I was digging through the blog and this post from 2003, the first year of the blog, caught my eye….
Its nice to see my ideas about what I wanted have stayed fairly consistent, if not realistic, over the years. Some grandiose ideas that ain’t gonna be cheap, but I’m gonna do what I can. Took 22 years, but I finally managed to get the ball rolling. Now I just gotta get it into the goal before Im too old to enjoy it.
A friend pointed out that Musk’s AI, Grok, was a useful resource for some things I was researching. But, I was curious…I know some people use Grok for creative purposes so I decided to test it and the results were…not bad. Check this out:
“write a haiku about the browning hipower” and Grok spit out this:
Steel curves gleam coldly
Thirteen rounds wait in silence
Browning’s final breath
Interesting…lets try another….
“write a haiku about preparedness”
Quiet dawn whispers,
Supplies stacked, mind calm and clear—
Storm comes, we stand firm.
But haikus aren’t as challenging as a real poem. So….
“write a short poem about survivalism” …and we get:
In shadowed woods where echoes call, The survivor stands alone, With knife and fire, through rise and fall, He carves his fate from stone.
No grid to cradle, no light to borrow, He reads the wind, the stars, the rain, In chaos born, he finds tomorrow— Endurance etched in every vein.
When empires crumble, cities fade, The wild heart beats, unbowed, unafraid.
After that point it just devolved into me having Grok write haikus about various sexual kinks. But the point is, artificial intelligence….free consumer grade AI…can do some pretty interesting things.
I was reading the other day about how people are using AI to scam DoorDash and GrubHub for free food. They take pictures of their food, have AI doctor the picture to show the food as undercooked or contaminated with insects, and then they demand (and receive) refunds.
And, of course, the AI generated videos we now see everywhere do nothing but nmake you critical and suspicious of every ‘breaking news’ video you see online.
I can see where AI has some very cool uses, but its also paramount to remember that theres a lot of people taking advantage of it for nefarious reasons. But…it does have some utility for those of use interested in preparedness… looking up the tow capacity of various vehicles, trailer dimensions and capacities, etc, all related to locating a trailer for hauling the side-by-side to the beta site.
Man, I knew 2026 was gonna be an interesting-in-the-Chinese-way kind of year but I didn’t have ‘black bag a foreign dictator’ on my bingo card at all. And the year is only three days old. Interestingt imes, indeed.
I’ve decided that Uponor Pex is going to be the way to go. There are other options, to be sure, but from talking to professionals in the trade, as well as my own research, it appears to me that for the ease of install, repair, maintenance, modification, resilience, and freeze resistance, the pex is the way to go. To that end, I picked up this little jewel:
See, the fittings for the pex are of the expansion type. You stick this tool in there, like a speculum, and open up the end of the pipe. Push it over the connector and the pipe shrinks back down to its original size, making a tight connection. There are hand tools to do this process, and I’ll probably pick one up ‘just in case’, but for the initial construction there’s probably going to be a lot of call for the powered tool rather than the hand tool. But, suspenders and a belt…..get both. In addition to this, I need to pick up a buncha 1/2″ and 3/4″ pex (which is about $1/foot), connectors, fittings, etc. It really is a very affordable system.
This isnt the only tool hoarding that is going on. I’ve been steadily acquiring tools and putting them up at the storage unit in anticipation of spring/summer. Table saw, table saw workbench, transfer pump, hand tools, work lights, etc, etc. Still gotta pick up a trailer for the side-by-side.
As I said, the property will be cheapest part of this project. However, given the way the world seems to be spinning, having a well-stocked little hideyhole may not be the worst idea in the world these days.
Limping to the finish line, 2025 comes to a close.
Let’s see, didnt have to use my AK this year, so I’ve got that going for me…which is nice. Still have a truck, a house, a job, and reasonable health. I have a lot less money in the bank than I did at this time last year, but I also now have a lot more land holding than I did last year, so that seems a reasonable trade.
The big news, of course, is that I finally bought some property to work on Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love and Lingerie Proving Ground….something I’ve been wanting for as along as I’ve been writing this blog. In fact, here’s the receipts:
And I’m pretty sure thats not the earliest mention of it, so this is something I’ve been wanting for over twenty years and only really developed the ability to make it real in the last five or so. Like a dog that caught the car and now has no idea what to do with the dang thing, I’ve been so focused on getting the land for the last twenty years that I never put a terrible amount of brainwork in what to do after I got it. No better time than the present to learn, I suppose.
My forecasts for 2025 were as follows:
Forecast for ’25: Ukraine winds up having to come to the table as war fatigue sets in. Inflation is above 2% but nothing like what it was under Biden. Bidenistas become the Japanese hold outs of the political world, staying behind in government to crap in Trumps punch bowl every chance they get. At least one more assassination attempt is made/thwarted. Gas prices drop to lowest prices in four years. Markets are shaky, but ultimately trend upward. Wall does not get built. China continues to be the biggest threat to…everything. Alec Baldwin does not move to France. Cubs don’t win Series.
Other than the additional assassination attempt (although perhaps they didnt tell us about any more) and the Ukes having to roll over, everything else was right…but, to be fair, that was low hanging fruit.
Forecast for 2026? I spend a metric buttload of money getting the Beta Site developed. Silver crosses $100. Putin challenges NATO harder and harder until someone loses a jet fighter…then both sides hurriedly retreat from each other. Ukraine-Russia resolves itself one way or another by the end of the year. China keeps doing what its been doing. Gavin Newsom becomes heir apparent as the Democrats start to rally around him as the only viable candidate. No new assault weapons ban in 2026. Political Balkanization continues. Cubs do not win Series.
Thats about it. 2025 sails into history with all sorts of historical footnotes attached to it.
The year closes, the year opens. It closes with my favorite version of my seasonal favorite:
So that happened today…..
Need to go find a trailer for it…..
Independent-minded, and often libertarian, off-grid types often gravitate towards geodesic domes. The domes do have a lot going for them, but they aren’t what I had in mind. At least, not for a primary dwelling. However, for a storage shed or similar structure, there is some appeal…most notably space. I was curious and started dinking around the internet and found this. As a storage building, this would have a lot going for it. Most notably, the requisite building materials…2×4’s, a saw, and a cordless screwdriver…are easily transportable and easy to work with. The size of the dome is just a matter of deciding how long you want to make your 2×4 segments.
I like the idea of something that is relatively simple to put together and doesn’t require anything that doesn’t fit in the back of a pickup truck. I also like the idea that since the construction requires a known number of pieces of particular lenght, I can easily calculate a finished cost and calculate a revised cost if I want to change the dimensions slightly.
Disadvantages? Well, they sure look weird. But Im less about aesthetics, in this case, and more about utility and ease of construction.Then theres also the matter of how to skin it. I’d be curious if covering it in layers of hardware cloth or chicken wire would allow a person to skin it with cement. There would be weight considerations, but Id think you wouldnt need a terribly thick layer to create a waterproof and durable covering.
I might need to investigate this a bit further. One of the first things I need to do at the Beta Site is get some sort of covered structure up there to enable me to stage things, have a place to roll out a sleeping bag, and act as a small workspace. As I’ve said before, the road infrastructure up there isn’t, in my opinion, up to snuff for hauling in a prefabricated storage shed. I suppose a knocked-down storage shed might work but any one wall is going to be larger than the space available in the back of a pickup truck.
Interesting stuff to explore and think about.
On a side note, I’m curious to see how many posts I need to make tagged ‘Beta Site’ before it appears as a ‘frequently used tag’ in the sidebar.
Yo, Aesop! You coming back to blogging or what? Your unique perspective and smackdowns are missed.
Well, I hope you guys had a good holiday, regardless of which one you do or do not observe. It’s a big enough boat that we can all have our own observances and still row to our common goal.
How’d your buddy Zero make out? Well, I’ve a pretty small friends group (that is to say, the group of friends is small, not the the friends within the group are small) so I don’t really get much in the way of gifts. However, people in the know about the Beta Site gave me some appropriate items including chainsaw sharpening tools and some trail cameras. Thoughtful!
And, against my better judgement, I wound up picking up a rifle from a coworker who wanted to get something else and needed to thin the herd. Its a Savage 10 GRS in .308. An interesting looking little gun that is New In Box. I already have a couple .308 bolt guns, so I may pass this one along to a friend who wanted a ‘tactical’ .308 bolt gun at a dont-break-the-bank-price.
Now comes that quiet week between Christmas and New Year where virtually nothing gets done. Then 2026 barges in like a homicidal KoolAid man. The year will be interesting, probably in the Chinese sense, but hopefully in the harmless sense as well. I plan on spending as much time as possible at the Beta Site and getting it up and running enough to at least be a viable fallback location by the end of the year. I don’t expect to have it at the sit-back-and-put-your-feet-up stage for about two years, but I think it’ll definitely be at the ‘primitive bugout location’ stage before the end of 2026. I guess we’ll find out. Should make for a lot of interesting blog posts.
Whatever holiday youre celebrating this week…Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Festivus, Solstice,whatever…..Have a happy!
So, back to wargaming the Beta Site. I was thinking of using Uponor Pex for the basic interior water delivery needs. There are other options, of course, there’s the old-school copper piping which is going to be expensive, require a bit of work to cut and assemble, and isn’t exactly freeze-resistant. Pex, on the other hand, is easy to work with, goes together like Lego, and is less likely to burst if frozen. Additionally, it really adds itself to adding more connections and that sort of thing.
Uponor Pex connector and collar on L., regular Pex connectors and collars on R.
Uponor Pex with collars and connectors
Some plumbing experts I know have been nice enough to answer my questions and show me the various fittings and tools required to work with pex material. We took a piece of Uponor Pex, folded it in half so it had a kink that blocked water flow and then straightened it out. Waved a propane torch over it for a few minutes and the kink completely straightened out to the point that you couldnt even see a sign it was there. And, I am told, the structure of the Uponor Pex is such that when youo heat it up like that, the affected region becomes stronger than what it was before the kink in the pipe.
Connections were made by expanding the pipe and a collar, then slipping the expanded pipe over the connector, and the pex then constricted down to form a seal. The pex, I am told, will have memory that keeps it trying to constrict to its original dimension.
So I got to experiment with cutting, flaring, and otherwise playing with this stuff and its really hard to see a downside. My casual and uninformed opinion is that this stuff, if it lives up to its marketing, is awesome and perfect for my needs – its easy to use, durable, modular, allows for easy modifications, is freeze resilient, and won’t break the bank.
For a small structure, this seems like an ideal way to have an easily maintainable and flexible piping system within the structure. I need to investigate it more, but it seems like a good choice.