09:45 – Colin and I got several solutions made up yesterday. Today, Barbara and I will fill bottles.
One of the solutions we made up was 4 liters of Benedict’s Reagent, which requires a bunch of sodium citrate. While making up the solution, I saw that we were down to less than 500 g of the reagent grade sodium citrate. I was about to order more when I realized that it made more sense just to stock citric acid. I can dissolve a weighed amount of citric acid in water and neutralize it with the stoichiometric equivalent mass of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to yield a solution of sodium citrate, which is just what I need. Also, citric acid and baking soda are both cheap, at about $2.70/lb and $0.50/lb respectively, whereas, at about $50/kilo, reagent-grade sodium citrate from a chemical supply company is not. The 10 pounds of citric acid I bought and the baking soda are both FCC/USP (food-grade), which is more than pure enough for making up Benedict’s Reagent. And doing it this way ensures we’ll always have plenty of citric acid (and baking soda) on hand to make up baking powder and various other useful things.
Not like us:
On the west coast–
And in the mid-west–
There are a couple of lessons to be learned from these articles…
PANIC — don’t do it. Have a plan to get out, know where the exits are.
Dead from a FISTFIGHT. Leave your ego at home. ONE PUNCH can KILL YOU. We have plenty of evidence for this type of death. One punch rings your bell, you fall back and hit your head, and that is the end. Avoid situations where you might end up punched, or murdering someone.
And the other story–
It’s widely reported (if you know where to look) that the Chicongo cops have ‘gone fetal’ – ie, curled up and stopped doing any work. This is the result.
If you aren’t a gangbanger, and aren’t where gangbangers are prevalent, you are dramatically safer. Stay away! (Also, a rare bit of honest reporting.)
Getting shot won’t necessarily kill you (or your attacker.) Keep fighting.
Sorry, 18yo gangbanger is a young MAN, not a boy. I’d bet the 15 and 16 would look like young MEN to most people here.
Let us learn from the mistakes of others.
nick
But, but, but…
Chicago is safe! It doesn’t allow the plebs to carry guns.
How can that happen?
“How can that happen?”
What’s hilarious is that the cities and states with the most stringent gun laws are the most dangerous for “gun violence.” Chicago is a prime example, run by one of Obola’s machine hacks since he left the WH, basically a darker and much worse derivative of the old Daley machines.
We have zero gun laws here in VT and the occasional shooting is usually done by the cops, like recently when they blew away a mentally disturbed old veteran down in Burlap at his apartment, or when a couple of good ol’ boyz get into the sauce out in some Daisy Hollow trailer and argue over a woman and get to it with the shotguns. Once in a blue moon.
Beeyooteeful day finally, time to get some some house and yard stuff done, while being very careful with my back.
The morning was nice here, if cool and breezy. I was finally able to get the mowing done. The sky’s awfully dark now, though.
re strict gun “control” laws and gun violence, I doubt there’s a strict causal relationship. Loosening up the gun control laws would not immediately result in a reduction in violence. Places in the US with strict gun “control” tend to have diverse populations in terms of race and culture and national origin, tend to have a high population density, and tend to have a high proportion of what we can conveniently label underclass. Uncontrolled availability of firearms would likely lead to a spike in gun violence, followed by a steady decline as the underclass got killed off.
Weather update (13:29 EDT): sheesh, it’s getting a bit on the chilly side. No sun, lots of wind, chilly. Yep, that Global Warming’s gonna kill us all.
I would agree with that, but for Houston.
I don’t think there would be a spike. Anyone of the sobs that want one can get one now.
Note that you should be saying “gang violence” not “gun violence.” If we let them control the words and semantics, we let them control the thoughts. Like “suicide bomber” focuses attention on the actor not the victims and leverages our natural sympathy for suicides.
I really wish we could get a catchy replacement for that to replace “suicide bomber” in the zeitgeist. “Ignorant murdering asshole” isn’t gonna do it.
I also think that there might not be strict causality, but more likely a feedback mechanism. It’s for certain that where you have large concentrations of poor blacks in the US, you get out of proportion violence, and the cities with the most restrictive gun ownership laws also have lots of blacks. Those hard working immigrants from south of the border are starting to give them a run for their money in places like Cali, so more a class thing, but race is easier to see than class so it makes a decent proxy.
nick
Excellent points, Mr. SteveF; yeah, it ain’t just the gun laws; it’s also the demographics. This state takes turns every year with Iowa, Montana and Wyoming as the “whitest” state in the country, and our most exotic sub-pops until recently were Quebecois French and Italians. If the authorities in the strict gun-control areas simply dumped their stupid and counter-productive laws and ordinances….pull up a chair, open a bag of pretzels and a nice iced glass of Moxie and watch the fun.
@JimL,
Not sure what you meant about Houston. Our predominantly black areas are also violent dangerous cesspits filled with generational poverty and black on black crime.
We do have a LOT fewer gang shootings per capita than Chiraq, to go along with our less restrictive gun laws. And whether it’s due to our historical race relations, or some other factor, we have a LOT LESS tolerance for that sort of nonsense from that population, which whatever it’s cause, benefits all people.
nick
Yo, this is what ol’ OFD saw outside the office window very early this AM:
http://www.wcax.com/story/31992364/bolide-passes-through-the-northeastern-skies
I saw the colors, though, too.
@Nick, that was the point I was trying to make. Houston, with similar population to Chicago, has much less gun violence (as opposed to gang violence, which I have not seen stats on) than Chicago.
Whatever the cause, the effect (fewer shootings) is rather remarkable.
I was referring to Mr. @SteveF’s remarks about gun control, underclass, and violence. Seems to me that Houston is a good counterexample.
The cause is not strict gun control, it’s lack of complete gun control. Well, all except that stabbing victim.
Take away all the guns immediately, every single gun in the country (except for those possessed by our valiant warrior heroes and heroines among the armed forces and LE organizations, of course). (and half a billion to a billion of them, what, melt them down for scrap, turn them into ploughshares??).
Then watch what happens. Should be interesting.
My point is that in almost every case cited in chicago, the operative word is GANG. The gun is just a tool. Without guns, they’d be hacking each other apart with machetes like the hutu and tutsi.
No one talks about ‘hammer violence’ or ‘club violence’ or motor vehicle violence because they correctly recognize that the tool is just a means to an end.
The Left recognizes the power of words to shape the ideas and thoughts of the listener. The PC movement capitalizes on that. Words like ‘cisgendered’ instead of ‘normal’ etc. introduce a new word, and you form new concepts separated from the old, concepts that THEY implant and suggest. For a less charged example, when you learned the word for the color “teal” it changed the way you identify colors. Same for “seafoam.” By calling violence between gang members “gun” violence it redirects your thoughts and responses. You hate the ‘thing’ rather than the ‘person’ or the ‘act.’ They call for an end to “gun violence” when they REALLY need an end to “gang violence.”
nick
Ah. Thank you. I was working on the “guns don’t kill people” side of it, neglecting the “People are idiots” angle. More idiots in Chicago, because Houston doesn’t tolerate it as much.
“One Billion Drive Hours and Counting: Q1 2016 Hard Drive Stats”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/
Very interesting and scary on those 6 TB failure rates.
Lots of failures.
n
“22 Percent of Resettled Refugees in Minnesota Test Positive for Tuberculosis”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/17/22-resettled-refugees-minnesota-tested-positive-tuberculosis/
“26 percent of all foreign born cases of tuberculosis in Minnesota were from people born in Somalia. Somalians almost exclusively enter the state through the refugee resettlement program.”
“More than 70,000 refugees have been resettled in the United States annually for the past three decades by the federal government. It’s not just tuberculosis being brought in by these resettled refugees. Measles, whooping cough, diptheria, and other diseases that were on their way to eradication are also coming in across the borders of the United States.”
Um, that cannot be good.
Wait, I thought that these people were being evaluated and tested by the State Department?
Look on the bright side. At least the TB is probably not drug resistant.
“Without guns, they’d be hacking each other apart with machetes like the hutu and tutsi.”
And with knives and shivs and suchlike in Glasgow and Edinburgh. And our own prison industry gulag, of course.
“Wait, I thought that these people were being evaluated and tested by the State Department?”
Cue up “Dream On,” podner. They lie to us about all the rigorous testing and vetting they do that takes years; in fact, they probably do nothing at all. Unless it’s middle-class squareheads from Sweden or Austrian engineers. Then they’ll put ’em through the mill and HARD.
So what, pray tell, does this tell us? I think it tells us that it’s utterly deliberate and conducted with malice aforethought. Another hole in the wall, increase the chance of pestilence and diseases and overwhelming of rural med systems, and then when the resulting failure is a gross national shock, why, double down on it.
“Protesters block train tracks to 2 Washington refineries”
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2016/05/protesters-block-train-tracks-to-2-washington-refineries.html?cmpid=EnlDailyPetroMay172016&eid=288264130&bid=1406622
I wonder if the raging grannies drove to the protest site?
I also wonder if they understand the relationship between weight and momentum of a train when they are sitting on the tracks?
We are all going to die!
“I also wonder if they understand the relationship between weight and momentum of a train when they are sitting on the tracks?”
Many peeps do not, and have not, historically. LOTS of such accidents in the early days, and apparently continuing. That train looks like it’s MILES away and you got PLENTY of time to fart around beating it at the crossing. Next thing you know, it’s in your lap. And the poor railroad buggers gotta clean up the mess afterward, with the responding EMS peeps. Plus the paperwork, which must be a nightmare.
We have another version of idiocy up here, in our winters; the morons who take their 800-pound snowmobiles out onto thin ice or drive pickups on it; the cretin downhill skiers who mosey on off the trails and get lost or slam into trees; and the countless douchenozzles who think because they have 4WD, they can still do a buck on the interstate after an ice storm.
The TB most likely IS multi-drug resistent.
Wouldn’t that require the presence of antibiotics in Somalia. Or do relief groups dispense antibiotics to Somalis who decide not to follow the full treatment regimen?
The turd world passes out antibiotics like they are candy.
n
The turd world passes out antibiotics like they are candy.
And here, of course, you have to beg to get a supply for an emergency. Or go to Mexico and bring back legal meds illegally.
More VA employee shenanigans. Seems like a conflict of interest there.
Nothing says public servant like driving a Rolls Royce, right? Thomas Burch works as both the deputy director for the VA’s Office of General Counsel and as CEO of the National Vietnam Veterans Foundation, an organization that has collected more than $29 million over a four-year period. Less than 2% of those funds ended up directly benefiting veterans and their causes,CNN’s Drew Griffin and Jake Tapper reported last night, and NVVF got a “zero stars” rating from 2010 to 2014, which it still has to this day.
Just another racket, not much different from past centuries; the grunts and deck apes and jarheads and zoomies shed blood, limbs, minds, etc., in the service of various motivations and end up hosed when they get home and are of no use to anyone and have to jump through hoops for basic care and treatment or none at all. While the high rollers skate and make out like fat rats in a cheese factory.
I tell peeps that all our wars were unjustified and could have been avoided, one way or another, and that to sign up for them is stupid and self-destructive in the end, no matter what temporary benefits accrue or how much fruit salad you sport on your chest. I tell them we have to stop signing up; if we do, and I mean worldwide, who are they gonna get to fight their stupid clusterfuck failures again? And I get……crickets.
Too many veterans are way invested psychologically in the holiness and sanctity of their honorable and patriotic service for a nation that doesn’t give a fuck about them, other than families and friends, maybe. So they can’t force themselves to countenance any deviation from the parades, flags, jets flying over Gillette Stadium, and the fruit salads.
I’m basically there for my fellow combat vets when they need me and I’ll do whatever I can for them, but I don’t expect the usual chicanery, corruption, and parasitism at the higher levels to ever change.
To believe otherwise is to admit that their discomfort, injuries, and losses were all for nothing.
True, dat, and I pretty much admit that all of mine were for nothing. As were those, and the deaths, of my fellow soldiers and the enemies we fought and the allies alongside of us. The Vietnamese are now our good buddies and pals, just like the Germans and Japanese.
Our longest-term enemies and the ones I’d fight to the death against if they were OVER HERE, are the commies and musloids, both spawn of Hell. Looks like we’ll have plenty of both in the coming years, and my chances of going out via gunshot go up faster than my chances of cancer and senility, a WIN-WIN for ME!
The Vietnamese are now our good buddies and pals, just like the Germans and Japanese. – Well sure, now they have been sorted out. Imagine a world with Nazis, a ultra-nationalist Japan, and how do you stop them without war? The best thing to come out of WWII was the destruction of the Nazis, and the Japanese Empire.
I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKIN’ SNAKES IN THIS MOTHERFUCKIN’ LANE!
OFD, most of the Heinlein books I’d recommend to start have already been mentioned:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – philosophy and politics
Starship Troopers – philosophy and politics and of course action
Glory Road – reads more like fantasy, and is an enormously fun romp
Have Space Suit, Will Travel – a young adult story, but still good for adults
“The best thing to come out of WWII was the destruction of the Nazis, and the Japanese Empire.”
At a cost of 100 million dead, countless wounded, injured, mangled, minds permanently damaged, jobs lost, property destruction on a monumental scale, and the continued rise of communism and the totalitarian evil of Soviet Russia, the Eastern bloc, Red China, Cuba and North Korea, with its tentacles reaching deep into the West and HERE, infecting our media, government, educational “systems,” and culture, and leaving it wide open to our second-oldest enemy, the Mohammedans. We live on an ISLAND CONTINENT surrounded by humongous oceans! I doubt we’d have much to fear here from the Nazis or the Japanese, whose systems would have surely run down and collapsed long before our stupid and false arms race. Check out Pat Buchanan’s “The Unnecessary War.”
“I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKIN’ SNAKES IN THIS MOTHERFUCKIN’ LANE!”
That must have sucked. You go to buy plants on wifey’s orders at the Lowe’s garden center and get nicked by a friggin’ copperhead. Good thing we don’t have them buggers up here; you got ’em in the Capital District down there?
Lesson: avoid warm and humid climates.
What do we run the risk of being bitten by up here? Deerflies, black flies, maybe a bear. Hey, don’t piss off the bear!
“…most of the Heinlein books I’d recommend to start have already been mentioned…”
Thanks; next time I’m at the B&N store down in Burlap while messing around with VA stuff and MIL issues, I’ll take a quick look. I’ve noticed over the decades that a lot of the sci-fi writers and also early to mid 20th-C poets tend to be rightwingers. Most of them long dead now, of course.
The writers and the editors were educated before the leftist march through the institutions, specifically the school systems. Even through the 1970s a lot of the published sci-fi and action writers (most of the fiction I read then) would be considered right-wing nutcases by today’s standards. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the lefties began shutting out all other perspectives — ref the Hugos uproar the past few years.
Yup, that’s what I thought. The lefties surely won most of their Long March objectives across most genres and cultural institutions, but very few recognize the symptoms; like that frog in the pot of slowly boiling wotta. The Russians are having a good laugh at us about now, can’t believe we’re stupidly following along in the same path they did. Of course they’re now run by a criminal junta, too.
The irony is that capitalism is now more popular in Vietnam than it is here.
We live in interesting times. From my eurocentric POV, Europe has driven civilization forward for the past 500 years or so. The past couple of decades that has still been true, in terms of technology, but the West seems to have given up on its culture. Leftists and feel-good, mean-well socialists have given the West the death of a thousand cuts. The pendulum has begun the swing back, but time is short and the barbarians are at the gates. (For amusement, if you haven’t seen it)
It may be the early days of passing the torch. Vietnam, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore – the East is rising, both in terms of culture and in terms of technology. In 50 to 100 years, they may be dominant.
The end state for Obamacare
Because sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.
nick
Since it’s been in the news:
“https://www.texaslawshield.com/not-all-dogs-go-to-heaven-how-to-defend-yourself-against-dog-attacks/”
“Edwin stated that the defense of necessity kicks in any time the harm you are committing is outweighed by the harm you are stopping [. . .]When it comes to dog attacks, Edwin said, you have to apply the same principle. The harm you’re preventing must outweigh the harm you’re committing. Even though you’re killing a dog, or discharging a firearm within city limits, you are saving the life of yourself, or someone else. “Just make sure that a reasonable person would believe you are actually preventing a harm,” Edwin warned.”
IANAL, and this lawyer is in TX, check in your own area.
nick
Reminder from FEMA:
Look at how the advice has changed. Not 72 hours anymore. 30 days meds! One week MINIMUM.
Think they know something we don’t? added- or rather why do they now admit it?
nick
For some reason this made me think of my favorite legal disclaimer from blogger and attorney William J. Dyer:
I find his entire disclaimer to be both entertaining and informative. I must be a sick, twisted son of a lawyer.
Another link for cast iron cooking and cookware:
http://blackirondude.blogspot.com/
n
Added- just noticed the 5 year gap in the guys posts. Yikes. Lots-o-good-stuff there in the old posts.
Katrina?
Someone at FEMA is suddenly getting realistic. That is a bit worrying.
nick
Either that or its the dreaded stopped clock…
Ya know, I figure whether it’s this long-winter climate up here, your hurricane and tornado alleys out there, or an earthquake or flood zone, we all gotta be prepped for significantly longer than a week. We’ve had blizzards and ice storms that knock out power in the rural areas for WEEKS, and the power crews take quite a while to get to all the areas; still lots of unpaved roads here plus some very hilly country and deep hollows. And lots of wotta “hazards.” That mess after Katrina seemed to just drag on and on and on, with repercussions all over the southern half of the country for months, and even years.
I’d reckon that a three-month prep is the bare minimum nowadays; have enough for you and your family and maybe a couple of close neighbors to last that long, covering as many of the basic human needs as possible. We’re not there yet here, but I hope to be by fall, and the next level is six months and then a year.
Right now we’re deficient in the food and wotta storage and we really need to get an alternative pumping solution for the well. Next up is the existing electrical system and security for the outside doors.
Someone at FEMA is suddenly getting realistic. That is a bit worrying.
I would have been impressed if FEMA said one month of preparations instead of one week. I am at a solid month of preps and trying to get to three months. But at some time during that one month window, either we will have to organize the neighborhood with barricades and a 24×7 firewatch or bug out. There are 15,000 people living in my neighborhood.
BTW, I still think that a Cat 5 hurricane right up I-45 in Houston will kill a million people. First rising water and wave action. Then exposure, dysentery, and starvation will be devastating to the survivors. Bugging out will not be a option without an army of chain saws for cutting downed trees and bulldozers for moving stranded cars.
There are other places that a Cat 5 hurricane will kill a million people in the USA. Mobile, New Orleans, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, Charleston, New York City, all do not have the sea walls to hold back a 30 ft storm surge and were not built for 150+ mph winds.
Good points on the Hurricane Alley region down there, Mr. Lynn; we would never live down there; prefer to take our chances with ice storms and pissed-off bears. No, wait–a pissed-off moose is worse than a pissed-off bear and can wreck you AND your vehicle.
“…we will have to organize the neighborhood with barricades and a 24×7 firewatch or bug out. There are 15,000 people living in my neighborhood.”
Not even that many peeps in this village, town and “city” combined. Spread over about twenty square miles, surrounded by farmland, wotta and forests. Organizing a fire watch and barricades on that scale will require advance planning, bigtime, and a willing and cooperative cadre to get it all going. From what I can see, most derps are still stuck in Normalcy Bias, bigtime, and don’t think anything bad will ever happen, DESPITE the recent events of disease outbreaks, hurricanes and floods. And not counting any hostile activity from goblins and zombies, who may or may not be armed with whatever, and again, esp. down in your region, not counting the gangbanger and narcotrafficante factions, who may very well be trained in LE, small-unit and spec ops tactics.
Given all that, and a long lead time to get up to speed with fire watches and barricades, I’d seriously, if I was you, consider a bug-out scenario rather than bug-in. Is there anywhere safe within a tank of gas or two that y’all could get to? It seems like it would be fah easier to load up an armed caravan, take the back roads, and have all your ducks lined up than to hunker down and wait for the onslaughts. You’d either have to leave all your stuff behind or have trusted souls guard it for ya, and then there’s your daughter’s situation, too.
If a Cat 5 or other similar event kills a million peeps, the Feds will shut off that area and put it under total martial law and probably fuck it up worse than they did with Katrina. I would not care to be anywhere near that.
Meh, a statue of a buffalo will protect you.
“There are 15,000 people living in my neighborhood”
That’s not a neighborhood; that’s a good-size town. Our whole county has something like 12,000 population.
“Meh, a statue of a buffalo will protect you.”
Moose are not to be trifled with. And they do not move. Don’t think about pushing past one.
“That’s not a neighborhood; that’s a good-size town. Our whole county has something like 12,000 population.”
Perhaps Mr. Lynn was being semi-jocular; his “hood” has 15k peeps. We’ve got 6 or 7 k in the “city” and another 6 or 7 k in the surrounding town, plus maybe a couple of hundred here in the Bay village, and more out on the islands, swelled a bit in the summers. I’d be looking to protect this house and immediate central village first, and then the surrounding village, with three roads coming in/going out, plus whatever wotta traffic via the bay itself.
Order of battle arms:
1.) house, yard: handguns, shotguns.
2.) immediate village area: handguns, shotguns, AR, AK.
3.) surrounding village/town/bay: AR and .308
That’s as much as I care to think about right now; longer patrols around the county may be beyond my pay grade but I’d pitch in however I could. (commo, intel, cook the vittles, tell jokes, execute prisoners…)
Given all that, and a long lead time to get up to speed with fire watches and barricades, I’d seriously, if I was you, consider a bug-out scenario rather than bug-in. Is there anywhere safe within a tank of gas or two that y’all could get to? It seems like it would be fah easier to load up an armed caravan, take the back roads, and have all your ducks lined up than to hunker down and wait for the onslaughts. You’d either have to leave all your stuff behind or have trusted souls guard it for ya, and then there’s your daughter’s situation, too.
Remember, the Houston metropolitan area has around 8,000,000 souls in it. If a nasty hurricane shows up, 2,000,000 of them try to bug out. If a really nasty hurricane shows up, 4,000,000 of them might try to bug out. The roads cannot handle 2,000,000 souls much less 2X that. @nick and @ech probably remember the Hurricane Rita misforecast and the resulting disaster. There were people who spent three days in their vehicles and did not get 100 miles away. Trust me, you do not want to go through a really nasty hurricane in your car.
“There are 15,000 people living in my neighborhood”
That’s not a neighborhood; that’s a good-size town. Our whole county has something like 12,000 population.
Fort Bend County is 885 square miles with 750,000 souls. Growing at 50,000 souls per year right now. Our roads are freaking disasters.
Greatwood is just outside Sugar Land, home to 90,000 souls. We should be annexed by Sugar Land in the next 2 to 5 years along with some other areas taking the Sugar Land population to 150,000 or so.
Yup, I live inside the Greatwood HOA, 4,000 homes with roughly 15,000 people. Greatwood is so big that our subdivision has subdivisions. We have five entrances and exits with the real world (not including the Brazos river).
http://www.sugarlandtxhome.com/greatwood-sugar-land
Inside Greatwood, I live in the Highland Park sub-subdivision. 156 homes. Four entrances and exits (not including the Brazos river). Even that small a space would be difficult to block off and patrol.
http://www.har.com/pricetrends/greatwood-highland-park-realestate/6675
Gee whiz, I dunno, Mr. Lynn. Now bugging on outta there, unless you do it like NOW, seems outta the question. So bugging in: I’d start linking up in meatspace with probable and potential prepper prospects in light of any future disasters that need to be dealt with in your sub-d of a sub-d of a sub-d. Yikes. You ain’t gonna be able to do it all by yer lonesome. What does your son think of all this? Seems like y’all might wanna have a good long hard talk about the next few months and years; what to do. Who to do it. And who else can you bring in.
Quite frankly this should have been underway long before, but that goes for me up here, too, and I ain’t throwin’ stones at anyone from inside a glass (and brick) house. RBT & Co. have been getting up to speed in their new digs along these lines, but probably more on a daily moving/settling necessity rather than future plans.
Hey, Bob; is that sorta thing being covered in your book? Meatspace, that is? Any tips, guidelines?
My own efforts are revolving around the monthly town hall meetings, parish, gun range, and maybe the Legion post, and eventually the ham radio club, plus the immediate neighbors, one of whom is a fellow ‘Nam vet but kind of a standoffish loner (like someone I know real good). I gotta talk to that guy; at the least, he must know how to run a rifle, and who knows what else? I know they were woodworkers and had a shop over there at one time…
And my next-door guy Leo here, former head of security at the Big Blue plantation that we both used to work at; he’s handy with all kinds of friggin’ machines and is a motorboat guy, too. I noticed they’ve also started riding bikes.
I would like to bug out to El Campo (about 50 miles southwest of here). But moving the family and the business would take way more money than I have available right now.
And, I just found a nice two acre lot about five miles southwest of here that I am considering building a house on. Probably won’t happen as the money is too much. But that place is outside the third ring (99).
I have asked the son to get out here as soon as he can if there is big problem. He lives 17 miles further inside Houston, halfway between the inner ring (610) and middle ring (8). Don’t know what he is going to do, he is fairly hard headed sometimes.
BTW, we have several LEO’s living in Greatwood. It is calm and peaceful here with three sheriff’s deputies on constant patrol. They like to have nice places to live also. And a couple of hundred people from my church live in Greatwood too. Popular place.
That’s all great; but is there regular contact with those folks? Any discussions about prepping stuff? The Current Situation? What to do if another monster storm hits? A bunch of nice folks hiding inside their houses behind locked doors with their guns and any other chit they’ve stored is patently useless against armed and determined and desperate mobs and gangs.
Strength in numbers, baby!
That’s all great; but is there regular contact with those folks? Any discussions about prepping stuff? The Current Situation? What to do if another monster storm hits? A bunch of nice folks hiding inside their houses behind locked doors with their guns and any other chit they’ve stored is patently useless against armed and determined and desperate mobs and gangs.
None whatsoever.
That’s all great; but is there regular contact with those folks? Any discussions about prepping stuff? The Current Situation? What to do if another monster storm hits? A bunch of nice folks hiding inside their houses behind locked doors with their guns and any other chit they’ve stored is patently useless against armed and determined and desperate mobs and gangs.
I figure that it will be like everything else in this hugely complicated world that we live in. Nothing done until there is a crisis. Not particularly efficient but that is the nature of our heterogeneous society of today.
I have introduced myself to several of our neighbors to the east and west (we have none to the north and south). Including Mr. Two Loose Dogs who hates my guts since I swatted his dog’s nose. But he is the one with horses, horse trailers, four wheel drive pickups, and the such. I suspect that he is the most likely to be for actively protecting our AO.
I do know one thing, if any moron comes around to my door after the singularity to collect all the food in the hood for proper disposition, he better be able to run. I would call that a trigger event.
Next time my wife goes down to the Sugarland area for a gig, I’m comin’ wid her, and doing a complete and full inspection/recon of the AO. Wife is very heavy into horses so she might stop by and visit that neighbor, too. We love our brothers and sisters in the great Lone Star State since 9/11 and we’ll just be sure to avoid that stretch of highways anywhere near Mr. nick.
^Sugarland^Sugar Land
https://www.sugarlandtx.gov/
Actually now that the sugar refinery is torn down, we ought to change the name to Dullsville. The city hasn’t smelled like burnt sugar since the 90s.
And my neighbor does not have his horse at his house, they are somewhere else. But he parks his two horse trailer in front of his house about three days a week.
The city hasn’t smelled like BURNING since about 100 years ago…..
I’ve been venturing out into local social and political spaces. The kids are pretty much driving that with school, gymnastics, dance, swim team, etc. Getting to know the other folks at our rec association. Been to our HOA meeting, chatted with a few folks, kept an eye on the local pols. Same with the Management District meeting, and the Houston Capitol Improvement Plan meeting. Lots of bike paths in our future, and people don’t like flooding seems to be the takeaway there. I need to possibly do some more organized ham stuff, but that’s hard. Finding the time for the EMT class should bring me in contact with some folks.
If you work from home, or are retired, and aren’t already tied into your local scene, it’s hard to engage in any meaningful way.
I’m pretty sure, based on what’s happened in previous disasters, that our neighborhood would self organize pretty spontaneously and pretty well. Nice to have some structure before that, but pickup ball works too.
nick