Month: September 2019

Mid 70s and wet? Sure, probably…. [ugg, 78F and saturated]

Remember when only a few places used the phrase ‘deep state’? Pretty common now, as it describes something most people recognized but perhaps couldn’t name.

Remember when some people first started talking about a second civil war? Now the President is tweeting comments about what might trigger one. The concept is becoming widespread, if most would still deny it’s likelihood.

Ever consider that some words can’t be unspoken, like ‘divorce’ in a marriage?

Think REALLY hard about what a civil war would look like here, with no clear battle lines, a 40 year history of insurgencies and unconventional warfare, and terrorism domestic and foreign being a mature concept. Think about the enemies of civilization that we’ve imported into our midst, and the hordes of people who would be perfectly happy to be just one step up from tarpaper shacks built from pallets and tarps. Plenty of people that would be willing to take advantage of any strife and ‘stir the pot’. Think about how fragile our Just In Time manufacturing and distribution system is.

Does anyone think it won’t get worse before it gets better?

What can you do to mitigate the effects of such a hateful and bile filled conflict on your own life and the lives of your loved ones? There isn’t enough countryside to hide in, although that will help…

Surely having some items put away, just in case, is a good idea?

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I’ve got to get my truck through smog and registered today. I rented a drain machine and need to do the annual drain cleaning today. My Mom needs remote computer support. I’ve got a ton of ‘inventory’ stacked everywhere that I still haven’t moved. Winter is coming, and it would be nice to have a garden in. Projects are getting stacked up even more than usual, with a one day family trip to Boston coming, and all the Fall holidays starting to hit the calendar too. (Halloween, one of my favorites, is starting to be very prolonged because all the organizations we belong to have “Trunk or Treat” events before the actual day. Wife wants to squeeze a trip to Chicago or Michigan in there too, preferably when there is snow on the ground so the kids can have a bit of winter….

And on top of all that, we’re racing toward a civil F’ing war.

Jimminy Christmas, it’s gonna get intense.

n

mid 70s and humid [75F at 8am and all the windows are covered in condensation.]

I’ve got an extra child for a couple hours. Oldest has a friend over. Much squealing ensues.

I’ve got the youngest most of the day while the oldest and my wife attend some Girl Scout event. That’s gonna put a kink in my plans…

Listened to a bit of shortwave last night. Alex Jones looks like a visionary. He’s been up on radio for years, and now that the gulag has deplatformed him, it’s paying off. He still has an outlet, and his fans know where to reach him. If .gov ever tries to shut him down by attacking his US based transmitters, I suppose Cuba wouldn’t mind hosting him. (he doesn’t own the stations, some religious broadcasters do, and fringe religious broadcasters know a bit about the value of independent channels.)

Author Larry Correia and others are starting to finally move off Faceboook, to WeMe. Lots of patriot and freedom supporters moved from Twit to Gab, but Gab then had issues with hosting too. I don’t know their current status. What I do know is that the heady freedom of the interwebs is over for a while. Start considering where you’ll be getting your news, when every page view is sanitized and slanted as it’s being delivered and all the alt media have been shut down. A voice on the radio might be all that is left. (and slow scan TV, and maybe digital formats for textual info.)

Might want to move some radio stuff up your list…

n

mid 70s and saturated, I’m sure. [74F and 99%RH]

This is the one year anniversary of the death of Dave Hardy. Frequent commmentor, keen observer, friend of the blog. Pray for the repose of his soul, and his wife and daughter. Raise a glass to absent friends.

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From a website aimed at cops, comes this article:

“As police and firefighter numbers fall, officials urge disaster prep”

A few pull quotes, but you should read the whole thing-

“”So even if you were the slickest agency in the world, and you dealt with disasters all the time … if you train every day, a disaster is still called a disaster for a reason,” said Amy Donahue, a professor in the department of public policy at the University of Connecticut. “Even if you devoted all of your resources to these rare events, you still would find yourself struggling to manage them.””

“We’ve learned through some of our exercises, through Cascadia, which was a national exercise, that maybe it’s more realistic to expect that help in a week and maybe two weeks,” Barrington said. “With those kinds of time frames, it’s very important that the citizens be able to have the resources available that they can survive and live for multiple days without help.”

“‘EVERYBODY IS A FIRST RESPONDER’

Last year, FEMA released its 2018-22 Strategic Plan for disaster response, which emphasized “shared responsibility across all layers of government down to the individual.” In other words, residents of the affected communities are their own first responders.

“If you’re talking about a sudden large-scale disaster, there will never, ever, ever be enough professional first responders right when they’re needed, right when a disaster strikes,” Simpson said. “Everybody is a first responder.””

…

“During a disaster, it may be up to family, neighbors and even strangers to save themselves and others.

“They’re saved by bystanders,” Simpson said. “That’s actually the frontline of first response in a large-scale disaster.””

“People, just individual, regular people like us,” Donahue said, “don’t tend to put too much, if any, energy into being ready in the most simple and basic ways for a disaster. If a whole lot of people were just a little bit more prepared, it would make a very big difference.”

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I got a few things done this week (and last).

I got wheels for my 40 gallon water tank.

I sprayed the grapevines for caterpillars, again.

Pruned the citrus.

Added food to the pile, moved several buckets of bulk to my offsite site.

Ate some of my stored food, tried some new recipes.

Bought a bunch of stuff- Build parts for gubs. Propane heaters. Water filter. Some other defensive items. Some medical stuff. All on the secondary market. No itemized receipts. Sometimes no receipts at all.

Put a case of Mountain House in the truck. Getting stuck at school with the kids was not on the radar. Looking more seriously for a boat. If I had to go get the kids in a high water emergency, I could walk in, but it would be better to have a boat of some kind.

Got another pair of wellies (big boots).

Working on installing a roof rack on the Expedition. Would work well for a jonboat or open kayak, or inflatable.

Reading through “Bushcraft First Aid- A Field Guide to Wilderness Emergency Care.” Can’t recommend it unless you are starting from absolute zero. His info on tourniquets is out of date and wrong. Makes you wonder what else is OOD and wrong…

Feels like there was some other stuff in there too, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

It feels like time is really short. Lots of bad things hanging by a thread, literally just a heartbeat away. Get some training. CERT, a PD CPA class, EMT, or self defense. Get your ham license, it’s easy and can be a lot of fun. Plus, you’ll meet people, many of whom are like minded. Meet some people. Go to your local county, city, or neighborhood meetings. Find a ham club. Go to the Show and Shine car show Sunday morning… get out of the house. Heck, just go yard sale-ing and chat with folks. Take the tenor of the tribes.

Don’t put it off. .Gov is late to every party, and even they are saying you need to do more to get ready!

n

Mid 70s and saturated, probably a good guess. [71F and 99%RH at 6am]

Older child was shivery, headache-y, and had a slight fever at bed time.  I hope she’s feeling better this morning, but if not, I’m home all day.   I have stuff to do here, but I was finally getting some momentum going at the secondary location…  which is pretty much what always happens.

I did get to my rent house.  Fixed the plumbing problem, checked on the AC (cleaned the condenser coil, changed the air filter), and confirmed the opening in the cabinets for a new range.  Sears Outlet had a bunch of nice ranges for around $500.  The scratches or dents were mostly on the sides, where they’d be hidden by cabinets anyway.  I’ll see what is there today or Friday, depending on child care and buy something.  I really hate shopping for appliances.

The cooler temps have been great for doing outdoor work.   I’m still sweating gallons, but the breeze feels awesome.  It’s definitely Fall.

Missed my ham radio lunch yesterday, but I was getting stuff done and couldn’t take the time.  I’m not doing training with the PD tomorrow night either.  I need to cover the homefront tonight and tomorrow.  I hope I’m not missing something fun like hostage rescue.

I’m watching the current mania with the young girl screeching about how the world has stolen her childhood with global warmening coming to kill us all.  Occurs to me that even if true, it would be her ADULTHOOD that got stolen, as she is having no trouble living through her childhood.  I guess expecting it to make sense is a personality disorder on my part.

And how is it that the VP’s son getting a fat check for work he’s manifestly unqualified to do, isn’t a crime, but asking a government to investigate that is?  Oh right.  In both cases it’s because of who his daddy is.  I thought we weren’t supposed to have royal families here.

Anyone planning their fall garden?  Anyone who bought RBT’s seed bank?  I’d like to hear about it…

I’ll update after checking on the child.

[no fever, so child is headed to school, don’t know what was going on last night]

n

Hoping that the cooling trend continues. [72F and 99%RH]  Still got storms in the Atlantic that could get us though.

Working on intake and uptake today, getting some of the stuff I bought cataloged and put away. I’ll also be going by the rent house and looking at stoves/ovens to replace the aged one there, and some plumbing issue in the shower. I definitely didn’t have rent house maintenance on my radar for the week or month.

The drain line for the kitchen and laundry at the main house needs its annual rodding too. None of it takes long in isolation, but the total of time, including trips to store etc takes all dang day. And none of it was on my calendar.

Having a pickup full of sales items is holding all that other stuff up now.

It never ends.

n

Cooler and drier? One can always hope… [75f And 99%RH, so not much]

Yesterday it rained cats and dogs on the north side of town. Pretty good rain in parts of the south too. And it still got hot. My whole load got wet, and as the boxes melted, the load shifted, and I almost dumped it all on the freeway. I’ve learned the hard way to put LOTS of straps, from different directions, on any load. That saved me this time.

One thing I noticed at one of my pickups- there are a LOT of people running auctions, consignment shops, thrift/antique/junque shops. Lot of people like me making a living in between normal commerce and with castoffs. Sarah Hoyt says that can only happen in a very rich country. If the amount of “richness” were to change, a whole lot of people hustling like me might be out of business and struggling- and that would be bad. I really hope it’s not like the joke about the two antique store owners… they are the only two people on an island, and both have successful stores…

I am getting a ton of preps at huge discounts, and that counts for something, even if I’m not getting anything that sells.

“It’s a hard knock life, for me…”

Off to the salt mines.

n

Cooler and damp, but I’m guessing.

We ended up getting about 3/4 of an inch of rain yesterday afternoon.  Some heavy, some misty light, but it sure added up.

I’m glad I got the yard work and pruning done when I did.

I’ve got three auction pickups today, and they are on opposite ends of town.  I’m going to be scrambling to get them done.  So OF COURSE the dog needs to go to the vet first thing in the morning.

And I have to give the state their ounce of flesh and get the truck inspected and registered before the end of the week.  And I really should get the pickup windshield fixed.  So I’m looking at a busy week.

On the plus side, the fan and AC dried out the water intrusion at my secondary site.  I sold my buddy a bunch of stuff from the driveway, and I picked up some hardware to move my roof rack project along.

Baby steps.

n

81F and 96%RH at 930am. I think it’s gonna get hot today.

I’ve got a bit of shifting stuff around in the driveway and going over to my buddy’s place scheduled for this morning. It would be great to get some of the stuff out of the driveway! We’ll see if he calls.

Slept late. Feel a bit dehydrated and sore. Not young anymore. Can’t really do everything at the same pace or time. I KNOW that, but I still bump up against the edges without realizing it. Gah.

Kids have eaten and are going out for a bike ride with my wife. I’M gonna take it easy until my buddy calls.

n

77F and 93%RH at 8am.  Not horrible, just ordinary.  There is a lot of saturated ground and standing water to be evaporated.  I hope we get some dry and windy days.

One of our neighbors finally asked for help.  I offered pumps (too late, wet but not standing) and fans.  I don’t have a dehumidifier.  Every auction they’ve gone for too much.    I also have a case of some sort of remediation biocide cleaner that I picked up cheap after the last flood, and a couple of cases of mold and mildew “armor” which is supposed to be hospital grade.  There are enough warnings on it to believe it’s the good stuff.

I did get some water intrusion at my secondary location.  I put out a fan and sprayed the mold armor.  I’ll check it again today.  Mainly the carpet near the door was soaked.

Lots to do and not enough time or motivation,

n