Monthly Archives: September 2021

Paratus AAR

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A few people sent Paratus offerings…some sent a few bucks cash, bullets, cleaning gear, Patreon subscriptions, or just words of greeting. And I am grateful to all who thought of me. And, some folks blogged their Paratus experience.

Remember guys…its your holiday. It’s what you make it. Take it as seriously or unseriously as you like. But, if youre smart, and you follow current events, you’ll take it seriously. 😉

I hope you guys all had a good Paratus and that we all make it through to the next one without having to use our AKs.

Catching up

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I don’t know how it happened, but it seems like my life got busier all of a sudden. I suppose thats the way it happens..we stop, look around, and realize we haven’t done anything of our own choosing for almost a week. So, what do I need to do?

Well, I’ve got, literally, a stack of AR’s sitting in the living room that need to go into storage. And I need to find time to finish loading up all that .357 brass I picked up. And I need to check the preponomicon and make sure I’m ‘in the green’ on things. Part of me feels no urgency because the decline and descent into ugly times is seemingly invisible… the buses still run, the lights are on, jobs are to be had, and there’s food in the fridge. Why worry? But when you look at the details, you see cracks in the facade…the mail is hitting new levels of dysfunction, inflation is creeping along, political shenanigans are still the order of the day, supply chain disruptions are making prices and availability sketchy, people are just seemingly getting meaner… theres a rather fatalistic undertone to everything these days.

But…I’ve been saying that for years and…the lights are still on, the taps still flow, the freezer is still full, and I didn’t have to use my AK today. But I’d rather be safe than sorry. And, honestly, I get a sense of satisfaction out of being prepared.

So, as I said, I’ve been letting things pile up as of late and I really need to jump on them and get them taken care of. Most notably going over my checklist and making sure I’m where I want to be on gear and supplies.

When things seem to be ‘going well’ it’s difficult to maintain the focus to get your prep on. After all, no one really gives a thought to umbrellas when the sun is shining…but once it starts raining you wish you’d done things differently. So…if you’ve gotten a little busy, or a little complacent, consider this a reminder to re-focus and Get It Done…. ’cause sitting in a dark house on a winter night is no fun for anyone.

 

News – Idaho hunter finds remains of man missing for 53 years

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A bow hunter looking for a shortcut on Sept. 17 stumbled upon the remains of a man missing for 53 years.

Raymond Jones, a 39-year-old from Salmon, had been missing since 1968. He was bow hunting for mountain goats in the east fork of Hayden Creek in Lemhi County when he was last seen on Sept. 7, 1968.

A lot of people don’t understand just how big and, in many places, remote it can be out here. There are more than a few planes that took off and never were seen again, cars that left the garage and disappeared, and whole lot of people that walked into the woods and no one ever saw again.

But…it’s the fact that things like that can happen out here that is part of the attraction. Sometimes, you want to disappear.

Backordered no more

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So about this time last year I had set up the big Dillon 1050 to run off some .357 Magnum using my favorite load. And I discovered…much to my amazement…that I did not have nearly as much .357 Mag brass on hand as I thought. And it was a hell of a time to try and order more. But, I did. And was told it was backordered. And backordered. And backordered.

Until today:

Thats 4,500 pieces of brand new .357 Mag brass. The Dillon will be getting quite the workout this weekend. And when I’m done, I package it in these from repackbox.com. They store neatly, uniformly, and take up a bit less space than the usual plastic box.

My goal is to have about half of these loaded by Sunday. And to take my Marlin .357 out for a spin and do a little shooting.

!!! Paratus 2021 !!!

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Happy Paratus, my peeps!

Yes, once again it is that time of year. The backpacks are left by door with care, in hopes the Long Range Recon Gift Squad will soon be there. The water is on the stove for the freeze dried dinner, a Walking Dead marathon is teed up on the bigscreen, and we’re all wearing our favorite combat boots. It’s a Norman Reedus Rockwell Paratus! ( Made even more poignant by virtue of The Current Situation.)

(Everything you want to know about Paratus is at the world-famous Paratus FAQ)

As has become my habit, gifts and cards were sent to a small group of people…mostly people I know IRL, or over years of email/blogging…. however, if you’ve sent me something by snail mail and used your real return address, or you signed up for Patreon and gave me some contact info, you probably got a card this year.

What was this years card?

Paratus 2021

Cover

Inside

Back

If you didn’t get a card this year, it’s pretty easy to get on the hit list…. donate something to the blog through Patreon or snail mail and leave me your mailing address. Or, be someone I associate with in real life who I can actually tolerate. Or send me a card as well.

I hope you all have a happy and renumerative Paratus. Did you get cool gear this year? Did you do something special with your fellow survivalists? Did you get chased out of Cabela’s for raising a fuss when they didn’t offer a Paratus discount? Let’s hear about it in comments.

The winter of our discontent

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Paratus is this coming Friday. I’ll be putting cards out Monday since it seems the postal service, ever since the election, has somehow managed to actually become even less efficient. If you want to get on the Paratus card list, all you have to do is either become someone I interact with on a fairly regular basis or be someone who kicks in a few bucks once in a while AND provides a mailing address. Anyone who signs up for Patreon gets a card if you provide an address. (Also, sending yours truly a Paratus gift is an excellent way to get  one back as well.)

Summer is slowly giving way to fall, which means winter is just around the corner. While heating a house in winter is never a cheap affair, I’m wondering if it will  be worse this year. Why would it be, you may ask? Well, first off we have that bugaboo of inflation going on. But, additionally, we have ‘supply chain disruption’ which means when your 30-year-old furnace craps the bed, or your brand new 101% efficiency furnace blows a circuitboard, finding (and getting) that replacement part may be…tricky. And, if you do get that part, finding an outfit that has enough staffing to get around to repairing your furnace in a timely manner may be an issue as well. And, of course, the fuel delivery system (gas, oil, electric) may take a hit in the reliability department as well for similar reasons.

As always, it’s a good idea to have some backup systems in place. For me it’s a couple kerosene heaters and a whole mess of five-gallon-drums of kerosene. Enough to keep the house above freezing for a good while. I’m not necessarily tryying to keep my house at 72 degrees on a winters night…I just want to keep my pipes from freezing. (and, yes, worst case scenario I could drain the pipes as well to reduce the risk and then only have to heat one room as a ‘lifeboat’.)

These current shortages, logistics issues, occasional hacking-related shutdowns, and Wuhan Flu restrictions are going to make winter interesting. Especially since staying indoors with lots of people is sort of the opposite of what you want to do during a pandemic.Will ‘the numbers go up’ as people spend more time indoors around other people over the winter and holidays? Will the regular flu get mixed up with Wuhan Flu and send panicked people to the emergency rooms as their temperatures rise? Will whoever is actually running the country impose even greater restrictions ‘for the greater good’? We’re gonna find out.

This should be an interesting winter.

Article -A deputy mayor in New York faces charges after federal authorities found him with dozens of unregistered guns and bogus FBI badges

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Remember, kids..some animals are more equal than others:

A deputy mayor of a city in New York state faces federal charges after authorities discovered unregistered firearms and bogus badges for federal agencies, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

Last week, Brian Downey, a Republican who serves as deputy mayor of Airmont, New York, was taken into custody for “purchasing a rifle suppression device over the internet,” according to a statement from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities later executed a search warrant on his home and found at least 13 illegal suppressors and 16 unregistered assault weapons, including a short-barrel rifle and sawed-off shotgun.

First, you have to admit, the guy has some good taste in thundertoys. Secondly, as far as I can tell in the documents, the ‘short barreled rifle’ is an arm-braced PSA AR. Im betting the supressors are dummies, but the sawed down side by side looks legit. Regardless, this guy is out a metric buttload of money in addition to all the other problems he’s about to encounter. As for the badges..well… play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I bet if you canvas the local Gyno-Americans they’ll tell about some fed in an unmarked car pulling them over for various reasons that usually are defused by them agreeing to go on a date with him.

But…it’s NY. where guns like that are supposed to be verboten for the regular volks.But, there’s always that cog in the .gov machine who thinks maybe he has just a little extra juice and the rules don’t apply to him as much as the other guy.

Moral of the story: ordering questionably legal gun accessories off the interweb under your real name is a bad idea.

That Facebook thing

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It’s one of those things that maybe-its-true-maybe-it-isn’t. What are we talking about? Facebook’s latest foray into the social credit and pre-crime fields – if you’re “too prepared” you might be an extremist.

Some linkage of varying pedigree……

I know, I know….we’re all on a list already, whats one more, right? But, if there’s any truth to this then it’s the classic ‘marginalize a group so you can persecute them freely’ ploy.

You’re preparing for [martial law/hurricanes/Xenu/blizzards/Rapture/blackouts]? Then you’re showing a lack of faith in .gov’s ability to protect and that means you are, de facto, ‘anti government’. Or something like that. The logic, such as it is, will be pretty convoluted.

But, regardless, you’ll be marginalized…anything you say will always be discounted by other people because “Oh, he’s one of those…”. And at some point, that whole ‘if you see something, say something’ nonsense will include guys like you and me walking out of Sportsmans Warehouse with too many Magpuls or too many gas cans.

And just like that, Facebook made everyone’s grandmother into a terrorist……….

Paratus in two weeks

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A friendly reminder that Paratus, the holiday for survivalists, is in two weeks. In case you’re new here, Paratus is the holiday that was founded to give survivalists a reason to socialize, buy new gear, and do cool stuff. You can read about it here at the world famous Paratus FAQ.

Some of you beautiful freaks will be getting Paratus cards and gifts this year. But even if you don’t, you’ll have my warmest wishes for a Happy Paratus.

Get your survivalist buddies a nice gift…or make plans to head to the range…or hang around the house eating pizza and watching Walking Dead and Jericho episodes. The only wrong way to celebrate Paratus is to not celebrate it!

Got a favorite online vendor for gear? Ask if theyre having a Paratus sale this year. Spread the word!

And, as always, if you wanna get the Zero a little somethin’ for the holiday you can always send Amazon gift card codes or you can sign up for Patreon… either one gets you on the card list. And, really, who doesn’t want to be on yet another List?