![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
My interest in the preparedness community is still as vibrant as ever, but I have reached the point where I am not terribly interesting, my preps mainly consist of food storage/rotation, gear checks (and I am standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to that, I buy a lot of the highly recommended stuff) and I am not breaking any new ground.
I am still learning to speak Russian, I work on the space program and now that the shuttle is going tits up this coming summer the Russians will be the only game in town lifting things into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We are about to cede our hard-won position in space. I am not paranoid about the Russians despite growing up in the 1970s, it's just a dumb thing for the US to do in general.
That said, if the economy does drop sharply into the shitter, my family and I are going to be OK. At the end of the day, that's what the whole preparedness community is about - dealing with the 7 years of lean by not being stupid during the 7 years of plenty.
The problem is that out in the woods these days, the mood has changed. Once you get outside of the far suburbs and truly out into the sticks most of the rules of civilization get minimized, if not thrown out completely. I have had my cabin burglarized and even lived in for short periods of time. Now, I don't have any of my supplies at the cabin itself, they are cached underground elsewhere on the property and have not been discovered. However, we had some methmonsters living there for a week or two recently.
I was lucky, they didn't burn it down or take a dump in the sink or smear it on the walls - but they did leave garbage all over the house and we had to spend a good while cleaning/disinfecting the place. I reported it to the local law enforcement guys and they took my report and pretty much shrugged, meth is an epidemic out in the country and a serious problem for the people who live out there full time, never mind us weekenders. They did steal the few canned goods I had in the cabinets, and took all the dishes which I have not yet figured out. I bought the set at a yard sale for $3, an ugly floral pattern from the 1970s so it's not a huge loss, I am just mystified as to the motives for taking every piece, even the coffee cups.
I had considered putting beds out there, I am not going to do that now and we will continue to use our cots and sleeping bags that we bring with us, I really don't want to sleep in a bed after these people have done who knows what there. There were only minimum cleaning supplies, those dishes and a few other things like paper towels and toilet paper in the cabin. While I am very unhappy they stole everything, I am semi-relieved about the toilet paper, I am glad they used it as opposed to the myriad of alternatives.
I mentioned this to a few other people that I know who have weekend houses out in the country, and every single one of them has had this problem. One guy had the squatters change the locks on his doors, after they repaired the broken door frame with carpenter's glue. He too always brings his gun(s) and checks the house before he does anything else, and he once found water in the sink, still somewhat warm and the back door open wide when he pulled up.
I cannot live out there full time, it's simply not possible. I don't want to sell it - although I may after this hurricane season. As things are going now, I know for a fact that my contract ends in October and it's likely I will be moving anyway. I will continue to go out there on weekends, and just hope that the meth heads leave it alone until I no longer have a use for it and can sell it.
Mои российские языковые навыки плохи. Очень плохо. Но я учусь.
Something I never can quite understand is the love that artists have for Communism and/or socialism.
I read recently about how Obama's recent relaxation of our rules regarding Cuba has meant that a whole raft of Hollywood stars have travelled to Havana... Ostensibly to show support for the government there. I guess that being able to deliver lines cleverly on cue with much aplomb does not equal an analytical, rational mind.
Let's consider the following - During the 70+ years from the Октябрьская революция (October Revolution) the following people defected in rather public fashion from the Soviet Union:
(From Wikipedia)
Theater Director
In 1983, Yuri Lyubimov, the Taganka Theatre's director, defected to London while staging Crime and Punishment at the Lyric Theatre.
Musicians
On April 11, 1981, Maxim Shostakovich, a conductor and a son of an outstanding Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, defected with his son, Dmitry Maximovich Shostakovich, who is a pianist to the United States.
Ballet Dancers
On June 16, 1961, Rudolf Nureyev, from the Kirov defected during a stopover in Paris.
In 1970, Natalia Makarova, a ballerina with the Leningrad-based company, defected to England while on tour with her company.
On June 29th, 1974, Mikhail Baryshnikov, a dancer of the Kirov defected in Toronto by running three blocks to a waiting car after the final performance at O'Keefe Centre.
On August 23, 1979, Alexander Godunov, a principal dancer of Bolshoi Ballet, defected while on tour in New York City. His defection caused the Soviet-bound flight of the troupe to be grounded at John F. Kennedy International Airport for days and led to diplomatic incident between the U.S. And the Soviet. His defection might have also inspired other performers and athletes to follow suit in the months followed.
On September 16, 1979, Leonid Kozlov, a principal dancer of Bolshoi Ballet, defected in Los Angeles with another principal dancer and his former wife, Valentina Kozlova. Leonid Kozlov supposed to be the substitute for Alexander Godunov on the role of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake.
Chess Players
In 1976, Viktor Korchnoi, a Soviet Grandmaster, defected to the Netherlands after winning at the Amsterdam International Tournament. This incident was the first defection of a Soviet Grandmaster.
In 1980 Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov, defected in Gander, Newfoundland when the return trip from Capablanca Memorial tournament in Cuba needed a refueling stop in Canada. He ran from the airplane and was chased by KGB agents.
Athletes
In August 1979, Vladas Cesiunas, canoeing Olympics medalist left at Frankfurt Airport while en route to the World Canoe Championship in Germany. In October 1979, the West German government claimed that Cesiunas was abducted by the Soviet secret service while standing outside a school in September.
On September 24, 1979, Oleg Protopopov a figure skater, and his partner, Ludmila Belousova, both Olympics medalists defected to Switzerland while touring.
Then, let's take a look at the number of Americans of cultural note (I have omitted professional intelligence gatherers from this list) that defected TO the Soviet Union:
Lee Harvey Oswald renounced his citizenship in Moscow on October 31st, 1959. He returned in June of 1962 married to a Russian national and went on to gain historical notoriety as the Warren Commission's finding that he was the sole assassin in the death of President John F. Kennedy on the 22nd of November, 1963.
Yep. Not many. Even Josef Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva Stalin defected in 1967 (although to be fair, she did return to the USSR in 1984) and if we were to include intelligence officers I believe only one CIA officer is ever known to have defected, Edward Lee Howard. Granted, there have been others who sold intelligence to the Soviets but Howard is the only CIA officer known to have defected.
So if we look at the historical data of the systematic oppression and even torture of artists in the Soviet Union, why is it that so many artists here in the US idolize Castro and the Communists? Don't they realize that if their dream is ever realized, that they along with their fellow actors, painters, musicians and authors will be restricted to only produce approved material? That the freedom they cherish and give lip service to will evaporate almost immediately?
I still don't understand the love affair, but it continues in the face of the facts unabated.
"It's unbelievable what is happening," says Werner Wiesner, the head of Megaman, a manufacturer of energy-saving bulbs. Wiesner recounts a story of how one of his field representatives recently saw a man in a hardware store with a shopping cart full of light bulbs of all types worth more than €200 ($285). "That's enough for the next 20 years."
The are responding to a new law in Germany which takes effect on September 1st that phases out incandescent bulbs and replaces them with the supposedly more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). Now, I don't know about y'all, but I hate fluorescent lights. We have them at the Job, and they buzz, flicker and give me headaches. I don't have a single CFL in my house, I had to rip out the kitchen ceiling fixture and replace it when we moved in.
I have been told by 'experts' that there is no possible way that I could see fluorescing bulbs flicker, that the frequency at which they resonate (60-75Hz or 100-120 Hz depending on the ballasts) is beyond the range of normal human vision. All I know is what I can see, although the presence of multiple lamps seems to diminish the effect significantly - I assume that there is some sort of frequency cancellation or saturation when multiple bulbs are involved.
Anyway, I may throw a case or two of good old 60W incandescents in the cart the next time I am at Costco.
This was so full of win that when I found it in my Inbox I just had to share.
In other news, I was talking recently to a local cop about the rise of burglaries in the area. We recently had a situation in a nearby neighborhood where a guy came home for lunch and surprised two Bad Guys in his house. They tuned him up a little then force-marched him around his house having him point out expensive items. They then tied him up and locked him in his bathroom, making him not the luckiest person on Earth but he is fortunate his assailants didn't hold with the old "dead men tell no tales" meme.
Anyway, I asked the officer how many of the homes that were recently burgled have dogs. He thought for a moment and answered, "None." Apparently the new MO for Bad Guys is to park in your driveway and go up and ring the doorbell. No one home? Jackpot. However, if they are greeted with snarling and barking on the other side of the door, they tend to move on. Too much hassle and too much chance of getting bitten. Granted, if they really want to steal your gear subsonic hollowpoints are pretty effective against dogs. However it's unlikely that you will have a determined crew targeting your house and if you do there's not much you can do about it except call 911 when you get to your renovated (read: empty) home.
Dogs? They are fine companions for your family and can be valuable assets to protecting your home. They are also outstanding for spotting Terminators.
I saw this story today about Obama blowing off schoolchildren in order to hang out with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then this gem, which sums it all up...
I was over at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
commander_zero's and was reading the post about the upcoming movie version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I posted a comment, and it inspired me to post about this on my own site, in an expanded version.
I purchased this novel as my personal library is stocked with post-apocalyptic fiction like Alas Babylon, Lucifer's Hammer, Earth Abides, The Stand, Dies the Fire, Day by Day Apocalypse and World War Z. I had heard good things about the author, and I eagerly picked up this tome and dove right in.
The Road might be the most singularly mind-numbing, plotless book I have ever picked up. Here is my recollection of 98% of the dialogue:
"Dad, I am cold."
"I know."
"Dad, I am hungry."
"I know."
"Dad, you won't leave me, will you?"
"No."
And this goes on for 256 pages. This is the first book I have read that is composed almost *entirely* of sentence fragments. The overarching theme is that something unnamed has destroyed most of civilization, and the earth is in some form of what appears to be a nuclear winter. In The Road, the skies are always grey, ash covers everything and pollutes everything so while the book is ambiguous about the cause of the catastrophe, be it bombs or a meteor strike - it never really tells you why this happened, just that it has. However, The Road is positively Dickensian in it's description of ash.
The father and son don't do much but push a shopping cart around, hide from the few cannibalistic survivors that still sparsely populate this emptied-out world and explore abandoned/empty houses. They are trying to get somewhere, but where they are and where they are headed (to the coast somewhere as I recall) is never really made clear.
Ok. I understand that the story was supposed to be about the father's love for the son. I got that part. By page 10, that was clear. The fact that the man didn't eat the young boy was indicative of his love. The remaining 246 pages were simply an exercise in a stream-of-consciousness babbling. I forced myself to finish the book, because I thought that there might be some sort of payoff at the end, something that would make the hours I had already invested worthwhile. Nope. Didn't happen.
If you are even remotely interested in survival/preparedness, I would go ahead and skip The Road. The protagonist is clearly in a TEOTWAWKI situation, and outside of exploring farmhouses for cans of food he doesn't really do anything to better his situation. I suppose that anyone would be shellshocked from the situation but eventually most people fighting for their survival would wake up and get proactive, but this character wanders around dazed and clueless for almost the entire book. This is the first story I have read in a while where the protagonist was almost too stupid to live and where blind luck was the deus ex machina that repeatedly saved his sorry ass.
I saw the trailer at Youtube for the movie version and it looks like that Hollywood may have rewritten quite a bit of it, and this may be one of those instances where the movie is actually better than the book. I doubt seriously that I will see it in the theater, this one has that "wait 'til it's out at Blockbuster" written all over it.
I sold my old POS gasoline generator and I bought a 8250K tri-fuel generator that runs on propane, gasoline or natural gas. I would much rather store propane in my garage than gasoline since the chance of it burning me to death is significantly lower. Also, I can save the stabilized gasoline I do have for the vehicles in case bugging out becomes the priority over sheltering in place. In addition, BOLhalla (my primary bugout location) has a 250 gallon propane tank on the premises which will keep my power on for a looong time if need be. I also can run it from the natural gas lines in my house, but I will need to consult with a contractor on how to run a junction off of the gas supply in my house, I have a basic idea of how to do it, but with gas it's best to ask and find out the easy way, as opposed to finding out I did it wrong the hard way.
________________________________________
Another critical piece of kit is an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) that serves two purposes, it can run small appliances or computers for a set amount of time in a crisis, and it's critical if you plan on hooking any of your sensitive electronics (laptops etc.) to a generator. You are looking for a UPS that conditions the power, since generators are notorious for power surges and drops. This will fry your gentle little CPU, and that's a Bad Thing. From the description: "The CP1350AVRLCD provides 810 Watts of output, offering you enough time to close files and protect data in an outage. It has eight surge-protected outlets, four of which are linked to the battery power, with one spaced for transformer use, all in a compact unit able to protect all of your communications outlets and data lines. Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) ensures that all your electronics are receiving clean power and stabilizes the voltage to a nominal 120VAC." This also protects your rig from utility company surges and brown-outs, which are more common during the summer months due to the added loads from AC units kicking on and off.
Lastly, I am going to buy a portable AC unit, probably a 10K BTU unit that we can use in the house or at BOLhalla (it has central air in the cottage) in a pinch. I haven't decided on which model to buy, I am still in the research phase. If anyone has a suggestion, I am all ears.
