Hmmm…it’s Generator Day here at Zeropolis. Drag the EU2000 out of its protective Hardigg case, set it up, run some high-draw appliance off it for a while to make sure eveything gets a workout, clean it up, and then back to storage for another month or two until the next Generator Day. The more I think about it, the more I think that this is going to be the year I finally get the stupid battery power supply done. It’s a remarkably simple plan brought to ruin by my unparalleled laziness. See, when the power goes out I have, really, only four power needs:

• Freezer/refrigerator
• Communications – running scanners, radios, internet, computer, etc.
• Security – surveillance and associated systems
• Lighting – It’d be nice to be able to not walk into the furniture

Now, except for the fridge/freezer issue, which is where the generator comes in, all the rest of that stuff can quite happily run on a DC battery supply.

The laptop runs on DC, as does the radios, scanners, and router. Same for the surveillance system. And the emergency LED lighting runs on DC as well. And since there is no need to have an inverter to turn the DC into AC, there isn’t the usual loss of energy accompanies such things. In short, if everything runs on DC I get more bang for my electrical buck than if I tried to run it on AC.

Ideally, what I’d like to set up is something where the batteries charge as needed off the house current, and when that fails they charge (albeit at a slower rate) off a couple of strategically placed solar panels. I then run the wires into a room where I plan on keeping all the critical systems. It doesn’t have to be a huge system…it just has to be big enough to run some fairly low-draw DC stuff for three or four days without a recharge.

Last time we had an outage here it lasted quite a while. I rather liked having cable TV and internet while the rest of the neighborhood was dark.

From Guns.com:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities in Savannah have held up a shipment of magazines from Asia they contend violate Glock’s trademark.

In a release from CBP, the agency advised they had impounded a shipment container headed to Tennessee at the Savannah Port of Entry containing 591 cartons of pistol magazines. Authorities determined the Glock trademark on the packaging was unauthorized and in violation of the registered trademark, which led to the shipment– valued at $2.1 million according to the MSRP– to be seized.

Guns, used cars and drugs, man: Know. Your. Dealer.

If you buy a knock off Glock mag you’re out, what?, $20? I am far more concerned about the Trijicon ACOG knockoffs the Chinese are pushing these days. You scrimp and save to buy a nice piece of gear and then you have to worry about weasels out there scamming you. That’s just bad karma right there.

Anyway, as far as the counterfeit Glock mags go, always use a little common sense…yo’re not going to buy brand new factory Glock mags for $8.99 ea. And you aren’t going to buy a genuine ACOG for $179.99.

Got an expensive piece of gear on your shopping list? Before you plunk down your money, go Google “how to detect counterfeit [name of item]”….ACOGs, Aimpoint, SureFire, etc, etc. Even stuff like Magpul gets cloned and sold ‘for the airsoft market’. Caveat emptor, kids.

A few local folks were asing me about ordering up some Moutnain House stuff for them. Might as well try and get as many people on board as possible to knock the shipping costs down. It’ll be very similar to the last one…there’ll be a selection of #10 cans, you order what you want but your order has to be divisible by six cans since thats how many fit in a shipping box. Mix/match just so long as it totals 6,12,18,24, or whatever. Timeframe? Last one didn’t give people as much lead time as they wanted and as a result some folks missed out, so lets say…March 31. I’ll work up a list of whats available, for how much, etc, and get it posted sometime in the next few days.

400 Butler Creek magazines later, I’m pretty much done with that little deal. My vendor shipped me one last case of 100 and then let me know that they are now officially “Out Of Stock”..at least, at the price they were at previously. I hope everyone who wanted some was able to get a bunch. If you missed out, hope is not lost…I’ve a few bundles of 12 left.

Speaking of mags, Friend Of The Blog(tm) Harry over at Self Sufficient Mountain Living has a post up about magzines for his M1A. His experiences with USA-brand magazines is pretty much the same as mine and everyone else – they’re a useful way to carry spare ammo in the butt of your pistol, but not very good at actually feeding the ammo into the gun. I usually go for the OEM mag, or a respected military contract version, but if you are careful…and vet thoroughly…you can often find an aftermarket version that is just as good (or in rare cases, better) than the factory mag. The easiest and most common example are aluminum GI contract mags for the AR platform. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with one of the big contractors who cranked out hundreds of thousands  of the things. Not always, though….sometimes a contractor will screw the pooch and put out a craptacular run of mags…but it’s usually a sure bet to buy contract mags.

Mec-Gar has a great reputation and actually is the ‘factory’ in ‘factory magazine’ for many handgun makers. They are pretty much the only source I’ll use for my HiPower mags other than Browning and military contract. I’ve posted about this at length elsewhere, but the point is still valid – save money elsewhere.

Years ago I was watching an interview with Joe Rogan and he mentioned that he was taking some jobs he normally wouldn’t because he was trying to build up a stash of “F*** You Money”. (And, for brevity’s sake, I’m just going to call it Screw You Money since I try to keep the harsh profanity to a minimum in the blog.)

He went on to explain that Screw You Money is the stash of money you have that gives you the freedom to not have to do something you don’t want to do. Imagine your boss is being a real jerk…you put up with it because you have a mortgage, a car payment, etc, etc. But, if you had, say, a million in cash in the bank and the boss starts riding you, you could just say “Screw you”, walk out, and have virtually zero negative impact on your life.

Here’s an article that sums it up very nicely.

F*** you money, as you may have guessed, is uncommitted cash sitting in your bank account which you can use to live on when you need to say “f*** you!” to an asshole boss, customer, or employer of any variety.

It’s really that simple. It’s the stash of cash you will have which will allow you to operate and live as a free human being rather than a slave. I’m not saying you will have to quit work and spend your days stroking your beard on the porch and reading philosophy (although you can do that if you wish), but it will give you the option to quite simply pack up your things and tell anybody you don’t like to get out of your face.

This is good for several obvious reasons.

If you carry this idea further, you could probably have a stash of “Screw You Guns”, or “Screw You Food”, etc, etc. A stash that lets you be completely indifferent to the situation involving the stashed items.

In the broader picture, who wouldn’t love to have the freedom to just drop what they are doing and walk away from a situation they don’t like? In some ways you don’t really need a stash as much as you need to minimize your obligations that force you stay in a situation you don’t like. For example, if you don’t have a house payment, don’t have a car payment, don’t have a student loan, and have a few months worth of money in the bank…well…then your Screw You Money stash doesn’t have to be that big. The less debt and obligations you have, the less you would need for your stash.

I’m a big fan of freedom so anything that enhances my freedom is going to get a thumbs up from me. Moral of the story: minimal debt, maximum cash and you have options that you may not have had otherwise.

This is extremely interesting:

The health law’s individual mandate requires everyone to either maintain qualifying health coverage or pay a tax penalty, known as a “shared responsibility payment.” The IRS was set to require filers to indicate whether they had maintained coverage in 2016 or paid the penalty by filling out line 61 on their form 1040s. Alternatively, they could claim exemption from the mandate by filing a form 8965.

For most filers, filling out line 61 would be mandatory. The IRS would not accept 1040s unless the coverage box was checked, or the shared responsibility payment noted, or the exemption form included. Otherwise they would be labeled “silent returns” and rejected.

Instead, however, filling out that line will be optional.

If this is true, and if I’m reading it right, (two big ‘if’s) you can choose not to have health insurance and you won”t be penalized because you won’t have to tell the .gov that you are without it. I gotta tell ya, if that is actually the case then that’s pretty much all the reason I needed to vote for him right there.

As always, you have to take these things with a grain of salt, but if it’s true then it is a very nice way to get around that onerous and, to me, authority-overstepping ‘mandate’ that you must have health insurance.

I had posted about this a while back, but the post got lost in The Great Server Migration, so I figured I’d bring the subject back up. As you know, I came into a *ahem* ‘large’ quantity of Ruger 10/22 magazines last month. As I was putting ’em away for the Deep Sleep, I came across a couple things:

Back around 2014 I came across this post over at Jerking The Trigger, mentioning Triple Stitch Tactical. Up to that point I hadn’t seen any sort of magazine pouches for 10/22 mags. Some back-n-forth emails with the folks at TST wound up with me getting the pouches shown above. Nowadays, it’s a slightly different story…there are other sources for this sort of thing. However, I really liked the TST pouch, admired their willingness to work on custom stuff (for example, the single pouch in the picture is the second one the sent. They sent me one, I gave some suggested feedback, and the second one totally nailed what I was looking for.)

The chest rig has MOLLE backing and some other attachment points, so I’m not wearing it as a chest rig (unless we are somehow threatened as a species from a sudden overabundance of ground squirrels and rabbits). But it’s an exceptionally handy way to mount several mags on your belt or pack for when you’re out knocking down ‘gophers’ in someones alfalfa field.

Speaking of…still a few 10/22 mag sets left. Get ’em while they’re get-able.

I made the mistake of watching the news tonight with another pearl-clutching “expose” about those…gasp!…’ghost guns’. Never mind that you’ve been able to build your own gun with no serial numbers for quite some time….you just can’t sell it. But what really bumps my blood pressure into the stratosphere is seeing career-weasel Chucky Schumer wringing his hands and talking about that evil NRA.

I dunno about you, but in my AO it’s not a difficult task to find someone selling an AR for cash in the newspaper, at a gun show, or through a friend. Happens all the time. So if I can buy a paperless AR, completely built on a real receiver not made by some hack at his kitchen table, why wouldn’t I? But…I suppose some folks don’t have those options.

I wonder if Schumer and his fellow travelers will try to get things like upper receivers, barrels, etc. regulated in some manner. That’d be quite the trick. Did you know that in some countries it’s the barrel that is the controlled part? Yup. Go look at your Glock sometime…notice the serial number is on the framer, slide and barrel? That’s because somewhere on this planet there is a place where thats the controlled part….so Glock stamps em all.

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I had a couple people tell me “Oh, I’ll take some magazines!” and then I never heard from them again. SO….still about seven sets of 12 left.