Day: October 30, 2024

Wed. Oct. 30, 2024 – oooh, so close, gives me shivers

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

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