Category Archives: Uncategorized

Skipping the gun show

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“I foresee terrible trouble and I stay here just the same” – Steely Dan

There was a gun show in Hamilton last weekend and…I didnt go. I thought about going but it would be $20 in gas, another $10 for lunch, and then whatever I spent on overpriced panic-driven stuf. And, this is the key part, I didnt really need anything. I mean, really, as far as gun stuff go I’m just gilding the lily at this point. The only thing I need is a scope for my .338 Lapua (leaning towards this one, by the way) and that’s really about it. :::shrug::: I’ve had thirty years to get my gun buying needs satisfied…at some point I was gonna hit the “I think I’m okay” stage. So why piss away thirty bucks I could use for other purposes?

Certainly there are small non-gun things I’d like to get..a few more LED MagLites, some more gas cans, that sort of thing. But…nothing hits the ‘urgent’ chord.

And, somewhat, this carries over to a few other things as well. Food, med stuff, fuel, etc. In fact, so many things are ‘in the green’ that I’m really just focusing the majority of my efforts on the financial stuff. By the end of next year I need to have enough money in the bank to buy a chunk of nowhere. As a result, between now and 12/31/22 most of the financial resources that have been going into guns, ammo, and food will be going into saving and investing.

No, this isn’t going to transform the blog into some sort of financial blog. (Although, to be fair, I’ve been reading a few of those on and off for the last year.) It just means that I’ll probably cut the posts about gun buying by a large percentage and there’ll be more posts about the more mundane things in the wide world of preparedness. And, really, who needs financial advice beyond “spend less than you make, save and invest, think before you buy, contemplate the future”?

The Free Money Machine in DC seems to be in overdrive as it pays people to underachieve and that’s gotta have some consequences somewhere. The music hasn’t stopped yet, but it’s slowing down. Folks would be smart to spend a couple hours in a quiet room with a notebook, pen, and start making lists and have an honest reckoning with themselves about what they need to do to come out the other side of things in one piece. But, really, thats good advice any time.

So, for now, the vast majority of my ‘prepping’ is getting money in the bank, into investments, and hitting WinCo/CostCo every weekend to keep things topped off. And, of course, keep a weather eye on the news. As convoluted, biased, and ‘steered’ as the news is, it’s still worth paying attention to…at least, as long as you get the same story from at least three disparate sources. As the saying goes, theres three sides to every argument – your side, their side, and the truth. I’m not a news junkie but I always check the news first thing in the morning after I power up.

Whether its a straight-up LARPing of the Carter years, or if its a more Fabianistic approach to Directive 10-289, the solid bet is that four years from now things are going to look a good bit different than they do today. Reagan famously asked “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and I suspect that in 2024 the answer will, for most of us, be a pretty strong “No”.

By the by, if, like me, you occasionally have lapses of discipline and you ‘fall off the wagon’ in terms of keeping up with your preparedness, I highly recommend reading this book. It is, of course, fiction but it isn’t hard to see yourself in some of the situations outlined in the book. Every time I read it I feel like taking the day off and doing nothing but loading up my truck with food, gas, gold, ammo, and heading for a quiet place to raise chickens and vegetables while the world eats itself. Good read.

Pipeline musings of things to come

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‘Tis the weekend, so its time to go grocery shopping. Realistically, there is very  little I need from grocery shopping these days…the house is full of food. I t ink I picked up some butter and that was really about it. :::shrug::: Food is money in the bank.

Speaking of money, I saw that the pipeline fiasco back east wound up with people getting paid off after all. Wanna bet that the oil company will quietly either get a $5m tax deduction or .gov quietly paid the $5m ransom for them to prevent major chaos? Either way, a buncha guys in a basement in Russia just inspired everyone on the planet to get into the hack-the-infrastructure business.

The days of having to cripple a country by carpet bombing and boots-on-the-ground are waning. A buncha guys in the Utah desert can fly RC planes over Iran, and a buncha basement dwellers in Minsk can cut off a fuel pipeline in the US. Push-button warfare indeed.

You know the saying about how amateurs talk tactics but professionals talk logistics? That tells you that logistics is just as paramount as everything else…heck, even Napoleon agreed when he famously stated that an army marches on it’s stomach. The Germans tried it WW2 by torpedoing every supply convoy it could find.You don’t have to get your hands terribly bloody to throw a country into turmoil these days…you just cutoff the pipeline valve controls, lock the floodgates open, turn all the traffic lights to green, shutoff all the runway lights, and power down all the telecommunications relays.

I suspect we’re going to experience more of that sort of thing although we probably won’t hear about much of it. Heck, for all I know we’ve experienced it a buncha times recently and it was dismissed in the media as something else. After all, it doesn’t do the .gov any good for the people to know just how vulnerable the systems really are. They  might wana know why their tax money isn’t going towards keeping things secure.

So, the lesson here is that when people can bloodlessly shut down a system from halfway across the planet, with minimal risk to yourself, and a potentially huge payday, you’re going to see a lot more of that sort of thing. So..be prepared for it. It took only a couple days for people to turn into savages fighting in gas lines. Why be there if you don’t have to be? Store enough fuel to meet your needs for at least a couple weeks. I keep about two months worth of gasoline on hand, based on my average usage.

But, most importantly, this is a harbinger of things to come. Compromised infrastructure that leads to calls for .gov to ‘do something’ and the next thing you know Uncle Sam is keeping his thumb down even tighter on ‘public services’.

The news just gets more and more interesting, doesnt it?

Classic wisdom from the movies

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Four minutes and forty-four seconds of perspective, philosophy, attitude and mindset that, in my opinion, is worth listening to. It’s called something else in this video, but what they’re really talking about is resilience.

Doesn’t matter if the economy is going gangbusters or if it’s swirling down the drain. Survivalism is resilience. How do we gain resilience from economic issues? By being where John Goodman says….you have  a solid car, a paid for house, money in the bank…thats your Fortress of Solitude. A good place to start.

But, as Goodman says, what you really want is to be in a position to say “F You” to…everything. To be able to have the freedom to not have to do something.

Inflation? I have a paid for house, a pile of cash, and gold. F you.
Food shortages? I’ve a basement full of food, a huge garden, chickens, and a pressure canner. F you.
Unemployment? I’ve no debt, money in the bank, and other revenue streams. F you.
Crime and violence? Me and my family are better armed than the local police. F you.

The position of F you is pretty much where you wanna be. How you get there…that’s up to you. Whats it worth to you to be able to just quit your job for six months and not have to change your lifestyle one bit? To be able to ride out a food/gas/power shortage? To have enough financial strength to weather pretty much anything? Is it worth giving up going out to lunch for a year? Quitting drinking and smoking? Driving the same crappy car for another two years? Working ten hours of overtime every week for the next year and a half? All up to you, man.

I’ve been increasing my levels of resilience over the last couple years and, if I stick to the plan, I should be at a pretty awesome level of F You in about three years or so. And then…the world can burn for all I care. Go get some F You.

Article – Inflation speeds up in April as consumer prices leap 4.2%, fastest since 2008

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“I think I have cancer…”
“I think I left the stove on…”
“We’re not gonna make it….”
There are some times I really don’t want to be right. But..here we are:

Inflation in April accelerated at its fastest pace in more than 12 years as the U.S. economic recovery kicked into gear and energy prices jumped higher, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

Really? Thats what kicked off inflation? A ‘recovery’? You sure it wasn’t .gov promising to spend and tax more money than actually physically exists?

Look, I’m not an economist. I’ve got some finance classes under my belt and thats about it. But I look further downstream than most when  it comes to downstream consequences. Perhaps my caveman-like understanding of economics is far too primitive to grasp the nuances of what the Biden people are doing. Perhaps my understanding of what does and does not cause economic problems is lacking. Perhaps…perhaps…

But…here’s what I see.. prices on virtually everything are going up. People are very concerned about the economy doing poorly and, regardless of whether the economy actually is doing poorly, that sort of sentiment has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Me? I’m keeping outta debt. I’m not spending money on vacations, jet skis, $700 living room chairs, new iPhones, or some I-deserve-this feelgood trinket. I’m saving money, buying metals, investing, keeping the pantry full, and being fiscally conservative…very conservative. Worst case scenario? I missed out on a Disney cruise or a sale on Samsung televisions. Boohoo. I can always spend it next year. And if we get into a Carter Redux economic situation I will look like the smartest person in the room.

Do what you will, man. You do you, and I’ll do me. As for me and my house, we will serve…our best financial interests.

Gradually, then suddenly

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As I’ve gotten older, and acquired more years of doing this sort of thing, I’ve come to a couple conclusions. I’ve mentioned them a million times before but I think they are absolute truths that are worth hearing again:

  • The small, personal EOTWAWKI will happen to you far more often than the Great Big EOTWAWKI. In other words, you will lose your job, be betrayed by those close to you, get stuck in the snow, have a medical emergency, experience a blizzard/earthquake/tornado, replace transmissions, repair water heaters, and be in money crunches far, far, far more often than you will be in a post-nuclear, EMP, dirty bomb, Chinese invasion, comet strike, or zombie situation.
  • It’s impossible to be 100% proofed against an event. (Except maybe having your appendix out.) But what you can do is increase resilience. Survivalism isn’t so much about reducing the odds to zero as much as it is bumping up the survivability rate a point or two at a time. Preparedness (or survivalism) is increasing resilience to events.
  • Determination, motivation, and clear-headed thinking with minimal preps beats wishy-washy, uncommitted, unfocused thinking with lotsa gear. If you can’t afford an FAL and a Land Cruiser, you can afford a library card and free wifi at McDonalds. Develop ‘mans basic tool of survival‘ , and you’ll still be at a tremendous advantage over the normies.
  • Money or money-like instruments are the duct tape that fix 99% of the problems you will encounter right up until the wheels fly off civilization. For TEOTWAWKI there’s 5.56, for everything else there’s money. By all means, stack food, meds, fuel, clothes, radios, ammo and water. But stack some form of valuable currency (dollars, gold, silver, etc.) just as deep if you can…you’ll need it a lot sooner and more often than the rest.

But you already knew all that, right?

What an interesting time we  live in to be a survivalist. We’ve got pandemic, race issues, economic issues, lurking foreign policy issues, and who knows what else fate has on deck?

From Hemingway: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

Article -Treasury warns of need to deal with national debt limit

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The Treasury will continue to initiate the types of bookkeeping maneuvers it has used in the past to keep the government from breaching a level that would trigger a default on the massive national debt.
……..
The amount of the debt that is held by the public currently totals $22.1 trillion, an amount slightly higher than 100% of the entire economy and heights not seen since the huge borrowing the government did in the 1940s to finance World War II.

I genuinely believe that, in one way, the national debt has become absolutely irrelevant. Simply, there is no feasible way to pay it down without going Weimar on it’s  butt. The best anyone can even hope for is to slow down it’s growth.

I remember the Carter years and the inflation. I don’t remember it’s real-world affect on those around me because I was just a kid with no real interest in economics. Nowadays, I’m an aging survivalist with a real interest in not being a homeless, broke, beaten down wretch…so I follow economics like a man with cancer follows drug trials.

End of the world? Probably not. End of your world? Quite possible. A smart man will have eliminated as much debt as possible, put away a goodly amount of cash or cash-like instruments for when his job disappears, and stocked up on things he’d rather not be forced to buy during a period of austerity. And….thats actually a good policy to have even when the economy is doing well.

There is a time when you can still do something to save the ship, and there is a time when the best thing you can do is head for the lifeboats. The critical part is knowing which particular moment you’re in and acting accordingly.

Hedging bets

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Well, if you’ve ever wondered how many 27-rd Magpul Glock mags are in a case, here’s your answer:

One hundred. Here’s the funny part – this isn’t the first case of them I’ve ordered. Here’s the scary part – I’ve lost track of how many I have. As far as 9mm Glock mags go, I’m somewhere around…mmmm….700, I think.

Because man does not live on 9mm alone, I also took the opportunity to add to this:

Funny thing is, in this market the gold is probably not as valuable as 9mm. Go figure.

And hit another milestone today (ETA: NOT my birthday…but thanks!) which reminds me that, sadly, I’m really not a kid anymore and I have to be a grownup. Darn it.

I miss Neverland.

Video – Rob a CCW class. What could possibly go wrong.

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I mean, technically there is nothing funny about this video. But still….
You try to rob a class full of people who are taking a concealed firearms course, and then you try to get stabby with the po-po. Is there anyone…I mean anyone…who cannot imagine what happens next.

Here’s the interesting part. There are people out there walking the streets who think that trying to rob a roomful of gun-carrying people while only armed with a screwdriver is a perfectly reasonable plan. That level of stupidity, coupled with the disregard for personal safety and .. you know…the law….makes this Darwin winner a very dangerous animal. His victim selection model did the rest.

It’s a wild world, baby.

The weekend routine

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Summer touristy season is starting here in the great state of Montana (Motto: “Welcome! Now go back to California!”). As such the local RV place is doing their $5 fillup on propane tanks, so I’m taking the 20# barbecue bombs up for a refill. Kerosene is my first choice for end-of-the-world stove/lamp/heater fuel, but a good survivalist keeps his options open, y’know? I was at CostCo the other day and they had new 20# tanks for sale and I figured it couldnt hurt to have another one in the line up. Plus, who knows, maybe I’ll get off my armored butt and actually do some barbecuing this year.
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And, since it’s the weekend, it’s a trip to the ‘Co’s…CostCo and Winco. Sure, it serves the purpose of keeping the shelves filled, but it’s also a barometer of the Current Situation. I can see how prices and availability have changed since last week. Remember when this Wuhan Flu stuff started and rice and toilet paper were cleaned out? That was a pretty good gauge of how the public perceived the situation. The current ammogeddon is a similar canary-in-a-coal-mine as well. So, these grocery trips aren’t just about restocking…theyre also about taking the pulse of the population. When everyone in front of you at the checkout is loaded up on canned goods and bottled water, maybe you need to pay attention.
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And, because it’s better to be safe than sorry, an itsy bit of more gold was added to the stash. The Metals Pimp has been giving me a good deal on generic 1/10 gold lately so I’m working on getting a tube full of those. I think the odds of the day coming where I’m standing at some sort of flea market trading gold for antibiotics and batteries is as close to zero as you can get, but…I’ve been wrong before. And if the world doesn’t go off the rails I can always cash it out..any loss is simply allocated as the price of having that insurance and peace of mind over time.
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That video fo the guy blowing himself up with is .50 BMG has been getting massive airplay in the gunblogosphere. No doubt, it was an extremely sobering video. I’ve had guns blow up in my face before but nothing that caused the kinda physical trauma that poor bastard experienced. I got a little ‘shaving cut’ from the rear sight flying back in my face and that was about it. Nonetheless, I think I’ll start making sure the first aid gear is sitting on the table right next to the shooting gear next time i go shooting, rather than just sitting in the gear box behind the seat of the truck.
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Also wound up letting my lizard brain get the better of me and, in a spate of late-night websurfing, bought another (!) case of Magpul 27-rd Glock mags. I think that, at the moment, I’m sitting on something like a total of six or seven hundred Magpul Glock mags. :::shrug::: What can I say…I’m easily influenced. But tell you what…when the next mag ban comes down I am gonna be such a player.
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And, of course, I continue to work on the financial side of increased resilience. I’ve been dabbling in options and have been making a couple hundred bucks a week inside my Roth doing covered calls. As such, it’s a nice way to get more money in my Roth once I’ve maxed out my contributions for the year. In case anyone cares, it’s mostly the meme stocks..AMC, BB, and NOK. Absolutely no uncovered calls or naked shorts…thats a fast road to trouble.
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Still waiting for final grades to come in. Got one class that’s unaccounted for and thats, naturally, the one that I was most concerned about. Should be up next week, but I’m on pins and needles until then

PSA – A reminder about range safety

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Why do newbies at the gun range flinch? I mean, we tell them what to expect, we warm them up with .22’s, we show them how to properly hold their gun….and when they pull the trigger..:::flinch:::.

Well,, there’s a really good reason. We’re used to it so we often don’t even think about it, but for a new shooter the biggest thing on their mind is that an enormous explosion is about to take place in the hands right in front of their face.

A lifetime of shooting kinda makes you forget that. At least, until you get an unpleasant reminder that, yes, there’s a metric buttload of kinetic violence happening right in front of your nose:

I hate wearing safety glasses at the range, but you can bloody well  believe that I’m going to do it anyway. This guy is alive only because he had someone at the range to haul his bleeding ass to a hospital while he pinched his own severed artery shut. I usually shoot by myself..I’d have been found a few miles down the road, bled out all over the steering wheel.

Moral of the story: safety gear sucks but what happens when you don’t wear it is infinitely worse.  The apocalypse is gonna be difficult enough with two working eyes and a skull without additional holes in it….why make it harder than has to be?

I suppose another moral of the story is: don’t shoot ammo of unknown pedigree…especially if such ammo is some monstrous high-pressure number like a .50BMG.

There are a lot of guys on YouTube with gun channels who engage in somewhat…..questionably reckless…..gunplay ‘for the views’. Usually its somewhat harmless….but there’s always someone who has to buy 250# of Tannerite, or make a stack of engine blocks to shoot, or decide to see if a lathe turned bullet made out of [unicorn horn/titanium/polystyrene/granite] ‘will shoot’. This guy does a bit of that but it looks like the ammo is at fault here rather than the shooter. But the point remains: your detonating a grenade-equivalent a foot in front of your face. Take precautions.

H/T to the thoughtful Friend Of The Blog(tm) who sent me the link.