Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
It looks like summer is coming to an end, although previous experience has shown that September is often the hottest month of the year around here. But, the evenings are cool and crisp which is pretty nice. Since the seasons are changing its coming up on time to make whatever seasonal changes are necessary to things around here. Most notably, the cold weather gear needs to be broken out of storage and put where it needs to be. The Cold Weather Module goes back into my everyday bag, cold gear goes in the truck, and the kerosene heaters need to be cleaned up and filled.
Speaking of cold weather gear, Sportsmans Guide HQ catalog has the $20 flectar field jackets with liners again. I highly recommend these things…they’re extremely comfortable, quite warm, and I think they’re superior to the US field jacket. Lemme look up the product number..uhm..ah! Here we go – JXM-182898X. These are excellent quality jackets and easily worth the money.
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The economy appears to be..well…unchanged. About the only predictable thing is the throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks method of dealing with it (or not dealing with it, as the results may be) that the government is taking. As a friend of mine observed, if you want a real barometer of what the economy is doing observe the pricing of gold and silver. Both have been hitting record highs lately…indications, right or wrong, that a lot of folks aren’t exactly brimming over with confidence about the economy.
As this thing drags on, folks who were well positioned to weather it out will start fading as the economic malaise outlasts their resources. Is it a coincidence that there seem to be an unusually large number of people going off the rails and shooting up their places of former employment? I doubt it…folks are getting stressed and scared and some are going to handle it well and some are going to snap like rubber band.
I suppose that, depending on how the elections turn out, a corner may be turned as confidence about the economy returns on the hope that a new political direction will stop the bleeding. Nice thought but, as we seem to be learning the hard way, ‘hope’ is not a strategy.
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For small electronic devices (GPS, radio, flashlights, etc, etc.) that I carry daily, I try to standardize on one battery size. Normally that is the AA-size batt (because most of these everyday-carry devices are pretty small). They’re easily available, can be had in lithium (highly recommended), and just about every device you could imagine needing will come in that size. Sometimes theres an item that just isn’t available in AA…and that’s usually the CR123 battery. So, basically, all my small handheld stuff runs on one of those two sizes. In my everyday bag I carry spare batts for my gear. For the last year or so I’ve been using this (Volta Battery Case with Batuca battery holder) to carry around spare batts. There are a couple other carriers available but they leave the contact ends of the batteries exposed. I carry a lot of junk in my bag and the last thing I need is a pack of batteries lodging against some spare ammo or paperclips and shorting themselves out. The case completely encloses the batteries, fits AA or CR123 interchangeably, fits a handy MOLLE pouch, and has compartments for 8 batts. I usually pack six of the AA’s and 2 of the CR123. That’s enough to keep flashlights, gunlights, GPS and radios going. Some items like the classic Altoids tin (properly insulated) will work very nicely but I figured for a few bucks I may as well go the professional route. If you need to carry spare batts, AA or CR123, check it out. (Although if I was going to carry just CR123, I kinda like Surefire’s case.)
