Category: decline and fall

Cool to start, then hot. No rain for us either, at least not in the forecast. I might have to water the grass… It went from low 70s to low 90s yesterday, but at dusk, it was a very comfortable 80F. I’ve been driving around with the A/C on but the windows down, and it’s nice.

Speaking of driving around, I did one local pickup but it was lots from 6 auctions. Ball jars, solar panels, stuff for the kids, everything comes through the auctions eventually. I am buying less though, just usually one or two items per auction now. I guess I’ve got most of what I need, and I have better self control regarding buying stuff just ‘cuz it’s cheap. Or not.

Today I’ve got a pickup to do, some grocery shopping to do, kid stuff, and all the other normal domestic bliss. Like laundry. I cut my hair yesterday so that’s done. Good value for money spent on that clipper set, and it saves me time too.

Staying home this weekend, to do some work around here. I really am hoping for some cooler weather, as that’s what I need to be productive. Can’t really count on it though, so plans might change.

I’m hoping everyone in the path of Helene is safe and well prepped. If you have any stories to share, please do so. If something worked or didn’t work, let us know.

And if you aren’t prepped, why not?

Stack something useful.

nick

(food and water are always useful)

Hot and humid after the slow start. Maybe some rain? Had patchy clouds most of Wednesday, and even indications that some people here got rain. I didn’t see any though. We should get something from the hurricane passing through the Gulf.

Did my pickups yesterday. Rolled two into the big loop. Made it back in time to get the kid from school. Then mostly got ready for dinner out… not a super productive day but one of the items won is an equatorial mount for a mid sized telescope. I’m hoping it’s all in the box. I’m hoping the drives are there. We’ll see.

Today I’ve got one pickup, but many lots, including the solar panels. Then I should do some stuff around the house before D1 needs me to drive her around. What gets done will depend on my mood and the weather. Like always.

It’s not very “professional” to just poke at preps, and fall farther behind in my normal domestic stuff, but I am not feeling it much these last few months. I believe time is short, but I can’t convince my body and mind of that. I hope I don’t regret the missed opportunities.

Stack while you can. Think about water the rest of this week. Getting it, storing it, treating it, using it.

I’m sure one of those could use some additional stacking or work…

nick

Cool to start but then warming to hot later. Fall in Houston. We are solidly in Fall, with the 75-76F mornings. It’s still early though, which is why we get the 90F afternoons. Which describes yesterday, despite overcast skies.

I did a few things yesterday, but got off to a slow start. I sat down after breakfast and fell asleep. I slept in my chair at my desk for almost 3 hours. That is crazy. Normally that would only happen if I’d had a bunch of carbs or sugar for breakfast. The dog sat on my lap that whole time too. He never does that. If he wants up, he wants back down in just a few minutes. I must have really been tired after the weekend.

If I had a headache, I’d have checked the CO2 monitors… or a butt ache, I’d have peed in a cup looking for rufies… that’s how strange it was.

I felt good when I woke up though.

So I went to my client’s house, did the changeover to xfinity fiber, did some other network maintenance (updating firmware on network devices), and came home to run the kids around and cook dinner. I even got my remote connection sorted out, with DDNS and the VPN set up and working. Felt almost like a real IT pro…

Dinner was a ribeye roast, bone on, frozen in Dec. 2013. Delicious. Tender and full of flavor. Vac seal with all the air removed, and keep frozen at 0F or thereabouts, and you can store food a lot longer than “people” say. This isn’t necessarily true for frost free freezers as they have a warming cycle to melt the frost, so you are cycling the temps and periodically warming the frozen food. But a chest freezer or old school upright will keep your food healthful and delicious for a decade or more.

I’m not recommending you plan to have food frozen for a decade, btw. You should be doing a better job of rotating food in and out. BUT. If you have the space, meat in the freezer is like money in the bank, especially when you buy on sale.

After dinner I re-baited the live traps in the attic, but didn’t see my possum invader last night. I’ll get him if he comes back. Meanwhile, I need to block his ingress route, which I’ll do if it’s a bit cooler. I need to clean up his mess too. I dislike working in attics when it is hot out though so I’m putting that off as long as I can.

Today is auction pickups, and running around, and all the typical stuff on the list that got pushed back by my client’s needs, and possum adventures. And a sudden and unusual need for some more sleep.

Stack something, fix something, learn something, or meet someone. And try to keep up. Catching up is twice as hard.

nick

(and so is being a badass. I realized that in the same way that happy people don’t make art, badasses are made by hardship and pain. I don’t want the backstory that comes with the badass present.)

Might be a bit cooler if the rain and overcast come. Still probably gonna be humid though. It was hot and enervating yesterday. Low to mid 90s in the afternoon.

Yesterday I didnt really get much of my list done. I was really tired. Sunday working outdoors in the sun must have taken more out of me than I thought. My hands are swollen, stiff, and sore. And my sides, wrapping part way around my back are sore too. Dunno what I did to make that part of me sore.

Did some stuff, but not much, then spent the late afternoon messing with possum and kids.

Today I’m headed to my client’s house to swap him fully to the xfinity fiber. Turns out his locked in contract with ATT has expired, so we can just change over. Competition is going to save him thousands of dollars a year and provide better speeds. I’m interested to see if the follow up crew has buried the fiber…I’m betting no.

WRT preps I won another 4 100W solar panels. Time to get serious about putting a system together, at least as a test bed.

Time to learn something new. Which is a good thing. But I have to fit it into all the other stuff too.

Learning, growing, practicing, and stacking… some full days ahead.
nick

Another hot and humid day. Although, I believe it is now officially Fall. It was hot at the BOL yesterday. Not so bad in the shade and breeze, but broiling under the sun.

So I worked outdoor in the sun. I stepped into the air conditioned dock house and into the shaded parts of the dock whenever I could. Still managed to get behind on fluids. It’s easy to get focused on a task and forget to drink. When I was doing the earthmoving work I made it a point to drink every time I got into or out of a machine. That’s harder to do when you are just hanging conduit. I did get the conduit for the outdoor speakers done. Didn’t pull the wire yet. Simply ran out of time, and energy.

Today I’ll be doing normal stuff here at home. There is plenty to do, so every day I can do it, is really a blessing. I just wish the temps were a bit lower. That makes everything easier. And so much of what I need to do is either outdoors, in the attic, or in the garage. Currently those places are boiling during the day.

I really need to get a big push of stuff done, so I can get back to trying to catch up…

Spend some time doing stuff you let slide, and stack…

n

Still hot in Houston, and muggy too. It started mid 70s, got to mid 90s on my driveway, and ended with mid 80s even until 10pm… and humid the whole time. I’m hoping the BOL is a couple of degrees cooler.

Today should be busy. I’ve got to get some stuff at Lowes for the projects at the BOL, but IDK which project I should buy for… maybe both. I’ve already got a truck full of stuff to go up, including more insulated chimney sections for the woodstoves. I never thought someone would USE and then return chimney pipe. That is what they did though. 4 of the five sections have soot in them. People suck.

I also picked up two steel cabinets to use as pantry. With critters, dust, moisture, etc. I’ve decided to try cabinets and not open shelves. Even with the lidded plastic bins, (which I’ll keep using in the cabinets), food isn’t as accessible or protected as I’d like. Looks bad too. It was ok during the wuflu lockdowns, but it’s looking bad now. Anyway, I’ve got to get them out of the truck so I can load it for the BOL.

And I need to do some grocery shopping for a nice meal for my wife’s birthday celebration. I pulled last night’s steaks out of the deep freeze, and they had 2021 dates. They were marked prime sirloin, which is what I’m still buying when it’s on sale, but they were SO MUCH better than the current meat. The grain and texture, the amount of connective tissue, it just didn’t compare. So not only is meat more expensive, standards have slipped too. I’d like to get her a couple of nice tenderloin filets since we don’t eat them very often. We’ll see what Costco has.

If they have some nice meat, I’m sure it will be pricey.

Lot’s of running around to do today. And then load the truck and head out…

I will bring some more TP and paper towels with me to stack at the BOL… there is likely to be something you need to stack too. Figure it out and act.

nick

And it’s still hot in Houston. Humid too. 100F this afternoon according to my truck, and 88F at 10pm. Humidity to match. Weather liars said it would be the same for a while yet. I’ll probably bemoan the cold when it finally gets here too, but I’m heartily tired of the humidity.

Did some stuff yesterday. Mainly poked at networking stuff at my client’s house. Frustrating. But got the xfinity fiber working. I have to go back and clean up the install, and swap some settings around so that xfinity is primary and the ATT fiber is secondary. He’s still got at least a month and a half to go on his ATT contract so we’ll run with a backup until then. xfinity still hasn’t buried the fiber, they just left it laying on the grass. Supposedly a crew will come back and underground it. I’m thinking a plow, but I don’t really know. I’ve got some firmware to update on various pieces of gear, and some other stuff to do as soon as it cools down a bit. I won’t work in the attic if I don’t absolutely have to with it being this hot.

Today I’ve got to pick up some metal cabinets I won, and do some other pickups too. Then I should hit Lowes and buy project materials for the BOL. And I should definitely run some stuff to storage to get it out of the house. Wife’s birthday celebration will be at the BOL this weekend but getting the house cleaned up will put her in a good mood. I’ve been sorta trying all week but things keep coming up. Happy wife, happy life and all that. The opposite is certainly true.

Last night’s dinner was put in the deep freeze back in 2020. I did a little moving and digging in one of the freezers, and dug it up. There is plenty more in there from that time, and even older. Keep it vac sealed, keep it deep frozen, and you can keep it a long time. I haven’t been very good at rotating…

But I have been good at stacking. I’ve even switched to just mostly replacing what we eat as I’m comfortable with the amount I’ve got stored. I DO need to do some extra replacement for spoiled cans, and stuff that failed, above and beyond what we’re using. And I’d stack more, but we are already way behind on rotating stock, and I’m frankly running out of space that is good for food storage. I’m still building up the BOL with new stuff though. It’s just here that I feel like I have to turn over some of the old if I want more new. Of course if I’m feeding more than just us, I don’t have enough. But that would be the case no matter how much I had.

Stack what you need, and then stack more, but try for balance with the inevitable entropy and a reasonable use budget.

nick

Another hot and humid day is on order. Satan must be vacationing in Houston, and he likes it hot. It was another sweltering day yesterday, with sweat dripping down my back even when just standing still.

I did get out of the house and do the kid chauffeuring which involved a lot of back and forth to almost the same place. Just THAT MUCH too long in between trips to make it worth staying…

I didn’t get to my client’s house so that moved to today. This morning in fact as his wife is having people over in the afternoon, and I want to be gone… I hope the xfinity guy really did get his part done, and that I can remember how to do my part. Only doing the config changes every couple of years means having good notes, and re-learning over and over.

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I wish I could look around the world and say things were getting better, but I can’t. Still on the downward slide with more bad to come. We are far from the darkest hour. Which also means we’re far from the dawn. We’ll get there eventually.

It’s funny that when I first started building my apocalypse library of reference books I thought of it as a cheap but very unlikely hedge… and I LIKE old books, and books of knowledge, so I liked collecting them. I even use one or another occasionally, just because I can. The way things are falling apart, I’m taking it much more seriously. Still a very low likelihood of needing it on a wider scale, but still has little downside and low cost… I’ve got a nice bookcase behind glass doors at the BOL, and they are moving up there.

Stack some reference books. Some log tables and calculators. Maybe even a slide rule or two, and a book on how to use them. Books of tables for engineering, math, design… the Foxfire series. Some people like military manuals and training courses, I like the 50s and 60s books aimed at getting people up to speed in a trade. Stack some medical references. An encyclopedia, atlas, and globe. The best of western thought and writing. The “collected works” of authors in one volume are CHEAP. Goodwill and estate sales will fill your shelves for little money.

Take Yoda’s advice. “Save you what can.”

And stack.

nick