Monthly Archives: August 2020

Vehicle stuff

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As I mentioned earlier, one of my regrets is that I didn’t take my FAK with me on my trip to Venus Jr. I was wondering if, in fact, I had in that FAK the items I would have needed for that particular episode…specifically, a non-adhesive dressing of some type, some rolled gauze, and some tape. Turns out, yes, I had all that in there. Cool. But then I figured I better double-check what might be lacking. As it turns out, I seem to have never gotten around to distributing burn jel into that particular kit. So, off to Amazon for Burn Jel…both the ‘ketchup packets’ of the stuff, individual dressings, and a bottle of the stuff.  I’ve used this product in the past for some kitchen accidents and it works wonderfully. In fact, I’ve had some burns bad enough to keep me awake at night and this stuff has made it so I can sleep.

This little episode of gear-inspection was also driven by the need for me to review, update, replenish, and re-gear my in-vehicle supplies. In the winter I try to keep a big ol’  Pelican case of winter survival gear in the vehicle ‘just in case’. But, during the summer-ish times there’s not as much need for that much bulk and mass taking up space. Since the summer stuff doesn’t require as much bulky clothing and sleepgear as winter, I use a medium size pack. Its the well-made and highly-recommended SpecOps Brand Recon Ruck.  Don’t let that MSRP fool you, they can be had for a lot less. I think I got mine on sale somewhere for around $80..but, that was a while ago. Anyway, the nice thing about it is that it can be used as a non-frame pack (like a Med. ALICE pack) but can also be used in conjunction with an ALICE frame, which are pretty ubiquitous and affordable. Yeah, the ALICE was supplanted by the MOLLE packs but this isn’t for humping the boonies, its for just keeping my gear in one place. Anyway, highly recommend.

The only real difference between the winter and summer gear is, as I said, bulky sleeping gear and extra clothing. I don’t carry extra water because SOP is to have a 5-gallon jerry can of the stuff on hand.

I live in one of the more densely populated parts of Montana, so sitting on a road somewhere and not seeing a soul for days at a time is fairly unheard of. However, I don’t plan to never stray from this part of Montana. Sometimes I like to go to gun shows in far and distant lands..like Kalispell, Butte, Helena, Billings, etc. And then there’s a much greater possibility that a vehicle issue might put you in a position to twiddle your thumbs for quite a while. But, between the standard vehicle gear and my Bag O’ Tricks, I like my odds.

And, of course, no matter the season the prevailing wisdom is Stay With The Vehicle. Or Else.
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If you find this entertaining, please consider ….

By request: financial stuff

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From a comment:

A post on financial preps would be interesting. 401(k) vs IRS vs Mutual Funds vs Whole Life Ins vs Individual Stocks vs REITs vs etc. etc. Go it alone vs use a broker, etc.

This isn’t a financial blog, and my education on finance is very limited, but someone asked me what my investment strategy is. It’s stupid simple, it’s probably wrong or inefficient, but…. this:

I buy mutual funds that have been around for at least 15-20 years (preferably longer) and have a history of average annual returns of at least 12% or greater.

Thats it.

Depending on who you read, the market averages 10-12% a year. If you just want to get that without doing any homework, go buy index funds…it’s a fire-and-forget turnkey way to get into the market. I’ve a few of them too. I’d like to beat the average because I want as much return as possible, so I buy funds that have a (long) history of beating that 12%. I don’t buy bonds, I don’t (usually) buy single stocks (except just for the fun of owning some Ruger or CocaCola), and I don’t dabble in ETF’s or REIT’s. I’m doing well on the mutual funds, they spit out some occasional dividends, there’s usually a nice LT Cap Gains distribution, and I’m in this for the long haul. I buy and hold.

How’s it worked out? Right now I’m holding nine different mutual funds. The best one has returned 72.97% on what I’ve put in so far, the worst has done 2.46%. Across all nine funds, I’ve gotten a 39.73% return. For comparison, there isn’t a savings account, CD, or money market that will return more than 1.5%. Assuming 4% for inflation, just leaving your money in the bank, in money markets, in CDs, or pretty much anything else is a losing proposition as inflation eats away your buying power.

“But Zero, what if the stock market crashes?”

Then I buy more. Because then everything is on sale. If you dumped everything back in March because you panicked, you would have missed out on the tremendous gains that followed. Ride it out. When the market crashed in 2008, if you had just ignored that and let it sit there you would have several times over your money. Ride it out.

And if the market crashes to zero never to recover? Thats where the silver, gold, and disposable handguns come in. I don’t put all my financial eggs in one basket.

No doubt someone with a lot more education than I will say “But you should….” and they might be right. And I may investigate that avenue. But for my limited understanding of the market, and my limited resources, and my rather high risk aversion, I think I’ve found a system that works for me. And, as you may have noticed, this is pretty much the Dave Ramsey school of investment: growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international mutual funds equally split.So far, it’s worked for me.

Whole life vs. Term? Get term.
Roth v. 401(k)? I like Roth. I like the notion of getting the taxes out of the way upfront and letting the growth be tax free.
Broker vs solo? I go solo but a broker would probably be smarter.

Learn how to use a TVM calculator. Just that one skill, and using it when you start thinking about money (saving, investing, borrowing, etc) will probably do more for you than a dozen self-help books on finance. How fast can I pay off my house if I add another $100 to each payment? TVM calculator. If the market is returning 10% on average, how much do I need to invest per month to have a million bucks in twenty years? TVM calculator. I wanna buy this $15000 truck and I need to borrow $5000 at 4%. What would my payment be to pay it off in a year? In nine months? In six months?  TVM calculator. Its five minutes to learn and it’ll be among the most valuable five minutes you’ll ever spend.

The question said ‘financial preps’. Here’s what I do: money in investments, money in cash, money in metals and guns. Pay off the house. Carry no debt. Live within your means. Budget wisely and purposefully (actually do a budget!). Always put money in the bank before you do anything else with income. Have an emergency fund of at least six months of living expenses. Use the 4S rubric on purchases or other financial activity. Have multiple sources of income (a rental, a side business, a pension, etc). That’s how I try to live my life. I’m not 100% where I want to be financially (yet) but I’m leagues ahead of many people. 2020 has been a dumpster fire for many people financially, for me it’s been barely a hiccup. Not because I’m bulletproof financially, but I’m a lot more resilient than at least half the population and I’m working towards bulletproof every day.

So..there you go. You ask, I answered. Thats what I’m doing for me, and for me it’s working. YMMV.

The dream is always the same

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A masochist is what I am. I know that eating anything spicy before bed is going to give me weird dreams and, like an undisciplined idiot, I do it anyway.

First dream was me getting into some sort of car wreck, which, in the dream, I had a moment of lucidity and realized ‘hey, maybe this is just a dream’ and forced myself to wake up. Looked at the clock – 2:25am. Gonna be a long night.

Next up…I’m at the shop, its dusk, and I’m standing in the parking lot loading a vehicle. Suddenly everything dies. The person helping me looks around and says “EMP”. We hustle down to the basement and there’s a television that’s still working. All the channels are showing the same emergency message about a nuclear detonation. All I can think is that I need to get back to my house and that I’m glad I had stocked up heavily early this year…but is it enough? Unlike many dreams I have like this, this one actually induced a feeling of fear and realism that I don’t normally get in these dreams. All in all, not a pleasant dream.

You know how when you cut off the head of a chicken the body runs around for a while or flops all over the place? The reasoning is that by detaching the brain, all those reflexes, muscles, and responses are now uncontrolled and they can suddenly run loose. I think dreams are like that….when your conscious mind goes to sleep there’s nothing to regulate the rest of your brain and you wind up with dreams about whatever you’ve been processing lately. But, I also think that dreams are the result of numerous minute observations and inputs we receive but unconsciously ignore during the day. Thats where that ‘sixth sense’ comes from… that feeling that something is awry. You unconsciously notice little details about things and your brain puts them together without you even being aware of it. Some of that goes into your dreams.

Anyway, I’m open-minded enough to think that perhaps my brain picked up some details about the world around me and thinks they might point to something like that. So…make sure everything is in place, just in case.

This post brought to you by chicken and Spanish rice with salsa at 10:30pm.

Goal hitting

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As I’ve mentioned a time or twenty, as of late I’ve adopted a three-pronged approach towards money – Some goes into cash, some goes into metals, and some goes into the market.

Cash, obviously, does absolutely nothing but slowly erode in value against inflation. But…thats the price I pay for the security of having actual cash on hand. I’m okay with that. A fat envelope of cash sitting in the safe is the hot asphalt that fills in the occasional pothole on the road of life.

The metals have been doing okay, but I’ve slowed down on them a tad because I think there’s a slump or drop in the pricing coming up. Frankly, despite what everyone pontificates about gold:silver ratios and whatnot, I think silver is a bit high and will come down to the low twenties or lower. It occurs to me I need to start setting goals for how much physical metal I want to keep around. I need to get that in the spreadsheet.

And, finally, the market…which has pretty much recovered, for me anyway, to it’s pre Wuhan Flu levels. Actually, it’s gone way past that thanks to my decision to buy like crazy back in March and April when things were, basically, on sale. How’d that work out? Really well. In fact, I hit my 2020 goals (you do make goals, right?) for my Roth yesterday after the market closed.

Mind you, this is what I do with the money that’s left after all the usual stuff like bills, emergency funds, savings, groceries, and that sort of thing. This year was a mad dash to fill some holes in the Preponomicom but once that’s (mostly) done I can focus on the other stuff like putting away the universe’s ultimate multi-tool – money.

What’s that got to do with preparedness? Being prepared means also being prepared for the world not to end. Or, being prepared for the years (or decades) that come before the end of the world. The world could end tomorrow or it could end in 2040…and if it ends in 2040 you have twenty years ahead of you of bills, car repairs, mortgages, taxes, and retirement.

Planning for the end of the world should also include planning for the continuance of the world.

Intruder alert

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Minding my own business, trying to get some stuff moved around in the house, and I leave the backdoor to the house open since I’m moving stuff into the yard. Take a minute to go check my email and I hear….footsteps. Hmmm.

Standing in the foyer of the back of my house (note that I mean the foyer inside my house) is some man-bun-wearing bearded hipster with a Charter/Spectrum blue shirt, ID badge, digital clipboard, and a very large, wide-open set of eyes*.

Me: Why are you in my house?
Him: I’m sorry, I didn’t know if this was a door to another apartment or…”
Me: Step back. Now.
Him: :::takes a few quick steps back:::
Me: Ok, stop. Now, tell me why youre here….

He goes on about how they’re checking their records to make sure multiple dwellings are still multiples, single dwellings are still single, etc. I called to verify they were actually doing that sort of work in the neighborhood. Also suggested to his supervisor they may wanna chat with Man-Bun about walking into peoples houses

I think I feel a little guilty…I might have come on a little strong.

* = Now trending on Twitter: #IsThatAnUzi?

Pass

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Here’s a reminder for everyone:

CFR › Title 27 › Chapter II › Subchapter B › Part 478 › Subpart C › Section 478.34:

§ 478.34 Removed, obliterated, or altered serial number.

No person shall knowingly transport, ship, or receive in interstate or foreign commerce any firearm which has had the importer’s or manufacturer’s serial number removed, obliterated, or altered, or possess or receive any firearm which has had the importer’s or manufacturer’s serial number removed, obliterated, or altered and has, at any time, been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

I mention this because someone tried to sell me a lovely military Colt 1911 (not an A1) that had been nickeled and in the process of nickeling had removed the entire serial number. The owner didn’t understand why it was a big deal.

(To be fair, its possible the gun was a ‘lunchbox special’ that left the plant before the serial number process but those are exceptionally rare. It’s also possible it was an unnumbered replacement frame from military stores…again, pretty rare. But, you know what….not worth the risk.)

 

Bag O’ Tricks – Owie version

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The problem with posting about anything you carry around or store is that, no matter what it is, there’s always some moron who says “What if…”. For example, if you say you have enough fuel stored to run your generator for three weeks, they’ll chime in with something brilliant like “But what if the disaster runs four weeks?”. If you said you had fuel for five years they’d come back with “Yeah, but what if the disaster runs six years?”. I genuinely believe that if you said you had enough food to last you fifty years they’d come back with “But what if the disaster lasts 51 years?” and not realize they’re being idiots.  It’s because of morons like that I usually don’t bother giving exact quantities of things I keep around. It’s just so irritating, y’know?

Anyway….

From time to time, I mention the Bag O’ Tricks. It’s nothing dramatic, it’s just a bag with a lot of things that would be useful across the board if I get caught somewhere. It’s not a ‘get home’ bag, it’s not a ‘bugout bag’, and it’s not a ‘bailout bag’. It’s just a bag with things that I like to have around in case something unexpected happens. I’ve mentioned it before. Matter of fact, last time I was asked about it the response I gave was very similar to the opening paragraph:

The problem is, no matter what I write, some idiot will chime in with “But what about…”, “You dont need…”, “You should have….”, and that sort of thing. I’ll give you an example… everytime someone posts something about how much food they have it goes like this: “We keep enough stored food for [X] months” and someone says “But what if the disaster goes on for [x+1] months?”. Doesn’t matter how long the timeframe is…if I said I had enough food for twenty five years some idiot will jump in with “But what if the crisis lasts 26 years.” Those kinds of conversations annoy me to no end. So…no junk-on-the-bunk dumpout of the Bag O’ Trick. Just a once in a while thing where I pull something out and mention it.

So, whats in the bag? Well, I’ve touched on a couple things that I keep in there. But, of course, there’s more. Imma pull an item out at random and we’ll see how that goes. :::fishes around in bag:::

Behold:

On the right is the Maxpedition first aid pouch. It’s got QuickClot, compress banadges, rolled gauze, various bandages, tape, pads, non stick pads, burn gel, triple antibiotic, etc, etc. (And by “etc”, that probably covers 90% of “What about…”). These aren’t supposed to be an ‘end of the world’ type of thing…they’re just to let me get myself patched up and functionable until I can get to a more detailed treatment. Woulda come in dang handy a week ago.

On the left is the very nice tourniquet kit from North American Rescue which I’ve posted about before. These kits, as well as the individual tourniquets, come on sale every so often and I really would recommend at least a couple. I also strongly encourage you to pay a little more and buy directly from NAR because the Chinese fakes of these are all over eBay and Amazon. This is not the sort of gear you want to take chances with and try to save $15 by getting one off eBay no matter how honest the seller seems. Don’t do it.

Both of these have MOLLE webbing and straps so I normally just attach them to each other to keep them handy. I do, however, need to get a nice waterproof bag to keep them in since you never know what sort of conditions you’re going to be under when something goes wrong.

But, there you go….one more trick outta the Bag O’ Tricks.

Article – How to Make a 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar

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Perhaps 5,000 years ago this sort of thing was the pinnacle of food portability, but I suspect that with modern techniques, materials, and technologies we can come up with something better. However, when those things are lacking it’s nice to know the fallback position will work.

In Secrets of Polar Travel, explorer Robert Peary spends several pages waxing poetic about the merits of a ration he brought on his expeditions to the Arctic between 1886 and 1909. In addition to ranking it “first in importance” among his supplies, he genuinely enjoyed the food, writing that it was the only meal “a man can eat twice a day for three hundred and sixty-five days in a year and have the last mouthful taste as good as the first.”

Peary was talking about pemmican, a blend of rendered fat and powdered, dried meat that fueled exploration and expansion long before his attempts to reach the North Pole. Archaeological evidence suggests that as early as 2800 BC humans hunted the bison that roamed North America’s Great Plains and blended their meat, fat, and marrow into energy-dense patties with a serious shelf-life. A single pound of pemmican lasted for years and might’ve packed as many as 3,500 calories.

Food certainly does give energy, but I’m not sure if I’d call these ‘energy bars’ rather than ‘food bars’, anymore than beef jerky is ‘energy strips’.

It might be interesting to experiment with. Be kinda nice to make, essentially, some Purina People Chow.

Almost caught up, CostCo, Paratus

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Finally getting close to being caught up on things. Should be back to snuff by Monday. Thanks for your patience.
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A quick trip to CostCo today. Just because I feel like crap is no excuse to ignore the future. Picked up some ‘chubs’ of ground beef and, interestingly, ground chicken. Hey, chicken is cheaper by the pound and I want to experiment with chicken meatballs. :::shrug::: I’m an innovator.

But, more importantly, I got a few more things on the shelves ‘just in case’. And JIC can cover a lot of things…it doesn’t have to be just a zombie apocalypse.  Localized shortages, a rockslide that closes the main road to town, a fire a the local WalMart, a bout of unemployment, etc. There’s really no reason not to have some basics laid back.

I, however, choose to go beyond ‘basic’ and I hope you do too.
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Even though I have a dozen or so stripped AR lowers sitting around, I still check pricing and availability. Gotta say…now is the second worst time to be buying guns, first worst is gonna be November. Even if early-onset dementia victim Biden doesn’t get elected you can still expect gun prices and availability to be wildly unpredictable. What I can predict is that there will be no Trump Slump this time around. Even if Trump wins, the natives are still restless over Covid, race ‘discussions’, and other uncertainties.

Now is not the time for complacency.
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Four weeks until Paratus! Shop early, avoid the rush.
And if you wanna get yours truly a little something………

Update

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I am still in the midst of catching up on the huge amount of stuff I need to catch up on after being gone a few days. And I have to do it hobbling around like a gimp. Truly, the universe hates me. By the way, while various medical tape is handy for keeping things bandaged in place, nothing beats athletic tape. That stuff is like duct tape for your skin. I’ve a big 2″ wide roll of that stuff and it is perfect for keeping the gauze and dressing in place. Highly recommend for your first aid kit.

However, there is some stuff to be gained out of all this. One of the things that I was helping someone move was some storage food that had been stored in, shall we say, ‘less than ideal’ conditions…and by that I mean a storage unit in the Texas sun. So, it’ll be interesting to see what survived and what did not. The simple stuff like rice, salt, and that sorta thing should be fine as long as the humidity didn’t get to it. The canned meats and whatnot….that should be interesting. I suspect I’ll be reporting on those eventually.

Sadly, playing catch-up on my life (or what passes for it) is going to take me at least another few days. I don’t really expect the blog to be back to ‘normal’ until the weekend. By then I’ll have gotten caught up on all this nonsense and can get back to the regularly scheduled brain droppings.

So, be patient with me…give me another couple days to get caught up and we’ll be back to business as unusual.