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Month: April 2021

Sat. April 10, 2021 – this month is flying by

Warm and damp. Maybe some rain, although I doubt it. We’re supposed to be in a tiny little strip of weather according to the map. That almost never holds true, so I think we’ll luck out. Yesterday was overcast, warm, and muggy all day.

I got up on the roof early and installed my new camera. Got it aimed and focused in only one extra trip up, but forgot to check that the microSD card was working. I’ll have to get to that another time. I am all out of time budget for the camera project. (It is recording on the NVR)

My wife is at GS camp learning how to teach canoeing to the girls, and the kids are home with me.

Today is also the monthly meeting for my non-prepping hobby. I have some parts for one of the guys who bought stuff from me last time, so I’ll probably swing by and just drop them off. Then it’s home to the list.

And at some point, I’ll swing by the rent house and get measurements for what will fit in the fridge spot in the cabinets. I’m pretty sure the Lowe’s near me has one in stock that will fit, but I’d sure like a scratch n dent if I can find one. The tenant says “no hurry, the fridge part still works fine.” Weird, but I’m over wondering what’s wrong since the fridge is probably 20 years old and has a bunch of cosmetic issues too. And if anyone is wondering, yes, new HVAC board, new dishwasher, cheap dryer, new dryer, new fridge, some plumbing work, etc WILL eat most of the profit from your rental. That’s why small landlords tend to be handy, and go for scratch n dent whenever possible, and cut more corners than they should.

Non sequitur, anyone else wear the little locator nibs off your keyboard? The actual letters are still on the keys, which are very shiny (in proportion to how often they get used), but the little nibs are worn away. The spacebar also has a gentle depression in it where my thumb rests… I’ve got a gamer keyboard with cherry switches sitting here, I should probably get that swapped in. This original Dell keyboard is as old as the machine, which shipped with win8.1, so it lasted pretty well. I picked up the new keyboard a couple of weeks ago because I noticed that sometimes the shift keys don’t work, but I hadn’t noticed the nibs being worn off. In the last couple of days I noticed that I keep putting my hands in the wrong place on the home row. Add it to the list, or just do it right the f now?? List. Now there are other things to do.

I’m sure there are things on your list, and time is getting short. After all, the end is nigh- er…

Keep stacking.

n

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Fri. April 9, 2021 – and now we’re one step closer to CWII, thanks Joe!

Warm and sunny, with a small chance of rain, or hot and sunny, I’m reasonably sure it will be one or the other. It was sunny and warm yesterday, but so humid that puddles in the driveway wouldn’t dry. I was soaked with sweat pretty quickly after going outside. Sunny and beautiful, but not pleasant.

Spent a couple of hours napping. I just felt really wrung out, and was falling asleep in my office chair. Since that hurts my neck, I just went back to bed. I’ve done that more in the last couple of months than in the last couple of years. That is not necessarily a good thing.

The rest of the day was eaten up with small tasks. I got a mounting arm for my last camera cobbled together. I put the mount for the mount in place on the chimney. And I got the camera configured, along with the NVR software. Even though the cam is sitting in my office, I am looking at image from it on my NVR. Since getting that camera in place and working moved to pretty near the top of my list, it felt like a good day.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was devoted to cooking our belated Easter dinner. I was able to use mint and rosemary from the garden to season the lamb. I also used some instant potato packets from 2014. They were a bit orange, as the butter flavor coloring changed with time, but after adding some cream, butter, and bacon crumbles, the mashed potatoes were perfectly fine as an accompaniment to the lamb. I had one box of envelopes that tasted “old” and then this box that is well within acceptable range for taste. Same age, but one got more heat than the other. Heat is the killer of stored food.

I have decided to increase my stored bulk rice and flour beyond where it is now. It’s relatively cheap, and things aren’t looking better world wide, in fact our pResident seems to be actively working to make them worse. (And of course I don’t believe it’s him at all, but whoever is pulling the strings. It’s convenient to blame him, after all he’s sitting in the big chair, and that way I don’t need to type all this every time.) I think when I did the math, if we were eating it every day, one bucket of rice would last one month, and 50 pounds fits in a bucket. I’ll double check later today and update. So, 10-12 buckets of rice at $25-$40/bucket for the year. I haven’t priced bulk rice in a year, and it varies by grade, producer, and availability. If someone here is using rice every day (roughly) please add your usage observations.

Flour is much harder to judge because I do almost nothing with bulk flour. I’m going to guess at 10-12 buckets per year for that too, because it’s cheap, so why not.

I’ll need to add a few gallons of vitamin E stabilized peanut cooking oil too. That will actually be the most expensive part.

Those three things, and some salt, comprise most of the traditional ‘poor people’ food the world over, time without end. Some type of powdered flour, some rice, some cooking oil, some water and salt, and you have basic calories that can be added to with whatever is available. RBT called them “iron rations” and it never seemed very appealing to me. I plan to have lots to add to them, but they are the base load. It’s time to build up the canned storage too.

We’re currently eating canned corn, beans, peas, and a few other things that I panic bought during ebola-14, and the vast majority is as good as when I bought it. There are exceptions. High acid foods don’t survive as long in cans. Pineapple, tomato products, some other fruit, they have swelled up and/or popped. Dry mixes with a high fat content also tend to taste “old” once past their best by date. In our climate, dried food in boxes picks up an “old” taste too soon too– Kraft mac n cheese I’m looking at you.

The way I’m looking at it, maybe we WON’T need enough stuff to stay home for 6 months to a year because of a pandemic…. and maybe we won’t need to supplement our shopping with stored food for a year or two, while the economy and security situation stabilize. But what if we do? Food security is cheap insurance.

So stack it high.

nick

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Thur. April 8, 2021 – things are coming to another head

Wet and cooler, or possibly wet and warm. But probably wet.

Wednesday was mostly overcast with bits of sun poking through every now and then. The light rain started late, 10pm or later, and was really just a heavy mist. And it was still 68F so pretty dank.

Mostly did housework, then got the youngest from school. Did my auction pickup with her riding along. She was not amused. I got some fishing gear, and another propane camp stove, and a bunch of ebay stuff that sells well, but only in spurts. Been a bit slow lately but it won’t spoil and doesn’t take too much space. It will sell later.

Got a quote back from the electrician. He’ll install the transfer switch for $450 but doesn’t want anything to do with the gennie. That’s fine, I’ll get a plumber to do the gas, and I’ll do the hookup once the switch is in place. I won’t have to do anything live, or inside my panelboard that way. Just need to find the time and schedule him.

Today should be more of the same, especially if it’s raining. Plenty to do indoors.

And I’m getting anxious again. Biden is going to try his luck with Executive Orders that infringe the right to keep and bear arms. Weird stuff is going on in world finance. It’s possible that the MN cop won’t get railroaded, but there will certainly be riots either way. People are starting to talk about inflation the same way they have started to talk about Civil War- both seem increasingly inevitable. The chinaflu lockdown only suppressed and delayed those things, while also exacerbating them. When the tinder lights, it’s going to get really ugly, really fast. People will surely say “It happened so suddenly, it came out of nowhere” and for them, it will have. For the rest of us though, it’s been coming for a long time.

Thoughts like these make me want to stack all the things.

n

(I had a thought today- if you were watching this, and prepping through it for the last year, and LIVING actively and consciously, you probably lost weight or stayed even for the last year. If you were just sitting idle, waiting for the all clear, pissed that your tinder matches are all disappointments, you probably gained weight. I’d be interested to see the ant vs grasshopper distribution on gaining or losing weight….)

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Wed. April 7, 2021 – I did get a couple things done

Warmish, humid, possibly raining, and generally yucky weather. Or not. ’cause Houston!

Yesterday was pretty nice, if a bit humid. I did indoors stuff, and then spent the afternoon running around. School, bank, Post office… Daughter2’s STAAR test was fine, but a whole lot of students got to sit around for a day when the huge centralized testing program went offline. Millions of wasted learning hours…

Had to go to the bank. Hmm. Still need a mask. Felt like I was robbing the train or something. Oh, and if the bank was serious about reducing COVID risk, they’d put more than one teller in the glass box in the afternoon. We had 10 or eleven customers standing in line for half an hour, and 3 or four bank employees, all waiting on ONE teller in a not particularly large space. I was the only white person in the bank. Wypeepo don’t go into the bank anymore?

Got my cashier’s check, then it was off to the Post Office… fortunately our branch lets people just leave Priority mail on the counter and not stand in line. The lobby was full of people and the line is very slow moving at the best of times. From the beginning of this whole thing, the PO has been dirty and crowded. Still dirty, slow, and crowded. If a global pandemic won’t get them to change, who can expect anything to change them?

Everywhere I look I see people ready for the whole thing to be over. That is great if it is, and I think there is some evidence to support the idea we’re over the hump. I think far more people have had it than the numbers would suggest and we are therefore closer to ‘herd’ immunity than the fearmongers would have us believe. On the other hand, we’ve seen that every time large groups get together, cases and all the other metrics go up. I HOPE we’re at the point where that won’t happen in any big way. Like so many other times, I find myself saying “we’ll see”. *

Today should be more of the same. One of my auctions went live yesterday, so I need to work on filling bins for the next one (and driving myself mad watching the bids). I’ve certainly got plenty of stuff. I’m a bit concerned that demand for other people’s stuff is falling off. It will at some point outside of “grail” objects, it’s bound to be hard to sell collectables to people who are short on money for food. JerryP used to say he was after peoples’ beer money, not their ‘eating’ money. Almost everything I have in inventory is fully in the realm of discretionary spending. When money gets tight, that spending dries up. If you’ve been thinking about selling off some crap, I mean precious memories, do it now.

As an aside, it’s been so long since I was in the bank or used the ATM that I didn’t realize my card had expired. Took a while to figure out that the replacement was buried under stuff on my desk. LOTS of stuff expired on my birthday and I need to get on top of that. Passport, debit card, ARRL membership, non-prepping hobby org membership, and I’m sure some other stuff too. Take a second to look through your stuff and see if you will need to renew anything, and get a jump on it. Everything is taking longer these days, and you wouldn’t want to be without your CHL or ham license, or any professional memberships or licenses.

There’s always something more to consider or do. That’s why you need to get a good base in place to cover, well, the basics. Then you have time to consider the less obvious things, and build real depth in your preps.

And have stacks of stuff. Always stacks of stuff.

nick

*some translators of the story behind the link use “we’ll see” instead of the farmer’s “who knows” or “maybe”…

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Tues. April 6, 2021 – what am I paying you for???

Cool and clear, warming throughout the day. I hope.

Monday was partly cloudy and warm, with a hint of cool in the breeze once I got out of town. My client is about 30 miles outside of Houston, all freeway or country road, and the weather out there is always cooler than in town. They got through the freeze without much trouble. He’s got a big whole house generator, that FAILED to start, but they were only dark for 3 hours. The company that maintains and services the gennie, specifically so it starts when needed, sent out a guy right away and solved the issue, but they never needed the gennie again. Some switch was left in the wrong position. Anything can fail. Standby generators with automatic switches seem to be especially prone to failure, maybe for the same reason that “emergency food” universally tastes horrible- no one really expects to use it. In this case, they lose power frequently. The gennie gets used. It gets ‘exercised’ every week automatically. A service guy comes by regularly and maintains it. And it still failed to start automatically.

They had one outside plumbing line break during the three dark, windy, and very cold hours (no power, no well pump, no trickle for the faucet). There are a couple of lessons in this whole tale, including one that isn’t very obvious. His plumbing is all pex homeruns from a manifold in the attic. He could have simply closed the valves on the lines leading to outside faucets, and then opened the faucets to drain, without affecting the rest of the house. His plumber had him do that afterwards to stop the leaking at the faucet until he could come by and fix it. Simple right? But if you don’t know how your systems work, or what their capabilities are, even very smart people can miss straightforward preventative measures, and simple fixes.

So how did my actual work go? The problem was two pieces of gear got out of sync, probably during the power outage, and a reboot cleared the issue. While I was there anyway, I cleaned the outdoor TVs and cleaned all the camera domes. We talked about the rip and replace, and that will be going forward now. Just have to work out the design, get all the gear ordered, and find the time for an install, and we’ll be good to go.

Today I’m hoping for a dropoff at my ‘industrial’ auction house, but IDK if that will happen or not. I’m sure I can find more to do. Like paperwork for taxes- I spent the first part of my day yesterday doing Jan-June. Plenty more in that pile that needs doing.

In fact, plenty of stuff to do. I should really get started.

If you don’t have a list of what you need to do before CWII or the economic collapse really get going, you might want to make one. Just sayin’. Then you’ll have a better idea what to stack. And you KNOW you need to get stacking.

nick

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Mon. April 5, 2021 – jeez, empty brain syndrome strikes again…

Cool and clear, or humid and wet, or possibly cool humid and wet. There’s actually a shape on the national forecast map I’ve never seen before, so who knows what today will be like. Not that the weather liars know anyway…

And yesterday was all those things at different times, including actual rain drops falling, and sunny blue sky. Since I’m still trying to get my back back to normal, I took yesterday pretty easy. Did a couple of small things around the house and yard. Did a couple of small things for the auction. With my wife not feeling well after the second moderna shot, I made hamburgers instead of a big lamb meal. That will have to happen in the next few days as I already defrosted the lamb, but it didn’t have to happen Sunday.

I’ve got stuff to do today that will depend on whether my wife is in the office or on the couch. I’m hoping she feels a lot better. One ‘advantage’ of having a big todo list is being able to pick a task appropriate to your available time and resources. . . . … . sure. right. yup. Go with that….

There’s always something more to do, and always something that doesn’t get done. I am currently way out of balance with those two though. Gotta shift some stuff into the ‘done’ pile.

Seems like I’ve been saying that or variations on it for far too long. This last year has been like Groundhog Day. That is starting to change, but I worry I’ve built some bad habits. Time to really work on changing that.

So I’ll wrap up with the same admonition as always, keep stacking. ‘Cuz it’ll be too late when the zombies are chewing on your leg…

n

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Sun. April 4, 2021 – Happy Easter. Happy Feast of the Resurrection.

Cool and clear. Possible scattered clouds. Yesterday went from overcast, to misty drizzle, to blue sky and sunny in the evening. Nice day.

I felt much better. One thing about old injuries, I’m very familiar with the progression and treatment of a flare up. Once I got what I needed, and had the time for it to work, I saw dramatic improvement. Today should continue that. Happiness is the release from pain.

Child two was positively vibrating last night in anticipation of the chocolate feast today. Hard to get her to stay in bed long enough for the avatar of Hester to scatter fertility symbols around the yard. It’s hard work but someone has to do it. At least I don’t have to wear the outfit.

In all seriousness though, Happy Easter to all. Whatever your beliefs, this is the season of awakening, rebirth, and planting and planning for the future. That much we should all be able to celebrate.

Dinner today will be lamb, again. It’s getting to be something of a tradition around the Casa De Nick to have lamb lollipops for Easter dinner. Oh, and there will be chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

Take a break from stacking, and enjoy the day. It’s a fresh start.

n

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Sat. April 3, 2021 – we’ll see how the day goes

Supposed to be clear and nice out. I hope I can get some outdoor work done, but I don’t want to risk any setback with my back troubles. Might have to just not do anything. Not good for the list.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and I mostly missed it. My wife and youngest child took advantage of the cool night and camped in the back yard with a fire in the pit. They had a great time. Oldest child went right to bed and crashed out. She’s eleven but knocking on puberty’s door and it wears her out. I am SO not looking forward to moody teen years.

I didn’t make it out to my client’s house. I was just hurting too bad. Grid down will purely suck if it hurts that bad. Analgesics and antibiotics, stack them high.

Some updates.

The toilet works. No one has had to plunge it in the weeks since install. What a HUGE difference. Speaking of, 3/4″ difference in throne height is a HUGE difference, if you’re used to it… I’m going to have to find a thicker seat to make up the height. Falling that last 1/2″ is – disconcerting.

Didn’t get anything into the garden yet. Grapevine is greening up. Peach tree has leaves. Something ate every single marble sized fruit off my potted grapefruit and lime trees. The blueberries are flowering and filling in. No green on the grapefruit, orange, or Meyer lemon that froze, but I’m still hopeful. There is some evidence of life under the bark on the bigger branches. Apple tree is leafing out. The wife’s tomato plants are flowering.

NVR computer is running, but since updating the linux install, the NVR software crashes about every other day, with a core dump. Seg faults and other issues. I think it may be something to do with ffmpg as it was one of the packages updated, and I have streams that now tear and turn into colored lines, and that never happened before. F me. I’m about ready to just spend the money on hardware and repurpose the pc for my wife or kids.

Haven’t replaced the Expedition yet either.

We’ll see what things on The List I feel up to today. I’m sure there is something I can do. And there are lots of things that need doing.

Keep plugging away, and keep stacking.

n

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Fri. April 2, 2021 – stuff to do, no rest for the wicked…

Cool and dry, hopefully. We’re supposed to get two nice days in a row. Yesterday was bright and sunny with cool breezes. And it got down to 51F by the time I actually went back to bed.

Spent yesterday mostly doing nothing. Drove to one pickup. Got the child from school. Went to the chiropractor and came home. Pain sucks. Chronic pain changes who you are and how you get through life. It colors everything and it’s possible to be in so much pain that you don’t even realize that you are in pain until it stops. That was the case with my lower back injury a dozen years ago. It had just crept up on me and poisoned my whole life. Fortunately I sort of accidentally got treatment, and suddenly knew what was going on. I’ve been pretty careful since then to not push it, or find myself without the means to manage the issue. Only a few months ago I found myself in that situation and vowed not to let it happen again. But it did. Ran out of my maintenance meds and suffered for it. This time I misunderstood the tele-doc and the pharmacy has not been as engaged as usual, and instead of toughing it out for a couple of days, I’m now going to be dealing with this for a week or more unless I get lucky.

What are the prepper lessons? The same old ones. Two is one and one is none. A stitch in time saves nine. Grid down will likely purely suck.

I’ve started the process to help insure that this won’t be happening again and that’s all I’ll say about that. The really frustrating part is that the meds which work very well for me aren’t abusable, aren’t even pain related, are well known and cheap, have minimal side effects, and are widely available as a vet med throughout the world. If the market was bigger, they’d be over the counter by now. There is no reason why I should have to beg anyone else for the ability to stop the pain and go about my life. And there is no reason to dole them out one month at a time. My condition is not going to improve. I won’t be needing less. I can manage my own stockpile and dosing. But I’m not allowed. The changes brought about by obama-no-care destroyed the family practice that was my primary care physician, and made my access to care more difficult, more expensive, and more time consuming.

Degradation of services that used to work well is a sign of a collapsing society. The current situation is exacerbated by the china flu and the response to it, but it was not CAUSED by it, the causes were already in place.

All of this is to say, if you have a medical condition that you are taking meds for, you MUST take steps to insure your continued access to them. Whatever the cause of any disruption, be it society wide, just a glitch in the supply chain, or your doctor is suddenly unavailable, there will be a disruption at some point. Lots of people online have discussed strategies and ways to do so for most conditions and we’ve talked about it here too. Some take more effort, some more time, and some just more money, but get started if you haven’t already. I used to have a cushion, I used it up, didn’t replace it, and now I’m paying the price.

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Today, if I can manage it, I’ve got to check on some issues with my client’s site. Stuff continues to fail piecemeal from the lightning strikes, and I continue to patch it up. We are developing a plan to rip and replace everything, but as you can imagine, that costs money, and people with means, who came to them honestly and through hard work, don’t just spend money wildly. They are often very conservative and contemplative when it comes to that.

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In any case, for the next little while, I’ll be focused on my physical issues and what to do about them, WHILE all the other things demand my attention too.

Don’t wait, start stacking stuff today.

n

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Thur. April 1, 2021 – can’t even parody or satirize our current state, reality would trump every attempt…

Cooler, damp, although no rain in the forecast. We did get sprinkles and some wetness late in the day yesterday. The temps dropped from the high 70s to the high 60s and then even to 59F before bedtime. The first drop happened right on schedule according to openweathermap.org I don’t think that anyone needed a jacket though.

I spent the afternoon in meatspace. Spent over an hour with my buddy and his wife in the store talking. Inventory was down to almost nothing. There were a few consignment items, but they weren’t moving. Ammo? No. He’s hoping to get some inventory in soon. Most of the local stores are in the same condition. You can’t sell what you don’t have. Transfer fees are all that’s keeping the lights on and yesterday was slow while I was there. As a sign of the times, they had a almost attack by a lone wolf last week. They get scoped out fairly often, but the bad guys see the cams and the setup and decide to try elsewhere. THIS guy was gonna go for it, and only changed his mind when an extra gun showed up. People are getting more desperate. Take a look at your threat assessment with this in mind. Take a good look at your physical security too, I’m sure there is some way to improve it for little cost.

Again, things are unlikely to start getting better tomorrow. They are much more likely to continue getting worse. Start acting on that idea. Start by making yourself and your stuff less attractive as a target. Get rid of the bling. Consider that to a third world migrant, any jewelry is worth money and marks you as ‘rich’. Consider carrying some “throw down” money. I keep cash in a money clip in my pocket with the specific intention of giving that up. “throwing it down” and running, if possible. You might want a fat envelope of small bills in the desk drawer to satisfy the guy who is rifling through your house so he hopefully grabs it and bails. I don’t know if any one strategy will work or not, so I’m layering, just like I approach prepping. It’s very common to wear a silicon rubber band in place of a wedding band now, for sporting or work reasons. Think about that, and what your watch or phone says to a thief. You might want a case for your phone that makes it look a lot less attractive or expensive. Back in the day, in certain areas, white earphones were a great way to advertise that you were carrying an apple product… their design is iconic to catch the eye of customers, and it works on thieves too.

Right now the simplest things will likely pay the most dividends. Visible cameras. No visible high theft items. Don’t leave a bag, coat, or valuables visible in a vehicle. Don’t leave guns in vehicles. Get a consolevault or equivalent if you must. Lock your doors, all the time. Car doors should always be locked. House doors should be closed and locked. I put keypad locks on our doors. If you go through the door, you pull it shut behind you. It’s easy enough to code the door open. There are times when we don’t but it’s usually when we are working in front of the door. Absolutely don’t leave the front door open and then go out and work in the back. The doorknob rattlers are out every day looking for open doors and making lists of what they see. I’ve got that from our Constable’s loss prevention specialist. They bust these guys with notebooks full of info on their potential targets.

Consider getting an alarm system. At a minimum, get door chimes, or set the alarm to chime when the doors open and get different tones for the front and back door. When the kids were little, we had different bells and noise makers on every door in the house. You could track the little ninjas just by sound. Get a driveway alert system. If you’ve got a remote gate, put a chime on that.

This is just the easy and cheap stuff you can do with little impact on your ‘normal’ life. Think about what you’d do AFTER a home robbery, and save yourself the trauma by doing some or all of it BEFORE you need it.

Home and personal security is a huge topic and there are lots of resources. Your insurance or local PD might offer ‘security audits’ for free. Take advantage of that and get a fresh set of eyes as well as some experience applied to the issue. We’ve discussed various aspects of it here, and although there isn’t a particular keyword, some searching should bring up good info. Resolve to take some concrete action to improve your position…

and keep stacking.

nick

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