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Category: prepping

Fri. Sept. 10, 2021 – some days these write themselves, others? Not so much.

Probably hot and humid, although if we’re lucky we’ll get a little less of each. Yesterday started cool but ramped up to over 105F in the sun at my house… that is pretty hot. It was less in the shade, but still, pretty hot.

Did my pickups. Had to get D1 from school. She stayed after for some math tutoring and the bus situation for late buses isn’t great. That cut my day short. I did get stuff into appropriate bins and I have an appointment to drop off those bins at my auctioneer today. I have to load up a few at my storage unit too.

I did a small amount of additional cleanup of my patio pantry shelves. Another box of instant oatmeal, and two more big round cardboard canisters of regular oatmeal went in the trash. There will be some more spoilage when I get the shelves fully cleaned. I’m sure there is another ugly surprise in the garage shelves too, when I get to them.

There was some discussion of Best By dates and stored food longevity over at Borepatch’s blog. I made a comments about some of my successes and losses. This week we ate ham I froze a year and a half ago, Knorr pasta in a ‘sorta’ foil pouch from 6 years ago was fine, and 5 yo cake mix tastes great. IDK when the crumbled bacon is from, nor the butter. It lives in the freezer until needed, and I’ve got a lot of it to rotate through. I’ve let some stuff draw down a bit, and I’ll be fixing that in the next couple of weeks. I already am ahead of replenishment on several items once again. Still, balancing is needed.

Other stuff needs to be looked at and rotated or refreshed too. Gasoline is my biggest question mark and I need to spend the time to go through all the cans and check on their condition. I’m pretty sure I will need to siphon the gas off the top and leave the water behind in several cans. Getting the dual fuel kit for my Honda inverter gennie would take some of that pressure off, but it’s one more thing to do.

Oh and I’ll be doing plumbing today. Got the shower part too late in the day to do the repair last night. Hey, it did get here in one day, just too late in the day on that one day…

Gotta get a bunch of work done so I don’t feel bad about doing my normal monthly non-prepping hobby meeting tomorrow. My biggest observance for 9-11 is living my life NORMALLY for that day. And remembering the dead. But trying for normal.

Keep working on your stacks. Might want some extra buckets. There’s a plastic shortage headed our way. And buckets are crazy useful.

Stack all the things!

nick

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Thur. Sept. 9, 2021 – cha cha changes

Slightly less hot, followed by hot, and accompanied by really freaking moist. I was really encouraged when I got up yesterday and it was 68F. First under 70F morning all summer. Then it still managed to get to over 100F in the sun here at Casa De Nick… so I’m thinking today will be a lot like yesterday. And hopefully we get a couple more days without rain so things can dry out a bit.

I did my errands yesterday, including stopping by my secondary location and putting away some of the stuff I pulled for my swapmeet. I need to take a couple more bins to my auctioneer, and move some stuff to storage today. I’ve got a pickup too, including a Creality 3d printer. It’s a filament style, open framework, and I’m hoping it both works, and is simple enough for the kids to run. My big uPrint is too complicated, large, and uses a proprietary CAD/CAM package. I wanted something a bit more approachable, and if I end up doing a ‘maker’ class at D1’s school, I could conceivably take the Creality in for class. I guess we’ll see. (been a while since I said that)

It’s interesting watching some other bloggers I read for different reasons become very interested in food storage, or some other aspect of prepping. When you look at empty shelves, and you think “Ya know, we ARE in the middle of a global pandemic, there have been a lot of riots, crime seems to be going up, and a crazy man is in the Oval Office, maybe putting some food up is a good idea, there might really be hyperinflation, or a civil war…”

Change is in the air, and not in a good way. People are starting to smell smoke and are realizing they are standing in an inch of gasoline. There are so many places the spark could come from, it seems almost inevitable that it WILL come.

I know there were some regular readers here who were caught a bit short way back in March and April of 2020. Please don’t let that happen again. Take the time and do some of the things you’ve been putting off. What can it hurt? 4 buckets of rice, <$200 worth, could help you stretch whatever you can get. In a year, or less, those buckets could save your life. What else could you get for $200 that you could say the same, that is so easy, and that will still have value, even if nothing bad happens? I think if I was starting from scratch on food, and was looking at what I could do that wasn't "crazy", didn't cost too much, would last, and was easy to store, I'd buy as much rice as I could. I'd get a pound or two of salt, a gallon of soy sauce, and a shoebox full of gravy mixes. You could get all that, 100-150 pounds of rice and the rest in a single black bin with the yellow top... or several buckets. I'd go with the buckets, but I've got bins with bags of rice in them and it stored fine for years. Add canned veg to mix into the rice, some canned meat, and canned beans as you can. There are a lot of strategies, and you can combine them, just DO IT. Get some food put away for a rainy day. Because when Claire Wolfe starts saying things I was saying a couple of months ago, I'm starting to get a bit freaked out. It means that a certain amount of the zeitgeist is changing to 'getting through this' and 'coming out the other side'. People are starting to see an event, a period, an era, what have you, and they are shifting from surviving the moment to planning for the long term. This is very different from 6 months ago. People are making plans to pull back, go underground, hide, (take active measures), etc. and survival has become the goal. NOT 'get back to the way things were', but survive until they can start again. That's a change in mindset. No more 'try to keep some bad thing from happening.' Now it's 'try to survive the bad thing. Later you can do something else, if/when you make it through.' Eventually it will be about 'what comes next' but we have to get through some stuff before it even makes sense to think much about that. Changes. Big changes. Little changes. 1939-1945. Six years but what a difference in the world. On the bright side, change brings opportunity for some. It opens doors that were firmly shut, shuts some that were long overdue for shuttering, and generally stirs the pot. Stay flexible. Keep your eyes and ears open. Act if it makes sense. And stack all the things. nick

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Mon. Sept. 6, 2021 – Labor Day, or Punch a commie in the salami day

Hot and humid. Still. And all day yesterday as well. So I hid inside and did office stuff.

I spent some time getting stuff moved around, pulling the old UPSs out, and putting the new UPS in place. Then had to move the computers and NAS drive to the UPS. Since I had the NVR off, I figured I’d upgrade the fans and clean it. Well, I got some dust blown out. See yesterday’s comments for the rest of the details if you want to know why you should buy from Dell’s small business division and not Costco.

Started copying stuff to the NAS until a poorly behaved uninstall routine shut down ALL instances of file mangler, including the copy window. It was taking ridiculously long anyway. I’ll try connecting the NAS directly as a USB drive for the copy next time. The newest firmware for the box is from 2008. I’m not recommending Buffalo as there is not long term support (and the company is probably gone anyway, right?) There isn’t any reason for a box o drives to go out of support.

Did some cleaning and organizing.

Put the dog and D1 to bed but the dog just wouldn’t settle. Lots of yipping. Then I heard it too. Noise from the attic. Yup. Caught a rat on a gel trap. No idea where he got stuck, because the trap wasn’t anywhere near where they were set. Have I mentioned I don’t really like the live traps? I got my gloves, and a bag, and the rat plus the trap took a trip to 2×4 land and then into the trash. Dog settled right down and everyone went to sleep. Vermin. Only gonna increase as the troubles affect services. Stack some traps and poisons now.

In fact assume that you’ll be providing at least a portion of every service you receive now. Think about any way to leverage that to your advantage too. There are surely services that people will want. Maybe old school laptops with linux and no tracking built in? Maybe Faraday cage lined purses? Hardwired networking instead of wifi? Cameras? There will be something. There are always opportunities.

Stay centered and ready to move in any direction, mentally and physically. Provide for yourself so you can help others (if that’s your thing, but if not, you miss out on some opportunities you only get if you are out there in it.)

Stack it high.

nick

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Sun. Sept. 5, 2021 – did some stuff, more to do

Hot and humid, little chance of rain. And we got through yesterday without getting rain at home. It did get hot. Morning was cool, but by the time I was outside it went from 85F to 105F in the sun. Since I was in the sun, well, it was hot.

Got the front yard cut. Started on the back but ran out of battery. If I charge it, I can do front and back. If I leave it after doing the back,the next week I can only do the front, or the back again. It’s pretty consistent. Still liking the mower btw. I love that I don’t have to wear ear pro.

Spent a bunch of time cleaning one section of my food storage shelves. The rat was moving around on them, and on the stores, so it needed to be cleaned. I started with the easiest of the three shelves. I am very happy with my idea of putting everything in low bins with lids. The food in that section was all protected from spoilage. The stuff that wasn’t in plastic? It didn’t fare as well. I lost a box of instant oatmeal in envelopes to bugs. I lost several of the big cardboard oatmeal containers to ‘moisture’. And I had some bulging cans. 4 cans of evaporated milk were bulging a bit. They were best by 2015 and have been poorly stored so I’m not put out. I expect spoilage and losses because my storage conditions are so bad. My Kraft Mac n cheese is one year past best by, and it tastes a bit “old”. Two cases. Dang. Funny how your eating patterns can change.

One of the things we’ve learned with this whole “lockdown” thing is that our eating habits changed a lot. Over the last year we pretty much stopped eating breakfast cereal. We were steady eaters of Cheerios since the kids were babies. Mac n cheese consumption is way down, and I’m more likely to make the cheese sauce from FD cheese powder and milk, with normal pasta, than from a box. I don’t know how much is just the kids getting older, or if there was some appetite fatigue, but it’s something to consider in your long term food plan.

What to do about it? Variety and versatility. I store stuff like the Kraft Mac n cheese because it’s easy and quick. The kids can grab it for themselves. But, it’s not as versatile as bare pasta and cheese powder. We still eat a lot of pasta, but much less orange cheese. To combat any potential appetite fatigue, I stock lots of weirder things that we don’t normally eat but might make an interesting change of pace. Lima beans. Butter beans. Canned asparagus spears. Artichoke hearts. Weird imported fruits. You name it, if I saw it on a shelf, I’ve probably picked up a can or two. I occasionally bust out the weird and add it to a meal just to see if it might be great (and to acclimate the family to the idea of eating unusual stuff.)

As I read around the web, I’m becoming increasingly nervous about food. Having some spoilage from the rats and heat is contributing to my concerns. If things get bad, you probably don’t have enough food. You may not have enough boots, socks, and underwear. How’s the elastic on your shorts? I just replaced a bunch of pairs that were a bit crunchy from the dryer being hot (and they are years old.) But back to food… Unlike Bob, I’m not counting calories and just filling buckets with salt, sugar, flour, rice, and beans. You can do that, and there is plenty of guidance here (look at the keywords on the right), but I think in terms of “meals.” It also keeps me from worrying about nutrition too much. Normal meals are going to be normally nutritious. If you’re not starving now, you won’t be later.

I do have lots of buckets filled with those things (except beans, I keep those in cans.) I think of the buckets as meal extenders. Bread/tortillas/pasta added to a canned meal, or rice combined with other food will extend the length of time that my canned meal plan will last. Whatever your preference, and plan, consider adding to your stack. After all, if things don’t get bad, you can donate excess to food banks or your neighbors. And consider variety and novelty when stacking. More is better. More choice is better too.

Keep stacking.

nick

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Sat. Sep. 4, 2021 – week flew by as fast as money leaves my wallet

Another day forecast to be hot and humid, and we’re still in the zone for thunderstorms. Yesterday was interesting. Started cool, stayed cool-ish until noon-ish. Sunny the whole time. Then when I finally committed to putting stuff that shouldn’t get wet in the back of my open pickup truck, the sky opened and the water fell… a whole lot of it in a short time.

I wasn’t the only one fooled. The flippers across the street chose yesterday to replace the roof. They got the old roof off, and then we got 2 1/2 inches of rain. They were working late to get the new roof on.

I managed to drop off 5 big black bins to the auctioneer and he’s still ok with getting more. He is the first one who really meant it when he said he’d take a bunch of stuff. And I’ve got a bunch more to give him.

Today I’m sleeping in as much as I can. Time to do a bit of catching up on sleep. This falling asleep during the day is stealing too much of my day.

Also time to be thinking about a fall garden planting. On top of everything else. My cabbage still hasn’t developed. One got a head that was tennis ball sized, but it has been shrinking. The other is still loose leaves. I thought I’d see how they did before committing to a whole patch. Last time I did that, I lost them all.

Lots of home stuff to do around the house, and I hope to get to my secondary for more clean up, and auction stuff. It’s always something.

Better get started.

Which is good advice if you haven’t been prepping. Stack it high!

nick

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Thur. Sept. 2, 2021 – lots of errands today

Hot and humid, some chance of rain. It got hot and humid pretty quickly yesterday. I was going to wait until evening to cut the grass but the massive thunder had me rushing to get it cut before it got wet again. And then after rushing to cut it in the 97F heat, it never did rain on me. It did rain on some people. Not me though. Some cool rain would have been nice. It’s a good thing I got it cut, another 10 minutes of growth and I couldn’t have pushed the mower through it. Speaking of hot, still 83F at midnight.

Did much less in the morning than I hoped. Sick child was part of that, but I was crazy tired. Fell asleep in my office chair. I haven’t been getting enough sleep and it’s catching up with me. I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier and having a bit of success, but not enough. I wake after 5 hours so that should give you an idea of what “not enough” means to me. Sometimes I can catch up on weekends, but I’ve been crazy busy the last couple so no extra sleep for me.

So after slacking in the morning, I did household stuff in the afternoon. Cleaned up the dead rat, moved some stuff around. Made dinner. Not super productive.

Today is crazy though. D1 to foot doc followup then to school in the morning. D2 to be picked up early from school an hour later. She was feeling much better after sleeping most of the day, so she’s back to school for a short day. No idea why the district has a half day on the Thursday before a long weekend and then a full day on Friday. I’m guessing it’s because then their teachers would do a bunk and skip whatever they’re doing to make their weekend longer. Just another example of the district doing what’s in their interest and not in mine.

If I can I’ll do a drop off of auction stuff. If not, I’ll put it in more bins and stack it higher. Since I’ll have D2 home with me, she may just have to accompany me on my errands.

Not much in the auctions for pickup this week as I was busy all weekend. It’s a weird change not having a bunch of pickups to do during the week. Only one ‘hang over’ needful thing still to pickup from 2 weeks ago and I may have him just ship it so I don’t have to find time to drive to Rosenberg. If I was honest in the beginning, I’d have paid the $25 and had it shipped two weeks ago. It’s only about a 2 hour round trip, but time is what I don’t have (motivation either,but that’s different) at the moment.

Haven’t been over to my secondary in a while either, and that project needs to progress. Isn’t happening today in any meaningful way though I might get some stuff dropped off there.

Always so much to do, and the world gets weirder every day. Don’t delay, prep today ! ! !

Stacks won’t hurt, but I’m beginning to think they better be hidden. And dispersed. ‘Cuz someone else might want them too, and they might bring more friends than you can shoot.

Stack it high, and in a bunch of places.

nick

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Tues. Aug. 31, 2021 – so. now we’re done with August.

Hot and humid. It was 85F when I went to bed, that doesn’t bode well for today. And while yesterday started cooler, it got plenty hot by afternoon. I knew I should have cut the back yard grass early. Now it’s so long, and the temps are high, and I just can’t get motivated to do it.

Plenty of stuff to do though, as usual.

Spent the day doing auction and sales stuff. Picked up D2 and did a couple of hours of together time. We spent the last part of that sorting through some thrift store bags. She likes the treasure hunt too, although she gets excited about different things. Since many of the items in the bags are things I picked up for her, or the household, she was pretty excited.

Then the other one came home and the sniping and general sororite‘ dynamic went into full effect. Joy. I understand ‘man cave’ much better now and I expect that will only strengthen. Unless they’re living in the streets taking potshots at UN blue helmets…

Freaking world does not want to settle down. Get your self set up now, while amazon delivers and things are a click away. Water collection, storage, purification, heating, and use. Electrical generation, storage, and drastically reduced use. Solar panels, charge controllers, batteries, led lights, and window air units. Fans. Shade and breeze. Food. Stored, grown, caught, processed, preserved, and eaten. Got enough salt? You can improvise a lot, but some things you need. Got books on fermentation? Any practical experience? People ALWAYS want to have a drink. What are the critical components you just can’t fake?

How does your garden grow? Seeds are small, light, available, and you need more than you think. Also, you need pesticides specific to what you are growing. Heirloom varieties, saving seed, and local knowledge. Greenhouse, seed starters, rooting compound, grow lights, heat mats, plastic sheet, depending on climate. Don’t count on it getting hotter. Don’t count on it being cooler.

What goes in must come out. Sanitation, trash disposal, pest control.

String, cord, rope. Wire. Cable. Wire rope. Chain. Webbing. Repair for all of them. Tapes and glues. Repair, reuse, recycle. Be prepared to squeeze every bit of use out of stuff.

Think about the stuff they had on the farm in 1910 and you will be close to what you need. This is my grandfather’s ax. My father replaced the handle and I replaced the head.

Doom, gloom, oh no, oh woe… and yet it fits better than cheerleading. I keep looking for reasons to be optimistic and I don’t see them. I’ve asked you guys to chime in if you see them and no one mentioned any. (SpaceX might be able to get away just in time, but they’re a long time from being a liferaft… for a while, computing applied to medicine looked poised for a huge leap, but that has cooled.) So plan to get through some bad times. I intend to.

Keep stacking.

nick

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Mon. Aug. 30, 2021 – long weekend wore me out.

Hot and humid, but maybe a BIT cooler. Did get some random rain drops yesterday, and some overcast, but mostly it was hot and humid.

The final day of my convention/meeting/swapmeet was a shorter day. The group does a couple of things to keep people there ’til the end. Most conventions or sales have much reduced attendance and fewer sellers on the last day. Our group does a drawing for sellers/exhibitors for $250 cash, but you have to be there and your booth has to be still set up. They follow that with a drawing for attendees for a $250 voucher to spend at a remaining vendor’s booth. There are still a lot of people who bail early, but there are people there until the end and there is excitement and good feelings just before calling it a day. I’ve worked a huge number of meetings/conventions/tradeshows and ours is unique in my experience with this incentive to stay the whole scheduled time.

Today I have to get all the things I put aside over the weekend done, as well as putting my leftovers away, and I have to do this week’s stuff too. I’m going to be extra busy for a while until I catch up. Like I wasn’t busy enough anyway.

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For a blog with a high degree of prepping emphasis, I said very little about the freaking CAT 4 hurricane that hit Louisiana and bordering states yesterday. I put it down to selfishness and inward focus. I will be looking outward for a while at least to cover the aftermath. If you’ve been affected by IDA, please share your experience. What worked, what didn’t, what surprised you. If you want, you can email it to me and I’ll post it whole with any anonymizing requested. Obviously it might be a bit before you’re actually done with IDA. I’ll wait, but please consider commenting or writing something.

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What little news I did see over the weekend wasn’t good. Same stuff and more of it would sum it up. It will get sporty out there, and could be very soon. Don’t wait with your prepping. Get at least some of everything that you want or need. If we have more time, you can add to that. In these times, it won’t do you as much good to have 5 buckets of white flour, but no rice, or 8 rifles and no food. Balance. That is what is needed and you might not have enough time to correct an imbalance in your current purchasing.

That said, anything is better than nothing. Get to stacking.

nick

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Fri. Aug. 27, 2021 – early to rise…

Hot and humid. Rain in the forecast. Certainly that was true for yesterday. Hot and hot, with humidity and rain in various places throughout the day.

Did my errands, including cutting my hair. I don’t know if I’m any better at it, but I’m quicker. Looks good OK from the front :-). Loaded a bunch of stuff for my convention and swapmeet.

Truck is full.

After I get the girls out of the house to school, I’ll be finishing the load, getting ice for the water and drinks, and heading to a hotel to help with setup. Then I’ll help other folks get loaded in, and maybe sell some early bird stuff.

Before I can do that though, I need to mount the cargo platform on the hitch. I can’t fit 3 coolers in the truck. And I had to replace the broken hinges on one cooler. I have a small bucket full of cooler repair parts. Drives me nuts that people just throw them out when the hinges, drain, or handle break. Saves me money to scoop them up though, so I shouldn’t complain. Saves money and time to have the repair parts standing by.

Yep, I’ve got a bunch of coleman coolers. Igloo too. Different sizes, styles, and ages, but enough to keep at least one freezer’s worth of stuff cold temporarily. I mostly use them for icewater and soda at gatherings. Speaking of coolers, I picked up another 12v travel cooler/fridge. If you have meds that need refrigeration, get one of the small coolers so you can run it off a car battery if needed. (or solar longer term) They are pricey new, but are common at estate sales. I grabbed one at the goodwill outlet this time. I think I’m up to four? Maybe 5 and I’ve got one or two of the bigger ones too.

Coolers are very ‘dual use’. You can claim camping use, or sodas for youth sports, or just cold drinks at a party, but you and I know they are preps. Fire pits, gear for open fire cooking, cast iron cookware– also stealth preps. Backpacking water filters, kamp toilets, gas stoves and lanterns, even freeze dried foods are solid preps that you can get a lot of other use out of. I’ve got a lot of ‘camping stuff’ even though we never go. “oh I bought that when the kids were little, but we never seemed to find the time.” ” Oh, we used to go more often but now we’re so busy.” Anyone who sees it doesn’t have to think “prepper”.

If stuff ends up in short supply, you might want innocuous reasons for all the gear and preps in your storage area. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but hope isn’t a prep.

So keep stacking, keep building networks, and keep working to improve your position.

nick

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Wed. Aug. 25, 2021 – nut cuttin’ time is getting closer

Whoooeeeee, it shore got hot in the sun yesterday. Gonna happen today too, reckon. Oh, it’ll start out slow, but I’m betting on ‘hot’ and sunny later. At least the humidity was slightly lower. It wasn’t so low I didn’t sweat through my shirt in minutes outdoors, but it was better than the last few days.

Since I spent yesterday morning and early afternoon dealing with power issues here at Casa de Nick, I didn’t get very far on my list. Most of that will have to push to today. Also, most of the prep for my non-prepping hobby convention and swapmeet needs to happen today. I’ll be doing prep for my role in things Thursday, and actually doing the things Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Posting will be as normal but commenting will be light.

On the plus side, now that my service drop is replaced, my electrician buddy should be willing to do the gennie hookup.

On the minus side, there is a smell in the garage like the rat poison worked. No ratons in the traps, so he’s somewhere else. Unlike the house, he can get into the walls in the garage. I’m really hoping that isn’t the case. I’ll know more in a day… Whether I’ll be able to do anything about it is another question.

Whether the world holds together is starting to be a good question. Portland has another ‘autonomous zone’ taken over by antifa thugs. They seem to be entirely without introspection as they’ve named the area the “SSPAZ”. Maybe the ‘kids’ are so well conditioned that they never called anyone a spaz and they just don’t get the reference. Elsewhere shootings and public violence continue to increase. An example of the unequal application of the law has the leader of the Proud Boys facing jail for stealing and burning a flag, while looters, BLM thugs, and antifa punks roam free. Oh, and he had a “high capacity” magazine with him in DC, while antifa tries to literally blind cops and gets away with it.

As well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

Disruptions to supply lines continue. Disruptions to the food supply continue. Remember last year when people were saying “don’t worry about the poor crops, we’ve got plenty of grain in storage…” well, this year that grain is probably mostly gone, and it looks like we aren’t going to have bumper crops.

People are talking and advocating for vax status to determine access to and level of medical care. Think about that one for a second. Now extend it out a year or two… what else will they want to use to discriminate against you? There will be shooting when that costs someone a loved one. And honestly, I don’t think it will take a year. You will need tribe and like minded folks to get access and resources. What will you bring to that exchange?

Black market, grey market, secondary market, informal market, whatever you call it and whatever nuances there are between them, start looking. Start practicing. Swapmeets. Yard sales. Garage sales. A guy who knows a guy. You might find yourself locked out of the main economy. Yeah, things would have to be pretty bad before that could happen. Illegals already live that way though. It’s not that big a step and the legal framework went in years ago. There were articles about it, and the pretext was ‘extremism’, but they promised not just to lock you out but also anyone who would do business with you. I don’t know where such a scenario fits on a risk matrix, but it’s on there. And we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the early stages of a civil war. Just sayin’. Planning. Some preps. Some people. Some practice. Just sayin’.

And stacks. Tall stacks.

nick

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