PEOPLE - FITNESS
I earned 2618 points on Fitocracy over the course of four workouts. I really need to do better with this, in terms of upping the frequency of workouts. I need to get back to three solid workouts per week, and I want to get back to doing at least some basic calisthenics each morning. I was making more progress when I was religiously doing 10 minutes of push-ups, burpees, situps, squats, lunges, etc every morning.
Heather earned 2602 points over the course of seven workouts.
Both of us are making pretty good progress on fitness goals. I still want to lose a bit more weight, get a bit more upper body strength, and continue to work on my run time. Heather is building up her strength -- she was slinging around multiple 25 lb boxes of kitty litter at the store with ease, which probably would have been a bit tougher for her a year ago.
INFORMATION
I took advantage of the USGS map sale to pick up maps of the local area for $1 apiece. Its nice to have a 1:100 or closer (1:24 quads are the best) map of your environs. These were older 1974 era topo maps but still, major geographic features, highways, etc don't change all that much. We use them for planning hiking and camping trips, doing some map recon before a hunting trip, and other such outdoor activities. Once we have our puppy we will use them to do some map recon on training and romping areas before going out with the dog.
We also use them as wall decorations. We have a room with our camping gear and we put up maps with the routes of our adventures highlighted on the wall.
ACTIVITIES & TRAINING
In late March we attended Appleseed and really improved our precision rifle skills. We did another two range trips. The focus was on the 30-06 and 45-70 hunting rifles and the .22s but we always go to the pistol range. On week one we worked the defensive pistols, including giving some training to one of my coworkers.
On week two we pulled out our revolvers. For some reason my GP-100 was shooting low and to the left a few years ago (*cough cough pre-ignition push on the part of the guy behind it cough cough*) so today I got around to fixing the sights. It is now shooting dead on at 7 yards from the bench which I figure is good enough for minute of bunny in the field; I don't plan on engaging rabbits out at much beyond 10 so that works for me. Heather tore nice ragged holes with her single action Uberti.
STUFF
Emergency Kits. The big event of the last few weeks was prepping our emergency rucksacks. I blogged about that quite a bit. In April I've been polishing them off with some finishing touches. The kits needed a bit of rounding out; some were missing a few items, for example. I also ordered a set of bright orange handkerchiefs (one for each kit). Handkerchiefs are one of those items with a million and one uses, and orange is a useful color (can use when hunting, also good in an emergency).
Solar. I did find an entry level solar solution which I'll blog about more later. Suffice to say it is a cheap, lightweight pocket-sized unit that is sufficient to give a charge to cell phones and kindles. That works for me because it gives me a way to keep my phone and kindle charged pretty much indefinitely even in an extended power outage or when traveling/in the field.
Camping Gear. We also exploited our annual 20% off REI dividends. Heather scored a nice daypack, snow adapters for her trekking poles, and a set of nice toe-style running shoes. I picked up a bear-proof food container, a warm weather double sleeping bag, and some basic camp furniture for car camping type use (stool, seat, etc).
Food. With the weather getting nicer I was in the mood for grilling. We picked up a simple propane grill. Our charcoal grill was decommissioned upon moving, and our other grill is an awesome Traeger smoker, which is great but requires electricity. The propane grill gives us a nice option for cooking that isn't electric reliant, especially as our stovetop in the new house is electric and not gas. We picked up a fresh case of MREs as well as our old ones are getting a bit long in the tooth. We'll start using up the old ones with camping trips and donate whatever's left around Christmas time.
Shooting Gear. I ordered a case of 5.56 and a case of .40 to bolster the supplies already in storage.
I also got both the Ruger 10/22s upgraded for the next Appleseed. Mine is now sporting nice iron sights and Heather's got the needed trigger job and magazine release. So we basically have two very shootable 10/22s, one with irons and one with a 4x optic. Sweet.
Heather got her 30-06 rigged out with USGI cloth sling as well as appropriate sling swivels.
Finally, I configured my "bump in the night" rig. At our last place I had grab-and-go tactical pants loaded up. Here I just have an ALICE-style pistol belt with 1xBeretta, 1xSureFire, 1xpistol reload, and 2xPMAGs for the AR. This didn't require me to buy anything, but I did find my SureFire which was lost. The pistol belt is nice as you can just strap it on over whatever you wore to bed.
COMMUNICATIONS
We got our Personal Locator Beacon registered with NOAA, the Coast Guard, and various other rescue agencies. The PLB was a very generous gift from family for Christmas. I think they make a lot of sense for folks who do lots of outdoor activities. I also see it being useful in an emergency situation where the phones aren't working or where the phone network is overloaded.
I also got a VHF Marine Band radio ordered. It is primarily for our trip to Kodiak but once that arrives we'll have access to landline, PLB, cell phone, UHF, and now VHF.
Finally, I ordered an inexpensive shortwave radio. We'll see how it works.
Whew -- that was long but we've been busy and this covered two weeks.
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