Monthly Archives: March 2022

Concrete Lego

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I freakin’ love the idea of these.

Of course, I could see a couple problems. First, unless you’ve got some lovely earthmoving equipment at your disposal, moving these things by yourself or with just one or two trusted friends is going to be difficult. Then there’s the matter of having enough concrete on hand….a wheelbarrow and shovel, or a portable mixer from the tool rental place, ain’t gonna do it. And then theres the matter of time…if you can only afford one mould, its going to take..what? days…for one block to dry and cure. And when you may need hundreds of blocks…well, thats a lot of time.

I suppose you could buy the mould and make a deal with a local concrete supplier. Give him the mould(s) and as him to make you as many blocks as you need. But, then you’re still locked into the transport and privacy issues.

A smaller version of these might make more sense. I sure do like the idea, though, of concrete Lego. Just the things for building outbuildings and that sort of thing. And probably make excellent anti-vehicle barriers for the perimeter of the property.

Cool idea, lotsa potential. Logistics is a bit tricky though.

Russian ruble pegged to gold?

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This is interesting…….

Russia sets fixed gold price as it restarts official bullion purchases

Opinion: Russia just made a case for owning gold — and nobody noticed

Good for the price of gold! Russia anchors rouble to gold

So, as I read this, it seems that Russian oil will be paid for either in gold or in rubles, rather than dollars, since the rate of exchange is such that you’ll pay less for the oil in gold or rubles than you would in dollars. Or, looking at it from a different angle, the dollar is worth less than rubles and gold.

I need to read more about this…

 

More buying

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A few months back I came into a bunch of guns through an estate purchase. A few of the guns were superfluous to my needs. For example, I have utterly zero use for .40 Glocks. But, I never say no to paperless handguns at low prices, so I held them figuring I’d sell them somewhere down the line.

Ran into the mailman the other day and he mentioned that one of his coworkers had ‘seen the writing on the wall’ and wanted a good quality handgun. Did I have anything for sale? Why, yes…yes I do. (We’ll ignore the wildly obvious jokes about postal workers and guns for the moment.)

So, made a sale and had a bit of disposable cash. What to do? Well, a pizza was definitely called for. And I picked up a gift for an LMI friend of mine. The rest? Why, it goes to gilding the lily with a trip to CostCo for a few things to pump up the Preponomicon. For example, the local RV place is doing $5 propane fillups on barbecue bombs. So..another 20# was purchased to be filled because you cant have too many fuel options available.The rest goes into the land fund for the anticipated land purchase at the end of the year.

Even without the specter of inflation, pandemic, WW3 v2.0, etc, there is no guarantee that the job you think is secure will be there tomorrow. I’m not saying you need to live everyday like its the last ‘normal’ day…Im saying that you just need to remember that it really could all change tomorrow..from the mundane like a water heater repair or fuel pump replacement…to the big stuff like a job loss or earthquake. Have the mechanisms in place to increase your resilience and you don’t have to live everyday like its the last normal day..you can just live like its a normal day.

What I feel is required to make me feel safe and secure is probably going to be different in terms of items and quantities than what makes you feel safe and secure. But I’ll tell ya, if I lost my job tomorrow I would be annoyed by it…inconvenienced by it…but crippled by it? Nope. The lights would stay on, the water would still be hot, and the calories would remain unchanged. I wouldn’t want to stay unemployed a minute longer than I had to, but I could go quite a few months if I had to.

Those little, personal, EOTWAWKI’s will happen to you far more often than the big ones. For every hurricane, earthquake, or civil war you go through you’ll go through dozens of smaller, personal crises. Normalcy bias and the ‘that never happens’ mentality is what keeps most people from increasing their resilience and survivabilty against these things. “Oh, that never happens” right up until the time it does. It’s only a disaster when you’re not prepared against it.

Squirrel!

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Think about all the very newsworthy crap going on in the world right now…Russians invading, pandemic, inflation, supply chain issues…..and people suddenly shift their focus on an actor slapping another actor. If I were of the conspiratorial mind, I’d wonder how much the Biden administration paid Smith to distract people from the real issues going on.

Weekend

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Did the weekend ‘Co sopping (WinCo and CostCo) and since gas is, thus far, cheapest up at CostCo I filled up there. Mind you, I still had 3/4 of a tank of gas…but I filled up because its a uncertain thing about where the price of gas is going to go, so…err on the side of frugality and caution. For the record, it was $3.89/gal. when pretty much every place in twon was $4.10. Heck of a time to be living in when we view $3.89 gas as a bargain.

CostCo itself was unremarkable. There was rice, toilet paper, pasta, water…no signs indicating purchasing limits. So far, so good. I suspect that most people who would be inclined to stock up have already done so.

A friend of mine hit the LDS cannery the other day. It was reported back to me that they were out of quite a bit of stuff and they were a bit dodgy about letting how much inventory they had on hand be known.

Me, I’m a fairly satisfied camper. I’m good on pretty much everything although it’s not a bad thing to gild the lily by having a bit more on hand than anticipated to be necessary.

I’m thinking that as inflation starts hitting people where they live, and interest rates go up, the housing market is going to cool down and prices may start coming down. I’m going to go ahead and stay on my course to buy some property at the end of this year but who knows if the world will accommodate and not blow itself up before then.

I can’t really say what the rest of the year is going to look like but it won’t be boring…pretty sure about that.

Darwinism in action

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There’s a common phrase on the internet: “Everyone wants to be a [fill in the blank], until it’s time to do [fill in the blank] things.” Example: everyone wants to be a high-speed operator until it’s time to do high-speed operator things. Everyone wants to be a cowboy until it’s time to do cowboy things. You get the idea.

I feel like there should be a meme of “Everyone wants to be a survivalist until its time to do survivalist things”. I am curious how many of the …sheltered….snowflakes out there are going to completely lose their crap when they realize that their lives of $5 Starbucks ‘coffees’, Whole Foods fair-trade organic free-range cage-free eggs, and interpretive dance degrees have not prepared them for whatever hard times are coming down the pike. They’ll be easy to recognize because they’ll be the ones clamoring loudest for .gov to “do something” where that ‘something’ will invariably involve your money and your resources.

Former military people? Cops, nurses, ambulance drivers, and people who have seen ugly stuff on a daily basis? People who climbed the ladder but remember quite vividly what it’s like to not have enough of…anything? People who are already living on the edge? They’re gonna merge smoothly into the new normal. They know how unstable and unfair life can be. But the others….the ones we cal snowflakes and karens…theyre going to have some major adjustment issues.

On the bright side, if WW3 really does come to pass (and I doubt it will), there’s going to be a lot of people who are either going to have to come over to my side of the fence politically and socially, or theyre going to suffer grievously. And..I’ve no sympathy. When someone says that the BLM-bumperstickered, woke,  tax-n-spend, Biden-voting, hating lefty down the street needs some food, a few gallons of gas, or someone to shoot the ‘houseless’ transient kicking in their door I am gonna say “nope”.


 

 

Canning stuff

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I have all the things necessary for home canning, and I do occasionally engage in the practice. I don’t do it often because I don’t really have much need to…after all, I can always buy commercially canned vegetables and meats at pretty much any grocery. However, just because I can do something today doesn’t mean I’ll be able to do it tomorrow. Also, sometimes I cook stuff that I rather like (bunker gumbo ) and like to have some of it sitting on the shelf for a quick meal.  And, of course, when the wheels really fly off civilization and the electricity becomes a pleasant memory, I’ll have a whole freezerfull of meat that needs to suddenly be repackaged in a shelf stable manner. Canning lets me do that. And, if you’re the type with a big garden and good hunting skills, canning lets you put a lot of food away at very reasonable prices.

Anyway, I was in the local independent supermarket getting my lunch at work the other day and as I walked by the aisle where they keep the home canning stuff I saw these:

A couple cases of wide-mouth lids. And not that cheap Chinese-made crap that has been showing up on the market:

Seriously…if you’re willing to purchase this crap because it’s $2 cheaper than Ball or Kerr, you deserve the problems that are going to come from these things. From what I’ve read they don’t seal well, don’t hold seal well, are spotty in the application of adhesive, and tend to buckle. Sure, their availability may be better than Ball or Kerr, but if you have to throw away the food, or make three attempts to get a good seal, or worst of all, go into your pantry six months from now and find a jar of what looks like vomit, was it really worth the ‘savings’?

Being a good survivalist, I spoke to a few LMI and asked if they needed any lids. Why not? If the world is going to sink into another World War or Great Depression then I want those people to have every advantage possible. Short version: I want a world with more of them and less of everyone else. Brutal, but true.

One person mentioned that they hadn’t ‘gotten into’ canning yet. Picked a hell of a time to start, I told him. He said he was waiting for a course at the continuing education facility to be offered. Dude, it ain’t rocket science and time may 9or may not) be of the essence. So, for those of you who haven’t experienced the joy of filling your kitchen with heat and steam, here’s youre shopping list:

Information…don’t start a trip without a map. There are plenty of good books on the subject, the one I use and recommend is:

Read it, read it again, and then flip through it another time. Nothing magical about canning…anyone can do it. But spoiled food is dangerous ‘food’ and you really want to pay attention to what you’re doing,. It’s no different than reloading ammo in that regard…it isn’t difficult, but you do want to pay attention.

I like the pressure canning, which is necessary to can meat or any food that contains meat (sauces, stews, etc.). This is gonna be the most expensive part of the process. Just resign yourself to spending the money and know that this thing will literally last you the rest of your life. It doesn’t use a gasket so if you’re concerned about replacement part availability, this is a great choice. I use this particular model:

Yes, not cheap. But I’ve had mine for a long time and haven’t had a lick of trouble from it. This particular package comes with tools that you’ll want….lid lifter, jar lifter, spatula, food funnel, etc.  One-stop shopping. But this baby will let you can everything and in large quantities. Its big and heavy, so no glasstop ranges for this monster.

After that, its time for lids, jars, and bands. Most any hardware store (during normal times) will have them. You can’t have too many. Jars are reusable as long as they aren’t chipped at the mouth. Bands are reusable. Lids are not. Yes, some people reuse them. I don’t. Food poisoning is not worth trying to save $1 by reusing a lid or two. I don’t have the time to investigate every brand out there so I usually just stick to Ball as my first choice and then Kerr. Lots of people ‘inherit’ jars from grandma or some great aunt’s estate…thats fine but inspect them thoroughly for chips or damage.

All this stuff will fit in a large plastic tote that can sit on your basement shelving when you’re not using the canner. Find a great deal on meat? Can it. Neighbors had a bumper crop of tomatoes or something? Can ’em. Made a huge batch of vegetable beef soup and want the convenience of just heat-n-eat out of a jar? Fire up the canner.

As I said, I don’t do much gardening these days but I do hunt for bargains on meat. And when I do find a deal on meat canning it saves me freezer space, is convenient, and allows me to store a good bit of animal protein against whatever is coming. And if nothing happens? Well, it’ll still taste just fine and I’ll have saved a buncha cash.

The WTF Century

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Was in a local supermarket today and saw, for the first time in a while, some flats of canning jar lids. Specifically, wide-mouth lids. I ‘standardized’ on the regular width jars and lids years ago, and I have plenty of both, but I’ll probably pick up a flat of lids anyway, ‘just in case’. But, more than anything else, it was the availability that surprised me. Was it like seeing the first swallow returning to Capistrano? Is this the harbinger of an end, or at least a loosening, of the supply chain and demand issues that made canning lids unobtainable for the last year? Dunno.

But, what I have noticed is that some items are coming back in terms of availability. Maybe everyone who needed to stock up has done so and now demand is lower. Or production picked up and therefore there are now more of a particular product to be had. Or maybe I just got lucky. But, overall, while prices have not come down, I think availability is starting to loosen up.

Of course, a reasonable person might opine that the reason availability is up is because the increase in prices reduces the amount that people are buying…an example of why price controls usually lead to shortages.

Gas went up again by a dime, which puts local go-juice at $4.10 per gallon which is officially higher than I’ve ever seen it. The folks in power are quick to spin it as “Putins inflation” or “Putins gas increases” but any idiot with a calendar can tell you this has been going on for quite a while before Putin went all tanky on Ukraine.

For me, things are still fairly calm. I complain about gas prices, drive a little less, don’t let the shelves or gas tank get empty, and thats about it. Worried about a nuclear exchange? No. Worried about WW3.5? No.Concerned about a new Iron Curtain falling over Europe? No. I’m still of the opinion that there is nothing going on over there that’s worth the life of any American. If Europe is worried about it, let Europe deal with it. Send ’em guns and ammo, give ’em access to satellites and intel, and let them deal with it. Isolationist? Yeah, probably.

This has been a remarkably bizarre century thus far, the last ten years in particular. Ever watch a TV show that they completely changed the cast and direction of the show and it bore virtually no resemblance to the previous season? The post 2000 world is pretty much like that. I feel like the last twenty years could be best summed up as “WTF? Are you kidding me?”

Mundane things

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Economic turmoil, invasions in Europe, a handicapped American president…it’s like LARPing the late 1930’s.

I’ve been doing mostly ‘normal’ stuff as of late, although I’ve been keeping a close eye on things when I go grocery shopping. Prices seem to be rising on some things and on the things that aren’t showing a price increase there is, instead, a reduction in size/quantity. The old ‘shrinkflation’ stunt of keeping the price the same but reducing the amount of product…and hoping the consumer doesn’t pay attention to details on the packaging like quantity or size.

Interestingly, after the quick rise in gas prices, they seem to have stabilized locally at around $3.99/gal. This is…unfortunate….because I’d like to go to a gun show in Kalispell next weekend and even if I don’t buy a darn thing it’s still gonna be close to a hundred bucks just for gas.

I may be heading up to the LDS cannery next week. I need to confirm their hours and, most importantly, that they will still admit non-members. In previous times of ‘heightened demand’ they have closed the place to non-LDS, which makes perfect sense to me. Before I head out that way I’d like to make sure theyre a) open, b)not out of stock, and c) taking all comers.

I don’t really need much from them, I’m going with a friend who wants to get some things for themself. I pretty much pegged the needle on LDS cannery goodies years ago…although it doesn’t do any harm to have a couple extra cases of more recently produced foodstuffs.

All in all, it’s pretty quiet around here. For now. Mostly because I’ve spent the last thirty years or so gradually increasing my resilience against this sort of thing. I’m gonna suffer the ravages of inflation just like everyone else, difference is that unlike 90% of the population my life is at a level of resilience where the effects will cause me magnitudes of pain less than it will to the unprepared.

But..can’t get cocky. Tomorrow is another day of inflationary government spending, international intrigue, pandemic nonsense, and whatever else can possibly go wrong on this planet. Just because I made it through today with no hiccups doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t throw a curve ball that will knock me for a loop. So…gotta stay vigilant.

Evolving from Fenix 12 to 12 v2.0

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So the term “EDC”, as you know, has become the handy prepper acronym for ‘Everyday Carry”. It’s also used as a noun in interrogatives, such as “Hey man, show us your EDC” which is an invitation for every swingin’ johnson to dump his pockets on the bunk and display magazines, ammo, knives, watches, multitools, pens, flux capicators, or whatever they think they need to have on them at every moment of every day.

Theres only a handful of things that I keep in my pockets – wallet, flashlight, pocketknife. And, surprisingly, the flashlight gets quite a bit of use. So, imagine my annoyance when I discovered that I somehow lost my Fenix E11. Not a big problem since they now make the E12 which is virtually identical. Put when I went to Amazon to replace the E12 I pulled out of storage, I discovered that the E12 is also now history. Instead it has been replaced with the E12 V2.0. So..I hit the buy button.

Here’s the skinny on the E11 and E12 line of little AA-batt flashlights. For the money, I like these a lot. I’d like a SureFire even more but given that I just lost my last E11 I’m reluctant to spend $200 on a flashlight that has a higher than 50% probablity of winding up lost and rolling around  on the floor at CostCo.

I got the new E12 V2.0 yesterday and it is as handy as my older ones, but has some differences. It is slightly narrower in diameter than the older ones, although the emitter section is of the same diameter. It is also noticeably shorter, which Im not sure I like. The shorter length makes it hard to hold in your fist and operate with the thumb. But, the more compact design is welcomed by my pockets. Biggest difference is that the tailcap switch has three modes…low, med, high..which means if you want a small task light for reading menu’s in a restaurant of finding your dropped wallet in a darkened theater you can do so without lighting up the area like a movie set. Also, theres a very welcome and remarkably clever belt clip that allows you to orient the light up or down when you carry it.

Price is about the same..$27~ so no real change there. My experience has been that these are excellent little flashlights for everyday pocket carry. Pretty unobtrusive, puts out a good amount of light, pretty bombproof, run on easily acquired AA batts, and have features that make them more useful than 3-for-$5 pocket lights you find at Horror Fraught..I mean, Harbor Freight.

YMMV, of course, but if you’re looking for a solid performing little pocket life that can withstand alot of abuse and won’t break thebank, this might be worth looking at for you.