Anyone in the extreme weather zone, stay warm, safe, and dry. This is why we prep. Weather is much more likely than global systemic collapse… if you can’t deal with the weather, you won’t be ready for anything worse.
I put up some hints for staying warm late yesterday in the comments. We’ve got at least a couple of readers stuck in the bad weather. One I left off is to keep your caloric intake up. You’re body needs fuel to stay warm. This is incidentally where most of the “buckets-o-disaster-food” fail. They assume crazy low calories per person per day in order to get their day count up. Day count sells buckets, but it doesn’t keep you warm if you’re starving slowly.
Lots more to do outside today if the rain holds off, currently 72F and 90%RH and kinda grey.
nick
This is worth watching for anyone with students, anyone on campus, or anyone with an interest in not dying like a sheep in the event of a terror attack or active shooter…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2tIeRUbRHw&feature=youtu.be
not long, and VERY practical.
n
H/T to survivalblog.com
This will be banned in 3, 2, 1…
Working around the yard this afternoon.
Plan to replace vertical ham multiband antenna support pole with longer pole stymied.
Getting my antenna back up might not sound like a priority around the casa, but it does two things. It gets a long piece of pipe out of the driveway, and it gets the antenna out of the back yard and out of the second raised bed. BUT the fence that forms part of the pole support system turns out to be rotten as a peach. It’s a good thing to discover the easy way, but puts one more hurdle in the way of something I hoped to be done with in an hour. Dang.
Definitely have one or more dead rodents SOMEWHERE in the garage. It’s bad enough at 70F, I’m not looking forward to warmer days. Hope they rot away soon.
Got #1 child back from a sleepover, and now she’s hard at work on a school project. #2 child is headed out to softball practice. #1 was supposed to get together with her lab partner to work on the project but [for reasons I’m not privy to] won’t be now.
I’m gonna shift gears and work on the driveway gate…..
n
(so far the rain has been scattered drops, no real hindrance at all)
“Fall In Love With The Smith and Wesson Model 10”
https://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/smith-and-wesson-model-10-review/
I would like to have a dozen of these.
WRT to firearms, my initials are SAS.
Second Amendment Slim
Second Amendment Slim
Not the first words that came to my mind. Yours are better so we will go with that.
Been doing planning on the trip to Germany and Croatia this June. Tickets have been booked and cannot change. Working the train schedules now. Seem to have everything worked out.
Will get the German rail pass, good for seven trips within a 30 day time frame. Quite cheap for non-European passport holders. First class for the two of us is about $500.00. Ticket is a single document where you fill in the date you travel. Good for the entire day on any train in Germany. Only problem I have ever had was on a local commuter train from Frankfurt to Kronberg. Ticket taker had never seen that type of ticket before. Told us it was not a valid ticket. I told him otherwise and he went away.
Finally diagrammed all the video connections in the studio at the church. Quite complicated with lots of signal connections and devices.
I have an SDI to analog converter failing and I have no spares. There is a rack with eight converters, two SDI to analog, six analog to SDI. Four of the analog to SDI failed long ago but I only needed two so was getting along just fine. I need two SDI to analog converters, only have two and one is failing.
Thus I have ordered two new converters for each conversion. $800 for the four converters. Of course they have firmware that must be updated via USB as I am sure they are not current on their firmware.
I will throw all but the one old working SDI to analog converters away. I have an auxiliary switcher that I am going to use for a separate feed and will need to use the SDI to analog to drive a monitor and send the signal to the destination.
I wish I knew what the hell I was doing with this stuff, or rather I should say more than what I know. Lot of learning by trial and error, guessing, and some Google help.
Been doing planning on the trip to Germany and Croatia this June. Tickets have been booked and cannot change. Working the train schedules now. Seem to have everything worked out.
What do you do for health insurance coverage while you are over there ?
What do you do for health insurance coverage while you are over there ?
I bought travel insurance which will cover everything up to and including a private medical flight back to the U.S.
Ten years ago I would have declined. But at my age, and on the recommendations of others, travel insurance was highly recommended. My friend dying while in the Cayman Islands was a wakeup call. The cost to his wife to get his body home was substantial. And he went as cargo so flying while still breathing would be a bankruptcy event.
I stopped by O’Reilly’s yesterday. They do sell the taillight assembly for my truck ($64!!!) but not the grommets. ? I could have gone to NAPA but that’s a left turn across the highway and never mind. I found the parts on eBay. Oh…. I can get 2 grommets for $7.90 and free shipping. Or I can buy ONE for $410.38, also with free shipping, a very nice touch. Since all four grommets (for both tail lights) are the same age, I went with the guy selling a bag of 25 for almost $15 including shipping. Should be here Thursday. I have a friend with a truck the same age, he can have some grommets.
The passenger door is missing the “ram 1500” lettering. It’s going to stay that way… the best price I found anywhere was $45 + postage… mostly pushing $60. For a decoration.
Then to the feed store. Six bags because I didn’t feel like unloading 20.
Today’s project was removing the rest of the dealer emblem on the tailgate. Sheesh. But, it’s gone. Looks much better.
While sitting on a milk crate for the sticker project, I noticed the spare tire moves. Ok, let’s play with that… it appears to be the original spare with all of 3 PSI. Hard tire, but better than nothing. I aired it up and the valve stem is positioned just behind the bumper. The whole crank the tire up and down on the cable process works nicely. Good thing, too. I’d hate to haul a 20 inch tire out of a car trunk. Better to play with the system on a nice day instead of learning on the side of the road in the rain. At night.
I don’t know what is in the air. My eyes feel like they are full of sand. Missy’s (dog) eyes are leaking goop. Penny (dog) is sort of swollen and tender around her jaw joints.
Yay! Spring! 🙂 For an extra special bonus, my back feels like “bend over to pick that sock up from the floor and you won’t walk for a week”. Not a problem, I pick up socks and dog toys with my feet.
Did a pruning on the Meyer Lemon. Took a branch or two off the peach. It went from green nubs to a flower nub as big as my little finger in one day. Did a bunch of pruning on the junk trees under the power and utility lines. Took out a 4 foot section of chain link fence and it’s gate to make room behind the garage for the whole house gennie. Feel like I need to move that project along…
Checked the captured rainwater in the 125 gallon tank. Still clear as glass. Lots of nasty scum/debris settled on the bottom but that tank is “irrigation water” so would be filtered before drinking anyway.
Did some work on the driveway gate. Located the hinges on the post (but needed longer bolts) cut the width down to the right size, cut off the strike side metal frame. It will be welded on to the cut edge of the gate. Now I have to dig my welder out of storage. That’s not gonna be quick or easy. I am willing to do the work and modifications on someone’s old gate to save a bunch of money. IIRC I paid Habitat for Humanity $280 for the 12 foot steel gate, and a main post and 2 ft return fence. I couldn’t buy the materials for that. I spent another $15 on the roller wheel, and $21 on hinges. I’m hoping to be at about $350 when all done. No motor, and I’m going to screw western red cedar fence boards to the back for privacy.
All in all, I feel pretty good about what I got done.
Oh, then I grilled lamb chops, boiled corn on the cob, and saute’d the last of the collard greens. Old wives trick, if your corn on the cob isn’t particularly sweet or has been in the fridge for a while, add some milk to the boil water. It will be more tender and sweet. Finished with some more cobbler from out of date mango fruit cups….
nick
Went to a home building and remodeling show today. 9 bucks a pop for the wife and I, though the 13 yo boy was free. The wife wants to extend our patio out back, along with a pergola and a fire pit. So I collected a bunch of business cards, and talked with a bunch of people. Weeded out a few from just the initial conversation. When we actually come up with a design we both like, will call and see how many I can get to come out and bid.
My son did, however, learn the joys of swag. Two bags full of crap, errr stuff….
Oh joy! You’ll be getting calls for the next year. Then there will be a gap of a couple years, and you’ll start getting calls again.
But if you are actually looking for help, that is one way to get it.
In our area there are several neighborhood facecrook groups where the ladies swap recommendations for, well, everything- including tradesmen.
I’m not an advocate of FB, but if you’ve already sold your soul to them, might as well get some use out of it.
nick
Oh yeah, itchy burning eyes, post-nasal drip, and coughing… it’s tree pollen season here. Yellow dust on everything.
What kind of purgatory doesn’t have a fire pit?
Uh-huh. It was above freezing yesterday and today, at least when the sun was up. The foot of new snow partially melted into a more compact form so we have under six inches of snow on the ground. Buds on trees? Pollen? Ask again in a month or so.
Today’s project was removing the rest of the dealer emblem on the tailgate.
Last time a bought a new car I asked the dealer how much they were going to pay me to provide them with the advertising space on the back of my new car. Didn’t really expect an answer so we settled on dealer license plate frame (which I promptly removed) and “no other dealer emblems” written on the sales contract. Why anyone allows those stickers while buying a car is beyond me. And do the dealers really think there’s any meaningful value in that type of advertising?
In our area there are several neighborhood facecrook groups where the ladies swap recommendations for, well, everything- including tradesmen.
In our area that goes on on NextDoor. We actually were recommended the contractor that is finishing up our Irma repairs on NextDoor.
-shrug- People pay inflated prices to wear merchandise with someone else’s name, logo, or colors. Paying to carry their advertisements is a good proxy for terminal dumbassedness worthy of being found unworthy of the oxygen they consume.
Like most vandalism, it’s very cheap in material and time for the vandal, compared to the cost to the property owner.
@ray, after a dozen years building high end video display systems, and at one point actually having my title include video engineering, I still never really knew the details. I knew the gear we used inside and out, but had no real bigger picture knowledge. You do the best you can in the time you have. WRT SDI, never used it. We used extenders and cat cable for moving all our digital video around.
I can recommend the text book, Video Engineering, A Luther, A Inglis authors. I have the Third edition. Don’t know if there are more current, but it gives a broad introduction and will hammer the basics home. Past that, it’s all about reading the trade mags, ads, and product brochures. There is at least one trade mag specifically aimed at church video production, probably more. It’s a big profit center for a bunch of businesses so it’s well covered. The mags are usually free or very discounted if you can claim you are in the field in some capacity. Buying or specifying makes their hearts beat faster…..
n
” I asked the dealer how much they were going to pay me to provide them with the advertising space on the back of my new car. ”
One of our local cadillac dealers will give free car washes for lifetime of the vehicle if you have his very tasteful business name on the back. It looks just like the car name. Wife did it for a couple of years. She eventually stopped going by though. Sold that car years ago….
nick
My lemon tree is showing some blooms, so I take that as evidence that it survived the worst this winter could throw at it.
OK, the wife is going to be 60 in a couple of weeks. She loves audio cd books. She loves Sean Dillon stories by Jack Higgins. So, I ordered her a few, ok nine, audio cd Sean Dillon books by Jack Higgins for her birthday. Winner, right ? She already has two of them and borrows them from the library all the time.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1511385049/
Where possible, I got the MP3 versions since her car and her Sony boom box both play mp3 audio CDs.
Why anyone allows those stickers while buying a car is beyond me. And do the dealers really think there’s any meaningful value in that type of advertising?
I let them put the license plate frame, then take it off. In this state at least, obscuring the plate violates the law. A law that is mostly ignored, but it is there. (It should be enforced or repealed – another rant.) Turn it around & put it behind the plate to keep the plate from bending on a 2-screw mount.
Effective? How many car dealers do you recognize that you don’t hear on the radio? I can think of a few. Spitzer is one – it’s in the next state, but I see his (her?) emblem often. I got a real thrill driving past the dealer once. I FINALLY found the place. So yes, it’s effective.
It’s especially effective on literate buyers. Constant repetition. Constant reinforcement. And “right place at the right time.”
n
WRT SDI, never used it. We used extenders and cat cable for moving all our digital video around.
The camera controllers all have SDI outputs and the switcher is mostly SDI. The switcher will support HDMI with four inputs and is possible to map the controls to different inputs. Thus channel 1 can be SDI or HDMI. One output is composite, rest including the AUX busses are all SDI.
Thus I have come to the conclusion that SDI, which is digital, is more common for the connection. SDI will also support digital audio in multiple formats, sixteen channels or something like that from my limited reading. I get that from some converters where you can select the audio channels.
The distances I need are not enough to hassle with cat5 cable. Plus the cameras need multiple signal lines and power from the controllers. The small distances in the studio are all just coax.
The communication between the switcher, digital recorder, tally box, control service and auxiliary computer that is used to create graphics is all Ethernet. The graphics computer also has software that can fully control the switcher. Some switching functions are done easier on the computer, other on the control surface.
Lot of trial and error, guessing, to figure it all out.
@Nick – I disagree on the literacy aspect. Think Golden Arches, Death Star telephone, and the Chevy bowtie.
Spitzer auto (turns out it IS in PA) has a distinctive design, so the design caught my eye long before I recognized the name.
Advertisers do know how to get to us and tickle the spots on our brain that need tickling.
I agree that LOGOS are for the non-literate, or even for quick almost subliminal hits on your brain for the literate.
I meant that literate people find it hard to NOT read a word that they see. So every time you see the name, you read it and internalize it in some way.
The effectiveness of logos varies tremendously. There are lots of logo recognition tests online and the vast majority are similar and unremarkable. For the big brands, they are unmistakable though.
n
I hadn’t thought of the words working that way. I do tend to read everything that comes in front of me. That may be why things like “R u comin 2 eet?” bothers me so much.
Yes but the recognition needn’t be positive. Could just be the fact that I’m a cynic at heart.
Golden arches = McDognuts.
@Nick
I adore Meyer lemons! Can’t find a tree here in Seattle, but a few friends from my SF days had a couple trees. They’d let me pinch a few when in season. The strained juice freezes up really well, BTW.
The sweet story was a couple years ago. I was carrying on on Facebook about Meyers and a few days later I get this 10lb Priority Mail box from a guy I barely know. What the Fluck? Opened it up and there were about 2 dozen perfectly ripe Meyers. Dumb little acts of generosity like that make my day.
They are really sweet, lots of big juicy fruit, and hard to kill in Houston. A Houston staple….
I really don’t like lemon though! Kids and wife do so that’s ok. I’m told that you can safely freeze the whole lemon and thaw it later without any real ill effect. Never tried it, I just freeze the juice.
n