I was asked in email, so:

https://www.armsunlimited.com/Trijicon-HD-Tactical-GLOCK-Night-Sights-9mm-40cal-p/gl101.htm

I don’t get a piece of that action, but if youre happy with the savings you can always toss a few bucks my way.

I have 60,000 rounds of .22 ammo on hand.
“Oh, check it out… they have 550 bricks of Federal for $24.99”
AND I BUY ANOTHER BRICK!

I don’t want to say that I’m rooting for the apocalypse, but if, like in fiction, we are reduced to using .22 ammo has a form of currency I will be Fort freakin’ Knox.

I’m overreacting for humourous effect…. I pick up another brick here and there because when I go shooting it seems I always dump a couple hundred rounds of .22. And as a result I like to have my ‘shooting ammo’ stash and my ‘preparedness’ stash. The infrequent purchase of a brick or two every few months is more towards the ‘shooting ammo’ stash.

But….

It IS a lot of ammo sitting there in a pile when you look at it.

One of the ironies about winter is that when you are surrounded by snow and ice it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re water issues are over.

Once in a while someone asks me about how I keep water in a vehicle emergency kit in the winter. The answer is I keep it he same way i keep it in the summer – small pouches or small plastic bottles. But don’t they freeze? Yes.

See, the problem isn’t really about the water freezing. The problem is about how you thaw the water. The solution, of course, is pretty freakin’ obvious – the smaller the quantity of ice, the faster it will thaw.

Imagine a gallon of ice as a frozen block. Now imagine 128 1-ounce ice cubes lined up in a row. Which one will thaw completely faster? The ice cubes, of course.

There’s two ways I keep water in the vehicle – I use either the small 4 oz. ‘lifeboat ration’ water pouches or the small hand grenade sized plastic water bottles. Both are small enough you can shove them in a pocket or under your butt and thaw them out. The pouches are the easiest to thaw..they are about the size and thickness of a Pop Tart and you can thaw them in just a few minutes by sitting on them. Yes, it takes a lot of them to add up to a couple gallons of water (which you should always have in your vehicle). So what? Whether its 2 1-gallon jugs or 64 4-oz. pouches its still the same amount of water…the only difference is that it wont take two days for the pouches to thaw.

The pouches freeze quite well and I’ve never had one fail from being frozen, but, of course, whenthey are frozen try no to bang them around. The plastic water bottles have also never given me any problems and I’ve had them go through several freeze/thaw cycles. Fact is, most bottled water is packaged in bottles that are so darn tough you can pretty much ignore them. Roll a couple under the seats of your car and forget about ’em.

Melt snow and ice when you’re by the side of the road? Well, yeah, you can do that but you would be amazed at how much snow it takes to make an appreciable amount of water. I remember reading somewhere that 1″ of rain is the same amount of water as 10″ of snow.

What this means is that if you think you’re going to cut the top off an empty beer can with your pocket knife, scoop up a can full of snow, and melt it over your Zippo to drink..well..you need to do that about a dozen times to get one can full of water. Youre better off storing the stuff in your vehicle. Sure, you can do it as a last resort, but don’t you have better things to do with your heat sources?

So, for those who wonder how do you keep water in your vehicle in the winter without it freezing, the answer is: you don’t. You let it freeze, but you take steps to make sure its easy to thaw. I suppose if youre creative you could have a small ice chest in your vehicle to keep the water in and if you get stuck throw some chemical handwarmers in there to keep the water from refreezing once you thaw it.

Me, I go with the pouches….light, easy to transport, fit in my pockets, and they thaw fast.

About half 2/3rds 79% 89% 100% gone, so if you’re wanting to Pelosi-proof your 2019, you know where to go.

Man, I hate these end-of-the-world dreams. They’re never as entertaining as you would think, and they can often be pretty terrifying.

First dream was that there was some sort of weird natural event occurring..sheets and sheets of lightning were coming down and just hitting everything. I remember thinking that retreating to my house would make no difference since houses were being blown apart left and right by lightning, and I wished I’d built a nice, simple, underground concrete box big enough to hold myself and a some supplies. At that point I woke up, groaned out loud because I knew I was in for a night of bad dreams, and just resigned myself to my fate.

Second dream was a bit more average… I can’t recall the gist of it, but I was huddled at the bottom of a stairwell in some dingy alleyway, hiding under some newspaper and cardboard, hoping to remain undiscovered by Bad Guys. Of course, such is not to be. I hear voices getting closer and closer, and a voice saying they should look over in my direction. Again, wake up.

What can you do but try not to eat spicy food before bed?
—————————-

On the other hand, you can always try and tilt the odds in your favor with more magazines.

Winter seems to have decided to stick around for a while. Its been genuinely cold the last few days and the evenings have been pretty darn nippy. Its times like these I like to wargame in my head what I would do if the power (and heat) went out. See, if you lose power in the summer, it’s an inconvenience, but ny and large it won’t kill you. Oh, you’ll sweat at night without air conditioning, and you’ll have to toss out your freezer, but otherwise it’s just not a big deal. Winter, on the other hand, will mess you up, homie.

The biggest worry I have isn’t freezing to death. A buncha food and a good stack of blankets will prevent that. My concern is damage to my humble abode. Biggest danger is the pipes freezing and bursting. The obvious solution would be to turn off the main supply, open the basement tap, open the tap at the high point of the house, and let everything drain. Some folks pour antifreeze or other non-freeze liquids down the drains to keep the residual liquids in the traps from freezing.

Me, I’m more inclined to just keep the house at a balmy 50-degrees or so. Not too hard with a couple kerosene heaters. Craigslist is a boon for finding $20 new-in-box kerosene heaters in the summer. Between a couple heaters, all the kerosene I’ve stored, and isolating various parts of the house, I think I could keep things going for a few weeks. Any longer than that and there are bigger problems going on than just frozen pipes.

Not sure how Pex responds to getting frozen. It seems like it might be more resilient to the problem than traditional pipes would be. Certainly it has a bunch of other tings going for it, I wonder if a heightened resistance to freeze-induced bursting is one of them.

Anyway, its probably ten degrees out right now and I’m quite pleased to be sitting in my warm house. But, I know nothing lasts forever and that something you like can change like that *snaps fingers*…so, kerosene….lots of it.

Next house, though….its gonna be wood heat, oil heat, propane heat….cover all the bases.