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From the Desk of John Rourke – February 14th, 2017

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Enjoy your Valentines Day!

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Pulled out of my driveway Sunday afternoon and heard a massive scraping sound when I applied the brakes. Yup – new brake pads were installed Sunday night. Not exactly on my list of things to do but fairly simple. Had Christopher help me which was good info for him.

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Part of my inventory system includes a “Goal Qty” as well as current “On Hand Qty”. Costs are tracked and tabulated. As I have been entering items watching the total rise I am shocked – and somewhat impressed – by the level funds I’ve dedicated to preparedness. Although I continue to set and work towards preparedness goals funds are needing to go to other areas of my life.

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Anyone have any experience with motion detectors? I am familiar with the typical wireless driveway alarm. I am looking for multi-channel wireless devices. Multiple channels important so that various zones can be monitored at the same time and precise location known once intrusion is detected.

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Praying for the folks downstream of the Oroville dam in California.  What an example for having bug out plans – just in case.

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I keep hearing about vehicles with no drivers. There are actually towns that will be allowing their streets to have these accidents-waiting-to-happen drive around. Kinda reminds me of what the early stages of Skynet was probably like from the movie The Terminator. If I hear any of these cars are built by Cyberdyne I’m going to start worrying.

There are many reasons why so many love their Kindle and Amazon Fire tablets. One huge advantage is you could literally go years without every buying a book to read as there are tons of free eBooks available. Don’t have a Kindle or Fire? No problem. There are apps that can be installed on most any cell phone or computer for free. No excuses!

Today’s Freebies

George Patton: A Life From Beginning To End

Living Off The Grid

Navigation for Dummies

365 Days of Survival – 7 Books in One

Reminder: Amazon Fire is on sale for $39.99. Great deal and perfect for building a survival & preparedness library.

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NOTE: If you see a free Kindle book that you’re interested in get it now. Prices change often and there is no way to tell how long the book will remain free. Before purchasing a free Kindle book on Amazon make certain the book is still free by making sure the price is $0.00. If it lists a price or says “read for free” or has a price for prime members the book is not free anymore.

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8 Comments

  1. Large Marge says:

    I lived in Chico, about 30-miles NW of Oroville. That is an earth dam, so any collapse will cascade, tearing down the whole shooting match in minutes.

    HOWEVER…

    Like all flatland dams, it is fed from mountain streams and rivers.

    Those sources are fed by runoff from mountain-sides devastated by decades of clearcut logging. With no vegetation to retain dirt, any rain turns to mud.

    Since mountain riverways are steep and rapid, the mud is carried downstream.

    BUT!

    As rivers slow into artificial constraints such as reservoirs, the mud settles. This mud accumulates and compacts. Although every reservoir started as a canyon, the area upstream of the dam devolves to a shallow-water meadow. The media/bumblebrat nightmares of a hundred-foot tsunami are ridiculous. No dam of this age has that much water.

    At most, expect a heap o’ muck.

    Reply
  3. Large Marge says:

    (JR, since I avoid MSM, your post was the first I heard of the Oroville dam situation.)

    A) As I wrote last evening, Oroville reservoir doesn’t hold enough water for a ‘hundred-foot tsunami’. Media/bumblebrats watch too many cartoons.

    B) This dam sits against the east side of the vast Sacramento Valley, 60-miles across == Sierra Nevada mountains to Coast Range == and hundreds of miles north-to-south == Redding and Mount Shasta to the Grapevine (‘Hotrod Lincoln’).

    The valley is flatland, as flat as a skillet. Any breach of Oroville dam immediately dissipates in all directions downstream.

    How flat? Rice farmers build foot high dikes for their paddies. This area is used in movies to stand-by for China rice paddies. The old China. Before the Gobi desert re-claimed the western sides of Peking.

    C) MSM stand downstream of the dam, filming upstream to show the height of the dam. Crude and misleading. We are concerned with the height of the dam from the water side… and since all the sediments carried by the rushing river settle as the water is slowed by the dam, the reservoir side of the dam is a tiny fraction of the dry side.

    I think we can all agree: the reservoir water sits atop the ground. Decades of tons of water weight compacted the original ground, then compacted the settling sediments. If it moves, expect a slug of toothpaste instead of a ‘hundred-foot tsunami’.

    D) Refugees are fleeing downrange? On twisting two-lane farm roads? Following the path the ‘hundred-foot tsunami’ would take?

    Please, don’t do that. It’s the equivalent of running from a chasing car… by staying on the road instead of moving laterally. Cripes. Is anybody flying this thing!?!

    E) MSM pictures of Oroville show a typical day in Oroville. It is a ghosttown on its busiest days. Nothing happens in Oroville, except meth-heads bumbling their only occupation: burglary.

    Fortunately, the good sheriff moved the toothless to a safer jail… hours ahead of the general call to evacuate.
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    Applying all this about your situation, why live in a flood-plain?

    Why trust MSM on anything?

    Why trust any bumblebrat at any level?

    Reply
  4. JohnP says:

    JR, amen to that about the Oroville dam. Large Marge, thanks for the insight on the dam. Drum brakes are so much more fun, yeah right.

    Reply
  5. Andy says:

    Read a study on AI and how it will effect us in the next 10 years. Watson (IBM AI) has a 80% success rate on diagnosing illness in the medical field in the testing and 70% in law. Think about the economic impact of OTR drivers are replaced with AI operated rigs. The article stated that with the emergence of AI would push our economic class to rich and poor, middle class would all but disappear.

    Reply
  6. SingleMom says:

    I have no experience with the type of motion sensors you’re considering, but when the ex was stalking me we installed motion-sensor spotlights outside the house. They helped enormously, but what we didn’t know beforehand was that the sensors would pick up movement 15′ beyond where the subsequent light would shine. Knowing that something was out there wasn’t quite as useful as knowing WHAT was there. The lights alerted us to possible danger but didn’t identify where it was coming from. When they went on at opposite sides of the house at around the same time, our defenses were stretched too thin. Maybe better systems prevent that sort of thing, but it’s something to think about for those who are interested in buying cheap lights from the lumberyard.

    Reply

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