After some rather uncharacteristically cold weather, things have stabilized into a more normal range of temperatures. Still cold, especially by the standards of people from states where “y’all” is considered good grammar, but tolerable.

Whether it’s sitting out a power outage from an ice storm, or you just happen to live in a hermit shack where the BTU’s come from whatever fuel you brought with you, staying warm is a priority in the winter. I live in a decent house with forced air heat from a gas furnace. Double whammy…in a power outage there’s no electricity for the blower (although the Honda EU2000 could be made to work in such a situation), or something may occur that disrupts the flow of natural gas (say, foreign hackers getting into the system that controls the distribution system.) Being me, I try to keep several options on hand. The most notable of which is the old standby – kerosene heaters. No fuel puts out as much heat as kerosene. And it’s remarkable stable and safe to handle. You could drop a match into a 5-gallon bucket of the stuff and…nothing.

I also keep one of those smaller Mr Buddy heaters around with a few dozen bottles of propane, as well as the 20# bottles out by the BBQ, but I find them not as efficient as the kerosene. Theyre nice if you want to justhear one small room, which is pretty much how to deal with a heat problem in a really bad situation…you retreat to one room and heat that room. but, I prefer the kerosene.

Of course, once its time for bed, you can crank the heat down considerably. Wool blankets are nice, but for keeping yourself comfortable warm when the temperature in the house is only a few degrees above freezing there is nothing that beats a big down comforter, and if you throw a heavy wool blanket on top of the comforter you’ve pretty much made yourself impervious to cold. Im one of those freaks that sleep better in a cold room and I often turn off the heat to the bedroom, shut the door, open a window, and sleep with my head right by the window when its below freezing.

The only reason a stunt like that works is because your bod has fuel to burn to keep your dumb butt warm. Going to bed hungry is a great way to not stay warm. Eat a good meal, go to sleep, stay warm.

Staying indoors, even in a house that is hovering in the low-50’s, is a far sight better than sitting out in the 5* weather. On the few occasions when we’ve lost power here in the winter I’ve managed to barely be inconvenienced…kerosene heaters and lanterns, along with judicious use of closed doors to isolate various rooms, kept me warm and my pipes unfrozen.

I mention this because, as I was straightening a few things up today I came across a stash of military wool blankets I forgot I had. Theyre not very attractive, and perhaps a tad scratchy, but I’ll take warm and slightly itchy over cold and frostbitten any day.

I’m amused that pretty much everyone interpreted the last post to be about water storage when, clearly, it was not. It was actually about the gulf of ‘repurposing items’ vs. ‘purpose-built items’ and people’s attitudes on the two. But…you get your blog fodder where you can.

It got icy last night. Snow isn’t that big a deal here, but ice is what kills you. Or, at least, makes driving an exercise in applied physics. Fortunately, the roads I had to travel were major thoroughfares so they self-groomed pretty quickly. nonetheless, once the necessary driving was out of the way I stayed put. There is no point in taking unnecessary risks for little reward…I can just as easily head to Albertson’s the next day to pick up a some English muffins or orange juice. I’m not totaling a vehicle and rearranging a vertebra over some Tropicana. Pick your battles.

And, once again, temptation triumphed over common sense:

It’s like some sort of John Wick starter kit. Just the thing for a little trash panda remediation..I call it ‘Racoons Unlimited’.

I was lurking around a discussion forum and the topic of water storage came up. As the thread progressed, the statistically predictable comment came in from a couple people about how they either a) used recycled two-liter pop bottles or b) they had a 55-gallon drum that once held corn syrup but they cleaned it out really, really well and use that.

I was a dissenter in that I opined that I would rather pay for new purpose-built containers (Like Scepter or blue barrels) rather than use what was basically post-consumer trash. I suppose that you could, in theory, wash and rinse a used container enough that it wouldn’t transfer a taste/smell to stored water over a long period of time…and I suppose that in a disaster you probably wouldn’t care if your drinking water had a barely discernable hint of 7-Up flavor to it. But I do. On things that are important to my safety and survival it makes no sense to cheap out on gear/supplies/materiel. I would be as reluctant to trust my future well-being to scavenged two-liter pop bottles as I would to using a bargain parachute, discount SCUBA gear, or the cheapest heart surgeon.

Does that make me a snob? A fool? Or even…gasp…a despicable ‘Yuppie survivalist’? Beats me. Nor do I care. The simple facts are that I can afford to pay $40 for a brand new ‘blue barrel’. I can afford to pay $40 for a 5-gallon Scepter water can.

When the dust settles after the apocalypse, and some sort of calm is restored, there will not be awards issued to the people who survived with the least outlay of cash for gear. No Congressional Medal Of Frugality will be awarded to the people who stored their rice in rinsed-out Gatorade bottles. But, neither will there be awards to the people who made it through using the most expensive or razoo piece of gear either. In fact, the only award given to anyone for their efforts will be the fact that they are still alive.

If you want to ride out the apocalypse in a 20-year-old travel trailer, eating rice and beans at every meal, drinking from salvaged pop bottles, protecting yourself with a Mosin Nagant and a Taurus Judge….knock yourself out. And if you want to sit out the apocaplypse with freeze-dried pork chops, Wilson Combat guns, and a nice concrete bunker on a huge spread of land you purchased….have at it. We all have the agency to choose what we feel is best for our interests. For me, that means buying what I feel is the most practical and proper item for the task at hand.

Am I ‘flexing on the poors’? Heck no. Dude, I am the poors. If you’re living on SSDI, or welfare, or on the money you make recycling aluminum cans you pick up along the roadside…..more power to you. And if you’re living on a six-figure income and have rental properties and a mighty investment portfolio….good on ya, mate. We all do what we can with what we have. BUT… if you purposely go the cheapest route possible when you dont have to…well, then I start to question the soundness of your decision. It’s one thing to prep like a pauper if you’re a pauper, but if you’ve got a pretty solid income and some money….well…

I mention this because I don’t think I’m a snob. If all you can afford is to store drinking water in a 2-liter pop bottle, then thats what you do. At least you’re looking towards the future. But if you’re a dentist knocking back $95k….

But…thats just me. I willingly trade off some things like going to movies, binging on Netflix, or taking vacations, in order to free up cash for that which is important to me. And to me, what’s important is my continued relative safety and security…which is worth more to me than the cost of scavenged Coke bottles.

It is worth pointing out the that local background check ordnance that was a darling of our philandering, alcoholic, obese, statist mayor (a.k.a “The Biggest Boozer”) was struck down by the Montana Supreme Court. Never mind that any idiot could have predicted such a result, it was important to send a message, regardless of cost, that background checks save lives……yeah, yeah, yeah. Too many lefty transplants getting themselves on the city council. Glad the state court at least reined in this batch of nonsense.

It is a sad state of affairs when you are so stupidly busy that you cannot get around to shooting all the guns you have been buying as of late. I used to make fun of someone who would buy guns, put them in the safe, and never get around to shooting them. I am becoming that guy. (Well, in some ways, anyway.) My biggest problem is that I have absolutely zero self-discipline to manage my time efficiently and to my best interest. Then again, I have always been my own worst enemy.

2020 is approaching. I am dreading it. Historically, years that were divisible by five have been very bad for me. I expect 2020 to have no shortage of kick-to-the-jimmies episodes. But, I think that for 2020 I’m going to create a ‘goals’ tag and be a bit more diligent about tracking progress of some vaguely defined goals I have. Biggest is to finally get the bloody house paid off. If I can stop spending stupid money on guns, and exercise some self control (see paragraph one), there’s no reason I can’t get the house paid off next year. And, really, that should be the highest-priority goal since once thats paid off I can take the money I was normally funneling to house payments and start chunking it into my Roth. (With a smaller percentage dedicated to precious metals.)

And, of course, 2020 is an election year. I still think Fake Indian Woman will get the nomination, BUT… I’m starting to think that if Joe Biden continues his slow dementia-induced spiral into self-destruction it will be just the impetus for Hillary to jump in as a ‘savior’ for the Democrats. Perhaps as Bidens VP. Who knows. Regardless, the faster I get the bloody house paid off the faster I can get Palmetto State to send me a case of $350 AR’s to stockpile before the election.

Other goals for 2020? Well, some career advancement wouldn’t be unwelcome. I’d also like to upgrade to a newer vehicle. Preparedness goals are easy: more guns and ammo, more silver and gold, more food, and eventually….Commander Zero’s Post Nuclear Bunker O’ Love And Lingerie Proving Ground…I mean, every survival retreat should have a catchy name, right?

Hmm. Thats interesting. Let’s run that up the flag and see who salutes: What catchy name do you have in mind for your happy little hideout?

Havent had a zombie dream in a while….

Dreamt I was in, what I am guessing, was NYC. I was running around with someone else, no idea who, and we had nothing but a backpack full of bandoleer’d .223 ammo, a couple M4’s and a couple tricked out Glocks. I t went well until my partner had their carbine fail and had to switch to their pistol. After that we had to work our way through the city streets as panicked resident tried to evacuate along the elevated subway lines. Ah, good times…good times.

Interestingly, I haven’t watched either of the Walking Dead shows in about a year. Just too busy. I’ve got them recorded on the DVR, but I never seem to get around to it. Same for new fiction…there are a couple books I want to read but it seems like there is always something more productive to be doing. I suppose that’s what being a grown up is.

One thing I do make time for, though, is keeping an eye on personal stockpiles of gear and resources. In fact, I’m heading up to CostCo in a little while to top off a few things and price a few others. At the moment, I feel okay with most of what I have, but I really want to get the freezer back up to %110 of capacity. I used a buncha stuff outta there over the last few months to take some pressure off my budget between gigs, and now is the time to get it back up to that comfortable margin of safety.

Plus, winter approaches and it’d be nice to get some soup and whatnot in the freezer for those cold winter days when I don’t feel like cooking but want something nice. Literally, the easiest is to make the soup, put it into a a vacuum bag, let it freeze solid, seal the bag in the vacuum sealer. Then all I have to do is pull the pouch outta the freezer, throw it in a pot of boiling water (thus not having to deal with waiting for it to thaw), and heat it up that way. No mess other than the spoon and bowl I use to consume it. And, of course, it keeps forever.

At some point I need to review how my preparedness goals for 2019 turned out and start thinking what they will be for 2020. Perhaps I’ll create a separate section on here to keep track of that sort of thing. THe public shame of not achieving those goals might be the motivation I need. We should make it a project…you get your goals together, I’ll get mine together, and we’ll post them around December and see how we do on getting ’em done.