Less hot and humid, but hurricane coming? Who knows anymore.
Spent the weekend on a small lake about 2 1/2 hours north of Houston. Kind out in the country. Still within one tank of gas, so not ideal for avoiding mutant biker zombies, but judging by the number of Trump flags, the zombies might find it a tad inhospitable come the day.
And now we are really actually ramping up to find somewhere to GTFO to… ‘cuz my wife is a pretty smart cookie and while we sometimes take different routes, we usually end up in the same place. And that place says, having somewhere to go that isn’t in a potential riot zone is a Good Idea ™.
Lots of people out there preaching that it’s long past time to get out of the cities. The argument is getting more compelling by the day, and there are a lot of people out there, and a lot of them are paying attention. The little lake we were on had more than 5 houses for sale last month. This month, there is one left. It’s been on the market for over a year with no takers. As we left yesterday, there was another couple looking at it.
A short while ago I shared the thought that if the economy got worse, people would have to start selling off their toys. I’m seeing that in the auctions. LOTS of collections coming up for sale. I thought that people under money stress would sell vacation homes, and that there might be a decrease in prices, and THAT’S when I’d swoop in. What I didn’t consider is that there are a lot of people paying attention. It looks like they are quietly acting like preppers, even if that whole idea is foreign to them. Or maybe, because of hurricanes, BLM, and a whole lot of stuff coming to a head, it’s REALLY FREAKING OBVIOUS to anyone right of center on the bell curve– getting out of the cities is a REALLY GOOD IDEA all of a sudden.
The upshot is, I’m feeling like we already missed the boat. I feel like I’m looking at the last package of TP on the shelf and I REALLY don’t like that feeling. Inventory is shrinking before my eyes.
Sometimes this whole blogging and prepping thing can get to feeling pretty insular. You all feel like a small circle of friends, especially the group of frequent commentors. I get a little boost when someone who doesn’t comment frequently shares something and I remember that this thing is bigger than it feels, that there are a lot of you still coming by and hanging out. (Thanks by the way, I am humbled and grateful that people still keep coming by, I credit that to the larger community that exists here in the readership and comments.)
Anyway, the pace of whatever is coming seems to be picking up. There is a sense I’m getting that the herd is starting to stir and get restless. I keep asking people to rebut the idea that we’re headed for worse, but no one does. That adds to my sense of unease. No one on either side of the political spectrum is saying “you’re nuts, better times are right around the corner.” It seems to me that there is a large element of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ to this sort of thing. Once the momentum builds to a certain point, people are just going to say “F it, let’s go” and then the dark age starts.
I don’t know what the timeline will be. I’m not thinking deeply enough about second and third order effects. I don’t want to see the country continue down the current path. And I don’t have enough of anything for what’s coming.
Start stacking. Keep stacking. Move your stack somewhere safer. Do more. It feels like time is getting short.
nick
BLM guy wearing a Breonna shirt walks into a bar and shoots 3. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/black-lives-matter-activist-wearing-justice-beonna-taylor-shirt-walked-louisville-bar-murdered-three-people/
is coming soon. 🙁
I just bought a new HP color Laserjet DN through Amazon from Office Depot. It was discounted almost 50%.
The whole HP aisle was a fire sale. Actual in-store stock was fairly low.
Our HP all-in-one DeskJet stopped talking to my home server after a recent update, and I am no longer able to scan documents directly to a network folder. I just sank $120 in cartridges into the printer side, however, so the POS won’t go anywhere until the ink is gone.
Flash drives are cheap. The interns in Vantucky need to shape up.
Fry’s got a shipment of freezers
https://www.frys.com/product/10033631
They have a tiny one, 3.4 cuft, and an upright.
n
I love HP laser printers. We still use a couple in our biz. The SA house needed a printer and I was looking for cheap (dang those laser cart are expensive) since a lot of biz printing wouldn’t be done. Office Depot had a sale on Epson inkjets, the ones hawked by Shaq, with refillable tanks for the ink. I’m happy with it and our Macs talk to it with no problem. Airprint for iOS devices works fine. It’s AIO, but with our Fujitsu ScanSnap and iOS scanning apps, I haven’t used the scanner portion. I should try it out as a backup.
NW SA. I’ve seen all of those except deer on my trail cam. I see deer in the street occasionally, and one time, running alongside my car.
You’ll hear the coyotes along with police sirens.
More climate change and global warming fraud:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/airbus-unveils-hydrogen-powered-designs-for-zero-emission-flight
OTOH, no description of how the H2 is produced. H2 wells out in the West Texas town of El Paso?
Lynn?
The sales of vacation homes are probably driven by people that have high-paying white collar jobs that realize that they can work from home a couple of days per week. So if you only need to be in the office a few days a week, why not have a resort home to live in on the days you telecommute.
The riots are a pretty localized thing and are dying out except on the coasts.
Airbus has already named their prototype H2 plane…Hindenburg.
The riots are a pretty localized thing and are dying out except on the coasts.
In Portland, the territory prone to mayhem is extremely small and not a location that the unsuspecting will stumble into by accident.
Progressives want to “reimagine” the story of the Alamo and remove references to the freedom fighters who gave their lives for liberty
Visit savethealamo.us today to vote to save the cenotaph and stop the liberals erasure of Texas history. The deadline is 8pm today, Sept 21.
The lack of hydrogen wells is a major shortcoming of “the hydrogen economy” which proponents will never, ever admit.
BUT there’s a workaround. Most of the atoms in a human being are hydrogen atoms. We can toss all of the proponents of the hydrogen economy into a processing vat and render them down for their hydrogen. Voila! Solves two problems at once.
There was a smallish (200 or so) Pro Trump rally in Oklahoma City over the weekend. Their leaders news quote was “I think if we could all sit down together, we’d find we have more in common than we think.” The leader of the small group of Anti Trump protesters news quote was “We can’t talk with Nazi’s, we have to eliminate them. ”
I think this pretty much spells it out, one side is reaching out to gain a consensus while the other side just wants to destroy. Frightening times.
This was our thought when we retired to small town Oklahoma in January instead of staying close to our wonderful great granddaughter. We’d love to still be in the Memphis area, seeing our little girl every week but when the gang drive-by came to our local Kroger’s we knew we had to go. Because the best thing we can do is to be able to offer a safe haven for Addie if things get much worse. Here in Indian country we have plenty of Trump flags and yard signs and not one Biden sign in our small town. We live down the street from the Fire Chief and the county commissioner and I have met the county sheriff who cooks burgers in a lunch wagon on weekends.
It’s the kind of small town that would be ANTIFA worst nightmare. Plenty of hog farms around where bodies can disappear.
I thought we had a bunch of those space ships with hydrogen “scoops” on the front. Can’t we use them to get H2? Then use the space elevator to bring down the H2 in big frozen blocks.
More climate change and global warming fraud…
Zero emission airliner? Waitaminute, that plane emits water vapor, and it is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Tell that to greenies, and watch their heads spin. 😉
@ech,
“The riots are a pretty localized thing and are dying out except on the coasts. ”
I disagree. Not the only data aggregator, just the first one to come up. LOTS of riots indicated on those maps, and spread out all over. They may be dying out at the moment, but the instigators and provocateurs (both sides say that there are outsiders encouraging the violence) are now trained, experienced, organized and blooded. When former CNN anchors are calling for people to “burn the whole fucking thing down” I don’t think the violence is over.
https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/former-cnn-host-ate-human-brains-even-try-replace-rbg-burn-entire-f-cking-thing/
Airbus has already named their prototype H2 plane…Hindenburg II.
Fixed it for you.
I live in a small town, population less than 2,000. Although the mailing area and school area covers a much larger area. I am well known in the town due to the sports pictures and wife and I subbing at the school. You can have local workers do something on the house and the bill will arrive a few days later. One time we needed the main drain line in the house replaced. Plumber had an open date where we would not be home. Gave him the code to the garage, let himself in, finished the job, and locked up. Billed a few days later. You don’t get that in a large city.
Lot of rednecks for certain, backwoods rednecks. Honest, generally hard working (there are a few welfare slouches), and willing to help neighbors if necessary.
After a week in San Antonio I was really feeling cramped and just generally irritated at the place. So much traffic, roads everywhere, houses very close together. Ugh. Back to small town USA for me.
But then there is this, from the SAME PAGE
But then there is this, from the SAME PAGE …
So reassuring to know our scientific elites are on top of things.
But then there is this, from the SAME PAGE
The CDC wants to keep the mask kabuki going but doesn’t want to get caught spreading propoganda.
Again, annectdotal, but my wife has yet to see a single case where the patient can’t trace the infection back to a friend, family member, or — worst of all — care giver doing something stupid or selfish motivated by FOMO in a social situation.
Granted, the VA population is not an adequate reflection of the general public for statistical purposes so take the above for what its worth, but, in some ways, the stupidity is worse among the clinic staff. Two weeks ago, an active case *with breathing problems* made it in the door and into an exam room with a therm of 99 after a clueless screener equated normal body temp of 98.6 with a skin surface reading of 99. Bzzzt.
The temp taken orally in the exam room? 102!
Is there any greenie that has sucessfully completed a course in thermodynaics?
Every airport will need 30 million acres of solar cells to provide DC for electrolysis to produce the H2 and then reduce temperatue to liquify it.
And another 20M acres to distill water into a sufficiently pure state for electrolysis.
Maybe instead, we could drop the H2 blocks from space unto Washington DC. I’ll launch my “scoop” space ship tonight and start the harvesting.
I have a whole new life coming in. My primary care physician ordered a digital weight scale and an electronic blood pressure device as directed and paid for by Medicare. Arrived several days ago, packages opened today and enclosed batteries installed.
BP cuff around upper arm and done. Stepped on scale, then off when weight displayed and done. That is it, no other setup and messing around Results transmitted to Dr. by internal cellular.
Oh yeah, BP fine and BMI of 20.
No need to go for treatment at local massage parlor.
The new auger motor assembly arrived today. Just a week earlier than Amazon promised. I took the grill apart yesterday. I was bored. Pretty easy, just remove screws until you can lift off the pellet hopper.
Ok, a few more screws and bolts to go to remove the bad part. Then reverse the process. Maybe an hour tomorrow with a beer break.
I think I’ll give the new motor an oiling. Can’t hurt. I’ve oiled the blower motor a couple of times but that’s easy to access.
Tonight’s gruel is going to be canned potatoes, rinsed, drained, halved, tossed in bacon grease, and dusted with salt and pepper.
Into a pie plate.
Then a couple of fake pork chops with fake Shake ‘n’ Bake. Just some seasoned salt, a wave of garlic powder, and coated with cornmeal. Yeah, I’ll get some of the bacon grease on the meat, too.
Meat on top of the potatoes and into the oven for, oh, 35 minutes. Just a guess about the time.
If it’s horrible, well, Penny likes all of my cooking. Except for chili. 🙂
@Paul.
What is a “fake pork chop”?
ya got me wondering too!
n
I’d guess a slice of pork loin.
If you look at the time series data, the riots are pretty much confined to Portland now. They have died out. Just like they did in 1968.
If the virus was airborne, the spread would have been much faster and wider. Measles is airborne. Most disease aren’t.
Gotta completely disagree with Sarah Hoyt today. She’s saying that right-leaning Americans should not give in to the communist-leaning (un)Americans’ desire for civil war because that would be giving them what they want, and that all of the recent affronts and assaults are not enough to serve as a cause for war.
I think that what she’s missing is that they simply will not stop. They’ll continue to take and to demand and to kill and to ruin. The only thing that might stop the True Believers is killing them, or enough of the True Believers and their paymasters to render the rest ineffective. The middle-class street rabble can be sent back to their jobs and their dorms and their parents’ basements with a touch of the lash, but without the professionals guiding them they are not a threat and never were. The third group, the euphemistically termed urban youths, may have to be killed; if children reach their teens without socialization into civilization they are usually a lost cause. Blame their parents and blame the soft-headed liberals whose policies destroyed the family.
Refusing to go out and kill rioters or to lethally defend yourself from aggression because “that’s what they want” is moronic.
Hey, ech! Knock it off! We gotta keep up the panic or … or bad things will happen. Like the public might come after the expert leaders with torches and pitchforks.
If you look at the time series data, the riots are pretty much confined to Portland now. They have died out. Just like they did in 1968.
Rain and 50s will quell the enthusiasm in Portland starting at some point in the next month. They got just enough rain this week to deal with the fires but not the Progs.
The city government does crack heads whenever the antics get too close to The Pearl and other pricey real estate.
I just finished skimming Sarah’s piece. I had the impression it was saying what SteveF got out of it. She has days when she’s fighting depression that are not what she would post on other days.
FWIW, I think they are emboldened and will not stop. They are taking a pause to ripple out all the lessons learned, to move their cadre around, and to rest up for the big push. (or putsch if you like.)
Time will tell. The world doesn’t USUALLY end which is why we’re looking at lake houses and not concrete bunkers.
n
Does not seem fair. Looks like they keep moving the goal posts. How are we going to score?
You all feel like a small circle of friends, especially the group of frequent commentors.
Thank you. My feelings also.
I also enjoy this space. And the comments.
Although I do like to downvote a few comments all at once, just to bug some of the people here.
I value this place too. For me it’s the sanest place on the web. Not counting SteveF’s comments of course. Well, some of them.
I keep wishing I had someplace similar for my non-prepping hobby.
n
Lots of people out there preaching that it’s long past time to get out of the cities. The argument is getting more compelling by the day, and there are a lot of people out there, and a lot of them are paying attention. The little lake we were on had more than 5 houses for sale last month. This month, there is one left. It’s been on the market for over a year with no takers. As we left yesterday, there was another couple looking at it.
Open lots (1 to 2 acres) in our neighborhood have suddenly doubled in price in the last six months from $150K to $275K. Then you build a $500K to $900K house on it.
Not only has the immigration (legal and illegal) continued unabated into Texas, we are getting a flood of people from California, Michigan, and New York State. The legal immigration from Mexico is getting noticeable (put a million in a USA bank, you can bring in three generations into your 10,000+ ft2 house).
The result is a lot of house inventory just got pulled off the market. In the cities and in the rural areas.
Anyway, the pace of whatever is coming seems to be picking up. There is a sense I’m getting that the herd is starting to stir and get restless. I keep asking people to rebut the idea that we’re headed for worse, but no one does. That adds to my sense of unease. No one on either side of the political spectrum is saying “you’re nuts, better times are right around the corner.” It seems to me that there is a large element of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ to this sort of thing. Once the momentum builds to a certain point, people are just going to say “F it, let’s go” and then the dark age starts.
Mom was talking to her 90 year first cousin the other day. They were discussing the current insurrection and he mentioned that when he was a young boy, his father suddenly took him into the drugstore in Wharton, Texas and bought him a double scoop of vanilla ice cream. His father told him to stay in the drugstore and walked outside. Her cousin snuck up to the plate glass window just in time to watch a large crowd hang a man from an oak tree in front of the courthouse, around 1935 or so.
We may be going back to spontaneous hangings of troublemakers. I hope not, they are never civil. Nor legal.
I’m back home from west Texas. Nothing like driving 700 miles in 48 hours. My F-150 4×4 got an average 20 mpg for the trip, amazing for a brick going 80 mph. The last fifty miles was borderline exciting as it rained about 5 to 6 inches on me. I got to drive through 4 to 5 inches of water on the highway 36 a couple of times (Fort Bend County floods). No big deal for my F-150 4×4 with a 4 inch lift kit.
The wife and daughter went to Dallas with her sister for a couple of days. We had a tenant move out of a rent house in Garland and kinda trash the place on the way out. Why did they take all of the mini-blinds ? The contractor has said that he will fix the place for $1,550 and the wife is going to write him a check and drive away. The realtor may have a new tenant already for $750/month (2 bed / 1 bath half of a duplex).
We satisfactorily held a visitation yesterday for my father-in-law and funeral / graveside ceremony today in Merkel, Texas. Saw a lot of relatives, both driving in and living there. Hugged a lot of people (yes, I know). My father-in-law is the sixth person that we have buried in this cemetery since 1982. I helped carry three of the caskets over the years. The preacher was the 81 year old preacher of the Merkel Church of Christ and did a great and succinct job. Even led four songs (Church of Christ is acapella (no instruments)). He actually knew my FIL back in the 1960s when he came back from Japan and was posted in west Texas.
The wife and her sister arranged for a military honor guard since FIL was a Korean War veteran (1951 to 1963), infantry then medic then x-ray tech / OR nurse. He was not in Korea but in Japan where he took care of 30 quadriplegics that were moved from Korea to Camp Jama in Japan. They could not be moved back to the USA on a Liberty freighter since they would not survive the six week journey. So they were taken care in Japan. My wife was born in Camp Jama while he was there.
Anyway, two army sergeants showed up, played taps, folded the beautiful USA flag (sewn not stamped) that was on on his casket, and gave the folded flag to my wife’s older sister. They did a great and very impressive job, I loved it. The wife is going to buy a presentation case for the folded flag. We had two military veterans in the group. My FIL’s nephew is a 20 year Navy man and he saluted the flag. My son would not salute the flag since he was not in Marine Corps uniform but placed his hand over his heart as the civilians did.
BLM guy wearing a Breonna shirt walks into a bar and shoots 3. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/black-lives-matter-activist-wearing-justice-beonna-taylor-shirt-walked-louisville-bar-murdered-three-people/
100 years ago, that man would be tried and executed by a mob the same day.
Are we going to end up in the same place ?
I just bought a new HP color Laserjet DN through Amazon from Office Depot. It was discounted almost 50%.
The whole HP aisle was a fire sale. Actual in-store stock was fairly low.
But HP is not fire selling the toner cartridges. The toner cartridges are about $350 for that printer.
More climate change and global warming fraud:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/airbus-unveils-hydrogen-powered-designs-for-zero-emission-flight
OTOH, no description of how the H2 is produced. H2 wells out in the West Texas town of El Paso?
Lynn?
Take water, purify the crap out of it ($10/gallon). Subject said water to an electric current from so-called green renewable electric power. Store H2 gas generated in supposedly vent free propane tank. Nobody light a match !
I burned 36+ gallons of gasoline over the last 48 hours in my truck. Try replacing that amount of energy with solar, green H2, or some other crappy method involving a motorized skateboard and a battery. Not gonna happen anytime soon in less than a week of playing with hours of charging or storing very dangerous amounts of hydrogen that wants to be FREE !
W changed the flag code to allow veterans out of uniform to salute. Feels really weird. Just FYI
My parents are buried in the VA cemetery here in Houston. (Dad was USN in WW2.) I was out there checking the marker on the columbarium niche they have for errors and I saw another veteran’s casket being interred. No family, just the ground crew. When it came time to lower the casket, they all lined up, came to attention, played taps.
The point here being that it would be much cheaper to just use that solar-generated power to charge a battery to run your truck. Yes, batteries are not cheap enough and not quite power-dense enough yet, but give that a few more years. As for hydrogen, it is also being proposed as a way to use methane that is “carbon-free”. Of course, you have to do something with the carbon you free up from methane when you split it to get hydrogen. No good and cheap ideas come to mind (sequestration… maybe). I have posted on this before – I don’t think much of hydrogen as an alternate fuel. I think the energy companies love the idea: keep on drilling for natural gas; keep a distribution network of hydrogen stations; require massive infrastructure to split hydrogen from water as an alternative to using natural gas. You want carbon free? Build those “scary” nuclear plants, use energy from those to charge batteries for vehicles. Yes, you will need to build much more generation and transmission infrastructure. Still cheaper than “hydrogen” infrastructure, I think. Enough – rant over!