Archive for Articles
Aug
11
Mass Hypnosis
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Lately I’ve had additional time to ponder the meaning of life and what the future might have in store for us… (I did say additional time, I know that at least a few of you are wondering why I’m so delinquent in getting posts up if I have the additional time? The truth is I spend a great deal of my day behind the steering wheel, time to think and time to write are two very different things). When I say what the future might hold, I’m of course thinking big picture, the economy and freedom erosion, etc…
It was during one of these lost in thought moments that I nearly ran over a bicyclist. Yep, that’s right, I was in down town Seattle and the bike was weaving in and out of traffic and had I not snapped out of my trance I would have plowed into this moron. Instead I get the finger and some choice words about sharing the road… The following thoughts are what stemmed from my near collision…
When we look out at the society we live in currently, at least I think that most of us live here, what do we see? It would appear that most everything is counter intuitive any more. Women dressing as men, more scary – men dressing as women. The few with more rights and protections than the many? I recently heard or read, I can’t recall which, the story about a law suit filed against a mexican restaurant chain. In a nutshell, the restaurant was sued over there marketing slogan – “The Chipolte experience”, this particular restaurant is basically fast food and the meal is prepared to order while you watch. The suit was brought by a disabled patron in a wheel chair. Their complaint was that they were being denied the “Chipolte experience”, because the restaurant didn’t make a provision to allow the disabled to view their food being prepared? I don’t believe that the dollar amount that exchanged hands was disclosed but the restaurant did settle out of court with this individual. Does this make your blood boil or is it just me?
I’m sure that I’m not alone in the way I usually cope with this? Turning a blind eye to the things that just don’t make sense as it is much easier than allowing yourself to be driven crazy by this madness… While I’m not going to advocate violence, I do adhere to the belief that a little healthy fear in a society isn’t always a bad thing.
When I was a kid I recall that there were neighbors yards that I made sure to never set foot in as the owner was suppose to be a wacko or something. The point wasn’t that I had a wacko living in the neighborhood or not but that the fear of what going in someone else’s yard might mean kept me from doing it. How about the old corporal punishment in the schools? I know that my father explained that if I was ever to receive “swats” at school from the principal, I would receive twice as many from him when I got home. Knowing that Dad meant it, I steered clear of a lot of trouble on the play ground if it looked like it could be blamed on me!
What would a healthy level of fear look like in my ideal society? How do you describe what should just be a natural state? If you’re a female maybe you think twice about parking in that dark parking structure when your be yourself, instead of believing the police will be there to protect you? How about if you were to trespass on someone else’s land, the seed of doubt bubbling up in your mind that you might be shot? In addition to possibly getting yourself shot the knowledge that the law would be on the side of the land owner might make a person think twice…? I think that my ideal society is the same society we all lived in, up until several decades ago. That is at least in America!
A healthy level of fear would do more to protect us than it would to scare us! My wife and I have been doing a little hiking lately and we frequently see single women out on the trail. Single meaning alone, not necessarily unmarried of course. Women in the woods all by themselves? My gut reaction as a modern American would be, “well of course, why shouldn’t a free American women go anywhere she wants, the same a man?”. Just like the wheel chair customer thought about being denied the right to see their food being prepared at Chipolte, we’re all equal and should be able to have exactly what the other guy gets…? HOGWASH!
In reality this unhealthy belief or over confidence will either get that women in the woods hurt or possibly worse. I think as a society we have brainwashed ourselves from the top down that we can do whatever we feel like doing and there won’t be any consequences. Wrong, there will be consequences and they are going to be much worse when the day of reckoning comes, the longer we behave as if they don’t apply to us. This eventuality applies to us personally as well as collectively as a nation. The government as of late has been running wildly off further and further into left field with their actions and responses to the current problems we face economically. Whoa to the unprepared when this all unwinds, we will all know the truth but in this case I doubt it will be setting any of us free!
That bicyclist in down town Seattle is just another good example of what has become of common sense these days. A man on a bike that thinks because society says riding a bike to work is a good idea means he is immune to the forces of nature? Weather it comes in the form of nothing more than gravity or ends in the crippling effect of metal on flesh, this wrong belief could very well get him hurt or even killed. Then of course there’s the age old gun control debate… We don’t need guns to protect ourselves, that’s what the police are for – right? The fact that we even have to defend against this ass-hattery is proof positive that we are living in a age of mass hypnosis!
Is there hope for a civilization that no longer has the understanding that the rules of the universe require there to be an iron clad relationship between cause and effect? I don’t think that we will have to wait much longer to find out the answer to this question? Stay tuned in to the world around you and see if you don’t start spotting the blatant disregard of all things logical going on all around you everyday!
Food for thought!
Prepper
Jun
30
Practicool vs. Tacticool
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Model 629 44 magnum and Glock 19 9mm
A few days ago I was talking about my latest interest in firearms being that of the more practical variety. I thought I’d go flesh out that subject just a little more for today’s post. As we break into one of the hotly contested areas of prepping and before I tweak any one’s nose unnecessarily… I own firearms of both configuration and probably always will. It isn’t so much a case of one is good and the other bad or undesirable.
As a serious prepper for many years, I’ve had the opportunity to stock up when the price was right and more importantly in the FAT years as aposed to the relative lean years many of us are experiencing now. These stockpiles can reach great proportions over a course of time and that’s what happened to me. Don’t lose heart you younger or newer preppers your pile’s will grow too over time! So, this is where I found myself as of late, big piles of stuff and much smaller piles of bank account. What to do? Like I said before I concluded that a degree of soul searching was in order as to what my current priorities were going to be?
Marlin Guide Gun 45-70
I really didn’t know how my decision was going to come out… It would have been much easier to have just left everything as is, stored away for a rainy day sure to come along soon enough! I also was deliberating on a direction to take with my firearms collection, I’d been feeling that I may have the ratio of practical tool guns out of kilter with the more tactical in design? As you already know, I decided that I would focus a bit more attention and money on the practical preps that were lacking in my plans…
The good thing was a significant profit could be made if I indeed decided to sell off surplus stores of guns and or ammo. Well, like I said, I already told you the other day I did eventually decide to sell off a number of duplicates from my collection as well as a huge amount of ammo. It took me nearly 2 years of contemplation before I began to make the phone calls and visits to the gun shows to move all of this inventory. It wasn’t exactly easy to see these items go as I know in my heart of hearts that I will probably never again be in a position to purchase this quantity of these particular items again…
I decided that my focus would move more into the practical direction and I would use the profits to complete projects at the BOL and also add a few firearms to the battery. Obviously, practical is a relative term and means completely different things to each individual! My version of PRACTICOOL is a more broad approach, practical preps like woodstoves and practical guns like the Marlin pictured above. The woodstove speaks for itself but the Marlin may not. I’m looking at practical firearms as those that will fill their intended purpose on a more regular basis… Yes, I know that we all have our favorite AR or AK for the practical purpose of home defense against the MZB’s that WILL BE coming on one gloomy afternoon not to far in the future. Let’s agree that we’re on the same page about having a high capacity, round spewing rifle close at hand, everyone should! However, how much Zombie death have any of us brought in the recent years? Remember, it could happen but has it yet? For most of us, at least the preppers that I have been privileged enough to gain their confidence, have an unrealistic skew in our preps leaning toward the Tacticool! Let’s face it, AR’s are cool and lately there have been a gazillion (sounds like a number soon to be used to describe our national debt) companies popping up to sell us there version of awesome upgrades to an already great firearm… I venture to say that we all enjoy taking that favorite gun out of the safe and just holding it while we watch a favorite action movie. Come on, don’t try to blow smoke at me, you all know you do that!
These Tacticool guns are great and I will probably always have more than my fair share of them around somewhere but lets get serious… Is that AR going to go out into the woods and bring back a rabbit? AR haters will always refer to it as a “mouse gun” but is it really? Of course not and it isn’t a rabbit gun either! How about using an AK for bear protection? Yes, I’d use any gun I happen to be carrying to protect myself from whatever threat came along but some threats and or uses are going to be more common than others… While at my residence in the suburbs, the 9mm will probably be perfect for the most likely threats I could encounter but out in the sticks at the BOL…?
With the exception of the lapse of judgement the other day when discovering our BOL break in, I would be more likely to cross paths with a black bear or cougar than a hostile 2 legged threat. While my 44 magnum will certainly make short work of a man sized threat, my 9mm would be anemic against that same threat in the form of a hungry bear! Can you see where I’m going with this?
Marlin Guide Gun 45-70
With the exception of the lapse of judgement the other day when discovering our BOL break in, I would be more likely to cross paths with a black bear or cougar than a hostile 2 legged threat. While my 44 magnum will certainly make short work of a man sized threat, my 9mm would be anemic against that same threat in the form of a hungry bear! Can you see where I’m going with this?
Bushmaster CAR15 .223
The same logic could be used while looking at the the to do list… Yes, a 10,000 round stockpile of ammo is AWESOME or at least more than adequate in most people’s minds but will it keep me warm when the power goes out? What if the power goes out and stays out? Can I eat it or would I be better off having a large woodpile to feed the stove while I dig through my bursting pantry deciding what the “Prepper” family will have for dinner to go with the rabbit I shot while doing my afternoon perimeter inspection? I say of the most likely scenarios I see on the horizon, I’d be better off with the wood and pantry… Am I wrong?
Something else that has me concerned is the “Preppers” that have only prepped the Tacticool way? Often, we preppers don’t know alot of others like ourselves from anywhere other than the internet. If those guys on the internet forums and even other supposed DOOMER blogs are any indication of what a prepper is suppose to look like… All guns and no food will make Prepper Pete a very hungry boy… I also believe that with a more balanced approach we serve our own survival needs much better. When we have adequate food and or the proper equipment to grow or gather more, we have a far greater chance of survival than if we are limited to attempting to take it from others…
Alright, you say that this doesn’t apply to you as you wouldn’t ever try to take from someone else… Besides if all you have is an AK, it will take down a deer for you, right? It might under ideal circumstances… I don’t expect that we will be able to count on ideal circumstances and when you’re hungry I believe you will no longer have the moral fortitude to starve before you attempt armed robbery!
As usual this post is nothing more than one preppers opinion and attempted justification of my own actions… I do think that my final decision to liquidate some overstocked items in favor of a more balanced survival approach will turn out to have been a wise decision, only time will tell! I’m willing to bet that there are others out there in our community that have been or maybe should be having these same conversations with themselves. If this post is nagging at you or causing you to think about something from a new perspective, don’t ignore it – act on it! You may find that you’re all set and no corrections need to be made but from my research there are far to many Tacticool survivalists and far to few of the Practicool variety!
Prepper
Bushmaster CAR15 .223
Apr
09
Mutant Zombie Bikers… When all was quiet
Posted by: | CommentsYou heard the murmurs but couldn’t make out the exact words… The crowd parted as you continued forward to what felt like an appointment you had on the bleachers. It was almost as thought the crowd had needed to see something done to awaken them from a sense of being powerless.
You and your family had been feeling the beginnings of this powerlessness and you had been prepared for this disaster better than 99% of the folks around you. Your wife had been successful in keeping the feelings at bay by finding ways to occupy all of your minds. Many of these people standing around you had no such hope. They had made no preparations for a change in their reality. Even the things you had done over the last several years were looking like they would not be nearly enough. The situation had started small and exciting but it was becoming clear that the solution to this problem would be slow in arriving, if it ever did get resolved!
Without much of anything to say in the way of addressing this crowd you stepped up on the lowest level of this section of bleachers. Your voice sounded weak, at least in your own ears. You made a quick, curt introduction as a member of the neighborhood but left off the specifics of what home and street you lived on. The crowd listened quietly as you apologised for the harsh treatment of the man but his continued interference was going to do more harm than you dealt out on him. Everyone was called to a meeting and you suggested that it get underway. You were tempted to add that if there were any further disruptions before the speakers were allowed to finish that you wouldn’t go as easy a second time. You decided that it would be better to keep those thoughts to yourself. With out anything further, you stepped down to the ground and moved off to one side indicating that you were going to wait for the speakers to get the show on the road.
As your adrenaline was still working its way out of your system, everything seemed to be moving in a degree of slow motion but you stood your ground. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the bleeding man and his wife standing behind the crowd. It appeared that everyone was ready to settle down and hear the stranger out. No one seemed to be showing particular interest in you anymore and even the nearly silent private conversations stopped as the man stepped up further on to the bleachers and introduced himself.
As it turned out he was the brother of one of the original residents in this neighborhood. His brother was a retried man that lived a few streets over from you and appeared to be a well respected member of the community, except by the small group of trouble makers. You hadn’t ever met the man’s brother but did know which house was his as it was diligently and carefully landscaped. The story began to unfold and the man explained the events that had let up to his arrival here among us…
This man had been living inside the city limits and with few exceptions the story from his neighborhood was similar to that of this one. The first week saw people begin to run out of food and then fuel. Just as you had seen over the last 24 hours, the stress levels began to elevate. One night the sounds of motorcycles had awakened him and probably everyone else within a mile around. Originally the sounds were just loud but not directly outside his home. As the minutes past the roar grew louder and then around the corner came a dozen bikes. The riders were a motley crew of rough looking men and even a few women. These women weren’t the type an average man would want to tangle with, much less ask out on a date.
The bikers didn’t appear to have arrived on this street randomly. They pulled up in front of a home just a couple of doors away from his. It wasn’t the kind of arrival that would be welcome as these jokers parked not only in the driveway but on the lawn too! All but one of the riders had gotten off the bikes and proceeded to force their way through the front door to the house. He explained that much the same as in your case, he knew few of his neighbors well enough to do more than wave a greeting. However, this house was the home of a friendly young family. A young couple and their 3 children lived there, these bikers didn’t fit with the lifestyle that the couple exhibited. It was pretty clear that these guests weren’t expecting a warm welcome and several weapons were seen as the party entered the home.
The man had hung his head on a couple of occasions during the story that he continued to tell… Since the electricity was out of course the neighbors lights hadn’t come on but he knew there were faces in all the windows up and down that street. As he watched the scene unfold, the sound of muffled gun shots were heard. Next a group of the bikers began to exit the house carrying boxes in their arms. Several groups came out and the contents of these boxes were loaded into saddlebags strapped to the sides of most of the bikes. The single biker that had stayed outside was a short distance up the street in a over watch position. He didn’t say he had seen a firearm but it was clear he remained behind to protect the group from any well wishing neighbors. Sadly, the man continued the story explaining that shamefully not a single man came out of his house to try to help this family…
The bikers had only been in the home for 5-10 minutes and then after packing their bikes were gone as quickly as they had come. The way this story was relayed had kept a strange hush over everyone and the way he described the silence that followed after the bikers left had a very eerie undertone that all present could almost feel for themselves, right then!
His story continued as he came to the conclusion that since no one else was moving, he would go investigate. He dressed quickly and soon found himself carefully approaching the home. As he came to the driveway, he admitted to having second thoughts. He even said that he was afraid of what he would find. Several times he turned to see if anyone else was going to come outside… No one did. He saw curtains drop back down into place as his gaze almost caught the neighbors that he knew were watching. His conscience was already doing a number on him for not coming to these people’s aid. He knew he couldn’t turn back now…
Slowly he approached the front door to the house. The door was open but of course the home was dark inside. He stopped to see if he could hear anything but was only met with a deep silence. As he reached the doorway he noticed that the door jam was broken, it had obviously been forced open. Almost out of habit he reached inside and tried to locate a light switch. After a lifetime of electric lights a flip of a switch away, this habit would die hard! When he was of course rewarded with no response to his flipping of the light switch he stepped inside.
Just a few steps inside the door and there was a new level to the darkness. No moonlight was reaching into the home now and he only knew he was approaching the homes hallway because he was familiar with the floor plan. He again stopped, he had to try to quiet his heavily beating heart so he could hear if there was any other sounds coming from the darkness. Only then did he hear it…
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Prepper
Apr
06
Business Opportunity? 2
Posted by: Prepper | Comments (1)httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COy1YyVUPQ8
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Did this idea give anyone any business ideas? Is there enough of these bank owned homes to keep more than a few of us busy and profitable? Maybe it’s just me that sees some potential in the second hand lumber industry… That’s cool, the less competition a business has the better the bottom line can be!
Since I’m not a builder and have never worked in the construction industry, I’m at a bit of a loss for figuring material costs. How much would one of these homes that’s being destroyed cost, in materials? Really, how much of the cost is material, separate from the labor, permits and profit? That seems to be the first question that would need to be answered. A real life analysis of what exactly it is that we would be salvaging…
For the purposes of this venue I’d like to just assign a value so we have a starting point to begin. I spent some time thinking this through and of course could be way off but I’d hazard a guess of $60,000. That would be for the material sheet for one of the McMansions we have been watching bulldozed… Possible? I ran a materials list for one of the potential homestead building designs I was dreaming about a couple of years ago. It wasn’t fancy, nothing more than a small house (apartment) above a 2-3 car garage… Those materials were going to run in the $28-40K range, so a whole house would almost have to be quite a bit higher.
Let’s just look at this number and if it needs to be adjusted, we could always do that later. Could we get a .50 cents on the dollar price for used lumber? There would be more than just lumber and I suppose some items would fetch higher margins while others would come in less… Let’s just call it 50%, I’m hoping that this would account for some waste materials too.
So, that would be $30,000 – right? The labor costs would of course have to come out of that as well… What would we have to pay some fairly competent labors to help us? I again can’t say for sure but was told the semi-skilled labor rate in my area of the country would be $12 bucks an hour… Well, how many guys and for how long to reverse build this place? I don’t see why we would need any particularly specialized craftsman to undo what was done by the trades people involved with the original construction.
I’m sure my timetable might need to be given a good reality check but even if it were to take one entrepreneur and two full time laborers 2 full months at $12 bucks per hour – paying the appropriate employment taxes too, of course… The labor would only come to $8,500. So that would leave us a $21,500 potential profit? Oh wait, we need the appropriate insurance and a couple of LARGE dumpsters, fuel and saw blades, etc… Could we just add an additional $6,500 for these items and any other unforeseen miscellaneous line items? That would leave us an even $15,000.
Could this be done? I think so… but what about all the concrete? Well, what I have still been thinking about is that bank money? We already established that the bank HAS TO BE paying these contractors something for the demolition, right? Why couldn’t we figure that the money from the bank would be sufficient to pay for the dozer to come demo and haul off the foundation. The contractors are doing that now when they doze the house! It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that they could still be hired to do that part of the job.
I would think it’s safe to say that the money changing hands for the demo jobs now would be fairly profitable for the contractors to even raise the blade on the dozer. We might be making additional profit still after paying the dozer and crew? What am I missing? There are variables that would have to be investigated before something like this could be entertained in any major way but am I getting my idea across?
I heard this comment come from somebody near the back of the room… “Why would some store buy this lumber from us anyway?” Good question! First, I would point to the fact that they would be getting the material in good condition for half the price or maybe even less depending on how the numbers actually played out… Second, I would promote the project as a “Green” idea, you know recycling and all! There are tons of people in the larger cities that would even pay extra for reclaimed building materials. Now I’m not saying that I agree with these folks but if their “Green” inclinations would be profitable or help me keep my business viable, GREAT!
I go to to church with a couple that own a “Green” building design business. While this idea isn’t exactly a fit for the type of “Green” products that their builders are using, it isn’t much of a stretch either. With the proper marketing these materials could be seen as a treasure rather than just the second use wood products they really are. Anyone think there might be some tree hugger types that would relish the idea of saving not only a few dollars but a tree in the process?
Alright, alright, you think I’m crazy and know my idea would never get off the ground. Fair enough… How about this then… You use these materials yourself? How about you find one of these houses and cut your own deal with the bank. You could walk away with a whole house worth of lumber for little more than your time and trouble. Oh yeah, the labor! Yes, you would still have to pay for your helpers. If it were me I would try to negotiate a deal with the bank to get enough money from them to pay for the contractors foundation removal and the laborers wages as well.
Well, that’s what I was thinking on this topic… I’ve proposed a potentially profitable business idea and a great cost saving one too! If there’s one thing I see alot of on the survivalist forums is people trying to accomplish a lot of prepping on a very tight budget. Just imagine what a motivated prepper could do with a literal pile of building materials? I’d be willing to wager that a very nice snug homestead could be built with the materials from just one unwanted McMansion. Since the price would be largely “right”, it would even be possible to have a mortgage free home employing a strategy like this… Could this be done? Who knows but it’s certainly worth thinking about! Everyone already knows folks like us think outside the box, so why shouldn’t we be the one’s to pursue an off the wall idea from time to time?
Prepper