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We're expecting 1-3 inches of snow tonight.
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We're expecting 1-3 inches of snow tonight.
nice.
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...and you're going into the sauna and then rolling around in the snow naked?
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...and you're going into the sauna and then rolling around in the snow naked?
Um, yeah, that's how we roll in Wisconsin.
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...and you're going into the sauna and then rolling around in the snow naked?Um, yeah, that's how we roll in Wisconsin.
its how I roll, at least.
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*What?
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*SIGH*
Another Spare the Air day with air quality utterly abysmal, but the chaos from yesterday's windstorm was amazing: Shiro lost power for an hour, and many other people on the chaperones list reported similar issues.
So PG&E is shutting off power to huge swaths of people to try to prevent fires, more people are losing power due to the windstorms actually knocking out power, and the huge fire to our north turns out to be caused by PG&E failing to cut power to an older facility. In other words, "Oh, it's OK for us to cut power to you, but we're not cutting power to us, because that would cost us money. Oh. Oops."
I swear, until we pass legislation that corporate executives can be jailed for the malfeasance of their companies...
Plus, GothBard's been sick in bed since Friday and this morning Impus Minor sounds terrible, so we have horrific air quality plus a house full of sick people.
Thank goodness I bought so many air purifiers last year!
*Grumble*
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I can tell I've officially gotten old. My 8th graders are watching The Outsiders, and as the Greasers leave for the rumble, all I can notice is that they left the light on when they left. After just mentioning how tight money is for the brothers.
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I hope that GothBard and Impus Minor feel better soon, NH.
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I hope that GothBard and Impus Minor feel better soon, NH.
Thanks. I decided to take a half-day at work just to deal with everything, but considering how long they've been sick I'm hoping to see SOME improvement today.
I'm also trying to "stubborn it out" with the heat -- this week it's in the low 40s at night, but it's still breaking 70 during the day so I'm trying to hold off on turning on the heat until Friday.
But this morning in the living room it's definitely chilly...
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Hope everyone gets better soon NH!
Yeah, I have that 'To heat, or not to heat'? issue here too.
Not YET, but soon. ;P
Were only getting down to mid 50's for nighttime, and still bouncing around between 60's and almost 80's in daytime (Silly tropical weather patterns) so its not QUITE time to fire up the heater.
Heck I'm from Oklahoma, where we actually have 4 seasons. (as opposed to Lousy-Anna, which just has two. 'Hotter than H@!!' and 'not quite so D@#% hot')
If it were up to ME, and not my wife or children, I wouldn't turn on the heater until December. Usually.
:)
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I'm building with the same material they paved the roads of Rome with when they built it.
This is living.
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Pebbles smiled for the ultrasound and was sucking her thumb.
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It's flippin' freezing. The server man had to come in and fix the server this morning; the boiler man is presently trying to do the same with the boiler, and may fortune favour his endeavours.
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Hope everyone gets better soon NH!
Yeah, I have that 'To heat, or not to heat'? issue here too.
Not YET, but soon. ;P
Were only getting down to mid 50's for nighttime, and still bouncing around between 60's and almost 80's in daytime (Silly tropical weather patterns) so its not QUITE time to fire up the heater.
Heck I'm from Oklahoma, where we actually have 4 seasons. (as opposed to Lousy-Anna, which just has two. 'Hotter than H@!!' and 'not quite so D@#% hot')
If it were up to ME, and not my wife or children, I wouldn't turn on the heater until December. Usually.
:)
The Bay Area technically has ONE season: Sunny with occasional fog or rain. We just go from highs in the mid-70s (late September - October) to highs in the mid-50s (February-March). The problem is when the lows finally drop into the 40s in October or November, and the days aren't quite warm enough to heat the house to keep it warm in the morning.
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The Good: Even though it reeks of smoke here, the air quality can't be as bad as last year, when the haze was so thick it actually limited visibility to a few hundred feet.
The Bad: PG&E cut power to hundreds of thousands of residents, but didn't cut power to their own lines (because profit), and the biggest fire right now (the Kincade fire) was most likely caused by faulty transmission lines that didn't get turned off.
As I said, until you start actually physically jailing the people who make these decisions, nothing will change.
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And on a more-pleasant note, it's really nice to never look back:
(1) Thanks to Lutris, I got Battle.net, Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, and League of Legends all working perfectly on my Linux machine.
(2) Thanks to Windows Update, Impus Major's audio drivers got reset to a third party (I couldn't believe it myself until I Googled it and found out Impus Major wasn't alone in Windows friggin' Update installing someone else's sound software), then uninstalling the third-party software broke his microphone and he had to borrow mine until I can re-install his old drivers.
Seriously, Microsoft?
(3) I'm trying to update a bunch of Word files this morning and apparently every time I tab into Word it's checking an update server. Not every time I start Word; every time I return to Word. It's causing serious performance and networking issues.
It's seriously as if I decided to go to Linux and Microsoft said, "Oh, yeah! Well we'll make your family suffer for your malfeasance!"
Anyway, half-day today so I have to actually work. Happy trails, all!
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A bonus blogpost of an NPC Ghost: Ulfdag The Mistrustful, The Poisoned King.
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(2) Thanks to Windows Update, Impus Major's audio drivers got reset to a third party (I couldn't believe it myself until I Googled it and found out Impus Major wasn't alone in Windows friggin' Update installing someone else's sound software), then uninstalling the third-party software broke his microphone and he had to borrow mine until I can re-install his old drivers.
Seriously, Microsoft?(3) I'm trying to update a bunch of Word files this morning and apparently every time I tab into Word it's checking an update server. Not every time I start Word; every time I return to Word. It's causing serious performance and networking issues.
For 2: In an effort to "help" people keep all their drivers updated, Microsoft decided several years ago to start working with other companies to get driver updates rolled out through Windows Update, since half of BSODs tend to be 3rd party driver issues, yet Microsoft is the one that gets yelled at because the OS crashed. So that part isn't new, and *most* of the time it actually works. Most of the time. The question is whether it's actually Windows Update causing the problem or if it's the driver that's been placed into WU that's causing the issue.
For 3: Um...uh...I just checked with everyone on my team...none of us have heard of this one. That one is *weird*. Is it just on Word, or Excel too? What version of Office is this? I'm really curious and want to research this one. (I'm seeing nothing in Word's options about update behavior, since that's generally handled through Windows Update as well.
Combine the two issues and you might just have a problematic Windows Update feature, but I wouldn't want to jump the gun on that idea quite yet.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.
It is a very nerve-racking process. I really hope it works out.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.It is a very nerve-racking process. I really hope it works out.
I think it will. My dad is an underwriter, so he looked over my stuff with a professional not-opinion and told me I should be good. I'm just a natural pessimist, so panic time now.
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In an effort to "help" people keep all their drivers updated, Microsoft decided several years ago to start working with other companies to get driver updates rolled out through Windows Update, since half of BSODs tend to be 3rd party driver issues, yet Microsoft is the one that gets yelled at because the OS crashed. So that part isn't new, and *most* of the time it actually works. Most of the time. The question is whether it's actually Windows Update causing the problem or if it's the driver that's been placed into WU that's causing the issue.
So the issue is that Windows changed vendors. For laptop sound, for years it's been Realtek High-Definition Audio. This go-round they switched over to some other company but didn't configure it correctly, so every time you booted you got, "xxx would like to make changes to your system. Allow it?", and, being sensible, everyone said, "No," and got sound errors.
The recommended "fix" was to remove the new drivers rather than allowing them (really?), so it's just re-installing the old Realtek drivers.
For 3: Um...uh...I just checked with everyone on my team...none of us have heard of this one. That one is *weird*. Is it just on Word, or Excel too? What version of Office is this? I'm really curious and want to research this one. (I'm seeing nothing in Word's options about update behavior, since that's generally handled through Windows Update as well.
Different computer.
This one just seems like some kind of weird, "I can't connect to my server right now" issue when you're running a program that shouldn't need internet access. It's doing other stupid things (if I have 3 files open and I close one it closes all 3), so it's definitely behaving like a secret network connection is failing. Office 2017, FWIW.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.
I must be a very different type of person.
I just filled out the application, talked to the loan officer, and said, "With these numbers, how much can we get?"
So I applied for that much, we looked for houses in that range, and we bought one. And this was back when I was a teacher and GothBard was a lab technician, so our combined income wasn't all that great for the Bay Area (well under 6 figures combined).
I guess it's just the way I think. "I'll fill out all this information honestly, then I'll ask you what number I should write as the total loan amount, and I'll trust that you'll give me a good number. Once that gets approved, THEN I'll look for a house."
So yeah, we didn't even start looking for a house until we knew exactly how much money we had, and as a result it didn't stress us at all (other than the caliber of house we could afford. But we were patient and we lucked out).
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This one just seems like some kind of weird, "I can't connect to my server right now" issue when you're running a program that shouldn't need internet access. It's doing other stupid things (if I have 3 files open and I close one it closes all 3), so it's definitely behaving like a secret network connection is failing. Office 2017, FWIW.
Do the later Office even work offline?
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And yeah, Impus Major's English class got canceled, and I don't want him commuting just to take ju jitsu in the smoke, so everybody's home today.
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Do the later Office even work offline?This one just seems like some kind of weird, "I can't connect to my server right now" issue when you're running a program that shouldn't need internet access. It's doing other stupid things (if I have 3 files open and I close one it closes all 3), so it's definitely behaving like a secret network connection is failing. Office 2017, FWIW.
Office 2017 is supposedly self-contained, and it works fine when I have no network connection. I'm betting my proxy host was misbehaving so Office could "sense" my VPN connection but couldn't get to Microsoft Sekret Base so was flaking out.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.
I can only wish you the best of luck. Go for it.
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In an effort to "help" people keep all their drivers updated, Microsoft decided several years ago to start working with other companies to get driver updates rolled out through Windows Update, since half of BSODs tend to be 3rd party driver issues, yet Microsoft is the one that gets yelled at because the OS crashed. So that part isn't new, and *most* of the time it actually works. Most of the time. The question is whether it's actually Windows Update causing the problem or if it's the driver that's been placed into WU that's causing the issue.So the issue is that Windows changed vendors. For laptop sound, for years it's been Realtek High-Definition Audio. This go-round they switched over to some other company but didn't configure it correctly, so every time you booted you got, "xxx would like to make changes to your system. Allow it?", and, being sensible, everyone said, "No," and got sound errors.
Is this why my desktop sounds weird now?
This could be why my desktop sounds weird now.
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And yeah, Impus Major's English class got canceled, and I don't want him commuting just to take ju jitsu in the smoke, so everybody's home today.
so...
<_<>_>
EverybodysHome?
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.I must be a very different type of person.
I just filled out the application, talked to the loan officer, and said, "With these numbers, how much can we get?"
So I applied for that much, we looked for houses in that range, and we bought one. And this was back when I was a teacher and GothBard was a lab technician, so our combined income wasn't all that great for the Bay Area (well under 6 figures combined).
I guess it's just the way I think. "I'll fill out all this information honestly, then I'll ask you what number I should write as the total loan amount, and I'll trust that you'll give me a good number. Once that gets approved, THEN I'll look for a house."
So yeah, we didn't even start looking for a house until we knew exactly how much money we had, and as a result it didn't stress us at all (other than the caliber of house we could afford. But we were patient and we lucked out).
That's actually basically what I did.
1. Call Dad and ask his professional opinion (since this is his field) for what he thinks I could afford. (Conversation was basically "I kind of want to stop renting...am I being stupid, or is this viable?")
2. See if there was literally anything in the area in that range or if I should give up. (This is also called bored with grading, play on real estate sites)
3. Hear back from dad to confirm range.
3a. Be proud that I'd actually eyeballed it correctly.
4. Work on app so serious house hunting can begin.
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Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.I must be a very different type of person.
I just filled out the application, talked to the loan officer, and said, "With these numbers, how much can we get?"
So I applied for that much, we looked for houses in that range, and we bought one. And this was back when I was a teacher and GothBard was a lab technician, so our combined income wasn't all that great for the Bay Area (well under 6 figures combined).
I guess it's just the way I think. "I'll fill out all this information honestly, then I'll ask you what number I should write as the total loan amount, and I'll trust that you'll give me a good number. Once that gets approved, THEN I'll look for a house."
So yeah, we didn't even start looking for a house until we knew exactly how much money we had, and as a result it didn't stress us at all (other than the caliber of house we could afford. But we were patient and we lucked out).
That's actually basically what I did.
1. Call Dad and ask his professional opinion (since this is his field) for what he thinks I could afford. (Conversation was basically "I kind of want to stop renting...am I being stupid, or is this viable?")
2. See if there was literally anything in the area in that range or if I should give up. (This is also called bored with grading, play on real estate sites)
3. Hear back from dad to confirm range.
3a. Be proud that I'd actually eyeballed it correctly.
4. Work on app so serious house hunting can begin.
You missed
5. Relaaaaax!You applied for the correct number, you'll get it, and you'll find a house in that range.
The harder part is being happy with the house in that range. I can't help you with that one.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.I must be a very different type of person.
I just filled out the application, talked to the loan officer, and said, "With these numbers, how much can we get?"
So I applied for that much, we looked for houses in that range, and we bought one. And this was back when I was a teacher and GothBard was a lab technician, so our combined income wasn't all that great for the Bay Area (well under 6 figures combined).
I guess it's just the way I think. "I'll fill out all this information honestly, then I'll ask you what number I should write as the total loan amount, and I'll trust that you'll give me a good number. Once that gets approved, THEN I'll look for a house."
So yeah, we didn't even start looking for a house until we knew exactly how much money we had, and as a result it didn't stress us at all (other than the caliber of house we could afford. But we were patient and we lucked out).
That's actually basically what I did.
1. Call Dad and ask his professional opinion (since this is his field) for what he thinks I could afford. (Conversation was basically "I kind of want to stop renting...am I being stupid, or is this viable?")
2. See if there was literally anything in the area in that range or if I should give up. (This is also called bored with grading, play on real estate sites)
3. Hear back from dad to confirm range.
3a. Be proud that I'd actually eyeballed it correctly.
4. Work on app so serious house hunting can begin.You missed
5. Relaaaaax!You applied for the correct number, you'll get it, and you'll find a house in that range.
The harder part is being happy with the house in that range. I can't help you with that one.
I can help with the outside.
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I can help with the outside.Well. After talking to my dad about some number stuff, I just spent my plan period getting started on a mortgage pre-approval application. Very nervous.I must be a very different type of person.
I just filled out the application, talked to the loan officer, and said, "With these numbers, how much can we get?"
So I applied for that much, we looked for houses in that range, and we bought one. And this was back when I was a teacher and GothBard was a lab technician, so our combined income wasn't all that great for the Bay Area (well under 6 figures combined).
I guess it's just the way I think. "I'll fill out all this information honestly, then I'll ask you what number I should write as the total loan amount, and I'll trust that you'll give me a good number. Once that gets approved, THEN I'll look for a house."
So yeah, we didn't even start looking for a house until we knew exactly how much money we had, and as a result it didn't stress us at all (other than the caliber of house we could afford. But we were patient and we lucked out).
That's actually basically what I did.
1. Call Dad and ask his professional opinion (since this is his field) for what he thinks I could afford. (Conversation was basically "I kind of want to stop renting...am I being stupid, or is this viable?")
2. See if there was literally anything in the area in that range or if I should give up. (This is also called bored with grading, play on real estate sites)
3. Hear back from dad to confirm range.
3a. Be proud that I'd actually eyeballed it correctly.
4. Work on app so serious house hunting can begin.You missed
5. Relaaaaax!You applied for the correct number, you'll get it, and you'll find a house in that range.
The harder part is being happy with the house in that range. I can't help you with that one.
I will send cookies as a housewarming gift.
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Maybe the native Floridians can help me understand this one, or maybe it's my innate obsessive-compulsivism, but I had reason to go to the hardware store over lunch to pick up some wiring stuff and...
...woooooooooooooow...
- People desperately buying up batteries
- People desperately trying to find face masks
- People snapping at the staff and at each other over the scarcity of such items in the store.
And it's like, "Er... we had ALL OF THIS LAST YEAR, and many of you are clearly long-term residents. What did you do with all the masks you bought last year? Didn't you stock up on batteries last year? What about three weeks ago when PG&E first started announcing these outages?"
Yes, I'm a whale. We had fires last year, and I bought both face masks (cheap) and air purifiers (expensive). PG&E warned about outages, so in lieu of batteries (cheap) I bought a generator (expensive).
And yet I bought it all when the warnings first started coming out.
This idea of, "Wait 'til the last second then get pissy with stores because they've run out," really baffles me.
I can understand waiting until the last minute -- I did that last year and regretted it, but I didn't hold it against the storekeeps that they were out; I understood that I took too long and missed out.
So, knowing it would happen again, I stocked up during the post-fire glut when stuff is cheap and easy to get.
And I kept it all, so I have it this year.
Just the whole, "We didn't get extra last year, we didn't prepare this year, we ignored all the warnings, and now we're angry at YOU over it," is baffling.
I guess it's human nature; they're suffering, they're upset with themselves, and they're lashing out at others because of it. It's just the whole, "Lashing out at others," I don't particularly care for.
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In my defense I have to say that often I use a slightly smaller bowl...*sigh*
How many times I need to go through this to internalize the fact that third bowl of stew is too much?
*pats bloated belly*
Dont fell bad. I also fall for its siren song. Just eat a liiiitle bit more...
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All the after con stuff is done (reporting, after action report), the germans have gone home. House is still a mess.
Had the day off today. Was mentally so tired I just crawled back into bed after I had taken our german guests to the train station.
Back to work tomorrow.
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Maybe the native Floridians can help me understand this one, or maybe it's my innate obsessive-compulsivism, but I had reason to go to the hardware store over lunch to pick up some wiring stuff and...
...woooooooooooooow...- People desperately buying up batteries
- People desperately trying to find face masks
- People snapping at the staff and at each other over the scarcity of such items in the store.And it's like, "Er... we had ALL OF THIS LAST YEAR, and many of you are clearly long-term residents. What did you do with all the masks you bought last year? Didn't you stock up on batteries last year? What about three weeks ago when PG&E first started announcing these outages?"
Yes, I'm a whale. We had fires last year, and I bought both face masks (cheap) and air purifiers (expensive). PG&E warned about outages, so in lieu of batteries (cheap) I bought a generator (expensive).
And yet I bought it all when the warnings first started coming out.
This idea of, "Wait 'til the last second then get pissy with stores because they've run out," really baffles me.
I can understand waiting until the last minute -- I did that last year and regretted it, but I didn't hold it against the storekeeps that they were out; I understood that I took too long and missed out.
So, knowing it would happen again, I stocked up during the post-fire glut when stuff is cheap and easy to get.And I kept it all, so I have it this year.
Just the whole, "We didn't get extra last year, we didn't prepare this year, we ignored all the warnings, and now we're angry at YOU over it," is baffling.
I guess it's human nature; they're suffering, they're upset with themselves, and they're lashing out at others because of it. It's just the whole, "Lashing out at others," I don't particularly care for.
Depends on how available these things are year round.
Around here, salt for snow and snowmelt stuff is INCREDIBLY hard to find unless it is October, November, December, January or February. The best time to buy is actually March, but not everyone has equal long term storage facilities for such things, and depending on what you are buying, keeping that stuff around all year may not be wise(pets, small children, etc).
When October/November roll around most stores are already running low on salt and stuff because guys looking to make money shoveling walks buy modest size bags in bulk, leaving people who want equally sane amounts of salt fighting over what's left. All thats left are 20 pound bags that was no problem for me to carry when I was 39, but are daunting for anyone else, especially our older homeowners. When a snowstorm DOES come, people panic because it is hard to get a sane amount of rocksalt, and people panic, fight over the 20 pound bags of rocksalt, and there isn't anything left when those are gone.
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I imagine this is cap yesterday going to work
OH MY GOD IT IS
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Depends on how available these things are year round.
Around here, salt for snow and snowmelt stuff is INCREDIBLY hard to find unless it is October, November, December, January or February. The best time to buy is actually March, but not everyone has equal long term storage facilities for such things, and depending on what you are buying, keeping that stuff around all year may not be wise(pets, small children, etc).
When October/November roll around most stores are already running low on salt and stuff because guys looking to make money shoveling walks buy modest size bags in bulk, leaving people who want equally sane amounts of salt fighting over what's left. All thats left are 20 pound bags that was no problem for me to carry when I was 39, but are daunting for anyone else, especially our older homeowners. When a snowstorm DOES come, people panic because it is hard to get a sane amount of rocksalt, and people panic, fight over the 20 pound bags of rocksalt, and there isn't anything left when those are gone.
Well, we're talking basic particle masks and AA batteries. Not exactly hard to carry nor hard to store. And yelling at the poor clerk won't make them mysteriously reappear.
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Depends on how available these things are year round.
Around here, salt for snow and snowmelt stuff is INCREDIBLY hard to find unless it is October, November, December, January or February. The best time to buy is actually March, but not everyone has equal long term storage facilities for such things, and depending on what you are buying, keeping that stuff around all year may not be wise(pets, small children, etc).
When October/November roll around most stores are already running low on salt and stuff because guys looking to make money shoveling walks buy modest size bags in bulk, leaving people who want equally sane amounts of salt fighting over what's left. All thats left are 20 pound bags that was no problem for me to carry when I was 39, but are daunting for anyone else, especially our older homeowners. When a snowstorm DOES come, people panic because it is hard to get a sane amount of rocksalt, and people panic, fight over the 20 pound bags of rocksalt, and there isn't anything left when those are gone.
Well, we're talking basic particle masks and AA batteries. Not exactly hard to carry nor hard to store. And yelling at the poor clerk won't make them mysteriously reappear.
Okay, here's working poverty talking:
Batteries are freaking EXPENSIVE. And the dollar store ones wear out really fast. Back in California, I could stock up on cheap batteries at Ikea or Daiso, but to do that here requires an hour's drive in each direction.
Also, when you buy batteries just to keep for emergencies, they gradually wear down, so it's possible to stock up on this expensive item with a limited shelf life which may well die before you ever use it.
So it's a gamble: do you spend the money you could use on other things, like more groceries or a tank of gas, on the offchance there will be another emergency and you really will need them?
A replacement propane cylinder for the gas grill is about fifteen bucks, at Walmart (cheapest place around). A spare cylinder, filled, to keep for emergencies is fifty. So, hey, you can still cook with no power in your house, because many of the new gas stove/oven combos have electrical control panels, so they don't work if there's no power.
Ice blocks to put in your fridge for the week: when you're spending about $5 a day on ice to keep your food from spoiling, that's $35 for a week's worth.
When your weekly grocery budget is $150 for a family of four, little "extra" expenses during a power outage can suck your pockets dry really fast. And, yes, when they are stressed and full of anxiety, people become a+$#+!@s.
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You want to see people fight? Work at a toy store two days before Christmas and put out a single dancing Poonicorn.
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Okay, here's working poverty talking:
Batteries are freaking EXPENSIVE. And the dollar store ones wear out really fast. Back in California, I could stock up on cheap batteries at Ikea or Daiso, but to do that here requires an hour's drive in each direction.
Also, when you buy batteries just to keep for emergencies, they gradually wear down, so it's possible to stock up on this expensive item with a limited shelf life which may well die before you ever use it.
So it's a gamble: do you spend the money you could use on other things, like more groceries or a tank of gas, on the offchance there will be another emergency and you really will need them?
A replacement propane cylinder for the gas grill is about fifteen bucks, at Walmart (cheapest place around). A spare cylinder, filled, to keep for emergencies is fifty. So, hey, you can still cook with no power in your house, because many of the new gas stove/oven combos have electrical control panels, so they don't work if there's no power.
Ice blocks to put in your fridge for the week: when you're spending about $5 a day on ice to keep your food from spoiling, that's $35 for a week's worth.
When your weekly grocery budget is $150 for a family of four, little "extra" expenses during a power outage can suck your pockets dry really fast. And, yes, when they are stressed and full of anxiety, people become a%~$~!#s.
So... I was thinking of exactly that angle, and most of it I'm still missing, because in my mind, batteries are a "luxury item":
- Need the radio? Hop out to the car and listen for 15-20 minutes to find out what's going on- Need a light? Both kids have $5.99 little blow-up solar LED lights that are amazingly long-lasting (3-4 hours each), that never need batteries, and are less than a 6-pack of regular batteries
- What else do you need batteries for that you can't live without for a couple of days?
So the expensive items are the masks, and yeah, those are a much harder call, but you can buy singles at Home Depot and wear them for a week at a time and store any that you don't use for next year.
That's really interesting about the stoves -- we have the electric igniters, but they spew gas just fine when the power is out and I keep lighters right next to the stove for exactly that reason.
But you're a smart woman -- I'd expect you don't have anything in your emergency kit that needs batteries (because as you said, they're expensive and die, kind of like... OK... not going there...).
But yeah, buying ice is a killer. I despise PG&E for telling some cities to prepare for no refrigeration for 5-6 days, and then knocking them out for under 24 hours. How many tens of thousands of dollars were lost buying freaking ice?!?!?!?
And yeah, once bitten, twice shy, so I didn't even mention all the people buying ice at the corner store. But at the same time, the people buying ice were all being really nice about it.
It was the battery-buyers being a$$hats, and that's the one that baffled me.
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Yesterday I almost put my hand down on a half-eaten lollipop on the kitchen counter. I assumed that one of the Homunculi left it there, but no, Yellow had. When I asked them to throw it out, they replied "Oh I'm still eating it." Baffled, I said "Okay would you at least put it somewhere out of the way?"
And it's still there.
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in my mind, batteries are a "luxury item"
So you're probably not hiring private firefighters to protect your property.
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Mortgage app submitted.
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they're expensive and die, kind of like... OK... not going there...)
Okay, FaWtLeans, here's a game for you:
Everybody PM NH their most ridiculously inappropriate Cards Against Humanity style endings to that phrase.