09:37 – Thunderstorms last night. We had about 2.25″ (5.7 cm) of rain over a couple of hours. Colin was terrified. There’s nothing quite like having a terrified 70-pound dog in your lap, squirming around and begging you to make it stop.
Whether or not we end up getting the house we’re putting in an offer on, I want to plan basement storage for whatever house we end up in. My first thought was just to buy more of the modular steel shelving units we already have, but I think instead I’m going to build islands of custom shelving from 2×8 foot pieces or 4×8 foot sheets of half-inch plywood on 2×4″ framing, with two or three 2X4 cross-braces. That way, in a pinch, the storage shelves could easily be repurposed into bunk beds. Not that I expect to be putting up a platoon, but if things really go downhill it’s possible that we’d be hosting family and friends as long-term guests, so the more flexibility the better.
Weren’t you afraid he’d bite you?
No, Colin wouldn’t bite me even when he’s terrified. There’s a difference between snapping and biting. The former is a warning, and not intended to harm. The latter is an attempt to harm.
I’ve been snapped by many dogs over the decades. It can be quite painful, but they almost never break the skin. A serious bite would rip a chunk out of the bitee.
Clever idea, on repurposing shelving as beds. I’ll keep that in mind, for if and when.
Ah, yes. You’ve mentioned that distinction before.
Who takes the initiative? Does he come to you to be picked up?
I was already aware of it from CD materials from the 50’s and 60’s, but what brought it to mind this time was reading Sherry’s Deep Winter.
@Miles_Teg
It’s the difference between a girl slapping a guy’s face versus hauling off and hitting him in the head with a baseball bat.
Colin initiates. He can hear thunder long before we can. When he starts acting skittish, puts his ears down flat, and so on, we know he’ll soon be up in one of our laps.
I picked up a couple of these shelving units at Costco for just $30 each. I wouldn’t want to try to sleep on one, but on a straight storage-per-dollar basis I haven’t seen anything that can touch them, even doing it myself. The major limitation is that the shelves are not adjustable. They are strong, won’t rot, and the 18″ depth is convenient.
Not a universal answer, but perhaps useful in spots.
This is an interesting way of looking at the past 50 years WRT the army’s accomplishments.
http://randomthoughtsandguns.blogspot.com/2015/07/excerpts-from-emails-with-friend.html
The author does a lot of thoughtful pieces on the current and past army, as well as the occasional prepper article.
nick
I was particularly caught by the idea that we are starting the next generational war against islam
Well, taking a short cool down break from working outside.
I’m reorganizing some storage shelves. Moving all the cleaning and chemical stuff to the bottom shelf to make room for more food. Better if there is a leak too.
Organizing the ‘camping’ tub, prior to putting it in the new ‘camping’ storage cabinet. I’ve been picking up scout mess kits when I can. I have 3 good ones in the box, a ‘master’ camp set of pots, a set of enamelware dishes and cups, and a small all-fuel stove with fuel bottles in that tub. Some matches and can opener, couple of ways to make coffee, and that one is done. With 2 kids starting in Daisy and Brownies, then eventually girl scouts, I think the traditional camping stuff is a good storage item, with prepping benefits.
Moving this stuff will allow me to have 2 more food shelves in the same area.
BTW, helpful hint- I’m using the cardboard ‘trays’ that some costco fruits and veg come in as slide out organizers. Two of them fit nicely side by side on the shelf. The 4 inch high sides hold stuff in place, and I can easily slide them out to see what’s in back. LOTS of costco packaging can be reused creatively. It is sturdy, most has interlocking tabs for stacking, and it’s free.
I particularly like the square plastic tubs the nuts come in, the ones that are about 6x6x8 inches with the large screw on lid. I use them for m&ms, noodles, beans, and rice in the pantry. I use them for screws, bolts, and nuts in the garage.
For anyone who wonders, I have a pantry area in the house that is for stuff we use all the time, and daily. In the garage, right outside the kitchen, I have our ‘shopping from storage’ area, with some shelves where I stock items like the grocery store does, in depth rows, with a ‘face’ for each item. This makes it easy to replenish the pantry or grab something we use less often. Then comes the freezer, and secondary fridge. Then in a different area, I have my ‘in depth’ storage with stuff grouped on heavy shelves. I pull from there to stock the ‘store’ area. Bulk is almost all at my secondary storage area.
The heavy shelves are also where I stock our freeze drieds, cased up for 6 days of 4 person meals, per case. I’ve either added to Mountain House variety packs, or mix and matched with shelf stable meals, to build out the cases. They are easy to handle in that size (although hard to get to due to the clutter in the garage.) [Added- our costco used to carry cases of mountain house and some of the emergency buckets of food. They stopped a few months ago, and haven’t restocked, even though hurricane season is here. I wonder why.]
Storage in the garage is WAY sub optimal due to heat. I’m exploring adding some cooling, and if something cheap comes my way, I’ll do it. I regret not insulating when I finished the walls with plywood. That would make a ton of difference, and would make cooling the garage cheaper and easier. Insulating the back of the garage door made a big difference and was relatively cheap (I used foil covered foam board and just screwed it to the door panels.)
well back to work.
nick
Woof! Sheriff David Clarke hits Obola right in the piehole with this comment.
Taking another break.
I’ve got something dead or a popped can somewhere. I can smell it, but I’ve moved a bunch of stuff and can’t find it. I think it might be behind my 40 gallon water barrels. Oh joy.
BTW, aquatainers will get brittle with age if exposed to chemicals or sunlight. One marginal one I bought at a sale for a dollar or 2 has cracked. It had a faded top, so I knew it was iffy. If kept in the dark, I’ve got 2 from 1999 that are still nice and supple. The caps and spigots have cracked though.
It’s been so hot, all the gas evaporated from my lawn mower in two weeks time. I refueled with some treated with sta*bil from storage that is over 6 months old and it fired right up, first pull. If you have cans stored, check them now to be sure the heat hasn’t expanded them! Even my cans with vent caps have swollen due to heat.
And a POX on the EPA for mandating the flow control spouts for gas cans. All they’ve accomplished is a lot more gas spilled on the ground and on my mower. I usually use a cheap siphon pump to fuel the geni (helps the wife too as she can’t easily lift a 5 gallon can), but I just tip the can to fill the mower. Not with this spout though. I’ll be siphoning/pumping from it.
I know you can get replacement spouts, but they cost almost as much as the cans!
Going thru the stuff as I move it around, I find I’ve got a lot more of the pouch meat than I thought. That’s one of the habits I need to change for a while. STOP grabbing a couple of pouches every store trip! Start grabbing a couple of ‘just add meat’ meals every trip.
My weather station says 104 with misery index of 110 deg. R.H. is only 40% today so that helps a little. If it was 70% like a couple of days ago, I’d probably have stoked out by now.
“nother glass of water and back at it.
nick
another cool down break
Found the problem. A pouch of ready to eat chicken leaked. Yuck. One plastic tub of food affected.
All the plastic and foil pouches got rinsed and then a bleach solution bath. Anything that was paper got thrown out. One whole canned chicken was rusty so that went too. About $20-25 total, so not a disaster. The plastic tub contained the mess.
Good reason to have a FIFO rotation system in place for food you eat regularly. That is the downside of the tub. Because it was closed up, I hadn’t pulled anything from it in a while.
We’ll be eating a few more ‘just add chicken’ meals in the next month to get thru some of the expiring inventory.
Did I mention it was hot? Jeez it’s hot.
I need to get the food in order so I can get some of my ebay sales inventory in order. I’ve let it pile up too high. For instance, I’ve got 8 microscopes to sell. How the heck did that happen? I’ve got a tub full of xm radio parts, and a tub full of gps parts, AND a tub full of DirectTV stuff. All stuff that sells well, but I need to actually LIST it. (It’s amazing how much xm stuff is at the yard and estate sales.) It needs sorting and shelving, just like the last month or 2 of food purchases.
Temp is down to 96 but humidity is up so it still feels like 107.
back to the grindstone
nick
So anyone who has been thinking about getting an AR,
http://grabagun.com/dpms-panther-oracle-223-16-30rd.html
For $485. That’s right, a nice modern aluminum flattop AR for UNDER $500.
wow.
nick
I get to try something new tomorrow. Our three phase (vapor, hydrocarbon liquid, and aqueous liquid) isothermal flash runs at 8,000 flashes per minute under C++, VB6, VBA and F77. One of our users is converting their VB6 user interface to C#. They are reporting that our flash is running at 200 flashes per minute under C#. This is a real big problem for them since their simulations run one to eight million flashes.
So, I am going to write some C# code tomorrow, for the first time, and build a C# test program. I am so excited! Not.
@Lynn
Why are they jumping to C# instead of VB. Net? The newer versions of VB have incorporated a LOT of the C# features and functionality. (To the extent that what was once an easily readable language code is turning now into an ordeal).
@Marcelo, I don’t know. Why do people go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?
Did I mention it was hot? Jeez it’s hot.
No joke. The daughter and I went to Sam’s Club and HEB this afternoon after the Astros whooped up on the Rangers. I loaded up the truck and was exhausted after unloading it. Then the wife and I went for a two mile walk at 10pm.
Got the foundation dudes coming back in the morning for the game room construction. They made impressive gains on Saturday in all that heat. They may be pouring concrete come Friday. I’ve still got to buy the three doors and the attic stair. And I need to find a competent and affordable Trane dealer to install a two ton A/C system, ducts, and registers. Apparently the locusses of competent and affordable do not cross.
Anyone have a chance to use one of these? If they’re not junk, it might be worth picking up one. Or a few.
@Lynn – are you also a Costco member? If so, check to see which HVAC company is being featured at your Costco. Higher probability that they they are competent plus you have some leverage with Costco if you are not satisfied.
I am biased towards Lennox (long story but suffice to day it is a 55 year relationship), but there are 3 “authorized” dealers in our area. The one I have used for 35 years is excellent, his past partner is a close second, and the third I do not know how he maintains his license.
Good luck with the programming and the quest for an HVAC dealer.
We left nice cool Vermont this past Sunday morning and arrived in south-central-western NJ on a remote farm just above the Delaware River; got out of the rental cah and about fell over immediately; it was 95. Luckily the hostess had fired up the A-C unit and a fan before we got there; three days in a row like that. Made friends with livestock, hiked around the 140 acres of fields and woods, and found an old cemetery; the farm had been originally set up by a Colonel John Reading in 1709 and his great-grandson was the first burial there, and later a War Between the States vet was also buried there, who’d died of typhus in 1864. Whole region has the Revolution ghosts in the landscape, but now mainly overwhelmed by population, traffic, commercial enterprises, and noise.
Made it out to Valley Forge and did about four miles of walking around it, but not that impressive; a few modern reproductions of soldiers’ huts, which I know were much more crude and nasty back in the day during that long winter there. The main attraction for me turned out to be the various monuments erected decades later.
Didn’t make it to Brandywine; I was too bummed by all the traffic and noise of Lower Megalopolis and like the character “Clean” in “Apocalypse Now'” who’d hailed from some inner-city shit-hole, the light and noise put the zap on my head. Hailing as I do from a village inside a small town in rural northern Vermont.
Back late last night after royal PITA security chokepoint at Newark Airport; they had us channeled like cattle in the TSA Pre-Check line (which wife and me had and should have expected to be briskly swanned through with nary a delay, but such was not the case. It took us a good 45 minutes and the TSA assholes kept letting bunches of peeps in ahead of us who kept appearing from nowhere and suddenly, almost all of them Afrikan-Murkan derps, so we dunno WTF was up with that. They just keep barging in ahead of us and barreling through the lines and apparently that was A-OK. Maybe a taste of things to come.
Only upside, if you can call it that, is that the regular lines were four or five times as long, and this was all at 9:30 PM on a Friday night.
Also traffic, as could be expected, sucked worse and worse the closer we were to either Philadelphia or NYC. Never again.
OFD is staying right the fuck up here from now on.
almost all of them Afrikan-Murkan derps,
Rayciss!
Get to the airport early is the lesson. You pay for Pre-Check and guess who cuts in front of you. Reparations, fool.
Just a technical question because IANAL, but is it legal just to shoot people who do that?
I’m with OFD. Once we relocate up to the mountains, about the only time I plan to leave town is for very occasional trips down to Winston to visit Costco, etc.
When I lived in northern Minnesota, the city I lived in had 710 people by the last census. I typically saw only a fraction of them in any week. When I went down to the Mall of America because my son wanted to see it, I was twitching almost the entire time I was there, to the extent that the people I met for lunch noticed it.
PITA security chokepoint at Newark Airport
That fairly well describes the entire Newark airport experience. Even worse when coming back from overseas as we did in January. Immigration assholes, customs assholes, ticket agent assholes, TSA assholes. The whole Newark airport is one big rectum.
“Get to the airport early is the lesson. You pay for Pre-Check and guess who cuts in front of you. Reparations, fool.”
We got to the airport two hours early, already had Pre-Check all set, as did most of the peeps in that line with us. All expecting to be whisked right through, as usually happens with wife on her many travels. Not to be. They had ONE dude checking our chit, and the line was backed up serpentine-like, and then we all watched, as repeatedly, bunches of mostly Afrikan-Murkan peeps showed up suddenly and barreled right on through, clearly receiving special treatment for some unknown reason. One male claimed he was a pilot, but was not in uniform and was not flying then. The white rayciss in front of me had remonstrated with this hijack of the line and the guy kept mouthing off and arguing all the way through as he kept going and was handled with kid gloves by the TSA goons. A small family of white folks also barreled through the line claiming their flight was leaving imminently, which we had no way of confirming, of course, and which struck me as a fine tactic; show up at the last minute there and make that claim and cut in front.
It certainly appeared to us that the people cutting in were treated as A-OK and fuck the rest of us last night. If this kind of shit continues in this country, there’s gonna be a helluva lotta nasty blowback sooner or later. Us white racyciss types are getting really sick of this shit. I didn’t own slaves and my ancestors were mostly Quakers, some of whom ran Underground Railroad stations up this way. I never screwed over any black people and anyone who prattles about me checking my privilege can go take a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut.
Maybe somebody here can point me to a reasonable explanation for this little charade last night that will enable me to dial down my hateful rayciss blather…?
“…but is it legal just to shoot people who do that?”
Ought to be. But not only was this a TSA chokepoint in New Jersey, Mrs. OFD informed me that even to minimally hassle or diss any TSA drone is a FEDERAL OFFENSE. So pretty soon even our facial expressions and tone of voice could get us locked up when we don’t like this sorta behavior. Let alone blowing them away.
“…I was twitching almost the entire time I was there, to the extent that the people I met for lunch noticed it.”
I was twitching “inside”, mostly anytime I or we left that farm and hit the highways and by-ways. And very close to losing it at the airport as we finally got through that line. Which would not have been good for either of us. Obey the rules and be herded like cattle and STFU about it and watch as others just roll right over everybody with the approval of the State goons. More of this, much more, to come, I reckon. But it was pretty blatant last night.
Get where you want to be and stay there. Don’t get near an airport unless forced to do so.
Yeah, unfortunately, due to wife’s work and schedule, I gotta drive her to or from the airport up here about half the time, which is rarely a problem, mainly ’cause the various clerks, drones and TSA derps know her well enough by now, including the aircraft pilots and crews. And she has the TSA “leave me the fuck alone” ID when she travels around the country, being such a frequent flier; I imagine MrsAtoz has likewise. Maybe even MrAtoz, but he’s kind of a questionable character and a veteran to boot, so that counts against him.
I pretty much just wanna stay here, and if anything, would like an even MORE rural and isolated setup, but there’s much to be said about a small town/village “community” and trying to get one going or maintain one. None of us is likely to survive the Coming Shitstorm on our lonesome.
Yeah, MrsAtoz and I have the $80 Pre-Check (not all airlines are covered). I think it comes with a “Shoot to Kill” card for line jumpers.
Hmmm….Mrs. OFD done tole me the TSA done give it to her unasked a couple of years ago, just started showing up on her paperwork and an email notification. I now do not recall if there was/is a charge for it. She normally flies United.
I’ll pay ten times that amount for a Shoot-to-Kill Card in airline chokepoints. Last night I mighta run outta ammo.
I think the take home lesson for foreign tourists from all the TSA provocations is to fly in to and out of Kanukistan and drive across the border.
From the descriptions, Mrs OFD reminds me of Granny Hawkins in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHM4AL7LdU
Apparently there were a lotta flights leaving for furrin destinations that night and allegedly these groups of people were either late arrivals or just being assholes and taking advantage of the situation. Essentially we were herded like cattle, after paying extra for the privilege, and then at the actual entrance gate with the ONE TSA guy checking our paperwork, it was a free-for-all. It became painfully obvious that a certain sector of Murkan cultures was given free rein and allowed to bull their way through, too.
“…Mrs OFD reminds me of Granny Hawkins in The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
She runs hot and cold; but has the massive airline experience that I do not. Yet I get the impression that one of these days she’s gonna have enough and blow her top at one of these capers and get locked up.
That is a great effin movie, by the way, and like a handful of others, I watch it every year.
That Lost Wages hotel fire is a nice illustration of Where Not To Be, Ever:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/1-hospitalized-after-fire-cosmopolitan-las-vegas-strip-photos
What’s the very first phenomena to rear its ugly head when there’s some kind of crowd disaster? PANIC.
Avoid at all costs.
This means staying away from cities, large sporting events, rock concerts, etc.
My drive through Philadelphia on the freeways last Wednesday was another very good illustration of that sorta thang; those millions will be in deep excrement if and when it finally hits the fan. Ditto Newark. NYC, etc.
And Houston.
And Lost Wages.
And LA.
And Albany, Boston, Providence, Woostuh, Hahtfud, Springfield, etc.
Plus Montreal. Yikes. Two million in the city proper and another two million in the Greater Metro area. Just 75 miles north of us. We figure the hordes will flee west rather than south or east, though. If they come south, they’ll have to cross that 75 miles, which is a hike over vast plains of farmland and woods and wottuh hazards. In winter it would be like Siberia.
“Buzzard’s gotta eat, same as worm.”
I agree The Outlaw is a classic. I like Pale Rider too.
Yup, “Pale Rider” is also very good; Clint has been a tad uneven over the decades but he made some real classics.
Don’t forget “Gran Torino”. I was shocked at the ending.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/
“Get off my lawn.”