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Month: December 2020

Mon. Dec. 21, 2020 – 12212020, kinda cool.

Cool and clear, maybe a chance to dry out.

Yesterday was beautiful.  Clear, sunny, blue sky.

I did get over to my secondary location and threw out a bunch of stuff.  I filled one big dumpster, and part of another.  Took three loads in the Ranger to shuttle it to the trash.  I had to cut it into 2-3 foot pieces to get it out, since I didn’t want to spend more time on the forklift.   I’m making progress.  Slow but still progress.  Of course today I’ll be paying the piper with sore muscles and scrapes that burn.  Both forearms and my shins are scraped up.  I’ll live.

Number one daughter gets her first orthodontia installed today.  Oh my.  Half way through 6th grade.   Seems early to me but I’ll let the pros make that call.  It’s come a long way since I had mine done.

I’ve got a bunch of stuff to pick up today and some to drop off.  About four more bins worth and still barely a difference… but it’s progress.  Pickups are mostly household and Christmas stuff, but there are some gub parts and accessories.   Several boxes of 3m respirator filters.  GOJO dispenser refills.  Some other stuff.

Still need to get some Christmas lights and decor up outside.   I got the ‘base layer’ up, but there is more cool stuff to do, if the weather will just hold for long enough.

There’s something wrong with the wuflu numbers coming out of Cali.  If they were at capacity last time around, and now we’re double that, but still not maxed out, someone is lying, or the reporting sucks.  Or, embrace the power of ‘and’.  Not sure, don’t care enough to dig, but I’m calling shenanigans.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe Aesop as ‘boots on the ground’ about the reality and severity of the problem, but something doesn’t add up.   As I’ve said before, I’m treating this as the disaster is HERE, so do what needs doing to deal with that reality.  No point in looking at storm tracks and models anymore, LOTS of reason to clean up the yard and fuel up the gennie, so to speak.  The pebble is in motion, the avalanche is coming, everything moving will continue to do so until they all come to rest.  I don’t see that happening for a long time.

The election and transfer of government happens next, or doesn’t.  Again, nothing I can do to affect that, so work the things I can.  The vaccine rollout and the surge are going to come crashing together for the next month or three at least.   The possible mutation in Europe and round two of the CV lockdowns will be sloshing around for at least a couple of months, possibly followed by vaccine v.2…  but in any case people are not going to stay home without a LOT of fear, more than anything to date.     That fear is going to have to be based in at least the appearance of truth, and it’s going to have to be convincing.  All this points to more extremism on every front.

If Biden is sworn in all bets are off.  SJW will be emboldened and the cries for blood will be loud.  The right will be very upset.  Whether that will translate into action is a good question.  It depends on the left and what they do.  If Biden doesn’t survive in office past March, expect it to be turned up to 11.

If Trump is sworn in some bets will pay some very long odds.   And the left will explode in rage.  That much I feel confident saying.  The right will say “come get some” and then we risk losing it all.

No matter which happens, it won’t be fun for most of us.

I’m thinking that we need to be ready to pull back, reduce our exposure, keep our heads down, but be ready for when that fails to protect us.

 

Whatever happens, having food in the fridge won’t hurt.  Ditto for lawyers, guns, and money.  And friends.  And skills.  And health.  And stacks.  Keep stacking.

 

nick

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Sun. Dec. 20, 2020 – 12-20-2020 hmmm more weird looking numbers

Cool but clear.  That’s the forecast.   I’m hoping it’s correct because I’ve got stuff to do.

Did some stuff yesterday.  The heavy rain put a damper (ha!) on my day.   My wife found a local food distribution scheme she liked so all the flats of food are out of my foyer.  I’ve still got bins of auction stuff there though.

A gingerbread house was constructed on the kitchen table.  Some cookies were decorated.   Kids played Skyrim and Portal2 all day and night.  Somehow we ended up with a very late bedtime.

The little one and I are halfway through the last Little House book, The First Four Years.  It’s hard to think of little Laura as a mom, especially when she wants to sled down the hill outside the house…  and it’s a bit daunting to read the books and see how much of their success was down to not having bad luck at a bad time.   Then when everything should come together, and they should ‘live happily ever after’, they don’t.   Real life, even through the filter of story, doesn’t always have the happy ending.  What is consistent throughout the books is that Pa’s attitude and depth of knowledge, and willingness to ACT when needed, carries the family through travail after travail.  The pioneers that lived and succeeded were TOUGH and yet FLEXIBLE.

That seems to be something to keep in mind and nurture in general, and in the coming hard times specifically.  Hard times are ALWAYS coming (shout out to the ‘nearer’ bois!)  It is the nature of the world that the wheel turns.  What seems more likely for the near and medium term, prosperity and good times, or hard times?  Show your work…

I’m gonna keep stacking.

 

nick

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Sat. Dec. 19, 2020 – 2021 ain’t gonna save ya

Cold and wet.  But not freezing.

Yesterday was cool all day but sunny in patches.

I got some stuff done.  Got out to my remaining client’s house and got him all back working.  Combination of failing gear, gear that got reset to initial state, and changing settings.

While there I learned that my client and his wife both got covid.  Mild and short cases, but classic symptoms.  He brought it home, likely from the hospital.  Protocols failed somewhere.  While working through the issues there with my sometimes business partner on the phone I learned that his actual business partner got it and died.  200 pounds overweight was probably the co-morbidity.    He was no longer inclined to joke about covid.  His partner was 42.   That increases the number of people in my circle, one or two degrees of separation, that had it, and it increases the number that died from it.  I’ve never had anyone I know die from flu.

Daughter’s school had a kid and staff member test positive this week.  That’s a small sample but it’s double the week before and 4x the two weeks before that.  IOW, it appears to be increasing in frequency.

The Solarwind penetrations look worse and worse.  NO way to every trust those systems again, the attackers had too much time in them.  And they were in everything important according to first reports.  Given that first reports are almost always wrong, it’s hella early to be calling for war with Russia.  Someone needs to be ‘reprisal-ed’ but we better be sure about the target.

Still two weeks to go in 2020, I’d like to get through them WITHOUT adding “hot war with Russia” to the list of unbelievable bad shirt happening.

It’s a list that includes actual honeypot physical spy stuff and assassination.

All the stuff set in motion this year will still be moving next year.

Anyone still doubt this is one of those times when everything changes?

From the masthead at WRSA–  “How will you improve the survivability of your people this weekend?”

Think about that for a while, then start working on it.  Keep stacking.

 

nick

 

(anyone else think the timing of the Solarwind revelations is just a TAD suspicious?)

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Fri. Dec. 18, 2020 – one week ’til Christmas.

Cold and dry or maybe cold and damp.  But certainly cold.

Cold all day yesterday but above freezing by mid morning.

I spent the afternoon doing pickups that I was going to do today, so that I can go to my client’s house today instead.  And I would really like to drop off a couple of bins, and pickup some stuff, but that auction house has pickups for yesterday’s auction and they’ll be busy.

I’ll also try to get my expired ID exchanged for current for the Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association today.   The training officer will be close to somewhere I will be driving by, and is willing to make the exchange.

It will be a busy couple of days today and tomorrow.

On my way home yesterday I stopped in the Goodwill Outlet.  In the weird items category, I grabbed two new sealed tubs of Cascade dishwashing pods.  These are the very same ones I buy normally.  At ~$3 each, that was a pretty good deal compared to $19 each in the store.  I grabbed a dozen DVDs for me, and a dozen name brand ladies’ purses for the auction with the money I saved.  I should make good money on the purses, they’ve been selling really well.

The batteries I picked up will add to my future solar bank.  I now have 4 or 5 identical 65AH batteries, 3 or 4 identical 55AH batteries, and a mix of others mostly car or truck batteries.  I’ve got a 100w panel, and 70 panels at 10w.  I’ve got a couple of big inverters.  Still need charge controllers though, as the one that I have is NFG.  Once I have all the pieces, I’ll start on cobbling some sort of system together.  Or maybe 2 or 3 systems right next to each other.  Future project though.

If CWII breaks out and the Monkey Wrench Gang goes to work, solar and supplemental energy will be really important.  And if not, it will be an interesting project that I can use to run the air conditioner in my garage.

Cisterns for water, local solar and batteries, these are current tech and part of everyday life in places like Cancun Mexico.  I think we might see them here too, and too soon.  So I’ll keep stacking the stuff to make that work.

Keep stacking the stuff you think you’ll need.

nick

 

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Thur. Dec. 17, 2020 – hace frio hoy!

Cold.  Damp.  But maybe no rain, and maybe some sun.

Yesterday was overcast and cold until late in the day when the sun finally peeked through the clouds.  Didn’t do anything outside.  Didn’t get much done period.  What little I did do was needful, but it wasn’t my most productive day.  It was 34F when I went to bed.

So today I’ll be visiting my client.  He’s got a bunch of stuff that was working after my last visit that isn’t working anymore.  I’ll be troubleshooting and moving gear around.

Before that, I’ll going to maybe do a bit of in person shopping.  I’m hoping to pick up my prescription in the store, and there are things I would like to have in the fridge.  We’ll see how much of the list I get done around the house first, then getting ready for my site visit, then maybe the store.  Once I head to my client’s house, I’m there until dinner.

Friday will be full of pickups.  I got some Christmas presents, and a bunch of batteries for my solar project.  I grabbed a handheld ham handie talkie too at one of the auctions.  I really didn’t get too much radio gear this year.  I guess that’s a blessing with the Hamfest being canceled.

So much to do, IRL, for the Holidays, at my secondary, with auction selling and buying, and I’m falling behind because I’m just not as motivated as I was.  Mild depression?  Who knows.  This is certainly the time of year for it, and the year has been heaping on reasons in spades.  You could describe the change in mask and stay at home compliance as a sort of ‘cabin fever’ too.  Whatever, if I’m affected, lots of other people must have it worse.  If you’re feeling depressed, you’re not alone, and there is help out there, and right here for that matter.  Talking seems to help, and is the usual prescription.

I always feel better looking at the stuff I’ve put away to secure my family’s future.  I’ve got stacks of stuff to get rid of, true.  But I’ve got stacks of stuff to get us through what’s already started, and will be a long time finishing.  The trick is knowing what to stack.   Food and ways to prepare it, water and ways to purify it, shelter and ways to defend it, health and welfare materials and the knowledge to use them, these are ALWAYS good to have.  Keep stacking these and you’ll probably be alright.

nick

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Wed. Dec. 16, 2020 – I’m TNT, I’m dy-no-mite…

Cool, but no rain forecast.

Tuesday it rained.  All over town in varying degree.  Lots where I was.  Not so much at home.

I ran my errands.  Fixed the plumbing issue at my rent house.  Got it the first time, with the stuff I had with me, and didn’t have to do the second part after all….   that’s two miracles and a ‘nice save’…. I feel like a lotto winner.

Of course I also found out that my tenants are getting married in May.  Which means I’ll need new tenants when they get pregnant.  House is fine for two, too small for three.  And he had the ‘rona, but she never got it.  Locked in with him, and him with both symptoms (mild to ‘this sh!t sucks’) and a positive test, her with two negative tests.   Three whole weeks and she never got it.  Crazy.

Harvested two stalks of broccoli from the garden.  They are about fist sized heads.   Maybe they’ll be dinner tonight.

While sitting at my computer I’ve been ripping my way through the hundreds of CDs in the two binders I picked up.  The burned copies were all bad.  But I’ve been having good luck with the commercial disks.  Almost all have ripped, although some have taken a whole lot of re-reading and oversampling.  A couple just needed washing, and I polished 2 so far that I really wanted to rip.    I’ve done a couple hundred so far with the same left to go.  Then the physical media goes to storage.  I’m not the guy who rips his collection then sells all the disks…  anyway, I like owning physical media.  After this, I’ll have just about every Lynyrd Skynyrd disk ever released- something that wasn’t one of my life goals, but I’m a completist.   If I’m going to burn all the disks, I’ll burn ALL the disks.  Even 20 or more Skynyrd disks.  Le sigh.

Today I’m home with the student, so I’ll be doing home stuff.  There’s certainly plenty to do.

Perhaps I’ll get a chance to do some stacking…  Something I recommend to everyone 😉

nick

 

 

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Tues. Dec. 15, 2020 – so. That happened. So we’re on that path.

Cold.  Dreary.  Wet later.  Probably some wind too.

Cold all day yesterday.  Every time I went out to the garage, I was very glad to come back in  while we’re grid up and the house was warm, with no effort on my part.  That wasn’t always true, and it might not always stay true.

Mostly I spent the day getting stuff moved around and organized.   I don’t feel like I got a whole lot done, but I did fill two bins for the auction.

Today I’ve got to get to the rent house and address the plumbing issue.  I also have a Christmas present to pick up, and I’m going to try to swap out my full bins for empties at one of the auctioneers.

Meanwhile the march to war continues.  Guns and ammo are still available at a price.  I got eflyers for both yesterday.  They were generally gone in a very short time, so if you need something, get on some email lists.   Body armor is available and still cheap.  You may not be thinking of becoming an urban partisan, but you might want a second chance if you find yourself working at 7-11 trying to keep body and soul together, or going to collect rent at one of your rent houses.  Elements of the left have been very clear that they want everyone to the right of them dead, destroyed, purged, impoverished, beaten, or subdued.  It’s just a matter of which one you hear how severely you should be treated.  And it doesn’t really matter if not all the left feels that way.  The ones that don’t won’t be gunning for you.  You never really know how or why you might come to their attention, but if you do it isn’t going to be fun.

If things go sporty in a big way, it won’t take much to close the container ports.  Anyone with a deer rifle can close air travel for however long they want to, and can stay free.  There aren’t that many bridges across the Mississippi River.  Transformers are vulnerable and have already been targets.   If you can get into the .gov networks and Treasury, you can surely get into the SCADA networks that control the pipelines and pumping stations.  Contaminate a drinking water plant and it’ll be a while before people trust it again.  Do it six times and they’re done for good.

Our infrastructure is fragile.  It was built for a high trust society, and a lot of it is in very remote and yet accessible places.  When there are problems with it, it’s the PEOPLE who get-r-done and fix it.  If those people are unable or unwilling, then it will go down and stay down.  It’s not something you can bring in the Army to fix, or foreigners.  Watch some video of linemen ‘hot sticking’ transmission lines as an example, or of the guy who clears the macerator in the settling pond at  the sewage plant.   Not something for the untrained.

How much infrastructure are you able to live without?

While you’re thinking about that, keep stacking.

nick

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Mon. Dec. 14, 2020 – king for a day

Cool and wet.  Although the forecast doesn’t have any rain for our area, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Yesterday was rainy throughout.  Lots of thunder, lots of rain in the morning, with more rain and heavy wind gusts all through the day.

I did inside stuff.  Marginally productive inside stuff, testing a couple of things, organizing some stuff, but mostly not doing much despite all the movement.   I did find some meds in my travel kit, and that helped.  I’ll be chasing my prescription today, and taking more steps to stack it up.  I can not skip it if I need to.  Not if I want to be active and effective.

Kids spent the whole day by themselves.  My wife ran errands and made cookies.  Yummy PILES of cookies.  I made 2 pounds of bacon for breakfast.  It got eaten too.  Dinner was pulled pork from cans that our Costco carried for a while.  I drain them, heat them, and add BBQ sauce.  Served them on King’s Hawaiian rolls.  Some leftover carrots, baked beans, and fresh onion filled out the plate.   The pulled pork isn’t as versatile as the chicken but it makes a nice change of pace and was widely available and not expensive.

Today I’m at home, while my wife goes into the office, so I’ll be doing at home stuff.   I hope to be a bit more productive today.  Since I’m not going to be allowed to solve the country’s problems today, I’ll have to keep working on my own.

On the wuflu front, we should be seeing peaks from the Thanksgiving spread this week and next.  We’re up, but not storing the dead in freezer trucks, and I’m very glad for that.

On the national insurgency/coup/civil war, it’s just getting started.  Pretty sure lots more is coming.   Someone online pointed out that the dems are not confident.  They aren’t dancing in the street.  They and their propaganda arm are doing their best to gaslight, censor, restrict, and obfuscate, but if they were confident they’d be a whole lot more “in your face” about it.   I find that heartening, but ultimately, I think the deep state and a bunch of others had their Quisling ‘peace in our day’ moment.   The cheaters know they cheated.  The others know they cheated, and they decided NOT to kick off CWII this week.   I think they haven’t bought nearly as much time as they think they have.  I guess we’ll see.

We’ve got a bit more time to get our stuff straightened out.   I could load a box truck here at the house if I was serious and had somewhere to SEND all this stuff.  I might just have to.  I did make two ebay sales yesterday.  I think my net was $40.  That isn’t going to buy much in the way of preps… and it’s not clearing stuff out fast enough.  I usually move the equivalent of two pallets at the March hamfest swapmeet.  That isn’t happening this year either.  On the plus side I figured out how to get more stuff thrown away, even if I can’t get the forklift running right.  I’ll cut it up and move it piece by piece, instead of moving it then cutting it up at the dumpster.  There’ll be a lot more handling of the stuff, but I’ve got the equivalent of a 53 foot tractor trailer taking up space I need for other things.   I won’t get it all back, I’m keeping some of the shipping containers, but they’ll nest to a degree.  I just need to find 10 hours during the day when I can go do it, and when it’s not raining.

Where did I go wrong?  I kept buying stuff long after it stopped selling.  I’ve found myself doing the same with preps…   I get a bug that I should pick up item x, and keep doing so long after I should have recognized I’ve got enough x and moved to y.  So take stock of what you have, where you need to be, and how you hope to get there.   You might be surprised by the hills and the valleys in what you thought was level ground.

I’m sure there are valleys to be filled by more stacking.  And if not, it’s time to level up skills.  A good scanner for Christmas and leaving it on while you work so you can get an idea about what’s going on in your area might be a place to start, if you’ve got the rest taken care of… or start working on your HUMINT so you can get a feel for the restlessness of the natives.  Get out of the house and talk to some people, at a safe distance of course.

Figure out your needs and keep stacking them.

nick

 

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Sun. Dec. 13, 2020 – street skirmishes in the nation’s capitol…

Well, in Houston it’s cool and damp.

Elsewhere Civil War II is heating up.  There are a couple of links late yesterday.

Yesterday I did get some stuff done.  Most of what I was hoping to accomplish, but still not anywhere near what was needed.  Today if the weather holds, I’ll head over to my secondary location and do some work over there.

Got the tree up and decorated.  House smells nice.  My wife and girls are baking cookies today.

It’s a bit crazy that while I was watching a couple of episodes of The Mandalorian (stilted, heavy handed, third writer and still it’s meh) there was fighting in the streets of DC.  I was pretty sure it would hold off until after Christmas, but I guess the anger is growing faster than I thought.  That is the problem with being comfortable here in Houston.  I have a hard time getting a sense of the real mood and conditions in the rest of the country.

Things do tend to change slowly until they change all at once.  We might be closer to flipping the switch than I thought.  Use what time you have to improve your position.  This isn’t going away, and it isn’t getting better without getting a whole lot worse first.

Stack it as high as you can.

Nick

 

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Sat. Dec. 12, 2020 – getting close to Christmas….

Cool, wet, maybe rain.

Yesterday got pretty wet late in the afternoon.  The forecast called for about .2 inches, and I’m not sure what we ended up getting, but it was cats and dogs for a while.

A couple of things conspired against me and my list.  My wife had errands to run, which I didn’t expect.  That kept me home until 2pm.  I got one pickup and one drop off done.  Didn’t get my settlement from last week’s auction, the auctioneer was having a company meeting.  I should get a check in the mail from the industrial auction some time next week.  That’s good news.

The other thing was the rain.  Pouring rain meant no Christmas decor went up.  Stuff is slipping like Fox’s ratings.

While I was waiting for my wife to get back I wasn’t UN-productive.  I cut my hair.  Went through some more stuff and put it in the auction box.   I pulled two parts and shipped them for an ebay sale.  Tested some stuff with an eye toward listing it or sending it to auction.  Tried to test an XBox360 and discovered I was missing the IEC cordset.  M$ doesn’t use a normal cord, theirs has a ‘key’ at the bottom.  I went through a box of cords and didn’t find one.  But I just need to test it so I got out a gouge and made my own key slot.  FTW!  Didn’t get a chance to use it yet.  I’m sure it will need some additional “adjusting”.

Today is the monthly meeting of my non-prepping hobby.  I think I would like to go.   I’m feeling ok, it’s probably raining so I can’t work outside, and I miss the club.  Seems dumb to have waited until the numbers are all record high to finally break down and meet but that is the state of the state.  Nothing makes sense or feels right.

Later today I need to break down and vac seal and freeze all the meat I bought this week.  Costco was out of turkeys by the time my shopper got there.  They were showing stock when I ordered.  The price was good so I guess they ‘flew’ out of the store.  Instead, I got a lamb roast for Christmas dinner.  I think I’ll cook the whole 6 pounds instead of breaking it down to halves.  Then we’ll have yummy leftovers.  Normally I’d be thinking about a ham, or maybe a ribeye roast, but my wife suggested the lamb.  Since we all love it, it was a no-brainer.  I think there are some traditions that involve lamb at Christmas, just not in our families.   Lamb is a good choice for economy- you can get very good lamb for the same price as mediocre beef, or at least we can get it here.  If we were post-apocalyptic, lamb and sheep would be front and center on the farm, just as they were throughout history.  Very useful animal, your sheep.

Protein in the freezer.  Veg in cans.  Pasta, and the stuff to make bread in buckets.  Ammo in cans.  Gubs in the safe.  That all feels pretty good, but I’m still anxious.  I checked the ammo sales, and nobody had any.  PSA had almost nothing at all in stock.  What they had was really unusual calibers, big game rifle ammo, and blanks.  Some was $5/rnd, most was over $1/rnd.  They might have had one or two boxes of bastard stepchild pistol ammo- cowboy revolvers, and .32 cal.   It’s getting short out there.

And time is getting short too.  The holidays are keeping some stuff under control.  The election stuff hasn’t played out yet, but it’s looking more like Sleepy Joe and the town bike every day.  Legitimate election or not, his policies will not be good for you and I.  That should be terrifying everyone much more than ‘Orangeman bad’.  I can only hope that he’s stymied at every turn, but based on their RINO history and never Trump activism, I bet that ‘in the interest of healing our nation’ there is a flurry of cross aisle cooperation.  If you think “it won’t be that bad, we’ll survive it like everything else”, I’d like to point out that we didn’t ‘survive’ it.  Compare today to 20 years ago, 40, 60.  Culturally and politically we are not living in the same country we were born to. *

Maybe it’s because I’ve got young kids, but I’m appalled at what we’re building for them.   That deserves a whole long post of it’s own, and I’ve got other stuff higher on my list.

Check your list.  Check your assumptions.  Check your stack.  Check your gear.  Check your friends and acquaintances.  And keep stacking.

nick

 

*for a perfect example, consider the band 2livecrew and the massive outcry and censorship of their album and song, ‘Me so horny’.  Now consider the song WAP, for which Cardi B is widely lauded.  The official video on youtube has 300 million views, the audio released first has 181 million.  Dozens of other versions have 10s of millions of views.  The song is flat out obscenity.  There is a radio edit.  It gets airplay.  I’m not linking to the vids, it’s bad enough reading the lyrics.  People think it’s FUNNY.  If you feel compelled to listen to it, watch the vid of the girl signing it.  ‘wap cardi b sign language’ None of it is SFW.  Every aspect of our culture has been degraded.  Every one of our freedoms has been limited.  And it all happened a little bit at a time.

 

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