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

You know, im not the brightest bulb in the fixture but shifting a conversation to “I know this Korean war vet who has a BAR and Thompson he brought back that he wants to sell…” isnt going to do either of us any favors. It happens less often than it used to, but every so often someone will come in and tell me they know someone who knows someone who has some sort of illegal machinegun they wanna sell. Tempting? Sure. Worth acting on? Not a chance.

Theres a scene in “We Were Soldiers”, a Vietnam flick, where Sam Elliots character, a crusty old seen-it-all sergeant, is advised to carry one of the recently issued M16’s.

Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I think you oughta get yourself an M-16.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, if the time comes I need one, there’ll be plenty lying on the ground.

Same story. If a situation is coming where I need a genuine M4 or MP5 there’ll probably be plenty of them laying around.

Stay away from those ‘friend of a friend has a gun…’ deals, kids. When you bite that hook and someone reels you in your gonna start thinking that youd give anything to have the chance all over again to say “no thanks”.

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The bioweapon is progressing nicely. I think he really is bigger than he was four days ago. Maybe he is. He’s starting to calm down and get into a routine, so perhaps theres some uninterrupted nighttime sleeping in my future. Regardless, its hard to overlook the fact that he’s darn cute. Im going to try not to go on and on about him.

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Got an email from Kifaru; my new bag will be here Monday. Im very much looking forward to it. The Kifaru stuff is spendy, no two ways about it, but it sure instills a good bit of confidence what with its rugged reliability.

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

Bioweapon exploring the grounds:

This thing had better pan out in terms of force-multiplication because I am not enjoying the lack of sleep and time-suck that puppy patrol is taking on me. Ideally, in a week or so he’ll be fine with being left by himself while the humans try to get some sleep, but for now its a good thing he’s cute. I imagine its a zillion times worse with kids, which is one reason Ive never been a fan of having any.

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

A requirement for most End-Of-The-World gear is that it be easily maintainable and pretty simple to break down. After all, in a crisis you may not be able to send an item back to the manufacturer (or dealer) for repairs. And while I appreciate the relative simplicity of older vehicles, I doubt that any were really designed to be stripped and reassembled in under four minutes. Yet, thats what we have here:

Im sure its a ‘rigged’ vehicle with quick-connect hoses and pre-loosened bolts. (Although some folks tell me that all Jeeps come with pre-loosened bolts and that if they dont, they will eventually loosen on their own.) Still, it’s pretty impressive that a vehicle could be taken apart that fast. I’d guess the only outfits with that kinda skill are NASCAR pit crews, teenage car-stripping gangs and organizations like the Canadian military who have nothing else to do.

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The bioweapon arrived today.

• Dog, General Purpose, Mk. 0
• Rank: Sub- Commander
• Codename: Nuke

You guys have any idea how expensive LvlIII dog armour is? Not cheap.

I am amazed at the sheer size of the dog-ownership industry. Books, videos, ‘organic food’ (they eat roadkill fer crying out loud), leashes, collars, shamppos, etc, etc. I would wager its almost as big, if not bigger, than the baby-stuff market.

Anyway, we picked up Nuke at the airport and he was quite happy to be out of the crate. It is hoped that will be the worst thing that ever happens to him.

From a preparedness standpoint theres a lot to do. Find a good dog food, source it, buy it in bulk…train him for useful functions…learn doggy first-aid…theres no shortage of things to do. But for now, he gets to be a puppy and do puppy things. There’ll be plenty of time to teach him to carry stuff, alert to threats, tear peoples throats out, sniff out things we want, etc, etc.  The missus wanted him for the sake of having someone to go hiking with and as a companion for just general wandering around. I like to think he’d be excellent, when he’s older, at keeping the homeless and transients from harassing or approaching her when she’s walking around town taking photos.

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

Ruger is offering a compact carbine in 7.62×39 these days. This competes directly with the CZ 527. I’ve been wanting a compact carbine in 7.62×39 and was wanting the CZ but the Ruger makes it a horse race. I think the CZ is a better gun than the Ruger, but the Ruger has two main advanatge that I can see:

• an internal magazine as opposed to a detachable one..so no magazines to lose
• Easier parts availability (although, honestly, Ruger is known for being tricky about getting spare parts from)

I like the CZ for its accuracy, set trigger, good looks, and general quality. Ruger makes a quality product as well, but their trigger could be a lot better. On the other hand, spare parts from CZ means that if theyre American distribution network doesnt have it, its gotta come from Czechland.

Both guns feature integral bases, which is nice, and both feature Mauser style extractors.

Tough choice.

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

The missus reported that someone at her place of work wound up having to clean out her deceased mothers house in preparation for a remodel. As they are cleaning out the accumulated detritus they come across canning stuff. Would I be interested? Sure. I can always use more jars. Well, in addition to empty jars (carefully inspected for nicks, chips and other damage) there were some full ones. Pears and peaches mostly. How old? Well, lets let the EOS 7D do the talking:

The box is from a Montana brewery that ceased operations in ‘48. It probably has some collector value to it…especially if it still had beer in it. But, alas, no 60-year-old beer.The contents? Well, theyre a bit newer but not by much.

Wonder how old those jars are? Fortunately, someone labelled them:

Yup, those jars are from 1963. Kennedy was President (well, for most of that year anyway) and coins were still made of silver. Ah the ’60s. It looks like things held up remarkably well for sitting on a basement shelf for almost five decades. Wait….or did they?????

Notice that the two rightmost jars appear to have sludge in them. Not surprising since the seals on those two jars have lost their integrity. The lid does not have that familiar concave depression that comes from a well sealed jar. As a result, the contents of the jars have turned into something that I would imagine is incredibly foul, putrid and toxic. (In fact, the canning books urge you not to just pour this stuff into a hole in the ground because of water contamination and botulism concerns).

The jars on either side of those two, however, have lids that remained intact and the contents appear to be just fine. I say “appear to be” because while I might open one up and see how it smells it is highly unlikely I will attempt to ingest 47 year old home-canned peaches. Although, I must admit, I am tempted to do so….just a little tiny nibble to taste.

The interesting thing about all this is that, theoretically, properly canned food will last a lifetime. I’ve no doubt the nutritional value of the peaches and pears is virtually nil but its still calories to the hungry. While I have some serious(!) reservations about consuming the 47 year old produce, I wouldnt have any concerns if it were, say, five yeras old or so.  Still, good to know that stuff can be preserved for that long a period of time.

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

Looks like someone at Frugal Squirrels spent too much time espousing religious intolerance and hypocrisy and not enough time checking their domain name renewal.

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Domain Name: FRUGALSQUIRRELS.COM
   Registrar: BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES, INC. DBA NAMEJUICE.COM
   Whois Server: whois.namejuice.com
   Referral URL: http://www.namejuice.com
   Name Server: DNS1.NAMERESOLVERS.COM
   Name Server: DNS2.NAMERESOLVERS.COM
   Name Server: DNS3.NAMERESOLVERS.COM
   Name Server: DNS4.NAMERESOLVERS.COM
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 06-sep-2010
   Creation Date: 05-sep-2001
   Expiration Date: 05-sep-2011

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

Well, added to the list of Things I Never Thought Id Do….I’ve made a zombie tag.

HAVANA – What would you do if your entire city was taken over by flesh-eating zombies and communist leaders insisted it was nothing but a plot by U.S-backed dissidents to destabilize the government?

If you were the protagonist of Juan de los Muertos — “Juan of the Dead” — the first zombie flick ever shot in post-revolutionary Cuba, you’d figure out how to make some cash out of the carnage.

Remove the blood-crazed zombies from the equation but leave the broken infrastructure and crumbling economy and youve pretty much got a documentary rather than a horror flick.

cereeeeebros…..cereeeeeebros……

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

MRE’s from other countries, from the NYT.

Proof that no matter what your nationality there are some things that are universal…like cracking open a plastic bag, looking inside and going “What the hell is that?”

To be fair, the Italian one looks pretty decent.

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

Interesting article about some rather likely-seeming events that could be the death knell to what is left of our economy.

To see where this re-recession might begin, my colleague Dan Indiviglio and I imagined five financial earthquakes, each with a single epicenter: housing, consumers, toxic assets, Europe, and the debt. The following five scenarios are listed in order of likelihood.

And once your economy does start going south in a big way how do you keep the populace on board with your hope-n-change? Introduce a ration card with a catchy name:

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

A trip to CostCo or UberWalMart is always an…empowering….experience. Why? Because about 1/3 of those purchases get squirreled away ‘just in case’ and by the time that’s done it is an awesome sight to behold. Trot over to the computer, update the spreadsheets, print out a copy to keep on the clipboard with the supplies, download a copy into my Blackberry for shopping convenience, and we’re good to go. The economy may be skipping a few cylinders but we’ve got a solid headstart on the majority of the population in case things get weird.

Theres enough food, including meat, that I think we could suffer a rather severe food shortage and we’d come though just fine.

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Speaking of food, next week, assuming things work out, there will be another mouth to feed here at the bunker.

Yup. Its a dog. Specifically it is Dog, General Purpose, Mk. 0

We’d been looking into getting a dog for a while now. The missus wants a meatshield/companion for hiking and I could stand to have an extra set of ears to alert us to any problems while we are sleeping. Additionally, its another layer into the escalation of force should the need arise. Canine body armour isn’t cheap, but………..

We’ll have to stock up on dog food, dog medical supplies, grooming, etc, etc. Still, it beats having a junior human running around.

Name? Well, we’re still undecided on that. You’ll hear more about it Im sure. Dog entries will be tagged.