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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on November 18, 2014

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Speedy Gonzalo Lira sez, “OOPS! I guess I made a MEEESTAKE!”

Snippet:

…Remember back to 2008-2009 when Hank Paulson pulled out the Bazooka to bail out the TBTF Banks, and then Helicopter Ben Bernake launched the first of his QE ships? Pundits in the Econ Blogosphere went berserk, predicting imminent Hyperinflation of the Dollar. John Williams, Speedy Gonzalo Lira, Mish, you name it they all predicted rampant HI which somehow never arrived here.

Meanwhile in the dark secluded corners of the internet, a few people like Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth, Steve Ludlum from Economic Undertow and myself all predicted a deflationary event coming down the pipe, at least for the Dollar.

What is the situation today? Deflation is now the word of the day spoken fearfully by Central Bank chieftains, and even notorious Hyperinflation predicting sites like Zero Hedge are on the Deflation Bandwagon…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!

Off the keyboard of RE

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on November 16, 2014

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As we move into Week 3 of the First Month on the SNAP Card budget, I’m doing quite well with some decent amount of leftovers here in terms of Eggs, Potatoes and even some Chili and Spaghetti in containers.  So for Week 3 Purchases, I am going to get even CHEAPER, and just buy some Stew Meat to make a simple stew, along with Flour, Butter, Cooking Oil and Cheese so I can make Cheese Omelletes this week for breakfast, in addition to the Eggs Toba Flambe Video Special of the Week you see above.  BE CAREFUL when you make this breakfast!  You don’t want to burn down your Doomstead!  LoL.

Note: I did have to CHEAT for the Flambe with the SECRET INGREDIENT for a spectacular Egg Skillet dish.  This really perks up your Eggs! (Hint: This Recipe was Illegal from 1920 to 1933 in the FSoA)

So this week’s expenditures are

1 lb Stew meat $5

5 lbs Flour $2.50

2 lbs Cheddar Cheese $7

1 qt Cooking Oil $3

1 lb Butter $5

Dry Onion Soup Mix $2

The Cheese, Flour, Oil and Butter will last quite some time since you don’t use too much of this stuff usually for most things you whip up.  Total for the week here around $24.50.  So for the first 3 weeks, this will be a total of around $77, which leaves me $63 to finish out the month until JP Morgan Chase Recharges my SNAP Card.

A few issues were raised in SCG002 regarding just how cheap you can go here in what you buy.  For instance, my friend and fellow Gourmet Stucky pointed out that you can make Pasta cheaper than you can buy it, but the savings are pretty inconsequential here.  I only spent $2 on Pasta to begin with even buying the premade stuff.  Similarly, you can buy  Beans and some various other Staples very cheap, especially in Bulk, but if you try to live on JUST these mostly empty calories (though beans have good protein content too), the diet is ridiculously bland, not to mention totally lacking in vitamins.

What runs up the cost is getting variety in the diet, and all the less cheap foods you need to fill it out and be able to do some decent cooking with.  So far, the “recipes” here are super basic, and really this is mainly “Bachelor Cooking 101″, at least it used to be.  Nowadays the typical Bachelor doesn’t even do this much cooking, because you can buy Frozen Foods to microwave up just about as cheap as doing most of these type of preparations.  I’ll go through the economics of that in another episode.  Besides that, if you are still employed and making a decent paycheck, most bachelors don’t cook breakfast for instance, they just stop in at Taco Bell on the way to work and buy a Breakfast Burrito. Lunch comes in the form of a Subway Sandwich. On the way home you stop at the Hot Counter of the Deli section of your local Food Emporium and buy some General Tso’s Chicken and Fried Rice.  You spend $20/day on food this way, it’s not real healthy, but it is well within the budget of most people employed in jobz above the Min Wage.

The other criticism came in the Meat department, with the idea you can get cheaper meats to eat that are not usual in the Amerikan diet, Liver, Tripe, Pigs Feet & Neck Bones yadda yadda.  The thing is, in Food Emporiums in this neighborhood, they aren’t that available usually, and they are not much cheaper either, if at all cheaper.  You’ll still pay $3/lb for most of them, even freaking Soup Bones with no meat at all on them!  On the other hand, I can about always find some cut of Boneless Pork for the same price.  The most I would save in a Week if my Meat consumption is 1-2lb/week is maybe $2 most by buying a cheap cut or some gizzard.  It just does not make a big difference to the total budget, which gets consumed elsewhere.

Besides spices, the main area that consumes your budget is if you start buying a lot of Fresh Veggies.  Another criticism came in is that instead of buying Canned Tomato Sauce, I should make my OWN Tomato Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes!  Issue here is a 1 qt  Can of Tomato Sauce comes as cheap as $1.25 on sale, to make this much tomato sauce with Fresh Tomatoes would cost $10 EZ.  If you are growing your own Tomatoes, this obviously is the way to go, but not if you are buying them.  Another thing to remember with the commercial tomatoes is that they usually are ethylene ripened and are not much more vitamin filled than the canned ones.  If you go and buy hothouse on the vine tomatoes, you can double your cost again here.  You’re ot gonna make much Tomato Sauce on a SNAP Card budget if you try to do it with Fresh Tomatoes, unless you are growing them yourself.

OK, that covers the critique from the last episode of SCG, now let’s get on with this week!  Since I am just making Stew and the only Main Ingredient I am currently missing is Stew Meat ( I have Carrots, Onions, Potatoes and Garlic still left from my Week 1 purchase), the fun part of this week is SHOPPING for the Meat!

I have 4 basic choices for buying Commercial Meat around here, Carr’s (a Safeway Chain store), Fred Meyer (a Kroger Chain store), 3 Bears (a discount Food Warehouse) and Matanuska Meats, a local place that will prepare your hunting and fishing meat as well as providing meat for sale from the local farms.

I am fortunate all of these places are on my route to and from work more or less, I don’t have to go much out of the way to check in on them for what is available.  3 Bears has BY FAR the largest selection, and usually the lowest prices, but Carr’s comes in pretty low also sometimes, relatively speaking of course.  The meat fridge you see above at 3 Bears is only one of several, others have whole sides of beef, lamb etc in them.  With the MASS QUANTITIES of meat present in these freezers every day, it’s hard to imagine the day they will all be empty.  Until that day arrives though, plenty to choose from, and so far the prices aren’t too bad yet.

Fred Meyer overall for meat is not usually a good choice, although they come in cheapest on other stuff often enough.  Matanuska Meats has the highest Quality and is my usual choice if I am being Meat Picky, even though the price is usually a bit higher.

For Stew Meat, the difference is between paying $5/lb at Carr’s or $6/lb at Matanuska Meats, and just choosing here I would go with MM for a lousy $1 difference.  However, I am also torn in what cut I want to use, there are some real nice Ox Tails also on the rack at Fred Meyer.  This would make a much RICHER stew with more FAT in it than typical lean stew meat.  They want $7/lb for the Ox Tails.  This week, I decide to go medium with the Stew Meat from Matanuska Meats.  I’ll save doing an Ox Tail Stew for when I have more in the way of spices to make it super duper.

Some of Francois’ dried meat selection.  He gives classes in preparing your meats as well.  Old School stuff.

I’m not going to video making Stew, because it is brain dead easy, and besides I am out of time here if I want to have the article ready for Sunday Brunch.

Much like the Spaghetti Sauce, the first proceedure is browning the meat in a pan before slow cooking, so it has nice color.  With the cubed meat though, I roll it around in some flour before browning it.  This adds calories and also will help thicken the stew.  Later you can add more flour to thicken more if you like.  I’m using whole grain flour for this.  A bag of flour is a great way to add in some extra cheap calories to any meal, even without making pasta from it.

Once browned up, you just chuck it in the slow cooker with the potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic, and make the broth from the Onion Soup mix.  OK, I am cheating again here and adding some Marsala Wine to flavor up the cooking broth some more.  It was a cheap bottle though and I only used 1/2 a cup.  Whisk in a little more Flour if you want it thicker.  Feel free to dump in your favorite spices if you have some also.  A Bay leaf definitely helps here.

3-4 hours later, ladle it out over some rice and Give Thanks to Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase for another day of Industrial Food Living on your SNAP Card!

After 3 weeks here of “just getting by” on the SNAP Card Budget, in Week 4  I am FINALLY going to be able to start doing some REAL COOKING with REAL RECIPES!  I have $63 to spend for the final week or so here in the month, so I can buy some more expensive spices and ingredients.  Also, I’ll stock up on some staples like cooking oil, butter, sour cream etc to have available to make next month’s dishes perkier.

What I will go for at this time is dependent on what I see On Sale in the markets, but probably will include Last Great Frontier Fish Chowder RE and a Chicken dish, maybe Chicken Marsala, Chicken Paprikash or Chicken Parmesian.  Chicken is always relatively cheap animal protein, so a good meat choice.  Just have to watch out for the GMO fed chickens, which tend to be stringy in texture.

We also have Thanksgiving coming up, so we probably need to do something special for that.  No way I will do a Turkey though for just me, I’d be eating the leftovers for MONTHS, even with a small Turkey.

Until then eat well and watch those shelves for disappearing products!

RE

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on November 9, 2014

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In this week where the Japanese have gone FULL RETARD in their Monetary Policy and Vlad the Impaler gave a Speech which actually made some political sense, making our local Politicians look like the hacks they are, it’s tempting to use my Sunday Brunch space once again to look at the Big Picture, but I also want to follow up on my first SNAP Card Gourmet episode and get rolling on the great experiment of eating on a SNAP Card budget.  So for a while here, the Sunday Brunch offering on the Diner will be all Food Related, and I’ll save ranting and analyzing the ongoing Geopolitical and Economic Clusterfuck for other dishes served up during the week.

Getting rolling on the SNAP Card Budget isn’t easy, particularly for the individual.  It’s a bit easier for a family, because you can buy more Bulk purchases, which drive down the cost quite a bit.

Eggs are an EZ example here.  If I buy eggs by the Dozen (about as much as I will usually eat of eggs in a week), around here they come in around $3/Dozen right now.  However, if I buy 5 Dozen, I get them for $2/Dozen, a HUGE 50% savings! The same is true for a 5lb bag of Potatoes vs a 20lb bag, etc. So you want to buy in bulk as much as possible, especially for Staples that have a long Shelf Life.

In order to get started on this as an Individual, my first week I am going to focus on buying Staples in medium bulk, which will insure I won’t go the least bit hungry the first couple of weeks, but it will be a mighty limited Diet overall, eating pretty close to the same damn things every day which gets very boring.  Boring is not the only problem though, you don’t want to eat the same stuff every day because to capture all the vitamins you need, variety is important.  However, for 2 weeks you can eat the same stuff over and over again and not die from Scurvy or some other vitamin deficiency. The important Criteria for Week 1-2 is to have plenty of food for the period, keep the price down below $25  to save for better foods and more variety, and begin some storage of longer lasting foods to improve variety as time goes by.

DAY 1: JP Morgan Chase just dropped $140 on my Newly Issued SNAP Card!  I recently lost my job as a NASA Engineer after they shut down our SETI program.  I have applied for a job with Richard Branson at Virgin Galactic to develop Space Tourism for the 1%, but haven’t heard anything yet on my Resume.  At least I can EAT this month though! Thank you Jamie Dimon!

My Future Job with Virgin Galactic

Until Richard gets back to me, my Food Purchases for the next 2 weeks are…

5 Dozen Eggs- $10

5 lbs Alaska Potatoes- $6

2  Green Peppers- $2

2 lbs Onions- $2

4 Heads Garlic- $2

2 lbs Spaghetti- $4

2 lbs Rice- $3

1 pckg Breakfast Sausages (14)- $2.25

2 Jars Spaghetti Sauce: $2.50

1 pckg Hot Sausage: $6

1 lb Ground Beef $5

1 Container Italian breadcrumbs- $2

2 Pkgs Bear Creek Chili- $6

For the next 2 weeks, I will be eating 2 meals a day, a Breakfast with Eggs, Meat, Potatoes & Onions, and Dinner of Spaghetti with Meatballs and Sausage or Chili with Rice.  The only real variety will be in how I prepare the Breakfasts, it is going to be very boring 2 weeks of eating.  However, it is only costing me $52 out of a $70 Budget, and I should have plenty of Potatoes and Eggs left at least, and possibly other leftovers as well.  So $18 will be conserved in this initial period.

If hungry between the Breakfast and Dinner, I will simply eat a couple more eggs or some leftover Spaghetti.

So now, let’s have some COOKING FUN with this simple set of ingredients!  I’ll start with the eggs, since there are a lot of ways to prepare them and even if you don’t have a lot of variety here in ingredients, at least you can make things different from day to day with some different preparations.

My personal favorite for the Morning Breakfast is very traditional, 2 Eggs Over Easy, Breakfast Meat of some type and Hash Browns.  If you can’t get hold of breakfast sausage, you could always substitute Squirrel or Earthworms for Breakfast Meat of course. For the Hash Browns, you use leftover Baked or Boiled potatoes usually, but you can also just Nuke a Potato in the microwave and then throw it on the skillet with some onions, garlic and peppers. Usually to have some potatoes available for hash browns,  I let the potatoes and garlic slow cook for 3 hours along with a couple of soy sauce packages and a ketchup package all scarfed up for free and in the larder here.  I’m not using any of my preps I BOUGHT, but I will use freebies I have collected at the beginning to add some flavor to this stuff until I can afford some decent spices.

I like Over Easy because you can thicken up the Yolk to make it like a nice Sauce if you don’t break the yolk in the cooking, which of course is something of a challenge depending on your cooking utensils.  When I first started cooking Over Easy Eggs, I would drop both in the pan, cook over medium flame until the egg white firmed up, then split them with the spatula and flip each half individually.  Here is a demonstration of this basic method, which is very Low Class overall as cooking technique goes.  lol.

After a few months of making my own breakfasts though when I was a kid, I decided I should get COOL and flip both eggs in the pan without a Spatula like I saw the Pros doing on TV.  Needless to say, I messed up numerous times doing this, and even now it is still a bit of a challenge to catch the eggs just right so the yolks don’t break on you when you do it.  However, if you really want to impress your girlfriend with how good a cook you are, if you pull this off flawlessly its just about as good for getting laid as playing the Electric Guitar. LOL. Thank God I am Left Handed, because with my now Semi-Paralyzed Right Arm, I couldn’t flip an egg with that one to save my life, and impressing Babes with cooking technique is the least of my concerns these days. LOL.

Obviously, there are many other ways to prepare your eggs, scrambled, omelletes, soft or hard boiled etc, but right now I’m limited on both type and amount of ingredients inside the SNAP budget, so you can’t do too much here.  I’m looking forward to buying some Cheese, but I want to buy in bulk for this so I am saving up for it.  In next week’s episode, I will have some more interesting egg breakfast preparations than just Eggs Over EZ.

The two main Lunch/Dinner meals are equally simple and basic, though with the Spaghetti and Meatballs/Sausage there are a couple of tricks to extend out your limited meat supply.  I’m taking 2/3 of the 1 lb of ground beef to make Meatballs, and the other 1/3 I will brown with onions and garlic to go in the Chili.

To extend the number of Meatballs I can make from 2/3rds of a pound, I smush in 2 raw eggs and some seasoned breadcrumbs, about 1/2 a cup.  This also makes the meatballs more flavorful and they have a nicer texture.  The first order of bizness is to brown all the meat in a skillet, and then drain off and conserve the fat.  Here’s that proceedure:

After you have browned and drained the fat off the meat, set it aside and then saute up whatever veggies you have to put in to the Sauce and Chili.  Veggies up here are fairly pricey, although I often get them free from friends who do gardening.  However, since many SNAP card recipients don’t have access to fresh veggies friends grow, I am not going to use those in the accounting here and just stick to what I can afford on the SNAP card budget.

Once the meat and veggies have been initially prepared, all that is left to do is throw everything into the slow cooker and let simmer around 3-4 hours.  If you do have some spices in the larder, add your favorites here!  Oregano, or Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme!

Just one Word here…PLASTICS!

Once you have your Spaghetti Sauce and Chili cooked up, you transfer it to a container and drop it in the fridge.  Each day all you cook up the rest of the week is some Rice or Spaghetti, ladle out a helping into a small pot to heat it up and then pour it over the carbs.  Alternatively, you can cook all the spaghetti and rice at once also, and then make portions for each day in Microwaveable containers.

This gets us through Week 1 & 2, and there should be leftovers of some things at the end of the 2 weeks, we’ll see how much.  In Week 3, I’ll buy some more bulk goods and try to stay under $30.  With the $52 spent in weeks 1&2, that is total $82, leaving me around $58 to finish out the month with.  I should be able to put together some nicer meals in Week 4 with the savings.  What they might be depends very much on what I see On Sale in my visits to the Food Emporiums, so I can’t predict at this point.

One final note as far as Doom is concerned.  Obviously, this paradigm assumes a kind of Bizness as Usual, with food available at markets and money that functions to buy it.  I am NOT here developing cuisine and recipes to live on if you cannot get hold of any food at all this way.  The objective here is to simply see how little you can spend each week on food in the BAU paradigm currently operating to help keep your overall expenses down.  it is also applicable only in 1st World countries, much of the stuff you might currently still buy simply is not available in 3rd World countries.

There are many other things you want to do to reduce total expenses also, such as moving into smaller living spaces, carpooling with friends and neighbors and limiting and consolidating trips you take that require Gasoline to accomplish.

Probably the most important way to reduce expenses is to get together with others and pool resources, such as moving in with friends or relatives, or creating buying cooperatives amongst people who live separately.

My current goal with this project is to see if I can reduce my total monthly expenses to what a Minimum Wage worker earns each month, around $1200, for a yearly income gross around $14,400.  Hopefully I can get under that so I can have Savings besides.  I will be including my monthly communications bill in this total, for my phone and internet connection, because really it is not possible to live in this economy without these things and have a semi-normal existence.  Without good communications connections, if you are a laid off IT worker for instance from NASA SETI, you can’t post your Resume on the net or have a cell phone for Richard Branson to call you at.  These are basics in the society we live in now, if you fall so far off the cliff you lose access to this, your downhill spin to homelessness will be very rapid.

As you can see from the Videos & Pics, my package of ground beef made 9 Meatballs, and I divided the sausages into 3 parts each, for a total of 15 sausage sections.  Total of 24 Meat servings, which I divided into 3 pieces each serving.  Each meal comes in around 1000 calories, and the breakfasts similarly at 1000 calories for 2000 calories/day.  Both meals are very filling, and more than I really need, so actually I end up with some leftovers.

The other main Dinner meal for the 2 week initial period is very EZ, and is good for storage too, the Bear Creek Chili is dried food requiring no refrigeration.  I ended up just using one of the packages, so the other package will be used next week and reduce my expenses for week 3.  All you do to prepare this is add water to the mix and throw it in the slow cooker, brown the remaining ground beef in a skillet with onions and garlic and add that to the mixture with a can of tomato paste, then ladle it over rice to serve.  Hopefully you know how to make rice.  You boil it or steam it.  Duh.  Make as much as you need to fill out your calorie requirement for the day.

With my leftovers, all I am going to buy for next week is some stew meat $6, a large block of cheddar cheese $7 so I can make cheese omelletes, baked potatoes with cheese etc, butter $4 sour cream $2.50, flour $2.50 and cooking oil $2.  $24 total.  Together with the $52 from the first 2 weeks, that is $76, leaving me $64 to finish out the month.  I will make my first “gourmet” meal during this week, and buy more staples to fill out the larder and make more variety possible in month 2.

It is worthwhile to note this is much harder to get going for a single person than for 2 people living together.  You can get to more variety quicker with 2 people.  Also worth noting is that you can supplement a lot from Food Pantries if you qualify, but in the first month I am not considering that part of it.  Since I do not qualify for food pantry assistance in reality, I can’t get one of these boxes of food, but I know what goes in them since I volunteer at a Food Pantry.  So next month I will also buy what goes in a Pantry Box but not include what I spend on it in the food budget.

In SNAP Card Gourmet 003 next week, we will make a simple Stew and Cheese Omelettes, and maybe a Surprise Meal as well.  See you then!

RE

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on November 7, 2014

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Day 1: Thursday, November 6, 2014

As I mentioned over in The SNAP Card Gourmet thread, in conjunction with trying to live on a Poverty Level Budget, I am also Volunteering at one of the local privately run Food Charity Pantries on Thursdays.  The Pantry is staffed by Volunteers and is Open Mon-Thu from 1-5PM.

It is housed in an old building with no markings, you have to know it is there and what it is.  It is on an oddly shaped triangular piece of property across from a defunct rail line in Palmer AK.  I’ll get some pics eventually, but for the first day I didn’t want to put off any of the people by shooting pics.  It was at one time a home, then a local grocery store for a while, at least that is what one of the veteran volunteers told me.  I don’t know how long it has been operating as a Food Charity Pantry.

The sources of Food come from Da Federal Goobermint, local Farmers, local Food Stores that donate some stuff, and Food Drives done by various churches and organizations like the Boy Scouts etc.  The Mormons dropped on us several ENORMOUS bags of powdered milk and flour and dried beans that have to be divied up into individual portions.

There are regulations of course that have to be followed from Da Goobermint on handing out the Goobermint stuff, there appears to be more discretion in distributing out the stuff that is donated by private organizations.  For Da Goobermint stuff, you can come in once a month, and by no means could you feed yourself on just this stuff.  However, observing the size of the boxes and what went in them given to the patrons who came in today, in total I think you probably can make it through 2 weeks at least on one of these boxes.

Getting my feet wet today, my first job was in taking various boxes of Donated Canned Food and placing on the shelves by type.  Canned Chili goes here, canned veggies there, tomato sauce another shelf, etc.  It’s not too carefully organized because what you get in changes all the time, although some things are very regular, like canned soups.

Organizing up the latest round of donations with one other Veteran Volunteer took about 2 hours.  The Canned Food area is in a room about 400 sq ft I would estimate, but very odd dimensions so it is tough to be exact.  Also in this area is a large Walk-In Freezer where much of the Meat and Fish is stored, but there also are 2 or 3 other large Chest Freezers which have a lot of perishable meats in them as well.

After finishing organizing up the Canned Goods, my next project was making Bags of Spuds from large 50 lb bags donated by local Alaska Farmers and stored down in the Basement, which is very cool and good storage place for root veggies.  I used old shopping bags from stores to make each portion, which was about 5 lbs.  After bagging and tying them up, I brought them upstairs to the main distribution room, and the clients could take one on the way out the door.  Not sure if everyone was eligible though for one of these bags.

Far as the patrons are concerned, it was mostly Old Folks today, though there were some teenagers as well who came along with grandma and carried out her stuff.  Mostly White folks.  When I dropped in there last week to Volunteer, there was a family of four with 2 little girls around 5 and 8 or so, they were Natives.

Over the 4 hour period we were Open today, I would estimate we served around 16-20 people/families, around 4-5/hour.  There is one person working at the laptop checking off what is given out to each person and they have a certain amount of flexibility in selecting stuff to go in their box, so each person takes 10-15 minutes to serve.  Another Volunteer goes and finds the stuff they ask for if we have it.  With One Trip per Family allowed per month, with 4 days of operation/week, we can probably serve around 350 folks in need of Food Assistance.  There are I think 2 other Food Pantry Charities in the neighborhood, if they are similar in size, then total would be around 1000 Families/month, which I think is plenty for our size community right now, since total population of Palmer is only around 6500 Human Souls.  In order to be Eligible, you have to prove your Residency in Palmer, and have your Social Security Card, proof of Income etc.  I am not sure yet what the income eligibility requirements are, how low your income needs to be.  Over 60 folks do seem to have additional eligibility, not sure how that works yet either.

Given that Palmer is a Farming community with a small population, I think it would be quite easy to ramp up similar Food Distribution to serve more of the population if/when there is Dollar Collapse and failure of JIT shipping.  However, over time the amount of Canned Goods would begin to disappear, and this would have to be compensated for by what can be produced locally.  The variety would drop considerably of course.  However, as long as the transition was made over a couple of years, I don’t see any reason why anybody up here would Starve or need to go Cannibalistic.

Other things I am not yet certain of is how this works in conjunction with the SNAP Card program.  I THINK it is entirely separate, even the Federal Goobermint end, so you can get a Box of Food from us in ADDITION to what you can buy with your SNAP card.  Together, this is DEFINITELY plenty of food to eat each month.  I am pretty sure you also could hit the other Food Charities here once a month, because this is not Networked so nobody at one Charity knows what another Charity has handed out to a given Family.

It would be much harder/impossible to do something similar in Big Shities, because the population is so large and because once JIT distribution fails, these locations do not have local food production to fall back on.  Another good reason to GTFO of Dodge and move to a low population zone with local food production.

It’s really nice to be doing something Local now as well as writing on the net in covering the collapse.  All the folks volunteering were nice Old Ladies, I was the only Male there, although there is supposedly one other guy who volunteers and drives around to make Pickups from the local farms.  We are fortunate that real collapse hasn’t hit up here yet, although definitely there is a significant portion of the population in need of Food Assistance.  Since the SNAP Card program probably will not last in perpetuity, it is important to get these Local Food Charities functioning well to be able to handle larger numbers as time goes by here and more folks fall off the economic cliff.

I will keep a Diary here of my days working at the Pantry.  It’s a very good feeling inside doing this, so I recommend it to every Doomer not himself or herself yet off the cliff.  Even the Bible says this is a good thing to do.

Matthew 25:35

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

Isaiah 58:10

If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.

Proverbs 28:27

Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.

James 2:14-18

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

On this topic, Panentheists and Christians (real ones) can agree.

RE

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on November 6, 2014

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Over the course of the last week, we have had two MAJOR Black Swans come in for a landing.

The first one actually has been ongoing for a couple of weeks now, the collapsing price in the Oil Market, plunging from its recent “set point’ at around $90/barrel to $77 for WTI as I write this article:

The second Swan came in the form of an announcement by BoJ Chief Psycho Kuroda that the BoJ would ENGAGE Warp Drive on the Printing Press and buy up every last JGB the Nip Goobermint sells in order to meet their ever increasing need for cash.  The Yen was already sliding, this announcement however sent it on a Downhill Run worthy of an Olympic ski course.

Flip this upside down to get JPYUSD.  Nobody publishes it that way, I wonder why?

Are these two events unrelated coincidence?  Of course not.

Demand Destruction has taken hold all across the globe now, and Oil consumption is dropping everywhere.  Here in the FSoA, we’ve seen a 10% drop in gasoline consumption since 2008, and the end to this is nowhere in sight either.

Fewer miles driven means fewer Japanese Carz sold here in the FSoA, and it is no different over in Eurotrashland, in fact it is worse over there, particularly in the PIIGS Nations.  Fewer Japanese carz sold means a ballooning trade deficit for Japan, and their trade surplus over the years is the only thing that kept them able to support ever increasing Goobermint deficits, which now have reached the Ionosphere and soon will encompass the entire solar system, including UR-ANUS.

Global Deficits in aggregate soon will reach the Edge of the Visible Universe.

Going Where No Man Has Gone Before in Debt

What Psycho Kuroda-san wants to do here is devalue the Yen so far that Amerikans can by Japanese Carz for Pocket Change, and with Gas Prices dropping at the pump EVERYBODY hopes this will stimulate Demand and Happy Motoring Amerikans will once again start burning oil as fast as the Saudis can pump it out of the ground.

The Saudis themselves have promised to be the Walmart of Oil Wholesalers and sell their Oil at Low, Low Prices Every Day into the forseeable future, because they too have hefty obligations in subsidies to keep their population from rising up and beheading the Saudi Princes.  What they have lost in high prices they hope to make up for in VOLUME!

Sadly for the Saudi Royal Family, it appears they will have some difficulty getting this Oil to Market however, since they seem to have Pipelines mysteriously BLOWING UP, another mere coincidence of course.  Pipelines Blow Up regularly over there, nothing to see here, please move along.

Even if the pipelines remain intact however, it is unlikely that the Happy Motoring Amerikans are going to start increasing consumption again just because Gas Prices drop even $1/Gallon here.  Millions of formerly Middle Class Amerikans have completely dropped out of the “Workforce”, and they can’t afford to drive around willy nilly at ANY price.  They divested themselves of their cars already, and they aren’t buying enough new ones from Toyota because they can’t afford car payments either, even at ZIRP for 5 years!  Unless the newly elected Republican Majority magically starts creating Jobs that pay better than Minimum Wage, there is ZERO chance these folks will be Happy Motoring ever again.

Besides this problem on the Consumption End, there is still more Blowback from Low Oil Prices on the Extraction end just around the corner here if Low, Low Prices Every Day continue for any significant period of time, which is the enormous DEBT BUBBLE worked up by the Energy Extraction Industry here during the “Fracking Miracle”, which dimwitted Pols and Energy Shills and the Corporate Media have been selling non-stop as the Ticket to “Energy Independence”.

Depending on the particular play and the costs involved in production, generally speaking only the very best of these plays can bring in Oil at under $80/barrel, so anyone drilling for it in less than perfect locations starts losing money with each well they drill, and the more they drill, the more they lose.  They borrow more money to keep drilling, because to stop is to realize the losses, and nobody wants to do that!  At some point though, and sooner rather than later if the prices stay below $80, the copious debt money being issued to these folks from Wall Street will stop flowing, many companies will go Belly Up and production at all but the best places will be shut in.

Don’t believe me?  Read the report DRILLING DEEPER from the Post Carbon Institute for 300+ Detailed pages to get a picture of this nonsense.  We will have a Podcast discussing the Drilling Deeper report with Author David Hughes up in the next couple of weeks here on the Doomstead Diner.

Don’t believe David Hughes?  Go to Bloomberg in the Heart of the MSM/Wall Street Oligopoly:

“There’s a lot of Kool-Aid that’s being drunk now by investors,” Tim Gramatovich, who helps manage more than $800 million as chief investment officer of Santa Barbara, California-based Peritus Asset Management LLC. “People lose their discipline. They stop doing the math. They stop doing the accounting. They’re just dreaming the dream, and that’s what’s happening with the shale boom.”

Will this cut the supply sufficiently to outpace the ongoing Demand Destruction and finally get Oil prices to start climbing upward again?  Eventually, it probably will, except by the time this occurs about the only people left able to afford the $200/barrel Oil still produced will be the 1% still on the Gravy Train of Funny Money from Da Fed.

Can 1% of the population pay for all the Road Maintenance, Bridge Repair and drive enough miles every day to keep Gas Stations open along their driving routes to fill up?  Of course not, this is a volume bizness, and in order to build out the whole system it required constant Growth, issuance of ever more Debt on the supposition this growth would continue in Perpetuity, which of course is an impossibility on a Finite Planet with Finite Resources.

Has the Oil Run Out here?  No it hasn’t, and it never will, but most of what is left will never come up from the rock formations it is wedged into, or deep under the sea or way up in the Arctic Ocean, where the costs for producing it are even higher than the tight oil formations in Marcellus and Eagle Ford, which already are higher than the Consumers of the Oil can afford to pay.

It doesn’t matter who gets elected into office here, the only solution to this problem is reduction in per capita energy consumption, and this will occur either through enforced rationing or “Conservation by Other Means” as Steve on Economic Undertow likes to phrase it, the reduction will occur as more and more people simply cannot afford to buy the Oil, or the products made with it.

Since most of our current economy is based on this, it has nowhere to go but DOWN now, which means fewer Jobz in this economy, lower tax receipts and further Defaults at all levels from Goobermint to Corporations to Consumers, and further Defaults means a reduction in the total Money Supply, because the money supply is entirely based on Debt and the belief that the Debt will at some point be repaid, which it will not be.  It is all IRREDEEMABLE DEBT.

Financial Gimmickry has kept this Ponzi going here for a long time, but there are some Hard Limits that gimmickry cannot fix, and one of them is Consumers who just will not BUY oil, because they don’t have the money to buy it.  This is not a “Choice” Consumers are making, it is not a “Paradox of Thrift”, the endless reams of Toilet Paper Da Fed and the BoJ are printing are not filtering out to the end consumers.  You do not have an Economy when you have Sellers but No (or really too few) Buyers.  That is Common Fucking Sense.

CALL ALAN!

It’s the FINAL COUNTDOWN now.

RE

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on November 4, 2014

Discuss this Rant at the Geopolitics Table inside the Diner

What IS a “Morton’s Fork“?

This term is named after Lord Chancellor John Morton, who worked in England under Henry VII. According to Morton’s logic, wealthy subjects of the Crown obviously had money to be spared for taxes, and poor subjects were clearly sitting on savings, so they could also bear high taxes. Rich and poor alike found themselves at the points of “Morton’s Fork,” paying high taxes.

Snippet:

…Tomorrow is the First Tuesday in November, aka “Election Day” when Amerikans get to pick the scum of choice of the Demopublican Party Machines as their new leaders. I should say new Puppets not Leaders, because every last person with any chance whatsoever of actually getting elected is PWNed by so special interest, and absolutely none of them work in the interest of the people who actually vote for them, they work for whoever it is that pays their campaign bills, which these days are staggering.

About the only people who do well with the election cycle are the media companies, for the last month the Ads have been non-stop up here for the 2 jackasses running for Goobernator, and 2 other jackasses running for Senator.

The ads don’t talk about anything substantive, they are all attack ads on Buzz Issues like Abortion and local Budgets and Taxes, and on the latter 2 you can be sure whoever does get elected will not balance their budget and your taxes will go up too. Why would I vote for any of these guys? They don’t have a shred of credibility, nor does Da Goobermint either State or National.

In fact, I can go right back to before I even was old enough to vote, and back then absolutely nobody running for office was the least bit credible either, so this is nothing new. As a result, I never bothered to vote, it’s a complete waste of your time. It doesn’t matter at all who gets elected, because they don’t run the show, the folks behind the curtain shoveling the money at them run the show.

It’s quite easy to see how utterly stupid the whole process is, good grief we elected an ACTOR (and not a very good one) in Ronald Rayguns TWICE. WTF does an Actor know about Law or Goobermint?

Then you have your Family Dynasty people who get elected Generation after Generation…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on November 2, 2014

Kuroda Sez…ENGAGE!

Discuss this Rant at the Economics Table inside the Diner

You think FSoA Debt problems are Bad?  Try TURNING JAPANESE!

It’s RANT TIME!

Snippet:

…The first thing you have to realize is that the Japanese are PURPOSEFULLY trying to inflate their economy. They have been mired in a 20 going on 30 year deflation, which makes it ever harder for them to service their own debt, which of course they mostly owe to themselves but try not to let that confuse you. Things have been getting exponentially worse since Fukushima and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 before that, steadily eroding Japan’s former trade surplus, which now is basically negative since carz aren’t selling well and the Nips have to import all their energy. The idea you can cure this problem with any kind of monetary stimulus is ludicrous of course, but the alternative is for their economy to completely implode, and they are trying to put off the Day of Reckoning as long as possible here. Normally, you would expect this type of berzerk economic behavior to compeltely crash the currency on Day 1, but that isn’t going to happen here immediately, though in the medium to long term it is inevitable. Why not?…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on October 31, 2014

Discuss this article at The Diner Pantry inside the Diner

A while back I wrote an article called The Starvin’ Diner Cookbook, which I intended on becoming a series with Recipes for meals you can cook up on the cheap, but it’s one of those ideas that got lost with all the rest of the stuff going on in Doom, along with all the other projects we are always undertaking on the Diner to get the message out about the Collapse of Industrial Civilization, Podcasts, Vidcasts, yadda yadda.  These days, just Blogging Text doesn’t reach enough people, because they simply do not READ.  You have to use the whole panoply of media to capture an audience.

However, I recently moved to New Digs, and took the opportunity last weekend to do some Home Cookin’, which I rarely do anymore since it is much easier to just buy prepared foods or microwaveables, and I’m not really on a SNAP Card budget, although I don’t usually spend too much more than the SNAP allotment each week on food anyhow.

With some 47 Million People in the FSoA now living on a SNAP Card budget, developing good recipes with the current food available that you can access either low priced at Food Superstores or sometimes free at Food Pantries is very important.  So over the next few months, I will be keeping my Food Purchases under the typical SNAP Card allotment for the individual of around $140/mo, $35/wk or for simplicity sake here $5/day.  File this under the idea that even if you are currently flush, it’s a decent idea to learn how to live CHEAP BEFORE you actually are faced down with the challenge for real.  Not the $2/day many folks in the 3rd World live on, but the economy here is different and making it on $5/day in food is something of a challenge in the FSoA.

In order to be better connected to the people who actually are currently in this situation and to become more active Locally, I have begun Volunteering at one of the local Food Pantries that serve the folks around here who have already fallen off the Economic Cliff, people for whom Collapse is  not a “Someday it Might Come” thing anymore, Collapse is already here for them.  I hope over time to be able to develop connections between my friends who own Local Farms and who are Commercial Fishermen and the folks already off the cliff or soon to be in need of sustenance to develop a comprehensive food distribution system ready to drop in place when JIT shipping and the Dollar fail.  I am in a unique position to do this for many reasons, and it is probably the most “real” way I can be of service, beyond writing on the Internet.  While I still believe it is important to try and work on the Grand Scale of the Global Internet and Blog the Collapse, I also realize that most solutions will need to be local, so ya can’t just Blog on this stuff, you gotta do something in your neighborhood too.

I decided to change the name of the Series from “The Starvin’ Diner Cookbook” to “The SNAP Card Gourmet” for a few reasons.  One is to highlight how large a segment of the population is already in the situation of needing Food Security Assistance here in the FSoA.  The other reason is it is an Homage to my favorite TV Chef from my youth, Graham Kerr, The Galloping Gourmet.  WAY better than Julia Child!

If you watched about the first 2 minutes of this, you should be able to tell Graham generally did his Cooking Show 3 Sheets to the Wind, and often enough would consume an entire bottle of wine in recording the show.  LOL.  He had a ton of fun doing Galloping Gourmet, and it was hilarious because it was all impromptu.  I’ll be trying to do my Doomstead Diner Cooking Show in the same tradition.

I’m not going to try recording 20 minute shows yet, this biz will take some practice.  However, I will include a few clips along with the recipes and an accounting of the costs and cooking means, which I am going to adapt for Doom.

For this Week’s Episode, the two Dishes are Grilled Peppered Steak RE and Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs & Alaska Veggies RE.

Now the first thing you are probably going to say is “RE!  There is NO WAY you could afford to make meals like this on $5/Day!  That Steak BY ITSELF cost $23!!!!”

You would be right also, if you tried to eat this stuff EVERY day, and if you consumed all of it in one day at a single sitting like the typical patron of an All You Can Eat Buffet like Golden Corral.  You also can’t buy such stuff the FIRST week you start eating on a SNAP Card budget, you have to work your way into it by eating cheaper than $5/day for a couple of weeks, then use the savings to start buying some Premium Foods to sprinkle into your diet later.  I’ll demonstrate how to do this in succeeding episodes of The SNAP Card Gourmet, here on the Doomstead Diner.

Let’s begin here with the Pepper encrusted USDA Prime Ribeye, which is a very typical BBQ preparation utilizing a Dry Rub, a little BBQ Sauce, a couple of days marinating and about 20 minutes on the Grill.

The reason the price comes in so high here for this piece of beef is that it is USDA Prime, which generally you only get in Fine Dining Restaurants that serve the 1%, or in Gourmet Markets serving the same crowd.  However, here on the Last Great Frontier, at 3 Bears Food Warehouse, they occasionally get USDA Prime in their huge meat section, and this one looked so perfectly marbled and the right thickness for a good grilling I just HAD to buy it in Celebration of my move to the new Digs, which I chronicled recently in The Great Moving Adventure I & II.

Here is what the Steak looked like after a couple of days of marinating, but before being seared on the portable propane fired BBQ.

Originally I was going to go the full 9 yards with this and fire it up on a traditional Charcoal BBQ with a soaked Hickory Plank, but I got lazy and besides I have so many canisters of Propane in my preps I might as well use them.  Overall the improvement in flavor doing it this way is marginal, and it’s a pain in the ass so I just screwed in a canister and AWAY we go!

As you can see, this piece of beef is Picture Perfect with just the right amount of Fat Marbling, which is what gets it that USDA Prime designation.  If you scope out the Meat racks regularly though, you can often find USDA Choice cuts that are just about as nice, at about half the price of Prime.  I just about always buy Choice cuts for the BBQ, this was just a Special Celebration so I splurged on the Prime Beef.  NEVER buy Select Cuts for the BBQ, unless you really like chewing a lot.  Select is only good for the slow cooker.

Far as Spicing it up goes, here you do need to rely on Preps because some stuff like Peppercorns are going to be hard to come by when JIT fails, so you need a good supply of Spices laid in here.  Fortunately, Spices are one of those Preps that last a long time without Refrigeration, and as long as you Vaccuum seal them they will be good for years.  Salt will be good FOREVER.  Your main spices are Salt & Pepper of course, this I am good for 5 years at least.  Garlic after that is pretty easy to grow, and then many other spices like Rosemary, Thyme etc can be grown indoors hydroponically, so you can have a continuing source of those.

No need for this right now though, I just used some of my copious prep supply of McCormick Old Monterrey Spice, one of my favorite meat spice mixtures.  Basted on a little hickory flavored BBQ sauce and let it sit a couple of days so the flavor penetrates into the meat and doesn’t just sit on the outside surface.

As you can see from the Cooked Picture above, the Ribeye is pretty well Blackened, so you might think it is burnt.  No, this is how I like BBQ meat, it’s called “Pittsburgh Rare“.  Black on the Outside, Still MOOING on the inside.  I came pretty close to perfect on it, just maybe 2-3 minutes longer than I should have had it on the grill to be perfect for me.  If you like a less black outside and pink inside, use a lower flame or move the grill surface higher off the flames.  Here’s the Taste Test of this BBQ:

In terms of Meals out of this Steak, I got 4 of them.  I can’t eat a Steak this size with all that FAT at one sitting anymore, I ate about 1/3rd of it right off the Grill and the rest went into Steak Sandwiches I had for lunch the rest of the week.  You can do all sorts of things to make them their own Gourmet meals, to one I added herb infused Brie I picked up on sale, to another I added some grilled onions and mushrooms, etc.  Still beyond the daily budget of $5, but not by too much, and within it if you buy a more economically priced Choice Cut.

OK, on to Dish #2, Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs & Alaska Veggies!

As you can see in the background of the Steak Taste Test Vid, there’s a bunch of Batteries, a Slow Cooker, rechargeable Diode Lights and a Power Inverter (converts 12V DC to 120 V AC).  This is my “Battery Corner” with stored Power for short 1-2 Day power outtages, generally coming from weather related phenomena these days, but in the future possibly coming fro Rationed Electricity and Rolling Blackouts.  The main battery storage here on the counter is a 12V Lawn Tractor Battery, and one of the Battery Packs from my EWz Electric Scooter, which runs on 36V but is actually 3 12V deep cycle batteries in series which can be separated to work with a 12V Inverter.  Not necessary for this experiment, the Lawn Tractor Battery was sufficient.  Besides these batteries, I also have a much larger Deep Cycle battery in the Bugout Machine and its starter battery, and of course the starter batteries that are in my 2 Carz, a 1983 Mazda MPV and a 2003 Ford Explorer, and the other 36 Volt battery pack that is aboard the EWz.  Altogether, without recharging this is enough electric juice for a couple of weeks well rationed easily.

Why was a small 12V Lawn Tractor Battery sufficient in this case?  Because Slow Cookers have a VERY low power draw overall, not much more than an incandescent Lightbulb.  You can’t run an 1100 Watt Microwave Oven off a small SLA battery like this, but it will do a Slow Cooker no problemo.

Slow cooking is great for numerous reasons besides the fact it is low power draw.  Overall it retains the Vitamin content of the food better than when you cook rapidly at high heat.  It also blends flavors better, plus the broth you end up with makes fabulous and very nourishing Soup as well.  Besides that, you are by no means limited to doing it off your stored battery power, you can quite easily do the same thing by digging a hole in the back yard, burning some charcoal or wood and heating some rocks, then cover with some dirt, drop the Crock in on top of that and cover up the whole thing with more dirt.  Dig it out after 5 or 6 hours, same result as using the electrics.

Yet another way to do the same thing is to drop the crock into a Solar Oven.  Even here in Alaska, for most of the year if you do this on a sunny day, if you drop your Crock in the Cooker in at 10AM, the food is ready by 4PM.

The only downside of Slow Cooking is that except for stews and such, it doesn’t present all that well, so in this case with the Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs, I threw them on the grill for a few minutes after the slow cook to caramalize the sauce and blacken the meat a bit.  This is tricky because the meat is pretty much falling off the bone at this point.  On the upside though, the veggies you cook along with the meat absorb all the flavors, and are as good or better than the meat itself!  They also really fill out the meal with both Calories and Vitamins.

Anyhow, without further ado and explanation here is the Taste Test on the Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs and Alaska Veggies RE dish:

For those of you wishing to try this dish on your own Doomstead, here’s the Ingredients:

1/2 Slab Baby Back Ribs

1/2 a Large White Onion

4-6 Large Cloves of Garlic

Enough Carrots and Potatoes to fill the rest of the Crock Pot (1.5-2 Quart size)

2 Soy Sauce Packets (I save these so I never buy Soy Sauce)

1/4 Cup Teriyaki Marinade (you can substitute other marinades, whatever you got on the shelf)

1/2 Can of BEER! (drink the other half while loading the Crock)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions

Cut the slab up to size to fit the Crock.

Chop the onion into about 1/2″ size pieces

If the Potatoes are Large, cut to around 2″ cubes.  I use small potatoes though even though they are a little more pricey

Use Baby Carrots or cut the carrots into 2″ long sections

Throw in the whole cloves of Garlic or chop them up, your choice.

Throw everything into the Slow Cooker and go Surf the Net looking for Doom Storiez for 5-6 hours

Fish out everything with a Strainer Spoon, and take the Ribs over to the Grill for about 3 minutes on each side to caramalize.  Do it carefully or the ribs will fall apart and through the grill and you’ll lose some tasty meat.

Conserve the remaining Broth to make Onion Soup with Stale Bread and some Swiss or Gruyere Cheese.  Another meal there.

——————–

Now, as mentioned, you can’t start off on your SNAP Card Budget with these kind of meals, you have to get very BASIC at the beginning.  Your nourishment for the first couple of weeks on the SNAP Card Budget is going to be pretty dull if you don’t have at least a few spices and other basics in the cubbard when Da Goobermint courtesy of JP Morgan Chase issues you your first month’s SNAP Card.  Obviously I have a ton of stuff to perk up meals stored, but for the purposes of demonstration here I won’t use them as we begin this exercise.

Next Week here on the SNAP Card Gourmet, we’ll start with the basics, and work our way up the Culinary Ladder from there.  By the end of the month, I should have enough saved up for at least 2 meals worthy of a $100 Ticket at a 1% Restaurant.  Not sure what I will go for with this yet, first I gotta see what I can conserve and what ingredients I can find on sale over the course of the month.

In the mean time, eat well, enjoy the Plenty while you can.  This is bound to get more difficult as time goes by.

RE

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 28,2014

Discuss this Rant at the Science & Technology Table inside the Diner

Are you a Technophile?  Think Flying Carz and Hovering Skateboards are in your Future?  You might want to reconsider this idea…

Snippet:

…So for today I am going to look at a more theoretical Doom Problem, the Cornucopian/ Technophile idea that not only can we resolve our energy problems through more advanced technology, we can even go on to live the Jetsons Lifestyle,with the Flying Carz, Robot Servants and all the rest of the techno-shit served up here since the 1964 World’s Fair at least, but probably going back at least as far as the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Who FUNDS those World’s Fairs anyhow? Basically they have all been a Pitch for further Industrialization ever since they were initiated, a Celebration of the brilliance in accessing gobs of energy and using it to create such revolutionary living devices as the Iphone.

Every device we currently use and in many cases depend on was first promoted at some World’s Fair, from Carz to Airplanes right up to Video Phones, which just about everyone in the industrialized world now carries in his or her pocket courtesy of Apple or Samsung. So many of the devices first envisioned by Sci Fi writers like Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov and promoted at World’s Fair’s have come into REAL existence, that the general belief amongst the population is that in the course of due time, ALL of them will become available, like the Flying Cars yet to make the scene, or Fusion Power also off in the indeterminate distance, not to mention the Star Trek Food Replicators and Transporters which dissolve your body into Information to be reconstituted somewhere else in the universe along with Schrodinger’s Cat, neither Dead or Alive once you arrive, or both at the same time perhaps. LOL…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 23, 2014

Discuss this Rant at the Medicine & Health Table inside the Diner

Snippet:

…The Tried & True meme here in Amerika when anything isn’t going exactly as planned is to Send in the Marines, aka enlist the Military as the Ultimate Problem Solver. This I guess is because the military has proven so effective in Vietnam, Aghanistan, Iraq et al? The military has done such a fabulous job with establishing Peaceful Democracies after dropping the Death from Above that we can trust them to handle an Ebola epidemic? WTF?

So, in the Dumb & Dumber Military Solution, besides the 3000 Sacrificial Lambs being pitched into the middle of the Plague in Africa, the other media propaganda Prep to prevent wholesale PANIC is the announcement that the Military is forming a Crack team of 30 Ebola-Busters who can be deployed anywhere in the FSoA inside 36 hours to handle any Ebola case that crops up inside the FSoA. Man, even the Ghostbusters couldn’t handle all the Paranormal Activity inside the Big Apple when Evil started running amok there, and those guys HAD all the best Slime Fighting Equipment! LOL….

No Worries folks,  the Pros from Dover & TOP MEN are on the Job!

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!

ff the keyboard of RE

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on October 19, 2014

Discuss this article at the Doomsteading Table inside the Diner

Note: If you are not a fan of LONG personal stories of Life in the Age of Doom, you should probably skip reading this article.

For a variety of reasons, in the last week I moved out of the domicile I have been living in basically since moving up here to the Last Great Frontier nearly a Decade ago now.  What follows is a Diary/Chronicle of this Moving Adventure, published over the last couple of weeks inside the Diner Forum.

Once I determined to move, I pondered on several possibilities, including moving in full time to my Bugout Machine, pictured above.  However, the problems with living full time in one of these contraptions are LEGION, even in temperate climates, so this concept has always been a “Last Resort” idea for me, and as nasty as things look these days with Ebola and a Crashing Stock Market and Oil Prices, at least up here we are nowhere NEAR the “Last Resort” scenario…YET!

Figuring out just where to move to and what the parameters are for decent resilience had me pondering for a few weeks before I made the move, and then finding the right place also took some time, and a certain amount of LUCK as well.  It all came together very well in the end, but the process has had a few glitches along the way also.  Ths particular story does have a HAPPY ENDING, so if you ARE a fan of personal stories, microwave some popcorn, crack open a Beer and ENJOY!  At least with this one you won’t leave thoroughly depressed and hopeless.

RE

Moving Week!

I’ll probably be a little scarce this week as I am moving out of the cabin over to new digs closer to work.

I’ve been packing up preps the last couple of hours and taking a break here for a few minutes.  It’s amazing how many cans of beans you can store in a few kitchen cabinets!  The containers I bought weigh a ton, so I hired professional movers to do all the heavy lifting next week between locations.

The new place is a whole lot more resilient and SAFE, with security cameras and an overall better location.  It’s actually its own little community and it sits right on a stream so water supply is good.  It’s a good location for riding out minor disruptions in supply chains, power outtages etc.  I’m looking at it as a SUN  community in the making!

Hopefully, Ebola won’t make it up here and Alaska can work on becoming locally self sufficient in food, which should be doable between the already existing farms, the local fishing and then adding in more hydroponics and aquaculture.

Once I am in place, I look forward to doing my first Commute to work on the EWz if the weather cooperates.  It’s not ridiculously cold yet, but it has been pretty wet and rainy, and I’m not that desperate at the moment that I will ride a scooter in cold rain.  LOL.

I may not have time to do cross posting articles so hopefully Surly will pick up the slack with that until I get settled in and back to the routine.

OK, break over, back to Prep Packing! 

Re: Moving Week!

More Packing tonight, and I’m just about done with the Kitchen and taking another break.

Tonight’s first project was the Junk Drawer.  I think just about everyone has one of these, all sorts of stuff gets thrown in them, batteries, keys, pens, screws, adapters, small tools, scissors etc etc etc.  Also in mine are a lot of old ID Cards, my first CDL Permit is in there, IDs from college and Grad Skule, numerous pay stubs etc, so it’s another one of those nostalgia trips when you clear it out.

There’s also a lot of stuff you wonder why you kept it and shoved it in the drawer.  Badges from various conferences I attended for instance.  I am such a pack rat that I can’t throw these things out which don’t even have that much nostalgia value.  I figure I forked over $300-500 for the conference, I should keep SOMETHING from it.  LOL.  In this case though, I finally pulled the plug on those and trashed them.

Another thing which is astounding me as I pack up is just how much STUFF you can accumulate over a decade which becomes baggage you need to drag around with you when you make a move. When I came up here, I had my 5 Bags/Containers from my trucking years,which contained everything I needed to live the Nomadic Lifestyle.

A Decade Later after living in one location, at the moment I have over a dozen large containers already filled with stuff, another dozen Bags and Suitcases also filled with STUFF, and another Dozen or so Cardboard Moving Boxes full of STUFF!  This is not including additional clothing and Bedding Materials which I am not Boxing or putting in suitcases, just gonna shove them in 30 Gallon Trash Bags!  then I am also not including DOZENS of still original packaged Prep Items in their own boxes with stuff from Sleeping Bags to Tents to Propane Cooking stoves to Ammo etc etc etc.

All this crap is contained inside around 800 square feet of space!  It’s hard for me to imagine how much STUFF someone who lives in the same McHovel for 20 years or more might accumulate!  I remember when my sister went back to NY to help my mom pack up the McMansion, I think it took her something like 2 weeks to sort through it all, decide what to keep and what to ditch as mom was moving to a much smaller apartment in Springfield for the Retirement Years.

One of the main things ditched was some fabulous hand carved Jacaranda wood furniture from Brasil, which was shipped back from there to NY once the Mcmansion was bought.  Part of the search for the right place to live involved finding a NY McMansion with rooms big enough to fit these oversized pieces of furniture.  The issues with moving furniture bugged me so much when I started going nomadic that eventually I ditched all of the stuff I bought while I was married and just bought old stuff wherever I moved to and then got rid of it when I moved again.  This was way cheaper then renting a big Penske or Uhaul or Ryder to be able to move everything, which I did twice before finally dumping it all.

The other pain in the ass is the vehicles.  In those days I only had one, so I rented a trailer for the Car and towed it behind the Ryder.  Now I got 3 here to move in Alaska, which I will do with a friend who will shuttle me back and forth between locations to pick up each one and drive it over to the new place.  It’s not far, but it will still take a good 2 hours to get this done.

Realizing how non-portable I am now bothers me a LOT.  In the process of moving in to the new Digs, I am going to sort through all the preps and figure out just what I can really fit into the Bugout Machine, and have an “Abandon as necessary” bunch of STUFF, and a much smaller “Keeper” bunch of STUFF.  This is going to be a very difficult decision making process.

OK, that’s the Moving Update for tonight.  My movers are supposed to be here at 8AM tomorrow and I still have a lot of packing to do tonight.  Tomorrow night, I should be reporting in from the new RE Digs. 

Moving Week Notes 3

OK, got the Bathroom Medicine Cabinet and Under the Sink hodgepodge of chemicals for cleaning, Rubber Gloves, Sponges and extra soap, razor etc DONE.  3 more Cardboard Shipping Boxes.

Also got the Bedroom mostly done, emptying the closet and getting all the clothes into 30 gallon trash bags for EZ hauling out.  Way quicker just to throw the stuff in trash bags than fold it all up and get it into suitcases, which are mostly filled with other stuff now anyhow.

All that is left is the Linen Closet which has mostly preps in it, and the Front Entry closet with all my Winter Gear and a decent amount of preps as well.  I am kind of out of gas now and will probably leave these two closets for the Pros to Pack Up in the morning.  Also need to unload the Fridge and Freezer tomorrow, I will do that while the Moving Beef is carting the Boxes and Bags and Containers into their truck.  They are due at 8AM and its 1:30 AM now here, and I wanna get up an hour before they arrive to take my last shower here and get the last of the Bathroom stuff packed away.

A few notes of merit here in this session.

First one is a Note of Sadness.

In clearing out the bedroom closet, I turned up an Unopened letter my mom sent to me, dated from 2010.  In it she mentioned being worried about me, she had not heard from me in weeks.  I was not always so good with checking in with Mom over the years, and now that she is gone it saddens me that I was so negligent so often.  I did make the important dates though, I was down there for her 80th Birthday in 2009, and again in 2012 I think it was shortly before she died.  Boy, I sure do miss her. 

Next a note of Curiousity.

One of my habits is to empty Change out of my pocket onto a small dresser I have in the closet when I have some, which is not THAT often since like most folks these days I use a Debit card most of the time for purchases instead of Cash, but it is often enough that I do tend to accumulate some change each week.  This can grow to a decent size pile over a decade!  LOL.  So after sorting and clearing various other things piled on top of this dresser, I swept all this change into a Glad Container, it’s now full of Pennies, Nickels, Dimes & Quarters.  I haven’t looked through them to see if any are old enough to actually have some Silver in them of any quantity, but I do wonder if this “Junk Coinage” will hold any value if/when the Paper Fiat of the Dollar collapses?

Coinage from the Mint is NOT debt money, its the only stuff that isn’t now really.  However, the Intrinsic Value of these coins is pretty low, just the fact they are made of some metal as opposed to paper IMHO does not make 10 Dimes or 4 Quarters any more worthfull than a Paper Dollar, and I wonder if they will hold any more worth than the paper dollars in the event of a Dollar Crash?

Diner thoughts on this question are welcome.

The process of moving is very cathartic in many ways, you clear out old baggage and it renews your life in many ways.  I am really looking forward to the move to the new Digs, and it will be quite different to once again be in Apartment style housing with many other people around.  I really like the layout of this place, its just about ideal for a SUN  Community.  Not that I think it is possible to organize this until TSHTF more seriously, but I will sow some seeds and see if they Grow there.  Plenty of property to set up Grow Domes, plenty of Water, good security overall.

Life is a Great Adventure, and each time I make one of these changes I feel Renewed.  I have been so blessed in being able to make my way through the world in this way, and hopefully my health holds up a while longer for yet another Life Experiment. 

 

Moving Week Notes 4: Mr. Lightbulb Conservationist!

When I moved in here, the owner had 3 “designer” Incandescent Bulbs in the Bathroom, then another 2 regular lighbulbs in the recessed sockets in the ceiling in the living room.

I immediately unscrewed all 3 of the designer bulbs and stored them below the bathroom sink, where they have been esconced for the last decade.  I also unscrewed the two regular bulbs in the living room and stored them.  I replaced these 5 bulbs at that time with the screw in Flourescent Bulbs that have much longer life span and consume much less power.

I don’t use them very much, and have never replaced them in the last decade.  They still are working fine.  I unscrewed all these bulbs, and replaced the original Incandescants that were here before I arrived.  They also still work.  I took the flourescent bulbs and put them back into the Original Packaging for transport, which I also kept for the last decade.  They will travel with me to the new digs for lighting there.

Bottom line, in a DECADE, I still have yet to use up the lifespan of 5 Lightbulbs!  I have not bought a new lightbulb in 10 years!

Of course, I have added some rechargeable diode lights which I use often rather than turning on the regular lights, since I do not really need much lighting beyond what it takes to illuminate the keyboard on the laptop.

My guess is that as long as I have access to some electricity, my current set of lights will last the rest of my lifetime.  The diode lights take very little power, the flourescents only a bit more, I can run all of them off my PV panels and a Car battery, so I am not worried about lighting as the collapse progresses at the moment.  The only other major is the power for Refrigeration, but in winter that is not an issue up here at all.  In summer, if I can’t refrigerate for some reason, I’ll just either consume it or salt and dry the frozen fish and game.  All the rest of the stored food does not need refrigeration.

Only other electricity needs are for the Laptop and Cell Phone which are negligible, and the EWz if I am using it for regular transport.

Electrical Grid issues are no longer much worry for me.  If I cannot get enough electrical power for the piddling amount I use each day, the state of the society would be so bad that I would have much bigger problems to worry about.

Moving Week Notes 5: IN THE NEW DIGS!

After an adventure filled 24 hours, I am now completely transferred over to the New Digs with all the Preps and Vehicles save 1, the Bugout Machine.  More on that catastrophe in a bit.

First off, I got no sleep last night, I ended up staying up all night to keep packing as well as taking periodic breaks to post on the Diner.  I was wrecked when the Moving Beef arrived, but it was good that I got as much done as I did, because if they had had to do it it would have taken much longer, even though they were faster with packing up what was left than I was.

As it was, they got the cabin emptied out in around 2 hours, helped me clean a little before leaving, then got all the stuff in the ND in about an hour.  I am really glad I hired people and didn’t take the offers of some friends to do it with their pickup trucks, many boxes were big and heavy, and the dude who moved them was a gorilla who loaded his dolly up 7′ high and still did a shit load of trips.  It never would have got done so fast and well with friends, and I would have felt too indebted to them.  Total cost, $412.50.  A bargain.

So now I am really exhausted, but I do call up my friend who volunteered to shuttle me to the cabin to pick up the Bugout Machine and the SUV.  We drive over to the cabin and I decide to take the Bugout Machine on the first trip.  It looks low on gas and I think about stopping, but we were under time constraint and I want to have enough time to do the second run and be DONE.

Unfortunately, about 2 miles from the ND, the BM runs OUTTA GAS.  So my friend now goes to buy a gas can and gas while I wait by the side of the road in the BM.  Another friend sees me tooling around and stops to help.  We wait for Friend 1 to get back with the gas.  Unfortunately, the first place she goes for gas, a Tesoro about a mile up the road is under reconstruction, all the pumps are closed.  She heads to another station a few miles down the road, this one not under contstruction but again NO GAS, all pumps closed.  Think this has anything to do with the crashing Oil Prices?  So now she heads for the highway about another 3 miles, and this time finds Open Pumps and fills the gas can.  Finally returns half hour later and has to bolt to go pick up her kids from skule.

So now me and Friend 2 go to pour the gas into the Bugout machine, and it promptly comes spilling out from under the BM!  I go under to look, and sure enough there is a hole punctured in the gas line!

This is my own stupidity at work.  A while back if you recall both my other vehicles were siphoned, and one had the gas line cut which was a costly fixup.  I never checked under the BM to see if that was cut.  Unlike the SUV, the cut hose was not sitting on the ground under the vehicle to be spied from standing up.  It was just punctured.

So now we try to fix it temporarily with Duct Tape just to make the 2-3 miles to the ND, but this doesn’t work because it is crappy duct tape and the glue won’t hold well enough.  Gorrilla Tape might have worked.  However, Friend 2 is now out of time also, so Final Solution, TOW TRUCK!

First towing company I call has no available trucks for pulling big vehicles, they are booked solid for the day.  They give me the number of a second company, and these guys do have a truck available, but he is 45min-1hr away.  So I cool my heels for another hour waiting for him, after which it takes another half hour or so to get hooked and drag it up the road to the Biz Parking Lot of Friend 2, where it is sitting right now.  The TT driver was nice, he could have charged me for 2 hours, but he only charged me for 1 @ $125.  KaChing!

I’m hoping we can fix this one without my having to bring it in to a shop, because that will be at least another $500 bill.  The only positive out of this bizness is that I found out about the problem so I can fix it up and have the BM ready for action if/when TSHTF, which is looking sooner by the minute as the price of Crude drops like a stone here.

After this while hanging out, Friend 3 drops in and she is heading in the direction of the Cabin, so I hitch a ride with her to go pick up the SUV.  Fortunately nobody has cut the gas line on that AGAIN, and I drive back to the ND with it, where I am now with the two cars and all the preps.  Of course, the place is just full of boxes, containers and 30 gallon trash bags at the moment, its not too livable yet.

I did take the EWz out of the Mazda and drove it into the ND, plugged it in and it is showing Full Charge, despite not having been run for over a week.  If the weather is good tomorrow, I will ride it to work for the first time!

A few notes on the ND before I sign off.  I just noticed the Oven/Stove is GAS, not ELECTRIC!  I haven’t had a Gas stove in any place I lived since the McMansion mom got in the divorce.  Gas is MUCH better for cooking on, your hardware reacts much quicker to changing heat and you can see visually how big the flame is as you adjust.  This is another plus here, though to be honest I don’t do much cooking for myself anymore.

The Bathroom is also Handicap Accessible!  Great as I sink further into decrepitude! 

The one issue is that Smoking is not permitted in the apartments.  This is probably good for me, but it’s a pain in the ass.  At least though I have the Porch in the back to go out for a smoke though in reasonable privacy.  I’m going to see if I can’t cobble together some means to set up an Outdoor Desk there with some heating so I can work on the Diner out there even in winter. 

OK, gotta do some unpacking so I can get some much needed sleep tonight.  I’m wiped!

Moving Week notes 6

Thanks for the Good Wishes Diners!  More below after I respond to AG, Surly and GO.

Quote from: agelbert on October 14, 2014, 10:04:56 PM

Kids checking out RE’s new smoking lounge! 

Actual construction shot of new smoking lounge.

Actually, I have a space beyond the porch which is level and perfect for building an Igloo, which if/when we get some Snow I may try and find some time to try building this winter!  Would make a fun project and great Article for the Diner!

A bit easier is setting up a Dome Tent right on the porch.  I think it is just a tiny bit too small for my 10′ x 13′ Tent, so I may buy a 9′ X 9′ to drop in there, then equip it with  Desk, Chair, Electric Space Heater and Electric Blanket.  The porch has an outside Electric Outlet so this will be very EZ to do!  Probably don’t even need the electric blanket, I think a 1500 Watt ceramic heater would make a 9X9 tent practically into a Sauna even in pretty cold weather.  An interesting experiment there too.

Quote

In clearing out the bedroom closet, I turned up an Unopened letter my mom sent to me, dated from 2010.  In it she mentioned being worried about me, she had not heard from me in weeks.  I was not always so good with checking in with Mom over the years, and now that she is gone it saddens me that I was so negligent so often.  I did make the important dates though, I was down there for her 80th Birthday in 2009, and again in 2012 I think it was shortly before she died.  Boy, I sure do miss her. 

I feel the same about my mom. When you are fortunate enough to have a mom that loved you, nobody can replace her. Good luck in your new pad. 

Thanks for the thought there AG on Moms.  No substitute for a Mom who loves you and is always there for you when you need her.

Anyhow, I got my bed set up and tried to get some sleep, but even though I am exhausted I couldn’t really fall completely into dreamland, so after resting my eyes for a couple of hours here I am back at the Laptop.

Before getting online though, I did a bit more unpacking.  I got all the frozen and vacuum sealed meat and fish into the new Freezer, which is bigger than the old one and nicer set up Vertical, so everything in there is much more organized now.

Given there is still room, you might think I would now go and buy more Ribeyes to squeeze in there.  No, my major Food Prepping days are over, I have plenty for emergency situations which might last a few months  and after that if we don’t get some kind of local Food Economy running I’ll eventually be history no matter what, so more food would just be delaying the inevitable.

Besides that, I’m less than a 1/4 mile from one of the largest Food Distributors up here, 3 Bears.  The amount of meat and fish they have in their freezers is astonishing, and its hard for me to believe that the local population up here really consumes all this stuff that rapidly.  I mean, how many people buy Cornish Game Hens and cook them up for Dinner in the Mat Valley?

Anyhow, in most situations I think as a Doom Professional I’ll be more aware of when the distribution chain is beginning to fail, and can simply mosey over there them and buy a Final Stock Up of Food Preps.  So I kind of think of 3 Bears now as my Personal Food Storage Warehouse. 

After that, IMPORTANT I found the Trash Bag with the TOILET PAPER in it, so I can now utilize the Commode and wipe my ass too!  Fortunate, because shortly thereafter I got to take my first dump in the New Digs.  LOL.  I’m sure you would like to hear all the details, but it would make this post too long. LOL.

I don’t have a Shower Curtain yet though, as I had the Moving Beef toss the old one which had some mold on the bottom and was pretty decrepit.  I’ll try to get over to Wally World tomorrow for a new one.

I also unloaded one of the bags with Winter Gear to get that stored in the front closet.  I finally took this opportunity to match up a couple of gloves I couldn’t find one of until the whole closet got cleared out, so now all the pairs are complete.  I have a LOT of gloves, in a lot of weights in insulation value, from thin deerskin driving gloves to full blown Red Fox Fur Mittens that go up to your elbow and are meant for mushers.  I may actually use them at some point on the EWz over the winter.  Also have a huge array of Hats, face masks etc.  No problem keeping my head insulated if the heat goes out.

Otherwise, the move is basically complete although it’s going to take me several days of unpacking and reorganizing to get the place into a semi-normal looking living arrangement.  I’m not going to do All Nighters to reverse the deconstruction of the Cabin, I can take my time with this.  It is however just PERFECT for me in size and all the features, and I feel safer now with people around who all will be in the same boat here when the monetary system goes tits up.

The main remaining issue is the Bugout Machine, which I will hopefully get fixed up over the next few days.  Not sure about keeping it around here though, there is not that much spare parking so other residents might get annoyed.  I may have to drop it in a storage lot, which I would not like because I want it immediately available in emergencies, but if necessary I’ll do that.  I could get to it within a few minutes anyhow even parked offsite.  First though, gotta get it fixed up.

I may have a couple of more updates, but mostly the Moving Adventure is done and now to get started on riding the EWz to work, and building SUN    awareness in my Neighbors.

Moving Week Notes 7

Every day I love the New Digs more!  I can’t believe how perfectly this place suits me and is laid out.

My Ground Floor Unit is sandwiched between two other units and a unit above me.  So I figure all these folks probably have their heat on, let me turn off mine and see what happens.  I turned the heat off yesterday.  Guess what?

Today, the temp inside the unit is still a toasty 66F, despite outside temps of around 35F.  It makes ZERO difference if I have my heat on or off, the temp in this unit stays the same as the rest of the ones that surround it. My gas bill should be negligible.

The fact I have to go outside to Smoke has already cut my Cancerette Consumption by HALF!  This is both good for my Health and will save a LOT of money given they are going a $10/pack up here these days.

Part of that saved money though will get used up in buying space in a Storage Facility for the Bugout Machine.  There is no way I can keep it parked here.  Tonight all the Guest spots were full up.  On the upside to that, this will give me another offsite Secure Facility for storage of stuff in a Gated Storage Center with Security Cameras, so I won’t have to worry about the BM getting Siphoned and hoses cut.  I think I can get a spot for it for around $50/month or less.

On the upside to that story, I had a plumber friend who is very mechanically proficient go under and look at it, and he can fix it no problem I just gotta go buy the hose at either Auto Zone or Home Depot and some hose clamps and a bottle of Rum and he’ll fix that up tomorrow.  Friends are your most Valuable Asset.

I didn’t have much time today to do unpacking, but I did get over to Wally World to buy a few more storage containers, and I will start the process of sorting preps that are in some other Drawer style containers that I don’t use and free them up for stuff I actually do use.  Organizing is going to take quite a while, especially since this weekend is booked with a clinic so I won’t have any time to really devote to it until the following week.  I might get an hour or two each night done the most, but I have to get back to Diner Bizness since the ACTION is going down now.

So far my neighbors on both sides and above are very Quiet, and the “Street” with the buildings also Quiet.  It reminds me a lot of a street of Brownstones in NYC when I was a kid, except it is plopped down in the middle of nowhere in the Mat Valley.  LOL.  We actually sit right next door to a small private Airstrip, so if you have a private plane that can land on a dirt runway, you can drop in for a visit easily.  LOL.

All in all, short of getting a Sunstead going with some of the other Diners, this is the ideal location and setup for me, and I will be here until I Buy My Ticket to the Great Beyond or get shipped off to GITMO. 

Moving Week Notes 8

The Adventure that Never Ends! LOL.

Got up this morning to go looking for the right size Downspout Hose to fit the Bugout Machine so I can once again fill it with GAS, while still available at the pump.

Began first with Lowes, the only fuel approved hoses they had were way too narrow guage, and it would be rather dicey to use a non-fuel approved hose, so I kept looking.  Off to Auto Zone.  They also had no hoses in the right Inner Diameter, and recommended I go over to NAPA.  Same story at NAPA, and they recommend i go over to Alaska Rubber, a local joint that just deals with lots of hoses and other rubber items for the local industry.  I was getting tired of running around, so I had them call first to make sure these folks actually HAD the right hose size. 

Alaska Rubber does have the right diameter fuel approved hoses, so I buy 2 so I will have a spare, cut to the correct length by the Parts Man at the desk.  I picked up the right size Hose Clamps at Lowes, and call my Plumber friend to meet me, in what he figures will be a snappy 1-2-3 install.  No such luck.

The hose is so stiff you can’t bend it to fit between the two metal pipe ends to get it on.  We figure when the original one was installed it went on BEFORE they dropped the body exterior over the chassis.  So today was a Failure in getting it installed.  I think I have come up with an idea that will work though, so I will run it by the Plumber tomorrow.

I did find a Storage facility for it once we do get it fixed, $40/month not too bad, and only about 3 miles from the New Digs.  So hopefully within another couple of days that particular moving headache will be resolved.

On getting home tonight, I spent about 2 hours to start getting unpacked and reorganized properly here.  Getting the Bathroom more organized and finding all the stuff that was in the medicine Cabinet and under the sink was the goal, mostly accomplished.  To do it I had to empty a two tier container arrangement to use for storing the various cleaning products, since this bathroom has no built in under the sink cabinet.  That took some sorting time.  It’s definitely going to take a few weeks before I am completely organized.

One MAJOR CHANGE as far as Internet Access goes, I think I am going to get the Cable hooked up here so I have Unlimited Bandwidth and can stop worrying about watching videos and uploading big stuff to the Diner and hooking up to Google+ Hangouts and Skype.  I’ll also be able to run more regular Collapse Cafes right from DOOM CENTRAL here, with the New Digs being the Official Media Studio and Broadcast Center of the Diner.    However, this may take a little while as I have a whole lot of tasks to do just in getting organized.

The downside of all this personal action is that I have had ZERO time to write anything but these Diary Updates, so I haven’t been able to cover the major action taking place both on the Ebola End and the Market & Oil Price Collapse end.  Fortunately, our Cross Posters are doing a fine job covering this ongoing Clusterfuck, so there is plenty of material to Dine on nightly here still.

OK, time to go surfing and see what the latest Doom is for tomorrow!

Moving Week Notes 9

Successful Day in the GREAT MOVING ADVENTURE! 

I got in to work at Noon today, and shortly after walking through the door my Plumber friend walked in and announced the Bugout machine was FIXED! 

He picked up a more Flexible Hose and fit it in, as well as replacing another hose further up the line the Siphoners had cut as well.  I added the 5 gallons of Gas from the Can, and after a bit of pumping and engine cranking, it finally turned over and ran fine.  The line was pretty bone dry so I was concerned this would be a problem getting it reprimed, but did not turn out to be major issue.

I ran out of time to get it over to the Storage Facility, that will have to wait until Monday as this weekend is booked with other tasks.

In Celebration, I went over to 3 Bears tonight after work and added the New Prep I have been coveting, a Yamaha AP 2000 iq Inverter/generator.

Price at 3 Bears was $705, and online it seems to retail at between $785 and $885, plus I would have shipping costs, so this was a real bargain.  They only had the one, so I was worried the last 2 days since I first saw it another Alaska Doom Prepper would snap it up before me.

Unboxing it tonight, it seems to be a very well constructed device, and it gets high marks for being Quiet and Portable.  A bit heavy at 50 lbs full with gas and oil to be really “portable” other than carrying it a few yards from a vehicle to a campsite, but way better and more compact than the Generac units on wheels.  They had 3 of those available also for $892, putting out a much more powerful max 9000W AND Tri-Fuel ready so you can run it on Gas, NG or Propane, but this is just way more than I need for my purposes.

In unpacking here, I have set up my “Battery Corner” for Power Outtage Readiness, which has a couple of my more powerful Rechargable Diode Lights plugged in all the time, the original BattSet from the EWz plugged in all the time, and a 12V Lawn Tractor Battery which I periodically top off each week with one of my Car Battery chargers.  This corner will also have my Ni-Cad and Li-I AA and AAA battery chargers with a selection of those also charged and ready for keeping various other devices running in a power outtage situation.  Also in this corner is a 500W 12V Stanley inverter which also can plug into a cigarette lighter outlet on a car and put out 100W that way.  To get 500W out of it, you have to clamp directly to the battery.  I’ll use that in conjunction with the Lawn Tractor battery in most power outtage situations that last up to a day or two.

The nice thing about the Yamaha is it also has a DC out which puts out 12V 8A directly which you can use to charge a 12V car or lawn tractor type battery.  So if the power outtage lasted more than a couple of days, rather than using the Generator to directly power lights, laptop etc, I would simply use it to recharge the Lawn Tractor battery periodically.  If I wanted to have more available power than the 2000W Peak the Yamaha will do, what I would do here is to get a couple of large Marine Deep Cycle Batteries and then hook them to a 3000W Inverter, but I don’t need that much power all at once.  2000W is sufficient even to run the full fridge/freezer, so I can periodically use it to bring down the temp in that, and long as I don’t open the doors but once a day to take out what I will use that day, I should be able to keep all the meat and fish frozen for a week or more, long as I have at least say 5 gallons of gas in a can available.  Then of course I could siphon gas out of my OWN vehicles as well, since I would not be driving them in such a situation.  So as long as they both are topped off, that is about 40 Gallons of available gas there.  The further supply of gas is in the tank of the Bugout Machine which is a couple of miles down the road in the storage facility (or it will be on Monday anyhow), I can drive there on the EWz once a week and siphon out of that tank 5 gallons or so for each week.  That tank holds I think around 40 gallons by itself.  So if all tanks and Gas Cans are topped off when Disaster Strikes, I have around 100 Gallons available, @ 5 gallons/week usage that would get me around 5 months.  Both locations are pretty secure with Cameras and Fencing, so unless there is total breakdown of Law and Order, figure I probably can make it 3 months.  If things are not semi back to normal in 3 months, then there will be so many other problems that it is unlikely I will be worried much about charging up my batteries.  LOL.

Another way to get More Juice would be to buy a second one of these units and hook them together in Parallel.  They have kits for doing this.  The other way to improve their resilience is to make them “Tri-Fuel” compatible, so they will run on Gasoline, NG and Propane.  The kits sell for around $120.  Not sure yet if I will invest in one or not.  Probably makes sense to do it, since I have a lot of stored Propane in both Liter Camping Bottles and 5 Gallon Barbecue Propane Tanks, PLUS there is an NG line into the New Digs, which is why I have a Gas Stove here.    Not buying this yet though, need to ponder on it some more.

So, as a result of the move to the ND, my Resilience is already up substantially here.

1- Overall SAFER and better living arrangement in a potential SUN  Community

2- Ability to use the EWz for local Commuting to Work and Grocery

3- Second Offsite Secure Storage Location for additional Preps and Bugout Machine, but not so far I can’t get to it in 15 minutes or so on the EWz.

4- Forced Inventory and Reorganization of Preps to actually have them READY, rather than cluttering up the cabin in boxes

5- Close location to a major Food/Prep Warehouse (3 Bears)

Short of an “Official” SUN  Community, I consider this the BEST possible arrangement right now.  There are between 100-200 units in this complex, in a relatively low population zone that is also nearby local farms.  In a SHTF scanario, everyone in the community would be in the same boat.  I would DEFINITELY share my Preps and throw them all in to a Community Pool, which would gain me Status in the community.  This is much more important than actually having the food to eat myself, because as mentioned, if you cannot get your community to PULL TOGETHER, you are a goner no matter what, it is only a matter of time, and trying to keep your preps to yourself is just asking for a Home Invasion by Zombies.  Total Community Numbers are sufficient to create a Neighborhood Watch Squad working in Shifts.

All that is left to do now is to finish Organizing up the new Doom Central Location with upgraded Communications as a MultiMedia Internet Studio and making the place comfortable and livable otherwise.  It’s a great example of an AFFORDABLE method of getting ready for collapse without spending big money on building a community from scratch.  I will continue to report on the development as time goes by, but for now, this is the last update on the Great Moving Adventure.

…and that’s all the Doom, This Time until Next Time, here on the Doomstead Diner. 

Off the microphone of RE

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 12, 2014

Discuss this Rant at the Environment Table inside the Diner

Don’t miss the prior articles and rants on Ebola

Ebola: I See Dead People 2

Ebola: I See Dead People

Snippet:

…Far as travel to and from the rest of Africa is concerned, it also needs to be curtailed drastically. Non-essential travel like Tourism needs to be ended until the Pandemic is brought under control. Land transmission across borders there is quite easy, and folks with means in Guinea for instance who want to GTFO of Dodge will sneak across borders by land, get fake passports in another African country, and then make the trip somewhere else outside of Africa. If only 1 in 100 of those is an Ebola Carrier still asymptomatic, they will bring the disease wherever they go to.

Of course, nothing of the sort here in terms of real restrictions on travel has been implemented as of yet, and beyond that the response from all major Goobermints has been pathetically slow and ineffective, well evidenced here in the FSoA by the stupid pronouncements from POTUS Telepromptus Obama-sama reassuring Amerikans we got nothing to worry about here, Please Move Along. Obama-sama is about as convincing these days as Lieutenant Draben Leslie Nielsen in Police Squad. Why this absurd posturing when you have a clearly out of control problem?…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!!