Somebody was nice enough to send me an email with a link to this article. Much thanks.
I’m a little annoyed at the use of the term ‘vigilante’. which is clearly not what is going on here. But…its NPR so thats about par for the course.
Monthly Archives: June 2020
Big and Small EOTWAWKI
Another day in the happy little melting pot that is America. I recall reading Chittum’s “Civil War II The Coming Breakup of America” years and years ago where he predicted that a Balkanization would take place in the US along racial lines. I’m not sure I see that, although you could argue it has already happened de facto. I could see more of a political Balkanization but, in retrospect, we kind of already have that now don’t we? Look at those colored election maps that come out every four years and the same predictable areas are the same predictable colors. *
By accident or design, I managed to land in a place that pretty much aligns with my own ideals (or, perhaps, I landed here and it re-aligned my ideals to suit it). I don’t necessarily fit in with 100% of the prevailing beliefs here (I’m more of a Goldwater conservative rather than the classic conservative) but, thus far, one of the prevailing beliefs here is that as long as youre not screwing around with your neighbor’s stuff you can pretty much believe whatever the heck you want. That works for me.
So although the social issues seem to be getting to the fore these days, I’m still focused on the economic. And, really, these social issues are going to impact the economic numbers just as hard as the superflu. Whether a business is shut down for Covid or BLM it’s still a business making no money and not paying it’s bills. The bottom line is still the same: economic loss.
Since my apocalypse du jour is economic, I tend to lean towards the stockpile “food and cash-like instruments” end of the spectrum. Sure, there’s ammo in there as well but I’m planning for Great Depression II: The Next Generation, not Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo. Although, honestly, the only difference between preparing for one instead of the other is quantity.
And, not to beat a deceased equine, my experience has been that there’s going to be a lot of small, personal, intimate EOTWAWKI’s in your life (job loss, car problems, health scares, housing issues, loved ones in trouble, etc.) before the Big One and nine times out of ten money turns out to be the duct tape that puts your life back together. So…no debt, wad of cash. For whatever that doesnt fix we have our other preps.
I suppose if you live in a major urban population center, or a state that is home to several of them, your concerns are probably (and justifiably) more centered around the …social disturbances…going on at the moment. By all means, keep a wary eye on the crowds and don’t stray far from your favorite thundertoy….but don’t forget that race riots and firebombers occur far, far, far less frequently than pink slips, busted transmissions, sick dogs, and broken water heaters.
Statistically, this is going to happen more times in your life than a zombie apocalypse.
Prepare for the day the Antifa crowd in their black sweatshirts are marching down the street swinging pieces of pipe. It’ll happen at some point, I’m sure. But don’t get so caught up in the possibility of it happening that you ignore the higher probability of those small EOTWWAWKI’s.
* = Chittum is viewed, by many, as a racist. But whether he is or not, doesn’t change the validity (or invalidity) of his predictions. If a racist tells you to get off the tracks because a train is coming, the fact he is a racist (or a communist, or a Muslim, or a homosexual, or a Democrat) does not change the objective fact that, indeed, a train is coming and you need to get your butt off the tracks.
Incremental progress
A few weeks back, I got a tad more religion in terms of keeping an up-to-date list of what I have and, more importantly, what I needed. It’s settled into a routine now where, every weekend, I print out my most up-to-date version of the Preponomicon and head off to Costco or Wallyworld. I tell myself “I’m not gonna spend more than $XX today” and I try to stick to that. Thus far…meh…I do a fair amount of sticking to the amount I promised myself I’d spend, but, more importantly, I am always better provisioned after each trip.
Food was, of course, the biggest priority. Can’t repel the zombie hordes if youre weak from hunger, right? And while the food isn’t at 100%, it is mostly all in the green levels so I am comfortable moving a little bit into the other categories. Most notable, cleaning and hygiene.
Don’t let The Walking Dead fool you… wear the same sweat-stained shirt for days on end in the summer, while getting coated in dirt, grime, and bodily fluids, and take a hot shower once a week with laundry done even less frequently…. and you’re headed for major problems. Eat from filthy stained tableware, plates, or cookware and you’re gonna have a bad day. Add the threat of pandemic into the mix and now you relly have a reason to try and keep yourself and your environment reasonably clean. You don’t have to be fastidiously OCD clean, but try to keep yourself and your living conditions as clean as if you had a hot date coming over tonight.
So, what’s sitting on the wire shelving in large quantity? Pine Sol, Simple Green, Lysol, Clorox (which needs to be rotated every so often), sponges, bleach wipes, paper towels, brillo, laundry soap, dish soap, disinfectant, shower soap, shampoo, floss, toothpaste, toothbrushes (shouldn’t that really be teethbrushes?), mouthwash, TP, Q-tips, Kleenex, deodorant, lip balm, and a buncha other goodies. After a long day of hanging looters, quelling riots, and rescuing morally-challenged coeds from Aryan blood gangs wouldn’t you want to look and smell nice for the celebratory barbecue later that evening? Truth is, though, decent hygiene and sanitation prevents a whole lot of badness that you would prefer to avoid during a crisis. And it’s a lot easier to stay somewhat clean when you have the necessary resources. Plus, hey, in times of economic uncertainty when your paycheck is unexpectedly cutoff it’s kinda nice to know you don’t have to spend money on any of those things for over a year.
Just one more thing to ‘get into the green’ levels on the list. But, gotta admit, when i run out of something in my day-to-day usage it’s darn convenient to just trot downstairs and pull some extra off the shelf and get back to business.
Bunker mentality for the win
Merciful Crom, has it been a weird year or what? Remember when a 500 point swing in the market would take a week? Now it takes place in one day. And we have riots. And pandemic. And a presidential election. And Chuck Schumer is still running loose. This really is going to be a year for the books.
And yet…so far…I’ve survived. In fact, not only have I survived, I’ve managed to get ahead on a few things. Most notable – house paid off. (Go me!) And all my investments have recovered to their pre-Superflu balances. And I took advantage of the dip(!) to buy in on the ground floor on a few things.
So, why didn’t I get my butt handed to me like some people in all of this? A few reasons. First and foremost, I live within my means. I drive a car older than I care to mention..but I’ve no car payment. I don’t get to buy expensive toys unless I save for them…but I have no credit card payment. School is paid as I go so…no student loan payment. And, now, house is paid so…no house payment. So when something exciting happens like getting hours cut or a job ‘furloughed’ due to Covid, I can spend the money I have on my needs and not on loan payments.
A few years ago I decided that the smart thing to do was have three different sources of revenue. This way if one crapped out, I wasn’t left with no income. Turns out, not a bad idea. I put a solid 15% of whatever I make into a “Do Not Touch” fund in case of emergencies and, as a result, I can function normally for several months at this point. Longer if I’m willing to give up a few luxuries like cable and that sort of thing.
It also helped that I had plenty of consumables on hand… toilet paper? Not a problem. Beef? Got a freezer full of it. Pasta and rice? Literally hundreds of pounds. If I really, really wanted to I could blow off grocery shopping for , probably, at least the rest of the year. If the money stopped coming in tomorrow I could dedicate $0 to groceries and be juuuuuuust fine.
Civil disturbance? Can’t find an AR for love or money in your local gun shop? No 9mm to be had anywhere? Very, very, very much not a problem.
I’m not saying this to brag, rather I mention it because I feel vindicated. The lifestyle I live, which does sometimes generate a bit of derision from others, has put me in a position where the world may be flailing around like a chicken with its head removed but I’ve got a little ocean of calm and relative security. And I am tremendously grateful to…me….for doing what it took to get there.
Yeah, once in a while my t-shirts have a hole in them, or my shoes look a little frayed, and I use a seven year old phone but…if thats the price of the security and safety that I feel I’ve garnered for myself than I’d say it was a very good trade.
I hope you do as well. I hope you do better. I hope you look at all the possible wildly bad stuff that is going on this year and think “Y’know…I’d feel a little better about my odds if we did…” and then you go do it. There’s still plenty of room for improvement in my situation…more security, more resilience, more resources…but at the moment, things are nowhere near as bad as they are for other people. I know people who have had their hours cut and they have to decide on whether to sell the gun collection in order to meet the mortgage and keep the jet ski from being repossessed. Sad for them, but we all make choices.
Anyway, thats my take on things after watching the news this evening and realizing that, all in all, I’m rather glad I’ve spent the last thirty years as a paranoid survivalist. I should add that while I am satisfied that I’ve been heading in the right direction all along, I’m not complacent. There’s still more to do. Always is.
With thanks
Someone very graciously sent me silver round in the mail the other day. Totally unexpected and, as always, very much appreciated.
And then, I received a .jpg in email of the back of an Amazon gift card with a note saying it was a gift for yours truly. Clever…an excellent way to preserve anonymity.
So, to both of those fine and generous people, I say thank you very much. When the radioactive debris settles and after a long day of hanging quislings I will, thanks to your largesse, have the resources to kick back and relax with a handful of grateful-yet-morally-challenged coeds from the university who will simply be glad to be safe from the roving hordes. Salut!
Annnnnnd…we’re back
Ok, back to business…
We’ve had some rain here the last couple days and the pollen count is off the charts. For the first time in years, my hayfever has kicked up with a tremendous amount of sneezing, headaches, and sinus activity that almost qualifies me to be a hagfish.
Summer is coming soon and it is entirely possible it will be a “summer of ’68” sort of affair with all sorts of fun activities like protests, riots, and the occasional drive-by. I do not envy those living in densely populated urban areas. Again, my rather little homogenous corner of the planet seems relatively distant from these sorts of things.
On the other hand, the economy is rather fluid and that superflu thing is still out there. (Although who can really say how nasty it really is, what with reports of doctored numbers popping up.)
2020 is indeed an interesting year. And we haven’t even gotten to the crapfest that will be the presidential elections. If it weren’t for the fact that this is happening in my own country I would be highly entertained and amused to watch it unfold.
Thought for the day
Received from someone in email:
To quote DeNiro in ‘The Untouchables’…”Like a lot of things in life, we laugh because its funny and we laugh because its true.”
I’m feeling a bit under the weather today so posting might be thin for the next day or two. Talk amongst yourselves.
The shopping continues
Not much change going on here. I’m still working my way down the Preponomicon, bringing up the various levels of items that I want to keep onhand at all times. Most of which are food. Because I’m doing more food shopping these days I am more observant of conditions at various retail food outlets. Local grocery stores, for example, are pretty much back to pre-panic stock levels. Walmart, though, surprises me and seems to continuously look like a going-out-of-business sale in their food departments. Oh, fresh vegetables and meats are there, but the boxed/jarred/canned products are hit-n-miss. I would have thought that with WalMarts tremendous logistics capacity they would have no trouble keeping things on the shelf. But, someone pointed out to me that it is quite possible that WalMart is allocating things to larger, more hard-hit markets. Four of the five pallets of pasta destined for Montana may have been rerouted to Denver…or Sacramento..or Chicago. I can see that…seems reasonable.
So I hit two or three other supermarkets to round out the holes in my list. Honestly, I enjoy walking up and down the aisles. I almost never fail to discover products I didn’t know existed. You know, when I first started getting serious about keeping food on hand there were not a lot of options. Nowadays there are tons of ‘retort pouch’-ed products and shelf-stable foods that were only a dream two decades ago.
The more astute and label-checking of you will notice that virtually all of those foods have something in common: salt and fat. It seems like every online discussion of long-term food gets someone chiming in with “Thats way too much sodium!”. May be. But, in the post-apocalypse world you’re gonna be sweating a lot and replacing that salt will be a big deal. (See the middle third of ‘Alas Babylon’.) But , most importantly, it beats starving. You have high blood pressure and are therefore avoiding salt? Ok. I’ll bet that alot of people who have high blood pressure are going to have lower blood pressure after the weight loss and exercise that comes with living through an apocalypse. Not all, but I bet most.
So, I’ve got an updated version of the Preponomicon sitting in my phone and I wander the aisles, like Diogenes with his lamp, looking for an honest bargain. At the moment, all I’m after is to get everything on my list into the green.
And, as I keep telling you guys, the little TEOTWAWKI events will far outnumber the large ones. Job loss, medical emergency, etc, etc, will occur far more frequently than nuclear wars and asteroid collisions. Heck, some of you guys right now are experiencing job loss or reduced hours due to the Current Situation. Which is proving to be more useful…the money in the back or the M855 in the basement? Obviously, we want both but practically we should probably concentrate on the former harder than the latter.
But, as the kids say, you do you and I’ll do me. For me, I’ve already got gobs of guns, ammo, fuel, and that sort of thing on hand. Right now my focus is on the day-to-day stuff and getting cash (or cash-like instruments) tucked away.
Wardrobe malfunction
Apparently a large part of my summer ensemble can now be interpreted as making a political statement that is unpopular in some quarters….
Men wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying guns add a volatile new element to protests
Wondering why so many heavily armed white guys are rocking hibiscus print?
I like Hawaiin shirts for three reasons:
- Shock value – the ugly the better. I like stuff where people look at it and go “I can’t believe youre wearing that”
- Utlity – Awesome for covering a holster in summer carry
- Comfort – When its hot out, these things are darn comfy
Favorite? Hilo Hatties. Someone introduced me to these years ago and I like ’em alot.
Harder homes and gardens
I’ve always liked the idea of a little cabin that, while looking rather unassuming and generic, is actually made of a highly resilient material like concrete. I’ve always been fascinated with this product made here in Montana. But, sometimes, for non-residential uses such as secure storage, you don’t really need a nice appearance. And while I have seen plenty of thick-walled concrete structures, the roof is always the weak spot. It seems like you never see a non-flat concrete roof. So, I was surprised to see this in my travels today:
Its a concrete building, about the size of a small cabin, that is used by a local utility for some purpose. But what catches my attention is that the roof is a big slab of concrete. Many concrete structures don’t have concrete roofs…making the roof the weak spot. This baby, however, is delightfully 100% concrete. Forest fires are no problem around this thing.
My use? If I had a place out in the sticks, I’d love to have a place like this as my ‘shed’ where I’d keep my goodies. Trick it out with a more reinfoced entryway (or, better, a hidden tunnel access) and I’d feel pretty happy knowing my stuff was secure.
For a more stylish look, theyre doing amazing things with concrete panles and pouring these days. This one is one of my favorites.
But, for now, I’d settle for a nice chunk of middle of nowhere with a nice concrete building on it like the one shown above. Gotta keep playing that Powerball.
