Home Front: where will you be?

It occurred to me that most of us, at least most of the people I know, spend a lot of time away from home, day-to-day. We work, study, commute. In the event if disaster, this can be quite a game-changer. Sudden, catastrophic events are usually by their very nature unpredictable. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornado and human-acts of violence and accident could and can occur at anytime, with little or no warning. Regional seasonal risks such as hurricane or tornadoes, bushfire or floods can be planned for, and may even have sufficient notice to make where you are at its onset or alert sufficient to get home. Obviously, it's hardly an option for most of us to preemptively bug-out and go off grid, to be totally self sufficient. Certainly some people can make that step, and make it work for them, but the reality is that the rest of us need to live our lives in more mundane styles. It is however one reason my EDC is rather comprehensive, to say the least. Vast might be more accurate.

So, given that I am in a position where "heading for the hills" is not a day-to-day option (more on that later), it falls to me to be aware of my situation, and preparedness options where I am. I live in a green and rather fancy suburb, proximal to Port Phillip Bay, and a highway. Being close to the bay, flooding could be an issue if there was a spectacular tidal surge, but this Is very unlikely. I commute by train to the city, changing trains at a major hub before taking the underground city-loop. My work is just on the edge of the CBD, around the corner from the Parliament Building.

My workplace is made up of several disparate connected buildings, and I work on the fourth floor. Due to the nature of my workplace we have a variety of safety and disaster management systems in place, which is great and all, but as you might well imagine in the event of disaster, I'll want to get -home-. If the trains, and roads aren't an option, it's an 11km walk. Annoying and time consuming but totally doable to get back to Tactical Baby, her mother and my step-daughter.

My first daughter, Triceratops Girl, lives with her mother in the Dandenong Ranges foothills, which is about an hours drive from the city, a little less from home. I make that trip back and forth a couple of times a week, as part of my visiting, picking up or dropping off arrangements. As I've mentioned previously, this is a heavily forested outer suburb, and is in an area at risk from bushfire, storm damage and flooding. The CFA have a great system and fire-awareness program, and everyone living in the area is expected to have a bushfire plan. Power cuts are common up there as gum trees often drop branches in storms, or due to heat and drought stress, cutting lines. Due to the nature of the terrain, reticulated water and underground power are not available to all homes.
In between the two, are a long stretch of suburbia, some bush land, paddocked rural homesteads and mountainous foothills.

Finally there is the northern suburb my other partner lives in. As you can see this is across town and whilst no where near as far as where Triceratops Girl lives with her mum, is urban travel all the way and crosses several major freeways on the way. Being an urban environment, the route is filled with traffic, trams, and shopping strips. In the event of a wide scale emergency, it would take quite some time to make it over there I expect, something which does not fill me with joy, I can assure you.

All in all, I have a very spread out life, geographically, and the prospect of being away from my important people in the event of a catastrophe. Looming disaster I am pretty sure I can respond to for all my loved ones, and from then, regroup and make ready for what is to come.

What will you do?

Review: Jackeroo hooded vest

Melbourne's inclement and changeable weather leads to some interesting clothing requirements. Just as in Crowded House's "Four Seasons in One Day", we can have a weekend topping 37oC and dry, then 25oC and tropically steaming and wet to 19oC drizzly and dank by Tuesday. Seasoned Melbournites can usually take this in their strides, and plan appropriately, (even if our tram and train networks seemingly can not), however having some multi-seasonal pieces of clothing goes a long way towards not being caught too badly off guard. My take on this is to wear layers, and take-off, or do-up as required. I usually keep a pair of fingerless gloves of some kind stuffed in the pockets of most of my coats and outer-wear vests, and a bandana, shemagh or Headsox scarf to round out my options. However, here is a piece of clothing that fills several niches at once. This is the Jackeroo hooded vest, which is a KMART line, apparently. I'm a big fan of vests, mostly because I wear my holster harness all the time, and a vest is a good way to cover up its lines. This adventure-wear vest is no exception. With long lines, it comes down past my belt line, even in size M, and zippers shut to give me a nice snug fir to keep the wind and weather out. There are two chest pockets, closed with hook-and-loop, one of which featuring a second, zipperable pocket and lanyard loop. The outer is a tightly woven nylon and the inner is a breathable and wicking polyester mesh.

Below this are two bulkier triple pockets; one side opening pocket for hands,and two buttoned-down gear pockets on each side give ample storage capacity. The bottom of the left pocket has another lanyard loop. The waist has a well fitted and mounted shock-cord drawstring, adjustable on both sides. The hood buttons to the body with press-studs and features the same wicking mesh as the body. A great feature of this hood is the incorporated bill, which extends past the drawstring, a great addition for glasses-wearers like myself.
 The collar of the vest also has some good features worth mentioning.

As well as having a press-stud closure, the high collar is tailored to stay up without being too constrictive, which is a welcome relief to those of us who don't like water trickling down into our drier layers.Not only is the vest quick drying (but not waterproof, mealy resistant)and very light, it also packs down int a very small bundle, for when you want to either pack something just-in-case, or the weather changes and it's too much to wear. I usually just open mine up, as the light material just whisps around me day-to-day. I have only seen these in khaki, which is great, as it's my colour, but the other products in this line also come in light-safari-green.

I'm very happy with this as an inclement weather vest, camping and adventuring-wear, and urban preparedness ready piece of clothing. It fits my aesthetic nicely, and is hard wearing, light and suitable for multiple conditions.

Review: SIGG 1L bottle

 I saw a review on Personal Armaments by Rob, on his Vintage SIGG Stainless Steel bottle, and I was reminded that I hadn't yet done a review of my own SIGG, which has been a steady companion through some pretty rough times, and as you can see it has weathered it pretty well. This is the 1L aluminium bottle, in the Gold Maha style offered by SIGG a few years back.

The great thing about SIGG aluminium bottles is that they are pressed from a dingle puck of metal into the bottle form, no seams, no edges and a unibody construction. The design is smooth and elegant, wit ha good sized lip ad a neck that allows a lanyard to be tied up to it. I've fitted mine with a piece of kendo himo cordage, with a knotted end, which I often carry mine around by, looped through the stopper hole, and pinched between knuckles. The inside of the bottle is coated with a plastic liner, which is reported to remain unbroken and in contact with the metal, even through denting and dropping.

 The lid is a high density plastic, with a rubber gasket, and has fared pretty well over the years, although I have had to replace one due to the threads wearing down a little. Powdered sports drinks being abrasive more than anything, I think. I've certainly dented my bottle often enough, and inspection of the inside show no signs of damage. Around the lip I've noticed a little pealing, which was more pronounced on my last bottle.

Yes, last bottle. This one is unfortunately not the same one I initially bought in 2008, as I managed to mess up the threading somehow, and even replacing the cap wouldn't give me a reliable seal. Not a fault of the bottle, per say, apart from a too-fine fine thread perhaps. Some of the external paint has been banged off, but that's more of a mark of pride to me (and my paleo-friends, who initially inspired me to purchase a SIGG). I carry mine in a FUP pouch, usually slung on the main body-strap of my messenger bag, but have also taken to wearing it on my hip when I have been running in preparation for the Tough Mudder Melbourne.

The bottle is not insulated, so a hot drink will transfer heat directly to your hand, and a cold one will warm in the sun, but for carrying a liter of fluids around all day in the city, hiking, on the car or at big-desk meetings I am very glad to carry my Maha SIGG.

Review: Platatac Modular Radio Pouch

Here's one of the last Platatac pouches that I have currently, and it's a pretty cool one. As previously mentioned, I got this as part of a bundled pouch deal and have happily had it attached to the cummerbund of my MAC armour carrier  since I got it. This is the Modular Radio Pouch by Platatac. It is designed to take the AN/PRC-148 MBITR (PRC148) Radio but as i don't use that kind of radio, I felt the need to find alternate uses, which I'll get to later on. This pouch features the same heavy 1000D Cordura that the other pouches like the very useful FUP and SR25 pouches which is not only IR treated, hard wearing but sheds dirt and grime very effectively, I've found. This particular pouch is interesting because like the other Platatac shingle pouches, its open top is managed with a shock-cord loop, which in this case, is fixed with a nylon webbing loop attached to a Fastex buckle. 
 
I really like these buckles, far more than hook-and-loop.  One great feature of this pouch is the two side pockets, which will fit accessories such as my Gerber multitool and my trusty and blindingly-bright Surefire 6PX. The sides of these pockets are elastisised, to keep your item snug and secure, and feature a hook-and-loop fixing webbing cover. The double rows of PALS/MOLLE attachment loops give this pouch the same rock-solid attachment to whatever kit you happen to want to mount it to. You can see the shock-cord loop's knot in its grommet at the back, between the MOLLE loops. A drainage grommet is fitted to the base of the main pouch and a webbing-taking loop is fitted to the stiff and reinforced backing of the pouch at the top, for use as an alternate attachment method.



So, as I said earlier I don't use the big MilSpec radios this particular pouch is designed around, but for my Stargate Lasertag LRP and costuming needs I have come up with a couple of options. Here it is holding an old PlayStation light-gun, which it fits quite snugly, when the shock-cord is adjusted. I don't have an actual handgun to test it on, and I'm sure if I did I would use a purpose built holster for it, but this gives some idea of its capability.  I have also used it to carry one of the extra-tall Nerf Extended Clip .

All in all this is another example of a great piece of Platatac gear, adaptable, multi-purposed and rugged.  I'm very glad to have it in my collection, and look forwards to lots of opportunities to load it up and hump it about!

Home Front: Outages, news and contact

As you may have heard (or been affected by) there was a widespread internet outage in Australia yesterday which hammered home one clear message. I need a radio. With all my technological toys, and EDC kit, all stashed away, it took the plug being pulled to remind me that without data, I was just sitting in my office, wondering where the flash was. Of course, the power was on, the phones and cellular networks were still functioning, and some national sites were still active, so I wasn't worried about an immediate, local situation, but when the internet dries up ... I sat up and paid attention.

So, a radio. I was thinking a lightweight, world-band battery powered one, as it could also be charged by one of my solar chargers and would give me the potential for listening out to further reaches than just FM or AM reception, which is why I favour this over the hand-cranked emergency radios I've seen, even though they have a range of good functionality as well.

I'm of two minds on what to equip myself with, but the message was clear, when the internet went out, I was cut off from all news-sources I currently had available. Web-cast radio was offline, as was Google, Twitter, Facebook and so on. There were plenty of jokes about the Arab Spring going around, and even about current Australian political cat-fighting being to blame (a petulant cable-pulling was mentioned).

I really didn't like not being able to get the news. I'm glad I got that wake-up now, when it doesn't matter.

Review: Going Solar!

When the going gets rough, and the lights flicker out, we will want to power and run our gadgets and drive back the night with the familiar glow of electric lights. I've been collecting solar chargers for a while now, and I thought I would give you a quick review of them.

First up is the B-Squares Modular Solar Electronics which I backed on Kickstarter. This allows the user, in theory, to run a USB outputting rechargeable triple AAA charger, a set of LED lights, or a iPhone charger. The single solar square generates 0.325W of power, which is enough to run the LED's, charge the batteries or run the iPhone. Or at least, it's supposed to. I have had little or no luck with it, and am afraid to say I've been very disappointed with this device. 

 The second of these devices is the original Solio Universal charger which is a mains-capable charger, with a battery pack. It folds out into a tri-leaved floret  is capable of output ranges from 1.5 to 5W, the internal rechargeable battery has a capacity of of 3.7V 1000mAh. It comes with a variety of output ends for the included cables and will even charge iPhones via a USB output. One cool feature of this is that it can be orientated by feeding a pencil through the central hole, propping it up to achieve maximum solar  contact. I've been very happy with this device, and take it camping and adventuring with me frequently.

Lastly is the solar charger that came with another Kickstarter project, the Packlights which I have previously reviewed. I delightful sweetener to their deal was the inclusion of these purpose built charger and battery packs. Also mains-chargeable, these these packs generate  0.77W at a Voltage of 5.25 +- 5% and the internal battery has a capacity of 2200mA with an output of 5.6V at a maximum current of 600mA. It includes a USB output, and both a bright LED light, and a dim LED charge indicator. Another interesting feature is that they give estimated times for charging, which are: by Solar Charge:10-14 hours depending on lighting & weather conditions and by DC Charge: 2-3 hours where the charging current: 140mA (per hour). This is a really nice package, and I'm very glad i acquired two of them. They fit nicely stowed into one of the Platatac FUP pouches so I can imagine wearing them out in the field, ready to recharge my tech. 

Home Front: Salvage

 Sometimes preparedness takes the form of being able to spot and collect items that have been discarded or lost, and make good use of them. I've always had an eye for the left-behinds and dropped, and discarded. When "hard-waste" removal comes along, and the sidewalks are loaded with other peoples junk, I can't but help to pass my eye over it. I think there is probably a fine line between salvage and hoarding, and I hope I stay on the not-scary-cat-person side of that line. Same goes for items dropped on the street, or left behind of trains and trams. Here's an example of this. The checkered and tasseled shemagh was laying by the side of the road after a storm, and after a run through the washing machine I found that it was one of the softest and warmest I've ever had. The soft-shell black vest vest was laying over the back of a park bench in the morning, and still there when I passed in the afternoon.

Into the bag it went.

It has a nice mesh liner and internal and external pockets. And it was free. Under that is a red hard-shell jacket, with reflective tape, internal and external pockets, zipper and hook-and-loop closure, a hood under the collar and is waterproof. Again, a dropped item left laying on the footpath. I make a habit of leaving things where they lay for a decent length of time, so their rightful owners can happen back that way and collect it, but after that, I consider it fair game.

Same goes for junk left by the road-side. This high-chair was left out for the junk collection, but made it's way into the back of my car, and with some scrubbing and adjusting to make up for its missing parts, both Triceratops Girl and Tactical Baby have made good use of it. This is more a factor of mindset rather than any particular skill-set or item.

Knowing that you can make something that was otherwise scrapped function again, and suit your needs is a great boon in a survival situation, I feel, and the same goes for a disaster situation. "going to the store for a new one" may not always be an option, even if you have the resources to do so.

Seeing alternate uses for things, or the opportunity to breathe new life into what would otherwise be discarded like the "Pathopak's" I reviewed, which I use for food and hardware storage, those Grolsch bottles which I use for brewing I reclaimed from a bar I formerly worked at, and my beer drinking friends supply me with, and even the crate they are sitting in.

There are many day-today opportunities for salvage, getting into the mindset and habit of it could well put you in good stead in the event that either the supply chain is broken or disrupted, or your ability to purchase or acquire needfuls is impeded somehow. Be smart, be careful and be safe. Adapt, innovate, overcome.