Candle Lanterns

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I am not a fan of open flame devices for most indoor applications. I have  kerosene heaters that I keep for backup heating and kerosene lanterns for backup lighting, but I also use them very carefully and with a plethora of fire-extinguishing materials on-hand. As Washington said, fire “is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Meaning, it’s quite useful but it comes with some big risks.

I am not a fan of candles for indoor use at all. They provide minimal lighting and a disproportionate amount of risk for that meager illumination. They are certainly better than nothing, but I’d rather spend the $10 for a cheap LED light and a fistful of batteries.

The exception to my disdain for these sorts of things is the candle lantern. The candle is encased in a protective housing that affords a measure of security that, while not eliminating the risks, reduces them a small amount. Tip over a candle lantern and you probably won’t set the house on fire.

What I really like about candle lanterns, however, is their use for vehicle emergency kits. In the enclosed space of a vehicle, a candle lantern will provide a good amount of light and, more importantly, a small amount of heat. (Plus, on a lizard-brain level, controlled fire has a calming soothing effect…it’s hard to be miserable around a campfire.) Obviously there is a carbon monoxide issue but keeping the window open just a crack oughtta take care of that. (I suppose if youre really hardcore you might carry a battery CO detector in your car kit for when you use something like this.)

The candle lanterns I have for the vehicle are these guys: UCO Original Candle Lantern Value Pack. Because I’m an evil yuppy survivalist, I purchased a few extras for it…the reflectors and a padded carry case. Throw in a handful of extra candles, a couple packets of matches, and you’re off to the races. Surprisingly, when used with the reflectors there is a fair amount of light thrown…not enough to ever replace even the most lamest LED light, but you could certainly navigate through a darkened structure. However, as I said, I got these for use in case we ever got stuck in the snow somewhere. Hang it from the rear-view mirror and let it warm the place up and give us some light to be seen by. Although I don’t need them for household use, I have a few spares in storage that could be drafted for indoor use if necessary but, as I said, I don’t care for the risks involved…thats why I have so many LED lights and batteries.

There are some knockoffs out there but I’ve been using the UCO-branded candles and lanterns and like them very much. I count them as a tertiary-level (or deeper) level of backup lighting but in some cases they might be just the ticket. Anyway, I bring them to your attention in case you hadn’t already been aware of them.

Article – Greek Hospitals Suffer In Ailing Economy

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

https://www.commanderzero.com/The economic crisis in Greece is strangling the country’s hospitals, where budgets have been slashed by more than half. As a result, nearly all doctors in both public and private hospitals have seen their pay cut, delayed or even frozen.

“On top of that, we lack basic supplies to do our jobs,” says Vangelis Papamichalis, a neurologist at the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece and a member of the doctors union here. “We run out of surgical gloves, syringes, vials for blood samples and needles to sew stitches, among other things.”

Last week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said these shortages will contribute to hospital-acquired infection rates in Greece, which are already among the worst in Europe.

Savvy world-travellers will often, when visiting Third World countries, bring along their own syringes and similar materials in case they need medical attention. https://www.commanderzero.com/The idea being that in most Third World countries customary medical practices we are used to, such as sterilization and not re-using needles, may be absent. So…you bring your own.

This is another reason why it might be smart to stock up on more advanced medical items for your future needs. While you may not have any idea how to use a hemostat, suture, scissors and blade, there will be someone around who does…and who will need clean, sterile, professional instruments. In a First World country like ours, we take it for granted that we can walk into virtually any hospital and find clean, sterile materials. Globally, this is the exception, not the norm. All it takes is a hospital’s vendors refusing to take credit, and a hospital not getting the cash it needs from patients, to exhaust the hospitals supply closets.

Greece was, arguably, somewhere in the range of being a First World country…certainly not a country you think of where hospitals run short of medical equipment. But, that equipment and supplies has to get paid for somehow. And without money, either from funding or patient billing, no one is just going to fork over expensive gear without expecting payment.

Next year we are supposed to have millions more people suddenly ‘have access’ to medical care. Suddenly and drastically increase the demand on a system without a corresponding increase in that systems capacity and you get….an overloaded and failing system. If you thought it sucked to stand around in a hospital waiting for something you’re really gonna hate whats coming.

I’m not saying you need to build a surgical theater in your basement, but I have, in the past, gotten medical treatment in non-medical environments. You know how it is..you need some stitches, a vaccination, something examined, and you happen to have a neighbor or acquaintance who is a doctor or nurse. Sit down on their couch, they swab your arm, jab a few needles, and youre on your way. Those folks, Crom love ‘em, are gonna be worth their weight in gold over the next few years. It’ll be nice to have the gear available to let them do what needs doing.

 

S&W tells me its the end of the world

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Have a customer who ordered up a S&W M&P pistol from S&W a month or so back and it hasn’t shown up yet. He asked me to light a fire under ‘em. I emailed their LE rep and this is the exact reply I got:

No ETA, sorry bud.  Its the end of the world and all that right around the corner so we are backordered.

Nice. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Personally, if it’s the end of the world I would think the autopistols of choice will be Rugers and Glocks. The Ruger will edge out the Glock for durability, but the Glock will win the trophy hands-down for parts support.

Regardless, this is really a bad time to be trying to buy a particular gun. Oh, theres guns available, to be sure….but you may not get exactly what you want. Or, if you do, be prepared to part with some major cash.

ETA: Factor in the mass shooting in Connecticut today and it look’s like AR shipping times are gonna be pushed back another several weeks and lets not even think about what the magazine market is going to look like. Now that the election is over this might be the casus belli that The Usual Suspects need to enact their ‘sensible’ citizen gun control.

Reviewing your book

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

With the advent of self-publishing through Kindle/Amazon more and more people are taking a stab at writing their own fiction. I think this is awesome and it’s great that folks are exercising their minds, getting out their opinions and ideas, and that they can reap benefits from it. However, having said that, it’s kinda my policy not to review books (or stories) that are sent to me, or that I am directed to, by the author/distributor/publisher.

The reason is really pretty simple. I don’t want the drama. If someone emails me and says “Hey, I read your blog and thought you might like this book I wrote. Here’s a coupon code for a free copy from Amazon! It’d be great if you’d post about it!” and I take them up on it, read their stuff, and don’t like it….what happens? I post that I didn’t like it and then I get into an unwanted email exchange with the person demanding to know why I didnt like it, why am I sabotaging their writing career, I’m obviously of no talent and simply jealous, etc, etc, etc.  Like I said, drama. Don’t need it, don’t want it.

So..I highly encourage you to explore your talents as a writer of ..well..whatever you want. And if you want to send me a free copy of your work to read, that’s great. But if you want me to review it, I’m afraid I’ll have to take a pass.

Is this something that happens frequently enough that I felt I needed to post about it? Well, it didn’t used to be but then again it didn’t used to be that people could do the self-publishing thing either. I probably get four or five of these sorts of requests a year and I usually just ignore them hoping the person will take the hint and there won’t be any hard feelings..but I may as well put it out in the open just in case someone was thinking about asking me to review their work for them.

It’s nothing personal guys, but asking me to review your literary masterpieces is like a fat chick asking you “Do you think I look fat?”. There’s no way you can give an honest opinion without someone getting hurt.

SO, please..go create! Give voice to your preparedness muse! Write the next Great American (Preparedness) Novel…and feel free to send me a copy, but please don’t ask me to review it.

The Walking Dead 10/22

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I’m a gun nut Ballistic-American and something of a nerd, so why am I not surprised that these two character traits/weaknesses/identities have conspired to hijack my subconscious as of late.

Where exactly has it shanghaied it to? (Yeah, that sentence probably could have been constructed…gooder.) For the life of me, I have spent the last week playing over in my mind what I would want out of a 10/22 if I were stuck in a world full of soft-skulled, slow-moving zombies. Seriously. I’m spending, like, an hour a day surfing the web for just the right barrel, just the right stock, just the right sights, just the right accessories…and then when I find them and think “Yeah, that’d be perfect” I rethink the requirements and have to start from scratch.

RIght off the bat, I was absolutely in love with this:

It’s a one-off from Nodak Spud. But…I loved the HK MP5 look. Compact, has provisions for an optic, has open sights, enough barrel to thread and suppress ahead of the sight, and a telestock. Oh..but that stock….mmmm…not so sure. I mean, the zombie apocalypse is going to require a good bit of running around and being light on your feet…so wouldn’t a folder make more sense? But then again, rimfires can be fussy…and if you pull the trigger and are rewarded with a ‘click’ you’re going to want a stock with some stoutness to it so you can drive the buttplate (need a metal buttplate now rather than the OEM plastic) through the skull of the zombie. And what about a suppressor? I can find threaded .22 barrels all day long but I cant find a threaded .22 barrel with iron sights. That shouldn’t surprise me…once you screw a suppressor onto the end of the barrel you wind up having the diameter of the supressor block the sights. But..I need iron sights in case the optics fail. And..and..and….

See, this has been running in my mind for the last week since I’ve been watching season three of The Walking Dead.

So, I figure what I’d want is a solid stock, wood or plastic, a threaded barrel, sights high enough to overlook a mounted suppressor, a rail for optics, maybe a better mag release, and some rail for mounting a light. Not much to ask for, right? Something that when it’s all done would like very much like this:

The flash suppressor is probably gilding the lily, but it protects the threads when you don’t have the suppressor on the end. I’d swap the barrel band for the side-mounted, rail equipped one from Pro-Mag (ProMag Barrel Band) and call it a day.

Not as compact as it would be with a folder, but I like having the ‘blunt force trauma’ option. True compact would look like this. But I think this would be a nice rig for capping the slow, shambling zombies at up to 100 yards. And, with a couple Butler Creek mags, a small group of ‘em could be knocked down by one person almost as fast as knocking down one.

See, this is what happens when you give a science-fiction/comic-book nerd an internet connection and a 10/22.

But, in the interest of stimulating dialog and catering to my mania, how would you set yours up? We’ve established that the skull of your average Walking Dead zombie is easily penetrated by simple hand tools, so a .22 offers plenty of penetration. The rule of law has quite obviously taken a holiday so SBR and suppress to your heart’s content. Bonus points for detailing parts and model numbers.

 

Snow, Joke, ILBE pack

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Well, we finally got some real snow last night. The roads are akin to a skating rink in many spots and there were some very localized power outages from the heavy, wet snow dragging down power lines. I suspect that virtually all of it will melt off over the weekend. Still, it’s noce to know that we don’t have to get in the truck and take our chances on the icy roads for…well…anything. Plenty of food and drink, we have backup heating and lighting, and as long as the internet holds out we have all the entertainment we’d need. Why skid around the streets taking chances if you don’t have to, y’know?

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Now that it’s after Pearl harbor, I can throw this out there:

Q: What do you get when you cross a black guy with a Japanese guy?

A: A guy who, every December 7, invades Pearl Bailey.

Yes, it’s a very old joke.

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If youre a major gear whore like myself, and a collector of Too Many Backpacks, you might like this awesome deal from the straight-shooters at Old Grouch: a lovely USMC MARPAT ILBE Rucksack By Arc’Teryx for a c-note. Man, I remember when my CFP-90 was the height of surplus pack technology.

If you dont have ‘em on your Facebook, they get some awesome specials and other goodies that sell out fast. You’ll wanna ‘Like’ these guys and get the latest before it sells out.

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The wife and I watched the last two episodes of The Walking Dead last night. I don’t wanna even begin to go into the dreams I had. This is not made any easier by this little tidbit: Can Humans Be Controlled By Tiny Parasites? And by ‘controlled by tiny parasites’ they don’t mean itty-bitty liberals.

The face of a criminal

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I try not to get too off-topic around here because, really, that’s not what this blog is about.

But…I do get folks asking me about Nuke from time to time. Here’s a bit of dog shaming from his latest misadventure.

Really, it’s probably my our the wife’s fault for leaving the turkey on the counter unattended. But, really, does he appear to be showing any remorse whatsoever? Didn’t think so. Must be nice being a dog.

Pearl Harbor Day

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

It’s Pearl Harbor Day… a good reminder that sometimes things happen that you just were not anticipating at all. (Unless, of course, you’re FDR and need to jumpstart a failed economy.)

There are actually a few Pearl Harbor survivors in this town. I met one at the post office years ago. It was kinda weird meeting someone who was there at such a pivotal moment in US history. OLike an idiot, I asked “What was it like?”..a question I’m sure he’d heard thousands of times. I shouldn’t have been surprised that his answer was “Terrifying.”

Article – Missing Couple Found, 1 Survivor

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

A Nevada couple missing for a week in the California mountains after their vehicle became stuck following a sudden snow storm have been found, the woman survived the ordeal, but her boyfriend died, police said.

Paula Lane, 46, and Roderick Clifton, 44, were reported missing on Nov. 29, after they left Clifton’s mother’s home in Citrus Heights, Calif., on their way home to Nevada.

The couple are believed to have taken their Jeep off-roading when they became stranded off Highway 88/89 in the Sierra Nevada mountains, police said.

“They spent that first day, and slept, in the vehicle before Roderick left to go find help, but he never came back,” said Bryan Fritsch, a spokesman for the Citrus Heights police department.

Stay with the vehicle. This chick went out and was found by relatives who were searching for her. Dang lucky, if you ask me. Why didnt the boyfriend have the same luck? I’m guessing that by the time she left the vehicle to look for help they had been missing long enough that the area was being saturated with searchers. Just a guess.

It’s not tough to do: sleeping bag, water, food, firestarting, signal materials, a good book, and warm clothes. Even in the 21st century in a First World industrialized nation you can still wind up stuck in the middle of nowhere freezing to death.