Yay Me!

Finally got a job!! After 13 months of unemployment I am working again! Yay me! Its been a tough road I tell ya. I’ll keep my politics to myself with the exception of saying our current administration in the White House has not helped the job situation anywhere in this country.

See about a year ago I went away for 30 days to a Army school, all was well everyone said good luck, and my old employer even flew the Army flag under the national ensign in front of the building “showing their support” for the military, they even joined ESGR. I rolled back into town returned to work the next day and I am locked out of the building? We used biometric finger scanners to unlock the doors and track access of who’s coming and going in and out of the building and my “finger” didn’t work. Having installed and maintained the system for 5 years I knew it could be flaky in the best of times.

Hmm funny, I walk around front and into the main entrance, the receptionist greets me and lets me into the main office. There is the company president (I have another adjective for him other than president) waiting for me. We chit chat awhile, me answering questions about the school etc. You ever smell something funny but just can’t put your finger on it? Like the dude at the gym that smells sweaty and kind of like hamburgers at the same time?

So up walks the “Operations VP” and they ask me to go into the the prez’s office. Ok now I have ridden this bull at the rodeo before. The two knuckle heads proceed to fire me on the spot. My immediate Supervisor was conveniently on  vacation that day and was not there for the dirty work himself, what a fat spineless fuck he is.

Now the firing ceremony took all of 10 minutes and as I was walking out the door of the office, the Prez and his lacky VP asked if I could go active duty Army instead of trying to find a full time job. I think I had daggers coming out of my eyes because they both didn’t have the balls to look me in the face after that comment. Then I was walked back to my cubicle and left on my own! I mean I wasn’t even escorted out of the building! Now I was the Security Manager and System Administrator of the entire company for 5 years and they left me standing at my desk?! Seriously?

There was the thought of throwing a thermite grenade in the data center but then I had a moment of clarity and decided that they weren’t worth the trouble.

Lesson one: Being military is a liability to employers, they take the tax credit and fuck you going out the door.

Lesson two: My state is a “at will” work state they can fire you for farting

Lesson three: Lawyers are almost as bad as my former employer. 4 different labor lawyers turned the case down. The first question they each asked was how big is the company? translation: they weren’t big enough fish to go after. The last guy told me straight up that it would cost me more in lawyer fees than I would ever get out of the employer. At least he was honest.

Lesson four: ESGR and the Dept. of Labor are worthless entities. ESGR said all they would or could do was attempt to contact the employer and try a mediation at getting my job back. The lady on the phone from ESGR asked if I wanted my job back? Yeah sure, I want to work in a hostile environment. Again, really that’s all you can do? Ask them nicely?

My first priority now that I am with a good solid company and drawing a good paycheck, is to get the bills under control, and the second is to get back to serious prepping.

They say life throws some curve balls at you. I say dick heads are just dick heads whether they are circumcised or not. One just looks uglier than the other.

All’s right in the universe.

Man Purse or a European Man Satchel

When I was at leadership school a few weeks ago, we were getting ready to run STX lanes (Situational Training Exercise) pronounced “STICKS lanes”. As I was watching the cadre pull out the ammo for the M240’s and the M249’s the soldiers were doing the TTP’s and prepping their weapons they took the ammo out of the carrying pouches and started tossing them into the shit can. I was watching this with a bit of humor and thought what a waste! I could use those pouches for something prep related.

So I scavenged about a dozen or so from the trash and brought them home to add to my pile of prep items.  I haven’t figured out what I will use them for yet, but the pouches are made from a light canvas and each have a solid piece of strapping sewn to each for slinging over your shoulder. I was thinking a person could make a small first aid kit and have it handy in the car. The shoulder strap could be thrown over your shoulder or tied to your ruck sack if you need to ditch your vehicle.

I couldn’t pass up the price of “free” so if I never use them I won’t feel bad. I’m sure I will find something to use them for.

Zombie Gun

I caught an episode of Sons of Guns aka Red Jacket Firearms on Discovery Channel today that featured the author Max Brooks. For those that aren’t into zombies Max Brooks wrote World War Z  along with the Zombie Survival Guide. I have read World War Z and it is pretty damn good.

I kind of gave up on the Sons of Guns show awhile back, I found Will the owner and his temper tantrums grew old pretty quickly. It seemed to me that the show featured his mood swings more than showing what the company was trying to make and sell in the firearms arena. Some of the stories were kind of hokey also. If you read Wikipedia Mr. Will has has some legal problems with the ATF in the past that also help loose creditability with me. But none the less I did sit through this episode (Maybe Will is on anti depressants now) featuring Max. Max proposed that Red Jacket Firearms  do a build off on developing the best civilian zombie killing weapon.

Max’s team developed a .22 caliber bull-pup style semi automatic complete with a suppressor and a spike on the end for close in eye socket stabbing kills.

Will’s team went with a .223 AR weapon, full auto, 100 round magazines, suppressor, grenade launcher slung underneath with a standard bayonet.

Which came out on top? I dunno, you’ll have to watch the re-run. I will tell you the grenade launcher took out a large number of the zombie targets with one trigger pull during the weapon trials. Boom!

Both had merits in their design. The bull pup is small to carry, lightweight and a person could carry a lot of ammo if needed. One thing that the show did point out is the .22 caliber is the most ubiquitous made caliber in the world.  Good point, cheap also if you need to shoot a horde.

The AR was cool, had full auto and a grenade launcher. I know from my own experience .223 ammo is pretty hard to find on the commercial market right now, and 40 mm grenades are almost nonexistent in my area.  Not good when your staring at a horde coming your way.

I have a confession, I turned the channel 10 minutes before the end of the show so I didn’t see which weapon was crowned the best zombie killer. I just couldn’t take listening to Kris Ford say they had a cannon again. I had a game of Modern Warfare to play on the Xbox anyway.

mytopo.com

I ran across this on another site (sorry I didn’t link back, I don’t remember the site).   The site I am talking about is mytopo.com and is run by Trimble. These guys are a major supplier to the government when it comes to GPS, navigation and radios systems. Years ago we ran some crazy Trimble inertial navigation systems on our aircraft when I flew in the Navy. These things could put you with-in inches of your target.

Some of the neat things they offer are the ability to center on the map, add titles, add lat/longs, add UTM and even grids. There is an option to print 18″x 24″ or go big size 5′ x 8′. The 5′ x 8′ is intriguing if you own a piece of land or want to see what is around your bug out site. With grids added I can envision quite a few possibilities.

The site also offers lake maps with depths listed for those fishermen out there and also hunting maps of BLM and national park lands.

The Map pass subscription, for $30 a year allows a subscriber to have have unlimited access to topo, aerial photos, and map tools. The company also offers a Terran Navigator Pro version for $299 that will allow you to access and print maps from your home computer of laptop.

As soon as I narrow down a hunk of land that I am going to purchase, I will definitely get a 5′ x 8′ for the wall.