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9/7/12

What have you been up to?

It's been a while since we've had a check in. What have you been working on? Projects, skills, adventures? Any interesting preps you've added to the arsenal? Something you've been trying to figure out? Let us know in the comments section.

We're working on squirreling away cash to pay for kid #2 coming in about six weeks now...gotta love deductibles, right? Getting stocked up on some baby supplies, too.

Been sucking up lots of one-time expenses related to moving - just dropped several hundred on vehicle registration, for example. What a racket.

I took the local state CHL class a few weeks ago - my current CHL is honored by new state (the South is good like that), but residents are supposed to get the local CHL regardless. Not really impressed by the instructor - a few noticeable bits of misinformation (.223 and 5.56mm are EXACTLY the same, for example) that he was adamant about. Wait time is going to be 1 month before the Sheriff's office will even let me submit the application, then around 90 days from that. Missing the laws out West already.

Purchased the Hillpeople Gear Highlander/C25 combo a while back and have been messing around with it. Not sure if I'm going to stick with it. The mass amount of buckles/straps can be more than a little frustrating to wrangle when you want to access gear, and then the top loader C25 makes that worse. If you drop the C25 bag, it does a very good job of handling oddball loads like water jugs, and would do well for hauling out quartered game, too.  I'm OCD about having gear readily accessible though, so your mileage may vary. I've got a bunch of money sunk into this pack set up, so if it's not "just right," it's going. Going to experiment with it a bit more before posting up a full review.

I'd really probably be happier with a panel loading design with a few organizational pockets in it, though those tend to max out at around 3000 cubes for whatever reason. A couple of the Eberlestock designs look like they have potential.

Bought a Sven Saw off Amazon - under a pound for a fullsize-ish saw. Slips into a pack pretty easily, deploys pretty easily.

Ryan from TSLRF got me thinking about NVGs. I really like the idea of NVGs, just not the price tag if you're buying 'em yourself. Even a $1200-$1800-ish pair of Gen 2s would be the most expensive non-vehicle thing that I own. Certainly provide a huge advantage in a lights out environment, and small solar chargers are cheap and common enough that keeping batteries charged would not be overly difficult. If you've got other stuff squared away and cash to blow, I'd buy NVGs before a 4th AR-15 or what have you. If your plans involve some kind of bug out, I would bump NVGs up on the list, too - moving under darkness, guided by NVGs my be a much safer option than broad daylight.

Selling off a few unused items to clear out space. Unlike some, I will never be a candidate for the Hoarders.

Stuff that we re-planted in the garden is actually growing well. Zucchini plant is huge.