Author Archives: Commander Zero

ATACS of the clones

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I’m not a Star Wars person, but when Return Of The Jedi came out I recall being very interested in the camouflage outfits worn by the Rebels on Endor. Here’s an image of what Im talking about:

At the time, I thought it was a rather good camo pattern. Then, many years later, ATACS-FG came out:

A very similar pattern and style of camo, I thought. Apparently, Im not the only one. Columbia (the outdoorwear company, not the country [which, yes I know, is spelled differently]) has introduced a somewhat derivative camo pattern for a series of outwear styled after the movie outfits.

The colors are not the same as in the movie, but I do rather like the poncho/anorak style of design. WW2 die-hards will see some similarities to the old German zeltbahn.

I rather like ATACS-FG and I’m sorry it was, essentially, wiped out by Multicam (or the military ripoff of it…OCP). But I am amused that what I thought was a very good camo pattern, shown in a movie forty years ago, is making a bit of a comeback, in a way, today. Obviously I’m not saying that this product line from Columbia has any merit as actual fieldwear, but it does give one some ideas if they were handy with an industrial sewing machine.

Oddly, I’d swear that when ATACS-FG came out I recall reading on the internet somewhere people saying “Thats the camo pattern from Star Wars”.

Anyway, I thought it was amusing and an opportunity for me to plug one of my favorite camo patterns.

 

Tent and platform

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Guy goes to his therapist and says “Doc, I keep having these weird dreams every night. First I’m a wigwam, then I’m a teepee, then I’m a wigwam. What does it mean, doc?” The doctor thinks a minute and says, “Well, obviously, you’re two tents.” (“Two tents”, too tense…)

You guys getting tired of me talking about this land purchase and my ideas about it yet?

Someone asked what one of the first things I was going to do there is. Well, I need a little base of operations while working on the place, so I was thinking of building a small deck to support a wall tent. Something along these lines:

When I’m not up there I can take it down, roll it up, and secure it in a plastic barrel until Im up there again to need it. Then, later on, if I build the platform properly on piers, I can repurpose it for a dry cabin or storage shed.

As I’ve said repeatedly, and probably will say a bunch more times, purchasing the land will probably be the cheapest part of this adventure.

 

Plodding along

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Still waiting on paperwork to magically appear to get this property deal done. Its savagely frustrating to look at this, to me, enormous mountain of cash sitting in my bank account and knowing that I can’t do anything with it because it’s already spoken for. I mean, thats a lot of night vision and thermal vision sitting in that account right now.

But. I m using the time to try and wrap my head around things to have lined up in the spring. There’s no shortage of things to come up with…surveying, posting, access controls, a campsite, etc, etc. And maybe a door like this one when I finally get a place built.

In the meantime, I’m picking up tools and other items here and there to start staging for spring. In six months I’d like to have enough tools, materials, plans, and muscle on hand to start getting something in place. Probably one of the first things will be a small pier-supported deck to accommodate a tent for when Im up there doing stuff. Quite honestly, I’m looking forward to simply running away from work as fast as I can on a Friday, getting up there, and spending the weekend just exploring and taking notes.

But, the world is starting to catch alight, it seems, so I  need to get my head out of the clouds for the moment and focus on things other than the Beta Site. We got some snow today so winter is officially here and that means getting the usual domestic winter preps taken care of. I’d hate to spend all my time dreaming about spring at the Beta Site and wind up getting caught flatfooted when an ice storm passes through town, knocks everything out, and Im unprepared because..yknow…daydreaming.

But…hard not to spend a buncha time thinking “Im gonna need tyhis…gotta do this….cant forget about this…”

The listmaking/spreadsheeting is going to be impressive.

Update: America Stone knife sharpener

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About five years ago, a fella sent me a sharpening stone that he wanted me to try out. I did try it out and was really quite pleased. So much so, in fact, that it is my ‘go to’ sharpening stone. It sits in my kitchen on the windowsill above the sink and every few days when Im doing dishes I see it and am reminded to pull out my Benchmade folder and touch it up a bit. A few strokes on one side of the blade, a few strokes on the other, repeat a couple times and thats it. It does a magnificent job of keeping my folder ridiculously sharp.

A few weeks ago I got an email from the same person asking if I wanted to try a newer model that had a change made to its composition. Sure, why not? It arrived today.

It has the same footprint..that is to say overall shape and profile…of the original product. I’m given to understand theres a bit more synthetic diamond in the composition and that it sharpens a bit more aggressively. So, with that in mind I rounded up a couple pocket knives that needed a little work. The sharpener is definitly more aggressive than the older one. By ‘aggressive’ I mean that it takes fewer strokes to accomplish the same results as the older stone.

Its definitely as good a product as the older one, and I can tell that the composition of the stone is different by how quickly it works. Again, this is the first stone I go to when I need to sharpen something…including my expensive Henckel kitchen knives. One of the nice features of the stone is that one side has a pointed profile to it that is used for removing nicks in the edges of a blade…and indeed it does exactly that.

The stone is, as you can see from the picture, pretty compact. It’s handy and easy to slip in a hunting pack (strong recommend). It would, of course, also be a handy companion anytime youre spending a goodly amount of time away from your base of operations and need to keep your tools sharp.

If youre looking for a handy and very efficient sharpening stone, this one is a good choice. I don’t think youll be disappointed.

Thanksgiving 2026

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Man, I love turkey and stuffing…..

Ostensibly, the reason for Thanksgiving was to give thanks for what you have. I try to be grateful and recognize that gratitude on more than just Thanksgiving.

I am very aware that when someone does something for me they had a choice – expend that resource (money, time, interest, property, concern, emotion, etc.) on me or keep it for themselves (or someone else). As a result, I always try to be grateful, express my gratitude, and make sure they know I recognize that they had a choice and they chose me. Seems kinda basic to me.

At the moment (and this can change in the blink of an eye), I have a place to live, a job, a vehicle, a couple close friends, some money in the bank, food in the cupboards, and a margin of safety from all the bad things that lurk out there. Sure, it can change in an instant…but right now Im sitting in my warm house with electricity, hot water, food, arms, communications, clean clothing, and toilets that flush….and I am grateful for all of it.

I don’t want to say I worked hard for it all…I am, by nature, a really lazy person..doing just enough is usually my standard….but there were a lot of times I did things I didn’t want to do, denied myself things I wanted, and put my instant gratification desires on hold. And thats why I can take a hot shower, cook up a cheeseburger, listen to Spotify while I clean guns, and lead a calmer life than what I probably deserve.

I think part of preparedness is always being quite cognizant of just how tenuous our lives can be. We know that theres a future where we’re huddled around a campfire of burning 2×4’s where the tornado took the house, where we look in the fridge and theres nothing but a box of baking soda and ketchup, where we spend hours a day looking for a job as we watch our bank accounts dwindle, where we feel unsafe, insecure, and hopeless. Thats why we prepare…to mitigate those events, to reduce our fragility, to increase our resilience. And when you’re aware of what the bad side of life could look like, it tends to make you more aware and grateful for the good side that you’re experiencing.

So I hope everyone enjoys the holiday. Have an awesome time with the family and friends, eat turkey, watch football, drink and be merry. But at some point, either alone or with your close ones, recognize what you have and appreciate it. Maybe it isn’t all you want, maybe life is on a rocky path, maybe you’re fighting a fight that you’d rather not have to….but it could always be worse. Take a moment and genuinely appreciate what youve got.

Have a good holiday, guys.

The back end of the deal

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Still going through the process of purchasing my little chunk of dirt. How am I financing it, you might ask. Well, ever since I got out of school I’ve had a different relationship with money. I’ve been sticking aside as much as I could and invested almost all of it. I also bought as much gold and silver as I could, consistently, over the years. Now, before anyone gets their aluminum foil panties in a twist about selling precious metals instead of hoarding them for the upcoming apocalypse, thats a completely separate stash. I set aside gold and silver specifically for the land purchase.

How’d that strategy work out? Honestly, fairly well. Most of the gold I’m selling is going out at about 60-100% more than I paid for it. Does this mean gold and silver were good investments? Well…compared to what? $1000 of silver five years ago, sold at todays price, gives a far better return than if that money were invested in anything else. However, you have to admit, the last decade has been nothing if not pretty wild and unpredictable. Also, I made it point to only buy gold when I could get it at spot, rather than pay hefty premiums. As a result, my gold stash is a wild mix of mints and weights….coronas, ducats, roosters, generics, rand, pesos, etc. But…theyre all gold and thats all that matters. The end result is that it winds up, on paper, shaving off a good $10k+ chunk off the purchase price.

So was it a good investment? In this case, I’d say so. But that doesn’t mean I’d do precious metals as my main form of investing. Candidly, the vast majority of my investing is dividend stocks, then covered calls, and then buy-and-hold equities (looking at you KO). But Im also a really pessimistic guy so I also put money into cash and precious metals. (You could argue I invest in guns but its only an investment if you actually sell them.)

But, as diligent as I’ve been, I was still just a wee bit short and had to borrow a small amount from a friend who offered it. It galls me to have to borrow money but on the bright side its a pretty small amount ($30k),,and I should have that wrapped up fairly quickly. So, on the bright side, I’ve no banks to deal with or their attendant nuisance procedures.

The financial part of this adventure has been a bit of an experience as well. I kinda sorta proved to myself that, even on a rather lower-middle class income, I can manage to live a life where I can get some money in the bank. And it isn’t just a matter of saving for the land purchase. I have to have enough in the bank so that even after pulling out the money for the purchase, I still have enough to generate dividend income, cover emergencies, cover other emergencies, pay taxes, have retirement, etc, etc. Not the easiest thing in the world but so far I seem to have done an okay job with it.

 

Property tax

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So The Piece Of Property I Am Buying is approximately 200 times larger than the piece I own here in Missoula. But my property taxes in Missoula are 106 times larger than what my taxes would be on that 20 acres.

Now, to be fair, TPOPIAB has no development on it, has no services, no paved roads, and any 911 call can have its response time measured with a calendar… but its less than 1% of my Missoula taxes for 200 times the ground. Obviously thats gonna change as I develop it, but still…

Weekend plans

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So whats on tap this weekend? Well, moving a buncha stuff to the storage unit to stage it for what I am expecting will be an interesting spring and summer next year, assuming this land purchase thing goes as hoped. I mean, yes its under contract and all….but there is still plenty of room for the wheels to fly off on this thing. I won’t consider it done until all the paperwork is signed, sealed, posted, and undeniably finished. Then I’ll consider it done. And mine. In the meantime, its still ‘the property that I amn looking at buying’.

Next spring will include setting up a semi-permanent campsite, securing access points to the property, installing security measures, redeveloping the overgrown and sapling-sprinkled ‘driveway’ onto the property, and doing a whole lot of walking the property to see exactly what is where. I’m rather looking forward to it, although its going to be one of the biggest money-sinks of my life. But, just because something is a money-sink doesn’t necessarily mean its a bad thing. If its something youve always wanted, then whats a few bucks? It’s sinking money into something you don’t want that is a bad experience.

So, its up to the storage unit, set up the wire shelving and start moving a few things. And after that its back into the spreadsheets and the internet to make lists of things to purchase, tools to investigate, plans to read, etc. I’ve already ordered several ‘how to’ and DIY books from Amazon on a couple subjects. I will, though, be holding off on some of the more expensive items until I’m dead certain this deal is done. Posting might be a little sporadic here and there as I’m spending a good chunk of time realigning myinvestments in order to accommodate this sudden outflow of cash, as well as doing all this research. But…it’ll be an interesting (and hopefully enjoyable) adventure that will give me plenty to blog about.

So…thats the plan for this weekend.