My Zombie Blog

My New M6

2009-02-10T16:09:00.003-05:00

I got my new (to me) M6 from my local sporting good store yesterday, and got a chance to take a good look at it this afternoon after work, and to put a few rounds through it...

It came in a little bag which has been ZS-ified

It takes down into 2 pieces, and is put together using a little steel cotter pin...

It holds 2 rounds in the barrels (one 22lr and one .410) and nineteen rounds in the storage chamber in the stock (fifteen 22lr and four .410)...

This picture shows the hammer in the upper position, which will allow the hammer to fall on the 22lr round...

This picture shows the hammer in the middle (safe) position, which prevents the hammer from falling on either round...the knob protruding from the top of the hammer twists to the left, which prevents the hammer from moving from the safe position by accident or jarring...

This picture shows the hammer in the lower position, which will allow the hammer to fall on the .410 round...

Two videos of me and my new M6:

Assembly and Loading

Firing and Reloading

Communicating in the Zombocalypse

2008-12-17T16:55:00.004-05:00

When the dead walk the Earth, hungry for our tasty brains, you may run into other survivors who do not speak English. If this is the case, clear communication will be imperative if misunderstandings and violence are to be avoided. To that end we have developed the following pictographic visual aid:

You can download the above in PDF format for laminating at the following url:

Link to PDF file

Tahawus

2008-11-01T21:39:00.006-04:00

Ben and I went south to pick up my new boat today, and stopped off on the way home to explore Tahawus a bit in advance of a ZSNY camping trip next Spring...

Huge Blast furnace, circa 1850...

Abandoned building as you start heading into the town that emptied out when the factory closed...

I don't know what was up with this guy, but I locked the car doors as Ben and I drove by...

There are scores of houses deep in the woods...

Some of the houses have fallen down to some extent...

Creepy basement with drum sounds and dramatic cross and roots...

Another cool house deep in the woods...

This house is down by the Hudson River, and there are some other houses on the far side of the river...

Ben wandered off for a while as I was taking a nap...I found him a few hours later in the old hospital, hanging out with this guy...

Cool string of empty houses along the road in to Tahawus...

ZSNY 1st Officers' Meeting

2008-10-22T10:23:00.009-04:00

A bunch of Zombie Squad (ZS) members that live in NY got together to form a NY chapter of ZS, and to get things started held a raffle which raised $700 dollars to help fund the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York and one their great local programs, "Save the Day"...

The picture below shows 3 of the officers of the newly formed ZS-007 (or ZSNY as we like to call it) presenting the big check to the ARC representative...

To become and remain an active chapter in ZS, we need to have a couple of charity events each year, some open meetings/gatherings, and some officers' meetings to discuss chapter business...we had our 1st officers' meeting...

Friday afternoon, I got out of work, spent the rest of the afternoon with Ben, and then headed south around dinnertime...I had to drive down and grab some stuff for Derek in Troy, and pick up Kevin; then we headed to Derek's cabin...we got there after midnight (despite the fact that Derek drove at relativistic speeds, blue-shifting from time to time)...I set up my Hennessy Hammock, and was somewhat cold through a brilliant and clear night in the woods...

We got up the next morning, enjoyed some eggs and truly spectacular thick-sliced slab bacon from an Amish farm up north of me...

This is the gear that I brought along for the weekend, minus the larger sized Kifaru Pod, which held my HH and fleece blankets to sleep in...

There was a woodstove and running water in the cabin, but one of the other officers and I eschewed the cushy life in favor of sleeping out...that being said, the heat and space and light inside the cabin made it nice for meeting and hanging out...

Here's my sleeping setup, HH without the fly (the moon and stars were gorgeous both nights, so I didn't bother setting up the rain-fly, and 2 microfleece blankets...I also sleep on a cut-down ridgerest sleeping pad (more to help keep the hammock spread than anything else, although it does help keeping me warm)...I like to have the tarp underneath so that when I emerge from the slot in the bottom of the hammock, I can avoid landing on yuck in my bare feet...

After some high-quality hanging out, we headed over to a local quarry (turned redneck range) to do some shooting (it's my belief that every ZS meeting/get-together should include some gunplay)...I mostly stuck to my SKS, but also shot some of the other rifles and shotguns, including taking my first crack at a Mosin Nagant, which was a blast!

Kevin volunteered to get shot with my new flare gun using the pepper rounds that I purchased along with the flares...the gas-mask and blue gloves were partly to protect himself from the pepper round, and partly to amuse the rest of us...the measures worked in both capacities, although the pepper rounds were a disappointment...I had hoped that the round would bring him to his knees, penetrate the mask, scourge his eyes, close his throat, and leave him a puking pile of unhappiness for hours, but no luck...they would be more suited to tactical seasoning of cheap steaks...

I honestly was just looking for a good shot of Melissa firing her 22lr from the rubble, but...you know...I got busted by the guys and (it looks from this picture now that I look at it) by her...so, yeah, it's certainly possible that I'm a bit of a pig...sorry...although to be perfectly fair I've never claimed to be anything else...

The video above shows Derek firing the Mosin Nagant, a bolt-action rifle, in a pretty good approximation of rapid fire, considering that he was able to maintain aim as well...

There was also some skeet shooting done while we out at the RR, although the unstable nature of the rubble pile the thrower was on had a tendency to keep you on your toes...I stole a bunch of shooting clays, and used them as stationary targets for my SKS, breaking some at 50 & 75 & 100 yards, and a few at about 120 yards...

Once we got back from the range, it was time for the serious business of the weekend to begin...we got our shit together for the meeting (which means some pens and papers and lots of booze...and a couple of edged weapons)...

Rick has the coolest micro-computer, and the cell-adapter for it allowed us to venture online as needed during the meeting...we looked at calendars, planned future events, set some ZSNY policy, and stopped the meeting only when the table was too cluttered with bottles to continue (we adjourned for the night, and finished up the next morning)...

It was an awesome 1st meeting, we're going to be a great ZS chapter, we'll do some cool charity events, we have a bunch of fun ZS-tastic outings planned for the near-future, and I look forward to all of it with the other officers of ZS-007 (ZSNY)...

Jamie

28 Days Later...thanks hulu.com!

2008-09-08T13:02:00.001-04:00

NNY08SCT

2008-08-11T15:12:00.006-04:00

Despite scary weather predictions, 8 brave souls braved the wilds of Northern New York to come up to Little Green Pond for the 1st Annual Northern New York Summer Camping Trip...we got really lucky with the weather, almost no rain while everyone was at camp, and we had a super time!

Everyone arrived on Friday afternoon, and setup camp...as seems to be the rule when ZSers get together, we had much more food and booze than was needed ("It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it"...if it's true for the zombocalypse, than it's probably true for camping trips in the summertime, when the living is easy)...

We had everything from hardcore 4-season tents to sleeping tarp setups to hammocks, which was nice (as was the case with the rest of the gear that we all brought along) for an ongoing show-and-tell throughout the weekend...

With Outoforder2day's new stove and duster coat and hat, there was definitely a little MORGAN in him...

After everyone got set up, we wandered around a bit, checking out gear and beer and pretending no fear (about the scary clouds on the horizon...which didn't end up drowning us)...

Lord Osis and Deschain, the Canadian contingent, were the last to arrive...on foot no less...we soon found out that they had taken a wrong turn not to far from camp, and had gotten Lord Osis's Miata (BOV of choice in the smooth-road-pocaylpse)...we made our way out, and in true ZS fashion got it un-high-centered in no time at all...well...less than 3 hours anyway...

There were some storm clouds in the distance that threatened, but didn't deliver, a deluge, but the downed birch trees in the pond looked cool to me, and made me think of bleached bones, picked clean by fish...

Famine and Outoforder2day made some dutch-oven pizza...sorta...but the dutch-oven cooking got better during the course of the weekend, which is, after all, one of the things we do these weekends for...live-fire practice with our stuff...

After dinner, we started in to drinking, lots of bourbon and scotch and a few sips of Bad Medicine and some yummy mead and some raunchy (yet strangely popular) coffee flavored brandy and some moonshine and some Rhum and some vodka and some beer and some cigars...

Add all of the above to a chilly evening and some earlier exertions (camp setup and digging out the Miata) and comfy campchairs and a warmly flickering campfire, and you can understand the campin' coma that all of us fell into shortly after dark...

Famine isn't as scary/sociopathic as this picture would seem to indicate, but try to take his spork and he'll cut out your spleen...with the spoon end...

I woke up the next morning, from a blissful and comfy sleep in my Hennessy Hammock, and found the camp strangely quiet at a bit before 7am...the blue thing that you can see hanging from the tree to the right is my Katadyn Base Camp water filter...I hate pumping water filters, and this thing eliminates that whole step in the process, weighs almost nothing, and doesn't take up much space...yay!

It was a pretty morning, which promised good things ahead, although it was a chilly start to the day...

I went in to the pond to get some water for tea, and it felt dramatically warmer than the air...

Despite our best efforts the night before, there was still plenty of booze left over for the second night (although we did need to resupply our beer cooler)...

This cooler has a handy table that worked great except when I flipped the lid over and sent bottles flying all over the campsite...

Once everyone was up, we had a war council, and planned out the rest of the day...getting from one side of the car-eating bog to the other was the first order of business, and we had some people walk alongside the cars, ready to provide a push if/when needed...a trip to the range (such as it is) was the next stop...

It's not much of a range, but the hours are great, I almost never have to deal with crowds, and it's free...we set up a bunch of zombie targets at a distance for rifles...

...and a few more for shotguns...with a few shotgun shells for tricky-shooting...closer up...

We started off with a safety talk, and set up the firing lines, and gun "tables"...some fun was had with all sorts of firearms and loads, from the super-silent Aguila Super Colibri rounds to 12G buckshot to M1 Garand...

Everyone had a chance to try out all of the guns (we had more guns than people on this trip)...

I had fun shooting and sharing my new (to me ) SKS with the assembled multitude...sure, you can fire it with the bayonet folded in, but why would you want to?

Famine and some others took a crack at firing my project-gun, a 20G single-shot break-action shotgun that I chopped down to 18.25 inches and painted fluorescent orange...it's a silly gun, but I have had fun playing with it...and it still goes bang...and I'm not likely to lose it if I drop it in the grass at the range...

We took a pause in the middle of the range-visit to conduct a scientific test of emergency rations...we tried Mainstay, MayDay, Datrex, and SOS...we all evaluated each bar on taste and how thirsty it made us and how long it would take us to get sick of it...the clear winner was the SOS bar, and the MayDay bar was the loser...

I did the traditional run-around picture at the redneck range, having had a great time shooting a variety of firearms without incident or injury...

On the way home, we stopped off at Donnelly's Ice Cream for a cone of superb ice-cream with the best view in the Adirondacks...

We got back in the hottest part of the day, and a bunch of us went swimming and swinging off of the rope swing that our campsite offered brave souls (which we all were, although I was brave first)...everyone got out without picking up any of the redonkulously long leeches that we saw later in the evening, and it was a great way to cool off and prove that Ivory Soap still floats in a lake (and is a fun way to get unstinky after a sweaty range-trip)...

For supper that night, we field-tested some Wornick Squad Trays, the cornbread stuffing and the pork ribs in BBQ sauce...they went very well together, and although none of us would like to live off of them in the long term, they are a fine option for feeding groups of hungry people reasonably good food that is easy to afford/store/prepare...the 8 of us finished off 18 servings of each, and still had room for booze aplenty later in the evening...

There was a beautiful sunset on Saturday night, with no serious threats of rain or even much wind, so we just sat around and enjoyed each other's company until dark, when it was time for the movies to begin...

I have a power inverter that I got from Amazon.com that runs off of my car, that is capable of powering a TV/DVD player for hours without consuming almost any gas (we watched 4 hours of zombie movies on Saturday night, and my gas tank indicator went down much less than a 16th of a tank), and it eliminates the hassles one sometimes has to deal with when running a generator...noise, shelter from the rain, moving the thing...all taken care of because my Element becomes the generator...

We watched "Shaun of the Dead" first, followed by, "Special Dead"...both are hilarious movies made better by good company and goodly amounts of liquor...

Outoforder2day may or may not be asleep in this picture, as the night wore on, it became an increasingly thin line for us all...the important thing is that he never dropped his drink...

Deschain and Lord Osis watched and probably enjoyed the movies, although they, and everyone else looked at me with some degree of horror as "Special Dead" began...

Sunday morning was mostly spent cleaning up camp, lingering over breakfast, and enjoying the last few hours of what had been a truly great camping trip with a super group of people...no duds in the lot...Festus Hagen brought down some dishes to wash, and ended up washing everything, himself included in the pond...

I had a great time, and can't wait for the next NNY camping trip this winter...the winter trip is hard and tough, and the summer trip is the payoff for the severe cold that we braved this last February...the 2 trips balance each other very nicely, and I honestly can't say which I prefer, but having to choose from between these 2 great outings definitely means that I'm already in the high country...thanks everyone for coming, and helping, and for making this such a great weekend...I hope that you all had as much fun as I did!

Jamie - nfa

Zombiecon 2008

2008-06-16T14:08:00.018-04:00

How I Spent the Week Before My Summer Vacation Started

Surviving...

cross-country torture by the employees of United Express Airlines (twice!)
Zombiecon 2008

I hated one of these endurance tests more than seems reasonable or fair, and loved the other to the same extent...here's the story of the one that I loved (with a bit of bitching at the end about the one that I hated)...

Zombiecon is a get-together of (this year) about 60 members of the world's foremost non-stationary cadaver elimination outfit, Zombie Squad, that is held a few miles from the Walmart in Desloge, MO...

NOTE: to protect the innocent (along with the not-so-innocent), and because I won't remember all of the names of the people that I was lucky enough to meet last week, I am not going to use any names in this blog entry

I arrived in the afternoon on Wednesday, and hauled a couple of loads of my (way too much) crap up the hill in the afternoon heat...given the slope and lack of soil, I was glad that I brought my Hennessy Hammock to sleep in, and soon found a spot to set up my home for the week...

I drank more than my fair share of water during the course of Zombiecon...this picture shows the water facilities...Berkeley filters and jerrycans of pee-water hauled up from Manbath and some Clorox to kill off whatever the filters don't get...hauling water up the hill a couple of times during Zombiecon was easy enough, although after some of the intensive Manbath sessions, I was a little leery of the end product of the filtration system...I survived drinking gallons of the stuff though, so no worries...

I saw this coyote-poop just outside of Manbath, during one of the 6,483 trips up and down the steep nugget of pain that is the hill to Zcon Central...

Once I got my HH set up, and the rest of my camping gear/clothing stashed under the tarp, I headed down to the central canopied area to eat (very little, I'm a polar bear, and Zcon felt like the Sahara to me) and drink (too much...cold beer likes me, and the feeling is mutual) while howdying people and enjoying the sunset...

Despite the slope and height and swarms of rabid wolverines and loose rocks on the hill, almost everyone brought coolers (at least 1)...some with wheels...there was no shortage of food or drink at Zcon, and I found everyone happy to share with everyone else...there were both great and terrible food and drink items that passed my lips during the week...thanks to everyone for them all...

The canopies and tables in the central area of camp made everything easier, especially in the heat and sun of the spectacular weather that we generally had during Zcon...

This picture shows a meeting of the minds of some members of the ZS power structure...yup, Kyle is actually drinking his morning coffee from a goblet/chalice...

On Thursday morning, a bunch of us climbed the rest of the way to the top of the hill, and enjoyed an interesting seminar on (mostly) Ham radio communication...it was a super presentation, and made me dust off the downloaded set of questions that I printed out for my technical test...I'll try to get to the test sometime this summer...

Once the bulk of the seminar was delivered, we actually communicated with ham operators from all over the country...this portion of the seminar was the reason for having it hosted on top of the hill, and for the huge antenna poking the heavens in the ass...

Manbath...the name alone invokes fear and lust and shame and (strangely) thirst among anyone who has experienced Cthulhu's wading pool...it was an important part of my Zcon experience for a number of reasons: I drank gallons of "purified"water wrung from it's depths; I cleaned the slime and scum and sweat and blood off of my carcass every day in the same spot that water carriers filed the jerrycans; I drank lots of beer (and booze, including some banana liqueur some sick fuck brought to the party) while standing in its thrall, ignoring the angry Sun overhead (and the growing burns on my pink parts); I tried to ignore/forget the baleful and exultant cries and naked manparts that escaped from its gravity well...

I loved and hated Manbath...it both cleansed and sullied me on many levels...

We had another seminar up at the main gathering area, this one on 1st aid and 1st aid kits...

This was another great seminar, rich with information and suggestions about improving methods and techniques and supplies for when people get broken or spring leaks...

After the 2nd seminar, most people seemed to head back down to Manbath...enough, in fact, that they ended up holding the 3rd seminar of the day down in Manbath once it was clear that few would be able to escape its eerie pull...

The numerous waterfalls that feed Manbath may have something to do with it not becoming a toxic wasteland during the course of Zcon...there were fish when we arrived, and I saw them still swimming on my last morning swim on my way out of camp...

The application of suntan goop was an ongoing social activity (mating ritual?), and you could tell those who were unlucky or unmindful of the Sun by their bright red hides and ouchy whining the next day...

The 3rd seminar was on ZS fund-raising and charity activities, a huge part of what ZS does (since the zombocalypse is ever over the horizon, and we can focus on more immediate/likely disasters)...the original ZS chapter (in St. Louis) members had lots of great advice for people interested in starting new chapters all over the place (we had Zcon attendees from as far away as Wales) or just running a charity event to help out people in need...

Some ZSers love Manbath beyond all (readily apparent and/or sane) reason...

Yes, there was naked Manbath-ing...more than enough said...

Eventually, the sun slunk behind the hill, and people started to think about dinner (either due to hunger, or as a base for further drinking later in the evening)...Zcon cooking is all done over one big central fire (which saved me bringing my stove...yay!), and promotes a friendly atmosphere of sharing and potluck-ing...

Everyone settled into campchairs, or on top of coolers, to enjoy dinner, and the coming of cooler air as the day gave way to night, and we got ready for the movies...

Every night at Zcon, we watched 2-3 zombie movies...some good, some bad, some indecent...my favorite (to my everlasting shame) was "Special Dead", and I would have trouble picking a least favorite (although I'd rather snort hornets than watch "Wild Zero" again...ever)...

Friday we headed out in convoy and went over to Cherokee Landing to do a river float...

It took a while to get everyone and all of the boats and gear to the put-in location, but we a fun time waiting and sharing out/redistributing the MREs and components that ZS had given us for lunch (I got Chicken with Thai Sauce, and it was awesome!)...

Eventually we head off, wary and mindful of the clouds overhead, and the thunder in the distance...

We all moved at different speeds, but would occasionally pull over on a sandbar to prevent excessive spacing out along the river...

It was a gorgeous river and a fun trip, although there were numerous places where we had to get out to drag across shallow stretches or over downed trees...it did start to rain and thunder after a while, and my canoe partner and I got down to business and paddled hard to the Cherokee Landing headquarters to wait for everyone else...we surprised the outfitters with our time down, and had a bit of a wait until the last people pulled in, wet and cold and tired, but having had a fun day on the river!

It may be a law (natural, unnatural, or otherwise) that any time more than 3 ZSers get together and it's not over 95 degrees, at least one of them will start a fire...there was a welcome application of the law in this case, as it was a little cool and a little windy for the wet bodies that had just gotten off of the water and cooled off after paddling (drifting, drinking, sleeping) in the rain for hours...

Saturday was the range day, and we convoyed for an hour or so over to the range, and set up the canopies (thank God, it was blazing hot all day) in 3 areas: rifles, shotguns, and handguns...after a brief safety refresher talk, we started shooting...it was a fun time for me, as I had never seen lots of the guns there, and everyone was more than willing to teach and share and let me shoot...

It was great to not know almost anything about handguns, ask for, and get, a tutorial, and then have people come up and offer to let me shoot their handguns...I had fun with all of the firearms that I shot on range-day, but the 45-70 was a ridiculous favorite of mine (you gotta be ready for zombie-robot-trex-alypse!)...

There was no shortage of ammo or variety in the types and sizes of firearms available...

There was lots going on over on the rifle range as well...shooting and instruction...

Mil-surp to high-tech

Someone gather about 30 pounds of brass during the course of the day for reloading purposes...

The shotgun shooting was fun, a clay-thrower and various shotguns and personalized instruction from a member of the US shooting team...not too shabby...

A picture of Brash blasting away with the 45-70 revolver...

Range-day ended with a pistol match...4 zombie-targets: 2 shots into the first 2 targets (center mass shots acceptable, but headshots preferable), change out magazine, 2 shots into the next target, and 3 shots into the final target (at least 1 in the head)...

I'd never seen this type of match before, and it was cool to see people close-in target shooting and accomplish the magazine changes while being timed...

As had been the case each night, there were some cries of "MEDIC" once people got back to camp, got fed, and noticed the bloodtrail they had been leaving behind them all the while...luckily, ZS is chock full of people with the gear and training to handle most medical issues likely to come up...

The first movie of Saturday night was, "Night of the Living Dead in 3D", 60 people clinging to their drinks and the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere while wearing 3D glasses and watching such a miserable piece of shit as this movie is nothing short of awesome!

While we were watching the movie, some of the ZS board members made and delivered fresh-made popcorn for us to enjoy...it was a wonderful experience, and a nice followup to the excellent grilled dinner that they had made for us earlier in the evening...

My shoulder bag from CountyComm was a lifesaver, both at Zombiecon and in transit to and from the St. Louis airport...it kept all of my important gear and papers close and organized, and allowed me to keep my sanity while United Express fucked me over repeatedly...

A brief rant about United Express:
I was supposed to fly out (to DC and then on to STL) Tuesday afternoon, but they cancelled my first flight...they switched me to Chicago to STL, which was then delayed until it was impossible to make the connection, so they switched me back to DC to STL in the morning...I made the first leg the next morning, but the second leg was cancelled, so I had to go to Chicago and then onto STL, both legs delayed, and wait for 2.5 hours until my bags caught up with me...

On the way back they delayed my first flight for so long that it should have been impossible to catch the next leg, and the alternative they offered was cancelled, but staying true to their nature, the original second leg of the flight of the flight was delayed by 2 hours more than the first had been, and so I made it to ALB eventually, although I again had to wait for my bag to get there (even though I ended up taking the flights that I had been ticketed for...go figure)...

Lessons Learned From Zombiecon:

bring less gear and clothes
buy less food
buy more ice for beer
get Sun-pocalypse tested suntan goop, and apply it all the time
Hennessy Hammocks rock, I slept better at Zcon than I do at home
ALWAYS maintain eye-contact while in Manbath, looking down can only result in therapy
drink more water
ticks like warm and wet and crinkly pink parts, so check everyday, and then get a friend to check the hard to reach spots...Lyme Disease sucks!
Canadians like Walmart
if the end of the world comes, I want to go through it with a group of people like the ones who attended Zombiecon this year...nice and funny and knowledgeable and defective in the same ways that I am...

Thanks to everybody who made Zombiecon possible, fun, and also a learning experience!

Jamie - nfa

Uber-Sledge Testing

2008-04-20T10:38:00.003-04:00

In response to a thread on ZS, I thought that I would field-test my uber-sledge a bit this morning...the videos below show me whacking the shit out of a 2-liter soda bottle filled with water with both the sharp and blunt end of the sledge...which is about 3 feet of steel pipe with a pie-piece shaped wedge of heavy iron on the end of it...

After a few years of hard use and hard winters, the sledge was showing some signs of wear, so I gave it a steel wool scrubbing, and then hosed it down with gold-flake rustoleum...pimping it out has actually made it work better...

Feel free to pm or email me with suggestions of other crap to whack with my God-sledge!

MBO

2008-04-12T21:23:00.006-04:00

I posted a report of my MBO this weekend over at ZS...

Here is the Google Map of my MBO:

View Larger Map

I shot the following video after walking in to Rat Pond, the location of my MBO:

I fell in love with my new Gerber Ax/Saw combo during the MBO:

My homemade coffee can stove works so well, that I'm using it instead of other stove options:

After seriously chilling down after some work and then sitting through a freezing rainstorm, I had a nearly religious experience with some tomato soup and a break in the weather:

Mock Bug Out (MBO)

2008-04-10T09:19:00.001-04:00

My goals for this MBO include:

* - live out of my BOB for 30 hours, providing safe water/food/shelter for myself

* - Get from my home to the Mock Bug Out Location (MBOL) staying off of major roads and avoiding letting people get close enough to shoot (or bite) me (assuming that they were in the mood)...

* - Multiple applications of the MBO Misadventure Simulator...I was thinking like 3-4 times during the MBO...

* - Try to find things in the BOB in the dark without a light (this'll test my organization)...find my way back to the MBO Location at night without a flashlight from a distance (using a partially shielded glowstick as a marker)...

* - Find a cached ammo-can in the dark using GPS and flashlight...also find another cached ammo-can using map and compass...they won't be holding anything BOB-ish for the MBO...no food, water, shelter, etc...

* - field-test and film some of my gear, old and new...stove, bivy, cathole shovel, ax, cookset, etc...

My Bug Out Bag (BOB)

2008-04-10T08:55:00.004-04:00

I put together a new and improved BOB for the upcoming Mock Bug Out Weekend, based on looking at some of the other BOBs I've looked at on ZS, and on my experience in the outdoors.

The bag is a Mountainsmith Approach 3.0, a relatively small bag for a BOB. My thinking is that this will be the base bag, and I can add various modules via a bunch of Kifaru Pods that I bought a while ago. This will allow for greater flexibility...a module for my son, one for trauma, one with a tent, one for cold weather, one with more food, one with more tools, one with a firearms loadout, etc...

This is a picture of the packed BOB, ready to go...it feels as though it weighs about 25-30 pounds...the following pictures show the contents by pockets, not by gear type, so (for example) the food is not all in none picture...

The tyvek shelter components, bivy and tarp, are attached to the bottom of the bag..

I'm trying this shelter system out this weekend...along with an inner bivy of heat reflective material and my fleece/polypro clothes, I'm betting that it will provide for an adequate night's sleep...I'm going to have a tent module to add to the BOB, but am interested in keeping this base bag as light and simple as possible...

NOTE: after thinking about it a bit, I added a fleece bag to the BOB

The outermost center pocket is tiny, and contains 20 nails with pointy ends held in tape, GPS with caches and BOLs and such entered (I have 3, and this is my backup's backup, so it now lives in the BOB), compass, whistle, extendable cable lock...

The next pocket is bigger and holds poop-shovel and viva towels (for TP), headlamp, mora knife, 2 colors of para-cord, vaseline-soaked cottonballs, $200 bucks in paper and quarters, maps and survival info, water purification tablets, primary fire kit (lighters, matches, trioxane), sporks, rite-in-the-rain pad, USB-drive, 2-head sharpie, leatherman, gorilla-tape...

The pad and usb-drive have the following info on them:
Bank/Credit Card/Mortgage
Birth Certificates/Drivers License/Permit/Social Security Cards/Passports
Medical Insurance
Cars & House Deed/Insurance
In Case of Emergency Contacts
WWW info/passwords

The sensitive info on the pad is protected by half-assed encryption (reverses and numbers +/-), the pictures of everything are stored in multiple formats on the usb-drive in an encrypted folder...

The stuff-pocket and ski-sleeves are filled with: a pair of waldies, gerber ax, saw, Ontario SP-8 machete, a pair of wonder-bars, and (not shown because I'm a fucktard) a Quiller book to read while the world is falling apart...

I haven't seen spare shoes in other BOBs, but the waldies weigh nothing, smoosh down pretty small, and will allow my feet and primary shoes to dry out while I'm in camp or on the road...

The side pockets contain 1-liter containers of Powerade, GORP, and Clif Bars...

The central pocket contains a bunch of stuff: coffee-can stove, big cup-bowl, pot/lid, anti-bacterial soap and scrubbie, backwoods cigars, wind-up radio/flashlight, 2 mainstay bars, backup para-cord, glowsticks, 2 backup fire kits (lighters, matches, trioxane), gatorade, hot cocoa, oatmeal, tomato soup and parmesan cheese, pep-sticks, backup leatherman and gorilla-tape, backup flashlights and headband for light, backup compass, bivy...

I planned my BOB for 1 day of real food (with only hot-water needed) and 2 days of ration bars. The thinking behind this is that many emergencies wouldn't require more than 1 day of travel, and for those I would prefer to enjoy warm food that I'm familiar with, and will keep up my morale...for longer Bug-Outs, I should just deal with the ration bars...

These clothes are also in the main pocket, and provide cushioning for some of the other gear in the pocket: waterproof pants and jacket, polypro underwear tops and bottoms, underarmor t-shirt, spare pair of underwear, wool/polypro socks, bandana, balaclava, fleece gloves, work gloves, boonie hat...all of the clothes are packed in ziplocks to keep them dry in a dunk...

My BOB-FAK also lives in the main compartment of the bag...

The FAK contents include: wound dressings and kerlix, a book on outdoor medicine, band-aids and wound closure, scissors, tweezers, forceps, dental floss, tylenol, advil, pepto, immodium, benadryl, cough drops, saline irrigation fluid, tape (3 rolls), SAM splint, sting-eze, sun-bug-wipe, providone wipes, triple antibiotic ointment, wet ones, nice 'n' clean wipes, benzalkonium chloride wipes, blistex, hand sanitizer, bug repellent, suntan goop...

April 2008 Mock Bug Out (MBO)

2008-03-08T14:08:00.005-05:00

Zombie Squad members from around the world will be participating in a distributed (done in their home location) Mock Bug Out (MBO) during the weekend of April 11-13, 2008. There's a thread about it over in the ZS forums.

I'll be doing it in Lake Clear just to check out my preps and my thinking about escape routes and to see if I can actually make it and stay alive for 30 hours using just the stuff in my BOB (the tasty acronym for Bug Out Bag).

To that end, I have completely taken apart my old BOB, and am rebuilding it from zero, I'll post about that in the weeks between now and the MBO. I've also thought a bit about where I'll bug out to, and how I'll get there. In thinking about various scenarios that might force me to bug out, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to have 2 place in mind, so I now do. The map I've been using to think about the process is attached below.

View Larger Map

More to come as the MBO date gets closer...

Jamie - nfa

Zombie Squad Winter Camping Trip

2008-02-24T10:29:00.005-05:00

7 ZS members went camping up in the Adirondack Park in Upstate NY over the weekend of February 15-17, 2008. We had a great time and, I like to think, learned a lot about winter camping.

We camped on the shore of beautiful Polliwog Pond, at a big campsite that was buried under 1-2 feet of snow. The above picture show Polliwog Pond with the firepit in the foreground.

I set up my tent on top of a heavy-duty space blanket after digging down through the snow to reach (almost) the ground. At the end of the weekend I found that even with my sleeping pad and the space blanket, I had melted out an icy outline of myself under my tent.

CommonHighrise had pretty much the same pad and sleeping bag as I did, but he set up his tent without digging down to ground level, and over a layer of balsam branches. He ended the weekend with light and fluffy (and unmelted) snow under his tent. In future winter camping excursions I will follow his example.

Friday night got down to -17 degrees, so all of the lessons learned were learned the hard way, and should be useful for almost any winter camping situations (I hope that I/you never have to go camping in colder weather than that).

Starting and maintaining fires proved quite difficult at these temperatures, but having firestarters to help things along is a definite advantage. I think the key to the difficulty lies in raising the temperature of the tinder and wood to the combustion point; being able to have a firestarter keep the heat on your tinder and wood for the extra time needed is a big help. Increasing the surface area of your tinder and wood (by splitting or "fuzzing" the wood) will help the fire get going.

Once the Sun went behind the trees (at about 4:30), you need to be sure to have more wood than you think you'll need for the night and for the next morning. The campfire becomes a focal point of your winter campsite, especially when the temperature drops below zero. The heat and light from the fire provides both an actual and perceived boost to your core temperature.

This picture, although posed, provide a good example of the signs of a party member chilling down too much. Shivering that they can't stop, and pulling themselves into a fetal posture (arms and legs and head down towards your stomach) is a good signal that the person is getting too cold. The best fix for this is to make sure that the person has dry clothes (and if not, to change into them), get some hot liquids into them (over-strong hot cocoa or gatorade are great for this purpose), and pump some serious fuel into their system (I suggest a couple of big spoonfuls of peanut butter, but anything with lots of carbs and fat will work).

Hot water, and the ability to make it, is vitally important in winter camping. You can actually dehydrate more in wintertime than in the summer, because your lungs will moisten every dry breath that you take into your lungs. If you're not peeing every 1-2 hours, then you aren't drinking enough; don't feel bad, it's easy to do, for a variety of reasons when winter camping...making water from snow is a hassle and peeing in the cold makes you feel colder.

The pieces of gear pictured above are not typically thought of as winter camping gear, but they can make things go more smoothly. A maul to split wood into smaller pieces will make lighting and maintaining your fire easier. The 15" Stanley FatMax saw is small and rips through logs of all sizes really quickly (if it binds in the cold, a quick shot of rem-oil along the teeth will help things along). A really solid folding grill can be useful for everything from grilling meat to supporting pots. Leather-handed gloves are great for handling wood and lifting stuff off of the fire. Skip back up to the picture above this one, and you will see a set of angled pliers, which are great for grabbing pots and pans and grills and providing mechanical advantage for freeing frozen parts.

When winter camping, more than at any other time of the year, food should be viewed as fuel first, and as an outlet for creativity and source of pleasure second. We were lucky enough to have some great cooks along with us on this camping trip, and we all enjoyed super chili and steaks and stew and pancakes and such; but I consider those things luxuries. The first line of winter survival is warm food, rich in carbs and fats and liquid: cocoa and oatmeal started each morning for me, and are a great way to get warmth and water and nutrients into you quickly. Pieces of cheese and pep-stick and the occasional spoonful of peanut butter also kept me fueled up and warm.

I also found myself keeping my next snack and drink inside my outer (windproof) layer, so that they wouldn't freeze. As soon as I finished the bottle of gatorade (which I believe is less likely to free solid due to the salts in it) or Clif bar, I would replace it with the next one, and let my body warm it up so that I didn't have to break it (or my teeth on it) in its frozen state.

My outerwear consisted of pac-boots, windpants, a heavyweight fleece-hooded jacket, windproof coat, fingerless gloves, and mittens. I don't like to layer up too much, because if I'm too layered, I feel as though the dead airspace doesn't work as well. If I start to feel cold in all of this stuff, I either start moving, or eat/drink something.

My inner layer includes long underwear top and bottom, heavyweight wool/poly socks, and a balaclava (generally not added unless it's really cold, or at bedtime). All of these layers, being next to my skin, were likely to become wet, so having multiple sets of each is vitally important. At bedtime I would strip down to a dry set of this layer for sleeping inside my bag; lots of people argue for sleeping without the long undies or socks, but I prefer it.

Zombocalypse Survival Test

2008-01-21T17:12:00.002-05:00

I took it, and scored a:

75%

Click on the image above and see how you do...

20 Minute Tyvek Bivy

2008-01-20T18:11:00.000-05:00

I got a bunch of Tyvek from Williams a couple of months ago with some sort of project in mind, and then was lurking around the recent discussions about bivy-sacks, and something started to come together in my head...

I'm going skiing and shooting today, but it's still too cold (it's warmed up to -9 at 10am...straight-up cold, figuring in windchill is for boastful sissies), so I got out my stuff and put together what I think will be a kick-ass bivy in 20 minutes (although it has to finish drying-curing...it took me longer to take/crop pics, and do this write-up than to make the bivy, but I figured that I'd share, and I'm having a 2nd cup of coffee down by the woodstove while I do this, so it's all good...

The Tyvek came in a piece 9 feet wide by about a gazillion feet long...I cut off a piece about 9 feet long...I folded the Tyvek in half, so the basic shape is about 9 feet by 4.5 feet (before I started to do anything else)...

I used scissors, silicone adhesive/sealant, and a glue-gun...this size silicone worked out to be exactly the right amount to seal the bivy...I chose silicone sealant because it bonds to almost everything and stays flexible (which will be nice when folding/stuffing this thing for use)...

I started out by sealing a simple straight-line bead along the bottom of the bivy, folding over about 2 inches...

After making an initial seal along the bottom, I followed this up with a zigzag bead of silicone, and folded the bottom another 2 inches up or so...

{{{Yes, I know, vacuum...we heat with wood, and have 3 cats and a dog}}}

After I had pressed the double-seam along with the bottom with a hardcover book to squeegee the silicone to insure good contact and a good seal, I repeated the above steps with the open side of the bivy...simple seam and fold, and zigzag seam and fold...

The final product is a bivy that should be light and waterproof, is open at the top (I lacked both the technical savvy and any ideas, so I'll just take advantage of the depth of the bag and snuggle down into it), has double-sealed seams, and ended up being 51" X 104"...

It occurred to me while looking at it that given that I sealed all writing and markings inside the bag (not by design, that's just how it worked out), it could be pretty effective winter camouflage for gear or me or both...

It will also be useful as an extra layer to wrap around my sleeping bag to keep condensation off of it when winter camping...

I'll inspect it once everything dries/cures, and then test it in the near future...comments, insults, ideas, etc. will, of course, be welcome...

"Bad Medicine"

2008-01-19T17:39:00.000-05:00

I've been studying with herbalists in Sri Lanka all day, and after almost 20 minutes of hard work, developed this spectacular medicinal tonic...

It can prevent/reverse zombism, stop bleeding, facilitate implemented interrogation, boost your immune system so much that you'll outlive your friends and loved ones by decades and die alone, and get you hammered with each and every treatment/dose...

Here is a bottle of the finished infusion (no, not really...it's coke in the bottle...the infusion isn't finished infusing yet)...

I'm making the stuff as a "party-favor" for anyone unbalanced enough to attend the Upcoming ZS camping trip...

The list of ingredients includes:
1) Ridiculously cheap vodka from pop's winery (my online source for booze)...some insane (likely drunk) liquor executive thought that blue vodka would sell, and when it didn't pop's sold it to me for almost nothing
2) Lots of garlic
3) Lots of habanero peppers

I used the tools above to reduce the solid ingredients to a paste...a process which filled my kitchen with sufficient habanero oils to hurt my eyes and lungs just enough to make me mock Erik a bit for his "tests" while I gently cried and coughed...

I put the combined garlic/pepper paste and blue vodka into a bourbon bottle that I let some barfly living down by the river empty prior to making the "Bad Medicine" in exchange for gently mixing the contents of the refilled bottle every 47 minutes until Groundhog Day...

My FAK

2007-10-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

This is the FAK that I bring everywhere with me...to work, on hikes, geocaching, camping, on field trips, etc...

I would love feedback on it...tear it up...show me what's weak or missing...bearing in mind that I have more trauma stuff in my home & car (gloves and bandages/kerlix and tape and SAM splints and saline and betadine scrubs)

NFA's First-Aid Kit

My kit, handle wrapped in blaze duct tape to make it easier to find, shown next to some paperback for scale...

What you see when you open the kit...a bunch of freezer-weight ziplocks, hopefully ordered by need as you go in...

Here are all of the components unpacked from the FAK...I like the bags because it keeps thing separate/organized/dry and also stops all of the stuff from rubbing itself apart when I move the FAK from place to place...

1st bag - nitrile gloves, tape, triangular bandage, secure strips...

2nd bag - israeli bandage (IZZY)...

3rd bag - kerlix, combine dressings, bloodstopper dressing...

4th bag - bandaids of various shapes/sizes, second skin, hand sanitizer, sting-eze, tweezers...

5th bag - saline for irrigation and clorox (for water treatment and/or making disinfectant solution)...clorox is in a second ziplock

6th bag - (going clockwise from top) slap-on thermometer, advil and tylenol, wet ones and nice n' clean wipes, sunscreen, betadine wipes, hand sanitizer, triple antibiotic, insect repellent, duct tape, benadryl (tabs and strips) pepto bismol, actifed, immodium...

7th bag - gorilla tape wrapped around ZS card (in its own ziplock), whistle, multitool, flashlight...

OK...have at it..

Motivational Posters...

2007-09-21T19:35:00.000-04:00

Motivational posters are fun and can make you think...here's a fun link to a site that helps you turn images into motivation...

Here are a couple of motivational posters that I made about preparedness and zombies...

$20 Test

2007-05-01T17:37:00.000-04:00

I thought that it would make an interesting exercise to try and see what I could do with $20...it would be cool to have $2000 in cash hidden in my car for emergencies, but I don't...I do, however, have $20...

I went to the grocery store with a $20 bill and tried to outfit myself for a short-term bug-out and walk away with a bit of change...

I limited myself to food and water, and did pretty well (I think)...try it and share your results...and the reasoning behind your choices...

Two 32 ounce containers of dry roast, low salt, peanuts - $3.99 each
One 24 ounce container of raisins - $3.69
One case of water, containing 30 half-liter bottles - $4.99
Total with tax - $17.05

I got the 1/2 liter bottles as opposed to gallon jugs because the price difference was teeny, and these are more useful...

Mixing the peanuts and raisins into GORP would yield craploads of calories, fat, protein, and carbs...

Using nutritiondata.com to crunch the numbers, I figure that I could easily go 4 days with this stuff at the following rate and nutritional benefit:

GORP
Fat – 224g per day
Carb – 228g per day
Protein – 118g per day
Calories – 3,128 per day

Water
7.5 bottles of water per day

This works out to $4.26 per day, in a situation where I picked up the stuff in a couple of minutes on my way out of town and didn't have access to a credit card...I think that anyone could do this in an emergency, and be out (using the express line) before everyone else has stripped the shelves...

I'd love to see what other ZSers can come up with as alternatives...I didn't get 1st-aid or shelter stuff, on the assumption that I can sleep in my car and use the FAK that has always been in my car...

Re: Your Brains

2007-03-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

Mayday Ration Bars

2007-03-08T18:03:00.000-05:00

Background
When I first came across ZS, I read lots of old threads in the forums, especially ones of food/gear/first-aid...one of them was a review of Mainstay Rations. I bought some, and then bought some other similar rations, including Mayday Rations.

I'm 38, white, 6 feet tall, and weigh about 280 pounds...I eat and drink a lot, especially in winter or when I'm being active. One of the reasons that I was interested in conducting this test is that I have Sjogren's Syndrome, an auto-immune disorder which, among other things tends to give me permanent dry-mouth (so I was worried about how these bars would work for me, given some of the complaints I had heard in the past about their dryness).

The Test
I had known for awhile that I would be home for the day, as my son's childcare was closed for the day, so I elected to try the Mayday ration test on this day. I grabbed one of the 2400 calorie Mayday bars in the morning, planning on eating 2 each for breakfast and lunch (I'll save the other 2 for work tomorrow, and eat a regular dinner with my family tonight). The 2400 calorie bar weighs 18 ounces, and is about the size of a paperback version of "The Hunt for Red October" (4X7X1.5ish).

I opened the ration foil to a cool vaccuum release sound, and the first thing that I noticed is that while there are lines on the bar, they are not really setup for easy division. I used a cleaver to chop through the bar, it was easy to cut the bar along the lines (imagine something between frozen butter and dense banana bread in terms of density).

The bar looks and feels a lot like shortbread, although slightly more moist and dense. My first bite was a surprise...much better than I expected. The apple-cinnamon taste is not too strong, but it is pleasant. I was ready for a raunchy flavor hidden behind a too-strong flavoring, but that was not the case. It really is a lot like shortbread, but less crumbly...my shirt was crumb free at the end of the 2 bars that I had for breakfast. The bars went well with my coffee, which was something I attribute to the subtle flavoring of the bars. I was able to bite, chew, and swallow the bites without drinking more than I would have with toast or eggs.

My activity level for the morning was mixed, I watched some tube with Ben for awhile, cleaned the kitchen, stacked and carried wood for the next few days (we're going down to record lows tonight...-40 or so...without windchill factored in), and some snowpile climbing and sledding. I don't normally eat breakfast (just a cup of coffee), so I felt pleasantly full, but not sluggish while engaged in all of these activities. I was not noticeably more thirsty than normal. I was ready to eat again by the time Ben was hungry for PB&J.

I ate 2 more pieces for lunch, this time washed down with a coke and a glass of water. These two seemed more dry to me than the first 2 did, although the flavor still was not an issue for me...I just found myself more actively washing the bites down. By now I had eaten 4 pieces of the Mayday bar, for a total of 1600 calories (not counting my coffee and coke), and was surpised not to still feel hungry after finishing my "lunch".

I went for a walk with Ben after lunch, did some work while he took a nap, and then ventured into the garage to organize/shift some crap around in the cold (just to get some physical exercise in while Ben made up games in front of the garage. I had a tight feeling belly through the afternoon, not hungry, not full...but when we came in a 4:15 to grab a snack for Ben, I had some too.

All in all, I feel that the experiment was a success. I feel confident having Mayday Rations in my BOB, and as a part of my SHTF-planning. I know that i can eat them, and that they will give me essentially everything that I need in a small package.

Manufacturer's Claims VS My Opinions
Mayday Rations (2400 calories) Key Benefits

5 year Shelf Life
I like knowing that these ration bars will be good until the end of 2011...they'd probably be good past then, but I'll rotate them out through camping trips or whatever before then...

Non-Thirst Provoking
You need water to eat these things, but not as much as I had thought...I think the big thing is that without enough water to properly digest them, you might end up with clogged pipes...plan on having water when you are counting on these for food...

Withstands Wide Temperature Extremes… -22° F to 149°F
These ration bars do not have the stated temperature range of Mainstay Rations...I can't imagine why, as the ingredients list seems pretty close, but they don't...

Contains no cholesterol or tropical oils.
Cool, although that won't be my primary worry if I'm in a situation where I'm eating these things for a week...

Meets the US Coast Guard (160.046/31/0) & SOLAS 74/83 standards
I don't know what it all means, but it's probably good!

Enriched with vitamins and minerals exceeding the USRDA
1 bar gives you most of what you need in terms of vitamins and minerals (according to the powers that be), 6 bars give you the calorie minimum(2400) I would look for for a day of active SHTF living.

Conclusion
These are the emergency ration bars that I will be buying in the future. I liked the taste of these more than the taste of Mainstays, and they're cheaper. I found a website at which they work out to $4.07 each bar, including delivery...seems like a good deal to me. They last for a long time, don't take up much room, taste good enough to me, and will keep my body working in a reasonably good fashion. My sole concern with these as opposed to Mainstay Rations is the reduced temperature range, but it doesn't worry me enough to avoid them. Despite the non-thirsty propaganda, you should always have water with you in any situation in which you would need these rations, so have & drink plenty of water anytime you are eating these things.

I would, and will, certainly supplement these with some hard candy and beef jerky...if for no other reason than to stop me from going insane with the tedium of apple-cinnamon-flavored ration bars.