I just had a phone conversation with my brother. He mentioned that a power surge in the local utility lines caused $220 in damage to his washing machine. It seems that microcircuits are ubiquitous in household electronics and appliances. Its not just your computer, televisions, radios, and and stereo that are at risk. Your automatic bread maker, your washing machine, and perhaps even your dishwasher use vulnerable microcircuits. His advice: Spend $100 and buy a few high quality surge-arresting power strips. Even better would be the Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) variety that automatically trip in the event of a brown-out. (Although most of these are much more expensive.) Someday you will be glad that you invested in extra protection for your home electronics.
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S.F. in Hawaii notes: "Rotary cultivators are finally back in stock at Lehman's. A must if you don't have a tractor. Get them while they are in stock."
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There is a free service in Australia called IPS Flare Alert that provides free e-mail notifications of any X-ray solar flare event larger than C8 in intensity. I recommend that all SurvivalBlog readers subscribe to this service, whether or not you are a shortwave listener or ham radio operator. BTW, keeping track of solar flare activity is also fun for those of us that enjoy watching far northern (or southern) latitude auroras.
