Wet and windy.
Yesterday was a mix of rain and storms with nice sunny blue sky and cool breezes. Lot of rain and wind though.
And the trunk I left open to dry out after I left it open through a storm?? Yep. Left it open through a storm again. I hope it will be dry at some point today.
Didn’t get much done on the bigger projects but I did do some more work on a couple of smaller things. Didn’t end up going to my client’s house yesterday but will be out there later today.
My wife decided that we needed to proceed with some sort of above the ground temporary pool. Only problem is, they are sold out everywhere. EXCEPT— in my auctions. Amazon returns and damaged in shipping auctions had several of the Intex pools. I ended up buying one, 15ft x 42″ high. After fees and taxes it was slightly more than list price- for an open box I didn’t inspect. I figure I can MacGiver around any issues. One other pool went for $100 more than mine, and the last one went for $200 more than mine. It is a seller’s market for above ground pools at the moment. Funny thing is, I picked up a pump/filter a couple of auctions ago thinking it could be a gross filter for my “water tank” inflatable kiddie pool, and I got 3 filters for it too. So even if the filter part of the set is missing, I’ve got it covered.
I’ll be doing pickups at four auctions today before heading over to my client’s house. They had another power outage, and half the stuff is offline, plus AT&T should be there to fix the DSL. The auctions were for some tactical accessories and camping stuff, toilet paper (don’t need it, but figured if I could restock with a good brand, I might as well), the pool, and a weird mix of photography LED lighting and backdrops and a couple of antennas.
The ‘weird mix’ auction seller is new to me. They are perhaps the second worst at it I’ve ever come across. Their pictures suck, what few there are, and their descriptions are all the same- general merchandise. By looking at all the listings, I could tell what some of the unidentified items were despite the bad pix and no description. If the stuff is actually there in the lots, I might have done really well. 20 lots for $109 is great pricing. The two antennas would have been most of that, and I got a bunch of other useful stuff, including practice arrows! The photography stuff should help me get better pix for my new listings. Turns out there is a whole slew of photo lighting and backdrop stuff aimed directly at youtubers. You wouldn’t think that would be a big enough market, but you’d be wrong. It is super cheap cr@p but should be fine for the limited use I’m putting it to.
One of the items in with all the tactical stuff was a marine rescue rope in a throw bag. We were talking about swimming the other day. I didn’t mention that I have self inflating life vests in my truck, and now I’ll have a rescue throw rope too. I’m not a strong swimmer, so I prep…
Dinner was frozen hamburger patties from 2017, and a couple of skewers of frozen shrimp. I opened a jar of sweet peppers I ‘cold canned’ a few years ago. They’ve been un-opened in the fridge this whole time. They are crunchy and delicious. The commercial jar of pickled beets from a couple of years ago is starting to fade, and the beets are maybe a little softer than originally, but they are still tasty and good eating.
I found two more buckets of bulk in the garage, one 25# bucket of salt, and one 25# bucket of flour from 2017. The salt is fine for sure, and I don’t want to break the seal on the flour, so I’m just putting it back on the shelf. That HAS to be all the food in the garage at this point. I don’t have that much more area to go through.
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In the wider world, China is pushing India AND Hong Kong. And, at the same time, locking down new cities because of new wuflu outbreaks. There are so many ways this can go wrong.
Russia is getting frisky in the air with our pilots.
There seem to be some riots going on from the usual crew, for the usual reasons in MN and LA. If it spreads like it did a few summers ago, things will be getting sporty soon. Avoid crowds. Make sure you can get out of one if you get caught up.
And people all over the US have lost their dang minds. For now, I’m going to let someone else poke their finger into the flame to see if flames are still hot. I’m holding steady (although I admit to looking at auctions again, and doing the pickups – curbside.) We should know in just a couple of weeks what effect the changes in restrictions will have, if any. I’ll reassess my stance then.
Nothing I see is changing my mind that things are going to get a lot worse before they start to get better. Keep stacking. Don’t let fatigue make you lower your guard.
nick