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News – Gianforte signs ‘constitutional carry’ gun bill

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Id been so wrapped up in my own issues that I overlooked this gem, which was reminded to me by ,Rawles over at SurvivalBlog:

HELENA — Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a major ‘constitutional carry’ bill Thursday that will let Montanans carry concealed firearms in public settings including banks and bars without a permit, in addition to limiting university system officials’ ability to restrict firearm possession on college campuses. 
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“Our Second Amendment is very clear: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” Gianforte said at a bill signing ceremony Thursday afternoon. “Every law-abiding Montanan should be able to defend themselves and their loved ones.”
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The university system provisions of the new law take effect June 1. Its other provisions are effective immediately.

 

 

Just so. I know someone close the the governor and I’m going to ask him to pass along my thanks to our reporter-thumping chief executive. Lets see if he can keep the momentum up.

Airport follies

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I had to do some unavoidable air travel during the week that Froze The South. My flights, naturally, had to go through Texas (which I have waxed affectionately about in the past), Arkansas (holy crap, it’s like every southern stereotype, good and bad, writ large), and North Carolina.

I made it as far as Arkansas before my flights got cancelled like a conservative speaker at a Berkley college. And…my flight was rescheduled for the same gate, same tytpe of plane, same departure time…but the next day. But, wait, there’s more….not only were the vast majority of hotels booked, but the one that was not booked solid was not sending an airport shuttle due to the road conditions. So…Refugee Status: Unlocked!

My only options at this point were to sleep on the floor of the airport until the next day. Not a new experience, I’ve done it before….but I haven’t had to do it in  quite a while. And, being a southern airport, it wasn’t really built with the idea of keeping heat in. (By the way, it was Bill And Hillary Clinton Airport, which meant there was a wall mural of America’s greatest political sycophant…and her husband.) So not only was it going to be an uncomfortable night of sleeping on a bench like a homeless person, it was going to be a cold one. (So, really, it was an aptly named airport…it was unremarkable, relied on name recognition rather than actual merit, was frigid, and made me want to go find a 22-year-old to amuse myself with.)

I travel with one bag. One. So everything I need has to fit in that one bag ’cause Zero ain’t paying for a checked bag. But Zero also realizes that stuff happens. And I’d thought there might be a good chance of having to spend the night in the airport. (And, no, the days of the airline putting you up in a hotel for a flight cancellation are long gone, baby.) So…I packed with an eye towards spending the night in the airport. First thing, and the one that really paid off, was the Kifaru Woobie. Warm enough for interior of the airport, and compact enough that I could scrunch it down to the size of a Nerf footbal and get it in my bag. That one paid off. Other items were a small ‘travel sized’ packet of Clorox disinfecting wipes carried in my toiletries kit along with a ‘travel size’ roll of TP. The TP is self-explanatory and if you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to use a public restroom then you know the disinfecting wipes are pretty self-explanatory as well. Also brought a small Platypus water bottle so I didn’t have to roam around looking for a water fountain. Already had a small EDC flashlight with me.

And, of course, a wad of cash and a deck of bank cards.

Wandering the airport it was interesting to see how other people managed the situation. It was fairly evenly divided into two camps (almost literally) – the folks who piled all their belongings in a corner, draped their coat over themselves, and tried to sleep….and the group who sat at the tables determined to just power through by staying awake. Crom help them.

Having wifi available was a big plus. A laptop and phone go a long way towards keeping a person entertained. So, finally, around 2am, I found a quiet corner, wrapped my backpack strap around my ankle, curled up under my woobie, used my coat for a pillow, and managed to steal a few hours of sleep. Not enough to keep me from being sleepy the next day, but enough for me to be functional and relatively sociable. (Because when asking the ticket agent to please help me GTFO of this place it would be good to be as pleasant and obsequious as possible.)

Moral of the story? It’s not impossible that you’re going to get stranded at the airport when you travel. When it happens you can usually money your way out of it with a hotel for the night. But nothing in life is certain, so, if you can, be prepared to have to camp out by the baggage carousel for a night.

Space in my bag was at a premium, but what I did have worked well. What I would have done differently is to have brought earplugs (a couple foam ones would have been fine), and possibly a small freeze dried entree…because even though the food services are closed, there is always someplace that has hot water for coffee.

So, there you go…a little learn-from-experience.

Texas forecasting

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If you read around on the internet, it seems that more than a few ‘news outlets’ are printing articles about ‘what went wrong in Texas’ and it seems that there’s quite a bit of finger-pointing at Texas’ “independent” power grid. The implications being made are that such individualistic endeavours are not good for the public interest and those Texicans need to have their power infrastructure regulated and managed on a more federal basis.

Forecast? Be prepared to see lots of political-types urging ‘solutions’ that all involve that independence being legislated away.

Texas chilly

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A few posts back I was mentioning heating options for when the power goes out and the thermometer has the bottom drop out of it. Apparently thats a real thing in Upper Mexico Texas right now. The Texicans, not quite accustomed to that sort of climate, are managing as best they can but it seems many werent quite prepared for that particular level of cold. Some you-are-there reporting from one of our blog commenters can be found at his blog.It’s an interesting read and definitely makes me think that, for my needs, I’ve gone in the right direction with heating options. For me, kerosene heaters to heat the basement (pipes) and main room of the house, and a Buddy heater for spot warming where needed. Although I have a small Honda generator, my anticipated use of it is basically just communications, lighting, internet, and security cameras. (And all of those are on battery backups that can run for a good length of time.)

I suspect that many people in the Texas scenario were ready for Texas-cold weather but never really anticipated actual-cold weather. And I think that’s a pretty understandable thing…I doubt there are folks in Hawaii with kerosene heaters, Yak Trax, and parkas tucked away in the garages. Its just one of those scenarios that seemed legitimately unlikely.

But, as a survivalist it is always informative to read other peoples accounts of what happened, what worked, and what didn’t.

Oh, and I should mention, in the blog linked in the opening paragraph there is also recounting of how some local businesses were ‘cash only’ and not taking plastic. Another reason to have an envelope of $20’s stashed away in the safe.

Anyway, its good reading and if anyone else has some links to some ‘I was there’ AAR blog posts or whatnot, please share.

YouTubing

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Broadlu speaking, there’s only three channels I follow on YouTube – Gun Jesus, InrangeTV (a collaborative project with Gun Jesus and one of his buddies), and the questionably entertaining but usually informative Nutnfancy. Someone posted a comment with a link to this persons channel and I thought some of it was worth watching, and, frankly, gunbunnies and survivalbabes are always interesting….so, I added this one to my list.

I’m the most optimistic survivalist you’ll ever meet….I don’t foresee a mandatory-attendance-nationwide-impromptu-3-gun-match (aka Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo) actually taking place (although I do love the memes). But whatever you stockpile to give you an edge in the big igloo will, by extension, be pretty darn in handy in 90% of every other flavor of apocalypse. So…vidoes like these have some merit.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this video…or any video, actually. But there’s always some wheat mixed in with the chaff and watching chicks who are on the same wavelength as us is always fun.

Thai one on

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So, the Mountain House order arrived the other day. The cans have always had a long shelf life but apparently that now extends to the pouches as well. Behold:

I will actually be dead before the food hits its Best By date. On the one had, that’s a little creepy…on the other hand, as a survivalist, it kinda gives me a warm fuzzy. Although I ordered a buncha cans  (102 of them, to be exact) I did also wanna try some of the new flavors in the pouches. And…..Chicken Pad Thai sounded kinda good.

It says two servings but…lets be grown ups….you’re gonna eat the whole thing.

In its dessicated state:

Kinda looks like breakfast cereal waiting for milk, doesn’t it?

And after 1-and-1/3 cups of boiling water, and ten minutes sealed up in its pouch:

Yup..had to wait ten minutes. Ten minutes! Say it with me:

And the verdict? Good! Although it was not nearly as spicy as I had hoped. If you can get a tiny bottle of Siracha chili paste to go in your meal kit (as opposed to the mini Tabasco) it would not be a mistake. I understand that when it comes to food like this you need to appeal to the broadest common palate…and that means underspicy is better than overspicy. But…coulda been a little hotter. Still, though….I ate it all and liked it alot. So much so, in fact, that I might have to order a couple more cases. MH has a habit of discontinuing the flavors I really like. (For example, I really, really miss the Shrimp Creole.)

So, when its been a long day of post-apocalyptic scavenging and senseless violence, and the desperate-yet-morally-challenged coeds have been rescued from the Aryan blood gangs, it’ll be nice to relax around the campfire of burning “Biden 2020” placards and enjoy some fine pseudo-Thai food.

Cold weather musings

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The problem with having had a relatively mild winter is that when we actually get seasonably correct temperatures it feels so much worse. Case in point – this winter had been quite mild..I don’t recall it getting below 20 degreese at all. And yesterday..*bam!*…it was -1 degrees. And it felt like it.

Everyone want to live in a place like Wyoming or Montana or Idaho when they think about being a survivalist, but it seems not everyone thinks through the fact that it’s going to be bloody hard to stay warm during an apocalypse. Sure, you can have a couple 500-gallon propane tanks or 500-gallon oil tanks hidden away on your property, but at some point you’re going to have to think about staying warm using other resources hat aren’t dependent on a functioning system of infrastructure.

When I eventually get Commander Zero’s Bunker O’ Love And Lingerie Proving Ground built at the Beta Site it’s going to have to take this sort of thing into account. The obvious answer is a woodstove of some kind but, geez, thats gonna be a lot of wood to chop for a bad winter. Of course, the smart thing to do would be to optimize things so that while you may be burning wood you are at least doing it efficiently….good insulation in the building, an efficient stove, a system to move hot air around, a way to isolate unheated rooms, etc, etc.

I suppose if it truly is Ragnarok and all youre concerned with is just staying alive with no regard to style and normalcy you could just shut down al your household systems, pile into one small room of the house, and dedicate whatever resources you have to just heating that one room. I like to think that with a bit of planning, engineering, and thinking, I could come up with some sort of redundant systems to heat a ‘getaway’ cabin. But, I suspect the real efficiency and utility comes long before you start installing heat sources…it comes when you start building the structure and get in your insulation, ductwork, weather-resistant entry/egress points (doors,windows), etc. If I really think about it, I suppose the smart thing to do in any future construction is to design one of the rooms of the building to be the ‘lifeboat’ room…in a crisis it would be the one room to have power, heat, and water when the rest of the building has to be shut down.

Anyway, nothing like 0-degree weather to put on e in the frame of mind of “Hmm…how would I heat this place if the utilities went off today?” The answer, by the way, for me in the short term is kerosene. Long terms is a completely different story, but for the short term of a few days to a few weeks, I likes me the kerosene. Highest BTU’s of any fuel, stores forever with no treatment, can be used in stoves, heaters, and lamps, is portable, and won’t explode. Good stuff.

The quest for people chow

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Do you think pets get truly bored with their food? I mean, cats and dogs can, literally, eat nothing but whatever comes out of a 40# of dry mix and seemingly be okay with it. Why can’t that be done for people? You know…Purina People Chow, or some sort of equivalent.

Futurama, of course, addresses the issue with ‘bachelor chow’, as seen here. Technically, as best I can tell, there is no such thing as People Chow but there is a very, very close approximation – MPF. But good luck getting ahold of that. It turns out that Purina does (or did), in fact, make a Primate Chow. Humans are primates, right? Sooooo…couldn’t a fella just have a couple cups of primate chow in the morning, another for lunch and another at night? Maybe not according to the guy who tried it….and vlogged it.

There is a certain appeal to the notion of simply scooping out a nutritionally satisfactory and somewhat palatable food product into a bowl and not having to screw with cooking, dishes, cleanup, and groceries. And if you can do it cheaply, all the better. But…what if you have the ability to cook and you have access to…a freeze dryer?

You get freeze dried beef bourguignon as your People Chow.

I actually like beef bourguignon quite a bit if it’s done properly and you cut back on the carrots. But what fascinates me most about this tongue-in-cheek video is that darn Harvest Right freeze dryer. I saw one up at the local feed store a few months back and decided at the time that it just didnt make financial sense since a) I already had a pretty large stock of freeze dried food in storage and therefore didn’t really have a genuine need and b) I’m a cheapskate. But….Mountain House doesn’t offer a version of beef bourguignon, or a lot of other foods I like, and it would be kinda cool to be able to freeze dry stuff that I prefer. But, dang, for the price of that unit I could buy, literally, a pallet of freeze drieds all packaged and ready to go. But….the unit would let me do more food than that initial amount. What i really need is to find four or five local LMI who’d be willing to pony up the $$$ and we could do it as a group sort of thing and eventually one person would buy out everyone else. (Or, alternatively, when everyone has made as much as they ever plan on needing, sell the thing and divide the proceeds among the original investors.)

I’ve communicated with several people who have uses this thing and almost all of them complain about the oil system that is used. There is an oil-free version but its about $1500 extra, which is darn near and extra 30-50% on top of the several thousand price tag the thing normally comes at.

I suppose until I take leave of my senses long enough to decide to purchase a freeze dryer, the closest thing to people chow is going to be those lifeboat ration bars which seem to meet pretty much most of the basic requirements – somewhat nutritional, calorie dense, long shelf life, no prep, no mess.

But, man, freeze dried General Tso’s would be totally awesome.