ernunnos : Your stuff is going as two separate packages, one by UPS and one by USPS. The UPS one will prbably arrive first and is on the way.
gwendally : your stuff may take three packages but I think I can get it as two. I’ll have numbers for you Monday.
cjsmith : Same. Yours will go as two packages since it is over the 70# weight limit if it goes as one. Numbers on Monday. Also, your PayPal stuff doesnt list an address for you, so please send me that.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
A more interesting than usual trip to the cannery. (Although the last trip was pretty interesting in its own right when we turned out to be the only people who showed up.) As Im sure you guys have figured out, Im not a Mormon. Although the Mormons are the Shaolin masters of prep-fu, I cannot join them in their fight against dark forces and jello-less meals. Quite simply, Im just not a religious person. Theres also that little matter of belief…
Anyway…last year when I was wanting to start visiting the cannery I did some research and was told that many canneries do allow non-members (read: non-Mormons) to use their facility. I checked with my local cannery and they said that although they used to let non-members use the facility, the policy had changed to exclude non-members. The way around this was, naturally, to go as the guest of a member. Ok, I can swing that except that I could count the Mormons I know on ..well…no fingers.
The universe provided, however, and it turned out that I made the acquaintance of a local fella that had similar beliefs as me and the LMI and he invited me to accompany him on his trips to the cannery. This is what i’ve been doing the last several times Ive been out there. Each time I visit I try to make sure the guy in charge knows who I am and that he knows Im a fairly cool person…this is so that at some point I could ask if maybe I could come up there some time without the accompaniment. (Because I really hate inconveniencing the fella who has been quite generously letting me accompany him.) Matter of fact, today was the day I was going to suggest that perhaps I could come up by myself some time.
So as we’re wrapping things up, the gal who is the wife of the guy in charge (theyre a retired couple that manage the facility) said “Oh you can come up anytime, you dont have to come up just on the scheduled third Friday of the month.” I said thats great but I needed to come up with the guy I had been previously coming up with. She said, no, I could come up on my own. I said that I was under the impression that the facility was not open to non-members. Her husband piped in and said that the policy had changed and that while there was a time of ‘heightened security’ (his words) they had changed that for a couple reasons. One reason was that the leadership of the church now believed that the folks in charge of the regional population unit (a ‘ward’) were not only responsible for each other but for everyone, member and non, within the ward. Additionally, he said that by allowing nonmembers to have access to the facility it allowed them to prepare and thus not be a threat to the the prepared membership if things got tough. Basically, if the Mormon’s neighbors have their own food stoarge, then the Mormons own food is safer than if his neighbors were starving.
Quite the mindset these Mormons have. I like them.
So, the girlfriend and I can head up there pretty much any time we want to make an appointment. This is good. However, having already gotten 90% of the stuff I needed under the old bring-a-buddy policy Im a little annoyed at finding all this out now. But, really, I have not a bloody thing to complain about. The Mormons very graciously and generously let me use their facility and I have nothing but nice words about them and their hot women.
I should raise a toast of Jell-o shooters in salute.
Todays haul, by the way, was six #10 cans of sugar, 3 #10 cans of dried onion, and 3 #10 cans of sliced apples. This gets added to the #10 cans of wheat, pasta, legumes, milk, carrots, potatoes and other fine foodstuffs Ive already acquired from them.
Oh…and I brought the girlfriend this time to help make me seem more human. I think it worked.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
‘Large quantities’ has been the theme of the last couple days. First off was a palletload of this stuff:
Surprisingly, nothing was outta stock and shippping was faster than I expected. Take a good look, thats security and safety stacked deep and sold not-cheap. But whats it worth to you to have meat and eggs when everyone else is eating the bark off of trees? I’m not going to say all of this is for me, but I will say I do have about this much tucked away in the bunker just for me and the girlfriend’s use. Shelf life? At least 25+ years.
After that, UPS dropped off the case of plastic ammo boxes I ordered. After my last reloading episode I ran out of plastic boxes and just dumped the ammo loose in .50 cans. not my ideal storage. I did, however, undersestimate the amount of boxes I needed.
Thats 50 x 50 rounds. 2,500 rounds of 9mm 115 FMJ and I still have a couple more .50 cans full of loose ammo. I may have gone a little too long on 9mm. Then again, you can never be too rich, too thin or too well armed. Having the Dillon RL1050 makes kicking out a few thousand rounds in an evening very possible.
When youre gearing up for the end of western civilization there just really isnt a such thing as overkill.
Okay guys, the stuff is here so now comes the tricky part.
If you wanna swap with anyone you need to set it up amongst yourselves and you need to settle the financial stuff between yourselves. Im just the delivery boy.
Let me know in comments when youre ready to have your stuff shipped to you.
If youre swapping/trading/selling amongst someone else I need both parties to tell me what theyre supposed to get.
When all that is sussed out I’ll get things boxed up and weighed and you’ll ge tyour total due for shipping.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Those of us with our rarified…interest…probably encounter more rumors than in any other ‘hobby’. Just to run down the incomplete list – black helicopters, FEMA camps, UN armored vehicles, coded highway signs, numbers stations, Illuminati, the Vatican, suitcase nukes, Skull & Bones, etc, etc, etc. Indeed, a tinfoil haberdashery would make a fine bit of coin from our demographic.
Latest rumor(s)? Bank runs, banking holidays, currency revaluation and everyones favorite – Weimaresque hyperinflation.
What is a banking holiday? Well, if you think “Christmas, Labor day and Thanksgiving” you’d be correct…those are holidays that the banks are usually closed on. However, when our fine friends at .gov decide to close all the banks (for whatever reason) this is called (though not by them) a banking holiday. The most well known banking holiday episode was by FDR back in the 1930’s. Don’t think that didn’t make an impression with a lot of folks. Theres plenty of old folks walking around today who still don’t ‘trust’ banks after that episode. The old joke about stuffing money into your mattress? That’s where that came from.
Whats a banking holiday mean to you? It means that unless you have cash you’re not going to be buying much. Your debit cards and checks probably wont work since who knows if the bank they’re drawn on is still in business? Credit cards might work but who knows if the electroninc point-of-sale readers (“credit card machines”) will be able to communicate with the issuing financial institutions. Run to the ATM and get cash? You and five thousand other people. Assuming the ATM isn’t stripped bare of cash, I can’t imagine the results will be good. After all, a banking holiday is to prevent a run on the bank which means not letting people get their cash…so the ATM may not be your salvation. Safety deposit box at the bank? Sketchy. I would think no bank would be opening its doors to the public under those circumstances. That wad of $50 bills in your box may as well be on the moon.
Imagine the following:
Its Friday and you’re driving home. You’re planning on picking up some groceries, maybe get a movie. You spent most of your cash filling up the car that morning and you’ve got about $8 in your pocket. Your bank is on the way to your home so you figure you’ll hit the ATM. You get to the bank and theres a line of cars stretching out the parking lot from the ATM. You wonder what that’s all about but aren’t too concerned… You’ll just hit the drive through…which is curiously empty. You drive up to the window and you see the lights are off in the bank and theres no one behind the glass. You cruise through the parking lot and see people walk up to the bank, pull at the door, and then peer through the glass as they wonder why they cant get in. A note in the window says that the bank is closed for business under orders of the .gov and ‘we apologize for the inconvenience’. You quickly head over to the supermarket and see that their ATM is flashing ‘OUT OF SERVICE’. Your attention is drawn to the commotion of a customer arguing that his bank card/debit card/credit card is perfectly good and that the store’s machine must be reading it wrong…the machine keeps beeping and giving an error code that means ‘unable to verify’. No cash? No sale. $8 to last you until Monday…assuming the bank opens on Monday.
That scenario isn’t far fetched because it has happened before. The cause of the problem was a failed communications satellite that made POS transactions at things like gas pumps and ATMs impossible. With banks closed for the weekend and many vendors unable to accept plastic, there was a bit of commotion. But it only affected a very small group of customers and banks. However, the implication is telling … that very small, localized failure caused some big headaches. Imagine it on a nationwide scale as a result of a declared ‘bank holiday’.
The obvious solution is the simplest – keep an amount of cash on hand. How much? However much you think you would need to continue living as you do for as long as you think you’ll be cut off from your banked funds. At least a week, and a month would probably be about right. How much money should that be? Depends on your lifestyle. If you’re like me and have stored gas, stored food, stored ammo, and stored fuel you probably aren’t going to need as much to cover your monthly expenses as someone who has nothing in their cabinets and closets.
Whatever you decide to keep on hand, keep it in a mix of bills. A stack of hundreds isn’t going to cut it when no one is going to have change. If you try to buy a half gallon of milk at the Stop-n-Rob with a $100 bill the clerk is probably going to refuse to sell to you rather than lose all his small bills, which would preclude him from being able to make other sales. A mix of $20,$10,$5 and $1 bills would probably be best. Maybe a roll of quarters or two as well. Worried that you’ll be sacrificing something by taking money out of the bank? Inflation is at around 4% officially and if you factor in fuel and food, its at least twice that. On a great day you’re getting 2-3% at the bank. Leaving the money in the bank isn’t doing a thing for you.
Safety? You think its not safe keeping that kind of money around the house? First of all, unless you told the neighbors, you’re going to be the only one who knows you have it. Secondly, stick it in the bottom of your gun safe or hide it in your basement. Yes, theft is going to be a huge risk…but not from some thug out on the street. The biggest threat will be from you. You’ll wind up using that cash for something because its just laying there looking at you and you have an urge to go out for dinner, pick up a movie, or buy a new toy. Out of sight, out of mind.
Even if you discount bank runs and bank holidays entirely, which is understandable since they’ve been so rare in the past, its still a good idea to have a lump of cash at the ready for emergencies. During a disaster when you need to buy something cash will be accepted at a lot more places that American Express. Especially if the power is out. Have cash.
If you’re the hopelessly lazy, like myself, I’ll spell it out for you so you can do this as quickly and painlessly as possible and be done with it:
1) Go to your bank, withdraw several hundred bucks.
2) Tell the chick behind the counter you want twenties, tens, fives and ones.
3) Go home. Break the money down into bundles of $100, with each bundle having a mix of bills. Secure each bundle of $100 with a rubber band or paper clip.
4) Stick all the bundles in an envelope, box or pickle jar.
5) Stuff it in your safe or shove it in a corner of your closet under the old boots.
6) Forget about it. Its not there. It doesn’t exist. Go about your business. Nothing to see here, folks.
There. You’re done.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Remember V? The sci-fi show with allegorical references to fascism and Nazis? Looks like it may be coming back.
Even with Marc Singers way-too-tight-pants the show was enjoyable. Heck, any show that provides a platform for gunpaly, resistance movement tactics, and cautionary tales of government evil can’t be bad, right?
And, of course, Sybil Danning was just icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, televison shows that fit into the ’specialized interests’ of you and I havent fared very well. I enjoyed ‘Jericho’ quite a bit and was disappointed at how it changed in the second season. Other shows like Freedom, V and, quite probably, Sarah Connor Chronicles never seem to last very long.
Still, I’ll be interested in seeing how this ‘reboot’ of ‘V’ turns out. Be nice if the keep the hamster-swallowing scenes in it.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Remember the Star Trek movie with the whales? Scotty and McCoy need to build a holding tank and they find a manufacturer who can build it for them and in the process is given the instructions for ‘transparent aluminum‘? (Scotty – “How do we know he didnt invent it?”)
Turns out its real. And being played with by the Air Force.
I know that theres been some movement in the development of transparent concrete, but I thought transparent aluminum was just going to stay in the realm of Star Trek for the forseeable future.
Mmmmm…a helmet visor made of the stuff would be pretty swell. To say nothing of using it as a coating for solar panels.
Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Local college newsrag had an article on saving money while grocery shopping. Their reporter (journalism student, actually) went to a half-dozen supermarkets around town and compared the prices on particular items. Hands down, the winner in about 90% of the cases was WalMart. In some cases the difference in prices was over 100%.
Some people give WalMart a ration of crap because they pay their people poorly, don’t offer benefits, eat babies, and kick puppies. I genuinely don’t care. If you work at WalMart and feel you’re getting a raw deal, go work somewhere else. Me paying an extra $3/# on chicken to their competitor isn’t going to help me or them.
Anyway, it was good to see that what I’ve suspected all along was right – I have been shopping at the cheapest place in town. Money saved means more food on the shelves, more fuel in the tank, more money in the safe, more ammo in the bunker. I’m not ashamed to say that I try to save as much money as I can on purchases.
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I continue to watch the market like everyone else. There seems to be no middle ground on this one…people either see this as the beginning of the end or they see it as being overblown by a media that feeds on panic and alarm. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Is it the end of the world? Objectively, no. Subjectively, maybe. Me and the girlfriend will probably be just fine. We don’t have a lot of money in the market, our debt load is quite manageable, we have plenty of everything we need, and we don’t live a life of expensive frivolity. For us, this isn’t the end of the world…if anything, its confirmation that we’ve made some smart lifestyle choices. There may be a stretch or two where we’ll gripe about heating costs or food prices, but we should come out on top.
The fella that spent too much on his house, owns a $45,000 truck, has two kids and a stay at home mom, $25k in credit card debt and just got laid off? He’s screwed. Its TEOTWAWKI for him in a big way. Stand clear of him ‘cause when he goes he’s gonna go hard and he’s gonna go loud.
If I were a gambling man, a betting man, an opportunistic man, a visionary man, a calculating man….I might think that this is the time to buy into the market and sit on the acquisitions for a few years. After all, we buy stuff when its on sale, right? Think of this as the big after-holiday sale you normally see at the mall. Wanna buy some GE, Ford, IBM, Sears, FedEx and DuPont? Might be the time. Certainly gold and silver have been acting…odd.
No one seems to have any real quantity of precious metal (PM) on hand. Demand is high, supply is, apparently, low…so the prices….don’t go up? That’s not the economic theory Ive known. And yet…the prices of PM’s continue to NOT reflect the current economic situation. Go figure. If you’ve ever wanted to sink a few bucks into the stuff, now might be the time…assuming you can find some.
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Right now, I’m sinking money into the basics.
Food – stuff the girlfriend and I eat that normally keeps for quite a while. Canned and jarred food. Dried mixes and food. Meat for the freezer when its on sale. Canning supplies. Toiletries.
Fuel – Gas continues to drop. Cheapest Ive seen here in town is $3.23/regular. I’ve another two fuel cans to fill. When that’s done I’ll feel satisfied in our potential to have mobility if needed and electricity if we ever get a generator. Winter is coming and we still have plenty of kerosene for the heaters and lamps..the result of seizing a buying opportunity about five years ago.
Ammo and guns – even if the economy were perfect right now, Id still do this. Its an election year. Guns, mags, ammo in that order. (Because the guns get banned first, then the magazines for those guns to cripple the existing supply of them, and the ammo is usually last) Plus ammo prices have done nothing but increase. Dollar-cost-average it out and buy a couple boxes a week.
Money – Yeah, its devaluing as we speak. Then it stops devaluing and goes up. Then the fed dumps a few billion in new money into the market and it devalues some more. But its still handy to have, so I try to stick what I can in a corner of the gun safe. If I had enough to spare, Id dump some of it into silver. There is absolutely no logical reason I can think of to keep it in the bank. None whatsoever. I’ll trade 1.25% interest (at an official 4% inflation rate) against 24-hour/7-day ‘bank holiday’ proof access.
Wanna know a secret? This is stuff you should do anyway even if the economy were roaring like a freight train on the golden tracks to prosperity. Especially then…when the cost of preparing is more easily borne. Keep debt to an absolute minimum, live within your means, stick something away for a rainy day, prepare for a rough patch…stick with that program and you’ll probably never know a true crisis.
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I’m minding my own business, when the girlfriend tells me were outta salt. Salt? Yes, salt. The white crystally stuff we sprinkle on eggs…salt. Well, its just as easy to buy a 25# bag of the stuff as it is to buy a 1# cardboard container of it. Soooooo….picked up 25# at CostCo, broke it down into 5# servings, filled five vaccuum sealer bags with it and sealed it up. Labelled and dated ‘em, slapped a label and GammaSeal on a new 5-gallon bucket, put it all together and it now rests in the bunker with the sugar, corn, wheat, rice, eggs, etc. that are all bulk packaged. Given the rather cheap price of salt, it doesnt make sense to not have alrge quantity of it around…its uses include the usual seasonings, scouring, making saline solutions, preserving meat, use as a dentrifice, etc, etc. “Alas Babylon” goes into it at some length…and if youre in a warm climate where you can work up a hellacious sweat in the summer youre definitely gonna want to have some salt laid back. So….we now have a decent supply of the stuff.
This is how you run out of storage space………
Well, my bank called me last night and asked about some ‘suspicious activity’ and did I really authorize a $4500 transaction? Checked my balances this morning and , sure enough, $4500 is marked as having gone to Oregeon Freeze Dried (aka MH). So….MH is paid in full and they said it should ship Monday whcih means Im gonna say the stuff should be at the shop by the end of next week. It appears we are quite on track and things are going as planned.
Further updates as warranted.