light and smoke

LIGHT AND SMOKE

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note: free books.  A sequel, you may or may not want to try, PA https://amzn.to/2yXq5KX .  You might have noticed we are doing a lot of repeats from a month ago.  What can I say?  The price.  PA https://amzn.to/2tFUrfQ .  Plague https://amzn.to/2tCVltB .  Normally not my bag, baby, but here is a more religious or spiritual war story if you like that sort https://amzn.to/2MBYctA .
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note: movie on Amazon Prime, mentioned by unmentioned guru in Idaho. "Prepper".  Wow, if I hadn't watched this for free I'd have felt more violated.  Drags for first 2/3's.  Female lead was less rack and more horse teeth.  Wooden acting.  If you appreciate your political correctness in big doses of mixed racial relationships, gay gun dealers, and "can't we all just get along" kumbaya bullcrap, you'll like this otherwise.  Prepping was depicted in the least offensive way but it was all just Hurricane Preppers Neighborhood Watch Edition.  It wasn't so bad I couldn't finish watching it, but that is the best I can say about it.
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A minion brought up a newly published book, the sequel to “Self Apocalypse”.  Which was terrible by the way ( see my review at the Amazon page.  It was “Self Apocalypse: Gary’s Cabin” ).  But I’m glad it was brought to my attention as it gave me a reason to re-read the first book in the series.  Again, a really good scenario rarely covered.  Its main premise was an unrealistic scenario, as most Camping/Hunting Survival strategies are, but what I focus on is the really well thought out bug out camp to the original bug out camp.  That is why the original story stiffened my nipples.  Not that this is what I want to talk about today, but rather Light And Smoke From Fires.

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The character was forever starting fires, mostly to drink yet even more coffee ( see the review mentioned above ).  Even though there was a lot of discussion about how bad this was as the idea was to remain stealthy, almost every other page another fire was started and was done so according to need rather than according to advisability.  I need coffee, therefore I shall start another fire.  Not, oh no, I shan’t start a fire because it is the middle of the day and my smoke shall be seen.  That would interfere with a cup of coffee.  Now, of course, I’m being sarcastic.  But if you think about it, how often will you need a fire even when you shouldn’t?

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Even with solar gain, you’ll have periods of overcast or extreme cold where you really friggin need a fire.  In theory you could stay under the covers for two weeks, but in reality how practical is that?  And what are you going to do, eat cold cans but no bread, not bath and not drink hot liquid to raise your core temperature?  You would be one smelly muscle atrophied sum bitch, wouldn’t you?  Remember what has been said of clean clothes?  Clean cloth has more air pockets and is warmer.  In a desperate life and death situation you could muddle through without fire with only minimal mental degradation, but the simple fact is that man is a fire tool using species.

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We live in cold climates and we can live on any food, and that is because of fire.  Fire is really a necessary evil ( and I only call it evil in terms of dependency and it being a two sided coin as it can lead others to it through its detection ).  For the die-off period, obviously propane is preferable ( along with batteries ).  But that won’t last all that long.  I guess-ti-mate two months, but that is all that is, a guess.   Because of Just In Time Inventories, I think even weeks is too long for collapse to be held at bay.  I don’t think most folks have much more than two weeks food on hand, and the body won’t escape major weakness after not eating for a month.  So, a guesstimate of two months die-off.

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A years worth of propane ( not all that difficult with minimum cooking, a water filter and storage rather than boiling, a solar hot water heater and cooker-I got over 100 hours on low use from a five gallon propane tank and it was possible to get three months off one tank.  The empty tank is $30 at Home Despot and $15 to fill it at a station.  $45 times four is not unreasonable ) and a not too old marine or golf cart battery hooked to your solar panel for use of a microwave to pre-cook or cook most items and heat water, and a years fire substitute is not too expensive.  I’d estimate for most climes you could have $360 in three 100-watt panels and with a low watt microwave and $200 in batteries you would be golden ( $800 total or near is expensive to replace wood, but you are using them for other purposes and buying one piece at a time, also ).

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Yes, I’m estimating a two month die-off and advising that you plan on one lasting a year.  Just like you’ll die one month after you reemerge into the world but you still plan of five years of food for after the apocalypse.  It is Just In Case.  Just like you also plan on the absence of that propane and microwave.  You need to plan around that smoke and light.  And that isn’t all that easy ( are you rethinking your proximity to the cities, yet? ).  A fire at night is going to cause light and a fire during the day is going to cause smoke.  That is bad enough, but you need to cook during the day and heat during the night.

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It seems you are screwed either way.  If you heat and cook during the night, you must worry about light leaking out.  If you cook and heat during the day ( just bundling up at night ), there will be some smoke.  Even if you have dry wood and use a rocket stove, there is SOME smoke.  Probably enough that if someone knows what they are looking for they can spot you ( although, after “camping” in my RV off grid for seven years I have no desire to go roughing it again and it has been some time since I’ve actually camped, and I could be wrong.  This is where minion input is good ).  And if there are a tribe of you, surely the smoke is obvious from that many people?

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Are living in locations hell and gone and back making more sense NOW?  Are defensive works around the village?  Are constant perimeter patrols?  Remember, this is AFTER the die-off.  But given the many square miles of land per hunter/gatherer that is required for sustenance, even a 99% die-off still sees far too many folks around for true seclusion.  At least at most locations.  This is just a reminder how necessary fire is, and how hard it is to protect against it being detected from those looking.  I‘d also like to bring up starting the fire. 

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We’ve discussed this before.  Frensel lenses.  Magnesium starters.  Striker lighters as used in welding starting tinder.  Hoarded matches.  I’d like to remind you of another use for candles.  Not for light.  To help keep that eternal flame going that can be used at night or when there isn’t any sun that day to minimize fire starter consumption.  You might feel, rightly, that it is better to stock matches over candles, price wise.  I merely suggest that if candles are in the budget they can be a less effective yet longer sustainable method.  Eventually no more matches can be manufactured, but candles sure can.  In the meantime, save all candles by using all those LED lights running on AA solar rechargeable batteries.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
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monastery economics 2 of 2

MONASTERY ECONOMICS 2

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note: free books.  Oh how very exciting, another zombie book written as a diary https://amzn.to/2N8fnUQ .  PA https://amzn.to/2tFvgdb .  Looks like he is trying too hard, a bit flowery, PA https://amzn.to/2tGrq3w .  At least this one is different, zombies told from the dogs point of view https://amzn.to/2tCAXIO .  Plague https://amzn.to/2MzK8AZ . 
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I understand that most folks living on the trees of a carbon fuel age cannot see the forest of finite resources.  This is obvious, even as you screech in shock and anger how unfair such a statement is.  What?  You’re living in a city, aren’t you?  Surrounded by hostile Other Colors only placated by Oil Age foods.  The Roman barbarians were bribed too, until they weren’t.  And make no mistake, anyone telling you that xenophobia and unease about Latino’s, Blacks and Muzzies is wrong, they themselves are the enemy.  In times of implosion, everyone different is your enemy ( and so are your friends, but at least not all of them ). 

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Anyone with a chainsaw is ignoring the future of energy contraction.  Anyone who is in trouble if the power goes out.  And I don’t mean the Pretty Pony Princess Prepper Plan of running a generator.  That isn’t a plan for a Less Oil future.  Yet, even if most of the above doesn’t pertain to you, you most likely still, just from a lifetime of relying on extra energy, confuse life without surplus as being not too different than life with.  You have a hard time visualizing any period of time too far removed from our salvaged and stockpiled excess and surplus embedded Oil Age energy.

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No judgment.  It is hard to visualize any alternate reality you haven’t experienced.  That is why fiction is so important.  Not that many stories achieve any other reality, either, instead just repeating the Happy Motoring fantasy.  It is hard to conjure up any post-apocalypse fiction that did a very good job treating reality PAST oil age surplus.  We don’t just have a failure to communicate, but of imagination.  Let’s get a bit less esoteric and I’ll share a better example.  All my life food has never been an issue.  I was always able to graze all day long or consume vast quantities of fat and protein to see me through periods between meals.  Until this last year.

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Finally being sedentary after four decades, I keep wanting to eat less.  I keep pushing to consume less calories, yet my body wants more.  I’m constantly getting into trouble getting to the point of weakness.  Yes, there is old age and blood sugar issues and the like, but the primary problem is that I’m attempting to eat as cheap as I ever did, yet cannot fill up on fat as I used to due to the effects of aging.  This is a new reality for me.  Before, when I needed more energy for more work, I just ate more fat.  My body doesn’t like this sudden carbohydrate fixation.  Even knowing intellectually what the problem is, I’m having problems with its implementation.

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Welcome to your post-apocalypse reality.  Food reality will change-a LOT.  Far less fat and protein and you will notice a marked decrease in energy.  Not all food is created equal, and storage food, even the not so cheap stuff, lacking fats so as to actually BE storage food for the most part ( unless containing hydrogenated oil ), is going to suck compared to what you are used to.  Don’t believe me?  Try going vegan for a time.  Eat extra calories, and it still won’t make a difference.  It will blow.  I’m not discounting the historic grain heavy diet of peasant farmers.  I’m saying, YOU aren’t used to it and can’t compete on performance.

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The die-off will not be a time of dusk to dawn farm labor.  It will mostly be sedentary.  You are hiding out and waiting for the torch and pitchfork brigades to die off, the cannibals to run out of food, and for the bodies to decompose to a safe level.  You’ll have plenty of time to read.  But you have three thousand books.  No one is going to read all those in a year, much less the much shorter time the die-off will take ( surplus food isn’t the issue, just like in countries in Africa just next to a famine.  It is distribution with a transportation network and the fuel for it ). 

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Nor is it just a matter of printing out the books.  Your ink, paper and printer most likely won’t stand up to the abuse.  No, you’ll need to read through and find relevant parts ( remember, the parts that are NOT Oil Age or prepping but post-prepping and post-petroleum ).  Take notes AND index the information for future reference.  Too much gets lost in translation and there will be a need to reference the original source.  Then, you must retype to minimize space ( most printing today is heavily padded and doesn’t need to be as long as it is.  Compare a eighty thousand word book from the 70’s to today.  They are three times as thick today, and that is just wasting paper to increase profits.  Now, add to that the padded word count to increase sales ).

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THEN you can print it out.  Done right, this is no part time hobby.  This is a full time endeavor.  Because after THAT, you have to index the new digest version of everything.  Once the Oil Age items break, you need to know how an old timey method is employed.  Even then, you aren’t done.  Because a one or two time reading might not be enough and you must go back and reread and add to your notes, adding to the index.  And that doesn’t even account for cross referencing specialties.  The odds are, this kind of research, JUST on your own library and not factoring in new sources later, is a profession rather than a hobby.

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And in the post-apocalypse world, rebuilding soil fertility and learning more sustainable farming techniques, very few folks will be able to survive on a NON-food occupation ( farmer or soldier, both are directly involved in food ).  You will find that in a Dark Age, you cannot be supported.  You’ll probably be producing your own food, monastery style, and that entails a diet matching your physical output-less food for less food related work, to allow yourself time in the library.  And, yes, I’m sure the monastery will monetize the knowledge industry it has to partially finance itself, as no village is an island.  For instance, a goat herder who trades meat or milk at a loss to them would get medical advice in the form of a Monk veterinarian, or something similar.

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Or, it might be a less direct system, as once information is shared it cannot be profited off of.  Perhaps the monastery tries out new techniques and when successful shares them with those that help support them.  OR, there is no direct support but instead an indirect military support in times of need.  The people help protect the monks as the monks take all the risks of unknown knowledge and freely share in that knowledge and so they are glad to protect the monks.  Therefore, the monastery doesn’t have to provide for children, wives, kings or soldiers.  Yet even with all that, it will STILL be an austere and mean existence being a monk, as they MUST live on less calories than the peasant farmers to afford the “leisure” of tending to those books.

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That is another luxury we take for granted, cheap books and the leisure to study them.  Post-petroleum will be NOTHING like that, you can be assured.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

monastery economics 1 of 2

MONASTERY ECONOMICS

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note: free book.  Zombies https://amzn.to/2Iwvgkw . 
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I’d like to thank the long lost Druid Dude for this idea.  To be fair, I got it out of his first year of the Archdruid Report book which wasn’t exactly cheap, so I feel we are about even ( I doubt I’ll be buying more, but who knows.  That was my first article idea and more than half way through the book so… ).  He was talking about the Lifeboat Community idea and compared them to the last repositories of civilization technology, the monasteries.  The Catholic ones in Europe, the Shinto ones in Japan and the Buddhist Chinese monasteries all kept knowledge alive after civilization ( or at least, imperial ) collapse.

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A lot of preppers love this knowledge repository idea.  Unfortunately they mistake quantity for quality and almost universally advocate e-books.  Hell, I have I don’t know how many multiple thousands of e-books myself ( mostly because I traded for them and was out little actual cash ).  I wouldn’t be surprised if there were close to ten thousand books on my DVD-ROM collection.  But if I winnowed them down, removing all the prep and petroleum dependent advice, I doubt I’d have as huge a collection.  But that is the thing, isn’t it? The very quantity ensures I’ll have a hard time choosing what to kept and transmit to paper.

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I don’t doubt that there will be hugely helpful nuggets scattered all therein.  And I don’t doubt that there will be more than enough spare computers about that you can keep reading far into the future.  Even without batteries, once you replace old monitors with flat screens, even an old clunky desktop will be energy efficient enough to just run off solar panels.  It is hard to fathom not being able to study all your collection and retain the best old timey stuff.  But this probably won’t be a walk in the park, a fun winter diversion.  It is probably going to be a full time, lifetime job.  And hence the economics of monasteries.

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Druid Dude made the point that in order to be able to devote the necessary time and energy into preserving and copying the old information, the monks had to live BELOW the poverty of the surrounding peasants.  They couldn’t raise children and support kings, as their limited resources went into being a library and copying service.  Which, without oil and coal is not all that easy of a task.  Think about how big of a room full of scribes you would need to copy the Encyclopedia Britannica just once, for instance.  And without machinery and artificial fertilizers, pulp for paper isn’t exactly resource cheap, either.

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Now, there were more to monasteries than copying books.  They needed to On The Job Train all the new guys, raise their own food, devote all that time to being one with god, and all the rest.  Their primary duties weren’t JUST knowledge preservation.  And I have no idea how much civilization knowledge they actual preserved.  It might have been a majority of religious texts.  At least with the Papists, who were not above goading their Soldiers For Jesus to go smite the unbelievers still hugging trees if they refused to convert, the church was an empire onto itself.  I’m sure a lot of trees died for propaganda ( not to diss on anyone’s beliefs.  I denigrate organized religion and their quest for treasure and power here, not the belief in a higher power itself ).

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Regardless, without surplus energy, there is little power in the form of food that is available for extra activities.  You need to support a military, to protect the food, and after that is done there is little surplus.  Certainly the king himself wouldn’t support a bunch of loafing robe wearing couch potatoes.  What did they actually bring to the table, survival wise?  You can’t say, “needed knowledge”, because it wasn’t needed all through the Dark Ages.

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Here is where most people keep getting confused.  High technology and non survival activities are ONLY available with surplus energy.  It doesn’t matter how important an activity COULD be, what future benefits COULD IN THEORY deliver.  Without the additional resources, it cannot be done.  Yes, keeping up the Roman era water delivery system could have ensured bigger fields in semi-arid regions.  But those were only needed for a bigger population that no longer existed after barbarian invasions, plague following malnutrition following grain import ceasing all took out excess numbers. 

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And without extra energy coming in from the border areas of the empire, there was no longer the resources to keep up the water system.  They were higher energy items no longer able to be maintained.  Just like Detroit today.  Yes, in THEORY, if you had kept the manufacturing machinery and the culture of training new manufacturers, one day you might have been able to max out tariffs and tell foreign manufactures to pound sand.  But you didn’t keep up that infrastructure because at the time it would have taken energy and resources you simply didn’t have.  Yes, I understand there was a lot of extra issues such as the Banksters pushing to take over the economy through financialization.  But either choosing, or being forced to choose, we abandoned the infrastructure and now do not have the ability to replace it.

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Maintaining infrastructure isn’t a choice of redirecting priorities, it is about a shrinking resource being triaged.  Something has to be abandoned.  It is a zero sum game, not a question of Political Will or Money.  It seems so at the time, but at heart is a shrinkage of resources.  In a monastery, it isn’t a question of raising more food to have more able bodies to perform church-y tasks.  It is being able to live on less so as to be able to indulge in the luxury of not devoting as much resources towards raising food.  You can’t have books and be farming a surplus at the same time, so you farm a bare minimum and use the remaining calories towards books.  Farming itself is easy.  It is maintaining its infrastructure that is difficult.

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You must have buildings to store surplus to take you through to the next harvest.  You must build fences to keep animals from escaping.  You must harvest wood, as well as coppicing that woodlot.  You must devote fields to hay for draft animals, have shelter for them as well as winter feed.  You need water supplies.  And etcetera.  All this is an upfront cost in energy and maintaining it calls for energy even during an interruption of your crops.  A monastery needed to skim off a percentage of that energy to pay for its non-food production activities.  That was paid for by needing LESS resources.  If one farmer managed one acre by eating energy dense food, two monks managed that one acre eating lesser foods and each spending half their time farming and the other half in “office work”.  Continued tomorrow.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

hermitage salvage

HERMITAGE SALVAGE

This article owes a shout out to Wrenchr2-thanks bud.  How to salvage for a living as a hermit.  This solves many different problems, such as Food Stamps becoming less of a solution for practitioners of genteel poverty, the need to socialize even if you are a hermit, and camouflage for your preps.  As W2 said, trash picking and cigarette salvage let people know you don’t have a pot to piss in.  But you have to be extremely friendly.  Crazy and mean make you a target.  Crazy and friendly make you an institution of the town.

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Just like every other survival strategy, salvage has a shelf life.  You can’t duplicate those strategies that used to work under different circumstances.  For instance, a homogenous white middle class nation could get away with having fallout shelters in the suburbs.  Do that now and all the Other Colors will target your ass.  You used to be able to get a job in a nearby small town and Hippie Farm on an affordable lot of land.  Now, property taxes alone will force you to commute to a big city to work in a corporate job.  You used to be able to live in the country and take twenty years to build up a mail order business and build up your homestead and pay off your somewhat reasonable mortgage.

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Not anymore.  It wasn’t enough for the elite to send all the jobs overseas.  Now they had to triple house and rent prices and make health care unaffordable.  The end is so friggin nigh economically.  You don’t have five more years ( going by the fracking oil peak ), let alone twenty.  Your best bet now is to buy cheap junk land and put all the expenses into a commuter vehicle. Better a repo’ed car than a sheriff auctioned farm.  So, every era sees a different economic collapse coping strategy.  I bring this up to acknowledge that one day, even the hermit salvage strategy won’t work.  There will be no more surplus to salvage.  But until that day, it might be for you.

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Right now, folks can afford $7 packs of cigarettes and to throw away aluminum cans.  That means you can salvage tobacco and get grocery money from metal recycling.  The restaurants can throw away half their food, so there is some salvage there ( not that I would recommend it-if for no other reason the general hygiene of everyone handling or eating that food is worse ).  Everyone can still drive, so you look like a Special Ed on your bicycle.  Until everyone is walking or biking.  Than you don’t look so eccentric.  But coming into town isn’t just about making $2 on aluminum salvage and getting your tobacco for the next day.  You might be burning more calories than you earn.

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This is also a good way to socialize.  Now, a lot of us reading this rightfully hate other people.  Other people suck.  But you can’t take hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and give it the middle finger.  The plain fact is that under stress you have no control over brain chemistry and can’t just “fire discipline” your way around the inherent weakness of the semi-automatic.  You can’t force an erection away when you are 18 years old.  You can’t turn off the baby factory siren when you are a 22 year old female.  These are hardwired behaviors.  Backed up chemically.  What, you think you are monk that can control his body through meditation?  Good luck with that one, Grasshopper.

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Our hardwired need to socialize cannot de denied without hard consequences.  It might only be once a week, or every third day, but eventually you will need to get face time with another human.  So you might as well make the trip worthwhile and make some money and score some free stuff.  This is working smarter rather than harder.  You come back to your bolt hole with water, your clothes washed, a basket full of aluminum cans, a pocket full of cigarette butts ( save the shreds of tobacco left, then put aside the filters.  You can probably pull apart the filters and use as fiber in mud bricks.  I mean, if you are trying to waste nothing.  You can also pulverize Styrofoam to add to cement to make aircrete bricks, so I would imagine this would most likely also work with mud.  Hey, its free-experiment ) and your grocery shopping and library books.

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Yep, I’d seriously consider a bike trailer over bike baskets if you become a hermit.  Normally, I can’t stand trailers as they are another money and maintenance item, but if you can salvage the parts, and you obviously have the spare time, it shouldn’t be an issue other than the hills.  The trailer full of salvage might also be a conversation starter.  Once you get to be known as Happy Hermit ( and, obviously, help this along by reaching out to greet and help others ), hell, folks might send you to places they know of extra salvage, to odd jobs or the like. 

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One strategy might be to collect free paperback books, and then give them away as a mobile library to supplement your salvage activity.  The cops might harass you if you were selling them, but most likely won’t if you are giving them away to the poor and deserving.  This should garner support around town.  Decline money ( or they will think you want to get high ), but thankfully accept “garbage” folks offer.  Most people throw away their aluminum.  They see you coming around they might donate it to you for your community service.  Think about how most folks would appreciate it if you went into the hospital waiting room and offered free books so they could pass the stressful time better.

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The free book service is just one idea.  Surely there are other things you can think of.  Volunteer at the old folks home or thrift stores that support crippled kids or whatever.  Word gets around you are a helping decent fellow, and you are no longer a smelly homeless guy, but a eccentric living a stress free low impact lifestyle.  You might even find a sugar mama you volunteer with.  You can stay overnight at her place when you come into town ( although, obviously, go with “starving artist” rather than “lazy slacker”.  Have an artistic activity you can prove.  This excuses being poor.  Being a slovenly bastard is no excuse for a woman ).

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Anyone can be a drug and alcohol abusing moron too lazy to breath.  You work just a tiny bit at it and you can be that harmless guy folks love and support, as you bring a smile to their faces and a nostalgic remembrance about how the country used to be.  You stay busy, support yourself, completely hide your prepping, get plenty of exercise and probably still get laid.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

gear queer 2 of 2

GEAR QUEERS 2

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note: free books.  If you like Ron Foster https://amzn.to/2tuDZij .  Zombies https://amzn.to/2tBx5ao .
*

Every time you used to read about a survival arsenal ( now, mostly, you watch about on the computer ), it was the same old crap.  Probably advice pilfered from Tappon or Clayton.  Battle rifle, assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and rimfire.  Now, you all know my views of this.  I stick with battle rifle, pistol and rimfire, and the pistol wasn’t obligatory.  What I would question today is why all the extra?  Why do you think you need a half dozen different types of weapon?  Yes, you need extras of each weapon ( One Is None ), because only a damn fool goes into the apocalypse with one single solitary wiz bang wunder weapon.  But you don’t need so many damn different kinds of weapons.

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The biggest issue I have is the perceived need to have both a battle rifle and an assault carbine ( that was my takeaway from the generic HK91 video.  “My primary weapon is the AK-47 but I love my C308” or very similar words ).  Why do you need both?  Well, you indignantly gasp at my obtuseness, obviously I need a close in Spray And Pray and a quasi-sniper for long distance.  Which is usually the excuse folks give for the AR.  “Oh, well, you know it is like super effective out to five hundred yards”.  Okay, so you have the equipment you need to hit further than you can shoot effectively.  Why do you need that thirty caliber? 

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And if you do have that thirty cal, why again did you need the assault carbine?  Since you are a Semi Simian, you don’t just have a bolt action 308 but rather a full on battle rifle.  You already have the means to rapid fire at short or long distances.  Why do you need the carbine?  Well, since carbines allow better handling from less recoil and I can carry more ammo, I need a carbine.  But I need a battle rifle because I need extra punch.  Okay, so how are you going to carry both?  Well, see, you explain, if I’m on patrol I have a carbine and if I’m hunting or sniping I’ll bring my thirty cal.  And if I’m ambushed I have my nifty semi feature.

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So why not just use the battle rifle, period?  Oh, silly, it’s because ammunition is twice as expensive.  Well, okay, how about firing slower, to compensate for the extra recoil and the extra cost?  Oh, Jim, you magnificently coffered moron, I need suppressive and cover fire, and I can only get that with twice the mags and a much faster mag swap time than any of those poorly designed battle rifles can achieve.  Okay, how about having a designated marksman on the team with the battle rifle and others carry the carbines?  Well, of COURSE, then you don’t have magazine and ammunition compatibility!

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But you won’t have that compatibility when it is battle rifle day, will you?  So you might as well all just stick with the carbine.  So why have a battle rifle?  Well, it is for hunting.  Yeh, that’s it!  Hunting.  You need a semi for hunting?  Well, in case I get ambushed, right?  So, why not all just have battle rifles?  Right, suppressive fire.  But then I have to wonder, why can’t you just shoot that unicorn that magically survives the woods being hunted out by day three with a 5.56?  By this point you could give a crap about harvesting meat humanely, right?  Wound it and run it to ground.

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Don’t get me wrong, I think a carbine is crap compared to a battle rifle.  But those are my preferences.  If your preference is a carbine, by all means go for it.  I just have a hard time understanding why you think you need both.  If your terrain is friendly to carbines, why do you need a battle rifle?  And if your terrain calls for longer range, why handicap yourself with a carbine?  Pick ONE.  Having both only delivers a marginal gain, at a very dear cost.  It really falls into Gear Queer territory.  You are just owning a gun to own one.  Don’t you think you should question your ability to master both, when mastering just one is problematic enough? 

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Now, why do you have a shotgun and a pistol, or a shotgun and a carbine, or a carbine and a pistol?  Or all three?  No, one does not do the job of another, but having all three is also not necessary.  If you have a shotgun for heavy forest or an urban environment, why do you need a carbine?  If you are inside the home with a pistol, why do you need the shotgun?  Oh, for better stopping power?  So, why include the pistol?  For backup rounds.  So, why doesn’t a pistol with extra mags not make more sense than a shotgun?  You certainly don’t need a carbine inside, do you?  Oh, that is for firepower.  But, in what house do you have rooms that are longer than your pistols effective range? 

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I’m not arguing a pistol can competently do the job of a shotgun.  I’m asking why you need both when one can do one task really good and the other task adequately.  Isn’t accepting adequate and not carrying extra weight, not worrying about the cost ( mainly in the practice, not the gun purchase itself ) nor the training a good trade-off?  Now, if you did accept all of that, then you just pull out the Sunk Cost theory.  Oh, I already bought it, I might as well keep it and ammo it up and train with it and stockpile for it.  Right?  Well, perhaps.  But wouldn’t it be better to choose your best ones and sell the rest and buy a butt ton of ammo? 

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I know, I’m just like you.  I bought a revolver thinking I needed it and I haven’t sold it.  Mainly because an ex stepbrother in law ( is that a thing? ) Christmas gifted me 800 rounds of 38 and I already owned two hundred of 357, so I figured the gun was ammo-upped and it just didn’t seem worth getting rid of.  I won’t be wearing it on patrol, however.  Mainly it is just a bedside gun ( which, realistically, can almost be handled with a knife and dog ). 

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I’m sure you have similar stories on guns and why you don’t get rid of them.  And as long as you have sufficient ammo for all, I guess it doesn’t matter.  But if I didn’t have thousands of rounds for every firearm I would get rid of that gun unless it is a back-up duplicate ( everyone varies but I‘d stipulate that a thousand per revolver, 3k per semi auto pistol or bolt gun and 6 to 9k per carbine are minimums ).  As I said, I’m marginal on the AR at much distance, so the accuracy is lost on me.  I can’t shoot shotguns for crap ( mainly due to lack of rifle sites ) so I got rid of that.  I got bottom of the barrel SKS’s so those were no loss ( can‘t hit dingus ).

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It is painful to get rid of a gun ( strangely, I didn’t weep over dropping the 45 from my arsenal, but that got me here in a much better location so it was a exponential gain ).  It will be more painful to not have enough ammunition for the guns you do have.  Nut up, make the sacrifice and trade excess guns for more ammunition.  Stop buying extra guns and buy extra ammo.  Ammo is your Weakest Link.  Plan accordingly.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
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gear queers 1 of 2

GEAR QUEERS

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note: free books.  YA PA https://amzn.to/2yFTOb5 .  Zombie https://amzn.to/2yCuYss .  Another one https://amzn.to/2MTSMeu . 
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note: here is one article on the existing silver stocks globally.  Yes, they could be wrong-after all, they were pimping for Bitcoin.  Or, they could be right click here .  Now, here is an article from Daily Reckoning, who I'd trust in most cases, making the same argument.  click here .  And that was twelve years ago.  And I'm just now hearing of this?
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For close to my first year of “self-employment” ( it is hard to think of myself as a business owner when I vomit discontent and hate into the digital graveyard and people actually pay me to do so-but believe me I appreciate it anyway! ), I stayed busier than a dog without back legs trying to pee on a curb while staying dry, mostly by fixing eleven years of neglect being an editor, and almost doubling the number of books I publish.  Well, at this time the book muse is on vacation, and you can’t force that lazy bastard back to work-he gets to it when he gets to it.  And my web site and archieving is finally caught up.  So what occupies my time every day?  Mostly worrying about stupid crap.

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I don’t know how much of my perceived danger early warning system is genuine and how much is just Too Much Time On My Hands, although I really can’t see being too wrong by being extra paranoid.  But I find myself watching all these YouTube video’s as I pass the time on the exercise bike or rolling cigarettes so I can raise my middle finger at our glorious RINO governor, telling him to eat a dingus and die and he can keep his store bought cigarettes and their extra taxes.  And I can feel the effect on my extra sensitive brain.  I’ve immersed myself too far into the Pony Prepper universe. 

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I watched forty minutes just on polymer 80% receivers the other day, rolling extra cigarettes just to keep watching, and I don’t NEED any more information on them, nor will I ever ( well, 99% sure I’ll never ) want a AR-15, even if for no other reason than I need extra punch up here in our open windy terrain.  And I was never all that great at the range with the thing, so the extra accuracy would be lost of me.  And I certainly don’t need a semi-auto rifle.  If you are sniping away at 300 yards, why is an extra speedy mag change all that important, and why don’t you have time to cycle a bolt?

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Yes, I know, you negate the need to break cheek weld and etc.  I get that.  If you want a semi, I can’t talk you out of it.  It has advantages, certainly.  But being poor and saving on your ammo stockpile isn’t one of them.  So then, why the hell was I wasting half my video time today watching a presentation of the HK-91 clone as a survivalist rifle?  It isn’t because I haven’t run into most of this information during the last forty years.  It isn’t because there was nothing else to watch.  It isn’t because I’m going to break my consumer fast and turn greenbacks into gear.  It isn’t because I want to be a Gear Queer.

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Almost all of us are consumer hoarders.  I stuff every nook and cranny not devoted to prepping supplies with books, buying extra used travel trailers and vans for more storage.  I pretend books make me smarter, but then, every hoarder justifies his crap, doesn’t he?  Then they come out with Kindle books and I double down on paper books, thinking I better lay in my copy before the day only e-books are available, at least without a carbon tax ( not that this wouldn’t be far behind with e-books, as they use coal powered electric ).  Doubling down on wasteful behavior.  So now I’m wondering if guns aren’t just my new books, justifying wasteful consumerism.

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I really don’t think I’ll buy any more guns, although I should.  But you can use that “grass is greener” argument about everything.  One reason the Better Than Nothing rule is best stuck with.  Before you know it, you quit your job, get a divorce, move out of state and dye your hair.  You start to think happiness is one credit card purchase away.  I know better than to think I’ll fall for the hype to upgrade or ratchet up my perceived security, forearms wise.  Since I overanalyze everything, I’m still safely in the “two years to make up my mind after painful deliberations” phase.  What worries me is that if I don’t stop thinking about the subject, I’ll think on it way too long and eventually pull the cord just to stifle my inner voice.

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I am by no means bored.  Every day flies by and I sit down to read and I notice the day is nearly done and I have no idea where it went.  I’ll say I’m just unfocused.  I’m letting distractions intrude far more than usual.  Like shopping around for storage media to publish on, knowing any purchase is a waste as I’ll buy a 100 pack bulk stack and sell a half dozen in the next two years.  That is just twenty years of experience talking, and yet I look anyway.  Just like I know better than to assume a piece of equipment will even somewhat compensate for my lack of coordination. 

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As I said, I dare not ignore my muse.  The muse tells you to jump, you ask how high.  Screwing with the muse is dangerous.  I would like to know WHY, however.  Why am I on this consumerist window shopping shtick?  Am I going through withdrawal?  Am I thinking extra guns are a security blanket because I smell extra danger?  I never enjoyed buying.  Even looking for books became a chore after a time.  I used to go years living on nothing and almost never shopping.  Some months, I treated myself to an issue of Forbes magazine ( back when I believed them about economics ) and that was my entire non-food purchase for the month ( I already had cigarettes stocked up ).

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I think this is an instinctive reaction to perceived danger.  Just like I took my cash out of the bank, I also worry now if I have enough guns and ammo.  I mean, I THINK I do.  But then, I never worry about food anymore.  Past filling up soda and juice bottles with flour or sugar, and that is merely a variety from wheat kernels issue, I don’t worry about having enough food.  I feel secure there.  So, if I keep worrying about guns and ammo and protection, is that my subconscious telling me to worry more?  Or is it just my muse picking subject matter to file away, especially since I went long periods of time never focusing on firearms ( it being further down the list of important items )? 

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See, now I’m worrying about what I’m worrying about.  Being a writer just seems easier than it really is.  Your body takes it easy but your brain melts down from too high of revs.  Tomorrow I’d like to discuss how simple guns and arsenals are and why most of us are just Gear Queers about them.

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2MJ4w3p )

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there