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

So everyone and their brother has these absurd and overly dramatic 9-11 remembrance things going on. If they’d take that concern and effort about the past and focus it on the future maybe next time (and, trust me, theres gonna be a next time..several of them, in fact…) things will work out differently.

What has changed for the Zero since 9-11? Interestingly, my own government , which had been relatively benign, suddenly Orwell’ed on me and came up with indefinite detentions, secret courts (and thats a BIG roadsign), ‘heightened’ powers and the siren-call of “If you are innocent, you shouldnt mind”. Stock up on .223, bottled water and ‘questionable books’ and you get tagged as someone worth investigating…and ten years ago theyd write you off as no one..just some loony in a tinfoil hat and a couple cases of SPAM waiting for the Soviets to invade. But now…now its another ball of wax….

You know, when you look at your bookshelf and think ‘gee, I should get rid of some of those books in case someone sees them and starts to think I’m a [terrorist/insurgent/whatever]’ then society has really become something out of the Central Committee’s handbook. Think about it..you have to worry about what you read…how utterly unAmerican is that?

But, whats that got to do with Cmdr. Zero? Well, part of being the Zero is reading…and I mean *alot* of reading…and some books could be considered ‘inflammatory’ or ’suspicious’.

Never thought Id ever need to think about hiding books.

So, anyway, its the second year since a buncha idiots pulled a one-in-a-million stunt with spectacular results. How do I ‘commemorate’ it? By lamenting that their activities are forcing my legal and legitimate activities ‘underground’.

This happened a efw years back…some family in VA/DC was reported to the feds as possible terrorists. The feds came with their usual overkill of SWAT teams and whatnot. The place was searched, masked gunmen (hey, just like your average South American death squad!) crouched in the shrubs, and the family was questioned at length. Their hideously flagrant threat to America’s well-being? They had a dozen plastic blue barrels that they bought to store water in against Y2k. Yup..thats it. Some neighbor saw these barrels and thought of the Oklahoma City bombing and dropped a dime on their simple neighbors.

I guess the upshot is that I need to look a little less…interesting…should someone wind up viewing my library, basement or gun cabinet.

So everyone and their brother has these absurd and overly dramatic 9-11 remembrance things going on. If they’d take that concern and effort about the past and focus it on the future maybe next time (and, trust me, theres gonna be a next time..several of them, in fact…) things will work out differently.

What has changed for the Zero since 9-11? Interestingly, my own government , which had been relatively benign, suddenly Orwell’ed on me and came up with indefinite detentions, secret courts (and thats a BIG roadsign), ‘heightened’ powers and the siren-call of “If you are innocent, you shouldnt mind”. Stock up on .223, bottled water and ‘questionable books’ and you get tagged as someone worth investigating…and ten years ago theyd write you off as no one..just some loony in a tinfoil hat and a couple cases of SPAM waiting for the Soviets to invade. But now…now its another ball of wax….

You know, when you look at your bookshelf and think ‘gee, I should get rid of some of those books in case someone sees them and starts to think I’m a [terrorist/insurgent/whatever]’ then society has really become something out of the Central Committee’s handbook. Think about it..you have to worry about what you read…how utterly unAmerican is that?

But, whats that got to do with Cmdr. Zero? Well, part of being the Zero is reading…and I mean *alot* of reading…and some books could be considered ‘inflammatory’ or ‘suspicious’.

Never thought Id ever need to think about hiding books.

So, anyway, its the second year since a buncha idiots pulled a one-in-a-million stunt with spectacular results. How do I ‘commemorate’ it? By lamenting that their activities are forcing my legal and legitimate activities ‘underground’.

This happened a efw years back…some family in VA/DC was reported to the feds as possible terrorists. The feds came with their usual overkill of SWAT teams and whatnot. The place was searched, masked gunmen (hey, just like your average South American death squad!) crouched in the shrubs, and the family was questioned at length. Their hideously flagrant threat to America’s well-being? They had a dozen plastic blue barrels that they bought to store water in against Y2k. Yup..thats it. Some neighbor saw these barrels and thought of the Oklahoma City bombing and dropped a dime on their simple neighbors.

I guess the upshot is that I need to look a little less…interesting…should someone wind up viewing my library, basement or gun cabinet.

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

I *really* need to investigate a ‘politically correct” and relatively disposable set of firearms for air travel. Travelling with a 9mm and an AR-15 draws way too much attention. Additionally, an AR is $750 and a good pistol is another $600. Thats alot to tie up if some idiot at the ticket check-in doesnt know the proper procedure for firearms check-in and airport security has seen “Die Hard II” too many times. A used .357 is $200 and a Marlin .357 is another $250. Not an unrecoverable loss.

I’m thinking Im going to pick up a nice Smith .357 and couple it with a Marlin carbine in the same caliber. I can get ammo (.38/.357) anywhere and the guns are about as non-threatening as you can get.

“Why would you need these guns when you travel, Zero?”
Personal safety, of course. Take, for example, the recent blackout on the east coast. If the power is out for a few days and I’m grounded until power is restored I dont want to have to stay up all night fearing that looters and other opportunists are going to be prowling the hallways with reckless disregard of the police who are going to be a) way to busy to care and b) probably calling in sick to take care of their own families.

The other alternative is a Ruger autopistol and a Ruger P9 carbine, a 1911 and a Marlin carbine, or a Glock and a Kel-Tec carbine. However, I’m really preferring the .357 for its ammo availability and the Marlin’s harmless looks.

In other news, I am going to have Rancho Ballistica up and running by 2005 if I have to sell a kidney and work 36 hour days to do it. A nice quiet extremely private paradise that I can live on and be left alone on. Sovereignty, thy name is property.

I *really* need to investigate a ‘politically correct” and relatively disposable set of firearms for air travel. Travelling with a 9mm and an AR-15 draws way too much attention. Additionally, an AR is $750 and a good pistol is another $600. Thats alot to tie up if some idiot at the ticket check-in doesnt know the proper procedure for firearms check-in and airport security has seen “Die Hard II” too many times. A used .357 is $200 and a Marlin .357 is another $250. Not an unrecoverable loss.

I’m thinking Im going to pick up a nice Smith .357 and couple it with a Marlin carbine in the same caliber. I can get ammo (.38/.357) anywhere and the guns are about as non-threatening as you can get.

“Why would you need these guns when you travel, Zero?”
Personal safety, of course. Take, for example, the recent blackout on the east coast. If the power is out for a few days and I’m grounded until power is restored I dont want to have to stay up all night fearing that looters and other opportunists are going to be prowling the hallways with reckless disregard of the police who are going to be a) way to busy to care and b) probably calling in sick to take care of their own families.

The other alternative is a Ruger autopistol and a Ruger P9 carbine, a 1911 and a Marlin carbine, or a Glock and a Kel-Tec carbine. However, I’m really preferring the .357 for its ammo availability and the Marlin’s harmless looks.

In other news, I am going to have Rancho Ballistica up and running by 2005 if I have to sell a kidney and work 36 hour days to do it. A nice quiet extremely private paradise that I can live on and be left alone on. Sovreignty, thy name is property.

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

I’m in Virginia. There are huge government contractor and computer compnay buildings everywhere. And…I KNOW this place is just rife with all sortsa hardened bunkers, access tunnels, hidden garages, and whatnot.

I should get business cards made up and pass myself off as a ‘disaster survivability consultant’…charge $250 an hour to tell a bunch of scared sheeple to keep a flashlight and a pair of comfortable shoes in their desks.

I’m travelling relatively light..my AR and a good pistol. For an urban environ such as this the emphasis, initially anyway, is on security rather than sustenance. When the lights go out in MT your concern is food and heat, when the lights go out in a place like this or NY, the concern is security. Fortunately, I am not only armed at the moment but I have a beautiful LMI available to help should things suddenly get ugly.

I’ll return to my little fortress later today, taking with me an appreciation for MT and its relative lack of humidity. (And lower gun prices.)

“Hey Commander, what happens to all your preps if the apocalypse occurs while youre out of town?”
Easy. The LMI’s have standing orders. If one of us is out of town and things get nasty the others take all his gear and preps and secure them with our own until such time as he returns. That way no inner city urban mutant winds up becoming a local warlord because he happened to pick the right house to break into.

What happens to me if Im out of town and the apocalypse occurs is a completely different matter.

I’m in Virginia. There are huge government contractor and computer compnay buildings everywhere. And…I KNOW this place is just rife with all sortsa hardened bunkers, access tunnels, hidden garages, and whatnot.

I should get business cards made up and pass myself off as a ‘disaster survivability consultant’…charge $250 an hour to tell a bunch of scared sheeple to keep a flashlight and a pair of comfortable shoes in their desks.

I’m travelling relatively light..my AR and a good pistol. For an urban environ such as this the emphasis, initially anyway, is on security rather than sustenance. When the lights go out in MT your concern is food and heat, when the lights go out in a place like this or NY, the concern is security. Fortunately, I am not only armed at the moment but I have a beautiful LMI available to help should things suddenly get ugly.

I’ll return to my little fortress later today, taking with me an appreciation for MT and its relative lack of humidity. (And lower gun prices.)

“Hey Commander, what happens to all your preps if the apocalypse occurs while youre out of town?”
Easy. The LMI’s have standing orders. If one of us is out of town and things get nasty the others take all his gear and preps and secure them with our own until such time as he returns. That way no inner city urban mutant winds up becoming a local warlord because he happened to pick the right house to break into.

What happens to me if Im out of town and the apocalypse occurs is a completely different matter.

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

I am sooooo going to get one of these:

They have them on eBay all the time. When I was a kid, all the big concrete buildings had these signs above the doorways and garageways. The idea was that back in the 50’s and 60’s, the Civil Defense office sent engineers and architects around to look for buildings that would be suitable as fallout shelters for the populace. (This was an economical alternative to building dedicated facilities.) Any place that was big enough and had enough concrete was designated a fallout shelter. One of these signs was slapped up on the side of it and it was stocked with water, sanitation supplies, food (of sorts) and sometimes even medical equipt. Naturally all that stuff has rotted away but there are intrepid urban archeologists who hunt this stuff down.

When I was in the NY public schools, every school was a fallout shelter….this was back in the 70’s and by then I remember that the garbage cans were actually old CD water storage barrels. Apparently the supplies had disintegrated to the point they were thrown out but the water barrels were still usable as garbage cans. I guarantee you, though, there are probably thousands of various pieces of old CD supplies still sitting in public garages, basements of city buildings, and in other places.

Fascinating stuff…one of the things Im going to do while Im back east is look at some of the buildings as I go by them and see if any still have the old fallout signs on them.

I am sooooo going to get one of these:

They have them on eBay all the time. When I was a kid, all the big concrete buildings had these signs above the doorways and garageways. The idea was that back in the 50’s and 60’s, the Civil Defense office sent engineers and architects around to look for buildings that would be suitable as fallout shelters for the populace. (This was an economical alternative to building dedicated facilities.) Any place that was big enough and had enough concrete was designated a fallout shelter. One of these signs was slapped up on the side of it and it was stocked with water, sanitation supplies, food (of sorts) and sometimes even medical equipt. Naturally all that stuff has rotted away but there are intrepid urban archeologists who hunt this stuff down.

When I was in the NY public schools, every school was a fallout shelter….this was back in the 70’s and by then I remember that the garbage cans were actually old CD water storage barrels. Apparently the supplies had disintegrated to the point they were thrown out but the water barrels were still usable as garbage cans. I guarantee you, though, there are probably thousands of various pieces of old CD supplies still sitting in public garages, basements of city buildings, and in other places.

Fascinating stuff…one of the things Im going to do while Im back east is look at some of the buildings as I go by them and see if any still have the old fallout signs on them.

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

I refuse to make a post that is solely a stupid little quiz, so let me throw some Zero-ness out there first.

Im leaving town tomorrow for a week of R&R back east. Normally, I think of a trip back east like walking into a building burning: its gonna fall down around my ears, its inevitable, I just just hope it doesnt happen while Im there.

Things here in the Treasure State have calmed a little…the fires seem a bit less these days since I can actually *see* the mountains today. Moral of the story: any remote hideaway is going to have to be as fireproof as possible and have its own dedicated firefighting equipt.

One of the Standing Orders to the other LMI is that if the apocalypse occurs while Im out of town, they are to come by my place and take all my gear and stash it at their location for me so the rampaging hordes dont get it. I so did not spend all that money, time and planning to equip a bunch of urban mutants.

Man, I hate travelling….I loathe the idea of being a zillion miles away from my fortified little home. Getting trapped in an airport for days is the biggest concern. But, I suppose if it got really, really bad I could mug a cop, take his gun, commandeer a vehicle, and work my way to a defensible location somewhere.

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I refuse to make a post that is solely a stupid little quiz, so let me throw some Zero-ness out there first.

Im leaving town tomorrow for a week of R&R back east. Normally, I think of a trip back east like walking into a building burning: its gonna fall down around my ears, its inevitable, I just just hope it doesnt happen while Im there.

Things here in the Treasure State have calmed a little…the fires seem a bit less these days since I can actually *see* the mountains today. Moral of the story: any remote hideaway is going to have to be as fireproof as possible and have its own dedicated firefighting equipt.

One of the Standing Orders to the other LMI is that if the apocalypse occurs while Im out of town, they are to come by my place and take all my gear and stash it at their location for me so the rampaging hordes dont get it. I so did not spend all that money, time and planning to equip a bunch of urban mutants.

Man, I hate travelling….I loathe the idea of being a zillion miles away from my fortified little home. Getting trapped in an airport for days is the biggest concern. But, I suppose if it got really, really bad I could mug a cop, take his gun, commandeer a vehicle, and work my way to a defensible location somewhere.

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