Of course, that would be the .17 HRM.
(Apologies — for those of you who haven’t read Watchmen, you won’t get the pun unless you go read the book. Or you can wait to see the movie, which will probably only actually start filming if 300 is successful, since some of the same folks seem to be involved with both projects.)
Joe Huffman has ’em. Destruction, mayhem, et cetera.
Joe is doing a reverse bug-out, for lack of a better term: he’s trucking a 3500-watt generator back over Snoqualmie Pass to his living quarters in Seattle.
Joe also has a good collection of Northwest Storm blogger posts here.
How-dee all!
All of us here at mi-casa are alive and well, though a bit cold. Power went out at 1900 on Thursday night, then came back on at 2200, and then died again at 0015. It hasn’t come back on since. The cable went out at 1800 Thursday and is dead. Comcast is saying Monday at the earliest. I am at The Mom’s place, getting a hot shower in and helping set up for the Yule-Time Extended Family get-together.
The windstorm was quite the breeze. My goofy neighbors left their Christmas crap in their yard and I subsequently lost both the floodlamps that light my driveway due to the wind picking the crap up and flinging it across the front of my house. I have also lost one of the roof vents. Other than that, we’re unscathed.
I have ventured out a couple times during the day after securing the house, just to see what life is like outside my sudivision. I’m not sure what other folks are experiencing in the PNW, but in my neck of the woods, it looks like we’ve taken artillery fire. Everything looks like the scene in Band of Brothers when they’re foxholed in the forest during the Battle of the Bulge. Trees and branches are everywhere and there are big fooking holes in the ground. It snowed last night, so we’ve even got white stuff.
But no complaints here. I dont’ have Nazis shelling me.
There is more than a hint of chaos in my area. No one in my town has power, but the town east of us does. Restaurants, supermarkets, gas and banks, all electrified. The trouble is, that town is smaller than the one folks are coming from so, the town isn’t twice it’s normal size, it is nearly triple the size. The roads, retaurants, supermarkets, gas stations and banks are not handling the influx very well and I’m sure that if power doesn’t come back online soon, we could see some very ugly things happening there.
Not from me though. Before the storm I topped of both the gas tank and the wallet and filled up the fridge. I haven’t even fired up the generator as of yet and I’ll show you why in the near future. The cold is kind of a mixed blessing. It is 30 degrees in garage, so the food is staying nice and cold. But, it is only 50 degrees in the house (45 at night) and I’m tired of wearing my polypropylene when I sleep.
Oh yeah, and I’m tried of watching the neighborhood teens walk past my house. The dogs know something is up and they go apeshit when the kids walk by in their groups of 6-8.
I do have a couple of mildly funny anecdotes and some reviews of SHTF equipment that I’ll share when I get back online. Until then, it is turkey time with the aunts and uncles.
Peace, yo!
My Grandpa was chief machinist for one of the Bay Area refineries. He’d have loved this….
Mike Sirois over at On Target Technologies seems to have made quite the name for himself with his custom barrels for the T/C Contender and Encore. They’re alleged to be extremely accurate — due no doubt in part to his EDM — Electrical Discharge Machining — method. You can watch it in action here.
EDM is an automated process that can run unattended. It utilizes electricity to disintegrate everything in the electrode’s path, imprinting the electrode’s profile into the parent material. The machining takes place on a molecular scale….
–from the OTT website, emphasis mine.
Gawd I love modern technology!
Via Drudge, this is fantastic news.
My father-in-law died from Type II diabetes a few years ago, and my mother-in-law’s in a wheelchair because of it. In both cases, it started as soon as they stopped working in the fields. When you eat tortillas, beans, rice and beer every day and suddenly stop exercising, you’re gonna be at risk. We took Ama to a special clinic where the doctor advised her to stop eating starchy foods. She looked at us and said, “so he wants me to stop eating?”
Diabetes is rampant among the older population of Latinos in California, precisely because of diet and lack of exercise as they become sedentary with age.
I don’t personally have a family history of the disease, but considering that for a good ten years or so I inhaled a 2-liter jug of Pepsi every day, I was probably at risk. Now I drink a 2-liter Pepsi jug full of water and I feel much better.
All this year, I’ve been slowly filling in the holes in our survival tools and supplies. Along about August or so, Dillon Precision started featuring a couple of products in their catalog by a company called Digilight: a 6V “tactical” flashlight and a really nifty keychain LED illuminator thingy with a multi-year lifespan and a strobe feature built in. The flashlight comes with a bunch of extras — lanyard, rubber grips, waterproof spare battery case, belt clip, belt pouch — all for less than $35. The illuminator was about $10 and came in white, blue, red, green and even an infrared version (although Dillon only ever carried the white one). Well, I bought one of each and was so impressed at what you got for the price that I bought several more — one for each BOB for me and the missus, one for each hidey-hole for the house guns, one on a lanyard by the door so I can slip it on easily when I go jogging at night, etc., etc. Yeah I knew the guts were probably made in China, that’s how the price point was so low. Didn’t matter — they work, and they’re tough.
The illuminator thingys were gold — I put one on each dog’s collar and now I can see where they are in the back yard at night without having to turn on the outside lights. I put one on each keychain for the cars and aside from the obvious utility, they also helped us finally tell the car keys apart at a glance — blue for the blue car, green for the green car, etc.
All in all I was very satisfied. I hopped onto the internet yesterday to buy a bunch as gifts. Lo and behold, Digilight’s website was down. Oh well, says I, I’ll just call Dillon. The friendly guy on the other end said that they were out of the illuminators and so far as he knew there would be no more as the company was out of business. He and I speculated for a bit on just why a company that’s selling its products like hotcakes would suddenly go kaput — one wonders if there’s a CEO sitting on a beach somewhere with a suitcase of cash, but that’s simply speculation. Dillon has about 150 of the 6V lights left. I bought three more.
The big problem for me, since I standardized on these things for my disaster planning, is that in a couple years or so when one of the bulbs eventually burns out, I won’t be able to get a replacement. A very big reason (aside from price) that I felt good about the lights was that Dillon was carrying them, and Dillon seems to change suppliers very rarely. And I can’t imagine Dillon ever going out of business — so I thought I had a safe, reliable source for years in the future.
Anyway, this fellow on eBay has a few of the illuminators left: blue, green, red. Here’s the infrared one at a slightly higher price. I highly recommend them, even without a company to back them up. And you still can’t beat the price on the 6V lights either for yourself or as a gift — just don’t expect any warranty service.
UPDATE: “Owen” on this thread thinks that the Digilight flashlights use G&P lamps, whatever they may be. So there may be hope to obtain replacement bulbs down the line after all. (Although the comments seem to be focused on Digilight’s 9v model….)
FURTHER UPDATE: Yeah, baby! They’re coming back with a new name — DigiCell. See the end of the comment thread for details and contact info to obtain bulbs, parts, etc. from the remaining DigiLight inventory.
In the course of eulogizing Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Dirtcrashr posts a spot-on description of life among the Left in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m used to it, but some of you may not be aware of how bad it is. Go read.
Phil, baby, sorry to tell ya, this is Sea-Tac’s future….
Actually last night was pertty good. I got to work, all the computers were down, so I called my boss and told her I was going home. Other than the money spent on gas, it was pretty neat. I came home and finished up the laundry and blogged.
Tonight OTOH, is supposed to be the real PITA in terms of winds.
Grimm is still loaded up and ready.
And if the computers are down again, I’ll be bringing reading material and giving the IT folks until midnight.
I forgot to post one of these up on Monday, so here we go with a double shot of Christmas music you won’t hear on the radio or even at your relative’s houses.
First up, I didn’t get any feedback on the bagpipes, not that it would have stopped me (though it may have reminded me for Monday), so for the folks who liked last week’s selection, the last of the MacAllan tunage for this year.
The Piper of Dundee/It Came Upon a Midnight Clear/Rejoice – The MacAllans
And for those looking for something without bagpipes, here you go with a piano, an acoustic guitar and a wood flute.
Nollaig Na Mban – Cormac Breatnach
(quickly translated into “Christmas Time Story”)
In the wake of the stary about the illegal alien and probable future terrorist who wanted to only learn to drive a semi and not how to back it up, Joe Huffman goes to a handy ATF reference and finds the evac distances for different sizes of VBIEDs.
He also has a reminder up for those who need reminding.
Also, I don’t know how I missed it, but in any instance, Joe also has a very good primer on why the Second Amendment is meant for individuals. Save it one in your favorites and hand it out for those who could use a clue.
When you’re done with that, anti-Bill of Rights author, Rick Perlstein, goes off on an overly emotional tirade against the NRA and the Castle Doctrine at TNR. He uses some very twisted logic to somehow blame the death of Kathryn Johnson, the woman killed during what is turning out to look like an illegal no-knock drug raid, on Georgia’s recently enacted Castle Law. Perlstein says that if Georgia hadn’t had that law on the books, Johnson might not have shot at the police and “caused” them to shoot back and kill her.
Quit laughing, he’s serious.
Go here first for your login and password to TNR.
