Category: mainstream media

Cold. Clear. And damp. Some combination of those three seems to be the most likely… like yesterday. We started at 44F, got to high 60s with sun, which was very comfortable outdoors, and then back down when the sun set. I don’t know what the temps have been at the BOL, but I’m guessing lower. Time to winterize.

Did very little yesterday. One pickup. No, two pickups. Some kid taxi service. A tiny bit of poking at computers. Funny how little bitty tasks can suck up a whole day.

Won’t be able to do that today. I’ve got one pickup on the other side of town, then I need to get ready to head to the BOL. My plan was to go Friday afternoon, but now I think I might have to do stuff here on Saturday. I’ll know later today. In the mean time, I’ve got stuff to load and unload in the truck, shopping to do, and other preps that need to happen. At least I probably won’t be going to my client’s house. My sometimes business partner forgot to send the part I need to install.

I’ve got enough to do without spending a couple of hours on install and commissioning some new tech.

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And not to get all doomer, but the Ukes shot US and UK missiles into Russia, and Putin responded with either an ICBM or a new mid range missile that it seems we didn’t really know about.

War is coming. Think hard about what it might mean to you. External, and internal wars are on the horizon. The elephants are getting ready to dance. We wee mice need to scamper…

and stack, because war ALWAYS leads to privation and hardship.

nick

Cool, damp, but clear. And then more of the same. Warming to high 70s, low 80s, and maybe some wind to help dry things out.

I started Wednesday with a pickup on the way to my client’s house. That went well, so I got to work only a little bit behind my best guess at arrival. After confirming his issues, I found the piece of gear common to all 4 TVs, and it was failed. Stuck in a boot sequence. Not recoverable. It’s the second one of two to fail in the same way. Just locked up. Talked to my business partner for this client, and he’s ordering a new one to be delivered today or Friday. I asked him to go with the hard wired version this time, as this wifi version was only used because we couldn’t source the hard wired version when we did the initial upgrade and install of the parts. It’s available now, and 1/3 the cost as a bonus.

I’m always going to chose simpler, and hard wired, over wireless if I have that option. There’s a lot less to go wrong with wired ethernet.

On the plus side, while looking at the ubiquiti logs to be sure a new IP address was available, I noted that most of the infrastructure devices on the net had uptimes of ~750 days. Considering the power/lightning situation in the countryside, and the age of some of the gear, and that before all the upgrades and money spent to fix stuff we’d go down every month, that is awesome. FWIW, the biggest factor for reliability was probably re-dressing the rack with sensible layout, new cabling, and cable ties for management. Lots of cable ties and management. An AV rack has a lot of connectors that don’t latch or get captured, so any cable movement risks pulling out connectors. Tie that stuff in place. And label everything.

Today should be me doing stuff at home to get ready for a trip to the BOL for the holiday. Dunno if the universe will allow that- it’s been pretty insistent that I do other things. I don’t mind getting interrupted to go earn money… my client pays me very well to take good care of him. Plus, I invoiced for the year, and that money will come in handy (and it will go right back out of my hand-y too.) BUT, I have stuff I really need to do here.

Guess I should get started.

The stacking will take care of itself, the maintaining won’t. Do some of both this week. Winter is coming. . .

nick

Cool, or even cold this morning. It was 55F yesterday, but got into the 80s by afternoon. It also cleared up and was a beautiful sunny day. I’m hoping for more of that. National forecast shows clear sky, but my wife says the local forecast is for lower temps. We’ll see what happens when it happens.

I did get some stuff done yesterday. Did about 4 pickups in mostly the same area. Hit the grocery store for early Thanksgiving shopping, and I was out of Dr Pepper. Lots of instore sale items this time. I saved $55 buying sales items with coupons, but still spent $350. There weren’t many turkeys left, but they were on sale. I found a 10 pounder, and added two drumsticks. I am thinking about smoking the beast at the BOL…

Most of the sale items weren’t staples, but they were holiday items, which will help people.

Speaking of inflation, I stopped to get D2 some Jack in the Box after her evening activity. Tried to get a Buttery Jack cheeseburger, not the meal deal. The menu board said the meal was ~$9.50 and the “burger only” was ~$6.25. After a comedy of errors involving me thinking the order taker got it wrong because she kept saying the charge would be ~$9.89, and insisting I only wanted the burger, to her limited english skills… finally another worker got involved and the price in the cash register for just the burger was $9+ and the meal was ~$13+. That’s 150% above the posted drive thru menu. I told D2 that she better savor that burger as it was the last one I was buying for a long time. $10 for a fast food burger. Criminy.

Today I’ve got a morning pickup, then I’ll head to my client’s place. He’s having control issues with his system and the normal phone troubleshooting didn’t work. Sometimes you just have to see the problem first hand. It also gives me a chance to invoice him for the year. Unfortunately it will suck up several hours from a day that I already had planned to use all the hours. I just don’t seem to be able to get ahead.

The check will be nice though.

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Which is why we plan to have the plan fail. And we stack stuff, so we have choices and resources.

nick

Cool, wet, and maybe clearing later. Or not. We started warm and muggy, ended cool and wet. Localized light showers with occasional high wind throughout the day. Not the worst of days, not the best. And that’s where I’m starting today.

Did my volunteer stuff at school. Pretty much wrapped on this project but there’s a lot to do over the next couple of months. Shouldn’t be too hard to fit it in. I’m making a list and when I get some time, I’ll sneak in for a couple of hours and knock stuff out.

Time, time, ask me for anything but time…

Spent the rest of the day doing stuff around the house, starting with cleaning up the recording of the school’s show. It sounds pretty good, considering the source. There are some lovely voices in that middle school. I really like the music and book for the musical they did too. I’m singing at my desk.

Today should be an attempt to get some auction stuff out of the house, or ready to leave. I’m going to talk to another auctioneer about taking some consignments. I can’t have stuff just sitting here. The close auctioneers aren’t getting great prices though, so I have to go a bit farther afield. We’ll see how that turns out.

I’ve also got to do some pickups today. More stuff for the house and the BOL. I hope the rain holds off.

It occurred to me that I have to get some radio gear installed into my vehicles too. The handhelds cover me for the license plates, I think, but permanently installed radios would be better. I just have to FIND the ones I thought I put aside for the trucks. I’m pretty sure they are in a bin here in my office. I haven’t had time to dig them out though…

That’s kind of a recurring refrain, isn’t it. Easier to stack than to USE the stacks. Shouldn’t stop you from stacking though.

nick

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