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

With the absolutely insane prices on ammo these days its getting pretty expensive to go out and do a little shooting. Even if you reload, which you should, its still expensive. Thus, Im in the market for a .22 conversion kit for the AR’s for practice. I’d love to get the .22 conversion for the PTR-91 but the OEM HK product is still about $550. Although, to be fair, while $500 would buy a decent amount of .308 ammo to practice with, the $500 investment would probably make more sense in the long term. For an AR conversion Im toying with picking up one of the original Colt conversions. I know theres other brands out there but the Colt seems to be a solid performer, although limited by 10-rd mags. (Although its possible someone else could be making mags for them now, I’ll have to check.) I very much want to practice move/shoot drills with the AR and the only way Im going to be able to afford that is with a .22 conversion. I could probably get away with using the 10/22 since what Im really after is practicing moving while shooting, fast sight picture, steady sight picture while advancing/retreating, etc. but I prefer to use the AR if I can. I should, however, probably pick up a set of sights for the Ruger to duplicate the AR sight picture.

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So gas is $4 a gallon. I do not understand why the environmentalists aren’t jumping up and down for joy over this. Gas at $5 (or more) per gallon would give environmentalists everything they ever dreamed of. It would force people to make hard choices about things like carpooling and public transportation, encourage manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles, dissuade people from purchasing gas guzzlers, promote the idea of conservation, encourage public transit, and a hundred other enviroweenie things that most people haven’t been terribly receptive to.

Me, I ride my bike more and try to drive less. My whole world probably exists within a 1-mile circle. My home, business, grocery, bank, post office, and UPS are all within about 12 blocks from where I live. If it weren’t for sometimes having to haul heavy packages I could probably do quite well without a vehicle and for a number of years, in fact, I did just that. It just wasn’t worth the costs of insurance, fuel, maintenance and the like when I never really went anywhere.

However, there are times that a vehicle comes in handy. Esp. if you get The Call in the middle of the night and you have to vamoose to a Secured Location with whatever you can grab in ten minutes. For those times, and the times when fuel may be scarce, we do keep a bit of gasoline put back in storage (and treated for such). Im not going to go into the whole thing about how to store gasoline safely and effectively, you can get that anywhere. Go Google up some stories from Katrina and Rita to see why having a supply of extra gasoline can be a remarkably good thing to have.

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Speaking of bicycle, I haven’t sat down with the bicycle repair/maintenance book I got. I really need to though because I need to see exactly what Im going to have to pick up in the way of tools and other goodies. By extension, I’ll then also need to pick out a tool kit to keep with the bike along with some parts for unplanned repairs. (I almost said ‘emergency repairs’ but sitting by the side of the road with a flat tire doesn’t seem, in my mind, to really be an emergency unless theres a horde of zombies on your tail.)

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Off to the LDS cannery this evening. For what? Nothing really. Someone I know is going and I want to tag along so I can learn more about the place and, more importantly, perhaps gain a measure of acceptance to bank against future visits. In short, I’d like to try not to be a stranger to the people running the place.