Monthly Archives: November 2022

Flashlight holster

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So its been a couple weeks since I picked up the flashlight I posted about a while back. Thus far, I’ve been extraordinarily pleased with it. It’s just a tad bigger than what I’d want to carry around in my pocket for everyday use (that need is far better served with the Fenix E12), but for a flashlight to keep in my Bag O’ Tricks (TM) or on a belt….wonderful choice.

The belt thing, however…..

Like pretty much every high(er)-end flashlight you buy these days, this thing came with a nylon belt pouch. Nothing wrong with that. But I want something a little more durable and a bit more resilient. Fortunately, the internet is not lacking in ways to spend money. Specifically, this little piece o’ gear.

Mounted on my new Viking Tactical belt, it fits just fine and remains out of the way but handy. Recommended.

What? The Viking Tactical belt? Oh..ok….more about that later.

 

Vote

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My usual election-themed Heinlein quote:

“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Yeah, yeah, yeah…”If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Whatever, man…. I’ll vote every chance I get.

Snowfall means winter is here

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Had our first real bit of snow yesterday which means it is time to make sure any seasonal preps have been attended to. For me, that mostly means putting sand and a shovel in the back of the truck, putting the Winter Module into my Bag O’ Tricks(tm), and making double-sure the generator is ready to roll.

I live in an extremely urban part of Montana, so the power rarely goes out here and when it does it is usually in the winter, it is very localized, and is almost always back in a few hours. So, there’s not really a huge risk of damage there…but whose to say the next outage won’t be region-wide? Or larger?

The part of Montana I live in is also, weirdly, the warmest part of Montana. When Billings and Great Falls are -20, it’s 5 degrees here. This valley, for some reason, seems to just stay warm. Probably a volcano down there somewhere that no one has paid attention to.

Regardless, it’s time to switch modes from warm-weather to cold-weather. And, that means making sure your vehicle is ready for whatever winter brings. I had a whole series of posts on that sort of thing. There’s nothing heroic or glamourous about freezing to death by the side of the road because you thought one of those foil mylar blankets and a few handwarmers were going to be all you needed to get through a cold night in your car. No one is going to hand out awards to people who made it through a crisis with the least amount of gear…grab a sleeping bag or two, shove them in a Home Depot orange bucket, hammer a lid onto it, and – presto- a watertight, dustproof, dirtproof, protective container for your sleeping bag.

In addition to car stuff, go make sure you’ve got everything you need in case a pipe pops somewhere. Make sure nothing is obstructing the water shutoffs, have material handy (clamps, sheets of gasket material, etc.) to at least jury-rig something to keep things relatively dry.

And , of course, carry extra warm clothing. I dont mean “Extra warm” clothing, I mean extra “warm clothing”….because there is always someone, usually a Gyno-American, who underdressed for weather because the warm goosdown parka was ‘the wrong color’ or was ‘ugly’ and instead thinks wearing fleece tights and a ‘cute’ fleece jacket will suffice. And the hat will ‘mess up’ her hair. Carry extras, guys.

WInter is here, time to shift gears.

Interesting times

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Call them what you will…disasters, events, apocalypses, crises, whatever…..but they come in two temporal flavors: the fast and the slow. The fast ones are easy to recognize – an earthquake, tsunami, explosion, martial law, riot, etc, etc. Its basically going from zero-to-MadMax in the span of a few moments. The slow ones are things like what we’re experiencing now….every day the water gets a bit warmer and you don’t notice it until the day it becomes a rolling boil. And by then….well, I hope you had your gear stashed and your plans made….because, brother, it’s too late now.

Gas prices are still absurd, inflation is uncontrolled, politicians of both stripes are warning of politically motivated violence, crime seems to be increasing, the housing markets are fomenting cries for socialist policies, taxes are going up, and who knows what the international situation will be adding to the mix. Interesting time to be alive, isn’t it?

Eventually all of this will be a memory…inflation will drop back to its ‘optimal’ level of 2%, the housing market will calm down, politics will return to something you can talk about without it devolving into a knife fight, and your average Joe won’t feel like a trip through the WalMart parking lot is like taking a stroll through Fallujah.

The big question, of course, is what will the medicine look like that finally cures this ailment? Chemotherapy kicks cancer’s butt but it darn near kills you in the process. Will the fix for these things be almost as bad as those things themselves? I mean, Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Hitler built the autobahn…but look at the cost.

I have no idea what its going to take to change the current situation. But I am fairly confident that I know what it will not take…it will not take out-of-touch leftists whose solution to inflation and crime is “Green Deals” and “inclusive” pronouns.

Next week’s elections should be telling. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m gonna go on a limb and guess that the major issues on the minds of your average voter are inflation and gas prices. I’m of the opinion that most people, fundamentally, look out for Numbah One and that means that when chicken jumps 70% in a year they will vote on the economy and their pocketbook, not on transgendered bathrooms and carbon neutrality.

No two ways about it, these are weird times. So far, I’ve been able to deal with inflation, scarcity, crime, and pandemic simply because I’ve been preparing for stuff like this for the last thirty years. Food prices up? I’ve enough stockpiled food to help defray the high costs. Housing is expensive? Good thing the house is paid. Crime is up? Dude….not even gonna worry about it. Pandemic? Happily unvaccinated and still healthy as a horse. But you and me, we’re the exceptions. And, unfortunately, it isn’t the exceptions that decide the outcome of elections, but rather the general populace… the general unprepared populace.

So, long story short, make sure to vote next week, and make sure to grab some friends and drag them to the polls and make sure they vote. Then go back to your bunker and keep working on your readiness, ’cause one way or the other this nonsense is still far from being done.