Re-arranging

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A few years back, a local defunct lumber mill was repurposed into a bitcoin mining facility. As it turned out, bitcoin mining, I am told, uses quite a bit of electrical power and the rumour is that this business managed to singlehandedly generate enough demand to change local pricing and require infrastructure upgrades. Regardless, the business ran for a few years and then recently closed up. One of the things they were getting rid of was a huge amount of the steel wire shelving that I am so fond of. I scored a truckload of the stuff and now have the oddly enjoyable task of adding more shelving to my basement and reconfiguring the stuff that is already there..

With the…hmmm.. let’s call it ‘increase in activity’… in my own stockpiling, increased storage capacity was going to be called for eventually. Might as well get ahead of it.

Other than the increase in stored food, there was also an across-the-board increase in pretty much everything. Cleaning supplies, batteries, TP, toilet paper, dish soap, detergent, and pretty much every consumable you can think of. And that takes space. The payoff? Tremendous peace of mind.

There are a few things I hammer out in this blog over, and over, and over….and one of them is this: you will suffer far more personal, intimate EOTWAWKIs than you will the conventional zombie apocalypse kind. You will experience job losses, unexpected expenses, periods of illness, localized disasters (flood, hurricane, etc.) far more often than you will experience boogaloos. And while cases of MRE’s, .223, and night vision do have their place, you will use them exponentially less than you will use TP, battery lanterns, and wind up radios.

And, as it turns out, keeping all that food, toiletries, extra water, and sleeping bags on hand takes up space. So…new wire shelving. With inflation, economic uncertainty, ‘surges’, and who knows what else coming down the pike it just seems to make sense to keep adding a little here and there, yknow?

Article – Note helped rescuers find two missing campers in Death Valley

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By the time authorities found their car in a remote stretch of Death Valley National Park, Alexander Lofgren and Emily Henkel had been missing for four days.

Inside the abandoned white Subaru was a note: “Two flat tires, headed to Mormon Point, have three days’ worth of water.”

The 8 April discovery marked a turning point in the desperate search for the Tucson, Arizona, couple. Soon after, rescuers from the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office found Mr Lofgren, 32, and Ms Henkel, 27, in an isolated part of the California desert near Willow Creek.

The two were on a ledge so steep, the agency said in a news release, that rescuers could not reach them until the next day, 9 April. When they did, they found Ms Henkel injured. And Mr Lofgren, an army veteran and congressional staffer, was dead.

As is virtually always the case with these things, the rescuers found the vehicle first and then they found the people. So if the people had stayed with the vehicle, they’d have been found sooner. Vehicles can only go a limited amount of places..those places are called ‘roads’. So, that means the searchers have a much smaller list of places to search if they are looking for a vehicle. So..stay with the vehicle.

Moral of the story? Stay with the vehicle. And staying with the vehicle is a lot easier, even in Death Valley, if your bring along some basic gear and supplies. Two flat tires and your cell phone doesn’t work? String up a couple tarps, sit still in the shade, drink from the several five-gallon jugs of water you brought, and catch up on rereading ‘Atlas Shrugged’.

 

Conspiracy theory thought for the day….

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Stock market continues to head towards record highs…but the price of many things seem to be going up (lumber, building materials, food)…and the .gov has printed a ginormous amount of money which should result in inflation, right? But..we don’t see it in the reported (keyword there) numbers.

So, I was thinking about that the other day…we’re seeing price increases in many items, not just the Consumer Price Index items, that we use day to day….but there’s no marked uptick in inflation. So, what’s wonky in the way we figure inflation numbers?

Then it occurred to me…inflation isn’t when the price of something goes up, its when the purchasing power or value of the money used to purchase that item goes down, right? So…all these stock market gains we’ve seen. What if those aren’t the values of the securities going up, but rather the value of the dollars that they are denominated in going down? Couple that with the observed rising prices everywhere else and now it seems like perhaps the rising stock market is the barometer of inflation. I mean, did XYZ stock really become intrinsically more valuable than it was six months ago? Or are the dollars used to purchase XYZ stock just worth less and thereby requires more of them to buy it?

I’m all for stocks going up in value, but maybe it isn’t that they are going up as much as it is the value of the dollar, due to inflation, is going down. Do the surges in the market coincide with the creation of stimulus money? I suppose it could be people dumping their stimulus checks into the market that is rasing those numbers..but, couldn’t it also be……

 

Open wallet , receive magazines

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Because I’m a paranoid mofo, I did a little online shopping the evening before Biden’s speech. Package arrived today….let’s see what we have…….

Magpul 35-rd 9mm mags for the CZ Evo, a bunch more 17-rd 9mm Glock mags, and some 21-rd Glock mags. Because.

Interestingly, while ammo prices have gone way out of orbit, and gun prices are pretty high, the average price of magazines seems to have remained pretty flat…for now.

Back to the survivalist grind

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All right, enough theory…back to tangible, quantifiable, get-stuff-on-the-shelf survivalism…

Beautiful day out today in western Montana. First things first….that 2nd Gen Glock I picked up over in Circle of Hell Number 4 needs to be function tested. Grabbed it and a box of S&B and headed to the range. As expected, the NY-1 trigger did the gun no favors in terms of trigger pull, but the gun functioned just fine. So…stamp of approval on that one. Clean it up and get it ready for the Deep Sleep. I’ll clean it very well, find a holster for it, and stuff it in a plastic case with a couple happysticks, a few spare mags, and a box of ball. Finito.

At the moment, there’s enough Glocks on the roster that I can feel comfortable about the Current Situation not impacting me in terms of Glock availability. Go me.

Next up, the new gas cans I ordered in a few weeks ago need to get filled, dosed with PRI-G, and tucked away.

And I need to run the generator.

And I need to evaluate these new packs/bags I’ve had come in.

And I need to re-evaluate the rest of 2021 spending since all 2021 goals have been met.

And I need to go over the Preponomicon and see whats needing attention.

And…its spring. Time to air the place out and do some de-cluttering.

I guess this is the busy season.

Keeping eyes and ears open

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Hmmm….

President Joe Biden will unveil a package of executive actions to curb gun violence on Thursday — a step that is likely to be cheered by increasingly impatient advocates despite being relatively modest in scope.
…..
Among the actions Biden will take will be to direct the Department of Justice to begin, within 30 days, the process of requiring buyers of so-called ghost guns — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks and, within 60 days, regulating concealed assault-style firearms, according to the White House.

And from WSJ:

The Justice Department has 60 days to propose a new rule that would restrict arm braces that are often used with AR-15-style pistols, which are smaller versions of AR-15-style rifles. The braces are designed to stabilize the pistols, but can also be used like shoulder stocks, effectively transforming them into short-barreled rifles, which are heavily restricted under federal law, according to gun-control advocates.

And just like that….I spent a lot of money…again.

Sealer replacement

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Years ago, I picked up a heat sealer and a selection of mylar bags in various sizes. One of the ideal uses I found for them was to create small, environmentally-impervious first aid kits that could be slipped into a pack, pocket, or pouch unobtrusively. It worked quite well. So well, in fact, that I loaned out the heat sealer and a supply of bags to someone and…never got it back. I’d remind them periodically about it and they’d ignore me. So…lesson learned. It occurs to me that since I have these new small bags to test out I need to put together another few of those small FAKs to put in them. So..since I’m apparently never getting my other heat sealer back, or being compensated for it, I’ll have to order a new one. So..this arrived today. I still had a stash of bags from my last experiments, so I’m good there although if I need more the go-to guys seem to be Sorbent Systems.

Absolutely you cold do something similar with the vacuum sealer but the bags used for that are, in my opinion, not as durable and rugged as the Mylar. However, if you’re not worried about having difficulty opening a layered package, you could achieve great results by vacuum sealing the contents to reduce space, and then sealing the vacuum sealed package in a mylar pouch for protection. Suspenders and a belt…but if you only have one hand you’re gonna have a heck of a time one-handing your way though all that packaging. Gotta weigh the pros and cons, I suspect.

Anyway, to thats my project for the next couple days – put together a few decent small FAKs and seal them up for carry in the new bags. Nothing fancy, but certainly something more comprehensive than just some bandaids and bactine.