Monthly Archives: June 2018

Not being there

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A trending topic in the survivalist blogosphere (the Preppersphere?) has been the old classic “When the world comes to an end, I’ll just go to your place” scenario. [ 1, 2 ] If you’ve been into preparedness for any amount of time, you’ve heard that line from someone. Usually they say it jokingly because if they realy thought the world could come to an end they’d get off their butts and get ready themselves. But they don’t think its going to happen, so they think they can just say pithy and clever things like that and be funny.

Unfortunately, once the forced good-natured grins leave our faces we think to ourselves “Well crap…how am I going to deal with this?” On the very rare occasions someone says something like that to me, my reply is to usually either say “Knock yourself out. I won’t be here”, or, more often, “wouldn’t it make more sense for you to just take similar precautions?”

Obviously, not telling someone that you’ve got a secret life as Burt Gummer Jr. would be a good way to go. But…sometimes you can’t help it. Close friends fade away over time, people you trust  surprise you, the electrician notices the garage full of stuff when he’s wiring in your transfer switch, the neighbors see the UPS guy dropping those big blue barrels off, etc, etc. Try, but it’s still a tough secret to keep.

I know very few people who aren’t into preparedness, so I don’t worry about it too much. I don’t think I’d have much trouble turning away strangers, it’s the casual friends and the like that might be an issue. Easiest solution? Don’t be there. Throw the remaining gear into the vehicle and head for the Beta Site.

But, between Everything Is Fine and Gotta Go Now Now Now, there’s a continuum.. take, for example, a windstorm that comes through and knocks down some power lines. Electricity is going to be out for only a day or two…three, tops, but your causal work buddy would like to camp out in your yard  since you’ve got power from your generator and hot food and showers because of that 500 gallon propane tank behind your garage. It’s not the end of the world exactly….but he wants your help. Yea? Nay? Or it becomes more pronounced…and it’s a week without power. Does that change your willingness to host the less prepared?

There’s always that chorus that says “If someone said to me they were going to come to my place when the world ends, I’d tell them I’d [shoot them/eat them/keep their women and send the men away/similar tough-guy talk]” but you can’t really think that’ll dissuade anyone.

Keeping a very low-profile would certainly help. The neighbors are less likely to come knocking on your door if they think you’re just as bad off as they are. It would also help if they didn’t know that the person living next door to them was a survivalist.

I mean, if I have a 12-month supply for two people of something, someone bringing themselves and another person (or more) knock me down to 6-months…just like that. Why, in the name of Crom, would I willingly cut my margin of safety in half (or worse)?

Like I said, my favorite plan to deal with the “when the world comes to an end….” issue is to simply not be there when it happens. When the distant family members, faded-from-history friends, and other arms-length people come to the doorstep I hope I’m far away.

I should mention, there’s a few (really, really, really, small few) people I’d take in but it’s a number small enough to count on the fingers on one hand of a careless woodworker. It’s easier to try and convert those people rather than explain to them why you don’t want them in your lifeboat. But, it’s even easier to just not deal with them at all by being elsewhere.

Spring cleaning

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So we’re now at the stage where the days are getting shorter instead of longer. Man, where did this year go? When I was a kid the days just crawled by…now they whip by so fast. :::sigh:::

Summer is, for the most part, here in Montana. Now’s the time for the warm weather tasks that need doing. Most importantly its time to do some spring cleaning and get stuff neatened up. It’s alot easier to do that sort of thing when you can leave the doors open so you can haul stuff out of the house… can’t do that when its ten degrees out.

I had to shuffle alot of stuff around to accommodate the plumbing adventure a few weeks back and it just emphasized that I really need to get rid of junk thats been piling up. Broken power tools, scraps of lumber, things like that.

I envy people that can have an entire building or two on their property to dedicate to storing stuff. Someday I’ll have a place like that, but for now it’s a bit of a challenge utilizing space as efficiently as possible.

My weekdays are a hot mess, but the weekend should give me a chance to get stuff moved around if I can get my butt out of bed nice and early.

I suspect theres a couple more sets of wire shelving from CostCo in my future.

Is it enough if you can’t get any more tomorrow

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This is going to be one of those posts thats going to get linked to quite a bit in future posts. Why? Well, because I get tired of repeating over and over again a brief encapsulation of why I buy as many of a particular thing.

Uncertain Goods

I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Uncertain Goods are items whose future availability cannot be readily assured. It’s not a black and white issue….some items will be more uncertain than others. And, depending on the nature of the apocalypse you are forecasting, all items can be Uncertain Goods. Lemme give some examples…

Dental Floss. Those little plastic boxes with the spool of floss and the cutter? Yeah, those. Are they an Uncertain Good? No..I am virtually confident that tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year I will be able to walk into a Walgreens and buy as much of it as I want.

The more forward thinking of you might say “But, in a nuclear war (or similar event) the availability of just about everything would be affected, therefore all goods are Uncertain Goods.” Strictly speaking, this is true. This is where evidence and history come into play. Best I can tell, we haven’t had a nuclear war lately, nor have we had a global failure of the dental floss crop due to floss weevils. Additionally, I’ve heard nothing about dental floss prohibitions, taxes, confiscations, panic buying, distribution chain failures, and that sort of thing. To my way of thinking, dental floss is not an Uncertain Good. Oh, I stock up on it….but not because I worry about it’s availability, but rather because if I can spend fifty bucks and get a few years worth of the stuff tucked away, that’s one less thing to deal with.

Contrast the dental floss with, say, plutonium. Plutonium is an exceptionally Uncertain Good. I can walk out of my house and get dental floss from a half dozen different places without even needing to drive. Plutonium , on the other hand, is something you really have to make an appointment for. Even in ‘normal’ times your ability to obtain it is challenging. Throw some political or social turmoil in the mix and it gets even harder.

These are, obviously, two extreme examples but I think they make the point. An Uncertain Good is one whose future availability cannot be guessed at. Here are some items that, in my opinion, are Uncertain Goods: prescription meds, hard-to-find car parts, clothing in special-order sizes, odd batteries, certain chemicals or mixtures of chemicals, etc. Basically, if the only way you can obtain something is to special order it off Amazon or pay for it with a credit card, it’s an Uncertain Good. (Note that I said ‘the only way’…the fact that you buy your TP off Amazon to save money doesn’t mean it’s an uncertain good. You could buy TP at your local grocery. If you live in Nowhere, WY and you need a forward mounting bracket for the fusebox in your ’89 Saab you’re pretty much only going to get that through Amazon or some other internet contortion…thus, it’s an Uncertain Good.)

Take me, for example. I wear shoes that are, nominally, EEEEE width. (Yes, I have wide feet. I can walk on snow like a moose.) My only source for shoes is a couple specialty outfits on the internet. Thus, for me, shoes that fit are an Uncertain Good. So, I keep several pair on hand.

Alright, we’ve established what an Uncertain Good is. Your idea of what it is and mine may differ due to our regional differences, but, broadly, we should be on the same page. Now it’s a matter of scale.

Relative Uncertainty

Take my 5E shoes and the plutonium, for example. Both are Uncertain Goods, we’ve established that. Now, which of the two is more likely to be difficult to obtain at a later date? Probably the plutonium, right? So in a priority-based system of acquisition, I’d probably want to score the plutonium before I score another pair of black walking shoes. Both goods are uncertain, but one is likely (IMHO) to be more uncertain than the other.

Quantity

Ok, so we know what Uncertain Goods are, and we know that some Uncertain Goods are more uncertain than others. So why do I need several hundred G3 magazines? Or a dozen ARs?

Both of those items are Uncertain Goods with a history of threatened availability, and a near constant threat of diminished future availability. Or, put into simple terms, they banned ’em before and they want to ban them again.

Okay..so they’re an Uncertain Good, with a definite likelihood of future availability being a problem, but why do you need so many???

I have another 25 years on my meter. We’ve established these Uncertain Goods may become unavailable at any moment. So…if tomorrow I couldn’t call up Cheaper Than Dirt and order more, and what I had in the closet had to last me the rest of my life, would I feel comfortable with that? Well…a lot of stuff can happen in 25 years, so I’d want plenty to cover things like loss, breakage, confiscation, abandonment, theft, trade, gifting, and ‘just in case’. When you look at it in those terms, five magazines for your Beretta 92 when your’re forty years old is not a ‘lifetime supply’. In fact, it’s laughably short-sighted.

The Matt Foley suvivalists (You know, the ones who think all you need to survive the apocalypse is a Mosin Nagant and a vaaaaaaan down by the riverrrrrrr.) are aghast at the notion of spending money, but if your career goals go beyond being a WalMart greeter and complaining about ‘the rich’ full-time, you can afford such things. The secret to being able to afford things like guns designed after World War 2, food that isn’t stored in 2-liter pop bottles, and housing that doesn’t have a license plate holder, is to complain less about people who have more money than you and start doing what it takes to become someone who has more money than you.

The paradigm I use is: if I could not get any more of these [items] tomorrow, would I be comfortable with the amount I currently have. I’ts not any more complicated than that.. When I buy supplies and items to enhance my survivability, I’m thinking on the long term. Even a ‘personal’ EOTWAWKI like a job loss or health issue would benefit from such planning… its one less thing to worry about.

Obviously, there will be a couple factors to consider – cost, storage, expiration, opportunity cost, etc. I wouldn’t buy a lifetime supply of Toyota Tacomas because of cost, I wouldn’t buy a lifetime supply of drinking water because of storage issues, and I wouldn’t buy a lifetime supply of bananas because of expiration. But, something like, say, toothpaste? Dental floss? MagLites? Blankets? Lantern wicks? I’d have no problem with several dozen in storage.

So there you have it. Next time you want to comment and say “You have one Blastomatic 500, why do you need fifteen magazines for it” you’ll have your answer. And maybe the rubric of “if I could not get any more of these [items] tomorrow, would I be comfortable with the amount I currently have” might prove useful to you. But, regardless, those are the reasons and logic behind why I buy as much as I do of some items.

SMH…. gotta learn to say no

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Text message from local coin/gunshop:

“Hey, a couple shotguns just came in. 20 ga double barrel and Win 1200 in 12 ga”

*sigh* Okay, I’ll try to be resolute.

“Whatcha got?”
“Stevens 20 ga. double barrel but it has a small ding in the barrel. Yours for a hundred bucks.”
“Useless. Lemme see the Winchester. Hmm…..Whaddya want for it?”
“$125”
“Dammit.”

Now, I have no need for a Winchester 1200..the cheapest pump shotgun Winchester ever made…and I’m actually not a fan of that rotating bolt lockup either. But…for the price…it’ll go in the closet until I find someone who wants a duck gun or something and I can make fifty bucks off it. Or, I can break it apart, grease it up, and stick it in Deep Storage as a pentary level backup shotgun.

One of these days, I really hope I learn to say no to these sorts of deals.

The paper chase

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Toilet humour is always good for a blog post. Today’s episode comes from Friend Of The Blog ™, Tam, over at View From The Porch where she recounts an episode of what happens when natures call is delayed by overpackaged designer toilet paper.

Here’s the money shot: “Just before I had to declare an emergency and kiss my socks goodbye…..”

Hysterical.

RTWT.

Meanwhile, everyone knows that women go through toilet paper like Germans through Poland. It’s exponential. Two women do not use twice as much TP as one. There’s a logarithmic (bodily) function somewhere in there.

I bring it up because toilet paper is one of those semi-serious things we survivalists rally around. Right after ‘who has the most guns’ and ‘how much ammo is enough’ comes the ‘how much toilet paper do you store’. I have the space to store a goodly amount, so I keep about 200 rolls on hand. That should cover me for a good while unless I develop a sudden interest in Mexican food or drink a Giardia cocktail.

Toilet paper is one of those things that is usually briefly touched on in survivalist fiction but almost never addressed in movies or TV. I’ve seen exactly one toilet paper reference in eight years of The Walking Dead. (Specifically, the episode where Bob The Alkie is introduced. He’s sitting on top of a truck trailer with a roll of TP sitting next to him. The implication being that he took a dump on the undead below him.)

Like .22 ammo, there’s just really no just-as-ggod-as substitutes. Leaves, phonebooks, small furry animals, paper towels, and anything else semi-disposable just don’t seem to do the trick.

I suppose you could go the way of the Third Worlders and make sure to use one specific hand for eating and the other for…….. but I didnt make these efforts and sacrifices so I can live like a Third Worlder.

My experience has been that toilet paper has only three natural enemies – women, mice, and moisture. Storing it in a waterproof container handles the moisture, storing it off the ground usually keeps themice from nesting in it, and buying the discount brands usually keeps the Gyno-Americans out of it.For travel, whether planned or unplanned, the usual thing is to just grab a roll, squash it flat, and shove it in a ziploc bag. That has a certain utilitarian quality is simple and effective. Turns out there are special ‘travel packs’ of toilet paper and you really can’t underestimate their utility. I usually just throw a couple of those pocket packs of Kleenex in my bag and use those if necessary…its convenient, cheap, multipurpose, and available.

Back in the old days, MRE’s used to give you actual toilet paper and it was worth saving the extras from your MRE pack for later use since it was packaged pretty well. Modern MRE’s give you these little blue individual squares that I cannot fathom were ordered by anyone who has ever had to take a dump out in the field.

Moral of the story? Well, first off, toilet paper is cheap and a definite nice-to-have… dont put a dozen rolls in the hallway closet and think you’re done. Go to CostCo and get a couple of the big 30-packs. Second, keep a half dozen in the bathroom. Without getting too..rude…go sit yourself on the toilet and figure out what your maximum reach is from there. Keep the a half dozen rolls within that reach. No brainer. And, finally, if you’re going through any crisis that requires you to whittle down your stock of end-of-the-world TP you’re also in a crisis where personal hygiene just took a boost in importance – so make damn sure to wash your hands and use hand sanitizer afterwards. Your stash of TP goes a lot further when you don’t have to deal with cholera and dysentery.

Minor upgrades

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I have a UPS for the computer so that if the power goes out, I can keep things going long enough to finish what I’m doing and shut things down. Most of us have those sorts of things. It occurred to me that I should probably get one for the security cameras as well. (Tangentially, if the power does go out, I switch from the energy-hog desktop to the the laptop…the laptop already has several hours of charge on it and can always be recharged off the generator. In a real pinch, I could use the phone for internetting and recharge it off a small panel or just about any battery.)

So, a trip to CostCo and I’m back with an uninterruptible power supply for the cameras. Realistically, it only has to keep the system going long enough for me to pull out the generator and get it running, but it’s nice to know it’ll run for a while on its own if the power goes out.

If want to be really paranoid, it’s nice to think that when the power gets cut and the hordes (or the SWAT team) are trying for the Big Sneak I’ll have a little bit of an advantage. Can’t get those sentry guns too soon. Although I suppose if youre crafty enough you can build your own.

There’s also a minor selfish motivation involved. (Well, a different motive anyway since self-preservation can be pretty selfish.) The intersection near my house has the somewhat regular car accident occur. I’ve one camera trained on the intersection so I can sell footage to the participants to substantiate their claims.

Letting your guard down

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Ok, time to steer this blog back to being on topic…….

Friend Of The Blog ,Rawles over at SurvivalBlog had a link to a video about the ‘lull’ that seems to be going on in terms of people prepping. (And, wow, I really dislike that word ‘prepping’.)

Has there been a lull? I really couldn’t say because I don’t keep my finger on the pulse of the preparedness community – a group that is notoriously secretive to begin with. But.. I can say that when Trump won the election the blogosphere was full of “Now we don’t have to worry” sentiment which I have constantly maintained was a mistake.

The economy is doing well, gun bans are not looming (mostly), no great disaster has reared its head lately (unless you live in Puerto Rico) and you could almost say that this is a ‘good time’. But here’s the thing – when times are good is exactly when you should be getting your ducks in a row for the bad times. You don’t put on your seat belt during the accident, you put it on before the accident. Same story with preparing for [insert your favorite scenario here].

Yeah, there’s not the sense of urgency to buy guns and mags like there was when Obama was in office. And there’s not the sense of urgency to buy bleach and face masks like there was when Bird Flu was all the rage. And there’s not the same sense of urgency to stock up on generators and gasoline when Y2K was bearing down. (Hey, remember those days?) But just because the threat isn’t looming over you at the moment doesn’t mean it won’t…or that you can relax and take your foot off the gas.

Now is precisely the time you want to stay focused, and even maybe ramp things up – the economy is better than it’s been in a while, employment is up, so there’s the potential to bring in some extra money to get those last details taken care of. Now is the halcyon summer of plenty and ease that comes before the brutal and stark winter. Remember the ant and the grasshopper? The grasshopper played all summer and when winter came the grasshopper had to beg the ant for food. In some versions the ant helps the grasshopper, in others the grasshopper starves. It’s a classic fable that turns up with surprising frequency in art:

Someday Im going to have a print of this framed and on my wall…….

My opinion is that too many survivalists thought that they could relax and slow things down once Trump got elected. I think that those people are making tremendous mistakes… not necessarily because Trump wind up doing something that works against my interests, but rather because to slow things down now in a moment of relative safety is to throw away time and opportunity.

So, if you’ve slowed down since the election, or put stuff on the back burner because you figure you don’t have to worry until 2020, I suggest you rethink your position and get on the bounce.

Meeting the master of plumb-fu

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Add plumbers to the list of People I Will Look Out For In The Apocalypse.

Horrible plumbing story follows:

In every house (usually) there is a shutoff valve for turning off the flow of water into the house from the water main in the street. Additionally, at the curb in front of your house, there is a valve that the water company uses to shut off water to the house in case you don’t pay your bills or youre doing some sort of massive plumbing undertaking, etc. (Obviously, if youre not on city water this won’t apply to you.)

So, a few years back, the extremely ancient shutoff valve in the basement succumbed to age and would not close. Thus, the only way to turn off the water to the house to allow for work to be done would be to shut the valve off at the curb. All you had to do was have the water company come by, turn off the valve at the curb, and then you could replace your shutoff valve in the basement. Easy peasy Japanesey.

Problem: shutoff valve at the curb is also not working and will not close.

Result: there is literally no way to turn off the flow of water to the house.

This means that if you have a pipe break or something, you literally can do nothing except stick your finger in the broken pipe and hope for the best. The solution is to have the water company come by, turn off the water to the street (thereby turning off water to your neighbors) and coordinating with an excavating company to tear up the sidewalk, dig six feet down, replace the valve, fill the hole, replace the sidewalk. On my dime.

So…I just crossed my fingers that there’d be no pipe issues until such time as I could afford to have this excavation done. My hundred year old house had other plans.

Had a problem with the bathtub faucets that required them to be replaced. This was something that, no two ways about it, needed the water turned off. Hmmm.

So I went to the basement and figured it had been about ten years since I tried the valve, lemme try it again. Surprise..the water turned off. Hmmmm. So, my thinking was this: the valve is on its way out. If I can turn it off and on just one more time, I can shut off the water, install a ball valve right above it, open it back up, and leave it open forever and just use the ball valve above it as my shutoff. And thats what I did. And all was fine.

For a few days.

I went into the basement and I smelled water. I looked, and there was a steady drip coming from the stem of the old valve. Working it had shaken loose whatever packing was left in it and it was now leaking. It needed to be replaced. It could no longer be avoided. I contacted an excavating outfit and told them to write me up a bid. Then I went to the plumber HQ and asked if they had any suggestions.

“Well, just replace the shutoff valve.”, they said.
“Can’t. The valve at the curb doesn’t work. No way to turn off the water.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, Nick can probably do that. He changes shutoff valves on live water and gas pipes all the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He can do it live.”
“Sign me up.”

And thus, I met the Chuck Norris of plumbers. This Nick guy must have been trained by Shaolin plumbers in a monastery in New Jersey or something because, indeed, his plumb-fu was strong.

So Nick comes in, cranks, the valve shut (although the valve stem is leaking like a ten dollar hooker during Fleet Week), and readys his gear. He pulls out a new ball valve, goops it up with whatever that stuff is plumbers slather on it, loosens the old valve, and goes to work. He puts a five-gallon bucket over the pipe, reaches under with one hand, undoes the old valve, water starts shootting up into the bucket and cascading to the floor, he takes his other hand with the new valve, reaches under the bucket, threads on the new valve, and the water stops flowing. He literally did it in less time than it took to read this paragraph.

Out with the (very) old….

…in with the new.

Amount of water on my floor? A couple gallons, max. Easily remedied with some old towels and an electric fan. More importantly, there is now a working shutoff valve for the house, which means I can turn off the water if I need to…which means I can buy time on getting the valve at the curb replaced.

Soup to nuts, it was a sub-$200 job. I couldn’t hand the money over fast enough. For the last few days I’ve been having to empty a bucket under that valve twice a day and all I could think about was ‘what if…’… like what if the thing suddenly crapped out completely and water is spewing into my basement and I have literally no way to turn it off? So, yeah, the peace of mind I have now is much better.

If I ‘d known they could ‘do it live’ I’d have had this done a long time ago.

I knew a guy in high school who is now a master plumber in NYC…. I shoulda flown him out here and given him a Montana vacation in exchange for doing some work.