Category: mainstream media

Mon. July 15, 2024 – a new week and a new start

Hot and humid still, and again. No rain yesterday for me, but maybe for others in Houston Metro.

I did my thang yesterday morning, poking at laptops and drinking my coffee. Then some clean up, some generator messing about, and off to get fuel. Got some. Checked on my secondary location (my stuff is fine.) Came home and power is restored… so I have a bunch of cleanup and putting away to do. And then maintenance on stuff. But I have power again, so that is good.

Today I’m dropping D1 at a day camp, and maybe doing some other stuff. Wife and D2 will be home. Then I’ve got more cleaning to do, and some organizing. There is a never ending list…

And it’s all easier with power.

So stack what you need to provide some of your own. I’m taking a good hard look at mine.

nick

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Sun. July 14, 2024 – shot heard ’round the world…

Hot and humid, although it would be nice if the temp stayed under 90F like yesterday. Took overcast and rain to do that, but it helps to not broil the brain in the skull…

I’m still running my two little portable A/C units to take the edge off. I’m spending $25 per day just for that. It’s worth it.

Didn’t get much done. I spent most of the afternoon working on my new Toughbook CF-54. I won it in an auction but haven’t had time to crack it and get it set up for me… so I started that. Because I had a bunch of software out of the hall closet sitting on the kitchen table, and thought “why not?”

I tried the normal route, booting from install media, changing utilman.exe to cmd.exe and then using net user to change passwords, but it didn’t work. Acted like it worked, but I never could get to the actual cmd window. So I tried a program I picked up somewhere, probably the goodwill bins. It’s a pc password changer program on a USB drive. Worked like a charm. Turned on the admin account, cleared passwords for everything I could, rebooted and was in. The guy who returned the notebook to amazon or wherever didn’t have any files on it. So I killed that account and started poking at win10 config stuff.

I’ll run some av, and malware detectors, and hope the cracker didn’t rootkit me. I will ease into using it as my primary lappy over the next few months. It’s bigger, faster, and yet thinner and lighter than my CF-30. I hate win10, but I like the hardware upgrade. I may still install the panasonic recovery media from bare metal. I would like a bigger SSD anyway. But for now, it’s good enough.

I need to get some stuff picked up and put away before the Mrs. gets home. And do some cleaning.

The Centerpoint outage tracker says we’ll be back up Wednesday. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Meanwhile, stack the critical things. The world has taken another step down the path … and it doesn’t end in skittles and beer for the likes of you and me.

Eyes and ears open, head on a swivel.

nick

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Tues. July 9, 2024 – will we get power restored before I have to head up???

Hot and humid. Likely to be sunny and no rain. Unlike yesterday! The hurricane Beryl winds and rain hit us in the early morning and were gone by late morning. That left us cool and wet, which helped immensely with cleanup.

Details of my day are in yesterday’s comments, very late in the day. AT&T had and is having a lot of cellular network issues. They sent a text that all of Houston would get “unlimited” data and texts, but the network was failing with DNS errors and a variety of issues all day. My wife’s verizon phone mostly worked like a champ but eventually their network got flaky too.

I don’t know if the AT&T fiber stayed up, but it was there when I finally got around to standing my network back up. Still not booting the computers though. The cams have SD cards so will record about 3 days internally, and I don’t want the linux and windows boxen booting and crashing all day… nor do I want them running off the dirty power from the generac. It’s HARD on boards and PSUs.

Today is “make sure W can keep the gennies running” while I head to the BOL to get power restored up there. Also more cleanup in both places. Something with automatic failover is going to be critical if infrastructure continues to be fragile. Considering the aging condition, terror attacks, weather events, etc, it seems pretty likely that infrastructure will continue to degrade. Driving to the BOL and splitting the party whenever we have a long outage is getting a bit old.

Never split the party. It’s a good rule.

Time to get more serious about some of the “just in case” stuff I’ve been stacking.

Stacks give you choices. Choices are good.

nick

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Mon. July 8, 2024 – will we blow away? will we float away? only time will tell

Because it’s gonna be hot and humid unless it’s actually storming. And then I won’t care because I’ll be inside anyway. Supposed to be a hurry-cane headed this way. I’m not feeling the urgency for some reason.

I really do hope it’s a ball of nothing but some heavy rain. We’ll muddle through in any case.

Yesterday was mostly getting stuff buttoned up at the BOL and heading home. Didn’t do a lot of storm prep here because it was raining when I got here. Since then it cleared and hadn’t rained any more when I wrote this at 1am.

Since I’m completely unprepared, I hope it’s nothing. In case it’s not, I guess we’ll fall back on the preps from the last 15 years…

Y’all be safe out there, as it’s sure to suck for someone.

Mean while, think about the hazards local to you and stack accordingly.

nick

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Thur. Jun. 6, 2024 – D Day.

Cool to start but warming rapidly to “hot”. Because Texas and summer. And if I’m wrong? Well that’s ok too. It stayed cool all day yesterday, but then it rained buckets too. Low 70s cool, which was very nice.

So I mostly stayed in. I did swap vehicles at the repair shop. Eventually the Expy got smogged and inspected and passed. That’s one out of the way. The Ranger still needs some driving around before smog, so I’ll be driving it today. And probably this weekend to the BOL.

The rest of my day was taken up with driving the kids to their various things. Didn’t get my own stuff done because it broke up my afternoon. Some days are like that. It’s the “stay at home dad” thing, and it means I don’t get to do whatever I want all day. Compromises, I’ll make ’em.

The stacks did pay off with a new turn signal bulb. It saved me a trip to the store yesterday anyway. I’ll try to remember to stop and get new ones when I’m out and about, so I have one when this one fails, or it’s opposite number fails. Doesn’t sound like much, but in a day full of other stuff it saved the trip and about an hour. I’ll put it in the ‘win’ column.

Today will be a couple of pickups, and getting ready to head to the BOL. My non-prepping hobby meeting got moved to next weekend, so we might just head up early and make a long weekend of it. I’m sure there are things for me to do…

And I’m sure there are things for you to do too. I’ve learned the hard way this month that I shouldn’t have procrastinated about the vehicle inspections, renewals, generator maintenance, and auto repairs…

It’s easy to stack, harder to do the stuff needed to stay ready. Pick something you’ve been putting off and do it.

n

(added, and on this anniversary of one of the biggest things humans have ever tried to do, think about history repeating… the horns of war are blowing. Do what you can to be ready.)

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Tues. Mar. 5, 2024 – Erect– I mean Election Day… at least for the small fry…

Warm and damp. Clear if the forecast is good, but locally we could get anything. After yesterday’s misty start, it did clear and turn into a pretty nice day. Windows down until later afternoon, then the humidity with the higher temp made A/C welcome…

Did one pickup, although it was three invoices. Got my ventless propane heater for the BOL backup heat. Got a couple of other speculative things too. Sometimes I’ll get something without knowing why at the time, but it usually works out. Has to be cheap and close by.

After getting the kids from school, I went back to poking at my non-prepping hobby website build. I’d spent the morning doing auction stuff and poking at it, and thought I’d poke some more. All I can say is that if you want to do simple things, it can be simple. Still not as easy as the demos. The demo guys are NEVER trying to re-create something existing- I don’t care if it’s a website or a CAD drawing, it’s always easy to just breeze along adding new stuff. Much less easy to keep referring to the old, and trying to incorporate that stuff into the new.

I made progress though, so that was good. I’m hoping I can poke at it enough to have a pretty good “go live” site by Saturday. My non-prepping hobby meets this Saturday and it would be good to put it in front of the board and get sign off on the switchover. It means I’ll be poking more than I’d like during the next few days.

Took some time off to watch Red Dawn with the kids last night. It held up pretty well. I’ve got a list of formative movies and books, and they are receptive to it. Just have to make the time.

Culture. It’s important. They are a bit surprised by movies from before PC and the diversite’. They can name 3 female scientists, but can they name three male? Yeah, that is just one of my issues with school… and it crops up in the strangest places. So, pop culture from the before time as a balance.

Might work. I like watching the movies anyway.

Stack some together time. And ammo.

Wolverines!

nick

(“it’s fried rice you plick!”)

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Sat. Nov. 20, 2021 – ow, that hurts!

But not bad enough to stop…

Cool and clear. Nice day like yesterday, although everyone thought it was a bit too chilly yesterday.

I fought with routers, software, hardware and other networking gear. I should be as famous as St George… Or not. I prefer the old ways of doing things, the new way, works great when it works. And not at all when it doesn’t.Still, I get paid by the day, not by the job, so I will do ok. I’ll be back out there today to do a bit more of the cobble job before leaving for “vacation” travel on Monday.

I’m not looking forward to that. Rather fight dragons.

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges. Took a while though, which is concerning. The case, and the reaction to it, clearly shows the division in our country and the culmination of several trends and intended or un-intended consequences. I consider it an aberration though, and luck that he got a judge that would uphold the law and not put up with shenanigans. The next one might not be so lucky.

Avoid crowds.

nick

(and keep stacking)

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Thur. June 3, 2021 – these short weeks confuse my sense of time

Wednesday stayed nice all day. We were on the edge of the forecast storm area and once again missed it. Even openweathermap.org had us getting rain around 4pm… and they were both right and wrong. Right on time I got about 4 drops on my windshield, and that was it. We got a spatter at 7pm, but never really got any significant rain. I’m hoping for similar results today.

I have a pickup or two to do, and it would be easier to drop the kids at the pool than listen to them in the car for an hour. Unfortunately my pickups are near the airports, one each, so not a short drive. Worth it though for the stuff. One estate sale netted me an item at below market, even after tax and transfer fees. Unless I missed something in the pictures, I got a good deal on something that is in high demand and somewhat short supply.

I didn’t get any ammo in the auctions this week though, as the prices are still at retail or higher, for old and mismatched rounds.

Speaking of mismatched, I have enough accessories that I can’t sell on ebay (or use myself) that I’m considering selling on gunbroker. Anyone have experience with the actual process? I mostly use them for price checking.

I’d put some of the stuff in local auctions but my “household stuff” guy shut me down for a while. I WON’T be dropping off this load until they clear out some room in their warehouse. And THAT sucks dead bunnies. I’m getting a bit desperate to move some of this stuff.

In other news, I got another dozen blueberries off the bushes yesterday. I think I’ve passed last year’s total harvest now… The tomatoes are taking over the plots and the kitchen. Now my wife is looking at taking a half bushel to the local food bank today. They supposedly take garden produce.

Speaking of food banks, the state wants to give us another SNAP card for the school lunches we won’t be getting – because school is out for the summer. I ended up using the last one to buy food and donate it to the food bank for Thanksgiving meals. I think I will do the same with this one. We qualify (regardless of income) because our kids attend schools that offer free breakfasts and lunches to every student (because we have so many kids that qualify, they give them to everyone). Bread and circuses. F the world.

And WRT the world, I don’t know WHY we’re seeing all the china flu revelations, or why FauxXi is suddenly not receiving cover from the press, but I like it. I do want to know what they are distracting us from seeing though. They’ll be reporting on it, just not emphasizing it, or featuring it. It will be there though, so they can point back to it later. Crypto and debt currently not featured… hm.

Stack what you can. Lots of people are late coming to the party but there are still seats at the table and canapes’ being passed… we’re definitely in the ‘new normal’ though. Increased prices, increased violence, increased awareness, and increased shortages. The trend lines don’t look great to me. Anyone who can offer a counter narrative, I’m willing to hear it, indeed, I WANT to hear it, but there has to be some factual basis for the narrative. I may object to the facts, or to the interpretation, but I would like to hear it, if ya got one.

In the absence of other instruction, keep stacking.

nick

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Fri. Mar. 26, 2021 – weird used to intrigue me, not so much anymore…

Pleasant and cool, with sun and a breeze.  A lot like yesterday once the overcast blew out.

Spent the whole day indoors.   Kept plugging away at stuff in my office, and getting stuff ready for the auction.   Ended up rescheduling my dropoff for today when I realized I had a bunch of small items that all needed me to mess with them a bit before sending them, but that the money difference made it worthwhile.  So I cranked through a bunch of minor repairs, in between moving stuff around and doing my normal interweb things.  And poking at my NVR…  and doing the paperwork for my passport renewal… and other paperwork too.  Not what I was hoping to do but progress on a number of smaller goals.

Oh yeah, and spent an hour watching the President give a short speech and then get a tongue bath from the press.  Oh there were a couple of questions that sent him drifting off the rails, but OMG, one of them managed to sanctify him and damn Trump in the same breath.

I’ll admit there were a few times when he was saying stuff that sounded good, like actually providing a partial demographic breakdown of the illegals.  But that was mostly when he started to drift off message, and then he would just stop mid sentence and switch gears.  And there were flat out lies, misdirections, and contradictory statements following each other.

He looked less feeble than some other times, but his eyes and eyebrows are very strange, he had trouble controlling his speaking volume (considering all the practice a half century of “public service” has given him), and he needed extensive notes.  It was the longest I’ve seen him go without someone hovering near his elbow or just barely close enough to catch him if he falls.  Normally he’s got at least one person watching him like he was a toddler walking the top rail of a fence.

He played a couple of weird moments for laughs, and I don’t know if they were intended to be funny or if he just saved a gaffe.  Some of those things are being quoted without context.   I’d like to THINK he’s an affable guy, playing the fool for laughs, but I suspect that’s not what was happening.

To top it all off, he shuffles his feet like he can’t lift them normally, and he’s got a couple of weird tics that I associate with age and confusion.  I wasn’t looking to be impressed, and I wasn’t.  The whole business about whether or not he’d run next time was especially weird.    It’s like he doesn’t expect to be around for that, so why bother?  I agree with him on that.

He’s a train wreck.  Called Putin names.  Called other countries’ leaders thieves.  Promised more gun control, more government spending on stuff the private sector does better, bragged about the crusts he tossed to the peons, forgetting that it was THEIR money to start with.  Bagged on the rich, trotted out the old lines about greedy bigcorps not paying taxes, plugged the unions, all the normal playbook.  On the plus side, I didn’t have to hear Kamel laugh.

It’s getting weird out there folks.  Something’s gonna give.  And it’s a lot easier to break than build.  Get the stuff you need now, while you can, if you can.  And stack it high.

nick

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Wed. Mar. 24, 2021 – nothing to see, move along

Cool and hopefully dry. Yesterday actually got nice at my house, although other parts of Houston got a good soaking.

I was pretty well sidelined by my continuing knee issue yesterday.   And I had some nausea and  gastro-intestinal distress brought on by poor dining choices, or, the constant knee pain.  Or embrace the power of ‘and’…

In any case, I didn’t go out, and I didn’t crawl around on my knees, and I didn’t lift anything heavy.  My brain was not fully engaged in much either.  Every time I start making progress, something knocks me off track.

So today I’m forcing the issue.   I have an appointment to drop off more auction items.  I WILL get out and do that, as long as it’s not raining.  I’ve only got the pickup truck, so I can’t really do it if it’s bucketing down.

I did do the tiniest bit of moving and sorting and organizing.

Later daughter one and I worked the heavy bag for a bit and had a nice chat.  Then we watched some Miami Beach chick fights so she could see what that looks like ‘for realz’.  She made the obvious observation.   There MUST be some video of white ‘youths’ fighting and rioting on Spring Break somewhere, right?  They’re just being suppressed by the white privilege police, right?

And then I went to bed early.  I’ve been trying to get back on a more ‘normal’ schedule, but between the time change and spring break laziness, I have been up too late, and in bed too long.


I’m looking at the news and it occurred to me…  Biden cancelling the Cherry Blossom viewing and closing monuments  keeps tourists from seeing the fence and standing army.   It keeps them from posting pictures for others to see.  When was the last time you saw a picture of the fence or the NG on duty?  They are both still there…

Biden doesn’t want pictures of the holding facilities near the border.   He* knows how bad it looks since they used similar images against Trump.  So we don’t see any.

I have to go to crowd sourced news to see video of the riotous crowds in Miami Beach.   The protected class is doing what it so often does, and that doesn’t fit the narrative.   Now that two of them drugged and raped a white girl, leading to her death- that is making the tabloid press at least.  I expect all kinds of arm waving and then it ends up spun as a caution to stay home in these perilous times.

Various parts of Europe are supposedly hip deep in new china flu cases, but where are the pictures of overwhelmed hospitals?

Is Portland still having nightly troubles?  What’s the status of the takeover at the “Red House” where all those young white kids decided to help those poor black folks with their eviction problem?

How the heck did it become commonplace for our big metro areas and even our secondary and tertiary cities to be 1/3 latino?   Like gun ownership, the  press keeps repeating the same number, as if nothing has changed, but people still keep buying guns, people still keep pouring over the borders.  “10M illegals” my flabby @ss.  When we’ve got 15000 unaccompanied minors in custody in the space of months?  When there are charter bus lines rolling from the border towns to ‘up north’ every day?  When there is a remittance store on every block?  When the billboards are in spanish?

What’s in common with these things and so many more?  “Nothing to see here, move along….”   and then the attention moves along, and the problem fades away.   What other things are we just not even aware of because no one is showing it?  What else is being downplayed, sidestepped, diminished, and when will it ‘come out of nowhere’ to suddenly bite us in the @ss?

Something will, you can count on that.  We got two mass shootings right on schedule…

Keep stacking.

 

n

 

*By Biden I of course mean “Team Biden” and not the empty skinsuit who shuffles on and off stage when prodded.    He should talk to Hillarity’s team of satanists, necromancers, and resurrectionists and find out what they’re using.  He’s always been an ‘also ran’ second stringer though, never could get ‘the good stuff’.

[zika, Acute flaccid myelitis, ebola – all mysteriously NOT in the news]

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