6/27/21 Am I A Dooms Day Prepper Now?

     I now have 90% of the stuff I think I need to be a dooms day prepper, maybe not.  Yesterday, we went to Best Buy because Baby A wanted a new PS4 card to buy a game or something on his PS4.  While we were there, we saw some air conditioners they had by the front door and we got to talking.  We bought a generator the weekend before and we aren't sure if the generator will be able to run a 3.5 ton unit A/C, much less two of them (they may be 4 ton, not sure), but it should be able to run a window unit since they do run on less power, they plug into a regular electric outlet.  We went ahead and committed to the idea of being self reliant.  We bought one of those portable units that can be inside the room and a hose sticks out the window.  I know I read reviews and they don't seem to be the most efficient units, but the fact that we don't need to permanently install it on a window and it can sit hiding inside the house the 99% of its life it will sit unused makes for a better purchase for this purpose.  Like I told Wife, we just replaced both central air units, so we shouldn't be suffering with a broken unit anytime soon, but if we do, we can role this unit to any room, upstairs or down and simply stick a vent hose out the window.

    Last week, I also bought a small Blackstone griddle grill which are all the rave suddenly, but I liked the idea of being able to run it off those small green propane cylinders.  We bought it at Lowe's and they only had 3 green cylinders and each one cost $7.99, I thought not bad, but we went looking for more yesterday (Saturday) and all the Academy stores were out, I thought they had a good price at $4.99 each or $13.99 for a 3pack.  Well, I looked at Walmart and saw that they had them for $3.99 each and they had a 4-pack for $13.87, so I bought a dozen of them.  These cylinders have been around since I was a kid, so the technology is trusted enough that I will probably keep them in the washroom where it is cool and out of the way (if I read that it is better to keep them in the garage I'll do that).

    I now have a power source, a way to keep the cool air in the summer heat, at least 5 bags of charcoal in the garage for the charcoal grill, a dozen small bottles of propane for the gas grill(we tested one and it ran for two hours on high.  We have used a second one and cooked two meals so far with it.  I also bought the adapter hose to be able to plug a larger 20 pound propane tank to the grill, the kind they sell outside Home Depot or Lowe's.  We have food in our freezer and a way to salvage it with the generator.  I even bought a 5 gallon tank to fill and move gas to the generator, when the time comes.  I talked to Wife about ordering a couple boxes of dry foods but she says that sounds crazy, she is willing to survive on canned foods if we need to, so I will be looking at foods that come in a can now.  We have some cases of water but we also bought those life straws which campers use out in the woods to drink from strange water sources and they filter out the bad stuff.  We also have a couple lanterns that run on batteries and we bought batteries for them last week.  If anything, we need a heat source or two to be prepared if another freeze comes our way.  Walmart had the Mr. Heater Buddy in stock at $74.  They run off the same small green propane cylinders and are safe to use indoors, somehow.

    I hope we never get to the point that we have to use any of this stuff for survival, but that week long freeze taught us some lessons and we can't just sit on our asses and rely on the government to protect us at all times.  We must be smart and flexible enough to sustain ourselves, hopefully for small stretches, at worst.  The weather for the next week and a half sounds mild, at least for Texas, in the low 90's, so we shouldn't be losing power, but they did announce to expect rolling blackouts, so no one can be surprised when and if it starts happening.  The phrase "better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it" came to mind on all these purchases, but at least we are lucky that our problems are first world problems and we can prepare backups to maintain our comfortable lives while a lot of people in the world would be buying a generator to simply have power at all.  What other population buys a backup air conditioner, just in case their main one goes down.  I love 'Merica!!!  Don't worry, we have guns to protect all this shit too.