Clutch - the best band in the world.

There is but one band on Earth whose albums I actually purchase. That band is called Clutch. Tremble, mortals, before their almighty throne of ROCK!!

http://www.pro-rock.com/

Here's a song of theirs titled Nero's Fiddle which should totally speak to all you preppers out there (of which I consider myself one):

Sick though it may seem, it has always been a dream
of mine to watch you drop like one million freezing flies
Psychopathic my mathematics, always sums to zero
Population your equation, always equals "hero"
Burn!
Burn!
So the fruit of your labors have fermented into wine
And the sweat that you dripped is now the honey of the hive
The city is a burning sun and I a blooming flower
The fire, the flame, the passion, the power
Burn!
Burn!
And you the kindling...
So the fruit of your labors have fermented into wine
And the sweat that you dripped is now the honey of the hive
The city is a burning sun and I a blooming flower
The fire, the flame, the passion, the power
Burn!
Burn!
The fire, the flame, the passion, the power
The fire, the flame, the passion, the power

Here's my interpretation of the lyrics:

Sick though it may seem, it has always been a dream
of mine to watch you drop like one million freezing flies

(In the context of this song, he's talking about the impending doom of modern civilization. Another word for this is " gridcrash", which, if it occurs, will cause cities to die off. He calls urbanites flies and later on he compares urban dwellers to bees, another insect. This implies a disdain for city life and those who choose it.)

Psychopathic my mathematics, always sums to zero

(He sort of thinks he might be crazy because he always sees things in decline)

Population your equation, always equals "hero"

(The "insects" always look to a savior - someone to come along and solve all their problems for them rather than being self-reliant)

Burn!
Burn!
So the fruit of your labors have fermented into wine
And the sweat that you dripped is now the honey of the hive

(Now that the "insects" [bees this time] have built their "hive" [cities] they will reap what they sow, which is to burn)

The city is a burning sun and I a blooming flower
The fire, the flame, the passion, the power

(The city [the "hive"] is a powerful force, consuming its own fuel and, thereby, life. Despite his disdain for the hive, he is drawn to the power of it. He also sees himself as a rising force, while the city is the force in decline.)

Burn!
Burn!
And you the kindling...

(The hive will burn by the hands of the bees that built it - referencing the self-destructive component present in human nature. He consistently references masses of insects [one million flies, the hive] to illustrate disdain for group think or the behavior of humans in groups ["mob mentality"])

[the rest of the song is a repeat of earlier lyrics]

Busted Camping

So the last camping trip I told you about was a bust. Everyone that said they would go at one point backed out for some reason or another. I told my wife that I'd be going by myself and she looked at me like I was the Unabomber or something. Like a shack in Montana and a manifesto was in my very near future.

It wasn't like I was going into the Alaskan tundra by myself or anything. I was going to camp out on my folks' property. In the end I, too, backed out... on myself, I guess. I should have just gone.

This means that the first New Years Resolution that I've made in a decade is a bust. The resolution was to go camping every month. Previous to that, a decage ago, I had made a resolution that I wasn't going to make any more New Years Resolutions. I stuck to that one for a decade. This one lasted a month and a half... pathetic.

In any event, I am going to get this resolution back on track. This time I don't care if everyone backs out, I'm freakin' going.

Changing gears, tomorrow morning my brothers and I are going out rabbit hunting again. This time it'll be me and two of my three bros. Previously it had always been me and one other brother. And this time I have some sweet boots to wear instead of my Adidas sneakers. As awesome as those shoes are, they're really no good in the muck.

Changing gears again - I have been drinking my Nut Brown Ale - the one I kinda screwed up on and to which I had to make corrections. It's freaking delicious! I mean really good! You can taste the higher alcohol content which, in a heavier ale, I think is good. Fresh, rich, complex, and packs a punch!

<borat> Very nice! </borat>

Two Great Articles

Poverty Of Imagination - /// - President's Day

Both of the above articles are by Jim Kunstler. Excellent reads... He is about as close as anyone has come to encapsulating my own personally held views concerning the impending "realignment" the world is in for.

Camping Again

I'm going camping again this Saturday out in Barboursville. Me and one or two friends will be camping on my parents' property. Nothing fancy. It's supposed to be a little chilly - 31 degrees.

Stockpile Progress, Part 3

I have started to develop my food stockpile. I already had a dozen MREs and a handful of backpacker's meals, and some electrolyte gel packs. This, I figured, was a good 48-72 hours worth of emergency food for the family.

In terms of an emergency lasting longer than 3 days, I was in really bad shape. To that end, I have started a program of purchasing freeze dried and dehydrated foods. I am spending $25-$40 a paycheck buying these foods from Emergency Essentials (http://beprepared.com/). If you're looking for a site to buy supplies for long term storage, I haven't found any place better online (or anywhere, for that matter). If you know of a place, I'd gladly check it out.

This isn't much, I know, but it's what I can afford right now. That $25-40 translates into one or two cans of dehydrated or freeze dried foods depending on what you're getting. So far I have placed two orders consisiting of:

• TVP Chicken Bits
• Quick Oats
• Carrots
• Spinach

My wife is a vegetarian, hence the TVP chicken bits. Sounds yummy, right? Haha. Hippy-chow like that actually isn't too bad. Now, what's a crime is any tofu or TVP product that masquerades as bacon. Some things are just holy and shouldn't be messed with, ya know?

I figure I have roughly $800 more to go before I have a good month's stockpile for me and my immediate family. At this rate it should only take me somewhere just shy of a year to finish!

Home Brewing Adeventures, pt 1

This Saturday I brewed up a batch of Nut Brown Ale. This is the most alcoholic beer available to home brewers. Due to a happy accident, it appears that my brew will be even more boozey than that.

Basically, you are supposed to start with one and a half gallons of water in your wort pot. For some reason, I thought 8 cups made a gallon (rather than the actual 16 cups). I corrected the error later in the carboy by adding more water. The initial specific gravity readings for this ale was supposed to be between 1.049 - 1.051. My reading, temperature corrected, came out to 1.055.

This error will more than likely translate into even more alcohol in this batch. Oh, darn. A pal of mine who is a master home brewer told me that the way I corrected this error was just fine and that he was currently brewing a batch of Nut Brown that looked just the same in the carboy.

So that makes me feel like a pretty smart guy. This is only my third batch. Even though I made an error I was able to correct the error midstream, thinking on my feet. I'm quite proud of myself. Below you can see the fermentation trap bubbling away with the byproducts of yeast makin' booze.

Rabbit Hunting

My brother and I went rabbit hunting this Sunday morning. I was at my brother's place out in the Stony Point area by 6.35 AM and we were on my parents' farm by 6.55 AM. Sunrise was 7.18 AM.

This is only the second time in my brother and I's lives when we've hunted anything. I have read some tips and tricks online and this is the only body of knowledge we have to draw upon. We may end up going to Bedford to hunt with my brother's father-in-law. He is a skilled and very experienced rabbit hunter.

In any event, we parked the car on the side of the driveway, gathered up our Remington 10/22s, and headed out. We walked a couple of brush piles, some woodlines, and a fenceline with no luck. We then headed out to the back 40 of the property where there is a buried natural gas pipeline.

This pipeline translates into a straight strip of cleared land in the middle of what would otherwise be a continuous patch of woods thousands of acres in size. We were encouraged when we saw some rabbit scat in three different places. We also came across a beaver dam and other clear signs of beaver activity.

There were a number of small trees that were obviously chewed off by beavers and we also observed a number of animal trails centering around a creek and the small beaver pond.

We were walking on this buried pipeline and I just happened to stop. When I did, I heard something behind me. Just as I turned to my left, the rascally little rabbit bolted for the woodline right in front of me. I had practically stepped on the guy!

I snapped up my 22, aimed, shot, missed and determined that the next shot(s) would have to be unaimed. All of this in less than a second. My first shot barely missed. Basically I misgauged the arc the bunny's jump and the bullet went just over the back of the rabbit's neck. The critter was just coming down from a hop - had he been on the upstroke of the jump cycle I think I would have hit him.

After the first shot, the rabbit was into the woods (fast!!) and I realized I wouldn't get another aimed shot, so the good ole Remington 10/22 went into "lead hose" mode. Yes, I went all spray and pray on that bunny's ass, but to no avail! I fired six more shots as fast as I could pull the trigger. None of the rounds missed by much - I saw the leaves leaping up all around the bunny. But, alas, he got away.

Meanwhile, back in the warren, there's a bunny with a war story that he'll be able to tell his baby bunnies for the rest of his life. ("There were bullets everywhere! I dodged left and right and then turned around and flicked that jerk the bird!")

If anyone has any rabbit hunting tips, I'd love to hear them. Like I said, I'm a total hunting newbie. This was only my second time hunting anything and it was a vast improvement over my first outing where I didn't even see a rabbit much less shoot at one.