09:23 – More work downstairs today, installing more shelving in the unfinished area, which Barbara calls the “natural area”. That’ll give us shelf space to get a lot of what’s currently stacked on the floor up on shelves.
Barbara made a chicken/pasta Alfredo skillet dinner last night, all from long-term storage. It was excellent, and makes enough to feed four or five people.
I had family and community events take up most of my time yesterday, but I should have some time today.
I’ve got new (old) surveillance cams to get installed.
I’ve got my grape arbor to get built as the vines are starting to freshen.
I did manage a couple of small preps this week.
I ordered the parts I didn’t have for the transverter I mentioned last week. QST magazine has a project for a transverter to hear the HF and Shortwave bands with an RTL dongle and software defined radio. You should be able to build and assemble the whole thing including the dongle for under $50. Certainly under $100. Normally the dongle only works down to about 30Mhz, this takes it down into the 3’s.
I got some more stuff ready for the hamfest. This has the additional benefit of clearing out some stuff from garage and storage, and turning it into money.
Found a small gap in my medical preps. I’ve gotten a nice case of poison ivy or something similar on my arms. I have several topical creams, and calamine lotion, and some other anti-itch stuff, but what worked best was the benadryl topical spray. I only had one bottle of that. If you’re out crawling thru the weeds, or working in your garden, or harvesting game or firewood, you better have some treatment for the rash…
Which reminds me of something I got last week, a fingertip pulse oximeter. Tiny little thing, was only a buck, and goes in the med bag.
Here are a couple of data points for long term storage….
The ‘juice box’ sized individual servings of UHT milk, in both chocolate and regular low fat ARE NOT GOOD past their date. They probably won’t hurt you, but the taste changes, and they gel up into little BB sized ‘pearls’ like tapioca pudding. Chunky milk is kind of a shock when it hits your tongue.
Last night I used some D cell batteries with a best by date of 2003. They were duracel ProCells and had been stored in a cool and dry place. Of 7, 4 showed full voltage (I only needed 1 and it ran the little motor for hours no problem) and the other 3 showed 1.3v. I don’t know how long they would have lasted under serious load, but I was surprised to see any usefulness at all. I don’t recommend duracel any more due to swelling and leaking, but these old ProCels worked great. More evidence that they changed the formulation for the worse.
If you’re putting up electronics, or just ‘stuff’ for long term storage, avoid the stuff with soft-touch overmolded plastic if possible. The soft touch plastic deteriorates into a sticky mess, sometimes in less than a year. Certainly in less than 3. This is true for toothbrushes, sunglasses, gps units, and pretty much everything I’ve found for sale or gotten out of storage lately that had the soft coating. The presence of skin oils or vegetable oils will speed the destruction. Like canned goods with pop-top lids, it just isn’t worth it for long term storage.
And with that, I better get my day started.
nick
Legalizing Weed Has Done What 1 Trillion Dollars And A 40 Year War Couldn’t
Who’d a thunk it? When something isn’t illegal anymore, the black market for it declines and the profits of those trafficking in it decline. I wonder why US leaders, especially the leaders of the War on (Some) Drugs, don’t seem to realize this. Yep, it’s a mystery, all right.
Always a very puzzling mystery to me, as well, as I watched some of it from my POV over thirty years ago as a street cop down in MA. This ties in nicely with the prison-state industry, of course; trainloads of peeps in prison for nonviolent offenses, sometimes for decades, while known pedophiles and other assorted criminal scum, like banksters, the Klintons, etc., walk around in the light of day, free as birds. When Larry Klinton was governor he facilitated the dope dealers, and was himself a dope addict/junkie. President of the United States of America, and voted for by tens of millions. And it’s usually the small fry and bit players who get the prison doors slammed on them; scum like Larry Klinton always skate.
As for legalizing dope, watch the State tax the shit out of it and rake off their usual lion’s share of the profits accordingly; they’re getting more desperate by the hour.
Late weekend food for thought as The Current Situation evolves..? devolves?
https://brushbeater.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/on-leaderless-resistance/#comments
Like I have said, this year could be a humdinger, well before the election. Flashpoints are all over the hemisphere now.
. Of 7, 4 showed full voltage
Get a ZTS battery tester. It will stress the battery for milliseconds and detect the voltage drop thus truly determining the health of a cell.
https://www.ztsinc.com/mini9RL.html
You can find it slightly cheaper on Amazon but they will charge you tax negating any savings. Shipping becomes the concern for cost at that point. I have one of the above and recommend it highly.
yup, knew that just voltage isn’t a good indicator, but it did spin the mirror ball all night! and at 13 years past the best by date. Oh, and they’d spent at least a few hours spinning mirror balls last time I used them. That’s why I used to recommend duracel. Not anymore, they changed the formula, and they fail early and disastrously now.
Home Depot here has Hot Hands, chemical hand warmers on clearance, big discount. Get em while they’re hot!
nick
eh, didn’t get anything done but shopping.
bugger.
nick
RIP Nancy Reagan.
Bishop Mittens is still on his “Stop Trump” crusade. Kind of pathetic. He’s implying he did it all on his own, ’cause Truuuuuuuuuuump! You could apply his first speech to all the Redumblicans.
“RIP Nancy Reagan.”
I’m a miserable old right-wing bastid but I don’t have anything particularly bad to say about the late Mrs. Reagan. RIP.
Mittens, on the other hand, is a friggin’ loser cultist, and uber-RINO sap and ass-hat.
One good word for Trump: although he apparently made one visit to the scumbag billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s estate (uber-pedophile maniac, along with his pal Larry Klinton) he was by all accounts a “perfect gentleman” and had absolutely nothing to do with any of the activities there, and later cut off all contact with Epstein and associates. He’d seen a bunch of young girls frolicking in the pool and thought to himself “How decent of Jeff to let the local kids use his pool.” And then found out the real reason they were there.
So one point for The Donald.
This may or may not turn out to be interesting:
http://freedomoutpost.com/doj-grants-immunity-to-clinton-aide-will-this-lead-to-an-indictment-for-treason-and-murder/
oh, I did buy a FLASHLIGHT.
n
@Amazon Fire owners and Amazon account holders:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/amazon-removes-device-encryption-fire-os-kindle-phones-and-tablets
More common sense:
http://www.wordaroundthe.net/2016/03/why-its-over.html
oh, I did buy a FLASHLIGHT
Ppppffftttt, just one!
Mr. Ray’s a hard case, ain’t he?
Hey sportsfans, tempus friggin’ fugit:
https://defensivetraininggroup.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/dtgs-updated-10-week-plan-to-prepare-for-the-worst-case-scenario-for-beginners/
Amazon quickly reverses direction (this is just one of many reports, just grabbed the first one on my RSS Reader):
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/amazon-will-restore-fire-os-encryption-support-in-the-spring/
We shall see. I will be sorely annoyed if they do not reverse their dumbass PHB mangler “decision.” As it is, I’m dumping my two gmail accounts, which I’ve had almost since the very beginning, my Yahoo email account, and generally getting off Google. I’ll be finding another way, if any exists, to utilize Toob vids, but am also getting pretty annoyed with them; due to several recent changes and their persecution of Eli the Computer Guy and Hickock45 for no apparent reason.
Did a bit of catching up this week. Built a Get-Home-Bag for the granddaughters car, added personal & family size water filtration units to my Emergency Trunks. Found a sale at Walmart on camping supplies and scored another camp stove, good cooking gear, two stainless water bottles, and two collapsible hiking staves. Went to the gun show and picked up 6 quality AR-15 magazines for $10 each (they were $45 each a couple of years ago), two 25 round mags for my Ruger 10/22, assorted pocket knives, a nice little OD Green back pack, a 15 rnd Hi-Power magazine for my sons Hi-Power .40 S&W carbine. Also saw the construction of a FEMA SAFE HOUSE the size of the local county auditorium. Somehow this doesn’t make me feel safe. I get my cheep / free flashlights at Harbor Freight when they have coupon sales. I have enough high-quality ones but can’t pass up freebies. They are all over the house and shop so I am never 5 ft from an LED flashlight. I have also fitted each doorway in the house with a motion activated LED strip, sat on top of the door frames. So I can just stroll through the house in the dark and never need a flashlight or the overheads. Call me lazy.