09:22 – When Barbara read my post yesterday, she asked me not to buy any more canned meat. I thought she meant any at all, including chicken. But then she clarified that canned chicken was fine, and that the Keystone Meats canned ground beef was also acceptable for casseroles and so on. She just doesn’t like the Keystone beef chunks or pulled pork. She also hates tuna. She said salmon would be okay, but she’d just as soon have all chicken, which is also fine with me. Oddly, when I hit the Costco web site to order another case or two of their canned chicken, it wasn’t listed. It still isn’t as of just now. Apparently, Costco.com has run out of chicken.
So I hit the Walmart website, which has the Keystone Meats canned hamburger and chicken. But having ordered Keystone Meats products from Walmart on-line before, I won’t do so again. They do such a poor job of packing that the cans invariably arrive badly dented. Their packing consists of tossing the cans into a box much too big for them and then adding a piece of two of twisted paper. The cans bang into each other in transit and arrive badly dented. Fortunately, some Walmarts stock the products, including the one up in Galax, Virginia, which is 30 miles or so from here. Unfortunately, they don’t stock many. The last time we were up there, they had about ten assorted cans of Keystone Meats. I grabbed the ones I wanted, which was only four or so. What I may do is use Walmart’s free pickup option to have the product delivered to the Walmart store in Galax or Elkin, NC and just pick it up from there.
Colin is pushing. This morning when the mail arrived, Colin went out the front door without permission. Then, as Barbara was putting him out on the back deck so that she could vacuum the floors without him attacking the vacuum, she turned to come in the door and he nipped her hand. She grabbed him and yelled and shook him to tell him that was completely unacceptable. He knows what it means to be called a Bad Dog.
More science kit stuff today, mostly filling bottles.
First they dropped the pulled pork you mentioned, now the chicken?
I don’t think they’ve dropped the chicken, since they still carry it in stores. I think they’re simply out of stock on it.
Barbara is out picking bush beans and peas. Our zucchini has been producing pretty well for the last couple of weeks. Barbara tries to pick them while they’re still 6″ or less so they’ll be tender. If you don’t watch them, they’ll grow to baseball bat size. She’s already had one she didn’t notice that looks like the Zucchini That Ate Detroit.
The zucchini is welcome to it. It’s not like anyone else wants Detroit.
Grow a bigger zucchini and let it eat Mordor.
Barbara’s been out harvesting bush green beans and peas. She’s doing a traditional Southern dish tonight, cooking bacon in cast iron and then adding the beans, water, sugar, salt, and spice, and simmering them for an hour. That and cornbread and pork chops for dinner tonight.
What I did to prep this week.
Well, most readers will have figured out that I was traveling on the east coast with family last week, and this week was mostly unpacking, and getting settled back in.
Re: travel. My experiences didn’t match what was being reported. Since we are traveling for leisure, with 2 small kids, we purposely pick departure times in the ‘off’ time. We were able to check in and get thru security at IAH with no delays. Well, except for my mandatory “random” additional screening. It’s not really random when it happens every time. (last trip was the first in years where I didn’t get selected for “random” screening.) This is despite being TSA Pre-check. Wife and kids passed thru without a blink.
As I was going to MA, I didn’t want to accidentally become a felon, so I didn’t check a pistol. I took a couple extra knives though…
TSA has allowed scissors in carry on bags for a while now, if they meet the short blade requirements, so the ‘blow out kit’ from my range bag travels in my carry on bag. Trauma shears meet the rules. My EDC flashlight rode in a pocket.
I took a shortwave radio with me to see what I could hear from an ocean front location, but didn’t have any luck. The bands were closed and there were some magnetic storm issues. I fired up my dual band HT one morning and scanned around, but not much activity on Cape Cod on VHF and none on UHF when I tried. Houston has a link to a couple of ‘nets up during the day, and I missed listening to the checkins. I was kind of surprised that I didn’t hear more traffic.
Cape Cod is refreshingly free of the FSA. They may be there but they stay away from the tourist and beach areas.
The return trip thru Boston’s Logan airport was also uneventful, and without real delays. I carried a child thru the metal detector and avoided the full secondary for the second time in years. The other time I was carrying a child too. That seems to be a key, based on a sample size of one. Arrange to carry a child.
A quick look at the map will show how F’d I’d have been if I had to get home. Even without the whole family there, there aren’t any routes from the Cape back to the world that don’t pass thru or near high population density areas. Moving by sea to some other land fall would be the only other option. I was under a certain amount of stress the whole time, knowing my movements were severely constrained in an emergency.
At home this week I hit a couple of sales, picked up 4 FSR blister pack radios for $4, and sorted thru some of the radio stuff I got just before vacation. I’ve been concentrating on home stuff, and honey do for the past couple of weeks. Relationship maintenance is important for prepping too. That will continue this weekend.
Still have a couple of carrots in the ground, but some of them show signs that something is eating the roots. Tomatoes are done. Grape vines are flourishing. Suddenly the collards are growing. The japanese eggplant keeps bearing. Fruit trees are the same as last report. Time to start thinking about the fall planting. According to the extension service chart August is a dead zone, but I can start getting stuff in the ground in Sept.
Had to stop all my ebay selling while away, so that will lead to a gap in the money from sales. I’ve sold some smalls and one $100 item since returning. ebay keeps pushing for a 30 day return period for “top rated Plus” seller rating. No freaking way I’m going to 30 days.
For anyone looking for extra cash, I’m averaging, pretty consistently, $1100/month in ebay sales for VERY part time work. One of my goals is to ramp this up significantly, while we still have an economy. I encourage anyone to give it a try. If you buy intelligently, you’ve got nothing to lose, and you might gain a lot. And you probably have a ton of stuff you already own that could sell. Obviously, this level of sales isn’t a living, but it easily covers preps/hobbies/ or in Houston, even a mortgage payment. (some months I do a lot better than that if I’ve gotten lucky and found a bigger dollar item that sells.)
In other news, I added a toy in a new size, so I’ve got to start building the support tail for that. Usage, supplies, cleaning and carrying gear, and all the rest need to be purchased.
I did my normal adding to stored food. HEB (our local grocery chain) has a ton of BOGO and “combo loco” buy x get y deals this month. I saved ~$30 on $180 this week off their already competitive pricing. Anyone who is looking to stock up on a budget should compare grocery store circulars and prices to find the ordinary best place to shop, and then take advantage of coupons and loyalty deals. If you only buy certain items when they are onsale, and you buy enough to get to the next sale, you can save a significant amount of money. This works at Costco too. Most of the stores seem to have ‘cycles’ they go thru with sale items. Get a feel for them and you will save (or get anal and track it and research it to nail it down. Too much work for little additional gain for my taste though.)
Finally, if there’s anyone reading here that HASN’T started stocking up, what are you waiting for? Look at Venezuela if you need motivation. If you don’t know what’s going on in Venezuela, start reading UK Daily Mail online or some other non-US owned media. (yes the writing is horrible, yes they are a tabloid and sensational, yes they have biases- they also aren’t beholden to the US .gov and cover a much wider range of news than the US state organs. One other thing I like about them, they publish the OUTCOME or resolution of the stories they’ve previously published. IE if they publish a story about someone getting arrested, a year later they will publish the outcome of the trial. They seem almost unique in this. )
Keep stacking folks, we’re living in the ‘good old days.’
nick
“Cape Cod is refreshingly free of the FSA. They may be there but they stay away from the tourist and beach areas.”
Any you are likely to see are probably gonna be of the neo-hippie variety, there and on the Islands, and often are traveling as couples.
I’d never go to the Cape or the Islands during the summer season, no freakin’ way. Best times are October and March/April, though I am far from averse to visiting during the dead of winter. My ancestors landed on the Cape before Plymouth, and were also the first European settlers on Nantucket in 1659. It’s all “built-out” now, and houses that my family lived in are still there, from the 17th- and 18th-C’s, but now more than likely are B&B’s or museum sites.
Only way in and out by land is the friggin’ Bourne Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, which can be an absolute nightmare on summer Fridays and Mondays. Best bet, if one is not a complete landlubber, is to go by sea both ways, or air. Or do like we do, though not for ages, and go in the winter. Of course my interests are mainly historical and not simply lounging on the beach near the parking lot and snack stands and contributing to my future melanoma.
And yup, these are the good ol’ days; cue up Carly Simon, who used to live on Martha’s Vineyard with Sweet Baby James.
@ofd, given the convergence of small towns between your history and my wife’s family, I’d not be too surprised to find one or two degrees of separation. I’d have to decloak though, and given that family would also be involved, that’s not gonna happen.
The Cape is nice, but it wouldn’t be my choice. Family. ’nuff said.
Outbound on a Saturday afternoon was wide open, and the bridge and the canal were pretty. Inbound to the Cape was backed up for miles. Some of those freeway interchanges were hairy. If it says ’25MPH’ and ‘tipover hazard’ it MEANS it. I wonder if there’s a straight stretch of road in the whole state. (didn’t notice any of the straight, level sections required by the highway defense act… usually they are obvious compared to to winding road.)
Not an area I would like to traverse in hostile conditions.
nick
“I wonder if there’s a straight stretch of road in the whole state.”
Long stretches of the MassPike, Route 9 (Boston-Worcester Turnpike, old Indian trail), and some stretches of 495 and 93 going up to NH.
“Not an area I would like to traverse in hostile conditions.”
Oh HELL NO! A minor fender-bender on the MassPike outside of Boston on a normal weekday afternoon will back it up to 5 MPH stop-and-go for an hour. A traffic fatality anywhere in the Greater Boston/eastern MA AO will shut it down completely for at least that long. A SHTF event would simply mean a vast parking lot over the eastern and part of the central area of the state. If you were already on the Cape or the Islands, you’d be better off staying there. Western MA/Berkshires might be OK for short SHTF situations, away from the main highways.
Anything major and I would not wanna be in southern New England.
Daily life here on the eastern Olympic Peninsula (WA): always being aware of the status of the Hood Canal Bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal_Bridge) . It opens for all marine traffic, so delays up to an hour can occur. Opening are usually about 15-30 minutes, but can be longer for submarine traffic to/from Bremerton. Traffic backups can add another 15-20 minutes (about 16K vehicles/day cross that bridge).
Until someone hits a control valve the wrong way, and the bridge is stuck open for 8 hours. (A section of the bridge lifts up via hydraulics, and the center section slides underneath the raised section to allow boats through the opening.)
Not to mention when the wind hits 50+ across the bridge (happens 4-5 times each winter), they close the bridge due to excess pressure on the bridge sections (and the high cross-winds). And the winds that cause power outages, but they do have generators.
“Bridge-awareness” is important around here. The alternate route is a ‘3 hour tour’ around Hood Canal (a nice scenic drive, but sections are prone to landslides); or a longer tour that includes a ferry crossing.
Spook’s vegan experiences…
http://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2016/07/30
Princess here was an uber-vegan from elementary skool on, until recently. She became an apostate by starting with fish and then has since moved on to actual meat, not a lot, but she’ll eat it.
And OFD is glad he is long since out of the USAF Security Police:
http://freedomoutpost.com/convoys-of-berserk-muslims-headed-against-us-air-force-base-in-turkey/
With nuke warheads, they’ll have orders to open fire once the perimeter is in danger of being breached. Then some more shit will get real. I hope their SP squadron/s have “heavy weapons” units and that they also have close air-ground support on standby; they sent dependents home two weeks ago.
From the To Dream the Impossible Dream Department:
http://freedomoutpost.com/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-next-leak-will-lead-to-arrest-of-hillary-clinton/
Of course Assange is a Russian agent, blah, blah, blah. And Trump is bosom buddies with Prince Vlad, blah, blah, blah.
cue up “Dream On,” by Aerosmith.
How did a reasonably rational allied nation like Turkey become such a mess?
Oh, wait… Religion!
@spook, not “religion,” … ISLAM.
n
It was the army’s job to keep the govt secular. This time they waited too long.
n
“”Princess here was an uber-vegan from elementary skool on, until recently. She became an apostate by starting with fish and then has since moved on to actual meat, not a lot, but she’ll eat it.””
I go without meat or fish or whatever for two or three days, pretty often,
but then I want a nice lean chunk of beef or pork, or at least some fish
or shrimp or something. Best if the craving doesn’t degrade into some
fatty fast food burger [with viruses coughed onto it, likely], of course.
Much worse to fill in with carbs or sugars. My cholesterol (IF that really
matters) runs pretty good, lately, but triglycerides are horrific.
To me, the moral issue is not about eating tasty animals, btw, but it’s
about my own health, and trying to do less damage to the environment
(natural and human), but durn it’s hard to do the best thing.
“”@spook, not “religion,” … ISLAM.
n
It was the army’s job to keep the govt secular. This time they waited too long.
n
“”
Valid enough in the instance of Turkey.
Do we really want the US Army doing something similar here?
I’m not sure what that scenario might be…
I guess it’s still useful that individual conscience (presumably
possibly influenced by religion, or whatever) is still important
in the USA, I hope, regarding the form of government.
The Constitution should be our “national religion” I figure.
Secular, but tolerant of religion? Hard to tolerate a lot of
religious ranting, of course, but free speech and all that, eh?
Individuals should be OK to act on their own principles, all
that.
yep, I meant Turkey specifically.
n
Islam is NOT a religion, and its adherents and suck-ass Western apologists cannot make it so by simply saying it is. It’s a virulent and toxic political cult of slavery and death, period, and seeks dominion over the world through bloody conquest and whatever atrocities it deems necessary and entertaining. Women are treated worse than animals and sexual perversion seems to run rampant among its male primates. People raised in it or converted to it have their brains and nervous systems somehow rewired, and I believe its origins lie in the demonic over 1,300 years ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716280/Yes-boys-sex-slaves-Outrage-British-Muslim-cleric-mosque-Cardiff-jihadis-radicalised-tells-teenagers-captives-permissible-Islam.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1528756/hundreds-of-syrians-in-uk-arrested-over-string-of-offences-including-rape-and-child-abuse/
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/695008/turkey-turns-to-islam-attempted-military-coup-christians-erdogan
Gee, it’s so surprising that the only stories covering this stuff are in British media. Guess the NYT and the other wunnerful nooz papers here can’t be bothered.
“” Islam is NOT a religion … “”
Whatever. I have long run up against some sorts of people who consider
themselves “religious” or whatever…
First major professional job, fresh BS degree… First day the boss asks me
and the other new guy “What church?” and other new guy said “Brand C”
and I said “Raised in Brand C, but I never drank the blood (much more
subtly than that)” and both of us were labeled evil since that boss was
Brand B or Brand M; I could never tell the difference. Sprinkle or dunk?
A capella or church organ? Not my problem, except with a boss like that.
“” People raised in it or converted to it have their brains and nervous systems somehow rewired, and I believe its origins lie in the demonic over 1,300 years ago. “”
Perversely, I do tend to believe in “demons” or something like that, though
practically I am sure there’s some more rational explanation (and I do NOT
mean anything within the pseudo-science of Psychology).
[snip] First day the boss asks me and the other new guy “What church?” [snip]
My response: None of your dammed business. (This assumes, of course, that the job isn’t an overtly religious position. My affinity for cheeseburgers and pork chops ought to disqualify me from working in a yeshiva.)
“”[snip] First day the boss asks me and the other new guy “What church?” [snip]
My response: None of your dammed business. (This assumes, of course, that the job isn’t an overtly religious position. My affinity for cheeseburgers and pork chops ought to disqualify me from working in a yeshiva.) “”
In them olden days, asking was legit (enough), at least since it was not yet
illegal(?)…
Also, NOYDB would have likely gotten one fired on the spot, even for such
a civil service “protected” job (with science education qualifications required).
[ OK… Pournelle’s “bunny inspector” to some extent. ]
Ah… NOYDB ! A handy new acronym !
{PS “dammed” refers to rivers & such.
See Ahab’s comments for suggested correct usage.}
“” Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear! “”
In the voice of Gregory Peck… or Patrick Stewart…
or as paraphrased by Ricardo Montalban in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” !
I’m at the stage now where I really, really WISH HR or boss peeps would ask me my religion and political beliefs so I could be not only dismissed or fired on the spot, but they’d also notify the Feebies, NSA, local state police barracks and call in the Marines, Seals and Delta.
Because IDGAF anymore.
Q: What’s your religion, Mr. OFD?
A: Traditionalist Latin Rite Roman Catholic, and a follower of the courageous walks-the-walk Ann Barnhardt.
Q: What’s your politics, Mr. OFD?
A: To the right of Patrick Buchanan and tending to capitalist anarchy.
Q: What’s your sexual orientation, Mr. OFD?
A: Cis-hetero Cro-Magnon.
Instead, the morons get a couple of techie guys in to quiz me on arcane techie chit they only have at their site and that they are themselves expert at but no one else ever heard of it and it wasn’t posted in the job req anyway. Then the HR drone will ask softball touchie-feelie chit and they won’t like me anyway for being an obvious Caucasian cis-hetero Cro-Magnon fascist who believes in the sky god and is also a breeder. Not to mention being way too old, i.e., over 25.
They can all kiss my New England Yankee ass.
That religion harassment was long ago (I was about 25 at the time)
but it still haunts me. Careers are still trashed by various fanatics
(left- or right-wing for lack of better terms) for “reasons” having
nothing to do with abilities to do the required work.
They can all also kiss my Appalachian hippie ass.
(Ooh, not sure I am ready to define myself, as such, or at all.
What’s the Walt Whitman quote? Something about “I am many…”)
@ OFD…
Not that you need this… but I do… gonna work through it again…
(as a recovering English minor)…
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/song.htm
“”Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)””
I tend to agree with the late Ezra Pound on ol’ Walt; maybe a half-dozen decent poems out of the whole big corpus. I’d also say he was a pretty decent guy for his many visits to war hospitals during the Late Unpleasantness between the states.
I’d say the same thing about the sainted Emily Dickinson’s poetic output; a half-dozen good poems. We don’t compare very well with the English and Irish writers, or Russian, for that matter, in terms of literary quality. Our best writers were all during the 19th-C; Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain, and although I know the current School of Resentment in the English departments don’t care for them, I’ve always liked the Fireside Poets.
Bah. There’s Kipling. And there’s… uh… Kipling.
Oh, sure, there are a couple of stanzas or a couple of lines by other poets that don’t suck
but by and large poetry is crap scribbled by self-important fools who are full of crap.
Come to think of it, some contemporary American poets, full of crap though they may be, stomp all over the vaunted, sainted poets of the past.
makes anything by Emily Dickinson look like the output of a preteen emo girl, scribbled between the cuttings up the forearm.
And Blake’s “wonderful” work “Jerusalem”
reads much better if sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”, which shows how much of a timeless classic for the ages it is.
“Bah. There’s Kipling. And there’s… uh… Kipling.”
English bugger and poet of Empire. Still, I like him a lot, also his short stories, out of which one became the greatest buddy flick of all time. He lived for a while up here in the great Green Mountain State.
“…but by and large poetry is crap scribbled by self-important fools who are full of crap.”
We must needs agree to disagree, I fear; check out the archaic Greeks, for one sample, and a couple of the Romans for another, who got themselves exiled from their empire. Modern buggers like the late Ezra Pound, Joseph Brodsky and Octavio Paz.
“…makes anything by Emily Dickinson…”
To be fair, the “Belle of Amherst” didn’t want her stuff published and was angry at the guy who did that.
I’d say Blake would be a better example of the “self-important” guy who may be full of rather eccentric crap.
The “Twinkle Twinkle…” thing has popped up all over the place over the past couple of centuries; Wolfie wrote it at age four and his first symphony at nine.
I could read at four and was looking at history books at nine, which I got jammed up for in fourth grade by my bitch-on-wheels teacher.
I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree. Certainly not, if she was writing it. Hawk, spit.
And then there was that teeming masses woman. I wish someone had teemed her mass.
The ancient Greeks and Romans and whoever aren’t included in the “self-important fools who are full of crap” denigrating designation of poets. Different times, different culture, and they wrote in what seems to have been the standard of the day.
British and American poets of the past several centuries are mainly self-important fools who are full of crap. There are other ways of telling their stories. In order to choose poetry over other forms, the author pretty much has to be a pretentious tool. There’s something wrong with them, so it’s no wonder their output resembles a goat’s output.
“I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree. Certainly not, if she was writing it. Hawk, spit.”
Joyce Kilmer. A guy. (“…deployed to France with the 69th Infantry Regiment (the famous “Fighting 69th”) in 1917. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31.”)
“And then there was that teeming masses woman.”
Emma Lazarus:
“Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
If you’re talking about heaving asses, there’s Maya Anjelou. Not sure if she should be counted as a poet, though, as she produced approximately nothing. Not once you remove the plagiarism, anyway.
Of women poets there are not many good ones; let me count them…yep, on one hand.
Sappho. Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. And the Belle of Amherst. That’s about it. Coincidentally or not, you’ll find roughly the same percentage for great chefs. And even “worse” for composers.
That confirms the old saying, “Women are better, but men are best.”
And I note that the only generally-acknowledged female universal genius in the past 2,000 years was Hypatia. I wonder how many people nowadays have even heard her name.
“If you’re talking about heaving asses, there’s Maya Anjelou. Not sure if she should be counted as a poet, though, as she produced approximately nothing.”
She and Rod McKuen and maybe Carl Sandberg have been the Idea of the Poet in the typical Murkan imagination, with maybe Kalil Gibhran for the hippie-dippies. The Left pushed fat ol’ Maya, the ex-whore, ex-madam, and general human disaster for all she was worth, speaking at inaugurations and with a nice plum no-show job at Wake-Forest University at a huge salary, where her office phone number came back to a janitor’s closet. Yeah, we know why the caged turd sings.
A: Cis-hetero
Cro-MagnonProto-Ape.FIFY
And I note that the only generally-acknowledged female universal genius in the past 2,000 years was Hypatia.
Did you mean Hyapatia Lee? Yum.
Wow! That thing must take one big ass “clip.”
It is the most expensive military project in history, plagued by delays, overspending, and glitches that have infuriated military chiefs and politicians alike.
But as it nears the end of its long road to the battlefield, developers are finally able to show off some of the F-35 Lightning II’s awesome arsenal of weapons, including this GAU-22 gatling gun.
Capable of firing 55 rounds per second, enough to shred vehicles in mere moments, this footage shows the first test firing of the pod-mounted version which will be used by the Marines and Navy.
We don’t compare very well with the English and Irish writers
Bah. There’s Kipling. And there’s… uh… Kipling.
Yeah, that Shakespeare guy was always highly over-rated.
I was slamming only the poets. The Brits had plenty of good prose writers.
“The Brits had plenty of good prose writers.”
I’ve always loved the 18th-C wits, particularly Swift; his “Directions to Servants” had me on the floor laughing. And they’ve continued their fine writing tradition well into the 20th- and 21st-C’s, too. For laughing yourself to death there is the late Kingsley Amis, and also the whole damn Waugh family, their writing and their personal lives. Amis’s description of the main character’s hangover in “Lucky Jim” is a killer.
“…that Shakespeare guy was always highly over-rated.”
If I was limited to desert island reading from him, it would be the history plays and the sonnets. Falstaff probably the greatest comic hero in all of Western literature so far.
“…That thing must take one big ass “clip.””
Clips are found on M1’s and suchlike. Modern rifles have magazines. Machine guns at the squad level have belts. The aircraft like that carry ammo in bays, pods and containers:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0163.shtml
The F35 has had a slew of problems and delays and the only reason I can come up with for going ahead with it is to battle space aliens with similar or better technology.
No, you are wrong. Any type of “assault” weapon uses a big ass “clip.” The F-35 is obviously an “assault” weapon. Look at all those things sticking off of it. That makes it look scary, thus “assault” weapon. Geez, I thought you would be up to speed on “assault” weapons and “clips.” Probably roach clips.
Have I mentioned lately that you are my hero, Mr. OFD, Sir!
Ditto. Very much so.
I don’t believe in heroes. As a properly indoctrinated Warrior for Social Justice, I find “hero” and “heroine” to be too gender normative. Instead, we should have herzirs, the non-cis-normative role models we all can look up to.
(But don’t try to look up zir’s clothes. That would be sexual harassment, which is the same as rape, which is the worst crime ever comprehended.)
“… Probably roach clips.”
lol. That brings back memories; ain’t seen one in, let’s see now, 27 years, last time I smoked pot.
“I don’t believe in heroes.”
I don’t, either. Any humans that fit the category are a very tiny number. Of course, I’m such a prick I think half the MOH awards are undeserved. And I saw plenty of Silver Stars and other fruit salad going to REMF officers and senior NCOs, and no decorations at all for genuine enlisted scum heroes. Who to a man figured they were just doing their job. To top it off, a lot of us are missing even the decorations we WERE awarded on our DD214s and the correction process is a PITA. IDGAF myself and keep a non-existent vet profile outside the Thursday afternoon group meetings.
My heroes are the combat nurses, the para-rescue guys, and the poor suffering bastards who have to do the next-of-kin death notifications. Vicious murdering bastards like me are a dime a dozen, maybe a dime a thousand nowadays.
So I just got back from a grocery store run. I hope the grocery store has a truck due in tonight with eggs, milk and butter. The shelves were so bare of those items I had to make different choices than we normally do. I’m starting to think I should order a can of each from Augason Farms. Which would actually be a good idea, I’m just not that far down the list yet.
Which brings me to my question for the evening. Has anyone tried anything from the Emergency Food brand of products which appears to be trying to compete with Augason Farms?
Which reminds me, I wish Augason Farms would put more stuff in the “Everyday Size” cans because I would like to try some of the products and see how they rate. I wouldn’t mind paying the premium to try some if it before I go all in. I don’t want to have a #10 can sitting with a plastic lid on the shelf. For example, I’d like to do a side by side taste test on Augason Farms Non-Fat Dried Milk vs Morning Moos.
I think the LTS foods and Freeze dried foods companies are counting on people NOT eating their product. (except for the majors)
It’s very hard to find a ‘sampler pack’ or small cans, and I have the same problem in that I don’t want to open a can I don’t need to use, but I also don’t want to stock up on something I’ve never tasted.
Some weeks ago I asked here if anyone had tried a FD company that advertised on Alex Jones. No one had. I even tried contacting the company to see if they had sample size or a variety pack I could buy but never heard back. I find the whole business a bit shady.
That said, you can buy Mountain house meals singly and eat them. Ditto for other camping meals, and enough people are using the Augason Farms that if it sucked it would be well known online. It’s all the newcomers and the private labels that worry me, especially the ones pitching a “kit” solution. IE “just buy this package deal and you are set for 30 days.” I think they count on people buying the product and never using it, and I suspect the food sucks.
nick
@dave, commander zero at http://www.commanderzero.com/
did a side by side of dried milk and decided that Nido was the best (most like milk) tasting. There is a similar product from Nido, Nido Kids that is something else and not just milk.
I’ve had the Nido, and it’s fine, without the weird taste of non-fat dry milk. I stock it in my bulk LTS for the kids. It’s in my local asian market (that caters to foreigners) and in the import aisle at our ‘big’ HEB grocery store.
nick
(it’s cheap enough for the small can that you can try it out.)
We’re all gonna diiiiiiiieeeeeee!
“GEOMAGNETIC STORM WARNING: NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of geomagnetic storms on Aug. 2nd when a CME is expected to strike Earth’s magnetic field. A solar wind stream following close on the heels of the CME could boost storm levels to G2 (moderately strong). High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Visit http://spaceweather.com for updates and more information.”
If any of y’all are ever in the mood for a mindless cop/spec ops vs. bad guys flick, I just watched “Gridlocked” on Netflix and it wasn’t bad. Plus it has Trish Stratus in it. I’d had enough of the heavy lifting-type reading today (NT in Latin, plus some interesting computer science nooz). And that Sandburg poem on Chicago, lol.
Field Marshal Rodham will fix the economy for us all….fix it real good….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-has-a-very-detailed-plan-for-the-economy-that-may-be-a-problem/
More of the same old commie “soak the rich” redistribution scams, while the rich have batteries of lawyers and accountants and offshore accounts. Oh? Can’t get it from them? Well, move on down to the middle class, what the fuck, amirite? We’ve declared war on them already….
http://www.atr.org/full-list-hillary-s-planned-tax-hikes
So that’s one war front; here’s another:
http://personalliberty.com/obama-regime-targets-gunsmiths-new-executive-order/
Looking at the list, and knowing already that the ITAR-associated fee is supposed to only be for the MANUFACTURING FFL license, they’re now gonna try and jam us all up with stuff that countless firearms owners do with their guns nowadays. This cocksucker and his phony “executive orders” are just gonna keep pushing and pushing.
From the Shoe is on the Other Foot Department:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/actionreaction-4/
Methinks we oughta start doing that. After which we upload a vid to the net of the heads being thrown to dogs.
Looking at the list, and knowing already that the ITAR-associated fee is supposed to only be for the MANUFACTURING FFL license,
I never got the suppressor thing. What, we’re all going to run around like assassins? Snuffing peeps in the dark of night and don’t want to wake the dog? You’d think using a suppressor would be welcome to cut down on noise at ranges, etc.
Fuck Obola!
tRump 2016!
“You’d think using a suppressor would be welcome to cut down on noise at ranges, etc.”
And for hunting, so as not to unduly alarm game. But these assholes don’t ever care to get the nomenclature right or the rational uses of firearms or anything rational about them, for that matter. They seek only to impose their political will on the rest of us, and to do so completely, they want us disarmed. Just like the peoples of Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, etc., etc.
One of the criminal assholes down in my home state, which already has draconian firearms laws:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20160722/massachusetts-attorney-general-unilaterally-bans-thousands-of-previously-legal-guns
The pitchforks, torches and tumbrils will be coming for YOU, beyotch.
A Voice from the Grave Department:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/a-final-warning-2/
I decided to renew my Passport since MrsAtoz may go to the Caribbean soon. Since it hadn’t expired I could do it through the mail. I applied for the card also. I paid for expedited just in case. It tooks two weeks and I have a new Passport and Card. But libturds say it is to hard for Boobus Blackus Americanus to even get a State ID or Driver’s License. How the fuk do they get their EBT cards?
We don’t have many BBA’s up here but I wonder how many of our regular “underclass” Cock-a-soids have state ID’s and/or drivers’ licenses. We do know, however, that the EBT card system is a cornucopia of abuse and fraud, but hey, taxpayer pockets are bottomless, so why worry?
Funny fact: PA’s voter ID law actually set aside state money to assist voters in getting valid state IDs. A valid ID costs in the neighborhood of $20, so the state was going to cover it (through the pockets of the taxpayers). I am not opposed to this plan.
Seems it was too much of a burden on the voters to make it happen.
This, my friends, is why we need strict constitutionalists in the courts. It IS a matter for the states, it is NOT discriminatory against citizens, and it IS a valid means of ensuring that only those with a right to vote are permitted to vote.
I decided to renew my Passport
Make color copies of your and the spousal unit passports primary page. A couple of copies. When you travel keep one copy in a location separate from your other documents. When the wife and I travel to Europe I keep the passports with me, she keeps the color copy.
Dave Hardy wrote:
‘This cocksucker and his phony “executive orders” are just gonna keep pushing and pushing.’
Glad now you stayed home in 2008 and 2012?
Why, yes; yes I am. Because Murkan history.
From the Murkan History Department:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2014/November/38/11/magazine/article/10825790/
Read it and weep.
As I keep saying but certain parties apparently don’t wanna hear: we have a system here like the old Soviet regime: the Party puts into nomination one or two people from their previously selected list of “candidates” and then we’re supposed to vote for one of them. The Stupid Half candidates and their leaders have been patently useless for decades and there is nothing that says any of them would have done any differently than our current National Administrator, Barack Hussein Soetero. Remember “Read My Lips G.H.W. Bush”?
And we see where voting really helped to stop the U.K. and Australian regimes from THEIR punitive confiscation of private property in the form of firearms.
We are not gonna vote our way out of this mess.
I decided to renew my Passport since MrsAtoz may go to the Caribbean soon. Since it hadn’t expired I could do it through the mail. I applied for the card also. I paid for expedited just in case. It tooks two weeks and I have a new Passport and Card.
I screwed up and let my passport expire in 2015. I need to get it renewed posthaste as I have been thinking about going to an engineering conference in Istanbul in September. Which, just got moved to Greece for some reason.
There is nothing that would get me to either of those places without a security team, and and armed response standing by offshore.
n
(some of the places I said NO)
Nigeria
Columbia
Baku, Azerbaijan
Indonesia
Islamabad
Missed out on Egypt ’cause I was in Abu Dhabi
Missed out on Vietnam ’cause I was in Bakersfield
Just say NO
added
and that’s with 2 passports, my “anywhere but Israel” gulf states passport, and my “normal” passport.
Really, you would not go to Athens ? I thought Athens was fairly ok at the moment.
My former USMC son said no for Afghanistan when they were asking for volunteers. They were not happy with him and gave him serious nasty looks.
Nasty looks are easy to live with. Good on him.
Yep, no interest in Athens. Or any of the other places.
n
I simply can’t imagine going to Turkey or Greece or anywhere in the Sandbox region unless one has a kidnapping or death wish. Murkans stick out like very sore thumbs and thanks to our wunnerful political leadership, we are hated and feared by way too many people and groups.
And in light of the recent staged coup and extreme unrest in Turkey, you were SERIOUSLY considering going to Istanbul??? Yikes.
I was considering Istanbul until the coup / purge. I would not go to Turkey now, especially being a Christian.
This is a very sad situation. The heart of Christianity was very much in Turkey (Asia minor) since Paul was from this area and worked it diligently. This was the first area where Christianity seriously made an effort of reaching out to the Gentiles instead of just the Jews.
Indeed. The situation for Christians THROUGHOUT the Middle East, thanks to the musloid regimes and terrorists has been very sad for a long time now. And also thanks to the apathy and ignorance of the West. If I traveled there now, I’d have every expectation of being kidnapped, held in some shit-hole cell somewhere for a while, and then beheaded. I guess this is also kinda true about traveling to rock shows in Paris.
I screwed up and let my passport expire in 2015. I need to get it renewed
No can do. You have to apply again as if you were applying for a new passport. Same as if you lose a passport.
OK, passport gurus, two questions:
1.) Is it worth it bother to do the paperwork and pay for a (new) passport these days?
2.) And, if so, would it be worth it to also get a second passport??
I’d recommend getting the passport and card. Pay for the basic service and lock it up. Carry the card. You can never tell when Mrs. OFD might get a gig in the Caribe. MrsAtoz got a gig in Germany to help vets coming right out of the sandbox way back when. It’s probably safer in Grenada these days than many US cities. MrsAtoz goes to the Caribe all the time. They pay in lots and lots of US dollars. Good place to start that side biz for her.
two questions
Yes, get a passport. You can use it for identification rather than a driver’s license. You also don’t know when you may suddenly need to travel to another country, even Canada, so having a passport is probably a good thing.
As for a second passport, I believe you can only have one. I have a passport that has to be used for all air travel to other countries, even Canada and Mexico. I also have the passport card that can be used for ship or land travel into Mexico and Canada. That is a small card that will fit in your wallet. I carry that card with me all the time.
Last time I voted I used the passport card as identification. The poll worker said it was not a valid form of ID. I said it was as it was issued by the federal government and had my photograph. She still insisted it was invalid because it was not issued by the state. I told her to get a supervisor with a copy of the document listing acceptable identification. The supervisor showed up, found the list, and sure enough, the passport card was listed. The poll worker grumbled something about not ever had seen one before and let me sign the register. Meanwhile the nasty smelling piece of human trailer trash behind me probably had a fake ID.
One time I went to vote and someone had voted for me, signed in the space for my signature. The names did not even match. I had to do a provisional ballot that would not count until the polling district could verify I was who I said I was. Never heard back from them about the outcome. I thought ID was supposed to prevent such from happening.
Roger that, will do. IIRC, my Enhanced Vermont driver’s license gets me in and out of Canada, Mexico, and the Pacific Trust Territories, but I’m not sure and doubt it’ll work in the Spanish Main. So far all her gigs have been CONUS, missing out several times on Alaska and Hawaii. And she always tries to snag Kalifornia because that’s where the kidz and grandkidz are. Soon we may need a passport for there anyway.
She is currently an independent contractor and I’m not sure just how much of a “side” biz she can do yet; right now she’s focusing on her online jewelry stuff when she’s home, but that probably won’t kick off again until this coming fall and winter. She’s doing an average two gigs a month now as it is, and it takes a lot out of her; we ain’t no spring chickens here. If I can get enough revenue cooking here, that’ll take some of the pressure off her; ditto when Princess FINALLY graduates next year (as it is she’s been pestering her mom for two days now from Scotland, over Murkan and Canadian bank account hassles while her mom is WORKING in Chicago.).
At that point I will have been planting the seeds for the side biz options.
“I thought ID was supposed to prevent such from happening.”
Hahaha. Let me educate you, Grasshopper:
All that ID folderol is designed to hassle YOU and ME and they’d love it if they could stop us from voting, not that I give a fuck about that above the town and county level anyway now. That “nasty smelling piece of human trailer trash” and other assorted underclass elements, crimigrants, and musloid invaders have, in their eyes, more right than YOU to vote here. And that is exactly what the Evil Half of the Party has been engineering in this country since the Glorious Sixties. They’re just about there, now, and plan to pound the final nails in the coffin of American national sovereignty and basically just steal the whole country and sell chunks of it off to the highest foreign bidders. The Larry Klinton and Bush crime families have already been raking in hundreds of millions, including uranium sales from public lands, to countries that are fucking HOSTILE to us and would like to see us dead and gone.
But of course, none dare call it treason…
Full quote:
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.”
IIRC, my Enhanced Vermont driver’s license gets me in and out of Canada, Mexico, and the Pacific Trust Territories,
Is that ground travel only? I know the TSA is shoving enhanced drivers license down our throats for air travel CONUS+. Never know when you’ll have to fly up somewhere in Kanada to rescue Princess when she’s back. Or Scotland for that matter.
Speaking of Princess in Scotland. I’ve had two kids do the high school and college two week “drunken” binge in England, Germany etc. I made sure my passport was up to date in case I had to “Taken” them out.
I guess this is also kinda true about traveling to rock shows in Paris.
My dad wants to go back to France next summer, rent a boat again, and motor up another one of the canals. We did the Midi Canal seven years ago, we had a good time. Pulling the 40 ft boat up the six locks up the hill in the middle of France was a zoo, I’m not I can do that again. The lockkeeper would not operate the locks until there were four boats stuffed in the lock, getting them all in was a banging experience.
http://www.locaboat.com/en/destinations-circuits/france/canal-boat-midi-camargue.html
“Is that ground travel only? I know the TSA is shoving enhanced drivers license down our throats for air travel CONUS+. Never know when you’ll have to fly up somewhere in Kanada to rescue Princess when she’s back. Or Scotland for that matter.”
Dunno, I guess I should check it out, but I never leave the country anyway except to do the endless Princess trips back and forth to Moh-ree-all. Scotland is another kettle of fish entirely; she’s on her own, or Mama-san or Grand-mama-san would have to do that gig. Which they’re doing right now, incidentally, via phone and FaceCrack messaging.
“My dad wants to go back to France next summer…”
Is your dad aware of the recent sitreps in France? Just wondering. Because they just beheaded a Catholic priest at mass; they had a major terrorist incident in Nice; and Paris is Burning. By next summer they are likely to have a full-bore civil war going, as lots of ordinary Gauls are pretty effin tired of the gummint catering to musloid scum and are getting ready to fight back, which evidently the army and police won’t do. Meanwhile U.S. military bases are being surrounded and attacked from France to Turkey and weapons are being stolen by the truckload from armories.
This “normality bias” in regard to foreign travel DESPITE the horrific reports that come out of these countries and cities is beginning to disturb me. I expect it from Princess and Mrs. OFD, because they only pay attention to whatever drivel the MSM and FaceCrack stories dish out. But we KNOW what’s been going on and what’s going on now, and it’s at the point where the dangers are no longer more or less exclusive to foreign travel.
Why oh why tempt fate???
“My dad wants to go back to France next summer…”
Is your dad aware of the recent sitreps in France? Just wondering. Because they just beheaded a Catholic priest at mass; they had a major terrorist incident in Nice; and Paris is Burning. By next summer they are likely to have a full-bore civil war going, as lots of ordinary Gauls are pretty effin tired of the gummint catering to musloid scum and are getting ready to fight back, which evidently the army and police won’t do. Meanwhile U.S. military bases are being surrounded and attacked from France to Turkey and weapons are being stolen by the truckload from armories.
Yes, very much. Dad was the backup Rhodes scholar in 1960. He was looking forward to possibly going to school in England. But I came along so he settled for getting his PhD at Princeton in Chemical Engineering. Shell Oil gave him a full ride scholarship along with living expenses including Mom and I.
But, he loves Europe. And the canals are in the middle of nowhere once you leave the Mediterranean seaport. The last time, we had to cross the harbor for about ten miles with the Med on one side. Fairly adventurous for a canal boat with a max speed of 5 mph. The towns along the canals are very small villages with mostly native French people in them. I would definitely stay out of Paris, the last time we had about 400 or 500 muslims surrounding us at the Eiffel tower trying to sell us crap, now that was a little disturbing. The French soldiers were continuously moving them around with fixed machine guns.
We, the USA, need to get our stuff out of Turkey right now. And exit NATO asap.
And we stayed at a motel a half block away from that church in Normandy last time. That is a very small tourist town.
“As for a second passport, I believe you can only have one.”
Nope, there are lots of good reasons to have more than one.
Number one is that some countries require a visa stamped or affixed to your passport, and you have to send it to them for that. Often it takes months for the passport to come back. In the mean time, without a second passport, you’d be stuck in the US.
Second, many of the middle east shitholes, like our ‘friends’ in the house of saud, will not allow anyone with an israeli stamp in their passport to enter. Hence the ‘gulf states’ passport (not any kind of official name) and my ‘everywhere else’ passport. As it turned out, I never got to israel, so the only benefit to me was I could keep traveling when Egypt was dicking around, putting stamps in my other passport.
From the US side, you’ve just got two copies of your (one) passport. From the exterior side, the one you enter with is the one you need to exit with, and the only one you have.
And for hard core travel, getting a red passport cover might save some grief, as you can pretend to be Canadian to anyone who casually sees it. I’m pretty sure the time when having the US passport was a bonus and a ‘get out of jail free card’ is long past.
I looked at the card, but the restrictions on it’s use made it unworkable for me, so I saved a couple bucks and didn’t get it. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I think the card isn’t valid for air travel, and that’s all I ever did (outside of Mexico.)
nick
think the card isn’t valid for air travel,
Yup, see Mr. Ray above. But it is a good backup if you lose your primary ID. Keep it in your firebox.