Life in the petri dish

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One of the more amusing and annoying consequences of The Current Situation is that every time I am out in public and feel the urge to cough or sneeze, I have to stifle it or risk am impromptu Salem witch trial.
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If anyone was curious, the Home Depot SKU for those buckets is 084305392411.
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I’m continuing to polish up my existing inventory of necessities. The basics were covered long, long ago. Now it’s just getting the final touches…little things that, while not necessities in any sense, are nice to have to make eating stored food a little more enjoyable….jarred garlic, soy sauce, salsa, etc, etc. One of the things I do need to pick up more of is disposable eatingware…paper plates, plastic tableware, that sort of thing. While this is, for now, a ‘grid up’ disaster it is likely the next one won’t be. Electricity may not be available. Water may be better used for drinking than washing. So…let’s scrap the need to wash dishes and just have a couple hundred paper plates, knives, forks, and spoons on hand.
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The media is, as usual, full of mixed messages. On the one hand, everything is available in copious quantity – shop as usual. On the other hand, we read that some food producers/processors/suppliers are closing up or cutting back as their labor force calls in sick. For some reason I am reminded of the old Soviet joke where the bureaucrat visits the potato farm and asks how things are going:
“Comrade, if we piled up all the potatoes we harvested, they would reach up to god’s ankles.”
Comrade”, the bureaucrat chides, “You know there is no god.”
“Comrade,”, the farmer says, “You know there are no potatoes.

When it comes to news….Doveryai, no proveryai
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So what’s going on here in Zeroland? Not much. Still feeling like my region is in that half-normal,half-not-normal stage. Other than people wearing masks, salad bar sneeze guards everywhere, and lots of marking tape on floors, there doesn’t seem to be too much change. Thus far, this is turning out to be the least dramatic apocalypse I could have imagined…I mean, up until the point I cough up a lung or something.  Sure there are some rough spots…the economic toll isn’t pretty….but so far I haven’t had to hang looters, repel boarders, eat my neighbors, cook over a camp stove, sleep in a sleeping bag, or take a dump in a hole in the ground. First World lifestyle maintained: Achievement unlocked!

But…it’s still early…might not wanna put that Donner Party Cookbook away just yet.

 

Observations

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As many of you, I am sure, have noticed…a good part of my postings aren’t so much about what I’m doing as much as they are about what Im seeing. Couple reasons for that…first of all, I’m fine. I’ve got food, fuel, supplies, etc. So do you. So there’s no need for the back-patting festival of constant posts saying “People were on line for [item] but I had plenty…”.

What I do wind up posting about is the details about how this is all unfolding and what the takeaway from it is. What worked, what didnt, why didnt it work, why did it, what should I have done, what shouldnt I have done, and so forth. In short, we’re in the middle of a global experiment in disaster management, what can we observe and learn from it? Disaster planning rarely gets a global-level real world event to examine, dissect and learn from. Katrina was the benchmark for hurricane preparedness modeling, Kung Flu is going to be the benchmark for how pandemic planning is to be planned. In reality, there’ll be a lot of ‘white papers’, death by PowerPoint, committee’s and hearings, and then very little will actually be accomplished. Bureaucratic inertia. But on an individual level, guys like you and me should be taking notes like crazy. You could probably get a lot of info just from this exercise:

Ask yourself what concerned you most during the crisis. Then ask what would have made you not concerned (or less concerned). Then, for next time, go do/get whatever that thing was that you think would have made you less concerned. Example:

What concerned you? I was worried we wouldn’t have money coming in to pay the bills.
What would had made you less concerned? Having money in the bank.
So for next time: have a large emergency fund saved up

What concerned you? The grocery stores would be devoid of food
What would had made you less concerned? Having a full pantry and freezer
So for next time: build a stockpile of stored food

What concerned you? I’d die because I’m already in poor health
What would had made you less concerned? Having taken better care of myself
So for next time: start what you can to get back into shape and being healthy

You get the idea, I’m sure.

Notably, it’s interesting to see what people rushed out and bought and in what order. According to virtually every source, toilet paper and rice/pasta were the first things erased from the supermarket shelves. It was only after a week or two, presumably when people had time to think, that they started figuring out what else they might want to stock up on.

Those things that the knee-jerk panic buyers bought? Those are things you should plan on becoming virtually instantly unobtainable. Keep plenty of those. As things progressed and people had more time to think, other stuff started disappearing. Noticing what went fast in those early days is a good indication of what you should already have had on hand.

Really forward thinkers got things done that otherwise are now rescheduled. Dental cleanings, vehicle maintenance, in-person banking (loans, mortgages), etc. That was pretty smart and something that didn’t occur to me until later.

Lotsa lessons to be learned in this crisis, guys. Just gotta keep your eyes and brain  open to learning them. Maybe the next pandemic won’t be for another hundred years like the last one, but we just don’t know. In the meantime, we’re getting first-hand real-world examples of how people will respond. Take it all in and use that information to your advantage.

Rice and networking

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There are a lot of reasons to zip your lip about your secret life as a survivalist. I won’t enumerate them all because if you’re reading this you’ve already figured most of them out. However, there are some advantages to having a few trusted fellow survivalists know about your interest – case in point:  I got a text message early in the morning from someone I know advising me that the local restaurant supply store had 50# sacks of long grain rice in stock.

I’d have missed that opportunity if someone I knew hadn’t kept an eye open on my behalf. So, there is some merit to having a few people (preferably fellow survivalists) know what you’re up to.

As an aside, I did wind up picking up a couple sacks of rice. Thing is, as it turned out, I was out of food grade 5-gallon buckets. Pro Tip: Keep extra buckets and lids on hand so that if there are any ‘last minute’ additions to your stockpile you can have the needed containers. The internet is full of expert advice on what is or is not considered a food grade bucket. And…none of it agrees. Just because your bucket has a ‘2’ stamped in the little recycling triangle doesn’t make it so. So, I headed off to Home Depot to look for a thick (.090 mil or better) HDPE food grade bucket. Turns out, they make it pretty easy to tell if the bucket is food grade:

Well, THAT was easy.

Conveniently, the bucket was, literally, marked as food grade. Cool. How many you got? I’ll take them all.

After that it was a quick washdown with 50/50 bleach/water, and then leave them to thoroughly dry. If the interior of the bucket doesn’t smell like a swimming pool after you wash it, wash it again and use more bleach.Then hammer on a couple Gamma Seal lids, fill with rice, slap a date label on there, and good to go.

This is actually one of myriads of ‘failures’ or oversights I am discovering that I have made. In this case, I should have had a stash of extra food-grade buckets around for last minute acquisitions-of-opportunity and that sort of thing.

I already had a couple hundred pounds of rice on hand but rice keeps forever, transports easily, and…I like it. So, why not grab another 150#?

While we are on the subject, here’s a collection of rice recipes. Me, I’m genetically predisposed towards towards arroz con pollo and, sure enough, that’s probably where tonights dinner is heading.

So, for those keeping track, here’s a Lesson Learned From The 2020 Flu: have extra storage containers on hand and in quantity for last-minute purchases or relocation/redistribution of supplies.

Article – Coronavirus may cause some food shortages, warns government task force

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From the “No kidding, Sherlock”-Dept:

WASHINGTON — The nation could begin to see food shortages for some products if the people working on the supply chain lack personal protective equipment, warns an internal Trump administration document obtained by Yahoo News.

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And despite the difficulties people have had in obtaining certain foods, like pasta, grocery stores are generally well stocked. Government officials have argued that any temporary shortages are the result of unprecedented demand, as people have bought more than usual, rather than an actual supply-chain breakdown.

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That, however, could change if the people who make, package and deliver food lack personal protective equipment, or PPE, including face masks and gloves,…

Told you. This isn’t anything that someone with a modicum of sense couldn’t have figured out on their own. In fact, its probably the reason people were stockpiling toilet paper. Even if they didn’t figure it out consciously, some part of them realized that toilet paper, bags of rice, and trays of meat do not deliver themselves to the grocery. It takes humans to create the product, load the truck, drive the truck, maintain the truck, offload the truck, and a million other things. And, yeah, they are cogs in a machine…and once you bust a couple teeth off a cog the machine starts acting weird.

You’re going to see this happen as cops, doctors, merchants, mechanics,infrastructure operators, computer techs, delivery people, and just about everyone who does things you don’t normally do on your own either becomes sick, stays home to avoid being sick, stays home to avoid violence, or is quarantined to stay home. Doctors appointemnts? Rescheduled? Car repair? Rescheduled. Contractor? Rescheduled. Mortgage broker? Rescheduled.

Might not happen that way, I suppose. Nature, and commerce, abhor a vacuum. Someone, somewhere, will see a need and fill it to make a few bucks. However, i’ts still a good idea to have stuff put back for when the WalMart is closed and there’s a curfew.

I imagine that the suburban and rural areas will weather it out better than the big cities, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be without it’s exciting moments.

Also, note that .gov has a way of saying “nothing to worry about” and then becomes  “there’s a possibility” which is then later retold as “may be isolated cases” and eventually winds up as “expected in some areas”. In short, when .gov tells you ‘everything is fine, nothing to worry about’ thats when you need to back the pickup up to the loading dock at Walmart.

 

 

Thoughts on ATM’s

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One of the more interesting aspects of The Current Situation(tm) is that I’m having to consider things, and think through scenarios, that were heretofore not considered.

For example, a few posts back i mentioned that I decided to pull out some cash to line the gun safe with…’just in case’. Just in case of what? Well, banks runs or outright closures mostly. I was half-right…every bank in this town closed their lobbies and now it’s strictly drive-up banking.

I went to my local ATM today and when I went to select the amount to withdraw I noticed that they had upped the amounts available to $700. Hmm.

Explore this with me: As a ‘convenience’ to customers, the bank increases the amount you can withdraw to $700. Assuming that they figure people will take advantage of that, that’ll empty out an ATM faster than when the limit was the usual $350-400, right? So, and I’m guessing here because I’m not 100% of how ATM cash magazines work, the ATM’s must be packing more cash than usual in them, right? Or, at least being refilled more often than usual. Seems logical, right?

So then we see articles like this one stating that there is anticipation by some businesses that some civil disturbances may be on the way. Is it hard to imagine that the big national bank will, ‘for safety’, close down ATM’s or limit their availability (say, shutting down outdoor ATMs and leaving only ones in occupied buildings up) to preclude people robbing these flusher-than-usual ATM’s? Wells Fargo, for example, might shut down their ATM’s in the lonely drive up lanes outside their buildings to keep someone with a tow chain and a hemi from stealing it, but leave the ones in the lobby of WalMart open. That sort of thing.

Come to think of it, as people realize that you can withdraw twice as much money as usual from your ATM, I suspect robberies of ATM users will increase.

I’m sure my thoughts on this are unique and nothing is going to change in regards to ATM accessibility….but I’ve been wrong before.

Link – Governor to take ventilators for NYC as hospitals buckle

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Now Cuomo jumps in the seize-it bus, and throws property rights under it.

NEW YORK (AP) — With coronavirus deaths climbing rapidly in New York, the governor announced Friday he will use his authority to take ventilators and protective gear from private hospitals and companies that aren’t using them, complaining that states are competing against each other for vital equipment in eBay-like bidding wars.

“If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

There is a proper response when someone tries to steal your life-saving equipment, however that response does not involve suing them.

 

Link – NJ Gov. Orders State Police To Commandeer Needed Medical Supplies

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So, if I understand this correctly, organizations that do not have the tremendous purchasing power or the seemingly deep pockets of state government managed to acquire supplies and the state, rather than actually buying those supplies themselves previously, are going to simply seize them. I mean…it’s not like the state had resources and buying power to purchase these things months or years ago, right? Right?

 

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – Gov. Phil Murphy has given New Jersey State Police orders to take N95 masks, ventilators and other personal protective equipment that health care facilities need in their race to slow the spread of coronavirus.

“While we look forward to these facilities cooperating with us and providing this equipment as needed, this order gives (police) the express authority to requisition it for distribution to our acute care hospitals and other healthcare facilities,” said Murphy in his daily COVID-19 briefing. “And needless to say, they badly need the equipment.”

This is why the first rule of Prep Club is……….

 

Inventory

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A genuine sign of the apocalypse: I had to cut my own hair. Turns out, I look good in a ball cap. It occurred to me that if I can’t find a haircut because my barber is closed up, then there must be a lot of chicks out there who can’t get their waxing done. Now theres a crisis. #welcometo1987
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Government setting up internal checkpoints and tracking your movements, standing in line for toilet paper, rationed healthcare, economic freefall, empty grocery shelves, neighbors ratting out neighbors to the police…it’s like a free 30-day trial of socialism.
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I’ve been using some of this downtime (which for me isn’t very much) to streamline a few processes. Most notably, my inventorying system. I know that there are still folks who use a clipboard and pen but I find Excel to be the shiznits for this sort of thing. Formerly, I used to keep a very simple, sortable list. As of late I’ve changed it up. I recognize that having less than the desired amount of something is not necessarily the same as a ‘go replace it immediately’, situation. Lemme give an example.

I like to keep 210 rolls of TP on hand. Thats seven of the CostCo 30-packs. Formerly, my spreadsheet would subtract the amount on hand from the amount desired and whatever the difference was is what I needed to go get. Or, put another way, I want 210, I have 208, so in theory I need to go out and buy 2. And thats how I rolled (heh) for a number of years.

As of late, I’ve changed the system to something I find more fluid and flexible but still allowing me to keep inventory numbers up. Previously, anything less than 100% was “running low”. I’ve adjusted my numbers and reformulated the spreadsheet so that if I have 90% of an item or more, I’m at an acceptable level of readiness. Anything below 90% is the trigger to immediately restock back up to 100%. Under this paradigm, if the supply of TP drops from 210 (100%) down to, say, 200 (95%~)…no immediate action required. But if it drops below 189 (90%) then it’s off to CostCo. In short, I figure that I am content with 90% of my desired amount of an item in case things suddenly go off the rails.

This did mean making some adjustments to what my desired levels are on some things. It meant assuming, worst case, I would start the apocalypse with 90% of what I thought would be the perfect amount. Some things I was cool with that (TP), some I was not (rice) and so those items had their amounts bumped up.

I’ve got it set now so that anything on my spreadsheet that is at more than 90% shows up in green, and anything below 90% shows up in ‘warning yellow’. Anything below 75% show up in ‘danger red’. So, at a glance, I can see by color code what needs attention and how soon.

I’ve been plugging a few holes in my list lately and, surprisingly, with the exception of 25# bags of long grain rice, anything I need thats on my list is available somewhere in this town. Tell you what, gang…this is the slowest moving end-of-the-world I’ve ever seen. Where’s the cannibal army? Where’s the rogue military units? Where’s the plucky survivor who rallies the townies? Where’s Charlton Heston?

Ah, but seriously… I suspect it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and the getting better part won’t necessarily be the same as ‘back to normal’. Much how things never got ‘back to normal’ after 9/11. But, for now, I’m just watching the news and my local scene, wondering when the real crapstorm is gonna start.

His mind is not for rent….

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If it bleeds, it leads. Thats the axiom when it comes to news. (Trivia: I started college as a journalism major. I finished as..well.. I’ll let you know.)

It seems that the Kung Flu is having to share time with blaring headlines about 31% unemployment coming soon. And our governor just announced a moratorium on evictions, utility shutoffs, and that sorta thing. A recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP, seems all but guaranteed. Prisons are emptying, hospitals are floundering, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! Haven’t you heard? The world is coming to an end!

Darn hard to keep a smile going with that sort of news. But…is it really news? Is it real news? Is it the dreaded ‘fake news’? Or is it just the most sensational way to get click on Reuters website? Should I max out the credit cards with the expectation that the ‘boogaloo’ is about to happen? Or do I carefully navigate my way through the upcoming societal detritus to the inevitable upswing on the other side? Stuff is getting real, that seems certain….but the news…they only tell you the worst of it, right?

At this point, I’m really willing to start believing that news is subjective. Get your news from as many different sources as you can, apply some critical thinking, and then you decide for yourself whats really news.

My grandfather, a man from the era of a high school education being considered higher learning, read all three newspapers every night…The NY Times, The Daily News, and The NY Post. It never occurred to me, as a stupid kid, to ask him why he sat up late at night at the kitchen table, listening to WNEW’s Make Believe Ballroom on the radio, reading newspapers, but whatever the reason was I’m pretty sure that after reading those three papers, with their three disparate points of view, he had a more rounded and well-informed opinion about the news than most people.

I try to get my information from equally as disparate, dispassionate, and disconnected sources. I play both sides of the fence…I listen to Fox and I listen to NPR. I watch CNN and I watch BBC. I read the books people think everyone should read, and then I read the books people think no one should ever read. And then…I make up my own mind.

No doubt, there is trouble ahead….but how much trouble, what kind of trouble, and for how long…. no one seems to really have any statements that everyone else can agree on. So, I take them all in and try to filter them as best I can. I suppose I could play it safe and go with ‘worst case scenario’ but I think thats a tad uncalled for. I think I’m going to proceed carefully and deliberately in everything I do moving forward until such time as I can loosen my hands on the reins a bit. When will that be? Not sure, but, whether we like it or not,  we’re definitely going to find out.

Moral of the story: don’t believe everything you read, but don’t disbelieve it either. Put your bran cells to work and examine, inspect, question, and evaluate what you’re told. Then act accordingly.