Routine

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I was talking to my mailman letter-carrier today and we got onto the topic of absurd city politics and taxes and social programs. This further reinforces my belief that people who spend a lot of time in vehicles all day (truck drivers, letter carriers, etc.) tend to be fairly like minded. Not sure its a result of having not much to listen to except talk radio, or if people who are like minded wind up gravitating to those jobs. It is, however, kinda consistent.
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I’ve been trying to get into some better habits lately. Most notably, I really need to consistently leave things like my keys and phone in the same place every time I return to the house. There are plenty of things in this house that are always, always, always left in the same place in order to facilitate not having to think about it in an urgent situation. If something goes bump in the middle of the night, I know there’s a flashlight and gun sitting on the shelf by the bed. If I poke a hole in me, I know there’s a pretty comprehensive first aid kit in the living room, if I need to run outside in a hurry I know there’s always a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt by the door…..that sort of thing.

But thats what habits are – an unconscious behaviour. Something that requires no active thought on my part, but happens automatically…like breathing or blinking. And a few months ago I had a hell of a time finding my keys when I was in a hurry and after thinking about it I realized that, yes, I need to have that same level of ‘don’t need to think about it’ going on with my keys.

From a survivalist standpoint, some habits (or routines, if you will) are bad… outside actors can observe your routines and take advantage of them. For example, my neighbor is a schoolteacher. I know, with utter certainty, when her house will be empty and for how long during the day. Were I of a different mindset, that information would be useful for nefarious purposes. But on the other hand, some habits… like always locking the door, checking the world news first thing in the morning, keeping gas tanks at least half full, etc…promote a more prepared life without exposing oneself to risk.

Many shortsighted (in my opinion) people equate routines with boring and mundane existence. I see routines as providing security and stability….two things I desperately want. All aspects of a personas life don’t have to be routine, obviously, but for me there are certain things in life I would like to have be predictable and routine. And there are some things I would very much like to be wildly unpredictable and  spontaneous. But on the whole, for me, I crave the security, stability, and predictability that comes from having some things be habit and routine.

There are other routines/habits Im trying to develop, and all of them, I think, go along towards increasing my level of general preparedness. They are, however, a pain in the ass to develop when you’ve never done them before.

Anyway, thats my thoughts for the day. (Speaking of which, a good routine I need to get into would be  a more regular posting schedule.)
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Thought For The Day:

Article – The Gun Guru of YouTube

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And, interstingly, it isn’t Ian.

Someday John Correia will meet Jesus. As an ordained pastor, he has thought about how their first conversation will go. That is why he keeps his Heckler & Koch VP9 loaded with a 9-mm magazine in pristine condition. “You’re only going to draw a gun on the worst day of your life,” Correia told me. “You want to make sure the equipment works. I treat these mags like babies.” If he drops one and dents it, he never carries it again. “I don’t want Jesus to look at me and go, ‘How come you didn’t test your equipment, dummy?’ ” Better to be shot dead in a fair fight. “At the very least I want him to say, ‘He smoked you! He was better than you!’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes, Lord, I got smoked.’ ”

Nothing terribly noteworthy, in my opinion, here except that it’s not the usual my-side-or-their-side article about guns and people.

Craigslist shelving

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Looking through Craigslist for a particular item is like shopping for hookers… there’s a lot of scary, weird, scuzzy choices but once in a while you find Julia Roberts.

As I mentioned a ways back, CostCo has replaced the wire shelving I normally buy with, what is to me, an inferior replacement. Specifically, my main criticism is the lack of reinforcing rib running the along the center length of the shelf. The shelves I have can get loaded down with some heavy goods pretty quickly…I don’t want substandard shelving.

So, I trotted over to Craigslist and found someone selling four of the shelves (not a complete unit, just the shelves) for twenty bucks. And they had the reinforcing rib. And they were willing to deliver! (I had them drop it at a neighbors place a few doors down from me…y’know…PerSec). Score!

So for $20 I got enough shelves to allow me to use the S-hooks and a couple leftover uprights to add another column to my existing run of shelving. Go me!

Moral of the story: sometimes you can find exactly what you’re looking for on Craigslist.
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And, just for the sake of consistency, I shall continue to flog the 10/22 mag deal until someone cleans me out on these things.

By the case? Buy the case….Pt IV

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About 18 months ago my local Albertsons had a good sale on pasta and I took advantage of it like Bill Clinton takes advantage of interns. Well, that sale came back and I decided i could use a few(!) cases of rigatoni.

Shopping carts are for amateurs. When the Zero stocks up, he goes deep.

Savings? Well, according to my receipt, what normally would have cost 238.80 came out to sixty bucks. (Got careless, forgot to ask for the 10% case discount.)

The apocalypse will be a fairly carbohydrate-heavy experience what with all the rice and pasta in storage, it seems.

In actuality, this is mostly my desire to have a large amount of day-to-day use items on hand in case some sort of financial donkey punch occurs. When you show up at work one day and your boss says “We’re being bought out by another company. This office will close in three weeks. Good luck.”, you really want to have some of the expensive niggling details (like food) locked down. Also, I just feel calmer and more at peace when I look at the shelves and see boxes and cans of food, racks of toiletries, paper towels, soap, detergent, and all the other consumables that keep my quality of life above that of some Third Worlder.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to stockpile the cash instead of the food if I am worried about such things? Well, yes…except for that part about the fabulous sale. Lets put it this way: You have $60 cash in hand..save it or buy food? If you’re worried about a job loss, for example, and you’ve tied that $60 in food, then you only have that one thing (food) covered. But if you keep the $60 in cash, you can use it to buy food..or fuel..or electricity. So does that mean it makes more sense to stick that $60 in the bank? Nope.. heres why: I didn’t buy $60 worth of food. I bought $240 worth of food and paid $60. Or, put another way, if I stuck that $60 in the bank, when I used it in the future I’d get only $60 worth of food. In this particular case, my purchase power today was 4x what my purchase power would be with that same $60 later.  (Disregarding inflation, which would actually make todays purchase more than 4x the purchasing power.) The more clinically minded of you will say “Wait, we’re drifting into Time Value Of Money country..” Yes. Yes we kinda are.)This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put money away as part of your preps…it just means that you need to think about things past the obvious. Maybe you already do that..I didn’t used to. Preparedness is really about resource management in regards to risk reduction – we try to get the most for our money when we take steps to protect ourselves from future problems.

Regardless, I’m pleased with todays purchase. It’s more food on the shelf and one less thing I have to worry about acquiring when/if I hit an economic rough patch.

Article – Can a Harbor Freight Generator Really Beat a Honda?

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Mmmmm…mags…mmmm
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Harbor Freight, a giant retailer of low-priced tools and power equipment, has been around since the 1970s. If you live near a Harbor Freight store, chances are you’ve received a circular comparing the Predator 62523 recreational inverter generator to the Honda EU2000iT1A1.

Given the big price difference—the Predator sells for $500 and the Honda for $1,000—are they comparable? Yes, according to Consumer Reports’ testing.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But for mission-critical gear I’ll spend a few extra bucks and have confidence (and perhaps better customer support) in my purchase.

Any generator is probably better than no generator, but I would choose the Honda. However, if all you can afford is a HiPoint Harbor Freight………