. I had to get TCP control set up, turned on, and configured both in our control software, and on the TV. Got it working but it was a pain in the azz. Some was my fault (assigning a fixed IP that was already in use, and getting the gateway wrong) but some was a bug in the IDE that saved a random IP instead of the one I entered.

Brief digression… programmers. Oy. I’m entering the target IP and the form is error checking me so 192.168.10. errors and turns the whole entry red. 192.168.010.040 is ok. Which I guess is fine, except that from then on, every place the IP is displayed, it’s 192.168.10.40 and not the full dotted quad… that was in the IDE. The sony guys suck too. When I got the gateway wrong on the TV, it filled up the whole network trying to connect and phone home, kicking all the other devices off line.

Ok, back to now. I’m headed to D2’s school in the morning to do some more sound work, then the store to buy a new switch, and then to my client’s house to install the switch. I can do that in minutes and I’ll see if we need to replace any of the WAPs. The gate technician will need internet at the gate to do his repairs and testing, so it’s important to get that back up before he gets there. The WAPs can be replaced next week if needed. Then it will be a pickup or two, and home.

I think I’ll head to the BOL on Saturday as the weather is supposed to clear by then. I don’t think I’ll be able to mow while I’m there, but I gotta make the effort if I can. I’m taking the giant 460w solar panels up there. I think I’ll try to install a system on the dockhouse, so that airconditioner won’t cost me money all summer… (yeah, apparently there are TWO panels in the lot I bought. 940W total for a couple hundred bux. Sometimes you get a great deal in the auctions.) I probably won’t head up Friday after doing the pickups because the kid has something Friday night.

Busy day today. But hopefully I’ll move a couple of projects forward. And maybe I’ll find time to stack something.

nick

Overcast, possibly raining, and probably a bit cooler today than yesterday. Yesterday got pretty warm and damp by late afternoon, despite the almost solid overcast. There was some sun poking through, mostly when I was driving into it…

Spent the morning at the doctor’s office, then got the kid from school early. Did my pickups, which were mostly for the BOL. I really need to make a trip up there to get all the stuff out of the driveway and living room where it is staged. Got home in time to do a few things around the house. Dinner was crockpot beef pot roast. Yummy.

Today I’m headed to my client’s house to install a new TV to replace a dead one, and to troubleshoot his new issues with control. He said they had a lightning storm so there might be actual dead gear, or some stuff might just need to be rebooted. I am betting that there is some damage. We’ve gone to pretty extreme lengths to protect the gear, but lightning is pretty powerful.

Hopefully it will be straightforward, and I can get him back up and running quickly. Kid has things I need to drive her around to because it’s Thursday…

Busy is good, but I’m falling behind…

I can still make improvements, and still stack, but I need some ‘catch up’ days. Probably not going to get them, so I guess I’ll just soldier on.

But you can stack…

nick

Cool and clear, chance of rain. Like yesterday, only 100% more rain. The rain we did get was in the middle of the night, with drying ground in the morning. That is the BEST kind of rain. And we’re 3/4 of the way through March and we have summer highs. It was well into the 80s yesterday, with 84F as the sun went down. After that it was perfect weather for driving around with the windows down. So I did.

Did some work at D2’s school to start off the day. Got most of the sound work done, and the one lighting task I had on my list. Spent some time talking with the teacher, who is only part time, and does a lot of it as a volunteer. She and her husband seem to be good people.

I was still being careful all morning, but my back was loosening up. I went to the chiropractor after school and got some relief as things moved back into place.

I spent the afternoon doing pickups at a couple of auctioneers. Then I went grocery shopping.

We’re paying $4 per dozen large white eggs. Roughly. I buy the 18 packs for $6. Single packs of 12 were ‘limit five’ but 18 packs were unlimited. I picked up a new flavor ice cream from Blue Bell– banana fudge. I’m not a big fan of either, but why not try it? It has a “thin” taste. Not a lot of flavor, and it doesn’t stick around. Trying new flavors is cheaper than getting a girlfriend or a sports car…

Today I’ve got Dr visit in the morning, then pickups, then kid stuff. I might try to get to my client’s house to do some diagnostics and triage. Seems they got a bad lightning storm… and now some other stuff doesn’t work right. Lightning plays hell on electronics. I’ll try to fit another chiropractic appointment in too.

Then Thursday I’ll spend the day working at my client’s place.

Meanwhile, stack something to eat. Got spices? Got enough sugar to can fruit? Salt to do pickles?

nick