Month: October 2018

66F and only 90%RH this am. Winter is here.

Michael turns out to be a powerful and deadly destructive storm. There are pix elsewhere, please look at them.

Storm surge and flooding, and the destructive power of the wind are on full display in the pix. Keep in mind how quickly this storm became an issue. Storm forming – storm worsening but still no big deal – hey it’s getting stronger – get out or get KILLED!!!11!!!!111

I’m sure that for some it was a complete surprise. Which is why you have a plan made ahead of time.

n

OH YEAH, the financial reckoning may be upon us too, pay attention!

72F and drippy this am. Haven’t seen a storm track, but if you’re in the path, get ready. (If you are reading this, you should already BE ready!)

Intimidation. It’s working. Right here in the comments yesterday there was a brief discussion of the incident where someone torched a Trump supporter’s vehicle, and whether it was safe to have political yard signs.

Very sensibly the feeling was to go “grey man.” Don’t make yourself a target with signs, bumper stickers, etc. And this IS the sensible answer. The more I think about it though, the more I can’t recommend it for everyone.

It is a response to intimidation and bullying. It is the GOAL of the enemy. It’s what they want. They want to silence any voice that isn’t theirs. We can’t let them.

It is critical that OUR voices be heard; that people know they are not alone. Look at your personal situation. If you can, in a small way, or large, PUSH BACK.

Don’t let them intimidate us into silence.

n

NB- “Us” and “them” being generic signifiers, for those who would use violence against people and property to reduce free speech, and those who would speak. In today’s climate, violence is almost entirely the province of the left. This may not always be the case, but right now, it is a clear Left/right division.

76F and wet again. At least it’s consistent.

Now that our civil servants have had their break, we can start the week. I know I’ve still got work to do and now one less day to do it.

Who am I kidding? Not anyone here! My plan is to keep plodding along, in my somewhat diminished capacity. There are a couple of things that must happen on schedule, but most of the stuff will continue to slip.

Meatspace obligations for me and my proxy today. Special meeting of the HOA, and special meeting of my CPA cop thing alumni, both at the same time but 15 miles apart.

I think our HOA board is about to learn a lesson about life. They haven’t had to deal with ‘the mommies’ in a couple of decades as our neighborhood aged. They’ve gotten pretty comfortable running things the way they want to. But our neighborhood is turning over and the median age is dropping like a stone… and someone was very dismissive of some concerns shared by many of my neighbors, most of whom are younger, very energetic, and very high achieving ‘mommies.’ Today is a special single issue meeting. Next week is a board election that normally has several seats go unfilled. The mommies have a slate of 22 names and have been secretly getting out the vote. We’ll see, but I do not think the current board will survive much longer without some drastic changes.

All politics is local.

Meatspace baby.

n

Never mess with the mommies.

73F and wet. More rain and even a TS or possible hurricane in our immediate future!

So it’s Columbus Day. Schools and many businesses are closed. I’ve got the kids at home, but my wife has to work.

All y’all white racists are celebrating the destruction of native peoples by a white man.

Or celebrating the destruction of a society of savages who sacrificed their enemies on an industrial scale and ruled over an empire of slaves, while bringing civilization to the continent.

I guess you probably can guess which side I’m on.

Maybe I’ll celebrate the diversity by dancing around naked, covered in the blood of my enemy’s still beating heart, which I’ll clutch aloft, while drinking chocolate and eating potatoes, before smoking a bowl of leaves, and then drying myself with a cotton cloth.

Or maybe I’ll use the internet to complain about all the horrible things that have happened to my ancestors since they were rescued from slavery, and living in huts, while I sit in my air-conditioned home, with my full belly, [mostly] safe from marauding savages.

Flip a coin, they’re both equally valid, doncha know.

n

77F and the sun is peeking out from the rain clouds.

Woke at my normal time to the sound of rain. Went back to bed.

Woke this time to the thought that I’d missed my antibiotic pill taking time. That will cascade through the day.

The march to war continues, both domestically and internationally. As soon as we’re sufficiently distracted at home, expect to see someone grab something we traditionally think of as “ours” or watch one of “our” assets leave or switch sides. The response to that will set the tone. You heard it here first. Hope I’m wrong.

Got another baby rat in a glue trap this weekend. Smell one somewhere else. Maybe the poison is working?

I better get some breakfast going. The spawn are grumpy when they don’t eat (in this they take after daddy….)

n

74F and just slightly less than saturated. Yesterday was nice everywhere I went. There were some clouds and a light quick smattering of rain in a couple of places but I managed to avoid all the downpours.

Today we have a soccer game. Not many practices were actually held due to rain and availability of the coach, so it should be interesting to see what the girls do.

Completely unrelated, just when I started actually using google assistant on my phone regularly (google, navigate to 123 Main St, Anytown, TX) they changed something. Now the stupid thing always wants to send me via public transit, and of course fails to find a route most of the time. That command USED to search the address and open the nav app, and START navigation, all at once. It was great for use while driving. Something broke dangit.

If it’s useful and working, DON’T FIX IT.

Another example is the swype keyboard replacement. It used to be uncannily accurate. Now it gets almost every word wrong, and in really stupid, low frequency word choice, ways. I find it much easier and more accurate to use the dragon Speech to Text input method. Other than a lack of punctuation, it is about 99% accurate.

Tell me what you did to prep this week….

n

73F and saturated. Had some spotty rain yesterday, but I managed to avoid most of whatever fell on Houston. I’m hoping to do the same today.

Another week gone in an eyeblink.

I got the pop up tasks (mostly) done at my rent house. There are a couple of little things they need, but at least the dishwasher is in, and so are the tenants.

I got nothing done in the garden, and nothing further on the gennie or the solar. I got a little bit further on my office clean up, but there are still piles of stuff everywhere in the house.

Ugg. I better get some of this stuff finished…. There is so much else to do too.

Please tell me you guys have done some prepping this week!

n

NOTE- for any new visitors, welcome! The way this place works is the daily post by me is usually just an ‘opener’ to open the door this morning, and kickstart the conversation that mostly happens in the comments. Please feel free to join in or ask a question, let us know you’re here. There is a ton of info here in past posts and comment discussion about prepping, science, computers, radio, work in various high tech industries, and politics. Look around, search, or ask if you can’t find something. NO abuse [of other participants] is allowed and we don’t know you well enough for kidding yet…. Politicians and prog scumbags are a different story, fire away.

74F and wet. Yuck. We have been getting several hours a day of sunshine despite the rain. That is nice.

Well, as the week speeds by, now I’ve got a right arm with stitches in it, and limited use. Could have been worse. The urgent care system worked beautifully. Really no waiting that wasn’t filled with paperwork. The facility administrator chatted with me while I was waiting from my xrays to be read. Very pleasant and efficient visit. All of them should be that way. Funny what being in competition for you customers dollars will do.

Better get started on the day. Hungry kids waiting….

n

73F and wet again. And for the foreseeable future.

Houston has “National Night Out” a bit later than the rest of the nation. We did it last night. The idea is to get to know your neighbors and show criminals that you are united against them. Here, we also focus on hurricane prep.

So I ate some homemade sausage and chatted with the neighbors for a couple of hours. It was nice. Several of our constables stopped by to say hi and chat too. Got a bit of a crime report, and talked to the shift supervisor about the chatty cathys on the radio. He said they don’t have any evidence that the bad guys monitor the radio. OK then….

He also said they need cameras pointed at the street to get vehicles and license plates to help them when there are crimes reported. Hey, I can do that!

Pecking away at my list today. Install at the rent house (hopefully only one trip to Home Depot), ebay, various clean up things… we’ll see what gets done.

OH, and don’t forget the test of the emergency alert system! 2:18pm and 2:20pm EDT. Don’t let people lose their minds…

n

71F and wet this morning. This has been a very wet year in Houston.

Yesterday we learned of the passing of a friend of the blog, Dave Hardy, known here also as OFD (O being ‘Old” and D being ‘Dave’, you can choose the middle.) Although no one here ever met Dave in person, we all knew that part of himself that he shared, and we DID think of him as “Friend.”

This is the amazing thing that the internet has enabled. Communities of the mind and spirit, that could not have existed before. Oh, there were correspondences, and if you were in the same area you could meet at a coffee house, or a university or college, but where and when else could an ex-soldier, someone who fought through substance abuse problems, who lived in a small rural town, be celebrated and valued for his esoteric knowledge and his thoughts?

It’s a marvelous thing to find peers, companions on the journey, and it’s a tragedy to lose them.

Rest in peace Dave, you’ve more than earned it.

nick