‘Wargame’ simulation of major oil crisis.

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

Lotsa sunshine but no stun grenades today.

Oil topped $60 a barrel the other day. On some of the various boards I frequent theres a panic about “What will you do when gas is $10 a gallon?!”. I'll tell you exactly what I'll do – nothing. Wanna know why? Because if gas gets to $10 a gallon youre gonna see a huge quantum leap in non-gasoline energy/motive production. If the worlds supply of oil mysteriously disappeared overnight you know what would happen? We'd spend ten years in utter chaos and the years after that we wouldnt miss it at all because in those ten years we'd develop engines that run on water and lubricants made out something else. So, long before gas hits $10 a gallon we won't even be using it anymore.

I remember in 6th grade my science teacher showing what was, I believe, called a Hoffman apparatus. Run some electricity through this thing and its seperated water into its two constituent components – oxygen, which we all know and love, and hydrogen which is going to be the fuel of the future. From water. Using electricity. For some reason, despite my terrible memoery and general disdain of school, Ive always remembered that.

Now, Im not one of these people that thinks solar power is the answer to the energy problem ( it is, however, certainly a contributing factor to it). After all, it gets dark at times and clouds do show up from time to time. But if you can get electrical power from the sun, crack water for hydrogen, and store the hydrogen (since you cant store sunlight) it seems youve gone a heck of a long way to removing the need for as much petrofuel as you need now.

Of course, I was 11 in sixth grade so Im probably greatly oversimplifying things. In the perfect world that I never seem to inhabit I'd have my happy little bunkerhome running on propane and mini-hydro with some solar and wind thrown in for good measure. Lotta DC in that place.

Lotsa sunshine but no stun grenades today.

Oil topped $60 a barrel the other day. On some of the various boards I frequent theres a panic about “What will you do when gas is $10 a gallon?!”. I’ll tell you exactly what I’ll do – nothing. Wanna know why? Because if gas gets to $10 a gallon youre gonna see a huge quantum leap in non-gasoline energy/motive production. If the worlds supply of oil mysteriously disappeared overnight you know what would happen? We’d spend ten years in utter chaos and the years after that we wouldnt miss it at all because in those ten years we’d develop engines that run on water and lubricants made out something else. So, long before gas hits $10 a gallon we won’t even be using it anymore.

I remember in 6th grade my science teacher showing what was, I believe, called a Hoffman apparatus. Run some electricity through this thing and its seperated water into its two constituent components – oxygen, which we all know and love, and hydrogen which is going to be the fuel of the future. From water. Using electricity. For some reason, despite my terrible memoery and general disdain of school, Ive always remembered that.

Now, Im not one of these people that thinks solar power is the answer to the energy problem ( it is, however, certainly a contributing factor to it). After all, it gets dark at times and clouds do show up from time to time. But if you can get electrical power from the sun, crack water for hydrogen, and store the hydrogen (since you cant store sunlight) it seems youve gone a heck of a long way to removing the need for as much petrofuel as you need now.

Of course, I was 11 in sixth grade so Im probably greatly oversimplifying things. In the perfect world that I never seem to inhabit I’d have my happy little bunkerhome running on propane and mini-hydro with some solar and wind thrown in for good measure. Lotta DC in that place.

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

Minor ( to me) power outage yesterday, I was in the shop minding my own business when *pop* everything died. No prob..I grabbed the big MagLite from its rack and started out the door to see if my neighbors, who have a cabinet factory in an underground garage, needed some illumination to get out of their dark little cave. As I walked out the door the lights came back on. Total downtime? 30 seconds, tops. Called the girlfriend to see if it affected her side of town. Turns out that the power was off on her side of town alot longer earlier in the day. Rumour was that a car accident involving a power pole/line was the culprit. Her building lost partial power. They still had some lights but elevators were offline. The stairwell, apparently, kept its lights. (When she started working there one of the first things I did was ask her to accompany me on locating the stairwell and walking it to familiarize ourselves with it…just in case.) She's got a handful of lightsticks and a Streamlight LED flashlight that I gave her that she keeps in her desk for just such emergencies but as it turns out it was unneeded.

For me, the power going out is always big excitement. Not necessarily because of the event itself, but rather because I wonder why it happened. Someone nuke something? Terrorist attack? That sort of thing. My first response is to look around and see , if I can, how widespread the outage is. Sometimes I can look down the street and see traffic lights and whatnot are unaffected..then I know its localized to just a few blocks – no sweat. Sometimes everything everywhere is dark…more dramatic.

What was it? Two years ago NYC went dark for a few days…I bet that was big excitement.

Back at Casa Zero we are quite prepared for emergency illumination. We've got Aladdin lamps, propane lanterns, Coleman lanterns, MagLites, Baygen lights and the ubiquitous chemlights. The chemlights are for immediate use…like finding your way to a flashlight or to the bunker. On the top ledge of each bedroom doorway, closet doorway, and basement doorway theres a lightstick in its foil wrapper. This way, in the dark all you have to do is find a doorway, reach up, and youre good to go. Lightsticks get changed out every year around Halloween when they go on sale. The old ones are rotated into 'secondary' status or used for testing, etc, etc.

I also keep A Streamlight LED flashlight, a lightstick and a Photon LED light in my Tactical Tailor bag which accompanies me to most places.

Summertime has its own risks of blackout…mostly from overtaxed power grids and forest fires eating the lines. Winter has ice on the lines and that sort of thing. So theres always the risk of a prolonged power outage around here. And then, theres the totally unpredictable person-in-a-car-hitting-a-power-pole event.

Moral: it can happen anytime, anywhere – be prepared.
Especially. At. Work.

Minor ( to me) power outage yesterday, I was in the shop minding my own business when *pop* everything died. No prob..I grabbed the big MagLite from its rack and started out the door to see if my neighbors, who have a cabinet factory in an underground garage, needed some illumination to get out of their dark little cave. As I walked out the door the lights came back on. Total downtime? 30 seconds, tops. Called the girlfriend to see if it affected her side of town. Turns out that the power was off on her side of town alot longer earlier in the day. Rumour was that a car accident involving a power pole/line was the culprit. Her building lost partial power. They still had some lights but elevators were offline. The stairwell, apparently, kept its lights. (When she started working there one of the first things I did was ask her to accompany me on locating the stairwell and walking it to familiarize ourselves with it…just in case.) She’s got a handful of lightsticks and a Streamlight LED flashlight that I gave her that she keeps in her desk for just such emergencies but as it turns out it was unneeded.

For me, the power going out is always big excitement. Not necessarily because of the event itself, but rather because I wonder why it happened. Someone nuke something? Terrorist attack? That sort of thing. My first response is to look around and see , if I can, how widespread the outage is. Sometimes I can look down the street and see traffic lights and whatnot are unaffected..then I know its localized to just a few blocks – no sweat. Sometimes everything everywhere is dark…more dramatic.

What was it? Two years ago NYC went dark for a few days…I bet that was big excitement.

Back at Casa Zero we are quite prepared for emergency illumination. We’ve got Aladdin lamps, propane lanterns, Coleman lanterns, MagLites, Baygen lights and the ubiquitous chemlights. The chemlights are for immediate use…like finding your way to a flashlight or to the bunker. On the top ledge of each bedroom doorway, closet doorway, and basement doorway theres a lightstick in its foil wrapper. This way, in the dark all you have to do is find a doorway, reach up, and youre good to go. Lightsticks get changed out every year around Halloween when they go on sale. The old ones are rotated into ‘secondary’ status or used for testing, etc, etc.

I also keep A Streamlight LED flashlight, a lightstick and a Photon LED light in my Tactical Tailor bag which accompanies me to most places.

Summertime has its own risks of blackout…mostly from overtaxed power grids and forest fires eating the lines. Winter has ice on the lines and that sort of thing. So theres always the risk of a prolonged power outage around here. And then, theres the totally unpredictable person-in-a-car-hitting-a-power-pole event.

Moral: it can happen anytime, anywhere – be prepared.
Especially. At. Work.

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

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

Cool! Its back!

Spy/Counterspy was, last I saw it, run out of a Canadian site but mysteriously shut down. Alot of the info was basic stuff you could find in a Tom Clancy novel but there was some very very clever stuff. My personal favorite was this one – how to broadcast to cells. Brilliant.

Use of a one-time pad

How to use a dead-letter box

Im gonna have to mirror this one on my drive in case it goes Tango unifrom again.

Cool! Its back!

Spy/Counterspy was, last I saw it, run out of a Canadian site but mysteriously shut down. Alot of the info was basic stuff you could find in a Tom Clancy novel but there was some very very clever stuff. My personal favorite was this one – how to broadcast to cells. Brilliant.

Use of a one-time pad

How to use a dead-letter box

Im gonna have to mirror this one on my drive in case it goes Tango unifrom again.

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

All quiet on the Zero front. Interestingly, I think I'm running a bit light on 9mm ammo these days. After that class I need to replace about 1,500 rounds. The Remington yellowbox of 250 seems like the best deal in name-brand, reloadable, factory ammo these days. Its what I shot at the class and it seemed to work just fine.

By the by, what does the Zero carry in his everyday Glock mags? 115 FMJ actually. Mostly because I have so much of it. The nightstand gun is loaded with old style Black Talons.
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Had some pleasant experience 'pouch cooking' a few weeks ago. The principle is simple: put food ingredients in a pouch of aluminum foil and put pouch on/in heat source (fire, barbecue, oven, etc). The sealed pouch keeps in steam and moisture, food cooks, you then eat from the pouch and when done simply discard the ball of foil. No cookware or servingware to have to deal with. Certain foods lend themselves to this method more than others…some peppers, onions, garlic, stock, couscous, spices, and thinly sliced pork came out quite nicely. I'll have pics up in a few days.Works great tossing 'em on the ol' Volcano stove.
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I need to get a Lone Wolf Distributing catalog. I want to change out the sights on my Glock to something a little less 'coarse' and a bit more precise. Also, I'd like to get a sight adjustment tool as well as a few other goodies. (Like more colored basepads.)
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In other news, and this is somewhat interesting, a visitor to the website actually used the 'Donation' button and gave the Zero a few bucks for his 'Im gonna make it through this apocalypse' fund. Darn nice of them. Almost pays for a months bandwidth.
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I was supposed to go on the July 4 field exercise with the LMI but its not looking like thats going to happen. My civillian life has taken way too much time off recently and I need to stick around to try and make money. Maybe later in the year I'll be able to run off for a three day weekend or something, but not now. Too bad, Id get to try my new Eureka combat tent.
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One of the LMI stopped by this afternoon. We got to talking and I mentioned that I stillhad about half a case of Kerlix bandages and asked if he wanted some since I had more than enough and was distributing them amongst the LMI. Needless to say, he replied with an enthusiastic affirmative and I gave him a bag of 20 bandage rolls. Still leaves me with plenty of extras.