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

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” – Barbara Tuchman, Pulitzer Prize winner (“The Guns of August”)

I’ve often said that the hallmark of maturity in preparedness is when you start focusing on food storage with the same fervor, intensity and enjoyment that was evidenced in firearms planning. Possibly another indicator would be to look at the person’s bookshelf. When you’re just as jazzed about your reference library as you are about whats in your gun safe, you’ve arrived.

I really need to stop loaning out books. I invariably wind up with something like a 50% loss rate. I loaned someone my hardcover copy of One Second After a few months back and that was the last I’ve seen of it. Can’t even remember who I loaned it to. :::shrug::: I had been wanting to re-read it lately. Even though it is very derivative of Lucifers Hammer it was still entertaining.

Anyway, someone was nice enough to stop by and give me their paperback version that they were done with. I think this copy will stay put and not get loaned out.

Even though just about every book I’d be interested in is available in electronic format, I still like the tactile experience of a paper book…plus the fairly rugged portability.

I know someone who, after having similar experiences, has a “three-book policy”. When they find a book that they want and feel is worth keeping they buy three copies – one to use, one to loan, and one for resale. (The books are usually obscure, small-run, reference books.) An expensive, but reasonable, way to do things.

Whenever I think about preparedness books I cant help but think about Dan Forrester from ‘Lucifers Hammer’. Diabetic, overweight, and with no apparently useful skill, he realizes his utility and bargaining power in a post-apocalyptic world is virtually nil. But, as the world is convulsing in the aftermath of the comet strike, he carefully wraps and preserves all of the hundreds of useful books in his library and hides them…knowing that in the aftermath the survivors will need the information on how to rebuild society. And in this way, he buys entry to a fortified community.

Unfortunately, I agree with the quote at the top of this post and that is why, even with the negative experiences, I’ll continue to (carefully) loan books to people. If handing someone a paperback book can be a catalyst for a person’s change, education, development, personal growth, or self-awareness then it’s worth the money to me if I don’t get the book back. And even on a simpler level, if they just get as much enjoyment out of the book as I did, then I’m glad to be of help.

But, sometimes….I just want my damn book back.

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

Well, this is interesting.

After being priced at $0.97 each for quite a while, the aluminum surplus G3 mags have doubled in price. Indicative of the supply drying up? Temporary price spike? Who can say? I certainly have no idea. What I do know is that although the price has just doubled they are still the cheapest magazine around…and if you haven’t stocked up on all you need you may be better off buying now, even at the higher price, rather than just hoping the price goes back to a buck each. (A dollar extra per mag isnt much but let me put it in perspective for you so you can understand the urgency and significance of this change: A month ago, $100 would have gotten you 103 magazines…now that same money gets you 50. See my point?)

If you’re packin’ a G3 clone you need to get the mags while you can. The price may go back down..I hope it does…but if it doesn’t go back down youre going to feel pretty silly if you waited for the price to go back down and the prices go up. Even at two bucks its still a bargain. But no price lasts forever.

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

Article about how the home generator is becoming ‘the status symbol of choice’. A reminder that I really need to get one at some point in the not-too-distant future.

The notion that in our modern world a power failure is only a minor inconvenience seems to be flying in the face of recent events where people on the east coast are spending weeks without power.

This quote is especially resonant:

“Each time it happens,” she said, “you swear, never again. And then, of course, you forget all about it. But the kind of generator we want costs $5,000. That’s money you really hate parting with. After the ice storm a few years ago, when we lost power for six days, I went to Home Depot to look at one. You kick it, you say, ‘Ah, a generator.’ But it’s not very sexy. Imagine all the things you could do with $5,000.”

Man, it ain’t cheap trying to be ready for all comers but I like to think it’ll pay off in the end.

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

Mmmph…I’d been putting off doing an ammo inventory for a while. What can I say? Those ammo cans are heavy. But, as our lives continue towards who-knows-what, it seemed a good idea to just re-affirm what was and was not available. The good news was that there was plenty of .22, 9mm, .38 and 7.62×39. The fair news was that .45 ACP (a low-priority) could use a little boost in its numbers. The bad news was that .223 and 12 ga. were a little thin and need some timely attention. It also occurred to me that I need to stockpile a few thousand rounds of .357. While the .38 ammo can be shot out of the .357 pistols as well as the .38’s, and thus the reason it makes sense to be heavy on .38 ammo, it would still be good to have enough .357 ammo on hand to take advantage of the performance of the longer cartridge.

One thing I find irritating about discussing stockpiling ammo on forums is that one person will post about how they have stockpiled a zillion rounds of ammo and someone will then comment saying thats stupid because you can only carry xxx ammo with you or ‘if you need that much ammo in a gunfight, youre in bigger trouble than you thought’.

Let me ask you something, you have a couple hundred pounds of rice or wheat in your storage, right? Well, you can’t eat it all at once so whats the point of having it? You have 80 magazines for your AR’s? Whats the point since you can only carry a few at a time and if you need to use all 80 mags youve obviously bitten off more than you can chew? See, thats the same utterly short-sighted stupidity that rears it’s ignorant head in these discussions. I don’t have umpteen million magazines for my PTR-91 because I plan on using them all at once. I have the foresight to look a little further down the road….I have umpteen million magazines because at any given moment those may be all the mags I have for the rest of my life. Assuming I’ve got another 35 years or so in front of me, a lot can happen in those 35 years.

So, back to the subject at hand, ammo….yeah, gonna have to set up the big Dillon and crank out some more. The missus picked herself up a .40 Glock police trade-in (Detroit PD..they stamped their name on the slide, frame and even the mags!) and tweaked it out for use as a competition gun which means my logistics train just had another boxcar attached to it since we previously had nothing in .40 caliber. However, since that’s just one Glock out of..well..a bunch…..of 9mm Glocks I think we’ll be okay limiting it to just a thousand rounds or so.

I was, however, immensely pleased to see that our policy of always buying a brick or two of .22 ammo when we went to WallyWorld has paid off. We have plenty of .22 on hand and most of it bought when it was about 40% cheaper than what it is now. Same for 7.62×39…I still have cases of the stuff here from when it was $95 a case.

How much ammo? Man, it’s like food, money, silver and gold….you cant have ‘too much’, you can only have ‘not enough’.

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

American Company Profits With War Wagons

This is kind of a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t you deck out a pickup truck for duty as a MadMax/anti-zombie/security vehicle and market it to poorer countries. Strip away the government contracts and, essentially, what you have here is a company making BOVs. The video says its $25k for one of these things which seems like an awfully good deal, unless they mean $25k on top of the base price of the new truck. Interesting stuff.

Here’s a link to the company. Cool looking rigs. But I bet a DIY’er could part together the same thing.

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

Today was the day the feds were going to test the nationwide emergency alert system. At the appointed time my radio …. went on like nothing happened. Apparently, there are still a few bugs in the system. To be fair, I would imagine that radio stations in Flyovercountry, MT are pretty low on the fed’s priority list but it still doesn’t do much to instill confidence in their ability to inform of, let alone manage, a crisis of national proportion.

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

I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this website, but, regardless of whether it’s genuine or not (I think it is), it is a fascinating read and certainly gives a ‘been there, done that’ vibe. Thank you to the person who emailed me the link.

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

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

The problem with having a dog, and I suspect it is a similar situation with children, is that your previous indifference about them not only goes out the window once you have one of your own but suddenly every child/dog everywhere becomes a concern to you. I dodged a bullet in the kid department, but after raising Nuke up from a puppy I feel amazing empathy and concern for almost every dog. Which sucks because this popped up on Facebook and I cannot get away from it in my mind.

I was going to treat myself to ten bucks worth of Chinese food for lunch but I think I’ll do something else with it instead.

Damn puppies.

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

Buddy of mine called me yesterday to alert me that our local CostCo was selling Pelican cases. Hmmmm. I went up there and, sure enough, there was a stack of ‘em. Two different sizes – the Pelican 1750 for $199.99 and the Pelican 1400 for , I think, $69.99.

These prices aren’t great, but if you peruse Amazon and a few other sources you’ll see that these cases are often on a two-tier pricing: for cases with or without foam. These cases at CostCo come with the foam, and even if the prices are the same as elsewhere on the net at least you can save a few bucks on shipping.

However, I suspect if you shop hard on eBay you might find a better deal, even with the shipping. Nonetheless, for the local LMI, it might be worth heading up there and checking it out.