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Category: prepping

Tues. Mar. 7, 2023 – pickups and drop offs… maybe.

Cool and damp, possibly overcast.  Maybe rain?  We’re right on the edge of the national forecast, so probably not, but no one really knows.   It stayed overcast most of yesterday, and got kinda warm in the afternoon.   I was a bit sweaty working outside.

And I did eventually work.   I had to clean up and move some stuff in the garage to make room for the hamfest stuff that was going back in there.   I pulled out some stuff I wanted for the BOL, and I threw out almost all the boxes I was keeping for ebay shipping.   I wasn’t using them and they take a lot of room.   A full pickup bed worth of room, as it turned out.  Re-stacking and moving some stuff to close up gaps got me some more space too.  All the hamfest stuff, and a couple of black and yellow bins went back in the garage.

One of the things I wanted to dig out is my drain camera.   Years ago I bought a drain camera to look under my concrete patio, and under my slab.  Still have the camera.   There is the mystery drain for the RV pad at the BOL that I want to snake and see where it goes… and the cam should do that no problem.   I have to find the display (or add a connector for an analog video display- like one of the portable flat TVs I have stacked.)   The display was some kind of Creative labs recorder with a built in screen, but all I really need is a way to see the composite video output.  There is a lesson in there.   The camera and snake were fine, but the proprietary display/recorder wasn’t made in enough quantity so when it went EOL, the drain cam did too.   IF the maker had provided a composite video connection, and let people use any old analog tv device, it would have had a longer life.  Standards people, use them.  And preppers, if you want the gear to last, make sure you can get stuff to work with it for a long time, especially standard stuff that is widely available.

It’s worth repeating, custom connectors and breakout cables are a point of failure.   Even if the companies are still around, the cable probably won’t be.  Remember all the custom and unique cables that pcmcia card devices used?   Those modem cards are landfill without the cable, but the ones with the x jack built in are still in service.  Ditto for the Dell dual head video card that needed a special Y cable.   You can still get a DVI cable.  Very hard to get that high density plug to 2 DVI cable splitter.  I get it  that the manufacturer doesn’t care if you still want to use the device, but YOU should care.  Power cords are an issue for everything.  Don’t buy devices with uncommon plugs or jacks.

I mentioned recently that I was able to find a new cutter for my manual meat grinder.   Widely used, simple design, durable, and industry standard.   100 years later, you can order a new part to fit.   Ditto for Mokapot coffee makers, the filter and sealing rings are easily available.   There is a good reason to buy what everyone else uses and not the thing with a unique aspect, that might not last.

Today I’ve got a steel cabinet to pick up, so I’ll combine trips and do other pickups too.    I’ll dump my pickup load of cardboard and trash.   I might even use the cardboard recycle dumpster at the school if I have time.    Then it’s off to the auction houses.  Besides my pickups, I’ve got an item for consignment at a house I haven’t used before.   They’ve been getting great money for it in past auctions, so since I’m going there anyway, I’ll try consigning it with them.   Hope it does well…

All the rest of you, stack it up, but stack things you can get parts for…

nick

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Wed. Mar. 1, 2023 – welcome to March.

Yup, you guessed it, damp and warm.   The sun came and went yesterday, probably depending most on where you were in town.  I could see the rain in the rays of the sun off in the distance.   I never got any though there was some heavy overcast at my secondary location.

I made my first trip collecting stuff for the hamfest yesterday, winkling out some stuff (road cases and equipment racks) that has been sitting in the same place for at least 4 years, maybe longer.  Mostly filled the back of the truck.   There’s no doubt now that I will need  a trailer.  A box van would be even better, but that would eat too much money.

So much cr@p to load.  So many prices to check.   I may just wing it like I usually do, only checking ebay if needed.  I’m going to be basically giving the stuff away in most cases anyway.

Today will be more of that, combined with a trip to my client’s house to install the cell booster, but only if it’s not raining.    I’m not climbing on a roof in the rain.

If it’s raining, I’ll be pulling together stuff from my house and garage for the hamfest, and checking prices on major pieces.   I’m also debating whether to take an inverter and a couple of batteries or the honda inverter gennie.   The batteries would give me 12v for the stuff that needs it, but might not have enough power for the bigger 120v stuff.   Messing around with gennies isn’t how I expect to spend the time I have onsite though.  I need to take a box of AA batteries too, so people can test stuff if they want to.   NOW it feels like an onrushing train…

Hey I’ve got an external deadline.   Time to get stuff done.

And stacking has been woefully inadequate this week.   I’ll need to take a bit of time and do some thoughtful catching up and re-shuffling of current stacks.

Just because I’m slack, doesn’t mean you should be, get to it.

nick

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Tues. Feb. 28, 2023 – ah February, I hardly knew ya…

Another warm, damp day, but hoping for a bit of sun.   No pre-assigned tasks to break up my day, so I should be able to get stuff done.  If it doesn’t rain.

Did less than I’d hoped yesterday.    There were bills to pay and paperwork to update, as well as the vet visit.   Poor doggie has a very sore backside from his shot, and spent the day whimpering and looking at me.   The LOOKING, and the little pathetic yips are very hard to resist, so I spent some time on the floor comforting him, until his girl got home and took over.

I had to get on the phone and wait for about half an hour for the ability to pay for insurance with a check… reading the numbers to a human.  Gah.   Did the same with the gas bill at the BOL, but that at least took a credit card.   Three sets of humans I didn’t expect to talk with and it felt like the 80s all over again.

I did receive my new driver’s license.   Shiny.   Lots of new security features.   Texas went RealID some time ago, despite very real misgivings and a public anti- stance, but this new card has even more anti-counterfeiting features than the old.   Got my FCC renewal a couple of days ago, so just waiting for the CHL (or LTC as it’s now known) to come  through.  Need to do my passport too, but that isn’t a priority.

Did some cleanup prep for pulling together my hamfest stuff.   Made a bunch of lists and started remembering where everything was, and WHAT everything was.   I’m pretty sure I will order a uhaul trailer today so I can take all the extra stuff I want to unload.

One thing about finally having a BOL is that it collapses some uncertainty states and solidifies some of the needs and wants.   I don’t just need a tower, I need legs for the tower I have…  A lot of just collecting potentially useful things is solidifying into WHICH useful things will be useful at this particular BOL, and not some hypothetical BOL.

And some of my “enthusiasms” have passed.   Which means stuff I stacked in the throws of that “enthusiasm” are now surplus to needs.

I should be able to take a whole bunch of stuff to the swapmeet.   Whether it will sell, depends on whether people still have money and the desire to spend it on ham stuff.    I’m going to price pretty aggressively to encourage them to buy.  That is really all I can do.

So take a look at your stacks.   See if the stuff is still fit for mission.   See if the mission still needs doing.   And adjust.  Stack what you need NOW, instead of what you thought you needed a year ago.

 

nick

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Mon. Feb. 27, 2023 – and a new week gets started

Damp.   Warm.   Springtime for Houston.   Today should be just like yesterday with a bit more cloudiness and maybe more damp.   Even if the sun wasn’t burning the sky and the heat wasn’t tightening my skin, it was kinda uncomfortable outdoors yesterday.   Right on the edge where every movement brings sweating…

So I did some stuff outside, more than I did the day before, and then called it quits and came in and read.   No chance of whinging on about not having time for what I need to do when I don’t use the time I am given.

For reasons I’m not going to go into, this past week has been loaded up with stress, which was suddenly relieved, but I’m feeling some whiplash.  Add to that today would have been my dad’s 90th birthday, and I’m feeling a bit out of sorts.  It’s leaving me filled with a certain lassitude that isn’t helping things.

Still, have to keep moving and push on through.

This week I am UN-stacking things and piling them up to sell at the hamfest.   Do I need to be able to equip a neighborhood with 2 way radios?   Do I need to be able to equip more than one neighborhood?  There is probably a reasonable limit to the stuff I really need to have on hand, and I’ve crossed it in some categories.  Blister pack GPRS and FRS radios is one of those categories.    Motorola handie talkies is another.   I can’t program them, so do I need bins filled with them?  No.  I need radios I can program.   I can use the money to buy those radios, or to improve some other area of preps.

It’s a bit like the guys who bought 22LR as “trade goods” or to “sell when the price goes up”.   Only they never do sell.   They never sell the cheap ARs or the Pelican cases of pistols they bought just to sell later either.   It’s far too easy to hold on to them, thinking the time isn’t right or that now that the drought has come, they need them more than they need to sell them.

It’s and easy trap to fall into.

Anyway, I’m hoping to sell far  more this time than I normally would be ready to sell.

Which will let me stack something else… or improve my position elsewhere.  Which is ultimately the goal.

n

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Fri. Feb. 24, 2023 – in which our hero discovers another week has flown by…

Warm and humid.  No rain in the forecast but maybe some more overcast.   Yesterday was mostly overcast, but we didn’t get any rain in the places I visited.   I’ve got stuff in the back of my truck that I don’t really want to get wet before I can get it put away…

Did get pickups done.   Last pickup for the one auctioneer, who is calling it quits.   We may be at the same stage of returns and overstock reselling as house flipping was just before that collapsed.   New players with no experience are paying too much to buy in, thinking it’s easy money, while more experienced players are finding it hard to stay in the game, or no longer profitable.   A crash and consolidation seem to be headed this way for this nascent but quite large market activity.

It is actually a new version of an old business.   There have been resellers, wholesalers, surplus outlets, auctions, and fire sales for a long time.  Probably since the first failed product in the market.  But the old business model of insiders and somewhat disguised markets (Ross Dress for Less did pretty well selling the stock other retailers couldn’t move, ditto for Marshalls and the “outlet store” fiction) expanded and shifted and combined with online auctions, cottage industry, and the idea of the side hustle to spawn a whole new crop of reseller businesses.   There has been a huge increase in the size and scope of the market, as new sellers pop up and buyers become aware of what’s available.

Shakeout and consolidation is probably inevitable.

One consideration is that it has broken the traditional retail model, and opened people up to the idea that goods don’t have to come from a store (or a big company  — I mean selling platform– like Amazon).   As the general economy worsens, there will be an increase in bargain hunters, of necessity.  That means more person to person selling, more non-traditional venues (like swapmeets, black and grey markets, permanent yard sales, etc.)   If it happens it means I was right to advocate learning about this way to shop before it became a necessity 😛

Anyway, consider your own habits and routines for getting the stuff you need and use.   What if those options are not available, or not available at a price you can afford?   It’s always easier to learn a new skill while you still have the backup option of doing things the old way.

Get out there and start learning about the secondary economy, or the “informal” economy.   Use the practice to increase your stacks, and kill two birds with one stone.

 

nick

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Tues. Jan. 31, 2023 – where does the time go?

Cold. Wet.  Cold.   37F at midnight, so probably at least that this morning.  Yuck.   And rain throughout the day if we’re unlucky.

There was a soldier whose blog I read way back in the day, when the powers that be had no idea about blogging or the web.   He used to try to keep up OPSEC and would say that he “went somewhere and did some things…” and that’s pretty much  what I did yesterday.   Sounds a lot more interesting if you put it that way, than saying “I took the kids to the orthodontist, then school, then did some online stuff before I took a bunch of stuff to my auctioneer.  Oh, and I sold a thing to a guy from Craigslist.”  But that’s what I did all day.

Went to Goodwill too.   Picked up a really nice Sony amplifier (wooden sides tipped me off, usually Sony isn’t very collectible) that could be worth as much as $600.   Picked up ONE Bowers & Wilkins shelf speaker, that has seen better days, but should still be worth $200-300 and maybe much more.   The pair is over $1500 in good condition.  I looked through the whole place twice hoping to find the match.   Crazy stuff shows up at the outlet.  Clearly it’s time for me to start listing stuff again.

Gotta fund the BOL somehow.

Dinner last night was frozen tilapia filets, broiled with ginger, garlic, lime and butter.   Garnished with thin lime slices, pickled sushi ginger slices, and super thin sliced red onion.  Drizzled with melted butter.   Pasta for a side dish.   Nothing on the table except the onion and lime was less than a year old. Kids and wife loved it.  Who knew?

Pasta was from a bucket I’d sealed and put up some time ago.   Opening the bucket broke the rim though.  It’s been outside in the shade, but still seems to have gotten brittle as if it was in the sun.  I couldn’t pry up the lid by hand, so I used a bucket tool.   The lid was trashed in the process.    I think I’m gonna have to recommend having more lids than buckets if you think you will be re-using buckets.   And you can never have enough buckets.

So stack the things you need to stack the other things!

 

nick

 

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Mon. Jan. 16, 2023 – at the BOL, working…

Cool and damp, but not cold.   Hoping the wind blew yesterday’s patchy clouds out of the area.   Some sun and warming would be nice.

I spent more time getting out of the house yesterday than I’d hoped, so I got up here a bit late.   Did some small things, basically decided not to start anything big I couldn’t finish on time.   Broke up and moved some concrete.  Literally chipping away at that task… move three wheelbarrows full before I lost the light.

Did some more planning for how to reshape the grades around the house to better deal with water  and drainage.   It must have rained up here because there was evidence that my channels from last visit drained a bunch of water.   That gives me some good contour lines for how the grades need to be.

Lake is up some more toward normal levels, but still a bit low, maybe 6″.   The waves make a lot more noise when the level is up.  I must have forgotten that.

One of the things I listened to on the shortwave last night was two western journalists living in Peking talking about their bouts with chinkyflu and the changes in the city since the restrictions were lifted.   They both had mild cases, in bed for a couple of days despite being fully vaxxed and boosted  (so- worse than most recent cases here).  They were excited to ‘just get on a train and travel’ without having to register, get tested, show vaccine passports, plan ahead, quarantine, etc.   That is for domestic travel this week.   I almost never even think about restrictions or getting wuflu any more.  What a difference.   And an interesting ‘slice of life’ I wouldn’t have come across if not for shortwave listening.

Maybe having been burned so badly, now china will be a bit more cautious?  Naw.  It’s not in their nature.

I’m sure there will be another plague that spreads around the world.  It’ll likely be worse too.   Don’t get complacent with preps.  45 days without leaving the house would be a nice level to have…anything really nasty should burn itself out in that time.  And if it’s less nasty, that level of preparation will stretch and be supplemented with whatever you can get, just like the past three years.

It’s funny, youtube put a gardening video from 2 years ago in my recommended list, and I watched it day before yesterday.   It was a guy in the UK, who decided to start a garden, since he (and everyone else) was essentially locked in his house due to wuflu response.  [he was pretty successful, but that wasn’t what caught me.]   We were never confined to quarters.   I had enough exemptions that I was able to go out if I wanted to, being a landlord, among other things.   Most people had no problem moving around if they wanted to.  I can’t imagine what it was like in places where they heavily restricted movement, and I have trouble believing that people COMPLIED the way they did.   But they did.  And they will again.  Except in the US.  Unless people are dropping in the streets with their eyes bleeding and skin sloughing off, I don’t think we’ll comply.

Stack your stuff high.  Ordinary stuff.   Extraordinary stuff.  Stuff that would be ‘nice to have’ and the stuff you need every day.  ‘Cuz I’ve got a feeling we’ll need it.

 

nick

 

 

 

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Sat. Jan. 14, 2023 – non-prepping hobby day, and heading out…

Cold and damp.   It was 44F when I woke up yesterday, didn’t get much above the mid 50s in the shade all day, and was 38F when I went to bed.  I expect that to continue today.   At least it is supposed to be clear for a couple more days.

Did my pickups.   The damage to the scratch and dent freezers is less than I thought, so hooray.  One is perfect, one has the dent mostly confined to the access panel over the mechanicals  (easy to straighten), and the last one has about 6 vertical inches of the back corner edge pushed in a little bit.  They should all work fine, with only one even having noticeable damage.

I’ve been chatting with various of my sellers and I think I can say that this economy is wearing on them.   They look tired and beat up.  I’m pretty sure that isn’t a good thing.

Today I’ve got my non-prepping hobby meeting in the morning.   Then I’ll come home and take down the Christmas stuff that’s outside.  I don’t have to be at the BOL at any particular time, and the decorations need to come down.  I haven’t managed my time well enough to do it before now, but time is up.   Then I’m headed out.   I will probably stay until late Monday.  The kids have Monday off, but my wife doesn’t, so they will not be joining me.  It does make certain tasks easier if I can cut off power or water for an extended time.  And if the weather gets any colder I’ll feel better about being up there and having an eye on the situation.  It’s almost always colder there than here.

I’m moving some more food up there too, frozen and canned, and some bulk buckets.  It occurs to me that salted pork would need a whole bunch of salt.  And some buckets.   Hmm.  More for the list.  If every bucket you have is in use, how do you replace one that you dropped and broke?  Or what can you brine that ham in?  Or put up some windfall food?   The bucket is the unsung hero of prepping, but how many do you have that aren’t in use?  What if you couldn’t just run to Lowe’s for another few?  EMPTY buckets are important preps too.

So  stack up a few!

 

nick

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Thur. Jan. 12, 2023 – hey there short stuff

Warm and damp today, probably clear, but no guarantees.   It did get to be a beautiful spring day yesterday, in the depth of winter.   Had that warm, moist smell and was sunny.   TOO EARLY!  Don’t want to trick the plants.

Did run some errands and do a pickup yesterday.   Decided to pick up my new freezers at the last minute on Friday.   Then I do my non-prepping hobby on Saturday, and head to the BOL afterwards.   We’re supposed to be clear until then, but I’ll put a tarp on the load overnight anyway.   Picked up around the house and did some other home stuff.  Christmas tree is stripped and all the indoor decorations are put away.

Today I’ve got stuff to pick up.  Clothes for D1.  Stuff for the BOL.   Parts for metro shelves for my storage unit.   Funny, but the cheapest place to get them was a couple of miles from my house.  Cheaper than amazon, and much cheaper than ebay.   And they had them for same day in store pickup.   Of course, they only had two shelves worth, but that’s all I needed anyway right now.

Had some more spoiled milk in an unopened container.   Should have still been good for a couple of more days, but was chunky.  There is definitely something going on with milk longevity.

Ordered chinese delivery for dinner and the owner thanked me for being a good and loyal customer.  I told her we decided that if we ever wanted to have local restaurants available, we needed to patronize them now (throughout the pandemic).   It’s good food, but not cheap.   I can buy a lot of on sale meat for what we spent, but we will get another couple of servings out of the leftovers, and we consider it an investment in our community.   That’s also one of the reasons we don’t use an online or mail order pharmacy.  We want one in our community.  We want it to be profitable and successful, and employ our neighbors.

It’s meatspace.   I can ask her how business is, if she’s having supply issues, or other problems.  I can get intel locally that I can use.  You might be surprised what you can learn from just talking to people, especially if they have a bit of time, and you are not a stranger.  I’ve talked about it before, but you really need to get out and about in your community.   You need to talk to store owners, neighbors, craftsmen, service providers, and other random people.  Start building relationships, even if it’s just on the level of being the guy who always says ‘hi’ and asks about something.   Tip well.   Be friendly.  Buy from them.  Don’t rant.  Control your urge to talk, listen more…   Because meatspace counts and it will count for a whole lot more if things get worse.

Stack up some relationships.  And stuff.

nick

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Sun. Jan. 1, 2023 – Happy New Year!

Cool and damp to start the new year.  It stayed pretty nice yesterday, and was 59F near midnight.  Not super cold, and certainly not ‘warm’.

 

So.   Happy New Year!  I am sincerely grateful to everyone who comes by,whether you just read or comment and participate in the discussion; whether you come by every day or just once in a while.  Thank you to Barbara for her continued support, and to Rick for his.   It’s been an interesting and challenging year, personally, generally, and here at the Daynotes Journal.

I’m not much for navel gazing, but I do think it’s important to reflect on what you’ve done and what’s been done to you.   It’s important to learn lessons from that, change what needs to be changed, do more of what needs doing, and to keep making progress toward your goals.   I think it’s important to have goals, and this time of year is a traditional time to set goals, evaluate progress toward them, and to focus on changes.

This past year, I finally started making progress toward one of my major prepping goals- getting somewhere to GO when it’s time to go.  Call it a BOL, a retreat, a ‘country place’, or a lakehouse… it’s somewhere to go when the time comes.  It’s also a lot of work  and a new dimension to my prepping journey.  It has eaten a lot of my ‘excess’ energy and time, which has resulted in much shorter daily posts that previously.   There should be some good blog fodder coming up though.  I’ve got big ideas and goals.

To wit, I want to look hard at water treatment, starting with storing more at the BOL, and getting set up to treat more.  I want some off grid back up energy generation.  Start with a fueled generator, add solar and possibly wind, and include battery storage.  I want to get some wood burning heating set up.  I’ve got two wood burning stoves, I’d like to get at least one of them installed.  THEN I’ll need lots more stored wood… I want to get my radio shack and antennas set up for backup comms.  I want to make more progress learning about harvesting food from the environment, to include fish and other creatures from the lake, deer and pig hunting and processing, and getting a productive garden set up.  I want to get a workshop set up and a full set of tools up there so I can be productive and make or repair what needs to be made or fixed.

On a more day to day level, I need to continue making progress on the repair and remodel of the BOL and all  the grounds and outbuildings.   I also need to get some of the neglected projects here at home finished.  I need to focus on selling stuff and having my business make money this year to pay for all the other stuff that needs doing. I also need to be involved in my kids’ lives and education.   That might mean a lot of volunteering at school, which takes more time.   My other volunteering for the Constables and HPD needs to be increased too.  I made those contacts and started building relationships, but let it go for too long.   Time to re-engage in that community.   Time to start meeting with my fellow hams again too.

Oh, and a little physical fitness, maybe some martial arts or other self defense classes, particularly with the kids, and more shooting are all “wants” for the new year.   Yep.   Lots to do.  Much of it is just expansion of what I am doing or resumption of what I was doing, but some of it is new, and all of it will be taking place in the context of work and time spent at the BOL.

Nothing like setting some goals 🙂

My outlook for the coming year is the same as it was.   Dumpster fires to continue and worsen.   I expect more economic woes, more political shenanigans as the existing order falls apart.   I am more convinced than ever that we’re already sliding down the slope into what Bob called the long slow economic collapse.   I’m also convinced we’re currently entering one of those times in world history where everything changes.   The world will look very different in a few years.  I can’t even begin to pick a likely scenario, but I’m going to do my best to get through it, and come out the other side.  If bare survival is all I can manage, I’ll take that as a win, but I’m shooting for positioning myself and my family to thrive in whatever comes next.

Part of that positioning is having somewhere to go if we have to leave here.   Part is increasing the stacks NOW while the stuff is available.   IDK what the next ‘toilet paper’ or ‘N95 mask’ will be, but something that is common and cheap now will certainly be in short supply or even unobtainable later this year, and in the coming years.  Part is getting out and networking, meeting and making myself useful to other people.  Who you know is always important, but when things go really pear shaped, who you know and who knows you can make the difference between working or not, getting help or not, being safe or not… Part of it is building skills.   A vague plan to ‘live off the land’ won’t help if you don’t know how to do it, and haven’t the stuff needed to make it possible.  Fishing is turning out to be harder than gardening, and I’ve positively sucked at gardening…

Prepping is a journey.   It’s also fractal in nature, so there is always more to do, learn, or stack.  I’d love it if you all keep hanging around, sharing my journey and taking one of your own.

Here’s to a safe, healthy, and prosperous New Year for us all!

nick

 

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