Vehicle Kits, Get Home Bags, Modularity and Systems
My get home bag tends to live in our vehicle because it is how I get places and I am rarely far from it. If riding in a carpool it and my normal EDC bag of junk like a coat, lunch, etc get combined and a few things might get stashed at work, like a spare functional set of clothes and footwear.
I do usually keep some stuff in our vehicle. There is a Rubbermaid tub with a flashlight, spare batteries, some tools, coats, some water, some oil and coolant, first aid kit, warning triangles, etc in the back. We also each have dedicated bags with things like a knife, light, lighter, etc. To be honest at some point I went a bit overboard. The back of our full sized SUV is almost full of “my crazy stuff” as Wifey calls it. Things definitely need to get pared down however considering our timeline here it is more like they will be reassembled leaner and meaner on the other end.
Honestly I focus a lot more on the ‘kit’ than the vehicle part. The vehicle is where this stuff lives as it is a good place to haul stuff and is usually pretty close at hand. I think the contents of a “vehicle kit” could be easily broken down into stuff for you and stuff for the vehicle. The contents of both kits should logically flow from your overall situation. If you might get stuck for 4-5 days in the hinter boonies during a frigid winter a lot more kit is required than if you work 5 miles from home in balmy South Carolina. Your vehicle side of the kit’s contents will depend on need and skill. If you are a mechanic who regularly drives a 30 year old truck in very isolated areas it would be hard to have too comprehensive of a kit. On the other hand if you aren’t very handy and drive a newish reliable car on frequently traveled roads very little stuff is needed.
Back to Get Home Bags. John Mosby recently talked about a personal shortcoming in the GHB/ vehicle kit area. Definitely worth reading and if it applies to you taking action. Read about my GHB development here. I think the concept of a get home bag is sound. However, it’s contents need to fit your situation and the distances you travel from home. My get home bag will shortly be put into a dedicated bag whose entire job is to sit vigilantly in my vehicle. Some basic survival stuff will still live in my EDC bag because I haul it around a lot. A knife, flashlight, lighter, matches, a few granola bars, etc do not take up much space.
My get home bag is really stripped down and minimalist. This works because I stick pretty near home far more often than not. If I worked 50 miles from home or regularly traveled long distances a more substantial kit would be necessary.
I think different kits might fit better for different situations. I have a stripped out assault pack right now just so I could be a bit more comfortable on a long walk home. If I was going 50-100 miles from home something more akin to a backpacking setup/ BOB/ rucksack would make sense. The kind of thing that has a couple days of water, food for several days and enough clothing/ gear to meet all of your basic needs for a pretty long time. Maybe I don’t want to keep that bag (and the one for the Mrs.) in our vehicle all the time since we really don’t need it that often. If we went driving across rural northwestern Canada in the winter more gear would be prudent.
I think that using systems which already exist may be the best way to fit this need. No point in reinventing the wheel here. Sticking with EDC/GHB a la assault pack/ BOB aka rucksack somewhat layered systems may be a good way to fit a wide variety of potential situations/ needs.
Anyway those are my thoughts on kits today.
A Great Movie, a Great Blade and Dirty Fun
I have been carrying my cool new Benchmade Griptillian 551 for about a week now. It is still a bit premature for a full review but I only have good things to say about it. Until I got this knife benchmade is the only major manufacturer I hadn’t owned. To be honest the price point was higher than I was willing to go for a knife. Two things have changed in that regard. The first is the griptillian model(s) which come in around a hundred bucks instead of more like $150+. Secondly since getting out of school and starting a real job my situation has changed over the last few years. I don’t buy knives I would hesitate to use or would be stressed to replace if they were lost or stolen. The dollar value of that has come up over time from about $50 to $100. Between those two now I have a benchmade folder.
Today I needed a part for our vehicle. Without sufficient time to order it online and well I like saving money. Naturally this led me to the junk yard. I forgot to dress down sufficiently for the occasion and had to be careful not to get oily grit or grease on my clothes. Not that they are fancy or anything but worn out jeans and an old t shirt would have worked better. Anyway after some looking I found the part. I yelled to the guy working there who was going about his work to see how much he wanted. I saw his hand go up and it looked like he was saying 5. I said I would leave the money in the office and then he made an exaggerated wave. Turns out he was telling me to just take it. So that was pretty cool.
Going even further from any sort of point I have been enjoying ale’s a lot more lately. Can’t wait to get back to America and start brewing again. Also hummus is pretty awesome and relative to other comparable options healthy and guilt free.
Running to the Store, Vehicle Kits and Cases
I have had some serious good fortune to stumble into some quality cases lately such as a hardigg footlocker, and a genuine halliburton briefcase. The fundamental purpose of cases is, just like any sort of packaging, to contain and protect things. Different stuff has different needs. Ammunition and food need to be protected from moisture and oxygen. Ammo cans and big plastic buckets fill these needs nicely. Neither of these products are particularly vulnerable to impact or shock (like bouncing around the back of a truck, not electric) within reason.
However some items are and they require different sorts of containers. Of course you could say wrap an item in bubble wrap and stick it into an ammo can or pursue some other home solution. I can speak about pelican/ hardigg cases with some experience. These products are great but rather expensive. There are other companies like Otter that offer seemingly comparable products at slightly lower prices but I have not used them.
I look at containers as insurance for the items inside. As such it is worth paying attention to the costs involved. A $20 case to hold a couple hundred dollar camera makes sense, especially if the last camera and maybe one before that would still be alive if it had been in such a case. A couple hundred dollar case to protect a hundred dollar Mosin Nagant wouldn’t make sense like it would for say a Steyre SSG with a Night Force scope.
Like a lot of folks I have accumulated a few fairly expensive electronics. A GPS, some radios and a solar charger to be specific, as well as the usual camera, video camera, laptops, kindles, etc. Probably a few thousand dollars in stuff and we don’t have anything really cool like Gen 3 night vision, FLIR, etc (yet!). If we had to leave in a hurry during a nasty storm or whatever a big pelican case to put that stuff into would make the odds of our equipment surviving go up significantly. For small items that you want to use a lot like camera’s a little case is pretty darn handy. Also they are lockable and fairly secure which could be useful.
Personally most of my case needs are met for the time being. I would like a nice rifle case big enough to squeeze a pistol and just maybe a second long gun in. Being able to securely move around a couple guns and have them take some knocks with minimal risk of losing zero appeals to me.
Anyway you might want to put some consideration into how you will protect valuable and useful but relatively fragile stuff under less than optimal conditions. A few cases may be in order.
Random Thoughts on Kits
I have noticed a few things about kits lately that seem worth discussing:
The name a person uses for a specific kit almost meaningless but we have covered that already. It’s purpose is probably a lot more meaningful anyway.
There seems to two sort of schools when it comes to kits. There is the “generic” kit school and the specially designed school. The generic kit folks would say that a get home bag aka GHB should have these things. The specially designed folks would want to know a bunch of stuff like where you live, how far you are trying to go, what your plan is, etc. I think they are both sort of right. The generic kit folks are right in that they probably give a 75% solution for most people. Kits need stuff like a knife, fire, water and water purification, shelter (clothes and or sleeping), etc in varying quantities. The specialized folks are (outside of a rare person with terribly unrealistic plan) right in that kits should be driven by your skills, situation and plans. More often than not, excluding a rare person with a really unique situation, the specialists just end up adding and/ or subtracting a few things from the generic kit lists anyway.
In putting things together I have definitely realized you need redundancy in common items. I do believe in a sort of modular nesting concept where your EDC blends into a sort of survival kit, which flows into a get home bag, maybe all this contributes in some way to a BOB, etc. However life doesn’t always work that way and each kit should be able to stand alone, certainly in key areas.
That means you probably need stuff like knifes, flashlights, water bottles, etc in some quantities. Not necessarily the same exact items but broad areas to fit different kits. The perfect flashlight to be on your key chain is not the one you want to use to set up camp at midnight. This means you probably want to think about the roles and expectations of tools in different kits.
To further complicate things you really want stuff in kits to be dedicated equipment. To me the whole point of a kit is having a thought through and organized set of stuff ready to go and in the right place when you need it. Otherwise you don’t have a kit so much as a bunch of good stuff strewn all over your house, car, storage area, etc all. This means you either need to be really good about borrowing and replacing stuff, which nobody ever actually does, or have additional redundant stuff for common use.
The exact bar for what to get a spare of and what not to is based on our situation. For most people I think something like $50 or so makes sense. So that means the knife/ flashlight/ socks/ waterbottle/ etc all in a kit need to stay there. Certainly in the case of big ticket items like GPS’s, guns, sleeping systems, etc common sense dictates some things may have to be added to the kit before taking it out or borrowed as needed. A big prominent tag on the front of a bag that says what to add and where it is located is a good way to make sure you remember those items.
Since most of the stuff we are talking about here is fairly inexpensive this redundancy really isn’t a big issue. Also it is helpful with overall redundancy in that if you have 4 good knives the odds you will end up losing or breaking them all is slim. The process of figuring out what works well for each nitche could help the old “equip a friend” stash. A knife/ flashlight/ pouch which is slightly less than perfect for your situation is a lot better than no knife/ flashlight/ pouch.
Another thing that it is worth remembering is that you don’t have to get the absolutely perfect best stuff on the market right away. I certainly do not recommend junk as it is alwys false economics. The thing is that you can replace servicable stuff with better stuff piece by piece over time. A $40 knife can be replaced by a better (or maybe just cooler if we are being honest) $85 knife around your birthday or a $75 on sale pack can be replaced by a perfect $400 pack when you have taken care of some other things and have the ever rare surplus cash lying around. This will also help with the whole redundancy thing and the “equip a friend” stash.
Even if you are not so worried about getting home or bugging out or whatever putting together kits is a pretty good way to really look at what you need in context instead of just a bunch of stuff on some big list.
In terms of general themes on the short term you are mostly looking at disposable stuff. You are carrying food to get you to wherever. Water is sort of an exception because it is so darn heavy. For just about any sort of plan you need to be able to make questionable water safe to drink. TP, baby wipes and generally stuff that is going to be consumed is the short term answer. All kits need some of this stuff if just for emergencies and convenience. However at some point a plan just cannot be supported by stuff on your back and you need to transition to things to get food, make shelter, etc.
Maybe you have a ridiculous cross country bug out planned. Of course you hope to use a vehicle and may even have some caches but the odds of that failing or needing to take substantial detours are high. In any case for this type of situation stuff like a .22 rifle, fishing gear, some traps, etc would probably be good to have. Even if you are super duper prepared and live at your “retreat” having a “grab in case of being overrun” bag is probably smart. Anyway that is all I have to say about that.
Thoughts?
I Can Haz Bicycle
My plans for it are as alternate transportation. Since my old car got scrapped we have 1 vehicle here and I haven’t been doing a great job of sharing during the work week. Walking is fine but it takes time which is pretty valuable. A bike will let me buy back some time and is also kind of fun in nice weather. I did a test ride and can conservatively get to work in about 1/4 of the time the walk takes.
The bike is pretty low speed/ high drag. We try not to spend a bunch of money on stuff we aren’t sure is going to get used and the cost was just right. Worst case we are out $100 bucks. The goal is to have a bike for me to use not to get the best bike ever. I have no delusions about it being TEOTWAWKI or Tour De France ready so that is OK. You can always put more money into stuff later.
So Elmo’s Riding! Yes, I have a toddler so we watch the same kid cartoons over and over again and they gets stuck in my head. Also lets be honest that Elmo is actually pretty awesome.
Anyway I got a bike today. I may do some shopping for a rack or basket down the road.
Stuff From The Interwebz
A very nice minimalist chest rig for an AK. I think they also make a 4 mag model. I will probably pick up one of these when I get around to filling out my whole AK setup.
A gal talks about how to carry a gun and a baby. I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for women who carry handguns that are not a) subcompact/ cracker jack box sized or b) in a diminutive caliber like .32 or .380. She is not a big lady or wearing a “I have a gun vest” or a parka.
Highlight, quote and understatement of the day “if your child can get to the trigger that is bad.” My .02 cents on that topic. First put on your gun then grab the kid. Kid doesn’t go where the gun is because it wouldn’t be comfortable for everybody involved. I carry appendix inside waist band slightly to the right. Kiddo either goes on the left hip if he is just riding or in my chest area if I am doing the comforting screaming baby thing. Since we are talking about kids and guns it is worth rehashing my core belief on this topic. Simply put guns are secured or under the physical control of an adult. In other words lock it up or carry it.
Today I have been intrigued by Iceland’s reaction to the whole great recession/ economic collapse thing. 1, 2, 3.
Also I stumbled into a new blog Jerking the Trigger andreceived an email about the Open Garden project.
Hope that stuff gives you something to read and enjoy or at least think about. Have a great weekend.
Simplicity
New Years Resolutions IPR #2
Lined through are completed.
My goals for this year.
Personal:
1. Pay more attention to my wife.
2. Travel a lot.
Personal Stuff:
3. We can use a few smaller things like a new TV and another laptop. The main push however is to get a reliable second car which we pay cash for. The first car is still plugging along but I think when we get a better second one and it is relegated exclusively taking me to work and back its life would be greatly extended.
Financial:
4. Stash some more Euro’s. Say E400 or so.
5. Contribute 10% of our total take home to retirement.
6. Stash at least a half an ounce of gold and 40 ounces of silver.
7. Continue to not make stupid choices.
+I do not have any direct goals when it comes to saving money aside from those above. Depending on how Wifey’s job goes (how many hours she gets) saving for the much needed reliable car might take 2-3 months or as much as 8 months. If the car gets purchased earlier we will be able to save more, in part because it means we would be making more.
Skills:8. Take an automotive class. They offer them on base and I need to know more about car repair.
This one got replaced by brewing some beer. 9. Be able to setup and trouble shoot a small solar setup. Sorta mute since I went with a solar charger and a bunch of eneloop batteries.
Preparedness Stuff :10. A good radio that can pick up everything. Probably a Grundig.11. Maybe a Berkey water filter and maybe some spare elements for it and the portable filter.12. A basic solar setup.
Gun Stuff:
12. Buy a full case of .223
13. Buy a full case of 9mm. (I am going to call this complete because it is funded)
14. Glock 9mm mags. At least 10 and ideally closer to 20.
15. Some M1a mags. At least 10 and ideally closer to 20.
16. A few more spare parts and at least one AR15 full bolt carrier group.
Food Rotation:
17. Get a pressure canning setup and can something. In reality we will almost certainly can more than one thing but it is a very clear is you is or is you ain’t goal all the same.
18. Get a dehydrator and dehydrate something. Jerky is good and so are banana slices.
And Just To Get To An Even 20……
19. Get a subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine and otherwise work on my self sufficiency/ preparedness library.
20. Join a gun rights organization.
I would say my goals start at the top in terms of priority and work more or less downward from there. I put more small stuff on here than last time. I tried to outline everything I would like to purchase which costs over a couple hundred bucks. That is mostly because I am trying to purchase stuff in a more dispassionate manner and plan ahead.
Time for discussion. Things are going pretty well. All the more expensive goals have been met. I don’t think the canning is going to happen. We would have to order everything including jars and have it shipped here. That really takes any cost benefit out of the thing and would in fact make it cost us money. Not something I am willing to do in that situation.
The brewing kit is here I am just at an awkward busy time so won’t be able to brew for about a month. Really wish I could do it this weekend but putting it into a secondary ferment and then bottling has a pretty specific time line. Some spare parts and the silver should be easy enough. Given that gold might have officially gone insane I’m just going to buy silver anyway.
Our big push right now is paying off my student loan. I don’t think it is quite going to happen this year but it will be close. Also I have some other ideas and am working some stuff. A IIIA bullet proof vest and maybe some sort of an optic might be my future.
Oh yeah and click on my advertisers links and buy lots of their stuff.
Thoughts?
Stop Backing Yourself Into a Corner
One of the wonderful things about America is that it is a very free country. Maybe not quite as free as it was at some other point but people living in the good ole USA have more rights, protections and freedom to do what they please than in just about every other country in the world.
So often people back themselves into a corner in terms of lifestyle and the resulting debt/ expenses. They have to live in this kind of house, drive this type of vehicle (or even a vehicle at all), charge stuff they can’t afford and whatever. The result is that they are in an uncomfortable situation. These folks often turn around and blame everybody but themselves for their circumstances. It is a big picture version of eating a big mac and extra jumbo fries with a large milkshake for lunch every day and blaming other people for why you are fat.
If you don’t like the amount of money you can make then get a degree or some certification or skill to become more valuable to an employer or customer. It is a lot more productive than whining. If you do not want a mortgage then find some kind of alternate housing you can afford to pay cash for. Maybe get a little piece of land paid for free and clear. Hate the idea of an HOA then don’t buy a house in one. If zoning restrictions in your current location prevent this kind of action and you really still want to do it then MOVE to somewhere you can do what you want. If you want to home school your kids then move to a home school friendly area. Don’t like the tax laws in your state? Move to a different one. Don’t like your city/ states gun laws? Vote with your feet. If you want to be able to shoot an AK-47 from the front porch naked at 3 in the morning then start in a state that is cool with the AK-47 and then find a place with no nearby neighbors. If you don’t want to deal with car insurance, registration and such then don’t have a car. Live within biking/ walking range or public transport routes to the places you need to go. Maybe arrange to go to Costco with a cool neighbor who has a big van every month or two. If you don’t want a credit card then don’t have one. Don’t like debt; too easy simply do not borrow money from anybody. If you hate paying taxes then make conscious (legal of course) choices to limit your tax liability. This is checkers, not chess. Simply make choices to not be involved in things you don’t want to be involved with and to be in the situation you want to be in.
Of course because this is simple doesn’t mean it is easy. Just like dieting or household budgets knowing what you should do and easy implimentation are very different things. Every decision has second and third order effects. You might like some parts of an area (family, work, recreation, etc) and hate the restrictive laws. Not having a vehicle sucks but you don’t need insurance or vehicle inspections. Living in a nice house is more spacious and comfortable than a travel trailer or a shack/ tent. Generally places where you can buy a piece of land for the price of a decent pistol and do whatever you want on it kind of suck. They are far from jobs, may not have water or are otherwise undesirable. Hence the name junk land.
The thing is that you have to make a choice as to what is more important. Often nice places to live where there are plenty of good jobs and fun things to do have expensive housing costs. So either move to a place where you can afford to live comfortably or stay where you are and gripe about the rent/ mortgage/ taxes.
The old saying about construction comes to mind; a job can be done fast, cheap and right but you only get to pick two of them. Inevitably there are difficult choices and compromises to be made on all fronts (housing, location, work, vehicles, debt, tax and gun laws, zoning, etc).
The important word in that last paragraph is CHOICES. I’m not telling you that you must do anything (though it would be nice if you clicked on one of our ads and suggested the blog to a friend;) but am telling you that you can choose. The real interesting part is that this stuff can snowball big time. If you don’t need to make a big rent/ mortgage payment then maybe you can quit that horrible job. You could then try a business idea that has been in your head for awhile. If you don’t need to impress people at that fancy job then maybe an older paid off vehicle (or no vehicle at all) will work just fine. With all that time you aren’t at work all kinds of things could be done.
Take some responsibility and ownership over your life. Figure out what is really important to you. Think outside the box and focus on what is important to you and your family, not the Johnson’s, or anybody else. Make the inevitable hard choices and create the kind of life that you really want to have.
Jericho and a Random Thoughts
I recently picked up Season One of Jericho off the DVD rack and watched it again. I enjoyed it immensely on the nice new TV. Yeah since it was network TV there wasn’t cannibalism, gang rape and massive violence but it was still good. Sorta got my thinking shaken up a bit. Even despite ones best intentions to prepare for a variety of scenarios it’s easy to slip into worrying about just one thing. I will order Season Two on the next Amazon order. TV here isn’t so good and that is a lot of entertainment for about $20. These days I am honestly more worried about economic troubles and inflation than anything else. Having my financial house in order, stashing some PM’s and such consume the majority of my preparation type thoughts.
Jericho got me thinking about other scenarios. Not just the dreaded EMP but a variety of more generic survivalist scenarios. There are a few odds and ends we can use. A couple more cans of gas and some propane would be good. If nothing else we just need to stash more fuel to give the SUV a comparable range as we would have had in the gas sipping Jalopy. As it is bigger and would hold more stuff, plus is more reliable makes its default BOV status a non decision. I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where we would just drive somewhere but it is better to have the option. In that respect $100 will greatly increase our preparedness level.
Also I would like to pick up a couple more Mag Lights, the big 3 D cell ones with the new LED bulbs. Yeah surefires and LED flashlights in general have spun the flashlight world on its head. Our total amount of flashlights is quite comfortable now but I rather like these. Their biggest benefit might be being big enough that they are hard to lose and easy to find. Also they are pretty darn rugged and make a good discrete impact weapon. Some more bedding would be nice. We have a mish mash of different blankets and sleeping bags and such but a few wool blankets would be nice.
Reconsidering non economic/ inflationary scenarios a little bit is a good thing.
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