Generator Day

Still have mags: Pmags/$10 , 10/22 Steel Lip mags/$11
Buy some mags…those dang anesthesiologists don’t work cheap.

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Today was generator day. Pull the EU2000 out of its protective Hardigg case, start it up, hook up a few goodies to it to give it some actual work to do, and then after about a half hour turn it off and pack it up.

I’ve had the EU2000 now for a few years and have only had one occasion to need it – big windstorm back in 2015 that knocked out power for around ten hours. But that doesn’t mean something longer and worse isn’t coming down the pike. Gotta be prepared.

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Speaking of prepared, my mailman told me about an experience he had last weekend. He and his wife were out on one of the logging roads way in the middle of nowhere when he came across a couple who, somehow, both rolled their fourwheelers off the road and down a ravine. The guy was pinned under his vehicle with a compound fracture to his leg, his wife was further downhill with a punctured lung, broken bones, and was basically an hour or two away from needing a priest more than a doctor. Mailman was driving along the road and saw the something in the heavy brush…the man had fastened a piece of clothing to a long stick and was waving it for help. They’d been out there, in the sun, bleeding and dying, for about an hour and a half.

Short version: mailman was able to climb up a hill and get a bar or two on his phone and dial in the local SAR. Not one but two helicopters managed to get there and find a landing spot, but it was tough describing exactly where they were in all that mess.

This is why whenever I go off the pavement I keep smoke and flares in the vehicle. Big ‘ol cloud of orange smoke, or a red cluster flare will do a good job of showing the guy in the door where to point the nose of the helicopter. Of course, knowing the UTM coords for where you are andbeing able to give that information to someone on the other end of your phone is pretty helpful, too.

Article – The Deadly Choices at Memorial

Buy some 10/22 or Pmag mags, kids. I got surgeons bills to pay.
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The smell of death was overpowering the moment a relief worker cracked open one of the hospital chapel’s wooden doors. Inside, more than a dozen bodies lay motionless on low cots and on the ground, shrouded in white sheets. Here, a wisp of gray hair peeked out. There, a knee was flung akimbo. A pallid hand reached across a blue gown.

Wikipedia entry.

An old article I found buried in a blog post. Having spent a night or two in the hospital as of late, I am kind of interested in the sorts of disaster planning that goes on. Hospitals, as opposed to, say, long term care facilities, clearly have different budgets and requirements. I do recall that some states mandate a certain amount of emergency food (Mountain House, in case you didnt know, actually sells a special line of regulation-compliant meals just for this sort of thing), generators, or that sort of thing, there’s always that big question of what to do when the power goes out, the looting starts, and grandma is trapped in Shady Acres on the other side of town.

On the one hand, it’s hard to argue that in an environment like that there weren’t going to be cases where there was nothing else to do but watch someone die. On the other hand, while I have no trouble with someone wanting to die of their own volition, I have a problem with a medical professional making that decision for someone else.

The article, though eight years old, is a real edge-of-your-seat read and definitely worth reading if you’re in the health field.

 

Deer Lodge Gun Show

Still a buncha 10/22 Steel Lip magazines, and $10 Magpuls availalable. Retail is for suckers.
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The Deer Lodge gun show was today. Drove out there with a buddy and looked around. Surprisingly, I ran into someone I recognized who was, I think, more surprised to see me than I was to see them. Either a ruptured appendix isn’t as debilitating as everyone thinks or..well…

Saw a few interesting things at the show. Most notably a Valmet in 7.62×39, a couple PTR’s, and a bunch of 870’s in various condition hovering in the $200-225 range.

There were a buncha AR’s floating around but, short of another Obama/Hillary panic, I think AR’s have gotten to be taken for granted…there are so many out there now that we’re only surprised if we don’t see a dozen of them on a dealers table. But…us old timers…we can remember some days when you could not get your hands on an AR for love nor money. Happened before, will happen again. I truly do think this window we are in will be the Golden Age of buying an AR…. a time when you could have one for less than the cost of a new Glock…but that window will, I think, start closing as supply starts to dwindle and demand slowly inches up.

Good trip, nice time, mediocre show, but always nice to go and always nice to run into folks you meow.

 

FTWD – S3E4 “100”

Indeed, Fear The Walking Dead did, in fact, bring back my favorite character. Salazar, as played by Ruben Blades.

fear-the-walking-dead-episode-304-daniel-blades-4-935This episode was nothing but character development which is exactly what I wanted for the haunted and ruthless Salvadoran death squad member.

What I find so compelling is that Salazar, while a wildly ruthless killer, operates according to an extremely predictable moral code. He kills to protect those he loves, or to enable him to do so. And he warns people of the consequences of their actions and when they ignore him and those actions put him at odds with them, he has the moral absolution of knowing he warned them and then he does what needs doing.

Contrast with Strand, who is equally as ruthless but operates exclusively out of self-interest. Strand deceives because he loves Strand, Salazar kills because he loves  others.

Of course, we now get more backstory on Salazar…he’s killed almost a hundred people, he’s feeling haunted and ashamed by his actions, and without those he loves…either driven from him by his actions or by zombies…he’s without a cause. He’s much like Abraham from The Walking Dead – without a mission, he has no idea who he is.

And his matter of fact approach is a welcome change. The head bad guy is about to kill his friends and Salazar kills the bad guys and holds the boss at gun point. In any other series, there’d be dialog as the boss would try to deal with Salazar or get into one of those “you’re no better than me” sort of moral arguments. Salazar regards him for a moment, kills him, and moves on to other things. He hates what he does, but he knows it needs to be done. He really is quite a pragmatist.

Blades does a wonderful job of portraying a simple, immigrant barber who wants nothing more that to love and be with his family…and then bringing the vulpine dispassionate killer to the surface….and then showing the hurt and shame he feels when he does torture or kill people. Thats the kinds of depth and character development that will make me watch this show.

This is, from a character development standpoint, easily my favorite episode..it shows the deconstruction and reconstruction of a man who wants only the simplest thing – to be with those he loves and to protect them. Who can’t get behind that?

By request

20170618_141335Later under medication/dose/due I put ” Pizza 1/4 pie 5pm”, “Ice cream as indicated 5:07 pm”. Under “Family Contact” I’d written “Frankly, theyre pretty much done putting up with him too.” I left “Oral Care” alone because, frankly, it was too easy. No honor in it.

Aftermath

Alright, I’m trying to put out fires as best I can..what with my guts feeling as they do….and trying to get caught up on things.

First and foremost: I still have a little less than a case of Pmags, and a case and a half of Steel Lip 10/22 mags. Get ’em while they’re hot, kids. Everyone seems to be pleased  with their purchases and more than one person has come back for seconds (or thirds). It only gets more expensive as time goes by, so get ’em now and get your Alpha Strategy on. Email me. (And at least two of you made out pretty well on the deal because in my narc’d state I used the wrong pricing schedule and you got them at $1/@ off.)

Summer is officially here in western Montana, which means at any moment things will burst into flames and we’ll be breathing extra chunky style air until October.

I have a bunch of catching up to do on preparedness related materials and whatnot, but I also have to reconcile that with a metric buttload of school, work, business, personal, and other obligations that I need to get caught up on…so, as busy as I can be at a moment when Im least able to do it. Yay, status quo!

Bonus: I have a nice 15 second video of the nurse pulling three feet of plastic tubing out of a hole in my belly. This video is not for people with slow connections or who are squeamish. It’s like some dirty magic trick! (Best to let it load and then play..otherwise its just annoying.)

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die

The good news is I’m gonna die.
The bad news is it won’t be today.

(well, it could be today…it could be at any moment, really…but broadly speaking, not today.)

This pretty much covers it:

Starting Thursday, two nights of curled up in bed in the fetal position with pain right above my right hipbone, I was utterly convinced it was a bowel blockage of some kind and some laxatives and patience would take care of it. (And, yes, I actually did think it might be Hirschsprung’s disease.) At 4am I drove to Walgreens to get some laxative suppositories and discovered that Walgreens didn’t open until six. Okay, fine. I pulled into a gas station, fueled up, and started to head for the house. As I was driving, I thought “You know, I’m already dressed, Im already driving, lets just go to the damn Emergency Room already.”

Walked in, told the folks “This is kinda embarassing but I havent pooped in three days, I’m in a tremendous amount of pain and discomfort, can you give me a bottle of whatever it is you give people to clean em out for colonoscopies and I’ll be on my way?” Nope, they say. Ya gotta get checked over by the doctor. Doc does a CT scan and comes back into the room. “Tell me its just a piece of unchewed, undigested pizza doing this.”, I said. Nope, she replies, you’ve got an appendix that needs to see daylight and needs to see it now – there’s a surgeon on the way. You’ve got a ruptured appendix.

“But..I’m in the Two Hour Parking!”

As they wheeled me in to surgery, the doctor looks at me and says “So, you’ve never had your appendix out?” (At which point I’m thinking…don’t you know??? Thats why youre here!) To which I replied, in perfect mimicry from the above video, “I’ve been meaning to, but who has the time?”

Fentanyl? Huge fan. Hydrocodene? Not bad.

And that’s the highlight of my week thus far.

It’s also as much detail as I’m willing to pass on at this point, so don’t ask any questions.

Those of you who emailed me and ordered up some mags, no delays..they’ll got out in the next day or so…business as usual.

And one less medical procedure for me to worry about after the apocalypse.

 

Politically motivated shooting

I guess now we’ll see what happens vis-a-vis the new administration and the gun elimination lobby.

Non-event or event in terms of legislative results? I’m going with non-event, but nothing is guaranteed and this administration can’t be pigeonholed.

I suspect there’sll be the usual wailing from the left (esp. the newly important Chuckie Schumer), but nothing will come of it. We shall see.

(Makes me glad I got all those Pmags…)

[oh..and these]