Author Archives: Commander Zero

Two structures I rather like

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Still looking for a piece of property that fits 85-90% (or better) of what I’m looking for. Actually found a piece that was hitting all the checkboxes…even has a developed year round spring on it. Sounds awesome, right? Problem is, there are nice neighboring properties that have documented access to use that spring as well. So, my choice is either buy it and have nine neighbors tromping through my property to use the spring, or buy nine neighboring pieces of property, remove the easements, and then sell those nine properties. That’s a bit of a stretch. So..still looking.

But I was thinking about what kind of structure I’d like to put in. I rather like a multistory tower-like structure. My first thought was something along the fire tower or blockhouse design. Here’s some examples:

I liked the idea of a relatively easily securable lower level and the ability to take advantage of the views offered by the presumably remote location. But as I was scrolling through, of all things, Pinterest to see ideas for small cabin-like dwellings I found another family of small, elevated, easily securable buildings – railroad switch/signal buildings:

They are, essentially, the same structure but without the overhanging deck. Again, though, we are back to a strong, easily secured first level while providing a non-bunker-like second level. Most of the ones I’ve been looking at are older, brick designs but they are all just a concrete rectangle with a stick-built structure on top. I would think that creating a windowless concrete rectangle out of ICF would be a great deal easier, in just about every way, than using brick.

Either way, I’m liking the idea of these two types of structures. Their common denominator is that they were built to satisfy the need of observation of the area around them. The fire tower for obvious reasons, and the signal/switch stations to see the rail traffic.

Im sure they have their own logistic or structural downsides, but at the moment I’m rather taken with both of these designs. I’m not saying that anything I’d build would be a copy of these…just the the ideas behind them would probably be a large influence on what I’m thinking of. Inspiration, if you will, for a design that may go in a different direction but still give me the features about these structures that I like.

 

CostCo flashlight

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I know it doesn’t seem like it, but not everything in my life has to be high-end (or high-mid-end) tactical. Sometimes a $29 MagLite is plenty for the anticipated task and doesn’t call for a $150 SureFire.

I mention this because I was at CostCo the other day and beheld this:

It’s a made-in-China flashlight from CostCo, but it had a couple features that made me want to examine it a bit closer. It has a focusing head, which is, I suppose, a nice feature to have. But more importantly it runs off of either a USB rechargeable battery or a battery pack of AA batts. In addition, the flashlight has a port to allow you to use it as a battery source to charge other USB devices. And, of course, its got some heft to it for those occasions that call for percussive remediation.

The USB charging (both in a and out) caught my attention because it seems like an interesting potential for a vehicle flashlight. I currently keep a D-cell LED MagLite in the console but I have to change out the batteries every year…just in case. This would be a light I could leave plugged into a USB plug-in in the cigarette lighter. The more astute among you will think “Won’t that drain the battery?”. I don’t think so. First, the draw is not that much, and I believe that once it’s charged it’s barely a trickle to maintain that charge. However, I’ll hook it up to one of the backup batteries in the house and see how long it takes to draw it down.

But I also like that I can use it to recharge my mobile devices as well. A handy feature in an emergency. Also a handy feature when you only have one cigarette lilghter outlet in your vehicle and it’s charging your phone, leaving your USB speaker uncharged. (Yeah, my vehicle is a fleet vehicle trade-in so no fancy options like Bluetooth, USB chargers, or even a CD player….so, when I travel, its a USB Bluetooth speaker and Spotify off my phone. And both need charging.)

As far as light throw, this thing isnt bad. It’s worth the $22 I paid for it, and seems a decent choice for a light to keep in the truckbox or wherever for those situations that don’t require the best and brightest. At $22 a throw theyre fairly disposable and would make decent stocking stuffers. One drawback is that if you attach a lanyard to the back of this thing it precludes being able to unscrew the cover to the USB charging ports. Que cera cera.

This thing has three modes all from one button – Off-high-med-low-off… in that order. Pretty basic. The head on this thing focuses to a room-filling flood and can be narrowed down for more focused lighting. It’s no replacement for a MagLite, IMHO, but the ‘deaul fuel’ nature of the thing, and the USB charging features, are some very nice points. Footprint is about the same as a MagLite although maybe a bit longer to accommodate the focusing head feature.

Anyway,. for twentytwo bucks, its a reasonable choice for a light for inside the gun safe, the kitchen junk drawer, or for scenarios where you don’t wanna risk an expensive high-end flashlight.

BOT Q&A

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This landed in comments and became a self-fulfilling prophecy:

Got a question that might turn into an easy post for you.

So you have the good ole ‘Bag ‘O Tricks’. It probably has some flavor of a 9mm sub gun, some expensive electronics, an a fat wad of 20’s. No need to confirm or deny these things. The point is that the cumulative value of this sort of bag is kinda pricey and it probably has a gun or two in it.

Does this spendy bag go with you every time you leave the house or just sometimes? When you go into places does it stay in the truck? Get secured somehow?

How do you balance risk of this pricy kit (not to mention potentially arming a criminal) with access for your personal use?

I ask because I am directly pondering these questions for my own life. Thanks in advance and happy Friday!

– Ryan

Here’s a fairly recent link to the Bag Of Tricks ™.

So, lets address the questions that Friend Of The Blog, Ryan, asked.

It probably has some flavor of a 9mm sub gun, some expensive electronics, an a fat wad of 20’s.

One of my older Glock 19’s is in there in a UM84 holster along with a couple spare mags. There’s a small AM/FM radio in there as well as my ICOM R6. Interestingly, I do not keep a large amont of cash in the bag, although I probably should. I usually just carry a couple hundred bucks on me at any give time just in case I get mugged, decide I want another P95, and reach a deal with the mugger.

Does this spendy bag go with you every time you leave the house or just sometimes?

Spendy is pretty relative. When I was a starving college kid in my twenties, everything was spendy. Nowadays…different story. The practical cash value of the bag and all it’s contents is probably  about a grand. That’s not an inconsequential amount, but its stuff that I’ve been carrying around for almost twenty years…so, basically, that bag and it’s contents have cost me one dollar a week since I bought it…and as time goes by, that average goes lower. I’d be pissed if I lost it or someone stole it, sure…but it’s monetary value, to me, isn’t enough to keep me from doing what I do with it.

It doesnt leave with me everytime I leave the house but it does go with me to work every day. And on out-of-town road trips. But for when I’m heading over to CostCo on the weekend or going to pick up my mail at the PO? Nope. Unless….there’s some ‘heightened concern’ going on. I usually leave it in the truck behind the seat and I’ve never worried about it there.

I ask because I am directly pondering these questions for my own life.

It’s subjective, man. Just like the stuff that you put and carry in your bag, your reasons and motivations will be unique to you. Only you can decide why you’re putting together such a bag and how you’ll use it…which will determine the value of what you put in there.

My BOT isn’t a ‘get home’ bag or anything like that. It’s simply stuff I want to have around when I’m away from my house and that will give me advantages in a crisis. It’s basically a giant nylon Swiss Army Knife with shoulder straps. Whats in it? Geeze, thats a list but here’s some of it: FAK, TQ, ICOM R6, AM/FM radio, knives, TacTool, Glock, mags, holster, flashlights, spare batteries, ration bar, water filter, handcuffs, zip ties, writing equipment, hand sanitizer, matches, lighter, water bottle, multitool, paracord, etc, etc. MacGyver could build an aircraft carrier with all the stuff I have in there.

What gets used the most? FAK and flashlights. Never used? TQ and Glock. Some stuff changes out as the seasons change…like my Winter Module which is gloves, hat, mitts, etc. But just because I haven’t had to use something yet doesn’t mean that its not worth taking along. I try not to go overboard on what I throw in there, but I do want things that will give me ‘an unfair advantage’ in a crisis.

So there you have it…it doesn’t go everywhere, but it does go to work with me everyday. Interestingly, I’ve almost never had anyone at work ask me about it. I think they just assume that its got a laptop and other junk in there.

Night weirdness

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So there I was, trying to drift off to sleep at 11pm last night. I was in that half-asleep-half-awake stage when I heard, as if in a dream, a sound that I thought was someone knocking at my door. Sometimes in that half-asleep stage I’ll get some auditory hallucinations…but these seemed rather real.

My first inclination was to ignore it, but then I figured I better go check it out. I pad in to the living room, buck naked, and glance at the security cameras. Sure enough, there’s some idiot standing on my porch.

Now, I learned a long time ago, and at great cost, that the best course of action when there is a stranger at your door, is to not open the door to ask what they want. Instead, I go up to the door and yell “What do you want?”

Back comes this meek and sorry voice saying “I just want talk to someone”. Are you freaking kidding me? This scraggly bearded hippie is either drunk, stoned, both, or otherwise not in their right mind.

So..definitely not opening the door.  “No. Go away.” (‘Go away’ sounds less confrontational than ‘get lost’. So I go with that.)

He turns around and wanders into the night.

So… Back to bed for me? Well, that was the plan. Except my neighbors on both sides are women who live alone. :::sigh::: Pull on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, slip on my shoes, grab the MP5A2 and step outside to make sure he’s not freaking out the neighbors. No sign of him. Ok, duty fulfilled…time to go back to sleep.

This isn’t the first time some sort of weirdness like this has occurred. I think the reason is that my computer room is at the front of the house and since I leave the computer and monitors on all night, it gives the impression that someone is awake in the house. Thus, someone wanting to interact with a human, for whatever reason, is going to go to the house where the lights are on. I may need to start turning off the monitors at night since it seems to be the flame that draws the whacko moths.

Before anyone asks, no, this isnt a particularly dangerous town. At least, it didnt used to be. The two biggest ‘threats’ in this town are drunk college kids and crazy homeless people. Neither one is particularly better than the other, and both are tremendously annoying but its still calmer than NYC or LA.

Mountain House math at CostCo

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“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Was up at CostCo and beheld this:

Five Day Meal Kit, eh? Hmmm. Lets run some numbers. First, lets grab the data off the back of the box:

So, this is supposed to be five days of food for …I’m guessing one person. Without evidence contrary to that, let’s run with it – five days for one person.

According to the box label, you’ve got a total of fifteen pouches in there. Makes sense, right? Three meals a day for five days is fifteen meals.

The next thing of interest is the caloric value of each meal. This is going to be a tad misleading. Lets take the first item listed on the box…Beef Lasagna. The box says 220 calories. Thats about 1/10th of your daily recommended calories (if you follow USDA guidelines of 2000/k per day). But keep reading…each container is two servings. So, each pouch of that Beef Lasagna is actually 440 calories, or about 1/5th of your daily calories. Slightly better.

So keeping an eye on those calories-per-serving and servings-per-container, you can see that if you add up the entire caloric value of this box you get…an average of 1488 calories per day. Thats about 75% of your daily 2000 calories. And thats 2000 calories for just sitting there doing nothing. Factor in chainsawing downed trees, hanging looters, hauling supplies, etc, etc, and you’ll see that 1488 calories is better than nothing but you better plan on adding a few notches to your belt.

Does that mean that a package like this has no value? Heck, no. I’l take 1488 calories of freezedrieds stored in a 5-gallon-bucket in the back of my truck over the 2500 calories of food that got destroyed/looted/washed away/burned in my house. Something is, usually, better than nothing.

Now, if you took this box, dumped out the pouches and sealed ’em up in a five gallon bucket with some pouches of tuna, packets of oatmeal, instant coffee packets, Gatorade pouches, and maybe a few small cans of Dinty Moore….well…you’re sitting pretty when the dinner bell rings in Heleneville.

The takeaway from this post isn’t that freeze-drieds arent the Perfect Solution. You should already know that. The takeaway here is that you need to read the labels and do the math. Don’t plop down $320 for four of these, stick ’em in a closet, and pat yourself on the back thinnking you, the wife, and kids are now ‘taken care of’.

Two thousand calories per day is a baseline. And there are a lot of people who think that number is of questionable value. Only you know what kinda caloric stockpile will work for you. Run the numbers. Being prepared is sometimes a pain in the butt, but do it anyway. We can all probably stand to miss a few meals and wind up being the better for it, but in a crisis there is very little that calms you down and gets your brain on an even keel more than a tasty hot meal at regular intervals.

So, yeah, pick up some of these at CostCo…at $6 per pouch its not a terrible value. But don’t think youre done once you throw that box in your cart.

9mm haul

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I get all sorts of emails across my monitor from various dealers and distributors having sales of this and that. Right now, it appears $0.235 is the new floor for major manufactured 9mm ammo. More than a few vendors are selling Rem or CCI 115 ball at this price. Some are including shipping. I pointed this out to a buddy of mine who then ordered up 30 cases (30,000 rounds) for his shop.

Now, ‘for his shop’ is misleading because when his friends and other hangers-on found out about it, it became “hey can I get a case or two at that price?”. As a result, out of that 30 cases, 22 of them are going to friends and associates…only eight will actually go on the shelves.

I, being nobody’s fool, took three.

The preponomicon has a couple of line items for 9mm ammo…regular and subsonic. My goal was pretty simple…keep five thousand rounds of each on hand. Keeping true to my nature, I’ve gone a little past that. But…extremism in the form of ammo storage is no vice, and moderation in the accumulation of ammo is no virtue.

You may notice this is the first time I’ve thrown a quantifiable number out there in regard to how much ammo I think I need to keep on hand. Your mileage may vary, of course. But I don’t think the end of the world, as I anticipate it, will be one long running gun battle. I’ve got more years behind me than ahead of me at this point, and the number of rounds I’ve needed to expend, rifle and pistol, to keep myself safe can be counted on one hand. Of course, I just got through posting about we have those unforeseen disasters that come out of left field that no one ever considers but even then, it’s hard for me to find one that requires me to expend that much ammo.

Practice? Thats a different story. I reload, and I have ammo set aside for practice. But for ‘in case of emergency break glass’ ammo, I’m fine figuring 5,000 rounds, not all in one basket, should get me and the people I care about through most situations.

While I’m on the subject, when it comes time to lay back ammo for Der Tag, I always go with big-name-brand manufacturers and, if possible, keep it in the original packaging. Why? Two reasons – first, I trust Remington, Winchester, Federal, and the other big guys more than I trust Steve’s Discount Reloading or Glorious Turkmenistan Factory No. 8 when it comes to quality control. Second, on the off chance I need to resell or otherwise market that ammo, the original packaging throws more confidence into the deal for the buyer that he’s getting good ammo and not something from..well….Steve’s Discount Reloading or Glorious Turkmenistan Factory No. 8. (And, please, let’s not start that whole ‘ammo you sell/trade can come back and be used against you’ discussion. Every single thing you trade or sell can come back to be used against you…trading food feeds people who might harm you, trading medical supplies heals people who might harm you, trading fuel helps people who might harm you, etc, etc, etc.)

To the best of my knowledge, the most ammo used by one citizen in armed self-defense in a single encounter was 105 rounds by legend Harry Beckwith…a statistical outlier so far on the edge of the bell curve that you need a map and compass to find him. Even in Katrinaville (or is it Heleneville now?) I am highly doubtful anyone has had to dump more than a magazines worth of freedom seeds at anyone.

But…you do you. For me, five thousand is the ‘magic number’ for my 9mm needs, but thats a minimum…there is no maximum.

Winter approaches

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Winter is definitely approaching. The evenings and mornings are cold, and the days, even the sunny ones, are getting cooler. Which always reminds me of this:

It is getting nigh upon time to break out the Filson.

In addition to getting the wool outta storage, it’s also time to make sure all the Plan B gear is ready to roll… alternate heat sources, generator ready, fuel laid in, etc, etc. We seldom get power failures here in town that last more than a couple hours, but there’s always the chance that a Black Swan Swan Of Color event will come along and throw a curve ball that no one expected. ( / North Carolina has entered the chat ).

Every region has it’s own particular set of threat potential. Prepping for a hurricane in Iowa makes about as much sense as prepping for wildfire in Manhattan or a 7.0 earthquake in Nebraska. Statistically, the odds are close to zero. (But…never actually zero.)

But even then, stuff comes out of nowhere that virtually no one foresaw. No one in Manhattan thought they’d ever have to walk off the island because things were shut down on 9/11. I’m sure the folks in Hawaii never thought there’d be a wildfire that turned parts of Maui into a moonscape. And there’s equally as unprecedented and unexpected stuff still out there. We prepare against the likely but sometimes life throws a curve ball that no one could have reasonably expected.

All of these things do have common denominators, though…various forms of infrastructure failure, transport and mobility problems, supply disruptions, etc. Maybe you can’t prepare for every event, but you can prepare for the consequences that they all have in common.

It’s easy to get complacent when it comes to preparedness. You get comfy…cocky even. And then something happens that shocks you back to the mindset that “maybe I’m not as ready as I think’. I suspect this last batch of hurricanes is doing that for a lot of people.

As I said, winter is coming here in Montana and while I’ve always thought Im more than ready for some blizzard-induced winter drama, I’m starting to think that I need to change my thinking a bit and be open to some of the more unlikely-but-not-impossible scenarios that may arise.

So..back to list-making and inventory-taking.

Cat carrying

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I recall that I once said Hurricane Katrina would be the benchmark for future disaster responses until something bigger came along. Is this episode in the southeast that event? I dunno. But while it’s not the same song as Katrina, it certainly rhymes in places.

One thing I’m noticing is that the level of animosity, distrust, and downright antagonism for the federal response is orders of magnitude higher than it was in Katrina. Check out this headline: Armed Militia ‘Hunting FEMA’ Causes Hurricane Responders to Evacuate—Report.

I’m putting this down as a ‘friend of mine heard the story from a guy who had a friend who told him….’ To paraphrase a famous quote, ““the first casualty of disaster is the truth”. Armed militias hunting down FEMA? Thats the sort of thing you see in a self-published ‘post apocalyptic fiction’ series on Amazon. In real life? Mmmm….maybe? I’m skeptical.

But there is no disputing that there is a lot more political anger going on in this crisis than in Katrina. I was going to say ‘If you need a reason to be prepared, avoiding having to deal with .gov types and FEMA is a good one’ but that’s not really true. Your reason to be prepared is wanting to be able to take care of and protect yourself and the people you care about. That’s it. You don’t need another reason. That’s the One True Reason.

Mark Twain said that  “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” Katrina was a learning opportunity…some took it to heart, some did not. The .gov, it appears, on a federal and local level, has some cat-carrying going on at the moment.

I’m thousands of miles away from this particular tragedy. Many of you are, too. I’m paying attention, filtering the noise from the signal, and observing what works, what doesn’t, and incorporating those lessons into my own activities. Maybe I’ll never see a hurricane in Montana, but infrastructure failure, floods, blackouts, fuel issues, looting, water shortages, traffic chaos, etc, are not unique to hurricanes…they can happen anywhere. So..it pays to learn from other peoples experiences. I’ve no desire to carry a cat by the tail when I can learn the same lesson from someone else who already got clawed.

 

Blogs from the wet country

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Learning from other people’s experiences is the cheat code to being squared away. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when Grogg and Thol did it for you a few thousand years ago. As a result, any time there is a disaster or other time-to-use-your-preps event, I always read the blogs of people who were there and ‘saw the elephant’, as it were. Why should I learn stuff the hard way when someone else already paid for the course?

Was flipping around the internet and found this worthy read – Big Country Expat

These After Action Reports (AAR) are almost always worth reading. Did they do things right? Learn from it. Did they completely drop the ball? Learn from it. You learn from other peoples failures just as much as you learn from their successes.

Another AAR: https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/10/detailed-after-action-report-from-north.html

One of the common threads in these and other blog posts I’ve seen lately has been the undeniable certainty that once the ATM’s and electronic payment systems are disrupted, cash becomes the only form of payment. The lesson learned: keep a big wad of cash in your safe and don’t touch it.

I know you guys have been following other blogs that are reporting back on the situation out there in hurricane country. Share some linkage and let’s learn from other people’s experiences so we can save ourselves the pain.