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Month: July 2021

Wed. July 21, 2021 – 072121 – Wednesday already?

Possibly a little cooler, but likely to be sunny in the AM with heat and humidity to follow, with overcast and rain at some point. Pretty detailed for a guess. 🙂 Yesterday was a bit cooler, especially when the breeze blew, and mostly sunny here at the house. It was a bit more variable south of town, but I don’t think I drove through any rain at all.

Did my pickups. Chatting with one auctioneer, I asked if she’d had problems with sourcing. She said “yes, we’ve had trailers get stuck at warehouses, and no one to deliver them to us.” So there are still disruptions in the supply chain on the logistics side. That’s been going on since wuflu started. Since pretty much everything in the stores moves by truck at some point, not having enough trucks and drivers is a bad thing.

The supply chain has had time to stabilize. This is it, where we are now. I think we’ll be here for a while. Plan accordingly. Increase your stocking levels, and buy it when you see it. Be a bit more flexible with what you’re buying too. Think about alternatives, and alternative suppliers.

Speaking of which, I’ve got to hit the Costco today. If not, I’ve got to bring some TP from storage to home. I’d rather buy more. Running low on convenience meals too. And come to think of it, it’s been a while since I bought hamburger… I hope stocking levels are good at Costco.

I guess we’ll see 😉

Guys, think hard about what you couldn’t do without, wouldn’t like to do without, wouldn’t miss if it wasn’t available. Start working on those categories and building up where you are low. This is one of those things where it’s better to be too early, than too late.

And for Pete’s sake, stack it high!

nick

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Tues. July 20, 2021 – “Next time, there’ll be no next time, you go to jail right now.”

Hot and humid, rain later, part sun. Heavy rain somewhere in Houston. Like yesterday.

Started out sunny and hot, later got rainy and cooled off a bit. Rained in patches all over town. I managed to find it in several places.

Did a pickup, and went by my secondary, but didn’t get anything done. Spent over an hour in traffic beyond what it should have been and that ate the free time. I was able to go by the place I buy propane and refill 5 bottles. It’s been a while. $10/ BBQ tank. I feel better with the stockpile refreshed. I’m reminded that I want to buy a propane conversion for my Honda 3000i. Forgot about that.

Took surface streets home from my secondary and was frankly shocked by the increase in homeless encampments… Every overpass had a few tents or improvised squats under it. Most corners had at least one beggar, and many had 2 or 3. More women too. It’s only been a couple of weeks since my last trip through the area and the change is dramatic. My route took me through areas that are predominantly lower income and subsidized housing, mostly for blacks. I can see the demographics shifting to hispanic though. Like so many places, all the illegals are displacing the blacks.

There is some good news in my neighborhood too. There is a bunch of new residential and commercial building going on. It’s right in areas that I predicted it would be in, but I once again didn’t buy property in the right place or time and I missed out.

Spent some time looking at my neighbor’s roofing contractor and how he works. It’s pretty low quality work, and there are a whole bunch of sketchy things going on. I definitely don’t want to be the one this guy or his crew blames if the owner ends up dissatisfied, but I also don’t want a bunch of cr@ppy work done right next door. It’s gonna depend on what the owner does now, and how he does it. For all I know, the crew is family and he’s on board with the cr@p work. Might need more cams.

I did get some of the sketchy behaviour on camera, and while reviewing that I saw that my lawn guys finally got here. I had just cut the grass hours before though. They did edge and blow and it does look better than before they were here. I guess I’ll be paying them, even though I did the bulk of the work. If I was here I might have waved them off, but I wasn’t and they did do work. Frustrating.

I felt better during the day than I had the day before, so whatever it was seems to be passing. I think I’d still like to see an ENT specialist to make sure nothing is wrong with my ears or sinuses. Either can lead to dizziness.

Puppy had a good day with no serious accidents and only one puddle on the tile floor after dinner. He’s been really good about getting to the door and getting our attention, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m glad for the progress we’ve made.

The post title is from a funny little song by Louis Prima and Sam Butera, but the application is maddening. TPTB, when they’re not bragging about what cowards they are, are making examples of the Jan 6 protesters- to discourage the others. I think they are going to get some unintended consequences, at about 1200 fps if they keep this nonsense up. When you kill rule of law, and dance on it’s corpse, you shouldn’t be surprised when people act as if there is no law. They are creating the monster they most fear, and SHOULD fear. Equal treatment under the law is dead.

Things are NOT calming down. Take that under advisement.

And keep stacking.

nick

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Mon. July 19, 2021 – do it for a good purpose, not just for the sake of doing it

Hot and humid. Rainy later. Just like yesterday. Yes, that is what yesterday was like. Sunny and hot, but then rain later. A downpour actually, in the late afternoon. There was about one inch of water in the buckets.

I had another day of low productivity. I felt better, but still had some lightheadedness so I wasn’t eager to work on hard stuff, plus it was hot as Hades outside. I did some cleanup before my wife got home, and I spent a couple of hours doing photos, measurements, and weight of stuff for ebay.

I also took the opportunity to concentrate on the puppy and help him succeed with his housebreaking… and had some good success. He is yipping when he wants to go out and pee. He gives a deeper bark when he wants out to poop. And I have started to figure out his timing. We didn’t have any accidents in the house today. First day! I caught him squatting after breakfast and shouted “no” and “outside” while throwing the door open, and out he went. Hooray! It helps that he’s very motivated by treats.

So that’s that. Little progress on some fronts, but good progress on another.

Today I’ll either continue with projects here at home, or get out and do some more work at my secondary. Maybe both. It will depend on how I feel. I don’t like being hostage to my body, I’m not used to letting it dictate to me, but I’m finding it more and more often of late. It’s trite, but I’m not in the shape I used to be in. I really need to spend the time and effort to try and get some of that back.

I think I also need to work a bit on getting rid of ‘monkey brain.’ I think that’s what one of my teachers called it. It’s when you jump from thing to thing, easily distracted. It keeps you from doing what you really need and want to do. Doing things because you can rather than should.

Gotta work on myself as well as the stacks.

Stackin’ won’t hurt though…

n

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Sun. July 18, 2021 – “a [monkey] pox on your house”

Sunny, clear, hot and humid. Like yesterday. Despite predictions to the contrary. At least I hope so. Yesterday was a nice break from all the rain.

I need it to be dry enough to cut the lawn. I thought it was the week the service comes, because they weren’t here last week, but I guess not. Which means I need to do it. I like how it looks afterwards, and it’s not that hard, but it is one more thing in the day.

And I didn’t get much done yesterday. I felt weird all day. Kind of light headed, maybe just a notch below ‘dizzy’. Just didn’t think driving, climbing, or running power tools was a great idea.

So I spent some time with the puppy. We had several successful housebreaking lessons. Progress is being made, when the humans are on the ball.

I also sorted through some Goodwill stuff. Found a piece of gold jewelry in the bag of costume jewelry. Not a big piece, it’s a Kmart 25 years service pin. It’s probably worth more as a nostalgia piece than melt. It shows that people do miss actual gold and silver in the thrift stores.

I did a bit of laundry and dish washing too. Lots of domestic bliss, nothing with sharp edges, or potential for falling.

I am disappointed in myself for losing most of the day. Well, except for the time with the puppy. It’s hard to take any time when if feels like the hits just keep coming. I’m feeling far behind where I’d like to be, and don’t really know how to get there. I have a pathway, but there are a lot of forks and false starts. Still, I am FAR Far and away farther down that path than most people.

Which is good, because there is MONKEYPOX in Dallas. Not that it’s the end of the world, but plagues… war… famine… just sayin’.

So get to stacking while there is stuff to stack and places to stack it. We might need it sooner rather than later.

nick

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Sat. July 17, 2021 – while the cat’s away, I’ll work I guess…

I purely suck at weather forecasting. Yesterday was nice all day and a bit cooler than I expected. There was a little bit of spotty rain in the late afternoon, but generally nice. I’m hoping for the same today.

Spent the morning running d2 back and forth to her day camp. Did some office stuff. Helped get ready for GS camp in the afternoon. Spent the evening watching a movie, Jumper, and it was pretty good. Just a well done movie with some pretty cool locations. Would have probably felt ripped off if I’d paid $18, but for a buck, it was an entertaining hour and a half. It’s been a long time since I sat down and watched a movie for adults.

Today after a slow start, I’m hoping to get some actual cleaning up done at my secondary location. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the puppy, can’t afford a week of day care, so I’ll probably bring him with and just mostly keep him in the crate. I’m not totally convinced about that yet. I’ve got plenty to do here if the weather cooperates.

Tested the replacement Dell curved monitor. Works great. Daughter 1 may be getting a new system with a big curved monitor… now I just have to call for a pickup on the return. Oh, and she found her phone. It was dead battery, under the couch. Technically her little sister found it. She was too enamored with the tragedy of losing it to look very hard. I hope that trait doesn’t get worse.

The canister vacuum I picked up cheap works well too, a Miele, the brand is famous for quality in Germany but mostly unknown here. My kitchen oven/microwave/convection combo is a Miele and it’s like a scientific instrument. I am keeping it, because my wife agreed that our next vacuum cleaner would be a canister, but selling it would make sense too. I make money by seeing what the other guy doesn’t see…

In any case, I’ll be cleaning and organizing something, somewhere today. So I have room for more stacking…

nick

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Fri. July 16, 2021 – ‘alf way thro’ teh month

Just like the weather liars, I was wrong about yesterday. I’ll probably be wrong about today too 🙂 The beauty is no one will be docking my pay! It was nice in the morning so d2 got her outdoor camp time. By about 2:30 it was overcast and threatening. In typical Houston fashion, it was very wet in some places, and dry others. During my driving around (mostly north side) I could see the thunderstorm cells and I ended up going through my share of water on the way out and back. There was some pretty dramatic lightning too.

I’m hoping for similar weather today. Less rain would be nice though.

Did my pickups. It was very little stuff actually. I’ve been bidding on a lot less and trying to only fill gaps. Of course, when some Steiner binos come up, and they are crazy cheap, I might have to pick up another pair. I’m trying to always upgrade the basics. I’ve got Tasco binos, and even Sears, but I’ve been upgrading to Nikon pairs and even a Fujinon when I can. Good glass makes a huge difference. I have them stashed all over the place.

That is kind of a general principal too- get some thing as a prep. Then upgrade it when you can. At least you have the first item, if you need it. You can always keep it as a backup, or to pass to someone who has none of the item. There are a lot of things where this strategy is very effective.

It’s why I don’t vilify anyone for “panic buying”. It’s just buying, and once they have the thing, they can pause, draw a breath, and upgrade or buy something that is a better fit for them than the original purchase. In the mean time, they at least have the item. It also goes along with my “just get started” idea. Don’t sit there paralyzed by choice or by the fear of getting the wrong thing. Get something. Improve on it later.

The imperfect prep in your storage is infinitely better than the perfect prep still at the store.

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Fedex delivered my replacement Dell monitor last night. I’ll get it out and tested later today. That was crazy fast for a bigcorp. The 10 year old signed for it.

Now I just have to get the resin printer sorted out.

Oh, and sell all the things. So that I can keep stacking.

nick

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Thur. July 15, 2021 – time, ask me for anything but time…

I purely suck at weather forecasting, even when I’m just saying “today will probably be like yesterday.” Today will probably be like yesterday, which was not at all like I thought it would be. In fact yesterday was very nice, if horribly humid. It did rain later in the day, so I guess I wasn’t as wrong as I thought. Still. Today should be nice in the morning, then overcast and rainy later. I said it, now for it to be true…

Spent the morning yesterday driving all over and generally hurrying around. Got done what I hoped to do, so that was good. The afternoon was less productive. I did hear from Dell warranty support and they are shipping me a replacement monitor, with a FedEx tracking number and everything. That was SHOCKINGLY good service. It still has to actually get here, but all systems are go so far.

I don’t usually have recourse to warranty for most things, as I get them used or crazy cheap anyway, but I have done a few for work related things. Speco support and warranty service was very good (cams and NVRs). Kingston pc memory replaced sticks with almost no effort on my part. Ubiquiti replaced several wifi extenders that had lightning strikes nearby under warranty and the process was painless (after all the recovery attempts failed.) Another security cam company replaced a cam with a bad lens with just a phone call, and HP was very good with their business routers and advance replacement (at least 10 years ago). There are still companies supporting their products out there and I’m very glad they are.

Plan for today is pretty much just take care of the kids, and work on stuff around the house. Hope for a nice morning, and maybe no rain in the afternoon…

I’ve got a couple of auction things to chase, but they shouldn’t take long.

I spent some time last night looking at old posts here, and missing old friends. I also added category tags to the posts that came up in my searches. There was a lot of good stuff under the “weekly prepping” tag, that didn’t have any other categories.

Use the search widget at the top of the page, and the category keywords at the right side of the page to find stuff, even if it’s in the comments. Since so much of the good stuff is in the comments, it is worth reading through them if your search result isn’t what you thought it would be. I go back and add tags whenever I get good search results, but neither RBT nor I were consistent when applying the tags, and RBT rarely applied a tag when the subject was in the comments only, or after the day of the post. Tags are still a good starting place, and they get better as I add them to old stuff.

Funny thing is, a lot of the concerns from the old posts are still relevant, and some have come to pass. We’re all terrible at timing the markets, and our financial commentary might be just a bit off. But, in 2016 I mentioned “if” I was worried about a quarantine or martial law lockdown, I’d want xxx. Many of the concerns and prognostication about Trump’s election came to pass too, although it was 4 years later. Mostly, it’s very interesting to see how far we’ve come, how much things have changed while staying broadly the same, and how we’ve gotten used to the condition we find ourselves in. It’s also interesting how LONG it’s taken for stuff we thought was imminent to actual arrive. We apparently suck at timing EVERYTHING not just the financial markets.

However, if the last 6 years have taught me anything, it’s the prudence and advisability of having stuff stacked. I was wrong about the timing, but I wasn’t wrong about the need.

Keep stacking my friends.

nick

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Wed. July 14, 2021 – well, that didn’t go so well

Sunny with rain, high humidity, and heat. Probably 90s, and RH between 70 and 90. Kinda like yesterday.

Spent yesterday doing stuff. Drove youngest to day camp and back. She had a better day, with more activities. Doing that today too. Took oldest to the Doc in the Box, ended up with a strep test and positive diagnosis, so she’s started on amoxicillian. Which meant I went to the pharmacy too. No need for fish meds when the grid is up. I’ll take note of the scrip for the future though. The positive test means real questions about the weekend plan for GS activities, and next week’s sleep away camp. Dr said she should be fine for camp by Sunday. She’s hoping for Friday. Hmm. Don’t want to be that guy.

Spent time doing online chat with some indian fellows at Dell to get a replacement for the returns monitor that didn’t light up. The backlight comes on, but no image. No internal menus displayed either. The Dell warranty is pretty good for a $200-300 monitor. I don’t have the replacement yet, so, fingers still crossed.

Wife is home from the funeral trip. Thanks for all the condolences. Family gathered for the ceremonies, and my wife says they’re looking pretty shell shocked as you might imagine. She also took a hard look at her own parents and was a bit surprised to see them showing some frailness. They’re in a split level raised ranch style house with some stairs that wouldn’t meet current code because they are too steep. They are going to have to move if they want to stay in a normal house. They are not planning to move. There will be some reality smacking some heads at some point, hopefully not after a serious injury. Neither of us would be excited to have them move here. There will be more discussion another day. Guys, have a realistic plan for coping with the decline in your physical abilities.

My plan for today is to get out of the house, leaving oldest alone for a couple of hours while I do needful things elsewhere. I have to do a pickup on the other side of town and while I’m out, I need to move the piles of trash at my secondary from the place I stacked it to the dumpster. Then back to get youngest home, and nursemaid the sick one.

And getting some of the stuff here out of the house or better organized would be good too. I got more stuff ready for auction,but I still have to get an auction set up. Or three.

All that while working to improve my position, and topping up the stacks.

It’s a great life if you don’t weaken. Keep stacking.
n

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Tues. July 13, 2021 – more camp, more cleaning and organizing

A bit cooler, wet, humid, hot, and probably all at the same time. Yesterday was sunny but then ended with rain. I didn’t get a ton of time to work on the patio, but at least the rain held off while youngest was at camp.

Her camp is a nature walk outdoors in the woods, so better if there isn’t rain in the morning. She was very aggrieved that the other kids weren’t serious about learning and disrespected the councilors and the animals by talking loudly and not listening. They also spent a lot of the time walking off the paths. Drove my little OCD kid nuts. Then last night while we were getting her stuff ready for the morning, we had a yelling fight about bug spray. The stuff I sent her with didn’t work. I pulled out 3 other brands, but they were all “poison” and she didn’t want them. FFS, what other house has 4 different kinds of bug repellent on the shelf?? If you don’t want to use the good stuff, don’t complain about getting bit. (I don’t get bit so I don’t often use the stuff, but when I do, it’s the stuff with DEET. But that’s POISON. Which is the point, kid.) After talking to my wife, it turns out there is a 5th kind in the house. That was what the kid wanted. Jeez.

The other child had a dime sized abrasion on her ankle for the last 3 days, dirty from camp and hiding under a bandaid. Got that cleaned up and smeared with ABX cream. Had a chat about infection and sepsis and that a dime sized abrasion can kill you if not taken care of. Oh, and threw out a box of walgreens bandaids. F that noise. Bandaid brand flexible fabric bandaids stick. Generics do not. It’s not worth the “savings” to later throw them away. Buy the good stuff.

I spent the afternoon organizing and going through auction stuff. So much more to do. No word back from the auction house on the trashed 3d printer. I’ll try them again today. And then back to cleaning and organizing, and chauffeuring… maybe to the Dr’s office.

Oldest isn’t feeling well. That’s a couple of days now. No fever, but generally feels unwell. Scratchy throat, some coughing. If her throat is red, white, or some other color I guess we’ll be going to the doc in the box for some swabbing a bit later. Might as well use it while we still have it.

That should be a motto, use it while we still can. And of course, keep stacking.

nick

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Mon. July 12, 2021 – day camp, work, more work

More rain in the forecast, but we’re sorta on the edge of the zone, so I’m hoping for more sun. Like yesterday. We did have overcast for a lot of the day, but the sun came out for most of the afternoon and evening. Temps got into the low 90s and while the humidity was lower, the air can hold a lot of moisture at 92F…

So I decided to do some outdoor work. I ended up soaked to the skin with sweat, but I got the back yard mowed, some weeds pulled up in the garden, and some cleanup and reorg in the stored stuff on the patio. I’m not done yet, but I did make a start. I even got the shop vac out and cleaned up some more of the glass chunks from when I broke the back door. That was what, two years ago? I don’t know where all those chunks were hiding, but they have started to appear in earnest in the last week or so. Strange.

Also spent some time sorting through 5 pounds of costume jewelry I picked up at Goodwill. There was some nice stuff in there, and one name brand piece. There are a couple of pieces that I’ll have to test but that sure look like silver. I’ll put about half of it back in auctions, keep a few broken pieces for the GS jewelry making craft session, and let the kids have a couple of other pieces. I really don’t understand why the T shirt people don’t grab any jewelry that’s in the bins. It’s $1.19/ pound. There pretty much HAS to be $2 worth of jewelry in a pound… I’ve found James Avery silver, nice vintage necklaces, bakelite bracelets, and even a few watches that brought ~$5 – 10 each. I’m glad they leave it for me I guess.

Today I’m taking small child to a week long day camp at the local nature center. Surly proto-teen will be home this week, skulking around the house and shirking her chores. At least she’ll be watching the puppy so I can do stuff.

There’s lots of stuff needs doing too, and since my wife’s away, I’m stuck home, and anything I do that reduces the piles here will have an outsized impact. The days will be start and stop, what with dropping off and picking up younger child, but I hope to get something done in between.

It feels like time is getting short. I’m not sure what comes next but I want to be ready. Or at least try. That means stacking stuff, and for me that means getting rid of unneeded stuff, to provide space and funds for needed stuff.

Keep stacking.
nick

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