Month: December 2019

Cold and wet. [44F and 99%RH]

It was 48f last night when I went to bed, with ongoing occasional drizzle. Temps during the day were high 50s to mid 40s depending on time and location. Drizzle was a constant though it varied in intensity.

I ended up driving my Expedition when I’d have preferred the pickup. For a couple of days, I’ve been aware that the windshield washer fluid pump wasn’t working. And when I didn’t take the time to see what was wrong, I knew I’d pay later. So of COURSE I didn’t fix it when it was sunny and warm. Now, I was faced with fixing it in cold drizzle. I wimped out. I put the hitch mounted cargo carrier on the Expy and drove that. I really recommend a hitch mounted carrier if you have a receiver type hitch. It is very handy for extra capacity. I’ve used it on the wife’s Honda minivan for bins full of camping supplies. I’ve used it to carry bins full of tools and books from my dad’s stuff. I use it for the EZup and coolers for swim meets. And I’ve used it to carry a couple of generators now… It keeps mess and fumes out of the cargo area, and it’s a lot easier to load than the roof rack. Mine will fold up across the back of the truck to get out of the way when not in use. Again, recommended.

I also recommend taking care of vehicle maintenance issues as they arise.

On a separate note, I made some grilled chicken legs for dinner Monday night. The legs were frozen in Q1 2017 and were just the same as when they went into the deep freeze. They were in the manufacturer’s heavy vac pack, but could have used the extra protection of a seal-a-meal vac bag, if I’d realized how long they’d be in there. That would have protected them during all the handling and shifting around over the years.

The prepared naan bread was probably only in the freezer for a year.

A ready in 90 second pouch with some sort of bulgar wheat in tomato sauce that was at least a year old rounded out the menu. Tasted pretty good, for something I’ve never tried before. Even the wife thought it was an ok change of pace.

I love the freezer and vac bags, and on sale bulk food. That’s a winning combination. Yes, during TEOTWAWKI I’ll need to keep the freezer powered. There’s a plan for that. A tested and vetted plan. With some redundancy. Eventually, I’ll stop powering it, or we’ll eat all the contents. In any case, it’s a real force multiplier, and very convenient. Also, not super expensive and lets you save on food by buying in bulk. Frozen is part of my plan and works well for everything less than total collapse.

Now to get the kids and wife fed and out the door….

n

Warm and wet. [54F and steady drizzle]

Storm in the Gulf with up to 13 foot waves possible offshore for tonight and tomorrow. I’m glad I’m not out in gale force winds, but I can’t imagine we won’t get some kind of badness inland…

In economic news, Celadon trucking went belly up. They had some fraud issues in the past but if the industry was booming, it seems like they’d be able to recover. Instead they are winding down their global operations. 3200 drivers affected. My bet is a whole lot of that freight doesn’t get delivered on time, or at all. I see their trucks everywhere.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/largest-truckload-carrier-bankrupted-leaving-3000-truckers-jobless-many-stranded-highways

I’ve got a couple of pickups today, the Honda 3000 inverter gennie, and some other small things. I’ll be driving all morning. I should not have thrown out a bid on the other auction. I didn’t look at when the pickup time is, assuming it would be in a couple of days, like normal. Nope, tomorrow only. On the plus, one of the items will make a nice Christmas present for my wife.

Number one daughter is not feeling well, and neither is her dad. Sore throat and just blah for the last week with some coughing. Just enough to be a pain. I’m sure some extra sleep would be helpful. Too bad I won’t be getting any.

And with that, I better get going.

n

Cool and damp. [68F and wet]

Well I did get some things done yesterday, but not what I wanted to. I even got up early. But between the return of the campers, and getting ready for the recital, there wasn’t much contiguous time to really get going.

Campers had a great weekend.

I’ll have to do better today. Of course, some time this week I have to get to College Station for an auction pickup.

And my volunteer day is Wednesday or Thursday. If Wed. I need to get a lesson and lab together for geology. We’ve got plenty of cool rocks and minerals, I’m just not sure how to get ‘hands on’ with them… probably sorting and identifying, like last year if I can’t figure out something more fun. I’m thinking of maybe identifying 3 white powders- salt, talc, sand/quartz, or maybe borax or calcium carbonate or chalk… I’ll have to do some looking online. Maybe react them with water, vinegar, touch them, etc. At least I have a day or two to figure something out.

In the wider world, more rumblings in the world’s economies. More banks cutting back, hedge funds shutting down or stopping people from withdrawing. More anti-government violence in Iran, France, Chile, Hong Kong, etc. Not much news from Venezuela, but I’m thinking things aren’t getting better or we’d be hearing about it.

Closer to home, more attacks on the second amendment, free speech, and privacy.

I’m telling ya, it’s getting worse. I do see people pushing back though. I see the 2A sanctuary city thing happening. I see people pushing back against pc and progtalk. I saw that a huge number of firearms were sold on Black Friday. Those are hopeful signs. Maybe it’s just getting started, or maybe it’s too little too late, but I guess we’ll see one way or the other. Plan for one, temper the plans with the other.

nick

Cool and damp. Probably

Did a lot of my running around yesterday. Might have made some good scores. Definitely got some good things personally. That won’t pay the bills though.

Females of the household are due back late morning, and then we have a piano recital for the little one in the afternoon. She’s really progressing nicely. It sounds like music when she practices.

Still got plenty to do this morning before everyone gets home, and plenty this afternoon. Whole week is gone in an eyeblink, and the weekend vanished just like that.

Gotta be strong….

n

Not so cool, but plenty damp. [wrong monkey boy 50F and 89%RH]

Whatever else happened, and the why of it, Japan woke the sleeping giant. The parallels to today should be self-evident. In the long run, fortunately for them, they seem to have won, except for the weird psychosis’s. However they won without us losing, which I don’t think will happen again, and it took a couple of generations.

Lots of ‘out and about’ today. Females are all away at camp so it’ll be wild women and parties for me and the dog- gotta keep up the traditions.

I’ll check in periodically. Try not to light anything on fire…..

n

Cool and damp.

Well, yesterday got to be shirtsleeves weather, despite the cooler start.

I was misled about my volunteer commitment, so I had more time for errands than I thought I would. Still, two of my pickups were on the complete other side of Houston, in Bay City. That’s far.

I picked up a 22 rifle and some science-y gear. Now I’ve got to go through the pile of gear and pull out the stuff I can use for demos with the kids.

Wife and kids are at girl scout camp this weekend, so I’ll have some uninterrupted time to do stuff. Maybe. I’m sure something will come up to change that.

Lots of crazy in the world.

Bought a honda inverter gennie that I’ll pick up next week. I’m torn between keeping it and selling it. Maybe I should sell my old portable and keep this one. 5800w vs the 3000w honda, but the honda is inverter based and should be much quieter. I guess I’ll have to see how noisy it is. Even though it was half of used ebay cost, I still can’t really afford it, so it will probably be sold.

Other than listing stuff on ebay, I haven’t gotten much prepping done this week. Unless you count the gennie, which I really can’t yet.

Hopefully all y’all are doing a better job….

n

Chilly and damp.

I got some stuff done yesterday.

I blew leaves and cut the yard. LOTS of sycamore leaves and pine needles in the yard. It looks so much better when cut. I try to be a good neighbor and keep things looking nice.

I got a couple of things listed on ebay that got them out of the house. No hits on any of my craigslist yet. That’s super disappointing.

Didn’t get anything done on mom’s pc.

I’m doing the assistant gig today for the fifth grade classes. I have no idea what the kook is going to do as a unit today, but I hope he’s got something planned. I don’t want to have to pull something out of my backside.

I’ll be out and away for most of the day.

Talk amongst yourselves….
n

Cold, probably mid-40s. Damp.

Past time to change the batteries in my weather station. Or install the internet connected one I have in a box…

More of the same for me today, and maybe my ham lunch.

I’ve not commented because I can’t imagine the pain, but seriously, don’t drive into flood water. I don’t care if you painted your truck in camo or OD green. Don’t do it. I added another flotation device to my truck pack just in case. I already had one, and a rope.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7752573/Parents-three-children-swept-deaths-flooded-creek-express-heartbreak.html

No matter where you live, disaster can find you.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7751125/Misery-Northeast-deadly-winter-storm-leaves-tens-thousands-without-power.html

Youths again. In a mall.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7751715/Horrific-moment-duty-cop-brutally-attacked-gang-helping-woman-phone-stolen.html

And security did F-all to keep him from getting hurt, or to stop the attack. The first two committed strong arm robbery, and aggravated assault and battery on the girl.

The guy is lucky his brains are intact.

Stay away from places where “youths” are in the majority. Go armed if you can. If you decide to intervene, know that you could be making a life changing choice.

————————————————————————————————-

As I was driving home last night, I thought about the neighborhood next to my rent house. The main street there is notorious for prostitution, so it was on my mind. I though about a particular incident, where the kids and I were driving home, and looked over and saw a rail thin black man, with buckwheat hair, and his pants around his knees, lying on the side of the freeway frontage road, covered in shit and naked, passed out. Daughter one was pretty horrified. I was not surprised as I’ve seen that particular guy in various stages of intoxication and destitution before, but never that bad. Anyway. I wondered last night how we could have fallen so far. My dad never took me anywhere I’d see naked drug addicts laying in the street, because there WEREN’T ANY. I tried to justify it in my head as living closer to the city than I did growing up, but that’s wrong too. We’re not that much closer, although the rent house is. There just weren’t people living under bridges, passed out in the streets, panhandling, prostituting, and drug dealing a block from middle class houses. By almost any objective measure, we are worse off and living in a degraded culture.

We’re well on our way on the downslope.

n

Cold. Wet. [43F when I got up.]

Yesterday was 46F when I got up. That’s pretty chilly. It was high 50s when I went to bed.

I deleted over 100 cyber monday email offers unread. Not quite as many as Black Friday, but more than I want.

Tonight I’ve got the second installment of our CPA Alumni continuing ed class on human trafficking. Very timely considering Epstein didn’t kill himself.

I should get stuck in on my mom’s pc today too. We’ll see how that goes. I don’t know how much managing of the pagefile I can do with win10 home. That’s my current plan of attack, move the pagefile to the SDcard with space on it. If I can’t, I’ll look at joining the two drives (built in flash and SD card.) I didn’t see the option when I looked remotely. Failing that, I’ll move or delete as much as possible and set updates to ‘off’. It’s ridiculous that 32Gb isn’t enough for windows by itself. Absolute worst case is I get her an all in one to use and set that up before sending it to Florida.

Please be patient with Rick as he pokes at the site and host trying to figure out what is slowing down response and reloads. Just imagine you’re back on a 14.4 modem and watching jpegs fill in line by line….

And with that, I’m off…

n

Chilly and damp.

I had a nice weekend doing stuff completely unrelated to prepping, civic duties, or even family duties. And I’ll pay for that this week 🙂

Seriously though, it’s good to have outside interests.

This week I’ve got a continuing ed class with my Citizens Police Academy alumni on human trafficking (part two.) I’ve also got a couple of auction pickups, but not much else. I’m hoping to catch up a bit. Then in a couple of weeks, I’ll be headed to the midwest with the family for Christmas. Lots to do before then including several social and school functions.

Lots of year end stuff to do too, that’s not currently on my lists or calendars.

Better do something besides sit here….

n