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

Minor ( to me) power outage yesterday, I was in the shop minding my own business when *pop* everything died. No prob..I grabbed the big MagLite from its rack and started out the door to see if my neighbors, who have a cabinet factory in an underground garage, needed some illumination to get out of their dark little cave. As I walked out the door the lights came back on. Total downtime? 30 seconds, tops. Called the girlfriend to see if it affected her side of town. Turns out that the power was off on her side of town alot longer earlier in the day. Rumour was that a car accident involving a power pole/line was the culprit. Her building lost partial power. They still had some lights but elevators were offline. The stairwell, apparently, kept its lights. (When she started working there one of the first things I did was ask her to accompany me on locating the stairwell and walking it to familiarize ourselves with it…just in case.) She's got a handful of lightsticks and a Streamlight LED flashlight that I gave her that she keeps in her desk for just such emergencies but as it turns out it was unneeded.

For me, the power going out is always big excitement. Not necessarily because of the event itself, but rather because I wonder why it happened. Someone nuke something? Terrorist attack? That sort of thing. My first response is to look around and see , if I can, how widespread the outage is. Sometimes I can look down the street and see traffic lights and whatnot are unaffected..then I know its localized to just a few blocks – no sweat. Sometimes everything everywhere is dark…more dramatic.

What was it? Two years ago NYC went dark for a few days…I bet that was big excitement.

Back at Casa Zero we are quite prepared for emergency illumination. We've got Aladdin lamps, propane lanterns, Coleman lanterns, MagLites, Baygen lights and the ubiquitous chemlights. The chemlights are for immediate use…like finding your way to a flashlight or to the bunker. On the top ledge of each bedroom doorway, closet doorway, and basement doorway theres a lightstick in its foil wrapper. This way, in the dark all you have to do is find a doorway, reach up, and youre good to go. Lightsticks get changed out every year around Halloween when they go on sale. The old ones are rotated into 'secondary' status or used for testing, etc, etc.

I also keep A Streamlight LED flashlight, a lightstick and a Photon LED light in my Tactical Tailor bag which accompanies me to most places.

Summertime has its own risks of blackout…mostly from overtaxed power grids and forest fires eating the lines. Winter has ice on the lines and that sort of thing. So theres always the risk of a prolonged power outage around here. And then, theres the totally unpredictable person-in-a-car-hitting-a-power-pole event.

Moral: it can happen anytime, anywhere – be prepared.
Especially. At. Work.

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

Cool! Its back!

Spy/Counterspy was, last I saw it, run out of a Canadian site but mysteriously shut down. Alot of the info was basic stuff you could find in a Tom Clancy novel but there was some very very clever stuff. My personal favorite was this one – how to broadcast to cells. Brilliant.

Use of a one-time pad

How to use a dead-letter box

Im gonna have to mirror this one on my drive in case it goes Tango unifrom again.

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

Cool! Its back!

Spy/Counterspy was, last I saw it, run out of a Canadian site but mysteriously shut down. Alot of the info was basic stuff you could find in a Tom Clancy novel but there was some very very clever stuff. My personal favorite was this one – how to broadcast to cells. Brilliant.

Use of a one-time pad

How to use a dead-letter box

Im gonna have to mirror this one on my drive in case it goes Tango unifrom again.

All quiet on the Zero front. Interestingly, I think I’m running a bit light on 9mm ammo these days. After that class I need to replace about 1,500 rounds. The Remington yellowbox of 250 seems like the best deal in name-brand, reloadable, factory ammo these days. Its what I shot at the class and it seemed to work just fine.

By the by, what does the Zero carry in his everyday Glock mags? 115 FMJ actually. Mostly because I have so much of it. The nightstand gun is loaded with old style Black Talons.
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Had some pleasant experience ‘pouch cooking’ a few weeks ago. The principle is simple: put food ingredients in a pouch of aluminum foil and put pouch on/in heat source (fire, barbecue, oven, etc). The sealed pouch keeps in steam and moisture, food cooks, you then eat from the pouch and when done simply discard the ball of foil. No cookware or servingware to have to deal with. Certain foods lend themselves to this method more than others…some peppers, onions, garlic, stock, couscous, spices, and thinly sliced pork came out quite nicely. I’ll have pics up in a few days.Works great tossing ’em on the ol’ Volcano stove.
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I need to get a Lone Wolf Distributing catalog. I want to change out the sights on my Glock to something a little less ‘coarse’ and a bit more precise. Also, I’d like to get a sight adjustment tool as well as a few other goodies. (Like more colored basepads.)
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In other news, and this is somewhat interesting, a visitor to the website actually used the ‘Donation’ button and gave the Zero a few bucks for his ‘Im gonna make it through this apocalypse’ fund. Darn nice of them. Almost pays for a months bandwidth.
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I was supposed to go on the July 4 field exercise with the LMI but its not looking like thats going to happen. My civillian life has taken way too much time off recently and I need to stick around to try and make money. Maybe later in the year I’ll be able to run off for a three day weekend or something, but not now. Too bad, Id get to try my new Eureka combat tent.
=====
One of the LMI stopped by this afternoon. We got to talking and I mentioned that I stillhad about half a case of Kerlix bandages and asked if he wanted some since I had more than enough and was distributing them amongst the LMI. Needless to say, he replied with an enthusiastic affirmative and I gave him a bag of 20 bandage rolls. Still leaves me with plenty of extras.

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

All quiet on the Zero front. Interestingly, I think I'm running a bit light on 9mm ammo these days. After that class I need to replace about 1,500 rounds. The Remington yellowbox of 250 seems like the best deal in name-brand, reloadable, factory ammo these days. Its what I shot at the class and it seemed to work just fine.

By the by, what does the Zero carry in his everyday Glock mags? 115 FMJ actually. Mostly because I have so much of it. The nightstand gun is loaded with old style Black Talons.
=====
Had some pleasant experience 'pouch cooking' a few weeks ago. The principle is simple: put food ingredients in a pouch of aluminum foil and put pouch on/in heat source (fire, barbecue, oven, etc). The sealed pouch keeps in steam and moisture, food cooks, you then eat from the pouch and when done simply discard the ball of foil. No cookware or servingware to have to deal with. Certain foods lend themselves to this method more than others…some peppers, onions, garlic, stock, couscous, spices, and thinly sliced pork came out quite nicely. I'll have pics up in a few days.Works great tossing 'em on the ol' Volcano stove.
=====
I need to get a Lone Wolf Distributing catalog. I want to change out the sights on my Glock to something a little less 'coarse' and a bit more precise. Also, I'd like to get a sight adjustment tool as well as a few other goodies. (Like more colored basepads.)
=====
In other news, and this is somewhat interesting, a visitor to the website actually used the 'Donation' button and gave the Zero a few bucks for his 'Im gonna make it through this apocalypse' fund. Darn nice of them. Almost pays for a months bandwidth.
=====
I was supposed to go on the July 4 field exercise with the LMI but its not looking like thats going to happen. My civillian life has taken way too much time off recently and I need to stick around to try and make money. Maybe later in the year I'll be able to run off for a three day weekend or something, but not now. Too bad, Id get to try my new Eureka combat tent.
=====
One of the LMI stopped by this afternoon. We got to talking and I mentioned that I stillhad about half a case of Kerlix bandages and asked if he wanted some since I had more than enough and was distributing them amongst the LMI. Needless to say, he replied with an enthusiastic affirmative and I gave him a bag of 20 bandage rolls. Still leaves me with plenty of extras.

Man, I’m beat.

Continue reading →

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

Man, I'm beat.

I'm back from gun camp, which was a very enlightening experience. Its always nice to find out exactly what you don't know. Sobering too. And it was a very good chance to learn/observe what works/doesntwork in terms of gear.

Since Im a gear-queer, lets talk toys:

In the handgun class there were 10 people. Thusly, 10 pistols. Of those 10 pistols 1 was a SIG 9mm and the rest were Glocks. Of the 9 Glocks there was one .45 GAP. So, out of ten guns there were eight 9mm Glocks.

All holsters, except mine, were kydex and I switched to a kydex holster early on. The only gun to experience malfunctions was the Glock .45 GAP which seemed to double-feed alot. This was believed to be a magazine related problem. Personally, I think its new-gun bugs being worked out.

Of the eight 9mm Glocks there were no malfs. I personally put almost 600 rounds through my early-model 17 (Stock gun, no mods) had no problems of any kind. Needless to say, my faith in the ability of a stock Glock to perform with quality commercial ammo is quite strong.

Not as strong on the AR's though. The carbine class was tiny – three people. Me, the girlfriend and an older fella with a scoped Mini-14. Me and the girlfriend were carrying ARs..mine was a fullsize A2 with open sights. She had a shorty carbine flattop with a red dot. After about 300 rounds on this hot day I started getting jams. Mostly the bolt failing to go forward with sufficient force to completely strip the next round off the magazine. Solution was to , with the bolt closed, squirt a healthy dose of lube onto the bolt through the ejection port and work the bolt a few times. I have utter confidence that the AK's would have handled this situation with ease…however, I thought we were going to do one handed mag change drills (which we didnt) and that the AK-style magazine release would work against us. The instructor advised lubing using FP-10, saying that other lubes (like Tetra, which Ive come to prefer) offer no benefit once they dry out/cook off. The guy runs an AR course and has experience, it would be foolish not to listen to him and give the stuff a shot.

The AR course was exhausting. Shooting from different angles as well as axes. (Difference, it seemed, was that angle was your up/down/sideways range of motion and axes was where your body was oriented….example, face away from the target and your axis is away from the target.) SOme of the drills were spectacularly difficult and in some ways painful. For example, face away from the target and twist your torso to the left (normally, your weak side) and shoot behind you. Or, my favorite for crunching internal organs, stand facing the target, shoulder the rifle and lean over to the side like your trying to look under a table. Your basically holding the gun upside down…now, start shooting and keep a good sight picture. Ow.

The pistol course featured the entire gamut of what youd expect: strong side one hand, weak side one hand, on hand reload, shooting from around cover left and right handed, shooting while moving, etc, etc. I remember how we had the courses of fire set up and will be replicating them at my local range with the steel plates.

Although the Glock performed spectacularly, I think its accuracy isnt as good as, say, my Browning. I'd very much like to take this course again with my beloved P35 and see how I do. I wouldnt mind trying it with a 1911 but one course of fire required almost 40 rounds if you didnt miss any shots…thats 6 .45 mags right there. No, I'd like to try it with the High Power though.

As an aside, this was my firs experience with a shooting course of any kind. The instructor was Pat Goodale. The courses were Def Handgun III and Tactical Rifle I. Mr. Goodale was very patient, more than willing to answer questions to my satisfaction, and generally had all the qualities you'd want in an instructor.

Off to gun camp with the girlfriend. Two days of defensive handgun and ‘tactical rifle’ (read: AR1-15).

Its a fairly healthy haul to Billings (5-6 hours depending on conditions). I really need to come up with a standard list of items for roadtrips. Something I can throw in the back of the truck and be done with. Maybe thats what I’ll do while riding as passenger…work on lists.

Its rained for the last several days here and I cannot remember the last time that happened. (Okay, maybe I can…summer of 2000 when we had the really bad fires. Never been so glad to see rain.) Gotta pack some raingear for this trip as well as some cold gear since you just never know around here. (We did, after all, have a 4th of July snowstorm once.)

This class is giving me the opportunity to swap out some 55 gr. ammo from stores with some 62 gr. M855 steel-core green tip. (Or maybe its ss-109… I keep mixing them up. And, yes, I already have the link to the AR-15 Ammo Oracle, thanks) A little bit of extra penetration is always nice, although, really, the softpoints are probably a better choice from the terminal performance standpoint.

I wanna bring the FAL just to give it a go at this course but thats too many guns to haul around. I also wonder if they’ll let me do Glock reloads using my 33-rd mags….Im betting the answer will be ‘only if those are what youd actually carry as a spare mag’. Funny thing is, I sort of already do…I’ve three of them on my TT pack in an MP5 mag pouch.

9mm ammo is running low what with these classes. I need to pick up at least another couple cases. Same for .223. Doing good on .308 though..I bought a couple cans of the very nice Radway Green stuff a few years ago and have shot almost none of it.

I need to sit down and inventory all the ammo anyway. I know I’ve got about 12k in .22, another 1k in 12 gauge, and probably 3k in .38…. not sure what else (although I know theres a good bit…I’ve got shelves five layers high loaded with full ammo cans).

Of course, as we all know, TEOTWAWKI might not require very much ammo at all but why not play it safe, y’know?