75F and mostly saturated. Yesterday cooled down a bit at the end, when some storm cells blew through. The lower temps and the breeze were much appreciated by the swimmers and their families.
It made for a long day, a short night,, and me sitting here, barely awake and zoning out. The inescapable truth is “I’m not young anymore.” Sucks.
Arrgg. Zoned out again.
Coffee, need coffee.
n
78F and pretty well saturated. Heck of a way to start the day. Yesterday stayed hot, and I stayed inside. It was legitimately over 100F in the shade and was still over 90F at midnight.
Swim meet tonight, so I’ll be busy all day getting ready for that, and most of the evening with the meet. Meatspace. Yeah. Meh. 🙂
I did find time to open a spigot on the rainwater barrel for the side garden yesterday. Didn’t find the time to CLOSE it…. I suppose the cukes and zukes will appreciate the 50 gallons of water…. and I can raise the barrel another half concrete block, as long as it’s empty. Most of my barrels are one one block high foundations, but going a bit higher will make it easier to water the raised beds. As it is, the spigot is a little lower than the beds.
We’ve had some drama in the neighborhood with a car on the street being burglarized early Saturday morning. A backpack full of ID documents was stolen. I spent some time reviewing footage, and discovered more weakness in my camera setup. I made some adjustments and hopefully I’ll be capturing more useful images. The cam with the best view of the car was triggered constantly by motion of the water in my wife’s water feature (fountain.) That meant too much recording, and the internal card had already recycled over the relevant times. The other cam wasn’t capturing movement in the street, and was triggering infrequently without enough pre-roll to get whatever caused the trigger. I also couldn’t D/L the footage from the cam. I ended up updating camera firmware to fix that problem (the cams have the best image recorded internally on SD card.) My iSpy NVR software needs tweeks too. That deserves a whole post as the latest update has been a POS. Long story short, check your preps. In the case of your security cams, review what’s getting recorded, and try to get it off for a police investigation or archiving.
An aside – HPD didn’t care at all that these folks lost all of their travel docs for their whole family. The Constable sent two units to investigate. That’s why we have a contract with the Constable’s office, and why I like them. The Deputy also said several other people had reported thefts from motor vehicles in our neighborhood the same night. Someone will have good video of the perps. In general, with school out for the summer, we are all seeing a seasonal rise in property crimes.
Now to wake the kraken and get them off to Invention Camp, so I can get some work done.
n
96F and 56%RH at 9 am is HOT.
Slept in. So did the kids. Feel like sleeping some more.
Still think I’m coming down with something. Throat is scratchy and head is a bit stuffy.
Stuff to do today so I better get started.
n
72F and 96%RH. Beautiful day yesterday, getting hot later, but starting off awesome. More of the same forecast for today.
I’ve got my “non-prepping hobby” meeting this morning, and NO sportsball with the kids to cut it short or take up the rest of the day. It’ll probably be a short meeting with nothing interesting to do. ‘cuz that’s how my life works some days.
Lots of small tasks got accomplished this week. I feel like progress was made, although not on any of the big jobs. Purchases were limited to a few small things, mostly for the household. Ebay sales were non-existent.
Garden is still growing, although the one orange on the tree disappeared.
New water barrel is in place but still needs to be plumbed. No chainsaws are actually running yet, but my hopes are high. Just need some small pieces of fuel line, some cleaning, and one or two small parts (primer bulb, missing nut.)
I made a couple of small changes to my office, and I can walk into it again. Not <i>clean</i> by any stretch, but I’m working on it.
More work to do later today, but now I’m off to meet with actual people. (some of whom are hams, one of whom introduced me to the ham lunch group- meatspace baby! and I’m not talking about the deli counter) I’m going to see if I have time to bring baked goods.
n
72F and saturated. Occasional spotty ‘water from the sky’ yesterday late. I could see localized raining and thunderstorms, but our neighborhood just got the occasional spatter of drops.
Anyone else here wish they’d bought gold in the 70s? Just a little every month?
Or start learning a martial art? Or an instrument? If you’d started at the turn of the century, you’d have almost 20 YEARS of practice in. Pretty much anything other than golf or bridge, if you’ve been “doing it for 20 years” you’re probably pretty good at it and certainly an ‘oldtimer’.
Incrementalism can work in our favor too. Get started. There is time left.
These are the ‘good ole days’. Enjoy them, and use the time wisely.
n
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Bruce Thompson.
It’s also the anniversary of D-Day– the Normandy Invasion… my wife has a relative buried there as do far too many.
Today raise a toast to “Absent friends”.
Nick
75F and raining. Probably not getting super hot today. Yesterday was hot and humid enough for two days.  Sun was out until late, when we got a quick and quiet shower. The radar maps had us getting rain late in the night and so we have been. My weather station says we’ve gotten 0.85 inch since midnight.
Did not sleep well last night. Weird dreams. Woke dreaming of working for 0.1%-ers in Chicago or some other old and big city. The gap between the wealthy and the not keeps getting bigger. Our Lords are not tied to the land, but the serfs still are. Methinks that sometime soon, we’ll have a lot fewer Lords, but times will be terrible for the serfs too. Will we see a return of families throwing their daughters out on the water like a lifeline? Will the nouveau riche scramble to find alliances to save their fortunes through their kids? If so, the old money will definitely have the edge, what with all those centuries of practice…
n
79F and 94%RH at 7:55 am. Yesterday was hot, sunny, and mostly clear.
I felt like hammered *stuff* when I got up at 6, so I went back to bed. Feel a lot better at 7:30.
I have swim team practice with the girls this am, so I better get them up and fed.
More later.
n
74F and 99%RH this morning. Jeez it was sweaty and hot yesterday, with full sun most of the day. I did my yard work while the yard was in shade, and there was some overcast later in the day, but jeez, did I mention it was hot?
I continued chipping away at a couple of jobs. I actually had one chainsaw running for almost a minute after cleaning the carb and replacing rotten gas hose. Missing gas hose is a common issue for older saws.  I must have sucked up some debris though, because it wouldn’t restart.  I ran out of carb cleaner and replacement fuel line before getting the big saw open and running. More work on those later.
I did get my new rain water barrel situated on blocks and leveled.
Garden is still growing.
I did some other small cleanup and maintenance jobs around the house too. I’m alternating between inside and outside, so I have a chance to cool down.
Today the kids are at the rock gym climbing all day, so I have a chance to get some stuff done at my customer site.  I have to install some networking and get some outdoor speakers running. All hot work, so I’m trying to get there in the morning. Plans. Huh. We’ll see.
Time to wake the krakens…
n
Hot and humid, possibly with rain. We did get a little bit of rain late yesterday evening, and temps came down slightly. No idea what today will hold. Openweathermap says mid 90s and light rain. We’ll see.
Hopefully, I’m still asleep with the airconditioning running and the kids in bed.
If not, I’ll surely update this.
n