Month: October 2024

Warmer, wetter. Maybe even rain today or tomorrow. Just in time for Halloween. Joy.
It was definitely warmer all day Tuesday, but still, much more pleasant than 3 weeks ago. And while we need the rain, at this point, waiting for Friday would be fine.

Spent Tuesday driving around, and doing stuff for the household and the kids. Hit Costco for some lunch staples and treats. Spent half again what I used to spend without as much food, and much less meat. Granted that I am buying most of my meat at HEB, it’s still a big increase in price. 88/12 ground beef was $4.50 and I bought 6 pounds. I can’t even get 80/20 at HEB most of the time, at the same price, so that was competitive, if higher than a couple of years ago. Chicken I buy at Costco because I like the packaging. A few cents per pound higher, but I can just put it in the freezer with no further fuss. That is worth the bump. I bought a six pack each of legs, thighs, and breasts. Since I was there, I bought milk. I stopped because it went bad quickly vs the HEB milk. But it was convenient. Sometimes my time is worth more… like when I don’t have any to spare.

Spent the evening at D2’s band concert, then watching vids about the sound board and digital boards in general. I’ve got today to get to my secondary, grab some of the stuff I want to send to auction, and get some of my sound gear to use as demo for my mini-seminar with the kids on Thursday. It’s gonna take a bit more exploration and figuring out how their current setup is running before I can work with them on their own gear. I need volunteer hours at the school, and it is usually fun to work with bright, motivated kids. But I have to catch up on some technology first.

I have to say, I like simple. I like discoverable. I like using the minimum needed to get the job done. The sound board, and the whole sound system at the kid’s school is overkill for their needs. Worse, it’s not easy to “play” with, to discover and self learn. With only a single part time drama teacher, it’s like giving a Dodge charger to the kids when they need a Metro, or even a Hasbro ride on toy. Build the output side that the kids don’t touch to modern standards and set it up so it sounds good. But the input side should be simple and straightforward. The knowledge and conceptualization needed is much higher with the board they have than with an analog mixer. It isn’t even a question of money. The board they have is not expensive as those things go. It might even be an order of magnitude cheaper than if they had provided all the capability separately that this board has. It’s still a poor choice for middle school kids just starting out.

There are a lot of things in prepping and in life that are a lot like the kid’s sound system. It’s capable. It’s a good value. It’s more than is needed. It takes more knowledge and understanding to use. Revolver, striker fired semi-auto, Double action/single action semi-auto with multiple safeties… beltfed… airmobile… Baofang, yaesu, FT-1000, FlexRadio. CB in the truck.

Every area of prepping, every piece of stuff for the gear whore that lives inside us, all the gear reviews and prepping guides, they all sometimes suffer from the same thing. A CB radio or FRS/GMRS can be explained to someone in 5 minutes. So can one of the packaged business radios. Ham, not so much. Commercial public safety and .gov systems? Specialist territory. Even water filters, water purification systems, and water supply systems, as basic as they seem escalate in difficulty and complexity, starting from germ theory and the idea you need to make clean water…

I’m rambling a bit, but I guess what I want to say is advanced capability is nice to have. Ease of use, ease of conceptualization, ease of repair, self discovery, those are critical. This is especially true when a person is stressed or under pressure, or there are no experts or teachers. If a stick works, use a stick. A revolver is point and pull. Many semi-autos are not. Match the tool to the user. Sure, stack the high speed low drag stuff for you or your operator buddies, but be sure you have something the weak, ill, and old can use while they are home watching the kids. If your 3oz backpacking stove takes only one type of gas bottle fitting, and needs arcane and extensive secret knowledge to start, maybe stack a coleman stove instead.

Whatever you decide, do stack it up… just think about someone other than you using it.

nick

Cool and damp, warming to hot and damp this afternoon. Some chance of rain in a day or two, maybe. It was sweat-dripping uncomfortable Sunday afternoon, while still being not all that hot. It’s a weird feeling to be working in it.

Did some stuff around the house. Moved and put stuff away. Got out some more Halloween decor and some lighting. I think I will just do trad decor this year. I’m not feeling it to do a big homemade display in the next couple of days. It will be nice, and very festive, but not over the top. It’s that sort of a year.

Definitely a year to pull back, pull in, and, although I HATE the phrase, hunker down.

Today I’ve got a couple of pickups. I didn’t win the 200Ahr LiFiPO4 battery I was bidding on. I did get some other stuff, mostly for home. I need to get some stuff listed and need to get a couple of pallets together for my auctioneer. I want to get them to him Wednesday or Thursday. I would like to start piling up some cash instead of inventory.

I might also find some time to get something in the garden, even if I just broadcast some seeds. And I need to find some time this week to do some work at my client’s house. I’ve got a backlog of stuff to do for him and that will generate some cash too.

That’s on top of the backlog of home and BOL chores and projects. I need to get busy. The good thing is that I feel better. Movement is good and making progress, even little steps, seems to be breaking me out of my funk. I should do some more percussive therapy…

There are stacks that need topping up too. Stuff that is aging out, and stuff that was spoiled by time, rats, or weather. Check your preps, and fix what needs fixing.

nick

Sorta cool, and damp, followed by warm and damp. Maybe a bit less damp than yesterday. Even sitting outside in 85F temps had sweat running down my back. It was reaaaalllly damp.

I rose late, puttered around with auction stuff, then finally got to work around the house late in the day. And it was sweaty miserable. So I did as little as possible. I’m slowly moving stuff to the shelves I cleared the rotten food from. I’m also taking breaks from more critical work to do a little job here and there. The little ones can at least be done and provide some sense of completion. Even when they’re not complete.

Today I’ll keep plugging away. I don’t think there will be any kid taxiing or serious domestic bliss. That alone will mean I’m more effective at my stuff. Having to drive someone somewhere every two hours really breaks up the workday. I’ll miss it when it’s gone, but it’s an unwelcome development until I get used to it.

We’ve gotten used to some crazy stuff as a culture and as individuals. We’ll see even more that will need to be tolerated and worked around. I guess I can call this practice for that…

And the stacking, fixing, learning, and relationship building is practice too. Train the way you want to perform, right??

nick

Warm-ish, at 65F and humid. Warming more later, with sopping wet humidity. ‘Cuz that’s what yesterday was like. Mid 80s in the afternoon, and high RH. Not really pleasant to work outside.

So I only did a bit. I did get more decor up, and some lighting. I also moved some stuff around from close in “seen” storage to ” out of sight” storage. Did a bunch of pickups and did some favors too. One auctioneer had some things he bought with locked cabinets. I brought my picks, and opened them up. No money inside though. It turned out to be easier to physically bypass the locking mechanism than to pick the locks, so that’s what I did. He’s happy, as he can get into them now.

Second stop I used my tubular lock picks to open an inexpensive “safe” the guy had sitting around for a while. He wanted to use it, as it’s a finger print based lock. Took longer than it should have, but I was trying to use too much force. Easy does it with those picks. There was a 5 year out of date paycheck, and one dollar in quarters inside. I like opening locks/safes/storage boxes. I especially like to finesse the opening, instead of just bouncing it until it breaks.

Third stop I ran into one of my friends from my non-prepping hobby. I’ve been here 20 years, and I’m running into people I know when I’m out and about. In the old days, that would be a sign I needed to move… but I kinda like it. Even in the 3rd or 4th biggest US city, I run into acquaintances.

Fourth stop, I got the auctioneer to take some consignment stuff for me, so I’ll make some money on that, and get some stuff out of the house. Win win! From then it was kid taxi for the rest of the night.

Today, I’m working my list. Maybe I’ll get some more stuff listed for sale too. If I’m working on decor, maybe I’ll get a chance to chat with our new neighbor. Meatspace baby!!

Stacking will likely occur too.

nick

Mid 60s start, mid 80s high, mid 70s finish… for a couple more days at least. Thought we’d see steadily declining temps, but then a couple days of warmer happened. Who can tell? It’s pretty much beautiful weather, and everyone is out enjoying it.

Did some domestic bliss. Did too much driving around for too little stuff on my pickups. One was returns fraud- what was in the box was low value, but at a glance looked like the description. I can get refunded, but won’t get the 1 1/2 hour back. Then I did a lot of to and fro driving the kids around.

Dinner was a sirloin cap roast, sometimes called a picanha roast. Yummy.

Today is going to be busy doing pickups, at least in the afternoon. I got some more stuff for the BOL, and a couple household items for here. Some of my auctioneers are still getting good prices for stuff, despite the generally lowering prices. I’m trying to really bottom feed for some of the stuff. It means I’m not winning stuff I might have picked up, as I’m not trying too hard for most of it. At this time, most of the stuff is optional, or I feel pretty sure I’ll get another go at it elsewhere.

I’m still adding to the stacks. And I’ll keep doing it as long as I can. 13 days to go.

nick

Warmish… but still cool. Same as all week, we should have a cool start, warm throughout the day, and finish warm. Started at 65F, got past 80F and finished in the 70s. Had a few low clouds and puffy white stuff in the sky, but mostly clear.

Did pickups all over town yesterday. And did kid shuffling. Didn’t do much around the house despite my stated desire. Sometimes, it just doesn’t happen.

So TODAY! for sure!! That’s the plan anyway. Get some stuff listed. Get some more stuff put away. Get some stuff out for Halloween. I think I’m not going crazy this year. I’ve had some ideas, but dunno if I’ll follow thru. Lots of work, and spending some actual money would be involved, and I don’t honestly think that will happen.

Got other stuff on my mind. And it ain’t seven women.

We’ve fallen pretty far, and have a bunch more falling to do. It’s gonna be really hard to work our way back up. It’s gonna take a while. It’s gonna take a lot of work.

It’s gonna take stacks. Join the party.

nick

Another day of great weather, unless you’re a plant. Then it’s past due for some rain. Humans though, we’re lovin’ it. I see more people and dogs in the evening than I’ve seen in years. And that’s with Monday having a bit warmer evening than the last week. I think it broke 80F at some point, but it didn’t stay there. Today should be the same.

I was partially productive. I got stuff up to the attic, stuff down from the attic. I even put up the simplest Halloween decor, a string of funny flags. I cut and packed some pork loin while getting dinner ready. One roast, some thin and some thick chops, and one roast to eat now… Pork loin roast is one of my go to meals. Garlic salt, some bacon strips, bake for 20 minutes per pound, and 20 minutes, and get some sides ready. Easy prep, easy cooking, and delicious. Easy cleanup too.

Today I’ve got a pickup or two, depending on mood, and all the stacked up tasks I’ve been avoiding. Kid duties got a bit simpler as D1’s 4-5pm appointment is done, while D2 has an afterschool activity that needs pickup at 445pm for a couple of weeks… and another appointment from 630-830pm. All are in the same area which means a lot of back and forth for me. I am so in the habit of combining trips, and making loops that it offends me on a deep level to go back and forth to the same area multiple times in the day. I have to just get over myself and do it.

Which is good advice for life in general.

And stacking, that’s good advice too.

nick