Author Archives: Commander Zero

“Nice AK”, the officer said…………

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Scene:  driving into Polson MT. Flashing rear lights in the mirror. Pull over and wait for the cop to walk up to the car. Keep in mind, at this point there’s the Glock on my hip, one in my bag, a Ruger 9mm under the seat and…a drum-mag’d AK sitting on the passenger seat, with the butt and pistol grip conveniently angled towards me.

“I’m Officer [XXX] with the Polson PD. I pulled you over because you were doing 55 down the hill, its a 45 zone.”

“Sorry, man.”, I said, and when he asked why I was driving ‘so fast’ I gave him the Universally Accepted Reason For Any Guy Doing Something Stupid.

He shines his flashlight into the back of the truck and then into the footwell of the passenger side of the front seat.

“Nice AK”, he says.

“Thats my travel AK. Don’t leave home without it. I have a nicer Arsenal one at home, this  is  just a WASR”

“Don’t leave home without it”, he murmurs, clearly amused. “I have a friend up in Kalispell whose built a few AK’s. He folds the flats and does the rivetting….”, he says.

We chat for a few minutes about 7.62×39 vs. 5.45×39. He takes my ID and says “Am I gonna find any warrants on you when I run this?”

“Nope. Should be clean as a whistle.”

He comes back and says “Ok, Im giving you a warning. Slow down.”

And me and my passneger-seated-and-drum-magazine’d WASR-10 continued on our merry way.

See, thats one of the things I like about MT. No muss, no fuss. Lotta places the minute he sees the rifle on the passenger seat it would turn into an ‘incident’. But, hey, I didnt reach for my gun, he didnt reach for his gun, so we can all be civilized and chat about guns for a couple minutes.

And, before anyone asks, yes in Montana you can have a loaded rifle in the vehicle. Heck, you can have a loaded anything. And no, you don’t have to inform the cop if youre carrying a gun. And you don’t need a permit to carry it openly..or concealed..or to buy it. It’s almost like living in a free country.

Three day weekend

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I had almost forgotten that, on some levels, this is a three-day weekend due to Presidents Day. For those of you over a certain age,  you may recall that Presidents Day is the holiday that supplanted Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday as federal holidays. Then. naturally, the good idea fairy showed up and it was decided that we needed Monday holidays to give more three-day weekends.

Regardless, its an opportunity for me to catch up on some things. Most notably, I really need to rotate some things out of food storage. For instance, since CostCo has the canned roast beef back in stock I plan on moving a bunch of my older stuff into the kitchen for use and replacing it with more recent production stock.

And, speaking of CostCo, I got my rebate bonus from them yesterday. I was toying with the idea of getting another freezer but I’m really not sure where I’d put it. Not only do i have to find a location for it, I have to make sure it gets plugged into a circuit that is separate from the current freezer since I’d prefer not to have the issue of both freezer’s compressors going at the same time and creating a draw that overloads things. But, more pressing, I just cant find the room.

So, it’ll be clipboard-in-hand for a few hours late tonight in the basement, Bluetooth speaker playing podcasts, while I make sure I’m up-to-date with the preponomicon. Not an exceptionally fun way to spend an extra day off, but, for me, a pretty satisfying one.

More goal tending……

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79.66% of the way to the 2022 silver goal. Once that’s knocked off the list I can wrap up the gold goal for the year and then its balls-deep into getting the land fund fully funded.

And I have to do that in the midst of an inflationary cycle, during a pandemic, during an international crisis, while juggling all my usual responsibilities. But..If I pull it off….well!

Shutting off the flow of money, eh.

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The Chief Cultural Appropriator in Canaduh*  has initiated some ’emergency measures’ to stamp out terrorists who have been…committing parking violations. Whatever. Yet another reason no one takes Canada seriously.

But, what is interesting about all this is that amongst the powers that the Canuckistan government is giving itself is the power to shut down various financial activities that it thinks go against The Canadian Way and might benefit those evil double parkers.

We’re back to the old dictatorship-by-proxy that we see in this country every so often. Government can’t do a particular thing because of the Constitution or some other legal restraint….but it can encourage a non-government actor to perform the same function. An example would be when .gov leaned on banks and credit card companies not to do business with firearms businesses. Can’t really shut down the gun market but we can certainly make it so they can’t do business.

What happens when you get on The List and the bank is ‘nudged’ into freezing your accounts? Are you going to be left standing at an ATM with a dead bank card, $32 in cash, and no access to your money? Gotta think about these things, man. Yet another reasonable cause for having a buncha cash (or cash-like instruments) in a secure place. When .gov finally rolls out it’s own cryptocurrency (guaranteed to have a catchy-souding patriotic name like LibertyBucks, or BitEagle, or something) you watch how fast they’ll tie up that ‘money’ when they decide its going somewhere, or being used by someone, they don’t like.

What’s really fascinating is that Candians have this reputation as a perpetually-apologizing group of people who are just so gosh darned nice. Watching Trudeau ret to act like an in-control leader is like watching a toddler running around the house in dad’s cowboy boots and hat.

But, the moral of the story here is that this is an example of even more reasons not to put all your eggs in one basket..errr…bank. And, not that I would ever recommend such a thing, but it’s also a nice example why having banking under other names might be handy.

* = Ever notice how all those Socialistic and Draconian places start with ‘C’ and end in ‘A’? China, Cuba, California, Canada, etc.

Goalkeeping

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Well, I finally unloaded (ha!) the last of that ammo I picked up a few weeks back. So..what to do with the lump of cash that resulted from it? Well, I have goals. I finished my Emergency Fund goal 11 months early and it looks like I just finished my HSA goal ten months early. (By the way, according to journalism standards you write zero to ten as words but any number over 11 can be represented in numerals. Check your AP style guide.)

So, when the Emergency Fund hit its 2022 goals I was able to redirect the planned monthly allocation elsewhere. And now that the HSA is topped off for the year I can re-allocate that funding elsewhere. Most notably into more silver. Goals remaining for year: silver, gold, Roth, and land purchase fund. Probably in that order. Even after capping the HSA for the year I still have enough left over to pick up another five of these, which will go a good ways towards lowering my required monthly purchases to reach my goal.

Fortunately, I’ve spent the last twenty years buying food, guns, ammo, etc, etc, so there really isn’t much else for me to buy in regards to preparedness….except, of course, for that Big Chunk O’ Nowhere. Still working on that.

I may have mentioned it, but my basic goalsetting paradigm is to increase whatever it is .. gold holdings, silver holdings, HSA balance, Roth balance, Emergency Fund balance, etc…by 50% from the previous year. In the last year or two, that’s become a tall order, obviously, as those balances increase. But, in the last year or two I’ve also been making more money…so I’ve been able to keep up with my rather unreasonable goals. In a few years, though, I’ll probably have to start stepping it down in order to keep things realistic. Maybe shave off 5% every year…increase things by 45% next year, 40% after that, 35% after that, etc. We’ll see.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve paid off the vehicle, house, debts, etc, and pretty much have no debt load to suck down money that would otherwise be free to use elsewhere. Also, I’m pretty cheap. As a result, I can chunk a rather large percentage of my income into things like metals and mutual funds. Part of it is just dumb luck and part of it is living a life of priorities. But, the final result is all the same… a bit better financial security than almost half of the population.

It’s often overlooked, but preparedness is about more than being prepared for a big crisis. Its also about being prepared for when there isn’t a crisis.

Return of the CostCo canned beef

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I had been lamenting CostCo no longer carrying the Kirkland Roast Beef for a while now. There was a brief reprieve of sorts when they started carrying another brand of canned roast beef, which was pretty good, but even that brand seems to no longer be available in-store.

Today, while on my regularly schedules Co visits I happened across this:

It appears that, for whatever reason, my local CostCo has the Kirkland Roast Beef again. Hmm. No idea how long they’ll be carrying it but I made a point to pick some up. Here’s the interesting thing..I canned some beef the other week so i have the numbers fresh in my head: the meat I got at the CostCo meat counter was $6.99/#. These four cans are 12 oz each, which is three pounds. Since the cost is $18, thats about $6 per pound. What this means is that even without factoring in the cost of jars, lids, processing time and fuel, this product appears to be a better value than DIY. Granted, you may use a different cut, or a different type of animal, but for the most part it appears this is a case of it not being cheaper to do it yourself. And there’s the durability and storage ‘footprint’ of the cans versus the glass jars.

I actually kinda like the canning process and enjoy taking advantage of the infrequent sale on beef to get my costs down further but this is an excellent supplemental or turn-key choice for getting some dead animal flesh tucked away for the mid-term.

Article – Southern Utah town’s apocalyptic spending project raises eyebrows

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Each box contains a portable two-way radio (think Walkie-Talkie), a light, clipboards with paper forms and mechanical pencils. The city has 74 boxes in total, distributed throughout different sections of the city, which are dubbed “zones” and clustered into 13 “Emergency Preparedness Areas.”

The basic plan goes like this: In the event of a disaster that lays waste to the town and impairs standard communication lines, those who are able will assemble at the boxes. The first person to arrive will be named a “zone leader.”

The residents will use the clipboards and paper to assess the damage at each house in the neighborhood. Their findings will be relayed to the city via the radios. The city can then deploy emergency resources to the places most in need.

I actually kinda like this idea, although, really, any group..family, congregation, tribe, clan, cell, whatever…should already have several rally points assigned and stocked ‘just in case’. If Utah really wanted to go nuts, they’d do like the Japanese and have their parks double as emergency facilities with wells, toilet facilities, cooking areas, etc.

But, I gotta give credit to those fun-lovin’ Mormons…they don’t screw around when it comes to the preparedness stuff.

Every family or other group unit should have at least a couple ‘rally points’ or ‘meetup areas’ designated and stocked as prudently as possible.

Inflation and fixed incomes

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Iwas talking about inflation the other day with someone and they opined that inflation was ‘no big deal’. I asked them what about people on fixed incomes? They shrugged and said that having to spend a few extra dollars here and there won’t make any material difference. Not eating for a month is, to me, a material difference.

People on fixed incomes…pensions, Social Insecurity,  or disability…are the ones who get it worst. Let me give some examples….

Every month you carefully budget and spend $400 on groceries. That means for $4800 you get to eat all year…January 1 to December 31. Well, at 7% inflation you get to eat until…December 6th. And thats at the official rate of 7%. They took food and fuel out of inflation calculations years ago because those prices were too volatile…they could be affected by factors that had nothing to do with economic policy. Factors like oil embargos or crop failures. In all actuality, inflation is probably higher.

But, lets run with that 7% number. At 7% inflation you’re only able to spend out until that first week of December. After that you either do without, go into debt, use reserves, or come up with more income. And as inflation goes up, that deadline of when your money runs out moves closer and closer to ‘now’. And, whats worse, is that it’s compounded over the years…7% inflation this year means your money only buys 93% of what it did, and next year that money that bought 93% of what it used to will now only buy 93% of that. (In other words, your $100 that used to buy $100 of groceries will now only buy $93 worth. And next year it’ll buy about $87 worth of what it bought two years earlier.

What can you do? Well, I’m an idiot so my knee jerk reaction is ‘go make more money’. Alternatively, you juggle your budget to accommodate the new normal…you cut back on things, buy the cheaper brand, or find a less expensive source. But for some people thats not an option. I don’t know what to tell them. Only thing I could suggest to them is that they tighten their belts now so they can get used to making do with less.

For me, inflation is a pain in the butt, but it isn’t a crippler. My living expenses are low enough that having to pay extra on gas, food, etc, won’t break the bank but it does tie up resources I’d rather have elsewhere. Additionally, I have enough necessities in storage that i can defray a bout of inflation by living out of my stored supplies. Inflation doesn’t last forever, but it doesn’t go away overnight either…those of you who can remember the late 70’s and early 80’s know what I mean.

Inflation is an insidious thing…it devalues what you have worked hard to save, assuming you’ve dumped a pile of greenbacks in the bank. This is why you always hear people talking about ‘tangibles’. A ten dollar bill may only be worth nine dollars next year, but a Glock 17 will still be worth..a Glock 17 next year. If only there was some sort of compact form of wealth that would keep its value over time against inflation.

Fortunately, most of us arent on fixed incomes (yet), so we can roll with the inflationary punches a little bit. But the smart move, in my uneducated opinion, is to to buy any big-ticket items you’ve had your eye on sooner rather than later. (Assuming they are in stock and not subject to ‘supply chain issues’.) Why? Because it’s just gonna be more expensive later.

Oh, and before I forget, someone is actually coming out with a literal gold-backed currency. No, seriously, the bill is imbued with a specific weight of gold. I’m curious if stetting the bill on fire would result a small pile of ash and a residual tiny couple flecks of gold. No doubt this will got he way of the Liberty Dollar but the idea is clever. Paper notes that are actually gold.

 

 

 

Can do

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One of the things like about pressure cooking something is that it takes the toughest hunk of meat and turns it into -cut-it-with-a-fork tenderness. Pressure is also how you can meat. So, if you can meat you are going to , de facto, turn whatever meat you are canning into nice, tender chunks.

I went ahead and bought a tray of stew meat from CostCo the other day to experiment on. First off, I’m never doing that again. It would have been about a buck a pound cheaper to have bought the base meat and cut it up myself.

However, the results were rather nice. I had two jars that did not seal properly so I’m using those over the next few days and I’m pleased with the results. I had browned the meat rather thoroughly before canning and I snuck a chunk or two for my own immediate consumption. And it was…tough. Chewy. Not exactly what you would call tender. After the canning process, however….perfect.

So, I guess I’ll keep my eyes open for deals on roasts or other cuts that can easily be cut up into pint-jar-sized bits for stew, stir fry, and the like.

By the by, I used my supermegaawesome All American Canner. Bought it new years ago and in has never given me a lick of trouble. And it holds a lot of jars. Yeah, you can pay a lot less and get the Presto or something similar. And it’ll work. But for capacity, quality, and long-term, the gasket-less AA is the way to go. Pay once, cry once, and then go can all the things.

Speaking of, as you know, canning lids are a bit hard to find these days (or they were, anyway).And while canning lids should be something you have in, literally, case quantities, don’t overlook the fact that those jars don’t last forever. If the rim gets nicked? Can’t use. And they do break. While they are obviously quite reusable, and a bit bulky to store, you really do need hundreds of them. If you canned something in a one-pint jar…which is not a huge amount of food…you’d need 365 of those jars for just one year. And thats assuming no jars get nicked, broken, or otherwise damaged. On the bright side, the jars store well – stick ’em in a cabinet and forget about them.

I like commercially canned meats for long term storage simply for convenience and durability…I’m more comfortable throwing a ‘tin can’ of meat into a pack and running out the door than a glass jar. But thats an expensive way to live and for a static location that has good storage space, why not use the glass jars?

And for those of you with no canning experience…it isn’t rocket science. The technology was developed for Napoleon’s armies so that means it’s so simple a Frenchman can do it. Go get the big Ball book of canning and give it a read.