09:19 – Happy New Year’s Eve
2016 in Prepping
We closed on our new house in Sparta in December 2015. In the year since, we’ve gotten moved in and gotten things more or less the way we want them. Among the many things we checked off our to-do lists were many prepping-related purchases and activities. Here are some of those:
o We got moved into the house, got our house in Winston cleared out, and sold it. We’ve gone from living in a metro area with a population over 1,000,000 to living in a rural mountain county with a population about 1% of that.
o We installed a wood stove and laid in a supply of firewood sufficient to keep the house livable for at least a couple of months. We intend to double or triple our firewood supply in the near future.
o We’ve expanded our LTS food supply significantly. We’re now at the point that we could feed ourselves, Colin, Frances and Al for more than one year without any outside resupply.
o Rather than eating mostly fresh and frozen foods, we’ve started cooking and baking from scratch for a lot of our meals, using mostly LTS foods. We also greatly expanded our selection of cast-iron cookware.
o Although we haven’t yet started canning, we do have everything we need to can, including a pressure canner, several dozen new canning jars, re-usable Tattler lids, and so on. Early in the New Year, I’d like to get started canning meats, initially probably ground beef and dark-meat chicken.
o We greatly expanded our inventory of medical supplies, notably the most important SHTF antibiotics (doxycycline, SMZ/TMP, metronidazole, levofloxacin, and amoxiclav) from maybe a dozen courses total to more than 150 courses. All of those sit in the freezer, where they’ll remain usable for literally decades.
o We purchased the essentials for a small off-grid solar power setup: four 100W solar panels and a charge controller. I ordered a 2.5KW/5KW modified sine-wave inverter yesterday, which will suffice to drive the well pump. I still need to buy some deep-cycle batteries, although if TSHTF later today I could get a functioning solar power system going using car batteries.
o We installed a 330-gallon propane tank and a gas cooktop. That will suffice to allow us to cook and bake completely off-grid for literally years. There’s enough propane that we could also use it to heat water for bathing and laundry.
o We made a lot of new friends and acquaintances locally, including our immediate neighbors. Most of that is down to Barbara, who volunteers with the Friends of the Library and the local historical society, but I’m doing my bit as well. We’re both doing what we can to become part of the community.
So, what did you do to prep this year?
Congratulations RBT! That’s quite a list done, and in a short time. It must be a great feeling the independence and empowerment all that brings.
So, what did you do to prep this year?
I’ve read a first aid book, a knots making book (I always wanted to know how to make them), and other skills like electronics, maths. And after finding this blog by chance, I have been introduced to prepping, and I’ve started a very small LTS of food, which will feed me for about a week. This is just some “doesn’t hurt having” thinking, as I’m not commited yet for having a real LTS. Probably I will increase it slowly, my “LTS”..
But how do you store drinkable water? tap water for example? do you boil it, or add something to it?
ADDED: Ah, and I’m reading Alexandru Dragomir. I’ve told you about him before: a thinker living under communists, who managed to detach and focus on his studies. My way to learn to accept the stupid realities..
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention, we also bought several FLASHLIGHTS.
Wow, has it been a year already? Yikes. Tempus fugit, etc….
Congratulations on putting all that together so fast and comprehensively.
As for us, we didn’t get much accomplished; wife is gone at least one or two, and sometimes three weeks out of every month and she’s not really on-board with the prepping thing anyway. I haven’t worked full-time since October of 2014 and have only been collecting a piddly SS payment for the past year, while also filing the piles of paperwork for VA disability, still hanging. And our ongoing nightmare with the Fed and state tax vampires continues. I also somehow aggravated my lower back last spring and have been in more or less constant pain since, with reduced mobility, despite several varieties of treatment with the VA medical people.
Our shelter remains pretty solid, but little things have started to snowball; there are water stains on the wall near the ceiling by the fridge, indicating a probable leak from the bathroom above. The furnace has started acting funny, now that cold weather has descended upon us, natch. We’re a tad overdue to have the woodstove and flue checked and cleaned out. The dryer just crapped out on us and I gotta see if I can find out what the problem is and whether I can fix it. And besides electrical and plumbing issues, the security stuff here has not yet been addressed properly.
Much of the year was devoured by locusts; the day to day of household chores and errands by myself, coupled with ongoing family responsibilities. Continuing to hammer at the IT job market, such as it is, up here, and dealing with the associated paperwork, and being the de facto point man for the tax stuff and almost all of the bill-paying.
Add to that: I’ve missed the last three or four vets group meetings, either because of weather/icy roads (30-mile jaunt each way over the roller-coaster interstate), or I just didn’t have the get-up-and-go whatever day, and been totally remiss in building up local meatspace relationships that I’d wanted to do; I worry that I’m “isolating” again, and need to force myself to GTFO of the house for that stuff.
As for “accomplishments?” Ascertained the amount of firewood we need for our cold weather months and stacked most of it, with help from one or two neighborhood kids. Started storing water in three-gallon packs that I get at the Price Chopper every week, and continued to research well pump alternatives and generators. Made plans for ramping up food storage really fast in this next month or two and then keeping it going through this coming year until we have enough for four people, me, wife, daughter and MIL, if necessary, for at least three and then six and twelve months. (I’d rather not think about what that would be like if it became necessary, thank you very much).
Got multiple go-bags assembled for medical, handgun, GHB, etc., but am finding that’s a continuing process, too. Got a pile of batteries all organized and stored in once central location (near the front door) and likewise our household tools and emergency medical kit. I’ve recently spent much more time listening to the scanners and shortwave, and doing research into, and playing around with antennas and their placement.
And I’ve started in again with organizing the cellar storage and assembling shelving down there and likewise got set up to start back in again on my attic workspace.
I did, in fact, feel a sense of urgency with all this sorta thing in the months leading up to the “election,” and was worried that we’d have practically zero time to get anything together along these lines, and also somewhat frustrated at first, and then resigned, as I’m only doing what I can do with our financial situation and doing it alone. Now that it looks like we’ll have the tRump administration in place (while not forgetting the “Deep State” humming along in the background, always), I feel like I have just a bit more time and breathing space to keep this going.
Overcast snow sky and very windy; looks like pretty much the same well into the week, with light snow showers, maybe an inch or two at a time and cold enough to remain on the ground. Old Man Winta is settling in, but the days are getting longer.
Oh, almost forgot: what am I doing for New Year’s Eve???
The same as I did yesterday; household chores and errands, while listening to the scanner and shortwave, and if I roll out a bit later, I’ll continue making little recon tours of the various ‘hoods around the town and “city” up the road and making notes to myself. I am also gonna kick myself in the ass from now on and get out to the town committee meetings and the gun club monthlies, and get back into attending Mass regularly. Also the vets group; I feel shitty I wasn’t there for the Holiday Season Blues this year.
Fred has an excellent column today.
Virtually no prepping by me this year. Managed to set aside a bit more food, by storing it in my office. Any supplies not kept in my office get broken into and used.
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SomeNone of these things may be reasonable or even desirable, but how such a porridge can be called feminism is hard to imagine.”FIFH
Yeah, an excellent summary of the last half-century of this bullshit. And you know, I could forward the url to some women I know up here and they wouldn’t get past the title or first couple of sentences before flying into conniptions, and that would be the end of that, while they also bitch at me for sending it to them. Even though Fred is perfectly reasonable and rational in his arguments. Makes no diff.
This year went by so fast it’s hard to keep straight what I did this year and what I had already done.
Perhaps it’s easier to do a snapshot.
Expanded the garden somewhat, but still couldn’t live off it for even one season. Basically it’s a salad garden at this point. I have a much better understanding of the seasonal insolation for each bed, and I’m finding stuff that will grow, and a list of what won’t. I did get a couple of fruit trees. They add to the existing. Fruit trees are an expression of faith in the future, as they don’t produce right away, but if you don’t plant them NOW you won’t have them later.
Expanded medium term and LTS food storage. Have added (or tried) more storage food to our normal meals. Organized some of that but there is still a bunch of work to be done on that front. We are well into the “several months” area of food, possibly longer if used wisely and with supplemental food. I can certainly use what’s stored to “stretch” what might be available, probably to double the time.
On the shelter front, now have a camera system that is all IP based. Using older but good cams, and open source DVR software, the cost was low. There is still work to do, more cams to add, and moving the DVR to different hardware for the new year. The biggest ‘prep’ was paying off the mortgage. We’re still just ‘renting from the state’ but it’s a huge mental comfort to not have that payment to the bank.
Finally got the whole house gennie. Now I need to get it installed correctly. This is involving some negotiation with spouse on placement….
Medical preps involved collecting a bunch more wound care supplies, organizing some of that, expanding the library, etc. I hope to do the EMT B class this year, but family obligations might get in the way again.
One other medical note, if you’ve been putting of any work, get it done. Get your teeth fixed, your joints, your eyes, whatever. If things go downhill, that kind of care will be hard to come by.
Comms expanded with more radios from an estate sale, more test equipment, and LOTS of time spent watching repair videos. Antennas are critical, and I’ve got a couple of simple upgrades planned for the coming year. I also will be getting some digital modes up and running. If you hope to use ham gear for comms post SHTF, you need HF which means a General class license. Get licensed. It isn’t hard, for Tech or General, but will require some effort and studying. Actually learning the material can come later as you are using it.
On the defensive front, I’ve added some tools and supplies. This year I’m working on physical stuff, stretching and exercise, and some ‘hands on’ classes. I have a serious shortage of less than lethal defensive training. I’ve got some good contacts and relationships on the supply and application sides, which I’ll keep expanding. If your neighborhood has ANY kind of police outreach program (and most do) get involved. Take the orientation class, community policing, Citizens on Patrol, Citizens Police Academy, Positive Interaction Program, or whatever is offered. You will gain understanding, meet some of the players, and develop real world intel. CERT classes will give you contacts in your community EMgnt staff. Your homeowners association probably has a police liaison or crime committee. RACES and ARES are available to hams. Get connected, get involved, get ID, get a logo’d shirt. [and it will get you out of the house, based on posts, I’ll bet that most of us here could use more time out of the house.]
One critical prep is having an alternative income source. Get busy developing that NOW. I’ve been buying and selling in the secondary market for years. It’s my full time (part time) job at the moment. I doubled my income by doubling my effort. I can do it again, and it’s one of my goals for this year. It takes time to develop and to learn the ins and outs.
In addition, I’ve been watching and learning various repair techniques and methods, mainly for electronics but also for household devices and appliances. I’ve fixed a ton of stuff around the house this year, and stuff for resale, or reuse. Most repairs are common sense, mechanical, or just electrical. Replacing a broken fuse holder can turn that $5 thrift store item into a $150 ebay sale. It’s also a valuable and satisfying way to ‘live better on less.’
Look at what interests you, where your skill might lie… find a way to monetize that. Awesome green thumb? Sell at the farmer’s market. Crafty? Sell at fairs, etsy, or ebay. Super organized? People will PAY for you to clean up their junk. Love chickens/goats/pigs? Turn that into money. Know more about Korean War era plastic toys? Ebay! Or youtube- Lovingly touring your extensive collection, one item per week, could build a channel that PAYS for more cool toys.
At the end of this year, I feel more prepared than at the beginning. Further, I’m prepared for more scenarios, and on a longer planning horizon than before. I feel pretty well stocked with “stuff” and need to expand my learning and doing. Time to integrate a lot of the stuff I’ve been stockpiling.
For those with eyes to see, there is plenty of evidence that change is coming. Big, unpleasant change. What cannot continue, won’t. It’s as simple as that. Weaker economies, weaker businesses, and weaker people are starting to fail. Add that to ‘what has happened before can happen again’ and you will know why I prep. Fracture lines are getting bigger. People are pulling their focus back in close. It’s going to get intensely local and personal. No one is going to care about Darfur, because they will be worried about feeding their kids, or the neighbor turning them in as a dissenter. Maybe call it the great retrenchment. I don’t know. But I’m gonna be as ready as I can be.
nick
Prep: 30 days food and water (emergency dehydrated food), cookstove for heating the aqua. Not much room for prep in the condo storage. We will eventually rent more storage by the condo for offsite prep.
MrsAtoz floored me with “why don’t we buy 15 acres around Waco for another home”. Yahoo, I can blow shit up and shoot guns!
Ofukstik’s New Year’s gift for us: “I’ll be around to make sure progress is made on my legacy.” I guess he will be Soros’ direct shill. Who else is going to pay that turd.
Oh, yeah, first prep of 2017 may be a G20 10mm like my hero’s.
“I guess he will be Soros’ direct shill.”
Did he actually SAY that?? OMG, as the kidz say. Truly amazing chutzpah. How ’bout his race relations legacy? The economic and job market legacies? Yikes, what amazing hubris from a narrow-assed commie musloid, who, as far as I’m concerned, didn’t spend enough time away on his golfing vacations.
“Yahoo, I can blow shit up and shoot guns!”
But youse guys live in Lost Wages. I’d be looking for properties in Nevada and Idaho, maybe even Utah. Waco still has a bad smell and it’s too close to a bunch of potential SHTF ground zeros in Texas, the Dallas-Fort Worth/Austin/Houston triangle.
I don’t think there are any good relocation areas in Texas, between the large metropolises, prog populations large and getting larger, and the proximity to the failed state of Mexico. The problem with most of Rawles’s so-called National Redoubt is, in a word, water.
If you crucified all of the illegal aliens and liberal Californians fleeing their failed states, how much would Texas’s population go down? Would that leave plenty of water for the remainder?
Fred has an excellent column today.
He left out a very important point. Most feminists are quite ugly and thus have no other choice.
RE: waco and a bad smell. Yep, there’s something going on there. Not a place for outsiders.
WRT texas in general? We’ll find a way. I already see illegals self deporting. The number of ‘casual’ laborers waiting in the park is way down from years ago. It would be interesting to see the dollar value of money transfers cross border, but I don’t know where to look for the info.
Texas is generally moving toward freedom and conservative values. And maybe independence. Still the strongest economy in the country, with good cost of living, and much better prospects for your average joe or jane than just about anywhere else. You can still live a middle class, trades based lifestyle here, with a home, toys, vacations, and single income household.
Yes we have the border, and the Cali commies, and Austin, and the underclass of Houston/Dallas/etc. Who doesn’t? We don’t have race riots or a landscape littered with abandon industrial infrastructure. We’re BUILDING infrastructure. Huge amount of high tension lines going in here and across TX. Even building refineries and power plants.
We export food, energy (which means we’ve got enough for us, close by), we extract money from others by transshipment and handling (ports of entry), we have manufacturing-including vehicles (Nissan, Toyota, CAT), high tech (TXI), Dell, et al. World leading Medical Center… I could go on and on.
Without cheap power, it becomes a lot less ‘livable’ down here due to weather, and there are natural hazards, but again, where isn’t this a problem?
Water is just a matter of will. We’ve got a whole ocean of it.
nick
Yeah, but right now you’re rapidly draining fossil water aquifers that took millions of years to fill.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/central-americans-continue-to-surge-across-us-border-new-dhs-figures-show/2016/12/30/ed28c0aa-cec7-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.9b5f12ff687c
Not in Houston. And there are lots of places with desalinization plants. If it comes to that, we’ll build one here.
“Local lakes and rivers supply the City of Houston surface water resources. Eighty-seven percent of our supply flows from the Trinity River into Lake Livingston, and from the San Jacinto River into Lake Conroe and Lake Houston. Deep underground wells drilled into the Evangeline and Chicot underground aquifers currently provide the other 13 percent of the City’s water supply.”
n
WRT illegals entering, yes, I keep telling people it hasn’t stopped just because the news coverage stopped.
The especially concerning thing is that it is harder for “children” and central americans to self deport than it is for Mexicans. It will take longer for the pig to work it’s way thru the snake.
Discourage them at their starting point, make it physically difficult to enter, make the threat of deportation real, eliminate the .gov support for them once here, and increase penalties for employers. All the legs need to be there for the stool to stand.
n
The “good” thing about the current wave of illegals, is the ones that do get intercepted are moved out of TX and into the rest of the country. We’ve got our own problems, now Iowa has some skin in the game….
n
I saw that WAPO article yesterday, and have also been aware for a long time now, way up here in Nova Anglia, that TX and the Murkan Southwest are sitting on top of a rapidly dwindling fossil aquifer. With zero plans for what to do about it, so fah as I know. Desalinate the Gulf and the Pacific water and pipe it across deserts and mountains? Divert another major river? Plus the prospects soon enough of Nueva Aztlan, and it won’t be the mom-and-pop landscaping middle-class folks, either. I wouldn’t move anywhere near that quarter of the country, for all that things appear to be going really swell…for now.
” Most feminists are quite ugly and thus have no other choice.
I believe he may have touched on that aspect once or twice, Mr. Ray. The most vociferous and belligerent and hateful activist types from that group are usually beasts. A lot like the swarm of fembat graduates of the seminaries who then infiltrated the mainstream Protestant denominations like my former church, the ECUSA. I was a Sunday school teacher and verger back in the early 80s when that was just getting going and the waves of hatred and bile emanated from them and hung in the air; almost always fugly beasts in their 40s and 50s, embittered by divorces and lack of any other job prospects.
“Would that leave plenty of water for the remainder?
I’m guessing it would only stave off the inevitable; that water level is way down now. It’s another example of having built major cities in a mostly arid landscape, and if it’s fossil energy that’s driving the economy mostly, well, take a look at its past in this country and other countries around the world over the last century. As near as I can determine, it’s costing more and more to extract less and less, amirite?
I mean, could we completely cut the OPEC cord and pull 100% of our own outta the ground into the indefinite future? Or should we seriously be looking at building thirty nukular reactors per year for the next thirty years instead?
I am no scientist or engineer, and for that matter, abysmally ignorant of such matters, but I can read English pretty well; hep me out here, amigos.
I’m gonna make Waco the new Elysian. I’m goons build a compound and have followers. Has anybody done that around Waco before?
Plus, tRump gonna fix all this with pUtin’s help.
WRT prepping, I saw this at a conservation display. It’s a low wood use cooking tool.
The one I saw was sized to sit in a steel rim from a car. https://www.dropbox.com/s/b95vk6v4v1uarj9/20161217_145838.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u45as5hzko2tom5/20161217_145830.jpg?dl=0
http://www.proyectotiti.com/en-us/Communities-Cotton-tops/Titi-Ventures/Learn-to-Build-a-Binde
one more tool for the box….
n
All sorts of hobo stoves make sense. The basic knowledge is being able to guess about air flow and such (or build it so air flow can be adjusted). I saw one somewhere made out of bricks stuck together with construction adhesive.
The “Swedish Torch” is another thing to try.
Midnight here..
I wish you all a Happy New Year!
And to you and yours! May we all have a Happy, Safe, and Prosperous New Year.
nick
I got up very early, so I’m nearly on Romania time… so…
Happy New Year, everybody!
Especially Eugen right now. Thanks for your different perspectives!
I second Mr. Spook’s cherry New Year’s greeting and thanking Mr. Eugen for his unique and valuable POV from an area that most North Murkans haven’t a clue about. Some of us here do, and wish you the best of the year to come, sir.
I am making half-ass resolutions off the top of my head for the coming year, mainly involving getting outta the house much more and building meatspace relationships while we all still have some time. While also keeping OPSEC foremost in mind. And I still have our five-page to-so list here at the house, which I can’t seem to make a dent in; it all comes sooooooo slowly.
@Eugen; are you aware of the SHTF classes and workshops run by Selco over in the former Yugoslavia?
http://shtfschool.com/
Not any longer. Miles_Teg got his hands on the New Year hours ago.
Speaking of, do you know why the police were after Miles_Teg? He was on the lamb.
(Note for Eugen: “on the lam”, spelled that way, is an expression meaning “running away or hiding from the police”.)
Happy New Year!
Family is spending several days on a “staycation” at the South Point Casino. Special NYE bingo tonight. I plan on winning enough to go GlockenShoppin next week.
…”is an expression meaning “running away or hiding from the police”.
Which you must never, never do. Main reason, besides that it’s Against the LAW? It pisses them off. Especially if you do it in a vehicle and they have to chase your ass in an exciting hot pursuit which endangers them, you and everyone else on the road. They also get wicked pissed off if they are huffing and puffing and chasing you on foot through backyards and woods. When they finally catch you, which they almost always do, you are in for a beat-down. This is known as “resisting arrest” and “obstructing a law enforcement officer in the performance of his duties.” See the Chris Rock video on the Tube concerning how that works. He makes it look like they only do that to black guys but they do it to everyone, and us Whitey types more often by orders of magnitude, simply because there are MORE of us.
“I plan on winning enough to go GlockenShoppin next week.:
If you do, check out the 10mm models; I have the long-slide G40 and what a sweetie-pie it is! Certain ammo will go right through most vehicles and knock down bears, but recoil and blast is negligible. Also goes through heavy winta clothing, just an FYI, assuming you get anything like winta out there.
I’d stick with my .45 and .44, if I hadn’t lost them in a lake.
Prepping has slowed here as we try to decide where to relocate in a couple of years when I retire. I don’t want to put major prep-related work into this place just to sell later. We do not want to stay literally next door to a huge city of trouble (Memphis). Looking at Eastern Oklahoma / western Arkansas to be closer to our grandchildren and business. I keep telling the wife that the whole “being close to the children / grandchildren” thing isn’t what it once was, as people relocate so easily these days. My son is prepping to spend a couple of years in the Caribbean on his sailboat once I retire and take over running the ATMs and real estate business.
I did get a nice dual fuel generator this year and add some antibiotics for our “fish”. We are keeping about 6 months food in rotating storage with some more in LTS but this stuff is heavy and bulky and the less I have to move when we relocate the better. I’d rather just buy and store in the target location. Water is my primary concern. In the 80’s we lived in NE Arkansas and had neighbors with wonderful caverns and springs on their land. They drilled shafts into the caverns and pulled cool air up in the summer so the AC load was minimal. But with the wife’s knees, she can’t get up and down hills / stairs like she used to so that may be an issue. After speaking with several people we are thinking of building a steel home, either a kit or a big steel building fitted out inside. This may give us the flexibility we want. I am 64 and plan to retire at 67 so time is running out. Want to buy the property in 2017 and be ready to move in in 2018. I have seen a few nice properties with pepper features like full house generators and large below grade storage but the prices are out of consideration.
You’d certainly be welcome up here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Prices are reasonable and there are lots of preppers around.
I’m getting mortar fire in a 360 degree area surrounding the house tonight. Some of these are really rattling the windows. And then some isolated small arms fire.
Say what? Charlie in the wire, bro? Put up some flares. Assign sniper duties. Send out a patrol.
Nothing here; cold and windy; had snowmobiler cretins whizzing by again; they cut right across our neighbor’s front lawn across the street and go back and forth a few times and that’s it. I’ve been sorely tempted to let a few fly.
And sure as shit, we had another moron run his unit through the obviously thin ice on a pond and of course expire on the bottom of said pond. Last of the year. Let’s see who’s first in this new year. Cretins.
I approve of the stupid getting themselves killed, so long as they don’t take any non-stupids with them.
Re: Prepping
Some basics of food and water, no LTS yet. But many FLASHLIGHTS.
No toilets.
Re: morons:
Last -minute additions to the Darwin Awards …..
Re: Happy New Year
Ditto.
Cold wet and dreary here. No small arms tonight so far. Some last night, but not heavy.
Hoping they keep it down today.
Just got the kids in bed.
I see the ROP has claimed 35 victims and 40 wounded in Turkey. Also earlier in Bagdad. I hope and pray that they won’t get any in NYC or LA.
You couldn’t get me in one of those crowds for ANY money.
n
So, what did you do to prep this year?
I’ve upped my water storage to 120 cases of 24 bottle Ozarkas. That is roughly four person months of water. I’ve increased my food storage to 20 person months. I also have a couple of water filters and a swimming pool. I’ve purchased a potty chair, a 1,000 small trash bags, toilet paper, and paper towels. We are ready to roll through a Cat 5 hurricane with a three month total area downtime.
I’ve reduced our total debt by at least 10%.
My goals for 2017 are:
1. increase my food in my offsite storage
2. buy the wife a new base model car such as a Toyota RAV4 for $23K
3. reduce our debt by 15%
Ah, goals:
Double income for the year.
Get stuff sold, cleaned up and organized so I can use my shop space again.
Get on the air with digital modes.
Finish the 5 year old remodel project at the house.
Get the gennie and all other crap out of my driveway.
Get advanced medical training, EMT B or better.
Take one daughter shooting.
Lose 20 pounds, increase strength and flexibility.
Restart martial arts training, esp in a “reality based” style.
Learn morse code.
Spend more day time with kids.
pretty ambitious…..
nick
The ROP adherents plan to step up their shit this year in Europe and over here. Did someone say something about avoiding crowds, cities and “events?”
Goals for this coming year:
1.) Get to Mass weekly and Confession as often as necessary, which is lots. Instead of NFL Sunday afternoons, read through theology and beef up my Latin and learn classical Greek.
2.) Get outta the house and talk to people I don’t know, at town committee meetings, gun club stuff, Legion post, etc.
3.) Get another substantial revenue stream coming in here and work some kind of final arrangement with the Fed and state tax people.
4.) Keep stocking up on the critical areas, such as food and however we manage water here, storage and/or alternative well pump.
5.) Beef up physical security of the two buildings and yard, and get to the range more often, like at least monthly if not weekly. Get wife involved.
6.) Get a dual-fuel genny installed and hooked up; get the rest of the windows and shutters done.
7.) Finish the cellar storage and the attic work space.
8.) Remember that I made this list and it’s now in oooooohhh…..cyberspace. Permanently. And backed up to servers at NSA HQ, thanks guys!
90 minutes left of this past crummy and painful year and hoping and praying we all have a much better 2017, in health and prosperity for us and our loved ones.
Pax vobiscum, fratres…
Yes, I’ve read Selco’s blog, thanked to Mr Nick who posted it here before, for me too.
Selco and his people has been through some really bad situations. I really can’t imagine that happening here. There are too few signs. People just don’t look for trouble here. I’ve never seen or heard people here doing prepping for a SHTF scenario. I guess we are trusting the authorities to help in difficult situations, since they did performed ok in some floods or snow storms we had in some parts of the country.
But yes, the crooks now in power will slaughter some laws, increase the country’s debt, and steal as usual. Romania can take it, can still take it. And people who know better will just wait four years for the next elections; more years lost this way.
However the danger could come from outside, where the things are not that stable: see Ukraine, Turkey, Moldavia, maybe Bulgaria, and of course our “old friend” Russia. Instability could spread to us. Fortunately, our crooks and the other politicians seems to behave well on that front, by mostly agreeing with each other and make us look like a united country, as opposed to the divided one reflected by the constant political fights and scandals in internal affairs.
By reading this blog and the links you all provided and your comments, I’m also getting a different perspective and I thank you for that. I’ve came here with an impression that USA is much stronger and able to keep the lights on – the rules and the stability – that many developing countries need (like Ro). It turns out that USA has many more problems that weakens it, but SUA is still OK.
The other entity that provides “lights on” for Ro is European Union. These lights are really essential for Ro, but they are starting to flicker. Many problems here too, like Brexit.
And in this conditions, Romania desperately needs a robust economy and healthy institutions. But with the crooks in power, it’s not going to happen, especially when the “lights” are dimmer. And in the shadows bad things grow, and good things die.
“And in the shadows bad things grow, and good things die.”
There it is. Same thing over here with our Deep State, our “shadow”government, that few see or hear or know anything about.
Și, în umbră lucrurile rele cresc, și lucruri bune mor.
I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, but with my pitiful Latin I can pick out three or four words and get the gist of it, had I not already known the English words.
We also have crooks in power and narrowly avoided making it far, far worse last month. It remains to be seen, of course, what the new tRump administration will be able to fix after all the damage and havoc created by the Incumbent POS.
The analogy I’ve been using is that we’re in a large, formerly stable ship which is leaking and slowly going down. Some people are trying to fix the leaks while others are trying to make them worse. Last month we dodged a torpedo aimed at our ship.
That’s a very good analogy; I approve!
The torpedo was drunk on its ass, so that helped somewhat.
Here’s some cheery boffo laffs from the comrades:
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/top-13-things-that-didn-t-happen-in-2016-t19132.html
First post of the new year, 2017!
I win!
Enjoy your prize!
n
Watched the ball drop on tv. Once again, I’m amazed and thankful that no one was able to walk mortars down Times Square.
You couldn’t get me into that crowd no matter what the security situation was. And for what? bad music, cold weather, and 5 minutes around midnight. F that.
When I was young, I went out, often to downtown Chicongo for New Years Eve. Park yourself in a bar early, tip well, spend a bunch of money on drinks, drive home with all the other drunks. No more. Different world now, and different person. Zero desire to do that.
Even getting together with friends for the night has no attraction.
Locally, lots of pops and bangs. Nothing close or too loud. Dog isn’t bothered by noise, which is a blessing. As the hour approaches locally, I’m sure the bangs will pick up. And the strings of 7, 9, 10 bangs in rapid succession will increase. Probably won’t call any in this year unless they are RIGHT HERE.
Had a spent round spang off the front of the house one year, while I was standing on the porch. Got my hairy behind back in the house right quick.
Gonna take a quick spin thru the freqs, then off to bed.
Good night all, and best wishes for the new year.
nick
Yeah, but right now you’re rapidly draining fossil water aquifers that took millions of years to fill.
In Fort Bend County, Texas:
1. water from aquifer =$1/gal
2. water from the Brazos River = $3/gal (gotta get the Waco piss out of it)
3. water from Gulf of Mexico= $6/gal with natural gas at $3/mmbtu
Fort Bend County is 60% surface water now and rising rapidly. We are getting ready to put in a 100 mile**2 lake on the west side of the county for storing flood water from the Brazos River. Any decade now.
We are required to be 80% surface water by 2023 or something like that. Harris County (Houston’s main county) is 80% surface water now using stored flood water in two very, very, very large lakes.
Didn’t Eugen get the “first post of 2017” prize?
“Enjoy your prize!”
Shit. I forgot to ask what the prize is.
Senility kicks in good and hard again.
I can’t remember the last time I was out and about for a New Year’s Eve thing; maybe the late 1980s with my first wife down in Woostah, MA, one of the first First Night’s deals, IIRC, which I probably don’t.
CRS Syndrome kicks in good and hard again.
A lot of us called it Amateur Night, just like Saint Patrick’s Day; for the noobs and once-a-year derps. We drank year-round and celebrated whatever whenever.
Some derp around here lit off a short burst of feurwerken right smack dab at midnight and that was it; it’s in the 20s and windy as all git out, so the chill facta is down by zero, I reckon.
Scanner and shortwave both pretty quiet; nothing much happens around here, which is wicked pissah, as we used to say.
Let’s have a bettah year, folks.
“Didn’t Eugen get the “first post of 2017” prize?”
Yeah, probably. He’s at least six or seven hours ahead of us here on the East Coast. We’ll have MrAtoz drop off some Lost Wages zombie strippers from his chopper. Congrats, Eugen!
Bingo has started, losers.
Hey, win big for us, hombre! You is three hours behind us. Adios!
The mortar fire is down to one a minute but there is still lot of small arms fire. Some homeboy just opened up with a 50 cal out on the street in front of our house, that was nasty.
Hey, how do you set a microwave clock ahead one second ?
Happy Year of the New!*
*or ewe in Mr. SteveF’s case.
We ended up with bursts of fireworks that sounded VERY local at midnight, and the occasional burst of small arms. I finally fell asleep after 2am local, and it was still going in dribs and drabs.
Haven’t looked for a tally, but I’m guessing Chicongo will win the ‘dead by stupidity and gang violence’ sweepstakes for the weekend.
Well, here we go with a whole new year. Don’t waste it!
nick
Heavy fireworks on the beach. I tried to call in some counter-battery fire, but the Long Tom crews must have already been drunk.