Tag Archives: gear

Update: America Stone knife sharpener

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About five years ago, a fella sent me a sharpening stone that he wanted me to try out. I did try it out and was really quite pleased. So much so, in fact, that it is my ‘go to’ sharpening stone. It sits in my kitchen on the windowsill above the sink and every few days when Im doing dishes I see it and am reminded to pull out my Benchmade folder and touch it up a bit. A few strokes on one side of the blade, a few strokes on the other, repeat a couple times and thats it. It does a magnificent job of keeping my folder ridiculously sharp.

A few weeks ago I got an email from the same person asking if I wanted to try a newer model that had a change made to its composition. Sure, why not? It arrived today.

It has the same footprint..that is to say overall shape and profile…of the original product. I’m given to understand theres a bit more synthetic diamond in the composition and that it sharpens a bit more aggressively. So, with that in mind I rounded up a couple pocket knives that needed a little work. The sharpener is definitly more aggressive than the older one. By ‘aggressive’ I mean that it takes fewer strokes to accomplish the same results as the older stone.

Its definitely as good a product as the older one, and I can tell that the composition of the stone is different by how quickly it works. Again, this is the first stone I go to when I need to sharpen something…including my expensive Henckel kitchen knives. One of the nice features of the stone is that one side has a pointed profile to it that is used for removing nicks in the edges of a blade…and indeed it does exactly that.

The stone is, as you can see from the picture, pretty compact. It’s handy and easy to slip in a hunting pack (strong recommend). It would, of course, also be a handy companion anytime youre spending a goodly amount of time away from your base of operations and need to keep your tools sharp.

If youre looking for a handy and very efficient sharpening stone, this one is a good choice. I don’t think youll be disappointed.

Upcoming NFA tax change

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As you may know, after the first of the year the $200 transfer tax on certain NFA items (short-barreled shotguns and rifles, and suppressors) goes away. You still have the annoying background check and delays, but at least you won’t be paying $200 for the privilege.

The demand for those kinds of items (hereafter just referred to as ‘NFA items’) has always been tiny compared to the demand for non-NFA stuff. The reason, of course, is because most people don’t want to go through the hassle…this is evidenced by the fact we have ‘wrist braces’.

Since demand is usually fairly mild it’s not too hard to imagine that production rates of these NFA items is also a bit dialed back.

So, what do you think is going to happen after January 1st when theres no $200 tax to deter people anymore? Demand will go up, of course. But production rates my not be able to meet that demand. So when you go to buy a nice shiny Mojave9 or Sparrow, your dealer might say “Yeah, those are backordered.”

It makes sense that if youre of the mind to take advantage of the new rules on January 1st your strategy should probably be to order the the NFA item now, pay for it now, and have the dealer sit on it until January 1st and then do the paperwork.

 

Loewes water container

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I was heading back to work from my lunch break and cut through the Loewe’s parking lot and beheld these:

Hmm. Interesting. I was curious so I pulled over to get some detail. Its a 260-gal emergency water storage tank. Conveniently, it’ll fit through a doorway. Inconveniently, it’s about 2200# when filled…so strictly a basement or garage item.

I try to keep at least 75 gallons or so of water on hand at all times, and theres another 50 gallons or so in the water heaters, but if you ever need to break into your stored water you probably won’t think that a larger tank is ‘too much’.

The reason I posted this is because I find it interesting that something like an ’emergency water storage tank’ has gone mainstream enough to be at Loewe’s. I should also like to point out that if youre in Missoula or thereabouts, Murdoch’s and Mountain Supply both carry a very large variety of water tanks…from the convenient and small 35-gal. all the way up to the monstrous and useful 2500-gal.

When I get my little hideyhole squared away there will be at least a couple of these sitting around ‘just in case’.

Buy once, cry nonce

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I hate spending money. However, I seem to have come to grips with that because I often spend money on things that a lot of people would cock an eyebrow at. When I can afford to, I try to by the high quality version of whatever it is I am after. “Hey, we have this version made by a company that you’ve never heard of and its just as good for $240 less”….or you can spend stupid money and get the ‘genuine article’.  If I can swing it, I’ll get the genuine article.

The angle of the photo precludes seeing the reticle

Thats my EOTech XPS2 after spending 45 minutes in the pouring rain running snap-shooting drills with my FN. Theres enough water there to pool on the optic to a considerable depth. And I am completely unworried. I know the product is built for this sort of thing and getting wet isn’t an issue for it. Perhaps for a knockoff or lesser product it might be a problem, but, in this case, I clenched up and forked over the money for a product that I believed would meet the rigors of the ‘real world’. And, it seems that it does.

Crises and disasters rarely make appointments, and you go to war with the gear you have, not the gear you want. When I have to beat feet out the door on some dark and stormy night, heaving ammo cans and cases of MRE’s into the back of the truck at 2am while juggling a flashlight and looking over my shoulder, its nice to know that theres some bits of gear that I won’t have to worry about.

Spraypaint

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As I’m sure you can gather from various posts I’ve made, I tend to go for military ammo cans as my container of choice. Unfortunately, theyve gotten harder and harder to get over the years and when you can find them they are often not in new condition. Most of the time, any ammo can you come across is in a more-than-used condition. Broadly, as long as the lids close, the mouth of the can isnt deformed, and the gaskets are present, they’re good to go. However, the do tend to get a bit of rust at the corners and on the bottoms where they often receive a good bit of abuse and scraping.

Usually, I just wipe the cans down and hit the high points with a quick spray of Rustoleum in an appropriate color. I was doing that the other day and I ran out of spraypaint. Ok, no worries..head to the store and get another can. Here’s where it becomes a pain the rear… what brand Y calls ‘Olive Drab Green’, brand X may call ‘Hunter Green’ or ‘Moss Green’. And while ‘close enough’ will probably suffice, I really prefer to get the paint color as close to original as possible. In fact, I did pick up some spraypaint the other day that looked like it would be the right color but, no, when the spray hit the ammo can it was quite clear that while it was a nice matte green, it just wasnt the right green. Grrrr.

So, I decided I’d hit the major stores here in town and see if I could find the ideal paint. Was up at Lowe’s shopping for spraypaint (Home Depot’s selection of green absolutely sucked.) Found this:

This was absolutely perfect. Blended almost perfectly with the color of the ammo can. The nozzle produced a wide vertical spray, so a couple quick side-to-side passes did the trick, it dried fast, and it didnt drip or run. So impressed I went back for an extra can. So, if you’re needing to touch up your ammo cans, military gas cans, etc, and want the near-perfect color…this is what you want. “4293 OLIVE” UPC 7 24504 06895 2

I found it at Lowe’s for a few bucks cheaper than Amazon. High recommend.

 

Video – The History and Components of The US Military’s ALICE and LINCLOE LCE Systems

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A rather dry but informative video about the history and development of the old ALICE gear system used by the US military.

Older and wiser heads than I, who actually used this stuff, will have their own opinions, no doubt, and thats as it should be. ALICE gear is another bit of legacy gear that is fairly common in survivalist circles. The stuff was so ubiquitous and abundant that I doubt there’s anyone who doesnt have an ALICE pack, mag pouch, our other component sitting in their gear. It may not be ‘Tier 1’ stuff these days, but for the price it’s not a bad choice for certain usages. I find the ALICE packs, with an upgrade to the shoulder straps, to be a fairly competent piece of kit for an emergency bag. Since the market abhors a vacuum, there are several companies that make bags to go on the ALICE pack frame. My emergency gear in the truck is in a Spec-Ops Brand bag on an ALICE frame and I like it alot. Theyre stupid expensive these days but I think I got mine on closeout a few years back for around $75 each. I love Spec-Ops Brand gear but they seem to be perpetually on the brink of going out of business. They used to have all sortsa cool, well-thought out, and well-made gear. Now it seems they just have a few items and not much else. A shame, I really like their products.

Back in the day, ALICE gear was pretty much what every survivalist started with. Nowadays its more MOLLE/PAL webbing and gear. Good stuff, no doubt, but sometimes I like the nostalgia of the old green ALICE gear.

Because of the huge amount of ALICE gear out there, there is a thriving industry in upgrades and accessories for the ALICE system…adapters to let you use MOLLE pouches and vice versa. Replacement packs for the ALICE frames. Things like that. I personally think much of the ALICE gear is inferior to what we have now with the MOLLE stuff, but I really do like the upgraded bags, like the Spec-Ops, on the ALICE frame. The newer plastic MOLLE pack frames are alright, I suppose, and I do have some, but for ruggedness and versatility I really like the ALICE frames…especially when combined with the cargo shelf for carrying things like fuel/water cans and cases of ammo.

Anyway, an interesting bit of history about some legacy gear that many of us still have in our stockpiles.

 

Travel food II

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I made a post a few days ago about the ‘just in case’ dining solution I carry with me in my checked luggage in case I get stuck having to overnight in the airport when I travel. It’s primary features are that it takes up as minimum an amount of space as possible, assumes electricity is available (for the immersion heater), and assumes water is available (for reconstituting the freezedrieds and making hot drinks). These last two are not a tall order, even in an airport that is ‘closed’ for the night. I have spent nights camped out next to an electrical outlet watching movies on my phone, using the airports wifi, wrapped in my woobie, and dining on whatever snackage I packed in my bag.

But what about where water isn’t guaranteed, and neither is electricity? I actually have a somewhat similar setup but it’s a bit more space-intensive.

We’re all familiar with the usual one-liter Nalgene bottles, right? The cool thing about them is that there are a lot of accessories out there designed specifically for their shape and profile…carry pouches, special lids, etc, etc. It’s a lot like the AR…there may be a better choice, but the ubiquity of the item and its tremendous third-party support make it a sensible choice. I must have a half dozen of the Nalgene bottles sitting in my kitchen. Theyre just handy. But…did you know that they make a larger version in that same general design envelope? It’s exactly like your regular Nalgene bottle except slightly longer to accommodate 50% more liquid. Still take the same lids, will still fit most open-top pouches, but gives you an extra margin of liquid for those thirsty days and long trips.

The regular Nalgene is 32 oz. The supersized one is 48 oz. Since the only dimensional difference between the two is overall length and the diameter is the same between the two, cups that are designed to nest over the bottom of the 32oz Nalgene will fit exactly the same on the bottom of the 48oz Nalgene. Convenient. Same for the mouth of the two bottles. Lids, caps, etc, are completely interchangeable.

Although Maxpedition makes the bottle holder I am currently using, other companies make a similar product. The important thing is that they have various attachment points to allow you to carry the whole thing either on a carry strap, MOLLE’d to your gear, or by other means. It’s also really important that it have some type of storage on it for the essentials. With enough MOLLE coverage you can add whatever pouch you like to it to hold your accessories.

48 oz Nalgene bottle carrier on left, 32 oz ("normal size") on right. Larger carrier gives slightly more onboard storage space.

48 oz Nalgene bottle carrier on left, 32 oz (“normal size”) on right.

This is the setup I take with me when I go hunting, fishing, or anywhere I figure I’ll have some kind of al fresco dining experience. It’s strictly for field cooking, although, obviously, water is water. The purpose of this setup is to give me everything I need to crack open some Mountain House, instant oatmeal, ramen, or any other ‘just add hot water’ meal. This is what has worked for me so far, what works for you is up to you to discover. My setup:

  • Maxpedition bottle holder – Keeps everything in one place, has plenty of carry and attachment options, and has a useful-sized accessory pouch for everything below.
  • Nalgene 48 oz. bottle – I hate having to filter water. I carry a LifeStraw in my bag, but for my out-n-about cooking needs a full 48oz of water is usually plenty. A small Sawyer filter would work but any filter is going to either need to be carried separately due to space concerns on the bottle holder. Alternatively, with enough MOLLE you can add a small pouch dedicated to your filter. Maybe.
  • Screwtop drink lid – I have these on all my Nalgene bottles. Makes drinking on the move much easier. High recommend.
  • Esbit Stove – Smaller and more compact than a small butane stove w/ cartridge. Tradeoff is that it doesn’t boil water as quick. But…it does work.
  • Esbit fuel tabs – Hard to have too many of these. They do double duty as emergency firestarters. I keep a handful in my hunting bag.
  • Titanium spork – Any spork or plastic utensil will do. I went the Gucci route because I’m a major gear queer and I like nice things. Get a cheaper plastic one and you’ll be fine. Also threw in the CRKT food tool because I had it laying around.
  • Firestarter – Matches and lighters are my first go-to, but this will light an Esbit tab if you know what youre doing.
  • Matches – Far easier to light pretty much anything with good matches than the other methods. Again, can’t really have too many. Keep ’em dry. We’ve talked about this.
  • Cooking cup – Titanium again. Beacuse. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives out there, but just make sure that your Nalgene bottle will nest inside it.

This is the setup I use for fishing, hunting, or just being afield. A small musette bag filled with freezedrieds, repackaged ramen, instant soup, instant oatmeal, cofffe/hotchoc/tea, and a small water filter would, used in conjunction with the above mentioned kit, make a huge difference in a crisis and not take up much room. In fact, in the back of my truck is a tall .50 can that has a setup almost exactly like that. It’s compact, durable, pretty complete, and can keep me fed for a good bit of time if I’m just sitting in my truck waiting for the snow plow. Might have to dig it out and take some pictures. But this is the setup I use for the ‘running around’ occasions. However, it does have some utility for a small ‘run out the door’ emergency setup if you have a small satchel of freeze drieds to go with it.

 

 

Legacy gear – GI Anglehead

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Im in the midst of completely reorganzing my basement stash of food, supplies, and other gear. It’s forcing giving me the opportunity to go through a lot of gear that I’ve collected over the thirty years I’ve lived in this house. One of the things I came across was a box of GI anglehead flashlights.

These things are old school with their incandescent light bulbs. They have nice enough features….belt clips, colored filters, lanyard loop, momentary on-off switch for signalling purposes, etc. But that bulb leaves a lot to be desired in a  world of LED brightness and efficiency.

Out of curiosity, I decided to order a couple LED replacement bulbs.

I want to say, right off the bat, that this was not an efficient and economical way to go. The replacement bulbs, on Amazon, are about $17. For $17 you can buy a fairly decent flashlight that’s already LED native. However, I was still intellectually curious about the difference in performance that the LED bulb would offer the GI anglehead over the regular bulb.

Res ipsa loquitur:

  Clearly, the LED has an advantage over the OEM incandescent bulb. And while this is simply an interesting anecdote regarding the tactics of upgrading these flashlights, it has a lesson about the strategy of upgrading these flashlights. The lesson here is that sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Legacy gear can sometimes be brought up to modern standards, but sometimes it is more effort and expense to do so. At that point it’s time to throw up your hands and realize it’s time to clean house and start over.

Let me give you an example of this. I had a friend, now deceased, whom I have mentioned before. He thought that he needed a .30 caliber semi-auto rifle to prepare for the upcoming apocalypse. He wound up, in one incarnation, buying a Remington 7400, finding some sort of military-ish stock, locating aftermarket ten-round magazines of questionable reliability, and going through all sorts of financial contortions to basically re-invent the M1A. If he had just bought a Springfield Armory M1A he would have saved himself a ton of time, money, and reliability issues. But he had the 7400 and thought it could be made ‘just as good as’ a military-style semi-auto .308.

Sometimes it just isnt worth updating or ‘upgrading’ a legacy item when the technology and manufacturing have advanced. Here’s another example – I have a few incandescent MagLites that I purchased twenty years ago. They have an on/of switch, a krypton bulb, and run times of a couple hours on a pair of D-batts. In my pocket, right now, I have a Streamlight that has an on/off/low/high/strobe switch, an unbreakable LED bulb, and will put out as much light as the old MagLite…and it’s a fraction of the size. Inflation adjusted, its about the same price. (And, yes, you can buy LED upgrades for MagLites but they don’t work as well as a native LED MagLite. Reflector geometry  and all that.) So, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to upgrade or update these 20-year-old lights. No reason to toss them, though. They can serve in a tertiary role around the house or something.

As I continue with my reorganization project, I am finding a few items here and there that are old enough that it just doesn’t make sense to upgrade them to modern standards. Some things are worth it, yes, but you really need to look at each item with an objective view as to whether its worth upgrading or replacing.

So…there’s some data on flashlights for ya.

Bag O’ Tricks(tm) – Wordage on cordage

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I don’t think there’s anyone who could argue that paracord isn’t a handy item to have. People use it to replace their shoelaces, weave it into bracelets and belts, or just keep big hanks of it in their gear, in order to always have some handy.

True paracaord is made of multiple strands of smaller cordage, usually seven strands, and those strands are usuall made of three smaller strands. (Don’t quote me on those numbers.) The cheap Chinese knock off cordage is just a nylon sleeve with some sort of poly fiber core. Avoid that crap. Spend the money, get the good stuff. Take a deep breath, tense up your core, and pay the money for a giant spool of the stuff. There’s no point in doing things halfway and buying, say, 100′ of the stuff and thinking “that’ll do it.” There’s just so much to do with paracord.

For me, the reason I carry it in the Bag O’ Tricks is to tie doors open, tie doors shut, hoist things up to places, secure things closed, hold things open, create lanyards for gear, etc, etc. Dude, there are hundreds of reasons to have a generous amount of this stuff in your gear. But the problem is, how the heck do you store it neatly? I mean, you want it to be stored in such a manner that it doesn’t turn into a rats nest that leaves you standing there with a Gordian knot of paracord.

Originally, I simply rolled all my paracord into ball, like yarn, and then wrapped it in a couple cut-inner-tube-rubber-bands to keep it from unspooling itself. But, there were a couple problems… Most of the time it worked out just fine, but more than a few times the rough-n-tumble of tossing my bag around would sometimes overcome my efforts and things would get all tangle-y. The other problem was that for the amount of paracord I wanted to keep in my bag (the more, the better) the ball of cord was fairly substantial and not a very efficient use of space in my bag.

Originally, I figured the simple solution was to simply wind the cord around something to keep it one place. I tried several different ways of dong it but everything seemed to fall short. First, I chucked a length of dowel into a power drill and wound a bunch of cord on that. It worked, kinda, but still unwound itself at times. Then I tried something with a flatter profile… I cut a butterfly-shaped wedge of thick cardboard and wound it around that. That worked pretty well but eventually with all the banging around the cardboard got bent and lost its rigidity (hey, it happens to us all, right?)… back to square one.

Surely I can’t be the only person with this desire to have an organized way of carrying around a buncha paracord, right? What does the free market come up with?  Handiest I found was this –  a simple piece of plastic with a built in razor cutter and a pocket to hold the cigarette lighter used for melting the ends of the cord. To keep things even more organized, I keep it in a snug ziploc bag…this way if it does start to unravel (which, so far, it hasn’t) it all stays in one place.

One other item I found interesting was this geegaw. Its a belt-mountable dispenser that lets you pull off a length of cord and cut it – all one handed. Its 50′ worth of cord, which is useful, though I prefer to have a lot more than just 50′ worth. Where it shines is that this is about the size of a pair of tape measures side-by-side, keeps it self free from snagging and tangles, is refillable, and is just generally pretty well thought out. If you don’t mind it being only 50′ this is a pretty nice one-stop-shopping solution.

I really can’t overemphasize the utility of paracord. It really is one of those products that is ‘only limited by your imagination’.. But my experience has been that there are a lot of times, even without the world coming to an end, where having this stuff is amazingly useful. I really think you’d be foolish not to make this stuff a ‘must have’ in your emergency gear or everyday carry bag.

As an aside, it is also worth mentioning that this type of paracord is also available in a variety of colors….ODG for those military and subtle needs, and blaze orange for the ‘needs to be visible’ applications. And pretty much every color in between.

BUT….make sure you’re getting the multiple-strand stuff. Not the cheapo Made In China ‘mil-type’ crap. Lowering your gear from the rooftop of a flooded WalMart into a waiting rowboat is no time to discover that saving $15 by buying the ‘almost as good’ product was  a bad idea. Don’t cheap out on gear that might turn out to be very mission-critical someday.

And while we’re on the subject, for Crom’s sake, learn to tie some knots. Without getting into boffin country, there are an amazing amount of knots out there that have qualities that make them very much worth knowing. Grab five feet of paracord, go jump on YouTube, and learn some useful knots. Seriously.

The year is 1.9% over and I still haven’t bought any guns.

I have gone __7__ days without buying a gun this year.

Bag O’ Tricks – Batteries edition

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There’s nothing that says you have to have battery-powered devices to help you get through the unexpected crisis, but they sure do make things easier.

When it comes to electronics, there’s a handful of things I keep in the Bag O’ Tricks ™ at all times…flashlights (plural), radio, USB charger, scanner. All of these devices run on batteries and if a crisis occurs, you are definitely going to want to have a spare reload (or three) for your devices.

You do what works for you, but here’s where I’ve landed after much thought and twenty years of practice.

First step is battery compatibility – its the BoT(tm), not a CostCo. I don’t have the room or the back muscles to carry several different battery types. I have zero interest in carrying around a handful AA batteries, 9v batteries, CR123 batteries, AAA batteries, and a couple coin batteries. Try to get all your gear singing from the same battery songbook. This is where your first value judgement, and possibly compromise, is going to have to take place. Let’s say your radios take AA but your flashlight takes CR123. You’ve got three choices at this point:

  • Swap out the flashlight for one that takes AA
  • Swap out the radio for one that takes CR123
  • Carry two different types of batteries

It is entirely possible that, given three ‘Tier One’ pieces of gear, one of them might have to be swapped out for second tier in order to provide battery compatibility. How much are you willing to ‘step down’ in terms of utility in exchange for those streamlined logistics? Fortunately, almost everything has a functional, reliable, usable, quality alternative. Maybe you’re ‘perfect’ flashlight runs on CR123 but you need one that runs on AA…but you hate giving up all the awesome features of that particular CR123 flashlight. Well, look around, there is almost certainly an equivalent one out there that runs on AA.

And, just to be clear, I’m not advocating one type of battery over another. I’m just saying whatever battery you choose, try to stick with all your devices running off that one.

For my BoT(tm), I try to keep stuff as small as possible. Most small devices run on AA (or AAA) batteries and thats what I’ve decided to standardize on for my Bag O’ Tricks(tm). That doesnt mean my other gear doesn’t use other batteries…it just means that everything in my bag, which may be all I have in terms of resupply for the immediate time being, runs off the same battery – AA.

The battery devices I keep in my bag are pretty straightforward: AM/FM pocket radio with earphones, Icom R6 scanner (uses same headphones as AM/FM radio), a couple flashlights, and a USB charger.

The only exception to the ‘one battery’ rule is that sometimes I’ll have a rechargeable device (cell phone, flashlight) that can be recharged through USB. For those, I have a USB charger in my bag that runs off of…you guessed it…AA batteries.

I carry 16 AA batteries in a pair of Maxpedition battery pouches. There are other battery cases on Amazon and you’ll find no shortage of variations on this theme. I came into the Maxpedition ones years ago and never bothered looking for others. The plastic case is available from plenty of other makers, but the cordura pouch from Maxpedition does a nice job of keeping things handy and muffling any rattle. The most important thing is to get a case or carrier that completely isolates the battery from everything else around it and protects the contacts.

Don’t just think you can wrap your batteries with some tape over the contacts, throw them in your bag, and be fine. Bad juju, man. Same for sticking them in a cigar tube, or a cut length of PVC with duct tape over the ends. Your electronics (radio, light, gps, phone, etc.) are all critical pieces of gear. Don’t half-ass it by throwing your batteries in a bag where theyre going to short circuit against each other and be useless to you when you finally need them…assuming they don’t set your bag on fire first.

As for batteries themselves, we all know that at some point the batteries crap the bed and turn your gear into junk. I go with lithium AA batts. They are way more expensive than regular AA’s but a) they leak far far less than regular AA’s, and b) they don’t weaken over time or in temperature extremes the way regular AA’s do. Yup, theyre more expensive…but when I’m navigating my way out of the basement of a building during a blackout I will absolutely not care that they cost several times what the regular batteries cost…I’ll just be relieved they work and didnt puke in my flashlight.

And, by the way, when it comes to flashlights is there any reason not to have them use LED’s? They sip battery power and are far less delicate than the old krypton bulb lights. All my flashlights, except for legacy stuff, are LED these days. And for situations where you want to use batteries sparingly they are absolutely the better choice.

And although it isnt technically a battery, I always carry a USB plug in and one of those octopus-like multi-adaptor USB charging cables. This way, if there’s electricity, I can charge whatever USB device I or someone with me has. This really shines when traveling and need to charge up my phone at the airport so I can screw around on the internet while awaiting my flight.

I like to think that any crisis I get into where I have to rely on what’s in my BoT(tm) will be a short term one and that I’ll be back at my base of operations shortly. But life has a way of throwing curveballs and if I’m stuck living out of my bag, so to speak, for a couple days I have no doubt there will be at least one or two battery changes for some of my gear…so, I carry two 8-packs of AA lithium batteries.

There you go. A glance into the reasoning about whats in the BoT(tm) and why.