Tag Archives: gift

Unexpected Streamlight

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As you may (or may not) recall, a while back I had posted that I sent Friend Of The Blog ™, Joel, a tactical flashlight for his use in his particularly remote AO. That discussion begat another discussion about the relative availability and wisdom-of-choice between AA and CR123 batteries.

Apparently, this is a case of why choose when you can have both? A generous reader, who is now on the Paratus card list (nicely done, there), sent me a hitherto unknown product. The Streamlight ProTac 1L-AAA pocket tactical flashlight.

Apparently the colloquial term for a device that takes multiple battery types/sizes is ‘dual fuel’ (or, I suppose, ‘multi fuel’). Regardless, this little light runs on either one CR123 or one AA battery. According to the literature, the CR123 gives you about 60% more run time than the AA batt.

First off, mucho thanks to the generous person who, rather than posting to tell me about this item, simply sent one to me as a way of introducing me to the item. Well done, sir…much thanks!

Its a little bigger than the Fenix E12 that I carry around everyday, but it offers a couple extra features the E12 doesn’t…most notably a strobe option.

I’ll set my Fenix E12 aside for a while and carry this thing around to see how I like it. Right off the bat, the fact it can operate on two different types of batteries gives it some high marks. We’ll see how a couple weeks of everyday bumping and dropping (as well as maybe an inadvertent trip though the washing machine) affect it’s reliability. Stay tuned.

And by the way, while we’re on the subject, you do carry a small flashlight in your pocket at all times, right? And please don’t say that youll just use your phone if the need arises… thats just a bad idea for a buncha reasons.

The universe provides

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So, you know how a little while back I picked up an MP5K clone? Its a cute piece but it really needs an..”arm brace”…to really make it useful. And, this week, two separate Paratus gifts arrived. A TailHook arm brace, and an MP5 sidefolder from Choate that is made to take the TailHook. Well, I guess thats everything needed to make this thing more practical.

A thank you to the generous readers who sent Paratus gifts that managed to serendipitously compliment each other.

Water cans

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So right around Paratus, these arrived in the mail:

I’m not an expert on fire extinguishers, but I know that, once in a while, the solution to something burning is to simply douche it with a lot of water. Yeah, yeah, it’s a different story for electric, chemical, and oil fires, but for the candle-left-too-close-to-drapes sort of conflagration some H20 is just fine.

What I did not know is that these types of fire extinguishers have a bit of DIY features in that they are reusable and rechargeable by any idiot with an air compressor. And, as it turns out, this idiot has an air compressor.

All these things are are giant pressurized super (duper) soakers. You unscrew the top, fill with liquid of your choice (more on that later), seal it up, and hook up a pump to the valve and pressurize. Easy peasy.

What this means is that you can re-use these things and refill/recharge them yourself. So, if like me you have a curious mind, you can play with one and see what kind of range and output you can expect and then just refill/reharge it to it’s ready state.

Now, of course you are supposed to fill this thing with water. (Or, as I read somewhere, water and a tiny bit of dish soap to increase the ‘wetness’ of the water). But…what if you’ve a more creative bent? Can I fill this thing with kerosene and use it to quickly prep a place for immolation? Or as an impromptu flamethrower? Can I fill it with water and food coloring and write hurriedly nasty messages in the snow on City Hall’s lawn? Can I fill it with urine and quickly run the hose into the vent of the car of someone I don’t like and make a statement? There is…potential.

In actuality though, these will get filled and charged, and then relegated to strategic locations around the house ‘just in case’. What makes them postworthy is that, naive fool I am, I had no idea they were rechargeable by the user. For a surivivalist who may need to use one of these someday its a handy thing to be able to reuse it by just filling it with tap water and charging it with a bicycle pump.

So, there you have it…the ultimate water gun.

ETA: Very useful link from the comments

A siege of Sieges

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Hmmm. Was bopping around Amazon looking for holiday gifts and encountered that age-old problem that occurs when shopping for other people: the gift you’re looking at is so cool you decide you want it for yourself.

It happens, right?

So, the people I was going to send a buncha Siege lanterns to will have to get something else. In the meantime, I have several of them showing up Monday.

Actually, if youre stuck with what to get that survivalist-type person on your wish list, I strongly recommend these things. They’re handy, pretty affordable, and they do exactly what you need them to do. Three levels of brightness, a blinky strobe function, and a red’save your night vision’ mode. I really can’t say enough good things about them. Of course, when you come up with a cool product, there are imitators. Everready and Rayovac make some similar produccts but for a lousy $27 I see no reason to go with an imitator. I mean, if Rayovac made a weaponlight that was a knockoff of the Streamlight you’d have some doubts about that, right? Same thing.

I’d been meaning to pick up a few extra of these for a while now, but I just never got around to it. Now that winter is here, and we had, what, an earthquake two years ago and a couple power outages in the last year, it seemed a good time to move some money out of one budget category and into another.

I’ll head up to CostCo this weekend and stock up on D-batts to load these things up when they get here Monday.

Pick up three or four for the LMI on your gift-giving holiday list.

Pocket machete

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Well, I guess since the cat is outta the bag, I can quickly mention a cool toy I was gifted.

20150731_151835The knife is done by Cold Steel with input from SurvivalBlog’s own ,Rawles. (Yup, thats his name on the blade. Yes, they included the comma.) Proceeds from the sale of the knife go to charity.

This monster of a pocket knife was gifted to me at the Missoula gun show a couple weeks ago. It’s an interesting knife and a far departure from what I normally carry around. While calling it a ‘pocket’ knife may stretch the definition of ‘pocket’, it definitely doesn’t depart from the definition of knife. This thing is a big folder with a half-serrated blade, beefy, rough-textured handles, and everyones favorite black/olive tacticool finish. It’s a litte big for my personal EDC, but it will definitely go in my bag when I’m out tromping around the woods or E&E’ing ahead of the zombie hordes. Personally, I like half-serrated blades. Sometimes stuff needs to be cut that is just too challenging to a straight blade….nylon/plastic strapping comes to mind…and the serrations make short work of that sort of thing.

From Cold Steels website:

The RAWLES VOYAGER was made to James’s unique specifications, with an O.D Green Griv-Ex™ handle, heat treated 6061 Aluminum liners and our famous Tri-Ad® locking mechanism, offering unparalleled shock and impact resistance and durability in the field.

The Rawles Voyager has also been equipped with a high performance American CTS XHP steel Tanto point blade and a durable black DLC (Diamond Like) coating, making it an excellent choice for the modern day survivalist!

This limited edition knife is the only version of our highly popular Voyager that features an American CTS XHP blade, giving it even greater edge retention properties!

Cold Steel, Lynn C Thompson, Andrew Demko and James Wesley, Rawles have all chosen to donate all proceeds from the RAWLES VOYAGER to charity.

Cool knife with cool backstory. My thanks to the person who generously gifted it to me.

Signage

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Remember a few posts back I saw a sign in the window of a local shop? Well, someone thought I shouldn’t be without, and this little gem showed up in the mailbox the other day:

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I’ll be giving it a prominent place in the shop window for the world to see. Much thanks!

 

Winning the loot roll

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The big Festivus gift this year? Well, check this out… for the last week or so, the wife has been spending all her time in the living room configuring her computer for some new games that she was interested in playing. Nothing surprising there, after she’s done fighting the forces of evil at her job she often spends a few hours a night fighting them online.

So I open my suspiciously large wrapped gift this morning and inside the box is – a custom gaming PC that she built from parts and spent the last few days configuring and installing, right under my nose. She built it so that it looks like her computer and that way could do all the work on it in front of me without me being the wiser. How cool is that? And the best part? Windows 7….now thats thoughtful! SSD boot drive, awesome graphics card, modular expandable case, etc, etc. and its preloaded with Skyrim, Battlefield and WarCraft.

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I’ve been using the same computer for the last seven or ten years and would never have bought one on my own. I tend to just use peoples hand-me-down computers because I’m too cheap to buy a new(er) one. As long as it runs my browser, lets me get email, and that sorta thing Im happy. So a dedicated gaming box…thats quite the toy.

So there you have it….not at all topical or gear-related but still one of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever gotten.

Whaddya want for the holiday gifting?

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When I originally started blogging, the purpose was to chronicle the progression of steps towards getting to the level of preparedness I wanted to achieve. So that was around 11 years ago. You’d think that after 11 years there wouldn’t be much left to do…but, of course, there’s always something.

Pretty much all that is left to acquire are the truly big-ticket items – a dedicated vehicle and a place out in the sticks. Both of these are pretty much the final jewels in the crown. Food? We’re good. Guns and ammo? Just ducky. Toiletries, bedding, fuel, generator, tools, security system, etc…yup.

There are still some things that I still haven’t gotten around to, despite years of saying “I need to…” The two that immediately spring to mind are radio communications and a PV-powered battery backup system for same.

Like anything else, the limiting factor is money. Ten years is obviously plenty of time to put some money back for expensive stuff but, sadly, I have a tremendous lack of discipline. Its hard to ‘stay the course’ for a long period of time when people walk in the door or call me and say “Hey, a guy just sold me a couple 1911s…you wanna look at ’em?”

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping to receive for Chrismahanakwanzakah this year? The ‘realistically priced’ gift and the ‘money is no object’ gift.

Unexpected packages

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A surprise in the mail today….Station Eleven: A novel … My first thought was that it was an advance copy from some author or his/her publisher. No, turned out someone liked it and thought I might like it as well. So…to that benefactor, thanks muchly and I promise to read it soon and post about it.

 

Its pretty hard to find good post-apocalyptic fiction so I’m always eager to try something new.