Less theorizing, more shopping

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Focus, Zero, focus…..

I’ve been a bit remiss lately on the physical side of preparedness and been spending too much time on the theoretical end of it. What does that mean? It means I’ve been staring into the computer too much making plans and strategies for the upcoming year and not spending enough time walking through CostCo, WalMart, and Home Depot getting things to improve my resilience.

What sort of planning? Honestly, mostly financial planning and reviewing. I’m reviewing how I did on my financial goals for 2020 (nailed them…nailed ’em hard), thinking about where the goalposts should be for 2021, and figuring out how much money I need each month to hit those goals. Thats the easy part. The more challenging part is adjusting the calculations for if I miss/surpass the monthly goal. I’ve a spreadsheet for that, but it takes a bit of fine tuning. Like I said…its all theory. But theory doesn’t fill the freezer. I need to remember to do the more practical stuff and get out there and buy the items, stock the shelves, fill the freezer, rotate the fuel, check the expiration dates, evaluate the quantities, etc, etc.

I’m still sitting at a pretty good level of preparedness from all of 2020’s renewed urgency. Just need to keep that motivation going. The Kung Flu thing has sort of had all the shiny taken off it and many people aren’t as frantic about it as they were last year, so motivation might seem a bit reduced. However the new(er) motivation is the upcoming economic…activities…supported/fomented/mandated/foisted upon us by the new administration. And that’s something I prepare for more with bullion than bouillon. As of late I’ve been just as concerned about stacking cash ( and cash like instruments) and investing as I’ve been in stacking ammo and stockpiling. I really am exceptionally diversified.

Inauguration is this week and even if it doesn’t turn into a boogaloo theres still those ‘first 100 days’ agenda items that will try to get ramrodded into law in a hurry. All in all, the year has barely started and its just fixin’ to get more interesting. Sell the jet ski, cancel the trip to DisneyLand, and start making more trips to CostCo.

Tiny house? Nah…tiny *bunker*

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I understand the appeal, a bit, of the whole ‘tiny house’ thing. You’re small enough to be exempt from many building codes, there’s a modicum of portability, it has an “I’m a minimalist’ vibe, and it’s usually cheaper than a real house. Downsides, of course, are the enormous lack of storage, plumbing is often not much better than what you’d get in an RV, and it’s not something that I can imagine anyone wanting to live in full-time. It’d be like a nicely appointed jail cell.

However…I can see an appeal where a hardened, fortified tiny house might make a nice little bolt-hole. Small enough to hide nestled in the gully or trees of a remote piece of property, but ‘full service’ enough to get you back on your feet after two weeks of hoofing it with just the clothes on your back across the post-apocalypse landscape. It would be a …tiny bunker?

Ok, let’s throw ‘tiny bunker’ into google and see what we get.

I suppose it depends on your definition of bunker, but a nice little fortified ‘cabin’ of tiny-house proportions tucked away somewhere unobtrusively might make a very nice fallback plan for when you have to beat feet.After all, if you have to flee for your lives to your Beta Site you really arent going to care that it’s only a hundred or so sq. ft. All youre gonna care about is that it has lights, food, weapons, meds, comms, and distance.

Given the ‘OMG this is it!’ attitude going on right now, I bet a ‘tiny bunker’ manufacturer could easily make quite a splash in the tiny house marketplace which has lost its luster as people realize it isn’t the minimallist panacea they thought it was.

 

 

 

Capitol Friend/Foe firearm recognition

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On closer inspection, a number of those pistols have reflective red-and-white striped tape on the sides of their slides. There is an established practice of marking guns in similar ways to help members of security forces quickly identify each other and prevent friendly fire incidents in a chaotic situation, especially when there might be one or more active shooters present brandishing their own weapons.

Interesting. Apparently there’s more to federal ‘same team’ identifiers than just the lapel pins. I would think it’s safe to assume that they have changed the color or pattern of those markings by now.

I recall one large metropolitan police force used to prohibit officers from carrying stainless/nickel guns off duty. The reasoning was that if you came across a situation you could be sure that the guy was not a cop if he was waving a ‘silver’ handgun around. And if you were an offduty cop who had his gun in hand when the uniformed officers arrived, you were less likely (though not certainly guaranteed) to be shot as a bad guy before you had time to scream “I’m on your side!”.

If you really want to hone your your super secret squirrel skills, next time you’re in an environment where theres a lot of ‘presence’, check for people that all seem to have something in common…. pins, buttons, armbands, particlar shoe colors, etc…might just be a unified group subtly showing recognition signs so that others of their like can identify them.

Anyway, an interesting little piece about last weeks excitement. Interesting read.

16 years in storage

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For my backup heating needs around the house, I went with kerosene. It stores well, has the most BTU’s of pretty much any fuel, and is easily portable. But, years ago, I picked up one of those Mr Heater Buddy heaters as a ‘just in case’ along with a case of 1# propane bottles. I tested the thing out when I got it, put it away, and haven’t touched it since.

Until today.

I was going through some stuff and thought I’d check to make sure this thing actually still worked. I had packed it away in the original box and, surprisingly, I left the purchase receipt in there. So…I can see that I purchased it in December of 2004. (For about $75) Its sat in its box for the last sixteen years.

Okay, lets see if it works. Fished out an equally aged propane container, screwed it into place, turned the switch to Pilot, hit the starter and…*whoompf* it lit right up. Rather nice when something you put away a long time ago works just like it was yesterday.

Interestingly, the Buddy heaters have evolved since I got that one. They have a model that incorporates a battery-powered fan to circulate the hot air. I might get one of those and, since it runs on DC, wire it to run off a large battery.

My go-to backup heat is kerosene and thats one of the reasons I pretty much ignored the Buddy heater for the last four administrations. But, it’s nice to know it stored well. I’ll put it away, pick up a few more propane cylinders (because they have multiple uses and, if you want to carry the idea further, they would have excellent barter value.) Probably my biggest use for the Buddy heater is as a ‘spot heating’ unit for a room or are of the basement where keeping things above freezing is critical.

Link – First Aid: Food Storage and Food Poisoning

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A comment from the previous post on “I ain’t eatin’ that” generated a very concise and useful blog post over at Aesop’s. In a world where emergency medicine is wishful thinking, and you’re eating food that might not be up to First World standards, your first bout of food poisoning might be your last bout of food poisoning. Aesop tells it like it might be. Go read. Hall of fame post right there.

Canned goods

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“The people have spoken…and they must be punished.” Ed Koch, on losing the mayoral election. Say what you will, the man was awesomely quotable.
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I was digging around in the canned food storage and found this:

A can of soup whose ‘Best By’ date was ten years ago. Whaddya think? Sure…why not.

And then, upon opening the can and pouring the contents into a saucepan I discovered ‘why not’.

Once heated and served, even a canned chicken soup should have a certain yellow or golden color to parts of it. And it should smell good. This was…not. Everything was uniformly gray and exuded no smell whatsoever. I have a hyperacute sense of smell, so when I tell you something did not smell like it should have, you can take that to the bank m’friend. Nope, I didn’t taste it. Can wasn’t bulged, nothing looked amiss other than the color, but between the newsprint-gray color and lack of smell I decided that I’m not taking a bullet for food storage data gathering.

So, if youre keeping track, 10+ years on canned soup might be a bit excessive. You have been warned.

Gratitude

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I wanted to take a moment to publicly acknowledge a couple folks who recently sent me stuff in the mail, or signed up for Patreon to help keep the lights on in the bunker. Notably, someone sent me an Amazon gift card code for Christmas, which was very thoughtful…and just the other day someone sent me a silver dime in the mail, which was quite cool…and a couple folks signed up for Patreon. So, a sincere thank you to those folks. It’s that sorta thing that helps pay the blog-related bills. (And, if you provide your mailing address, its the sorta thing that gets you on the Paratus card mailing list.)