Today it rained....it's been raining all day since about six. Well I think it was six....Well it was raining at six when I woke up,  so I don't know when it started.

I also found out I've been doing the math with the Geiger counter wrong, and the door and north wall are reading at 800 rads a minute. The water is a bit higher than I initially thought but it's still safe to drink.

I checked out my room-mate's room today. Found an army footlocker sitting on his bed with a note on top.

Note reads:

"Congratulations sir or madam, you've won the jackpot, this is a cache of goods and materials that may help you in whatever hell the governments of our world have unleashed. If you're dead or unable to read this, or have evolved or mutated beyond the need for such things please disregard this and move along."

Inside it I found a lot of home-made survival manuals which I'll read through later, but here's a lit of stuff other than those:

Stuff that I recognize:

Two pistols this is what they read on the side as

>1 M-45 MEUSOC pistol

>1 Colt M1991A pistol

6 spare magazines

50 rounds of hollowpoint .45 ACP

50 rounds of solid metal .45 ACP

Ten MREs five breakfast and five dinners (it doesn't say what they, just code numbers, I'll look them up later.)

A second Geiger counter 

A second dosimeter

medical kit

six different knifes

a hand axe

100 feet of synthetic rop

A plastic container of gunpowder.

Box of bullets well they're smaller than bullets, the tip I guess?

Stuff I have no clue what it is used for:

A box of a thousand primers

Portable hand press

box of dies? That's what the label says and it's heavy. they're kinda sharp too.

multimeter

a box of tools most of which I've never seen before.

Spent the rest of the day watching the clouds through the window. They have a bit of a glow to them. Feel crazier than usual.

Spent today taking stock of what food and drink I have.


four one liter bottles of water
one five gallon jug of water I'll set these aside in the bedroom for now since the water is still coming out drinkable.
two boxes of frozen waffles
a bag of frozen peas
six pounds of frozen steak
two cans of refried beans
a half gallon of milk, kind of old though
six boxes of mac and cheese
two cans of condense milk
two oranges
three onions
two cans of tomato soup
moldy bread, half a loaf
a bunch of condiments
a box of saltines
an assorted mix of sodas thirty cans total
six things of microwave popcorn


I think I'll check my room-mates room tomorrow since he was at home for some family thing and won't be getting back soon.

Getting bored, started drawing earlier today. I suck at it.

Spent most of today messing around with the electronics in my apartment to see what worked.

What works:

AM/FM radio

TV, I think though all I get is snow.

Laptop

Router

Refrigerator

electric range

Things that I know don't work:

cell phone

digital camera

microwave

air conditioner

printer

landline phone

tower computer

Every now and then I've checked the door and hot wall. If I'm doing the conversion right they're still about 400 to 500 rad an hour. Depending on how close I hold the counter. The dosimeter itself says I've only been exposed to about 80 rads, give or take. The water from the sink comes out to about one rad every ten minute, so for now it's safe to drink. I think I should fill up a bunch of water bottles just to be on the safe side in case the water pipes get irradiated. 

So far I haven't seen  much activity on the internet, with the exception  of spam bots. I was messing around on twitter and I found where a bunch of spam bots had friended themselves and were going on about their 'lives'. It was weird.. like I'd found something I shouldn't have. Maybe they'll become self aware on their own.

Gonna get some sleep now that I've updated this blog. Hope to see some activity in the world other than me. 

Blog with the Blastwave is an exercise in SciFi writing set in an alternate timeline. Despite what you may want to believe, this is not a real blog. It is a fake blog of the fictitious events that befall the "writer" as he, and the people he meets cope with the fallout of a post nuclear war environment. 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

Without Further ado, the opening post.

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Forgive me, a lot of this is condensed from my journal over two days, quite frankly I'm surprised that the internet still exists, or that I could even connect to it.

Somehow, I managed to sleep through the end of the world, it wasn't my radio cutting to the emergency broadcast tone, or the rattling of the windows from the air-bursts that eventually woke me. It was the cold dead silence of an apartment devoid of electricity, no hum of electronics, no whir of the fridge compressor. That's what woke me up, not the crackle of the atom bomb or the drone of the air raid sirens. Somehow I managed to sleep through the third world war. And how am I typing this up you might ask with no power or internet? Well it's back on. I believe that PG&E sealed a pact with Beelzebub with the intent to provide and charge people for electrical power regardless of the state of affairs of the world. I have no doubt that at the end of the month I'll still get a bill for my power consumption, regardless of how much radiation the postman had to go through. Beyond that, a microwave was also part of my saving grace.

 A simple offbrand microwave with a small netbook and router stuffed inside it, unplugged and stored in my closet. This apparently saved the components in the laptop and router from being fried from an emp. I guess. That or the placement of the microwave, or something silly. I didn't focus my degree on electrical engineering so I don't know why or how. I was studying to chase deer and bears around with an electronic collar. For all I know it could have been the clothes, or the exploded bean burrito on the roof of the microwave.

The power came back on partway through the second day, almost all of the radio bands are static, though one of the rock stations from up in the mountains is still broadcasting. The DJ says he'll keep playing music to keep people's moods up. With the power on I can mess around on my laptop without running the battery down and keep my mind off what happened.

A Civil Defense announcement was patched through on the radio. Civilians are to remain in their shelters until  the radiation levels subside to 100 rads an hour.

Looking out the windows the sky is an oddly twisted blue to the north, and to the south I can see a red glow. I'm guessing the town my apartment is in wasn't important so it wasn't hit directly. From what I can tell based on the civil defense kit, the Geiger counter and dosimeter inside, that inside the apartment is relatively safe,   except for the one spot near the northern wall and the front door, the apartment's only reading at one rad every hour or so. The Northern wall, and the front door, if my math is right are reading at 500 rad an hour. So for now I'm going to hole up in the southern bedroom. As best I can tell that's the one room in the apartment that I'll be exposed to the least amount of radiation, well for now. Going to try and sleep now. Wonder if anyone else has figured out the internet still exists.