Cool, damp, and hopefully clear. Warming later with some sun would be nice. That has been the pattern for the last week, so all I really want is some continuity, right? Actually, I’d take a little rain today and tomorrow if it left the weekend clear.
Did my errands Wednesday. Picked up the needful thing. The forms have changed yet again. I need to hit another store and get some “food” to “feed” it… Stopped by my auctioneer and chatted for about 40 minutes. I’m slowing my sales through them for a week or two while they concentrate on other estates. They make more money on an estate than on consignment, and they need the cash. I really need to get back to listing and sell some of the high value items I’ve been holding back. This lull would be a good time to finally do that.
I didn’t win anything in the ham radio estate auction, so I could go to the BOL tonight with the family. I might delay until tomorrow anyway to do some shopping. We’ll see what I get done today. I’d like to have a bunch of stuff for projects so I can maybe knock one or 6 off the list, if I get motivated. Plus, I hate to make the trip without being fully loaded up. I’ve got a bunch of stuff from the auctions this week, but I need some actual building supplies too.
Today is all about getting ready for the long weekend out of town. Groceries, Home Depot, dig through the stacks and move some stuff… The usual.
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Peter over at BayouRenaissanceMan touched on one of my preparedness points this week when he mentions not putting all your preps in the same place. I’ve been talking about that for a long time, going back to Cali’s recommendation that earthquake preps be kept in sealed bins outdoors or in a lightweight shed structure. Been a while since I talked about earthquakes, so I know I’ve been talking about it for a while. More recently I’ve been talking about using a storage unit on your way out of town, and the balance of what to keep where if you have a BOL. (Keeping stuff with trusted friends or family is another option, but one I haven’t mentioned since the last trip to sibling’s place in Michigan.)
There were some devastating hurricanes in OK that really prompted me to start an offsite “secondary” location with preps stored there. If you lose your house, you will likely lose your preps in the disaster too. It’s IMPORTANT to have some stuff elsewhere.
The BOL serves that function well, but it adds the question of balance. In a world with limited resources, what do you put where? I have lots of stacks here in Houston. Since we got the BOL, I’ve been moving stuff there too, but — what if we can’t get there? I don’t want to strip our primary residence, the place we are most likely to be when (certain flavors of) S hits the Fan… I also don’t want to bail out to the BOL and leave all my resources behind. Taking them with me might not be an option.
In an ideal world both would be equally well equipped, but that is VERY unlikely and essentially “wastes” half your preps.
So, what to do? “Waste” the preps and stock both as well as possible is my compromise solution. I’ve already acknowledged that given the poor storage conditions, I will have higher than average “breakage” or losses. So I just have to acknowledge that if both locations are well equipped, in most scenarios I’m going to “waste” one, by using the other. In reality, there is nothing that says the other location won’t be used at another time, or that someone else won’t benefit from it. If I can’t get to the BOL and the world as we know it really does “end”, I’m happy to think my neighbors up there might be able to survive a bit longer with access to my stuff. Same for the ones left here, if we get out of Dodge, and leave it behind for good.
What I am not interested in is having it confiscated to be given to the wastrels who should have been making their own plans. This is a bit tougher if you are an advocate for prepping. If you are known to have taken an extra step or two, people will remember, they will say something, or they’ll come themselves. Peter is likely F’d. I’m not well known IRL, but I’m not quiet about telling people about “hurricane preparation” either. IRL far too many people know I prep, at some level, although there are plenty who dismiss me because of the somewhat “goofy stay at home dad” persona. When you pull stuff off the stacks to help people, they hopefully learn a lesson so they don’t need help next time, but they CERTAINLY learn a lesson that you are someone with resources…
So I have stuff here, I have the secondary location, and I have the BOL. I have my online persona, my “goofy” grey man persona, and my actual IRL serious persona, and mostly they are separated…but still. There is leakage. Which could come around to bite me on my hairy white a…
I think I’ll probably have a lot of preps I never use, no matter how everything plays out, and that’s ok. I can afford it. I don’t feel like I can afford NOT to have it. I’ll keep reassessing the state of the world, and my response to it, and I’ll adjust my plan and resource allocation accordingly. There may come a time when we are at the BOL more than here. Or I may give up the secondary location, moving that stuff to the BOL, or a different place. It’s not exactly in the right direction to grab from if we were headed out of town. On the gripping hand, if we had to head in that direction, there is some stuff along the way… it’s not cached in the traditional sense, but it’s “stashed”…
Think hard about how to protect and keep what is yours in an environment that allows others to come looking for it. There are lots of strategies and techniques that can help.
Stacks and stacks, and some other stacks to distract them with, can help. Stack!
nick