MREs or similar, Seattle area? Also, photographs

[solarbird]

Does anybody in the Seattle area carry MREs? T3h intarw3b is not helping me. If not, can anybody suggest good equivalents? I'm trying to update annathepiper and my 3-day pack, which is due for its first big refreshing.

(Do you have a 3-day pack? Do you live on the west coast? The Red Cross says you should! But don't buy theirs, they suck.)

Also, annoyingly, Emergency Essentials - mail order, out of Utah - is completely out of stock of MRE main and side dishes, and their 3-day packs that use MREs are listed as backordered, will ship when available. I know that people serving in Iraq are not generally eating MREs - tho' of course I'm sure some also are... so I'm all like wtf, mate? Who the hell stages a run on MREs?

This is another photograph of that fern I posted as a late-in-year leafpic earlier; I like this one as general photography instead of leafpic, so am tagging it only as the former:


Fern by Railing

I know I promised more city pictures. Soon. Meanwhile, have another mushroom picture. I think this one came out much better than the last one I posted, even aside from the previous photo's weird focus issues:


On the Mountain Trail

It's not actually on any mountain trail, it's just on the way to the shops, near Cranky Parking Lady's house. But they look like a couple of people making their way up a hill. I have another one coming later that has a similar feel to it, in my head.

Comments

[loopback.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they have any in stock, but the army/navy military surplus place down in belltown has had them before.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

i'd probably go with general camping food rather than MRE's specifically.

also, on the general topic of emergency preparedness bags, strata had a great post on putting together a go back a while back:
http://src.livejournal.com/231284.html (http://src.livejournal.com/231284.html)

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Um, Katrina. Everyone's been out of stock since then. Our emergency food was due to be rotated, so the week before the damn hurricane hit, we ate one set on MRE dinner night...then couldn't order more so we stopped. As soon as they are available again, we'll rotate, but if disaster strikes, we'd better only need *two* days worth. Or we'll eat tuna fish. ;)

Cathy

[solarbird]

Oh. Right. Okay. Duh.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Go to the Emergency Essentials Web page. Their prices aren't the lowest, but they have a good selection of unexpired MREs, as well as several varieties of pre-packed 3-day kits.

www.BePrepared.com

[solarbird]

See above. They're out.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Brigade Quartermasters: http://www.actiongear.com/cgi-bin/tame.exe/agcatalog/index.tam

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Or uscav.com

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Argh. Somehow, between reading your post, then not being able to reply until a bit later, I forgot you specifically mentioned Emergency Essentials.

Wasn't I the one who told you about them originally?

[solarbird]

I heard about them from Bret, who was a co-worker at Microsoft, and practicing Mormon. He was a nice guy. I wonder if he's still working there. He was when I left.

[l-l-u-w-d.livejournal.com]

I actually can get all the MREs you want. All it would take is for me to ship them to you. How many cases do you want?

[solarbird]

Now that I've figured out who you are ^_^ - chat at me on the mush?

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

Does anybody in the Seattle area carry MREs?

Unless there's some nostalgic/authenticity reason, there's just no reason to bother with MRE's, when you can get those yummy Indian meal pouches from TastyBite, etc, at Trader Joes for about $2 apiece. I'm thinking i could subsist at Burning Man for a week on these and pita bread...

[solarbird]

Do you know what their shelf-life is like? MREs stored inside, in the dark, in moderate temperatures, go seven years.

(I have no particular attachment to MREs except that they last an extraordinarily long time in storage.)

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

I don't know what their shelf life is, but i'm sure they're good for at least a year or so. Unless you're planning to cache your day-pack someplace remote, does that matter?

[solarbird]

It's not a day pack, though. (I associate that with camping. I may be misunderstanding.) It's a 3-day pack, otherwise known as a grab-and-go bag, used in the event of a major disaster only. I'm lame about checking it, so want the best chance of it still being good if I need it but have been lame.

[solarbird]

Mmmmmm meals-rejected-by-ethiopians!

Yeah, I know they suck. I just like the shelf-life. ^_^

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Official MRE shelf life is not impressive (something like ten years stored in a cool, dark place, less where most people keep them). Freeze dried camping meals are good for at least that long. Canned freeze and air dried foods are basically good as long as the can stays sealed, and for a long while after opening. And some of the food is quite good.

Double-enameled, dry nitrogen packed cans of dehydrated stuff are pretty impressive.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I probably should do something like that, but I always have enough food in the larder and both a gas barbeque as well as a white gas camping stove, that if anything happens I could feed quite a few people for at least a couple of weeks, probably more.

In case of disaster I plan to dig in, not run. Yeah I know a lot of people plan to do otherwise, but short of nuclear war I don't think I really have anything to worry about, I pick my houses with a lot of thought about what kind of disasters might strike. My 'oh shit' survival gear consists of a fire starter, kershaw survival knife, gun, ammo, survival guide, and a very fast motorcycle to get me out of the area ASAP. After that I'll use cash (or hunt for my own food if cash is no longer an option).

I also keep a survival kit in my car, for when I'm on trips. Learned that one from survival training in the USAF.

[solarbird]

Oh, us too. The 3-day kit is in the event that we can't stay in the building, for some reason - E.g., if the house is falling over after the earthquake. We also keep enough food in the house for a week or so, plus, we have an on-site creek, and other emergency water supplies.

This house should do very well in any earthquake that doesn't cause a landslide that brings down the hill. Don't laugh, this has happened around here. Say, if we got a 7.8 or 7.9 or something right now, it could happen; we could see the entire hill subside towards the lake. The ground is super-saturated with water.

[banner.livejournal.com]

There is one thing I'd like to get but I haven't seen anyone selling them in years. I think they were called 'sip tubes' or something like that. Basically it was a tube with a high quality water filter set in it, and you could put anything thru it, and what came out was guarenteed drinkable.

I probably should lay in some water, I just noticed that I don't really have much of that around the house currently.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I think some places still stock them; used to have one myself, but tossed it after it went well past its expire date. If you can spare the cash get one of the Katadyne ceramic filter units. (I postponed getting one for years, until I came into an inheritance.) Otherwise, there are other, cheaper pumps which are almost as good.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

That's more properly known as a bugout pack or bag. They're slightly more specialized than a generic three-day supply, but do usually contain three days worth of food and such. They also have things like spare socks, thermal underwear, a compass, medical supplies (including sanitary napkins, which, besides their usual function, make great severe trauma bandages) lighting and cooking equipment and such.

This sort of thing has long been an interest of mine, and I recently did a lot of additional research for an SF story I'm writiing. Think it comes from reading _Robinson Crusoe_ and _Swiss Family Robinson_ as a kid. ;-)

[solarbird]

That's more properly known as a bugout pack or bag.
On the East coast. Here, it's called a 3-day pack, because the most likely form of disaster on a very large scale is likely to require both functions.

(And yes, this is mostly what we have. Well, we don't have a compass in it. And I forgot to put in new socks. So I should do that.)

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Just be sure you're not downstream from Dix Dam. ;-)

I picked a house high on the side of a narrow river valley, well above the highest known flood. Then discovered if Dix Dam lets go my home has a good chance of winding up moving north to Ohio.