| Feels like autumn |
[Apr. 30th, 2006|06:54 pm] |
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It's downright chilly out and kind of gloomy. My Husky is loving it! It seemed like a good day for stew, and I needed to use up the last of the canned beef from last November, so I have a nice big pot of beef stew going on the stove. I was going to make Yorkshires to go with it, but I seem to have succumbed to an attack of laziness now. Sundays would be so great if Mondays weren't work days. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 21st, 2006|08:51 pm] |
I went down to Douglas, GA, for a great combat medicine class last weekend. The course included IVs, thoracic needle-decompressions, traction splints, and a bizillion other things, as well as covering some of the latest paradigm shifts in combat trauma treatment (tourniquets are back in). I had to cut the weekend a bit short due to a family emergency, but outside of the invasive procedures, I already know a lot of the other stuff. A lot of first aid is pretty no-brainer anyway, or maybe I've just been teaching anatomy and physiology and transcribing medical reports for so long that it seems like it's obvious stuff.
The funniest part of the course was the field practice in treatment and evacuation of casualties under fire. If nothing else it was an excellent lesson in what can happen to a group that hasn't practiced together and worked out a communication system. Our first time out, we lost our point man, our medic, and a 15-year-old boy out of our group of about 20. Can you say mass casualties! We were also taught that the most important element of casualty treatment is the establishment of superior firepower, but I think they were preaching to the choir on that one! Of primary importance is not the ABCs but rather the completion of the mission. In all, it was very informative, a great opportunity to learn the sort of invasive techniques you can't learn from the Red Cross, and a whole lot of fun. If JRH offers the course again, I highly recommend it!
Of possible interest to some of you:
Check out the CAT tourniquet (designed for easy one-handed operation) http://www.narescue.com/Combat-Application-Tourniquet-CAT--P20C3.aspx
and the new Israeli bandage/pressure bandage/tourniquet. http://www.narescue.com/Emergency-Trauma-Dressing-ETD--P22C3.aspx (tuck the pressure bar under the final two wraps and twist to use as a tourniquet. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 25th, 2006|10:03 am] |
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Anyone else noticed how many of the precious metal dealers on the Internet have added sections about investing in precious metals for "survival purposes"? A few of these are what seem to be the large volume dealers, the ones that don't cater to those of us so poor we have to buy a few coins or rounds at a time. I wonder just how big and respectable the survival market has become to attract that level of awareness among dealers and that kind of attention. One even offers to provide a specialized financial adviser for those buying gold and silver for survival purposes, and at least one points out what happened in Argentina (could that have raised awareness?). Perhaps it was always there, and I just missed it, but as someone who remembers the old days, when the idea of "survival" anything was far out on the fringe, I'm always amazed to see the mindset and practice embraced. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 3rd, 2006|08:16 pm] |
Our gas bill this month was $8. Yep, eight! The gas company acknowledged that they had, in fact, overcharged us horrendously in December! I'm amazed. The last time we went through this with them, we had to argue for months over a monthly bill that said we'd used $6000 worth of gas! They finally admitted that their guy had read the meter backwards, but for 4 months they insisted we had used $6000 worth of gas in 30 days in our 1500 square foot house.
The rest of my day didn't go so well. Our pharmaceutical insurance was changed to Cigna, by all accounts the worst insurance company out there. They cover only 1/3 of my monthly prescription. I had to charge $324 worth of medication today and will have to charge another $324 before the month is out. In other words, if I can't find an alternative, I'm out of pocket $648 a month in medication if I want to be able to stay on my feet enough to hold a job. I think I can order it from FamilyMed cheaper, but the meds have to be kept between 54 and 80 degrees (or something close...don't remember exactly) or they're ruined (they're injections), so I'm very worried about having them mailed. I'm not a happy camper.
The pills are less expensive, but they've never worked very well for me, and there aren't any alternative meds that work at all. The pills may at least keep me on my feet enough to hold a job, though, so I may see about ordering some of those. Maybe I'll outsource my pharmacy to India. My medication has more than doubled in price in the last few years and that was after the government extended the company's patent so they could "recoup their research costs." The company raised the price anyway. My own research suggests that they raised the price so that they could indulge in heavy consumer-direct advertising and because knowing there wasn't a generic substitute, they knew insurance companies would pay for it. Meanwhile, the government coddles them and refuses to let us import our drugs. If capitalism is the argument for letting drug companies charge whatever the hell they want, no matter how ridiculous, then the government needs to get out of the way and let us order our meds from any manufacturer who markets them, foreign or domestic. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 27th, 2005|01:24 pm] |
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Wow! I just got a wonderful surprise gift from my friend, Ruthless RN, in Vermont. She and her daughter were my roomies when I went to Ohio for the combat medicine seminar. She works with textiles as a hobby, and the package from her contained a lovely hand-knit, hand-felted wool hat she'd made me, a couple of bottles of maple syrup, and a box of maple sugar candy! The hat was a perfect fit. Survivalist that I am, I immediately noticed that it's the same colors as the ganite outcroppings in this area. Ha! I can be camouflaged and, yet, stylish at the same time! It's a nice reminder of the trip, too, since it was unexpectedly cold, and we were all surprised by the weather (you know it's cold when the people from northern Vermont are complaining about it, too). I'd been moping around here, coming down with a cold and trying to read through my hideous Coke bottle bottom glasses instead of my contacts because my eye is irritated today and just sulking in general, when the dog alarm alerted me to the presence of a delivery man. Nothing like surprise goodies to brighten up one's day! |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 22nd, 2005|10:53 pm] |
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Yay! My little monster (that's him in the picture above) ate SIX mice today! Six! A few months ago he was so sick I was afraid he wouldn't make it. I had to feed him with a syringe. I suppose with some animals that would be a bonding experience. With him, it was more of a thrashing, biting, clawing, death rolling, spitting cat food in mom's hair kind of experience. I'm pretty sure his instinct to survive had roots in his dream of someday gnawing The Giant Hand off at the wrist. Now, he's fought his way back from death's door, and he's plump, ferocious, has had his first really perfect shed, and his appetite is great. I'm such a proud lizard mom! (P.S. For the sensitive: His mice are prekilled. No blood baths here.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 22nd, 2005|06:38 pm] |
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The guy from the Medical Corps course called me back. I'm now enrolled, and I now have to figure out how to get to the middle of nowhere (which, in case you've always wondered, is apparently Caldwell, OH) after work on a Thursday and back out again and home before work on Monday morning. Since I'm in Atlanta, this will clearly involve an airline and a rental car. It won't be cheap, but it looks like a fun all-in-one, hands-on kind of course. The guy I spoke with said it's "very, very hands on." It will also be a good continuing education activity to add to my file at work. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2005|05:02 pm] |
In acknowledgment of just how bad traffic is around here, I bought a folding bicycle to keep in the back of my truck. I only live about 8 miles from work, so a bike makes sense as an auxiliary, traffic-evading bug-out vehicle. My intention is to use it to get home from work or errand-running if anything ever happens requiring that (SHTF, dumbass threatens to jump off overpass and ties up traffic for 8 hours again). I'm not looking at it as a long distance bug-out vehicle. I have three dogs and other animals that I'm not going anywhere without.
Now, I haven't regularly ridden a bike since banana seats were cool, and the brakes were on the pedals, so deciding what I wanted was not easy. I decided to go with inexpensive for now, albeit inexpensive within the parameters of decent quality. I bought a Dahon Espresso with 26" wheels and handlebars designed for a more upright riding position (for heavy traffic). If I am victorious in my survival of this bike (we'll just see about that "you never forget how to ride a bike" thing), I'll probably invest in one of the more compact folding bikes with 20" wheels. Several people suggested the Montague Paratrooper bikes to me, but those look pretty overpriced for what you get, and most of the reviews suggested that, too. For this particular use, I think a road bike built more with speed in mind than a mountain bike is a better option. (I do already have a mountain bike languishing in the basement, btw). There really isn't anything but pavement between work and home. Anyway, the bike arrived last night, only 4 days after I ordered it. It's sturdy, very lightweight, and the ads were not joking when they said it folds in 5 seconds. Wow! Once I got the whole gear thing figured out, it was a pleasure to ride. They don't advertise this bike as one of their fast bikes. It's just advertised as an urban bike for milling around town. Having only ridden mountain bikes in recent years (and not having done much of that), I was surprised at how fast this bike moves. Overall, I'm very pleased with it.
I also bought another case of Silver Bear Match, 7.62x39, yesterday. I haven't been able to find the Silver Bear Match for a while, but it seems to be back. I'm not pleased with the price I paid for it, but I haven't seen it anywhere cheaper in quite some time. I find it significantly more accurate (at least in my guns) than the more common and less expensive Wolf or Brown Bear. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 9th, 2005|01:25 pm] |
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I finally broke down and ordered a pressure canner. My water-bath canning stuff has set dormant for a couple of years now. We never eat jams or jellies, prefer fresh fruit, and I loathe anything pickled! Sad, huh? We get the urge to do some canning but realize there's not really anything we could can that wouldn't probably go to waste on the shelf. Seems everything I really want to can (meat, stews, soups) requires a pressure canner. It's fall, the time of year when I always get an atavistic urge to eat and to squirrel stuff away, and I have some extra money I earned for a speaking engagement, so I ordered an All American 921. It's probably bigger than what I need for hubby and me, but since there are six other carnivores in the house, it might ultimately make sense from a preparation standpoint. |
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| Warmth, security, and my quest for a wood stove |
[Sep. 22nd, 2005|05:31 pm] |
Wow! That was fast. I ordered a couple of flectar jackets/liners from Sportman's Guide on the 18th, and they got here today. Awesome deal. I ordered one in large for my husband and one in XL to throw in the truck. XL is an American-size XL (I think my husband and I could both fit inside it!), but most of my friends are too big for my clothes, and I like having a coat on hand that I can loan to anyone who needs to borrow one, including larger friends. Plus, they're big enough to hide things under.
My other purchase this week was another small fireproof safe for documents, since the documents have gotten crowded out of the other small fireproof safe by the growing collection of pistols...which got crowded out of the gun safe by the growing collection of rifles. What I really need is more room in the house. The new safe is still sitting in my truck because I haven't cleared a space for it yet. I should just go rent a backhoe and get this place reorganized.
In my desperate quest for organization and space, my latest hare-brained scheme is to try to talk my husband into putting a new wall across the L-shaped living room so that it's divided into a reptile room and a proper living room...one where guests don't have to stare at bowls of dead mice, crates of chirping crickets, and plastic critter-keepers full of crawling beetles and squirming mealworms (not that I can fathom what people find so offensive about that, or even that I give a damn about company or what they think, but it sounds like a good argument, doesn't it?). My real intention is that I gain another wall to put bookshelves along, something I desperately need, and perhaps some space in the living room to put in a small woodstove. Hubby appears to be considering the idea, but he might just be humoring me (he's clever that way), biding his time to see if I drop the idea and move onto another one. These questions are usually decided by perseverance. We're an even match in stubborness, but he capitulates more often than I do. In return, when he refuses to capitulate, I know he's serious about what he wants or doesn't want, and I back off. Ours is a strange and wonderful relationship. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 4th, 2005|01:33 pm] |
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Got to love the south! I've found out that the only three really vocal Michael Moore-loving, anti-gun ownership types I know all own guns. (Much like our anti-gun politicians, I suppose.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 2nd, 2005|01:38 pm] |
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I finally convinced one of my former students to get a shotgun for self-defense. She's 54 years old, short, roundish, sweet-voiced (and one of those people who always prefaces everything with, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be a bother, ...", wears sweaters with cats on them, and lives alone off a dirt road in the mountains of North Georgia (where meth is becoming a big problem). I've always worried about her. I think the news out of New Orleans has finally sobered her up a bit about violence and mayhem. She does have a .38, but I'd be surprised if she's ever shot it. Despite the innate sweetness about her, she's pretty tough, and I believe she could pull a trigger if she had to. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 1st, 2005|02:36 pm] |
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All those times I said that if TSHTF I don't expect it to be like a Mad Max movie out there? I take it back. I take it all back. Poor old New Orleans. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 6th, 2005|11:10 pm] |
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We encountered yet another black widow in the basement, and this one made good her escape before we could corner her. Black widows are very common around here, but I really don't like the idea of having a house full of them, especially with a husband who is dangerously allergic to insect bites and three dogs who poke their noses into everything. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 31st, 2005|08:24 pm] |
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I tore down an old pressed board cabinet in the basement to make room for a metal storage cabinet. Underneath one of the shelves was a fairly large black widow spider. Hubby, who is arachnophobic and very allergic to insect bites, fled the basement immediately. Now, I don't like to kill spiders. I can't explain it, but somehow it just seems wrong to me. I probably have more webs around my house than the Addams Family. Since I couldn't find anything to catch her in that would safely contain her long enough for me to get her out the backdoor and around to the frontyard (didn't want to knowingly put one in the backyard where the dogs play), and I didn't want to leave her loose and looking for a new home in my basement, next to my food storage shelving, not to mention in the room under our bedroom, I finally took the mallet I'd been hammering at the shelf with and squashed her. Now, I feel rotten. Really, I do. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 9th, 2005|03:37 pm] |
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I finally broke down and bought a Berkefeld water filter. After much waffling, I decided on the Berkey Light because those new black filters appear to offer the most effective filtration available in a gravity-fed filter. I also like the convenience of being able to see the water level, and that it's portable while the water is filtering. I especially like that it's raised on a base, so a cup can easily be placed under the spigot. With three counter-surfing canines, nothing near the edge of a counter would be safe. When I can afford to, I'll buy extra filters and the pre-filters. I haven't been able to find any information about flow rate on this model, however. Anyone know what it is? With the black filters, and only two of them, I'm sure it's slower than the others. I think I remember reading that it was about a gallon an hour somewhere (but I can't remember where). I've seen posts from people who have them, though, and they all seem completely satisfied with them. Anyway, together the two filters will give me the capacity to filter about 8000 gallons of water before having to replace the filters. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2005|08:43 pm] |
Can you believe this? These are the sort of idiots with which I have to share this city. I don't know why natural selection cut them slack this time, but it would have been fine in my book if they'd all (except for the undeserving truck driver) been blown to Kingdom Come. In the same day's newspaper were editorials from Atlantans who were disgusted with the public's behavior during Fourth of July festivities in the park. In one case, two or three guys ganged up and kicked the daylights out of another guy, while a large crowd stood around and cheered. In another letter, a writer complained that young people were happily celebrating this great holiday by jumping up and down on cars (occupied cars, that is), causing huge amounts of damage, and busting out car windows (also of occupied cars). Where's Mad Max when you need him?
http://www.ajc.com/hp/content/metro/atlanta/0705/05overturn.html
Or, if the site doesn't let you in:
( read article ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 7th, 2005|11:41 pm] |
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I caught part of an ABC interview with Brad Pitt tonight. The interviewer had been talking about his latest movie and then asked him, "What about guns?" Her solicitous "here comes a social conscience question" tone strongly suggested that she was expecting the usual Hollywood "guns are evil" tripe. Pitt just looked at her funny for a second and said something along the lines of: "I'm good with them...yeah, I'm good with guns...I grew up around guns." Then he said that he's a good shot and that Angelina Jolie is a very good shot. It's nice to see a Hollywood actor that isn't on the Brady Bunch soapbox. They're starting to seem few and far between. |
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