Humanitarian Daily Ration

Marv ordered some MRE's and got HDR's.

He gave me one and I started trying it today.

There are two entrees.  Lentil stew and pasta in tomato sauce. 

The lentil stew is BLAND even with the entire packet of red chili peppers added.

The crackers are unsalted.

The thing that sounds like it's a pop tart from the description is literally an unfrosted Pop-Tart!

There's nothing in it that I've tried that's horrible. 

I have not tried the pasta, yet, because the lentils were very filling.  I worry about how bland they're going to be based on the lentils, but I haven't used the salt and pepper packets yet.

There's a shortbread cookie, fig bars, peanut butter and strawberry jam yet to try! 

UPS Batteries

The main UPS is a CyberPower 1,500w unit I bought from Wal Mart right before Milton came through in October 2024.

I replaced the APC 600w unit in the garage with a CyberPower 425w in September 2025.

I bought new batteries for the dead APC 1,500w in September 2025, it's in storage.  I don't remember when I purchased it originally, but this might be the second set of batteries.

I replaced the battery in the dead APC 600w (originally purchased in September 2020) in September 2025 and it was in storage until tonight when I finally admitted the Amazon Basics 400w UPS from February 2023 wasn't surviving even minor power interruptions.

This is me putting this information in one place so I can, hopefully, find it later.

Deep Stacking

While I don't have the proverbial "ammo fort" made from crates and ammo-boxes, I do have a fair amount of ammo here.

Some of it is from the wild variety of chamberings in the safe.

A thread about the prices of 5.45x39mm made me think about how deep one should stack their ammo supply.

I am happy with how I am doing it.

For the seldom shot guns, a couple of boxes gets me by.

The stuff we shoot a lot, we stock more.

And run out of more...

And it is segregated into what I, jokingly, call training and warshot.

For 9mm the price difference between the carry ammo and the practice ammo is significant.

So we don't shoot that carry ammo as often, just blast through the ammo we'd been carrying occasionally and replace it with fresh.  Not that it's mattered to get fresh ammo, the lint stained stuff has always fired. 

But I would say that if the news were to report on all the ammo here, they'd call it an arsenal or something of the sort. 

Trying To Stack Them Deep

A problem with having a modern gun for carry is the original manufacturer is the sole supplier of magazines for them because the place you normally get them cheaper is the actual manufacturer!

Pistol mags are hovering around $43ish for our M&P 9 2.0 Compacts.  Based on the markings, Mecgar makes them and they'd be about $30 each... but S&W appears to have a no-compete clause in the contract.

Having gotten accustomed to $15 magazines for AR's, it's a bit of sticker shock.

Most of the handguns around here get by on three or four magazines per gun because they don't get out much.  Some as few as two magazines!

I think I should have more available for the guns that get shot more regular like. 

We will endeavor to persevere! 

Other Methods

Can openers!

Not A Fork Tailed Devil

Actually used a P-38 to open a can, instead of posing one next to a pull-tab can...

It is not difficult.  It's a bit more tedious because I really couldn't set up a rhythm the way it cuts.

It's set, cut, set, cut.  You don't get the cut-slide motion like with the Swiss Army knife.

The edges are far rougher too.  I can now see what they were modeling from cartoons showing open tin cans!

If you have a P-38 to open cans you will not starve.  Open a few and you will seek an easier method.

I think I'm going to try the P-51 tomorrow.

Update: I was going the wrong direction!  If you go counterclockwise around the can, it's set-cut.  Going clockwise lets you set up a rhythm!  I experimented with the already opened can's bottom side.  The bigger paddle and blade on the P-51 is MUCH nicer.

Just For Fun

 Having a can opener on your Swiss army knife and USING the can opener on your Swiss army knife are different things.

It still kind of surprises me how fast and easy the knife's opener is.

 

Springy

So far, all of the 30-round AR magazines I've taken apart, except two, use the bog-standard USGI pattern spring that's been around since 1967.

Ironically, those exceptions are USGI!

The gray body, tan follower and the tan body, blue follower magazines use a different spring.

Organize your preps accordingly! 

Lucifer's Hammer

A plot point from the book Lucifer's Hammer is the constant reassurances that the comet is going to miss... right up until it hits.

Every time I read the reduced chance of 2024 YR4 hitting I think of Niven and Pournelle's book.

Yay?

 

Scam

I've been reading in several places that the tank exchange places only give you 15lb in a 20lb tank of propane.

The local Home Depot wants $23 for an exchange and 3.6 gallons.

The local U-Haul sold me 4.5 gallons (18.5 lb.) for less than $17.

Prep Fail

I'm working on a GURPS character.

I forgot to copy the spreadsheet I'm using to the laptop from the NAS before we shut things down to save load on the UPS prior to the storm.

DOH!

If you're going to fail at a prep, forgetting an entertainment item is what you should forget.

On the plus side, I've learned how to silence the alarm on a Cyberpower UPS telling me that the power is off (I fucking know, you stupid machine) and all of the instructions for an Amazon Basics UPS call for more than one button or are just wrong about a double tap of the ONLY button does the trick.

We Have POWER!

We had a generator this time, so the return of the mains was a smaller thing than it might have been.

In fact, I was eating a waffle that The Lovely Harvey had just made... with an electric waffle iron, when the power returned.

Being the cynical Floridians we are, we waited nearly 20 minutes after the power came back before we shut the gennie down and plugged our stuff back into the wall.

Adding to the preparedness:  The in-laws have a generator now!  It was hard to find gas for it, but Home Depot had generators for sale and my father-in-law pounced on it.

He'd been borrowing Marvyn's spare Honda generator to that point and it felt nice to end that imposition.

He got to enjoy his new generator a whole hour before the mains were restored...

The new talismans list is to have ice in every cooler and a generator at every home.

Marv has two Hondas.  We have our Champion.  In-Laws have a... forgot the brand.

We're ready!

After Action Report

We've survived!

Power is still out, the trees the crew from Texas half assed cleared for Helene finished the job they'd started. 

The roof looks fine.  No leaks. 

The cute Halloween flags we hung on the fence gates provided enough wind resistance for then to force the latches. 

All in all, we came out fine.

Generator is making coffee and charging batteries as I swipe.  Cell phone connectivity only.

Hunkered Down

Got gas in Moxie and The Beast.

Got all our gas cans filled with gas.

Got the shutters on.

Even have a deck of cards.

Got 8 books left in a series I'm reading.

Got everyone's meds except Harvey's weekly shot and we don't need it until Friday.

Hopefully the Legos I ordered will show up tomorrow so I have them to build if the power's off.

Tricking The Technology

The internet is the phone here.  That's true most everywhere now.

When the power goes out, the internet provider provided box has a battery to make sure we can still call out.

That battery lasts for days.

But the box kills the internet after 15 minutes.

So we have the battery box plugged into a battery backup to make it think the power is still on so we retain internet.

This is paired with UPS's on the routers.

We got almost 2 hours of internet with a dying UPS.

I'd like to upgrade that capability.  I'd love to get 24 hours of up time without touching the generator.

Mystery Prepping

There are things we do to get ready for hurricanes that confuse my father in law.

I, belatedly, bought 100 lb. of ice for our two big coolers.

He was all, "what do we need that for?" when we had Marv's generator charging up the fridges.

He's not getting that the point of laying in this stuff is to have it when you need it.

Getting it before you need it is how you have it when you need it, because everyone else will be realizing they need it at about the same time.

So we get ice.

So we stock up on insulin.

So we have several days of shelf stable grub.

So we have jugs and bottles of potable water.

So we have ammo and loaded magazines.

So we top up all the fuel containers.

You might not get the luxury of getting more indefinitely.

But father in law's disconnect really hit when we tossed the ice, unused.

"Why did you buy all that if you weren't going to use it?"

Well, cooler #1 all melted because you didn't check to see if the lid was secure.

Cooler #2 didn't get cleaned before ice got put into it because my helper just started dumping ice...

I would have used the ice in those coolers to mix drinks if some simple precautions were taken!

Prep Odds

No, we did not have a generator.  Harvey has lived her for 39 years and I for 27, we've never needed one.

We've wanted one, but the odds of NEEDING one were still quite low.

Prolly going to buy my buddy's so he can upgrade though.

I've never owned a rain gauge.  I just never had even idle curiosity about how much it rained.  Plus I'd probably forget to check/reset it making it useless.

We forgot to load up on ice this round, that was a mistake.  Colored by the lack of likely direct effect (accurate forecast) and a history of the power staying on; we got complacent.

Harvey thinks she was awakened by someone trying the front door at 0430 Friday.

I was just settling for bed, so hopefully she was hearing me.

When I was sitting out in Moxie charging phones and USB battery packs between 1200 and 0400 I did see a lot of people walking around the neighborhood.  It didn't look nefarious, mostly looking curious about how the area had fared.

Yes, I had a gun on me.  No, it was not a pistol.

Sitting In The Dark

Something that comes to mind, sitting here in the dark is how few lumens you really need on your weapon light when your eyes are acclimated to the dark. 

Gunwriters keep telling us we need more, but they're going from a well lit space to dark and back in short order at their gun schools.

I don't think they've really thought this through while listening to law enforcement biased trainers.

THEY Get To Have Nuke Plants?

Microsoft is going to get to use all of the output from Three Mile Island, but we scumbag unwashed normies have to use wind and solar to recharge our government mandated electric cars?

Why can't we all use nuclear power?

Oh, the same fucking morons who are forcing us to abandon perfectly functional technologies for unreliable boondoggles.

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion cars.

There's nothing wrong with burning coal or natural gas to make steam to spin turbines.

There's never been anything wrong with using fission to boil water to spin turbines.

I cannot shake the idea that the entire impetus behind EV's is control and keeping us within a small circle around where we live.

Even worse, you can disable EV charging remotely where you can't stop someone with a fossil fueled vehicle from storing a meaningful quantity of fuel to escape that small radius.

I stopped feeling paranoid about this watching one paranoid conspiracy theory after another turn out to be valid in 2020.

Looter Repellant Standing By

 

Fresh batteries, water in the canteen.  Lots of dust and cat hair removed (but not near all of it).

Ready for the worst case scenario.

A scenario which is increasingly unlikely as the storm goes past.

What's that line?  Better to have it and not need it...