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

Gas at the local CostCo finally passed the $4 mark. Now, a $20 won’t be enough to fill a 5-gallon fuel can. That’s one of my personal benchmarks on gasoline prices. Where will prices go from here? Well, I think that with the summer travel season upon us the price will go up more but Im not sure how far. What really concerns me is the upcoming winter season and the fuel costs for heating the house. On the bright side, I don’t heat with oil. On the bad side, I heat with natural gas. So there’ll be a bit of ‘winterizing’ over the summer to do what I can to help keep the heat in and the cold out this winter.

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This weekend is the Fourth O’ July. This and Patriots Day (The genuine April 19^th version, not the absurd and badly named ‘Patriot Day’) are the two holidays that I try to get out to the range for. Fourth O’ July is kind of optional but Patriots Day is a must-go for me. This time of year is also the best time to head up to the reservation and pick up fireworks. Commercial made-in-China fireworks actually do have some tactical application. You mix the smoke bombs with a little road flare compound and a good dose of powdered red pepper to make your own tear gas grenades. I have a file around here somewhere that covers this…I’ll have to see if I can find it.

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A quick reminder that, unless you live in Washington DC, nothing has really changed and that you need to buy your magazines and boomsticks before the election. Get out there and jumpstart the economy.

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Speaking of, as you know I sometimes extol the virtues of the PTR HK-91 clones. Im the first to say that I don’t think they’re the best .308 out there (I really prefer the FAL) but I think for the money they are the best out there. Someone emailed me a few weeks ago asking my opinions and reasoning and I replied with an email stating why I thought that if you were going to buy a .308 semiauto they’d be the most practical choice. Fastforward a week or so and I got an email from the fella saying he had taken my advice and enclosed a .jpg of his new rifle, magazines and a case of surp .308.

Cool!

Your mileage may vary, and Im not propping myself up as an expert on anything, but if anyone is reckless enough to ask my opinion on something Im more than happy to share it. As an aside, I think the purchaser of the aforementioned rifle will be very pleased with his purchase. At least, I hope he is.