Back to business

I have been slacking off a bit lately, and it is high time I got to get my butt into gear. With the looming Zombie apocalypse, there are a few things everyone has to do before the mindless horde comes looking for dinner.

First off, there are some movies out there that are absolutely a must-see. Zombieland is a must-see. Very funny. The Hangover gets a little raunchy at times, but I honestly fell out of my chair while watching it. This is the logical child of Animal House and Airplane! This film was so funny, I would be willing to bet the script was written in the 70's, because that's the last time I watched a move that funny. Animal House, Stripes, Caddyshack, and Airplane! could be topped by this movie on the all-time- funniest movie list. Avatar looks real good, but I am a little concerned that James Cameron might get on a soapbox.

I do not watch a lot of TV but a few shows will be missed when the balloon goes up. The Big Bang Theory is a staple for geeks anywhere, myself included. I got the boxes of comic books in the basement to prove it. The new series V, based on the 1983 & 1984 miniseries (the regular series was so bad I removed the memory forcibly by inserting an icepick up my nose) is really, really, good. Hope they don't fuck it up like Heroes. Or die off like Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, or The Dresden Files. Flash Forward is getting high marks from friends, but I have not had time to check it out. Any if ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING gets in the way of me watching the last season of Lost, I will hunt you down and beat you to death with my shoe.

As for books, anything of any decent quality is being drowned under by sparkley vampires and assorted other lame-ass emo drivel. I have been going back and re-reading older authors like Heinlein, Herbert, Asimov and Tolkien. I am in the middle of the Belgariad, by Eddings right now. I couldn't find the last three books in the local used bookstores so I had to order them online. Still used, but they have to be sipped from the left coast.

So stock up on entertainment. For boardgames I recommend Settlers of Catan, and ALL it's expansions, it is a load of fun, and even women like it. Citadels is a small, compact game that is fun to play as well. Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is fun, but not good for the youngsters. Another favorite is Boomtown, which is published by a Rhode Island Game designer. Expensive, hard to find, and out of print makes Civilization, a hard game to get, but if you're lucky enough to have one, it's a good weekend game. Finally there is World in Flames, which I played at the convention in MI this year. Epic in scale and complexity, it has the price tag to match.

So stock up on fun stuff to do, and take care of seeing those movies before it all goes to hell. If it's bad enough of a collapse I envision movies being re-done as plays by campfires. Until we get back on our feet.

A Job

So I found me a job. I'll be a contractor for a major University in Boston for three months, and I have a good chance of being picked up as a permanent employee after that.

The advantage of being a contractor is I get paid for overtime, which is nice. The drawback is I got no benefits, and I don't get any holiday or vacation time. I won't even go into the insane benefits package if I become a full time employee. I am getting more $, so I can easily pay for the benefits.

So now I got me a job, so I'm going to have to go back to the grind.

This has been a learning experience, for sure. It turns out between severance, saved vacation, and unemployment, I've been making more money than ever. All of it carefully stashed away for the end of the 3 month contract, in case I'm not picked up as a perm.

What's surprising to me is the lack of stress about the whole thing. I've lost some weight, been getting great sleep of night. Funny how bad the situation was at the last place. I can laugh at it now.

Weather

Anyone else feel the weather is just too freaky right now? All summer we had cool temperatures, I think we had only 2 or 3 days over 90 this year. Now, it's been a solid 55-60 every day for the past month. Not that I am complaining, as I am saving expensive oil. We had the quietest hurricane season in decades. All due to the solar cycle residing at it's lowest point of activity.

Farmer's Almanac is saying a lot of snow and ice for us this year, which means January and February is going to be a bitch. I have serious doubts about a white Christmas as well. Most of the trees and shrubs in my yard think it's springtime and have started to bud. I hope I do not lose too many when the frost sets in.

I've come to the realization that looking for a job is just as much work as having one. I normally use about 200 minutes on the cell phone a month. I've used 450 minutes, plus all my rollover minutes as of yesterday. My billing cycle starts the 18th, so I had to up my plan to 900 minutes a month. If AT&T didn't let me do this, my phone bill would be over $250. Yikes!

I have a phone screening interview tomorrow, and I need to head into PRC (the People's Republic of Cambridge) for a face to face interview. At least I am getting interviews. I haven't heard from the one last week, so I need to send an e-mail today to follow up. I'll never get anything done around the house!

I've cut way back on my news reading, it is refreshing to the mind not to be buried in the doom and gloom of what is really going on. Although the drawback is I'm limited in my foresight when the collapse actually happens. Contributing to this is a sad and terrible thing that happened to me.

You see, the day I got fired, my projector died. So I can't watch tv at all. To fix it it will cost $325 + S&H... I'll send it out once I have an offer. That's just my luck though.

Keep prepping, the crash is coming. Dubai is just another domino in the long line of causality that will terminate rather abruptly once the system collapses under the weight of it's own illicit trades and schemes.

A war in solitude

It's been real hard the last week or so. I've been trying to keep super-busy in order to keep from worrying about my financial situation.

I've been running a bunch of ads on craigslist in order to get some money in under the table, but no one has contacted me for any work. After talking with friends it is easier for people to deal with the crappy and slow computer, or charge the repairs on the credit card than to pay cash. Lots and lots of people are out of a job, and it's getting harder to make ends meet for everyone.

I had two phone interviews last week and I aced them both. I have another phone interview today, and I have a follow up face to face interview from one of the phone interviews from last week tomorrow afternoon. I should be happy because I am getting interviews because there are a lot of people out there who aren't even getting their foot in the door.

So I am fighting a war, a war versus expectations, versus depression, and verses the desire for revenge. Now I'm not going to do anything stupid or rash, so the last battle on the list has been won, but every now and then I get the urge to crack the last job's systems open and basically fuck with them. Set the screensavers to nasty messages, set virus scanning schedules for 2pm in the afternoon, etc. Just mean, but non-critical, things. But I won't do it even how fun it seems like it would be.

I just finished another phone interview, and I aced it again. With the holidays this week I doubt I will get anything going, but who knows? Phone interviews are tough. You need to be confident without being cocky. My problem is I know this shit cold. Like absolute zero cold. Like a witches' tit in a brass bra cold. One problem I am having is these managers are terrified I'll take their jobs so they want to hire someone smart, but not as smart as I am.

I've been thinking a lot about the Second American revolution, and trying to see a way to make it bloodless. I can't. When there is drastic change, there will be bloodshed. I just have to figure out how to keep it limited in scope. I honestly think that there will be a collapse in government, whether from the have-nots vs. the haves, racial tension, or a flat out open revolt due to government mismanagement and absurd taxation. There will be a collapse. I just need to do my part in keeping it as small and targeted as much as possible.

Congress and the leading political families will have to leave or face the wrath of the population. In a collapse of this magnitude, you can expect a backlash against those who put us here. So all of Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the last few presidents might fall victim to mob justice. In these days expect most of wall street to go with them to the chopping block, hangman's noose, or prison.

I hope we 3%'ers who come to lead these revolutions have the wisdom and common sense to keep it contained and directed towards the return of law here in America. The rule of Special Interest Groups and mob rule have no place in our country. We were founded as a republic, and the sooner we can strip away all the accumulated years of bullshit laws, the sooner we can start down the road to prosperity once again.

Reloading

Bitmap left a bunch of good reloading information on my Sunday post. For anyone interested in reloading you should check it out. I agree with what Bitmap is saying, but my problem is that the 7.62x51mm round is not the same as a .308 Winchester. The specs call for a 12,000 difference in pressure. So I could shoot 7.62x51mm out of my bolt action, but not the other way around.

Now I do use the same components. A Large rifle primer, H4895 powder and a 168grain HPBT. I use 39 grains of powder for the 7.62x51mm and 40.2 grains for the .308 Winchester. This gives me about 2 MOA from the M1A, and 3/4 MOA from the Remington 700. If I use 7.62x51mm in my Remington, I shoot about 3 MOA.

I've found that if I load the rounds long, I can squeak another 1/4 MOA of of my Remington 700, but the rounds will not load into the internal magazine. So my hunting ammo is 2.80 COAL, where my bench rounds are 2.92 COAL. I could easily seat the bullets deeper if the poop hit the fan, so that's not an issue.

Yesterday, I put 7 rounds into 3/4" at 100 yards. Five of them were in 1/4" or so. Now that's zombie hunting! If I could get a bit more consistent, I could get to the 1/2" MOA I am seeking for egg shoots.

I don't mind having different loads for each rifle. Each weapon has it's own purpose, and these don't overlap with each other. The M1A is a battle rifle, and 2 MOA is plenty. The Remington 700 is to put food on the table and to pull headshots on zombies out to 600 yards. The shotgun is for food on the table and close-quarters assault. If I ever have to kick in doors, that's what I'll use. The Sig220 is for personal protection. The .22's are for practice, small game and varmit shooting.

Thankfully, I have all the bases covered. I would love to buy a few more weapons, but considering my financial situation, I can easily make due with what I have.

Bitmap, thanks for the information! I've never used AA powders. I use H4895 for the rifles, Unique and Blue Dot for pistol, and Clays for the shotgun. I weigh my bullets for the rifle and use the odd ones for the M1A. Only those that weigh exactly 168.0 grains are used for the Remington 700. I use the Nosler Balistic Tip and Combined Technologies for hunting, and Nosler Competition HPBT for the bench shooting and the M1A rounds. For primers I prefer use CCI large rifle because they do not slam-fire like the others in the M1A. I use the bench rest version for the Remington 700. The bench rest primers are about 50% more expensive, but I have 2000 of them already :p

I need to shop around and do some research on 168 grain bullets. I'm concerned the thin-skinned 168 grain Nosler competition HPBT won't be effective enough at stopping zombies. I could use 168 grain ballistic tips, but they are about 5 times as expensive. I'd like to run some tests to see the differences, maybe in the spring I can.

Cloudy, with a chance of Apocalypse

Things are real bad in the job market, nothing is moving at all. I've done so many phone interviews that my head is spinning. It seems that the interviewers are only going through the motions. No one is serious about hiring with the holidays and such.

I've been able to reconnect with more people and actually have a chance to talk with then since I'm a jobless bum. The word on the street is simply "This can't go on." Whether it's the health care crap or the theoretical "jobless recovery" everyone agrees that there is no recovery, and we are in for worse times then we are seeing today.

Now what to do about it? I'm prepping like mad. Although I am dipping into my preps to save money, I am still doing what I can to get ready for anything that may come my way. I've been packaging foods into mason jars and using my foodsaver to seal them. I've been making (almost) all my meals myself, saving more money then if I ate out at a restaurant. I'm buying foods on sale in as much bulk as I can and packaging some and eating some.

Monday, I got to tidy up a bunch of things. I got my old jeep to sell, so I need to work on that. I got to get my COBRA health insurance squared away. I also need to get in touch with the mortgage company and see what I can do, I have a Fannie Mae loan, after all. Busy busy busy. I didn't finish cleanign the yard before the rain came through so I got a lot of yardwork to finish as well. That, and finish the in-law apartment and get it ready to rent.

For other preps I have been diligently working on reloading. I already own all the supplies, now I have the time to develop the best load for each application. I'll have to post my findings later on. I'm currently testing the 5 kinds of large rifle primers I own to learn what's better or worse between them, and which provides the most consistency in ignition. Then I need to work up hunting loads for the 150 and 180 grain bullets.

I really, really need to upgrade the scope on my rifle. It's 30+ years old, dark as heck to look through, and there is mold growing inside it. Just a little bit, but it will only get worse. I also need tires on my Cherokee, so I'll buy tires and a a scope if I manage to sell it.

If it wasn't for the holiday fueled consumer economy, I think we would already have seen the collapse of the dollar. So finish what you can for preps, keep and eye on the thieves on Wall Street, and have that bug-out bag ready to go.

Well it looks like gold has shaken free of the artificial restraints. I read that we would see $1500 per troy ounce by January 1st, and I think we will see it. We also saw predictions of $2000 and $3000 and ounce, but I dismissed those out of hand. Gold's price has been artificially manipulated for a while now, of this I have no doubt. I'm not claiming the Illuminati are doing it to further their plans of galactic, inter-dimensional conquest of the left wing conspiracy or whatever. Just with the inflation we have with a fiat currency gold should have broken $1000 a while ago, and is now going to correct itself relative to the weak US dollar.

Speaking of a weak dollar, I'm now having to pay attention to what stuff costs. And my dollar doesn't go that far at all. Not that the prices have changed that much, it's the contents and packaging. For example, Lay's Salt and Vinegar potato chips used to go on sale for $.99 for a 7oz bag. Now they no longer make them in that size, all you can buy is a 12 oz "family size" for $2.99. Huh, three times the price for less than double the amount of product. And Lay's saves production costs using less packaging, etc. Not that it's Lay's gouging us to make a huge profit, their costs have gone up as well.

I've been noticing this all over the place in the grocery store. I fully expect this trend to continue as people, even my frugal butt, don't notice these sorts of things until money becomes such an issue. They are sheeple for a reason, contentedly browsing the pasture, oblivious to the wolf in the woods.

One good thing about being a prepper, is you tend to buy a lot of extra when on sale. I bought all kinds of italian sausage the other day, as it was $1.99 a package instead of the normal $3.99. Took it home, vacuum sealed it in the foodsaver and tossed it into the freezer. Like wise, I bought a ton of pre-cooked breakfast sausage for a $1 a package. Handy because I actually eat breakfast these days. For a quick meal I'll heat them up and eat them with pork 'n' beans.

Back to the economy. Shadowstats.com has the unemployment at 22% nationally. Almost one in four people are out of work. How come there is no rioting in the streets is beyond my comprehension. I've been hitting the pavement real hard looking for a job, but it seems that almost all the companies slowed down their hiring this quarter. All the phone calls I was getting have dried up. I still have a few irons in the fire, but I'm not hanging my hat on anything.

Talking with guys at the club, or neighbors, or random strangers when standing in line, I get a pervasive sense that people are trying to be hopeful, but there is doubt lurking in the shadows. Everyone, and I mean everyone I spoke to has a brother or sister, son or daughter, mom or dad that has been out of work for months. As a country, we can't take much more of this. Someone is going to have to keep paying for the family member out of work. What happens when there are two, or three people in the family out of work? How much more debt can they pile on?

Stores are already running their "black Friday" sales, in order to lure customers into them. I wonder if they are trying to get the cash they need to stay afloat, hoping to lure consumers to spend more on the holidays then they normally would?

There is so many strange things going on, and it's not adding up. Consumer and retailer behavior are out of sync, the government is playing doctor instead of focusing on the economy. It's like they see the economy as fixed, when obviously it isn't. Maybe they realize it cannot be fixed, so they are throwing the mother of all smoke and mirrors show to distract everyone from something they would really freak out about?