09:59 – I took a rare day off yesterday from posting here. I ate too much, and wasn’t feeling very well. Today I’m back to normal.
When I took Colin out this morning, it felt more like early spring than early winter. It was 53.6F (12C) with bright sun and birds chirping. I’m sure we’ll pay for that in the not-too-distant future. We’re doing regular stuff today. Cleaning up the house, filling chemical bottles for science kits, and so on. We also need to wash and dry another batch of 2L soft drink bottles to fill with LTS food that’s still sitting in its original packaging. Not that I’m too worried about shelf life. Even in its original plastic bags, this stuff has a best-by date a couple years out. Once we get it transferred to 2L bottles with oxygen absorbers, it should be good for at least 20 or 30 years.
Speaking of which, I keep seeing articles like this one about droves of people abandoning prepping, presumably as a result of Trump’s election. I don’t doubt that a small percentage of serious preppers have in fact stopped prepping on the foolish (in my opinion) assumption that Trump’s election will make a difference in the long term. But I think most preppers are smart enough to realize that nothing has really changed. The long-term outlook is just as bad under Trump as it would have been under Clinton. Things may–and I emphasize “may”–not go downhill as quickly with Trump as President, but expecting Trump to magically fix everything is wishful thinking. At most, I think some preppers are taking a break after prepping frantically during the run-up to the election. And the prepping on the right is now prepping on the left, and the beards have all grown longer overnight. All along, there have been prog/lefty people prepping, but they made up a small minority of preppers. With Trump’s election, many leftie/progs have started prepping seriously in the expectation of a Trumpocalypse. They’re even going out and buying guns. Many people expected gun sales to fall off a cliff after Trump was elected. In fact, after a momentary pause, they’re soaring again. Black Friday was the biggest day for gun sales in history, and many of those buyers were almost certainly first-time buyers who voted for Clinton. Which is fine with me. Even progs have the right to defend themselves.
People may have plateaued for a period of time, or may have had their sense of urgency reduced. Or they may be burned out.
I have mentioned that I’ve slowed down a bit, and I had some malaise before Christmas wrt prepping. I’ve also gotten to a point where I was comfortable with what I have on hand for most common scenarios.
Now I need to go thru, actually use some of the stuff I stockpiled, and make an update pass thru the stuff I’ve had for a while. BOBs, car kits, pantry, all need a going thru….
My primary med kits are expiring, as are some of my medium term foods. Also, some of my “lets try this” food turns out NOT to be good candidates for longer term storage.
All part of the nature of prepping, but a different sort of thing from acquisition. Maintenance and sustaining efforts are very different from that first phase.
It’s relatively easy to “stack it high” but harder to make sure the stack is useful…..
nick
The wife made three 12 inch deep dish pumpkin pies and two 12 inch deep dish pecan pies. The pies are gone. Her 300 lb sister and her family were here all extended weekend but, they all left to go back to Dallas. Including the wife. Who will come back Thursday after visiting her father in the nursing home. Hopefully. They left the 400 lb nephew who is taking a break from Dominos Pizza to adventure around the state. I am scared, there is not much high carb food left that he craves.
@RBT, not sure how your 2016 went. Mine is 110% of 2015 so I get to keep my job another year. I got a verbal warning back in Jan from the unrelated partner since we had three years of declining revenues. We did not leave anything laying on the ground.
It is hell in the oil patch in the USA. Staff cut in half, salaries cut in half, no O/T. Canada is worse. So is Mexico. The USA is now supplying a significant amount of their natural gas needs and that will continue to increase since our cost is so low ans shale natural gas is so clean (no expensive treating needed). For now.
RIP Carrie Fisher. I wonder how much her drug abuse contributed. I figured after a massive heart attack on an oversea trip left her brain dead.
“Even progs have the right to defend themselves.”
Sure, so long as they surrender peaceably when we have them surrounded with superior armed force, and prior to the fair trials we give them before hanging them all.
Overcast today, rain sprinkles, not anywhere near as windy as yesterday and last night, and possible snow flurries later. Boring. I’m picking up twigs and branches again in the yard and running short errands today. Longer errands tomorrow, maybe. Wife should be heading out from the Montreal airport a little later for Kalifornia again. Princess back home in Montreal. Nice and quiet here for some odd reason. And brings to mind something the wife said a while back; everyone back here tenses up and and is on pins and needles whenever Princess rolls in; the constant demands and vying for attention and arguments. 24 years old. Once she’s gone, a big sigh of relief.
Watched MNF last night and saw the Cowboys run roughshod, more or less, on the Detroit Lions in the second half. Sad.
OK, back to errands and chores in the 2007 Toyota Matrix with expired MA plates.
Global warming sucks. It was 84 F yesterday and it is 80 F now. The pool is back above 70 F.
“@RBT, not sure how your 2016 went.”
Our peak year was 2014. In 2015, we did about 80% of 2014 revenues and in 2016 we’ve done about 90% of 2015 revenues. Many of our potential buyers are really hurting financially, with job losses and guys who were making a solid middle-class salary now working part time. Since most home-school families have the wife stay at home and depend solely on the husband’s income, this really hurts us, but nothing like it hurts them. Obama that bastard.
We’re doing okay, and would still be okay even if things got worse.
Hopefully. They left the 400 lb nephew who is taking a break from Dominos Pizza to adventure around the state. I am scared, there is not much high carb food left that he craves.
If they reopened the plant, send him on a day trip to Brenham for the Blue Bell factory tour. After the tour, the first scoop is complementary with each additional scoop $1.
Yep, the oil patch out here in Bakersfield has been hit hard. The county tax revenues are way down and desperate measures needed. Of course none of the right ones are being taken.
Meanwhile the State of California and Gov. Moonbeam ae hell bent on destroying the oil industry for the sake of climate change and carbon taxes.
Yeah, send him to Brenham. My two sisters live there. Between the two he’d have about 500 lb of well-fed wimmen to do something with. Squashing them flat would be a good thing. He can use a car…
Best I can tell by the pictures on FB they have a mobile home… single or double, who cares. Well, I hope it’s a double for the amount of fuel so it can go up in flames with them in it. Just for what they did to Mom….
Hold a grudge? Moi? In this case, forever.
🙂
Nice weather today. About 70, cloudy with thin spots once in a while to get a shadow, no actual sun shine. Darn nice for the end of December.
Many of our potential buyers are really hurting financially, with job losses and guys who were making a solid middle-class salary now working part time. Since most home-school families have the wife stay at home and depend solely on the husband’s income, this really hurts us, but nothing like it hurts them. Obama that bastard.
Our peak year was 2011. We’ve been double hit by two items, one is the shale oil has radically increased with fracking and directional drilling. And shale oil and natural gas are fairly clean and do not require cleanup (H2S and CO2) so software like ours is not needed for modelling the treating process. The second is that the amount of engineering studies has dropped with the amount of new drilling, we are living on the wells drilled and fracked five to ten years ago. And 2/3rds of those are shut in until the prices get better. The big market now is people getting their oil and gas to market and Obola has messed with that mightily.
Obola is doing his best to wreck the economy and the social fabric here for his last months in office, and his boatload of pardons seem to be for some really interesting characters who maybe ought to be locked up forever. Par for the course; Larry Klinton pardoned a whole pile of criminal scumbags, too.
My guess is that the Left will try to tank the economy somehow, and get more musloid terror attacks going here, so that tRump and his administration will then be blamed for all the bad chit that happens. The administration will be forced into a corner and have to crack down and become repressive and that will in turn breed more outbreaks and mass unrest. All from the commie Playbook.
Sabotage a country’s economy and either cause more State repression or make the State appear stupid and ineffectual and an easy pushover, with additional foreign threats to contend with at the same time.
tRump can’t save the country; at best we have a four-year window, maybe, to get our own local houses in order and prepare for a very rocky road ahead regardless.
My wife’s company is doing well. Hard to compare year to year, but they continue to grow top and bottom line. Commission checks are more than I made in a year a couple of decades ago……but the tax payments suck rocks. It’s dependent on construction, both private and local .gov, so we are very sensitive to changes in the local economy. A general slowdown will impact top and bottom, and that is something we are very concerned about with the state of the oil and gas business.
Having employees, etc means there is a big nut to cover before the (new) owners get paid (my wife and partners.) That is a risk of being a small businessman. You get paid last.
nick
The hell they do. After decades of telling normal people that forceful self-defense is entirely beyond the pale and that calling 9-1-1 is the only allowable response to danger, progtards get no weapons. They can buy themselves a damn cellphone if they think they’ll be in danger.
“Yep, the oil patch out here in Bakersfield ……….”
Reminds me, I should go back out to the Buck Owens Crystal Palace again.
“They can buy themselves a damn cellphone if they think they’ll be in danger.
Pray tell, what makes thee think any of them are lacking a cell phone? The yoots of this culture evidently live and die by them and that has spread to more and more adults.
As that map shows, it’s best if us Normals can get out of and away from any of the areas designated as an “island” in the Clinton Archipelago. And thereafter spend as little time there as possible, say, in a B52 or fleet of helicopter gunships passing over them. Frankly I don’t see much hope for any of them coming to their senses, and I have a wunnerful example of that in my own family.
My first seed catalog of 2017 arrived today, a few days early.
Time to start planning for my small 2017 garden, it will be mostly containers but I may try a couple of straw bales: https://bonnieplants.com/library/how-to-condition-and-plant-a-straw-bale/
Keep us informed. Alternative means of growing food, always worth knowing.
My dad in the Chicago area swears by something like “kentucky incredible” for high yield green beans. I haven’t found them locally.
n
Possibly they are the “Kentucky Wonder” variety.
Kentucky Wonder 125
We will need to revisit what we can do with our heavily shaded tiny space here to try and get as many plants growing as possible. Half the yard is verboten thanks to the leech field/septic tank, and of course that’s the area that gets the most sun, other than the front of our driveway near the street, natch. The people who built this house didn’t intend to have a decent-sized vegetable garden here, and before the town park and road was built in back of us, it was a marsh. An older guy that lives nearby told me when I ran into him at the post office recently that he remembers the guy who lived here keeping a boat at the back of the yard and would launch it right from there. We can do nearly the same thing as we’d only have to cross the road at the corner of our yard and right down to the bay shore, maybe 100 feet, tops. Wife has hauled kayaks off that area and gone out to the Lazy Lady island, about three miles.
She just called from Toronto and will be taking a direct flight from there to Sodom-on-the-Pacific, arriving around 01:30 our time, 10:30 Kalifornia time. She’ll only get to spend three days there with the kids and grandkids.
I’m afraid our gardening efforts will be rather limited to containers, like the grow bags or big-ass pots along the driveway, and our existing half a dozen raised beds. I’d also like to get seeds started this winta with grow lights in the cellar and/or attic. Another project on top of the many already planned.
Have my prepping efforts slacked off due to tRump becoming National Administrator-Elect or fatigue? Not really; I’ve been limited over the past couple of months due mainly to finances and mobility issues, but I’ve managed to organize some stuff and do more research. And the Holiday Season has made a small dent in the schedule. But I will endeavor to persevere, and make greater efforts, because this is only a little window, maybe, to give us some breathing space and prepare for whatever is gonna come at us down the pike. The financial house of cards is now my greatest worry, and if the economy tanks badly there is gonna be a world of hurt out there and at home.
37 today and overcast, with possible snow flurries later and maybe a few more inches Thursday, the weather liars say.
Here ya are Slim
http://www.bakersfield.com/entertainment/the-crystal-palace-at-as-much-personality-as-the-man/article_6b37f7a2-b4e1-58ce-ba3f-c99db9f1ea10.html
@OFD, you really might consider that straw bale system I mention above. I have done it before and the bales are easy to move, in fact I have seen pictures where people used reclaimed wagons or built wheeled bases to hold a bale.
@Mr.DadCooks;
Let me be more clear; I not only have to contend with the tiny plot and the paucity of sunlight on our poor little 1830 homestead, but also Mrs. OFD’s aesthetic likes and dislikes and the fact that she is not wholly on board with the whole prepping and SHTF thing. I can just picture the reaction when I unload half a dozen hay bales in the driveway: “That looks TERRIBLE!”
But I could be wrong. I’ve never been wrong before, lol, but maybe this time.
I’ll run it by her for laffs.
I haven’t tried this yet, but my friend Jose explained to me that
it always works, as an insider code phrase to use in case you are
ever accosted by Hispanic toughs.
Just say (not sure about the spellings):
Too ma ma es la poo tah!
Say it with sincerity, emphatically; repeat if necessary.
The Hispanic hoodlums are supposed to realize that you are a good guy,
and treat you with respect.
I plan to share this useful info with any bigots I encounter,
just to keep them safe.
I haven’t used the Negro expression “Yo Mama” but I understand that
this works in a similar fashion.
Or just go with Puta Madre, amigo.
“Health curse of the middle aged: 80% are now ‘overweight, lazy or drink too much’ as they worry about their children, ageing parents or work”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4069418/Health-curse-middle-aged-80-overweight-lazy-drink-worry-children-ageing-parents-work.html
I doubt that the USA is any better. And I doubt that the percentage is much lower for the millennials.
“Say it with sincerity, emphatically; repeat if necessary.
Doesn’t seem right. I like “Habla Smith & Wesson, amigos?”
““I doubt that the USA is any better. And I doubt that the percentage is much lower for the millennials.
Obesity, laziness, ignorance, and too heavy on the booze and dope, plus ciggies up here.
I’ve got a gut I’d like to get rid of, probably about 20 lbs. worth, and I do worry about my remaining four older generation family (one uncle, one aunt, my mom and my MIL), my siblings and their kids, and of course our own two kids and grandkids. I don’t worry about work, per se, right now, because I don’t have any, but I worry about if I ever do get another decent job and/or produce more revenue for this home that I wanna keep and defend. I also worry that the next step with my back issue is that they’re gonna dig around with metal instruments in my spine and pelvis, but then I hear about the horrific shit others here and my fellow vets have gone through and I seem like a…a…a….pussy. Whoops! Now I will be persona non grata with the cupcakes forever!
As for the millennials and younger, I fear that they’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by our skool and college systems and the media over the past several generations, and between that and the fat, dumb and lazy drunken middle-aged, we could see, given a bad enough SHTF, mass die-off, especially on all the Clinton Archipelago islands.
MrAtoz wrote: “RIP Carrie Fisher. I wonder how much her drug abuse contributed. I figured after a massive heart attack on an oversea trip left her brain dead.”
And I wonder how much the stress and strain of portraying Leia contributed…
I vaguely recognized the name, but I never saw the movie. I’m not sure why this is a big news item. It seems to me that a short obituary would have sufficed.
“Sex and drugs and rock and roll…..”
Take their toll.
n
“I vaguely recognized the name”
Star of some of the most economically and widely successful movies ever? Billions of dollars.
And like a lot of them, seriously tied into the inbred Hollywood ‘scene.’
Almost anyone famous and over 30 has ties by blood or marriage to the swirling cesspit, viz. Anderson Cooper. Not an accident he’s on tv.
n
As I said, not important. A short obituary would have more than sufficed.
“A 107-year-old woman who welcomed her first great-great-great-granddaughter in October recently hosted six generations at her home in Durant near the Oklahoma-Texas border. Oleane Young Mulkey— who cooks three meals per day, and credits her longevity to an abstinence from smoking, drinking alcohol and daily prayers— has raised 12 children without ever learning to drive a car, Tulsa World reported.”
I think she could have been smoking and drinking the whole time without ill effect. It was the “abstinence from … daily prayers” that let her survive to 107.
“It was the “abstinence from … daily prayers” that let her survive to 107.
I took the whole clause “…drinking alcohol and daily prayers” to mean she didn’t smoke, but did drink booze and daily prayers.” That could have been me, and I coulda lived until 107+ but I quit drinking so now I’m a goner long before that. Sad.
“I’m not sure why this is a big news item. It seems to me that a short obituary would have sufficed.
I guess you weren’t too fazed by the horrific and tragic death of George Michael, then, either. Very sad.
Lynn wrote:
“It is hell in the oil patch in the USA.”
Ya reckon the OPEC/non-OPEC production cuts will help?
Who the hell is George Michael? Never mind.
DH wrote:
“24years old. Once she’s gone, a big sigh of relief.”
Did you see my previous comment about having the locks re keyed?
Nick wrote:
“Star of some of the most economically and widely successful movies ever? Billions of dollars.”
It might not have been a major success if Damnation Alley had hit the screens on time. DA was supposed to be the monster hit of 1977 but they fiddled too long and SW whipped them.
“Did you see my previous comment about having the locks re keyed?
Too expensive, and have you seen my previous comments about how wife and MIL sandbag me and give in to her whims and demands constantly over the past nearly twenty years? And how I’m not related by blood and thus have less of a leg to stand on WRT that stuff? Being unemployed or underemployed for roughly half that time hasn’t helped, either, especially where people value having LOTS of discretionary income to play with and think money grows on trees and bills and taxes are optional.
WRT to the vast Stah Woz empire, I never cared for it and had/have zero interest in it. Or for much of the Lucas/Spielberg corpus.
Carrie looked okay in Jabba the Hutt’s harem… 🙂
Wrt Princess, yeah, you’re in a hell of a bind.
Wrt Princess, yeah, you’re in a hell of a bind.”
Indeed. As my next-younger brother pointed out the other day, her behavior is more or less permanent now, unless something or somebody comes along to wake her up. I’m guessing harsh reality, sooner or later, maybe even in the next few years. And someone could point out, well gee, she’s traveled to and lived in Brazil and European countries, so she must see the world better than I do or could, except that it’s always been from within sheltered middle-class families and environments. Not that I would wish a war zone or favela on anybody but that’s been it, and her education and exposure to modern culture and politics have all been from and toward a neo-Marxist perspective.
I doubt I am alone in this, among parents and grandparents, who despair.
But as we know, despair is a sin. We have to hope, for the redemption of sinners (like me) and the waking up of those asleep.
I liked the original Star Wars. One movie. Forty years ago. For all of the rest of the glory of the SW universe and franchise, George Lucas can pack his ass with three kilos of C4 for all I care.
Most of my overseas travel has been military, with some business. Very little touristing, except a few several-hour trips while Over There. That probably gives a rather skewed perspective. On the other hand, it may give a more realistic perspective, as I see that “crapped up” is the default state of the world and that it takes constant effort to keep the physical infrastructure and food supply and drinkable water and some level of interpersonal trust above the “crapped up” default.
Lynn wrote:
“It is hell in the oil patch in the USA.”
Ya reckon the OPEC/non-OPEC production cuts will help?
The price of crude oil is up $10/bbl and natural gas is up a dollar in the States since they were announced.
And price at the pump is up a dime over the past couple days.
But that’s ok. When the crude price comes down, it’ll take two months for the pump price to come down because “that’s the price of what was in the system”.
Cynicism:
“…I see that “crapped up” is the default state of the world and that it takes constant effort to keep the physical infrastructure and food supply and drinkable water and some level of interpersonal trust above the “crapped up” default.
and:
“When the crude price comes down, it’ll take two months for the pump price to come down because “that’s the price of what was in the system”.
I approve!
When the crude price comes down, it’ll take two months for the pump price to come down
Yep. Price goes up in the summer because of the more expensive summer blend. Price goes up in the fall because of the more expensive winter blend.
Not much different when they get a frost in Florida and 15.7 minutes later they are marking the price of orange juice up on the shelf.
More cynicism! I approve!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdyExxpd3Pg
Wow! ‘insanely hot metal chicks!’
Squarehead yoots go nuts while their country is subsumed in waves of musloid sewage, assaults, rapes, and murders. Well, at least somebody is making a buck…or is it krona?
“Just say (not sure about the spellings):
Too ma ma es la poo tah! ”
I would shy away from your “friend” JosĂ©. The statement: “Tu mamá
es una puta.” means “Your mother is a whore.”. I can’t seem to find a worse statement to use with a Spanish speaking person.
Whereas “La puta madre.” is perfectly fine since it is a generic swearing statement that refers to no mother in particular and is commonly used as shit is used in English speaking countries.
YHBT. YL. HAND.
And price at the pump is up a dime over the past couple days.
But that’s ok. When the crude price comes down, it’ll take two months for the pump price to come down because “that’s the price of what was in the system”.
Having lived through two major shortages in the Houston area and London, England, I am just glad when I can pull up straight to the pump and buy a full tank. I’ve been blessed enough in life that affordability is not the first concern. I love my Ford Expedition even though it is old (175K miles) and a gas hog (13/17 mpg).
That old limit of ten gallons every other day based on the last digit of your license plate sucked. It did solve the problem of people keeping their gas tanks full each day though.