Category Archives: Uncategorized

Testing out the Kifaru pullover

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Kind of a medium-cold today (unless you live in the land of possums and banjoes, in which case it would be considered apocalyptically cold). It was about ten degrees this morning. (Thats -12 C. if youre in a country that never landed a man on the moon.) So, seemed like a good opportunity to try out the Kifaru pullover that I picked up a few weeks back. Verdict? Really nice. It definitely does a good job of keeping me warm and it compresses down into a reasonable size when I’m not wearing it. I got it on sale for $200 and I’d say it was quite worth it. It’s not something I’d wear everyday, I have a couple sheeps worth of Filson for that, but for packing it away in a bag for when I’m hunting or otherwise out in the elements and want to have something for an emergency…perfect.

it’s funny…years ago, spending $200 on something like this would have seemed like a much bigger deal than it does now. The cynic in me says that its not as big a deal because $200 today ain’t what $200 was a few years ago, but the real reason is that I’ve (so far) navigated my life to the point that, once in a while, I can just say “Eh, why not?”.

But, anyway… if you’re like me (and, Crom, I really hope youre not) and want a good, compressible piece of outerwear you can tuck away for those times when the bottom drops out of the thermometer unexpectedly and you’re away from home….excellent choice.

Article – Want to Get Out Alive? Follow the Ants

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Here’s an interesting question for you. Imagine you have a room full of people. In the middle of the length of one wall there is an emergency exit. Call an emergency and have everyone try to leave as quickly as possible through the exit. Time/count the amount of people that make it through the exit. Now repeat the same experiment, but put an obstruction in front of the emergency exit..like a stanchion or room divider. Do you wind up with more or less people exiting quickly? Surprisingly…more.

Shiwakoti experimented with different exit scenarios using square petri dishes that had exits located in the middle of a side and in the corner. Shiwakoti found that an exit located in the middle of the wall with no obstacles in front of it was the least efficient set up. He measured the efficiency of an exit by the amount of time it took the ants to get through it. On average, it took 50 ants 18 seconds to get through an unobstructed mid-side exit. Adding a column in front of the mid-side exit reduced that time to 14 seconds. A corner exit with a column in front had an escape time of less than 11 seconds. But the best escape time was achieved with a corner exit without a column in front—less than 9.5 seconds.

A very interesting article. TL;DR version…if you ‘obstruct’ the exit somehow, you reduce the number of avenues of approach which reduces congestion at the exit. You ‘funnel’ traffic more effectively.

I bring this up because, first of all it is fascinatingly counterintuitive, but also because I was thinking about the little habits we get into as survivalists (or, arguably, the little habits we should get into) and the one that I was reminded of was that whenever you enter any space (a building, a fenced area, a room, a theater, a mall, a bus, etc) one of the first things you should do is look for the alternate ways to get out of there other than the way you just came in. Most people do not do this. This means that when someone yells ‘fire’ in that crowded theater, 99% of the people are gonna run to where they came in….you, on the other hand, will head to the exit that is being virtually ignored. Which brought me to another interesting bit of data about emergency exits. Quick: what color is the exit sign? Red, right? Thats what we usually see. But in virtually everywhere else but North America exit signs are green. Why? Because almost universally red means ‘stop’ or ‘danger’, and green means ‘safe’ or ‘go’. So when you are engaged in looking for the exit sign, you have to be cognizant of the fact the exit could be green or red.

Another little known fact, but one that makes epic sense if you think about it: emergency doors must open outwards…and any entrance/exit that uses a revolving door must be flanked by conventional doors. Think about it…a crowd of panicked people surging against an exit door means if you had to pull it open, you’d die. And a revolving door is 50/50 even when there isn’t a panic. Where did these rules come from? Bad times in history.

A fascinating little rabbit hole I wound up in today as I was thinking about remembering to be more diligent about checking out where the exits are.

Let’s see if this works…..

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If you are local, or local enough that you are willing to drive into Missoula, I’m doing a small(!) group buy on some Mountain House #10 cans of freeze drieds. And, guys, I mean a small amount…about a total of 100 cans. Basically its first come first served, cash only, absolutely no ‘can you ship it to me’, ‘can I pay you and have you hold it until I can come into town next month’, and most definitely no ‘can you hold onto it for me until my VA/SS/Stimulus/Unemplyment check arrives’. If we set a time/location to transact and you can’t make it for whatever reason, the next guy gets a chance. I stopped doing these things because of the amazing amount of work that went into it for very little reward as people flaked out, stalled, hemmed, hawed, and otherwise wasted my time. Not trying to be a jerk, but in some cases I really felt taken advantage of.

Send me an email and I’ll fire you back a list with what is still available. No minimum required, you can buy one can if that’s all you want. BUT…you need to come pick up that can, with cash in hand, on the agreed day. I’ve already placed the order, and expect it to ship next week, and should be here the week after that…so let’s figure around the fourth week of the month.

Demise of the Cheap Tree Rats?

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Well…this is interesting:

The current (and possibly last) owner/boss of that particular forum is not the same guy who has been running it all along. He picked it up way back from someone else who passed it along to him. Editorially, it changed, for the worse in my opinion, after that. While always a bit hypocritical with a heavy dose of judgement, it’s a rather long-running forum. In fact, it’s probably the one of the first I ever signed up to. (I was there really, really early but had to create a new account when they changed hands or had some big crash, as I recall.) I think I originally signed up around ’97. I was there for their big Anti-Catholic purge way back when, and I followed along as the current guy in charge had his feud with the local government (Craftbury VT Selectboard)  about who had right of way to the property he had his ‘compound’ on. (Mention of it on the board was quickly quashed and deleted without comment by admins, even though a quick Google search of the public records of the town meetings would tell you all you needed to know.)

I suppose that big boards like Arfcom or FALfiles can make good coin with their discussion forum advertising, but I would think it requires a pretty large userbase and a large amount of advertisers who aren’t worried about being judged ‘by the company they keep’.

I have to hand it to them. though. Over the decades they  managed to remain fairly active and relevant. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone wants to step up and buy the place. It’ll be also interesting to see who will wind up moving up the hierarchy for the title of longest-lived preparedness discussion forum. Stay tuned.

If youre a survivalist, shouldnt you already have your ammo?

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Guns and ammo remain a bit hard to find these days. I am absolutely aghast at the prices 9mm, 223 and other calibers are bringing. I started preparing against an unsatisfiable demand like this many years ago. I am very much not concerned with my own gun/ammo/mag situation. But…I find it interesting how many people who identify as ‘preppers’ or ‘survivalists’ are frantically trying to source this sort of stuff. I suppose if you’re a relative newcomer to the game it would be understandable that you’re a little light in the ammo department… but I read some discussion forums where people have long histories of being ‘preppers’ and they’re moaning about how that can’t get ammo. Not sure how that works. Guns and ammo are, literally, the first thing most people buy when they decide to get into preparedness. How can you have been a survivalist for any length of time and not have a goodly amount of ammo on hand? Ok, yeah, if you had a house fire…or your spouse took it all when she ran away with her boyfriend…or your meth-addict nephew stole it all outta your garage…or a hurricane washed it all out sea….maybe I could understand it. But otherwise….nope.

Whats the local market like here? Armscor 9mm, which is pretty low tier stuff, is clocking in at around $0.75 per round. I see .223/5.56 going for$0.90. I haven’t even got a number for .22 LR because I almost never see it. Magazines are still fairly abundant, but the guns themselves are getting scarcer. Primers may as well be made out of unicorn farts. Oddly, shotgun shells aren’t terribly scarce. As I’ve said before, the Current Situation is proving a few things out…like the fact that this nation runs on .223 and 9mm. (But if you have a .40 S&W, you’ve got a better chance of finding ammo then pretty much anyone.)

Everything I read says not to expect the situation to change this year. And thats before the Biden gang gets their deranged mitts into all the ‘commonsense’ legislation they want to put forth.

For the umpteenth time in the last year, the Current Situation is making me think that my ‘unconventional’ lifestyle may not have been a bad idea…especially in regards to the stockpiling of ammo. Interesting times.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

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CostCo has a little cashback program when you use their card. I hate credit cards but at the time I was under the impression you had to have the card to continue to shop there. Regardless, I wound up with this card. It ‘gives back’ a few points per year on stuff you buy at CostCo, gas purchases, etc. I use it, trot to my computer, and immediately pay the bill online. I don’t want to keep a balance.

Anyway, last year I used that card to do all my gun and magazine purchases. The ‘cash back’ on those kinds of purchases is 1%. I got the email from CostCo saying my gift card for $249 would be on the way soon. Anyone who can do simple math can, from those figures, come up with what I spent on guns, ammo, and mags last year. Before anyone’s head explodes, a portion of the money spent on guns and mags was recouped in the sale of some of those same guns and mags. Expenditures for gunstuff that I actually kept and hold is a bit less (although not a huge amount less.)

It very much did not seem like that much at the time, I assure you. Regardless, I am fairly confident 2021 will not see anything like huge gun/mag purchases like last year….Crom, I hope not.

But, on the bright side, I’ve got almost $250 to spend up at CostCo on more canned goods, TP, and chicken. Or maybe another freezer.

 

Weaponized autism

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As my education has grown, I’ve been managing my own portfolios. Not to brag, but I do okay with it. In a case of right place, right time I seem to have inadvertently caught a break. (Like I did with the AirBnb IPO last month.)

There’s apparently a group of day trading kids on a Reddit group who have determined that if they all coordinate to buy the stocks of companies that are being held short, they can get the prices up and make a killing. Go Google ‘Gamespot’ and see how the stock has jumped a couple thousand percent in the last week. It seems this group has targeted several stocks that it thinks are being heavily shorted. Turns out one of those stocks is one I already have a strong position in. I woke up this morning, looked at my brokerage website, and found that my holdings in that stock were up about 350% overnight. (Whcih means my Roth hit its 2021 target almost 11 months ahead of schedule.) I, of course, don’t hang around and wait for the music to stop….I dump enough shares to get back my investment and the remaining shares are now free to go to the moon or drop like a lead balloon…won’t make a dollars worth of difference to me. If this thing goes the way Gamestop (GME) did, there’s an M82A1 in my future (assuming someone has one in stock somewhere.)

As a survivalist, it seems a tad incongruent to invest in the market when I  have a reasonable belief that it’s going to come down like a house of cards. I see that…but, I’ve been wrong before so I hedge my bets..I buy equities, I buy silver, I buy materiel, and I hold cash. That way I’m covered no matter what happens. Although life has a way of surprising you with things you never foresaw.

Anyway, I’m watching the markets closely for the next few days and searching my vendors for an M82A1…just in case the stars line up and this goes the way I would like.

Kifaru goodness

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I swear to Crom, the mail is so slow these days I could literally walk most of it to its destination before those idiots could get it delivered….

It shouldnt take 15 days to get a parcel from Colorado to Montana, but apparently it does. But that vote by mail thing? That’ll work just fine….

Anyway….

I have a collection of Filson outer wear. About six years ago I got a Filson Double Mackinaw Cruiser, which had been on my wish list for a long time.

A year or two ago Filson ran off a  limited run of a wool anorak. I desperately wanted this limited-run and very expensive item. By the time I got the money put together…*boom* they were out of stock with no resupply date. I was bummed. But the webpage for the anorak stayed up. I checked it, literally every day, for a year until a ‘coming soon’ banner appeared on it. When they finally had them available, I ordered one. And…it was everything I hoped for. Still wildly expensive, but it’ll last forever and I really, really like it. (Yeah, it’s spendy..and other companies do make a similar wool product. But this was a case of ‘I had the money’ and, honestly, a bit of brand preference. Once in a while, I’m a brand-name junkie. Not often, but in this case….yeah.)

And while I liked the wool product a lot for its ability to repel cold, evil, and shoddy workmanship, it was a bit bulky. It doesn’t compress very well. And although I like the Filson product, and have worn it pretty much every day this winter, I wanted something that would be just as nice but more compact for packing around when I didn’t need it at that moment. Ideally, I wanted something that would crunch down into a tight little package that would sit in my scout pack when I was out in the woods. And, sadly, the Filson wouldn’t do that.

Turns out Kifaru makes the same product, basically, but using the same materials as they use in their highly-recommended Woobie and Doobie products. It was on sale back in November for $200 and I ordered one up. Finally got it today. TPIWWP, so….

This is the Filson wool anorak/pullover which I cannot say enough nice things about. If you amortize it over the rest of your life it becomes more economical than first imagined. It is not cheap, but it literally will last you a lifetime. Problem is – bulky to pack. Enter the Kifaru product:

Heavy-duty (really heavy-duty) cordura on the wear points, detachable hood, drawstring waist…pretty nice. The color, which was advertised as coyote, is more gold than coyote. But…the elk won’t notice. More importantly, how does it compress? Well, Kifaru makes some equally nice and equally expensive compression sacks but for now I’ll just pick one up at REI.

This will be one of those pieces of gear that gets tossed in a bag ‘just in case’ when I’m off in the boonies because…a lot can happen in a hurry, and none of it good, if you aren’t careful. So..new piece of gear, Zero approves.

Said I wasn’t gonna, did anyway pt. II

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Everyone has a few moments in their life where someone told them something and it turned out to be a nugget of wisdom that they carry for the rest of their lives. Years ago, I was talking to one of the nationally known weapons collectors and I asked him how he managed to find all these amazing deals. He said, “When you’ve been in this business long enough, you don’t have to go looking for good deals…the good deals come looking for you.” And he was right. The more I travel in particular circles and network, the more often the materiel comes to me rather than vice versa. Todays example:

Singlehandedly fighting The War On The War On Guns

WASR-10, 2 mags, and 400 rounds of ammo. Annnnnd….(wait for it)……….$425.

I was done…done I tell you!…buying guns at the end of 2020. My needs were (mostly) filled. I would have been very happy to just ride out 2021 turning money into silver and food, not thundertoys. And yet…here I am. Can’t really complain, I reckon…I bet I could double my money by summer.

The deals come looking for you, alright……..

As an aside, I’m not really an AK guy. I respect them for what they are, and I have an excellent milled Arsenal AK for my AK needs, but I think that anything an AK can do I can do just as well, and more accurately, with an AR. And although the AK has a record of reliability, I think that any modern manufactured AR from a good manufacturer is right up there in reliability…but with the advantage of better sights, better optics, better accuracy, better ergos, better aftermarket support, and better standardization of parts. However, I will say that in a world of short-range (MOUT) environments I can see a case for the AK for it’s chunkier bullet. Anyway…..

The deals come looking for you, alright……..

Shelf stable milk pouch

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I know, I know…when you think shelf-stable milk pouches you think of something like this. (Yeah, it’s cheap humour…I’m not above being low.) I was up at CostCo the other day and beheld this:

Basically, ‘juice boxes’ of whole milk. No refrigeration required. I’ve talked about this before…the folks at Parmalat built an entire empire on UHT pasteurized products. Although not available everywhere, Parmalot milk can be found on Amazon. Problem is, it is quite difficult to find anything smaller than 32 oz. Oh they  make it, yes…but just hard to find. Why would you want the smaller? Because in a grid-down situation you may not need all 32 oz of milk and without refrigeration it sure ain’t gonna keep safely terribly long.

The stuff I found at CostCo is available (also on Amazon) in 8 oz. servings. That’s more suitable for a bowl of breakfast cereal or mixing with your ‘instant breakfast’ powder.

Personally, I don’t really like milk…but several recipes I do like call for it, and corn flakes taste pretty weird without it. So, for me, someone who uses miniscule amounts of moo juice, these are handy sizes.

The more savvy amongst you may ask, “Zero, why not powdered milk?”. A valid question. The answer is….fat. Most powdered milke products are reduced fat. Skim, low-fat, 2%, whatever….it is not whole milk. And although I suppose someone can get used to it, powdered milk tastes lousy and low-fat powdered milk is even worse. See, fat is something that does not lend itself to long-term storage. As a result, whole milk powder, when you can find it, isn’t as long-term as a milk powder that has less fat. But…who wants to drink low fat milk? Ugh.

Now, it took me a while but I did eventually discover powdered whole milk and it is surprisingly not difficult to find. However, it is most definitely not low fat milk..in fact it has about 7(!!!) times the fat of whole milk. My experience is that it is very rich. Very. Like drinking melted ice cream. Using more water than perhaps is recommended might bring it down a notch closer to real whole milk, but it is far more palatable (to me) than that powdered low-fat crap.

So if your the type who like to drink milk, or you’ve got a houseful of kids who you think need to, and you want to have something for when refrigeration is no longer an option, you can head up to CostCo and satisfy your lactose cravings with some reasonably-portioned packages of shelf stable whole milk.

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