What was your prep for today?

desert.snake

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
2,055
Location
Eastern Europe
Good idea. I've noticed from driving with a window cracked (left hand drive vehicle) the wind noise has reduced the hearing in my left ear enough where I have to hold my watch up to my left ear to hear it ticking but can hear it ticking from 3 feet away with my right ear. If it's on my dresser and I'm sitting on my bed 3 feet away putting socks on to the right of it (facing it) I don't hear it. Sitting to the left of it (facing it) I can hear it from my bed as I put my socks on.

An interesting coincidence, a week ago I read this article about hearing, a few days ago I did not hear a mosquito and decided to buy earplugs. So in this article there is also about the noise from the car window

 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,351
Location
Dust in the Wind
My prep for today was shoulder stretches.

One day not that long ago I was watching my son's young dog and we were playing fetch in front of his garage. You know the drill, dog runs fast to retrieve toy, runs back with toy, repeat. Well this one time I tossed the toy and the dog runs, scoops up toy and keeps running in one motion. She had tried and tried but kept missing, would stop and run back to the toy. But this time, success. In a celebration she ran a lap around the garage. I was standing near the corner facing where she had been when suddenly I'm laying on the concrete driveway. She was running so fast that when she turned the corner it was too late to swirve right or left and she bowled me over like the corner pin that I was.

Eh, I couldn't fuss at the dog. I should have spun around to watch out for her. I did have enough wits about me to reach back with my right arm and cushion the impact enough to not end up with a head impact to the concrete. I fell hard enough that the 'milk bone' dog biscuits in my pocket to give her for dropping the toy were crushed. I had a pocket full of crumbs after that.

Now when she does her celebratory lap I move well away from the corner of the garage and give her plenty of room to move left or right as I stand looking in both directions in case she decides not to complete the celebratory lap and returns from the other direction.

Trouble is, months later it still hurts. Old bone spurs I suppose. The arm circles I do each day cause the shoulder to sound like a bowl of rice crispies after pouring milk is poured onto them. Range of motion is an issue. See, as a human if it hurts to do it we don't do it. That leads to a frozen joint syndrome.

So far the stretches are helping relieve the range of motion issue. At my job a lot of my day is spent behind a computer or arms holding a steering wheel. That has led to cramps in my scapula area at night. The stretches have helped with that too. No more cramped scapula(s). Meaning no more Mrs Fixer saying "you need to see a doctor".

Got shoulder pain issues?
These may help.
 

radellaf

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 10, 2002
Messages
1,087
Location
Raleigh, NC
Earplugs: Those silicone flanged ones are way nicer than the foam, _and_ you can get "musicians" ones that have a fairly uniform dB cut across the audio spectrum. Going to a concert, you can still hear the way the music should sound, just 20 or 30 dB quieter, so your ears aren't ringing after, but you still get to feel the bass thumping your chest.
Sigh. All the efforts in my 20s to preserve hearing, and then around 30, ISSHL more or less took out my right ear. Well, positive way to look at it is at least the other ear has as good sensitivity as possible for my age. "prep"/survival-wise, it does make me nervous not being able to locate sounds very well. If they're really loud, the other ear will pick up, which leads to the weird effect of passing cars (on the wrong side) "switching" sides of my head when they get close enough.

My electronics preparedness effort for April is to go through my large collection of power banks and run a discharge(self discharge check)/charge-discharge(capacity) test/80% charge (or maybe 100% then discharge 10-20% if I don't catch it). One old one started out fine, but after a cycle started swelling a bit. When opened, I didn't see any spicy-pillow look to the LiPo, but I discharged it down to millivolts through a 10 ohm resistor and recycled it. One 18650 based one was down to like 70%. Not bad, but I have enough no need to keep a worn out one, esp. since it's one of the old 5V 1A units. I'm thinking of giving away anything that tests good that doesn't have USB-C output, much less ones that can't deliver 5V 2A USB-A.

I also still have some flashlights with "original" 18650s... from back when CR123 was the standard and 18650s were the hot new thing. Two old ones tested fine for capacity (1800 and 2000mAh) and charge retention, but IR was up to 200-250mohms (yeah the MC3000 test isn't trustworthy, but it can tell 50 from 200). Not sure what to do with ones like that. Flashlight duty, on high, is clearly not so good, and just from age, I should probably get them out of the house.
 

Monocrom

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
19,839
Location
NYC
Cleaning out the trunk of my car that was fully loaded with about 12 years of stuff. Still an on-going process. Will take me a few more days to sort everything. What's going in the trash, what's going upstairs to my home, and what is going back in the trunk. So far, that last category is a compact, collapsible snow-shovel with a narrow head. Fantastic item I bought almost 20 years ago at a deluxe car-wash. Can't find it anywhere now.

In the end, it'll free up a massive amount of space in my trunk for more essential preparedness items.
 

Poppy

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
8,359
Location
Northern New Jersey
In preparation for the coming heat waves of July and August, my grandson and I installed reflective mylar "Emergency blankets" as film onto the bay window that faces West in our living room.
Without the mylar, even with the AC on, the temps in the living room creep up to 78F when there is full sun, and the temps reach 90F. However with the reflective blankets on, today at 88F, with a humidity that made if feel like 95F the temp in the living room didn't go beyond 72F.

A huge improvement.

As another prep, I took the mylerized bubble wrap sunshield out of my trunk, and put it in the back seat so that it can be deployed in the windshield when I park the car in the sun.

I don't think that it particularly keeps the heat inside the car lower (when left for hours), but it does keep the dashboard from getting egg cooking hot. That allows the AC to catch up a lot quicker.
 

idleprocess

Flashaholic
Joined
Feb 29, 2004
Messages
7,197
Location
decamped
As another prep, I took the mylerized bubble wrap sunshield out of my trunk, and put it in the back seat so that it can be deployed in the windshield when I park the car in the sun.

I don't think that it particularly keeps the heat inside the car lower (when left for hours), but it does keep the dashboard from getting egg cooking hot. That allows the AC to catch up a lot quicker.
I've simply never found that product genre to be satisfying. Perhaps it's my height - I'm tall enough that there are vehicles out there that I just can't fit into - that makes wrangling those things too inconvenient. Or perhaps its my acceptance of the futility of trying to ward of the gentle Texas prairie sun.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,351
Location
Dust in the Wind
With all of the rain my area keeps getting this summer I lowered the height of my mower 2 levels. I normally keep it raised up in summer since the weather is usually dry. I call it drought mode. A level that just trims the tops off grass and weeds but still keeps long blades.

My front yard used to have big trees. Those trees sucked up moisture and nutrients so my fine fescue rarely needed cutting. With full sun and after fertilizing year after year all that rain means grass looks like it needs cutting again the next day. It rained an hour after I cut grass today.

Last week I did the back yard short and it did not grow as fast as the taller blade grass out front.
 

Poppy

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
8,359
Location
Northern New Jersey
I've simply never found that product genre to be satisfying. Perhaps it's my height - I'm tall enough that there are vehicles out there that I just can't fit into - that makes wrangling those things too inconvenient. Or perhaps its my acceptance of the futility of trying to ward of the gentle Texas prairie sun.
They can be unwieldy. I cut mine to the shape of my windshield. It is trapezoidal in shape. When I don't want to bother with it, I'll lay a white towel on top of the dash. That also makes a significant difference.

I recall that when I visited a friend in Phoenix AZ that many drape a towel over their steering wheel. Otherwise if sitting in the sun it gets too hot to handle.
 

Monocrom

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
19,839
Location
NYC
Bought myself arguably the best set of budget FRS radios out there.
Retevis RT45P. Impressive range that easily keeps up with radios costing twice as much. But comes with other advantages too. How do I know they're that good?.... One of my subscribers on my YouTube channel posted a comparison review awhile back on his channel.

Oh, and you can have them in any color you want; just as long as it's Orange.
 

orbital

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Messages
4,256
Location
WI
+

Higher watt GMRS radios are cheap as chips now.
If you're going to manually program in NOAA frequencies, here's a listing of them.
ex: 162.500

 

Monocrom

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
19,839
Location
NYC
+

Higher watt GMRS radios are cheap as chips now.
If you're going to manually program in NOAA frequencies, here's a listing of them.
ex: 162.500

Thanks for the listing.

Also, my modern-day digital, compact, hand-held Geiger counter came in the mail earlier today. Ironically, I have no way of actually testing it. :)
 

aznsx

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
1,631
Location
Phoenix, AZ USA
Bought myself arguably the best set of budget FRS radios out there.
Retevis RT45P. Impressive range that easily keeps up with radios costing twice as much. But comes with other advantages too. How do I know they're that good?.... One of my subscribers on my YouTube channel posted a comparison review awhile back on his channel.

Oh, and you can have them in any color you want; just as long as it's Orange.
FRS is a very useful service in many applications. I have a pair I keep for when I'm hiking with a buddy, etc. EDIT: Mine are Motorolas, from back when Motorola was actually the real Motorola. Unlike GMRS, they also have virtually no restrictions, and no licensing of any kind. GMRS is also great if their higher max power makes up for the legalities which they come with (vs FRS). I think almost everyone should probably have a pair of FRS radios unless they live alone in total isolation / seclusion.

Have to say that regarding your Geiger gadget, if I lived where you do, I would think radiation would be among the very least of my concerns, but I don't pretend to know personally as I'm not in your environment. I live in the real WWW (wild, wild West), not the new WWW where you are. In its own way, it's FAR 'wilder' where you are than it ever was here:)
 
Last edited:

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,351
Location
Dust in the Wind
Thanks for the listing.

Also, my modern-day digital, compact, hand-held Geiger counter came in the mail earlier today. Ironically, I have no way of actually testing it. :)
Got anything glow in the dark? A microwave oven? Both put out some radiation.

When I was a skateboarder I may have been a test subject for it due to a lot of x-rays before catscans and MRI's.
 

aznsx

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
1,631
Location
Phoenix, AZ USA
Got anything glow in the dark? A microwave oven? Both put out some radiation.

When I was a skateboarder I may have been a test subject for it due to a lot of x-rays before catscans and MRI's.
Since my hip problem(s) / began at age 6, and after many orthopedic surgeries, I may have had more X-rays (for those and other issues) than anyone else I think of, aside from probably Travis Pastrana. I'm living proof that they can't kill you; although they may make one a little weird:)

I believe microwave ovens are designed to limit emissions to extremely low levels, but might be measurable with a good instrument.

As an aside regarding Radium dial watches: The factories where those were made in the very old days utilized employees which were almost entirely women. They routinely used their mouth / tongue to put / keep the finest tip on their very small brushes regularly while doing that job. I need not tell you what happened to all those poor women. My Grandmother knew of some of them, and thus the story. It became more widely known later I'm sure, but few are aware of that today, and it's rarely if ever discussed.

EDIT: Just to see what's on record, I pulled up this story about the 'Radium Girls', if you're instested:

 
Last edited:
Top