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Category: ebay

Sun. Nov. 14, 2021 – we’re gettin’ the band back together…

Cold and clear warming to cool and clear. Probably won’t get to hot and clear… It was beautiful on Saturday. I even got the mower out and cut the grass in the back yard.

Did my non-prepping hobby meeting with mini-swapmeet. We had a good turnout. Some cash was exchanged for some stuff I’d picked up over the past couple of months. Not much, it’s more about the camaraderie than making money most quarters. Nice to see people getting together for a shared interest. Lots of donuts were eaten too.

Came home and did some ebay listing, some housework, and general ‘real life’ stuff. Didn’t do much ‘prepping’ outside of building community and getting out into meatspace. In the mean time, my daughter is learning to shoot a rifle, so that is cool. She officially knows more about sailing very small boats than I do too. They had good weather for their day, with a chilly night. Wife and eldest will be home today some time around noon. It was a short camp outing.

Turns out that hamsters don’t like syringes full of liquid meds poked down their throats. Who knew? Yes, had to give the furball some meds last night, and this morning. Not an easy thing to do. Certainly harder than I expected. Little fluffy has a couple of tumors and a bare patch on his flank. So far he’s still active and eating. We take on an obligation to the animals under our care, but with $7 hamsters, there are limits. Meds and comfort are about as far as we’re prepared to go with this one. So the kids will probably soon get another life lesson. And the parents too.

These are the ‘good old days’ so make hay…

and stack all the things.

nick

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Fri. Nov. 12, 2021 – all out of fox to give

Cool and hopefully clear. We got some good rain yesterday but after it stopped everything dried out. We got more than an inch in about an hour at my house. Sun came out, the humidity was down, and it turned into a really nice day.

I sold a couple of items, so I had shipping to do. Listed a few smalls to keep the ball rolling. Sorted a couple of bags of inventory. Messed around with the parts truck a little bit (tried putting a battery on it to start it. Battery terminals have been removed so I shelved that for now.) There are a few parts I can grab, even if I sell it ‘whole’ to the repair shop. I need some switches from the doors and steering wheel. I also sprayed the interior liberally with anti-mold spray. I’ll get the switches today or this weekend.

This weekend. Busy again. Non-prepping hobby meeting and one day swap meet on Saturday. Wife and oldest off to GS camp for “Intro to rifle shooting” while youngest stays home with me. And somewhere in there I have to do a set of drawings to figure out what I am doing with all the new gear at my client’s house, which I’m supposed to spend next week installing. All the normal weekend stuff needs to happen too. Joy.

Daughter 1’s first theater show opened last night. Proud papa! Stage crew rocks! I’ll be helping with teardown tonight after the show. The show is a one act musical adaptation of the Junie B stories. It was pretty cute, and the kids did a pretty good job. I didn’t bring hearing protection, but I should have. WAY over mic’d and amplified. D1 says “they need the mics because they can’t project”. I say, “They’ll never learn to project if they have mics.” You can make an argument that because everyone uses mics, the kids should learn how to use them, but I argue that that MUST come after they learn to do it without a pile of gear. Kids today. We didn’t have mics and we survived. Bah.

I’ve got a couple of non-prepping hobby related pickups today, and hopefully at least a couple of bins to drop off. And a vet visit with the hamster late in the afternoon. He’s got a bare patch, that is swollen up like a nickel sized blister, with a couple of lumps in it. He’s eating and active, doesn’t flinch when you touch it, but it’s ugly. I guess were gonna spend some money to find out if Fluffy is ok or not. The wife and I agree that hamsters do not get expensive surgical interventions. That’s the current plan anyway.

Life proceeds as if everything was normal. It clearly is not, but we want the kids to have as much as possible, for as long as possible, a normal life. And if it never goes pear shaped, they had their childhood. We do talk about the issues though, and we had a lesson on percentages and inflation, and food prices at the dinner table the other night. D1 instantly understood that when I said, ‘we might be eating a lot of rice and pasta with a whole lot less meat for dinner’ that there were a lot of people that wouldn’t even have that. I’m getting a whole lot less “you have too much food” nonsense lately too.

“Laugh-a while you can, Monkey Boy!”

And stack while you can.

nick

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Wed. Nov. 10, 2021 – conservative means conserving…knowledge, skills, resources….

Cool and slightly increased chance of rain. Yesterday was overcast much of the day but when sunny it was very nice. A bit humid, but nice. This run of days without rain has really let me get some stuff done.

I spent a few hours sorting and pulling stuff to take to the auction yesterday. I am taking six black and yellow bins and a large box to the auctioneer today. I actually have more room in the storage unit than I did when I started. I still have far too much stuff that I’ve put in “ebay” bins though. I have to move some of it to “sell it now” from “sell it sometime”, even if it means less money. That will take another round of sorting.

I also have a bunch of books there. Some are ‘inventory’, some are ‘apocalypse library’ and some are all about gubs… I’ve put together a pretty good library for -smithing, or repair. I’d like to do some machine work and try my hand at some restoration or mods, eventually. Getting all this stuff out of the way so I can use my tools again is definitely one of the goals. And there is crossover to my non-prepping hobby too. Since I love books as objects as well as what they are, it’s hard to sell them, even when purchased explicitly to sell. So I have a few *cough* piled up. The ones for sale need to be sold.

Goals for today are to get some easy listings banged out. Test at least one major piece for sale (high end speakers probably). Take stuff to the auctioneer. Maybe later do a little paperwork for my client’s upgrade.

All the usual stuff.

Yesterday’s shopping trip let me stack a bit more food. We ate one steak for dinner, and I’ll freeze the rest. I may go back and see if there is any prime left and buy the limit again. And I might buy another 50 pounds of rice or flour. ‘Cuz the pasta aisle was wiped out.

I added a keyword for skills, and started with my comments about sewing. I’m hoping to fill in some other skills too. That would be in addition to the ones we’ve already spent time on like food- acquiring, storing, cooking; communication- meatspace, ham radio; medical; financial- planning, frugality/deals; teaching… and others, although the focus is often on the task, and not how to accomplish it. Perhaps we talk more about ENABLING the skill, than actually how to do it. Which is ok too.

Skills are enhanced when you have the stuff to use them with, so keep stacking.

nick

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Sat. Nov. 6, 2021 – alone again, naturally….

Cold, warming slightly, clear and breezy. Which is how yesterday played out. Chilly in the shade, not bad in the sun. 46F when I went to bed, mid 40s when I got up.

Did my pickups yesterday. Lots of driving. Some radio stuff, some home stuff. Dropped off at my local auctioneer, and he’s getting stuff listed and out of bins. I grabbed six bins to refill. He’s seen a bunch of it and wants more. I’ll bring him more.

Some excitement on the scanner last night, which I detailed in yesterday’s late night comments. If you get a scanner, and listen to it (I just leave mine running all the time in my office) you will learn stuff. It’ll be stuff that doesn’t hit the news. With actual news becoming harder to get, having the scanner can help establish some baselines, and alert you when activity is high. Like all things, you need to practice with it.

The goal for today, while the mice are away, this cat won’t play. I’ll WORK instead. Only me and the dog to worry about, so I can get out of the house for longer periods. I’ve got plenty to do here, but I really need to get out and to my secondary and to my storage units.

Hit a sale, order something for deliver, add to your stacks.

nick

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Thur. Nov. 4, 2021 – still no revolution, still no hot war…

We’re on the edge of the thunderstorm area on the national forecast map, so today I’m going with cool, clear, still quite damp, but occasional sun. It would be nice if the rain only lasted one day.

I spent the day doing some small tasks. Pack and ship one item. Pickup from a household auction. Then I realized I was far from home and running low on gas so I paid $3.09 / gallon for 87 octane. I only bought 5 gallons. It was up by the airport at a station just off the freeway but DANG. I think Costco still has it for $2.69/gallon. That’s a big enough difference to make the effort. I was in the Ranger, not the Expy, but still, not filling the tank if I can save 40c/gallon.

Picked two ripe tomatoes off the leftover bushes. Both had been nibbled by something, but there are other tomatoes ripening. That is just crazy, considering that most years the bushes don’t last through the summer, and they certainly don’t fruit in the Fall. Collards look good too, other than the leaves being a little smaller than normal. I’ve got 4 grapefruits on the potted tree that survived the freeze that just started turning yellow from green. They’re a good size, and I’m hoping they are nice and tasty. Herb garden is mostly dead, although the rosemary bush looks like it might have survived the freeze after all. Only about half the plant is dead. I don’t know why but I can’t keep a rosemary bush alive more than a couple of years. I use it a lot in cooking, so I like having it in the garden. Heck, I can and do kill MINT, and it’s invasive, so I’m far from a successful gardener. All the more reason to stack cans.

Plan your garden now, and get what you need for seeds, fertilizer, and pest control early.

Stack some extra in case you’re like me and can’t seem to grow anything. Consider that it might continue to get colder for a decade, look at ways to extend your growing season. Some plastic sheeting and plastic pipe for a greenhouse tunnel won’t cost much or take up much storage space.

Today should be a repeat of yesterday but without having to do a parent teacher conference at dinner time. I do get to pick up D2 early and spend an extra couple of hours with her. Maybe we’ll get some sewing projects done. That was the plan for Monday, before it got changed. I’ve got a number of projects backed up that involve sewing, maybe, just maybe, I can get one or two off the list. They’ve been on the list a long time and aren’t high priority, but my wife got the machine out, and I can jump in before putting it away again. Sometimes I get – squirrel! What was I saying? Targets of opportunity, that must have been it. Tasks or tree rats.

Anyway, think about expanding your garden, and stack what you need.

nick

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Wed. Nov. 3, 2021 – readership dropped by 2/3rds… or did it?

Cool, humid, and possibility of rain today. We got most of that, except the rain, yesterday. I did see a tiny bit of mist on the windshield while driving, and there were some dark clouds in the blue sky, but it stayed dry.

Which let me take down some of the Halloween decorations. I remembered last time having to leave stuff up too long because it was wet. I don’t have it all put away, but it’s mostly down. The HOA can’t complain about it at this point. It didn’t all get set up in one day, it won’t all go away in a day.

Spent the afternoon at the bank, then the other bank, then the Post Office, then picking up kid 2, then home for more decoration removal. In the process I bounced back and forth across town several times. I hate doing that. I’m no green weenie, but I do like saving money, so I usually try to keep my trips efficient. I like to either cluster stops, or do a big circle, or a simple out and back. I hate zig zags and retracing my route.

My wife did our volunteer hours for D1’s theater class yesterday too. I’m actually very happy to have missed that, it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday and I have a really hard time doing less than the best I can or dumbing down my work to match the capability and expectation of the ‘customer’. And they didn’t need a scenic carpenter, they needed people to sand boxes and position stuff. I would have been driven nuts. Hooray for my partner and helpmate for stepping up. Of course, she didn’t sand boxes either, she did stuff with the lighting system because that’s where her expertise and experience lie.

Yeah, meatspace. Still had other things to do.

The post title refers to the google stats for this site. I have no idea what they are basing it on, how the analytics work, or how accurate they are (not very is my suspicion), but the google says readership is down 63% iirc without checking… That’s month over month. If I trust that number, I gotta wonder why. Too much of the same stuff? Doom and gloom, my boring life, doom, inside Hollywood, doom. Or just burnout? No FLASHLIGHT talk? Glock vs 1911? Old Style vs Bud? Or was last month extra high for some reason?

I’ll take a closer look at the charts when I get time, and on the pc instead of tiny, tiny, tiny on the phone. One thing they say is that readership is 45% female, and 55% male. That’s a bit of a shocker. All you lurkers, consider this an invite to participate in any discussion or start your own! I really do want some diversity of viewpoints, experience, and knowledge.

Or should I start doing gear reviews, posting pics of my shelves and dog, or picking fights with other bloggers? Always keeping in mind, and in all seriousness, I like hanging out with all y’all, and don’t really want the issues in comments that other bloggers are having this year.

In the mean time, part of the reason for doing this is to keep all the old stuff on the site alive, so click on one of the keywords on the right once in a while and re-read (or ‘read’) some of the older posts and comments. There is some really good stuff there.

And, keep stacking.

nick

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Tues. Nov. 2, 2021 – 110221 – hurtling into the future… one day at a time

Cool to start, warming gradually, then maybe hot, reverse and repeat until dark. Mid 80s high in the sun. 60F when I went to bed, mid 50s when I woke up. REALLY nice weather.

Boxed up a couple of sales, and dealt with a complaint. I’ll be re-shipping that today, along with a couple of low dollar items. Good margin, just low gross. Still, stuff is actually selling. One sale, Ebay recommended an auction for a PS3 game, new and sealed, and recommended a starting price. I got 3 offers below the open price, and then one of them bid and won with essentially the open. I haven’t done an auction in a long time, because buy it now generally brings more money. I can’t recall anyone making lowball offers before the auction completed. Not sure if this is a ‘game’ thing, or if the nature of auctions has changed. I’ll be sticking with buy it now, for now.

Put away a bunch (but not all) of the Halloween decor.

Then the rest of my day got eaten by ducks and I got not much done.

Besides frustrations with banking, and chauffeuring children, and delivering takeout, I’m fighting a stupid apple file format issue. One of the extra curricular programs sent out a .doc file with instructions to their big event. My wife sees it as a .doc attachment to an email, but when she forwards it to me, it’s a .pages attachment. Which of course windows knows nothing about. Turns out it’s a zip file, with a thumbnail image, and (ONLY SOMETIMES) an actual pdf file in a folder structure. WTAF? So much fail. In my case, I can see the map, as the thumbnail, but all the instructions are hidden inside some other file in the folders, in a format I can’t read. pdf is what? 30 years old? And people are still sending out docs? and Apple takes it on themselves to mung that up? Jeez.

I’m looking at a couple of area credit unions to move my business account. The first free one has only one branch but lists all the branches of another CU and ATMs, including inside costco, so if I can do all my business online or at an ATM, that should work. Even if I chose to use the affiliated CU directly, their requirements for business checking are not onerous. I’ve been over IBC for years but inertia is a thing.

That won’t be the first business that made me work just a little too hard. If I’m going to work that hard, I might as well look at other options too. And since I spent the time on the other options, I might as well pick one…

With hard times coming, it’s probably worth taking a look at the things you’ve taken for granted, or have been allowing to just ‘coast’. You might have too much or too little insurance, the wrong phone plan, cable tv or other subs you don’t use (F YOU Freedom Pop), TiVO, streaming services, etc. Your habits or lifestyle may have changed enough that you are stocking the wrong foods, or your burn rate may have changed so your amounts are wrong. Is it time for a new mattress? Shoes? Winter coat? Do some things need repair? Well, if I’ve got a big list, so should you. No rest for the wicked…

And probably, you should be stacking something…

nick

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Mon. Nov. 1, 2021 – officially on the way to winter, and 2022

Middling warm, but sunny and nice. OR not. No one really knows. Probably like yesterday which was very nice and even cool in the later part of the evening. 57F when I went to bed.

Got my Halloween stuff set up, added a couple of tweaks, one of which didn’t really work, but generally built off the success of last year. Got a bunch of complements. I accomplished my goals. Do something creative. Share it with people. Meet some new neighbors. Reassure the old neighbors that I’m a harmless and fun guy, not a creepy guy with a stockpile, spying on them…. that sort of thing.

Sold a couple of items on ebay over the weekend that I have to ship today. Have a TON of stuff to list, including some big money items that need a bit of extra attention. And it’s the day I spend some extra time with D2 after school. PLUS I’ve got to put all the Halloween stuff away, get down the “fall” or Thanksgiving stuff, and go do some volunteer work at D1’s school helping with the set for their fall theatrical production.

All very normal ‘life’ stuff. What I want to be doing involves a lot of stacking, mods to existing stuff, and fixing some stuff I let slide. Add on the really sudden feeling that it’s the end of the year that starting November triggers, and I feel 2x farther behind than I felt last week.

Ah the joys of too much to do. No matter what I do or don’t do, I’ll fall behind on something.

It’s past time to pull my head out and start cutting through some of the blockages.

THAT’s the goal for today. Start that process.

All the rest of you, keep stacking. Time is getting short. No one wants to mess up Christmas, but after that, it’s on.

nick

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Thur. Oct. 28, 2021 – …and be just like the other men, I’m tired of monkeying around…

Well, I think it will be cool to start, warming through the day, then hot, humid throughout, and partly sunny. And if it is like yesterday, we’ll get a little downpour with high winds right in the middle. 62F when I went to bed.

I didn’t get much of anything done yesterday. I fell asleep for a while in the morning, got rained out of some of my plans, and then the day was gone. Somewhere in there I talked with my auctioneer, arranged a trailer for my ‘parts truck’ pickup, played with the dog, and did some ebay listings. Once again, I’m seeing a strong correlation between listing, and selling, to the tune of “if you don’t list every day, you won’t sell.” I went a couple of days without listing anything, and had no sales. Did just a couple of listings yesterday and sold an item last night. Other resellers on youtube have noticed as well. Doesn’t even have to be a good listing, one dvd a day is fine, but there has to be something. I share because I care. Sell some cr@p. Buy some preps.

Speaking of, I ordered new frying pans, some coffee, and a book from amazon. My pans need to be replaced. Nonstick pans are an expendable, and not something I see in the auctions very often. If there were never any more, I’ve got good stainless, but the nonstick are so much easier for some things… the pans will be here in a few days, but the coffee is “in stock soon” showing a December 12 delivery estimate. Um, it’s the manufacturer’s store on amazon. I’m going to have to pay about $6 more per 48oz bag to order direct from the manufacturer’s website if I want any next month. I’ve GOT some on the shelf, probably enough to get through ’til then, but jeez. There have been mentions in the press of coffee shortages, but until this order I haven’t had any problem. The brand is in stock at Costco even, but they changed varieties to something light and fruity, instead of the classic dark I prefer. I’ve got depth of backup for coffee, but I’d like to stay with fresh for as long as possible. Issues somewhere in the chain. One more indication you need to stock up when you see something you need.

In other news, the dog seems to be fine again. Daughter’s cut on her leg had the stitches out and looks fine. She’s completely over the procedure she had done for an ingrown toenail. Neighbor had a crew knocking down his chimney today, in the most slipshod way possible, and I think they still left the part between the roof and the ceiling. From the noise of brick chunks hitting the ground, I suspect a chunk fell inside the house. It felt like it fell in MY house. They have cut a bunch of holes in the new roof, near where the giant beam sticks through. I don’t see a plan in effect, but it’s not my house so my curiosity is high but my GAF is low. Neighbors across the street had 6 big trees trimmed pretty dramatically in one afternoon, which only confirms that the monkeys that took 3 days to cut down two trees at the next door neighbor’s were monkeys. I don’t think I’ve seen one company name painted or even stickered on the vehicles for the guys working on the house. That’s some fly by night trunk slammers right there.

I have a goal for today, we’ll see if I hit it. I better, or the boss’s patience might be exhausted.

So I’m off to work, so I can clear the way for better stuff to stack. Stack it high, before you can’t.

nick

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Wed. Oct. 27, 2021 – getting more work to do, and some small portion done

Hot and damp again, although the chance of rain seems to be lessened a bit. We got a couple of spritzes of rain late in the day. Just enough to convince me to put the tarp back on the truck, but not even really enough to get wet.

Among my tasks for today are getting stuff out of the house and out of storage and TO the auction. I also need to arrange and maybe pick up a car trailer for my Thursday adventure picking up my parts truck. Wife was not thrilled btw. Who knew? If I leave it in the lot at my secondary, it will get destroyed, starting with cutting out the catalytic converter, ending with someone breaking windows and using the back seat to fornicate, or defecate. Neither is appealing to me. If I can’t flip it to the repair place it will be in my driveway for a while.

One of my auction stops was for radio stuff, antenna cables mostly but there was some other stuff in the box. The other stop was the county surplus facility. I haven’t been there in a long time so I spent some time chatting with the clerk/admin that runs the office. They are getting crazy high prices for their surplus, mostly from new buyers. This was the case last time I was there too, but has only increased. There are a lot of people trying to be resellers and competition for product is getting intense. While I was there chatting a buyer called in and renounced her lot, offering it to anyone who wanted it. It was radios and chargers. Yep, I’ll have that for free, thanks. Turned out to be FRS/GMRS mostly but also one nice Moto business radio. I officially have far too many of the little radios and should start pairing them up and selling them.

With the radios and antenna stuff, that aspect of prepping gets a few more thing on the stack. I’ve been doing food, and hard to get medical. Now I need some bigger things, like the gennie hookup, whole house water heater, and master bath … since it’s getting cooler, attic work is back on the table. Oh, and I need to get my client sorted.

All while decorating for Halloween, and then the endless stream of holiday preps, including freaking air travel Thanksgiving week. I better get cracking.

Keep stacking.

nick

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