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

“Whenever he gets into a fix
he reaches into his bag of tricks..” – Felix The Cat theme song

Asked what the hallmark of the prepared is, I’d say its a toss up between a firearm and the backpack. (In fact, my coat of arms should be a pair of crossed 870’s and AR’s over a backpack.) But I think the nod goes to the backpack.

For the last several years I usually travel my day-to-day with my Dana ‘Lewis’ daypack. I bought it many years ago when Dana was still a made in the US. Its a regular size daypack, like what you see every college kid packing around. It has a few nice features, like redundant closures – if a zipper breaks theres always a strap/buckle system to use as backup. A nice touch. Although a ‘civillian’ pack, its durability and versatility has made it an almost constant companion for me. During hunting season I change out the contents and it goes as my survival/hunting pack. Its deficient in some areas, not enough attachment points, for example, but Ive been satisified.

And then this shows up today in UPS. I am mightily impressed and when it comes to gear, Im a tough customer.

Material is heavy Cordura-type fabric. Should handle sliding around in truck beds, tumbling off cliffs, getting soaked, getting dirty, etc, with aplomb.

All stress points (and even some non-stress points) are double stitched…at least. Some are triple stitched. Some are quadruple stitched!!!! Yowza!

Padding in the straps is generous. Strap attachment points are reinforced quite nicely. Shoulder straps include a sternum strap and the usual D-ring and web attachment points.

There are three compartments, all accessed by zippers. The inside of the main compartment is lined on the bottom (which also has a drainage hole) with blaze orange material to make hunting objects easier. Nice touch. 2900 cubic inches is the advertised capacity of the bag.

Top of the bag sports a serious drag handle and covered drinking ports. (Could also run radio cords through as well.)Theres Molle-style webbing on three sides of the pack as well as attachment points on the bottom of the pack. Compression straps on the sides and top of the pack allow for rolled up gear like ponchos or field jackets.

This is a seriously nice high-speed, low-drag pack. I’d feel not the slightest bit of hesitation to load it up and toss it out the back of a truck at forty miles an hour, drag it behind me in a river crossing, As much as my Dana has been a good piece of gear, Im not one to let sentimentality stand in the way of an upgrade. Price is about the same as what I paid for my Dana about seven years ago – $110. This would be an extremely well spent $110. Im going to investigate the rest of their gear and if its as well made as this thing, Im going to have to do some serious ordering from them.

All their gear is made in the USA, by the by. While I’ll buy gear from anyone if it meets my needs for quality and funtion, I prefer to buy American.

A quick perusal of Tactical Tailor’s website shows some very nice modular pockets to add on. Im in love…truly!

I called the LMI’s to come by and check this thing out…thats how impressed I am with it. Expect some field reports about this thing over the summer.

Slow times in Zeroland. My civillian life has alot going on so my life as Commander Zero is taking a backseat right now to whats going on elsewhere.

But, I still manage to get a few things done…..

Finally moved all the crap into the bunker that Ive just left laying around for the last few months. And it drove home the fact that I really need to get more shelving in the bunker. I also need to label the storage containers a bit better.

Still havent picked up any 26.5mm flares or smoke. Very bad. Who knows how long the cheap surplus stuff will be on the market. The bottleneck is this absurd $20 HazMat fee. I was hoping to stumble across some at a gun show but that isnt looking likely. What I’ll have to do is order enough of the things to make it worth the $20 fee.

Discovered that, apparently, a 10-round .40 S&W Glock magazine can be stuffed with 9mm ammo and used in my G19 with no problems. Interesting. Means that the concept of pre-ban/post-ban magazines is now a non-issue. I can 13 or so rounds in the .40 Glock mag and its perfectly legal since Im not ‘making or modifying’ a magazine into pre-ban configuration.

Must do some website work…been slacking in that regard.

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

Slow times in Zeroland. My civillian life has alot going on so my life as Commander Zero is taking a backseat right now to whats going on elsewhere.

But, I still manage to get a few things done…..

Finally moved all the crap into the bunker that Ive just left laying around for the last few months. And it drove home the fact that I really need to get more shelving in the bunker. I also need to label the storage containers a bit better.

Still havent picked up any 26.5mm flares or smoke. Very bad. Who knows how long the cheap surplus stuff will be on the market. The bottleneck is this absurd $20 HazMat fee. I was hoping to stumble across some at a gun show but that isnt looking likely. What I’ll have to do is order enough of the things to make it worth the $20 fee.

Discovered that, apparently, a 10-round .40 S&W Glock magazine can be stuffed with 9mm ammo and used in my G19 with no problems. Interesting. Means that the concept of pre-ban/post-ban magazines is now a non-issue. I can 13 or so rounds in the .40 Glock mag and its perfectly legal since Im not ‘making or modifying’ a magazine into pre-ban configuration.

Must do some website work…been slacking in that regard.

I seriously need to spend a few hours in the bunker straightening up. As of late I simply shuttle acquisitions and purchases there and leave them on the floor figuring I’ll deal with them later. Bad, bad, bad. I need to segregate them, datestamp them, and put them into their respective storage containers and then label the containers. Tedious and quite unglamourous. It aint all sunshine n’ stun grenades when youre the Zero.

I also need to do a fuels evaluation and come up with some hard and fast numbers regarding fuel consumption and inventory. Basically I just buy more and more and leave it at that. I need to research and experiment and see what actual consumption is. (How long will my lantern/heater/etc run on one gallon of kero, one bottle of propane, one gallon of Coleman fuel, etc.) Time consuming. There are a few references that give some basic rules of thumb in terms of consumption…still, there is no room for error so its gotta get done at some point. Really, a spreadsheet is in order…”If I run the lantern for 12.9 hours, the heater for 18.2 hours and the stove for 5.3 hours that will use 10# of propane”, etc, etc.

The trick is actually doing something…its too easy to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of something, compare prices, check availability, etc. and next thing you know three weeks have gone by from when you said “I better buy a …” and you still dont have it. And meanwhile The Day creeps closer and youre still sifting through catalogs. Its *real* easy to get lulled into that ‘armchair survivalist’ thing.

That reminds me, I need to polish up The List and see what I can pick up in the near future. I keep a tiny 9-point-font list with me so if I find myself at a store I can check against it.

ANd I seriously need to do some website updates.

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

I seriously need to spend a few hours in the bunker straightening up. As of late I simply shuttle acquisitions and purchases there and leave them on the floor figuring I’ll deal with them later. Bad, bad, bad. I need to segregate them, datestamp them, and put them into their respective storage containers and then label the containers. Tedious and quite unglamourous. It aint all sunshine n’ stun grenades when youre the Zero.

I also need to do a fuels evaluation and come up with some hard and fast numbers regarding fuel consumption and inventory. Basically I just buy more and more and leave it at that. I need to research and experiment and see what actual consumption is. (How long will my lantern/heater/etc run on one gallon of kero, one bottle of propane, one gallon of Coleman fuel, etc.) Time consuming. There are a few references that give some basic rules of thumb in terms of consumption…still, there is no room for error so its gotta get done at some point. Really, a spreadsheet is in order…”If I run the lantern for 12.9 hours, the heater for 18.2 hours and the stove for 5.3 hours that will use 10# of propane”, etc, etc.

The trick is actually doing something…its too easy to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of something, compare prices, check availability, etc. and next thing you know three weeks have gone by from when you said “I better buy a …” and you still dont have it. And meanwhile The Day creeps closer and youre still sifting through catalogs. Its *real* easy to get lulled into that ‘armchair survivalist’ thing.

That reminds me, I need to polish up The List and see what I can pick up in the near future. I keep a tiny 9-point-font list with me so if I find myself at a store I can check against it.

ANd I seriously need to do some website updates.

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

An expensive day for the Zero. Decided to walk through every aisle in CostCo today to see what was around that had some applications for my needs. Found a great deal: Coleman two-mantle propane lantern *with* hard carry case for $30. Zowie. A quick perusla of The List shows that the last hard carry case I bought for that same model of lantern was almost $14. Ka-ching…some savings. So, I now have two perfectly identical propane lanterns with carry case. (And , naturally, they take the same mantles as my Dual Fuel lantern) Drawback is that my ‘adequate’ supply of spare mantles is now ‘inadequate’ since the quantity-per-lantern just took a 50% hit. Fortunately theyre cheap enough I can pick up a dozen for less than $10.

Also found ‘Trio’ brand #10 cans of instant potatoes. Now, why the excitement? Well, a scan of the label showed that this was a food-service product made by Nestle…the same guys who make my beloved Idahoan instant potatoes. Remember the just-add-water instant potatoes I was going on about a few months back? Well, this is the #10 can of ‘em. w00t.

And, although this doesnt really apply to my needs directly, there were surgical scrub sets for $15. Nice, loose, baggy surgical scrubs for lounging around the redoubt house. Navy, burgundy, UN blue, or green. I went with navy…its slimming and wont turn translucent in bright light.

Also grabbed a 6-pack of 16oz propane bottles for $9.99.

So CostCo was good to the Zero today. Spent 10x what I had planned, but that lantern was a sweet deal.

An expensive day for the Zero. Decided to walk through every aisle in CostCo today to see what was around that had some applications for my needs. Found a great deal: Coleman two-mantle propane lantern *with* hard carry case for $30. Zowie. A quick perusla of The List shows that the last hard carry case I bought for that same model of lantern was almost $14. Ka-ching…some savings. So, I now have two perfectly identical propane lanterns with carry case. (And , naturally, they take the same mantles as my Dual Fuel lantern) Drawback is that my ‘adequate’ supply of spare mantles is now ‘inadequate’ since the quantity-per-lantern just took a 50% hit. Fortunately theyre cheap enough I can pick up a dozen for less than $10.

Also found ‘Trio’ brand #10 cans of instant potatoes. Now, why the excitement? Well, a scan of the label showed that this was a food-service product made by Nestle…the same guys who make my beloved Idahoan instant potatoes. Remember the just-add-water instant potatoes I was going on about a few months back? Well, this is the #10 can of ’em. w00t.

And, although this doesnt really apply to my needs directly, there were surgical scrub sets for $15. Nice, loose, baggy surgical scrubs for lounging around the redoubt house. Navy, burgundy, UN blue, or green. I went with navy…its slimming and wont turn translucent in bright light.

Also grabbed a 6-pack of 16oz propane bottles for $9.99.

So CostCo was good to the Zero today. Spent 10x what I had planned, but that lantern was a sweet deal.

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

Picked up a couple extra mantles for my Aladdin lamp yesterday evening. Always nice to be able to cross something off of The List. Actually, I need to pick up one more mantle. I want a total of five. The mantle I have now has been in occasional use for the last, oh, ten years I guess…but I dont use the lamp very often at all. At most, a few hours a year. However, if I need to depend on it for a longer period of time, I want to have spare mantles. Still need to get a spare chimney, wick and burner as well as a wick trimming tool. Once thats done, I’ll be set for that particular lamp and will then pick up a spare.
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Haiti. Third-world illiterate countries will always be like this. Until someone decides to take the risk and bring business and industry to these little nations they will continue to be little hotbeds of revolution. Not. My. Problem.
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Still havent picked up any 26.5mm flare or smoke. Im hoping to run into some at a gun show but I suspect I better buy some soon before the surplus military stocks dry up and become difficult to find. I just hate paying the additional $20 for HazMat fees. Grrrr.
===============
Another item I need to pick up this year – USMC combat tents on eBay. $180~ and worth every penny. Buddy of mine has one (or two) and they are a good piece of gear. A bit heavy, but worth it.

Picked up a couple extra mantles for my Aladdin lamp yesterday evening. Always nice to be able to cross something off of The List. Actually, I need to pick up one more mantle. I want a total of five. The mantle I have now has been in occasional use for the last, oh, ten years I guess…but I dont use the lamp very often at all. At most, a few hours a year. However, if I need to depend on it for a longer period of time, I want to have spare mantles. Still need to get a spare chimney, wick and burner as well as a wick trimming tool. Once thats done, I’ll be set for that particular lamp and will then pick up a spare.
===============
Haiti. Third-world illiterate countries will always be like this. Until someone decides to take the risk and bring business and industry to these little nations they will continue to be little hotbeds of revolution. Not. My. Problem.
===============
Still havent picked up an 26.5mm flare or smoke. Im hoping to run into some at a gun show but I suspect I better buy some soon before the surplus military stocks dry up and become difficult to find. I just hate paying the additional $20 for HazMat fees. Grrrr.
===============
Another item I need to pick up this year – USMC combat tents on eBay. $180~ and worth every penny. Buddy of mine has one (or two) and they are a good piece of gear. A bit heavy, but worth it.

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

A humor-journal????
‘Tis true..someone ( http://www.livejournal.com/users/highexecutive/190108.html ) thinks that this particular LJ is here for laughs.

Hate to burst their bubble, but Commander Zero is as serious as a heart attack and twice as life-altering.

I mean, geez, if this LJ was here for laughs it would be alot more exciting…Day 192: Finished the escape tunnel to the abandoned missle silo. My sources have assured me that the stolen C-130 of MRE’s will be landing on the old highway at midnight. Me and the other troops will be there with a couple stolen forklifts to get the pallets onto the trucks. Meanwhile, our radio expert has finished piggybacking our signal onto the military sattelites..”

Sorry kids…its allllllllll real. Commander Zero is a real person, with a real plan, a real pile of gear, and a real distaste for people who think this isnt a real accounting of things.