Category: personal

Another damp and warmish day ahead. The heavy mist eventually cleared up, for some people in Houston. Some got rain. Even heavy rain. Nothing at the house, but several areas I drove through got pounded. I’m guessing today will be similar.

Did some errands in the morning including taking the White Elephant gift that D2 forgot at home to school. I wanted it off the countertop, and it ended up someone really liked it. So despite having to get dressed and drive to school, it turned out ok.

Did my pickups. Got cheated on a solar panel. Auction company was in the wrong but won’t admit it. Freaking amazon fraudulent products. The panel in question is marketed on amazon to intentionally fool people into a purchase and the description is a flat out lie. The auction company just repeated the original description and lies, but wouldn’t just refund me when I pointed out what was happening. I wasn’t the only one fooled, as someone bid me right up to fair market value for the panel, if it was as described.

I’ll get even some way, but in the mean time it reinforces that amazon has poisoned the well by allowing all the fraudulent chinese sellers and manufacturers to sell their cr@p alongside real products.

At a different auctioneer, I picked up another 2 panels, 100w each. Nothing wrong with them, and exactly what I was expecting. So it’s really time to start building at least a test or starter system. I have a bunch of panels, quite a few inverters and charge controllers, and not enough batteries… I’ll add it to the list.

Today is a half day for the spawn, so I might not get much done. I’ll try anyway. We’ll just see what actually gets accomplished.

Stack something. Ya know ya wanna…
nick

Cold again. Probably mid 40s. Thankfully it does get warmer in the course of the day. Even without much sun, yesterday was comfortable in a light jacket, maybe even a bit warm for that. We did get some rain spatter in different parts of town during the afternoon and evening, but it barely got anything wet.

I did my kid wrangling and taxi service in the morning. D2 will be getting her braces off in about 6 weeks and she can hardly wait.

Did some auction stuff after that, then headed out to do pickups and visit my rent house. The issues there were some tongue and groove porch flooring repairs I’d done had failed, and there was water under the sink and it was getting worse. I’ll be gluing the boards back in place, maybe with a nail this time. I’ll swap out the old faucet and re-caulk the sink. Hopefully that will solve the water issue. I’m surprised the cheap faucet lasted as long as it did, and that I left it in place. One thing i’ve learned as a landlord, is to put quality stuff in the house.

You don’t want to be messing around at the property so put in stuff that will last. Toto toilets are expensive but they really don’t clog. The first time you DON’T have to fix a blocked toilet, it pays for itself. Ditto for cabinets, hardware, and other appliances and fixtures. The better the quality, the fewer problems.

This is generally true in life. Some people call it “Buy once, cry once.” I’ve rarely been disappointed that I bought something nicer, and often disappointed that something cheap failed. You don’t have to have “the best”, and price isn’t always an indicator of quality, but the best thing at the best price, with the compromises in areas that won’t degrade the use of the thing… that’s the sweet spot.

Always be working to improve your position.

And stacks will help. I’ve got everything I need to fix my toilet issue- if it needs fixing. Stack it up!

nick

Cool and clear, still not what I’d call “dry” but not drippy either. At least after the sun comes up and dries up the dew. Really nice yesterday. Really nice. I’m hoping for a few more days like that, starting with today!

Seems like I can make all the plans in the world, and something comes up to monkey wrench them. Like yesterday. I had plans. But my main ethernet switch was NFG when I woke up. The cameras, PCs, various game consoles, and other things are all on that switch. There are other switches, but this one is main…

Percussive maintenance didn’t work. Pulling its tail didn’t work. The only thing left was to replace the device. It’s an enterasys enterprise class 48 port GigE switch with PoE on every port. Quite a large switch fabric, if I’ve got the terminology correct. No longer top o the line, and available cheap on ebay, but I’ve got a pallet of them somewhere… I thought I had a couple in my ham sale stacks, but couldn’t find them. Thought I had a similar HP switch in the stacks but couldn’t find it. So I ended up going to my secondary location and digging one out of the pile o stuff… Which meant dealing with an ant infestation. And towering stacks of stuff. All in all, I spent a couple of hours moving stuff, digging through the piles, and killing ants.

I’m down to a couple of 48 port switches. I’ve got a couple dozen of the 24 port version, so if I have to I’ll just use two next time. In any case, by the time I got everything back together, and headed home, I had only enough time to grab a quick pickup that was on the way. Then it was Opening Night at the middle school auditorium.

The actors did a great job, D2 did a great job on crew, and my sound crew did a great job with wireless mics, playback, and mixing the show. My FOH mixer trusted me and held to my intentions despite heavy pressure from other kids and other people. I’m really proud of him. And it worked. The show looked and sounded good, great even, if compared to previous shows. It’s a good foundation to build from for the next show, and the next couple of years. Once this show is done, I’ll work with the district support guy and do some fixes, changes, and improvements before the next show. It’s what my wife did a couple of years ago with the lighting system, and that paid dividends for the kids and school too.

Community engagement doesn’t have to be with a neighborhood mutual defense league, or a home canning group, or the people at the farmer’s market. It can be whatever you want to do, in whatever way you can contribute. It’s all meatspace baby, and I believe it will be worth doing.

Lone wolf is not a viable path.

So stack some volunteer hours, stack some new acquaintances, share a skill, you’ll feel good about the result.

nick