I find the weirdest stuff when I finally get around to sweeping up the place….
ETA:
California rolls
California shimmied like a little hula figurine on the dashboard. I have virtually no experience with earthquakes except for that one time I was flat on my bed in a hospital, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and we had the strongest earthquake in 60 years. Its a very queer feeling when something as ‘rock solid’ as the ground beneath you suddenly becomes Jell-o. Its like watching the sun set in the north, or seeing water flow uphill…your brain just cannot comprehend it.
I’ll be cruising the usual discussion boards looking at peoples AARs. It is always good to learn at other peoples expense. Still trying to figure out how the California politicians will blame this on Trump…
Moral of the story: It happens. You’re not wasting your time and money by being ready for it. It DOES happen.
Independence Day
Pet Peeve #409,811:
We celebrate Independence Day, not the fourth of July.
Today is Independence Day, a holiday made possible by people with guns who didn’t like their government telling them what to do. It’s an excellent day to head to the range and practice your shooting.
Keeping things in perspective
It’s difficult to not repeat yourself when you’ve been blogging on a fairly narrow topic for over fifteen years. But, I have to remember that not everyone has been here since Day One. Thus, something I may have said ten years ago might seem like a new idea to someone who has only been following along for two years.
Case in point: I’m sure the longtime readers recall me saying, on more than one occasion, that I believe one of the signs you’ve matured as a survivalist is when you start getting as enthused, and spend as much money and effort, on food storage as you did on guns.
Guns are, after all, the sexy part of survivalism. They are also, probably, the least used prep that any of us have. We’ll wind up using a good chunk of stored fuel, medical gear, food, batteries, and toilet paper before we even make a dent in the M855 sitting in the barn. But..when someone gets ‘into’ preparedness the guns are usually the first thing they get worked up and excited by.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. But go ask a cop which one he uses more..his gun or his pen. If there’s anyone who went through Hurricane Katrina and used more than 20 rounds on shooting at people, I’d be surprised.But, we tend to focus on the gun stuff because its fun.
When someone tells me that they’re interested in ‘being prepared’ or ‘having some things just in case’, almost always the first thing I bring up is food. Sometimes money, but more often than not its food. Then fuel. Communications. Consumables. And eventually we get around to the gun stuff.
Is this to say the gun stuff isn’t important? No, of course not…when you’ve taken the time and expense to lay away thousands of dollars worth of supplies that may literally be all that is standing between you and a very unpleasant future it is natural that other people are going to want those supplies. And, sometimes, their level of insistence cannot be dissuaded by anything less than a pistol or rifle. But look at all the disasters and emergencies you’ve had in your life thus far…I’d bet that the overwhelming majority were ones that were remedied with greenbacks rather than green tip. Unemployment, transmission failures, broken water heaters, medical emergencies, etc, etc… all things that, broadly, were remedied with things other than a case of Wolf.
I mention this because I think its worth repeating… the big End Of The World will happen sooner or later, but not before a boatload of smaller, personal End Of The World happens to you. Put away the AR’s and Glocks, but expect to use all the other preps, esp. money, long before the AR’s and Glocks become needed.
The idiots one encounters when blogging
Blogging is not always horny groupies and lucrative product endorsements. Sometimes you have to deal with what could be generously described as ‘douchebags’. It used to be that the majority of them were ‘producers’ from hole-in-the-wall ‘production companies’ who somehow could never be bothered to have email addresses that were from real domains. They would say how they were developing a ‘survivalist’ reality show and blah, blah, blah. I haven’t gotten one of those in a couple years, so I suppose the trend finally died down.
However….I get emails from people every so often saying how they think the blog is terrific (although they can’t mention a single post they read on it) and how they’d love to submit a ‘guest post’. Usually this ‘guest post’ topic is only vaguely related to the normal content of the blog. So..whats the angle? Probably some sort of affiliate linkage on the ‘guest poster’s part or some other scheme. But what do I, as the blog owner, get out of it? Good question. So, when one of these parasites emailed me asking if they could do a guest post, I asked them about what was in it for me…
We’ll make up a name for our intrepid huckster…oh, lets call him ‘Danny Major’. Disco Danny sends me an email that contains this:
I have been reaching out to sites in the prepping and survival
> categories regarding the potential for offering guest posting
> opportunities. Unlike others who tout for guest posting opportunities
> I actually visit sites before I contact them and although I couldn’t
> find anything on COMMANDERZERO to suggest you accept guest posts I
> couldn’t find anything to say you don’t either, hence the ‘shot in the
> dark’ of the subject line!
My reply: Whats in it for me?
Danny Boy comes back with this: Hi, thanks for replying Commander Zero. What are you suggesting? Or is it a case of me misunderstanding your mirth and you are actually responding in the negative with a question?
Ok, let’s suss this out. I reply: I spend fifteen years working on a blog and you want to use that work and brand-building as a forum for your guest posting…thats great for you, but what do I get out of it that I can’t do myself? I’ve been posting for 15 years, I can come up with posts pretty easily. So, why would I let you post there? How does it benefit me?
If someone wants to advertise on the side of your building it would be reasonable to not give them that space for free, right? Surely Dan-O must recognize that. But….I get this non-answer: I fully understand any hard working siteowner being protective over their website. So thanks for taking the time to reply, and keep up the good work on commanderzero.com
Well, geez, thats not an answer. So: You havent answered the question. What are you providing to blog owners in exchange for the platform they are providing you?
At this point the novelty is wearing down. There’s a bit more back and forth and I tell him: Okay. I’d be happy to accept a guest post from you but I’ll need to strip it of any affiliate links.
And then…:::crickets::: silence.
It’s a pretty sleazy thing to do…you whip up a generic post that might fit the topics of a half dozen websites, load it with affiliate links, and then trot it over to some blogs to try and get the blogs owner to post it so you can collect on the links. And the blog owner gets…nothing.
I’m telling ya, this blogging thing sometimes puts you in contact with some pretty weird and annoying people.
SpecOps and ALICE legacy gear
Ah, the joys of legacy gear. Back in The Day™, and by BITD I mean the mid to late ’80’s, your milsurp gear came in one color – OD – and your attachment system was ALICE. Fastex buckles, MOLLE webbing, and MultiCam were still unknown and not quite ready for prime time. As a result, some of the longer-in-the-tooth survivalists like yours truly tend to have quite a bit of legacy gear laying around.
I mention it because I was trying (and failing) to clean up the mountain of ballistic nylon that is sitting next to my desk. In it was this wonderful little pack from SpecOps. (And, yes, it’s quite overpriced on Amazon.) It’s basically a modernized version of the medium ALICE pack. The medium ALICE pack was capable of being used with or without the frame. (The large ALICE pack, on the other hand, must be used with a frame.) I picked thse packs up years ago on closeout, I believe, so I got a fairly decent deal on them. They were purchased with the notion these would be the packs to keep in the vehicle ‘just in case’.
While the ALICE packs had a lot of flaws, most notably being wildly uncomfortable, their low price and universal availability made them a good choice for tucking a pack away somewhere and not caring what happened to it. The SpecOps bag having compatability with the older ALICE frame was a nice feature for guys who have a buncha old ALICE packs and frames laying around.
As an aside, one of the things I love about the ALICE pack is its ability to be used, with the shelf attachment, to haul jerry cans and ammo crates. Do not underestimate how handy that can be. Would you rather carry 5-gallons of gas by can handle for a mile, or would you rather have it on your back leaving your hands free?
SpecOps isn’t the first outfit to modernize/upgrade the ALICE platform. The guys at Tactical Tailor had their Malice pack for quite a few years. But, ALICE gear has faded into the past and is actually getting a little harder to find as it is awash in the mountains of surplus MOLLE/PALS gear from the last twenty years of military activities.
The new MOLLE packs are, from what I am told, quite the improvement although early generations suffered from frames that tended to be a bit brittle. Being someone who loves gear, I wound up picking one up from the folks at Old Grouch Surplus a few years back. The nice thing about the MOLLE pack is it has a separate internal compartment that holds the military sleep system, which make this a good pack for throwing in the vehicle in the winter when you want to have all that I-guess-Im-gonna-be-here-a-while gear in one place.
By the by, I don’t know if SpecOps is still a going concern or what. Their various social media outlets havent been updated in years, and the selection on their website keeps dwindling. I hope they get some new blood and start putting out more products…I’ve been rather pleased with their offerings.
Anyway, I was putting those packs away and thought it was worth a post.
The circular firing squad
I made the mistake of watching the Democrat debates the other day and was amazed at how virtually all the candidates not only are no longer trying to hide their extreme leftist views, they are actually stampeding over each other to see who can be furthest to the left. It was utterly amazing. Joe Biden actually came out of it looking like the most centrist of the bunch.
There isn’t a single person in that group of idiots I’d feel comfortable having in the White House. Especially that Elizabeth Ocasio-Warren broad. I mean, sure, she’d be our first Native American president, but….healthcare for illegal immigrants? What the hell?
Wasn’t it Napoleon who said to never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake?
I had purchased a few(!) AR’s earlier this year in anticipation of reselling them for a healthy profit as the election approached. But now…hmmm..I’m thinking I may just keep them. Just in case the Dems get their act together.
Leaking money
You know how sometimes when your car is acting up and you take it to the mechanic you consider yourself ‘lucky’ if you get out of there without spending $xxx? Yeah. Another adventure in plumbing today.
I was going down to the basement to put away some ammo and right off the bat I knew something was wrong. I could smell water. Sure enough, theres a puddle on the floor. I hate plumbing problems. Hate them. An ancient gate valve had decided now was a good time to go ahead and give up the ghost. Trouble is, it could never be in an easy-to-access area. Nope. There’s ductwork hanging from the ceiling and, of course, the valve in question is right behind the duct. And, not just any duct. A duct that has another duct coming into it form the side. So thats a three-point F.U. to deal with.
Now, it wasn’t all bad. I managed to find a plumber who could show up today, rather than next Tuesday (looking at you Garden City Plumbing & Heating), and the kid did the job pretty well it appears, and so far everythign seems to be holding together. Replaced the ancient valve with a nice new ball valve (why, oh why, would anyone use anything else???) and now life can go on. I was expecting to drop between $500-$1000 because there’s always something that keeps it from being a straightforward and simple fix. But, knock on wood, it looks like escaped with only $175 left behind.
Fortunately, part of my preps include an emergency fund. So, it was just a matter of paying the man and life goes back to somewhat normal. Except…I have to try and put the ductwork back together.
The emergency fund, however, turned a potential Big Deal into an inconvenience. I deprive myself of some luxuries in life… new car, fancy clothes, latest electronics, basic medical care…just so I can have something in the bank for when these sorts of events happen. For those keeping track, this was another case where the crisis required greenbacks and not an AR and plates. Oh, someday the crisis will happen that does require M855 and that sort of thing, but by the time that happens there will have been a hundred crises that required the greenbacks.
So…prepare for The End Of The World, but also prepare for the smaller, more mundane and localized end-of-the-worlds…and that is almost always remedied with cash.
ETA: I was right. Complications. :::sigh::: Plumber is on his way back.
The host with the most…guns
Nope..not dead. Nor in a FEMA camp somewhere. It’s tourist season in Montana which means entertaining people from outtastate. And…thats what I’ve been up to this last week.
We shall now return to our regularly unscheduled brain droppings.
Oh, and by the by, I actually had a couple people complain about the relative silence for the last week. Really? We’re all sovereign individuals here, guys. I have no obligation to anyone that I have not voluntarily undertaken to have. And, as I recall, I never undertook an obligation to post a particular amount of posts, within a particular period of time, to anyone.
So…beggars can’t be choosers. Some weeks you get four or five posts, some weeks you get two or three, and once in a while there’s a rare week of radio silence. In a world where preparedness blogs come and go after fairly short runs, barking at me over a weeks worth of silence kinda seems an ungrateful act considering I’ve been doing this longer than pretty much any other blog on the subject.
They won’t make that mistake twice
The preening for the 2020 election has begun. And, as usual, I look at it from a gun perspective.
After Trump won when virtually everyone expected a Clinton victory, gun manufacturers were loaded down with inventory hey had produced in the run up to the election anticipating some crazy panic sales when Clinton won the election. As we know, that didn’t happen and businesses were stuck sitting on mountains of inventory.
Its great to have inventory in reserve to smooth out little bumps or hiccups in the manufacturing or delivery process. Receiver milling machine #11 broke down and will take two days to fix? No problem, we have enough extras on hand to keep on schedule. Thats how it works.. But if you have too much inventory on hand, like, say, three thousand AR-15s when you normally only keep 200 in the warehouse….well, thats a problem. You’re tying up all that money, paying interest on that money, paying on the warehouse storage, and exposing yourself to the risk that the market could go soft and those rifles become worth a lot less. And…that’s exactly what happened.
You and I saw some amazing sales in the world of guns for the year or so after the election as distributors and manufacturers tried desperately to turn that inventory back into cash. And, half a loaf is better than none, so a lot of guns got sold at a loss or break-even price. Great for you and me, not so great for some of the vendors who got caught without a chair when the music stopped. (Most notably, US Sporting Co which owns Ellet Bros.)
So, what do you think will happen this next election? Gun industry folks will be very, very cautious about getting too deep into inventory or manufacturing. And that means …scarcity. Which means….Econ 101, people..anyone? ..Bueller? Bueller?…it means you will not be seeing $399 AR’s after the election. Even if the the race looks tight, and a panic buying market emerges, I think there will still be a huge reluctance on the part of manufacturers to ‘go long’ on production like they did in 2016.
The practical up shot, as I see it, is this: if there’s gun stuff you want, buy it before the election season really heats up because the usual every-four-years panic buying will occur and with reduced availability of product there will be some higher prices.