Surprisingly, “Good Eats” had an episode involving what to do with your 50# bag of wheat. Cracked wheat, bulghur, etc, etc. Very informative. Wheat is, from a preparedness standpoint, cool stuff since if stored properly it’ll last virtually forever and is versatile enough to make breads, porridges, bulghur, and even meat-substitutes. Ranks right up there with beans and rice in terms of cheap food that will store well and keep you off the FEMA food lines. Of course, man does not live on wheat alone and thats where the freze-dried lasagna and MRE pork comes in.
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Briefly caught a thing on CNN about how some company has come up with an LED lightbulb to replace standard bulbs but still throw off the spectrum of color that we’re used to. Very cool…LED technology is going to render the incandescent, heat generating bulb obsolete for many functions (but not all). Bulb life that is almost indefinite, requires less electricity, not as delicate as a filamented bulb…good stuff. Except for my MagLite and tactical gunlights I use LED’s for all my flashlights these days.
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Winter is approaching, which means that soon it’ll be time to endurance test various bits of gear to see how they function in cold weather. I refilled the lamps and heater a few weeks ago and still have over 50 gallons of kerosene on hand so Im way ahead of the curve on this one…although I still want the extra kero heater. Definitely time to get the storm windows in.
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Man, if you saw Commander Zero’s What-I-Want-For-Christmas list…..Ive got some expensive and somewhat wierd tastes.
Notes From The Bunker
Man, if you saw Commander Zero’s What-I-Want-For-Christmas list…..Ive got some expensive and somewhat wierd tastes.
Care to share, or will you just keep us all in suspense? 🙂
And, yeah, the LED lights are awesome, but right now they are also quite expensive, more then the flouresent lights are.
Briefly caught a thing on CNN about how some company has come up with an LED lightbulb to replace standard bulbs but still throw off the spectrum of color that we’re used to. Very cool…LED technology is going to render the incandescent, heat generating bulb obsolete for many functions (but not all). Bulb life that is almost indefinite, requires less electricity, not as delicate as a filamented bulb…good stuff. Except for my MagLite and tactical gunlights I use LED’s for all my flashlights these days.
They’re probably referring to Lumileds, which makes a “warm white” series of LEDs. They also are the only manufacturer that supplies emitters for tactical flashlights. So, if you’ve ever seen a Surefire or a Streamlight with an LED, it’s got a Luxeon emitter in it.
In any event, bulb life is almost indefinite and they’re shock-resistant, but that and color temperature are about the only real benefit. Heat is still an issue with the larger emitters and the lumens per watt ratings aren’t significantly better than incandescent bulbs.
Do you have a link to the article?
The surefire X200 has one of those Luxeon emitters, and it is excellent. Given the fact that LED illumination is still in its infancy, I can’t wait to see what comes next.
When there are equivalent LED weapons lights for my other apps, I’ll swap out the old surefire stuff. It is still excellent, but simply cannot hold a candle (nyuk nyuk nyuk) to the new stuff in terms of light vs. battery life vs. durability.
For the purpose of weapons applications, I don’t think there is any better choice than an LED. Incandescent bulbs are notoriously fragile and require complicated shock-isolation systems. On a quick glance, most of Surefire’s weapon lights put out about 120 lumens, which is well within the range of a Luxeon V (5 watt) emitter. Aside from what’s available from Surefire, I believe that there are many LED mods that people have done to their existing lights.
That last sentence is unclear. There are many LED mods, but I was specifically referring to the fact that many people have modified their incandescent Surefire lights to use luxeon emitters.
Check out the CandlePower Forums for more information than anyone ever wanted about flashlights.
your list
starts with i want a brain? oh waiting for the fat man in red, Wildflower
I can recommend two models of the Kero-Sun, Commander. The big barrel-shaped guy and the smaller rectangular job. Kalifornia doesn’t get anywhere near as cold as Montana, but I heated a 1000 square foot cabin for several years using the big barrel job.
The rectangular one came later and did almost as good a job. The big bonus with the rectangular one is that the fuel tank is removable, so you can haul it outside to fuel it. And yes, though it’s not recommended, you can hot-swap the fuel tank — pull, fuel and replace while the stove is running.
I run on propane now, but I’m never letting go of the kerosene and making sure every year that my stored kero is still good.
I’ve got a book on our list that has 1,000 uses for wheat. The author and her husband got a deal on 10,000+ pounds of wheat so she needed ideas to use it. I just want the deal on the 10,000 pounds of wheat!
I really like my ARC LSL and ARC AA. Their my first LED lights. Pity ARC went under.
Can you please give a name and author, or even better, a link to that book? I have wheat and other grains, and I use them, but I could always use more ideas. 🙂
Here‘s the website where one can find the book. I have the article from the Salt Lake Tribune that I may post here some time, once I figure out how to do that.
You have to add the “http://” to make a proper link. 🙂
To post an article, if it’s online, you just go to it and either copy/paste, or you copy/paste the url from the address bar. If it’s not online I guess there’s no other way than to scan it or type it all in. :-/
Anyway, thanks for the info on the book!