My Jeep

So I'm up for inspection on my Jeep Grand Cherokee and I'm going to need tires. Now I could just put on some radials and be done with it, or I could invest some prep money in it to beef it up some.

I love my Jeep, with it's straight 6 it's just about unkillable. My current tires are wussy Goodyear Wrangler ST's which are OK, but are more suited for soccer moms than any sort of GOOD plan.

I could beef up my ride by adding 1.25" spacers on the axles($100), adding a 2" lift kit($350), and beefier ties on my existing rims ($750 incl. spare). Later on I could add the extended fenders for $200ish so mud isn't flying everywhere.

Or I could save the cash, buy replacement wranglers for $280 and put the rest towards a .308 battle rifle and / or generator.

Pretty much no matter what the situation is I got a heck of a drive to get my mom and brother and drag them to my place, or I pack up and head to mom's. If we are in a slow slide, like Argentina then I can outfit my Cherokee a la Mad Max to make sure I can get to and from work.

Then again, I am still paying for this Jeep, so I might not want to invest anything more than what is necessary in case the bank f's with my loan and I cannot afford it.

Chime in with your suggestions, I need to call my bank and see what I have left on the principal. Maybe I sell it and buy a junker to fix up with a junker economy car to commute in.

brains!

I am a ZOMBIE. I've been reduced to the mental capacity of the American President. Easy decisions are now difficult with the lack of sleep I've had in the last few days. So odds are this post won't make much sense, but what the hell!

This stresses to me that when and if a big event happens we need to have as much thought out ahead of time as possible. I'm going to work on plans and assemble them into my survival book.

I found a galvanized garbage can yesterday at Benny's. It's a local k-mart type place. $20 for the can and another $6 for the lid :( Oh well. Now to buy grain, mylar bags and O2 absorbers.

I got 20 pounds of spaghetti, with enough canned sauce for it. That's a lot of pasta. At 2200 calories a day I have 20 days of food in spaghetti alone. :) I realize if I am fighting, working, etc I'll need more than 2200 calories a day, but this at least gives me a yardstick to measure my preps by. I have a few boxes of other pasta I got on sale, too. Almost forgot about those. Now I got a good head start it's time to focus on canned meats. I have about 10 cans of canned chicken I bought. Figure at worst I could heat it up and toss it with the pasta or add it to the beans. I loathe SPAM, both e-mail and meat by-product. I'm not a fan of jerky, either. So this is a spot I really need to improve upon.

Another spot I need to get squared away with is vitamins and veggies. I'm a strict carnivore, so veggies are not anywhere near the top 1000 things I like to eat. The veggies I do like are basically found in salads. I walked through the caned veggie aisle, and the only thing I liked was some baby peas (I take them like pills) and sauerkraut. Not much of a selection. Off to buy vitamins and fiber pills I guess.

60 days of food, 30 to go by Jan 1st. Too bad it's the expensive stuff I need to buy.

I still haven't decided to invest in silver or gas for this week. I'm leaning towards gas. But I'm not 100% certain. Time to fish or cut bait.

Thirty seven and a half hours!

And still going, I'm the energizer fucking bunny. The upgrade we were working on has shit the bed in a most spectacular way, and my stuff isn't the problem. My poop is wired tight.

I'm an exempt, aka salaried, employee. We do not get breaks, we work a minimum of 50 hours a week without any overtime. Downtimes are scheduled over birthdays, anniversaries, etc. without the slightest hesitation by Sr. management. I checked into it, and I'll never be financially compensated for the overtime I've done over the years. I added it up while on a pointless con call, and I figure it's about 250k at time and a half over the last 10 years.

Management does it's best to give us comp days, but it's strictly against corporate policy. It's all cloak and dagger. My last day here I'm dropping a deuce on Sr. Management's desk. The major advantage to this job is 6 weeks of holiday/vacation/sick time a year, and it's 100% recession proof. No matter how many banks, insurance agencies, etc. fail I'll have a job so long as they don't give me a heart attack. And no, I don't work for the government.

So that's why I've stayed. Things weren't always this bad, it's gotten a lot worse over the last 2 years. If the economy rebounds I'm out of here faster than taco bell through a baby. But with the looming financial crisis, I'm up in the air whether or not I'm going to leave.

We IT guys talk of unionizing, but the federal government would outlaw it fast. 45 hour work weeks, hourly compensation, breaks, limits on consecutive hours of work. My word I could bankrupt my employer with OT alone!

Welcome back to the 70's

No, not a resurgence of disco, which would be the Christian Hell on earth. Gas lines are expected to make a comeback. Lovely!

I vaguely remember them as a kid, and it just flat-out sucked. At least I could telecommute once the pumps ran dry. They didn't have that in the 70's.

I'm still here awake, but not necessarily alert. It feels like I got a tablespoon of sand in each eyeball, and I'm hungry enough to eat the ass off of a dead rhinoceros. I'm alone in the datacenter with four huge chillers that sound slightly quieter than a 737 during takeoff. I've hit drudge and cnn, but I guess no banks failed during the debates. Although Wachovia is in deep Kim Che because their stock is plummeting because the stockholders figure they are the next one to go.

I'm glad I got that gas yesterday. If I get out of here before 4pm I want to hit my shady pawnshop for more silver. Gas or silver? That's a tough one right now.

Meanwhile, looks like we have ourselves a tropical storm heading our way. I expect Kyle to clip Cape Cod, no biggie. Looks like the storms not going to gain much strength even though it's riding the Gulf Stream like Seabiscuit. I wonder if the two low pressure systems could suck the storm further inland? I'm good to go, but Mum is on the coast so I'll be ready to haul ass down there to cut trees for firewood for Mum. My Mum's a tough old Yankee, so I'm not worried too much, especially since I managed to talk her into cutting down most of the trees close to the house.

Prez debate

So I managed to watch the presidential debate online while working tonight, so I figured I would post about my observations. I would call it a draw. Obama attacked McCain through bush, and McCain went after Obama's lack of experience. This debate was about foreign policy, which included the global financial crisis.

I kept a running scorecard as the debate went on giving points to them for good ones. For example I gave McCain +2 points for wanting to do a better job at our borders to defend the homeland, and Obama got +3 points for wanting to improve the perception of the US around the world.

A few key points on what I jotted down for notes. McCain stressed unity and bi-partisanship, I like that. Obama stressed helping the fledgling democracies in Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, etc. On the whole, McCain got big points for a few items, where Obama got a lot of 1 pointers that added up.

Two very interesting quotes came from McCain. The first was "Republicans wanted to change the Government and the Government changed the Republicans." Very true. I gave him 4 points for that. The other quote was when he was asked about Iran's threat to the US, and he started talking about a "League of Democracies" to exert political force on Iran, North Korea, etc. I deducted 5 points for that because it scares the shit out of me. If the UN can't do it then we make another UN with the countries we like? That's not a good idea. That's another step to world government.

So we got a lot of hot air, I laughed my ass off when Obama called Senator McCain "Jim". Priceless. McCain's tie was dreadful, and he seemed to be tele-operated, moving in a robotic way. Well he is like 100 years old or thereabouts. I guess we can cut him some slack.

One goal met. many to go!

Well In an earlier post I mentioned I wanted to get 25 gallons of gas set aside. With all the shortages in SC, NC and TX I bought a couple more containers, dumped the 1/3 full one in my jeep and filled them up with "Sta-Bil"ized gas. So I'm done there. One task down like 50 more to go.

Preparing is like fighting a Hydra, the many-headed mythical beast. You take care of one thing, and two more spring up in it's place. I wanted to grab a galvanized trashcan to store mylar bagged grain in, but lowes and home depot don't carry them any more. Off to the local hardware stores to find one. I figure that the mylar bag (with O2 absorbers) will do just fine in protecting the food from oxygen and insects. To stop mice, I'll load the bagged grain into a galvanized trash can, and seal the lid with a heavy weight, like some ammo cans of ammunition.

I can then use the smaller mylar bags and store a wider variety of goods. Beans, rice, pasta. Salt and sugar. All protected and ready for use. I need to shop around for a grain mill, too. If you think the mylar bag + garbage can won't work, post a comment, and let me know.

I'm working most of the weekend so I'll have a bigger post for later. I hate working all-nighters.

Rollins!

He's a liberal moon-bat, but I love him anyway. He's coming to Boston November 1st. I'm still waiting for the Black Flag reunion tour, but I doubt that will happen.