Category Archives: Uncategorized

Its quiet…too quiet

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It seems a little quiet these days. I mean, summer is always kinda quiet, right? When you think of summer you normally think of sunny skies, bees flying, grass waving in the breeze, etc, etc. A sort of quiet, bucolic calm.

And, of course, that’s exactly the calm-before-the-storm. In the summer, it can literally be the calm before the storm.

No, I mean that from a survivalist standpoint it’s been a little quiet. The Kung Flu has become ‘old news’ or ‘something we can live with’. The BLM and Antifa insurgents have dropped to below-the-fold news. The economy is still, mysteriously, not getting the kind of mainstream attention I think it deserves. And, naturally, this makes me feel like I’m waiting for a shoe to drop, y’know?

Fortunately, I’ve pretty much nailed most of the immediate needs. In fact, really, the only major prep that needs to be addressed is getting a chunk of land out in Nowhereville…and I’m working really hard at getting that lined up financially. My goal is to have enough in the bank by the end of 2022 to do some serious cash-in-hand shopping for a chunk of dirt.

In the meantime, I’m keeping an eye on what pops up on the news, what happens locally, and, interestingly, I spend a lot of time watching the financial news. But I guess that isn’t a surprise since I’ve gotten most of the materiel and material needs met all thats left is the moneystuff. Right now, I’m buying stocks and mutual funds before 12/31/21 so I can sit on them for a year and unload them at the end of 2022 without getting the short-term cap gains tax hit.

I swear, if I had come to the financial mindset I currently have ten years ago I would be in a very different place.

Price changes

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A couple months ago, just to be safe, I ordered some complete AR lowers from Palmetto. Price? $250 ea. Just ordered some factory blems, with Magpul stock/grips, for….$150 ea.

Things are changing, guys.

‘Tis Independence Day

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To me, Independence Day is mandatory go-practice-with-guns day. Also a good day to bone up on your history and political theory. I think that Independence Day is the second most political holiday after Election Day (which, I suppose, isn’t actually a holiday.)

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; if you don’t take it out and use it, it’s going to rust.

Availability

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Much to my surprise, I’m starting to see availability of guns and ammo pick up, although the prices are still in Ludicrous Mode. Most notaly, one of my vendors had my favorite AR, the Ruger MPR, in stock. Madness!

But, it’s not all sunshine and stun grenades… most dealers shelves are devoid of any common-caliber stuff. 9mm might as well be made out of gold jackets and platinum cases.

But…it looks like either production is ramping up, demand is damping down, or (probably) both.

Which, naturally, means we are due for a ‘mass shooting’ or other catalyst event annnnnnny second now.

I never have ‘enough’ ammo, but I seem to usually have ‘enough for now’. However, if I ever come across a deal like the last one, I will literally take an entire pallet.

 

Shortages

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I was going to say that I apologize for the slow posting but then I realized, I actually don’t owe you guys anything so..why apologize?

Just had some distractions lately and then this amazingly absurd heat isn’t helping.

Anyone else notice that it seems like nowadays there’s (supposedly) a shortage of everything? I mean, it seems like overnight we went from a nation that has 98 different types of breakfast cereal on the shelves to a nation where newsmedia keeps telling us that there are shortages of…well..everything.

Global infrastructure logistics failures or some such technobabble being the words du jour. Objectively, I can see a few hiccups.. The Kung Flu reduced manpower (or person-power if you think along those lines) at ports, terminals, and other transport hubs. Ok, makes sense. Some  nations closed their borders, thereby making trade more difficult. Okay, still with ya on that. And there was, naturally, unprecedented demand as people suddenly realized that toilet paper and rice might suddenly vanish. Ok, still seems legit.

So where is all this sky-is-falling media blitz coming from and, more interestingly, why? Are we being groomed to become used to ‘getting by with less’ in some sort of sneak attack on ‘consumerism’? Is it jockeying by our larger trading ‘partners’ (cough*China*cough) to flex a little and see how much the markets cringe when they raise their hand? Or is it just the delayed effect of all the other stuff I mentioned finally catching up?

Personally, I’ve not seen shortages of anything that I use except for, of course, ammo and related materiel. My neighbor has been building a garage and has had a helluva time finding lumber, trusses, etc. But in my world? No…no shortages I’ve noticed. But then again, I tend to live a fairly simple lifestyle at the moment. I buy my groceries, I get new clothes every other year, I fill my vehicle twice a month, and thats about the extent of my shopping.

Still, I’m quite curious about these supposed shortages and if there is something more sinister going on here.

PCC Takedown Protector

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So, always having been fascinated with takedown firearms, I wound up with a Ruger PC Carbine and a PC Charger. Both guns take down into two halve, with a shank of barrel and some locking lugs that mate into a hole in the receiver. Here’s the issue – since the guns takedown and can be transported in pieces, it is entirely possible to have the exposed metal locking surfaces on both halves get dinged or damaged if rough handling occurs. And, lets face it, rough handling is pretty much gonna be they by-word of the apocalypse.

If youve ever come across an old shotgun case from the early half of the last century, you’ll see that the two halves of a shotgun were each given a separate padded compartment to keep things safe. While that is certainly an option today, I rather prefer not to be tied to a particular piece of luggage…I’d rather just drop my gun into my Bag O’ Tricks ™ and skeedaddle.

As it turns out, there’s an outfit that makes a ‘muzzle cover’-style cap that protects the mating surfaces on each gun half. Lets take a look:

One cap gets put over the lugged section of barrel, protecting it’s surfaces. The other cap is inserted into the corresponding locking recess, thereby protect it from dirt and debris. The two parts are simple plastic extrusions that, really, anyone with a 3d printer could probably fab up in ten minutes.

Do they work? Seem to. I haven’t bounced my guns around in my bag lately, but I see no reason it wouldnt work. Is it necessary? Beats me. For $17, I feel its a reasonable precaution. I mean, I could just wrap things up in an extra pair of socks or something and tuck them into my bag, but this is a more elegant and purposeful product. While I can see the potential for damaging occurring if those parts were unprotected, I can’t really say I’m all that worried about it. But, I’ve been wrong before…and I’d rather not find out the hard way when the Antifa torchbearers are running up the stairwell to my office and I’m wondering why the two halves of my carbine won’t click together.

As an aside, I’ve been pretty pleased with the Ruger 9mm carbine/pistol setup. I wish it were a locked breech mechanism in order to reduce weight, but then the price would be even higher. Still, been a good shooter for me thus far and I really like he takedown features.

 

 

Don Keydick was parking the car

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Im a lot of things, some good, some not good, but no one has ever said I don’t have a sense of humour. Usually inappropriate. Case in point – yesterdays trip to pickup some pizza.

Well, it’s not like I was gonna use my real name, right? (And, yes, once in a while it’s Commander Zero’s name up on the board.) It’s just good clean fun, guys….no need to get worked up over it.

I suspect that has the world continues it’s spiral into whatever madness awaits, having a sense of humour (which usually correlates to a heightened sense of irony as well) is gonna come in real handy.

Article – Texas power companies remotely raise temperatures on people using their smart thermostats

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Give the power company access to your smart house and….

Power companies in Texas are remotely raising temperatures inside of some customers’ homes amid the state’s ongoing energy shortage.

…….

English appears to have enrolled the thermostat, operated by the company EnergyHub, an a program known as “Smart Savers Texas,” KHOU 11 notes. The program, which customers have to opt-into, allows power companies to remotely adjust thermostats when energy demands are high.

Upon realizing the details of the program, English says he immediately unenrolled: “I wouldn’t want anybody else controlling my things for me.”

I love the idea of just saying “Shields up!” or “Activate Barn Door Protocol” and have all my locks, shutters, and access points suddenly armoured up. But, as Scotty said in Star Trek, the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to jam up the pipes. Anytime you give someone access to your personal server, your personal phone, your personal security system, your personal life….you create a possibility of risk. Sometimes the risks are minimal and are outweighed by the rewards. But…it never seems that way when the risk actually catches up. Moral of the story: don’t give the rest of the world freakin’ access to your critical systems.

Gas can fail

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I think it was about ten or so years ago that, of all places, Century International (the home of the drunken gunplumbing monkeys) was selling used military NATO gas cans. I bought a bunch of them and they turned out to be quite good. However, they were used. That means some had dings or small dents, and they may have seen some pretty harsh use. But, they never failed….until:

Apparently that particular area had taken a bit of damage at some point in its life and after a decade of constant contraction/expansion episodes as the seasonal temperatures fluctuated…it just split. The seepage of fuel over time is what ate he paint away.

The good news is, of course, that this was far from my only can of gasoline and the loss of it doesn’t really make any difference. The bad news, naturally, is that not only do i need to replace this can but it probably is time to replace all those surplus cans I bought since, clearly, their pedigree is uncertain and may include some things that might become issues further down the line. Really, at the time I purchased those cans they were a good value and of far better quality than any plastic can that was available. But, nowadays, I have the room to pick up some brand new ones to guarantee (as much as you can guarantee anything, I guess) that I have some fuel on hand for when I need it.

So several hundred bucks go out the door, and a half dozen high-end NATO cans come in the door. Seems legit.