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Month: December 2014

Sunday, 21 December 2014

09:19 – I’m sure it will never occur to the NYC mayor to wonder what part his public statements played in the murder of two NYPD officers yesterday. With the media and far too many politicians trying to make cops the bad guys, I have to wonder how much longer those cops will be willing to continue doing their jobs. Who could blame them for going on strike or simply refusing to patrol underclass areas?

I think what we’re watching is the opening of the war of the underclass on civilization. I’m halfway inclined to hope they win. Give them what they apparently want and see how they like it when the police, fire departments, and other government services abandon the inner cities completely and let gang rule take their place. Pull that thin blue line back to encircle and contain the inner cities rather than attempting to protect them. I’m sure the cops will be a lot happier and a lot safer protecting people who appreciate what they do instead of shooting at them.

11:24 – We just got back from Sam’s Club, probably the smallest Sam’s/Costco run we’ve done in 10 years or more. The total was only $151, and most of that was frozen foods. Almost no shelf-stable foods, with the exception of two 52-ounce cans of dry-roasted peanuts, two six-packs of Campbell chunky soups, and two half-gallon jugs of pancake syrup. Unless you count the 15-pack of Ritz crackers or the can of Country Time lemonade powder sufficient to make 32 liters.

Barbara also ran in the pet store to pick up a bag of dog food, some Milk-bone dog biscuits, and a new Nyla-Bone chew toy for Colin. I noticed that the packaging of the chew toy warned, “Not for Powerful Chewers”, so technically we shouldn’t give it to Colin. He’s an extraordinarily powerful chewer. As a matter of fact, if they’d had Colin boring the tunnel for the Big Dig project in Boston, it would probably have come in ahead of schedule and under budget.

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Saturday, 20 December 2014

09:35 – I told Barbara that I’d checked Sam’s Club on-line and that they carry cases of 24 boxes of Wheaties, so I’d ordered two cases for her. I apologized for getting only 48 boxes rather than the 50 boxes that she’d dreamed I’d ordered. Which just proves that even 31 years of marriage isn’t enough to fully develop a husbandly survival instinct.

I just walked Colin through a Southern blizzard, which is to say that there’s some white flaky stuff falling from the sky. Around here, that counts as a White Saturnalia.

I’m doing laundry and Barbara is working on her Christmas stuff. Later today, we’ll work on kit stuff. Amazingly, we’ve managed to keep all kits in stock, although we’re still low on several of them.

I’m gradually getting Barbara used to using some of the shelf-stable foods that we’re storing for emergencies. The other night she was about to fry hash browns when I presented her with a 3-pound can of Crisco butter-flavor shortening. The manufacturer rates the shelf life of that stuff at one year for an open can stored at room temperature. In a sealed can, it’s good for at least five to ten years. I keep a dozen cans frozen, which should extend their shelf life well into the 22nd century.

Barbara usually fries hash browns in vegetable oil, and was afraid that the Crisco would make them “taste funny”. I convinced her to try it, and afterwards she said that the hash browns actually tasted better fried in the Crisco. Next up, using the butter-flavor Crisco for making fried chicken.

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Friday, 19 December 2014

08:05 – When we got up this morning, Barbara announced that she’d gotten angry at me in a dream because I’d bought fifty boxes of Wheaties cereal. I told her that I understood her anger, since I don’t eat cereal and she eats Wheaties only occasionally.

Not that buying fifty boxes of cereal would be outrageous for many preppers. That brownish plastic-y material they use to wrap cereal, crackers, and similar items is actually pretty effective at preserving them. I assume it’s some form of thick BO-PET, which provides a good oxygen/moisture barrier. The last time we bought crackers at Costco, I noticed that the best-by date was 2.5 years out. In reality, that means they should be just fine for at least 5 to 10 years, unless rodents get to them. The same is probably true for packaged breakfast cereals. And if you repackage them in 7-mil foil laminate bags with oxygen absorbers, their true shelf life is probably 100+ years.

Other than for fresh meat, eggs, dairy products, baked goods, and similar items, the whole concept of “best-by” dates is imaginary anyway. Up until about 1970, canned goods and other preserved foods weren’t dated at all, because the (correct) assumption was that they remained good essentially forever. The same is true today, but best-by dates are used by manufacturers to encourage turnover. And, as a result, Americans throw out literally billions of dollars worth of perfectly good food every year, simply because it’s passed those imaginary best-by dates.

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Thursday, 18 December 2014

07:31 – I see that Sony has announced they won’t release The Interview to theaters, which is no surprise considering that no theater is willing to show it because they fear the terrorist threats made by the Norks. The $24 million they’ve invested in this movie is sunk, and it’s obviously time to write it off. If I were Sony, I’d write it off by releasing the movie without copyright on every file-sharing site in the world. Make sure that a billion copies are out there so everyone in the world will have a chance to see it. And, although the movie is by all accounts a complete piece of crap, perhaps the US government could take a cue from it and actually assassinate that chubby little dork Nork.

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Wednesday, 17 December 2014

09:39 – Kit sales have definitely tapered off. We shipped only three kits yesterday and had only two orders come in overnight. If orders for the rest of today are typical, that means we’ll probably ship only four or five kits today. And even that’s a strain. We’re down to two dozen total kits of all types left in stock: an even dozen of the forensic kits, half a dozen biology kits, and another half dozen chemistry kits. As soon as I post this, I’ll be building more.

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Tuesday, 16 December 2014

10:37 – I’m still frantically building science kits, although orders have started to taper off. I’m not sure if that means people ordered earlier in the month than usual or if we’re going to get a boatload of orders over the next few days. Only one so far today. Saturday is the last day for mailing Priority Mail packages for kind-of-guaranteed delivery by the 24th, but my guess is that most mailed Monday and some mailed Tuesday will make it in time for Christmas. If they can possibly do so, USPS actually delivers on Christmas day if something looks like it may be a Christmas gift.

11:39 – Hmmm. Someone just sent me a link to this video of Nathan Fillion. He may be kidding about being a Zombie Apocalypse prepper, but somehow I don’t think so.

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Monday, 15 December 2014

09:26 – I’m still so busy building science kits that I haven’t had much time to do anything else, including work on the prepping book. There’s just no way I’ll have time to set a Santa trap this year, but I do have a Cunning Plan.

No Anti-Santa Gun this year, nor nets, nor poisoned milk and cookies. I’m just going to put up a large sign on the roof to announce that Santa and all his reindeer are eligible for amnesty under Obama’s plan to legalize illegal immigrants (like Santa), and that he and all his reindeer should sign up inside. Heh, heh, heh.

As part of the research for the prepping book, I’ve been ordering stuff from WalMart on-line. I’ve now placed several orders with walmart.com, and I don’t recommend them if what you’re ordering is even slightly fragile, like say canned goods. They just throw stuff in a box, without any attempt to keep it from being damaged in shipping.

USPS showed up yesterday with a box from walmart.com. I was standing with Colin in Kim’s front yard when the mail truck pulled up outside our house. The USPS carrier was obviously having trouble carrying the box up to our door. Barbara walked down to Kim’s house and said we’d just gotten a box full of dented up food cans, with the bottom coming out of the box.

Amazingly, everything that was supposed to be in the box was still in it: eight cans of Campbell’s Chunky Soup, four cans of Dinty Moore Chicken & Dumplings, three boxes of 100 Melitta #4 coffee filters, and a 3-pound can of Crisco butter-flavor shortening. There was no packing material in the box. Of the 13 cans, 9 were dented, several badly, but at least none fatally. Oddly, the four cans of Dinty Moore were supposed to be 24 ounces each, but were only 20 ounces each. I’m not sure why Dinty Moore makes two sizes so close to each other, or why walmart.com shipped me the 20-ounce versions when I ordered and paid for the 24-ounce ones.

Incidentally, although we sometimes have chunky soups and similar canned foods as quick meals, the real reason I stock up on them is as extenders for bulk foods like instant mashed potatoes and white rice. Those are pretty unappetizing by themselves, but one can make up a few pounds of mashed potatoes or rice, mix it with one can of soup, and end up with a reasonably tasty meal for half a dozen people.

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Sunday, 14 December 2014

09:12 – Barbara is cleaning house at the moment. This afternoon, I’ll help her get up the last of the fallen leaves and then we’ll go back to working on science kits. We’re still filling and labeling bottles and making up subassemblies for a new batch of 60 chemistry kits.

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Saturday, 13 December 2014

10:21 – Kim and Mary are in Charlotte this morning, attending Jasmine’s graduation from UNC. I met Jas when she was nine. It seems like only three or four years ago, but it’s been twelve.

When I searched for local prepping groups, I came across this post. What a fine idea. Sign up with a group of people you don’t know and pay them lots of money to join their group. There are lots of groups like this out there. They’re usually organized by one guy or a small group of people who almost invariably have a military background and believe they’re qualified to run things. Essentially they’re a small group of chiefs looking for a bunch of volunteer Indians who are stupid enough to pay for the privilege of being dictated to by a self-proclaimed leader. At least they’re up-front about it.

We do not run our organization like a commune or home owners association —but more like a corporate or quasi-military organization. If you are looking for a pure democracy with extended deliberations and a vote on everything while progress is measured at a snail’s pace… pass us by.

Unless your goal is to submit unquestioningly to a dictatorial leader, run far away from groups like this. In fact, as our Founding Fathers understood well, it’s a mistake to put the military in charge of anything. A military operates properly only under absolute civilian control. When the military itself is in charge, things inevitably degenerate quickly into a dictatorship.

Not that I’m opposed to prepping groups. Far from it. I think a prepping group is essential, but the ideal group is one that is loosely organized and informal and made up of people who already know and trust each other. Family first, then friends and neighbors, then perhaps friends of friends. But the sine qua non is trust. I’d much rather have someone I know and trust, even if that person is completely unprepared, than someone I don’t know and trust, even if that person is prepared out the wazoo.

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Friday, 12 December 2014

08:21 – Winston-Salem had our first Ferguson protest yesterday. It was peaceful and uneventful, although protesters did block a couple of downtown streets for a short time. There was no violence and no property damage. Protesters ignored police orders to clear the streets and move to the sidewalks, but no arrests were made. As Barbara said, the protesters were simply exercising their Constitutional right to peaceable assembly. I do wish they wouldn’t block streets. The Constitution guarantees them the right to protest; it doesn’t give them the right to force anyone else to listen, and it certainly doesn’t give them the right to inconvenience others.

I did a Google search yesterday for local prepping groups. There’s apparently a fair amount of activity. One meet-up group based in Walkertown, just down the road from us, has 225 members. Since preppers tend not to be joiners, that tells me there must be many thousands of active preppers locally.

Interestingly, a year ago a local TV station tried to get members of that group to agree to be interviewed on camera. All but one of them declined, and the one that did volunteer to be interviewed didn’t give away any details of his own preps during the interview. So they did a short interview with him, and then talked with a business owner over in High Point who sells $80,000 steel bunkers designed to be buried 20 feet underground. At one point, they asked her what her customers looked like and how they dressed, apparently expecting her to say that they all wore body armor and camo BDUs and carried assault rifles. She said they wore jeans and t-shirts and drove normal SUVs and minivans, just like anyone else.

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