Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

No matter if you’re an optimist, a pessimist, a realist, an objectivist or a pragmatist there is one thing that is fairly hard to deny: these are some very interesting times. Intellectually, it’s a fascinating time to be alive…just observing these changes and situations that arise. The tough part is detaching yourself enough to watch them without thinking “Oh man, I’m screwed”. Take notes and observe everything, kids…years from now the younger folk will talk to you like we talk to our grandparents who went through the Great Depression or the Cuban missle crisis.

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Im putting in a bulk order for a large quantity of the Gamma Seal bucket lids. Cant say what the exact final cost is, nor what shipping will be, until they get here but it’ll be extremely competitive. Im getting these mostly for my own use but to bring the prices down I needed to order several cases worth. So this’ll be an opportunity for anyone interested in picking a few up at a decent price. When I have more details, there’ll be a longer post about it.

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A few posts back someone asked me what the books are on my bookshelf. Man, there are so many theres no way Im going to sit down and list them all…it would just take too much time. But, Im willing to take a good high-res picture of the books and you can read the titles for yourself. If I can remember I’ll try to do that in the next few days. I;ve long felt that a good, solid personal library of usefeul references, manual, instructions, textbooks, references and other works on relevant topics is as important as the food, fuel, guns, ammo and money that we stock away. And, quite often, it’s the cheapest part of your preparations.

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Weather is slightly warming up here in the great state of Montana. Mud season rapidly approaches. However, its starting to hit the stage where the weather gives us 25 degree evenings and 55 degree days. Heck, 55 is warm enough to start riding the bike again. And, really, you should have yourself a durable, rugged bicycle. They’re excellent for commuting around town when gas is $3 a gallon and someday when gas is unavailable at any price you’ll be glad you have a reliable and efficient way of getting from point A to point B at a faster-than-walking speed. I remember when I was a kid and saw my first mountain bike. I thought they were embarrassingly stupid looking…not like the racing twelve-speed bicycles with the skinny tires we all rode. Ah, the idiocy of youth. The guy who bought those mountain bikes for him and his wife were way ahead of his time. I’d wager that the mountain bikes are a far better choice for the urban environment than the bikes we used to ride. Bouncing off of curbs, over pavement and grass, down stairs, etc, etc, are tasks much better accomplished with the knobby-tired, stable-at-slow-speed mountain bikes. I will say that I wouldn’t taking mine apart and taking the frame out to be powder coated a nice olive green. But, that’s a low priority and nothing I couldn’t do with a can of spray paint if it the situation really called for it. The really nice ting is that the mountain bikes fit in the back of the truck so if the road turns into a parking lot I can still outrun the masses.

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This looks interesting..found the link on arfcom: Shelterbox

Humanitarian interests aside, I suppose a person could grab a nice sized Rubbermaid container and make something similar for their own use.