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

So here’s a link to an article about the Brits kinda sorta re-legitimizing self-defense. The article in itself isn’t anything noteworthy. It’s the usual soundbites and domestic politics that you’d encounter in pretty much any First World country. What is interesting, however, are the comments that are posted to the article. More than one subject says how that by legitimizing a homeowners violent actions against a criminal intruder they are ‘escalating’ the arms race and that criminals will now feel a need to be armed when they commit their crimes. “Peace for our time”, indeed.

If taking violent action against criminals results in future criminals feeling the need to arm themselves then your response wasn’t violent enough. Someone bent on breaking into your home and killing you for the coin jar on your dresser should be made to feel that even showing up with a bazooka wouldn’t be enough to keep them from landing on a morgue slab.

No, read the comments and see for yourself the difference in mindsets and attitudes that exist there. On the one side are the Neville Chamberlains willing to give everything to appease and on the other side are the genuine honest-to-god Rambos who think shooting is too good for ‘em. My own opinion is, naturally, somewhere in the middle.

Defense of self? That’s a given. Someone tries to do violent physical damage to me then I have no doubt that anything other than a violent response is warranted. I’d really, really prefer not to but I prefer being in a hospital even less.

Property is another issue. If I look out the window and see someone trying to steal the truck do I prop the AR in the window and shoot them? Probably not, they aren’t threatening me. Do I trot outside with the AR and try to convince them that maybe theres a better career choice for them? Absolutely. If they flip me off and drive away do I send bullets down the road after them? Absolutely not.

On the other hand, theres only a couple circumstances I can forsee where deadly force comes into play regarding property. (And this is my own personal belief paradigm, your mileage may vary.) First is arson, someone tries to set fire to my house I’m going to shoot them. End of story. No ifs ands or buts. If Joe Anarchist is out there with his Molotov martini screaming about “Capitalist swine” and is winding up to take a throw at my front porch, well, then I don’t think anyone would think that shooting him was a bad idea. (Although shooting the flaming bottle in his hand might be more satisfying from an irony standpoint…but I’ll take the easier target, thanks.)

Under normal circumstances I’d say arson is pretty much the only property crime I’d think warranted a bit of trigger time. What about abnormal circumstances? Much trickier. Theres probably guys pushing up daisies in Louisiana who tried to steal a generator out of the wrong garage or who had the misfortune of meeting the owner of the car they were siphoning gas out of. If the property that’s being threatened is property that is critical to my well-being, then I think it might be worth violent defense. They wanna take the garden gnome in the yard? Have at it. They wanna take the stockpile of 5-gallon gas cans? Not so fast, pardner.

Unfortunately history has shown that predations against the prepared do not come exclusively from the ‘normal criminal element’. Sometimes those predations come from people operating under what we have come to call ‘color of authority’. That’s the noble way of saying “A guy with a badge is demanding all my [gasoline/food/shelter]”. Katrina, the defining disaster of recent history, showed police and other ‘authorized personnel’ engaging in behavior that, were it not for the badge on their uniforms, would have almost universally been met with gunfire by most people. The unfortunate truth is that, by and large, no one gets into a violent confrontation with the police and gets away with it. If the cops kick in the door to the gun shop and say they’re taking the guns ‘for safekeeping’ and the owner says ‘no way’ and points a gun in their direction how do you think that’s going to end? The chief of police walks in, sees the uniform guys on the floor and says to the shop owner ‘sorry about that, we were gonna fire these guys anyway’? Nope. The cops bring more cops, there may or may not be a fatal fusillade, and the result is the shopowner, if he’s lucky, gets a few years in jail instead of being taken out in a bag with the local gendarmes shrugging and saying ‘we were just trying to do a job and the guy went nuts’. Part of staying safe is knowing when to pick your battles. Probably 99% of the time its better to smile and say ‘yes sir’ than to dig in your heels and face a virtually certain (and probably final) defeat. But wait…hows that different than those Neville Chamberlains in the comments to the article mentioned above? They want to give up the goods to the criminals to prevent a nasty consequence…isn’t that what your advocating? Hey, if Im being hypocritical then tell me… If Im walking down the street and someone points a knife at my belt buckle and says ‘gimme’ then, yes, we’re going to have some exciting moments. Unless, of course, the guy with the knife has three of his friends standing behind him idly playing with their lengths of pipe and baseball bats. Then its “I don’t want trouble. Here you go.” Im no dummy, and Im betting you aren’t either. When you think the odds are on your side, you fight. When the odds are against you…well, different story. (And, sure, there are times the odds are against you and you’re still probably going to fight..you’ll lose, but maybe that’s better than not fighting at all. Winston Churchill [who would probably slap the face of the average Brit politician if he met them today] has a rather famous quote that is somewhat applicable.)

Under threat from ‘rogue elements’ of the local PD (or military, or .gov) you really don’t have much choice except to go to ground and stay out of the way…(unless you have a very, very large amount of armed friends on your side who are willing to go all the way on this). Theres a bloody good reason Im not keen on ‘the authorities’ knowing what I have socked away for that Rainy Day…because I don’t want them showing up on my doorstep ‘requisitioning’ my stuff. I believe it was in Massachusetts a while back when they had some nasty blizzard and massive snowfall. Owners of four-wheel drive vehicles had their rides ‘commandeered’ for the emergency. As you would expect, some cars took a while to get returned, some had damage, and some never got returned. (Same thing in Katrina, by the way, car dealerships lost a lot of stock and the cops had some mighty nice rides. Hmmm.)

Anyway, back to the original paragraph – read the article and read the comments that are posted to it. Its an interesting example of different mindsets. While you’re at it, if you want to, give some thought to what you’d do when ‘the man’ shows up and asks why you’re the only house in the area with electricity and water and do you mind if we use your place as our command area? Hint: he’s not really asking, that’s why theres a couple deputies standing behind him on the lawn.

The Japs have a saying, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Sometimes you just need to know when to keep a low profile, have your gear safely hidden, and to look as uninteresting as possible.

Sure, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. More often though, the squeaky wheel is yanked off the axle, frog-marched out of the yard and made an example of to the other wheels, and then its place is taken by a nice, new, quiet wheel.

Stay off .gov’s radar as best you can and avoid the whole confrontation. Sure, volunteer for your local disaster services or something. Make a difference, learn some valuable skills, network a bit…but keep it under your hat that you’re better prepared than they are or you will get the visit someday when a flustered local ‘emergency management’ guy shows up on your doorstep and asks if maybe they can borrow your generator…and some fuel..and your truck…and that radio…..

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

The summer fire season that had been so quiet was finally made un-quiet with a large (several hundred acre) grass fire on the mountain on the edge of town. I live far from that area and there was never any threat at all to my own property, but it does make one think about fire issues.

Short of installing an in-home sprinkler system (which is actually done in some new construction) some sort of home fire-fighting setup may be worth investigating. Every yahoo has a hose bib and a garden hose coiled up in their yard. Im not necessarily thinking of external fire issues (which I’ve mentioned in the past) but rather internal ones…like your toaster oven setting your kitchen on fire, that sort of thing. It would be nice to take off a line from the water pipes and have a hose bib under the sink or in a closet where I could leave a small coil of compact, flat hose.

But, realistically, I need to upgrade the fire extinguishers both in size and quantity. We have the usual small fire extinguishers scattered around the house but I think I’ll upgrade to the larger, more ….capacitious… extinguishers.

The other thing I’d like to pick up are a couple of stirrup pumps. If you’re not familiar with these things you should take the time to check them out. They were popular in London during the blitz. They are hand-operated pumps that look a lot like a bicycle pump. You stick it in a bucket, theres a stirrup that hangs outside the bucket for you to stand on and hold the pump steady, and then you pump with one hand and aim the hose with the other. The idea was that when water pressure was down (or pipes destroyed) you could grab a bucket of water and pump the water yourself in a high pressure stream to where you needed it. Ideally, someone would grab a bucket and refill yours as you use it. Major Surplus used to sell these things all the time. I spent a bit of time Googling away and discovered that even the surplus ones are difficult to find and there are no newly manufactured ones. There are stirrup pumps used in boating for bailing out the boat, but they aren’t designed for high-stream pressure.

How hard can it be to find a firefighting stirrup pump, right? You just whip out the ol’ Google and let ‘er rip, right? Wrong. I found a couple military surplus ones but finding a new one was quite difficult. I found one source but its built in Germany and I haven’t found a US source yet. I would think that with a handful of Home Depot plumbing parts you could probably build one of your own.

The old Forest Service-style backpack system is still available and might be useful but the stirrup pump would allow you to simply move to another full bucket whereas the Indian pump would require you to refill its reservoir. Hmmmm..

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Im still trying out the Platypus water bottle. In digging through the honeymoon pictures from Alaska it turns out theres a picture of me examining the ranger’s bottle. I’m funny that way, when I see a gathering of people in an outdoor environment I always wind up checking out their gear to see who has the WalMart made-in-China bags and who has the London Bridge stuff. Anyway, thus far Im pleased with the Platypus bottle, but Im still on the fence about how I like it more/less than the hard Nalgene bottle.

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Everyone’s friend and career scumbag Charles Schumer made a comment about the IndyMac institution a few weeks ago and, according to some folks, triggered a bank run that left the institution short of cash and a target of seizure by the feds. Chuck, whom I have actually listened to in person, dismissed the notion that he had any hand in the bank run and that if IndyMac had been playing straight this wouldn’t have happened. Hmmmm. Im not going to get into Schumers long history of camera-hogging sound-biting self-promotion, nor am I going to get into IndyMacs lending practices…all I want to point out is that a bank doesn’t have to be on the ropes to fail. All you need is to start a rumour or buzz that its about to fail, people line up for their money, other people see the lines and jump in also, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do I think you should not use banks at all? No, I don’t. But I think that you may want to keep a good chunk of your money on hand in your gun safe so if your bank does shut its doors for a week you’re not screwed too badly. Besides, at 1.5% interest why would you keep your money in the bank anyway?

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

The more I look at the people in the world around me, the more I watch the news, the more I listen to talk radio, the more I peruse political discussion groups the more I come to the conclusion that I and people who think like me are truly doomed. We’re outnumbered and politically outgunned, it really does seem like the only recourse is to retreat to some enclave and self-govern. An American Taiwan, almost. (And, yes, Taiwan is actually an exclave, not an enclave.) There is no point even discussing things with the unaware..the people in adjustable rate mortgages with two cars and a jet ski who cant understand how they’re slipping into bankruptcy. The time to convince people to head to the lifeboats has passed, now its time to start thinking about how to keep them from swamping the one I’m in. Food prices are up, ammo prices are up, fuel prices are up, unemployment is up, theres a no-win election coming and theres a definite ‘negative vibe’ in the air. Is it any wonder I feel like the sky is falling? I’m pessimistic enough that I believe things are either going to remain the same (which isn’t all that great) or get worse. Get better? Sure, someday but not anytime soon. And, of course, you gotta make it through the bad times in one piece in order to make it to the better times. So…while my belief in the immediate future being better is diminished, my resolve for us to get through it comfortably is not. Just wish it wasn’t so darn expensive.

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While on my Alaska honeymoon trip, I visited one of the many glaciers that were tourist traps. While looking around (I always check out peoples gear) I noticed one of the park rangers with a Platypus-brand flexible water bottle. I had seen beverages packaged in a similar manner and recalled thinking how cool that sort of thing would be for a collapsible canteen. As we all know, one of the problems with a rigid canteen or nalgene bottle is that when they are less-than-full they slosh. Sometimes you just don’t want that kinda noise following you around. Additionally, they take up as much room when they are empty as when they are full. The CamelBak-type systems take care of these problems handily but sometimes they are a rather bulky system. So…I picked up one of these Platypus containers and am trying it out. It quite obviously is not going to be as durable as the Nalgene bottles but it should hold up pretty well. The gal I was talking to at the glacier said she’d had hers for quite a while and had no problems with it. Even after just using it for a few days I can see some deficiencies. The cap is non-captive and can get lost…on the other hand, the cap off most 20 oz. Soft drink bottles seems to fit just fine as a cheap replacement. There is no attachment point for a lanyard, which is kinda annoying. Also, although it holds as much as a Nalgene bottle, it’s “footprint” is a bit bigger. Pockets designed to hold a Nalgene bottle may require you to squeeze and maneuver the flexible Platypus ‘bottle’ to get it to fit. However, I do like it. When its empty it rolls up into a compact package and can be tucked out of the way. This means that if you want to make, for example, an emergency bag in as small a package as possible you could keep a couple of these things rolled up and stashed away and then fill them when you need to. Coupled with a RolyPoly-type carrying pouch these might make excellent gear to keep in a ‘minimalist’ bugout-bag. Price, by the way, is about the same as for a Nalgene bottle.

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Even with keeping my shooting down to .22LR, its still darn expensive to spend a day at the range. I have a decent stockpile of .22 ammo but Im determined to get more. Even the .22 ammo has gun up recently so there is no reason I can think of not to stock up on it now. Its going to cost more next year, so why wouldn’t I buy it now? If I could free up the cash I’d head to WallyWorld and grab a hundred bucks worth. Speaking of….buy your Ruger 10/22 mags now, kids. RamLine are good and, surprisingly, so are the inexpensive Eagle-brand mags. Usually $10 for the Eagles and they work great. Mag bans are not off the table, so lets be ready, mmmkay?

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

Gas at the local CostCo finally passed the $4 mark. Now, a $20 won’t be enough to fill a 5-gallon fuel can. That’s one of my personal benchmarks on gasoline prices. Where will prices go from here? Well, I think that with the summer travel season upon us the price will go up more but Im not sure how far. What really concerns me is the upcoming winter season and the fuel costs for heating the house. On the bright side, I don’t heat with oil. On the bad side, I heat with natural gas. So there’ll be a bit of ‘winterizing’ over the summer to do what I can to help keep the heat in and the cold out this winter.

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This weekend is the Fourth O’ July. This and Patriots Day (The genuine April 19^th version, not the absurd and badly named ‘Patriot Day’) are the two holidays that I try to get out to the range for. Fourth O’ July is kind of optional but Patriots Day is a must-go for me. This time of year is also the best time to head up to the reservation and pick up fireworks. Commercial made-in-China fireworks actually do have some tactical application. You mix the smoke bombs with a little road flare compound and a good dose of powdered red pepper to make your own tear gas grenades. I have a file around here somewhere that covers this…I’ll have to see if I can find it.

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A quick reminder that, unless you live in Washington DC, nothing has really changed and that you need to buy your magazines and boomsticks before the election. Get out there and jumpstart the economy.

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Speaking of, as you know I sometimes extol the virtues of the PTR HK-91 clones. Im the first to say that I don’t think they’re the best .308 out there (I really prefer the FAL) but I think for the money they are the best out there. Someone emailed me a few weeks ago asking my opinions and reasoning and I replied with an email stating why I thought that if you were going to buy a .308 semiauto they’d be the most practical choice. Fastforward a week or so and I got an email from the fella saying he had taken my advice and enclosed a .jpg of his new rifle, magazines and a case of surp .308.

Cool!

Your mileage may vary, and Im not propping myself up as an expert on anything, but if anyone is reckless enough to ask my opinion on something Im more than happy to share it. As an aside, I think the purchaser of the aforementioned rifle will be very pleased with his purchase. At least, I hope he is.

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

I wanted to get either a .22 conversion for the AR or a dedicated .22 upper. Its just to expensive to drop $0.25 per round on ammo for the damn gun to practice with. Now, I loves me practice, but I love being able to pay for groceries more. So, it was decided that a .22 conversin or upper would be called for. This is when the research began.

A friend of mine has a .22 upper for his AR and I like it very much. The only drawback is that many of the  uppers (as well as conversions) use proprietary magazines and not all have a 30-rd capacity. Even if the company making the conversion offers a 30-rd magazinee still sort of over a barrel in the accuracy department. Certainly ‘good enough’ accuracy for practicing but more accuracy is always better, right? The problem with a conversion is that the actual suggested bore diameter for a .223 bullet is different than that of a .22LR bullet. As a result, the .22LR bullet rattles down the bore a bit. Now, for shooting steel plates at short range thats fine and dandy but it would be nice to have the gun be accurate enough for gopher shooting and general plinking.

Go with a dedicated upper and you get better accuracy but theres only a handful out there that have the availability of 30-rd mags (and those mags arent cheap). Additionally, it means tying up a perfectly good lower that could be used on , say, a real AR15.

So, since what I really want to focus on are move-n-shoot type drills, high magazine capacity, and something close to AR ergonomics I was thinking of tweaking out one of the 10/22’s I have laying around here into an AR trainer. The major changes will be a stock that duplicates the AR stock and sights that duplicate the AR sights. What I’ve decied on, so far, are these sights and a stock along these lines.
Im sure someone will c hime in to remind me that the magazine, charging and safety of the 10/22 are quite different than that of the AR series. I know that, but Im not wanting this package for magazine drills, safety drills, or charging drills…I want it so I can bring the gun up to my shoulder with my hands and shoulder in the same position as if it were an AR, and my sight picture being the same as an AR. For moving-and-shooting drills I think this would be just the ticket.

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

The software that runs this thing lets me list where incoming hits are from. That is to day, if someone comes here from a link, Im told what link it was. A good portion of hits come from search engines like Google and Yahoo. Heres some terms that have brought people here in the last 24 hours:

Gas bike conversion – Im guessing thats a hit from posts Ive done about mountain bikes and the like. Gas conversion is interesting but I’d be mroe interested in an electric conversion. They do exist, but one drawback is the batteries are rather heavy.
357 ruger magnum on ebay – Dude…eBay stopped selling guns a while ago. Try Auction Arms or some other gun oriented website auction service.
Glock knifes – The plural of ‘knife’ is ‘knives’. Im at a loss on this one…unless its the possesive ” knife’s”
Gold 357 mag 8 shot revolvers – While I can understand the appeal of the 8-shot .357, the notion of having it in gold plate seems a little….pimp-tacular?
SU-16 carry – Eh. Theyre interesting guns, but I would think theres better choices to tote around.
26.5mm – This turns up almost daily in searches. Its people looking for info on the 26.5mm flare guns like the surplus HK ones I wrote about.
Glock mags – This is another one I get pretty much every day.
HK g36 US parts – This is almost certainly a hit from my posts about spare parts availability for the PTR-91/HK-91 series of rifles as a result of the G3 getting replaced by the G36.
lightrs – If this is indicative of the spelling ability of your average internet user (see ‘Glock knifes’) then, truly, we are all doomed

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

People ask me about my opinion on the Heller decision. Plain and simple: it might be a win for our side, but do not think for a moment it means its okay to slack off on gun and magazine purchasing.

Theres nothing in that decision, that I saw, regarding things like ‘high capacity’ magazines, bayonet lugs and flash supressors. Play it smart and stock up on magazines and evil black rifles now before the election. If the Heller decision turns out to be the second coming and we’re all buying full-auto BAR’s next spring then all you’ll have done is spent money you were going to spend anyway. But………if the Heller decision turns out to have some unanticipated consequences, or doesnt protect the individual right to have magazines for your gun…well…then you’ll be way ahead of the class.

Summary: if you were planning on buying more mags or more guns before the election, continue as if nothing has changed. Better safe than sorry.

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

Anyone remember what the first rule of Fight Club is? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The first rule of Fight Club was that you do not talk about Fight Club.

Although not 100% the same, the first rule of preparedness is that you don’t talk about preparedness…at least, not in certain circles.

Security is always at the forefront of most peoples mind when they talk about preparedness. Theres that whole guy-in-camo-with-an-AK47 image that is called up when the word ‘survivalist’ comes up. Theres a small degree of truth in it, but that’s not what this post is about. Theres no shortage of people who can go on and on about that type of security.

Theres plenty of times the last thing you want is your neighbors, your family, your boss or your government knowing what you have, how much of it you have and where you keep it. We protect ourselves by restricting, as best we can, and selectively releasing information about ourselves and what we are doing.

Some people order their freezedrieds, gas masks and medical equipment through private mailbox services using other people’s names and paying by money order…to stay off ‘the lists’. Theres some merit in that, although I think that, other than firearms, its probably not necessary. What is necessary, however, is to exercise a bit of security in other matters.

If you get goods from a ‘survivalist’-related business (Mountain House, Century Arms, etc.), remove your address and name from the packaging before you throw it out. Same for any gun periodicals (Shotgun News, Guns & Ammo) that you throw out. Take your name and address off it and, if you want to be really thorough, obscure the return address so that as far as any dumpster-diver is concerned it’s a discarded empty box. If it’s a box that’s covered in company logo, ‘sterilize’ the box (meaning remove the address/name markings) and dump it elsewhere…the garbage dumpster at work, perhaps.

Don’t go overboard on the bumperstickers. You can express yourself without telling the world you have a garage full of ammo. Cryptic messages like “molon labe” aren’t clear to everyone, but even that may give away too much. On the other hand, sometimes an NRA window decal (in rural areas) will work in your favor.

Be aware of how you dress. When I see someone wearing quality boots, BDU-style pants (although usually made to look like Dockers [5.11 for example]), a Wilderness-style or ‘rigger belt’, Leatherman tool, and a well-made backpack all I can think is “probably on the same page as me”.

Be aware of how strangers would view your household. The AK leaning up in the corner of the living room, the bookshelf full of ‘extremist’ literature, and a kitchen stacked counter-to-ceiling with #10 cans might make the plumber, electrician or cleaning service’s tongues wag. Tuck it out of sight if you’re going to have company. I usually don’t let anyone into the house unless I know them pretty well but every so often a plumber or other tradesman is needed and then its time to do some ‘sanitizing’.

Even if you don’t believe that things will be bad enough that neighbors will come kicking in your door for the food you’ve ‘unfairly hoarded’, you should believe, even in these ‘normal’ times, that someone will kick in your door to steal your expensive guns and electronics gear. People get ripped off every day even when there isn’t an apocalypse, it just makes good sense to keep the expensive battle rifles away from the neighbors prying eyes if you can.

Theres a host of other things you might want to do to keep your profile relatively low, but surely you can think of a dozen others. But, theres a price you pay for this sort of thing – isolation. How do you find people of like mind to network with? For lack of a better term, how do you develop survivalist gaydar? That is to say, how do you find out if someone shares your interests without tipping them off about your interests? After all, its always nice to have someone you can discuss things and share ideas with, as well as go in with for group purchases.

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

Anyone remember the scene in the Star Trek movie where Spock goes to talk to Kirk about bringing hostilities with the Klingons to an end?
Spock: They are dying.
Kirk: Let. Them. Die.

That’s pretty much the attitude I’d like to have about places like North Korea. You have the last bastion of Stalinist Communism shutting itself off from the world and occasionally lobbing missles over Japan and into the ocean to extort other nations to feed them. Now part of me says ‘let them starve’. Unfortunately the simple truth is that while that may be satisfying, it’s a problem. If the world really did turn its back on the North Koreans they’d truly have no reason to not do something dramatic. So….we feed them and demand token concessions and make a big deal about it when they do agree to those concessions.

North Korea really is a fascinating case in terms of threat. They are, far and away, the best example of the ‘cult of personality’ and probably the number one candidate for the title of ‘most megalomanical world leader’ now that Saddam is out of the running and into the ground. Their leader , according to the DPRK press, is perfect…he can read several novels a night, has photographic memory, got 18 holes-in-one on his first golf outing, writes besteselling books, and can fly around the earth really fast to make time run backwards. (Okay, I made that last part up.)

On one hand, its not really our problem. When the DPRK gets hungry enough, and can psyche themselves into a frenzy, they’ll go into China. Even the Chinese don’t trust them. On the other hand, if they ever do perfect nuclear weapons technology they can always find a market for their product and that product can easily wind up in a Portland cargo facility with a timer.

There was an article years ago in some Pacific Asian newswire about how the remains of a DPRK missle were found in Alaska. The suggestion was that the North Koreans were finally capable of making a missle that could reach the US…even if somewhat tangentially.

How does this relate to me? Or, to put it in a better context, how is this on-topic? Well, I suppose its on-topic in the sense that theres still the chance, no matter how remote, of an actual Cold War style nuclear attack. More likely, they’ll continue to bluster about their awesome military capacity and how it’ll rule the world…unless we deliver a couple hundred thousand tons of rice or grain to them. And, what with rice prices and availability being what they are, that  particular  bribing mechanism may not work in the future.

I suppose that if the DPRK ever does decide they have nothing left to lose you’d see some sort of attack on Japan or China, maybe even some ‘finishing of business’ with South Korea, a disruption of Pacific trade, the possible Chinese takeover of Taiwan (since we’ll have our hands tied up with other stuff), or a ‘brush war’ between China and North Korea. Who knows. For now, the news reports hint that there may be another famine going on in North Korea and as we all know hungry people are dangerous people.

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Went to the LDS cannery last night. Its really quite a facility to have available for ones family to use. The shelves were much better stocked than last time I was there and there were quite a few more people there as well. I was there just to show my face and try to become a bit less of a stranger. Musta worked…one gal commented that she remembered me from the last time I was there and the guy running the place seemed to remember me as well. This is good. Although I normally would prefer to be forgettable in matters like this, I would like these folks to be familiar enough with me that if I ever go up there on my own they’ll be perfectly cool with that. We’ll see. I didn’t pick up anything for myself fexcept a few cans of dehydrated onions. Theres an old Jewish saying about how the first thing you do when you cook is that you fry an onion. Why? “It makes the house smell nice!” I think theres some truth to that. I went to bed last night mentally going through the long term food inventory and trying to imagine what I could make using stored foods exclusively. The onions give me a little more flexibility. I’ve noticed that the only form of preserved onions available in the supermarket are small ‘cocktail’-type onions. None of my canning references mention canning anything other than small whole pearl onions. Im guessing that when an onion is cut open it reduces its suitability for canning…hence, the only onions I find in markets being small whole onions. So having the dehydrated onions opens up a nice new avenue for cooking. Whats really nice about the LDS stuff is that its cheap enough that I can crack open a can of this stuff and try it out without feeling that Im wasting money.

The prices up at the LDS cannery are quite good (it is, after all, pretty much a non-profit enterprise) and someday when Im a little more secure with how Im viewed there I’m going to do the Big Trip and come away with a large quantity of goodies. The nice thing is that I get to see how all this stuff is processed and assist in that process. I know exactly what goes in those cans and where it came from. I gotta say, those Mormons seriously have their act together in regards to this sort of thing. If it weren’t for that whole believing in god thing I’d join up today. (I know, you’re asking “Why not just fake it, tell them you believe and sign up?”. Well, on some weird level I think that would be just too dishonest to these folks. And while Im not above lying to people to get what I want [esp. if what I want will give me an advantage in the uncertain future] I just like the Mormons too much to do that. Odd, but that’s how I feel. Perhaps I simply haven’t dealt with enough of them to develop the necessary cynicism, but so far with very few exceptions I’ve pretty much liked every Mormon I ever met. And, thus far, they’ve been pretty nice to me so that buys a bit of loyalty.)

Speaking of food storage, you know how the biggest thing you’ll hear over and over again is “Store what you eat, and eat what you store”? We’ve actually been doing pretty well at that. For example, theres a couple cases of soup in the bunker. Three cans get pulled out and moved to the kitchen for use, the clipboard is marked –3 in the soup column and next trip to the store gets 3 more cans to replace the used ones. In this manner things are rotated. Although everything is date coded by the factory I still take a Sharpie and write the date of purchase on the lids…makes it easier to grab old stock for use.

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

With the absolutely insane prices on ammo these days its getting pretty expensive to go out and do a little shooting. Even if you reload, which you should, its still expensive. Thus, Im in the market for a .22 conversion kit for the AR’s for practice. I’d love to get the .22 conversion for the PTR-91 but the OEM HK product is still about $550. Although, to be fair, while $500 would buy a decent amount of .308 ammo to practice with, the $500 investment would probably make more sense in the long term. For an AR conversion Im toying with picking up one of the original Colt conversions. I know theres other brands out there but the Colt seems to be a solid performer, although limited by 10-rd mags. (Although its possible someone else could be making mags for them now, I’ll have to check.) I very much want to practice move/shoot drills with the AR and the only way Im going to be able to afford that is with a .22 conversion. I could probably get away with using the 10/22 since what Im really after is practicing moving while shooting, fast sight picture, steady sight picture while advancing/retreating, etc. but I prefer to use the AR if I can. I should, however, probably pick up a set of sights for the Ruger to duplicate the AR sight picture.

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So gas is $4 a gallon. I do not understand why the environmentalists aren’t jumping up and down for joy over this. Gas at $5 (or more) per gallon would give environmentalists everything they ever dreamed of. It would force people to make hard choices about things like carpooling and public transportation, encourage manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles, dissuade people from purchasing gas guzzlers, promote the idea of conservation, encourage public transit, and a hundred other enviroweenie things that most people haven’t been terribly receptive to.

Me, I ride my bike more and try to drive less. My whole world probably exists within a 1-mile circle. My home, business, grocery, bank, post office, and UPS are all within about 12 blocks from where I live. If it weren’t for sometimes having to haul heavy packages I could probably do quite well without a vehicle and for a number of years, in fact, I did just that. It just wasn’t worth the costs of insurance, fuel, maintenance and the like when I never really went anywhere.

However, there are times that a vehicle comes in handy. Esp. if you get The Call in the middle of the night and you have to vamoose to a Secured Location with whatever you can grab in ten minutes. For those times, and the times when fuel may be scarce, we do keep a bit of gasoline put back in storage (and treated for such). Im not going to go into the whole thing about how to store gasoline safely and effectively, you can get that anywhere. Go Google up some stories from Katrina and Rita to see why having a supply of extra gasoline can be a remarkably good thing to have.

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Speaking of bicycle, I haven’t sat down with the bicycle repair/maintenance book I got. I really need to though because I need to see exactly what Im going to have to pick up in the way of tools and other goodies. By extension, I’ll then also need to pick out a tool kit to keep with the bike along with some parts for unplanned repairs. (I almost said ‘emergency repairs’ but sitting by the side of the road with a flat tire doesn’t seem, in my mind, to really be an emergency unless theres a horde of zombies on your tail.)

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Off to the LDS cannery this evening. For what? Nothing really. Someone I know is going and I want to tag along so I can learn more about the place and, more importantly, perhaps gain a measure of acceptance to bank against future visits. In short, I’d like to try not to be a stranger to the people running the place.