09:34 – It’s back to spring-like weather. It was 52F (11C) when I got up this morning, gray and damp but not raining.
We’re building science kits today and tomorrow. We’re in decent shape on biology kits, but down to one on forensic kits and -2 on chemistry kits. Bulk orders Thursday wiped out our stock on both of those. Oh, well. USPS doesn’t run Monday, and we’ll have plenty of time to get kits built to fill outstanding orders. Yesterday, we finished making up chemicals for a custom order from a state distance learning program, so we’ll get that boxed up today and ready to ship Tuesday.
Email overnight from Cassie, another new prepper. She had told me earlier that she and her husband are mid- to late-20’s. She works as a supermarket checker, and her husband has his own plumbing business. Friday, he cut his dominant hand badly while working on a job. The ER doc glued and stitched it back together again, and said he’ll recover fully, but for the next week or two he’ll be very limited in what he can do. He can still supervise work and approve it, but otherwise he’ll have to depend entirely on his assistant to do the actual wrench-turning. He’ll still be able to get work done, but everything will take longer. That means their income will take a significant hit over the next couple of weeks, and he may have to farm out some jobs to the other local plumber. They won’t be hurting financially, because between her pay check, his (smaller) pay check, and what they have saved, they can meet routine expenses without any problem. But, as Cassie says, it’s a comfort to know that they can eat from their stored food, cutting their grocery bill down to nothing. She cooked dinner last night from their deep pantry, and intends to keep doing so until her husband is fully recovered. As she said, this is a good excuse to get more experience cooking from LTS, and it just goes to prove that their preps aren’t just for an end-of-the-world scenario.
Ding ding ding! I don’t deliberately rotate stock to pull out the old cans or the containers of rice or whatever. Instead, when my income is down* I cut back on grocery shopping and eat from the chest freezer and the stores in my office. It doesn’t take a huge chunk out of normal monthly expenses, but it helps.
* As I keep saying, self-employment in a poor economy is not for the faint of heart.
Can someone explain why batteries leak when left unused in an appliance? Can you just turf the battery, clean out the gunk and keep using with a new battery?
Because Mrs. OFD’s pay checks are so random and can take anywhere from two to six weeks to get here from Mordor, we’ve also tucked into stored food from time to time, and at least several times my piddly SS payment has saved the day WRT to her accommodations or yet another Princess demand.
Sunny w/blue skies; haven’t been outside yet, looks warmer, though.
Any word yet on the additional semester?
Plenty warm here on the North Coast. 28 & sunny, so I came to work in shorts & sweatshirt. Never fear – long pants in the truck in case I get cold, but that doesn’t happen much.
Sportsball today – I’ll be joining others in watching the sport of the masses. Moving the Steelers to 8:30 is good for me – I can get some yard chores done while it’s still light out & before I’m wiped out.
“Any word yet on the additional semester?”
Nope. And we’ve run into a financial snag with McGill and this semester; they nick you for every possible cent they can and won’t release this or that unless you’re paid up to the minute. Bastards. Wife says it was the same way when she went there in the early 70s. Naturally they pile on in a student’s very last semester.
Naturally they pile on in a student’s very last semester.
My diplomas from Rice cost $200 or so. Of course, they are about 2 feet by 1.5 feet and on a real sheepskin. Alas, they stopped doing sheepskins a few years ago.
Another victim of political correctness and the left:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/01/15/animal-activists-finally-have-something-to-applaud-at-the-ringling-bros-circus-its-closure/?utm_term=.d951ea200520
@ofd, be sure she does her ‘exit review’ or whatever it’s called BEFORE attempting to graduate. I got jammed up with missing credits, unpaid fines, misfiled paperwork, etc.
I told them to F-off, but they pointed out that they wouldn’t release transcripts to employers unless I paid the toll. So I did, and now when they ask for “alumni contributions” I laugh out loud. [also don’t think a single employer asked for a transcript, but those weren’t the kind of jobs I was going for anyway.]
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As many have pointed out, while we prepare for the zombie apocalypse, we are also preparing for much more mundane and all too common PERSONAL SHTF of a spouse with a long term illness or loss of a job. There are plenty of testimonials about this over at MD Creekmore’s place. To us, it just makes sense, but I guess common sense isn’t common.
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Went to one sale this week, and a couple of yard sales and thrift stores. Got some great stuff for the family (non-preps.) After Christmas is a great time to go thrifting. I got a name brand carrier for a hydration bladder for $4- which I’ll pair with my extra bladder I got for a buck or two last year. I picked up some antennas to either use or sell at the hamfest. Got a bunch of small machinist stuff, feeler gauge sets, small rules, etc for pennies on the dollar. Passed on several Camelback water bottles. They were only a buck or two, but I’d want to replace the camelback bite valve, and I don’t need more project stuff at the moment no matter how trivial. Got two more propane tanks for $5 each. I think that brings my total to 7?8? Can’t have too many in my book.
Ebay sales are holding up surprisingly well. I predicted a slow down, and had a couple of really quiet days, but I’m holding on to my increased average sales. I’m giving discounts when people make offers to keep things moving, but that’s part of the game. The key is keep listing new stuff.
From watching a youtube video I learned about another source of a useful and dangerous chemical that wasn’t on the list I linked to last week. HydroFluoric Acid is in “Whink Rust Stain Remover.” Don’t get it on you boys and girls. [added- this is apparently useful for drug users. the ‘also bought with’ links are to pipes and lighters for smoking THC oil. May want to buy this with cash locally.]
In the garden, the turnips continue to grow, as do the beets (very slowly) and the radishes will be ready for harvest any time. It’s just a matter of how big I want them. The plants in the raised bed survived the frost, and turn out to be broccoli! Got heads developing on them. The collards are doing well, but not as fast as I hoped. Maybe another week before I can start harvesting. In the “You just gotta do it” files, get started on your gardens. This is my 3rd? 4th? year and I’m just getting fruit from the trees, and veg from the beds. I’m just figuring out when the different beds get sunlight. The new broccoli? It’s finally getting winter sun because the pecan tree dropped its leaves. The back bed? Not much sun as the angle is so low it’s shaded by the fence. Best sun? On my fence ‘window boxes.’
In other words, even though I have a few beds in different places, they get different sun at different times of the day and year. I’m only learning that because I’ve TRIED. One other thing I’m learning is that some plants need the cooler weather, and if you miss it, they might live all year but won’t develop. I put these broccoli plants in the ground LAST year! That’s one way to get a jump, but it meant that bed was occupied and didn’t produce all this past summer. You have to get started. It’s not hard, doesn’t take a lot of time or effort once the beds are in, and the learning curve needs climbing.
Keep stacking, if you’re tired of that, catch up on your organizing, if you are organized, work on skills, if you got skilz, work on meeting people…..
nick
@Mr. DadCooks; that link leads to a nasty WAPO pop-up ad that won’t go away, gave it a pass but got the gist. We need to get radical ourselves out here.
“@ofd, be sure she does her ‘exit review’ or whatever it’s called BEFORE attempting to graduate. I got jammed up with missing credits, unpaid fines, misfiled paperwork, etc.”
Roger that. I can see that coming.
“…now when they ask for “alumni contributions” I laugh out loud.”
Ditto Mrs. OFD when McGill wants contributions from her, and this while we’re dealing with our daughter’s pending bills and graduation.
“Keep stacking, if you’re tired of that, catch up on your organizing, if you are organized, work on skills, if you got skilz, work on meeting people…..”
There it is. But some days, all too many, the spirit is very willing and the flesh is amazingly weak.
WRT to the gardening; we also learned a couple of hard lessons this past year; we simply ain’t gonna be able to grow much on this little plot, not with half the back yard a leach field/buried septic tank and not without cutting down most of the tree canopy above us. We also learned, like Mr. Nick, that the raised beds get different light at different times of the day, month, and year, and we also have to take into consideration frequent strong winds and gusts from the bay mostly, but really all directions here. The grow bags started out well but in the end were kinda disappointing.
We think our best bet is containers along the driveway, which gets the most sun, and we’ll keep experimenting with the beds. But the upshot here is that in a true SHTF scenario, we’re not gonna survive long on a few tomatoes and dandelion greens.
“Can someone explain why batteries leak when left unused in an appliance? Can you just turf the battery, clean out the gunk and keep using with a new battery?”
I can’t tell you why, but the gunk is highly acidic. You’ll want to clean out the battery compartment as well as you can. For cleaning, I suggest a very strong solution of baking soda. Mix it up, dampen a paper towel with it, and wipe. Repeat as necessary.
Avoid getting the acid on your fingers. If you do anyway, wash your skin with the baking soda solution, and then clean water.
WRT batteries, if normal alkaline batteries, they’ve changed the chemistry fairly recently.
The new leakage is more of a clear crystalline discharge, and will be fairly easy to remove mechanically– scrape it off.
Older cells, and stuff you put away a while ago that is now corroded, needs more cleanup. If it’s white and fuzzy, or blue and fuzzy, you can scrape, brush, and rinse with water, but that will leave a film on the metal parts. I’ve had good luck with soaking in vinegar for a short time, after mechanically removing most of the deposits. Don’t wait too long or it will remove all the plating from the metal contacts. Don’t get it in your eyes. Wash your hands afterward.
Rinse thoroughly, dry thoroughly, possibly rinse with alcohol to drive of the water.
Squirt with electrical contact cleaner.
Let dry.
Even then you might need to polish the contacts and springs with something like a nail buffing pad or emery cloth.
If the old style leaked on a circuit board, it may be beyond recovery. I’m working on one right now (a small shortwave radio) with heavy corrosion on the board by the batteries. (I know, no projects, but this is part of me learning repair, esp with surface mount components) If your board is at all complex, the traces are small, and if the corrosion extends to the vias (small plated holes that move one trace to the other side of the board) it’s probably ruined. The small vias fill with corrosion, all the plating gets removed, and the board itself gets soft and damaged. I’m practicing an advanced repair technique where I’ll insert wires into each affected via and solder them in place to replace the missing plating. I give it about a 1 in 5 chance of working. The vias are smaller than a sewing needle, so a microscope is needed.
As to WHY they leak, self discharge. Or heat. Or shoddy construction. Or the device draws a small current. Suffice to say, they all do. That’s why alternate chemistries are needed for long term storage critical items. Lithium cells, stuff for aviation, etc. Look at a company that starts with a T for long storage cells (can’t recall the name but it’s something like “Tradian” or Travian….)
n
ech wrote:
“Alas, they stopped doing sheepskins a few years ago.”
You can blame SteveF for that… 🙂
DH wrote:
“… While we’re dealing with our daughter’s pending bills and graduation.”
GRADUATION???
Hahahahaha… ROFLMAO
@dadcooks, yeah, saw that. Wife has friends working that show. If you fit in, it’s a great lifetime gig. Now going away.
Wonder what the protesting asshats think about all the little hispanic circuses that travel thru the south? Probably not bothered. Brown people and their quaint customs are to be celebrated after all.
nick
[and I can’t help but notice that those same asshats are more concerned about animals than actual humans being trafficked, sold into sex slavery, or living in poverty. In the end, almost all of their core beliefs are anti-human, so it makes a kind of perverted sense.]
And there it is. Once again. Core beliefs. The same asshats are more concerned about the alleged “glass ceiling” in corporate settings for women here, but the fate of women in musloid cultures? Crickets. Fucking hypocrites.
And the week’s fun and games and insanity:
http://takimag.com/article/the_week_that_perished_takimag_january_15_2017/print#axzz4VrZ59oLZ
The liberal gloating and dogpile is starting for Ringling Bros too.
Celebutards jumping in.
n
Which is more bully behaviour, kick your opponent when they have stopped fighting.
NO concern for the people, which over the course of a year probably totals in the 10’s of thousands, put out of work or with reduced work because “the greatest show on earth” isn’t filling arenas anymore.
@nick:
Re long storage batteries:- try “Tadiran”. They’re Israeli.
@OFD, sorry you got a nasty popup. Adblock Plus in Firefox stopped it for me. I have tried other ad blockers and they have all had more problems than Adblock Plus so I keep going back to Adblock Plus.
Common sense from North Carolina:
https://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-angry-man.html
Couldn’t put it any better myself. The day is coming.
“@OFD, sorry you got a nasty popup.”
Aw, it was just a WAPO subscription ploy for my money, but there was no way to get rid of it. Most sites will let you ‘x’ out of their popups. I was holding off but I guess I better throw AdBlock on here now; I had it before and it was good.
Another victim of political correctness and the left
Beyond the animal issue, the last time we took our kids, the clowns were toned down to performing in minimal make-up and goofy glasses. Don’t go around frightening the snowflakes with greasepaint.
Really sad. Feld Entertainment has a huge base facility not far from where we used to live outside Tampa, and a lot of people will lose jobs that cannot be easily replaced.
WRT “tolerance”: I am out of it. I no longer trust anyone who claims to be “religious”. These nutters who claim to “be in the Bible” are using it to justify their very “non-Christian” actions. Just like the liberals, if you are not one of them then you are completely in the wrong. Everything out of their mouth that they call you is in fact exactly what they are.
I seem to recall that there is some old novel where all talk has become some sort of _fill-in-the-blank_ speech. Basically whatever is said is the opposite. My foggy memory is keeping me from remembering today.
I have lost count of the number of days we have had at least some additional snow. The temperature remain in the very low teens during the day and just above zero at night. Our roads are a mess and the snow piles at the intersections and even alongside the roads make seeing traffic very difficult. Temperatures are supposed to start rising on Monday and get just above freezing Monday night, so we are going to get an ice storm.
We have used the last couple of relatively good days to work with the neighbors to shovel the neighborhood (walks and streets) so we should be able to get out when the ice storm hits. Also replenished some supplies (including 10 more gallons of gas for the big-ass snowblower). The stores have not been getting all of their usual deliveries. There are empty spaces on the shelves. There are no snow shovels or ice melter, in fact their have been a number of snow shovels stolen according to the police reports.
We have not had this much snow and cold weather since the late 80s. I declare that global warming is over and the next ice age has begun 😉
I guess I’m an Angry Man, then, although I’ve never loaded 100,000 tons of coal onto a train or done most of the other things he mentions. But I’ve definitely had enough.
Our roads are a mess and the snow piles at the intersections and even alongside the roads make seeing traffic very difficult.
In four years, I don’t remember ever seeing a snow plow operating in Vantucky. The county budgeted for some, but I swear that the chances are better that you will see Bigfoot in Clark County.
@
Geoff ,
Thanks! That is the one I was trying to remember.
Expensive, but if you have the need…..
n
I offloaded some tons of welder’s flux in 50 lb sacks from railroad cars. The load shifted, and fell off the pallets. It was August. In Houston. A rush was on since the cars had to go back to the railroad.
That, plus a painting job I had to do after this, strengthened my resolve to get by BA and work indoors.
(The paint job was a 100 yard long set of corrugated metal sheds that we had to get the rust off of and then paint with metallic silver paint. In August.)
Beautiful day in Vegas. I took my new DJI Mavic Pro drone out for it’s first flight in an empty lot close to the Walmart by me. I only got through one battery before I needed to return to do some prep for our biz summit this week. A fun drone. I didn’t even get to take it out of “beginner” mode.
I’m an Angry Man and I am watching sportsball again today and am heeled, as they used to say, anyway. With a spare mag.
And yes, I’ll murderize anyone who messes with my wife, me or this house.
@OFD, not sure if you if have seen this about the new movie “Silence”. A friend of mine told us about this in Bible class this morning. It is about Catholic missionaries in Japan. In 1582. Starring Liam Neeson and directed by Martin Scorsese. Three hours long and rated R for violent content, not good.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silence_2017
I very seldom get angry, but I had made plans in case of a Hillary victory (whether by hook or by crook). No, not threatening to run away to Canada and then never following through. While the big-time crooks and tyrants are a bigger problem, I can’t get to them. I do know names and home or work locations of a number of big-mouth Hillary supporters who’d been gloating about what “they” were going to do to Trump supporters and Republicans and Conservatives in general once “they” won.
Three hours long and rated R for violent content, not good.
I assume the “not good” is over the violence. Reviews so far a pretty positive. The movie is set during the Tokugawa Shogunate when Christianity was outlawed. I would guess that the violence is execution of Christians.
Three hours long and rated R for violent content, not good.
I assume the “not good” is over the violence. Reviews so far a pretty positive. The movie is set during the Tokugawa Shogunate when Christianity was outlawed. I would guess that the violence is execution of Christians.
Sorry, codesmith, not wordsmith. My friend said that the torture scenes of the Jesuit Priests are pretty rough. My friend said to definitely go. He also said that the there is no background music which was a little weird.
“@OFD, not sure if you if have seen this about the new movie “Silence”. A friend of mine told us about this in Bible class this morning. It is about Catholic missionaries in Japan. In 1582. Starring Liam Neeson and directed by Martin Scorsese.”
Yeah, apparently ol’ Marty has been trying to make this flick for many years and for whatever (possibly obvious) reason, Hollyweird wasn’t interested. Also tough to find actors for the main roles, or so they say, so Neeson took it on. During their early efforts, Christian missionaries in Japan were brutally treated, with excruciating and lengthy tortures. The Japanese continued their advancement of this art with the Koreans, Chinese, and Allied POWs during WWII. And I’ve known WWII vets for decades now who would never buy Japanese vehicles; German, maybe, but not Japanese. And none of these were “executions;” they were murders, pure and simple.
“I do know names and home or work locations of a number of big-mouth Hillary supporters who’d been gloating about what “they” were going to do to Trump supporters and Republicans and Conservatives in general once “they” won.”
Ditto. But I suspect that their threats had/have as much substance as the ones they always make about leaving the country. Fucking yellow bastard hypocrite scum.
Mostly*, but not my point. They enable the bastards who will do actual harm. I can’t get to the latter, but I can get to the enablers.
* The fucking yellow bastard scum certainly go out of their way to make life uncomfortable for any “other” that they can, by making spurious complaints to HR, calling the police to report that they suspect child abuse in the home, and so on. Never doing anything to put themselves at risk, hence cowardly, but using clueless or complicit bureaucracies to cause as much trouble as they can. Hence scum.
Oh, I got that. And the time is coming when we can get to the latter as well as their enablers.
Thus my own point made here before several times about making notes of all the intel on the people who can do the actual harm, i.e., judges, DA’s and ADA’s, town and city council members, various other organizational agents and officials in our AO’s. i.e., their names, addresses, vehicles, emails, accounts, phone numbers, family members ditto, etc., etc. Many of us have gotten extremely tired of being fucked around by these people over the decades.
So there are enablers, and those they enable. We want to get decent intel on both groups.
Cue up the Santa Clause jingle as you may find it appropriate.
Oh, and pax vobiscum all here; OFD is done watching sportsball until next weekend; the Packers/Cowboys game was a blast to watch, right up until the last damn second. Aaron Rogers is amazing. The second game sucked; whoever won it is going up against the Patriots next week and both teams sucked; no discipline, sloppy, and the Steelers won by field goals exclusively racking up six of them, an NFL record in a playoff game. And they won by two lousy points over the Chiefs. What a joke. The Patriots would take either team apart, just for fun. So it’ll be the Pats vs. Steelers next week, and if the Pats are on their game per usual, buh-bye Steelers and on to the next phase, lol.
Wife and I back to the house cleaning tomorrow, room by room; living and dining rooms done so far.
And it’s Saint MLK Day, so kneel, genuflect, etc. Next up is so-called Presidents Day, so we don’t have to mention Washington or Lincoln anymore.
As regards to MLK day, we shall be working that day. I am a filthy, dirty, dirty capitalist and shall be ensuring that my employees are leg chained to their computers when I arrive at the office in the morning. We cannot simply demand that taxpayers give us money to run our business on, we must earn our money the old fashioned way.
No floggings?
We don’t have a Captain’s mast.
Looks like you need to crack down and tighten up down there, Captain!
DH wrote:
And I’ve known WWII vets for decades now who would never buy Japanese vehicles; German, maybe, but not Japanese. And none of these were “executions;” they were murders, pure and simple.
I was working at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1980, and on ANZAC Day (25th April), a public holiday, I went into work. A new Japanese built mainframe was being installed to replace one of our CDC mainframes (may peace and blessings be upon them.) The security guard, an elderly gentleman, had been in the merchant navy in WWII and loathed Japanese. He said, with venom in his voice, “there’s JAPS in the building!” 35 years after the end of the war I was willing to forgive the current generation, but the guard was not.