Faceborg Sucks, Meme so good it is apparently illegal...

 They also suspended my advertising account.  

Likely my page will get demoted again too.  It was demoted a month ago from the other account for a 'community standards' violation whatever the hell that is.  

Sri Lanka QR code fuel rationing

Interesting (in a morbid fashion) that the cell phone service is up, despite no electric service?  All of a sudden they have a advanced QR code cell phone based fuel rationing app developed and deployed in only a few weeks?  In a country without electricity?

OK now that last one is a stretch.  It is obvious this was planned and war gamed before hand.  Solution for a crackdown already in the hand of the beast system.  

You can not ration something that does not exist.  Namely fuel bought from outside countries with money that does not spend.  Also food issue; How do farmers bring food to market or plow fields without fuel?  They can not.  Rationing and Price controls are a sure marker that the situation will get even worse, as this only makes things worse every time it was tried in the past.

Meanwhile in Commiefornia:  The now former owner operators who have been put out of business at the stroke of a pen (as if the gov has any legit moral authority to do this and why are the truckers even following the dictaes?)  Are protesting, and now due to tens of thousands of trucks pulled off the roads and out of CA ports, the same ones whom the gov put out of business are being blamed for the new shortages.

The commie cries out in pain as he kills your family.

Meanwhile at the shop, the squatter in front of my shop is increasingly careless with gasoline.  The air here stinks of spilled gas even in my office 50 feet away.  The guy is a smoker, so there is a big fire risk.  You can not reason with ignorant.  I need to seriously start looking for a new shop space, despite a lack of funds it is becoming a serious issue where I need to move.

Boat travel in the Philippines

 this is the boat that was full of roaches and filthy.  18 hours.  No AC open deck.  Lite Ferry number 15.

It was roughly 20 bucks to go from Cebu city to Mindanao.  

This is the boat out of Manila to Cebu first leg, but it was destined to another city in Mindanao which we was not heading to, so we took the Lite Ferry instead.  45 bucks per person or so 'business flass, which was a private cabin for 4, with a sink.  AC did not work well.  First class meal was very basic.  Rice, some braised beef, as a example, or some corned beef, rice and egg for breakfast.  No coffee, no drinks, no desserts.  Unlike a few years ago when it was a loit better service and half the price.

We took this boat a second time, Cebu back south to Mindanao, then up to Manila.    The room upgrade was a lot more so we toughed it out in turdist class.  Turdist class gave us the treat of a obese woman sleeping topless in her bunk most of the trip with a screaming infant suckling her teat.  

Also there were only 2 working mens heads for the boat, and none had working flusher.  Bucket flush.    Cheap seat meal was cat food and rice... err canned fish...

Lite ferry number 1 on the other hand was acceptable.  fresh paint, cleaned.  12 bucks for a 5 hour trip.  I was flabberghasted the number of people who chose no AC to save $1.20usd on the trip.  We shared the nearly vacant tourist class with 2 family groups.  There was maybe 60 empty bunks in that class. 

I saw the one of the families reclaim their two SUV that they were taking to Cebu.  Toyota 4x4 with the lift kit, knoby tires, snorkle kit, bull bars etc.  Not the over the top USA style, rather the utilitarian narrow knobby tires for serious off roading.  Big money there.  Not everyone here is poor.

Boat travel is much cheaper than airfare, and sometimes more convienent depending on your schedule.  Normally 24 hours down to Cebu so you leave on a Sunday morning and show up bright and early 6am Monday morning downtown, not way off in the ass end of town needing a taxi that costs as much as the boat.  

Coron is even better because it is a overnight trip.  Board in the evening, have (well used to anyways) some cocktails at the bar on the deck, get a good night sleep and morning you are right in the middle of the toruist area.  Ironically the boat cost the same as the taxi from the Coron airport to Coron town.  

My reccommendation when doing the boat is to bring your own food.  Hit up a supermarket, get some canned stuff, or a bucket of KFC etc for your trip.  We did that the last leg because we just could not take another cat food meal.

 

Fire is spreading

 Panama, you all have heard about,  next up on the board is Bangladesh.  Never a good place in the best of times, Bangladesh is now cutting fuel imports, no money. Same as Sri Lanka just earlier in the timeline.

Michael Yon talked about keeping a eye on the overall picture not the individual sparks.

So I will not obsess over those places.

Meanwhile locally in the tropics.  Fuel has gone down to 66 per liter and the exchange rate is going to shit.  Climbing back to 55 to the dollar region.  Central bank here is the same BS as the USA Fed Reserve.  Head of the bank not even a gov official, not a gov agency.

Not seeing a lot of instability socially.  Faceborg seems to be tamping down on all the local news on that front.  People complaining about prices but not in the way they should be.  

I had a meeting the other day and the topic was this 2030 reset stuff.  Second time in as many days.  Nothing good to come for sure.  

Far behind on plastic lumber production.  I managed to buy recycled plastic pellets to feed the machine.  At the price though it is barely under the production cost for the remaining part of the order.  The new batch is blow mold grade not injection grade. Which means it is thicker than the other stuff, plus it feeds faster in the extrusion machine, so the machine struggles a bit to run.  This morning I got another 400 kilos of plastic arriving, PP type.  This plastic is thinner when melted so I can fill the next order which is a smaller mold size.  I will have to re-grind it down smaller, but it is cheaper than buying and grinding scrap, and then dealing with washing and drying.  Actually the same price as buying dirty scrap. 

I did see some interesting plastic boards made from plastic scrap the other day at a tour of another shop.  They do things much bigger scale and are much much better funded than I am.  Giant 50 and 75hp electric motors in the factory.    They make this board out of foil sachets, bonded together with added LDPE plastic.  It looks like granite tile.  16 bucks for a 4x4 foot sheet 3/4 inch thick is the sale price.  Raw sachet plastic locally is 5 peso per kilo.  The shop has not been able to extrude the plastic like I have, only heat press.  

My new injection molder machines are in the process of getting built.  3 big pneumatic cylinders are somewhere in customs at the moment.  

It is appearing at this time, machine sales are kinda dead, and moving forward I will have to focus more on production of goods made from plastic.  At least until that dies too with the current economic situation.  

Vertical garden needs a lot of attention now.  Gotta re-plant, this coming weekend.  At least the back yard malabar spinach is growing wildly.  That stuff gets zero attention and love, I just pick it, and if I do not eat it fast enough, it will overtake the entire yard.  It has a bit of a odd aftertaste though, but that can be solved with longer cooking time and acidic foods like tomato.  I made a pasta sauce with malabar spinach, basil, garlic, and home canned tomato the other night, then cooked the pasta directly in the sauce.  The pasta cooked this way absorbs the tomato flavor more.

Still dealing with the bug infestation in the house.  Took a hammer to the situation by mopping with cypermethrin.  The cats are free from fleas also.  This looks like a long hard battle for the next few weeks.

Back in the USA, I heard to anecdotal things that are concerning.  One was in Los Angeles people are selling everything they can. Guy I know was looking for a trailer.  Found a boat, so he was thinking of modding the trailer it was on.  Since it was already licensed.  16 foot sailboat, nearly new was 50 bucks with trailer.  People selling possessions in haste was something in Weimar Republic early days too.  Then they sell their tools, and have nothing to earn with.  

My son bought a 2015 Nissan Altima for 1300 bucks.  That is easily a 13k USD car, and here probably close to 18k for that luxury model.  Not a cheap car.  

Toyota locally started advertising a 15k USD crossover SUV over here recently.  American cars do not keep the value like the Toyotas, mainly cause of parts issues.  Just not the same amount of parts available.  This is also why I drive a Ford, cause for the money used it is way cheaper than a Toyota to buy.  I just have to scrounge parts more.  

Panama and garden

Saw the Panama thing.  Subscribed to Michael Yons locals account.  Not good.  2 months between fine situation and shitstorm.

Not a lot of time to update the blog.  Busier than a rooster with two peckers in a henhouse.

Plastic lumber orders strong.  Production slow.

Bought plastic pellets to fill orders.  No time to shred due to worker screwups. 

Fiber internet is out when came home, the stepson in charge of reminding me of the bill, did not.

Bug situation in house bad.  I resorted to filling the mop bucket with water and sevin pesticide and mopping the entire house in damn pesticide.   It's only thing that does no affect the cats.  

If this doesn't work, I will kick out the cats, and mop the house with permethrin. 

24 hours no bugs seen, but still...

Pic of the back yard garden.   Sweet potato crop.

This is the sawdust mulch.  90% decomposed now.

Maybe the sawdust is roach food?

Vertical garden gone to shit.  Only chili, celery, basil and carrots remain.

Need to plant, except will be running 2 shift this week.  Yup that much plastic boards to make 

 

Back from boat trip to Mindanao

Left the house Friday morning with the crew and went to Manila port.  Boat was delayed departure.   5 hours  .

Boat service was not like before.   Much reduced passenger count, less amenities,  and every single flush toilet was broken    necessitate to use a bucket to flush.  Food was much lower quality than the past   I paid for first class meals but the food was not much better than cheap seats   

We barely made it in to Cebu to catch the connecting Boat to Mindanao.   We literally had to run to the outside of pier 6 and grab a taxi to pier 1.  Boarding with 10 min to spare.  No air-conditioning bunk available.   Lite ferry Boat was crawling with roaches.  18 hours on board   No meals served,  Only some junk food available to buy at 3x markup.

We got to jobsite fully expecting to be crawling in the roof checking the wire connector because the client reported the system I installed last year was not working. 

Instead we found a much worse situation.   The inverters were not protected from the weather and the cases were rusted.  The boxes were full of cement dust.

Got 2 units running, but then one unit blew the relay inside when we connected the grid tie.

2 batteries killed because low voltage. 

Clients wife chewed my ass. Alternatively saying that she doesn't know anything,  they don't understand what they was told, and next breath saying we did not tell her the equipment should not get wet.

The client wife was in charge of meals as there was no place near to eat.  She went out of her way to serve the shittiest rice and food she could get. Flies on everything. The room at the resort we stayed in had the bathroom ceiling fall in due to rot and there was a nest of honeybees in the wall. That woman also mistreated my worker on the first install with passive aggressive bullshit. 

The client himself treated us well, and his American daughters were very kind. 

Unsure the family dynamics there. Nothing I want to get in the middle of. 

I got what I could done, and we reassessed the system.   The power needed in 2019 when we designed the setup was totally inadequate for the current usage even if all 4 inverter were in operation.

We fled the resort thursday morning, grabbing a bus to the port a hour away. No breakfast and arriving at the port, not a single decent eatery.  We found one place but after sitting down I saw a girl digging in her ass, 2 knuckles deep, then serving food.

We left asap. The ticketing agent told us boarding starts at noon, but in fact the boat leaves at noon.  Made it on board with 5 min to spare 

Same boat company as the roach Boat.  With aircon.  That boat was freshly rebuilt.  I was amazed at the large numbers of people who took the non aircon bunk to save a mere dollar on the fare.  It was a 5 hour hot humid transit. That boat was at least clean.

We then got a bus to Cebu city.  The road was seriously deteriorated since my last time on that road 5 years ago.   Driver was very reckless.  Bruised my tailbone.  It was THAT rough of a ride. 

Cebu city showed no lasting damage from the super typhoon a few months ago.  Hotel rates lower than 5 years ago.  75 bucks for two rooms.  Very very nice rooms.

Had some business to tend to in Cebu City but because of shitty cell connection we was not able to book the Fri night boat to Manila. 23 hour trip.  Booked next boat which ended up being same boat we came in on.  That route However took us all the way  back SOUTH to where we just left with a port visit in Ozamiz,  then up to Manila. 48+ hour trip. Port delays on top of that.

No room upgrade available last leg.  Cheap ticket food is pretty bad.  We stocked up at the supermarket in Cebu city before boarding because we already knew the score.  We had lots of looks of envy in the dining room by those not prepared.  

We lose half a day of work today Monday.  So the crew will get paid out salary, and come in Tuesday.   

I brought the sexytary and the right hand man along.  Sexytary handled all the booking, and misc tasks.  She also can do electrical work.

Sexytary got treated to a couple of nice dinners as bonus.  In Mindanao we found a restaurant a 10 min ride away from the jobsite.  25 bucks got us porkchops in pesto sauce, rice, fixings, chocolate cake and 3 cocktail.

After Friday's meeting we closed another sale, so we celebrated at a restaurant that serves roast suckling pig.  Best Filipino food I ever had.  Everything was delicious,  and every waitress was at least a 9 out of 10 on the babe scale .  22 bucks for 2.

Right hand man 28 years old has apparently a bit of a drinking issue   Gave him a thousand pesos per diem in Cebu for day and half. He spent it mostly on booze at 711.  Said no money a day later.  We had a hypermarket 2 block in front of the hotel. Which he did not avail. Very very nice supermarket too. 

I have to go shopping asap at home as the wife who came over to tend to the zoo has reported my bedroom with bugs again.   I am gonna throw the mattress, pillows and bed.  Despite the constant mopping with bleach and or Pinesol the bugs are persistent. 

I got the industrial strength bottle of permethrin delivered while I was out, so the house will get treatment and cats banished to the back yard.

I.keep the house damn near spotless, so the bugs are mysterious as to why the infestations.  Chalk it up to tropical climate.  If its not ants, it is something else. 

Meanwhile orders for stuff keep coming in after that long dry spell.  I will need to add 2-4 additional people, and build 3 additional injection molding machines if not more.  

Plastic lumber orders coming in, need to mod the die for continuous extrusion. If  this keeps up I will need to move the shop to a bigger place.

I also assume the vertical garden will need tending to. 11 days away and all.

Anyways just here on the boat, drinking coffee watching the sun rise.

Oh another interesting thing here.  Cell service and data on the water is damn near everywhere.  Middle of the Sulu sea I had 4g data.  No repeater on the boat.  Downside is battery goes fast cause the phone needs to go max power.