Big Country Expat

Greetings and Salutations!
Back from an abbreviated Road Trip up North a ways.
WAY too short IMO.
Specifically this trip was to Georgia. Marietta GA to be specific. Gretchen has a ‘thing’ for ‘Gone With The Wind’ and the Civil War and such locations. So seeing that we literally have had NO time to ourselves over the past few months years, I had Hilton ‘points’ that were expiring, and sumdood (one of you depraved deplorables) had a ‘donation’ to the Museum of War and History for the Casa that I needed to pick up. He lives a couple of hours outside of Marietta, so it was a foregone conclusion that we’d get away thataway.

And let me tell you…
I have not had a better time in a looooong while. This entire vay-kay was alllllll about ME for some reason. “Everything’s coming up Milhouse Big Country” so to speak…

Indeed!!!
Somehow for some reason the stars aligned, and almost every place we went had a “Big Country” ‘thing’ going on. First off, Gretchen found a very unique shop. It’s located in Kennesaw, right next to Marietta. 7 miles from our Hotel. The shop in Question?

Right smack dab on Main Street in Kennesaw:
Wildman’s Civil War Surplus
The link will take you to the store’s website.

Now… this was one of the biggest and coolest surprises Gretchen has sprung on me in a while. Seems’s that “Wildman’s” has been around since 1971. It was owned and operated by a Civil War Reenactor/True Son Of The South gentleman named Dent Myers. Now… Gretchen found this place doing searches for localized Civil War ‘stuff’… on YouTube, well… I’ll embed it here and let y’all make up your own minds… to give you an idea, this is to me leastways, your typical Ministries of Lies and Propaganda Treasonous HateThink/Speech:

Yep
A pure-dee hit piece (of shytte) with two “Jogger ‘Muricans” doing said hit piece. I mean really??? With a line like this: “….and signage that most minorities would find offensive.”

Good.
Fuck them motherfuckers.
There’s reasons they’re minorities.
Although you’d never fucking know it.

THEY get an entire month of “Hug-A-Monkey” but apparently WE who actually, you know built the entirety of that thing called “civilization” can and are regularly demonized, ‘cos donchaknow blaqs can’t be rayyyyyycist and sheee-it amiright?

Suuuuuuuuure…
I mean they have given -some- things to further civilization, like these that I found in a local gas station:

I. shit. you. not.
“Rap. Snacks.”
Talk about the furtherance of the scholarship of Basketball Americans everywhere Aye? Oh how did whyttepeepo ever make it this far without the gloriousness that is our Potato Chip Rappers??? Beats the ever loving fuck out of me.

Anyways
So we went in, and were cautiously welcomed by the owner Miss Marjorie herself. She was initially cautious as we found out because she’s been essentially at war with a bunch of litigious fucking douche-canoes who I think would better serve humanity as skin-and-organ-donors. Gretchen was her usual charming self, and got along with Miss Marjorie like a house on fire.

They let us take all the pictures we wanted to as well.
Normally that’s a ‘no-go’ at this station as we’d say in the DotMil. However, I -did- explain that I too, am a pretty well know rayyyyyycist and eeeeee-vil anti-tribalist on probably all the lists for this here HateCrime Blogg. Us UberNazis need to stick together right? /sarc.

Fucking Retard Leftists.

Anyways, from a purely Historical Perspective?
Oh Holy Shit this place has stuff you are NOT going to find anywhere else in the world. Never mind the quote racist stuff unquote, but oh Holy Hells… the weapons? The uniforms? the tintype pictures!?!

That one at the bottom:
A HIGHLY collectible and rare AF LeMat revolver/shotgun, one once owned by “Wild Bill” Longley a Texas outlaw best know for being hung three times, with the third finally getting him. Guess three times is a charm after all Aye?

A LeMat is unusual in that it’s a .46 caliber revolver with an under barrel single shot 16 gauge shotgun under the pistol barrel. Think “Mini M-203” before the M-4/M-203 combo was even an idea. A VERY rare weapon these days…

Now: A quick note… If that wallpaper doesn’t positively scream 1971, I’ll eat every inch of it LOL. The long guns were incredible and all original as well… from 1860 Springfields, to French Pinfires… most of them were obvious family heirlooms that aren’t for sale, but display only. And I’ll just throw some more pics up… these are the field packs… NOT repros, but real:

There were literal tons of books, diaries, photos, allllll original….
Personally I think this stuff belongs in like the Smithsonian, but we all know those fucking pukes aren’t about preserving history, but re-writing it.

There was also the ubiquitous KKK stuff, to include the dressed up manikin from that news-hit piece. Myself, I found this ceramic mug fascinating:

And there was also an original Battle Flag (w/scars) there as well…
Specifically the Third Confederate National/Battle Flag:

Like damn right?
So, lastly, as we did have to get going, on my way out, Miss Marjorie gave me a gift, which surprised and humbled the hell out of me.

Now this is still a regular surplus store.
She has cases of wings and ‘stuff’ from all time periods. During my discussion with her Husband who showed off some of the prized weapons, I mentioned that I had been in the Army and a para. Five jumps is still five jumps. Well, she set up and gave me the closest thing to Airborne wings she had:

A lil shadowbox with Sterling Silver WW2 Aircrew wings.

She SO did not have to do that, but like I said, I’m both honored and humbled. I had already planned on doing this writeup either way, so she had no idea about that when she presented this to me. She’s just that nice a lady.

Which is why I get pissed off hearing that even as recently as last week the local ingrate BLM worshipping fuckwads tried to fuck her over again. Seems that -someone- filed an Ex Parte motion in court to get her shut down… My question is How in the fuck is it only in ONE parties interest to shut down a business? I mean doesn’t the owner of the business have an interest in that sort of thing????

Which is exactly what the judge said/asked.

The next motion is scheduled for this Friday, September 6th. Fucking Yankee Carpetbagger BLM worshipping hug-a-monkey Juneteenth assholes…

I say hit ’em all with a Flammenwerfer:

Man I was overweight then.
Anyways…
Not FedPoasting… just expressing my extreme displeasure and hoping that the perpetrators of such an evil premise of claiming shit like it’s “for the children” smell their own flesh as they burn to death. Tell you what, that line “for the children” is going to go down in history as one of the greatest PsyOps ever.

“Bless their heart!” is what Miss Marjorie would say.
Me?
Fuck their asses to the deepest parts of Satan’s Anus.
I hope they burn.
Go over and ‘show some love’ to Miss Marjorie on the store FB page if you have it: Link HERE

So after wishing her well, and telling her that I’d be writing this up, we went on to the next museum, The Marietta History Center. Which then led up on our way there to a quick detour.

I saw a A-7 Corsair off to my right while sitting at an intersection. It was mounted on a pillar, like on display. Gretchen thought it was like another park and such, so we kept going… Until we started passing the Lockheed Martin aircraft plant. I turned around because I had a hunch.

Turns out is was sort of a park.

It’s the Aviation History and Technology Center
It’s NOT associated with Lockheed Martin per se.
It IS an awesome self-guided aircraft tour however:

An F-14, an A-4, an A-6, and the A-7.
The F-14 is impressive b/c of the Globull War on Stupidity, because Iran has/had F-14s, the DotMil took and like destroyed the remaining ones. It was because of an embargo on F-14 parts to keep Iran from being able to maintain their F-14s. This is part of the reason they were retired and the whole reason none are flyable. Once retired the airplanes were shredded along with all spare parts as a black market developed getting those parts to Iran.

Which personally I think is a pile of shit.

Iran could easily reverse engineer pieces/parts of the F-14s they have, even if the shit was broke. Personally, I think it has more to do with the F-35 being the flying (or rather non-flying) turducken/brick. They had to shred the remaining F-14s as it would have been easier, cheaper and been a WAY better aircraft than that fucking overly expensive turd.

More DotGov/DotMil procurement shenanigans per usual…

Anyways… it was awesome to see these glorious things:

God I love the Tomcat…

Then there was the AC-130B model:

#10 out of 2600 off the assembly line.

Interestingly, ‘Ghost Rider’ did NOT have the 105mm cannon. Not sure if that was intentional or if that was ‘added on’ to later edition(s). It might have been removed maybe? It did have the twin 7.62mm minis, the twin 20mm minis, and the twin Bofors 40mm guns… Even without the Arty, that’s a lot of hate to bring to a party…

Then there was the FIRST YC-141B model.
The original C-141 was 40 feet shorter… that was the “A” model. This particular C-141, built in 1967, was cut up in 1977, and had two sections, ‘added’ to the fuselage. That made it a ‘stretched’ 141 or in this case, a “YC” test bed. They literally ran it to death, and when they realized it could work as a longer plane with way more cargo/troop capacity, the YB-141B became the standard as of 1982.

This particular one was retired after all it’s testing was completed, and ended up here, slowly being restored over a 13 year period. It had over 34000 flight hours when it retired. That’s saying something.

By this time, Gretchen who’d been hiding in the car, wanted to hit her museum. Fair is fair after all, so we mounted up, only to find out the Brumby Museum was closed for Labor Day.

Oops.

Guess we’ll be headed back there at a later date. A consolation prize was to go to the Marietta History Museum. They have an extensive collection of ALL sorts of ‘cool stuff’ and has a reputation for being haunted. I can see why as some of the artifacts are from things that happened in the Civil War or better known as The War of Northern Aggression. According to stories/legends The only reason that Marietta wasn’t put to the torch during Sherman’s March to the Sea was that he (Sherman) had his girlfriend who lived there.

Didn’t want to piss off his squeeze I suppose.

The museum was impressive. What -I- didn’t know is they have one of the largest collections of firearms in the Southeast.
Which included a personal fave:

C’mon Baby Light my Fire!

Along with other old friends:

The M-60…
Humped that bastard in Basic.
Pre-SAW days.

Now, there was a slight Issue that cropped up when I looked at the ‘stuff thru the ages’ displays. The first pic starts, from Left to Right, WW2 Parachutist Uniform and Gear, WW2 Dress Uniform, Korean War dress uniform, VietNam Marine Dress Blues:

then Gulf One (Chocolate Chips Uniform), and finally, Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Therein lies the problem.
Can any of y’all see what made me go “Whoa!” in the OIF Case?
It’s not readily obvious, unless you were a 19K on an Abrams. I’ll zoom in on it:

That’s a SABOT round.
What appears to be a live fucking SABOT round.
The reason I know this? There’s a couple.

1) The blue sabot petals themselves are blue, which is what allows a quick and dirty ID of a training live round as opposed to a ‘warshot’ Depleted Uranium round.

2) The Sabot Penetrator is Black, not Gold. Black means it’s a tungsten steel penetrator. It’ll still fuck up some armor, but it’s not the golden bee-bee of a DU warshot.

3) Lastely, and what tells me it’s a live round, is the outer shell casing color. That matte-gray/silver. It’s combustible. The only thing left when you fire either a Warshot or Practice round is the Aft-Cap. Saves room, weight and whatnot rather than kicking a big assed piece of brass back into the turret after it’s fired.

Plus there’s this from the General Dynamics Website:

…and it’s Warshot Brother:

At the time, it didn’t “click” with me…
I do know it did not have a “INERT” label on it.
Add on that when I zoomed in, and looked at the Travel/Packing Case at the top of the display case?

“1-CARTRIDGE, 120MM TPCSDS-T: M865”
That marking “TPCSDS-T” which stands for  Target Practice, Cone Stabilized, Discarding Sabot-Tracer

Which is exactly what’s in the case.

I brought it up to the old gentleman Docent who was manning the desk, but as I figured, he didn’t have a clue. He did tell me though that it’s been sitting there since about 1996. That would be why it’s slightly different from the one on the GD website now. Minor upgrades and whatnot I figure.

However, having ‘thrown’ a PILE of those during my brief time as a Jedi Tanker, I know that fucker is live. It’s not too dangerous…

HOWEVER

Explosives don’t age well.
They (like me) get grumpier as they age.
If the museum has a power outage for extended time periods, no AC, gets reaaaally hot… the temperature variations aren’t so good for Ka-Boomy-Boom ‘stuff’. The round itself is electrically fired, so dropping it IF the ‘internal stuff’ isn’t already ‘feeling poopy’ it should be OK.

But let’s just say for the sake of weirdness, that the display case lighting shorts or gets an unexpected power surge… Hell, a random ‘Act-of-God’ lightening strike on the building…

Having a pissed off 120mm Cone Stabilized, Discarding Sabot-Tracer fire off? Randomly?

This is a thing of Badness.

Like Danny Vermin would say “It shoots through schools, through the tree outside…” In this case? It’ll shoot through Anything in the way. It’s gonna get punched like a motherfucker. This thing is designed to kinetically take out a tank FFS.

So today I called and let the Marietta Cops know.

Which apparently was worthless. Their response after a well done explanation? Well, they are going to”…follow up with museum staff.” on Teusday.

Who I already approached and had NO FUCKING CLUE.

The next stop is the 789th EOD Unit based in Fort Benning, right up the street. And no, I won’t call it anything BUT Benning. Fuck them leftists hard. Do not comply Aye? I tried today but they’re still on a DONSA (day of no scheduled activities) so I’ll call the 1st Shirt on Monday, and explain the local fuzz AND the museum don’t know what they have.

They need to know either way. Especially since it means -some- slick motherfucker managed to steal a LIVE 120mm fucking round and get it off base. INCLUDING its travel tube…

They freeze dry people for shit like that, and bury them UNDER Leavenworth from my understanding… not for nothing I sort of admire someone with stones that big, but that being said? Even -I- wouldn’t fuck around with ordinance THAT fucking potent.

Sorry-Not-Sorry Unknown Thieving Joe.

Having now talked bout that ordinance, let’s talk about my donation from one of you Awesome Readers:

I had to clear off some space, but man…
That’s pretty!
That is an AT-3 Maketa 9M14P Soviet made ‘Sagger’ Anti-Tank Wire Guided Missile. Completely INERT and gutted.

I mounted a small section of picatinny rail underneath it, and used a $10 bipod to get it displayed properly.

It’s absolutely awesome no question.

Now…

I got to go make dinner for the crew. I hate to cut this short as there were other aspects of the trip that I need to go into… but that’s for the next time. Hope you enjoyed and I’ll keep you in the loop on the 120mm toy…

More Later
Big Country

A sign from 1942 Texas

Greetings!
Getting out of Dodge for a weekend. Headed North for a while, but will have my itty-bitty tablet to keep up with the news, so I’ll be back in Monday unless something BIG breaks loose.

I mean packing even for a 100 mile distance during this questionable time makes for a heavy load.

Also: Another Series that was mentioned in the comments that I HIGHLY recommend:
Blue Eyed Samurai

Anime style animation, written and directed by a French Couple of all things… a half-breed female Samurai… don’t take that as a negative. Great storyline, unreal graphics.

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings!
Not going to go too deeply into it, but caught a “The Drinker Recommends” episode from our favorite Drunken Scottish Movie/Show reviewer, and decided to give the show in question a shot.

In this case?

KINGDOM

Season One so far.

Started off at 8pm/22:00 on Episode One, Season One.

It’s now 0100.
Yeah it’s that fucking cool/good

Basic Storyline: 14th Century South Korea + Zombies + Political Intrigue = Loads of Binge Watching Pleasure.

I needed a mental break
As I’ve stated, been under a lot of pressure lately.
This provided the needed break for me quite nicely.
Exceptionally well done I have to say… South Korea is definitely a ‘comer’ when it comes to movies and TV as of late… just make sure to turn off the subtitles, and let the Engrish Verbiage work, otherwise it’s out of synch. Netflix has it, so off you go!!!

Check it out.
I have to work, so I’m off to bed.
As the Drinker would say,

“Go Away Now!”
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Sorry for a bit of a prolonged absence. Been emotionally drained like you read about. Saturday Afternoon was Cowboy’s wife Kim’s Memorial Service. Gretchen and I both attended, and it was really really nice, with a LOT of people there and some good catered BBQ (great brisket BTW).

It was tough though.

Cowboy’s aged hard in the past two months. He said he’s doing OK but I worry. Purely hated seeing him all fucked up like that.

Takes a bit out of me yannow?

So Sunday was a mental health day. Which I extended into Monday as for whatever reason, I was completely mentally and I dunno? Spiritually? wiped out? I clocked into People’s Glorious Tractor Factory, but did the barest minimum to justify my hours for the day. Between the Commissar demands as of late, the abusive Clients, and just the overall “I’m not paid enough for this shit!” attitude that I’ve developed, well, all I can say is bring on the Sweet Meteor O’Death!

PLEASE

Even my minion is feeling the grind. Too much happening, not enough space to recover, working project to project, and having moar dumped on us on the regular. The new gig? I turned it down. Got word that damned near everything they had been telling me was bullshit. Glassdoor was very helpful in that regard.

So, on the Krainian side, Simplicius has a fascinating update regarding drone warfare. In that the Russians have started fielding Fiber Optic Guided Drones or FOG-D’s as I’ll refer to them here.

Seems that, depending on the size of the spool, they have upwards of a 5-10km (3-6 mile range) as the FO wire/cable ‘unspools’ behind the drone:

That, per the pic is a Kraut HMX drone.

Seems that FOG-Ds are not affected by Electronic Warfare. EW suites are designated and designed to block the radio signals on specific wavelengths to either ‘spoof’ the drone or ‘block the signal’ which renders it inoperative.

Also, in that there is no radio interference at all, the signal is faaaar crisper and cleaner if you will at the transmission/receiving end, as seen in this pic:

The link to the article and video is HERE

What I find interesting is that waaaay back in 1996 I heard about a program that the Army was looking into to replace my weapons system, the BGM-71B TOW, the Tube Launched Wire Guided Missile system:

THAT was my bread and butter back in the day. With the OLD thermal sight on top (waaaaay obsolete by todays standards).

There were whispers that the FOG-M or as it started being called in 1998, the EFOG-M was back on the table (1994/95) as a new weapons system designed to replace the TOW…. This was around the same time when I’d been told us 11-Hotels were on the ‘endangered MOS list’ so I dun went and lern’t whut I done could about this here new-fangled toy… got to stay ahead of the power curve Aye? Maybe get an early ‘place at the table’ right?

Originally, the base version, the Fiber Optic Guided Missile (FOG-M) was thought up in 1988, and was cancelled in 1990. Then around 1994, the DoD/Army put out a request to re-open the idea of a FO guided missile.

This was the EFOG-M or Enhanced FOG-M. They essentially took a standard TOW missile, specifically the motor, of a BGM-71 TOW missile, had a TV camera in the nose and a fiber-optic cable instead of the regular guiding wire that spooled out from the ass as it flew downrange. The Fiber Optic cable acted as a data link which transmitted the camera’s image to the gunner (hopefully moi), who could then send commands to the missile to the target.

It also was a vertical launch system as seem by the few pics of it:

It had the ability to pack 8!!! missiles on one vehicle which was designated the XM-44. The range was an insane 15km (9.3 miles!) and could be fired from a full defilade! That means they could dig a deep hole, and fire it out-of-sight-out-of-mind, and still plaster enemy targets. It also had ‘instant repeatability’ meaning the second you smoked ONE tank you could fire another missile and guide it in… The targeting system was NLOS (Non-Line-Of-Sight). It relied on a map overlay of where you were firing from w/GPS, and then the camera itself on the missile and the skill of the gunner to guide it in…

And as an ‘added plus’ it was a ‘top down killer’ which meant it came down from ‘on-high’ thru the roof of an MBT/APC where the armor purely sucks as we’ve seen oh so frequently in the Krain on both sides.

Considering the TOW only had an ‘official range’ of 3750m, or 2.3 miles, although I have heard <ahem ahem> of Really Good Gunners Hitting out at 4400m. Either way, at the time, the TOW looked like it was on it’s way out.

THEN ‘things’ happened.

Somehow the TOW got a second ‘lease on life’ and a newer sight system, as well as a new MGS (Missile Guidance System). The famous picture from the Narang Valley in Konar Province Afghanistan shows the latest and greatest variant of the M220 SABER TOW System:

Either way…
I’m sure money changed hands on many sides to keep the venerable TOW around despite the glaringly obvious advantages the EFOG-M has/had. Whomever made that decision should be killed out of hand.

After this and the ‘latest and greatest’?
They might be thinking/rethinking the idea…

The again, Meh…
Who am I shitting?
The DoD changing their ossified retard ways?
Never gonna happen Aye?

But the whole point to this is we’re seeing a generational jump in the past two years of Ground Warfare. Don’t want to get into the whole ‘who’s ackchully winning’ or ‘I don’t believe drones could carry those weights’ or any of the other stupid out there.

Fact of the matter is, the Azerbaijan vs Armenian war, or better known as the ‘Second Nagorno-Karabakh War’ drones played an integral part in spotting ‘troops in the open’ for both sides. I saw some of the earliest Drone Footage in that war and was truly horrified as to the whole “you can run, but you can’t hide” aspect of a Drone’s invasive observational capacity regarding scouting, and laying fire on troops/infantry. No need to have a Arty-Spotter… nope… just throw a Chineseum drone up, and let it sneak and peak at a distance, and bring the Hate.

First it was just Drones for Observational Capabilities. “We can see you!”
THEN it became “Hey we can mount an RPG Warhead on this and take out vehicles!”
After THAT, it was “Wow! We can drop grenades on dudes w/this!”
After a while it became “We have Swarms of AI Guided Flying Fucking Bombs. You can run, but you will only die tired Tovarisch!”
And as of late: “We have drones that even your most advanced Anti-Drone Tech cannot stop. Surrender now. Resistance is Futile.”

Being an ‘old Grunt’ from the ‘old school’ I’m fucking glad I’m out of that particular Infantry Based game now. In fact I’m doing, with Sapper some seriously pointed studies on Anti-Drone ‘stuff’ due to the extreme civilian/police/andd DotMil Proliferation.

This’s one Genie which ain’t going back in the Bottle any time soon. Hell, perusing the 3D Print pages, (quick aside: I need to finish getting my printer back up and running. It’s not broken per se… It’s that I got a newer design print head that I just haven’t had time to install. I got the fucker apart, but haven’t had the time to rebuild and install the new one. ) But yeah, the 3D pages these days are positively flooded with prop designs, body designs… you name it, Drone-Wise, it’s out there, and the ‘functional parts’ are readily and cheaply available.

Make of it (literally!) What You Will.

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings And Salutations!
Yep. “Play Stupid Games/Win Stupid Prizes!” was definitely that days phrase. My fault there to say the least but my biggest concern at the time was the absolute open hostility towards us as “them damned Florida People!”. Almost every. single. authority figure from the lowest beat-cop to the Judge who fucking took us to the cleaners and ruined us over Adriana, there’s some for-real Appalachian Hate for anything and everything Florida.

Gatlinburg was a one-off as the place relies on goodwill towards the touristas. The occasional ‘plucking’ of them via scurrilous speed traps not withstanding of course. Other places? Man, I’m just glad no one keyed or otherwise damaged our ride. It was that blatant.

Anyways… it’s over, the car has been registered legit since within a week of the ‘incident’ and I take it under advisement that one thing I found out, is those license plate scanners really do work and are connected into everything. THAT is what initiated the stop. Lil Miss Piggy’s plate-scanner ‘dinged’ to her that something was amiss with our plate. THEN when she pulled me over, and she got squirreled out when she realized that I wasn’t the expected 89 year old male behind the wheel… it went all downhill from there.

Like I said though, the whole intrusiveness of that encounter… that the Pig-in-Question knew everything about the car, the owner, every-fucking-thing ALL by just driving behind us for less than two minutes! So, I guess it’s “Welcome to The Pan-Opticon!” where we’re supposed to own nothing, eat ze bugs, and be happy.

Fuck That.

As far as Ze Bugs however…
I finally got around to making Sapper a pizza tonight. I’ve increased my learning curve, and things are getting better(er). It turned out exceptionally well again as you can see:

This time I utilized my rolling pin, which assisted greatly in forming the dough out and into a nice round shape. Again, 2min, 45seconds to cook. The pepperonis are the Hormel ‘thick cut’ variants, and as you can see have a nice cupped/curl to them with minor searing on them, which added to the overall flavor. Another plus is the pizza stone inside the machine is beginning to get a wee bit seasoned as well, so that’s good. After Sapper and Gretchen got their feed on, I got to have mine. The pizza (mine when I made it) of course drew the absolute diehard attention of The Sausage Princess:

Talk about concentration.
I swear her head didn’t move, and she didn’t blink at all.
Her ears and eyes say it all.

She’s called The Sausage Princess for a major reason, and that is in part that food to her is like Crack to an Addict. She positively loves her some pizza…

Moving on, the DNC, i.e. the “DemoncRat’s Notional Coven” meeting is finally over. I didn’t watch any of it, except when I had to endure clips of shit that people were banging on on Twitter… I didn’t hear nor see if the “Killeroid” aka “Miss Arkancide 1998” showed up… I did hear that Bill showed up, but I’m guessing that was in exchange for some Krainian Hookers and a 1/2kilo of really good blow… Hunter probably was jealous… “Big Mike” also took the stage at one point from my understanding and uttered, according to pundits, some of most tone-deaf shit about her parents saying that “…they didn’t trust anyone who took more than they needed” or words to that effect.

This from a Nigger with over 100 million dollars in real Property that stretches from Hawaii to Cape Cod in some of the most exclusive zip codes in the world. BLM: (buy Lots of Mansions) Thy Name is Big Mike. That and “Pot, this’s the Kettle, You’re a NIGGER!” succinctly wraps that up Aye? I also found a supposed picture of it/her/him wearing a necklace:

No idea if that’s photoshop or not, but either way, it’s funny.

Then, just another aside from the whole “Tampon Timmah The Blue Falcon/Buddy Fucker Stolen Valor Recipient” I realized that the Tampon (which shall be his name here from now on for brevity, and that I also like calling him a Tampon.) anyways, Tampon Timmah? He never did, outside of a 6 Month “deployment” to Vincenza Italy, any real deployments in a 24 year Nasty Girl Career. That means if he “retired” in 2006 as stated, he never did anything of ‘substance’ in the entirety of his worthless career, outside of dodging the ONE deployment that was needed.

Retired in 2006, means 24 years back, he joined in 1982+/-.
He was a cannon Cocker aka Field Artillery.
His service is “24 years” as everyone points out.

HOWEVER
That’s “Guard/Reserve Years”
Not active duty years.
In actual credible Active Duty AKA “Real Time” he served a total of 4.1 years ‘in boots’… how I got that number I explain:

NG/Reservists only get credit for actual time in uniform.

Meaning they earn ‘points to retirement’ for one point per day of ‘drill’ meaning each day they’re in Uniform, and serving. Now my understanding is that Tampon was not a ‘full time NG’ member. THOSE guys/gals are the ones who literally are National Guard, but work it like a ‘regular soldier’ 9-5/365 days a year. That’s a whole different catagory, and I’ll leave that be as it could confuse the issue.

Nope, Tampon was the “One Weekend a Month, 2 weeks a Year” type of Troop. Nothing wrong with that mind you, but there is a certain amount of ‘looking down on’ by the Active Duty kids. Especially since guys like Timmah love to flaunt the rank and years as if it was a full-time gig.

Breaking it down:
If Tampon did the standard Boot Camp/AIT (Artillery School) at Fort Sill, he would have been a National Guard on Active Duty for pay and counting on it for his veterans status. I’ll get into that in a minute (Veteran Status that is). In Tampon’s case, he had 18 weeks (+/-) of Basic AIT which is:
126 Days of Active Duty.

His “drill times” which is the “One Weekend a Month, 2 weeks a Year” works out extremely roughly to about:
50 Days of Active Duty per year credited.

So without his Italian Deployment to Vincenza, (6 Months according to sources, 182 days +/-) at this point, just using the Much Vaunted 24 years (minus the 6 months which was about 182 days as I stated before), with the formula being roughly
50 days per year AD times
X 24 years equals
= 1200 days of AD, then subtract the the
-25 days (6 months = 25 days, half of 50 for that year of 2003 worth of drills) which leaves us with a total number of (equals)
= 1175 days of AD. Now, we then have to add the Italian trip, which adds
+182 days to his AD total which means he did about a total of:
= 1357 Days of Active Duty

which includes the “Deployment” in Italy.
Divide that by 365 days for one year, and you get:
3.7 years +/- IN TOTAL ACTIVE DUTY
that Tampon served.

And yes,
I call that “deployment” that all the ‘tards are ranting about a fucking “trip.”

The primary reason being is Vincenza Italy is about as far from a “Hardship Tour” as you can fucking get. It’s home to the 173rd Airborne, and located in the Northeast of Italy. Its really close to Venice:

It’s a location most troops would kill to be stationed at.

Hell, I passed through it to fuel up on a vay-kay I took to Venice with my hawt German Girlfriend at the time… I rented a car, and we drove from Hohenfels in Bavaria to Venice and back. VERY romantical. Vincenza was on the way, so I used it as a Log Site to ‘rearm’ (the food) and refuel the vehicle. Saved me the USD by doing so as the economy was like waaaay more expensive, especially for fuel, even back then…

While I was passing through, -I- inquired at a few Infantry units there on “How do I sign up for this place and ditch my chickenshit outfit?” and was told to “…fuck off, we’re full!” It’s gorgeous there. EVERYBODY in EUCOM back then wanted ‘in’ there… and Still do from my understanding.

And considering this fuckup (Tampon) was at least an E-7, possibly an E-8 at the time? I, as well as ALLLLL the other troops out there know that SFC/Master Sgt. “Balless” Walz wasn’t toting a weapon nor guarding/patrolling a post while there. In fact I’d put a $10,000 bet that his fat ass was sitting in Air Conditioning somewhere doing absolutely nothing and more than likely doing a four-day work week and taking looong meandering tours of the various locales and attractions while the troops were doing “grunt stuff”.

The reason I know is that’s damned near what happened every. single. time. we had a Notional Girl troop show up to ‘augment’ us at Hohenfels in Germany. The guys E-6 and below would be out ‘doing the do’ with us, while the orificers and senior enlisted skated and hid out. It’s also the reason that there have been zero pictures of that particular “deployment” released by Tampon, as the majority of them would show him on a US Taxpayer Vay-Kay to Italy, while his troops did the shit-work of actually guarding the base.

Any takers on that bet?

Didn’t fucking think so.
So in summation, Tampon had about a grand sum total of (being generous on my part) 4 years of actual in-boots functional Active Duty.

I’m pretty sure some of y’all have boots that served long and with more honor and distinction. In fact, I have a pair of UnderArmour Brown Issue boxer-skivvies that surprisingly are still fully mission capable and THEY have more time in Iraq and Afghanistan, nevermind Kuwait and Guantanamo than Tampon has:

No exaggeration on this… The X-wife gave those to me December of 2003 for my deployment. Turns out when I went to get it, I found the other pair (they came in a 2 x pack). The waist band is slightly worn, but otherwise, ZERO holes/overstretch/wear on either pair. They’ve outlasted quite a few other pairs of UnderArmour as well. The secret to them?

They were made in the United States.
As part of the acquisition model, it used to be that ALL US DotMil equipment had to be sourced and made in the Big Ole U-S-of-A. THESE were a quality make from back then. THEN UA started outsourcing their shit to Viet Nam and the like, and the longevity and quality went right out the window and down the shitter.

So yep. I literally have drawers that have seen and participated in MOAR Combat than that fucking fag “Balless” Walz, AKA Tampon Timmah, the Blue Falcon/Buddy Fucker Stolen Valor Recipient did.

“Seen Combat” as being defined as those drawers “being filled with my piss and/or shit during some particularly close calls” in Iraq in particular. By the time I made Affy, I was an ‘old hand’ and really didn’t even flinch at ‘stuff’ anymore… But either way, from my POV? No shame it it either… the first couple of times are seriously asshole-clenchers or relievers… all depends on the particular circumstances at that particular moment… the Helo Crash in particular was a ‘brown pants moment’ as I recall… anyways…

SO that’s where I stand on that.
And for what I mentioned about Veterans Status? Well, in order to be considered a Veteran (post 1980 when they changed things):

According to the Veterans Affairs (VA), the number of days of active duty required to be considered a veteran depends on when you served: 

• Before September 7, 1980:
  You must have served at least 90 days, including at least one day during a covered wartime period. 
  
• After September 7, 1980:
  You must have served at least 24 months, or the full period for which you were called to active duty, including at least one day during a covered wartime period. There are some exceptions to this requirement. For example, if you were discharged for a hardship or reduction in force, you may only need to serve at least 90 days. If you were discharged for a service-connected disability, you may need to serve less than 90 days.

So that’s what I was talking about there.

Now, to close out for tonight, a bit of comedy gold I found on YouTube. The guy who put it up goes by the handle Atozy, and his content isn’t too bad. Mostly random shit and mentioning and talking about idiots on the web… In this case? Well…. you have to watch it to believe it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biP_jIYZoz8 Atozy

It won’t let me embed it apparently dammit.
But key takeaways are some of the lines the cops say to “Matthew Pancake” which is his IRL Name…

Highlights include from the body cam footage from the cops:

“…Multiple Gerbils recovered…our suspect has multiple Gerbils in his pants”

then:
“…please don’t tell me you put any Gerbils anywhere else!”

and lastly
“For your safety, can you tell us if there is a Gerbil inside you!?!”

I was fucking dying on this one.
You have to see it to believe it.

So More Later
Big Country
And BTW: Gretchen and I have out 8th Anniversary of our First Date Tonight… time flies amiright?

Still Babe-alicious 8 years later…

Greetings And Salutations!
OK… a loooong couple of days. NOW I can talk about ‘things’ so to speak. Specifically, the rather cryptic arrest I had back in May. Sit back as this’s going to be a bit of a long read.

The background:
Waaaaay back in the bad times when we were ‘doing the do’ of fighting to get Adriana back here with us, I got pulled over when we were transiting Gatlinburg Tennessee. It was one of ‘our weekends’ with her, (court-ordered visitation) so when we had her, we tended to try and go out and do an ‘adventure’ so’s to ‘imprint’ some positive memories for what they were worth.

We ended up in this case doing a day trip to Gatlinburg to go to “Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies”. A really neat place IMO. I had my doubts as it was a “Ripley’s” chain, however, it turned out that it was actually a blast.

They have a large underwater transit tube so you can look up at the fishies overhead. Addy really loved that. However, The place was positively packed and so because of the crowd, I tended to hump her on my shoulders in some of the high-density crowd areas, which also, as you can see, let her get a “BCE-High View”…

She was fascinated by the whole thing.

She, as you can see seemed to understand “Shark=Bad”
Leastways toofus-wise.

While transiting the town going hither and yon, I got pulled over while on this particular jaunt. First time in like years I got hit for speeding, but Gatlinburg, besides being known for Dollywood and other various Touristy Places, they’re renowned for their speed traps.

55mph down to 25mph in like 50 yards.
Fucking nice Aye?
Ain’t no way you’re doing that unless you positively slam on the brakes, and possibly have the asshole who’s tailgating you eat your rear bumper right?

So I got ‘tagged’ and went through the motions.

Turns out having my Florida Drivers License having the “Disabled Veteran” status on it helped out, as I got off with a warning. The cop was also cool enough to let me know that my registration sticker was expired!

THAT I never realized.

There’s a couple of reasons for that:
See, my credit has been shytte for a while now.
After Iraq? It was great. Lots of $$$ = Lots of Credit.

Then ‘divorce’ and ‘reasons’
Then I finally started to rebuild it.
Things were looking up.
New Life/New Wife and Look! Grandbabies!

Then Gretchen got arrested for Attempted Murder/Assault w/A Deadly Weapon on Dumbcunt, and that particular setback fucked me up back to stage one credit-wise. And yeah… for all those fuckers who call me a grifter and shit for asking for help in the past? I don’t post about 3/4 of the shit this family has gone through regarding financial issues. Nor do I even ask if it’s something I know I can handle. SO as I’ve said before, go fuck yourself for talking about shit you have no fucking clue about. I pray you die horribly in a fire, watching your children (preferably small) crying out and cursing you as they die before you… sorry for the rant-tangent.

TBH, I can’t remember if I ever talked about it, but during a ‘hand off’ with Addy and Dumbcunt right before the custody thing (this was the cause of it we found out later) as we were retrieving her (Addy) from a visitation, DC was highly belligerent/agitated moreso than her usual psycho-self. Well, she went and got stupid. Like ‘handsy’ belligerent/aggressive and Gretchen ended up ‘tuning her up’ with my Combat ASP baton… Thankfully I wasn’t present as part of the issue was she punched her 79 year old Grandmother (Gretchen’s Mom) in the face, and that is when Gretchen when “full on Shithouse” on DC. TBH I’m really glad/sort of mad I wasn’t there, as I, per Florida Statute 784.08 which covers assault and battery on people 65 and older, (a third degree felony) I could have put two rounds in her rotten casaba, and that would have been that, except for washing the brains off the driveway. Instead, we got Gretchen arrested for not killing her…

a wee bit of DC bloodspatter… I wish there was more…

The problem was is that DC managed to spin a pretty good yarn for the Bulldyke Deputy who went all in and arrested Gretchen instead of the fucking known felon with a record. Methinks the Bulldyke had plans for later, which were only reinforced when she showed up looking for DC a day AFTER the arrest… instead of doing a call to the victim to say “Hey your assaulter was cut loose/made bail”, said-Dyke showed up to the In-Laws house where DC was staying to deliver the message in person in a clear violation of protocol… I think she looking for some canyon-yodeling payback for letting her (DC) get away with the shit that she did… namely assault and battery on both Gretchen and her Elderly Grandmother… goddamned corrupt fucking Dyke-Cunt-Cop.

ANYwho… Sorry for the digression, but that shit still sticks in my craw.

Anywonder why I want/dream of being able to go on a killing spree of “The Deserving”?

So, back to cases as it were… since Ye Olde Credite Sucketh, Gretchen’s Dad, who has like prefect credit, signed for a loan for us to get “NewCar”. That means I pay all the bills/insurance and maintenance, and it’s registered in his name. And therein lies the problem.

Let me ask you: Raise your hand IF you get in a car, your car, any car and the first thing, second thing, hell… does it even cross your mind IF it’s registration is good or not?

I can tell you that for me? Notsofuckingmucho. ESPECIALLY since any and all notifications go to Dad. If -I- don’t get the paperwork? It’s not on the radar. Well it seems that the reminder that “Hey, you owe the King his tithe!” paperwork (i.e. the registration/taxes and fees) went to Dad, who promptly forgot about it. Mind you, I don’t blame him… he’s 87 years old FFS. Y’all long-time readers here know what we’ve been dealing with with them (my in-laws, God love’em)…

So since “Occifer Friendly” gave me the warning and a tip that I best get that taken care of ASAP , as other jurisdictions in Tennessee –might not– be as cool about it, I went home and did what came naturally.

Seeing that there was no way in Hell we were going to be back in Florida anytime soon, and that Dad, who barely can make it to the shitter without help, and since there was just no way to remedy this until we got home. Mind you this was in February of 2023?

I faked it.
I went online, grabbed a ‘current known good‘ registration sticker and printed it up. Then I sealed it in plastic…as in full-on lamination, with enough of an edge so water wouldn’t discolor the inkjet, and then superglued it onto the plate.

I mean fuck it
I got more important shit to be worrying about at the time.
(WARNING: Digression #789234562 ahead)

Plus in doing this? It harkened back to the Good Old Days of being in the Army, and utilizing “Delrina Forge-A-Form” as we used to call it. Back in the early days of the new DotCom Army, they had a primitive program called “Delrina Fill-A-Form” which allowed us to fill out forms (1348A, 3161s and the like) and print them up, get signatures, and then utilize them. It made life waaaay easier than to do the old hand-jam/type in triplicate mode of yesteryear…

It didn’t take me and Little Country (that’s when we were on active duty working together, running the Spec-4 Mafia) to realize that copies of the forms with the ‘proper signatures’ opened a whole new wide world of Next Level Scrounging to us.

Yeah, we were innovators of sorts for the time…

This was done by procuring xeroxable clear Acetate. We then went around to the various Companies/Battalions/Division(s) even as necessary, to their “Order Boards” and stole the latest “Order of the Day”/Change of Command” or whatever posted paper-copies that were pinned to the board for general distribution. ANYTHING with an Occifer’s actual signature at the bottom.

We’d then go back to the 4 Shop, and copy that order specifically for the signature block onto the clear Acetate. After which, depending on IF the orders-in-question would be ‘missed’, we’d return them. More often than not, back then? Not so much.

Once, we made the copy, We’d then cut out the “SigBlock” only with actual Signature at the bottom and keep it in a small 3X5 card Box. When we needed something, say from DRMO which used to stand for the Defense Reutilization Marketing Office which is where the majority of surplus shit the Army is shitcanning comes from, we’d fill out the appropriate form(s) and then at the bottom, put the appropriate signature block on clear acetate at the bottom, and run off however many copies we needed.

Depending on what we were acquiring, we’d use the appropriate rank(s) as needed. Very Rarely did anyone call to follow up if the paperwork was a legitimate request. That’s just the way things were done back then. And another aside to an already overlong side-story: DRMO has a new name last I heard, but yeah, this worked like a fucking charm. At one point for Shits, Grins and Giggles, we had the CG of 1st CavDiv, Major General (MG) David D. McKiernan’s SigBlock.

Never used it, but still… cool to have.

So yeah, this was easy-peasy for me.

Not so good though was that when I got pulled over earlier this year in May? The overzealous Pig who busted me, and figured out the sticker-wasn’t-a-sticker severely overcharged me with a fucking felony. The link to the day after is HERE. I kept my yap shut until now, as man, I had no choice. I got hit with a charge, for one bullshit itty-bitty faked up sticker with “Counterfeiting License Plates”

Even the D.A. was baffled.
Told me that himself after the fact today…

My PD (Public Defender) did a great job.
I ended up getting a misdemeanor, $100 fine, court costs and I already did the paperwork to get it expunged. That gets mailed on payday. Thankfully, The D.A. was prior service and did me a solid, but I will say, I was seriously sweating the felony bullshit. What really fucking frosts my cake is that I was nothing but professional, polite and co-operative with the Red Headed fucking Power-Hunger Piglet Female. As in the poast linked above, she didn’t even have the balls/ovaries to perform the arrest itself. If I had been a total cock, I could see ‘stacking bullshit charges’… but in this case? Fuck her forever.

She’s made my perma-shitlist to say the least.

I just hope she runs in to some PCP/Meth-Jacked Nigger with a Knife who wants to play “Lets rape and skin the Female Cop” in the near future…. the town/A.O. she works in? There’s about an 70-30 chance of that happening… and it couldn’t happen to a nicer cunt.

So all’s well that ends well… it’ll take me a few to get through the fine(s) but even then, the D.A. reduced ALL of them. TOTAL solid from dude TBH. Granted, a total dropping of the charges would have been even better, but according to my PD, the judge in this case? That wasn’t on the table. But what he did do over and above? He lessened the $$$ pain. Normally the fee for a PD is $200, they hit me for $100. Court costs? The same. The fine is the minimum possible. Less than $400 with a payment program at $50 a month. Like I said, the guy did right by me for what he had to deal with. I blame the swine.

So then, the other thing I got for tonight:
This’s MY fault for missing it.
I’m late on a reader request as I’ve been SO distracted and busy lately.

I am to blame, so Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Maximo Mea Culpa!

Long time reader/commenter ‘Jay Anon’, AKA Joe Peters is a fellow 11H10, Heavy Anti-Armor Infantryman. I was surprised to find this out, as those of us who graduated from Lee Field are pretty fucking rare, as the MOS in the 90s started dying out, and was done by 1998. 1996 is when I got involuntarily reclassed to 19K (tread-head). We never crossed paths which is odd, but not unheard of. Joe OTOH got the fuck out, seeing the writing on the Clintonista Wall back around when I got reclassed.

Joe reached out as he got hit with Cancer.

I have a special place in my heart for folks who got hit like that. And apparently, the VA ain’t doing shit per usual. So yeah, he asked if I could put up the GiveSendGo, which I of course said yes to. The Link is HERE. I threw $40 to him tonight, and on payday, I’m throwing a Cee-Note as I will finally can, and I’d appreciate any help you all can spare. I’m adding it to my Sidebar and I’m sweetening the Deal.

The first three folks who donate $200 get a “Battery Holder Claymore”

as a personal thanks from me. It’s not much, but it’s the least I can do, as no one outside of like 3-4 donations so far has/have helped out my Bro. Colors may vary, but hey, it’s utterly unique.

The first three will be defined as “In the Donated Column” and with an email to me at BCE187th@protonmail.com After that, if anyone does the same, I’ll see what I can do, because as of now, the 3D printer is down, and I haven’t gotten it back up and running. If people go nuts, I’ll figure -something- out, as I always do.

I’ve also packaged up all of the ‘stuff’ that Gretchen didn’t use in the “BCE Anti-Cancer Protocol” and am getting ready to ship it on payday. Sorry for the extended delay Joe… it’s been a coupe of weeks yannow? Beyond that, I appreciate all of y’all.

Cancer is a pure-dee motherfucker.

NOT cool at all.

Thankfully, with y’alls help Gretchen Survived it.
I survived it.
HOPEFULLY Joe survives it.
We’ll have to see.

Otherwise, besides my fun and games with the ‘Authorities’

it was still a BUSY day. Dad had a HUGE tree limb that fell during the last wind-storm in The Villages, and the tree guys wanted big $$$ to remove it. They (M&D) couldn’t get out of the driveway, not that that was a bad thing, as we don’t want Mom driving in her addled Pre-Alzheimer state, but still. I cut the fucker up and dragged it off.

A bit of a plus however: It sounds bad, but Dad told me ALL of his tools, to include the chainsaw are mine mine mine when he finally dies, so Hell… like I stated before, it sounds bad, but man… He was a professional mechanic who was Chevy/Ford/Chrysler certified, among them. There were a LOT more, but he owned and operated three auto repair/body shops in Clearwater/St. Pete until he sold them off and retired early to The Villages.

The garage is a man-cave Dream of top-end tools and whatnot.

And now they’re alllllllll mine (future tense)

There were other aspects to the day, but I’m calling it early.
I’m wasted (physically and emotionally) and got-to-git
So More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
A wee bit off onto an off-topic non-political/war poast, but what the hell. We’re going to hit up a a favorite topic of mine tonight, Cooking. There have been far too many black pills going around as of late, and all the talk about the food and whatnot, I figured we could use a change of pace. That being said, I’ve been waiting to discuss this for little while, to whit:

I got a package a couple of days ago that was unexpected but very cool and welcome. One of my regular readers/supporters of Ye Olde Blegg sent me a gift in the mail… in this case that lil Pizza Oven that’s been on TV lately, the “Piezano”

A very sincere and Public Thank You for that gift!

The two of us had been chatting about cooking as it’s a mutual ‘thing’ if you will, and in passing we got to discussing home-made Pizza. He mentioned that he’s got a really high end pizza-specific oven, and I lamented the lack of one here. I told him about the “Piezano” and that it appeared to be a fairly low priced entry for such a thing. The discussion was the initiator of my Apocalypse Pizza discussion for that matter… anyway… we kept talking for a bit, and then went on our merry ways.

The next thing you/I know, “Mr. Piezano” showed up unexpectedly in the mail 2 days ago. So again, my most ‘umble thanks for the gift Good Sir! As you will see, it’s already getting a workout…

Tonight is ‘test night’.

Previously the same benefactor sent me a Bread Machine when we were fighting the ‘good fight’ in Tennessee when he found out that locally, there was no ‘good’ bread to be had. The only shytte available was your basic Goyslop Wonderbread(s) and whatnot. He decided to help out, and got Gretchen and I a nice bread machine that we’ve used near continuously for the past year or so or leastways since we got it… Anyway…. It’s been a wonder (pardon the pun) and tonight I utilized it for making the bread dough as it was well past 9pm when I decided to mess around with it. And as a heads up for tomorrow night’s poast: We have to go up to Gretchen’s parents place after work tomorrow as I have an appointment early the next morning, so spending the night is just a ‘needs-be’. I’ll update y’all on that shytteshow after it’s done.

Now, “Mr. Piezano’s” instructions say to put the uncooked pie on the stone for a total of six minutes OR “…depending on how it looks through the window.” The directions were pretty specific on keeping an eye on the bake, lest something ‘untoward’ happen… After I got done throwing the dough down and prepping it, I threw it onto the oven, closed it, and went to set the timer on the microwave. I then put the bread pan that now needs to be washed after mixing up the doughball into the sink. When I turned back. Total elapsed time I -think- was about a minute 45, maybe two minutes had past, and when I looked in, I saw this:

DAMN. That was unexpectedly quick!

That was after two minutes+/- mind you…
I didn’t move from that spot after of course… new device, new parameters, no idea ‘how’ it’s going to come out, so a close watch on it was needed.

Literally 45 seconds later I was like “Better safe than sorry” and pulled that sucker. 800 degrees cooks mighty fast. As you can see in the above pic, the temp dropped to about 700 degrees when I opened it and struggled to put the pizza on the cooking surface for the first time… I mean I got it done, but I used an overabundance of caution as this thing is hot-hot and I didn’t want any more burn-scars than I already have. It didn’t even have time to ‘recover’ the lost heat and that pie was already almost done.

Seeing that it was damned near if not completely ready, I pulled it, and this is what came out:

2 Minutes, 25 seconds of cook time.
I’m really glad I kept an eye on it.

A wee bit of the cheese got a wee bit crisp, but don’t let the look fool you. This thing was oh so damned good it’s crazy. Gretchen said she’s reminded of the pizza from Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza. It’s that good. The bottom was done perfectly. No ‘sag’ like you get when it’s either too thin, or underdone. The crust on the edges had a nice crispness to it, but the center of the ‘bones’ if you will, had that perfect ‘chewiness’ that one wants, and I concur with her assessment there… it’s a LOT like Anthony’s, except without the $30 price tag. Or the wait. The dough recibee I used was as simple as you can get, and the dough from the machine came out perfectly. Like WOWSERS!

I’m of two minds here…

On the plus side, this’s a great and easy-to-make thing. It also was really quick to make. And another on the plus side is that even IF we have assorted “SPORKYness” habbening, I can run that bread maker and the pizza oven off of my alternative Power Sourcing. Since I also have ALL the ingredients needed that allow me to keep making this if needed, I’d say that’s a “W” all around.

The biggest drawback however is part of the same issue. This thing is great. The pizza is great. It’s almost too easy to whip this together. Total time from prep-to-table was just a shade over 30 minutes. Less than 5 minutes to put the ingredients into the bread maker, 23 minutes exactly to get the dough made, 3 minutes to ‘make’ the pizza itself (cut/roll the dough, add sauce/cheese) and 2:45 to bake it to finish. Total time is like 33 minutes, 45 seconds from ‘start’ to ‘feast’.

THAT is the double edge sword right there.

Something THAT easy to make, and is that delicious? It means diet wise, I’ma gonna have to make sure I don’t get into making this habitually like I do other comfort foods. I’ve lost a lot of weight over the past few months, and I sure don’t want to fuck that up… Gretchen herself is down over 40 pounds too. The majority of my home-made comfort chow however -is- nominally healthy. Grilled Beef Teriyaki Skewers for one… Italian Style Ground Beef in a wee bit of rice… heavy on the proteins, low on the carbs… stuff like that…

The pizza however?
THIS Pizza!?!
Oh yeah… this’s a diet-killer for sure.

It’s just that damned tasty. And what’s even worse is this was a first attempt! I haven’t even begun to fuck around and tweak the recibee, never mind add ‘things’ like pepperoni, hamburger, onions and the like… I didn’t even try to get a full on ‘proper’ shape for the dough… It got to the proper thickness for the center and crust area, and I was like “Good enough for DotGov Specs!” added a layer of marinara, some Moz, and threw it on the stone. As you saw, it was sort of a square…

And that BTW is the thing about the “Piezano”… the heating elements are on the top and the bottom, and the cooking surface appears to be a 3/8 inch thick pizza stone. It takes about 7-8 minutes to get it’s full heat up. I actually set a timer by calculating -when- the dough would be coming out of the machine, and when the alarm went off, I -then- started the Pizza Oven so as the dough came out, Mr. Piezano was ready to receive the pizza. Like I said… 30+ minutes from start to finish.

A Dangerous New Toy in many respects Aye?

This could be a setback in Gretchen and My personal “Battle of the Bulge” if we’re not careful right?

If you want to get one or see it, it’s HERE on the ‘Zon and yes I get a kickback if you get one. The price right now is $106 w/Prime Free Shipping… the TV ad I saw a ways back had it on “Special” for $129, so I don’t know… what I do know is that the first pizza was spectacular. I’ll follow up as we go along and see how it’s longevity is, and any ‘new flavors/recibeez’ I can come up with.

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Been a rough couple of days. Not so much for me, but the news I got is utterly fucked. Just to give a quick update, my bro Cowboy? For those of you just tuning in, my first real “Florida Fren” that I made many years back owns a Horse Ranch. It’s where we took that awesome picture of Adriana when she was nominally ‘ours’ for that brief, blissful time before things went to shit:

That’s her and the big galoot of a Horse is Chip. Chip at last I heard is at a training facility getting worked up. He’s got a really good bloodline and is probably going to be worth bank later on. In this pic, believe it or not despite his size, he’s a Weanling I believe. I maybe wrong, but I know he was less than a year old. This was his very first interaction with a miniature Hoomon.

It showed too.

It was Addy’s first interaction with a hayburner.

And they hit it off with Addy slap-petting him on the nose, and him alternating from snuffling all over her head and occasionally licking her, and then the two of them ran back and forth along that fenceline, with Addy giggling fit to die. The other horse I believe is Chipper’s momma, who was watching veeeery closely to make sure this smol critter didn’t hurt her baby.

>Sigh<
Good Memories there.

Now, onto the fucked uppedness to the extreme.
As a back-brief, Cowboy’s wife died suddenly exactly two months ago on Sunday. It, for the lack of a better term, fucking wrecked him. Gretchen and I worked to help him through it, along with his daughter/son-in-law and his sister who flew in from Hawaii. He was just getting back on track from what I could tell. He finally started attending some grief counselling and group sessions, and this coming Saturday is the “Celebration of Life for her. Mind you, his dog of like 14 years had died about 4? maybe 6 weeks before the wife did, and in my own ghoulish way and sense of humor teased him his life was becoming a country song…

I know… but harsh gallows humor is how I deal Mnn’k? I’ve buried too many people to have it any other way, so I’m sort of ‘cold’ when it comes to folks dying. It’s not that I’m apathetic nor do I lack empathy… it’s more of a “Hey, it is what it is, and at least they don’t have to deal with this shit nor taxes anymore.”

As in some cases they say, maybe I envy the dead…

BUT
The Fucked Uppedness To The Extreme.
I got the call yesterday at 11:00am.
He was married previously. Wife #1 and him split for whatever reason. He really never speaks about her. I know he’s got his daughter, and had a son. Yes, foreshadowing there. His son however had issues and wasn’t too involved with Cowboy. Much like Spawn and Myself, except -I’m- the one with issues so to speak.

Seems he got a call early Saturday? Sunday? and was told his boy had died.

Fuck. Me. Running.

I’m not going to go into it too deeply out of respect for Cowboy, but his boy ‘dabbled’ with recreational substances on occasion. And in this case, the shit was tainted, and it cost him his life.

Any wonder why I no longer enjoy better living through recreational chemistry as I once did in my decadent and dissolute yoof? Mind you, doing so (back then) I had a fucking blast. Much like pre-HIV/AIDs people used to fuck like rabid weasels on the regular, and then >BOOM!< Nosofuckinmucho. Same goes for the drugs… In this case? Of course it was fentanyl.

It always is apparently.

My cousin whom I love dearly lost her first born son to it unexpectedly during the Lockdown during the ‘Vid. This was Spawn’s ‘adjacent’ if you will… born around the same time, and when we were living close together after I got out of the Army, we’d have play dates with both of our boys together when they were “Little-Lils.” In his case from what I found out, he was in College, and his roommates were locked down with him . One of them had a minor habit, and since they had nothing but time on their hands, and money to burn, they got bored and started fucking around for entertainment.

The poor kid found out…
My cousin has gone full on hermit-mode because of it I think. Not sure as MY comms with that side of the fam are very limited. Either way, I can not imagine getting any sort of news like that at all.

Fucking Fentanyl.
IMO we should just identify the location(s) of the biggest Cartel(s) and drop a few neutron bombs on them. On both them personally, as well as every. single. identifiable. Cartel. Location. FUCK collateral damage. Ain’t no such thing here as far as I’m concerned. Kill them all. Make them positively glow. Then tell Joe Chink to cut that shit out, or they’re next. Specifically target the leadership and their families. Open season, no bag limit. They might start rethinking their methods after a few get whacked brutally. Maybe, Maybe not, but I’m at this point all about stacking enemies up, both foreign and domestic.

I’ll be here for Cowboy…. that’s what I do
But God Damn man….
Moving on….

So after that, as an entry to the next story from the Krain:

The story is HERE
It’s been verified by multiple sources, to even include multiple Treasonous Ministries of Lies and Propaganda Outfits, as even for them, this’s a “bridge too far” so to speak.

I mean wow.
On Top of the Kursk Klown Show, Krainfelds boys are “Deutschland Uber Alles’ing” around Kursk in German Tanks for fucks sakes. What kills me is the utter lack of intelligence on behalf of our Intel/Politicos. This is the first time that Russia has been invaded by a foreign enemy since the “Great Patriotic War” i.e. the Big ‘Un World War 2, the Krauts decided it’d be a good idea to head to Moscow…

“Say fucking what?” is what -I- would have said if -I- was a German General back then… That and “Not a good Plan”

What fucking kills me as a bit of a Military Historian is that a major turning point in that war was in the same exact area namely Kursk. That was when the Soviets laid a World Class Asswhupping on ‘Der Chermans’ in what was the single largest Tank Battle in History.

Again, History rarely rhymes, but it does repeat itself.

My guess is that the majority of these fuckweasels who’re nominally ‘in charge’ have never actually you know… read a real history book. That includes the West Point Assholes Association which from my own understanding is MOAR concerned with diversity and inclusion for the 69th (ABN) Intersectional/Nonbinary Dildo Brigade.

SO the TL;DR is these guys are teasing a befuddled old man. According to Yalensis over at “Awful Avalanche” (link HERE)

The elderly man stops and tries to explain to these Ukrainian soldiers in German SS helmets, that he has been wandering around for five days, lost, and could possibly use some assistance.

Yalensis, Ukraine War Day #905: Susanin Versus The Nazis

Now granted, Yalensis is a PURE Russian Propagandist.
Not going to argue that fact.
However, I source a LOT of intel from a LOT of sources.
In this case, he’s been pretty damned good with a huge amount of behind-the-scenes- stuff and general ‘man in Moscow’ citizen points of view that have given me a far greater understanding of the way the Russians themselves are viewing this SMO/War.

With that understanding that it’s a press release from the Russians themselves, I can still put together a better, more realistic picture than mouthy assholes in the comments who say I’m ‘slobbering on Pootins knob’ or whatever that fuckup said. I mean for fucks sakes… in one breath all these assholes/faggots tell us how they refuse to BELIEVE anything that’s said about OrangeManBad by the Treasonous Ministries of Lies and Propaganda “…because they lie all the time!!!” and then in the very same breath start spewing whatever recycled Presstitute Krainian Bullshit that they’re talking about when it comes to VodkaManBad and his eventual downfall and how AWESOME! Krainfeld and his (((tribe))) are and how FINAL VICTORY is right around the corner!!!!!

It makes me weary.

Now in a more ‘real life’ point of view, seems the old man is named Alexander Gusarov and he’s become a bit of a cause célèbre in Russia because they (the Russian people) are a LOT like us what with Mass Media “If it Bleeds it Leads” saturation stories. In this case, the poor guy got caught behind the lines in the village of Gogolevka. That’s pretty close to the point of Axis for the Krainian fight in Sudzha.

Long story short: As you can see, his village is juuuust a wee bit past the point of entry for the Krainians. Sudzha, from ALL the sources I have found state that they (the Krainians) have dug in hard there.

Link to the story HERE
Per that story

Sudzha, which is 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, is the biggest town to fall to Ukraine’s troops since the incursion began Aug. 6.

AP News August 16, 2024

Now it seems that the Russian people themselves are demanding to know what happened. His daughter hasn’t heard anything in the past 10 day, as the video that the SS-Wannabes was shot/posted on August 6th, almost 10 days ago. He’s not listed in any of the ‘hostage’ lists, nor has he turned up anywhere in any refugee camps or evacuation camps. The current thought is those SS-Wannabes probably shot him out of hand off-camera shortly after they took the video…

Thing of it is, that these days?

Maaan…

These fuckwit Krainians… I swear… Since the beginning of this “SMO” I’ve maintained and STILL maintain that the average Krainian is functionally fucking retarded. This because of my personal interactions with them in Iraq, as well as the very few I met who married some of my coworkers despite my LOUD and HARSH protestations to the contrary…”DO NOT MARRY THAT BROAD!” I said in multiple instances…

Did they Listen?

HA!

And, as I expected, most of those females did what I absolutely expected them to do, which was “loot and scoot” my boys, and then moved on to ‘Greener Pastures’ as soon as they could do so. Just as a FYI/Public Service Announcement: If you feel the need to be Frivorced or Divorce-Raped, find yourself a nice exceptionally hawt Krainian Chick… they’re ALLLL over the place, and slobbering at the thought of getting here to the non-shooty Land of the Lean Mean Green Card and Big PX…

There’s plenty of websites that’re ‘selling’ them right now
Cheaper By The Dozen as it were…

However, besides that, just because I think the Krainians as a whole are fucking morons doesn’t mean that the whammenz aren’t relatively cunning and capable.

In this particular instance, it’s the fact that they filmed themselves harassing this poor shmoe. While wearing NAZI regalia no fucking less… Even if they didn’t do a fucking thing WHEN, not if, he turns up dead in a ditch, these fucking guys are going to be ‘on the hook’ for it…

Or maybe better stated that they’ll be “hanging from the gallows” for it as murdering innocent elderly civilians is highly frowned upon by almost everyone worldwide. I mean as even the ‘Corpse Formerly Known as The Joetato’ would say “C’Mon Man!!!” Even if he died of a heart attack/aneurysm or whatever, WHEN they find “Dedushka Alex’s” (Grandpapa Alex’s) corpse in a shallow grave and/or buzzard picked, those dudes are fucking oh-so-fucking dead.

In fact they’ve identified BOTH morons apparently.
Yalensis names one: Vasily Daniliuk.

Can you say “Walking Dead Man?”

I’m pretty sure that they killed the Old Dude. Sounds harsh, but it’s ‘modis operandi’ for those Krainians to do so. I mean they’ve done oh-so many things that initially get blamed on the Russians, and then it becomes a moment like “…oh geez… that wasn’t a Russian War Crime… it was #/ourguys so let’s just bury it, forget about it and moving on… Oh Look, A Squirrel!!!” Much like the highly-questionable “Bucha Massacre”

The more evidence that comes out on that particular shitshow, the worse it looks for the Krainians. You can do your own research on that, but check the International Red Cross investigation, which came up as “inconclusive” as to who was actually responsible. Amnesty International could only come up with 22 bodies attributed to the Russians directly out of over 1000+ civvies that the BBC claimed were killed:

On 16 May 2022, BBC News reported that more than 1,000 civilians were killed in the Bucha region during the month under Russian occupation; most did not die from shrapnel or shelling. More than 650 were shot dead by Russian soldiers

Wikipedia, “Bucha Massacre”

Anyways, sorry for the digression per usual.
The point is this guy and his buddy?
They’re dead fucking meat.

Myself, I go back to my original rant about the Cartels as stated above. “FUCK collateral damage.” I say that the Russians go and find out where exactly Mr. Daniliuk lives. Considering the majority of the Krainian Klown Krew Troops are ALL middle-aged/oldsters, he should be married and/or have a family, be it current close-fam or extended. If I were the HMFIC of this, which stands for Head Motherfucker In Charge, I’d order up a SU-24 to drop a FAB-3000 on his family’s domicile. Preferably when they’re at home.

Even better if they live in a LARGE block of apartments in say Kiev. Blow that fucker into a HUUUUGE and DEEP crater along with ALL the neighbors.

Then drop leaflets explaining exactly WHO they were aiming for and WHY. Then explain the guy responsible is still alive as far as you know, and that HE and HIS ACTIONS were what brought the “Wrath of Russia” to their front door(s). I’d also point out the whole war is a ‘brother war’ and how (((Krainfeld))) and his Kriminal Koterie of Kocaine Korrupted Klowns are the reason the war continues, and that the only way it will end is when he and his ilk are either dead or overthrown

Got me a hunch, judging from my research on ‘groupthink’ that Mr. Vasily Daniliuks life would be exactly worth Zip/Nada/Zero.

In fact, a few more specifically targeted people that would by normal circumstances be considered out of the ‘bullseye’ so to speak would be enough for even the lowest Plebe to consider it’s time for a ‘change they can believe in.’ And for those of you who say “You can’t do that!!!” Tell it to the Izzies who’ve been blasting the families of ALL the Palestinian Leadershit across the board. The guy who they wasted in Tehran? That Bigwig Ismail Haniyeh?

They smoked his entire family to include his infant grandchildren without batting an eye. Link HERE. They even did the airstrike knowing full well that he wasn’t there at the location, and still blew away the guys fam… How fucked is that infobit?

Thing of it is, there’s a difference in ‘religious outlook’ regarding the two groups. The Palestinians take it as a point of Honor and get the “Instant Magic Carpet Ride” to Allah and Paradise if they get offed like that. Whammenz and Kids included.

The Krainians? Orthodox Christian Krainins? Yeah, they get to go to heaven, but they ALSO societally speaking have a BIG “Need to pay back them motherfuckers responsible” thing happening… sort of a “Vendetta Thing” if you will. Not as bad as the Sicilians, but still… Granted they’re already balls-deep in a fight with Russia, BUT if their immediate fam gets turned into ground beef in a building collapse like oh-so-many Palestinian kids have as of late… and they can find an easier and more available target like Krainfeld or the previously mentioned Mr. Daniliuk? Yeah… you do the maff on that one aight?

And as far as wasting the Grandchildren of the Palestinian Leader? Like wow…. just wow… how far have we fallen?

Mind you… This was done with the Untied Statz Junta’s Nominal Approval. And we’re supposed to be the “Good Guys”? Not that means -anything- at all anymore as we’re ‘just another Turd World Dicktastershit’ at this point. The only difference between the US and say, Venezuela is THEY have a LOT more oil than we do (as far as I know). And yeah, the pedants here will argue with me just ‘because’ but I’m just proving a point ya dig? Point is, it’s all in Points Of View, and actualities.

So…
Yeah… smoke the guys fam and let the rubble bounce.
At this point personally?
I got NO DAWG in any of these ‘hunt(s)’ so to speak.
As I like to say, I report, you decide.

SO your thoughts in the comments?
Everyone but that cockfag the self-proclaimed “Generalissamo”…. you’ve earned the perma-ban hammer. So suck it and go play on someone else’s blog fucktard. You will not be missed.

More later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations Y’all!
Well I finally got that particular odious chore over with. Got 90% of the food repacked, restacked and inventoried. There’s a few more hard cases I have to bust out and count the ‘stuff’ inside, but that’ll be a later date thing. THIS mission to corral up all the #10 cans and get them inventoried and organized was the BIG issue this weekend.

Those hard cases are literally some of the ones I scrounged back in Afghanistan. Medical Supply Trunks is what they’re called. They’re made by Pelican:

I got two of them in a dope deal. They’re pretty much bomb proof. The only cash I had to pay was the flat-rate $20 at the Post Office to mail them home. The wheels on them make them soooooo easy to tote the ‘stuff’ around in too. Right now I have about 80-90 Mountain House Pouches of various flavors and MREs stuffed in them, to include Russian and Krainian Rations. I’m debating on swapping out the rats to the new Storage Bins, as those Med Trunks have wheels. The problem is what would I put in there instead?

Ammunition is out as that’s just too damned heavy. If it was loaded with just Boolits and mags, I don’t think even Sapper and Myself could lift it fully packed. They’re too small for weapons cases, and either way I got some “FauxTemu-Pelican” cases for the Long Guns if need be. By the way, as an FYI some of them are actually worth the $$$. Check them out if you’re looking for a deal. To be honest, I’ll probably leave them as they are, as they’re “ready food” i.e. just add water and we’re good to go.

Three of the Storage Bins we put together today are actually more “Meal Prep Bins”. One of you asked about the ‘types’ and/or brand I prefer. We have several different brands. MOST of them are pretty well known:

Mountain House The Original. I got a LOT of their stuff.

Peak Refuel (Sapper’s Go-To) VERY Pricey. VERY Frou-Frou.
As I mentioned in the comments, Venison and Bison are on the menu… it’s almost as bad as the French…

Auguson Farms (for “ingredient stuff”) More on that in a minute)

Provident Pantry a good place to get deals on “kits”. In my case I got “baking kits” with like 4 cans of white flour, baking powder, butter powder, a can of sugar and the like for less than if I bought them separately.

Nutristore for Meats as the prices are a wee bit better than others, BUT the portions are correspondingly smaller.

Freeze Dry Wholesalers Their website is HERE. No payout for me if you go there, but they have some NICE meat that I have tried and can vouch for. Just be aware that the Uncooked Sirloin Steaks are really thin and when rehydrated they cook like a minute-steak. Like >WHAM!< and they’re done. What I love about them though is they have FD Seafood… The Shrimp are good. Gretchen’s Cheesecake. I don’t have a LOT from there, mostly stuff to keep the wife off my ass and fed.

MREs I get from everywhere. I have Brit Rats, South Korean Mini-Bibimbap Rats (Great as they’re compact AF) Danish 24hr Rats, French RCIM 24hr Rats (Frou-Frou AF as well… who in the fuck has Duck Pate in a field rat??? The fucking Frogs, that’s who) Canadian Rats, and the aforementioned Russian and Krainian Rats. There’s probably one or two countries I missed, but you get the idea. I also of course have US rations. I even scored some T-Rats. The “Breakfast Cake w/Syrup” ones. I picked those up back I think in June? when they were on sale. $40 for the case at $10 a tray. The expiration date is May of 2027 (3 years) so why not? Each one is 18 Portions and as I recall, it was a damned good cake for what it was/is… Plus it has the syrup (FakeMaple) packet so yeah. I figure in a ‘Everything has gone to Hell’ at least we got cake to eat. The ONLY rations I won’t get even though they’re cheap as fuck are those fucking nasty “Humanitarian Rations”

30 bux for I -think- there’s 10 of them in there?
Each one is theoretically one days worth of chow. VERY Calorie dense… like 2200 per pouch.
HOWEVER
The supposed ‘variety of meals’ is a choice of lentil stew, lentil stew, or lentil stew. Supposedly there are two other menus, beans w/ tomato sauce or a pasta w/ tomato sauce, but I’ve never heard of anyone finding those. They also have like a generic pop-tart in there, as well as two MRE “vegetarian” Cracker packs, w/Peanut Butter and a Jelly pack. There’s also a set of some form of cookie too. They’re Vegan/Halal/One-Size-Fits-All generic MRE. IMO, they’re Shytte and the fact that these are what we are air-dropping into Gaza is part and parcel of why they hate us I’m guessing.

To continue on the “ingredient stuff” I made up three boxes with pretty much the same ‘stuff’ in each Bin. Specifically Pizza Makings. When you get right down to it, Pizza is a pretty damned useful and easy to make survival food. It’s got a couple of thing going for it:
1) It’s a ‘comfort food’. In a disaster, it’s something that can put a smile on a kids face, and that in itself is worth having the ability to make it.
2) It’s simple. You only need the absolute minimum to make it IF you’re “properly Prepping” i.e. having a good balance of foodstuffs.
3) Relatively healthy if you make it from scratch. Vitamins, Carbs, Dairy, Vegetables and Proteins with the meats. Can’t really argue it.
4) It feeds a couple of people. Depending on how you slice it, an 18 inch pie can go quite a ways.
5) You can (as I have) bake it in a Solar Oven. And no, you don’t need to spend big $$$ on that. I made mine with some 1 inch thick Silver wrapped insulation board, some flat black spray paint, and a piece of glass. I took the insulation board and made a box out of it. Hot Glue and Nails, with a wooden bottom. I made sure that the box had an angle on it so I could maximize the sun hitting the interior, and added foil-wrapped ‘wings’ around the four sides of it. Then I sprayed the interior AND exterior (but not the foil parts) with the flat black paint. When I put the pizza inside, and covered it with the glass? Hoo boy did that sucker cook/bake up. According to my thermometer, it got to about 300 degrees in there.

So for having the ingredients on-hand? Part of that “baking kit” I got… In this case: flour, sugar, a pinch of salt, yeast and water. I think it was Some folks like to toss in some Olive Oil. We have plenty of that around so, yeah. The dough fixins are easy to have on hand. The tomato sauce is made from the BIG #10 can of tomato powder, and I got a case of FD Mozzarella Cheese in #10 cans. I split all of that up through 3 Bins. Then I added FD Sausage Crumbles, Ground Beef, and FD Bell Peppers and Onions. No pepperoni however… not sure if that can even be FD’d or if a dried stick will last that long? (i.e. years of longevity?) Thoughts in the comments?

So yeah. Pizza for the Apocalypse.
Can’t beat that with a stick.

There were some revelations from all of this though. One is I need a shitload MOAR of can openers. Like one per Bin. At least. I have a pile of P-38 can openers, but truthfully, they suck. Especially if you need to open a #10 can. They’re handy if you got like a ‘normal’ size can, but for bigger jobs? Notsomucho. And then I also need to get a Sawyer mini-water Filter for each bin as well. It would purely suck to have all this goodness and NOT have the means to utilize it Aye?

So that’s what -I- spent my weekend doing.
Now it’s back to the Tractor Factory in the Oh-Dark Early.
Joy.
So More Later
Big Country

Greetings!
Sorry I’m late.
Been a full day again.
Seems to be happening a lot lately…

This time my issue was an “unexpected sleep-in”. Usually Chili lets me know what time it is (08:30 on the nose) as that’s when her lil bladder starts yelling to her that she needs to be emptied.

Damned near to the minute for that matter. 08:30.

And then, as of late I’ve been so busy trying to get the inventories around the house done, general “cleanup on Aisle 5!” and other taskers. This on top of working the NORMAL 40 hours a week at People’s Glorious Tractor Factory #187 and then ADDING an additional 10 hours +/- to get the overtime $$$. Mainly because I desperately need the extra cash now, so I plum crashed da fuq out hard last night.

Normally during the work week, I’m already up and running long before 08:30… Usually 06:30 to get ready for the Salt Mines if you will… Weekends are when I get to sleep in a wee bit… Until today. Sapper oh-so-kindly handled the pupper, and Gretchen (who never actually sleeps past 0930-10am usually, woke me up at like 11:30 this AM.

I must have needed it. Even after my shower I still had that punch-drunk tired feeling until I got a Monster and a Stacker into me… Coffee was contra-indicated as I’m out of my blend, and the shopping trip tomorrow should cover replacing it.

So after a late wakeup, a lady on Fecesbook Marketplace who I messaged late last night let me know the Item(s) I was looking for/at were available. In this case, BIG storage totes/containers:

They’re the 40 Gallon Storage Bins.
The extremely robust ones

And she was selling them $11 a throw, with a $1 off each one if you bought 10. Sapper and I both were like “Uh, Take our money Please!” It took an hour plus to get there, as it is Saturday, and every. fucking. retard. normie. was out on the roads, and add on she was located out in Clearwater/Oldsmar, which is a fair distance from the Casa.

I got 10, and he got 10. Not a bad deal at all considering that they run normally like OMFG!!! expensive:

$35 a throw BEFORE taxes at Lowes.

Originally, it was going to be 5 and 5, 10 in total… with us splitting the cost. When we picked them up, and saw that they’re unused… like brand new, we ended up getting 20 of them. We had to play “Car Tetris” to get them in the back of my lil Hyundai Tucson as I didn’t remove the Grans car seat, nor any of the other shytte that was back there before we left dammit.

Besides that inconvenience, let me say these are the thick walled mothers… Perfect for throwing Number 10 Cans in them, of which I found out tonight that they hold 16 of them perfectly. They have to be laid on their sides though (the cans that is) and there’s a wee bit of leftover ‘wiggle room’ between them, but I stuffed some ‘soft items’ like MREs and the like in between the cans.

Gretchen is also pleased/happy now that I’ve started cleaning up the front room, as it was looking like a fucking supply depot in World War Two with random piles of cans piled and thrown all over the place, as well as random cases of MREs and flats of canned meats and whatnot that I’ve picked up over time.

After we got home, I activated my “Loggie Mode” and got down to business. That means starting by making a spreadsheet in Excel dammit….

Ugh… let me tell you about inventories… even in the Army, the s-l-o-w-e-s-t part is doing the written spreadsheet Inventory IF one doesn’t previously exist… I fucking purely hate Excel too for the record. Not that I can’t do it or write/make the formulas, it’s just that I hate it with the passion of a Million Dying Stars at Supernova. Now, since I had to make it, I made it as simple as possible and in it, I only made a couple of columns that matter.

‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ is a Religion for the Infantry IMO.

I did it on ‘easy mode’ primarily to make it printable. Too much info means having to fuck with the size of the font, and in my blind-ass case, I wanted the font to be very Visible and LARGE for quick reference if needed. This was even more difficult as I ALSO wanted ALL the info for each bin to be on ONE page of printed paper ONLY. Because of these limitations, and because I wanted it “Short and Sweet” I made these the labels for the Columns that I ended up using:

Inventory ID: This I labeled either ‘MRE’, ‘FD (for freeze dried) Pouch’, ‘FD Can’, or ‘Drink Mix’ I might add more IF I find another ‘type’ of Inventory

Name: the Brand Name/Manufacturer. This might help to figure out which label I might be looking for by visual ID.

Description: for this, I’ll name what it is, in the case of one of the boxes of MREs, I put “Low Sodium MRE (No Heater Included)” others have the name/flavor of the chow itself like “Beef Stroganoff” and the like. In one case (literally!) the name was a group of foreign MREs I have, i.e. “British 3x, Polish 1x, First Strike 1x, Danish 1x, Canada x 1, Humanitarian 1x”… those are ALL 24 hour (3x meals) rations that I packed in a heavy cardboard box on their own with a “Use First” note on it… you get the idea

Unit Size: literally what it is. The pouches are generally “2 servings per Pouch” for the Mountain House and the cans (for the most part) are #10 sized.

Quantity in Stock: pretty self explanatory. The servings for ‘other items’ are also added in here, with the number of cans, as in it can look like this: “4 Cans, 20 Servings Per Can” for in this case, Sweet Corn.

Inspection/Manufacture Date: again… WHEN it was made, if available. If I don’t have that, then I go by when I bought it, as I mark every can/box with a sharpie when I get/receive it so I at least know when I got it, and can go from there. ALL the items I get get marked like that either way. It’s a good habit, and in the case of the #10 cans, I write it right on the lid, as it helps if the labels ever get ripped off.

Expiration Date: more of the same. In some cases however, I have to estimate from the date of Manufacture if I can’t find an expiry date. I lean towards 20/25 years added to it for the Freeze Dried stuff, as it’s pretty resilient, and has –always– been in a temperature controlled environment.

On-hand Quantity: again, just what it states. This however is where I’ll be subtracting from when I open/use a can/pouch whatever. The idea if possible is to replace it, but IF things got the way the majority of us expect, “what I got, is what I got”

Total Meals/Servings Available: that’s where I ‘do the math’ on how many Servings available of that line Item in total so I know what I roughly have. I tend to low-ball that, just to make sure I have some “overage” so to speak. Like in the case of one BIG Auguson Farms Bucket of Vegetable Soup. 236 Serving that make a single cup of Vegetable Soup per serving. The thing weighs like 40 pounds, and I got a deal on it back in 2019… I’m not adding it in, as that may/may not be used for refugees. I am NOT however counting it toward the house for now… “Keep the Best, Bogart the Rest” as we used to say in Supply…

and lastly:
Bin Number: which is what number Bin (storage container) are these being packed in.

I know there are faaaar more complex spreadsheets that can do formulas to list them in order of expiration date, low-to-high and whatnot, but to be perfectly honest, IF I get to the point where I’m worried about this stuff expiring?

Personally, I’d consider that A Very GOOD nay GREAT Thing!

It means that the shit has not completely hit the full on Communist-Socialist Fan. The soonest some of the food ‘best by date’ that’s upcoming is June/July of 2025. The latest is 2047

Hell… I personally don’t expect to be around in 2047 LOL!

I mean yeah, I’m 54 going on 55. Cashing in at 75? I’m comfortable with that. It’s been a long, strange trip, and I’ve enjoyed it so far. That being said however, the ride ain’t over, and the majority of this is so’s the Grans have ‘stuff’ to keep them fed in bad times. And judging from the way these fucking lunatics are talking, shortages and restrictions, never mind outright collapse seems riiiiight around the corner.

Hence me getting the Quackers in a Row.

Putting everything that wasn’t already in storage bins is part of the plan. We got a wee bit complacent around here over the past year, and the realization that IF we had to pack up and ‘jump’, it’s a pain in the ass to have to snatch up and empty out the pantry of #10 cans if and when you –need– to head to your ‘alternate redoubt’. Speed = Life in many instances Aye?

My major concern right now is that 20 of those bins aren’t enough. I had planned on using a few for some TA-50 as I have enough ‘gear’ that I’ve collected over the years to probably outfit a short Platoon with Armor, Pouches/Holsters and the like. I just may have to re-evaluate my pack-rattish ways and just get rid of a lot of the stuff… the majority of it was for the Spawn(s) who’ve gone No Contact now, so I don’t see the point in keeping stuff for them per se… anyways…

Now as far as the mission packing the food goes?

I’m feeling a hell of a lot better in that having it all packed and ready to be thrown in the Truck(s) and on the trailer, as well as all the mags, spare ammo and well, all the ‘critical party gear’ which was already ready to roll, this makes me happy(ier) I mean bouncing out on a moments notice? Guns, Ammo and Gear, yep. Food? Before this? Notsomucho.

Until today/tonight/tomorrow.
Queue <BIG SIGH OF RELIEF>

This also now allows us to scatter and redistribute some of these in caches as each Bin so far has a pretty fair mix of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner as needed. I mean Ye Olde Sawe of “Don’t keep your eggs in one basket” keeps coming to mind… I might have to look into it…

Then, on a humorous note: One thing I found while redistributing/repacking ‘stuff’ and had forgotten about is Gretchen’s Freeze Dried Cheesecake:

Yes. It is “a thing.”
And Yeah Yeah… I spoil her.

When I got one of those bags back in the day, it was still less than $20 a bag! The current cost as of tonight is almost $35!!! The story behind it? Back when she and I first got together when she found out I stored long-term chow and whatnot, I bought a bag as a joke. I was still working as a Manager in a call center and was pulling down like $74k a year. Even with the divorce, I still had mad-money on occasion so to speak. She was absolutely against eating anything that she considered and derided at the time as “survivalist”.

Like REALLY!?!

She actually got pretty shitty with me to the point I debated on shitcanning her for a more “Apocalyptic Adaptive Model” so to speak… But since I decided I was in it for the long run?

I decided to pull a fast one on her.
Question my survival food will you?
I’ll show you woman!

The weapon-of-choice?

The aforementioned Freeze Dried Cheesecake.

What broad can resist Cheesecake in any form at all?
Answer: None.
Not Even Gretchen.

Even still FD’d, its like eating Astronaut Ice Cream. I’m pretty damned sure damned near ALL of you have had that delicacy at one point or another in your lives. This stuff, the Cheesecake, is the BOMB I will say. After she had that, and I tricked her into eating a couple of MREs, as well as ‘other questionable (for her) food sources’ over time, her palate isn’t as refined as she’d like to think of it.

She’ll freely admit now that there are some pretty damned good FD foods out there. My answer to her whenever she’s bitched to me in the past or even bitches at me now about a purchase is “Hey… it’s either I buy this, or you get a fucking can of Alpo. Your Choice baby.”

It’s absolutely amazing how the complaints and arguments stop after dropping that particular infonugget on her Aye?

So… what have you done for preparing for Cumswalla-the-Commie-Cuntbag-Collectivist’s (s)election? That right there is what the “C4” stands for in the Title… with headlines like this:

I’d have to say that I absolutely recommend to start getting your checks and making sure your food and shit/gear/equipment is really really, really, REALLY I MEAN IT FOR SURE ready now, as we got less than 90 days+/- ’til the roof potentially falls in on us.

And, IF you haven’t started doing anything at this point?

Well…

Need I say more?

So More Later
Big Country