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Category: WuFlu

Tues. Sept. 7, 2021 – let’s get this party started…

Hot and humid again. It is starting a bit cooler in the morning but still getting hot in the afternoon, especially if the sun comes out. Yesterday was so humid water wasn’t drying outside, despite the 100F + temps.

So I hid inside. Like brave Sir Robin, I bravely ran away from my work. Jiminy Christmas it was unpleasant out. Frankly my back hurt, I had auctions closing all day, and no one in the family wanted to do anything either. Down day all around.

Which means twice as much stuff to do today.

At least I won most of the stuff I wanted in the auction. All home stuff. We gave away our ‘child gates’ and now we need them to keep the puppy out of the only carpeted room. We’ve been improvising with limited success and a whole lotta hassle, so I got a couple. And some other stuff for the house, the wife, or the children. I’m just being prepared when I say “start getting your Christmas stuff together” because price increases and supply chain disruptions could limit availability later.

I wouldn’t wait ’til the last minute for anything anymore. Even amazon isn’t shipping as quickly as before on a LOT of items. Time to deepen your shelves for everyday stuff too.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without. Oh, and a little bit of maintenance goes a long way.

Stacks o stuff. You want them. You know you do.

n

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Mon. Sept. 6, 2021 – Labor Day, or Punch a commie in the salami day

Hot and humid. Still. And all day yesterday as well. So I hid inside and did office stuff.

I spent some time getting stuff moved around, pulling the old UPSs out, and putting the new UPS in place. Then had to move the computers and NAS drive to the UPS. Since I had the NVR off, I figured I’d upgrade the fans and clean it. Well, I got some dust blown out. See yesterday’s comments for the rest of the details if you want to know why you should buy from Dell’s small business division and not Costco.

Started copying stuff to the NAS until a poorly behaved uninstall routine shut down ALL instances of file mangler, including the copy window. It was taking ridiculously long anyway. I’ll try connecting the NAS directly as a USB drive for the copy next time. The newest firmware for the box is from 2008. I’m not recommending Buffalo as there is not long term support (and the company is probably gone anyway, right?) There isn’t any reason for a box o drives to go out of support.

Did some cleaning and organizing.

Put the dog and D1 to bed but the dog just wouldn’t settle. Lots of yipping. Then I heard it too. Noise from the attic. Yup. Caught a rat on a gel trap. No idea where he got stuck, because the trap wasn’t anywhere near where they were set. Have I mentioned I don’t really like the live traps? I got my gloves, and a bag, and the rat plus the trap took a trip to 2×4 land and then into the trash. Dog settled right down and everyone went to sleep. Vermin. Only gonna increase as the troubles affect services. Stack some traps and poisons now.

In fact assume that you’ll be providing at least a portion of every service you receive now. Think about any way to leverage that to your advantage too. There are surely services that people will want. Maybe old school laptops with linux and no tracking built in? Maybe Faraday cage lined purses? Hardwired networking instead of wifi? Cameras? There will be something. There are always opportunities.

Stay centered and ready to move in any direction, mentally and physically. Provide for yourself so you can help others (if that’s your thing, but if not, you miss out on some opportunities you only get if you are out there in it.)

Stack it high.

nick

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Sun. Sept. 5, 2021 – did some stuff, more to do

Hot and humid, little chance of rain. And we got through yesterday without getting rain at home. It did get hot. Morning was cool, but by the time I was outside it went from 85F to 105F in the sun. Since I was in the sun, well, it was hot.

Got the front yard cut. Started on the back but ran out of battery. If I charge it, I can do front and back. If I leave it after doing the back,the next week I can only do the front, or the back again. It’s pretty consistent. Still liking the mower btw. I love that I don’t have to wear ear pro.

Spent a bunch of time cleaning one section of my food storage shelves. The rat was moving around on them, and on the stores, so it needed to be cleaned. I started with the easiest of the three shelves. I am very happy with my idea of putting everything in low bins with lids. The food in that section was all protected from spoilage. The stuff that wasn’t in plastic? It didn’t fare as well. I lost a box of instant oatmeal in envelopes to bugs. I lost several of the big cardboard oatmeal containers to ‘moisture’. And I had some bulging cans. 4 cans of evaporated milk were bulging a bit. They were best by 2015 and have been poorly stored so I’m not put out. I expect spoilage and losses because my storage conditions are so bad. My Kraft Mac n cheese is one year past best by, and it tastes a bit “old”. Two cases. Dang. Funny how your eating patterns can change.

One of the things we’ve learned with this whole “lockdown” thing is that our eating habits changed a lot. Over the last year we pretty much stopped eating breakfast cereal. We were steady eaters of Cheerios since the kids were babies. Mac n cheese consumption is way down, and I’m more likely to make the cheese sauce from FD cheese powder and milk, with normal pasta, than from a box. I don’t know how much is just the kids getting older, or if there was some appetite fatigue, but it’s something to consider in your long term food plan.

What to do about it? Variety and versatility. I store stuff like the Kraft Mac n cheese because it’s easy and quick. The kids can grab it for themselves. But, it’s not as versatile as bare pasta and cheese powder. We still eat a lot of pasta, but much less orange cheese. To combat any potential appetite fatigue, I stock lots of weirder things that we don’t normally eat but might make an interesting change of pace. Lima beans. Butter beans. Canned asparagus spears. Artichoke hearts. Weird imported fruits. You name it, if I saw it on a shelf, I’ve probably picked up a can or two. I occasionally bust out the weird and add it to a meal just to see if it might be great (and to acclimate the family to the idea of eating unusual stuff.)

As I read around the web, I’m becoming increasingly nervous about food. Having some spoilage from the rats and heat is contributing to my concerns. If things get bad, you probably don’t have enough food. You may not have enough boots, socks, and underwear. How’s the elastic on your shorts? I just replaced a bunch of pairs that were a bit crunchy from the dryer being hot (and they are years old.) But back to food… Unlike Bob, I’m not counting calories and just filling buckets with salt, sugar, flour, rice, and beans. You can do that, and there is plenty of guidance here (look at the keywords on the right), but I think in terms of “meals.” It also keeps me from worrying about nutrition too much. Normal meals are going to be normally nutritious. If you’re not starving now, you won’t be later.

I do have lots of buckets filled with those things (except beans, I keep those in cans.) I think of the buckets as meal extenders. Bread/tortillas/pasta added to a canned meal, or rice combined with other food will extend the length of time that my canned meal plan will last. Whatever your preference, and plan, consider adding to your stack. After all, if things don’t get bad, you can donate excess to food banks or your neighbors. And consider variety and novelty when stacking. More is better. More choice is better too.

Keep stacking.

nick

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Sat. Sep. 4, 2021 – week flew by as fast as money leaves my wallet

Another day forecast to be hot and humid, and we’re still in the zone for thunderstorms. Yesterday was interesting. Started cool, stayed cool-ish until noon-ish. Sunny the whole time. Then when I finally committed to putting stuff that shouldn’t get wet in the back of my open pickup truck, the sky opened and the water fell… a whole lot of it in a short time.

I wasn’t the only one fooled. The flippers across the street chose yesterday to replace the roof. They got the old roof off, and then we got 2 1/2 inches of rain. They were working late to get the new roof on.

I managed to drop off 5 big black bins to the auctioneer and he’s still ok with getting more. He is the first one who really meant it when he said he’d take a bunch of stuff. And I’ve got a bunch more to give him.

Today I’m sleeping in as much as I can. Time to do a bit of catching up on sleep. This falling asleep during the day is stealing too much of my day.

Also time to be thinking about a fall garden planting. On top of everything else. My cabbage still hasn’t developed. One got a head that was tennis ball sized, but it has been shrinking. The other is still loose leaves. I thought I’d see how they did before committing to a whole patch. Last time I did that, I lost them all.

Lots of home stuff to do around the house, and I hope to get to my secondary for more clean up, and auction stuff. It’s always something.

Better get started.

Which is good advice if you haven’t been prepping. Stack it high!

nick

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Fri. Sept. 3, 2021 – yes I am a slacker

Hot and humid, maybe rain for me. Certainly rain for someone. Yesterday, it was hot, humid, and still. Until it wasn’t. Then the rain came.

I got very little done yesterday. My whole morning was spent as chauffeur. My afternoon got eaten by a carb induced crash (food and sleep, not cars and noise) and rain.

I’ve got to make some of that up today. So that’s the goal. And even if it rains and I can’t do what I need to do outside, there is a big pile to do inside that I need to attack. So I will try again.

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To whom it may concern,

I don’t have the mindset to be a lord or a serf, so I need all y’all to get your shite back in the bag. I feel like that is the likeliest outcome as we pass through this period of great change- a return to feudalism. The middle class will be wiped out. Some members of the upper middle will be elevated, and the lower middle and lower will be ground down into the dirt like peasants throughout history. LANDED GENTRY. Renter. Slave if things get bad enough. I suppose there will be a new church to suck up the second sons (the NGOs and .edu do it now), and some favored artisans. Court jesters won’t be included though, the new lords have no sense of humor. Skilled technicians and actual traders/importers/makers might find a niche. The merchant class in the old sense might hold on, the lords like their luxuries. “Dickensian” will be the best of the worst.

It won’t matter to most of the world, they live that way already. It’ll suck for the majority of the western world though. Not sure how to play that thought for my kids. Need more time to figure something out.

So pull it together and hold on to western civilization for a bit longer.

Sincerely,

Dad of two.

Stacks. Skills. Connections. Land. Knowledge. Go and get you some.

nick

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Thur. Sept. 2, 2021 – lots of errands today

Hot and humid, some chance of rain. It got hot and humid pretty quickly yesterday. I was going to wait until evening to cut the grass but the massive thunder had me rushing to get it cut before it got wet again. And then after rushing to cut it in the 97F heat, it never did rain on me. It did rain on some people. Not me though. Some cool rain would have been nice. It’s a good thing I got it cut, another 10 minutes of growth and I couldn’t have pushed the mower through it. Speaking of hot, still 83F at midnight.

Did much less in the morning than I hoped. Sick child was part of that, but I was crazy tired. Fell asleep in my office chair. I haven’t been getting enough sleep and it’s catching up with me. I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier and having a bit of success, but not enough. I wake after 5 hours so that should give you an idea of what “not enough” means to me. Sometimes I can catch up on weekends, but I’ve been crazy busy the last couple so no extra sleep for me.

So after slacking in the morning, I did household stuff in the afternoon. Cleaned up the dead rat, moved some stuff around. Made dinner. Not super productive.

Today is crazy though. D1 to foot doc followup then to school in the morning. D2 to be picked up early from school an hour later. She was feeling much better after sleeping most of the day, so she’s back to school for a short day. No idea why the district has a half day on the Thursday before a long weekend and then a full day on Friday. I’m guessing it’s because then their teachers would do a bunk and skip whatever they’re doing to make their weekend longer. Just another example of the district doing what’s in their interest and not in mine.

If I can I’ll do a drop off of auction stuff. If not, I’ll put it in more bins and stack it higher. Since I’ll have D2 home with me, she may just have to accompany me on my errands.

Not much in the auctions for pickup this week as I was busy all weekend. It’s a weird change not having a bunch of pickups to do during the week. Only one ‘hang over’ needful thing still to pickup from 2 weeks ago and I may have him just ship it so I don’t have to find time to drive to Rosenberg. If I was honest in the beginning, I’d have paid the $25 and had it shipped two weeks ago. It’s only about a 2 hour round trip, but time is what I don’t have (motivation either,but that’s different) at the moment.

Haven’t been over to my secondary in a while either, and that project needs to progress. Isn’t happening today in any meaningful way though I might get some stuff dropped off there.

Always so much to do, and the world gets weirder every day. Don’t delay, prep today ! ! !

Stacks won’t hurt, but I’m beginning to think they better be hidden. And dispersed. ‘Cuz someone else might want them too, and they might bring more friends than you can shoot.

Stack it high, and in a bunch of places.

nick

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Wed. Sept. 1, 2021 – more water under the bridge

Hot and humid. I’m hoping for a bit cooler in the morning so I can get the grass cut. I waited too long yesterday and it did get over 100F in the sun. It was still 84F at midnight.

Spent yesterday mostly indoors. Despite having a lot to do, I ended up doing electrical work at the house. We had some outlets in the kitchen stop working. I was too busy to look into it until yesterday, although my wife ruled out breakers, and normal things, and we figured it was probably a GFCI outlet upstream of the others. Once I pulled the cover plate off, and could see into the receptacle I figured that I’d found the problem. You are not supposed to be able to see INTO the receptacle. I had spare GFCIs in the stacks, so I set about changing it.

Shortcuts are only short for the person making it originally, and probably not even then. Freaking 10 minute job took over 2 hours because the remodeler cut every corner. Loose wire nuts, wire too short (even after it had been extended) wrong hardware used, missing box extenders, it was all there. The working position was very awkward too. I got it done, redid what I could. Figured I’d also replace a tired outlet at the end of the chain while I had the power off. More cr@p work hidden behind cover plates. Money spent, 0. Time spent, 2 hours. Smoke released, 0. Swear jars filled, 3.* I had the knowledge, the parts, and the supplies stacked so I got it done.

Also modified the wire gate we’re using to keep the doggy in the kitchen. That went surprisingly well.

Cleaned up a few things.

Found a dead rat, possibly THE dead rat, in the garage. I’ll get that cleaned up today. Poison,not trap.

Cooked dinner (discounted steak from last year, frozen mixed veg from last year, canned red beans and rice.)

Played a game for family game night.

Lots of prep items involved in my day.

Hooray for stacks of things and the knowledge to use them. Keep stacking both.

nick

*not really. I was alone so the swears went unheard and if a guy swears in the kitchen but there isn’t anyone there to hear it, did he really swear?

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Tues. Aug. 31, 2021 – so. now we’re done with August.

Hot and humid. It was 85F when I went to bed, that doesn’t bode well for today. And while yesterday started cooler, it got plenty hot by afternoon. I knew I should have cut the back yard grass early. Now it’s so long, and the temps are high, and I just can’t get motivated to do it.

Plenty of stuff to do though, as usual.

Spent the day doing auction and sales stuff. Picked up D2 and did a couple of hours of together time. We spent the last part of that sorting through some thrift store bags. She likes the treasure hunt too, although she gets excited about different things. Since many of the items in the bags are things I picked up for her, or the household, she was pretty excited.

Then the other one came home and the sniping and general sororite‘ dynamic went into full effect. Joy. I understand ‘man cave’ much better now and I expect that will only strengthen. Unless they’re living in the streets taking potshots at UN blue helmets…

Freaking world does not want to settle down. Get your self set up now, while amazon delivers and things are a click away. Water collection, storage, purification, heating, and use. Electrical generation, storage, and drastically reduced use. Solar panels, charge controllers, batteries, led lights, and window air units. Fans. Shade and breeze. Food. Stored, grown, caught, processed, preserved, and eaten. Got enough salt? You can improvise a lot, but some things you need. Got books on fermentation? Any practical experience? People ALWAYS want to have a drink. What are the critical components you just can’t fake?

How does your garden grow? Seeds are small, light, available, and you need more than you think. Also, you need pesticides specific to what you are growing. Heirloom varieties, saving seed, and local knowledge. Greenhouse, seed starters, rooting compound, grow lights, heat mats, plastic sheet, depending on climate. Don’t count on it getting hotter. Don’t count on it being cooler.

What goes in must come out. Sanitation, trash disposal, pest control.

String, cord, rope. Wire. Cable. Wire rope. Chain. Webbing. Repair for all of them. Tapes and glues. Repair, reuse, recycle. Be prepared to squeeze every bit of use out of stuff.

Think about the stuff they had on the farm in 1910 and you will be close to what you need. This is my grandfather’s ax. My father replaced the handle and I replaced the head.

Doom, gloom, oh no, oh woe… and yet it fits better than cheerleading. I keep looking for reasons to be optimistic and I don’t see them. I’ve asked you guys to chime in if you see them and no one mentioned any. (SpaceX might be able to get away just in time, but they’re a long time from being a liferaft… for a while, computing applied to medicine looked poised for a huge leap, but that has cooled.) So plan to get through some bad times. I intend to.

Keep stacking.

nick

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Mon. Aug. 30, 2021 – long weekend wore me out.

Hot and humid, but maybe a BIT cooler. Did get some random rain drops yesterday, and some overcast, but mostly it was hot and humid.

The final day of my convention/meeting/swapmeet was a shorter day. The group does a couple of things to keep people there ’til the end. Most conventions or sales have much reduced attendance and fewer sellers on the last day. Our group does a drawing for sellers/exhibitors for $250 cash, but you have to be there and your booth has to be still set up. They follow that with a drawing for attendees for a $250 voucher to spend at a remaining vendor’s booth. There are still a lot of people who bail early, but there are people there until the end and there is excitement and good feelings just before calling it a day. I’ve worked a huge number of meetings/conventions/tradeshows and ours is unique in my experience with this incentive to stay the whole scheduled time.

Today I have to get all the things I put aside over the weekend done, as well as putting my leftovers away, and I have to do this week’s stuff too. I’m going to be extra busy for a while until I catch up. Like I wasn’t busy enough anyway.

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For a blog with a high degree of prepping emphasis, I said very little about the freaking CAT 4 hurricane that hit Louisiana and bordering states yesterday. I put it down to selfishness and inward focus. I will be looking outward for a while at least to cover the aftermath. If you’ve been affected by IDA, please share your experience. What worked, what didn’t, what surprised you. If you want, you can email it to me and I’ll post it whole with any anonymizing requested. Obviously it might be a bit before you’re actually done with IDA. I’ll wait, but please consider commenting or writing something.

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What little news I did see over the weekend wasn’t good. Same stuff and more of it would sum it up. It will get sporty out there, and could be very soon. Don’t wait with your prepping. Get at least some of everything that you want or need. If we have more time, you can add to that. In these times, it won’t do you as much good to have 5 buckets of white flour, but no rice, or 8 rifles and no food. Balance. That is what is needed and you might not have enough time to correct an imbalance in your current purchasing.

That said, anything is better than nothing. Get to stacking.

nick

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Sun. Aug. 29, 2021 – last day of my show…

Hot and humid with rain, just like yesterday. No direct evidence of the storm yet.

Today I’m headed to a breakfast get together, and then the closing day of the meeting/show/swapmeet.

Yesterday was the second day of our regional association meeting with sellers mart (kinda swapmeet). We ended up with a bunch of no shows on pre-purchased seller tables. I don’t know what the real number is yet, but it feels like about 1/3 to 1/2 were empty. I’m guessing wuflu delta worries, or actual sickness kept them home. People were going table to table, sales were made. Everyone was happy to be back together, but there was an undercurrent. These are mostly small business owners, mostly rural, older, and white. A lot of them have been doing this show for a long time and usually treat it as a social opportunity to get together with friends they haven’t seen in a while.

I spent most of the day talking with people either at my table or theirs.

I joined about 5 conversations about the coming troubles- either world war, civil war, or economic collapse. One guy even said “gotta get in as much normal as we can before it all falls apart.” I didn’t start any of them, but did join and spoke honestly. People aren’t sure what’s coming, but they are sure it is coming and that it will be bad. No one was talking politics, Biddn, or the losses in Afghanistan. I’m not sure they could have without tears. It’s that kind of crowd.

I’ll see if I’m over reacting today, but it felt a bit like a last hoorah, or a last good bye. A lot of people were leaving early so I’m not expecting a busy day. I’ll look around with an eye towards the mood, but it felt a bit melancholy.

My kids were great all day. It was long, 7am to 6:30pm and they were troopers. The youngest was her vibrant and precocious self, charming most of the other sellers. She got me to loan her $45 to buy stuff for herself. Oldest spent the morning building a metal model from Metal Earth, then took a nap under the table. The other folks were amazed at her focus and dexterity with tweezers. (the models are super cool, and the results are impressive.)

I sold a bunch of stuff, and hope to sell some more today. I think I can find a few fresh items to put out this morning. I have so much stuff I forgot about some of it that would have been appropriate for this venue. I’ll miss a bunch of early leavers, but all I need is one buyer for each thing after all.

A quick scan of the news shows me escalating street violence, international destabilization continuing apace, local natural disasters, and all the regular stuff, turned up a few notches.

In the words of Yoda, “save you what can”. And keep stacking.

nick

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