Category Archives: Uncategorized

Signs of the times

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Someone I know was recently doing a bunch of canning and needed some supplies. No problem, sez I, I’m running some errands today. Let’s go hit the stores.

So, we did. And noticed some interesting things. First, the local hardware store had a whole aisle of canning jars. There we’re Anchor Hocking, Ball, Kerr, and some made-in-China brand. The Ball were gone, the Kerr was getting picked over hard, and virtually no one touched the Chinese jars. Interesting.

Second thing: no lids. None. So we hit another venue. Again, jar’s hit hard but still on the shelf. No lids. Now I’m curious. Later in the day I hit a few other venues. Same story. No lids.

The natives, it seems, are restless. Or it’s that nebulous ‘logistics issue’ that seems to be the catch-all for when we see an empty shelf these days.

The local restaurant supply store, I thought, carried some canning supplies and when I went there I noticed the rice aisle was hit fairly hard too.

I guess the big question is are these empty shelves the result of panic buying or the result of simple resupply issues? :::shrug::: May not matter since the result is the same either way.

Cynic I am, I’m going with “harbinger”.

Water cans

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So right around Paratus, these arrived in the mail:

I’m not an expert on fire extinguishers, but I know that, once in a while, the solution to something burning is to simply douche it with a lot of water. Yeah, yeah, it’s a different story for electric, chemical, and oil fires, but for the candle-left-too-close-to-drapes sort of conflagration some H20 is just fine.

What I did not know is that these types of fire extinguishers have a bit of DIY features in that they are reusable and rechargeable by any idiot with an air compressor. And, as it turns out, this idiot has an air compressor.

All these things are are giant pressurized super (duper) soakers. You unscrew the top, fill with liquid of your choice (more on that later), seal it up, and hook up a pump to the valve and pressurize. Easy peasy.

What this means is that you can re-use these things and refill/recharge them yourself. So, if like me you have a curious mind, you can play with one and see what kind of range and output you can expect and then just refill/reharge it to it’s ready state.

Now, of course you are supposed to fill this thing with water. (Or, as I read somewhere, water and a tiny bit of dish soap to increase the ‘wetness’ of the water). But…what if you’ve a more creative bent? Can I fill this thing with kerosene and use it to quickly prep a place for immolation? Or as an impromptu flamethrower? Can I fill it with water and food coloring and write hurriedly nasty messages in the snow on City Hall’s lawn? Can I fill it with urine and quickly run the hose into the vent of the car of someone I don’t like and make a statement? There is…potential.

In actuality though, these will get filled and charged, and then relegated to strategic locations around the house ‘just in case’. What makes them postworthy is that, naive fool I am, I had no idea they were rechargeable by the user. For a surivivalist who may need to use one of these someday its a handy thing to be able to reuse it by just filling it with tap water and charging it with a bicycle pump.

So, there you have it…the ultimate water gun.

ETA: Very useful link from the comments

Paratus AAR

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A few people sent Paratus offerings…some sent a few bucks cash, bullets, cleaning gear, Patreon subscriptions, or just words of greeting. And I am grateful to all who thought of me. And, some folks blogged their Paratus experience.

Remember guys…its your holiday. It’s what you make it. Take it as seriously or unseriously as you like. But, if youre smart, and you follow current events, you’ll take it seriously. 😉

I hope you guys all had a good Paratus and that we all make it through to the next one without having to use our AKs.

Catching up

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I don’t know how it happened, but it seems like my life got busier all of a sudden. I suppose thats the way it happens..we stop, look around, and realize we haven’t done anything of our own choosing for almost a week. So, what do I need to do?

Well, I’ve got, literally, a stack of AR’s sitting in the living room that need to go into storage. And I need to find time to finish loading up all that .357 brass I picked up. And I need to check the preponomicon and make sure I’m ‘in the green’ on things. Part of me feels no urgency because the decline and descent into ugly times is seemingly invisible… the buses still run, the lights are on, jobs are to be had, and there’s food in the fridge. Why worry? But when you look at the details, you see cracks in the facade…the mail is hitting new levels of dysfunction, inflation is creeping along, political shenanigans are still the order of the day, supply chain disruptions are making prices and availability sketchy, people are just seemingly getting meaner… theres a rather fatalistic undertone to everything these days.

But…I’ve been saying that for years and…the lights are still on, the taps still flow, the freezer is still full, and I didn’t have to use my AK today. But I’d rather be safe than sorry. And, honestly, I get a sense of satisfaction out of being prepared.

So, as I said, I’ve been letting things pile up as of late and I really need to jump on them and get them taken care of. Most notably going over my checklist and making sure I’m where I want to be on gear and supplies.

When things seem to be ‘going well’ it’s difficult to maintain the focus to get your prep on. After all, no one really gives a thought to umbrellas when the sun is shining…but once it starts raining you wish you’d done things differently. So…if you’ve gotten a little busy, or a little complacent, consider this a reminder to re-focus and Get It Done…. ’cause sitting in a dark house on a winter night is no fun for anyone.

 

News – Idaho hunter finds remains of man missing for 53 years

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A bow hunter looking for a shortcut on Sept. 17 stumbled upon the remains of a man missing for 53 years.

Raymond Jones, a 39-year-old from Salmon, had been missing since 1968. He was bow hunting for mountain goats in the east fork of Hayden Creek in Lemhi County when he was last seen on Sept. 7, 1968.

A lot of people don’t understand just how big and, in many places, remote it can be out here. There are more than a few planes that took off and never were seen again, cars that left the garage and disappeared, and whole lot of people that walked into the woods and no one ever saw again.

But…it’s the fact that things like that can happen out here that is part of the attraction. Sometimes, you want to disappear.

Backordered no more

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So about this time last year I had set up the big Dillon 1050 to run off some .357 Magnum using my favorite load. And I discovered…much to my amazement…that I did not have nearly as much .357 Mag brass on hand as I thought. And it was a hell of a time to try and order more. But, I did. And was told it was backordered. And backordered. And backordered.

Until today:

Thats 4,500 pieces of brand new .357 Mag brass. The Dillon will be getting quite the workout this weekend. And when I’m done, I package it in these from repackbox.com. They store neatly, uniformly, and take up a bit less space than the usual plastic box.

My goal is to have about half of these loaded by Sunday. And to take my Marlin .357 out for a spin and do a little shooting.

!!! Paratus 2021 !!!

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Happy Paratus, my peeps!

Yes, once again it is that time of year. The backpacks are left by door with care, in hopes the Long Range Recon Gift Squad will soon be there. The water is on the stove for the freeze dried dinner, a Walking Dead marathon is teed up on the bigscreen, and we’re all wearing our favorite combat boots. It’s a Norman Reedus Rockwell Paratus! ( Made even more poignant by virtue of The Current Situation.)

(Everything you want to know about Paratus is at the world-famous Paratus FAQ)

As has become my habit, gifts and cards were sent to a small group of people…mostly people I know IRL, or over years of email/blogging…. however, if you’ve sent me something by snail mail and used your real return address, or you signed up for Patreon and gave me some contact info, you probably got a card this year.

What was this years card?

Paratus 2021

Cover

Inside

Back

If you didn’t get a card this year, it’s pretty easy to get on the hit list…. donate something to the blog through Patreon or snail mail and leave me your mailing address. Or, be someone I associate with in real life who I can actually tolerate. Or send me a card as well.

I hope you all have a happy and renumerative Paratus. Did you get cool gear this year? Did you do something special with your fellow survivalists? Did you get chased out of Cabela’s for raising a fuss when they didn’t offer a Paratus discount? Let’s hear about it in comments.

The winter of our discontent

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Paratus is this coming Friday. I’ll be putting cards out Monday since it seems the postal service, ever since the election, has somehow managed to actually become even less efficient. If you want to get on the Paratus card list, all you have to do is either become someone I interact with on a fairly regular basis or be someone who kicks in a few bucks once in a while AND provides a mailing address. Anyone who signs up for Patreon gets a card if you provide an address. (Also, sending yours truly a Paratus gift is an excellent way to get  one back as well.)

Summer is slowly giving way to fall, which means winter is just around the corner. While heating a house in winter is never a cheap affair, I’m wondering if it will  be worse this year. Why would it be, you may ask? Well, first off we have that bugaboo of inflation going on. But, additionally, we have ‘supply chain disruption’ which means when your 30-year-old furnace craps the bed, or your brand new 101% efficiency furnace blows a circuitboard, finding (and getting) that replacement part may be…tricky. And, if you do get that part, finding an outfit that has enough staffing to get around to repairing your furnace in a timely manner may be an issue as well. And, of course, the fuel delivery system (gas, oil, electric) may take a hit in the reliability department as well for similar reasons.

As always, it’s a good idea to have some backup systems in place. For me it’s a couple kerosene heaters and a whole mess of five-gallon-drums of kerosene. Enough to keep the house above freezing for a good while. I’m not necessarily tryying to keep my house at 72 degrees on a winters night…I just want to keep my pipes from freezing. (and, yes, worst case scenario I could drain the pipes as well to reduce the risk and then only have to heat one room as a ‘lifeboat’.)

These current shortages, logistics issues, occasional hacking-related shutdowns, and Wuhan Flu restrictions are going to make winter interesting. Especially since staying indoors with lots of people is sort of the opposite of what you want to do during a pandemic.Will ‘the numbers go up’ as people spend more time indoors around other people over the winter and holidays? Will the regular flu get mixed up with Wuhan Flu and send panicked people to the emergency rooms as their temperatures rise? Will whoever is actually running the country impose even greater restrictions ‘for the greater good’? We’re gonna find out.

This should be an interesting winter.

Article -A deputy mayor in New York faces charges after federal authorities found him with dozens of unregistered guns and bogus FBI badges

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Remember, kids..some animals are more equal than others:

A deputy mayor of a city in New York state faces federal charges after authorities discovered unregistered firearms and bogus badges for federal agencies, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

Last week, Brian Downey, a Republican who serves as deputy mayor of Airmont, New York, was taken into custody for “purchasing a rifle suppression device over the internet,” according to a statement from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities later executed a search warrant on his home and found at least 13 illegal suppressors and 16 unregistered assault weapons, including a short-barrel rifle and sawed-off shotgun.

First, you have to admit, the guy has some good taste in thundertoys. Secondly, as far as I can tell in the documents, the ‘short barreled rifle’ is an arm-braced PSA AR. Im betting the supressors are dummies, but the sawed down side by side looks legit. Regardless, this guy is out a metric buttload of money in addition to all the other problems he’s about to encounter. As for the badges..well… play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I bet if you canvas the local Gyno-Americans they’ll tell about some fed in an unmarked car pulling them over for various reasons that usually are defused by them agreeing to go on a date with him.

But…it’s NY. where guns like that are supposed to be verboten for the regular volks.But, there’s always that cog in the .gov machine who thinks maybe he has just a little extra juice and the rules don’t apply to him as much as the other guy.

Moral of the story: ordering questionably legal gun accessories off the interweb under your real name is a bad idea.