book review grid down v2p3 & one other article

Cc: – Down

BOOK REVIEW: GRID DOWN V.2, P3 & ONE OTHER ARTICLE We have talked at length here before about Bruce Buckshot Hemming and his books ( NUG alert-I like them enough to recommend them all.  Yes, a smidge stilted in style, and somewhat predictable.  HOWEVER…this is not some idiot with a keyboard and a Kindle account trying to make a fast buck by entertaining you with Hollywood level hokum.  This guy is far to the realism, teachable moment spectrum rather than the lowest common denominator one.  Now, I’m entertained when I read them.  They just aren’t mindlessly slick.  They have flaws.  Whose writing doesn’t?  You won’t just be bedazzled and distracted as with most Apocalypse stories.  You will be entertained enough to happily get through them, THEN you will also have learned something ).  Here is #4 of his series, “Grid Down Perceptions Of Reality Volume 2 Part 3”. With this one, a different turn is taken.  It took me by surprise, pleasantly.  I don’t really want to give a spoiler here, but the book practically hinges on just this one aspect.  Wild life from a refuge has escaped and is depopulating the area ( I can attest to the realistic nature of this theme, knowing a donation pick-up driver to a nearby refuge ) as they must turn to humans for food ( for some reason, cries of “soylent green is people” are going through my mind here ).  Oh, there are other events, one of which was a satanic cult kidnapping the young nubile sacrifices to be.  I kind of thought it would have been really cool if the Satan dudes psi-controlled a murder of crows ( or several ) to attack the rescuing group, but alas, me and author were of different minds on that because nothing close happened. Look, if you are going to have Satan worshipers in hoods chanting Latin, why not throw in some of Lucifer’s Minions helping the brothers out?  Crows are cool- they should be in every post-Apocalypse story. Perhaps next time. * Bruce is coming along on the human interaction thing.  Yes, still a bit stilted in narrative flow ( right, like I really know what I’m talking about given my fiction-I’m just saying some writing styles seem more like an outsider looking in rather than you feeling close to the characters ), but the romantic attraction thing seems a little less forced this time, a bit more realistic.  And, I read this whole book in one setting, which made dinner late and one should NOT eat chili when bedtime is only an hour away.  Is that entertaining enough for you?  This series keeps going on with no quality sacrifices, and with moderate improvements each time.  If you liked the other ones, you will definitely like this one.  Personally, I would recommend the paper version.  If all you can afford in Kindle, you will want to take notes.  This one is like the others, full of tidbits of instruction on wilderness survival and how-to shortcuts.  You know, for those not saving all those U-Tube videos.  And even then, paper is timeless, baring a fire or crows attacking you at your library.

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CONDENSED LAUNDRY SOAP

When the Internet groaned under the weight of a metric short butt ton of U-Tube videos and blog articles on making your own laundry soap for forty cents a gallon, I read and watched with mild interest but didn’t give it a lot of thought initially.  Okay, my gallon of liquid soap I buy at Dollar Tree pencils out to around $2, each jug being half a gallon.  But that is still cheaper than most so I was content just stocking up every time I went down to visit the parental units back west ( we have stupid crap stores like Dress Barn,  bitches clothes, even a friggin Yuppie Make Your Own frozen yogurt, but can we get our own Dollar Tree!?  NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!  You would think I would have been happy once Jack In The Box showed up, but now they have disillusioned me.  My last taco order tasted “off”, not as in fresh but in taste,  and that night they cleared out my intestines.  I’m over those bastards ).  But then, my last few remaining brain cells woke up, yawned, looked around, fired electronically and came up with the long delayed but obvious observation I had ignored before.  It isn’t just that the homemade soap is oh so very much cheaper, it is the fact that it is condensed.  As in, oh so much nicer for stockpiling.  Just as powdered bleach let us store water disinfectant in a small space, replacing bulky gallons of bleach, now we can store condensed liquid laundry soap in dry form.

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Here is the article I found:

www.mrshappyhomemaker.com/2012/09/homemade-detergent-plus-afree-printable-label/

Obviously, this isn’t rocket science.  The main thing is that since the ingredients all come in different size packages, you are going to have to noodle out how many of each will in the end equal the same amount of inputs.  The borax come in an 80 ounce box, but the Arm & Hammer is 70 ounces ( if memory serves ) and you need one bar of soap for every one cup each of the powders.  So in the end, they don’t all add up.  You can’t buy one of each every shopping trip, but rather dozens of soap bars per box of powder, and for every ten boxes of borax you buy nine of the A&H ( or something similar-I haven’t actually done the math ).   Hey, this shouldn’t be a big deal.  Somebody measure out how many cups of powder come in each box, then the math becomes pretty easy.  I’m at work, with the Internet down, AGAIN, so my research abilities approach zero.  And, yes, I’m aware they make powdered laundry soap already, smart ass.  But liquid works better in cold water (  which might be all you get later on ), AND you should be able to also use liquid laundry soap as a substitution for dish soap and hand soap and even body gel.  I don’t know if it is as effective, but it certainly can’t hurt and will certainly help.  Post-collapse, soap is your best friend for keeping healthy and vermin free.

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