Headed back to my folks house today. This will be the last day I have the help of my siblings. Didn’t know that, don’t like it, but I’ll Charlie Mike anyway…
Travel, then work. Talk amongst yourselves….
N
Added @rick, Some weirdness with comments this morning, had to reenter my personal info, which never happens to me
Prep item. I saw this on Cool Tools but have not checked it out yet. It’s a YouTube channel:
Another is Steve1989 with 600,000 subscribers, who collects and eats vintage military rations and ready-to-eat meals (MRE). Yes, he’ll try that ancient WWII snack box. If he is happy, I’m happy.
The Valley is starting to play CYA with regard to Tesla. Today’s TWiT broadcast should be interesting; looking at the topics list, it doesn’t appear that they touched the subject last week.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-tweets-struggles/
Elon is our fault. Wait until the CYA for Magic Leap begins.
My prepping book aimed at children is finally complete and uploaded to Amazon. It’ll be available for sale in a couple days, but Daynotes regulars can get it now for the low, low cost of nothing. It’ll also be available from Smashwords, but I need to do more work to make a file suitable for upload to them, so that’ll be delayed a bit.
Target age is 8-ish; length is 13.5k words, about the same as the Magic Tree House stories. Reading level is a smidge higher because I put in bigger words.
Send email to steven dot furlong at gmail dot com and I’ll send you a Dropbox link for a .mobi file, the format used on Kindles. (The illustrations bulk the file out to 4MB, on the large side for emailing directly.) If anyone needs .epub or (ick) a PDF or Word doc, let me know.
Jenny, I’m specifically inviting you to email, as I know you have a kid of around the right age. Nick, I already sent you a DL link.
@SteveF
Thank you sir – I look forward to reading it with my kiddo.
Medical drama hasn’t been too outrageous with mom who fell back on 8/6. Surgery to repair arm triggered a heart attack. This has all been a cold bucket of water. She’s sober and smoke free for first time in decades and seems sincere about staying off it.
Family discussions about how to protect middle sister from herself when mom dies. There probably won’t be any inheritance but whatever there is middle sister will drink and drug herself to death with based off recent experience. I’m of two minds – let free will reign or work with mom to rewrite will to put middle sisters share in trust. Mom is leaning towards trust. Whichever way remaining family needs to not be involved in administration of anything as there’s nothing but hate and discontent down that road.
I head down at end of month to take a stint of coordinating care, house and dog sitting, etc, for mom.
I need to figure out how to repair / replace a siding disaster on mom’s house. A drunk (irony there) crashed into her house 8-10 years ago. Everything was fixed, now out if warranty. Damaged siding was replaced by siding sized strips of plywood. Edges weren’t sealed. Plywood is badly delaminated. Likely to have damage to house beneath the plywood. Mom won’t go after anybody on it and I’m not going to trigger a fourth heart attack by pushing. Residing whole house was quoted at $10k. Since she’s unlikely to have house for more than another 12-18 months, and house will probably be sold as a tear down, I’m trying to think of a solution I can implement that will minimize further damage for under $500 (completely arbitrary number).
I’ll repaint as much if the interior as I can and do deep cleaning. Hope to reduce nicotine presence to aid in smoking cessation.
Work continues on spare room. I drilled many 2 3/4 holes for “shelving”. Looks great. I _think_ we are in the home stretch of this project. Phew.
School resumes tomorrow. Kiddo is thrilled as am I.
We have been having “unhealthy” to “very unhealthy” air here in the Tri-Cities for several weeks now. Every time they predict it to get better, it goes back to being worse.
The linked article, “Tri-Cities smoky air worse than ever. How bad is it?” has some pictures for perspective:
https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article216987525.html
We have been using a new fresh N95 or better mask each day for the past ten days. I still have a good supply for the 4 of us, but I am going to have to increase my preparedness stock greatly. Even with the masks were all coughing and have tearing eyes. Eye solution is also running low.
I recently put an Alexa Skill called Blue Sky on my Echo devices and am getting hourly “Very Unhealthy Air, Stay Indoors.” The warnings start with an ominous “BONG.”
Early this week a 5,000 acre plus wildfire hit the residential area just South of us. Five homes destroyed and many more damaged. The fire was caused by illegal dumping and some genius burning paper at the dump site with the wind at 30mph. That didn’t help our air. It did make my Wife rethink her lax attitude toward my fire-bugout plans/preps.
It did make my Wife rethink her lax attitude toward my fire-bugout plans/preps.
Dude, I know where you are coming from. My wife definitely has a lax attitude about bugging out if the Brazos River dumps eight plus foot of water in our house some day. No arguments, just some mild eye rolling when my back is turned.
BTW, sorry to hear about the outside air. That sucks.
Dilbert: the future of online dating
http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-08-19
Family discussions about how to protect middle sister from herself when mom dies. There probably won’t be any inheritance but whatever there is middle sister will drink and drug herself to death with based off recent experience. I’m of two minds – let free will reign or work with mom to rewrite will to put middle sisters share in trust. Mom is leaning towards trust. Whichever way remaining family needs to not be involved in administration of anything as there’s nothing but hate and discontent down that road.
Sounds like my youngest brother. An alcoholic and drug addict. And abusive to his wife. Makes family gatherings totally awesome, my middle brother can barely talk to him. When my parents pass on, it will be a total disaster with him. He will be heading to the closest bar to buy everyone drinks on him until he blows through his inheritance. Luckily, there will not be much cash. In fact, I am amazed that he is still alive at age 53.
My parents have thought about having a trust for him but have decided not to. He would figure out some way to get around it, even if he had to sell the trust for a penny on the dollar.
Jenny, I need an email address if I’m going to send you the book. See above.
@SteveF, got the book. It is definitely for kids. Not Dr. Seuss level by any means but somewhere around 7 to 10 years olds ?
Dilbert: the future of online dating
Alice isn’t in a position to judge. Watch the “Bob Bastard” episode of the “Dilbert” TV show.
When I was demoted to testing in Seattle, I thought about going to work in a “Bob Bastard”-style Mexican wrestler mask. Might as well look the part.
Yep, that’s the age range I was shooting for, around 3rd grade. Note that I did say it was a children’s book.
A Dr Seuss-style book on prepping. Hmm…
Women in the dating/marriage game in the US are not in a position to judge men’s problems with the scene, not unless they are much more intellectually honest than is the norm for anyone, male or female.
Probably the same applies to men judging women’s problems with the dating/marriage scene. To me it seems that the playing field is tilted in women’s favor, but am not able to judge my own bias.
To me it seems that the playing field is tilted in women’s favor, but am not able to judge my own bias.
Uh, there is an inverse multiplier on there with age, just my observation since I have not been dating in 37 years. When women are young, they mostly control the situation. When women are older, there are just fewer single guys to go around so there is competition.
That’s for the dating game. I did lump them together.
In the marriage game, American law and society are ludicrously tilted in women’s favor, especially if minor children are involved.
In the marriage game, American law and society are ludicrously tilted in women’s favor, especially if minor children are involved.
Yup. The only way for a guy to not get entangled is not to play the game. My son is trying that option out. I am hoping that he changes his mind.
BTW, I was told recently that my daughter’s best friend just had her second kid. She and her husband named their first boy James. They named their second son Kirk.
I guess that they did not want to take the chance on having a third boy so they skipped Tiberius.
@Nick
… Jenny said it best: grief works in weird ways. Just let it be. I’ve never been particularly close to anyone, including my parents or siblings, but when my ferrets died that was a “slam bam thankyou mam” moment.
E-mail on the way Mr Steve and thank you. Maybe the kid will get the spark and start reading. Smart kid. His Mom reads. Her husband. His sisters. His Dad is smart and not a reader. Yeah…..
I guess that they did not want to take the chance on having a third boy so they skipped Tiberius.
Watch the opening of the first JJ Abrams “Star Trek” movie. “That’s a terrible name.”
(The 10 minutes that saved “Star Trek” from extinction. That and the Kiwi’s adlib of the origin of “Bones”.)
Our first born’s name is Jonathan, something we first discussed during the commercial break of an episode of “Enterprise”. Mediocre show, but another in the line of great lead casting in Trek TV.
The tradition continues — I don’t fault the cast for “Discovery”.
Something’s been bugging me about that for 45 minutes, and I just figured it out: that’s what my daughter’s friends call me sometimes, usually just goofing around but sometimes when they want something. Most of the time they just called me Steve, except the one girl we especially took care of had taken to calling me Daddy when she was around 8. That made me feel bad partly because I wasn’t trying to replace her dad, just make sure she ate every day, and partly because it was a reminder of how neglectful her home life was.
@jenny, wrt the siding, I’m thinking just heavy paint. Especially with that sort of timeline and budget consideration.
I’ve read the first several chapters of Steve’s book, to the point where they are packing BOBs. Then I had to head to Chicongo. I’ll run it past my 7yo when I get home.
PSA- folks, there is no, and I mean NO good reason to hide your will. It should be easily found, and someone should know where to look. You WANT your last wishes honored, that’s why you made the dang thing out in the first place. – still haven’t found it.
Back in Chi-town with a big list of stuff to do.
Prep pro tip… this happens to all of us at some point. Get your stuff in order. Make your wishes known. Planning for this is time better spent than planning for TEOTWAWKI, as death is guaranteed to happen at some point.
n
@Nick – regarding filling in the name/email thing:
There are two cookies in your browser session: “comment_author” and “comment_author_email” (both followed by a random number). They are set to expire one year from the time you initially entered them. So they should be remembered for a year.
Unless you clear your cookies, or are in a browser window that is blocking cookies.
You can see it by using your browser’s Developer Tools (in Firefox, use the F12 key, or right-click anywhere on the page and select ‘Inspect Element’). Go to the ‘Storage’ tab (in FF), and you should be able to see all the cookies for a site (in alphabetical order).
If those two cookies aren’t there for any reason, then you will have to enter your name/email for comments.
Them’s the facts. YMMV.
BTW, I can’t duplicate the Amazon link problem mentioned (Sat? Fri?), so hard to diagnose. But, I can say, since I can’t figure it out: “That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
Good luck on your searches. Maybe if you ask Siri….
@SteveF
I sent you an email about the same time as I posted above. If post that you haven’t received it I’ll try again. Maybe it was spammed.
@Nick
When I looked at the siding in May the edges were delaminating with voids probably 6-10” deep in a 12-16” ‘board’. I was thinking I might be able to pump in some glue and jury rig a brace and somehow close the void.
My recollection from May is the problem area is 13’-18’ wide, affects 3 or 4 rows, from a foot off the ground to above eye level (I don’t hit 5’ so that doesn’t mean much).
I’m going to check siding prices and talk to a couple friends. Depending on how the fake siding is attached maybe I can ease them out and replace them with real siding. My worry is it’ll turn into the project from h-e-double toothpicks if I take anything apart.
I may be overthinking this. I’m certain I’m overthinking this. Wood putty, bondo, something, and multiple thick coats of paint.
Great fun.
@jenny, there is a product, I thought was universally available but discovered that it is unknown in Michigan, so YMMV…
https://www.homedepot.com/p/PC-Products-16-oz-PC-Petrifier-Wood-Hardener-164440/100649629
is typical of the type, and is meant to solidify punky, soft, rotten wood so that you can sand, fill, epoxy, or paint it.
search for ‘rot repair’ on homedepot to see some alternatives, kits, and larger sizes.
Bondo makes a similar product too.
It won’t reglue the laminate layers but it will harden up the rotten wood so you can nail thru it, for example. Then you can just face nail (or screw) thru the layers, and paint.
n
added- in use it looks like runny white glue that soaks into the wood. It might not be ideal for your siding application but keep it in mind, it’s a lot cheaper and easier for something like one porch board, or a rotten window sill. You should be able to apply it with a small garden sprayer…
BTW, I can’t duplicate the Amazon link problem mentioned (Sat? Fri?), so hard to diagnose. But, I can say, since I can’t figure it out: “That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_7?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=foxfire+books&sprefix=foxfire%2Cstripbooks%2C234&crid=2OMYINRRODJ6Z%5C%22%3EAmazon&tag=ttgnet-20 Test
Sorry, still broken.
(Copied the link in the Amazon address bar to the clipboard, came back here and overlaid the “https://” in the link button with it, pressed the Okay button. Appended the text “Amazon Test” to the end of the generated HTML, and then pressed the /link button. The result is the garbage displayed above.)
Here’s a non-Amazon link added here using the procedure described above
As can be seen, no garbage.
Admittedly, I may be screwing up the Amazon link, but I can’t imagine how. Anyone else here brave enough to attempt posting a link from Amazon? 🙂
(Fortunately, this isn’t a showstopper, but it is indicative of some sort of (possibly serious) problem somewhere.)
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_7Amazon?tag=ttgnet-20 Test
@RickH: A possible clue: I lopped off the question mark and all the following characters from the Amazon link in my previous comment; the result you can see above.
The problem almost certainly lies in the interaction between the Amazon link and the affiliate plugin.
Here’s an Amazon link (for a dutch oven)…
Pasted with Ctrl-V:
https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Quart-Dutch-Seasoned-Cooking/dp/B00006JSUF/?tag=ttgnet-20
Edit: Is there any advantage to adding the /?tag… after what I pasted?
Edit too: Or, we could just provide the item number for the reader to copy and paste into one’s own Amazon set-up: B00006JSUF
Pasted with CTRL+V:
https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Quart-Dutch-Seasoned-Cooking/dp/B00006JSUF/?tag=ttgnet-20
Using the link button:
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Quart-Dutch-Seasoned-Cooking/dp/B00006JSUF/?tag=ttgnet-20 5 Quart Cast Iron Dutch Oven. Pre Seasoned Cast Iron Pot and Lid with Wire Bail for Camp Cooking
Somethin’ seems to be amiss with that there button …
Added: @Spook: You willingness to step up to a challenge is much appreciated. I’d like to spend some more time on this, but it’s time for me to hit the sack. Gonna leave this for RickH to sort out tomorrow.
I think the link button adds an extra http… to a link that already has http… ?
Prepping today was buying another four six-packs of canned chicken at Sams Club for the bugout place. I meant to get over to Walmart to get some cheap sheets for the camp cots at the bug place but did not make it there.
The canned chicken is now the main staple in 15 year old Lady’s diet. She is having trouble with hard food since she has lost so many teeth. She does still eat crunchy regular dog food occasionally by just swallowing it. She will be 16 in a couple of months.
I think the link button adds an extra http… to a link that already has http… ?
My browser (Waterfox) lets me use CTRL+U to view the HTML source for this page, and that seems to be essentially what’s happening. I tried to display an example snippet here using <code> tags, but that didn’t work out well. 🙁
Check the “microfiber” sheet sets (twin? fitted, top, pillowcase) for durability and quick drying [edit: and silky feel]. Camo patterns might be useful for certain situations, just in case, as might be bright colors for some sort of rescue signalling.
I can’t resist:
Stashing human food for the dog might help keep you from having to eat the dog.
And everybody has a share…
@RickH: It’s slooowly dawning on my rapidly-ossifying septuagenarian brain that, in the process of appending the ttgnet tag to the back of the Amazon link, the plugin might be prepending a (possibly partial) opening anchor tag to the front of the link.
Just something to consider.
Dutch oven?
Probably discussed here, plenty, but in summary I’d say a cast iron dutch oven (even a generic one) is a good prep investment. It’s essentially a “crock pot” or slow cooker that can be buried in coals in a simple campfire, and it can be left unattended while you do other chores.
“Why does your dog only have three legs?”
“Because she’s a good doggie, and you don’t eat a dog like that all at once.
Besides, the dutch oven is only big enough for one leg at a time…”
Could someone (besides me) please take a moment to post an Amazon link here using the link button?
Merci beaucoup in advance.
@Nick
Thanks a million. I had a vague memory of reading about a product like you suggested. Wracking my brain trying to remember enough about the product to find it.
Even if it doesn’t work for the fake siding, I’ve got a 50 year old travel trailer with a bit of dry rot around a door panel. That product is just what I need to avoid rebuilding the frame in that location.
This forum is a great resource for so many topics. I think I learn several new things a week here.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Quart-Dutch-Seasoned-Cooking/dp/B00006JSUF/?tag=ttgnet-20
{edit: using the link button}
Jenny:
I agree that you could find a can o’ worms in that wall, but prying off the bogus siding and tacking on some cheap plywood and painting that will likely be the cheapest way to patch that area, instead of using some magic repair goop.
{edit: using the link button}
Thank you, kind sir!
Garbage, and not due to any fat-fingering on my part! (Whew! 🙂 )
Added: Apologies for having made such a big deal out of this, but as they say, you can take the boy out of programming, but …
I have to depend on you guys for programming and such, but I do try to have a fairly rational approach to the “user” situation (I hope).
That Fortran course in 1949 did give me some basics with the concepts, but I have not done much since then.
That Fortran course in 1949 did give me some basics with the concepts …
Apologies for nit-picking, but FORTRAN wasn’t invented until the mid-Fifties.
Just how old are you, anyway? 😀
Jenny, your email to me was indeed marked as spam by whatever criteria gmail uses. Recovered, and download link sent to you. It didn’t occur to me to check gmail’s spam folder, as they’re usually pretty good. (And that’s the only reason I continue to use gmail despite Google’s general scumminess. My non-gmail accounts give me dozens or hundreds of spams a day even though I’ve barely used them in years.)
The book is now <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Prepared-Trouble-Prepping-Book-Children-ebook/dp/B07GMYTCF5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534753142&sr=8-1&keywords=prepared+for+trouble&dpID=51DuC7MF%2BtL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch%5C%22%3Eavailable&tag=ttgnet-20 for sale at Amazon. Tell your friends! Buy copies for your friends! (But the free copies are still available for Daynotes readers.) (And technical note for RickH: I used the “link” button, above. The HTML looks good before posting. We’ll see if it gets munged.)
Addendum: it did indeed.
Here is an Amazon Link.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015J2M8MG?pf_rd_p=d1f45e03-8b73-4c9a-9beb-4819111bef9a&pf_rd_r=ZME7X3BW2RG5R87364MJ%5C%22%3EThis&tag=ttgnet-20 is the link.
So I am having the same issue. Something in the URL is causing to the code to structure the HREF tag improperly.
It is not just Amazon, in my post earlier Sunday the link I posted to our local paper had the same mess, that’s why I just pasted the bare link.
@Rick, why are you not just using the native “features”/”code” of WordPress?
Examples: using between the less-than greater-than signs “B” for bold, “I” for Italic, “U” for underlining (which you do not allow), and “S” for strikeout.
Please don’t take this personally, it’s just a non-programmer wondering why programmers have to use some other code language within another complete code language? WordPress seems to be pretty complete, so adding other types of code within it seems to me to be inviting problems.
When I post links I always compose in my Word Press editor and copy the plain text here. That seems to always work. Perhaps those controls could be here.
I agree that you could find a can o’ worms in that wall, but prying off the bogus siding and tacking on some cheap plywood and painting that will likely be the cheapest way to patch that area, instead of using some magic repair goop.
Ah, a traditional west Texas repair job. Since it only rains every other month in west Texas, this solution is usually good for a year or ten.
canned chicken is now the main staple in 15 year old Lady’s diet.
I can’t resist:
Stashing human food for the dog might help keep you from having to eat the dog.
And everybody has a share…
Ugh, I have read two apocalyptic books where they ate the dogs. “The Last Centurion”
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Centurion-John-Ringo/dp/1439132917/?tag=ttgnet-20
and “One Year After”
https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-After-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765376717/?tag=ttgnet-20
Yes, storing canned chicken for Lady is a twofer. Always look for twofers in your long term storage. My goal is to have a 100 six-packs of canned chicken at the bug-out place eventually.
“Why does your dog only have three legs?”
“Because she’s a good doggie, and you don’t eat a dog like that all at once.
Besides, the dutch oven is only big enough for one leg at a time…”
Ugh, ugh, ugh. That reminds me of “The Road” where they found the people that were being progressively eaten by the cannibals.
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895/?tag=ttgnet-20
Anybody got a good recipe for salmon (or mackerel !) croquettes ?
Looks like fresh eggs are required.
What’s a good substitution (ideally not opening a big can of dried eggs) ??
Corn meal, oil, whatever onion and spices are pretty good long term
storage items.