09:33 – We’re working on science kits today. We’re down to four of the full CK01A chemistry kits in inventory, so yesterday we made up 28 of the CK01A regulated chemical bags and 13 of the unregulated chemical bags, which in both cases was all we could make up because of limiting quantities on the two chemical bottles that we were short of. So we’ll build 13 more CK01A kits today, and then get to work on making up more of the chemical bottles we’re short of. After that, we’ll make up a good-size batch of forensic kits, followed by biology kits.
Large bulk orders are way down this year compared to prior years, when we had a fair number of orders for batches of 20 or 30 kits. Fortunately, small bulk orders are way up this year, with quite a few people ordering four, six, or eight kits at a time, presumably for use by home-school co-ops.
I just read an article in The Atlantic about large numbers of Democrats from Western Pennsylvania who are going to vote for Trump. These are folks who’ve been registered Democrat since they were old enough to vote. Their parents were also registered Democrat, as were their grandparents, and great grandparents. They’ve never voted for a Republican in their lives, but they’re jumping ship this time and voting for Trump (and for the Republican candidate for Senate). I think they’re realizing, even if they’re not consciously aware of it, that Trump is what would until very recently have been a Democrat. Clinton is what would until recently have been considered a fever-swamp Socialist or, more accurately, Fascist.
Even without all her crookedness and health issues, Hillary is not a candidate for mainstream America merely because of her politics. I think the momentum is shifting strongly in favor of Trump, and that’s likely to accelerate with the October Surprise when Assange releases her emails and other damaging data. Or perhaps Clinton will do the right thing and just drop dead.
Trump has about as much to do with mainstream Republicans as Herbert Hoover. This coming from someone who thinks Hoover was probably the worst Republican President of the 20th Century. There is no doubt in my mind that Trump is the lesser of two evils this election cycle.
True, dat, so long as we remember that we are STILL voting for evil.
And from the Financial Shell Game Department:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/israel/israel-160913-voa01.htm?_m=3n%2e002a%2e1817%2ebe0ao08rl2%2e1o5g
What a racket. You know, until we cut these sorts of ties with our wunnerful friends, the Israelis, who have spied on us continually since they became a state, we are gonna have problems in the Middle East. Tens of billions for decades now, and for a while we were also handing over tens of billions to the musloid states which surround Israel, whether in the form of cash or advanced weapons systems. Murkan derps don’t pay attention to this stuff but it’s our tax money that’s being blown and it has tended to redound back upon us in very negative ways.
All those billions could have gone to repairing and maintaining our own national infrastructure, for example. Or any number of other worthy projects. Or, how about this: might not have even been spent and stayed in our pockets! What a concept!
Or, how about this: might not have even been spent and stayed in our pockets! What a concept!
Two months Cankles bra adjusting for suggesting we *save* money.
Money in your pocket or under your mattress is money the global bankers can’t steal.
“who’s gonna buy this crap if you don’t? Wadda you mean you don’t need another new iphone? Wadda you, some kinda comedian?”
n
That’s the whole thing; the gummint won’t save money, ever, and they’ve made it nearly impossible for us Dirt People to save it. We’ve gone through four retirement accounts over the years between the two of us just to pay bills and taxes and the only ray of sunlight there is that we got to use it before they took it from us, which is coming up soon for everyone else who has retirement plans and thinks they’re somehow sacrosanct.
Not only does this country not save money, it’s in the hole for the official $20 trillion and the unofficial $200 trillion, which obviously is never gonna be paid off. And they only have two or three options to “fix” that, all of them pretty bad. For us, I mean.
‘True, dat, so long as we remember that we are STILL voting for evil.”
Yes, but the evil may not be a member of the global elite club, which could potentially result in some good.
“Money in your pocket or under your mattress is money the global bankers can’t steal.”
Maybe not physically, but through inflation they can make it worth almost nothing. My guess is that we’ll see that coming soon.
Wadda you mean you don’t need another new iphone?
Sniff. I’ve got my billet reserved on the Apple Spaceship. Elysium is almost complete. I’ll soon be looking down on the rest of you Dirt People. We froze Steve Jobs head, you know.
But they can inflate its value down to nothing.
Yes, but they’re doing that anyway no matter where it is, and you have additional risks, which is why those other investments “pay” more- to compensate for the risk.
BTW- I’m seeing more price deflation on groceries. Ham is down some more, as is Australian lamb.
n
“Yes, but the evil may not be a member of the global elite club, which could potentially result in some good.”
Yeah, I get that but I’m seeing him as still part of a global elite club, but one more involved with corporate business and finance than politics, at least until recently. And I have a problem with the plethora of pictures from over the years showing him palling around with the Clintons and obviously having a ball. I consider him one of the Cloud People who might still have some sympathy and good will for us Dirt People but how far that goes once he’s in office and inhaling the toxic vapors of Mordor?
Interesting word use internet grammar nazi quiz
http://www.playbuzz.com/mirandas/90-of-people-cant-accurately-fill-in-the-blank-with-these-often-misused-words#half
16/16 right here….
n
(although I suspect that most frequent visitors here will do very well, some of the problematic word choices surprised me.)
WRT trump and the clintons, he was and is a player in the NY real estate market, and all over the world. Those deals don’t get done without the glad handing. He’s even admitted that he can fight corruption because he’s been there and done that.
So I give it less weight than some, and put it down to ‘real politik’.
n
Or perhaps Clinton will do the right thing and just drop dead.
Has Illary ever done the right thing ?
Or perhaps Clinton will do the right thing and just drop dead.
Maybe she already did. 🙂
Sadly, no, she isn’t going to do the right thing. Cankles is effectively getting a week vacation at the height of election season, and I’m guessing thst she shows up by the end of whatever time the press puppets deem reasonable with a “JFK” suntan and a fresh round of Botox so severe that Kerry’s face looks malleable in comparison..
“…and a fresh round of Botox so severe that Kerry’s face looks malleable in comparison.”
Don’t forget a couple 5-gallon buckets of Bondo® Body Filler to fill all those cracks and crags.
Don’t forget a couple 5-gallon buckets of Bondo® Body Filler to fill all those cracks and crags.
Nah. Steel-belted rubber underneath the pantsuits.
I remember an old episode of “Emergency” when Squad 51 had to roll out and cut Kaye Ballard out of a girdle that was too tight for her to unzip, cutting off circulation and making her feel faint. When faced with a similar situation on Sunday, Cankles minions probably called Randolph Mantooth out of retirement.
(Kevin Tighe didn’t pick up the phone.)
Did they push Ringers Lactate with D5W?
I remember an old episode of “Emergency” when Squad 51
lol! I loved that show! Remember Nurse Dixie? Mama! Alas, she’s no longer with us. If only Cankles would…
lol! “30% believe Clinton will die by 2020” 100% in Vermont and Nevada.
Wow. Two posts and I had to look up a bunch of stuff; I remembered Kaye Ballard (who is 90) but never watched “Emergency.” And I had to look up Mr. nick’s medical terms.
I think of the Cankles pantsuits as Mao-suits. She’s probably got a copy of the Little Red Book in her bag next to Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” No checkbook or credit cards; the minions handle all that stuff with direct links to the Foundation, the Murkan taxpayers, and the major banks.
“lol! “30% believe Clinton will die by 2020” 100% in Vermont and Nevada.”
This Vermonter believes it would be a miracle if she makes it to January and might not last until November. Ditto Larry.
“Did they push Ringers Lactate with D5W?”
No, more likely Vodka with WD40.
Once again, all is not as it seems with the Clintons:
https://conservativedailypost.com/bombshell-is-chelsea-clintons-apartment-a-secret-hospital/
The headline may ask a question, but the article (and many more still on the Google) tells the truth. Illary went to a private hospital.
“No, more likely Vodka with WD40.”
Shoulda been strychnine w/belladonna and jellied JP4.
“Illary went to a private hospital.”
OFD has a brand-new theory: they are enacting a series of increasingly wacky and baffling events and incidents with her, to the point almost of self-parody, and this will continue into November when she will be elected anyway by the Electoral College. It’s just another way of rubbing our noses in it; they can do the most outlandish stuff and still do whatever they want anyway. In other words, a gigantic middle finger to us.
This Vermonter believes it would be a miracle if she makes it to January and might not last until November. Ditto Larry.
I wonder if they swapped out the lizard inside the Illary skin inside Chelsea’s apartment ?
http://i.imgur.com/rVwWyf2.jpg
In addition to her recent health problems, Bill reports that Hillary has, for years, had a block of dry ice where her vagina used to be.
Why does that matter? You think Bill has the energy, or appetite for Hillary after he’s done with the interns and hangers-on?
If that was the case, Huma would have some serious problems, too. She appears to be OK physically.
There are lots of stories from way back in the day about Killary and her sexual proclivities and the lack thereof when it came to men later, except as a means to some nefarious end or other. And that was Larry’s excuse for screwing around constantly, though he didn’t really need any excuses; he’s an ol’ yaller houn’ dawg from the earliest days and a chip off the ol’ block from his mom, who was the town dollymop.
dollymop
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dollymop
“A prostitute, often an amateur or a part-time street girl; a midinette. Victorian-era slang. ”
Oh my. I learn something everyday here.
Well, who am I to judge? IIRC, the original husband got killed in a car wreck, and she got around a bit and then whelped Billy Jeff and Roger off the town doctor. (the Wiki chronology and data are what you’d expect, of course). Those two scumbags are actual brothers, not half-brothers, as the mythology goes. And they were HEAVY into the coke scene when Billy Jeff was governor of Arkansas. And nailing anything that moved, too.
Now he’s some kinda elder world statesman or something, raking in tens of millions for bullshit speeches, which is what Obola will probably do if he ever leaves the WH, that is.
What’s also kinda interesting is we seem to have mysteries with both Billy Jeff’s and Barack Hussein’s fathers. Who were they, really? All kinds of conflicting data and stories in both cases and neither scumbag seems much interested in setting things straight.
I think they’re realizing, even if they’re not consciously aware of it, that Trump is what would until very recently have been a Democrat. Clinton is what would until recently have been considered a fever-swamp Socialist or, more accurately, Fascist.
BTW, this is how Texas converted from Democrat to Republican in the 1980s and 1990s. Except, the Texas Democrats back then were conservatives such as Lloyd Bentsen. And then we got Ma Richards. Her antics, and others, led to Texas walking away from the Democrats en masse in 1994 due to liberalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Richards
Ringer’s Lactate was the Squad 51 ‘go to’ for meds. Cut of leg, ringer’s lactate. Heart attack, ringer’s lactate……female problems, ringer’s lactate.
Remember the episode where it was a Big Deal ™ that the nurse gave the shots? Now you’ve got trainee EMTs doing sutures in the ER….
n
here you go Mr Lynn,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-14/venezuelas-death-spiral-dozen-eggs-cost-150-hyperinflation-horrors-hit-socialist-uto
“A dozen eggs was last reported to cost $150, and the International Monetary Fund “predicts that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year. That might be an optimistic assessment, according to some local economic analysts, who expect the rate to reach as high as 1,200%.””
nick
It CAN happen elsewhere….. (got tampons?)
Got chickens?
Got a cow?
Got a pig?
How about horses?
Carrier pigeons?
I’m half-joking; one of the good sites always likes to ask that question; got this, or got that? In regard to food stocks, comms, training, firearms, ammo, reloading supplies, skillz, PT, etc., etc. It can be overwhelming. I’m semi-retired and have loads of free time on my hands but not much money; how does somebody who works full-time manage to get this, get that, etc.?
From the Killary Department of Health:
http://takimag.com/article/sick_and_tirade_steve_sailer/print#axzz4KHDbVSyk
Trade money for time. Unlike me, where I trade time for money….
(holding quality constant)
n
Concentrate on the basics too.
n
Roger that; currently food and water.
Garden was kind of a bust this year; not nearly the amount of tomatoes we got last year, well into October. Only a handful of peppers. And that was it; water table is down and lake is down three feet and we haven’t had a whole lotta rain. I feel like we’re gonna have to get more aggressive about what we can set up and get out of our limited and shaded space here.
Also, hook up with local CSA’s and farmers’ markets; I’ll be starting the Vermont Master Composter course next week and after that the Master Gardener course and hoping this will get me some networking connections in meatspace. And to get certified, I have to do some volunteer stuff over the next couple of years.
And I gotta get cracking again on the town committee meetings and the county gun club/range.
None of us can do this stuff alone or expect help from peeps we don’t even know enough to talk with.
Don’t forget a wheelbarrow to carry your cash in, or, when you have to bug out with no vehicle.
I stashed some regular (15~ ounce) cans of beans and veg today, bringing up the issue that if I get into that back-up supply and I’m solo as usual, and don’t have a fridge…
and all that… about half of that food will have to be tossed.
Noting that small cans, for example, cost about twice as much anyway, and so on…
Anybody got ideas for how to do it all cheaply?
Ain’t gonna get married or take in a hobo roommate, so what else ??
“Don’t forget a wheelbarrow to carry your cash in, or, when you have to bug out with no vehicle.”
1.) Wheelbarrow. Check.
2.) Cash. Currently about 25 bucks in fiat paper and probably another 25 in fiat copper-clad change.
3.) Bugging out. Maybe. Doubtful. It would have to be really bad here, to the apocalyptic extent, as we plan to leave this house feet-first. But if we hadda go, it would be a 600-mile jaunt through mostly woods to northeast Noveau Brunswick. At our age?
“Ain’t gonna get married…”
Words of wisdom. But never say never, kemosabe. Do all of what cheaply? Food storage? I’m figuring here on mostly canned goods and the standard-issue bulk products, like flour, rice, beans, pasta, sugar, salt, molasses, honey, cornmeal, etc. Plus bag after bag of potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, etc.. Powdered milk, eggs, butter, cheese, etc. And we have three or four can openers plus a bunch of them G.I. doo-dads like we had back in those glorious warrior-hero days of yore, workin’ fo’ Uncle.
Apparently, Tim Kaine’s primary mission as VP, is to get the Catholic Church to approve of Gay marriage. That’s as likely as Larry Klinton stopping ” dicking bimbos at home.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-14/venezuelas-death-spiral-dozen-eggs-cost-150-hyperinflation-horrors-hit-socialist-uto
“In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.”
“Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.”
I weep for the people. I smile a bitter smile of satisfaction for Hugo Chavez and his cohorts in Hell who are watching this nightmare and screaming under the lashes of the demons.
It CAN happen elsewhere….. (got tampons?)
Should that day happen here in the USA, … not my problem. I counseled and I advised to be told that I am foolish. You would not believe how many times that I have been ridiculed over the water stash in the garage.
“”Do all of what cheaply?””
I didn’t make myself clear, I guess.
I meant for this particular separate pantry to be a cheap back-up stash…
Even in the main non-SHTF kitchen, though, I still find that I sometimes toss a lot of food because it’s hard to get small quantities cheap, one-person servings and such.
Part of that, with refrigeration and all, is that I get tired of the same thing, of course, and waste what I would just eat in a pinch… but, still…
I went ahead and stuck the relatively large cans away, this time, so far, though, since it’s cheaper in the long run to just buy the 15-ounce cans on sale and figure it out when the time comes.
OFD: I did stick in a tiny military can opener or two, and some plastic spoons. Can crawl in that hole and eat cold beans for about two weeks, if I have to.
Spook, as re opening large cans when you’re by yourself, two thoughts:
First, you get a pot and keep it on the fire. The stuff you put in the pot will cook to mush, but it’ll stay edible long enough to eat it, so long as you keep it simmering.
Second, if the crisis really hits, you’ll quickly grow accustomed to eating slightly off food. I know from experience — both my own self and people who haven’t had enough to eat for years — that people will eat anything if they get hungry enough for long enough.
More generally, if SHTF, you’ll figure out tricks to make the most of the calories you have. Tricks, like, don’t eat for a day, then you’ll be able to eat the entire #10 can before it goes bad.
“You would not believe how many times that I have been ridiculed over the water stash in the garage.”
I feel your pain, kemosabe. I get looks that mean I must be totally wacky, tin-foil-hat level, to worry about this stuff. It’s a chore to have to bring it up in conversation, but damn it, this has gotta be DONE. Us Deplorables can’t ALL be wrong.
“…I still find that I sometimes toss a lot of food because it’s hard to get small quantities cheap, one-person servings and such.”
Ah, I get ya now; it’s me being singularly obtuse this evening rather than you not making it clear enough. That’s a very good question; as there’s only the TWO of us here and the usual meal sizes we cook up could feed a family of four, on average, so leftovers go into the fridge and there is about a 50% chance that they might get consumed, finally (otherwise they grow penicillin cultures and have to be tossed or fed to the mutt or the compost bin, depending). We’ll probably come to that exact same sort of issue eventually; open up a big-ass can of something and eat half of it. Then what, with no fridge? Of course, up here, we can usually just leave that stuff out on the back porch for four to six months out of the year.
Other than that, there’s Mr. Steve’s advice, above. Keep a pot simmering.
Also: “… that people will eat anything if they get hungry enough for long enough.”
That’s right, and thus my warnings previously about avoiding those urban slag heap intersections in the future, when there will be howling mobs of revenants dancing to hip-hop or salsa or maybe Ludwig van, around greased truck axles roasting long pig.
Yeah. Good points, Mr. SteveF !
Optionally, I reckon you could cook stuff that has spoiled somewhat, cook it hard, and get by.
I actually didn’t worry about some totally gray ground beef I got this week. I just cooked it good… high class aged beef!
Of course, any ground meat is more risky than a nice intact steak or roast.
I just hate to waste food, especially in my current economies (to say nothing of a much worse future) so stashed food in small tight packaging would be nice to find when I get to digging around in my pantry area(s) for anything useful.
I just hate to waste food, especially in my current economies (to say nothing of a much worse future) so stashed food in small tight packaging would be nice to find when I get to digging around in my pantry area(s) for anything useful.
Have you th0ught about getting a vacuum sealer ?
“”Have you th0ught about getting a vacuum sealer ?””
I meant, in my hypothetical rant, about how to deal with the second half of a can of beans… but, yeah, plastic bag in the freezer does work for that… That works for day-to-day, normal situations.
Meanwhile…
As SteveF pointed out, yeah, probably in the bad situation I was describing, I’d just put it off and eat the whole can of beans at once, hot or cold…
What did I do to prep today? I put away a pretty good auxiliary pantry of canned beans (and a little veg) that might work to keep me (uncomfortably) alive for about two
weeks.
Heads up to the lurkers who are doing nothing: Get beans on sale. Put ’em in a plastic tub in your cellar or under your bed. Can opener(s) and spoons and fire materials would be nice there, too. I spent about $7.50 on this whole stash; it might keep me alive for two weeks. (With enough water, don’t forget!)
“Ain’t gonna get married…”
Words of wisdom. But never say never, kemosabe. Do all of what cheaply? Food storage? I’m figuring here on mostly canned goods and the standard-issue bulk products, like flour, rice, beans, pasta, sugar, salt, molasses, honey, cornmeal, etc. Plus bag after bag of potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, etc.. Powdered milk, eggs, butter, cheese, etc. And we have three or four can openers plus a bunch of them G.I. doo-dads like we had back in those glorious warrior-hero days of yore, workin’ fo’ Uncle.
But, two can live as cheaply as one, right ?
BTW, that 299 Days author promotes being somewhat organized about your prepping storage. He buys a 50 gallon plastic container and puts in a number of canned goods. Then he vacuum seals small bags of rice, flour, and other goods subject to spoilage with air contact and throws those in. Then he throws in a can opener from the Dollar store. Then he throws in some medicinal items such as bandages, fish antibiotics, antibiotic cream, etc. And a roll of duct tape.
“”But, two can live as cheaply as one, right ?””
Thus my long-ranted rant about the rip-off of single folk for the marriage tax deductions!!
Married folk that I worked with always claimed I was wrong, but they never quite got to the point of being willing to compare tax returns.
“”BTW, that 299 Days author promotes being somewhat organized about your prepping storage. He buys a 50 gallon plastic container and puts in a number of canned goods. Then he vacuum seals small bags of rice, flour, and other goods subject to spoilage with air contact and throws those in. Then he throws in a can opener from the Dollar store. Then he throws in some medicinal items such as bandages, fish antibiotics, antibiotic cream, etc. And a roll of duct tape.””
That’s a good list!
Yeah, that plastic barrel or tub was part of the point of my original rant tonight. I have room in there for other stuff. It’s becoming a (rather heavy, in the context of the kinda large tub) fully-functional crawl in the hole or vehicle pile of stuff, if I work on it and follow through.
It’s not too bizarre to work up multiple copies of this package, and just hand them out to neighbors (or even that hobo!) and tell them to go away until they can come back with supplies to share, too!
Being married costs a lot on income taxes. If you doubt that, just compare the income tax at any income level for a married couple versus the combined tax on two single people with each having half the income of the married couple.
It’s not too bizarre to work up multiple copies of this package, and just hand them out to neighbors (or even that hobo!) and tell them to go away until they can come back with supplies to share, too!
“Know Thy Enemy (During the Collapse): Part 1 – The Unprepared Neighbor”
http://299days.com/know-thy-enemy-during-the-collapse-part-1-the-unprepared-neighbor/
That would be tough, very tough.
“But, two can live as cheaply as one, right ?”
Hard to define here. Probably. But we’re both larger-than-average human beings with pretty good appetites in what is a cold-weather climate much of the year and we do a fair amount of physical labor for two old farts. So we eat a lot more. Neither one of us is fat but we could each stand to lose 20 pounds off our inner-tube middles. We don’t eat a lot of meat, either; mostly pasta for her and rice and beans for me, plus veggies, turkey, chicken, occasional burgers and steaks and stews.
Rather than the 299 days guy, I think I’ll be stacking/shelving stuff using Mr. nick’s system; that dude has it down to a science.
Wife finally called tonight, after the previous two nights taking care of MIL, who is having the same back pain and sciatica I have right now, only worse for her ’cause she’s 30 years older than me. They just got back from driving down to Manchester, NH to get their hair done. You can’t make this stuff up; I said, what, there’s no hairdressers in Burlington? Rut-Vegas? Saint Albans?? Nope, she said. I’m guessing three hours driving each way. WTF???
Meanwhile I’m back here cleaning up cat puke, trimming rubber stair tread for the back porch stairs, cleaning up the kitchen, and dealing with the main desktop here running Mint 18, which, a couple of hours ago, began locking up; mouse would freeze and I couldn’t do anything except a hard power reboot. This happened three or four times; looking into the Ubuntu and Mint forums, it’s a regular thing with various iterations of Ubuntu and Mint both and nobody seems to be able to pin it down as to why.
Possible solutions included hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1 followed by Ctrl-Alt-F8; trying a different driver for the graphics card; or re-installing the o.s. Which would suck, as I just got all the stuff on here that wife and I both need/want. I note that this only started right after I ran some Mint updates and that it occurred while I running Firefox and trying to read an article online. Hasn’t happened since. Weird.
Ah, but the tax code was designed back when very few married women worked. A working man will see his taxes drop greatly if he gets married. Social engineering at its finest!
The “two can live as cheaply as one” “truism” dated from the same era, or even earlier. Back when “men don’t cook”, a single man had to eat out all the time. If he got married, his wife would cook, and groceries for two cost less than restaurant meals for one. Ditto for the wife doing the laundry rather than the man taking it to the cleaners, and cleaning the house rather than paying for a cleaning lady, and so on. This nominal household economy hasn’t been true since at least when I was a kid.
Still running on package sizes issues…
I have heard it advocated to go with relatively small packages of goods, so that contamination or leakage or whatever won’t wreck a lot of your supplies.
One little hole can drain 500 gallons of water, same as one little hole in a 500 ml container! Same deal for contamination, especially biological contamination (i.e. one cell can multiply)… Same deal for rodents, insects or whatever, in your beans and rice stash, and so on and so on.
This all works well with the idea to bust up bulk purchases into small portions for storage, as long as your original bulk supply was OK… and supporting the vacuum sealer idea, or similar.
“”Ah, but the tax code was designed back when very few married women worked. A working man will see his taxes drop greatly if he gets married. Social engineering at its finest!””
I base my rip-off of single guys on what happened to my tax situation after the divorce.
The 200 Days guy has moved his stash twice now so he is about storage order and easy to move. First he started prepping at home and quickly got to the point that he could not conceal it much longer. He then moved his prepping supplies to a storage units two miles away from his house in Olympia. Then he bought a small cabin off Puget Sound ??? and moved his storage unit preps to the cabin.
That seems like an awful lot of work. Why didn’t he just kill all of his neighbors so no one would be able to see him carrying in supplies?
Diff’rent strokes fo’ diff’rent folks, y’all!
That seems like an awful lot of work. Why didn’t he just kill all of his neighbors so no one would be able to see him carrying in supplies?
His problem is the ultra progressive wife, an ER doc in Olympia who is a serious anti-gunner.
“”That seems like an awful lot of work. Why didn’t he just kill all of his neighbors so no one would be able to see him carrying in supplies?””
Not bad, versus my idea to just bribe the hobo…
My neighbors, at least some of them, are pretty much preppers, whether they know it or not. We are, oops, not in a very protected / isolated area, though. Need to work on this some, though a quick response to some actual crisis might just materialize out of no planning for that sort of thing. That’s the kind of folk I figure most of them are…
Being married costs a lot on income taxes. If you doubt that, just compare the income tax at any income level for a married couple versus the combined tax on two single people with each having half the income of the married couple.
Very true. The wife make 1/4 of what I do and pays half her income in taxes. She is considering retiring at the end of the year (she is 58) to take of our daughter and her father. We are truly the sandwich generation.
“We’re Losing the War Against Terrorism”
http://observer.com/2016/09/were-losing-the-war-against-terrorism/
“In reality, there is no military option available short of large-scale use of nuclear weapons, which would kill tens of millions of innocents, to annihilate ISIS in the Middle East.”
Thank goodness for those moats surrounding the Americas. We are not ready to play Cowboys and Muslims yet.
BTW, I asked the know-it-all son about a civil war in Mexico and he says 12 to 18 months away. Four million refugees into California, Arizona, and Texas. Oh my !
I don’t like the idea of #10 cans for most families. Unless you are feeding the compound, in your commercial kitchen, with all the pots, strainers, big pans, etc that you probably don’t have, #10 is just too big. One can for one side dish for each meal for our family leaves a bit left over. As the kids grow, or if we were working harder, that will change and we’ll eat it all. The size of your family will likely guide you…
For now, we don’t cook from #10 cans, and so I don’t store them. RBT has a plan to feed many more adults than I do, so they might make sense for him, or a large mormon family, or a multifamily bug out location. I’ll gladly pay the small additional unit cost to reduce the potential wastage and to be able to eat from my preps.
As far as building crates to hand to folks, that’s my idea with the camp stove, lantern, pot, pan, silverware, fuel, and rice tubs.
I’ll caution against filling 50 gallon or 30 gallon plastic tubs with canned goods. They are really too heavy to move, and will break under the strain of the weight. A normal flip top crate will be too heavy to move when filled with cans. I like the black tubs with yellow lids that costco and home depot carry for organizing and stacking. Stack them full and they will support more tubs stacked on top. It can’t be the tub supporting the weight, it must be the contents. At my secondary location, I’ve got most of the food in the black tubs to hide it, and contain it. And I’ve got them stacked two and even three high, but there is no way I’m moving one other than sliding it around and easing it up or down one tub level.
I’ve got my backup and bulk medical supplies in cheap duffle bags (gym bags). They are all about the same size, cost less than $4 at the thrift store and are easy to grab, carry, and distribute. There’s a stack of them on the shelf in the garage. I could organize the CONTENTS better, but the size, weight, and convenience are great.
@spook, when I was single I bought the smaller ‘single serving’ cans. Costs more per unit, but you feel better about not wasting the leftover.
Post collapse, everything goes into the porridge pot. Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Words to live by my friend.
nick
“” @spook, when I was single I bought the smaller ‘single serving’ cans. Costs more per unit, but you feel better about not wasting the leftover. “”
Yeah, I do some of that, of course.
Beanie Weinies are pretty cost effective, for SHTF rations in particular…
Anything that poor people traditionally eat is good for post SHTF.
Anything that extends a meal, like Rice-a-roni, Hamburger Helper, Chicken Helper (plays a big role in my plans for all that damn canned chicken.) or simple rice or pasta based dishes will be good for post fall. You can add more rice or pasta if you have additional people, or are extra hungry. Can of soup in a pot of rice, add some spam or canned meat for extra flavor!
I’m interested in casseroles, but I think they’d have to be adapted to ‘hay box’ or solar ovens, otherwise, too fuel intensive. Wonder if a dutch oven would be good for that. Bet it would…
nick
BTW, good shortwave reception tonight, in the low bands….
n
Wtww is doing their ‘eclectic’ music program ATM on 5.085mhz.
“”As far as building crates to hand to folks, that’s my idea with the camp stove, lantern, pot, pan, silverware, fuel, and rice tubs.””
I like this idea a lot…
Have a reasonable (in size, weight, and price) package that serves both as a spare for me and as a bribe to help out a neighbor (or that hypothetical hobo).
Of course, many people can’t operate a camp stove (Coleman or hobo-type), for example… or they will even burn down the neighborhood with a candle…
The main (Mint 18) desktop locked up again several times just now; can’t move the mouse; the Ctrl-Alt-F1 or F8 functions do nothing; keyboard useless; as many others have posted, only the hard power reboot clears it up and then ten minutes later the freeze is back. We’ve all tried finagling with the graphics boards, drivers, etc., to no avail and still no one seems to know what is causing this. It seems to happen regularly now in Firefox and has also happened with Chrome. Not sure if it happens when no browsers are open so that’s another experiment; is it the browsers, the internet connection, the ISP??? We don’t know. I’ve got my VPN shut off for now.
This is a show-stopper if it continues; wife needs her stuff and I have online courses I’m working. Sure, we can do email on our phones or the Kindle but that gets old fast, although I know lotsa peeps do it. I gotta sit at a keyboard and type and look at a big screen.
Not sure what my next step is gonna be; a reinstall or an install of another o.s. would be a major PITA and I’d have to go back through putting all our apps and files back, etc. And just never do fucking updates again. It was bad enough with Winblows; now it’s happening with Ubuntu/Mint, too. Awfully tempted to throw CentOS on this machine, and I would still have to mess with putting everything back on it, including Crossover.
As a tangent to dutch oven cooking…
I have had some wonderful meals of hamburger with potatoes and carrots, cooked in foil (often called hobo steaks) in campfire coals. In Scouts, we didn’t add onions and garlic and peppers, I guess, but now…
Even better, typically, are foil packets of “bream” (Lepomis spp.) or crappie (Pomoxis spp.) baked in the coals.
Come to think, I don’t hear much in the prep community about fishing; maybe I will keep some of those secrets to myself.
Yeah, I tend to think in terms of rustic camp cooking, for some of my favorites.
Lots of rolls of aluminum foil might be good efficient prep storage…
You will run out eventually, but disposables don’t require clean-up supplies or effort.
Not sure what my next step is gonna be;
Sniff.
You should get a Mac. They just work.
Sniff. Awaiting the Apple Spaceship as we speak.
“”I gotta sit at a keyboard and type and look at a big screen.””
My fingers twitch in a QWERTY fashion when I try to poke at
a little keyboard (even if it’s in the qwerty lay-out).
maybe I will keep some of those secrets to myself.
No secrets, Mr. Spook. We’re all preppers here.
“”It was bad enough with Winblows; now it’s happening with Ubuntu/Mint, too. “”
Mint 17.3 MATE is quite reliable here but maybe I don’t do anything too weird.
I have no clue about Windows. Quit after a year or so of W98, though I have fixed a couple of friends’ Windows boxes since then. I now refuse to try any Windows issues.
I do use the Chromebook, itself another set of issues, but mostly ok in Guest mode.
“”maybe I will keep some of those secrets to myself.
No secrets, Mr. Spook. We’re all preppers here.””
OK… Let me start my fishing rant…
Open faced spinning reels, simple cheap rods, relatively light line…
Lead-head jigs with rubber tails almost always work, anywhere.
Don’t bother with crank-baits or spinners unless you know the water depths and structure.
Throw long casts, cover a lot of water.
Live (or dead) bait can work, but it’s often hard to keep it working for long.
The pocket fishing kits might work in a pinch. Add a cane or tree branch pole
to reach further.
Pack an assortment of jigs, line, hooks, weights, flies, whatever, but bottom line
you will get more good food with a little spinning (or spin-cast) rig with jigs…
This works in creeks, lakes, ocean coast, wherever.
Any questions?
It’s pretty hard to fish out any otherwise healthy aquatic or marine environment with hook and line, no matter how many fisherfolk line up with poles and rods…
I tend to follow the wildlife resource officials’ rules, because they have good science to back them up, but I reckon I could live on fish on, say, a TVA reservoir, until I run out of 6 pound test line and little jigs. Pretty much the same deal on any Boundary Waters (Minnesota) lake, Arkansas creek, Wyoming river, or / and so on…
Eventually, all these lovely resources will be trashed, but not by hook and line fisherfolk.
I appreciate the fishing advice from Mr. Spook; I only fished briefly a couple of times maybe forty-plus years ago and here we live on the sixth-largest lake in CONUS, with a fishing gear section at the Shell Station/store on the corner and another fishing gear shop a couple of blocks away. We have two canoes and two or three kayaks (I think we had another one up in NB but it got stolen, supposedly). So WTF is wrong with me that I haven’t investigated this before now??? We could supplement our piddly garden produce with FISH!
Mrs. OFD would certainly be OK with me picking up some cheap-ass gear and going out in a canoe along the shore (I won’t get in a kayak and the lake is a bit too chancy for canoes, even in good weather, unless you’re in a big one with a couple of experienced paddlers. We’ve seen storms come up in the middle of the lake outta nowhere in minutes.)
So off to the shops I go this next week or two. Thanks, Mr. Spook!
In low-tech home IT nooz; a lot of the scuttlebutt on the Linux forums that I was researching seemed to indicate that the Cinnamon desktop was a culprit, and that Mate was OK, so I just installed and switched over to Mate, also hearing a good thing about it from Mr. Spook. So far, so good.
“”In low-tech home IT nooz; a lot of the scuttlebutt on the Linux forums that I was researching seemed to indicate that the Cinnamon desktop was a culprit, and that Mate was OK, so I just installed and switched over to Mate, also hearing a good thing about it from Mr. Spook. So far, so good.””
Uh-oh… First time in many many years that anybody has not immediately contradicted my PC advice. Lotsa luck. Hope it works out.
Canoe and kayak fishing is a whole ‘nother game.
Bank fishing can be just fine, though. Find a point jutting out into deeper water.
Fish a place hard, and if nothing happens, move a ways.
Use cheap jigs and (sadly for the environment) just break off (or straighten hooks) if you hang up. Cast a lot, cover a lot of water.
With jigs: NOTE! Try to bounce a little along the bottom. Think like a stoopid crawdad…
Good luck! Pictures or it didn’t happen!
I’ll try to do some Champlain specific research. Stand by, but get started (a little,
cheap) and get the general idea.
Watch some local guys (if any) and see what works for them. Most fisherfolk love to
share (lecture) what they know!
I’m excited! Take a kid fishing !!!
“Uh-oh… First time in many many years that anybody has not immediately contradicted my PC advice. Lotsa luck. Hope it works out.”
Warn’t just you, Mr. Spock; a good number of hardcore Linux geeks said the same thing; the Cinnamon desktop was a regular common denominator but Mate seemed to work OK. I’m running Mint 18 and peeps were reporting this freeze bullshit on earlier Mint and Ubuntu iterations, too.
I just dumped Windows 8.1 after running it for several years here, but problems started cropping up with updates and then the whole Microslop push to 10 and associated crap they were/are pulling caused me to pull the plug, with Mrs. OFD’s blessing so long as I could somehow get her Excel and Word working on it, which I did, via Crossover. Works like a charm.
“Find a point jutting out into deeper water.”
Not a problem. The bay is relatively shallow, but further out there is a steep dropoff and then just to our south along the Georgia shore (Georgia is the next town south of us, not the state, haha) the water is deep adjacent to rock cliffs. I already have the lake depth maps and charts here and can get more stuff from the two shops a block away. Will also strike up chats with locals about it all; no doubt they’d love to school a former flatlander Masshole (though I’ve been up here for nearly twenty years now).
I’ll even pick up a VT fishing license this next week.
“”Warn’t just you, Mr. Spock; a good number of hardcore Linux geeks said the same “”
I am honored by the freudian slip.
Live long and prosper!
SpOOk !
I have a massive roll of heavy al foil from costco. I got it at an estate sale for just a couple of bucks. It makes great single use roasting pans for the grill.
Sliced potatoes in foil pouch.
Foil tray for frozen fish filet on the grill.
Steamed veg in foil pouch.
Thanks for reminding me, thar be a lot of fine grub that’s cookable with foil….
Often the best fishing spot is just a place you can stand in a safe place and toss out a ways, but sometimes the easy spots are useless.
Looking at the water and at the bottom contours is the way to win.
On long reaches of bare beach, it’s all about watching the water, the froth, the birds…
What I really like about fishing, deep down, is just being out there and noticing the real world. On an ocean beach, rays and cetaceans and so on can make up for catching no fish.
“I am honored by the freudian slip.”
More a case of my big fat fingers going faster than they oughta late at night.
From the Radio Surveillance Department:
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/long-secret-stingray-manuals-detail-how-police-can-spy-on-phones/
The Harris Corporation again. I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that place.
From the Thin Dilbert/Tall Wally Department:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/quote-of-the-week-134/
Stopped renewing my MS Partner membership a couple of years ago. Technically, not supposed to keep using all the stuff that was licensed for ‘trial’ and in house use when you stop paying the subscription, but haven’t had a problem yet….
I do pick up office suites and os’s at estate sales if they are there and the license sticker is there. I figure a couple bux and I’m covered for building machines for family if needed.
I stopped installing MS office and most tools on most machines, I just go with the Open Disk or Open ED disk. Don’t use 95% of the crap anyway, so why pay?
I like to write in notepad or word pad or one of the free line based versions. I write by outlining, so it works for me. I can bring the text into word if I need to. I do still use the MS suite for work stuff that needs interop, but not for myself.. EXCEPT visio. But I’ve been a visio user since before MS bought it and messed it up.
For almost anything normal people would do on a PC, open source is more than adequate even under Windows.
nick
And from the I Feel Great Department:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-point-of-inflexion-and-awakening.html
Another view discussing probable Parkinson’s.
And the Three Cheers for Tablets Department:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/unconventional-warfare-psychological-operations-an-oda%E2%80%99s-experience-at-jrtc
Pro tip:
For fish pictures, always hold the fish at arm’s length toward the camera, or, ideally, with elbows flexed a little to confuse the issue.
A guy’s pic was in today’s local paper; he’d just caught a longnose gar in the lake; prehistoric fish, but the article said fairly easy to catch. Use a rope fly; they chew on it and it gets caught in their teeth; no hooks or actual flies used. Thing looked to be three or four feet long. The scales are like armor plate; the guy was wearing pretty tough-looking gloves.
I got to run my company through JRTC. Dropped in on a bunch of C141’s loaded with Hueys, put them together and hit the woods for 10 days. We ate T-rats served up by DISCOM back then. Big trays full of hot chow delivered to us. They went the way of the Dodo, soon after. I was with the 10th Mountain Division, but it wasn’t fully formed so we were under the 82nd for C&C. The fukstiks tried to make us eat MREs, but our DISCOM was there so I told the 82nd to suck it. The 10th CG did a walk through with me and got a chuckle at that.
10th Mountain Division is over in our neighboring state, the Vampire State; recent indications that it’s gonna get turned into a missile defense base, due to the horrific and imminent threat of Iranian nukes (that we basically gave them, along with a shit-ton of cash and gold, thanks, Barry!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Drum
“”A guy’s pic was in today’s local paper; he’d just caught a longnose gar in the lake; prehistoric fish, but the article said fairly easy to catch. Use a rope fly; they chew on it and it gets caught in their teeth; no hooks or actual flies used. Thing looked to be three or four feet long. The scales are like armor plate; the guy was wearing pretty tough-looking gloves.””
Yeah, you can use fuzzy lures for gar. Teeth get tangled. Saw one guy who also puts a hook in there, in case a bass hits.
I once shot a small gar from a rather long range with the bow.
That really impressed the other kids with me…
I would not bother a gar (any of the few species) ever again… They are having a tough time. Native! Fairly rare. Nope, not gonna hurt one, ever again.
Harmless, weird, strangely beautiful…
I guess it’s ok to fish them, with those fuzzy flies… but kiss and release!
I remember flying over the the training areas in late June and seeing yuuuge snow banks in the wooded shadows. I got to fly Cap Weinberger on a tour. Seemed like a decent guy.
“I guess it’s ok to fish them, with those fuzzy flies… but kiss and release!”
Agreed; but I’d leave ’em alone. Plenty of food fish in this lake, no need to bother the others.
“I remember flying over the the training areas in late June and seeing yuuuge snow banks in the wooded shadows.”
Yup. Snow lasts a lot longer out in the woods and up on elevations in the north country. I saw twenty-foot drifts on the runways at the old Loring AFB in northern Maine many, many moons ago. We’ve snow-shoed on the flat and rolling terrain here and the snow was maybe a couple of feet deep; head into the forest and its two to three times that, even in spring. But the snowshoes are wicked pissa; you’re up on top of it all. Wife got me the extra-long jumbo pair from L.L. Bean for Xmas a couple of years ago; what a blast!
“I got to fly Cap Weinberger on a tour. Seemed like a decent guy.”
A WWII vet who went from private to officer in the Pacific War. I remember he was in the middle of all that Iran-Contra stuff, but so was half the administration then. The MSM went to town on that, like they did with Watergate, but when their guys are in power, even worse shit happens; look at the Clinton-Obola regimes. And the MSM lets it all slide then.
I have a couple of gar scales I picked up on the lake shore, some time back.
Supposedly they were used for arrow points (depending on size) but they are asymmetrical so I’m not sure how they’d shoot.
Big gar get your attention, when you’re swimming or something. Once saw one big enough to be a little scary from my seat in the canoe. Apparently they don’t bite, but just one exception would be plenty bad. Lots of sharp teeth are lots of sharp teeth!
I have a picture somewhere of my face near a barracuda that I had caught. I guess it was dead at that point. I’m holding its mouth open… Kinda sad.
Worst fish I have ever seen for biting is Bluefish (Pomatomus). Little ones will try to take off a finger (which they seem likely to be able to do) and they don’t just die when caught. Bigger ones are really scary. Bluefish get blamed (correctly, apparently) for supposed shark attacks. A blitz of ten-pounders could easily ruin your day, if you are swimming in the wrong place.
Tasty, if you like that dark oily stuff…
“…some of the problematic word choices surprised me”.
That was way too easy, and they missed lots of commonly-mistaken near-homophones, like “precedence” and “precedent”. I usually have the impression that people who write such errors are not copious readers, otherwise they would know better.
**
‘ “Ain’t gonna get married…”
Words of wisdom. But never say never, kemosabe. ‘
Indeed. Perhaps you just haven’t met the right guy yet!
*****
SHTF fishing? It won’t be with poles, flies, lures or spears – all much too labour-intensive. It’ll be with traps, nets across watercourses, car batteries and copper sweeps, and with black-powder pipe bombs or dynamite. Unfortunately, it will also be biotope-devastating and probably largely non-sustainable as a result.
Those who live at the sea coast will be better off – crustaceans, molluscs and seaweed for the gathering – like during the Irish famine of 1848. Those inland starved, while coastal folks got by, but the Irish largely went off eating fish and seafood ever after.
Wide open at the beach. General environment gotta be pretty stable if you’re gonna spend any time there, esp if you have something (food) someone wants.
n
Gar are nasty like carp. Only the poorest of the poor eat them anywhere I’ve lived.
Not sure what my next step is gonna be; a reinstall or an install of another o.s. would be a major PITA and I’d have to go back through putting all our apps and files back, etc. And just never do fucking updates again. It was bad enough with Winblows; now it’s happening with Ubuntu/Mint, too. Awfully tempted to throw CentOS on this machine, and I would still have to mess with putting everything back on it, including Crossover.
Something is definitely up with Mint 18. Wireless went flaky with this release on my designated Linux laptop — Latitude 6400, 4 GB RAM — so old school that my guess is Windows XP would boot cleanly.
I keep one home partition and three boot partitions of 20-30 GB on the laptop. Until the Mint wireless issues go away, I’m running Fedora 24 and reboot every few days into Mint to see if the patches solved the problem.
So much of prepping seems to be basic home economics. Gardening, canning and storing food. Although I agree with our host a solar dehydrator seems more practical than home canning.
Although I suspect in Sparta kids learn that by watching granny do gardening and canning way before they get to a high school home economics class.
The one prepping thing I’d like to do is fill the freezer we have in the garage with meat and vegetables. But as long as we don’t have a generator, that would be basic home economics, not prepping.
“A blitz of ten-pounders could easily ruin your day, if you are swimming in the wrong place.”
I grew up down in Maffachufetts and spent most summers at the beaches there and down the Cape and saw several bluefish “frenzies” over the years, usually in the shallows and in the late afternoon. One time a kid got cut and they hadda roll the ambulance onto the beach.
“Something is definitely up with Mint 18.”
It might get narrowed down to the Cinnamon desktop; I switched over to Mate last night and the machine has stayed up, no freezing. Interesting. But now I’m leery again of updates.
It might get narrowed down to the Cinnamon desktop; I switched over to Mate last night and the machine has stayed up, no freezing. Interesting. But now I’m leery again of updates.
I always run the Mate version.
I suspect that the kernel is the problem. The price we pay for LTS. Plus, IMHO, as of late, Mint is following the Windows path of not being solid until the *.1 release.
Well, live and learn, I guess. Mate is staying up OK so far. I’m just a bit peeved still that there were zero problems until I ran the updates yesterday via Cinnamon. Seeing as how that was one of the main reasons I dumped Windows 8.1.
Much as I like Linux, it really still does have some odd problems. Too odd for it to ever be an O/S for the masses.
I’m currently on Xubuntu 16.04. I have an encrypted partition. I also use virtual machines. I tried to following some instructions on how to get sound to work from a virtual machine. As a result when I mount that encrypted partition, my desktop apparently partially changes to Gnome instead of xfce. Plus my normal sound stopped working.
This is all just an irritation, and I eventually fixed the sound. But it’s all “pinball”, i.e., you try random things until you fix the problem. There’s no obvious rhyme or reason to any of it, except possibly to some total gurus somewhere.
I had been considering trying Mint 18, but based on OFD’s experiences I think I’ll skip it and stick with Xubuntu 16.04 for now…
Well, windows has random issues too.
Mine forgets that I have a background image on my desktop fairly regularly.
It also sometimes forgets to sleep, even though it is set that way, and even though windows STILL can’t determine if video is playing before going to sleep.
Oh, and my kids machine goes to sleep, but doesn’t sleep the sound, so their game keeps cycling in the background.
But I agree. One of the reasons I don’t use linux is the frustration with sound and video. It’ll work during the install, and then quits. Or works on one distro but not another….
And now linux suffers from some of the same things windows does with all the ‘helpful’ things it’s doing in the background. Automagic is great when it works, but one of the strong points for linux USED to be that it did what you told it, and it didn’t do things without telling you. not so much anymore.
nick
“now linux suffers from some of the same things windows does with all the ‘helpful’ things it’s doing in the background”
I recently upgraded all of our Windows machines to Win10. This crap is much worse than ever before. Installing printers is now a total mess, for example. We have network printers, and have particular drivers we want to use. Win10 knows better. Also, if you have two drivers for the same printer (PCL and PS, for different use cases), Win10 kindly hides them both behind the same printer, so (a) you initially think it has lost one of them and (b) when you print something, you have no clue which one is going to actually be used.
Using Windows in non-English languages is even more exciting. Windows has always had a folder “users”, for example. In German, it is translated into “Benutzer”, only on the disk it’s still really “users” – Windows is just lying. If you need a path that includes one or the other, it’s pretty random which one will actually work in any given situation.
Win10 also knows what application you want to associate with any particular file type. It knows this better than you do. Just as a recent example: I installed Acrobat Reader on one machine, Windows kindly told me that it didn’t like that, and would henceforth open PDFs with Edge. I found the place where you can set this, set it manually, and Windows kindly informed me that it had set it back to the way it wants.
Linux drives me nuts sometimes, but Windows is definitely worse… At least, I ultimately win my battles with Linux. That Win10 installation is still opening PDFs with a web browser.
Windows design decision to lie to users is one of the reasons I’ve stayed behind. I HATE the “libraries” concept, and the virtual folders. I HATE when it includes places and things that I didn’t tell it to include. Homegroup was another horrible decision. “It doesn’t matter where the things really are, as long as you have them right?” except when it does matter, then not having the file actually on your lappy sucks.
All the “apps” in the new paradigm suck too. Most are nothing but a web page, hidden behind yet another obtuse user interface. NO I don’t want your freaking shopping app.
Couple these annoyances with really poor core execution (why does it take a minute or more to reload a file folder directory EVERY FREAKIN TIME I OPEN IT? Or why do I have to install a copy utility to fix broken CORE OS functionality? WTF does a bulk copy fail out completely when it hits the first error? Copy the rest of the d@mn files, and tell me which one failed. Don’t leave me manually comparing directories to figure out which ones actually copied.
Don’t get me started on activex and ‘unsigned apps’ which windows WILL NOT RUN no matter how many times you tell it “this one is ok, I really mean it.” Having to disable ALL your internet security to run one active x control is insane.
nick
“I had been considering trying Mint 18, but based on OFD’s experiences I think I’ll skip it and stick with Xubuntu 16.04 for now…”
My experiences of yesterday seem to have been temporary; I’m running Mint 18 with the Mate desktop now and it’s been A-OK. That narrows it down, IMHO, to the Cinnamon desktop, at least on this HP Pavilion machine with a 1TB SSD. You might try waiting until Mint 18.1 and then using it with the Mate desktop version loaded. But again, YMMV on YOUR machine. Makes life interesting.
I think the deal here is, between Linux and Windows, besides the cost and security factors, which are huge, again IMHO, that we can tinker with and fix stuff in Linux but Windows is just gonna be Windows and do whatever it wants. And any time I went to a M$ page to try to fix a problem it was always some kinda boilerplate answer from ESL techs there who wanted chapter and verse on my machine before suggesting the usual standard bromides.
In any case, the updates stuff and the Windows 10 horror stories and constant nagging to upgrade finally sent me over the edge, and I was on my way there anyway.
The two main issues I’ve had to deal with on this Mint 18 machine were: getting the Brother printer to first print, and then scan. Done. Then the lockup issues yesterday. Fixed.
All appears to be OK today.
Wife finally back from taking care of MIL; leaving again this weekend for the Carolinas and then after that for three days up here in the state capital of Montpeculiar. That week is when I’ll be getting my MRI and spinal shot.
First week in October I might go to a vets PTSD retreat deal for three days in the lakes region of New Hampshire, probably with several guys from our combat group up here. Outdoor activities, talks on PTSD, neurobiology, etc. Depends on how my back and sciatica are by then. Making me feel like a spoiled loser crybaby when there’s guys with artificial limbs, etc., but a bad back can really limit one’s ability to function at very much. Sitting down I’m fine; standing or walking and it feels like a blowtorch is being pressed against the bottom of my spine and waves of sciatica down my right leg, which sometimes doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to lately. Seven months of this, with intermittent relief for a few days here and there. Very annoying. Anyway, the guy/s running this deal are themselves veterans, most from ‘Nam, and the head guy is a West Point grad with combat tours in the Sandbox and the Suck, full bird. Yet another guy is a former major-general, forced out six months ago for not being the right team player for Mordor, and now all fucked up and doesn’t know what to do, in his words. We will help him.
Another vets event at the Killington ski resort on the Veterans Day weekend; hotel owner there is giving us a wing and will feed us and let us ski or do whatever, gratis. Not a vet; he just wants to do something for us and won’t even take the tax deductions.
Hard for me to keep bitching that nobody back here gives a shit, but man, it woulda made a world of difference 40-50 years ago to so many guys.
Dave Hardy wrote:
“They just got back from driving down to Manchester, NH to get their hair done. You can’t make this stuff up; I said, what, there’s no hairdressers in Burlington?”
I’ve never understood the time and dough that goes into wimminz hair care. What’s wrong with washing hair with shampoo once a fortnight, like I do? Cheap and it looks better.
“Meanwhile I’m back here cleaning up cat puke…”
There’s an easy and permanent solution to that… 🙂
“I’ve never understood the time and dough that goes into wimminz hair care.”
You forgot clothes and shoes. There are enough shoes in this house to make Imelda Marcos weep and gnash her teeth in envy.
“What’s wrong with washing hair with shampoo once a fortnight…”
A fortnight is what, two or three weeks??? I’m guessing my hair is longer than yours and so it gets washed every time I take a shower, which is daily.
“There’s an easy and permanent solution to that…”
The one that does it is getting on in years and is overweight and so the solution is coming up pretty soon….
“Meanwhile I’m back here cleaning up cat puke…”
Time to switch to Purina Indoor cat chow. Worked for ours. Mostly. She even survived her hips getting crunched by an English Mastiff. For a year more until she got brain cancer.
I used to wash my hair daily with shampoo, it seemed to need it. One of my “friends” asked me if I was part Chinese.
30 years later my hair only needs to be washed occasionally. Yes, my hair is probably way shorter than yours.
I was being nagged relentlessly to upgrade from W8.1 to 10. For a few days I was being invited several times a day. Glad I didn’t now.
Long live Windows 2000!
There is an app that allows current Windows users to wipe out the Win 10 upgrade nagging, and I discovered that you also have to delete a folder that wunnerful M$ puts on your C drive; mine was about 10GB in size, too. M$ have demonstrated repeatedly to my satisfaction that they are a PITA and do not act in good faith with their customers and users.
Thanks for the cat food tip, Mr. Lynn; I’ll give it a try. The senior (female) cat is about 7 or 8 years old now and a bit porky.
I’ll confirm @Lynn’s recommendation: “Time to switch to Purina Indoor cat chow. Worked for ours.” Their weight management and sensitive stomach varieties are also good for their designed condition.
Food quality is extremely important for older cats and pregnant queens. I have been feeding varieties of Purina Cat Chow Complete for over 20-years. Be wary of all the essentially marketing hype espousing “gluten free”, “grain free”, “by-product free”, “meat” as the first ingredient, yada yada yada.
Reminder, whenever changing cat food (dog food too) always transition.
I use the 1/4 method:
day 1-4: 1/4 new to 3/4 old
day 5-8: 1/2 new to 1/2 old
day 9-12: 3/4 new to 1/4 old
If I had a cat, it would live outdoors and live on small rodents.
When we got married, it drove Barbara nuts that I washed my hair in the shower using the same Ivory soap I used for the rest of it. She did finally get me to use regular shampoo without all the foo-foo stuff, but I’d still be happy with just Ivory soap.
Bar soap?? Nowadays it’s combo shampoo/body wash (usually the cheapest I can find), one bottle. The womenz use the other shower and there are 10-20 bottle of weird stuff in there at any time.
“If I had a cat, it would live outdoors and live on small rodents.”
Ours are outdoors and catching and eating rodents and birds for most of their waking time, and in warm weather, sleeping on the porch a good chunk of the nighttime. But we also feed them indoors.
“…there are 10-20 bottle of weird stuff in there at any time.”
Par for the course; I have my soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrush, razor and shaving foam, and stinkum and that’s it. For every one of those of mine, there are a dozen of hers.
For some reason, women appear to be much more vulnerable to advertising/marketing than men are.
It’s the visual and chatter thing, and promises to make life easier, better, more glamorous, and fun!
Men tend to be resistant, skeptical and crabby about stuff, or maybe I’m simply extrapolating from my own miserable and crabby existence.
Couple these annoyances with really poor core execution (why does it take a minute or more to reload a file folder directory EVERY FREAKIN TIME I OPEN IT? Or why do I have to install a copy utility to fix broken CORE OS functionality? WTF does a bulk copy fail out completely when it hits the first error? Copy the rest of the d@mn files, and tell me which one failed.
I’ve had this! I finally found a shortcut to a folder out on the LAN. If that machine was asleep, I had the problem. As for copying, various switches on x-copy are the cure.
For big copies I actually like the MS Synctoy. I especially like the ‘contribute to’ setting which lets me copy several folders to another place, without dupes. The downside is it is unsupported (not that actual supported stuff is better) and that folder ” pairs” need to be established for each copy operation.
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If I had a cat, it would live outdoors and live on small rodents.
Our cats have free reign inside and out. Our last female lived to be 17 going inside and outside at will, even when she only had three legs. The current male is 6 ? 7 ?, weighs 12 to 14 lbs, and is scared of the 25 lb Maine Coone next door. He goes in and out 20 times a day.
Time to switch to Purina Indoor cat chow.
I got the brand wrong, we feed them Little Friskies Indoor Delights. The current male cat eats that and the dog food. He does not care. He also likes eggs, cheese, and dog treats.
“I got the brand wrong, we feed them Little Friskies Indoor Delights.”
Friskies is a Purina Brand and just as good. Ingredients are essentially identical. It’s all just marketing.
In my experience neutered male cats are wussies compared to spayed females. My 4 “boys” are like a club, always paling around and playing together. My 5 “girls” are isolationists and very territorial. The girls tolerate the boys (they usually give the girls a wide berth) but woe be any other girl that dares to tread on any other’s territory.
Yeah, the fem cats here generally get a wide berth from our big neutered male. And they’ll attack each other.