Category: decline and fall

Cooler and still very damp. It was 65F when I went to bed and I expect it will be near that to start today. We did have a very nice clear afternoon yesterday but there were still rain showers in different parts of town. You could clearly see the rain in the distance.

I got my pickups done, got to my storage unit, and my secondary, and got stuff from my driveway, and loaded stuff for my dropoff. I made it there with 15 minutes to spare… and unloaded what I had. Because time was so tight, I didn’t get everything I hoped, so I expect to make a second dropoff trip, maybe Thursday.

Spent some time doing tech support for my client. Windows issues.

Spent some time avoiding getting sucked into the play by play of the election. I did that last time. Still woke disappointed. We’ll see if today is any different. I hope so.

I’ve got a ton of stuff to do today, and probably won’t get a third of it done, but maybe… just maybe, I’ll get a thing or two done.

And stack. Twice as hard.

n

Sweaty humid and warm today, and yesterday. Yesterday had thunder in the morning with a little rain, but it had cleared out by 3pm and was a beautiful evening and night. Albeit a sweaty one.

Spent 4 hours in the morning volunteering at D2’s middle school, working on their theater sound system. Made real progress putting things in order, and addressing stuff that had fallen by the wayside. I’m going in for at least a couple of hours today to continue working on notes.

After my volunteer hours, I came home, documented what I did, then put out the “day of” stuff for Halloween. That rolled right into passing out candy, saying hi to my neighbors, and then putting stuff away. Had a tiny little fire and read for an hour to wind down.

Today I’ll do some work at school, then load up a bunch of stuff to take to auction. I will get at least two pickups while I’m doing my dropoff too. Maybe I’ll get a second load dropped off Monday or Tuesday of next week as well. It will be nice to move some bigger pieces.

I’m sure the day will be too full, and I won’t get everything I want to get done. One of the pickups could wait until next week, for example. Still, I’ll give it the old school try…

I’ll put this in the ‘stacking up money and relationships’ columns…

Stack something for you too.

nick

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