I noticed today that if the topic of RIPR (Rifle Integrated Power Rail) comes up on a forum or blog a couple of things happen:
Now I have mentioned RIPR. Will the cycle repeat? I’ll start by commenting that I don’t think I will ever have a need for this device.
When people hear that I am into disaster planning and preparation the question inevitably arises “What things do you carry with you?” And, if they see me out somewhere they always want to know what is in the bag I carry around. It’s a fair question.
The topic of Every Day Carry is a very subjective, aside from a few basic items. What I deem necessary might be totally absurd to someone else. I freely admit that I take things to an extreme, but it serves me well.
Absent will be discussion of weapons for personal defense. I generally don’t confirm or deny my armed status, and it is such a huge ball of wax that it deserves it’s own post. One word of caution: it is generally unsound to assume someone, especially me, is unarmed.
In my pockets and on my person as I type are the following:
In my wallet
In my pockets
On my belt
Why this stuff? In my home state on Tennessee you have to have ID not just for running afoul of the PO-leece, but to purchase just about anything fun. A lot of retailers are asking for photo ID to use a credit or debit card for purchases, a development that bothers me not at all. I’d rather present both and minimize the chances of some ass hat stealing my card and using it with abandon.
Do I need to tell you why you should carry some money and have access to more? I thought not. You need stuff and things break don’t they. ‘Nuff said.
A paper card, preferably waterproof, containing a list of people to call in an emergency is a great comfort. Those of us who run a higher than average risk of collapsing in a heap on the street need a way for rescuers or authorities to contact a responsible adult. Sure, all that info is in my cell phone, but I have never dropped a scrap of paper and broken it.
The same goes for medical information. I have a complicated history and take a lot of prescription medications, so having a record of this that an emergency department nurse can read can be a life saver. If nothing else, it will save time by explaining why I act like a guy who has a brain injury. I have a nifty USB medic alert bracelet that has a very detailed account of my conditions and treatments, but getting information off that will take time. The wallet card is quicker.
My pocket knife is my second most used item. I open my mail with it, clean my fingernails, lots of stuff. Is it a weapon? Sure, I suppose, but if it gets down to that I am in so much trouble, so very much trouble… Buy a good knife from a reputable company. It’s annoying to have one break on you. Sometimes I carry a Brand X $2 knife just so I can give it to someone who asks to borrow my knife. Ask my wife if I’m lying. She calls me “Johnny Knife Seed.” One day I will be also known as “Johnny Flashlight Seed.”
Multitool. I carry a Gerber Multi-plier. My dad bought it for me when I had lost the use of my right arms, because it can be opened and used one-handed. It’s heavy, but handy, and I have yet to break it. That’s impressive to me, because I am tough on gear. It’s just my nature. Honestly, I never use any functions other than the pliers and the Phillips screwdriver, but by gods if I ever need an awl I will be ready.
Ask me about flashlights. I dare you. See, back in my college days I went to a movie theatre during a thunderstorm. The power went out and all but one of the emergency lights failed. That was terrifying even to a stone killer like me. The dark wasn’t the scary part. It was the panicked crowd of movie goers. When I finally got out of that auditorium I went to the mall next door and bought a mini Maglight, which went immediately into my pocket. I have never, ever, EVARH left my house without a working light source again. My grandma never did and I should have learned that earlier.
Now I am a bit of a flashlight snob. I buy good gear. For me, Light Emitting Diode flashlights have entirely replaced those with incandescent bulbs. The LED lights last significantly longer and throw a more effective beam. They can also have some nifty functions. My primary light is a tactical model that uses two AA batteries and produces about 110 lumens. That’s enough to blind someone for a few seconds. It also has a rapid strobe function that will wreck night vision and depth perception when shined in someone’s eyes. That’s nice for self defense. In full power it will run about an hour, but you can adjust the brightness and make it last 40 hours on a single set of batteries.
You’ve probably heard the saying “Two is one and one is none.” That means that any single piece of inportant gear is going to break when you need it most. Blee dat, yo. Since flashlights are important, I carry a backup. I have a very similar light to my primary, but it uses a single AA, has all the features, just isn’t as bright nor will it last as long. On my key ring I have a tiny LED disposable light that might not blind an assailant, but will definitely help me get my house key in the lock. I like flashlights. A lot.
Cellular phones have changed the world. I resisted for a long time but work finally required me to get one, and I drank the Kool-Aid. I love my phone. Being able to call for help in an emergency is a massive comfort. I can also stay in touch with my decrepit family and be instantly aware of the latest health crisis. It also seems to comfort my mom to know that she can call me any time of day to say that she sent me an email.
Text messaging was designed with me in mind. I hate chatting on the phone, but if I can send a 140 direct question or answer I’m golden. Plus, text messages (SMS) often work in a crisis situation even if the cellular voice network is overloaded.
My phone is web enabled and serves as a camera, video/voice recorder, media player and storage device. How cool is it to be able to check active discussions on the Zombie Squad forum while I’m sitting on the tractor out in a pasture? I keep audio books and video games on the thing for those times I am stuck in a hospital waiting room for hours on end.
Key rings. Yes, I said ringS, plural. I keep my house and vehicle keys separate, so I can, for example, leave the car running while I unlock the door to the house. Also, if I lose one I might retain the other. I wear my keys on a carabiner hooked to a belt loop for easy access and because I have to carry such a stupidly large number of keys that they would wear out a pocket in a single day. Also on my key ring is the aforementioned flashlight and a knife plus slotted/Phillips screwdriver tool that looks like a key. How cool is that? My wife got it for me. She knows me too well.
I might at times carry hearing protection in the form of earplugs. I work around loud equipment, so that has it’s hazards, but if there is shooting going on around me maintaining good hearing will aid situational awareness and protect a sense you will miss if it is gone. Also, I am big on sunglasses. I have to wear corrective lenses to see at all, and my eyes are very light sensitive, so this counts as personal protective equipment. My sunglasses are worn over my eyeglasses, are made of polycarbonate and provide wrap-around protection from light as well as debris. Glasses like these have literally saved my vision on more than one occasion.
Yes, I carry a lot of crap around with me all the time, and this totally skips the contents of the bag I teased you with. I will go over the mysterious contents of that magic sack next time, I promise. Why mention it at all? Because, instead of coming home and dumping my EDC gear in a box or on a nightstand, I put in in that bag. That way if a emergency arises while I am sleeping or sitting around in my underwear I can get dressed, grab that bag and hit the bricks. Snazzy!
You may recall my ongoing struggle with a not insignificant percentage of the population of China, as well as other notorious black hats, as they attempt to wreck my wife’s online activism. All my chatter about guns and insurrection doesn’t seem to bother anyone, but mention the Dali Llama you people start trying to deface your web site and steal your email password.
I’m mostly burned out on technology, so the prospect of ongoing Internets Kung Fu fighting was too daunting. What can I say? I’m just like that. We have set up a new web site & blog for her on a third party host; no their staff can worry about zer0-day attack code
Here is the linkage to Cluck-n-Neigh. Below you can see Claire “working.”
If you are thinking in terms of disaster planning, figuring out how to do things without electricity is a better use of your time and money than figuring out how to generate a lot of electrical power in the event the power grid fails long term. That said, there are a few things you will not wish to go without that are going to need electricity. One of those is communication. Sneakernet might be fine and dandy to get the town gossip in the PAW, but a radio is a lot better.
Claire and I made the switch to rechargeable batteries in 2005, a couple of years before I got the small solar array set up. We have never looked back. Right now, I have 120 volt wall chargers running off the deep cycle batteries that are, in turn, connected to the solar panels. If we lose grid power, all that will still work as it does today. In case the house solar is not working or if we need to charge some AA or AAA batteries away from the house, I have a couple of alternatives. One is a dedicated solar battery charger. It will take a 2400 mA NiMH AA battery from discharge to full charge in 8 hours of direct sunlight, and it charges 6 batteries at a time. Our GMRS walkie-talkies take 3 AAs each and run for a couple of days on a set, so that works out nicely. We also have a couple of very inexpensive two-way radios that operate on the same frequencies, but they use AAA batteries and don’t last as long.
In a pinch, I have harvested the solar panels and circuitry from a half dozen old decorative solar yard lights and can use them to take a 600 mA NiCad AA to full charge in a day. I had thought about using little sidewalk lights as indoor task lighting, say over the sink, but they produce so little illumination from the on-board LED that it is hardly worth the effort of taking them outside every day to charge up.
For light, we keep a variety of LED flashlights, headlamps and lanterns, all use the AA and AAA batteries that we can recharge using the sun. There are any number of solar or hand-crank powered gadgets that might be handy (or fun) to have in an emergency, so look around and see what appeals to you.
Here’s a solar battery charger for under $30. LINK
Today is a good day to back up your PC data & store it off-site. That’s what I’m doing since it is raining outside for the seventeenth day in a row. I’m making sure all my utilities are up to date, too.
If you know me at all, you know I loves me some science fiction. To honor the guy who started it all please allow me to say “Happy Birthday!” to H.G. Wells. If you have not caught any of his classic works or their derivations, do yourself a favor and read or watch one today.
This weekend you should try to get out and look for the International Space Station as it does a fly-over. The space shuttle Endeavour is working on STS-127 and is currently docked with the ISS. With the added real estate of the shuttle along with the new solar arrays the ISS is bright with reflected sunlight from beyond the horizon and will appear quite large in the sky. Check it out.
Chris Peat’s excellent website, Heavens-Above, makes it easy to catch interesting objects in the night sky. Just plug in your location information and it does the math for you. Armed with that data and some simple optics (a binocular with a large objective is ideal) you are set to see not only the ISS but also the Hubble Space Telescope, various spy and communications satellites as well as space junk from all eras. The Lacrosse series of military reconnaissance satellites are among my favorite to look for because they are large and almost ubiquitous. Your tax dollars at work…
Happy hunting!
One of my favorite doomsday scenarios (I have a lot) is a colossal Electromagnetic Pulse attack over North America. It doesn’t worry me as much as say, bears driving mattress trucks, because I am actually pretty well prepared for it. Short of putting my extra PC, rechargeable batteries/charger, backup solar array and GMRS two-way radios in a Farraday cage there isn’t too much else I can do at the moment. The long term items should include:
Cooking and potable water treatment are lined up in the form of two passive solar ovens, a grill, fire pit and Dutch oven. Protein in the form of fish, chicken and eggs is plentiful and easily harvested. Edible and medicinal plants, even some fruit trees, abound here on the farm. Fat might be a tad harder to come by without an animal source, but I’m researching that. Soon we might have access to a card-carrying botanist with an interest in subsistence farming and seed storage. That has to be a plus.
Does this sort of thing keep me awake at night? Not really. It is, however, an enjoyable and worthwhile project. If I am prepared to survive a disaster like an EMP or Zombie Apocalypse than making it through a tornado or flood should be child’s play.
For more reading on EMP and its long and short term effects, a good jumping off point is the primer written by Dr. Forstchen
The LRO has beamed back some 100m shots of the gear left behind on the lunar surface. Phil Plait has it covered.
This is so so so freaking cool: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken pictures of the Apollo landing sites!
I had a lengthy post about Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell planned for today, but I have misplaced it. Until it resurfaces you will have to make do with news about Russia’s, jointly with the European Space Agency, plan to send a manned mission to Mars.
MOSCOW – Russian engineers broke a red wax seal and six men emerged from a metal hatch after 105 days of isolation in a mock spacecraft, still smiling after testing the stresses that space travelers may face on the journey to Mars.
Sergei Ryazansky, the captain of the six-man crew, told reporters at a Moscow research institute near the Kremlin on Tuesday that the most difficult thing was knowing that instead of making the 172-million mile (276-million kilometer) journey they were locked in a windowless module of metal canisters the size of railway cars.
The men, chosen from 6,000 applicants, were paid euro15,000 ($20,987) each to be sealed up in the mock space capsule since March 31_ cut off almost entirely from the outside world.
There was a time I would have been upset about this, but given the state of things today I am just happy someone is looking forward to exploring the solar system. Why people downplay the importance of studying the effects of 105 days of isolation is a mystery to me as it seems awfully important to find a crew that won’t crack up in route to or fro.
