Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Well, its no swallow coming back from cappucino, but the first sign of fall is here: the heat kicked in this morning. I’m not looking forward to going out nad seeing how the tomatoes are faring. However, I did ostensibly pick up one of the varieties because it was supposed to be pretty tolerant of the cool weather so we’ll see if that works or not.
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While I very much like my Hk P2A1 flare guns, they do have the typical drawback of anything made by HK – theyre a bit…robust. This is a polite way of saying “Big and heavy”. (You know, kinda like how fat chicks are now “curvy”.) Anyway, while I do love me the HK flare gun, I also love having a pack that weighs as little as possible. When youre running around in the boonies its always nice to have some options in case you get in over your head, the flare gun is one of those little things that tips the odds in your favor. But the weight…the bulk…. meh. An option is the pen flare launchers. These things are tiny little flare launchers that, while slightly bigger than an actual pen, are still pretty compact but give good performance for their size. I was diddling around online the other day and found this place which sells the launchers, flares and cracker/noise bombs.
The items and their intended application are interesting, of course. Whats also interesting is the non-typical applications these things lend themselves to. The first thing that springs to mind is that these things would be an excellent starting point for making your own trip-flare warning system. A quick trip to Home Depot, some time at the workbench, a little camo spraypaint and you could probably put together an excellent perimeter warning system.
I may get one of their packages just to test out .
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Speaking of winter and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, it’s probably that time of the year where we should put the winter emergency gear in the truck. Because you don’t wanna wind up like James Kim, a classic case of the big-city guy dying in the boonies from bad judgement and poor planning.
The list of stuff you would want to keep in your vehicle varies from person to person so Im really not going to get into a huge list here. If you really want to know, and youre really serious, spend a winter night in your parked car and think about what you would like to have there as you sit in the dark with your teeth chattering. Winter sleeping bag, candles, water, food…..thats a given, work from there. One thing I’ll recommend is that in addition to the candles, get a good candle lantern. Its safer to use, provides the same heat, more illumination and can be hung from a rear view mirror. Contrary to what was portrayed in ‘Titanic’ theres nothing noble, romantic or cool about dying of hypothermia.
