Lickable

18:04 Monday, 9 June 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 86.07°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 169

I've got iOS 26 installed on the iPad mini (6th) I brought with me from Winterfell. I'm not exactly blown away. Stephen Hackett pointed to the developer video (the link at Stephen's blog opens in the Developer app), which I clicked through.

I stopped watching the keynote today, because I couldn't stand the delivery of the presenters. The cadence, the extraneous body language, the forced earnestness of the speech. Ugh.. Might as well be watching AI video.

Well, same thing at that Developer video. Worse, and this is a "fingernails on a blackboard" thing for me, is the use of the word, "learnings."

To my ear, it simply sounds ignorant. Learn is a verb, dammit!

Why not "lessons," "experience," "feedback," any of a number of other word choices. And he uses "learnings" more than once!

The guy does the same bullshit thing with his hands and his shoulders, the same bullshit cadence, the same faux enthusiasm. Gah!

Go back to live presentations, please. Real people, not these Stepford droids.

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Loaded

15:17 Monday, 9 June 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 88.66°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 4.25mph
Words: 432

It was an interesting exercise, but the RAV4 is loaded. One large tote filled with "food" (I don't count Costco two-packs of artichoke hearts as "food.") didn't make it. Well, some of the food did (minus the artichoke hearts). She went through both totes, anything unopened went into a tote that will remain here until the house is sold. There were some items past their expiration date that were put in the trash. Any opened items, still usable, are going up, along with whatever else she felt was essential. (Not artichoke hearts.)

Everything I had set aside to go up in the RAV is loaded. I put all but one of my remaining Makita batteries in the spare tire well. It has a styrene foam insert inside the wheel which should contain them well, and keep them from knocking about too badly. I also got a few tools in that compartment as well.

All we have left to do is load the cooler with the refrigerated items, which aren't many, and we should be good to go.

We won't be able to see much through the rear-view mirror, but we can get by with the side-view mirrors.

The post office delivered six boxes to Winterfell this afternoon. I spoke to our neighbor and she kindly went over and put them inside, as they're expecting rain up there. She'll also go by tomorrow and put the remaining four boxes inside as well.

I'm excited. All I'm hoping for now is a safe, uneventful drive north.

I've submitted a temporary change of address so my mail (not that I ever get any) is forwarded. I didn't want to make it permanent yet, in case I need to substantiate that I'm not a permanent resident of New York State at this moment. But after July 1st, I'll probably go ahead and start making those changes.

As of Wednesday, at least emotionally, Winterfell will be "home," while this place will simply be an asset awaiting disposal.

There's still a lot to be done here, once it finally sells, in terms of final packing and removal, which will require another trip. That'll be an interesting coordination exercise. We're undecided whether to drive back down, or fly and rent a vehicle here. Do we fly one-way, and drive the rental back to New York with items we don't want the movers to handle?

But I don't care right now. I'm just looking forward to getting out of here and taking on a new challenge of building a home in beautiful surroundings.

I'm this close...

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Make All Preparations for Getting Underway

07:43 Monday, 9 June 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 77.34°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 958

Mitzi is having a bit of anxiety right now, worried that we won't be able to fit all the things she thinks are necessary to go to New York in the RAV4. This after shipping seven boxes to New York, which were intended to go in the RAV4.

I'm pretty sure that her anxiety is well founded regarding what is going to fit. I'm also pretty sure that she doesn't need half the stuff she thinks has to bring. But I don't say that, because, well, it wouldn't help.

She's making another run to the post office this morning to ship another box or two. Then I'll take a stab at packing the RAV, after which the real fun begins. She'll have to prioritize which things she'll really want to bring. She's already indicated that after we get the RAV loaded, she may use the empty front passenger seat to bring more boxes to the post office.

I'm quite certain that we have no place to put all the stuff she wants to bring, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I have a handful of items that wouldn't have filled a box that I'll squirrel away into the inevitable gaps and voids that are created when packing irregularly shaped containers into an irregularly shaped space.

When I went to New York in the Mav, I had a similar feeling of anxiety, that not everything I wanted to bring was fitting in the truck. I could have packed more, taking better advantage of the truck bed, if I'd have been willing to simply cover it with a tarp. But I was worried about security and how a tarp would fare at highway speeds sometimes approaching 80mph. Instead, everything had to fit under a roll-up tonneau cover I installed.

But when I got to New York, I stopped worrying about all of that. I didn't care. It just felt so great to be there! I've shipped up three boxes to Mitzi's seven (and counting), of fairly useful items, some books I think would be important to have handy.

Eshbach is coming with me in the RAV, The Way Things Work, Volumes 1 and 2 are in a box in New Jersey. I'm also putting the Oxford World Atlas in the RAV.

To be perfectly frank with readers, I'm anticipating that the internet will be disrupted to one degree or another within the coming year. I don't have any medical books, but I will probably buy a couple of advanced first aid books when we get up there.

I don't think the internet will cease to exist, but I expect that there will be disruptions, outages, of various durations, from hours to weeks. So, shortwave radios and books might fill in some gaps.

Longer term, I don't think we can count on the internet a decade or so from now. Persistent disruptions by hostile state actors, or hostile AI actors, may render it essentially useless. Likewise with cellular networks and voice communications that rely on IP infrastructure.

You may want to look into GMRS radio, pay a little money to the FCC to buy a license. Maybe encourage some of your local neighbors to do likewise. Learn about repeaters and networks and such, while you can watch YouTube videos about them.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm also not giving away any more of my DVDs, because I don't think streaming is going to be a thing a decade from now.

Next big purchase is a generator/battery solution for short-term outages. Then some kind of solar and wind generation solution. Can't charge our GMRS radios and shortwave radio batteries without a source of electricity. And it's great to have a well, but you need electricity to run the pump!

I think life is going to get more chaotic, not less, going forward. You're going to want to build in some resilience to whatever your situation happens to be. Don't forget the most valuable resource available to you will be your neighbors, so invest in that "social capital."

Not saying everyone has to move to the country. That's not practical, or possible, for most people. But there are ways to accommodate disruptions to the kinds of services we take for granted now. Look for lessons learned from people who endured war in urban areas, like in the Balkans, Iraq, Ukraine.

A few solar panels and a "solar generator" (a lithium iron phosphate battery) of maybe 1kWh capacity might keep your refrigerator running and your batteries charged during an extended outage. Won't break the bank, relatively easy to store. Biggest challenge may be access to sunshine depending on the configuration of your residence.

If you live in the 'burbs and buy a generator, be sure to run it now and then. And don't store it with gasoline in it. Not if you expect it to run after it's been sitting in your garage for a year or more. My neighbor spent a few days last week trying to get his to run in preparation for hurricane season.

Anyway, I don't mean to be all "doom and gloom." Life is still a gift, but suffering will always be a part of it. For much of our lives, "things" have generally been getting "better." There's no law that says that always has to be the case; and there are very clear signs now that it won't be, going forward. There may be periods of progress, but they will be episodic and the gains may not be lasting. Joe Biden's legislative achievements, for example.

So, take a little time to think about how you can build some resilience into your situation. You may be glad you did one day.

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