Went to the Wisdom gun show yesterday. Im fairly content with my personal armaments at the moment, so Im not really looking for any more guns. I mean, sure, there are more Id like to have but the core needs and core redundancies have been met. Theres only a couple things left I need in the way of thundertoys…a Beretta 21A, a Ruger MkII…thats really about it…

So, when I go to the gun shows Im more likely to be looking for surplus goodies to make my life as Commander Zero a bit more secure.

Rolled into Wisdom (and if your a bit light on the brakes you can roll completely through Wisdom) and found a fella with a table full of surplus gear. Some interesting stuff too. Bandage scissors, still in the wrap, sound-powered phones, machetes, bear suits, etc, etc. What did the Zero find that made him part with his hard earned $? A couple of never used spools of two strand commo wire. 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile. These are spools in a canvas carrier with clips for a sling. One end goes to your phone, you start walking and the wire plays out behind you, and then the other end goes to the other phone (or switchboard), I have 2 1/4 mile coils of European 2-strand but its not packaged nearly as handily as this US stuff. This will go nicely with the TA-312 phones I have.

Also picked up a couple MOPP-suit stuff sacks. Nice camo compression sacks used for keeping your chem-warfare suit in. Make terrific sleeping bag stuff sacks. Camo with compression straps, ALICE webbing, sling eyes and an ID window. Five bucks each. w00t. Took a pass on the very nice, very durable US military water jugs. They were really nice! But, I’ve already got enough civillian ones so no point sinking $10 into something I really didnt need.

The Big Hole Valley, where Wisdom is located, is a very nice, very scenic area. There were plenty of places where you could look around and not see a house or building in any direction. Places like that are always nice to dream about living on, but unless youre bringing a fabulous pension or a job with you making a living in these places is a major trick. I suppose if you had an internet biz of some sort that brang in around $30-40k a year you’d do okay. Tall order though. On the other hand, if the land were cheap enough it might make sense to buy a few acres now and just hold onto it until later…make some small improvements so you could move there whenever youw anted (or needed) to. Always nice to have a place to go….

Also saw a few interesting vehicles the other day. An FJ-55 Toyota LC (ca. 1970) for sale. Wagon-type vehicle, so no open bed but still lotsa room. $1700. Be a fun vehicle to start teaching myself automobiles on. Make a nice little hunting rig. Saw a very old Toyota LC pickup truck the other day. It must have been 50 years old if it was a day. Looked like it could climb right up the side of a tree. Wish Id gotten some pics.

Ah, the dreams of the armchair survivalist……………

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

“Tell us Commander, what do you think?” -”Its A Mistake” – Men At Work.

I had a dream last night that the US went to war with Iran. (20 years too late, I might add) I remember in the dream getting a falling feeling in my stomach as I watched the news because I was worried that this might directly impact my life negatively. And by negatively, I mean *aggressively* negatively…not just higher oil prices. I'm talking suicide-bomber-in-the-shopping-mall, backapck nuke sort of aggressive.
=====
Im feeling out of sorts lately. Part of it is my civillian life having a bunch of various stresses, part of it is my feeling of 'being on hold' as Commander Zero… theres things I want to do and I just cant seem to get them done. I do find some relief in straightening up and organizing things and, basically, just sitting amongst my accumulated stuff…but thats not enough. Its tough preparing for the apocalypse on a budget. Especially when your civillian life makes demands on your resources. This is, of course, perfectly normal…in the real world there are duties and responsibilities to be performed. Its just frustrating sometimes.
=====
I need to investigate new gutters for the front of the house. I want to capture rain runoff for use in gardening. No point paying for water that I dont have to.
=====
Made a really cool pull-fuse igniter out of some Home Depot plumbing fixtures. Unscrew one end, insert a shotgun primer, thread in a length of cannon fuse and screw the cap back on. Pull and release the firing pin and the shotgun primer ignites the fuse. Very cool. Of course, the shotgun primer can be used by itself without the fuse to turn the device into a trip signal. Total cost..Umm…about $10 in brass fittings and some screws. Machining work? Drill a 1/8 hole in one cap and a 5/32 in the other one. Piece of cake.
=====
One of these days Im going to get thos estupid freeze drieds ordered up. Grr.

“Tell us Commander, what do you think?” -“Its A Mistake” – Men At Work.

I had a dream last night that the US went to war with Iran. (20 years too late, I might add) I remember in the dream getting a falling feeling in my stomach as I watched the news because I was worried that this might directly impact my life negatively. And by negatively, I mean *aggressively* negatively…not just higher oil prices. I’m talking suicide-bomber-in-the-shopping-mall, backapck nuke sort of aggressive.
=====
Im feeling out of sorts lately. Part of it is my civillian life having a bunch of various stresses, part of it is my feeling of ‘being on hold’ as Commander Zero… theres things I want to do and I just cant seem to get them done. I do find some relief in straightening up and organizing things and, basically, just sitting amongst my accumulated stuff…but thats not enough. Its tough preparing for the apocalypse on a budget. Especially when your civillian life makes demands on your resources. This is, of course, perfectly normal…in the real world there are duties and responsibilities to be performed. Its just frustrating sometimes.
=====
I need to investigate new gutters for the front of the house. I want to capture rain runoff for use in gardening. No point paying for water that I dont have to.
=====
Made a really cool pull-fuse igniter out of some Home Depot plumbing fixtures. Unscrew one end, insert a shotgun primer, thread in a length of cannon fuse and screw the cap back on. Pull and release the firing pin and the shotgun primer ignites the fuse. Very cool. Of course, the shotgun primer can be used by itself without the fuse to turn the device into a trip signal. Total cost..Umm…about $10 in brass fittings and some screws. Machining work? Drill a 1/8 hole in one cap and a 5/32 in the other one. Piece of cake.
=====
One of these days Im going to get thos estupid freeze drieds ordered up. Grr.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Tried out the Nestle Nido last night. Mixed results. As I understand it, regular off-the-shelf whole milk is soemthing like 4% fat. This stuff is 6 times that. So, if you mix it as a drink its very, very rich. Imagine drinking melted vanilla ice cream. On the other hand, the girlfriend thought it tasted great. For cooking, it seemed fine in the very limited test I gave it. I used it with some of the Idahoan add-milk-and-water instant potatoes and it seemed to work. I'm going to pick up some pudding mix and try it with that as well as some baking stuff.

My opinion is that this stuff does not taste like regular milk, BUT its far and away more palatable (to me)than the 2% skim milk crap that is out there now. Its alot like Half-N-Half….I would say it would be an outstanding substitute for cream and would work well in any application that requires cream or H/H. Probably a great number to add to your coffe.

So….I'll probably pick up a half dozen tins of the stuff at the next opportunity.

Tried out the Nestle Nido last night. Mixed results. As I understand it, regular off-the-shelf whole milk is soemthing like 4% fat. This stuff is 6 times that. So, if you mix it as a drink its very, very rich. Imagine drinking melted vanilla ice cream. On the other hand, the girlfriend thought it tasted great. For cooking, it seemed fine in the very limited test I gave it. I used it with some of the Idahoan add-milk-and-water instant potatoes and it seemed to work. I’m going to pick up some pudding mix and try it with that as well as some baking stuff.

My opinion is that this stuff does not taste like regular milk, BUT its far and away more palatable (to me)than the 2% skim milk crap that is out there now. Its alot like Half-N-Half….I would say it would be an outstanding substitute for cream and would work well in any application that requires cream or H/H. Probably a great number to add to your coffe.

So….I’ll probably pick up a half dozen tins of the stuff at the next opportunity.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Went to the Bozeman gun show yesterday. Got there way too early so i had about two hours to kill. It was almost a hundred degrees and I needed a place to be cool, onobtrusive, and highly amused or entertained. Solution? WalMart!

I used to say that CostCo was the best thing to hit the preparedness market since the MRE. No longer. Personal quartermaster thy name is SuperWalMart.

So Im wandering through WalMart with ZeroVision(tm) fully active…you know, looking for foods that have long shelf life, convenient durable packaging, etc, etc. And I found a very promising product.

Some background: instant milk sucks. No matter how you mix it, it always tastes horrible. One of the reasons is because all the dehydrated instant milk you find is low-fat, and frankly low fat milk tastes like crap even when you get it out of a carton. Thats when I noticed this in the 'Ethnic/Mexican food/ section. Notice the label carefully: WHOLE milk. Yes, WHOLE milk…complete with , as the label says, 26% milk fat. So its real milk..not that lowfat crap. This is a product that, as it turns out:

is a dry whole milk product that is commonly sold in the Middle East. It is marketed as a way for adults and children to get the nutrition of milk when fresh milk is not available. In Middle Eastern cooking, it is incorporated into many dishes that call for goat milk. Nido is finer in texture than regular dry milk, lending a creamier consistency to casseroles, sauces and puddings.

Nutritional data? No sweat: http://www.dietfacts.com/html/items/19100.htm

Shelf life? About two years. Price is , out of WallyWorld, $2.78 for enough to make approx. 13 8-oz. servings…so about a gallon. A larger container (about 2-3#) is available also. Container is a cardboard drum with metal bottom and a faoil 'pull away' top..much like what you get when you buy cool-aid or gatorade.

I tend to not drink milk but I really want to like this product for cooking purposes. Between dehydrated eggs and dehydrated whole milk, I've got a good part of my dairy needs met. I'll be trying this stuff out tonight in a very simple test: using it with instant potatoes. But, I also want to try mixing it with Tang to make orange smoothee type drinks as well as things like pudding, cream sauces and that sort of thing.

By the by, this is a Nestle product, “Nestle Nido”, bar code is 0 28000 78645 8. Nestle doesnt have much about it on their website but apparenty Spanish and Arabic food specialty places may be your best bet on it. Several internet grocers seem to be carrying it. I bet a WalMart near any Spanish part of town would carry it as well as some bodegas.
=====
Although I usually carry the Glock in a Bianchi #19L holster, I've come to the conclusion synthetic is the way to go with the Glock. While at the show I saw an injection molded number made by Blade-Tech, The Kydex was twice the money but it didnt have this very nice belt attachment device, and I figured for $20 I couldnt go wrong. We'll see how it works out.
=====
Ran into Militia Of Montana has-been John Trochman. John may or may not be 'active' in whatever remains of the militia movement but theres no doubt he's active in the sales division of it….he had a dozen tables selling everything..mostly books, vidoes, first aid gear, and my favorite – parachute flares. Which reminds me, a guy was selling 40mm white star parachute flares for usein M203's. If I had something that launched 40's I'd have gotten some.
=====
I'm jazzed about trying this new milk product. Details to follow.

Went to the Bozeman gun show yesterday. Got there way too early so i had about two hours to kill. It was almost a hundred degrees and I needed a place to be cool, onobtrusive, and highly amused or entertained. Solution? WalMart!

I used to say that CostCo was the best thing to hit the preparedness market since the MRE. No longer. Personal quartermaster thy name is SuperWalMart.

So Im wandering through WalMart with ZeroVision(tm) fully active…you know, looking for foods that have long shelf life, convenient durable packaging, etc, etc. And I found a very promising product.

Some background: instant milk sucks. No matter how you mix it, it always tastes horrible. One of the reasons is because all the dehydrated instant milk you find is low-fat, and frankly low fat milk tastes like crap even when you get it out of a carton. Thats when I noticed this in the ‘Ethnic/Mexican food/ section. Notice the label carefully: WHOLE milk. Yes, WHOLE milk…complete with , as the label says, 26% milk fat. So its real milk..not that lowfat crap. This is a product that, as it turns out:

is a dry whole milk product that is commonly sold in the Middle East. It is marketed as a way for adults and children to get the nutrition of milk when fresh milk is not available. In Middle Eastern cooking, it is incorporated into many dishes that call for goat milk. Nido is finer in texture than regular dry milk, lending a creamier consistency to casseroles, sauces and puddings.

Nutritional data? No sweat: http://www.dietfacts.com/html/items/19100.htm

Shelf life? About two years. Price is , out of WallyWorld, $2.78 for enough to make approx. 13 8-oz. servings…so about a gallon. A larger container (about 2-3#) is available also. Container is a cardboard drum with metal bottom and a faoil ‘pull away’ top..much like what you get when you buy cool-aid or gatorade.

I tend to not drink milk but I really want to like this product for cooking purposes. Between dehydrated eggs and dehydrated whole milk, I’ve got a good part of my dairy needs met. I’ll be trying this stuff out tonight in a very simple test: using it with instant potatoes. But, I also want to try mixing it with Tang to make orange smoothee type drinks as well as things like pudding, cream sauces and that sort of thing.

By the by, this is a Nestle product, “Nestle Nido”, bar code is 0 28000 78645 8. Nestle doesnt have much about it on their website but apparenty Spanish and Arabic food specialty places may be your best bet on it. Several internet grocers seem to be carrying it. I bet a WalMart near any Spanish part of town would carry it as well as some bodegas.
=====
Although I usually carry the Glock in a Bianchi #19L holster, I’ve come to the conclusion synthetic is the way to go with the Glock. While at the show I saw an injection molded number made by Blade-Tech, The Kydex was twice the money but it didnt have this very nice belt attachment device, and I figured for $20 I couldnt go wrong. We’ll see how it works out.
=====
Ran into Militia Of Montana has-been John Trochman. John may or may not be ‘active’ in whatever remains of the militia movement but theres no doubt he’s active in the sales division of it….he had a dozen tables selling everything..mostly books, vidoes, first aid gear, and my favorite – parachute flares. Which reminds me, a guy was selling 40mm white star parachute flares for usein M203’s. If I had something that launched 40’s I’d have gotten some.
=====
I’m jazzed about trying this new milk product. Details to follow.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The girlfriend ordered up some shotgun parts from Wilson last week or so and they arrived today. I was messing around with her shotgun the other week and noticed there was no spring pressure against the rounds in the magazine. Very bad. The follower was binding up against the inside of the mag tube. It seems that many recent made Rem 870's have two 'dimples' pressed into the end of the mag tube. These dimples prevent the follower from coming out of the mag tube when you unscrew the end cap. This also means that if you screw on an extended magazine the follow will not be able to use the additional length. THe obvious solution is to simply drill out the two indentations. No problem. Usually. Depending on how good a job you do there can still be problems. To make sure that this isnt going to be a problem at all, we orderd up a handfull of Wilson high visibility followers. Theyre about $6 each and are a more rigid plastic and slicker than the factory OEM followers. Should make a big difference.

While going through the catalog I noticed that they do AR work, including adding flash supressors and muzzle brakes. Ah!!!

The girlfriend'as AR's are both post ban models (but not post-post ban which would = pre-ban). One has a bare muzzle and the other has the most obnoxious muzzle brake ive ever been exposed to. (Y-comp by Bushmaster). Every time I shoot it, its like someone sneezed in my face…theres a concussive wave that blows my hairline back. Its incredibly obnoxious. I figured we'd have to get new uppers. Nope. I called Wilson and told 'em what we had and could they remove the 'permanently attached muzzle brake', thread the barrel for the normal 1/2×28 TPI and put on an A2 birdcage. The answer? “Sure.” Cost would be about $59.95 + $15 labor. So $75…cheaper than a new upper. Then we can, at our leisure, put on an A@ birdcage or a Vortex. My backup Ar (”Plan B”) has a 'AK type' brake on it but Ive never had problems with it and rather like it, so I'll leave it as is. I've fired it at night and see no discernable difference in its suppression ability versus the A2 birdcage.

While flipping through the very, very nice Wilson catalog I cant help but notice the spare parts and whatnot. Im not paying $1400 for a 1911 but I could use some spare magazine tube springs, sling attachments and a few other nice little gimmicks.

So, lesson for today – if youre stuck with a post-ban AR barrel you can get it 'normalized' by Wilson for about $75. No FFL needed since youre only sending the upper, not the serial numbered lower.

The girlfriend ordered up some shotgun parts from Wilson last week or so and they arrived today. I was messing around with her shotgun the other week and noticed there was no spring pressure against the rounds in the magazine. Very bad. The follower was binding up against the inside of the mag tube. It seems that many recent made Rem 870’s have two ‘dimples’ pressed into the end of the mag tube. These dimples prevent the follower from coming out of the mag tube when you unscrew the end cap. This also means that if you screw on an extended magazine the follow will not be able to use the additional length. THe obvious solution is to simply drill out the two indentations. No problem. Usually. Depending on how good a job you do there can still be problems. To make sure that this isnt going to be a problem at all, we orderd up a handfull of Wilson high visibility followers. Theyre about $6 each and are a more rigid plastic and slicker than the factory OEM followers. Should make a big difference.

While going through the catalog I noticed that they do AR work, including adding flash supressors and muzzle brakes. Ah!!!

The girlfriend’as AR’s are both post ban models (but not post-post ban which would = pre-ban). One has a bare muzzle and the other has the most obnoxious muzzle brake ive ever been exposed to. (Y-comp by Bushmaster). Every time I shoot it, its like someone sneezed in my face…theres a concussive wave that blows my hairline back. Its incredibly obnoxious. I figured we’d have to get new uppers. Nope. I called Wilson and told ’em what we had and could they remove the ‘permanently attached muzzle brake’, thread the barrel for the normal 1/2×28 TPI and put on an A2 birdcage. The answer? “Sure.” Cost would be about $59.95 + $15 labor. So $75…cheaper than a new upper. Then we can, at our leisure, put on an A@ birdcage or a Vortex. My backup Ar (“Plan B”) has a ‘AK type’ brake on it but Ive never had problems with it and rather like it, so I’ll leave it as is. I’ve fired it at night and see no discernable difference in its suppression ability versus the A2 birdcage.

While flipping through the very, very nice Wilson catalog I cant help but notice the spare parts and whatnot. Im not paying $1400 for a 1911 but I could use some spare magazine tube springs, sling attachments and a few other nice little gimmicks.

So, lesson for today – if youre stuck with a post-ban AR barrel you can get it ‘normalized’ by Wilson for about $75. No FFL needed since youre only sending the upper, not the serial numbered lower.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

In a nice bit of irony, moving water storage barrels is …well…thirsty work.

The barrels, being new, needed some cleaning 'justin case'. A bucket with a couple gallons of boiling water, a healthy dose of baking soda, slosh around well and -presto- clean smelling…..mmmmmm.. A rinse with some bleach to make sure and we're good to go. Now the fun part.

Set the barrels on the deck, fill, wrestle onto a hand truck, strap 'em down, and haul them down a flight of stairs to the bunker. That was NOT fun but it didnt take long. I have the barrels sitting on top of milk crates to keep them off the floor so I can keep an eye on them. Over the next few days I'll check them periodically to make sure they dont leak. These, by the way, were 15 gallon 'blue barrels'. Thats 120# water in each one.

Discovered that its very easy to goober up the caps that go on these things if your wrench isnt sized perfectly…so, I'm going to head over to Nitro-Pak and order a few spare bung caps (make your own joke) and a better wrench than the one I have now.

On the bright side, in addition to the many 5-gallon containers and cases of bottled water, I now have a couple of nice 15-gallon drums of potable water sitting safely in storage.

Thus did Zero do his Deed For The Day.