Author Archives: Commander Zero

When didja get started?

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I was trading “How did YOU get started in preparedness?” stories with someone the other day and did some walking down memory lane.

I remember that like, I believe, 99% of survivalists, my acquiring started with the guns. Or knives. But definitely with the more ‘sexy’ aspects of preparedness. Nowadays though…gun purchases are just as good opportunities present themselves, the focus is on day-to-day stuff, food, and money.

I’ve said it before, but I really think it’s true – when you hit the stage where you spend more time, effort, thought, and money on non-weapony stuff than you do on weapony stuff, you’ve stepped into a new stage of preparedness. Sort of a ‘later season’ or maturation of your life as a survivalist.

I know that right now my focus is very much on finances, putting away day-to-day stuff and food, and positioning myself to be in a position to be more resilient and adaptable. Giving myself options, I suppose, is what it’s all about.

Something about having a huge amount of food in reserve just makes me feel calmer. Ditto for money in the bank, although that’s always a challenge given how there’s always a gun somewhere in the world that needs to be brought into my life.

Let’s do a poll:

[yop_poll id=”14″]

 

Gobble gobble

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There is a LOT of turkey,  Butterballs marked down 50%, going into the freezer this week. I actually had to do some shuffling around to fit them all in there. Vacuum sealer is getting a workout. Yay turkey!

And thats just the first trip to the store…..

Nudge to pick up an E12

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I’ve given away a couple of the Fenix E12 flashlights and have recommended them to a few people who actually took me at face value and went and purchased one. To a man, every person who got one from me or bought one on my recommendation has been extremely pleased.

I was reminded just how freaking handy these things are the other day when the power was out. Since the E12 is so small, taking only one AA batt, it’s small enough to carry in your pocket without losing much pocket real estate. But disproportionately big performance.

I love SureFire for their stuff, and even Streamlight makes a couple things I like, but these things are the absolute shiznits. About $20-25 at most places, but absolutely worth it. I have several that I keep scattered about. Drop in a lithium AA, leave it in the console of the rig, and you will be extremely happy someday when it’s the middle of the night, the weather has turned to crap, and you need to exit your vehicle to investigate something. Lanyard one to the inside of you EDC bag. Or just carry it religiously in the pocket of your jeans like I do. But….handiest flashlight ever.

This is one of those items that when I recommend it to a friend I tell them “Look, this is an excellent piece of gear. Buy it and if you don’t agree I’ll buy it from you.” That, mi amigos y amigas, is a ringing endorsement.

Local outage

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Hmmm. Woke up to the sound of the backup power supplies beeping. Hmmm.

A look out the window shows a couple inches of snow, but it’s the heavy wet kind.

A quick look outside shows it’s not citywide, but localized to my neighborhood.

Must be a line down somewhere nearby.

Well, I needed to run the generator anyway.

0715…annnnnd we’re back.
——————
Followup:

So as is normal for here in town, the outage only lasted an hour. But, there was some interesting observations. You guys remember this? Totally worth it. So much so, in fact, that I’m heading up to CostCo to pick up another one today. Why? Efficiency.

I have a very nice Aladdin kerosen lamp sitting on the sideboard. Long glass chimney, paper shade, nickel finish. A very nice, very useful item. I also have about a hundred gallons of kerosene on hand. Now, some math – one fillup of kero gives me about 8 hours of light, or 32 hours per gallon. The battery/lamp combo gives me over 168 hours of light. And that light is significantly brighter and more useful. Charging the battery back to full? About two hours of generator time. That generator time is less than a gallon of fuel. So, to put it in perspective, the Aladdin mantle lamp gives me 32 hours of light per gallon, the battery/LED combo gives me five times that and gives a light that is probably five times brighter.

So, from a practical standpoint, it makes more sense to have the battery/LED combo for emergency lighting than the Aladdin lamp.

Does that mean Im phasing out the Aladdin lamp? Heck no. But it’s not going to be my primary alternative source of light. Oh, it has other benefits…it’s a warmer light, generates some heat, doesn’t require keeping an eye on off-use battery levels, that sort of thing. But to think that it is a better choice than the LED/battery combo…well…maybe not so much. Of course, if something happened to the generator I would be left with only the charge in the battery and no way to recharge it, whereas with the lamp I have plenty of kerosene on hand. But those sorts of ‘what if’s are we why don’t put all the eggs in that one basket.

So…another jump pack from CostCo and another LED light to setup.

Aren’t those traffic lights supposed to be…yknow…lit?

Long term turkey dinner

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Hmm.. the turkey was from November 2016, the box of stuffing was from 2013, the can of corn was from 2017, and the instant spuds were from 2008. And…it all tasted (and digested) just fine. I was tempted to break out some of the freeze dried blueberry cheesecake from 1999 but was too lazy.

The take away? You can do a fairly appropriate Thanksgiving meal out of food storage and the deep freeze.

And today? Post Thanksgiving turkey bargains, m’friend.

ETA:

I have a $25 gift card to purchase Butterball products.
My local Albertsons has Butterballs marked down to $0.99/#

Mathematically, it is within my ability to purchase a 25# turkey with absolutely no out-of-pocket cost to me. And I just checked…they have a bunch that are close to that weight.

Turkey soup, turkey chili, turkey sandwiches, turkey gumbo.
It’s about to happen.

Friday of Color approaches

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The pre-Friday Of Color sales are starting to pop up. Most noteworthy thing I’ve seen so far has been Palmetto pushing Pmags for $8. That’s not bad price, but I think I can do better.

Really, the only things I’m going to be chasing this FOC is AR (and other) mags and AR lowers. Oh, sure, if I can find .223 delivered for a reasonable price I might kick that in the basket too.

Don’t be shy…email me or comment with the best deals you’ve found on preparedness goodies and gun stuff. No point in keeping it all to yourself.

ICOM R6

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A while back, I purchased an ICOM R6 handheld receiver (scanner). I’d been on the fence about it because even though it was rather affordable at only about $200, it was still a chunk of money for a tightwad like me.

I wanted it because too often I would be somewhere and either come across some sort of accident or other police/rescue activity, or I’d hear sirens (alot of them) in the distance and wonder what was going on. Now, it isn’t necessarily that Im nosy (although I am) but rather if there is some Big Hairy Deal going on somewhere that requires the efforts of a large amount of overcompensated city employees…well…I should probably be aware of it. Chlorine tanker derails? I wanna now…now. Shooting at the Walmart and that side of town is locked down? I need to know. Car fire on the bridge downtown? Need to know. So..I picked up the R6. The R6 is tiny, which has some problems, but fits in my Bag O’ Tricks and runs on AA batts. I did a bit of research and programmed it to cover all the local police/fire channels, FRS, GRMS, and a few other useful frequencies. Sometimes it is very useful to know what other people are doing. Sure, many agencies use encrypted communications these days or some other method of defeating casual listeners like me, but…lets be honest….most cops and firemen will take the easy way out and that means just keying the mic and talking rather than remembering tactical frequencies, protocols, encryption keys, and which button on the Motorola turns off that horrible noise.

Biggest drawback is that because of the thing’s tiny size, alot of buttons do double or triple duty. Programming and navigating through different functions can be challenging with constant references back to the user manual. (Tip: keep the .pdf of the manual in your phone)

Since my bag is expected to get bounced and banged around, I keep the R6 in a little Pelican 1010 Micro case.. keeps everything safe and uncrushed.

One item I splurged on, a year or so after I bought the radio, was a programming cable and software package. Rather than go through the button pushing process, I just hooked the scanner up to my computer and loaded up the frequencies that way. Highly recommend.

Since the R6 runs on AA batts, it fits into my logistics plans nicely. The Pelican case keeps it dry and in one piece. And, when everyone is looking out the windows at all the flashing lights whizzing by on the highway I can get a handle on whats going on around me and adjust my pans accordingly.  Forewarned is forearmed and all that jazz.