Month: October 2023

Cooler than before the weekend, but it’s still Houston. Humid too. It was beautiful at the BOL. Mid 80s in the afternoon but with a cool breeze. Sunny and clear. I can hope that today will be similar, but that would be asking a lot. We’ll see how it goes.

Wrapped up my work at the BOL yesterday. Did a bunch more small stuff. Took one of the sliding patio doors off the track, cleaned and adjusted the rollers, replaced what I could. It works nicely again. It’s very worn, but they will all be replaced at some point.

Cut the grass, weed wacked, blew all the hard surfaces clear. Put everything away. Decided to take one more look a the irrigation pump to see if I could figure out why it lost prime. The check valve in the lake was working well. So I set up to backfill the line with water. This time, the answer was clear. The pipe had come loose from the discharge side of the pump. Oy. Given the lateness of the hour and a desire to not trudge up the hill to get my box of fittings, and a crazy idea that I should install a union fitting so the next time it needs to be removed it won’t require a saw and a repair fitting… I left it for the next visit and just shut off the controller. I’ll add a suitable union fitting to the shopping list. Maybe two fittings.

Today D2 has an orthodontist appointment in the morning, I’m supposed to get a load together for my auctioneer, and I’ve got to do a housecall for my client’s network issue. Wednesday I’m fasting in the morning for my PET scan in the afternoon, so I won’t want to do much, which means I better get my stuff done today.

Add an incipient cold to everything and I’m not feeling energetic and motivated. I almost always get sick if my nose is cold for any length of time, and it was while watching the movie. I started the Airborne last night. Runny nose and tiredness along with sneezing. joy.

Sleep will help. I’ll have to try to get some.

Some things you can’t stack. For everything else though, you should get busy…

nick

Another cool and clear day is on tap. Sunday was beautiful. Cool, clear, sunny. Warm in the sun. Cool in the shade. Just nice. Chilly at night though. 56F during movie night.

Made a “Picanha roast” for dinner. It’s just the cap off the sirloin given a new name. It’s a tasty cut, but best served thin sliced. The sirloin has a lot of nice flavor, but the swirling grain can make it chewy too.

The burn pile for the lower part of the property got burnt up. Did it in the big fire ring so we had a nice bed of coals for a campfire with s’mores, then we watched Serenity for movie night on the dock. It was pretty dang chilly at 56F over the water. I fired up one of the patio heaters and was still cold.

I didn’t get my main project done, or even started, but I did get a bunch of small projects done that had been on the list for a while. Mostly electrical, but there were a few sort of “hey it’d be nice to get this done” things too. Played a couple of rounds of pool while piddlefarting around in the garage. Easy enough to sort, clean, and move stuff while waiting for my turn.

Used my pole saw on a few trees. Two smaller trees on the HOA lot, and a couple of saplings, all killed by something and starting to drop limbs were turned into firewood and brushpile. A couple of my tree limbs got trimmed too.

Changed out two light fixtures.

Even had a chance to fish for about half an hour.

Steady, if slow, and low priority tasks, but work got done.

Today the appliance repair guy is supposed to fix the dishwasher. I sure hope so. I’ll be doing some more things on the list, depending on when in the day he gets here. I will definitely be mowing before I leave for Houston.

There are a few more things I found that I need to move up here, and a hole or two that should be filled. I think I’ll move about half of my serious medical preps up here too. All the long term wound care, and more heavy duty, I don’t necessarily know how to use it but someone else might’ stuff should probably live up here. At some point soon I need appropriate storage for some other needful things, and all the accessories and accoutrements that go with them. I’m overdue on that last, but there is a tough balancing act involved.

In fact, equipping another place has a lot of decisions that boil down to “where should this primary stack live?” “What about this thing that is most useful in this or that scenario?” I’m assuming I won’t be able to use a U-Haul to bring it all with me if we do in fact BO to this L. At that point, it’ll either be here, or it will likely be lost.

Don’t want to strip my primary residence though, lots of scenarios have us staying there, or trapped there. Plus, if I’m there most of the time, I’m more comfortable having some things near at hand. Short of equipping everywhere identically, decisions must be made in a world of limited resources.

It’s an interesting and challenging situation to work through, and the consequences of getting it wrong could be dire. I’m leaning toward, “every place is mostly equal, with some specific to the location scenarios supported as needed.”

However your situation shapes your choices, stack them up…

nick

Cool. Really cool. Below 60F overnight. 52F when I went to bed. That is pretty chilly. Today should be cool and clear too.

Spent most of the day getting the pool table set up. It plays just fine and looks pretty good. Wife loves it and that was the goal. There are a lot of memories from her childhood linked to playing pool, so this was more important than I knew.

Today I’ll be working yesterday’s list. If no one opens the canned sunshine. Bloody hell.

Top up your preps. Stack your stacks.

nick

Starting cool and a bit overcast. Not supposed to be raining in Houston today, but by now we all know how that can turn out. It was cool yesterday, and mostly overcast, with occasionally rain, mostly depending on where you were. Typical Houston.

The rain did keep me from working in my storage units, so I only took a bin or two worth of stuff to auction this week. He’s definitely on board with me bringing another load next week so that continues to be good. I’ve got stuff, and it needs to move. And even though prices are low compared to previous auctions, my stuff is still selling. For now.

With money getting tight, I am a bit late unloading my stuff. I should have been doing it for the last year, as I’ve said many times. Well, the hard times are here. They will get far worse I’m sure, but it’s already started. The typical ways out of the dilemma are ‘fight a big war’ and ‘issue new currency’. That’s after the price and wage controls are implemented but fail to solve the issue. Neither one of those sounds appealing to me.

Revolution, or at least ‘uprising’ often happens in there somewhere too.

No matter which path is chosen, a whole lot of people usually end up dying.

I really don’t see a path that avoids one of those other than a paradigm breaking event (like aliens revealing themselves, and really only by doing it in a way no one can armwave, like by dropping big rocks on population centers) or a messianic leader with huge support and iron will, ALONG WITH a big world altering event.

So I stack, and upskill, and network. Because people will make it through and I intend to be one of them. Along with my family and friends.

Join me on the journey, and we’ll get to the other side together. [but only if you stack too.]

nick