Neanderpundit

That if a Catholic Priest diddles a kid, EVERY CATHOLIC IS EVIL, but a coach serially molests kids and they don’t go after Miss Hampstead the third grade teacher in Ord Nebraska?

Condemning a group because one of their number is a tool is asinine in the extreme, and always will be. Not all educators or coaches or priests or whatever are assholes because one or ten or a hundred are.

This post from Grau made me think of one of the biggest pains in the ass about prepping (To me, anyway).

Milk. Milk is a pain in the ass because even with good refrigeration, you only get so much life out of it. When I was in Africa we drank a lot of “Long life” milk, which was most of what was available; you could get conventional milk but it was spendy and not easy to come by.

Long Life milk is also available here, under the term “Ultra high temperature” pasteurization, and one of the common brand names is Parmalat.

This stuff has a six month shelf life at room temperature. It’s not horribly expensive, and it’s not horrible.

One other thing: For a very brief time I helped out around a lighthouse. The operator did something I was amused by then and have done ever since. he used plastic ice cube trays to freeze milk and cream. No, you couldn’t exactly bake with it anymore, but it was fine in coffee, which was what he used it for. Think of it; coffee with cream six months from supply. the ice cubed milk brought the coffee to operating temperature and creamed it all in one go. It was a good solution then as now.

If you’re in the middle of the Zombie apocalypse, drinking long life milk and eating tactical bacon will be just fine. If the shit hits the fan, the people who are prepared will be obvious not by their giant trucks filled with arms and ammo, but because they’ll be clean and well fed.

when my sense of self preservation was almost nonexistent. It was not uncommon for me to flip or roll a car, and I went through rides like clean underwear.

Of course, at the time, you could buy a reasonably reliable used car for$200. That was a weeks wages, in the day, and so long as I managed to get a few weeks out of a car I was ahead.

My insurance provider (My mom’s best friend) assured me that as long as the trashed cars went to the yard and not to a police impound, my rates wouldn’t rise. I had a friend with a truck and a towchain and whatever I managed to trash, we got it to the yard, and more than once the yard gave me almost what I had in it.

In retrospect, I sent a dozen cars to the yard with nearly full gas tanks. Well, it was only 60 cents a gallon then, I suppose.

Nowadays, like most people, I’m much more sedate, because I cannot afford to damage my daily driver. Oh, I still drive, but I don’t take any chances that might result in sufficient damage to immobilize it.

I still work with people who have an income level that would allow them to destroy cars- new cars! At the rate I used to, and some of them still do. Two of my co workers cannot get anyone to ride in a car with them at all, including their own families.

I often think of buying one of those old beaters again. I think about the times I regained consciousness in the car on it’s side running because I pushed it too hard around a curve and ended up in a cornfield. I think about the understeer in the Escort as i tossed it around the local farm roads until I snapped the suspension off the right hand side. I think about the local cop who pulled his gun and pointed it at me and said “LET ME OUT OF THIS CAR RIGHT NOW”. I think about the pee stains he left on the seat.

I drove and trashed a lot of cars. A friend has a Corvair I could put my hands on but I’d have to get it across the country; it would be perfect for those purposes and no doubt a hoot to drive. I love tail heavy cars and that’s the grandmother of them, here in the US.

There aren’t as many places to do those things, anymore. And frankly, driving like that is safest when limited to closed roads of tracks, there are too many idiots.

But I do miss the days of driving cars like I stole them, title in the glove box already signed ready to take to the yard, mismatched tires and rims, smoking exhaust and steaming radiator and carpet that smelled like cheap cigars and cheaper booze. I had a lot more fun driving then than I do now.