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

Hmm…received a phone call from an LMI this afternoon alerting me to our local CostCo carrying Mountain House freeze drieds. Must investigate.

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

The wool mitts I ordered arrived. They arent as thick as the USGI ones, but they are much more comfortable and fit better with the outer shells that I got earlier this year. In fact, I’m going to have to spend about an hour or so getting all the liners mated up with shells and then packed away. Do I really need forty(!) pairs of this sort of ting. No, I absolutely do not. But…some will be given away to LMI friends and that sort of thing. in practice, I’ll probably keep two sets in the emergency bag in the truck, two sets at the shop, two sets in my Cold Weather Module, three sets for every day use, and then maybe another dozen in storage. That’ll still leave me with about..uhm…twenty sets to give away or cache elsewhere.

$1.75 for winter trigger mitts and wool liners? Sign me up!

Cost? The outer mitts (LXM-182900X – German Trigger Finger Mitts) are $0.75 per pair, the wool liners I received today (WX2-193252 – 20 Prs. New Swiss Mil. Trigger Finger Mitten Liners) were $1 per pair. Mate ‘em together and you’ve got a good pair of mitts and liners for the amazing price of $1.75. Go. Order now. I’ll wait. (Having said that, I bet you’ll hit the ‘out of stock’ flag when you get there.)

Anyway, the wool mitts are very nice…more..hmm…’refined’..than the USGI ones. Theyre stretchier so they fit nicer, especially under an overmitt. Priced cheap enough to buy a whole bunch for yourself and your cadre. Best of all, for the price it doesnt matter if you lose a pair..or five.

Snag yourself a discount code for SG…just head to Google and enter “sportsmans guide discount codes”. I found one for $10 off on orders made by members so the shipping was basically free.

Although I’ve never had problems with moths or other critters (except, oddly, my dog) eating my wool mitts I’ll probably vacuum seal the extras to save space and protect them from any potential damage.

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

It’s another dreary day in the post-apocalyptic world. The radio is nothing but static and pre-recorded FEMA announcements, trying the lightswitches shows that the electricity is still off, peering outside shows no traffic on the streets..unsurprising since the gas stations are all looted and burned, and there is the sounds in the distance of infrequent gunfire and screaming. So…..whats for breakfast? Well, as it turns out, the post-apocalyptic breakfast menu around here is actually better than what it is before the collapse. If you were so inclined, you could have a breakfast featuring:

Orange drink, scrambled eggs, oatmeal (choice of four flavors), pork chops, strawberries, bananas, pancakes, biscuits, corned beef hash, and granola with milk.

Everything a growing lad needs to rebuild the world after it implodes.

I’m dong a semi-annual re-inventory and update of whats in the food storage and so far have determined that, come the apocalypse, we might do pretty fair for ourselves. At the moment, just in #10 cans of dehydrated and freeze dried, theres 40 different foods from various sources including Auguson Farms, Mountain House and the LDS Cannery.

Further packed away in 5-gallon buckets are salt, sugar, oats, corn, rice, pasta, wheat, and a few other bulk items. Then theres the shelves full of wet-pack (‘canned’) vegetables and things like soups, stews, sauces, condiments, oils, meats, etc, etc. So, all in all, I think we’re doing pretty fair. The real headache is keeping track of all of it…hence todays adventure in organization. Someday I’ll have an iPad so I can just stand there and update my spreadsheets in realtime, but for now a clipboard and pen will have to do. By the by, I have a date-stamper that I use for just this occasion…after I crack open the boxes and check everything the box gets stamped with “REVIEWED SEP 26 2011″ on the box so I know its at least been checked on this year to make sure nothing bad occurred during its patient wait.

Now, realistically, do I expect that someday something will happen and there will be nothing available save what I have on hand? Nope. But here’s what I do believe: having a large stock of food onhand will offset or reduce the hardships and stresses caused by unemployment, underemployment, short-term disasters, inflation, and a host of other ‘more likely’ events.

Which do you think will happen first: your employer lays you off or cuts your hours in half…..or…….the Chinese invade along with a UN occupying force of ‘peacekeepers’? I dunno about you, but I’m more confident in the need to have a Plan B in case of a change in employment status than I am in the need to suddenly learn Mandarin. The way I figure it, we budget around $400/month for groceries (what can I say, we have some expensive tastes) and if we can be prepared enough to live off of what we have stored in a crisis, well, thats $400 a month we don’t have to worry about when every dollar counts.

Anyway, today is Pull Stuff Off The Shelf And Make Sure It’s Logged Properly Day. When that’s done, an updated copy of the spreadsheets will be dumped into my phone and into my email so I can access it from just about anywhere. This way when I wander over to Rosauers and am torn about whether to purchase more egg mix or dehydrated apples I can check my figures and see if we really need more or if the resources can be better used elsewhere.

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

Much like how Hunter Thompson tried to develop a strain of cold-hardy peacocks, a friend of mine is attempting to grow a plumeria here in western Montana. He was out of town for a week and asked mt to mind his stuff while he was gone. One of the instructions that was made quite clear was that if there was even a suggestion that the temperature might get down towards freezing, bring the plant indoors. Well, I like to err on the side of caution and brought it in the other day…..good thing, too. It’s been right at freezing or a few degrees above these last few mornings. So, in addition to playing conservator to a plant that really has no business being in this part of the country, it is also time to break out the winter gear…especially the cold weather module for the backpack.

Since I made that original post about 6 years ago I’ve changed a few things. I added an extra set of mitts, an extra neck gaiter and an extra hat (because someone always forgets theirs). Otherwise, its the same stuff. Theres just barely enough room left for an UnderArmor undershirt which comes in handy when you really underestimate the weather.

As I was repacking things I noticed that, dammit, I’m having trouble finding the surplus wool mitts I purchased about a year or so ago. I bought enough that I vacuum sealed several individual pairs and tucked them away fro long term storage, but I also left at least a half dozen pairs loose for casual use. No big deal. A quick trip to Sportsmans Guide turned up these well-reviewed wool mitts. $19.97 for twenty pair. But, if youre a member of their buyers club you can shave off another $2/pair. So far so good. A quick Google of “sportsman’s guide discount code” brought me to coupon code #SN323 which shaved off another $10. So, what woulda been around $46 with shipping came out to $36. And I’ll have forty pairs of wool mitts to work with. As is SOP, half will go into deep storage and the remaining half will be left out for immediate use, although I might send a few pairs to some LMI as thoughtful gifts.

I usually dont link to threads from the various forums because some are closed to non-members and some arent and I dont feel like keeping track of that sort of thing. However, I think this one should be open. There was a thread about the canned beef from CostCo under thier house brand of Kirkland. I had seen this stuff up there the last few times we went to CostCo but I am always leery of canned meats…especially since much of it these days is from non-US sources. But, after reading the post on arfcom I decided to take a swing at it. Worst case, Nuke gets some awesome dog food. So I headed up to CostCo to pick some up.

Now, I have a freezerfull of dead bovine at the moment, and quite a few cans of freeze-dried dead bovine, but freezers die and freeze-dried meats are spendy. If theres some cow that comes in a can that is actually pretty good..well, I wanna know about it.

Turns out, its really good. To me, all canned meat smells and looks like cat food when you open the can. I absolutely hate that smell. But, after draining the meat a bit, putting the contents into a covered bowl, and microwaving it for 90 seconds it smelled wonderful. Meat was lean, very tender, and pulls apart quite easily…primo material for doing anything where shredded beef would be nice. Shelf life is about two years but in the real world its gonna be several times that.

I’m going to have to spend some time in the kitchen experimenting with this stuff. It seems like it would be an excellent staple for cooking with long-term storage food. I can definitely see this with some rice, Mexican seasoning of some kind, maybe some canned chiles, etc, etc. I can also see this working great tossed into the last two minutes of a stir fry with some peppers.

Anyway, if you have a CostCo near you, you might wanna try some of this stuff. Like any canned meat, it smells wierd and looks unappetizing when you open the can but if you can get past that and get it heated up and on a plate I think you’ll like it.

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

Remember this post? It’s back….kinda.

Theres a small endcap that featured the dairy products, a couple fruits and some soups. What was interesting was that it also featured something that was not there the last time they had this stuff – five gallon buckets of wheat and oats. This means that this isnt a small endcap to get rid of what was left over from the last sale, this is the vanguard, I think, of a new shipment. You’d be silly to buy the oats, wheat and apple slices when you can get them cheaper from the local LDS cannery but the egg powder is the real jewel in this assortment.

Local LMI, it’s the Rosauers on Reserve and South. Not much there at the moment but what is there should be fairly useful. Be sure to lean on the customer service guy at the desk and ask when more will be available. I was told they have to order in a trailerload to meet minimum so if they think theres a demand……..

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

More fun and excitement. Would I be interested in a few of these, he asks?

How much? $150. Lvl III-A. Bad news is that it isnt a spring chicken. These are from the Clinton era (first term). As we all know, armour does degrade after a while. Not worth $150 to me, but might be worth $100. The panels are not removable from the carrier unless I feel like splitting the seams. I knew these were old when I saw the lack of MOLLE webbing.

Might buy one just for fun and take it to the range and see what happens.

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

Anyone want to contribute their two cents to a project I want to do?

I want to rewire an ordinary table lamp, much like the kind you would find sitting on an end table, to run on 12v and use LEDs. I was thinking the easiest way would be to head to an automotive store and buy an LED trouble light and use that for the guts of the thing and replace the bulb with an LED bulb meant for regular threaded sockets.

Opinions? Ideas?

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

I’m not sure what to make of this:

LA Porn Studio Begins Construction On ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Underground Bunker

It’ll be interesting to imagine what exactly they’ll stock the bunker with and, even more interesting, whom. (Or is who?)
Hmmm..the world ends and I’m locked in a bunker with porn stars. Where do I sign up?

As a sidenote, the folks at Kink.com in San Francisco probably have one of the cooler bunkers all to themselves. They bought the San Francisco Armory years ago and from all appearances it is an amazing facility. Many large cities had armories like this way back in the day and many still stand, in various states of disrepair.

(And before anyone chimes in about me linking, even peripherally, to a site that has something to do with porn. Well….too bad. Folks have sex and some folks have really weird sex. That’s just how some folks roll.)

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

Had one of those impromptu meetings with a potential like-minded individual the other day. I was at the bank and as I was exiting the building I saw that the armored car making deliveries had parked next to the truck. I start to get into the truck and I hear a voice..”Sir? Excuse me, sir?” And its the underpaid security guard, who, incidentally, was carrying a Hi-Point in his holster, trying to get my attention. (I didn’t see what his partner had but I was willing to bet once they were outside of their tin can I’d have had them outgunned to several orders of magnitude.) He wanted to ask me about the 120mm ammo tube that was sitting in the bed of the truck. I told him I’d picked it up in my travels and he said it looked like an excellent choice for ‘burying stuff’. Hmmm. What kinda stuff, I asked. ‘Seeds, guns, that sort of thing.’ ‘I like the way you think’, I said as I pulled the tube from he back of the truck to show him. He also expressed interest in the gas and water cans locked up behind the cab of the truck. We chatted for a couple minutes about the merits of various fuel, water and ammo cans and about where to purchase them locally. I told him to swing by the shop and I might have some more water cans to sell him.

And thats pretty much how you meet other like-minded individuals….it just happens organically and on it’s own. Serendipity, man.

Speaking of random encounters, someone actually bitched at me in the comments a post or two back because I didn’t post some sort of grief-porn about 9-11. Uhm…did you need a reminder or something? I make posts regarding remembrances like Patriots Day (the real one), Pearl Harbor day, and one or two others but thats mostly because they are overlooked these days. Somehow I dont think the 9-11 episode got overlooked this year. So there.