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Category: prepping

Thur. Feb. 18, 2021 – losing track of the days…

Cold again, supposed to get a hard freeze tonight.   Yesterday felt colder than it was.   With the sub-freezing temps, it was very dry, but with the advent of the melting and the rain, humidity was HIGH and the damp cold felt REALLY damn cold.   (srsly, some of you are laughing but it hurt it was so cold.)  35F at 930pm down from 38F and higher during the day.

As I figured I would, I got the chance to help out a couple of neighbors.  (We are a neighborhood.   I live on a cul de sac, and about half of us are ‘chat in the street, talk about the kids’ friendly, especially after the storms and hurricanes, etc.  The other half we just never see except to wave as they drive by.  And that is a bit of an issue but not one to solve in a day.)

I helped the family across the street get their 1950s era gennie running.   It ran in the summer but wouldn’t start now.   There were a couple of minor things, the metal piece you touch to the spark plug to shut it off was too close to the plug and was grounding it out and there was water in the fuel and carb.   Drained a half cup through the carb and float bowl, reset the idle speed, and it fired on the 5th or 6th pull.   Ran pretty well too.   Put my meter on it, 57hz and 115v – so, well within range to be expected.   Small engine repair is a real world usable skill and being able to get and keep your gear running could save your life.   Youtube probably has someone fixing exactly your problem, but to learn small engine trouble shooting and repair in general, and be entertained by a guy who loves what he does, spend some time watching Mustie1.

Did a welfare check on the elderly couple down the block and found out  they didn’t have heat, or a way to cook food because of the power outage, so I brought them a gallon of already hot water, a single burner coleman stove, and a Mr Heater Little Buddy .  Unfortunately it looks like that single burner Coleman is out of production.   That is a real shame because it stores easily and uses the same bottle as the Mr Heaters and Coleman lanterns.    My wife loves it for Girl Scout camping.   I’ve picked up a couple at yard sales or estate sales and there are two on ebay for crazy money.   If you were going to standardize on 1 pound propane bottles, I’d recommend a small stove that uses the bottle, one of the Mr Heater Buddys, and maybe a lantern (and only because you won’t be caught with dead batteries).

The lantern is iffy, because the Streamlight lantern is so good, I can’t really recommend anything else as a serious area light.   Anything you’re going to be moving around with you and setting in different places will always be safer if it’s not fire.   I have a dozen of the cheap little battery powered LED lanterns from Costco, the kids use them at camp and around the house as toys.   They actually work pretty well, and like cheap flashlights, buy a bunch and scatter them everywhere for convenience.  But for disasters, when you need light, I love my Streamlight Siege.  Mine normally lives on the floor beside my bed within easy reach.  My wife loves her smaller Siege too.

Later in the day I got a call from my buddy about borrowing a space heater.    I loaned him the one from the garage.   It would have been pretty hard to say no to a friend with kids just to heat the garage (not that I would have.)  It does bring up a point.   Having multiples of items isn’t just a good idea for redundancy, what with two being one and one being none.  Unless zombies are eating people on your front lawn, you are probably going to want to help people in your circle/tribe/etc if you can.  Unless it’s truly TEOTWAWKI, people WILL remember your help or lack thereof, and it would be an extraordinary individual that wouldn’t look for payback later.   Just sayin’.  Help where you can.  Build your community.   Later you can help them build their own resilience.

Plan for today is more of the same, with some additional experimentation if possible.   We’ll see if I get to it.  And I just realized I was going to do a “why the 5 gallon bucket is the preppers multitool” post, but got completely sidetracked by my life…   Jeez, it’s like I’m on instagraam jumping around shouting “look at me!!!” in a bikini.   Now try to get that image out of your head.  You are stocked up on eye bleach right?   😉

Keep stacking.   And ask yourself the question I never asked about storms in winter, “What if the disaster comes when I’m NOT expecting it to?”

nick

Read the comments: 103 Comments

Wed. Feb. 17, 2021 – interim boring details, and hotwash

Ah, sweet sweet internet….

On my dual screen pc at that!

Ok, here’s the rundown on yesterday.

Big gennie (gasoline, generac) died around 4 am. I was asleep and didn’t wake. I had fueled both gennies at 230am before bed. Honda died at 808am and I got out of bed to deal with it at that point.

Wife was up after 4am and did the ‘run the hot water until the wall cavity warms up and the cold runs freely’ and ‘flush the toilets a couple of times to keep their lines moving’ dance until I got up.

She pointed out that across the street had power and I should try that before restarting the gennies. Did that and LO! we were back up. No cell or internet service though.

Got some breakfast and looked at the machines. I really expected ERCOT to rolling b/o us in a couple of hours so I wanted to be back up. Honda was dry, so that was just my bad-overestimated the run time. I did wake up at 750am and think “I should refuel before they die” but didn’t. I fueled it up and it restarted easily. I removed one load in the house but kept running the oil filled space heater in the garage. No need to add my garage heat to the TX baseload while people didn’t have power…

The generac still had fuel. About a half tank of milky fuel. It looked funny when I filled it at 2 am, but I put that down to weird lighting. The fuel seemed thicker, ‘oily’ in the way it flowed, and not clear. F me. Bad fuel. The honda had enough good fuel to run anyway when I added the bad, but not the generac.

Put the fuel issue to the side and did a bunch of chores. No cell or internet.

Gave one oil filled heater to the neighbor to put in his attic to thaw his pipes. They left around 130 in the afternoon so the house was cold for 16 hours… not good. Saw that my sick neighbor had his son over, and with power on, I didn’t worry about his breakfast.

Went back to draining the bad fuel. Very sluggish coming out of the petcock, so yep, it was nasty. My hand fuel pump took me a while to find, and it didn’t want to work so I just let the tank drain slowly. Made plans to go to my rent house and meet the tenant, thought the power was on and wanted to be there for the pipe test… but before I could leave, my sick neighbor’s brother came out and told me my neighbor’s wife had died that morning in recovery from her emergency surgery. (did I mention his wife had a ruptured bowel and needed to get emergency surgery? I think I did.) I would not be surprised if my sick neighbor didn’t just give up and pass in the next day or so. They were married 55 years and the chemo is killing him faster than the cancer.

Then before I could leave, the other neighbor had water pouring out of a light fixture… so they needed help fixing the busted pipe. I gave all the supplies to yet a third neighbor, who helped him do the repair (I checked when I finally got home.) It paid to have a bunch of plumbing supplies stacked and waiting…..

Finally threw 4 empty gas cans in the truck and headed out. Sweet jebus. Plenty of slick spots on the otherwise dry roads. As I got out of my area, the power was still out, and all the traffic lights were blinking red. SEVERAL cars managed to get wrecked, with one sideswiped and ping ponged up onto the median… I saw people just cruising thru lights too. LOTS of people on the street. When I got closer to my rental (Heights part of Houston) the lights were just out. That made for some interesting intersections…

Met with my tenant, house was 36F inside, no power, no heat. We shut off the water and drained the pipes. He headed back to a friend’s place, I went by my secondary to pick up a bag of snow melt salt. Yeah, why the he77 did I buy a bag of salt in Houston? No idea but I did- at an auction a couple of months ago… that’s how my life works. For what it’s worth, the box of Morton’s Kosher salt did the trick on the front walk, and where I needed it, just fine. It will be nice to have bigger chunks in places though.

Headed home on surface streets, but a different route than I took to get there. Any fast food place that had power had a line of cars out the lot and onto the street. Ditto for gas stations. I kept driving, figuring I’d eventually find a station without lines. I did. Got all my cans ready, reached for my wallet, and, I left it at home. Carry pistol too. I was so scattered trying to get out of the house I messed up. No consequences this time but of all the times to be driving through those neighborhoods, and to not have any resources with me…

Made it home, armed up and grabbed money and wallet and went back out. Took three tries to find a station that was taking credit cards. I had cash but didn’t want to stand in line, and didn’t know how much gas I needed. There were LOTS of angry people yelling and cursing that it was CASH ONLY. Worth taking note of that. Filled the cans and got home. I wanted fresh gas for the night. I’ll go through the stored fuel in the daylight and warmth, and cycle it through my truck if it is not too bad, or pump off most of it and leave the water in the bottom of the can… I just don’t have time today or tomorrow and there is gas at the store. Note to self, REALLY need to rotate the stored fuel more aggressively.

Back working on the generac. I really wanted it running before I lost the daylight in case we lost power again  (it’s the 220v that feeds the house so that we have heat).   There was still a LOT of bad gas in the tank that wouldn’t flow out. I took another look at my pump and fixed it, then used it to pump out the bad gas. Used the new gas to rinse the tank several times, then pulled the carb bowl and let the new gas flush the line and the carb. Put it all back together and it started on the second pull. That generac ROCKS once the carb is clean. It’s just unfortunate that you have to clean it before every use… I’m VERY familiar with that gennie since I’ve been fixing it since y2K… The note there is you should be familiar with your critical gear, and know how to keep it running.

Then it was time to do a bit of snow shoveling before a dinner of jambalaya with sausage… one pot meals are great when you have limited fuel or time or water for washing up. Delicious and filling.

And then I got caught up on the comments and wrote this…

Today should be more of the same, with more helping neighbors and less running around. I hope.

 

 

The honda EU3000i is quiet, started right up, runs well, is QUIET, and is worth every penny. The only down side is lack of 22ov output. You can get two and link them for 22ov and I will consider that. I’ll definitely watch for another in the auctions. The (out of production) generac is rock solid and has been my saving grace several times. I don’t take good enough care of it but it still performs when needed.  The liquid cooled commercial Generac whole house gennie is only effective if it’s actually INSTALLED. Procrastination is a b!tch. Resources and time are limited, but it makes no real sense that I’ve had it all this time without connecting it. That’s just dumb, and a huge fail. So much of the angst and additional effort could have been avoided if I could have just switched that on and let it run.

Having multiples of things and having repair materials ON HAND can turn a disaster into an inconvenience. I had the oil filled radiators for YEARS in storage and never used them, but they sure made it easier to stay warm during this disaster.

The Mr Heater Buddy series ROCKS. Absolutely the easiest way to get heat in a disaster, or when you are away from home. HIGHLY recommended. And buy a case of bottles per heater… if you need them you REALLY need them. A full bottle lasted about 4 hours on the low setting. Besides helping my neighbor, I used one in the back bathroom to warm ME when using the throne, and to keep a room that’s cool on the best of winter days warm enough protect the pipes. Grab and go heat. Super handy.

The aphorism that you must help yourself first in order to help others proved out during this disaster so far. We were able to feed, warm, and help neighbors with repairs because we were in good shape. Even for (crusty selfish old) me it feels good to be able to help.

We’re not through it yet, but so far we’ve kept up…

Even really unlikely things can happen, so keep stacking….

nick

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Tues. Feb. 16, 2021 – it’s cold. Real cold.

Don’t know what it is in the am.   It was 19F at 7pm when I wrote this.  Wanted to get it up in case I had a problem.   Gennies never have problems on clear sunny days, but they sure seem to in the middle of the night when it’s in the teens.

After spending the day taking my neighbor food and heat, and getting my own heat up and running, every time the gennie stumbles my heart does too.

Currently (7pm Mon) have two generators running, the honda ex3000i running a couple of oil filled electric space heaters, and phone chargers, and the generac gasoline 4600 running the furnace and fan, fridges and freezers, and networking.   I damaged the idle control when fixing the carb today so it has  a piece of foam as a speed (and voltage ) adjustment.   It works very well, but occasionally hiccups.

House is warm, 72F and the garage is above freezing.   The gas fireplace helped a lot.  I even got a very quick shower.

I think we’ll have more of the same today, with added bonus misery as stuff starts failing.

WRT some comments, you can’t engineer for a 100year event.  No one can afford it.  This freeze is the very definition of an ‘act of God’ for planning and insurance purposes.  That’s why that phrase exists.   Sometimes the extremely unlikely thing happens.   Sucks to be us.

Preps have certainly helped.   Food is not an issue.   Lots of ways to cook it.   Heat has been manageable with the propane heaters, and the electric space heaters, and the gas log.   Lots of extension cords.   Generators.   Even enough to share.

It’s a disaster.  We are getting through.  That’s what we do and why we prep.

Much more detailed AAR after the disaster is done.

Until then, keep stacking.  And evaluate whether it’s worth it to cover an unlikely risk, especially if you can do so cheaply.  (Protip, yes it is.)

nick

 

And thanks t o everyone for sharing.  Connectivity has been spotty as has my available time.  Still here.  Still getting by.

 

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Sat. Feb. 13, 2021 – Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday this month

Cold.  Low 30s.  Damp.  Dreary.  Winter.

It was cold all day yesterday too, staying pretty consistently 35F all day long.  It was 35F when I went to sleep.

Ran my errands, then headed over to pick up kid 2.  Very un-usually and disconcertingly, my truck died several times during the trip.  I first thought it might be low oil, but now I am wondering if the battery is dead from the cold.   It had a really hard time cranking, and I don’t know if the truck will run without a functional battery.   I’ll be dropping it off at my mechanic’s place as soon as I can.   Truck repair was not on my radar.   But hey, prepping wise, I had an extra quart of oil to add when it said it was low.   That got me going again for a while.

In the mean time, I’ll drive the Ranger to do my pickups today, after my non-prepping hobby meeting.    Yep, I’m going.   I have stuff to sell, need to renew my membership, and it’s time to re-elect the suckers I mean Board Members who make it all work.  Plus there is some crossover with my ham lunch guys, who I haven’t seen in months.   I can touch base with two of my meatspace groups at the same time.  If that’s not efficient use of time I don’t know what is…. 🙂

The wuflu restrictions make it much harder to meet and build networks in meatspace, and I don’t think that’s accidental.  Especially as this goes on, the political aspects are outpacing the medical ones.  Given TPTB’s other actions, it’s not hard to see the sinister in everything they do.

Almost every day I thank God I live in Texas, where we’ve been spared the most egregious of the nonsense.

Did an instacart order from Costco in the late afternoon.   It’s very convenient to place the order and then go on doing other stuff on your list until it arrives.

While I was waiting I got all three of my mature citrus trees covered, and the other potted trees and plants either under cover or indoors.   The citrus got heavy black poly sheet over them, secured like a big balloon, with a 50 or 60 watt incandescent bulb in the center to provide some heat.  I’m as ready as I can be garden-wise.   I am going to try to get some more gas cans filled just in case.  After hurricane season, I usually draw down my gasoline at home.  If we end up running a gennie, I want to be ready.  I’m kicking myself once again for continuing to put off the connection of the whole house gennie.  Money, time, and access- they all need to be there together, and I haven’t made it a priority.   That is a prepper fail.

I’m actually much more concerned about the plumbing at my rent house.  It’s pier and beam construction with no insulation, and the pipes are under the house.   We’ve had pipes crack from freezing there before.   I’ll be confirming with the tenants that they understand about leaving taps running and cranking the heat.  I may put poly over the screen that blocks the airspace under the house.   Normally you want the air to blow freely, but I think stopping the air would help keep the temps up.

The school district has already cancelled all in person learning for Tuesday.   They’re off Monday anyway, and the infrastructure is all in place for ‘learn from home’, so I guess it’s prudent.  It feels like a huge over-reaction.

It’s hard to believe that it could be as bad as predicted.  Like always, I guess we’ll see.

It may be we’re already sliding down the slope to civil war and economic collapse, but that doesn’t stop Mother Nature from putting the boot in.  Get your short term house in order, top up your supplies, and get ready for winter…

And keep stacking.  You don’t want to be one of the  ‘french toast people’ do you?

 

n

 

FTP- the ones that rush out before every weather event and buy milk, eggs, and bread.   Like they’re gonna live off of french toast alone….

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Fri. Feb. 12, 2021 – what do you really need?

Cold.   Damp.  Dreary.   Like yesterday.

Cold all day.  Wet, with intermittent rain.  So I didn’t do much outside.  Everyone from my wife (who follows all the online weather guys for us) to the national forecast said the same thing- we’re not getting freezing temps in Houston until the weekend.  So I didn’t cover the trees as I’d have to do it in the rain.   It was 36F and falling when I went to bed.  Not freezing but way too close.

I spent the day dry and warm working on ebay stuff.  I had a bunch of speakers and vintage amps/receivers piled up that all needed to be tested, photographed, measured and weighed, etc.   I also needed to re-cover one grill.  So I did that.  Now that stuff can be listed, and the items themselves can go out of the house to storage.  Unfortunately some of it will be listed ‘for repair or parts’ that I was hoping would be in working condition.

A bunch of auctions closed yesterday and I was watching prices.  There was a lot of stuff that went cheap.   I am afraid that people might be done buying.  At some point, they will have other concerns than buying stuff they don’t really need.  I am hoping to get rid of a bunch more stuff before that happens.  I’m getting nervous about timing.

Which brings us to the question, “what do you really need?”

I could talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.   I could do the usual prepper list of categories -water, food, shelter, defense, health, welfare, hygiene, communication.  Instead I’m going to ask the question, What do YOU need for YOUR threats, in YOUR location, given YOUR resources?  And as a refinement, What do you STILL need?

The current world and US situation complicates the answers a bit.  We are in fact living through a disaster, the global pandemic.  The disaster has many different features and facets in different places and so like the blind men and the elephant, it looks different to different people in different places.

Further, in the US we have the unsettled political situation, with many people believing the current President is a usurper, and illegitimate; but even if he isn’t, his policies and party are anathema to half the population.   The continued polarization of the populous makes it far more of an issue in this time than in previous times.  This has many people considering the likelihood of a Civil War, or insurrection, or a massive increase in the police state and persecution of conservatives.

Pandemic and civil war are not normally high on the typical American prepper’s list of threats, but we’re currently in one, and facing the real possibility of the other.

On top of those, there is the very real threat of an economic collapse or prolonged depression, brought about or exacerbated by the pandemic, and the shift in US politics.  Again, not normally an urgent threat in the US, but here we are, MUCH closer than 4 years ago, or even 6 months ago.

Three really big, massive even, threats that were barely on the radar 2 years ago, and they are suddenly top of mind for preppers.   Add in the normal issues caused by human stupidity and Mother Nature, and it’s really hard to answer, What do I NEED?

Start with which of the threats do you think are most likely?  How will each affect you?  What do you want?  Those questions will lead you to answers to what you need.

I think some version of all three threats will be active at the same time.  I don’t know the sequence of cause and effect, but I do believe we’ll be engaged in some level of street fighting/terror attacks/low intensity conflict.   Whether because of it, or the cause of it, there is no way our economy, mostly built on gambling with other people’s money and constant buying, will survive a de facto Civil War.  Economic disruptions, with violence and civil unrest, coupled with restrictions on movement, speech, assembly, supply chain breaks, and a general breakdown in the social and civic structures we take for granted, will not be pretty.

What do I want?   I want to continue living my current lifestyle with as few changes as possible.  I want to shield my family from the worst aspects of the new abnormal.  I want to survive to get to the recovery and rebuilding phase.

Ask, What do I need to accomplish my goals?  And that will tell you what you need.

I need a safe and secure base (my home).   For some people, that will mean moving, now or later when it becomes a life or death issue.  Sectarian violence drives out the ‘other’.  You will not want to be the last of the “whatevers” to be in your area.  You can move while conserving as much of your assets as possible, or you can leave as a refugee, with nothing but the clothes on your back.   Lots of people have faced choosing one or the other throughout history, and some even face it today in other parts of the US and the world.  Don’t wait too long, and if you choose to stay, build your plan around that.

I need to accumulate  the resources now that will be unavailable or VERY expensive later.  That might mean food, a good education, medical supplies and Doctor friends, or a skill that will be hard to come by.  It might mean having the tools needed for an income stream.   If you weld, do you have wire, gas, and spare parts for your machines?  If you sew, do you have fabric, thread, buttons, zippers, patterns, etc?   Money is always good, as long as your “money” is something that will hold value in the future you see for yourself.  Bolivars didn’t do so well.   The dollar has already lost ~98% of its purchasing power since the institution of the Federal Reserve.  It’s not impossible that it will lose the rest.  No one is taking Confederate Dollars at the grocery store…

I need the support of other people.  I need people to feed me work, to buy anything I have on offer.  I need people to teach my kids.   I need people with the skills I don’t have, whether that’s medical, technical, or political.

I may need to change my politics, or my public persona.   That might mean going grey, it might mean running for the School Board.  The goal is to survive.  -To be here for my kids.  -To rebuild if it’s possible.  -To remind if it’s not.

Every one of those needs can be further unpacked into specific things to have, specific actions to take, skills to learn, or people to meet.  And each one of those things can be further unpacked, and once more, and again, recursively and fractally, forever.  But don’t let that dissuade you or dishearten you.  You are likely to be further along than you think.

Take a mental or physical inventory of what you already have.  What stuff have you been accumulating?  What skills do you have?   Who do you know?  What processes have you already begun?   Because BEGINNING is key.  Start work on filling those needs once you start identifying them.  Don’t wait until you have all of them documented in your 3 ring binder, start filling in where you know you are short WHILE assessing where you need to be.   Start extending and building on what you have.

Every project has tasks and milestones that need to happen serially and in order.  Every project has tasks that can happen in parallel.  Every project has tasks that can happen in any order.   Prepping is no different.  Identify which of your needs can be met by which sort of task, and proceed accordingly.  And when in doubt, the prepper basics are basics for a reason.  Get started with them, then keep building on what you have.   Always be working to improve your position.

And of course, keep stacking.

 

nick

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Thur. Feb. 4, 2021 – a bit of a blast from the past…prepping for travel

Another nice day, cool but clear.   There was a bit of overcast late in the day yesterday but otherwise the howling wind kept the sky clear.  It was a little on the cool side, but I didn’t want a jacket.

Today I’m at home, hoping to catch up on some home things.  I spent part of yesterday doing pickups and drop offs.  Got my plumbing supplies.   Got some lego for youngest’s birthday if I don’t get something else before then (I’ve got a couple of months but hey, prepper!)

While looking for something else, I came across this old comment from 2015 and decided to clean it up and put it here.  The discussion started with an article about bug out bags, and EDC gear in your bug out vehicle.   It was a ridiculous article that thankfully is no longer online.  It did spark some good back and forth, and some froth from me….  hopefully there are some nuggets in there still… and it doesn’t have a gear list, because that is a whole internet’s worth of posts… and beyond a few critical things, the gear probably doesn’t matter as much as the person carrying it.

nick says:

  • @OFD

    “You gotta figure where you are, where you might have to hump it for a while, and what can you efficiently carry with the least discomfort and pain.”

    That means if you are building a bag-o-tricks to take with you while traveling, it should address your most likely problems. Those are:

    Missed flight, late arrival, stuck at airport, lost or delayed luggage.

    And the best things to combat those things are:

    Food, entertainment, toiletries, meds, glasses if you wear contacts, an airline lounge membership, a change of clothes, and cash or credit cards. Add a blanket or (microfiber) towel for cover, or a soft hat. Not one of those is tactical [the original article was filled with tactical looking stuff which draws attention, and your typical internet article full of “preps” like a signal mirror, fishing hooks, and knives-lots of knives].

    So if the UN-likely happens, and you are away from home and there is a local or regional problem, you need to get out of the region and ‘back to civilization’.   For whatever reason you can’t just fly and you decide to use your bag o tricks and leave. In the most likely cases, it’s weather, transit strike, local civil unrest, or (lastly) terror attack. Assuming you can’t just stay put in a safe place for a couple of days, MONEY is your best prep here. Cash in hand and credit cards that aren’t maxed out. No survival knife or kydex will get you a rental SUV to drive thru the snow. The stuff in your bag should make your life easier WHILE getting out of town and is coincidentally the same stuff that makes a missed flight easier to deal with.

    Flexibility is your second best prep. Flexibility starts with questions.  Since you can’t fly, can you drive? Are cars available? Can you rent from the airport/hotel/neighborhood storefront/rent a wreck? Can you rent a truck or moving van? Can you hitch a ride with a colleague or co-worker? Is there a train? A private party willing to drive? Cab? Cheap car to purchase? Driving all the way home or just outside the affected area? If you decide to drive, will you be able to get gas and food? Or should you hit the store for some shelf stable food and some boxes of granola? Again MONEY will make this all easier. Consider options you might not normally look at.   When all the cheap cars are gone, the Hummer might be available (this happened to a female co-worker who was trying to G.O.O.D. in Oklahoma before a storm. Only vehicle left at the rental was a Hummer at an eye watering rate.  She took it and Got Out Of Dodge ok.  Had to explain to corporate bean counters why she took a vehicle outside of the approved class, but it worked out and she got somewhere SAFE.)  Sometimes the only hotels with vacancy are the high end ones.  Money gives you options.

    Finally and least likely, there is a SHTF event, and all normal modes of travel are out.

    In that case you should start with some harder questions.  Is it better to look for allies and resources locally or to start off cross country? How do you know there is anywhere to go back to? Wait and see if things improve or move quickly? Any waterways going the right direction? Do you have family or friends along the way? Company offices? MONEY, FLEXIBILITY, and also INFORMATION are once again your best preps. In a collapse or major multi-regional event, info is gonna be the hardest thing to get. And there isn’t much you can do except carry some with you (to help you get home).

    I carried a garmin GPSIII for years. It had a built in basemap, with freeway exit info. It ran a long time on 4 AA batts. It showed RR tracks, waterways, and roads. (Now I download an area map in Google Maps that covers my journey.)   Before I left home for a job, I looked up and mapped the closest Home Depot and Lowes stores. I had that printed out and carried in my job site folder. I carried a compass. I always got the paper maps at the car rental agency (these are specific to the local area, about 11×17 inches, and have local points of interest on them too.   The local maps and points of interest were to help me gear up, and get away if I needed to.  The Garmin was for guidance along the route home.  In terms of gear I carried, I had my EDC knife and a multitool. I carried minimal first aid- bandaids and super glue. I had lots of flashlights, bug juice, and water purification tabs. I had a messenger style bag, not a backpack.  The plan was to gear up on the way out, if possible and if needed.

    If I had to start traveling, and driving was not an option at all, I’d be looking for waterways or RR tracks. I’d be looking for bicycles, canoes, or jonboats. (For one lengthy project, I mapped a route that I could get from my customer’s plant to within a couple of miles of my parents’ house by canoe.  I could walk from there.)

    If anyone would sell, I’d be a buyer. If not, there are always some laying around. Even a kid’s bike can hold the weight of your gear while you walk. What about a shopping cart? Wheelbarrow? I think normalcy bias will have lots of people still willing to exchange goods for money for a while until the new reality sinks in. Boots, appropriate outerwear, backpack, food and water. All should be available to buy if done right away. You are looking for packable stuff- water purification tabs, compact calories (powerbars), rain poncho, hat, what else do you need? Trash bags for rain gear and concealment are everywhere. So is clothesline or wire. You are already setting off on an impossible journey. It will only be harder with 20 pounds of stuff. Food and water should fill your pack. A partner will double your chances. Whole books have been written about the cross country journey after the SHTF, and they are worth reading for ideas and for the exercise of considering what might work for you.

    Now back to real life. The most likely SHTF is the same while traveling as while at home– personal SHTF.

    Sickness
    Auto accident
    Work accident
    Mugging/robbery/assault

    Rather than packing a bunch of kydex, in your EDC do you have a copy of your employer’s auto insurance rider? What about their Workman’s Compensation certificate? (If you are traveling on personal business, do you have the equivalent personal info?)  Do you know where the nearest Urgent Care or Emergency Room is? Do you have the address of your hotel or workplace so you can call 911? Does anyone expect you home at a specific time and do they know where you are staying? There are services that will provide a Doctor to come to your hotel, do you have their number in your phone or card in your bag? Do your co-workers at the worksite have your hotel info (to find you if you don’t show up on time, since you are vomiting your guts out from bad dinner?)   While driving, do you note the exits as you pass them, or the cross streets, so you could call 911 for help and know roughly where you are?

    Add travel outside the US and now you should ask yourself:
    Do you know where the US embassy is? The UK or Canadian? Israeli? Have you checked in with the Embassy? Do you have a medical insurance phone number that will send an english speaking doctor to your hotel? Do you know which hospital treats Europeans? Does your employer have kidnap insurance? A Risk Management Department? Do they know where you are? Do they have a contract with any of the international medical and rescue (extraction) companies? (You can buy this sort of insurance as a private person too, it’s surprisingly affordable.)   Have they given you any plans/contacts/security info? Will your company or local contact be providing drivers? Security? Accommodation? Is your local contact a native or ex-pat? Do you trust him? If you are on your own, or work for a small company, have you read the CIA world fact book entry for the country? Are you familiar with any factions or unrest? Have you read the State Department travel advisories for the country? Have you looked at a map to know where you are? What is the nearest friendly place?

    In my opinion, if you can’t answer these questions, you are NOT prepared for any problems with your travel, no matter how tricksie your gear is.

    -and that is the crux of the matter, info and brains are your best preps for EDC or BOB or GOOD, supplemented with a bare minimum of ‘things’.

    And lest anyone think all that travel stuff was overkill, while traveling for work, I’ve had co-workers in serious car accidents. I had one fall on the job and break her hip. I’ve had a friend of a friend die in a hotel room. I had a boss slip and fall in the hotel shower and be unable to work for the entire event. I’ve been food poisoned on average 5 times a year by hotels and restaurants. Once I was so sick with pneumonia I couldn’t get out of bed in Miami until I got some antibiotics. I have co-workers who were robbed at gunpoint. Two that narrowly missed getting drugged and raped in Miami (men, and they were drugged but got out of the bar in time.) One that had to race to get out of town before a hurricane hit, and one that had to drive a Hummer to Texas to avoid a tornado storm. (Same female used steristrips to close a cut on her FACE after a server fell on her at work.  Her daddy didn’t raise any snowflakes.) I’ve driven home when my flight was canceled. I’ve rented SUVs to get thru snowstorms. We drove from NYC to St Louis after 911. One coworker had a car bomb explode outside his hotel in Europe. Another passed bodies stacked along the road like cordwood in Indonesia after an attack by rebels. Same guy was locked in and threatened by OUR CUSTOMER in the Middle East. And yes, my employer had kidnap insurance as we worked worldwide and throughout Africa and the middle east, as well as Colombia and some other more southern sh!tholes.

    You really appreciate the value of a paper copy of insurance coverage when you’re bleeding from several places and have a broken foot after your taxi gets hit in a strange city.   Or having your own first aid while bleeding from a cut on your hand in China…

    I’ll admit that I carry a few more things now, since I’m traveling with my family. I have a much more complete first aid kit for example and better weapons. And several times people here have volunteered safe havens or way points if things went pear shaped while I was traveling with family.   But MONEY and FLEXIBILITY are still the best preps for travel and “getting home when it drops in the pot” and they weigh very little.

    Still a bit disjointed, and meant as more of a memory jog, or food for thought than a finished article, but hopefully worth the time it took to read.

    And while I’m an advocate for carrying just a few critical items when traveling, and acquiring the rest as needed, I am a firm believer in having as much of the stuff you think you’ll need close to hand when at home.

    So keep stacking!  But also organize, “curate”, and use what you’ve got.

    nick

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Fri. Jan. 29, 2021 – time to garden

Cool, clear, and windy.  [38F at 6am- so COLD, clear, etc]  It was a bit cool yesterday, especially overnight, but once the sun came out it felt like spring.

And with spring in the air, a young man’s fancy turns to getting a garden in.

But first, I spent all of yesterday at home, except when I drove to school to get child 2.  I hit the Lowe’s on the way home to get some more of the bins I’m using to organize my food storage, and they  had vegetable garden plants.    So I bought a bunch.   They were well stocked on seedlings, and the seed display was full too.  It seems a bit early to me, but I’m going for it.

Sometime this weekend I’ll be planting all that stuff I bought.

This time, I’ll use fresh seeds, and put hardware cloth over all the beds.   I’m hoping for much better results, because then I’ll know what to blame, and how to move forward.   “Gardening” is not my thing.   Trying to grow some food to supplement my stores for my family is.  IE.  it’s not a passion, it’s a chore.  Still, I like to succeed when I try to do something.   So far my successes have been limited.  The learning curve is much steeper than I could have imagined.  Get started on your gardens, even if it’s just planning, and just a couple of pots or a window box.  Grow something.  You’ll be glad you did.

Plan for the day is to continue getting stuff out of the house, continue getting my secondary location cleaned up, and continue with all the other myriad things that take  my attention.   Including some more auction stuff.   I let a ton of stuff go by, but I did snag a couple of useful things.   I am focusing, little by little, on what’s most important.

Time for  a Costco order too.  Instacart, here I come.

Stack it up, flip it, rub it down, oh no, this world’s gonna kill me…  Or something like that.  I am a child of the 80s after all.

Seriously though, start something this weekend that you’ve been meaning to get to.  Time’s a wasting.

nick

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Thur. Jan. 28, 2021 – Home today, plenty to do

Cool and clear.  Windy?  Yesterday was.  Very windy and all day long too.   I wore shorts, but also a sweatshirt.    50F when I went to sleep, and not all that much warmer during the day.

I ran my errands, starting with helping my wife pick up the GS cookies.  Did a pretty good job of filling a honda minivan, and then the half of the foyer.   The volunteers at the warehouse rocked.

Then I got some stuff together and took a pickup load to auction.  My check for the last one was about ~$840 after commissions.  I don’t know what my net was but we are getting back into the area I used to be in- a decent part time income from part time work.    If I can get up to doing $500 a week I’ll be happy.  And yes, my wife has a great job, for which we are all thankful.  Everything I make is “extra” if there is such a thing.  I am the ‘stay at home’ after all.

Everyone should be establishing some extra lines of income.  Everyone should be exploring alternative sourcing.   I’ve mentioned I think things are going to get a lot worse, right?  I seem to recall saying something at some point…..    anyway.   People are still buying stuff.   That could and probably will change.  Pokemon cards are not going to fill empty bellies, so there is a ‘sell by’ date on Pokemon.  Ditto for most of the stuff on ebay or etsy.  However, local trading groups and FB, and all the other forms of local selling are going to facilitate barter and money saving reuse/repurpose/resell for the foreseeable future, and may shift from unloading stuff to selling desperately needed basics.

Explore your options now.   Everything has a learning curve.   Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, or a mix of both, the ‘secondary market’, which is where I’ve been living for years, will play an increasing role in your everyday life.  You want to be careful of course.  One man’s money saving yard-sale-ing  could become .gov’s black-marketeering in short order.   The prepper-sphere is always talking about barter for after SHTF.   Consider that the fan isn’t so shiny, and has a suspicious odor already….  and start working on some of those skills.   In Gulag-19, I’m the ‘scrounger’.  Who are you?

Skills, people, stuff.  Stack ’em high.

nick

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Wed. Jan. 27, 2021 – just keeping on keeping on

The national forecast shows us on the edge of a weather system.  Usually when that happens, we don’t get the weather.   Local forecast calls for clear and dry.   I would like some more dry weather for a couple of days at least.

Yesterday was nice out, cooler and a bit less humid.  It was 60F when I went to bed.

I got one auction closed out, and made decent money on it despite some very poor pictures and low prices.  I’m taking some of the leftover items to the other auction house, where I’m sure they will do better.   That’s today’s job, get stuff to the auction house, and to and from storage and my secondary location.  Not only did I remove the stuff in the entryway, I got several bins off the patio too.

Foyer is clean and empty, ready for piles of cookie boxes.

Progress has been made.  Always at the expense of something else on the list, but ‘them’s the breaks.’

Today was also haircut and shave day.  Still got the ‘stash and chin beard, but my cheeks are smooth again.

I also took a tiny bit of time to do more cleanup in my office.  In this case, sorting some of the auction receipts, and fixing a couple of small things.  The ‘fixing’ mainly involved cleaning up leaking batteries, and getting the contacts working well again.  It did get a couple of things off the desk and surrounding area, so that is  a good thing.  Baby steps are still steps 🙂

Out in the garden, I’ve been adding my used coffee grounds to the raised beds.  Can’t hurt, might help.  The potted limes are in bloom, well, “bud”.  Flowers soon enough.   The collards are about the same as they were.   I haven’t harvested anything from them at all yet.  They seem to do much better in the second year for me so I’ll wait.  I expect they’ll start growing enough I feel ok harvesting leaves soon.   The grapefruits were and are delicious.  Big, juicy, almost sweet, needing only a bit of salt to moderate the bitter.   The Meyer lemon is still producing big and sweet juicy lemons.   For all the rest it’s getting to the point I need to start planning the planting…  and get a couple of areas ready that I blew off last year.  I want more stuff in the ground this year and hopefully I’ll get more out.

I don’t want to tempt fate, but we were expecting a cold winter.  Fat squirrels, white tipped ears, etc.  So far, we’ve only had a couple of nights dip below freezing, and not by much.  I’m glad, as I didn’t have to cover and heat all the citrus.  I’m concerned because it didn’t kill off the vermin.

Speaking of which, mice have been eating the poison baits in the attic.  The ‘evidence’ is too small to be rats, I think.   I’ll refresh all the bait boxes over the next couple of days in case, and maybe set a couple more pads or traps.   If you don’t have stacks of rodent and pest control already, get some in… they won’t be going away, and they typically prosper when the humans get to fighting.   You don’t have enough food to share.

Just one more thing to stack, so get going!  Keep stacking.

nick

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Fri. Jan. 22, 2021 – Finally Friday, and I can see the end of Jan. from here…

Cool and wet, super humid even if not raining.

Thursday was overcast and misty fog to light drizzle, depending on where and when.   Some of our microclimates probably stayed dry.  I was all over and it was wet wherever I went.

I spent several hours clearing stuff out of my secondary location.  This time it was mostly empty boxes.  Yeah, I save boxes.  Nope, not going to need these.   Haven’t used them in 8 years, unlikely to use them ever.   When the space was free it didn’t matter.  Now I need the space so they had to go.  Two big pickup truck loads shifted to the dumpster.  Then I moved stuff into the newly cleared area.  I think I’m going to be pretty sore today as some of the boxes weren’t really empty, and some weighed 20-30 pounds.  I had to do a lot of holding them out in front of me and over my head to get through the labyrinth…  (this falls under the heading “using what you’ve already got”)

The deal for the BOL/lakehouse fell apart.  Perfect for me, not perfect for my wife.  On top of that the owner countered with some stipulations we didn’t like,  and there are still  the questions about Army Corps flood easements…. My wife’s back looking at listings.  Armed conflict in the Capitol would have made that decision easier, but even I’m not that selfish.

I didn’t get a chance to put away all the food I bought yet.  Maybe today.  I’ve got a couple of pickups and more cleaning to do though and that’s higher priority.

I did get lucky at Goodwill and got about 10 reference books about guns, everything from modern sporting rifles, to historical black powder.   50c each.  I also got a bunch of books about hunting and fishing with a couple specific to Texas.  I like books and I like reference material in hard copy form.  With every search and web visit logged, with every purchase saved and correlated, it can’t be  a bad thing to have some stuff that is completely off the radar.  One of the books was published by Paladin Press.  Man, those guys would be going NUTS in today’s environment.  Build a reference library that won’t rat you out with every page view.

One of my local auctions closed and prices looked pretty good.  I will get some more stuff to them for their next auction.  The ‘industrial’ auction lots are getting bids this time, and look like they might be ok pricing too.  I recommend checking out your local estate sale and consignment auctions.  Lots of stuff, prices can be good to great, and “Lot 3, box of books” looks very different in a database than “Modifying your AR”, “Homemade silencers”, “Gunsmith’s Bible”, “Nosler Reloading Guide”, etc.*

One of the auctions next week is a nearby medical center that closed or somehow ended up surplussing a lot of stuff, including several pallets of masks and other PPEs.  WTF?  I guess they don’t want to just give them to the state to redistribute.   I’ll be a bidder.  Lots of weird stuff out there, you just have to find it.

And speaking of weird, this is an example of how my life works.   I bought a windows Smartab tablet for <$20.  It all works great except the wifi card.  I tried the Realtek drivers to no avail.   The card is recognized but just doesn’t work.   Just when I think I’m at a dead end with a bad card, I find the EXACT SAME Smartab in a bin at Goodwill, with a cracked screen.   I’ll be prying that one open to steal the wifi as soon as I get the time.  Weird, but that’s why I suggest being flexible and open in your plans.  Stuff happens.

Figure out what you’ve got, figure out what you might need, but be open to what the universe sends your way.  And keep stacking.

 

nick

 

*not the actual titles

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