Month: October 2019

75F and 99%RH. No cold front for me! It got pretty hot yesterday and the humidity never relented. Thankfully it was better in the shade with a breeze. Under a house is usually shady, the breeze part was a gift.

Got my flights to ORD. If you’re willing to fly at really bad times, short notice flights aren’t all rapacious.

No word yet from the plumber on when someone will be available to meet me. Oh, and the kids are off school today, so normally that means I’d have them all day. Wife will have to work from home to give me the flexibility I need. With the kids home, not much work will get done, unless she parks them in front of the netflix or a tablet.

Laying on one’s back, and working on stuff with one’s hands above the head, uses all sorts of weird muscle groups. One is quite stiff and sore today.

Well, my calendar is full for the rest of the month….

Better get started.

n

74F and 99%RH.

October that is… Fall is here, there and everywhere, but we’re rushing through it racing headlong into winter.

Short time this morning. I’ve got to do a pickup or two, and go to the rent house and investigate two new issues- water leaking out under the house, and a dryer that doesn’t heat. The current dryer is about 19 or 20 years old. So is the plumbing under the tub…

The joys of homeownership are double when you own a rental.

More later, but for now, I better get breakfast started and people awake.

n

66F and 99%RH.

Spent last evening in our HOA meeting. It was our “year in review” meeting, and had the election of our section reps. Most people were elected by 6-8 votes, and the contested elections were both won by 2 votes. LOCAL is where your vote counts most. Use it.

Our long serving (but retiring) City Councilwoman was there to present the current state of our district, and projects of concern to us (mainly flood control.) Again, knowing her, recognizing her and her aides, and perhaps most importantly, being recognized by her from other meetings and other organizations is important. Like them or hate them, if we are to have rule of law, it starts close to home.

Civic engagement takes time, and takes getting out of the house. It doesn’t mean knocking on every door in the ‘hood and chatting with the residents, but you won’t meet them, or see them, or be seen by them, sitting at home.

Your city council, HOA, school board, Park District, or Business improvement district are all made up of neighbors. They (arguably) have more direct impact on your life than the madarins in DC. Get involved. Don’t let the selfish manipulating progs fill every position and do whatever they want.

Thus endeth the post.

n

Cooler, but still humid. Feels better.

As I was doing the yardwork yesterday, I realized it’s been almost a year since we had our early frost. I still have light bulbs in the citrus trees that I never put away. Lazy or cunning, you choose!

There is some indication that Trump is now just ‘going for it’ on a number of issues, perhaps with nothing to lose, and needing to put up a visible win. My knee jerk is to support the Kurds, but I really don’t know the situation with them. After Sadaam killed a bunch when we left last time, I’m not inclined to abandon an ally again. However, is that really the case? I would certainly like to get disentangled from Syria, and I’ve been saying that we should let the middle east learn to drink oil and eat sand, and leave them to it. I do like the idea of destroying Turkey’s economy if they break their deal. Let them extort Europe. Of course that is tough on Europe, what with the refugee situation. Once you open a door it’s hard to close it. With Turkey, once you pay the danegeld, you’ll never be rid of the Dane….

One thing of great concern, as the world’s apple carts continue to be upset, TPTB will become more desperate. False flags, straight up terror attacks, or the hidden hand holding the purse- I expect the violence to ramp up dramatically in the next year. I expect at least one more attempt on Trump’s life or his family. It’ll come when the impeachment nonsense fails to catch hold. Either that, or a major attack. I’ve hope I’m wrong because that will be bad no matter how it plays out.

So I’m continuing on my course. Some small changes, like to my load out in my truck, and moving solar and the whole house gennie further along, but overall, more of the same.

So, anyone work on their preps last week? Anyone working on a secondary money stream? Meeting people? New skill? Does anyone shoot competitively (even if infrequently or poorly?)

Let me know how it’s going…

n

Still feels too humid. [68F and 86%RH]

Trees were starting to turn just south of Boston, and the air was cool and dry. Hot and humid here in Houston. Wife is pining for cool weather. Houston better start cooling off soon…

Gonna be some grumpy tired kids this morning, and their mother and father too. School is going to be a misery. I’ve got to turn my ebay stuff back on, get stuff listed that’s sitting here waiting, and get the house cleaned up.

But first, get the family up and out the door.

n

Cold here. 68F indoors, much colder outside.

Eventually we’ll be home. Evening flight, so some more in law time today.

Saw lots of the wife’s relatives yesterday. Avoided most of the dancing. Ate too much. Chatted. Even found one cousin’s spouse who might be a bit right of center… Even in Boston. Who knew?

Maybe sanity could break out…. Naw.

N

Much cooler here!

Not a bad flight. Made it without drama. TSA wasn’t bad. I recommend traveling with a small child to avoid TSA hassles.

I haven’t seen any news, so I got nothing new… But I’m confident political drama continues.

Keep stacking, it isn’t getting better until out gets a lot worse.

N

mid 70s and damp…

Got hot yesterday. And super sweaty. No sir, I don’t like it.

Dropped the dog off with friends, cleaned up around the yard, emptied the back of the pickup… maybe I’ll cut the grass.

That’s right, another trip. Just a party on Saturday, the back home Sunday. Lots of the wife’s family, most of them in fact, will be there. It will be strange to see both sides in the same visit. Flying to BOS this afternoon, home late Sunday.

So I’ll be getting groped, unless the power of the small child protects me, and putting my family and myself at the mercy of strangers. Nope, don’t like it.

It looks like it will be a taste of fall, as it’s MUCH cooler than Houston.

The worst thing for me is losing 3 days of getting stuff done.

Oh well, can’t be helped, as I wasn’t going to let them go without me.

I’m taking my tablet and phone, so there might be typos and poor spelling (more than normal) and terse commenting, but I’ll be back home late Sunday.

If I don’t get a post up by 9am Central time, perhaps Rick will open the door and start the day.

n

mid 70s still, and damp [74F, 99%RH at 6am]

Yesterday was sunny and a bit cooler, but so humid. Even just unloading stuff from my pickup slowly and carefully in the driveway in the shade left me soaked in sweat.

Did my ham group lunch meeting. Had some interesting chats. The group is definitely a bit right leaning.

Need to spend part of today getting ready for our weekend trip. I have no desire to go, but 50th wedding anniversaries don’t come every year and family is family. It’s an expensive trip, but thankfully short.

—————————————————————–

Ol’ commie Bernie can play down his medical issue, but it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck and it’s a F’ing duck. Heart attack should be the end of his presidential aspirations.

Ol’ murderin’ Hilarity is about to throw in her hat, and that should be interesting to see. Cat fight at 11!

None of it’s good for us common folk. The elephants are dancing and us mice better look lively or we’ll be looking deathly soon enough.

I guess I better get crackin’.

n

mid 70s and humid- probably [74F and 99%RH]

I did get some stuff done Monday and Tuesday. I’ve got plenty more to do though.

It seems like the list is neverending just as a homeowner, add dad and family duties, and there isn’t much prepping time left, nor civic engagement or hobbies.

Forget about working 🙂

Still, I’m chipping away at it. Today is my ham group lunch and it’s near my house so I’m going. The bands were pretty noisy last night, even more than my local noise problem. Some shortwave was making it through. Alex Jones had a good signal, even better than Cuba and the religious nuts. Not much I was interested in hearing though.

There was some other ham news, in that the FCC ruled that the most popular prepper handie talkie could no longer be sold or advertised in the US after 10-1-19, the Baofang UV5 and it’s variants. There are technical reasons, having to do with power levels, and not blocking certain frequencies. RBT liked a more capable version, which I don’t think is affected by the ban. I didn’t mention it earlier, mainly because I didn’t expect it to be enforced, and there are alternatives. I did order a couple last week, mainly because I had projects in mind and just hadn’t gotten around to it. What has happened in the past with restrictions on radios is that the maker adds a few resistors to differentiate models for different places, and the community figures out what to change to allow more functionality anyway. We’ll see how the whole thing plays out. It does point out that it’s not just guns and ammo that are useful tools, and can be regulated out of existence. It will still be legal to own and use the radios, when used within the limits of existing law.

It makes you wonder what might be next? Body armor is almost certainly going to be regulated or banned. Grow lights are high on my banned soon list, as they are poorly made, outrageous RF radiators, and typically mislabeled. That they are used by dopers is a strike too (especially now that the state is getting into production). Water filters? Solar panel controllers? Reloading gear? (omg, he had an ammunition factory in his den!!111!!1) Small machine tools? Certain polymers? Rainwater collection hardware? Remember that they got rid of bump stocks by redefining them to be machine guns, in defiance of decades of their own precedent.

Certain medicines and chemicals are probably high on the list, and some books too. I’ve not tried looking, but I’ve been told that there is almost no written material available on the cultivation or use of poppies, despite that being widespread in the past…

Supplies can dry up in a heartbeat. If there is something you think you can’t live without, or that you’ve put off purchasing but think will make a difference, don’t wait too long.

n

(fish meds, I’ve got fish and they might get sick, and I’ve put it off for a long time. I think that time has come.)