The Revolution May Be Interested In Me, But...

Frankly, I couldn't give a wet fart about it.

1) What I care about or not won't change it.
2) It's good to keep tabs on the enemies of civilization. It is not good to become obsessed with them.
3) I have better ways to spend my time.

I spent the last couple of days tying up some loose ends on various projects.

The survival water supply hereabouts is now good for more than a full year.

The social distancing and neighborhood block party shotgun now sports a proper set of QD swivels and a padded sling, which I've been meaning to do for quite some time, but to which I never quite got around.

The back-up Death-Dealing Sniper Rifle (because two is one, and one is none) now has a nice Picatinny rail mounted. And an identical lot of Federal Gold Medal Match to feed it. I would have added the rings too, but I haven't decided on the scope...yet. Next payday, most likely.

Another bunch of Gamma Seals and buckets are in the process of being filled and sealed, extending even farther the number of days the larder (which was never touched during the COVID Games) will suffice.

Contacted the local LDS warehouse. I'm not LDS, but they're generally fine folks in many ways, particularly with regard to making provision (literally) for harsh times. Zero's info about their canning facilities nationwide was a good start, and finding out their local warehouse is conveniently nearby made it an easy way to augment what I've got stored.

A small-scale (mini-fridge, microwave, a couple of lights, PACE comms, and a laptop) solar back-up system is in the planning stages, and should be installed and functional before summer is out.

The former daily driver is now free to be converted into the Urban Assault Vehicle, i.e. an RV that doesn't look like one from the outside, such that I can travel and camp in it, or bug out with it, at my discretion.

A visit to the fine folks at Dillon Precision means that shortly, I will no longer be dealing with the onerous ammunition nonsense hereabouts, and nonetheless will be laying in some canned goods - the olive drab type - week by week, as my newest hobby.

So the local communists can do whateverinhell they've a mind to do, and it won't make no nevermind to me.

But after DDSR II is up and sighted in just like DDSR I is, they'd better do it at least 1000M away from me, or their spaz-fest will have a very short run, off-Broadway, and will close out of town.

Alternatively, if black lives really matter to black people (a few thousand dead in Chicongo - let alone District of Criminals, Detroitistan, NYFC, etc. - argue for the fact that the very idea is nonsensical and ludicrous, if not risible) they could heed some wise words of advice, if they want to cut police shootings among millions of contacts with the police from the current annual number of 9, down to an even 0:

Out And About



Yes, I stole this picture from Irish.

I'm interviewing properties for the future site of Camp Snoopy and the Castle Anthrax.

I won't be moving anytime soon, but buying in the near future, and working on it until I do, will mean the day I retire, everything's done and paid for, turn-key ready, so I pull up the drawbridge, close the perimeter access, and leave the "BFYTW!" Unwelcome Mat at the front gate, and the world can mind its own business, and I'll mind mine, until the day I die.

No, you don't get site pictures. Yet.
(I have several locations to look at, and I'll be taking a few hundred pics myself.)
Yes, it's still within the confines of Califrutopia.
(Yes, I've seen your state, for at least 36 values of that word, and some of them are pretty. None of them enough to make me want to move there. The devil you know, etc.)

But far from the madding crowds hereabouts.
Like firing-range-in-the-back-yard far away, as opposed to firing-range-on-the-surrounding-streets close.
And in regions of CA where getting a CCW is as hard as asking for one, rather than unobtanium. (Yes, that's actually over half the state, btw.)
And the last time they elected a Democommunist was...gee, never.
They're not hard to find in this state, once you head east of I-5.

If you need entertainment, head over to Feral Irishman's site, and scroll downwards through his blog list, or go over to the right on mine. I'm sure you'll find a few folks worth reading until I'm back in a day or two.

Four Trips

This one's dedicated to Phil and Angus , who can probably relate.

As legend and lore have it, no DIY project can be completed in anything less than three trips to the store. Yesterday and today, I improved on that.

About a month ago, the local merchants were flogging perfectly spiffy UHD TVs at ridiculous prices, so they could get the newest models in with even more features I don't want, at prices I won't pay. So a big screen for less than half price for a NIB set was worth the trip.

Where, due to work schedules, it sat on the floor for about a month.
So with a few days off, it was time to upgrade my movie viewing (I have not watched broadcast TV since Fat Bill was president, and miss it not a bit).

Having assembled most of what I needed, it was time to get to work.
I've got three cordless drills, and two chargers.
I could find one drill, the battery was dead, and that manufacturer has planned obsolesenced that voltage out of stock forever. I'll deal with the hunt for the drill, batteries, and chargers another time, but I need to install the wall mount for Big TV today, as planned.

So Trip One:

I needed a couple of odds and ends, and some coax and HDMI, and to get around cordless stupidity games, I wanted an old-fashioned hard-wired simple drill for light work. Went to Lowe's (who thoughtfully killed my go-to OSH harware store chain with malice aforethought, after rescuing them briefly from oblivion). Lowe's has the HDMI and coax. And they have the perfect hand drill.
Except they're out of the one I want.
They have plenty of the bigger ones, starting at from 2-3X the price of the simple one that's perfect for my needs.
Well-played.

So, gritting my teeth, I go to Big Orange Hell, where they have the exact same drill, for a buck less than Lowe's. And five of them sitting right where they should be, on the shelf, unopened.

Mirabile dictu!

Chalk up one for Homeless Depot.

I dodge the 200 migras shilling for day labor in the parking lot, and return home to put up a stupid simple wall mount that's perfect for the TV I have, and the space intended for it.

Except, goddamn them, GE has selected hardware made from Chinesium (an amalgam alloy of zinc, recycled beer cans, Prius body panels, and seagull shit, apparently), which strip, while simultaneously destroying the Phillips bit used, at both ends, while only going halfway in.

And the size hole their instructions say to pre-drill for the anchor screws turns out to be laughably optimistic.

F#&%.

Trip Two:

Homeless Depot winning by a nose, and being a wee bit closer, I return thence on Thursday afternoon, this time for actual hardware.
I selected a double complement of marine-grade stainless steel wood screws equivalent in size and length to one of the cheap-ass Chinesium pieces of $#!^ I managed to hand unscrew from the wall, with pliers, where it had lodged hallway in, totally striped. Because I needed a bicep workout anyways.

Then, not trusting things, I also secured large deck scews, heavy-duty common nails, and fender washers, in case it became necessary to explain the facts of life to GE's wall mount.

And a bit 1/32 larger than GE's recockulous instruction specified.

Thus supplied, I returned home for the next round of battle.

With the larger holes, the actual steel screws fly into the holes, and seat firmly.
The mount is nominally rated for 50#. The TV is maybe 10#. But I was putting it into mature seasoned studs, in a wall I'd added myself. And I weigh a bit more than 50#.

So after hanging on the mount myself, it didn't budge a millimeter.
That sumbitch isn't going to be dropping the TV on me this century.

Now the easy part: putting the TV on the mount.
I've done this with smaller monitors, and the mount itself is simplicity.
Line up the holes, and screw it down.
Easy peasey.

Flag on the play.

In their wisdom, the makers of a $400+ (sale price) wall mount television, have elected not to include the $2 of hardware for wall mounting.
That would be 4 screws, and 4 plastic adapter plugs.

What The Actual FUCK?!?!?

Maybe they thought I'd just carry it around on my shoulder like a ghetto blaster boombox?

I don't know.

But this is, bar none, the stupidest effing thing I've seen someone do.
And I live in Califrutopia, and lived in L.A. for most of my life, so that's saying something.
But they have a handy 800 number, for me to order the Wall Mount Kit for the giant flatscreen TV, it's lack being mentioned no-fucking-where on the package exterior when I purchased it. (I'm going to use that 800 number next week alright, but not to order the kit in question. I'm wondering how many times they'll hang up on me before I finish what I'm going to tell them.)

Who would do such a fucktarded thing?
That would be Samsung.
Samsung, you (insert the most vile racist anti-Korean slur you can imagine here, then triple it), as my old man used to say when he was alive, "the sonofabitch who thought that up should have the TV shoved up his ass, sideways." No, really, and actually.

At this point, I am this:[] close to taking the set to the range, and experimenting on it with 12 ga. slugs. But the mount is already installed, and I want my damn video.

So Trip Three:

But, I know the Three-Trip Rule, so I am only half surprised. So, I trot down to Best Buy, since they have a Geek Squad that does installations, where maybe I can buy, beg, or steal the celebrated un-included mythical legendary Wall Mount Kit that the (insert the most vile racist anti-Korean slur you can imagine here, then triple it) idiot f**kers at Samsung didn't include, to save themselves $2 cost.

But no, Best Buy has never heard of it.
Neither has Le Boutique Targét.
Nor WallyWorld.
I tried them first, this trip.
Don't even think about Sears; their aisles look like Florida after a hurricane, every day, as they lurch towards bankruptcy in a death spiral. They make K-Mart Big Lots! look good, neat, and well-run by comparison.

But the sales chick at BestBuy calls their Samsung rep (but diplomatically, doesn't tell them what I called their company, from CEO to janitorial staff) who used to be one of their Geek Squad installers, who is sure that my wall mount or TV must have the right adapters and screws to clamp the TV in place.
(He's as wrong as he can be about that.)

But, he suggests checking Homeless Depot, because that's what they used at Geek Squad, because their TV mount kits always have everything.

Ready to defecate kittens at this point, I've got no pride left, and nothing to lose, so I swing by Orange Hardware Hell yet a third time, as the sun sinks into the horizon.

So I go to their home electronics aisle, pry open a similar wall mount kit, and there inside, are the very screws and adapters needed.
Along with screws and adapters for every TV set known to man, in all likelihood.
Sold.
And for the helluvit, an HDTV antenna.

I return home again, this time long after the last Julio or Pedro has departed the lot, to undertake Round Three of hand-to-hand combat with a simple TV installation.

The screws and adapters fit like a glove.

The set is now anchored and perfectly aligned.

I plug it in, screw in the broadcast TV antenna, and the set works like a dream. (At least Samsung got that right.)

So, on a roll, I put in a couple of other thingamajigs for another pair of projects, plugging into the nearest outlet, in the bathroom.

I get them finished, and settle down to check online, satisfied with accomplishing (finally) what I set out to do that day.

After taking a bloody day to get it done.

Except...the computer has re-booted.
Funny, since I didn't turn it off.

Try to re-start it.

Then everything in the room goes deader than canned tuna.

And the microwave clock is out. Looking around, I find scoring on the bathroom outlet.
It's old, and not GFCI, predating that requirement handily, but it's never given me any trouble.

The kitchen light is flickering, like the bulb is going to fail. Then it comes on full.
But the demand heater is dead in the bathroom. And so is one side of the kitchen.
And everything downstream from there, including the Blog Command Central room.

And the front room A/C?!?
Now this is serious. No A/C in August?

And the breaker won't reset.
Despite multiple tries.

This now officially sucks. And it's too late to do anything, because everyone is closed.

So Trip Four:

Back to the store again, this time for the multimeter I never had, some wire strippers, and a new commercial-grade outlet.

Get home, turn off the outlet breaker, confirm it's cold with the new multimeter, and open 'er up.

And find 2" of white neutral wire charred and burned away (it dates from the 1970s), which has cooked off all the insulation, and the neutral is touching the bare copper ground wire.

Which shorted out the breaker as intended, and killed 1/3 of the house circuits.

Happy to have tracked down the problem without needing to get a new bus for the panel, I chop all the wire back, re-strip and feed them into an outlet 50 years newer, wire it in, throw the breaker, the multimeter confirms 120V, no smoke issues from the wall, and the breaker resets.

I have spent every penny I saved on the big screen TV on toys and supplies to plug it in.
And rewire a bathroom plug that was about to burn the house down.

Without burning the house down.

Or paying an electrician a couple hundred more $$ for a service call.

IANAElectricain by any means, but I rewired my first switch when I was a teenager (I wanted a dimmer in my bedroom, so I read how to do it, and did it). I generally don't play around with anything electrical more complicated than plugging something in, on principal, because gas (octane and natural) and electricity send more people to the emergency room every week than I want to be. (It's also embarrassing to be treated by your co-workers for Stupid.) And my primary use for electricity is to defibrillate dead people, and let me tell you, they jump when you yell "Clear!" and hit the button. I don't want to do the home version, especially accidentally. I can still remember the experiment at age 3 with the table knife and the wall outlet, and as I recollect, it stung a bit.

But I had the book learning, and most of the toys, so I'm happy about doing the repair myself, and getting the TV ready to rock. But I'm happiest that some union electrician 50 years ago did his frickin' job right when he ground wired my outlet properly, so I could save it and not burn the house down last night, or today.

For an encore, I'ma get me a GFCI outlet next week, and re-do that job one more time.
The skills will come in handy when I start building the Castle Anthrax and Camp Snoopy, probably next year.

Which is my explanation for why my homework is late.

And I think I've earned a nice dinner out.
Followed by Zulu or Lord Of the Rings on a wall-wide TV in UHD, as God intended.

And I've got an extra TV mount now.

Preparedness vs. Cluelessness: Works Every Time

Today's lesson:

There's always a number of these stories after every disaster.

Back a few decades, I looked into firefighting (until it became obvious that, being a white male, that option was unlikely to happen in less than 5-10 years).

Before that point, I regularly perused EMS and fire science magazines, and became aware that one can purchase the exact same type of fire monitor you see on lots of fire trucks driving down the street. And you still can.

For the unaware, a fire monitor is not a video camera, it's the directable water cannon nozzle assembly, used on water trucks and fireboats as well.

They can be mounted anywhere (I'd pick the center of the roof, personally) and rigged to run off of one's pool, pond, or well, provided you also have your own generator power.

The can put out over 1000gpm for a hundred feet or more, and they run a couple of grand@. As opposed to your house, which in the hills and canyons of fire areas, runs $300K-$1M.

That's a real economic poser there.

And it's one helluva lot smarter than trying to fight 100' flames with little vinyl garden hoses.

Trimming trees and brush well away from the house is even cheaper.

Especially because both ground and air fire crews triage houses in the path of these fires, and if they see one that's savable, they'll make the effort, but if yours is an overgrown tinder trap, they'll write it off mentally as a total waste of their finite resources, and after that, you're screwed.

But most of the dumbfucks in the fire-prone hillsides are in their cosmic bubbles more often than not, and don't do the legwork before hand, and then get burned out.

Except for the few smart guys, like the two in this video.

PPPPPPP

(And this sort of thing doesn't apply to entire small towns amidst fire country, where you have fewer options, nor to renter tenants within them, who effectively have none. When the entire town burns down, you're simply SOL. Have a "go" plan, and stick to it.)

But it astonishes me that people who do have a choice will purchase a home on acreage, and spend years of salary for the view, but not invest a couple of paychecks, and some forethought, to prevent an entirely avoidable loss of everything they own.

Their fire insurance premiums should be 10-20% of the cost of their house, annually.
Triple that for any nimrod who still has a wood shake roof.
Unless they take the steps these guys did.

Plan ahead.
Learn not to burn.

Man, The Tool-Maker

h/t WRSA

I am no slouch at tool-using, but it's an acquired habit. (And not my profession, strictly speaking.) Nonetheless, I have built beds, tables, furniture, cabinets, shelves, boxes, and two small cabins in my day, demolished houses and built rooves (roofs for English grammar-averse troglodytes), and any number of other things, including helping to erect and tear down goodly chunks of the village that is the original RennFaire for an embarrassing number of years. I've done 3 1/2 room additions here at Castle Anthrax solo, and before I'm too decrepit, I expect to erect the entire SHTF lair at Camp Snoopy that will put Bond Villain Lairs to shame. Including the pond, greenhouses, bunkers, trenches, concertina wire, and heavy weapons pits. (Yes, I'm serious.)

And, on my best day, I'm but a journeyman.

Point being, now or WTSHTF, there will be tool-users, and casualties. There will be no third option. In seriously distressing times, anybody healthy enough to eat but not bright enough to swing a hammer will find out what contractors mean by "construction laborer" in short order, or they will learn the meaning of John Smith's dictum that "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." (Liberal Idiots - but I repeat myself - that is what Reagan meant when he told you in the 1980s that "The best welfare program is a JOB.")

Pioneer is a verb.

Tools are why pioneer wagons were so heavy and moved so slowly from 1800-1900.

A man with the right tools can do anything.
A man who can make the right tools will have the money of the man who can do anything.
This is why most of the gold discovered out west started in the pockets of the miners, and ended up in the pockets of the smiths and shopkeepers who sold them those tools.

Working on TV and movie locations, it saddens me to have to explain to twenty-somethings that the 100+ year-old house they’re shooting in was built entirely with hand tools (No, really! Before electricity and indoor plumbing!), from materials hauled in by horse-drawn freight wagons from the nearest train depot, which is why the driveways are so big and curving; and that the reason the garage out back is so short, and has two small stalls not big enough for a SmartCar is because back in the day, that was the barn for the family horse(s). And that those sticks on the back side of an exposed wall are simply the 1900-era version of sheetrock, back when it was called plaster-and-lathe.

You can literally see their heads pop from the swelling at that point, like you just landed from a spaceship and asked to be taken to their leader.

Then they go back to texting and playing videogames on their surveillance phones.
Meanwhile, over at Zero-Gov's website, is a very cursory primer on the subject of tool assemblage. If this is news to you, go and learn.

You can also note that some of the worthiest sections of ,Rawles' three worthwhile written offerings*, and no small amount of his SurvivalBlog deal with tools, tool acquiring, and specifically what and which to get your hands on.

Most of us already know all this, and have made decent headway at becoming the jacks-of-all-trades we ought to be, both for self-satisfaction and the pride of creation, and for the collection of life-saving skills if/when Ugly Times come upon us again.

But for those who've concentrated on more immediate things, and those too new to have heard or apprehended that a sexy rifle and case of MREs aren't going to git 'r done in challenging circumstances, go read up on those resources.

Then, as now, skills at carpentry and woodworking, metalsmithing and metal fabrication, civil engineering/construction, plumbing, electrical work, welding, gunsmithing, automotive and engine-using skills, and the like, will be the entry ante to survive and thrive, not to mention among the millions of good-paying, good-benefits trades and job openings Mike Rowe is always on about right this minute, which can't be outsourced to China or India ever, and require no college, minimal training, and mainly just basic math and eye-hand co-ordination, with a modicum of attention to detail. Got a GED, not afraid to get your hands dirty, and don't want to squander $100K and up for a communist-indoctrination fap-fest at the local Uselessversity Re-Education Center, but still want to make upwards of $100K in a couple of years (while your liberal arts peers are still only juniors at State U. trying to master beer pong)? Caterpillar (little company in Peoria IL, maybe you've heard of them?) is always crying for guys - or hell, girls too - to learn things like heavy equipment maintenance , for going on 40 years. Three years out, and you're pulling $100K /yr or so. But no, stay in that clean-hands barrista gig, Snowflake. Coffee-slinging Latte Monkey will be a yuuuuuge gig during the Zompocalypse, right?

They're also fun, and if you're so inclined, can keep food on your table, a roof over your head (possibly even one you built your ownself), and money in your pocket.

So if necessary, go read Buppert's piece, and get busy getting what you'll need and learning to use what you've got if we ever become Venezuela - or the Eloi.

Survival is graded pass fail, not on the curve. And it's pretty much set at the 90/10 percentile, if not right at 100/0.



*(this one, this one, and this one, and in that order, if you were wondering; the rest are mostly a waste of time or money for the most part, IMHO)

It's An Orangey Sky

Anywhere Back East (of here) this time of year, the trees change colors. Here, it's the sky. In this case, a particularly shade of orangey sky, though probably not one Cleveland native Ric Ocasek had in mind when he penned that lyric. In this case, in SoCal, the harbingers of fall are brisk Santa Ana winds, of which todays were 40-50MPH gusts,

which combine with the vast populations of insaniac tweaker homeless people (who infest both the suburbs and the local foothills) cooking roadkill (and meth) in the nearby canyons, and when one of these things meets the other, oxygen, heat, and fuel - in this case, a thick once-verdant and now dehydrated overgrowth from more than double the normal annual rainfall since January - decisively breaking Califrutopia's six-year drought, no matter what Moonbeam says - combine in what fire scientists refer to as the fire triangle, and what the county brushfire crews and state prison trustee crews refer to as one helluva big mess.

In this case, it's somewhere not terribly far off. The wind's been blowing like a sonogfagun since last night, the sun is behind a veil of brown smoke being pushed out to sea at a good clip, leaving a wide swath of ash and smoke that illustrates that chaparral hillside is being converted to charcoal-colored desert tundra at the speed of heat. In case I wasn't sure this was it, the county fire department's trusty Bell 412 is whop-whopping back and forth, clawing for altitude and heavily laden with a full belly tank of water or fire retardant,

doing so today with enough frequency to suggest the fire is not far off, and to give anyone of a certain age some decent 'Nam flashbacks. And as an added bonus, all my electronics, dutifully big-brothered into a daisy chain of efficiency by the minions of the digital universe, now squeal and hum insistently to me and everyone in the same area code that in the hills east of here, the perennial dumbasses who chose a view over common sense need to pack their crap, and Get The Hell Outta Dodge, because the mountainsides are on fire. Again.

Ah, Fall, in Califrutopia.

It's nowhere dangerously close to me, nor will or would be short of Kim Dum Nut dropping one of his garage-band nukes on the suburbia hereabouts, but I get the haze, the ash, the dry throat and burning crud in my eyes, and the olfactory splendor of knowing what it would smell like to live inside a campfire, a burning hay barn, or to wake up in hell.

God help the folks in the hot zones, and keep the firefighters safe in their appointed tasks. Happily, it's only about 80 here today, not 110, but I daresay it's a wee bit sultrier up on certain hillsides today, and with these winds, likely to remain so throughout the week.

That smell, that tumbleweed and scrub oak smell...nothing else smells like that.
It smells like...no, not victory. It smells like it's going to be a long, hot, windy, smoky week, and some people are going to lose everything they have in return for soul-crushing record-breaking property taxes and killer Pacific Ocean views across the L.A. Basin the rest of the year. It's the West Coast version of building your vacation home on Hurricane Beach.

Me? I just get the smell, a small taste of the apocalypse, and having to hose the car off every morning for the next few days.

Irma Feedback

From recent comments on an earlier "Irma" post, here's a reader update on the Central FL aftermath of The Storm Haxo Said Was "Nothing":

Stormsurfer said...

Aesop,
An after-action report if I may. 

Irma hit us as a Cat 2. Winds 100-105. Gotta admit that it was spooky. 

A small percentage in our area of Central Florida are still without power. Although a couple of the more rural farming and ranching counties really got hammered and will suffer the effects for weeks if not months to come. 

We loaned out our two generators and two of our daughters and their families stayed with us until their power was restored. I was amazed at the number of people who had generators but no gas or even gas cans. 

I was getting up at 3am so that I could drive around locating gas stations which had received fuel deliveries during the night and get my many (not my first rodeo) gas cans filled before going to work and then during the day my wife would deliver them to family and friends in need (and collect their empty cans so we could repeat the process). 

Internet in this area was only restored yesterday so I'm trying to catch up on news. Thanks for your coverage of this storm. There's something reassuring just knowing that folks we'll never meet choose to give a damn about their fellow men. 

BTW, the river house on the Weeki Wachee river fared just fine. Come kayak next time you're in this part of the country. 

Regards,
Stormsurfer

Best Wishes right back at ya, Stormsurfer.

Happy to share my give-a-damn about my fellow Americans.
And for the benefit of some of your less-prepared neighbors, a word from Captain Obvious:

Glad you and yours made it through alive. The annual emergencies are always far more likely to occur than the catastrophic world-ending ones, but the "little" problems are always good dress rehearsals for the big ones, to help us work out the kinks in our preparedness planning.

My thought and prayers continue for your collective rebuilding efforts. Until the next time.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

 

In the last few weeks, Houston, the southeast of Texas, and the south of Louisiana were flooded and slammed by Hurricane Harvey; Mexico had a magnitude 8 earthquake in the southwest, as it's bracing to get hit by Hurricane Katia on the Gulf Coast side, and Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are about to get epically pummeled by Hurricane Irma for the entire weekend. And I don't even bother to mention the typical raging wildfires that hit the western half of the US from about August to October since lighting and trees became a thing here, going back some millennia.

If you don't have plans in place and supplies on hand already for the types of anytime and predictable annual disasters your particular area could foreseeably face, you're either homeless and living in a shopping cart, or you're an oblivious idiot.

There is no third option, but there's an obvious solution to not falling into either sorry category.

Make A Plan. It should be brutally realistic, mathematically logical and precise, and as comprehensive as you can make it, covering the potential problems anyone in your area could reasonably expect. And the point to remember about 100-year floods/storms/earthquakes/etc. is that any year could be Year 100, forever. Prediction just means you might not see two of them, but should expect to see at least one in your lifetime. Nature doesn't read a calendar.

Gather supplies. Anybody who hasn't the means at hand to amass 3 days of emergency supplies for everything you need, both to stay put, or GTFO, is already in a survival situation. The other 99.9999% of humanity living in this country has no excuse for being braindead idiots, and failing to prepare - other than where on this graph their IQ is.

And you should have 3-6 months' worth in short order, or you're still an idiot, unless you want to live in a FEMA shelter after the first 72 hours.

Execute when necessary. Think things over, and brutally consider your own If/Then set of contingencies. If something happens, then you do...what? That's for you (and your Significant Other, it that applies) to work out. If you're in one of the 45 states not currently under the gun with regard to being on CNN 24/7, count your blessings. Then go over your plans, fix deficiencies, and be ready for the day your turn comes. There's precious few places in this country that are immune to any disaster. In fact, close to none. Some definitely have more, and some less, than others. But wherever you are, make your contingency plans for them, and be ready to be the solution in times of distress, not part of the problem.

The last two weeks and the next two are a golden opportunity to bring the topic up, if anyone else in your family is hard-headed or weak-willed when it comes to dealing with those realities. Do what you've got to do; I don't want to see anyone looking clueless, shivering under a blanket, and wondering what hit them. Disasters have three types of people: victims, volunteers for being victims, and the guys driving the boats and helicopters and running the shelters. Do your damnedest to be the last type. They're the ones that save the whole town when it has to be done.

"Out of every hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Heraclitus, 500 BC

And as we watch the tragedies that befall others, wherever you are, remember this absolute truth:

Your turn in the barrel is coming, to a certainty.
Failure to plan, is planning to fail.

Incoming

Updated: That was last night's forecast, when I wrote this to auto-post.
Here's this morning's update from NOAA:

So - good news - it's slowed down some. More time to prep/evac.

Depending on the weather model used, it could move as far west as Nawlins, or turn and go up the East Coast as far east as the SC-NC border in the next week.

The red line, above, represents the highest model likely, but as far away as it is, that's still mainly guesswork.

If it's determined that the Florida Keys are in the main path, evacuation decisions will be made today, because it takes 3+ days to evacuate them, and by Friday night, it'll be getting there with a fury.

Bad news: ocean temps in the path are higher than normal, which will fuel its intensity rising to a solid Cat III-IV when it hits the US mainland Friday Saturday evening/Sunday AM.

As noted yesterday, PR and US V.I. are going to get shellacked, tomorrow.

Good news: If you live in Colorado or Utah, you should be good.

If you're in the Florida peninsula and the Southeast piedmont, you'd better be getting your crap in one bag.
Next weekend will not be fun.
Might be a good idea to visit your relations in Iowa or New Mexico.

Judging by local anecdata, it wouldn't hurt a few people to panic in a more orderly fashion. Some folks thereabouts sound like they're losing their minds.

For those who might be new to this:

(pdf file) FEMA: How To Prepare For A Hurricane - 2017
12-page mini-guide, lots of pictures.

Bug Out Packing Feedback

           Any idea can be taken too far. So, not this, please.


Ryan blogged my reply, and his thoughts, because nobody who blogs regularly turns down a ready-made post.

One good turn deserves another.

Ryan posted:

Yesterdays Real World Bug Outs post got a lengthy comment from Aesop that I wanted to discuss. I will post it and my comments will be in italics.

I think we could talk in circles about what the right time amounts are. As I look at my list the initial 15 minute time hack is way longer than I would need to do what is on the list. 5 might be a bit optimistic (where are my darn keys right now, etc all) but I could certainly call it 10. It would be 15 at least with kids. 

For the long time I need to think about it a bit more.

I like the list broken down by trip idea. That is neat. 

This is where the real world part comes in. We aren't fleeing the zombie apocalypse to go camp in the woods or something. Thus a need for a tent and traps and a bunch of bulk food isn't present. I'll be living on a couch or in a cheap motel eating pizza or microwave food from the grocery store. So I do not need to waste time and space on that stuff. Having some capability, like a BOB makes sense but that time and vehicle space would be much more useful for Great Grandmas rocking chair or something. I suppose the specific event and your plan will ultimately dictate. I can see myself ending up with 2 lists, one for an event during normal times and another or the dreaded zombie apocalypse.

You kind of lost me with the talk of color coding and circling. Pre packing stuff makes sense though. I am pretty much there. Concur about the list. My plan is to firm it up an then do just that.

Pre staging stuff in a risky situation (there is a fire nearby, not quite close enough to evacuate yet, etc) certainly makes sense. Having your normal vehicle loaded to bug out at all times sounds kind of problematic. A full set up ready to go in a dedicated vehicle would be cool if you have one and a relatively secure place to store it.

I concur with this [vehicle kit] and have more or less the same set up in my vehicle.

I am inclined to agree with you [re:kid bags being "too hard"]. The difference is you and I are fairly committed to all of this stuff. Normal folks aren't. So what is an acceptable level of hassle to you is not to them.

I use a small backpack so I can stuff it into my BOB if needed.

This [monthly updating the stuff]is on my to do list.

Scanning photos is a great idea. I will add it to my to do list.

I would probably just ask them [relatives] to hold onto said thumb drive for me.

This kind of thing [small caches] definitely has some cool possibilities. I am certainly a fan of caches.

And back again from me:

1) Concur on the "two lists" idea, one for regular displacement, and another for the never-coming-back Zombie apocalypse.

But...

You're heading to Grandma's house next state over. Or wherever.
Get detoured/traffic hell/vehicle problem/breakdown en route.
Okay for regular list if you're in town.
But if you're stuck in BFEgypt Middle of Nowhere, a tent and such might be a much better idea than sleeping cramped up inside the car.
Just saying, there probably shouldn't be that much difference.
I'm sure you've read Zero's blog, and seen multiple stories of people on ordinary trips who ended up in an accident, stranded, lost, clueless, unprepared, etc.
I think in terms of Gilligan's Island:
"a three hour tour, a three hour tour..."
Except no Ginger or Maryanne.

2) As to the list and color coding:
An example
Item 1, briefcase/backpack and B.O.B. - the red circled "1", in the gun safe
Item 2, maps & comms - the black circled "2" in the hall closet, top shelf
Item 3, weapons & ammo - the green circled "3" in the gun safe
Item 4, water & filters - the blue circled "4" in the garage cabinet
and so on.
Schematic plan of house, what the item is, where it is, etc.
In case you've got help for packing (spouse/gf/older kids/etc.):
"You grab the evens, and I'll grab the odds." etc.
But also because in times of stress, your memory and critical thinking goes to shit.
Having your brains on paper in front of your face saves time.
Easy is smooth, Smooth is fast.
If anyone's location enables them to stage them mostly all together side by side, to minimize where/how far each trip is, good for you.

 

3) Pre-packing some things is what I was getting at, not leaving the whole vehicle loaded 24/7/forever with everything. Unless you can afford that, and buying a surplus tank or APC.
A pre-packed map case should already be in the car. Fits under the seat in most vehicles. Then all you'd have to grab for an evac is the GPS, radios, phone gear, etc. and batts.
And while you don't need 5 jerry cans of water in the car all the time, putting in a really good Katadyn etc. filter takes up about the space of a flashlight, but gets you water anytime or place if you've got anything wet to filter. And 2.5 gal mil-spec style water jugs are 2 1/2 days of water for 1 person in a space a little bigger than a .50 cal ammo can, and much sturdier than a milk jug.

Just saying, if there's anything that can live just as well in the car as at home, or you have the means to have two of something (can opener, water filter, whatever) then having one in the car already saves you trips, which is time, which could get you out alive, or ahead of the rush, and in much better shape at the other end.

Pack your car like a firefighter packs a truck, or a movie prop guy packs his prop van: take everything you might need that'll fit, because once you get there, you don't know what you'll find, and what you will need. And you never know what's really going to happen to you once you leave the garage.

The car all-the-time kit's another topic/post, but back in the day, I could fit a whole lot of emergency goodness in one laundry-basket sized Rubbermaid tote bin.

I once had a regular driving territory every week that took me from L.A. to the Colorado River and back, including beach/ocean area, oak chaparral, forested mountains in the snow line, and Sonoran desert. And the same for movie work, for years and ongoing, everywhere in SoCal from Santa Barbara to San Diego to Death Valley To Vegas to Salton Sea, on dirt roads, at the beach, in a desert lake bed, and at 7000' in the mountains, many/most times miles from cell reception or anything like civilization. I could leave in sunshine and be sitting in fresh snow, sleet, or freezing rain, same day; or leave in marine layer clouds, and spend the day in 110-degree desert, followed by 60-degree desert night. One winter day I left Furnace Creek in Death Valley (-282 feet el.) at 70 degrees, and spent the day working at sea level above and outside the valley in a wind chill of 26 degrees (40 degrees outside, and 45+MPH winds).

 

Having "stuff" in the car is the difference between a day trip, and a survival ordeal.

Best regards,
Aesop

Bug Out Packing

Between recent events in the Houston area, and this post by Ryan at his Total Survivalist Blog (formerly Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest), the topic of packing to GTFO Of Dodge is floating around. (You should forgive that metaphorical pun.)

Some thoughts:

My bug-out prep would be one for 5 minutes and one for 30 minutes, but with kids, I could see a 15 minute instead of 5 becoming necessary.

It always takes more time to parade the troops.

Anything not important enough to grab and load in 30 minutes isn't vital anyways.
BTW, That's 10 3-minute round trips.

So besides figuring what you're carrying, break down those ten (or whatever, your house may be shorter trips than mine) trips into what you grab with each one, based again on triaging priorities. That way, if things get worse, you still got the most important stuff first.

i.e. Notional trip List

1) Important stuff - briefcase and B.O.B.
2) comms, backups, maps, compass, GPS, etc.
3) Weapons & ammo
4) Water and filters
5) shelter - tent, sleeping bags, etc.
6) medical
7) tools, traps, & gear
8) food
9) more clothes, boots, etc.
10) more food, water, addl. supplies

(And don't forget the carrier(s) for Fido and Fluffy, their food, bowls, leashes, waste management supplies, etc.!)

More trips?
Make a longer list, as appropriate.

Then print it out.
Then put a house plan map, with trip number items color-coded, circled, and pre-packed into appropriate bags/bundles, on the back side.
Then make several two-sided color copies.
Then laminate them, and put them in appropriate places.

Anything not hot/cold/time sensitive, as much as possible, should be pre-staged in the vehicle(s), which saves you needless trips.

(Oh, and it should go without saying, your vehicle(s) should already have a list of items always in them 24/7/365 - tools, spares, flares, fluids, fire ext., first aid kit, etc., and a schematic of where they're stored, and what needs to be checked/replaced, at least twice a year. Just like the .Mil has done with jeeps, trucks, HMMWVs, MRAPs, APCs, and tanks since we stopped using horses. Doing this on the changes back/forth from Daylight Savings Time, which is always a Sunday, gives you winter/summer changeovers, along with swapping out stored batteries, rotating stored food, and changing active batteries in your smoke and CO2 detectors, and checking your household fire extinguisher(s). All of which people have, right? RIGHT?)

Kids bags being "too hard" is a cop out.

If they grow that fast, just put one full set of clothes into the bag once a week with laundry, and swap 'em out. You're gonna wash them and fold 'em anyways, so it ain't that tough. Or even once a month.
So obviously what's really kickin' somebody's butt there is self-discipline.

Excuses are just wallpaper for a pile of crap.

The briefcase idea is always right, going back to the second Bond movie.
Having your passport/IDs, important stuff, emergency cash, and some handy weapons and gadgets in a Get Out Of Dodge case or carryall is Survival 101, going as far back as the WWI precursors to the OSS 100 years ago.

Go over each item on a monthly basis, i.e. one item per month.

E.g., on that list, in February, you'd put fresh road maps, topos, state gazeteers, etc. in your map case, put in fresh stored (NOT kept inside the devices) spare batts for your GPS and handhelds, make sure your personal CEOI (local freqs, buddies' freqs, cellphone, e-mail, and snail mail addys for family, friends, neighbors, important contacts - banks, utilities, credit card companies, insurance agents and companies, emergency resources - Poison control, doctors, hospitals, red cross, state and federal FEMA, and anything else you want/need/think is cool etc. is all up to date and current, laminated, duplicated, etc.

And everything should be in both paper copies, AND a bombproof/waterproof/disasterproof encrypted thumb drive or three. You should have some of those stored/buried/cached offsite in redundantly redundant places, with all your important records archived.

You can also fit more photos than anyone should own on the newer high-cap drives, and save yourself toting cartons of albums of otherwise irreplaceable family pics.

For one example, you can put one or more such drives in one of the cute anodized, o-ring sealed aluminum "pill carrier" tubes (Hint: they don't just hold pills), go to a close relative's house outside your region, unscrew the center latch of an interior door like a closet, get a paddle bit, and put a suitable hole into the jamb. Deposit the tube, put the latch back in place, screw it down on most of the screws, and epoxy in a broken-off dummy screw head for the remaining hole(s), and unless their house burns down or washes away too, it'll be there until you need it, or get old enough to go senile and forget you put it there.

If you have masonry bits and some camo skillz plus a glue gun, you can do this with a brick in a pile, a rock, a tree trunk or stump, a plug/switch box in conduit, or about 1000 other places. The places where you can stash stuff you might want, but don't want to carry are mainly only limited by your imagination.

And the fatter aluminum tubes about 3" long hold 30+ quarter-sized coins. Imagine pre-65 silver, or 1/4 oz. gold Canadian Maple leaf coins, and each one is a stash of $90-9000 US dollars of actual money. Just saying.

If you waited this long before you decided to go, you're a little behind the curve, aren't you?

Houston Rita evacuation, 2005. Which is why last-minute evac for Harvey woulda been mega-stupid. This evac killed 130+ people - before Rita even hit.
A day early is always better than an hour too late. Bring snacks, and a piddle bottle.

Your next mission: Your vehicle is already prepped, and in flawless mechanical condition, right?

Your next mission after that: having four to ten ways (P.A.C.E. Plan - Google it) to get out.

The next mission after that: having someplace - an actual destination, not just "in the hills up thar somewherez" - to actually go to.


(And this, boys and girls, is why we regularly read other people's blogs: they make us think, and none of us are smarter than ALL of us.)

Back To Basics

 Basic. Functional. Primitive. You can do better, and you should.

As entertaining as the political follies have been, they aren't going to help you in the long run. And at the rate people keep leaving the White House, the current occupant's chances for longevity are somewhat in doubt.
So that respite from the nanny-state may be over early, or economic challenges may become a wee bit more important than other distractions.

1) You need a cash float. A month or three, for tough times. ATMs go down, jobs disappear, accidents happen, etc. Cash is king.
The first thing guys going on overseas details do is max out their ATM withdrawal, because American greenbacks (so far) are accepted universally. Have a branch of The Bank Of Average Joe in your abode, whether you have a safe, mayonnaise jar, or under-the-mattress stash, but work out what you'd need for 30-90 days of no other options, and start stacking up $$$: 10s, 20s, and 50s to get to that amount. While 100s are always nice, they piss off store clerks, and you might not get change in interesting times. Start at one month, work on having three. It gives you options nothing else will. And if you couldn't make a better plan with 90 days to think it over, you have bigger problems.

2) Actual savings, in an actual savings account. You should be shooting at having a solid six months' worth of paychecks, in an account you don't touch. Nota bene it's worthless in a bank run, but for a thousand everyday problems, it wins handily. While you don't have your eggs all in one basket, you still have a nest egg in a basket. Otherwise a disaster, illness, employment change, etc., turns you into survival roadkill. You can't realistically do this in your twenties, but if you can't do it by your forties, you're already surviving by the skin of your teeth.

3) Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means. Pay off your debts. Live within your means.

4) Once you've gotten 1-3 in control, you can think about precious metals. Gold. Silver. And lead. Gold doesn't appreciate over time - it merely eliminates inflation. You could look it up. An ounce of gold now buys just about what an ounce of gold bought 50, 100, or 500 years ago. But ounces are generally too compact a store of wealth. Get real minted coins, but in fractional ounces: 1/10th, 1/4, or 1/2 ozs. are always better than 1 oz. Krugerands.,Maple Leafs, or Eagles. All are better than bullion ingots, which are, to most folks, just gold-plated lead in times of crisis.
Silver should be "junk silver", i.e. circulated pre-1965 U.S. dollars, halves, quarters, and dimes, which are 90% pure silver. And those ridges on the outside edge? Ben Franklin came up with those, to keep people from getting away with shaving the edges. Funny how great ideas never go out of style.
Lead is ammunition, and gets stored in ammo cans, in convenient common calibers.
And if you wouldn't store your lead supply in safety deposit box at the bank, then your gold and silver shouldn't be stored there either.

5) Stored where? Where you live, and can get to it in under an hour, unassisted, and with minimal hand tools, if that. If you have a home and a separate bolt hole, no more than 1/2 at each place. Cash is king, but cache is king too. (And if you never learned this, they're both pronounced the same way.)

6) Home and/or bolt hole need to be defensible. It's better if they're the same single place, but reality is that most of us (not everyone, mind, but the bulk of US population) live in cities. Which are poor prospects in most problems, sooner or later.
Defensible would mean you can fort in, and it should take tanks and artillery to pry you out.
If one guy in an old beater sedan could drive through your patio glass door, you're doing this wrong. Look at old (I'm talking medieval/renaissance-era) homes and houses. One or two study doors (something that would give a SWAT cop with a ram a day's work, and not just a second's pause. All a ram is, is a 4" sewer pipe filled with concrete, with handles. Brigands have used similar things for centuries.) that'd stop a mob cold. Minimal ground floor window openings. Too small to get into easily. Overhangs, you'll notice, made it harder to climb the walls. Shutters were functional, not decorative. Outside windows sited to view all the walls is ideal. If you have decorative "planters" on all sides that are shoulder-height, and 3-5' thick, planted with whatever (my suggestion is herbs, veggies, and thorny berries near windows), you have a house that's proof against bullets, rockets, tanks and APCs.
Seriously consider some defensive improvements that won't piss off the neighbors, as you can do so. A prefab suburbia-box was designed to be quick and cheap, not secure.
Darker times than the 1900s in Anytown USA - which civilization dictated most urban/suburban architecture - may return; plan ahead. There's also a reason log cabins, and sod houses were the norm in injun country on the American frontiers. It's tough to shoot through or burn down either one.

7) Self-sufficiency. See/get/follow this book. The best $10 you'll ever spend. The spin-offs (except "Building projects", which was greedy publisher's sequel-mania packing a $16 book with $1 worth of information) are mostly four-star too.
Once you have defensible shelter, you need a way to keep it all going. Try this method out on whatever patch you're on, like your life depended on it. It just might.

8) Water. Food. Power. Tools. Weapons. Food production/procurement. Communications. Skills and trades. Every one of these have been post topics, or whole books. Even whole racks of books. If you thought education ended after you got your last diploma, welcome to the New Reality. You will be a renaissance man (or woman)/jack-of-all-trades, with lifetime learning tasks, or you'll be X-ed out of the gene pool. As Heinlein noted at the end of an always appropriate quote from the master: "Specialization is for insects."

9) Fallback occupations. The last item leads inexorably to this one. You should have alternative ways to survive, and even thrive. Gaining knowledge and skills gives you options, so that when - not if - changes come, you can adapt, overcome, and survive. If you can build walls, frame houses, run plumbing or wiring, drill wells, weld, etc. ad infinitum, you will never starve amongst your fellow earth-dwellers. And if you can raise enough food to feed a family, you can probably raise enough for two or ten more, and sell the excess for ready cash, even in the worst of times. Read FerFal's or Selco's accounts of bartering for things in former Yugoslavia and Argentina amidst civil and economic meltdown. Eggs and meat, for instance, never go out of style, and rabbits and chickens can even be raised in a spare bedroom in an urban apartment, or inside a relatively tiny industrial space, with a minimal investment of time, effort, and forethought. And people will always pay money for fresh eggs, going back only 6000 years. Hell, in 99% of cities, it's even legal (if that even appears on your radar screen of concern). So have something, either a commodity, a skill, or both, that you could do if your business/job went away, because of fire, flood, tornado, civil unrest, economic collapse, etc.
What you do with that extra cash you make from your "hobby" now is between you, and the IRS.
Items 1 and 4 come to mind, but YMMV.

10) Thrive. The purpose of survival isn't just to keep shoveling food in your face until the day you stroke out. (Although for some people, that's all they're doing, even now.) It's to live. So now, and even if things get seriously FUBARed, live. LIVE.
Draw, paint, play music or write it, sculpt, write books and poetry, teach, travel, explore.
Life is an adventure. Sometimes it's the really shitty, gritty kind. Okay, so deal with that when you must. But the purpose of survival is to carry, by your life and work the culture, technology, knowledge and wisdom that 6,000 years of written history have brought you to. Do succeeding generations a favor, and expand that treasure trove, while you enrich your own existence. And pass it on to the next generation, with the bag a little fuller than the one handed to you. Starting with making sure there is a next generation, and a you.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

This $#!^ Ain't That Hard..."

great guest post at WRSA

"Genius" Comment of the Day:

Not another one of those “Only Infantry can do Infantry Shit..because Basic, and AIT! … RahRah!” articles.
This shit isn’t that hard.. just be in reasonable shape have serviceable equipment and have reasonable basic fire and maneuver skills.. and from there on the fog of war and serendipity takes over in most situations anyway, especially in the extra dose of chaos one can expect in domestic upheaval.
I would put a fireteam of 4 civilians that have been training with each other recently over some dudes who used to be in the infantry 15 years ago and havent done squat since then, any time of the day.
And twice on Sundays.

       Everyone in this picture, Every Swinging Richard, once said "This shit isn't that hard..."
No.

It’s another one of those
“If you’ve been to twenty tacticool weekends, SPC Slick kicked your experience curve before he got out of basic training. A year ago.

And he’s twenty-thirty-forty years younger than you, can ruck the fuck out of you, even hungover on Tuesday after a three-day weekend drunk, and is too stupid to quit or be scared of you, because the part of his brain where common sense and mortality lives won’t grow in for another six years, which is true for 19-year-olds forever, whereas every year, Time is beating your dick into the ground.” articles.

Math and common sense are hard-assed like that.

Back when we were scrappy, our mostly irregular army outlasted the shit out of a world-class army, and it took substantial support from a major power (look up some time how broke France went doing it, and why the peasants there revolted shortly afterwards) to help us do it.

And at least twice, we’ve won every battle and still lost the war by being outlasted by scrawny, stringy, illiterate peasant hardasses too stupid to quit, but perfectly happy to drop an occasional random round into your ass from a quarter/half-mile away, addressed “To Whom It May Concern”, or bury a vanload of explosives in the road and light your shit up week in, week out, for a decade and more, given five unobserved minutes.

The point being, train to your strengths.
Which if you aren’t somewhere between 18 year-old-recruit and 48-year old about-to-retire sergeant major age, does not mean trying to replicate being a JSOC ninja stud door-kicker, or the Airborne Ranger you might have been 3 to 5 presidents ago. Or never were, and never will be.
Ain’t. Gonna. Work.

But those teenage fuck-authority neighbor’s teenaged shits down the road may be your go-to guys if things get sporty. And come the day, they might really find a safe bed, a dry cave or basement, a hot meal, a place to heal up, a barrel full of supplies, fresh socks and a new pair of boots, or some really nifty intel on OPFOR to be pretty effing awesome.

So maybe wrap your head around what you can do, instead of taking offense at some truth on what you can’t, and won’t.

Anybody can charge machineguns. Some are even young and stupid enough to do it.

But ain’t nobody who can’t learn how to build a field fortified bunker, learn to cache a barrel full of food, or ammunition, or medical supplies, or boots and utes, socks, and underpants, or start making up local, district/county, state, and regional intel files on everything and everyone of interest within miles of their front door, come TSHTF.

SF, or the media at least, thinks they train Green Berets every year during Robin Sage.

What they’ve really done is make a multi-county area of NC effing Ph.D.s in guerrilla warfare, and I’m talking about the farmers and shopkeepers and garage mechanics who role-play their support force and ersatz insurgent commandos.

Guys who can - and do - buy, beg, borrow, steal, or stash all the stuff somebody'd need to run a guerrilla war.

Read up on that, and tell me how you’d favor 4 guys who train together, vs. 50 other good old boys with pickup trucks who’d keep them hidden, informed, supplied, fed, safe, and mobile, and can have their pick of which 4 guys they’ll choose work with.