Hot and humid, hopefully less so than yesterday.
Yesterday, when it was hot and humid. Until the rain came, then it was hot and UNBEARABLY humid. Bah.
I got the grass cut. I did my errands. That was it. Rain killed the rest of the plan.
Today, I was going to do a “ok you just realized you don’t have enough stuff stacked, what do you do?” post but I fell asleep. I’ll do it in comments.
Cuz y’all need to keep stacking.
nick
Hot and humid, but less so. I really do think we may be over the hump.
I mostly spent yesterday afternoon driving. I picked up a couple of things I probably could have easily done without. I’m backsliding.
It was too wet to cut the grass or work outside. We got little showers throughout the day. I spent the morning sleeping. Too beat to consider almost 3 hours of driving around. Not a productive use of my time.
Today I’ve got pickups, and some of the stuff is preps so there is that. I got mortar, cement, other project stuff, and various sundries. The guns and ammo went for too much, but they did have some. 556 brought 70c/rd before adding fees and taxes. One box of 100, name brand FMJ 9mm went for $53 plus about 25% for tax and fees. All the rifles went for big money, and the pistols went for more than gunbroker prices. There were a couple of accessories to be had cheaply though. I should be able to get the auctioneer to commit to my consignment arriving tomorrow. I’ll get that loaded up later in the afternoon if he will commit.
And if the rain stays away, I’ll get the grass cut. Fingers crossed.
My ag extension planting guide says it’s time for fall beans and peas, and almost time for fall root veg. I’ll get some beans and peas in, and get the beds ready for the roots. Dark green leafies are due too, but I don’t know if I’ll try them again this fall. Geez I feel like Charlie Brown and the football with this gardening business.
But hey, social unrest, civil war, crime, disease, economic collapse, famine- all possible; some almost guaranteed. Time’s a wasting. Keep stacking.
nick
Cooler today? Maybe, but I bet it’s just as humid. And two storms shaping up for later. Rain in the national forecast, but sure to be “locally heavy” here in Houston.
Didn’t make much forward progress yesterday. My sciatica has responded well to stretching, and I’m feeling almost normal there, so of course I woke up with a serious crimp in my neck. That kept me from going gangbusters all day. Kids watched movies. Wife cleaned house. I drained the pool cover, twice. Tried to cut the grass but the gas I put in the mower was about 1/3 water, and then the rain came. High wind, heavy downpour, then it all just ended. Drained the mower, refilled with clean gas (one storage can was contaminated and I didn’t notice) and started it right up, but by then it was too late to mow and the grass was too wet.
I did fix a couple of toys. Super glue is my friend. I also did a tiny bit of clean up in the garage. Pulled some things out of the pile to address domestic bliss. Child two wanted a wallet for her cash money. Daddy do you have any spare wallets? Why yes child I do. (wife looking on in completely inscrutable fashion, is she pleased? Pissed? Astounded? No idea, but I solved child’s problem in minutes.) The other thing was some particular cables for whatever my wife is doing with the kids’ computers.
I’ve been picking up leather objects when they are so cheap as to be free, so I’d have some leather for crafting and a couple of projects I want to try. I’ve got a nice bin full of different leather stuff, old purses, bags, wallets, portfolios, belts, etc. from the Goodwill or estates. The wallet was Coach, had a great patina, and cleaned up in a few minutes. Really it was too nice to cut up anyway. You can get a lot of leather from a coat, or a computer bag… and where else would you go to get some small pieces of leather?
It’ll be interesting to see if the insurgents took their socialist holiday off of rioting… but I bet not. I’ve only seen a couple of reports of violence over the weekend but most reporters probably took the long weekend off.
I don’t think the genie will be going back into the bottle, there is too much fun in breaking stuff, and too few consequences.
It’s a lot harder to build than break and once broken, there’s a lot of stuff that won’t ever be put back together. There’s a lot of stuff that is only still here because of inertia that can’t be put back. Social trust being one of those things. BLM is doing a good job of ‘scaring the straights’. I don’t think they’re going to like it when fear turns to anger. And a whole bunch of otherwise good folks are going to be hurt when that happens, because it’s easy to see skin color. On the other hand, it’s a bit like muslim terrorists, if you don’t want to be tarred with the same brush, you better stand up and get loud.
I don’t see much in the way of reconciliation until after the bloodbath.
So keep stacking, and stay away from crowds.
nick
Hot-ish and humid. Maybe rain.
Got some rain yesterday. Lots in the afternoon. Buckets full. By late last night it was down to 76F. Shockingly low temp. We may be over the hump of summer and on the downward slide toward “winter”.
I reported on my trip to the grocery store yesterday. Basically, most of the stuff that wasn’t in stock before is now, but selection is down, quantities seem to be down, and there were gaps on the shelves. Prices seem to be half again, or double what they were before this all started. I took the opportunity to hand pick my veggies, and to load up on some other stuff.
For what it’s worth, 45 pounds of sugar fits in a 5 gallon bucket.
And I think I’m set for cake mixes for a while.
Plans for the day? Same as every day Pinky, ….
Keep stacking,
nick
Hot and humid but definitely less so than a week ago.
Hot and humid yesterday too, especially with the rain or sprinkles depending on where I was.
I did my pickup, all household stuff, and took 3 packs of paper towels to my secondary location. While I was there, I took a pickup load of stuff to the dumpster. If I do some every time I go there, I’ll eventually make a dent. Taking the paper products back there frees up some shelf space at home. That will get my auction items, until I can take them to the sale. Off the patio, out of the house– and into the driveway. Not ideal, but an improvement.
Today if the rain holds off I’ll cut the grass and do some more stuff in the garage. I’ve got parts to put on the Honda gennie too. I ordered the new petcock and fuel filter, and I could wait and do it all at once, but if I do it a bit at a time, I’m making progress, and getting stuff out of the house (and onto the gennie.)
I didn’t see a ton of news about the protests scheduled for last night. I caught the end of something on the scanner about a guy shot 14 times by the Sheriff’s office, but no context. There were supposed to be protests in downtown Houston. Didn’t notice if they happened.
Of course Portland is still a war zone. There was a bit more fire in the pix from the 100th day of rioting. Almost a third of this year the insurgents have been practicing terror and gearing up their cadre. They’re building their organization, practicing tactics, and hardening their troops. What is the right doing?
I feel the need for a grocery order.
Stack it high.
nick
Hot and humid, but maybe less so than last week.
I basically wasted the whole day yesterday. Some very minor stuff got done, but I spent a bunch of time sleeping at my desk.
Today I’ve got yardwork and all the stuff I didn’t do yesterday. Joy.
I’ve stopped checking covid medical news daily, or even weekly. If something catches my eye, I’ll scan it, but for the most part, now that the disaster is here, I’ve switched from “getting ready” to “deal with it” mode.
My wife is keeping an eye on the medical news for both of us.
Funny thing is happening. I’m seeing articles confirming stuff from WAY back at the beginning of this. Like this article
Or the stuff about HCQ with azithromycin and zinc- there was a guy in the comments at Aesop’s blog VERY early on with a lot of info about this.
The reports of heart and lung damage that were dismissed early on, are now backed up with evidence from infections here.
The idea you could get it again was there as early as Feb/Mar with reports from China, and yet this is just now news?*
My observation is that there was plenty of good info very early, at least in some circles, and that much of what got reported after that was trying to downplay (or wishfully deny) what was known; or it was interpreted thru a political viewpoint. That is also why I’ve stepped back from following every report obsessively, once politics got involved everything became distorted. And, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. There is a virus, it is here, it is killing some people, and I don’t want to get it.
Some things are still true:
If you are old or sick you are more likely to have a bad outcome. If you need to be hospitalized your chances of dying are high. (Just on its face this makes sense- you only hospitalize serious cases.)
There are long term effects, and some of them are serious. Since we didn’t have long term survivors we didn’t (and don’t) have a good handle on what those are. The ones we are seeing are potentially life changing.
Random interactions don’t seem to have high transmission, but if you are unlucky enough to come in contact with a ‘super spreader’ your chances of getting sick and having it bad are much higher. There are a lot of ‘super spreaders’ but they seem to be widely dispersed.
Enclosed spaces and groups are a bad idea. Wherever we see groups together for any length of time, we see cases. Oddly to me, about 15% of the group seems to get sick, where I’ve seen good numbers.
This is going to be with us for a long time, basically until everyone who can get it does.
<strong>Consequently, the only official high level strategy goal that matters was and is to manage the number of concurrent cases to try to keep from overwhelming and destroying the health care system.</strong>** Everything else is opportunism or revisionism.
Finally, it bears repeating that there is no one “coronavirus”. There are dozens of different strains spreading and they have different aspects and different outcomes. Just because Johnny got strain x and had no real problems doesn’t mean that if he’d gotten strain y he’d have had the same experience. And it doesn’t mean that if Jane gets strain x she’ll be fine.
We are going to be living with this for a long time. Accept that, get used to that, adjust to that, and get ready for what’s next. The social and economic effects are just getting started. No matter how you feel about the medical effects on you personally or on the country and the world, the social and economic changes WILL affect you. That’s the next storm I see coming, and it’s what I’m preparing for. I sincerely hope I’ll be OVER-prepared, just as it turned out that I am over-prepared for the covid pandemic. Not only am I replacing used or spoiled material, I’m adding to the pile, including materiel. I kindly suggest that you too keep stacking- skills, knowledge, connections, and stuff.
nick
*yeah, no one trusts the chinese, and scientists don’t trust anecdotal evidence, and now finally they have cases in the Western world that absolutely can’t be arm-waved away, or ‘what about’-ed to death.
**This goes all the way back to the initial briefings by CDC and their pandemic flu planning. And it worked. NYFC lost control, didn’t take the necessary steps, and did have bodies pile up outside of overwhelmed hospitals. That could have been everywhere (although worldwide it seems to be worse where the population density is higher than the average US density), and it could have continued longer. The ONLY realistic goal has been to try manage the number of active cases.
Slightly less hot, less humid- unless it rains. Might be on the edge of a system and see some rain.
I spent yesterday morning on tax paperwork, and in the afternoon I worked on my gennies.
So I now have one working generator, one that runs but still needs a bit of love, and the big one that is still sitting there.
Most of the parts for my generators came in and it was not stifling hot out, so I headed out to get my hands dirty. I started with the Honda eu3000is. I replaced the O ring in the carb, cleaned the gas petcock, sediment bowl, and cut off the in tank fuel filter. Since I had to drain the tank for that, I wiped out the whole tank. There was a little sediment, but the tank is designed with space below the petcock for sediment and water to collect. Honda puts a lot of nice design touches on their high end product. After that I tried to fire it up, without success, but when I looked in the tank, I noticed that the gas I used was cloudy with water. Got that out, got a new can of clean gas. Put that in. Tried again, and it started on the first pull. Now it runs. So I also replaced the spark plug. The fuel level indicator and battery arrived while I was working and I didn’t know, so those will go in later.
The problem now is rough running due to too much fuel. And when I use the bowl drain, there is air in the fuel coming out, so maybe there is air in the fuel line. Not sure where that could be coming in, maybe I’ve got a tiny leak around the petcock, or maybe the flow rate without the fuel filter, and with only a little fuel in the tank allows air to get sucked in with the fuel… I can get it to run well by almost closing the petcock. Removing the air filter and box doesn’t make much difference, so I think it’s too much fuel, not too little air. I suspect someone adjusted the carb to run with the blocked fuel filter, and now it’s way too rich. Problem is, I don’t see how to adjust the mixture. Off to youtube I guess. I’m not doing anything tricky until I have a new fuel filter installed anyway.
I shifted over to the old generac and cleaned the fuel tank out. I ordered a ‘dryer hose lint brush’ which is a round brush on a very flexible shaft to use as a scrub brush inside the tank. It’s a plastic tank but had sludge and some rust in it. The lint brush on a cordless drill worked very well. I’ll be using it on other tanks I’m sure. Several rinses with old gas and it was sparkling inside. I installed the new petcock, put the tank back on and tore into the carb. I was expecting carb trouble since I didn’t drain it. And I was right. Water got in, and there was rust in the main chamber which froze the throttle plate closed. Most of a can of carb cleaner spray, some judicious scraping with a pick, some scrubbing with a pad, a couple of jets removed and cleaned, and everything went back together. It started on the second pull and ran smooth. I installed the new gas cap /fuel level indicator. It’s about 1/4 inch too long, but it works. I’ll change the oil and spark plug later. For now though, I’ve got a running gennie again. That gennie was a Y2K purchase, and first got used during Rita. It ran daily for 14 days during Ike. Still runs great with essentially no maintenance other than the obligatory carb cleanings. Heck, it sits outside most of the time. They don’t make them like that anymore.
Small engine repair, achievement unlocked.
I still need to have someone come out and get the big gennie running and connected.
Baby steps. Making forward progress though.
I’m supposed to take a load to my industrial auctioneer today. I have to call him first, which will give him a chance to beg off, and my wife needs to go to the office for a couple hours, right in the middle of the day, which blocks me from leaving the house for that time. I really hope I can get a load delivered given all that. I’ve still got a big pile of stuff waiting to go to my more ‘household and estate’ auctioneer too. They’ve been so busy with off site auctions that they’ve had no time for my consignments. Stuff is piling up waiting to leave, and it adds to everyone’s stress level.
I put the remote sensors in the freezer part of my new fridge/freezer, and in my “new” upright. Stuck the receiver/display on the metal back door of the house. It’s reading current temps (3F and 4F) and my next step is setting alarms. I guess I’ll have to read the tiny little instructions… at least I can see the temps in all three freezer compartments and the fridge compartment without opening the doors now.
I guess I’ll be looking at the danged dishwasher next too. There is always more to be done.
I consider it all practice for hard times. (which are coming, btw…) I’ve watched a lot of youtube vids of small engine repairs, electronic repairs, car repairs, even shoe repairs… I’ve done a bunch of it too, learning the stuff they invariably leave out. Most of it doesn’t take a bunch of tools, or a giant brain. It does take a willingness to try and a humbleness to be open to learning how. Try something outside your comfort zone. The rewards go beyond saving money.
We’ve got robots and machines as force multipliers all around us. We need to keep them running though, if they are to help. Doing at least some of it yourself makes you more resilient, more ‘anti-fragile’, less a pawn, more independent. And you’ll find a whole new list of stuff to keep stacking.
nick
(er….not August, Nick….I fixed it….RickH)
Hot, humid and overcast. National forecast shows possibility of T Storms.
I got very little done yesterday. Picked up some things. Unburied some stuff at my secondary to take to auction. One of the things I picked up and then stored away was incandescent light bulbs. Yup, I buy them if I can get them cheap and in bulk. There are places I really just like the light from the bulbs and they are getting harder to find. These are “rough service” and fit through an exception in the eco wienie law so they’re not truly ‘unobtainium’ but getting 2oo clear bulbs for $2 was too good to pass up. I got some others in a variety of wattages too. Incans don’t last very long, so you need replacements. Another long term consideration, they work just as well on DC as AC. That’s a very post-apoc consideration, but it is a small contributing factor. I saw LOTS of small incan bulbs running off car batteries when I was in China, and I’ve seen pictures of the same thing in other countries. Useful, basic, and cheap. Naturally they need to be banned.
A bunch of purchases were delivered including parts for my gennie repairs, and two of the three items I ordered from Home Depot. The lightweight bucket lids came UPS in one box. The 10 food safe buckets came in one big box, and I’m still waiting for the box of 10 heavy duty lids. The weird thing is, both of the Home Depot shipments were opened. It’s like someone looked inside to decide if they wanted to steal them or not. Strange. I never get opened boxes so getting two in a row, from the same shipper was more than odd.
Today, if it’s not too hot and sunny, I’ll move some of the gennie repairs along. With stuff shaping up in the Atlantic, we might be looking at some storms in a few days. It’d be comforting to have a working gennie before then.
I did get my replacement laser printer in place and installed. Took downloading the HP drivers. Man, win8 sucked when it comes to included drivers. It turns out that I did manage to install my wife’s canon inkjet to my win8 machine, but didn’t know it because the Canon install hung. It took killing the process in Task Manager to get the error popup (failed remote procedure call) and then the machine blue screened and rebooted. After reboot, I had the printer installed and usable. No idea what failed or why it failed like it did. The inkjet was free from a neighbor, and is an All in One with a scanner for the kids to use. Some of their classwork needs to be scanned (or photographed) and uploaded. Since we got rid of our HP all in one, at my wife’s insistence, I was a bit taken aback when she sought out a new all in one. Grrr. I had a huge bag of ink for the old one…
Vet decided that my little dog’s hearing loss is not complete, and is most likely natural aging. She recommended doing all the ‘senior dog’ organ function tests. I agreed. We’re grid up, and it would be nice to know his status and if there is anything we can address. She prescribed joint supplements, and gabapentin for pain as needed. If MY joints hurt, his are likely to be hurting too, so give him a dose. We’ll give it a try anyway for now and see what the labs say.
Elsewhere, the world continues it’s downward slide. Still time to improve your situation. Keep stacking… or find yourself lackin’.
n
Hot and humid. Yep. Again.
Didn’t see the high yesterday, but it was hot. High 90s in the shade for sure.
I took a few minutes and got a coat of Thompsons colored water seal on the teak table. I was sweating by the time I was done, despite being in the shade, and hardly exerting myself wiping the oil on…
After that I did a couple of pickups. Talked to my auctioneer and he put me off until Friday. He’s busy. Picked up a hundred 12ga rounds at one auction, and some dental tools. I intend to use the tools for working with clay not teeth 🙂 I also swung by my secondary location, and picked up some stuff. Both kids want second monitors for their school laptops. The teacher sends links to content during the video call, and there isn’t room onscreen for everything. I’ve got lots of monitors, so it was no biggie, but I’m betting most of the other kids don’t have a <s>hoarder</s> prepper for a dad. I grabbed #1 daughter a keyboard too. I didn’t have a USB port replicator or dock, since their lappys are all USB C. That’s too new for me. Once again though, backups for the win!
I also picked up a black and white laser printer for me. My HP P1005 finally stopped working. I had a pallet of old laser printers I paid $5 for some years ago. My intention was to swap printers instead of toner. I liked my P1005 though, and bought one $10 toner for it. I’ve got 2 HP lasers left. I hope the one I brought home works still. I’ll find out later today. I must have scrapped out the rest of the pile at some point. I don’t remember. I probably kept the toner carts though…
Yeah, there is a cost to keeping all the cr– , er… stuff. I get that. But it’s immensely satisfying to just grab something that will get the job done, without any drama or time used. If we were further down the slope of the collapse, I can imagine situations where what you’ve got is all you can safely get… a big chunk of the world works that way now. Thank Gnu we’re not there yet. It’s Wednesday and already I’ve pulled a couple monitors, cables, a monitor stand, a printer, keyboard, can of spray sticky, some decorative fabric, and a variety of other stuff off the pile and put them to use. That’s cool.
Speaking of cool, I received the fridge monitor someone recommended, I’ll be installing that today. Thanks for the tip. So far, touch wood, everything has been fine in the fridge zone… trust, but verify.
I also got most of my gennie parts, so that’s on the list today too.
I’ve got a vet appointment for my little guy this AM. He’s due for heartworm and some other shots, and we want to talk to the Dr about his fairly sudden hearing loss. It seems like it happened in a matter of weeks that we noticed something, and now he’s almost entirely deaf. Maybe there’s some reason besides old age, and we can help.
Grid’s up, and bodies aren’t stacked in the street. USE the time you have, and stack it high.
nick
Hot and humid. No really. I know you can’t believe it but it is true. Hot and humid again.
Monday was a tiny bit less hot but still so humid stuff wasn’t drying until later in the day.
Given the heat, I decided that I could put off work in the garage and do more powerwashing. I actually need to do two things in order to move other stuff along. I needed to powerwash the chimney so it can be tuckpointed, and I needed to wash a teak patio table so we can either use it or sell it to make some room on the patio. So I did. The chimney actually went very fast, despite me moving in slow motion so I wouldn’t slip on the wet roof. It has one side with really deep erosion of the mortar, and a brick or two that might even need replacing. The cap needs to be re-parged, and a new metal flue cap could be installed. I’m calling a neighborhood guy. If his price is at all reasonable, I’ll job it out. It’s been a long time since I worked for a bricklayer, and I don’t like being on the roof.
The table is back in good nick, and just needs a few coats of oil to be good for another year. Teak is great but it does need maintenance. All patio furniture does better with an annual wash and preventative coating.
After the table, I did the gutters and siding on the back side of the house. I did the heavy black yuck on the concrete patio too. It looks so much better, and my wife was pleased.
While I had the washer out, I used it on the two water tanks on wheels I have sitting in the yard. They are roto-molded plastic, about 30 or 40 gallons, and are on wheeled carts. They were used for team drinking water in high school athletics. I pulled the individual hoses and nozzles off, but left the 12 volt pumps in place. I might join one to a propane on demand water heater to make an outdoor shower, and the pump will be just what is needed. I thoroughly blasted the interior and exterior of both tanks then treated them with dilute bleach water inside. They are ready to fill before the next set of hurricanes in the Gulf.
I started to blast the fence, meaning mostly to run the gas out of the washer and call it quits for the day. I powerwash and treat with Thompsons every two or three years. The fence looks better and lasts longer if you do this. (Fence is western red cedar pickets, 6 and 7 foot high.) The power wash makes it look almost new again, and the Thompsons keeps it that way for longer than untreated wood.
Oh, I cut the grass in the back yard too, and used the string trimmer. I didn’t have to pick up any pecans, I guess the squirrels have ruined and dropped all the nuts for the year.
Flipped one auction item to a local guy for $100 profit. He picked up at the house. He was driving a Maserati. The resale game is treating some people better than it’s treating me apparently. Chatted in the street for about half an hour and could have talked longer. We share a lot of the same interests, and buy in the same auctions. Nice to talk with people.
So while I didn’t get anything done in the garage or driveway, I did get a lot of work done on other projects. Cabin fever is hitting my wife and kids (wife dyed her own hair yesterday, now my soul is in peril) and the kids are grumpier since school started and they are reminded that they can’t touch their friends. I figure a couple of high impact ‘appearance’ projects should help by changing the environment at least a little. Or it could be that I like to get soaking wet in the heat of the day….
Whatever else you do today, keep stacking.
nick