Tag Archives: fuel

Article – Blitz (gas can company) closing it’s doors

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

The East and Midwest are cooling off a bit after highs topped 100 again over the weekend. It’s been a hot early summer; there’s a potential shortage coming up. Not water, not power — gasoline containers. Blitz USA is the biggest maker of portable gas cans, and it’s filing for Chapter 11. The Oklahoma-based company says it can no longer bear the costs of product liability.

 

Blitz made gas cans that were, in my opinion, of mediocre efficacy. However, they were cheap, widely available, and came in various sizes….I have a bunch of 1-gallon and 2-gallon containers in case I need to trade off some small amounts of fuel.

If you wanna grab a few before they shut the doors, you might wanna get going on that. It’ll be interesting to see whats left in the market since Scepter sorta dropped outta that market. For the record, my favorites are the ‘euro’-style cans. (I am told that the Scepter water cans these days are the same as the fuel cans, just marked differently. Probably different gaskets or something.)

The article zays Blitz is filing Chapter 11, but it also says they’re closing their doors. I suppose it’s possible that Blitz will go Chapter 11, reorganize, and come back as Blitz USA or some similar rebranding….but it’s also possible they’ll file for Chapter 11, get liquidated, and be consigned to the dustbin of history. So…play it safe, and buy whatever youre lacking at the moment.

Edited to add: Explosion of lawsuits against gas can maker

I’m unclear….what does a reasonable person expect is going to happen when you pour a flammable liquid, from a container full of flammable liquid, onto a campfire? This is why we can’t have nice things.

Fuel

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Gas was down another four cents today so I swapped out some of the stored gas.

Currently, I keep fuel in two different containers: Longterm (one year or longer) fuel goes in the standard metal Blitz jerrycan. Shortterm (less than a year, usually six months between rotations) fuel goes in 5- or 6-gallon plastic cans. Larger containers do have their place but they are less easily transported…and I really like to have all my gear in a form that allows it to be hurriedly heaved into the back of a vehicle. A 40# gas can is a lot easier to handle than a 400# drum.

The military uses the Military Fuel Can (MFC) as manufactured by (and available from) Scepter of Canada. These are nice cans but they are plastic. A very heavy, very durable plastic, but still… My concerns with plastic are its expansion in temperature ranges (expansion/contraction when left in the heat/cold), the ‘off gassing’ through the porous plastic material, degradation from sun exposure, and resistance to puncture.

I worry less about these things with the metal cans but they aren’t without their drawbacks either. First off is the cost. The plastic cans from Blitz or Briggs and Stratton are ridiculously cheap. About $6 or less. A metal can goes for about 5-6 times that. The metal Blitz cans seem to have ‘issues’ with the paint coming off rather easily. Keep in mind that youre supposed to have your gas cans colored bright red, so while I don’t care if the paint comes off since I can just degrease the whole can and paint it a nice flat OD, such would be, in the eyes of .gov, ‘wrong’. Mala per se versus mala prohiba.
One other nice thing about the metal cans is they lend themselves to being locked. (Although there are locking racks for plastic ones) You can fab up a locking arrangement fairly easily or just buy some aftermarket lock-up kit. When traveling long distances, I leave the cans in the back of the truck with a cable lock running through them but I put the cans in the backseat of the truck if stopping overnight (and with the metal cans, this leaves no lingering gas smell in the vehicle.)

Both styles of cans use spouts that affix to the main large opening in the can. Here’s where more headaches start. Even with everything going well, these things drain slowly. Mind numbingly slow. Like an 85-year-old-man-at-a -urinal kind of slow. You stand there and think to yourself “It only took me 90 seconds to put 5 gallons of gas in at the pump, whys it taking me fifteen minutes here?”. One reason, your fuel can is gravity feed versus electrically pumped. Another is the venting of the cans to allow air to enter and gasoline to leave without creating a vacuum (which, I am sure, has a technical or scientific term to describe it.) A very nice end run around these problems is simply to get a funnel. Most automotive sections at WalMart, Kmart or whathaveyou will have long plastic funnels made for just this sort of thing. The ones I got were also made by Blitz, a buck each, and I paracorded one to each plastic gas can. (Although the gas cans come with their own nozzles that are hit/miss in terms of efficiency.) With the funnel, things go much faster and being able to quickly fill your vehicle can come in mighty handy…esp. when you don’t want others to see that you have ‘extra’ fuel.

The two big choices these days for gas stabilizers are PRI-G and Sta-bil. As we all know, gasoline degrades over time as various additives and whatnot evaporate out or start to change. By adding a gasoline stabilizer you extend the ‘shelf life’ of your fuel. PRI-G claims that their additive will actually recover ‘bad’ gas and make it more palatable than it would otherwise be to your vehicle. I’d read other reviews of PRI-G and have been using it, although Stab-il is much easier to find in pretty much every auto store. The girlfriend got me a large (enough to do 512 gallons) bottle of PRI-G about two years ago and I’ve been pleased with it, although I do also have some Stab-il on hand.

As usual, when handling stuff like gasoline you want to observe some minimum safety precautions like ‘keep it outta your eyes, off your clothes and vehicle, and try not to breath it in’. A pair of gloves and safety goggles, kept in your truckbox, is never a bad idea…yeah, you’ll look like a dork but when youre staggering around clutching your eyes and trying to find a garden hose you’ll wish to hell you’d cared less about looking cool. A couple of those little ‘pocket packs’ of bleach wipes (whcih, btw, you should always have in your pack or bag…they make using public bathrooms alot less germtacular. Seriously.) or babywipes is also handy for getting the inevitable smell of gas off your hands.

How much fuel to keep on hand is a strictly personal choice…much like ‘how much ammo/food/gold/condoms do you need?’. I’ll offer my opinion. Many of us will probably stay pretty close to home in a crisis, but think of the furthest distant place you are likely to go to if you were to leave during a crisis…Unlce Billys farm, your hunting cabin in the hills, etc. Calculate the miles and mileage of your vehicle. Have enough gas to make two complete round trips. Why? Because youre gonna spend a lot of time idling in traffic (if youre unlucky enough to get caught in one of those county-length traffic jams), youre likely going to have to detour and take alternate routes that may be longer than ‘the usual way’, and you may find it useful for bartering or sharing (if youre inclined towards that sort of thing).

And fer cryin’ out loud, try to refuel where no one can see you. In a crisis theres a few things that are going to immediately be high demand (‘high demand’ as in ‘give me your [item] or I’ll kill you’) and fuel is one of them. (Others include ammo, water, food, etc). So get off the main drag, find an out of the way spot away from prying eyes and do it there. Try to cover or hide the fuel cans so the stranded and desperate motorists don’t get any ideas. And, of course, think about exactly what youre going to do when someone says ‘Screw you, I need gas and I’m taking yours’.

Obviously if youre planning on running a generator youre going to want to keep as much fuel as necessary for that as well. Always try to store more than you need. And don’t forget to sock away some oil as well. All the gas in the world won’t help if the engine is seized because you ran your genny for three days with low oil pressure. (Side note: portable generators can become very portable in a crisis if you don’t chain them to a solid object. Store some heavy duty chain and a user-programmable combination lock. [No keys to lose or to have to share. Come up with an easily remembered combo, maybe the last four digits on the serial number plate, and share it with those who need to know it. Keys get lost or there aren’t enough to go around.)

The role of fiction, book, Leatherman, gas prices

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CBS premiered ‘Jericho’ the other night. Its basically “Alas Babylon: The Series”. Reviews, as seen across the various preparedness discussion groups and forums is mixed. I liked it but then again there isn’t much to compare it to…which makes sense, I suppose…theres not much drama (read: marketability) in a show where a huge crisis occurs and the population is…just fine. No, the drama sells…the people stuck in elevators, the homeowners huddled in the living room hearing strange footsteps on their porch as the camera closes in on the image of the doorknob slowly turning…that sort of thing. A show where the lights go out and someone simply fires ou the 5kw and enjoys a cup of coffee just doesn’t have much watchability. I think I gave my impressions of the show a few posts back. It seems it is trying to use the formula that has made ‘Lost’ (or as I call it ‘Gilligans Island Of Dr Morreau’) so successful…complex mysterious characters and events that are introduced but not explained until later, long story arcs, backstories shrouded in mystery, etc… Theres certainly entertainment potential here, its just a matter of how waiting to see how its used.

It does bring up an interesting topic, though. What role, if any, does fiction play in an individuals plans and perperations? Some would say that reading books like ‘Lucifers Hammer’, ‘Alas Babylon’, or even Aherns pulp series ‘The Survivalist’ do absolutely nothing except provide ‘action hero’-style entertainment. I agree somewhat but I think that it is important to have read some of the ‘classic’ fiction on the subject (and Im counting LH and AB as amongst those classics). Why? Because even if the situations are outdated, unrealistic or, in Aherns case, just plain over-the-top they encourage you to think about those situations. After all, in order to say ‘that scene with the [fill in the blank] was so unrealistic!’ means you had to think about how you’d manage in a similar scene ‘in reality’ and thus you are made to think about situations and predicaments you may not have thought about in the past. Example: in Alas Babylon the residents of the small Florida town suffer an intensely hot summer and realize that they don’t have enough salt to replace what theyre sweating away daily…and upon further investigation realize that it also has myriads of other uses that would have made having a large quantity of it handy. Many people, Im sure, hadn’t thought about just how much salt they might need to sock away and even if there was a real need for it. So, in this example, reading fiction opens your mind to things you may not have considered.

Another example: In Lucifers Hammer one of the characters has no useful skills, no great talents, and has a couple strikes against him in terms of his physical condition…but he becomes a crucial member of a local outfit because while he has very little skills and talents he does have a very large collection of very, very useful and relevant books. And while Im sure you and I have thought of this sort of thing before, it may have opened the eyes of others to the need for some very good reference material.

My point here isn’t to cite examples or to garner comments about what you’ve learned from fiction. Nah, my point is that fiction has a place in the preparedness lifestyle and that this series, which may very well turn out to be very short lived and somewhat technically inaccurate, could have some value for making a person think about situations or problems that they hadn’t thought about previously.
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Finished ‘World War Z’ the other night. Its okay. Definitely better than Stephen Kings hackneyed ‘Cell’. The book very much would fly as a movie. It could be told in narrative with all sorts of neat flashback scenes to various conflicts and events. Hard to believe the guy writing it is the son of Mel ‘Blazing Saddles’ Brooks. Who knew?
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I continue to be very pleased with the Leatherman Wave multitool. I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a good pocket tool. In fact, I may be getting an extra or two. I use the knife blades more than anything else but the screwdrivers and scissors come in quite handy too. Good ergonomics and a generally well thought out design. Me recommend.
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Local gas prices dropped another six cents overnight. Its now hovering around $2.56/gallon. When it gets below $2.50 I’ll rotate out the stored gas. Might pick up an extra can or two and increase the storage as bit while Im at it.

Gasoline, guest sheeple, lightsticks, Mythbusters and experiments

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Local gas prices are down about $0.35 from their high of almost $3 a few months ago. The prices are still, to me, high but then I’ve probably been spoiled in terms of gasoline prices. If you think that gas prices are unfairly high the solution is to either reduce your usage or use it more wisely. Seems cut and dried to me.

Anyway… the whole experience, which may very well be repeated in the future, certainly illustrated a bottleneck in our society…fuel availability. The preparedness experts have always said that in a major crisis fuel stations would be either unable to operate due to power concerns, out of gas, or rationed. We saw all of that in Texas and Luisiana this summer, so it went from being paranoid-theory-by-a-doomsaying-nutjob to hard fact. Shrug. I learned a lesson from it….stored fuel, treated for long-term storage, stored in a good container, and rotated on a schedule is just as important as all those cases of MRE’s and AK ammo. I’d already known that fuel was important, but this reinforced it to a rpeviously unheard of degree. Even those of us who know to store fuel are, I bet, learning some lessons….like you can never have too much, that some containers are better than others, that people will be desperate when their tank guage reads ‘E’ and theres a 3/4 mile long line at the pump.

I think it was Frankilin who said something along the lines that experience was an expensive (or dear) school but some will learn at no other.

Me, I learn.
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A post over in the survivalist community asked what to do when the Big Day occurs and your relatives or firends who always said “Disaster? Heck, Im just going to come over and stay with you! Heh heh!” actually show up on your doorstep expecting to be able to take advantage of your farsightedness.

Tough call.

I don’t have to worry about it because with one exception I dont have any friends who aren’t into preparedness…at least, none that are close enough to actually come by. Now, I do have friends who are not as prepared as I, and I have some who are more prepared than I, but short of a catastrophic loss on their part none of them would show up without supplies. Of course, theres always simply not being home when the hordes come a-knocking…simply be at your #2 location…although for many of us that isnt a real choice yet.

I suppose, if it isnt too late, you simply keep your mouth shut and not let anyone know just how prepared you are. If its too late, well, then you either pretend youre not home or you start making some tough choices.
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I need to head up to CostCo and see if they have their annual Halloween cyalume lightstick package for sale….although it wouldnt surprise me if the lightstick manufacturers are dedicating their output to disaster relief efforts..after all, thats where the money is.
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Hats off to the Discovery channels ‘Mythbusters’ program. In the past, theyve experimented with some myths that have use to me… can you blow up a car by shooting into the gas tank? (nope) Will diving underwater save you from gunfire (yes..if your at more than 3′ under) and that sort of thing. Latest episode I saw had them firing a .50 BMG into a swimming pool to see what happens. Surprisingly, the bullet failed to reach the bottom of the pool…instead, like every other high velocity bullet, it immediately started breaking up when it hit the water.

Box O’ Truth (linked to in an earlier post) also did some even more impressive tests against bulletresistant glass and sandbags. The sandbag one was quite eye-opening and I reccomend it highly. It basically showd that a stacj of sandbags makes you impervious to most small arms fire…good to know.

Asia quake, surplus arrival and impressions, portability musings,

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Its a tragedy, this earthquake that theyve had in Asia, but you know what? If we’re going to be spending money on humanitarian aid to dark skinned poor disaster victims then they should be Americans…get this New Orleans mess put away before you start rushing to a foreign disaster.
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Surplus goodies from Cheaper Than Dirt arrived. w00t!

Vinyl Mittens at $0.99 per six pair – Just what you’d expect. Unlined vinyl mittens. Theyve a wrist gather to keep cold out and the gauntlets go halfway up to my elbow. For bicycling or motorcycling in wet/cold these would be a good deal. Coupled with a set of GI wool mitten/glove liners they should be great. Since they are a lousy sixteen cents per pair I’ll put a pair in my cold weather bag, the bunkerbabe‘s cold weather bag, an extra set to keep at work, a set to keep in the truck, and a bunch for storage. And, because I’m a sweetheart and can spare ninety-nine cents, a half dozen pair to one of the LMI. These are worth $0.99 for a half dozen pair and if you ever have occaison to have your hands out in windy, wet, cold weather your really gonna think they were worth the sixteen cents when you luck out and find the pair you stashed in the glovebox.

HK G3 Mag Pouches – Again, $0.99 ea. Sure enough, they hold a FAL mag like they were made for ’em. And, considering the history of W. Germany’s armaments, they may well have been. (For a while W. Germany used a FAL variant.) These are uber-heavy-duty rubber/vinyl pouches. Completely silent, rattle-free and wth belt slots. Appears to be impervious to wet, cold, rot, mold, and everything except plastic-melting temperatures. Holds FAL and HK mags and I will bet they’ll hold M1A mags as well. At $0.99 how can you go wrong??

Czech medic/firstaid bag, $9.99 – Eh. Not enough pockets. Construction is good…its a heavy burlap/canvas type fabric with stiffening panels on the sides. Might be good for re-enactments. I’m gonna strip the red cross patch off and use it as a carrybag for range gear. Might be good in its original role if you dont expect much but I can get a better organizer for a little bit more out of Outdoor Research. However, as a carrybag for cleaning gear, shooting stuff, small tools, etc, etc, it would be fine. Mild disappointment. Probably an improvement over the craptacular Blackhawk Medic Supply Roll, though.
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From the standpoint of those of interested in preparedness, the second half of 2005 has been the most interesting and analyzed period of time sine September of 2001. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the bird flu threat, soaring gasoline prices, etc. have given people alot to think about. It certainly has restructured some of my priorities…how so? Well, I used to put food and ammo at the top of the list of things to stock up on..but now fuel is right up there, if not at #1 easily in the top 3. Its also reinforced my belief that a certain amount of portability of your gear is absolutely mandatory. While its great to be able to remain in place with all your gear and ride out whatever the disruption is, the evidence from Katrina and Rita clearly show that you need to be ready to get out in a hurry. Getting out in a hurry means being able to grab your essential gear and run like hell. Tough to do if youre wheeling around 55-gallon drums and footlockers. Storing everything in man-portable, durable, travel-capable containers makes more sense and I need to make sure that my gear is, in fact, stored in such a manner as to facilitate that. Imagine the classic ‘bucket brigade’ of a several people passing boxes to each other from a building to a waiting truck (or vice versa)…thats exactly the level of portability I want. Something that can be maneuvered quickly and easily into a waiting vehicle.

Of course, this is not to say that there isnt a place for larger ‘static’ stores. It may be more prudent to do both – keep some gear in smaller, more manageable units and keep other gear in larger, stay-in-place units. If youre staying out, you can use both and if you have to leave in a major hurry you can grab the portable stuff and least not be without resources.

Of course, this also depends on how much time you think youre going to have to pack. For ‘appointment’ disasters like hurricanes, blizzards and that sort of thing you have hours, even days, of warning. More sudden disasters like earthquakes, terrorist attacks, chemical spills, etc, obviously give you alot less time…in the case of earthquakes, no warning.

One of the LMI has a fairly clever set up. He has a two car garage where he keeps his big Ford truck. Theres a shelf that runs along the wall of the garage right above the roll up door. He keeps large bins full of his gear up there. To leave in a hurry he just stands in the back of the bed of his truck and pulls bins off the shelf to land at his feet in the bed of truck. Elegant. I’ve read of people using duct tape or masking tape to make an outline on the floor of their garage to the approximate dimensions of their pickup bed or trailer so they can practice arranging gear for the most efficient loading…or, if youre hardcore, you could get a few refrigerator cartons and cut/tape a 3-d representation of your available cargo space. If you cant fit it all in the box, its time to rethink your choices.

Of course, if youve got a secondary location to retreat to you could just store enough gear at your primary location for the immediate need and keep the majority of your gear at your secured secondary location. A nice plan if you can swing it.

Fuel can blues, Texas evacuations, mag/ammo inventory, ingenuity, flectar,

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The way I figure it, I want the steel jerrycans for long-term storage for their durability, impermeability, and convenience. For short-term storage and banging around in the back of the truck, I like the plastic gas cans. I am, however, not thrilled with the spout/cap device on the Blitz plastic cans. The nozzle is an L-shaped piece of plastic that, when not in use, is flipped over and inserted into the can. Convenient, yes. But if it isnt seated properly against the mouth of the opening its possible for a slow leak of gasoline to occur. This is, naturally, not good. Fortunately WalMart automotive sells, also by Blitz, replacement cap/nozzle assemblies that are alot simpler and, in appearance, more reliable. $1.78 ea. I’ll be trying them out later.
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Texas had the New Orleans model to work off of and their evacuations weren’t very much smoother. Its readily apparent that you simply cannot evacuate a large urban/metropolitan area with anything approaching timeliness or efficiancy. The bottleneck, it seems, isnt only the drivers (who somehow thought that they had enough gas in their vehicles even though any sane individual could have told them theyre going to spend hours idling in traffic.) but the government officials who didnt change the traffic flows to accomodate the exodus until late in the game. They do get points, however, for trying to bring fuel to stranded motorists.
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An ammo & magazine inventory is sorely needed. Summer shooting and various classes have taken a bite out of the stockpile and that needs to be refreshed. While I am perfectly content with the amount of 10/22 and FAL mags that are on hand, I am only mildly at ease with the amount of AR mags..they average around 13 mags per gun which is less than I’d like. Glock mags are fair…the G17 mags will fit in all flavors of Glock that we have. Doing okay on 1911 mags. P35 mags could be a little better. Big question is AK mags. Off the top of my head I think we’ve maybe a dozen or so and I’d really like to get that up into the 20-odd amount at least. Fortunately the AK mags are fairly cheap…$10 ea. in bulk. Additionally, I’ve started marking some magazines as strictly for ‘training’ or range use to avoid having a battered and heavily-used mag wind up in storage. For the Glocks, this was easy – blaze orange baseplates. For the AK and AR’s, equally easy – a band of blaze orange duct tape around the bottom of the mag.

Ammo is another story. I’d like to store factory ammo as a reserve and do practice/recreational shooting with reloads. Fortunately the standardization of calibers leaves us with only a handfull of calibers to keep on hand – .223, .308, 7.62×39, 9mm, .45, .38/.357, 12 ga. and .22 LR. We’re pretty good on .22 LR since its only $20 for a thousand rounds at any WalMart. 12 ga. is also pretty cheap and easy to keep. The other calibers…not so much. 7.62×39 has gone up almost 50% in the last year…thats interesting. Still, its the cheapest centerfire around. In other calibers Remingtons new ‘yellow box’ 250-round packages are a fair deal these days. If you buy the bulk Rem. yellowbox, repackage it into plastic 50-rd boxes or something. And dont forget to cahce a small sampling of various calibers in a box for your vehicle.

Anyway, some inventory tomorrow.
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Mad Zero props to for managing to keep updating on hurricane Rita through a blackout by running an inverter out of his vehicle to power his computer and cable modem. Most folks wouldn’t have thought of that. And the good Doctor Hamm also had the forethought to have a camp stove for cooking on during the outage. I like to think its my influence. But Sam, didja have any extra gasoline for all the idling you were doing?
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According to my math, I am responsible for no less than 11 flectar parkas being sold in the last week to various LJ people. Theyre good parkas and if youve been on the fence about getting one, you really should snap to it…theyre cheaper than ever and I bet every person on LJ who ordered one would have absolutely no qualms about the quality of them. Backtrack a post or two for a link to them. There may be a ‘Show Us Your Flectar’ thread later.
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“And god sent a rainbow as a sign…won’t be water, but fire next time.”

Texas, gasoline concerns, fun with drums, NRA/GOA lawsuit, flectar, SG HQ cat, lightsticks

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So, it looks like this week its Texas’ turn in the barrel. Im mentally preparing myself for the self-righteous onslaught that will result from the ‘federal relief to illegal aliens’ noise that this will surely generate.

You would think that with FEMA and the other ‘relief’ agencies already just down the street in Louisiana, Texas oughtta get lots of attention pretty quickly if things get ugly. Then again, I think most Texans are probably smart enough to not live below sea level.
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As posted, people who (typically) waited to the last minute to evacuate are not only getting stuck in traffic jams of biblical proportions, but are also having to contend with gas stations running out of the stuff. Have these people learned nothing? Less than three weeks ago Katrina pwned New Orleans and the papers were full of “I should have evacuaqted sooner” and “I would have evacuated if I had gas” stories. Assuming that your vehicle gets, mmm, 15 mpg then a five-gallon can of gas gives you 75 miles of range. Seventy five. Thats enough to get out of the path of most hurricanes. Ten gallons? 150 miles – plenty of distance. Now, for some fast math. Call it $3.00 a gallon, $6 a piece for gas cans, sixty cents for gas treatment for ten gallons (yes, you’d have to buy the whole bottle of PRI-G or Sta-Bil, but maybe your buddy has some he uses with his lawnmower.) So, for less than $43 you could guarantee yourself enough fuel to get at least far enough to be out of the way of the hurricane. (And thats giving a generous 50%-wasted-idling-in-traffic handicap) $43. I will bet you fifty bucks theres no shortage of motorists on those highways, nervously eyeing their fuel guage and the “NO GAS” signs (as well as the mile-long lines) who would be thrilled to give you $50 for a five-gallon can of gas right now. But, if a month ago you said “Hey Tex, have you thought about spending fifty bucks to keep two gas cans in your garage ready to go in case of emergency?” you’d have probably been dismissed as paranoid or a worrier.
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In news of the Very Very Interesting, it appears that the folks that make the double-snail-drum 100-round Beta-Mags for the AR are going to be bringing out a 100-rd mag for the Mini 14. This is mildly amusing. Here’s the part thats going make your tires spin: they are also bringing one out for the M1A. 100 rounds of .308. A couple of those babies and you become a one-man roadblock. If there is a god, they’ll make a magazine tower adapter for the FAL. However, given the usage of the M14-type rifles these days, plus the inevitable military interest in Iraq and ‘Stan, the money is going to be in making it for the M1A. Think about it…you could slap a bipod on your M1A, dig in, slap in a drum and be quite the force multiplier. Drawbacks? As I read it, the loaded mag is about 11.5 pounds and I’ll bet its as noisy as the .223 when loaded. Which reminds me, I really would like to get a drum or two for the AK’s.
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The NRA and GOA have gotten off their butts and are bringing suit regarding the gun confiscations in New Orleans. This will be interesting…at least in the Chinese way. The best you could hope for out of this is .gov stopping what theyre doing and admitting they were wrong. Worst is that some court could refuse the case saying that theres some sort of emergency powers act that no one knew about. Regardless of how it shakes out, theres obviously a lesson in there for all of us. If you havent figured out what it is, well, ask the looters real nice and maybe they wont hurt you.
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The fabulous flectar parkas arrived yesterday for the BunkerBabe who, after trying them on, had that sexy ‘surplus military’ smell about her for an hour. Mmmmm. The tremendously-less-sexy daddygod also received his yesterday and was pleased. I may need to start a ‘Show Us Your Flectar’ thread some day. If you havent jumped on the bandwagon yet, these are very warm, extremely comfortable, and ridiculously cheap German surplus field jackets with liners. And the camo pattern works quite well, I might add. They are a seasonal offering so buy ’em now. Cheap enough to have spares, good enough to wear every day. And, oy, talk about comfortable!
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Which reminds me, if you already get the Sportsmans Guide catalog, be aware that they have a second catalog of just military surplus gear and it is far more useful than their regular catalog. Call Sportsmans Guide ( 1-800-888-3006 ) and tell them you want the ‘HQ’ gov’t surplus catalog. Seriously. They get some great stuff I havent seen offered elsewhere. Prices are usually pretty good.
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Halloween is approaching. Lotsa places will be selling lightsticks and having post-Halloween closeouts on them so start setting a few bucks aside now. CostCo, around here anyway, usually has a 15 pack of individually foil-packed lightsticks for about $13. I buy one pack each year and rotate the previous years stock to secondary usage status. Theyre cheap and work in environments that a candle or lantern might not be good in. Get some.

Newsclippings – Gas shortage for evacuees

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Gas shortage makes evacuating difficult

Some highlights:

GALVESTON, Texas – Hundreds of thousands of people across the Houston metropolitan area struggled to make their way inland in a bumper-to-bumper exodus Thursday as Hurricane Rita closed in on the nation’s fourth-largest city with winds howling at 150 mph.

Drivers ran out of gas in 14-hour traffic jams or looked in vain for a place to stay as hotels hundreds of miles away filled up.
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“Don’t follow the example of Katrina and wait. No one will come and get you during the storm,” Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said in Houston.
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Highways leading inland out of Houston, a metropolitan area of 4 million people, were clogged up to 100 miles north of the city. Service stations reported running out of gasoline, and police officers carried gas to motorists who ran out.
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Tow trucks tried to wend their way along the shoulders, pulling stalled cars out of the way.

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“Jackie Thomason waits anxiously in line for fuel at one of the few open gas stations in Pasadena, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005. Thomason and her husband are evacuating the Houston area prior to Hurricane Rita arriving. Thomason said she was scared without fuel they would not be able to evacuate. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)”

Flectar parkas, ZipLoc body bags?, recipe, topo mapware, chokepoint musing,Mayoral musings

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Sportsmans Guide is again selling the fabulous Flectar parka combo – liner and parka for $20. Their #JX5M-86391X ( http://www.sportsmansguide.com) I’ve got four of these (one for everyday use, one for the truck, two for storage) and am thoroughly pleased with them. When the girlfriend BunkerBabe took her shooting class and the weather turned nasty she was immensely pleased to find one of these parka/liner combos stowed in a drybag in the bag of the truck…that was worth $20 right there.Theyre superior to the US issue field jackets in a bunch of ways. It looks like these are seasonal offerings so get ’em while you can. Good stuff.  Zero approved.
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I was in Albertsons the other day and found, check this out, extra-humongoid ZipLoc bags. Seriously. ZipLoc is making body bags! (“Keeps freshness out!”) Actually, theyre not quite that big…but they are 2’x2.7′ (“XXL”) and 2’x1.7′ (“XL”). Not sure I’d trust them on long-term waterproofness but they would be just the ticket for storing your sleeping bags or backpacks in such a way as to keep dust, dirt and moisture off them. These would be perfect if you had to toss your pack in the back of a truck and didnt want the rain/snow to get to it. Multitudes of uses limited by your imagination. I’ve picked up a couple boxes and will give a review of them later. In KatrinaWorld these would be great for keeping sleeping bags, clothes, portable devices, etc, etc protected from mold, damp and moisture. Im quite excited.
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Homemade noodles in chicken broth
1½ cup flour (either freshly ground whole wheat
or white
¼ tsp. salt
2 eggs, reconstituted or fresh
Place flour in mound on board, making a nest or well in the center of the mound. Pour eggs into nest. Beat the
eggs with a fork, gradually bringing the flour into the mix. Work the dough into a ball with your hands, picking up only as much flour as it takes to make a stiff, but workable ball. Knead the dough for about five minutes. It should not stick to the board. If it seems too moist, add a little more flour; if too dry, dampen your hands and knead longer. Divide the ball into quarters. Cover three and reserve one to work with immediately. Lightly sprinkle board with flour and roll out dough, pulling it into a uniform thickness oval. Make it as thin as workable and let rest in a warm, dry place. Repeat with other three quarters. When all dough is dry, but not stiff and brittle, roll like a jelly roll, cutting into desired thickness with a sharp knife. You can then either fluff out to separate and then carefully hang to dry or lay it flat to air dry for an hour. Pour a quart of chicken broth (or use dry chicken granules to make a broth) into a large pot. Add diced, canned, or freeze dried chicken meat, if desired, as well as onion, carrots, and spices as wanted. Bring to a medium boil, then carefully add noodles, simmering just long enough to make them tender. The flour on the noodles provides natural thickening. You’ll get raves for this simple, yet satisfying meal.

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One of the things Ive been wanting to buy is map software for printing out your own topo maps. I see alot of uses for this stuff…not the least of which are:

  • Evaluating routes and alternate routes out of your area
  • Getting a broader picture of a property’s layout
  • Using in conjunction with a GPS for geocaching
  • Scoping out hunting and camping areas

Where it would really shine is if you found a pice of property you wanted to purchase for a retreat or other use, you could generate the top, check it against GPS coords, and then get the satellite image. How utterly cool would that be? Know where every ravine, gully, draw, creek, and neighbor is without getting away from your computer. (Although, obviously, theres no substitute for boots-on-the-ground.)
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I was thinking about how if you had survived Katrina, had five gallons of gas in your car, and decided it was time to leave you’d be severely screwed by not knowing what bridges, overpasses and other chokepoints were still usable and which weren’t. And you could really use up gasoline in a hurry driving through town looking for a bridge that wasnt washed away. The solution is to first of all know where all these chokepoints are, then find out somehow which ones are still usable. Maybe recon on bicycle? Ask a passing NG, if they look harmless. Tough situation to be in. Just enough gas for one chance and you can’t blow it. So, either have lotsa gas or lotsa info or both. And think ‘outside the box’ in terms of avenues of exits. Roads work, but so do railroad tracks/rightofways, bicycle trails and other usually-not-used-with-a-car avenues. This is where maps come in handy. I like to think that local broadcasting would be making announcements about which avenues were accessible and which werent but we’ve all seen how relying on gov’t pays off, right?
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Speaking of the Big Sleazy, it appears the mayor is now going to allow people to start repopulating parts of New Orleans. Never mind that a week ago he had his flunkies enthusiastically shoving grandmothers into cattle cars trucks to be taken for ‘processing’ for their own ‘safety’. FIrst off, as far as Im concerned the mayor of New Orleans is a puppet-figurehead for who’s really calling the shots – the feds. And thats fine, I can see him wanting to look like he actually has something to do. But I guarantee you this man’s career in politics , anywhere else in the country, would be toast…but Louisiana has a political history that beggars logic. Were it up to me, he’d never have a job in government again..which, unfortunately, means thats exactly what he’s going to have.

Speaking of beggars, I want to point out that the biggest recovery efforts in terms of rehabbing buildings, removing debris and the like are being done privately. Businesses are taking the steps to get up and running on their own and thats why they will succeed and rebuild cheaper, faster and better than the government will do it.