Tag Archives: cautionary tale

More lessons

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One of my coworkers is still without power, which means she is also without water. She’s been coming into the office and taking our spare 5-gallon water cooler bottles and bringing them home. I asked her how much water was she going through that she needed this many. And her response was….waitforit……”It takes a lot of water to flush the toilets.”

:::shaking my head:::

I grabbed an empty garbage can from under my desk and said “Follow me please”. We walked down the hallway to the maintenance closet where the slop sink was. I filled the itty-bitty wastebasket with about a gallon or so of water.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show you how to flush a toilet with a bucket. Lets go.”

We walked into the bathroom. “Throw some toilet paper in there.”, I said, pointing to the bowl. She did as I asked.

“Ok, now watch. Slowly and then all at once.” I slowly poured the bucket into the bowl and then dumped the rest in. The water swirled, and -whoosh-, water and TP disappeared. I turned to her, “Ok, that’ll do the job and it uses a lot less water than filling the tank and flushing. Got it?”

After I got back to my desk, I forwarded her the YouTube video you see above.

It’s not her fault, I suppose. No one ever taught her this sort of thing, and its not the kind of thing that it ever occurred to her to investigate on her own. But, still, five-gallons of Culligan drinking water that we pay a guy to deliver should not be used to flush the toilet.

Shes also cooking on her grill but needs propane. Because I’m a soft touch, I pulled two barbecue bombs from my stash and four Scepter cans of water and brought them to work over lunch and loaded them in her truck. (Her husband is outta town on a job for the week and she’s left wrangling kids and job.)

We shall see if I get them back or not.

As for me, I’m using this learning opportunity to reinforce a few things. I’m picking up another couple flats of bottled water to distribute among my freezers, and I just ordered a bunch more Scepter cans.

109-MPH winds

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Thats what they are saying we were hit with last night.

I was out to dinner and around the tail end of things some clouds rolled in and the wind picked up like nobody’s business. The lights in the restaurant flickered a few times, and then *pop* a transformer exploded outside. Lightning hit a nearby tree setting it ablaze. I flagged down the waitress and said I was leaving, gimme a check. All payment options were dead and even with cash she didnt have the ability to print a bill. I had her handwrite a bill, give it to me, and told her I’d be back at lunchtime the next day to square up. The Zero is not getting caught away from his heavily fortified home in a time of crisis.

The wind was outrageous. The interstate was covered in tumbleweeds of various sizes. Taking the off ramp, the traffic lights were all out…of course. There were fallen trees blocking various lanes of traffic as I made it back to my house. Parts of town were in the dark, some parts were not. In one case I got halfway down the block only to encounter a tree complete cutting off the the street. Had to back up and find an alternate route.

Amazingly, the power was on at my house. I staged the generator just in case. Grabbed some iced tea, my police scanner, a flashlight, and an MP5 and sat on my porch watching the lightning and listening to local PD and FD lose their crap. Even if the power didn’t go out in my neighbor hood, that didnt mean it wouldn’t….line crews would, I’d imagine, have to de-energize lines to remove limbs tangles in the wires.

After a while I started working the phones, checking in with the people I care about to see if they had power and if there was anything I could do for them if they didnt. Everyone was fine except for my boss, who did not reply. Just heard from her this morning – power is out at her place and she can’t get her car out of the garage to go to work because of the electric garage door. I told her about that little t-handle hanging off the track and she seemed disappointed…she was looking forward to not coming in. She still might not…no power equals no well pump equals no shower.

Me? Im at work at my desk like a good soldier. I am, however, thinking I may be he only one here today.

Article – A man kills a grizzly bear in Montana after it attacks while he is picking berries

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This actually didnt happen all that far from here.

A man picking huckleberries in Montana shot and killed a grizzly bear after it attacked and injured him badly enough that he had to be hospitalized.

The 72-year-old man was alone when the adult female charged him Thursday. He killed the bear with a handgun, according to a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks statement Friday.

The attack happened in Flathead National Forest about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) north of Columbia Falls, a northwestern Montana city of about 5,500 people, according to the state wildlife agency.

For bear deterrent in the woods, I have two options. A handgun is no one’s first choice for defending against a bad-mood bruin, but sometimes you just can’t carry an HK91 everywhere.

How do handguns stack up against bears? Glad you asked. 

 

Bumping back

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FriendOfTheBlog(tm), Joel over at The Ultimate Answer To Kings, had a bump-in-the-night episode the other evening. If you haven’t read Joels blog, the TL;DR background is that he’s a one-legged older gentleman who lives by himself in a small cabin in the desert. Lotsa empty lonely space and police response time is measured with a calendar. A prudent man, he carries a pistol when he’s out roaming his desert home. But, one night, some noises called for an investigation and the tool of choice for the job was a light-equipped carbine. You can go read the post and see what the situtaion was, but what’s important to takeaway from the episode is that you never know if That Scary Moment is going to happen in the light or in the dark.

All of my ‘just in case’ guns stashed around the house are equipped with blindingly bright lights. Additionally, sometimes you’d prefer not to light things up by pointing a loaded rifle at them…so a handheld flashlight is in order.

I’ve long believed that the most odds-on likely scenario for needing a ‘house gun’ would occur at night. Probably the middle of the night. When it’s dark. (Although fate has a way of beating the odds.) What do I keep handy for those bumps in the night? Well, there’s an AR with a Surefire light, an 870 with a Surefire forend, and my trusty nightstand gun…a Glock 19 with an Olight Valkyrie PL Pro (I love that light), Trijicon HD sights, and a whole buncha Gold Dots. The pistol, my flashlight, and an extra pair of glasses, all sit on this wonderful glow-in-the-dark tray so I can find them instantly at night.

If I hear something go wonky, like Joel did, my first response, after determining what the threat is, is to buzz the fuzz and watch my tax dollars at work. I will, of course, be watching from a safe vantage point with some boomtoy in my grasp…because you never know what will happen.

In Joel’s case, living in BFE, alone, there’s certainly a reasonable sense of caution when it comes to stranger danger. Someday I’ll have my nice little quiet chunk of Montna with my tastefull, yet tactically appointed cabin. And you can be utterly certain it will have a ‘ready rack’ by the door. (As well as several warning systems and countermeasure systems.)

Anyway, I bring up Joel’s experience as a shining example (seewhat I did there?) of the utility and necessity of having lights on your ‘bump in the night’ stuff.

Article – Michigan sheriff Dar Leaf offers ‘militia course’

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Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf is offering a “militia course” to residents, according to a Friday Facebook post.

The constitutionalist sheriff posted a graphic for enrollment to “learn a militiaman’s duty” for “potential jurors, homeschoolers, ladies & gentlemen.”

This goes one of two ways: either a) he’s a True Believer and this is something he’s doing in good faith, or, b) this is how you get a list of names and addresses for future roundups and surveillance.

I knew lots of ‘militia types’ back in the 90’s. Heck, I’ve chatted with Johnny Trochman dozens of times at gun shows, met Randy Weaver and Bo Gritz, and been to a few ‘concerned citizens meetings’. By and large it’s all been beer-bellied armchair warriors who would probably not pick up a rifle in ‘defense of liberty’ until the battle was 99% over and there was no risk to their retirements, jobs, mortgages, and dualies. On the other hand, I’ve also met some True Believers and often they were even more sketch because you got the feeling that they weren’t going to support a revolution, rather they were gonna start one. Again, stay away.

If you and four buddies want to take your preparedness to the next level and form a ‘mutual ad group’ or some sort of semi-organized club where you all look out for each other in anticipation of tough times, that is awesome. More people need to do that. And if it incorporates going to gun schools, medical training, finance classes, welding school, extension classes, backpacking weekends, and a touch of small group tactics….good on ya. But for the love of Crom, don’t give your group a name and fancy velcro patch to slap on your cammies. All the badges are gonna be extremely wary of those ‘Paul Revere Militia’ guys that they see tromping through the national forest every weekend in their cammies, and they’re gonna be a lot less curious about the four or five guys with binoculars and bird books they see tromping through that same forest every weekend.

Five Gulf War/GWOT vets getting together on weekends to hike the woods and look for morel mushrooms is a lot less attention catching than those same five guys hiking the woods in multicam and toting rifles. Use your head.

Would I go to a meeting like the one described in the opening paragraph? Probably not. But I wold darn sure find someone who did go and ask them to tell me all about it and share any materials that were offered just so I could evaluate it for myself.

 

Door gunner

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Buddy of mine texted this picture to me last night:

Apparently, around 1030p or so, there was a heavy knocking on the door. My buddy checks the door and sees some Indian guy (thats Indian with the casino, not Indian with the 7-11) swaying on his front porch. Thinking this is a bad time of night for someone to be banging on doors, he discreetly grabs his 10mm and holds it behind his leg as he yells through the locked door to ask the guy what he wants. Our mystery man says that his car is stuck and can he please come in and use the phone. My buddy is a retired cop and he’s not the type to give someone the benefit of the doubt at his expense. Stuck car or not, the answer is no. Guy on the porch starts copping an attitude, but finally wanders to his car which is nose down in the barrow pit. My buddy calls the sheriff and says there’s some guy with his car in the ditch, banging on his door, and this guy is either drunk or having a medical situation. Must have been a slow night because three fire trucks and seven deputies show up.

My buddy watches as two guys get out of the car, the cops start their little talk, and then abruptly they scoop up one of them and stuff him in the back of a car. Other guy gets a gentler treatment, but still gets bracelets and a back seat. Turns out door guy gets popped for aggravated DUI. What makes it aggravated? Blowing more than twice the limit. Guy number two had warrants for aggravated burglary and failure to appear. He’s not going anywhere any time soon.

My buddy did everything pretty well. He didn’t open the door and he armed himself. Where he lost points was in not having a gun in a more readily accessible place but, unfortunately, his wife doesn’t like having guns laying about.

I always keep a gun by the front door because you never know whats gonna come to your doorstep. As many people have said, nothing good happens after 11pm. Sometimes, though, trouble doesn’t look at the clock and it can happen anytime. Moral of the story: it never hurts to be cautious.

This is only a test…

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My phone, when Im at work, is in ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. That means that only calls/texts from people on my approved list (‘whitelist’) will get through. Unless, of course, youre the fedgov and you’re testing your nationwide emergency alert notifications. In short, every cell phone in my office erupted at 12:20 this afernoon.

I recognize that there may be a circumstance under which your benevolent and generous .gov wants to inform you of something. But if they’ve got the juice to ring every cellphone in North America and override your ringer settings to do it, you can bloody well believe they can do a few other neat tricks with your phone. Turn on the speaker remotely and eavesdrop? Cut off your incoming calls? Redo your Location setting so your phone pings your location? All that and more, my friend.

Remember, .gov almost never gives itself a power (or authority) and then never uses it. Heck, we’re the only nation that ever opened a can of sunshine on other human beings. You really think that technology was going to be developed and never used?

Look, I love me some smartphone. I have, literally, all the collected information of mankind in my pocket. I can communicate with anyone on the planet. I can watch gun videos. But I never forget that technology  like that can be used against me by the same folks that license and regulate it.

Be impressed with today’s demonstration of tech, but be concerned about what it implies.

Sunday outage(s)

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This paid off.

Yesterdays power outage was not an anomaly, it seems. Power was out for about an hour today but over a much broader area of town. I went ahead and ran the generator for that hour, mostly because it was just time to unlimber it and let it get some exercise. However, buying the new UPS’ yesterday for the security cams worked perfectly. Cams, monitor, and DVR stayed up quite a while as I fumbled around getting the generator out of it’s Hardigg case and out into the yard. Very pleased.

Just a few blocks away, a friend of mine is without power and has been for an unusually long time….several hours now. I brought over the desklamp/batterybox combo referenced at the beginning of this post and said to go ahead and not even worry about using up the battery...running it six hours a night it’ll last a freakin’ month.

And, should the power continue to be spotty, I also have this little gem I fabbed up on a whim.

Not sure what’s going on locally in regards to this two days of spotty blackouts…Im guessing its something fairly minor…but it does give me an opportunity to test out gear and theories, and it also points out some holes I need to fill. Most notably, a better base-unit-style police scanner…..with UPS, natch.

Saturday outage

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An interesting day. Was on the computer this morning, going through emails, when without warning I hear the noise of the computer backup power supply kick in and start beeping. A moment or two later it was joined by the UPS for the security system. That’s pretty much the song of a power failure.

Ok, not a big deal. Its the beginning of the day, so lighting isn’t really an issue. What is an issue is determining how big and widespread this thing is. There’s a big difference between a squirrel tap dancing on a transformer plunging my little neighborhood into a blackout and someone EMP’ing my local power generation facility.

Pulled my Icom R6 out of my Bag O’ Tricks and dialed up the local police/fire scene. No chatter indicating a town-wide outage but lets go take a look ourselves. Slipped the Glock into its holster, grabbed an MP5 ‘just in case’ and headed to the truck. A quick drive around the neighborhood showed that, indeed, the power was out. However, when I got to the busy main street I could see far enough down the street in either direction to see active traffic signals. SO..its a localized outage, not the opening act for something more sinister.

Returned back to the house and listened to the scanner some more. Cops reported various traffic signals as inoperative and were directing traffic where necessary. All in all, it was something that didn’t require any real escalation of alert status. So, since we have an actual-but-well-in-hand ’emergency’ going on lets see how ready we are.

Biggest issue: the UPS for my security cameras faded almost instantly. After a couple minutes the cameras all went dark. This was a bit surprising. While there are about a dozen cameras, their draw shouldnt have been enough to wipe out a constantly-charged battery in less than a few minutes. However, this UPS is close to ten years old so perhaps it’s simply time to replace it. Replaced it with two UPS’ later that day.

The Icom R6 performed quite well within its design parameters…and those parameters are for a compact radio scanner. Since I was not constrained by size requirements, due to being at the house, I really should have had a larger, more eay-to-use unit available. I have a few handheld Bearcats of varying vintage laying around but this reinforced that I need to have a more modern full-size unit around. So, there’ll be some research on that and then a quick trip to Amazon.

As has been typical in 90% of the blackouts I’ve experienced here, power was restored within an hour or so. No need to break out the Honda EU2000 to top off the freezer or anything like that. But, of course, it’s there if I need it.

Of all the systems here in the house, the security cams are the ones that have the least amount of reasonable alternatives for a period of power disruption. I have alternatives for heating, cooking, and lighting, but there is only one option for keeping a video security camera system operational and that’s electricity..either stored or generated.

In practice, the UPS for the security system only has to run the system long enough for me to get the generator up and the system plugged into it. Setting up the generator from storage and getting it running is, at most, a fifteen minute job. Closer to ten in the warmer months. Any UPS only really has to last long enough for that period of time. But, no one ever really complained that their batteries had too much capacity. I suppose it might be worth investigating just building a larger capacity backup system with a few AGM batts, a charger, and inverter dedicated to just the security cams.

That was, thus far, the most interesting thing to happen here today. A learning experience for sure. If it had gone on more than a few hours it would have been a bit more interesting but those kinds of failures a few and far between here in town. But, of course, that doesnt mean they won’t happen or that I shouldnt be prepared for them.

Ford F-150 surprise

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Someone pointed something out to me the other day that was utterly fascinating.

This person has a Ford F-150 of relatively recent vintage. Having had the needle on ‘E’, they rolled into a gas station just as the fumes finally gave out and the engine sputtered to a stop. As they were about to refill the truck they figured that this seemed like a good time to rotate the gas from the cans in the bed of the truck. So..dismount the can, put your nozzle on the can, and…..fuel up, right?

Not so fast.

Apparently the newer Ford F-150 (and other ‘capless’ gas tank vehicles) are designed in such a manner that you cannot fill them from a gas can without using a special nozzle. Or, put another way, you cannot just grab a jerry can and fill your rig without the magic nozzle. Did you know this? I didn’t. The person who told me about it didn’t. Guarantee you, though…he knows now.

I am amazed at this. I understand that the folks who design vehicles are, perhaps, not thinking about the times where you’re next fuel fillup is coming from a 5-gallon can someone carried to your base location on a cargo-shelf’ed ALICE pack. But…as survivalists, it would be nice to know that we need a special geegaw to fill the bloody truck from a gas can.

Apparently the vehicle comes with one of these magic funnels but, as you know, one is none and, really, for something as critical as filling your escape vehicle, why wouldn’t you have three or four? Or one paracorded to every other gas can. Fortunately, extras are available.

Moral of the story – if you think the vehicle you currently drive may someday need to be filled from a man-portable gas container of some kind…..actually try doing it. This way you know for sure that it’ll work. The las thing you want is that nasty surprise when you’re by the side of the highway at 2am and you’ve got plenty of extra fuel and no way to get it into your rig.