Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Here you go:
.50 cal. registry
Ignore the registry info for Amazon. Ignore the registry info for a honeymoon. Ignore the registry info for everythign except the One True Gift.
Also, feel free to flog this around the internet…esp since pretty much every gunny on the interweb is familiar with from various ‘post pics of girls with guns’ threads and her work with/by the acclaimed
What? You never saw her stuff? Geez…..
Here you go:
.50 cal. registry
Ignore the registry info for Amazon. Ignore the registry info for a honeymoon. Ignore the registry info for everythign except the One True Gift.
Also, feel free to flog this around the internet…esp since pretty much every gunny on the interweb is familiar with kitiara from various ‘post pics of girls with guns’ threads and her work with/by the acclaimed olegvolk
What? You never saw her stuff? Geez…..
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
http://splodetv.com/how-make-ultimate-smoke-bomb
http://splodetv.com/how-make-ultimate-smoke-bomb
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I received a gift certificate to Amazon.com so…lets get some books and review them. That’s right, Im spending money so you don’t have to:
The Storm Gourmet – A Guide To Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity. Nikolopoulos, Pineapple Press, 1-56164-334-3
Of the two books in this genre listed here, I prefer this one. Many of the recipes, if you wanna call them that, require no cooking or in some cases very minimal cooking (usually just some boiling water to make pasta). One of the more interesting recipes:
“Curried Chicken
14 oz. (two packages) premium chicken breast, drained
½ cup canned sliced water chestnuts, drained
2/3 canned pineapple tidbits, drained
2 tbsp raisins
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1 ½ tsp curry powder
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp table cream
pepper
Place chicken, pineapple, water chestnuts, raisins and almonds in a medium sized bowl and toss together. Season with pepper. In a screw-top jar combine cream, lemon juice, soy sauce and curry powder, and shake vigorously. Pour over chicken mixture and toss to coat.”
So, yes, definitely more than your usual ‘taco seasonings, instant rice and canned corned beef’. That’s not a bad thing but you have to admit, after a long day of shooting looters and clearing stalled vehicles your probably gonna be in the mood for something a little more … ‘working class’…than Provencale Chicken Pasta, Hearts of Palm Salad, or Honey-Mustard Chicken with Pecans. Still, not a bad addition to the library.
Next up:
Apocalypse Chow – How To Eat Well When The Power Goes Out. Robertson, Simon & Schuster, 1-4169-0824-2
A cook book with a good bit of personal anecdote (hurricane experiences, mostly. They seem very proud of how they were sipping wine and eating crackers with olive tapenade. A little pretentious.) and a bunch of the usual basic preparedness info. Figure ½ cookbook, ½ simplistic preparedness guide. Since we’re all fairly astute and know all those little things like filling the bathtubs, etc., figure that youre paying for half a book.
Unlike the first book, there are more than a few recipes that call for using a food cooker of some kind. Again, its mostly for boiling water for instant rice or pasta. Again, most of the recipes are for food that I would consider a bit more elegant than the situation calls for but then again theres no real way to make a meatloaf over an esbit stove. Not a bad book but the other one has some nice color photos so you can at least have an idea of what things might look like.
I do give mad props for the clever book title though. Given a choice between the two, get the other book. If you can get through the first chapter or two of this book without thinking the authors are a bunch of pretentious elitists who would rather die than eat a Pop-Tart then youre a far more tolerant fella than I. For crying out loud, theres instructions on how to fold napkins into attractive shapes!)
Final book:
Ball Complete book Of Home Preserving – 400 Delicious And Creative Recipes For Today. Robert Rose Press, 0-7788-0131-4
Found this book in a Waldenbooks while I was killing time waiting for my number to come up on a ‘now seating’ restaurant list. Came back the next day and bought it.
Ball is pretty much the first name in home canning these days. This book reflects their years of experience in this field. Most of the recipes are for condiments, spreads, sauces and sides like Corn Relish, Chutney, Chili Sauce, Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, etc. There is a chapter or two on canning meats and foods with meat in them (such as chili). Lots of detail, good pictures, and plenty of how-to explanations for folks that may not be too familiar with how their waterbath canner or pressure canner works. $20 and worth it. Satisfaction from cracking open a jar of your own homemade salsa – priceless.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh yeah, before I forget…Im getting married. Next spring, actually. Amongst the usual useless crap that people register for (bed sheets, kitchen knives, dorky glassware, etc) theres also a registry for a .50 BMG. Something with a little more impressive presence than a blender or toaster oven. For those interested, I’ll have a post to the website in the next day or so. Feel free to contribute towards getting the happy couple a nice long-range precision firearm. Nothing says ‘good luck on your new life together’ like a Steyr HS50. (Or McMillan. Or Barrett. Depending on the generosity of well wishers.)
I received a gift certificate to Amazon.com so…lets get some books and review them. That’s right, Im spending money so you don’t have to:
The Storm Gourmet – A Guide To Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity. Nikolopoulos, Pineapple Press, 1-56164-334-3
Of the two books in this genre listed here, I prefer this one. Many of the recipes, if you wanna call them that, require no cooking or in some cases very minimal cooking (usually just some boiling water to make pasta). One of the more interesting recipes:
“Curried Chicken
14 oz. (two packages) premium chicken breast, drained
½ cup canned sliced water chestnuts, drained
2/3 canned pineapple tidbits, drained
2 tbsp raisins
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1 ½ tsp curry powder
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp table cream
pepper
Place chicken, pineapple, water chestnuts, raisins and almonds in a medium sized bowl and toss together. Season with pepper. In a screw-top jar combine cream, lemon juice, soy sauce and curry powder, and shake vigorously. Pour over chicken mixture and toss to coat.”
So, yes, definitely more than your usual ‘taco seasonings, instant rice and canned corned beef’. That’s not a bad thing but you have to admit, after a long day of shooting looters and clearing stalled vehicles your probably gonna be in the mood for something a little more … ‘working class’…than Provencale Chicken Pasta, Hearts of Palm Salad, or Honey-Mustard Chicken with Pecans. Still, not a bad addition to the library.
Next up:
Apocalypse Chow – How To Eat Well When The Power Goes Out. Robertson, Simon & Schuster, 1-4169-0824-2
A cook book with a good bit of personal anecdote (hurricane experiences, mostly. They seem very proud of how they were sipping wine and eating crackers with olive tapenade. A little pretentious.) and a bunch of the usual basic preparedness info. Figure ½ cookbook, ½ simplistic preparedness guide. Since we’re all fairly astute and know all those little things like filling the bathtubs, etc., figure that youre paying for half a book.
Unlike the first book, there are more than a few recipes that call for using a food cooker of some kind. Again, its mostly for boiling water for instant rice or pasta. Again, most of the recipes are for food that I would consider a bit more elegant than the situation calls for but then again theres no real way to make a meatloaf over an esbit stove. Not a bad book but the other one has some nice color photos so you can at least have an idea of what things might look like.
I do give mad props for the clever book title though. Given a choice between the two, get the other book. If you can get through the first chapter or two of this book without thinking the authors are a bunch of pretentious elitists who would rather die than eat a Pop-Tart then youre a far more tolerant fella than I. For crying out loud, theres instructions on how to fold napkins into attractive shapes!)
Final book:
Ball Complete book Of Home Preserving – 400 Delicious And Creative Recipes For Today. Robert Rose Press, 0-7788-0131-4
Found this book in a Waldenbooks while I was killing time waiting for my number to come up on a ‘now seating’ restaurant list. Came back the next day and bought it.
Ball is pretty much the first name in home canning these days. This book reflects their years of experience in this field. Most of the recipes are for condiments, spreads, sauces and sides like Corn Relish, Chutney, Chili Sauce, Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, etc. There is a chapter or two on canning meats and foods with meat in them (such as chili). Lots of detail, good pictures, and plenty of how-to explanations for folks that may not be too familiar with how their waterbath canner or pressure canner works. $20 and worth it. Satisfaction from cracking open a jar of your own homemade salsa – priceless.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh yeah, before I forget…Im getting married. Next spring, actually. Amongst the usual useless crap that people register for (bed sheets, kitchen knives, dorky glassware, etc) theres also a registry for a .50 BMG. Something with a little more impressive presence than a blender or toaster oven. For those interested, I’ll have a post to the website in the next day or so. Feel free to contribute towards getting the happy couple a nice long-range precision firearm. Nothing says ‘good luck on your new life together’ like a Steyr HS50. (Or McMillan. Or Barrett. Depending on the generosity of well wishers.)
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Here’s an interesting products: Midland’s XT511 Base Camp. According to the information I have this radio offers NOAA weather radio, AM/FM and 22 channel GMRS radio. Nothing special until you get to the cool part – it can be run off a handcrank. It also charges 5 watt Midland radio battery packs and anything that has a USB charge port. Sounds like a very cool goody. I would imagine the handcrank would run the AM/FM and the light, but if it also will run the 2-way radio part then you’ve got a unique product there. May have to get one and play with it.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Continuing the saga of the surplus German rain ponchos I ordered from Sportsmans Guide………..
The replacements showed up yesterday. I sent them back three and kept one. They sent me another four. Upon initial inspection they looked fine, however closer inspection showed two had small repairs (with duct tape) and one had a small unrepaired tear. One poncho was perfect. So, Im gonna have to give a conditional thumbs down on these things. If you don’t mind the duct tape repairs then they are an excellent deal. I’ll keep the two good ones (out of the total five) and put them in storage and use the others for daily or vehicle use. It’s a shame, up to this point Id been pretty pleased with SG’s HQ catalog stuff. To be fair, they did take back the return and send replacements in a very timely manner. The repairs escaped my initial notice so it is entirely possible the person packing the order didn’t notice them.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Had a day and a half of rain the other day and it went a long way to reduce (although not remove) the fire-related problems here. The air is much, much clearer and you can see the mountains again. Hopefully this little bit of rain (the first in over a month or so) will give the fire crews a break and allow them to get on top of things. I know several people, including one LMI, who were ordered to evacuate their homes. Fortunately everyone (so far) has come through just fine, but its always good to be prepared.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Happiness is opening a box from UPS and finding it jam packed with lovely new-in-the-wrapper high-quality 30-rd AR-15 mags. (And I think that sentence has set a record for hyphenation.) What I am guessing will be my final batch of the C Products mags arrived today. If you want some, you know whatcha gotta do.
Here’s an interesting products: Midland’s XT511 Base Camp. According to the information I have this radio offers NOAA weather radio, AM/FM and 22 channel GMRS radio. Nothing special until you get to the cool part – it can be run off a handcrank. It also charges 5 watt Midland radio battery packs and anything that has a USB charge port. Sounds like a very cool goody. I would imagine the handcrank would run the AM/FM and the light, but if it also will run the 2-way radio part then you’ve got a unique product there. May have to get one and play with it.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Continuing the saga of the surplus German rain ponchos I ordered from Sportsmans Guide………..
The replacements showed up yesterday. I sent them back three and kept one. They sent me another four. Upon initial inspection they looked fine, however closer inspection showed two had small repairs (with duct tape) and one had a small unrepaired tear. One poncho was perfect. So, Im gonna have to give a conditional thumbs down on these things. If you don’t mind the duct tape repairs then they are an excellent deal. I’ll keep the two good ones (out of the total five) and put them in storage and use the others for daily or vehicle use. It’s a shame, up to this point Id been pretty pleased with SG’s HQ catalog stuff. To be fair, they did take back the return and send replacements in a very timely manner. The repairs escaped my initial notice so it is entirely possible the person packing the order didn’t notice them.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Had a day and a half of rain the other day and it went a long way to reduce (although not remove) the fire-related problems here. The air is much, much clearer and you can see the mountains again. Hopefully this little bit of rain (the first in over a month or so) will give the fire crews a break and allow them to get on top of things. I know several people, including one LMI, who were ordered to evacuate their homes. Fortunately everyone (so far) has come through just fine, but its always good to be prepared.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Happiness is opening a box from UPS and finding it jam packed with lovely new-in-the-wrapper high-quality 30-rd AR-15 mags. (And I think that sentence has set a record for hyphenation.) What I am guessing will be my final batch of the C Products mags arrived today. If you want some, you know whatcha gotta do.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I was talking with someone today and I mentioned that little gives me more satisfaction than pantry shelves filled with food, a gun safe full of arms and ammo, and a bit of money in the bank. I can pull a lot of satisfaction out of those simple things.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Replaced the rear sight in my HiPower. I had an early adjustable sight (ca. 1970) in there that used two opposing screws to make windage changes. Loosen one, tighten the other. Well, one screw worked itself loose and I was never going to see that thing again so I went with a later manufacture OEM replacement. I also had a helluva time getting the damn thing installed. Im not going to go into the gory details, I will simply say that whatever you pay for a professional quality sight pusher is worth it. Go to Brownells and order one up because swinging at your slide with a brass hammer like your aiming for the center field fence gets really old really fast.
Speaking of tools, lets talk about tools. Specifically, gun tools. One of the things I’ve come to like about the Glock is that, by and large, you don’t ‘smith’ a Glock – you replace parts. Theres nothing, AFAIK, that requires fitting. You drop in your parts and go. If only everything else was that simple. AR’s require a few tools, but nothing really special. 1911’s require staking tools and a few other goodies. AK’s require..well, nothing really.
More than tools, you need references. I can only speak from experience. For Glocks, The Complete Glock Reference Guide from the guys at Lone Wolf is the best book I’ve seen. If you own a Glock it’s something you’ll really enjoy having…you’ll learn all sortsa cool stuff you probably didn’t know. Also, a small punch and a Leatherman tool will be all you’ll probably ever need for a Glock although a sight adjustment tool (see earlier paragraph) is nice to have. I dropped $125 for the Glock OEM tool and after taking a handfull of Glocks to the range with the intent of tweaking the sights I can say that its $125 well spent. I cant imagine having tried to make those adjustments with a hammer and punch. Sure you could do it, but you wouldnt unless you really had no other choice.
Its really worth dropping the few bucks for spare parts for your important guns. A little thing like a broken trigger return spring (Glock), broken magazine release (1911), or broken case (AR-15) can take your gun out of action for as long as it takes to get it repaired and you may not have that kind of time or opportunity. (And the three examples given have happened to me or the girlfriend at some point.)
=-=-=-=-=-=
I might have mentioned it before, but a post elsewhere about rural firefighting issues and how to save one’s home reminded me of a product I’ve been rather taken with. The building materials illustrated at this website are for folks who want the look of a log home but without the maintenance and fire issues. These logs are, in fact, concrete rather than wood. I got to examine a cutaway display of these things firsthand and I was impressed. On the exterior they are a dead ringer for hewn logs, but theyre actually concrete about 6-8” thick with all the benefits of concrete. Fire resistance is, naturally, pretty high and I would imagine theres a certain amount of ballistic resistance as well. If youre going to build a little place out in the sticks, and you don’t want the place looking like the furheurbunker, this might be a very nice choice.
I was talking with someone today and I mentioned that little gives me more satisfaction than pantry shelves filled with food, a gun safe full of arms and ammo, and a bit of money in the bank. I can pull a lot of satisfaction out of those simple things.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Replaced the rear sight in my HiPower. I had an early adjustable sight (ca. 1970) in there that used two opposing screws to make windage changes. Loosen one, tighten the other. Well, one screw worked itself loose and I was never going to see that thing again so I went with a later manufacture OEM replacement. I also had a helluva time getting the damn thing installed. Im not going to go into the gory details, I will simply say that whatever you pay for a professional quality sight pusher is worth it. Go to Brownells and order one up because swinging at your slide with a brass hammer like your aiming for the center field fence gets really old really fast.
Speaking of tools, lets talk about tools. Specifically, gun tools. One of the things I’ve come to like about the Glock is that, by and large, you don’t ‘smith’ a Glock – you replace parts. Theres nothing, AFAIK, that requires fitting. You drop in your parts and go. If only everything else was that simple. AR’s require a few tools, but nothing really special. 1911’s require staking tools and a few other goodies. AK’s require..well, nothing really.
More than tools, you need references. I can only speak from experience. For Glocks, The Complete Glock Reference Guide from the guys at Lone Wolf is the best book I’ve seen. If you own a Glock it’s something you’ll really enjoy having…you’ll learn all sortsa cool stuff you probably didn’t know. Also, a small punch and a Leatherman tool will be all you’ll probably ever need for a Glock although a sight adjustment tool (see earlier paragraph) is nice to have. I dropped $125 for the Glock OEM tool and after taking a handfull of Glocks to the range with the intent of tweaking the sights I can say that its $125 well spent. I cant imagine having tried to make those adjustments with a hammer and punch. Sure you could do it, but you wouldnt unless you really had no other choice.
Its really worth dropping the few bucks for spare parts for your important guns. A little thing like a broken trigger return spring (Glock), broken magazine release (1911), or broken case (AR-15) can take your gun out of action for as long as it takes to get it repaired and you may not have that kind of time or opportunity. (And the three examples given have happened to me or the girlfriend at some point.)
=-=-=-=-=-=
I might have mentioned it before, but a post elsewhere about rural firefighting issues and how to save one’s home reminded me of a product I’ve been rather taken with. The building materials illustrated at this website are for folks who want the look of a log home but without the maintenance and fire issues. These logs are, in fact, concrete rather than wood. I got to examine a cutaway display of these things firsthand and I was impressed. On the exterior they are a dead ringer for hewn logs, but theyre actually concrete about 6-8” thick with all the benefits of concrete. Fire resistance is, naturally, pretty high and I would imagine theres a certain amount of ballistic resistance as well. If youre going to build a little place out in the sticks, and you don’t want the place looking like the furheurbunker, this might be a very nice choice.
