Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

A few months back I was talking to one of the local cops and, as often happens, the topic turns to gear. He had a new LED flashlight he was testing out and I asked if I could examine it. The flashlight in question was the Pelican 8060…an LED flashlight designed and marketed towards the LE community. I tried it out in the dark parking lot there at the police station and was mightily impressed. Most lED lights tend to have their beam diffuse over distance so that, up close, theyre great but at distant ranges they scatter and wind up being almost useless. Not this thing…this baby was like the landing lights on a 747. I lit up buildings a block away with concentrated, focussed light and it was mightily imrpessive. I dont think any of my Krypton-bulbed MagLites do as good a job.

The missus was in the market for a new flashlight, her rechargeable MagLite having gone MIA somewhere. So, biting the bullet, she dropped the $180 for the rechargeable Pelican 8060. After playing with this thing further, I can say that if you can afford it this is a great flashlight. Im not going to go over the details, you can get them here in this review. One thing I dislike is that if you , for whatever reason, want to swap out the rechargeable battery with regular batteries you have to use ‘C’-batts. Now, the only things Im aware of that take C-batts are sex toys and various obscure devices that are seldom encountered. If Pelican made this thing to take a rechargeable battery unit and the much more common D-batts I would be thrilled. My other complaint is that there is no attachment point for a lanyard, however the more creative amongst us can fab something up pretty easily with some zip ties, I’d imagine.

Not really a flashlight for looking under the bed for your shoes or creeping around in the attic, this flashlight is definitely geared more towards outdoor use and tactical/emergency use with its brilliance. It’ll blind someone quite nicely if youre needing that sort of ability. Although it is of plastic/polymer construction it feels solid enough that you could crack heads with it if the need arose.

Price aint cheap but, dude, this thing makes every MagLite I’ve ever seen look like a toy. And I like MagLites. If Pelican makes this thing compatible with D-batts Ill be one of the first ones in line for it.
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Ninety percent of the time, the gun Im carrying around is a Glock. However, I do like revolvers and have quite a few of them. Mostly in, unsurprisingly, the common caliber of .38 & .357. While I do use speedloaders (Safariland ones) I also keep a bunch of the Bianchi Speed Strips around. For those of you who arent revolver dinosaurs, the Speed Strips are little plastic strips that hold six rounds of .38/.357 ammo in a straight line. You slip two cartridges into your cylinder’s chamber and ‘peel’ off the rest of the strip. Repeat two more times and you’ve loaded your six-shooter. The design is actually rather old and similar products were in existence a hundred years ago. These were an alternative to speed loaders and they work quite well. Why would you use them instead of a speed loader? Well, for one thing, they are caliber specific rather than gun specific. I havea S&W 36, S&W 10, and an S&W 28…I would need three different speedloaders. However, the Speed Strip works with any .38/.357 swingout-cylinder revolver, regardless of maker.

Bianchi literature years ago suggested the Strips would be available in other calibers but that never came to pass. A shame since a lot of folks carry bigger guns these days than .357s. Since Bianchi has shown no interest in the subject, another company has started making Speed Strips under their own name and in other calibers. While I prefer speedloaders for their quickness, there is a very nice convenience to just grabbing a few strips of .38 ammo and walking out the door without having to worry if I picked up the correct speedloader for a particular gun. Anyway, for you dinosaurs that still use the wheelgun, I figured this link may prove interesting. I’ll be getting a few for my Smith .44 Special and a few other guns as well.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Anyone notice the increased media attention to the swine flu situation? Hamthrax was all the rage earlier this year as the second coming of the 1918 Flu, then the bubbles were burst with objective observations like “regular flu kills more people than swine flu”, then there was a sharp drop in media attention to the issue, and now we’re being told to expect a large amount of Americans to get it (although, it is reported, many already have it and simply don’t know it).

Personally, Im pretty unconcerned about the flu from a medical standpoint. I’m probably as healthy right now as I’ve ever been and while a bout of the flu can knock me on my ass for a week or so I am quite confident it won’t kill me.

What interests me far more, and should interest you as well, is the non-medical effect that such an outbreak would have. Schools would close, medical facilities would be overtaxed, some industries and services would be hamstrung by workers calling in sick or not showing up, and the financial considerations are impressive too.

Is it the end of the world? Not unless you die from it, no. But if youre smart you’ll start thinking about how it would affect you and what steps you’ll need to take to mitigate those problems. For example, if your business shuts down or cuts back on hours because of an outbreak are you going to have enough money to make up for the lost income? If local markets are cleaned out by people in a frenzy of panic buying are you good to go with what you’ve already got in your cabinets? Got enough bleach, disinfectant and Kleenex around? You prepared to curtail your social life and stick close to home until it blows over? Are you aware enough to make sure you don’t handle doorknobs, telephones, keyboards shopping cart handles, bank pens, or any of a myriad of items that may have been handled by some wheezeing, mucous-dripping flu sufferer? Bleach wipes will be your friend in a very big way.

I’m not worried about any of that very much. We’re pretty we’ll covered on most of those fronts. If anything it may be a macabre form of entertainment watching the less prepared folk panic and implode. The drawback to that sort of entertainment, however, is that they outnumber us exponentially and that makes them politically powerful…next thing you know some nosebleed in the Senate is saying we ‘have to do something’.

Speaking of doing something, the goofballs in Massachussetts (State motto “Another boilermaker, Senator Kennedy?”) passed a public health law in anticipation of a hamthrax episode that, among other things, gives appointed public health drones the power to enter private property without the usual niceties like a warrant. Sort of a ‘Patriot Act’ for the public health crowd. You know, if you shop around you can still find old people who remember when the sheriff would nail a quarantine notice to someone’s house or farm. ‘Course, back then there were leper colonies as well. Isolation does tend to slow down these pandemic things. And while Im no fan of the ‘do it for the public good’ credo, I think people are far less likely these days to self-quarantine in the interests of preventing the spread of disease.

But, under the guise of ‘doing something’ about the ‘public health’ these goons want to be able to do an end run around protections afforded to us constitutionally. Nothing new there, I suppose….The TSA and their shenanigans are ample proof that constitutional niceties can be disregarded under ‘heightened circumstances’.

So, really, it’s standard operating procedure – stock up and shut up.
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My tomatoes are starting to ripen and I pulled the first one off the plant the other day. My peppers are doing nicely and the basil has turned into quite the shrub. Basil, tomatoes, peppers….add in some garlic and onion plus a little meat and you’ve got a snazzy meal going on there.

I planted two different types of tomatoes this year and both seem to be doing well. I was especially interested in one that was promoted as a cold-weather variety. (Hey, they say its from Siberia!) It seems to be doing well here in Montana. Our frost date is around June so you can’t really start stuff outdoors too early and expect success. Tomatoes tend to be a wee bit sensitive about the cold, so I try not to put them outside until the last minute. Seems to have worked so far though, none of the plants has died or failed to produce.

The plants that I put in five-gallon buckets are doing quite well, and are bigger than the same plants being raised in pots. I very much like the buckets for their portability and modularity…I can just pick up a bucket and face it in/out of the sun if necessary, also it makes watering very efficient – simply fill the remainder of the bucket with water and it all goes where it needs to, etc, etc. I think next year I’m going to do about a dozen of these tomato plants in buckets. I’ll be able to affix a trellis or other climbing aid right to the side of the bucket.

The peppers, which previously have been a little fussy, will definitely go in the buckets. The Hungarian peppers I’ve got going now are doing wonderfully and I think I’m going to go long on them next year and plant enough to can.

This years garden was very light…maybe a dozen tomato plants and that many pepper plants. However the positive results Im seeing are making me think that next year will be the year of the huge garden.

In addition to the peppers and tomatoes, the basil is doing great and the dill is coming along nicely as well. About the only failure has been one or two pepper plants that just don’t seem to want to amount to anything more than stubby weeds. So be it. That’s natural selection in action.

If I could grow some garlic and onions, and maybe a couple chickens, I’d have one hellaciously good meal growing out there….a nice cacciatore or some fajitas. Still, although urban livestock is on the rise I’m not ready to put a couple chickens in the yard. Although, really, it might not be *that* difficult and it would be nice to have fresh eggs. Plus, they’d eat the weeds. Hmmmmm.
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Winter is coming and I need to get on track for that. Plenty of kerosene in reserve, so we’re good on that. I do need to get out the kerosene heaters and clean them up, check the wicks, etc, etc. Propane is a very nice alternative fuel for lighting and heating but I just like the kerosene…its stores quite well, is versatile, is about as safe to store as anything else, and won’t explode. Plus, my lamps, stoves and heaters can burn it. To be fair, I do have propane stove and lamps as well along with a goodly stash of 1# bottles. Redundancy….it ain’t just a river in..uhm…never mind.

What I really need to stop dragging my feet on, in regards to winter, is making sure the house is as weatherproofed as possible. I foresee a date with me, a caulking gun and a buncha windows. Also need to change out the furnace filters while Im at it. No rest for the wicked. On the other hand, anything that prevents a $300 heating bill is worth it. That’s more money to be used for other things or socked away against the uncertain future.