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Month: May 2022

Tues. May 31, 2022 – headed home later

Starting the day at the BOL, with nice weather.   More sunny and hot is in the forecast.   Then home to Houston where it will surely be hotter.

Got a lot of work done over the weekend.   Still more to do, so much more, but some progress was made.

I set two of the posts for my garden fence.   The hydro-drilling instead of post hole digging worked, but there was a massive web of roots where the post needed to  be.  First post I may have to do over.   Second post I sharpened the end first, then drove it an additional foot with a sledge, 1/16 ” at a  time.   I don’t know if I’ll be able to move my arms today.

Did a bunch of other things.

Managed to spend a little time on the floaty thing in the water.   Water is 86F so very nice.

Don’t know how long I’ll stay today, family is headed out late morning early afternoon.

I’ve got a bunch of stuff on the list for the next visit.   I’ll be stacking stuff here.

 

Y’all get to stackin’ too.

n

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Sun. May 29, 2022 – oy, over did it yesterday

Another sunny day with a cool breeze off the lake….  like yesterday.   It got plenty hot in the sun but was nice in the shade all day.   Looking forward to another day like that.

Did a bunch of stuff, see last night’s comment for details.

 

Got a bunch of stuff to do today too.   Maybe even more stuff in or on the water, or maybe a drink with the neighbors.   Wife should be doing remodeling stuff in one of the bedrooms and I’ve got inside stuff to do, plumbing stuff.

Back is squawking at me.   Too much bending and lifting yesterday.   Getting all worn out sucks.

Hope the world holds together, I’ve got more to do up here.

Y’all have a nice day today.

n

 

Oh, stack some stuff while you can.

Read the comments: 37 Comments

Sat. May 28, 2022 – work, work, play, work

Probably going to be beautiful here today.  I haven’t seen any forecasts though.   I’ll let you know later…. Yesterday in Houston was a scorcher-  108F in the sun by my roof, according to my weather station.  It had fallen to 106F in a couple of hours.

I beat feet for more temperate climes.  It was much cooler only a couple of hours north, and downright chilly at night on the water.

 

My schedule for today is … work.   Lots to do and I hope to get some of it done.  My goal is a bunch of little projects while my wife does flooring.   Then a break for grass cutting or kayaking, then more work.  Maybe a fire in the pit at night.   If the wind cooperates I’ll do some burning of my slash piles during the day.

Neighbors say it will be busy up here this weekend and we’ll see some stupidity on the lake.   That should be interesting.   It’s all new to me anyway.

Maybe I’ll get my traps in the water and see if the crawdads are biting…

STack up some good memories this weekend.   They’ll keep you motivated during the bad times.

 

n

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Fri. May 27, 2022 – headed into the long weekend…

Cooler in the morning, hot later, supposed to be clear all weekend for most of the country, as well as Houston.   Thursday started very cool and got plenty hot, 99F at one point in the sun, but cooled down again once the sun set.

I did pickups and auction stuff, but didn’t get the stuff loaded for this weekend.   I bought a jon boat for the BOL, and a scratch and dent wood stove.   Also some things for the house.  I’m excited about the jon boat.   Seemed nuts to be on a lake with no boat at all.  Now I need a motor.  At least it’s not quite a hole in the water that I try to fill with money….

The stove looks complete, with only a small bend on one corner.  Nothing to affect use, and even appearance will be minimally impacted.   The plan is to remove the massive fireplace and chimney, which are crushing the back of the house and blocking the view of the lake.   Later we’d add a woodburner off to the side.  I saw the stove in the auction, and the pictures were terrible, so I thought I’d take the chance.  It was crazy cheap.   Looks like a winner so far, and at over a 90% discount from retail.   I will sell it if I find a nicer one before we get around to installing it, but in these uncertain times,  I’ve got this stove at least, sitting in the stacks.  It’s massive overkill for the house, and larger than I’d want in the room but – – –

Take what you can get, and get it when you can.

Kids are done with school for the year, so now the summer stuff starts happening.  Starting with a weekend at the BOL.

We’re headed up at some point to do more work, and enjoy the weekend.  We will take time out to remember the real reason for the holiday.   Like usual, I’ll set up several place holder posts to open the door and turn the lights on, just in case I have comms issues, and commenting by yours truly will be light.

 

Keep working on getting your stuff in order.  The awareness that something bad is coming, and its name is famine, is starting to spread.  Some more stuff is going to become even more difficult to find, and more expensive as people start putting back a little extra.   Don’t wait for the crush.  Stack it up NOW.

 

And increase your personal vigilance.  People are getting angry.  Violence is increasing.  Anyone can get caught in it anywhere- this has always been true, but the likelihood is increasing.  Do what you can to avoid being a victim.

nick

 

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Thur. May 26, 2022 – stuff to do around the house

Humid, maybe clear, maybe rain.   We got some rain yesterday, but then it cleared up into a beautiful day, and stayed reasonably cool.   So much for either weather prediction.

I did my errands, picked up a bunch of stuff for the BOL, and a little bit of stuff for the house.  Didn’t win a whole lot of stuff in the auctions yesterday, so I don’t have much to get today.   I do have to get all the stuff I’m bringing north with me so I can knock out the projects over the weekend.   And I need to get a couple of things finished here before I leave.

So that is the plan for today.  Work.

 

The elementary school had a nice ceremony for the 5th graders who will be in middle school next year.  100 kids and families in the gym, only about 4 masks in the whole place, and they were on kids.   Our kids have been back at school full time for a year.  The teachers aren’t dropping dead.   The students aren’t dropping dead.  We had a small surge in cases, but not bad outcomes, but we’re at lows again.  You can have the economy open.  You can have gatherings.   You don’t need to be masked everywhere.

There are people still wearing masks.  I still wear a surgical mask at the Goodwill outlet store, and I wear gloves too.   I’ll KEEP doing it, because people are gross there.   Way nastier than any other random group outside of a halfway house.  I see people in other stores wearing masks, mostly properly, and a large percentage in N95s.    No one looks askance.   At this point, in Houston, it’s do what you want.  I am concerned by the larger trend of ‘servers’ or service people in masks while everyone else goes without.   It’s a new caste system, and it’s un-American.

 

That said, I’m replenishing stocks of PPEs used up during the last two years.   There will be more bad stuff unleashed in the next few years.   Better to have the stuff and not need it…etc.

Stack some more things.   Lots more.

 

n

 

 

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Wed. May 25, 2022 – too tired to think straight..

Hot and humid, good chance of rain, possibly heavy and prolonged rain.   Whereas yesterday it rained for a while and then the sun came out and it was nice for the rest of the day and night.  And it stayed cool.

I took the Expy for my pickups because I didn’t want stuff getting wet, but I could have taken the ranger.  I’ll take the Ranger today, even in the rain.   Too much stuff to pickup, including 5 sheets of plywood.  Yep, buying 3/4 ply sheathing for half off of retail.   I’ll use it here or at the lake.   I’d have bought all 10 sheets,  but my bids didn’t hold up on the others.   The rest of the pickup is stuff for the house or the BOL.

Of course yesterday ended with the school shooting in west Texas.  Take a minute and pray for the parents who didn’t get their kid home from school yesterday, and for the other families affected.   More will be likely to come out of the investigation, and we’ll learn something from it.   The cost was damn high though.

Learn the lessons for yourself and your family too.  Don’t take it for granted.

Stack something.

n

Read the comments: 98 Comments

Tues. May 24, 2022 – pickups, shelves, more pickups, and repairs

Hot and humid.   Maybe not TERRIBLY hot, but pretty hot.   Yesterday stayed cooler than the previous few days, but it was still instant soaked shirt in the sun.

Spent a bit of time on the gennie, but couldn’t keep the rust out of the tank.  Had the idea I could use Evaporust to kill it once and for all, but couldn’t find any in the garage.   Problem sorted when I picked up D2 from school.  We went to harbor freight.   I got Evaporust, one of the fuel transfer pumps (they’ll be on sale next month, 2$ off, so I’ll stock up then) and a cheap set of woodcarving tools.   D2 wants to learn to carve and whittle.

When we got home, I put the Evaporust in the tank, and got out some wood, the cut proof glove, and the self healing mat and we got started.

As expected the cheap tools were almost entirely unsuited to actually carving wood.   All the bevel angles are wrong for carving.   It’s as if they were all set up as lathe tools.  More disappointing was the Barlow knife I got out for her to use for the whittling.  I bought it new for $3 in the auction, and it turns out it is made in Pakistan.  Real cr@p.   Don’t know if they are counterfeit or if Barlow sold out.   Almost impossible to get an edge on the blade.  My dad got hundreds of Barlow pocket knives as ‘gimme’ trinkets from a sales guy way back in the day.  I lost almost all of them.   I was an idiot.  New ones are NOTHING like the old ones, except in appearance. If you squint.

Anyway… we ended up carving soap bars.   MUCH easier to work with, much safer for starting out.  We did a bas relief daisy, and a nose.    She had fun, got way more confident with the tools, and it was about the right length of time for a project.

I’ll know if my Evaporust experiment worked later today.  Other people online have had success.

Rust never sleeps.   Gear needs maintenance.

I’ll be doing pickups today.  I’ve got a big loop planned, and then pulling stuff from storage and building some Metro rack shelves.   I will use them as I move stuff around and sort it for sale, and eventually put some or all at the BOL or in my garage.  The work at my storage unit is contingent on a lack of rain though.   We’re still in the “could get thunderstorms” area of the weather map today and tomorrow, even though it got sunny and nice eventually yesterday.  Weather liars. Pttt.

Fix some of your broken stuff.   Check to be sure your stuff isn’t actually broken.   And stack some of the stuff you need to get it running again next time.  Because there will be a next time.

nick

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Mon. May 23, 2022 – what the everlovin’ what?

Hot and humid again, like most summer days in Houston. Yesterday started cool after the rain, but warmed up later.

The title is in reference to every tool I use to make these posts changing completely last night. Ugly and confusing doesn’t begin to describe what I’m looking at. BLANK PAGE doesn’t really guide one through the process. wordpress apparently just decided to kill the option of the old way of interacting with their software. I freaking hate arrogant developers. YOUR WAY IS NOT MY WAY AND IT IS NOT BETTER.

I got a late start yesterday, because of SLEEP. But then I did go out and pick up some preps. I had some misadventure narrowly averted with my fridge/freezer. I’m not the type of person to throw up my hands and accept that my fridge full of food is about to be warmer without trying some things myself. That isn’t nature, btw, it’s learned. Troubleshooting, and the willingness to try stuff are vital skills when things are going pear shaped. There will be a LOT of pear shaped things coming at us in the next few years, because there have been a lot of pear shaped things coming at us for the LAST two years. If you aren’t in the habit of fixing your own stuff, or at least narrowing down the range of problems, you should definitely start working on that. There are good books about fixing household stuff, and there is a massive amount of info on youtube about almost any repair you could make. If it’s already broken, you might as well try, and you will learn things.

Did a quick shopping trip to the local “small” HEB, but I won’t do my usual rundown on empty shelves. There were plenty, but it was late on a Sunday. The only one I’m sure was an actual shortage was Mexican sparkling water, which had a “limit two” sign on it specifically saying they were short stocked.

Chicken legs and thighs were up 10%, hamburger was up, and selection and quality of beef cuts were still down from “normal”. There were not a lot of sale items either.

Get it while you can.

And stack it up.

nick

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Sun. May 22, 2022 – 05225022 – meh, not a cool number

Hot hot hot too fricken hot… maybe some rain later.

And humid.   Soaked to the skin, and brains boiled working in the back yard yesterday.   I did find some shade under a market umbrella, and that saved me.  Did I mention it was hot?

After working on my gennie for a few hours, since I was soaked through anyway, I cut the grass.  It was overcast and a bit cooler anyway.   I still love that Toro battery mower.

We spent the evening celebrating D1 becoming a teen.   That will probably be the last time we’re happy about that, LOL.  Didn’t get time to play any games yesterday so we are supposed to play some today.  AFTER the clothes shopping.

I”m going to finish the gennies, if I can.   And go through the stored gas to see if any of the stuff in the cabinet also got ruined.  I did discover a point source failure, potentially.   I use a hand pump to move gas around.   It’s a cheap Harbor Freight thing, but it works really well and it lets you quickly transfer gas from a heavy can to your gennie, or suck all the old bad gas out.   I’m going to get 4 more, put two at the BOL and leave the others here.   I will dedicate one to water, and  have the other for gas.   It’s so much easier than holding 5 gallons in the air while attempting to control a pour into a small gas tank.  Recommended.

 

So USE some preps this week.  Find out if you have what you need to make it work, or not.  And stack it up.

 

n

Read the comments: 77 Comments
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