Electrolytes: They're What You Crave!

I’m not normally the food guy around here; what I am, however, is a construction worker who spends 40 hours a week sweating. Sweat pulls needed nutrients from the body, and those need to be replaced in order to keep you running in top form.
Commercially available sports drinks do a great job of replacing electrolytes and other minerals in the body. The original Gatorade sports drink was developed in 1965 for the University of Florida football team, and being engineered for top-flight athletes lends a bit of credibility to the product. Unfortunately, it tends to be quite expensive and has a somewhat limited shelf life.

There are also innumerable home-brew electrolyte drink recipes circulating on the internet. These vary wildly in taste and nutritional content, due to both the recipe and the particular quality of ingredients used. While some of these recipes are wonderful, others border on absolutely worthless, and without a nutritionist on call, it can be very difficult to tell which kind of recipe you’ve got.

 

There is a middle ground to be had, though: commercially produced, consistent-recipe electrolyte powders are now available. At $0.20 per 1 quart serving, they are 10x more budget friendly than pre-mixed sports drinks, and the powder has a far longer shelf life. The friend who introduced me to them sold me with the fact that there is zero taste, so you can drink it with plain water or add your flavoring agent of choice. I’m a fan of adding lemon juice to my water, mostly because a little flavor encourages me to drink substantially more, and when I'm sweating enough to actually lose weight from fluid loss, I need to drink as much water as I can.

 

Take care of yourself, so you can work longer, harder, and better, and recover faster.

Lokidude

Exo Gear BW20 Sportbuds Review

Ear buds -- they're more than just headphones!

Magnesium Citrate: the Prime Mover

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

If you've used opioids at all (or if you've seen the movie Trainspotting), you know that they cause terrible constipation.

How terrible? A few years back my mother had neck surgery and was given a small supply of oxycodone for the pain. She was constipated (and in extreme discomfort) for ten days. I eventually called her doctor, made an appointment, and took her to the appointment myself; mom is stubborn and doesn't want to spend money if she doesn't have to, but I was worried her intestine would rupture and she'd go septic.

Her doctor didn't write us a prescription. Instead, we were told to buy a bottle of magnesium citrate at the nearest supermarket and to follow its directions. We did, and the results were phenomenal: within 4-6 hours of ingestion, a 10 day streak of constipation ended.

WARNING: The results of magnesium citrate can be dramatic. And potentially messy. And sometimes even explosive. What I'm saying is this: Clear your calendar, don't stay too far from the bathroom, wear easily removable clothes, and maybe put down some drop cloths in case you don't make it to the toilet in time. 

Frightening, yes, but also frighteningly effective.  There's a reason I call magnesium citrate the "prime mover", and that reason is it will move anything in your colon. In extreme cases, you may need to take a dose of Miralax alongside it. If you are still constipated after that, you're going to need surgery.

In less extreme circumstances, smaller doses of Mag C will prevent such blockage in the first place. To use my mother as another example, after coming home from the hospital she has taken a drink from the bottle every time she takes an oxy. So far, this has succeeded in keeping her regular.

Every prepper needs a bottle of Mag C in their cupboard.

• Available: You can find it in every drug store and supermarket in the country. 
• Affordable: A store/generic brand costs about a dollar for a 10 ounce bottle. 
• Stable: It's shelf-stable for at least 2 years (and you're all familiar with my rants about expiration dates), so long as you don't open the bottle it doesn't require refrigeration; if you don't drink it all at once, then screw the lid on tightly and refrigerate it to reduce its interaction with oxygen. Dispose of it after a week past opening. 
• Effective: Read the reviews; you'll find comments like "the bottom fell out of me", "colonoscopy prep" and... well... this: 

Buy a bottle of Mag C, put it in your medicine cabinet and forget about it. At worst, you're out a dollar. But if you have a stubborn blockage that you need removed, then just drink the Prime Mover and wait.


Disclaimer: Anyone with irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, or other diseases of the intestine shouldn't use magnesium citrate as it will trigger a bad IBS/UC attack. Consult your physician for other options.

Cell Phone Security Camera

A few weeks ago, during the serious rainfall that triggered our local flooding, my cell phone got soaked. That's one of the hazards of working outdoors a lot, and I've been lucky for a long time; I've had this poor phone for over four years and have always taken good care of it, but the Otterbox case that has kept it safe from drops and scratches wasn't enough to protect it from being drenched and the microphone on it died.

My new phone is undergoing testing for a future article, but I managed to get the old one running (minus the microphone) and was looking for a good use for an outdated Samsung Galaxy S4. Trade-in value was zero and getting it repaired is going to be a challenge due to its age (parts are hard to come by), so I have a mostly-functional smart phone to play with. While setting up the new phone with new apps, I ran across one that sounded interesting and I decided to give it a shot. 

Meet Alfred

Alfred is a small app that runs on phones and tablets that have at least Android 2.5 and a similar version of iOS (I'm not a fan of Apple, so I don't have the exact version required). It lets you use the camera and speaker/microphone on a phone or tablet as a home security camera, recording with live video that you can view on a second phone/tablet or on a computer. No phone contract is required if you have Wi-Fi coverage, so it works well inside a house or apartment that already has wireless internet. The app itself is free, with the normal ads popping up once in a while (removable for $16.99) and there is a subscription option ($2.50-$4.00 per month) for HD quality video, no ads, and a few other perks. I'm not interested in paying a monthly fee, so I haven't tested those options and this will only cover the free version.

Set Up

Setting the app up is about as simple as you can make things:

1. Download Alfred on two phones/tablets;
2. Designate one as the Camera and the other as the Viewer;
3. Log in using a Gmail address (it doesn't ask for your password, so they're not getting access to you emails);
4. and you're ready to go. 

You can have as many phones as you want on your account; just use the same Gmail account when you set them up as Camera or Viewer. If you have an Android phone, you have a Gmail account, and if not, they're free and you can always set up a throw-away account.

How you set up the camera is up to you. I currently have my old phone plugged into a charger with the phone propped up in a corner of a window overlooking the sidewalk outside my front door. You can place the camera phone just about anywhere as long as it has power and a Wi-Fi signal, so I may move mine around to find a better spot. I could leave it in my truck, plugged into the charger and parked close enough to get a signal from the home router and have a view of one of the blind spots in my yard. The garage blocks the view of about half of my backyard, so this would be a nice addition to my security setup. I need to check a few other spots for Wi-Fi signal strength to see if there may be a more permanent spot to mount a phone.

Options

• The quality of the video is limited to what your old phone cameras can provide. My “old” Samsung has a 12MP rear camera, which is much better than any of the dedicated security cameras I've seen on the market.
• Motion detection is an option. You can set the sensitivity or turn it off completely. I have birds nesting in a tree outside my window and I couldn't set the sensitivity low enough to prevent constant alerts, so I shut it off.
• Sharing video. You can add people to a “Trust Circle” and allow them to view your camera feeds by adding their Gmail account. This is set up for each camera individually, so it will let you share what you want and keep some things private.
• Camera switching. If your Camera phone has a front and rear camera, you can switch between the two from your Viewer phone. This is a handy feature if you have the Camera phone set in a hallway and want to see both directions.
• Speaker/microphone. You can toggle the Camera phone's microphone off and on for audio surveillance. If you need to say something to a person when they appear on your camera, hold down on the microphone symbol and talk into the Viewer phone. Audio is not quite real-time, there is a bit of lag depending on your internet connection, but the quality is comparable to a speaker phone conversation.
• Recording video. On the free version you're limited to short 5-30 second clips (as determined by the motion detection) saved on the service's computers for 7 days, but you can download them to your own storage; the subscription service stores them for 30 days. I'm still playing with this option, but my neighborhood is pretty boring so there isn't much worth recording.
• Misc. You can turn the flashlight of the camera phone off and on remotely as well as activate an ”Alarm” mode that will set off an alarm at the maximum volume on the camera phone until you silence it.

All told, I haven't found any downsides to this app yet. I'm still digging around and need to check with a few friends who know more about internet security than I do, but for a free app using surplus equipment that was paid for a long time ago (or cheap off eBay), this beats the snot out of paying hundreds for a security camera system. Next on my list of things to try is getting a dead phone with a “bad” serial number that has been blacklisted by the phone companies and see if it will work. Since the app doesn't use the SIM card at all, just Wi-Fi, it should work.

Prudent Prepping: Reflect, Review and Prepare

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

It’s time for me to clean up and check my equipment as I move, and in the middle of the mess I hear a report that a dam in northern California may be releasing water very soon due to all the rain and now snow melt.

Reflect

Yes, it’s the Oroville Dam I talked about in these posts. The thing that has the locals worried are the cracks in the face of the spillway, similar to the cracks that caused all the problems mentioned in the news articles (linked above) from February 2017. The state water department says everything is just fine, but area residents are understandably worried. After a billion dollars spent to repair and supposedly improve the dam, everyone believes it should work much better than previously.

This was what caused me to go down the rabbit hole of explaining to the people I’m living with why I have emergency gear and food. This is a conversation I wanted to have, just not quite so soon. I thought it could wait until everyone was settled, unpacked and rested.

Review

Everyone to whom I’ve been talking remembers the dam problem and knows what a flood looks like, at least from news reports. Only one person was living in the San Francisco Bay area for the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire in 1991, but the recent fire in Paradise and fires elsewhere in the state were real wake-up calls about what can happen in an urban area close to open spaces. My new place backs up to open space/grasslands with scattered trees, but the lack of trees isn’t a guarantee against winds blowing embers onto everything. My friends have several fire extinguishers from previous rentals, but I don’t know how current they are. These are for the kitchen, laundry room and garage, and don’t count the one I have for my room.

New meet-up locations have to be set, alternate places to stay found, emergency phone numbers for friends passed around, along with everyone learning the locations of the water meter and gas meter, as well as how to turn them off.

I’m making a list of everything the Master Chief and I had worked out as the starting point for where I’d like to see everyone in one month, six months, and a year from now.

Prepare
Oh boy, where to start? I’m going with personal safety at the top of my list. I have a fire extinguisher and first aid kit, but I’m on the second floor and I seriously hate being off the ground if there is a fire. What I’m looking at is something like this, the First Alert EL52-2 Two-Story Fire Escape Ladder.

https://amzn.to/2I8pj0u

I like this model since it has stand-off legs. From the Amazon listing:

• Easy to use two-story 14-foot fire escape ladder
• Fully assembled, ready to use
• Strong steel construction, tested to 1,125 lbs
• DuPont Cordura nylon strapping for extra strength and maximum durability.
• Complies to ASTM standards; 6-year limited warranty; For sill widths of 6 to 10 inches.

My window sill is less than 10” deep, so I’m set, but I need to convince my friends on the other side of the house to get one also, which shouldn’t be too difficult. As I really do have a Blue Collar Prepping budget, this will be my first order for my new place.


The Takeaway

• Never stop thinking about how to be safe.
• Planning isn’t expensive; figuring things out under stress can really cost.

The Recap

• Nothing was purchased this week, but next week one First Alert EL52-2 from Amazon for $34.97 with Prime shipping is going to be on my porch!

***

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned or given in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Are "Budget" Tools a False Economy?

Humans are tool-using animals; it's kind of our superpower, and what keeps us at the top of the food chain. Sadly, as tools become more important and more complex, they also become more and more expensive. Couple this with needing an increasingly large number of tools and becoming a tool-using animal gets hard on the budget.

One of the ways folks try and get around this cost is by buying off-brand "budget" tools, either on Amazon or locally at stores like Harbor Freight. High-end, high-dollar folks will tell you these people are fools, throwing their money away on a false economy. The claim is that while the cost outlay is lower, the tools are of low quality and will not perform or will break prematurely. The question I'd like to answer today is whether this is true or if these people are just snobs.

As a professional tool-user, I've pondered this question for years. The short answer is "It depends." Some bargain tools are just that; others can honestly be called false economy. The answer for any particular purchase depends on a couple criteria.

Complexity of the Tool
Simple hand tools are pretty hard to screw up. Heat treating and metallurgy in mass production environments are established science, and basic tool design is well-known the world over. Screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, and the like are pretty safe purchases; tools that are a bit more complex can still be a safe buy, especially if they can be calibrated or adjusted. I actually reload with a set of calipers from Harbor Freight that are accurate to the task and completely repeatable.

Intended Use
For tools that will see constant use, or use at a professional level, the upgrade to major brands is often worth it as the build quality of national brands is definitely better when subjected to heavy use. For homeowner or hobby use, though, the lifespan of these tools is often good enough that the difference will never be noticed.

Another place where budget tools are worth purchasing is when they're going to be used in a manner outside the norm. Modifying a $5 wrench is less painful than modifying a $20 wrench, and beating and prying on a $2 screwdriver is way better than on a $15 one.

Consumables
Cheap drill bits and saw blades wear out faster than more expensive ones, but not dramatically so. For hobby and homeowner uses, they work just fine; many of them will even function reasonably in a professional setting. In almost all circumstances, the extended life of the more expensive blades or bits doesn't cover the difference in cost. For example, with certain drill bits I can buy five of the cheap ones for the same money as a single expensive drill bit, and that more expensive bit won't give me 5x the life.


Apply these criteria (and a bit of logic) to any budget tool purchases you're considering. You can find some great deals and get tooled up for far less money than you'd think.

Lokidude

Gerber Flat Iron Review

The Gerber Flat Iron knife is $34 from Amazon with Prime shipping.