Ultimate survival tools

These days I've had without a car have been a big learning experiance for me, relying on walking to get to the stores and bank making me realise how important a good pair of shoes are and how much mine have been hurting my feet recently.

You may realise it isn't in good prepper sence to not have food stocked up for situations even like this however its been nearly two months. And I've known that I had a limited supply of food after the wife and I splitting when she took most of the food also the difference is my lack of cooking now. Where I live and who I live with here the kitchen is nasty and I do not cook in it and I do not clean it. So I stay hidden in my room with easily microwaveable things with just my microwave and minifridge in my room. With that I've had limited things to eat. So tonight I stocked up a bit on dry easy to microwave foods though they are not entirely healthy.

So ultimate survival tools back to this, my car broke down so I'm relying on my feet, I rely on most of all my body and mind and you should do the same, you may have a bug out vehicle but it too could also break down, or you could run out of fuel even with your stores of it. The main problem with prepping is time. Unless your stores outlive you, Then you will run out.

Not dead.

I know I left the whole 7 people reading this hanging. but I went through a lot in my life right at the time of my last post. my wife left me, yes after only half a year of marriage. had to move out of the apartment, lost all storage space really, most food stores are go on so on so forth. prepping is down to day one really. I still have a few of my toys with me but had to split most of my things between where I am staying, with a friend paying him for a room, and split where my mother lives right now. I haven't written anything just for fact of not having anything to write. still looking for a possible co author.

Summer Fun/ Summer Heat

Seems every time I come in here to blog its about the freaking weather. I am not a weather man I swear, I just realize that the thing that effects our lives most of all is the weather, you would realize this a lot more if your car leaked I am sure. At the temp we are at right now in the south AC is a godsend if not needed completely I have been trying to avoid using it in my car but it is difficult. Where I live in the city ac is needed for a few reasons and those same reasons are why ac is needed in a car, one being no shade, in this apartment no trees cover it at all, when I lived out in that old lake house I loved, trees hundreds of years old dwarfed everything, and covering over the house and all the ground around me, shade over a home makes a big differences in how cool it gets.

Now about in your car, state highways rarely have shade, beyond that your car does not have curtains. simple?

In your house please be smart, close the curtains in the afternoon, during the hottest times of the day, letting the sun in kills any chance you have of cooling off the place, even if you are not using ac close the curtains, and let the wind blow the air in through them, or place a fan in the window.

beyond all this, carry water with you, this should be your side arm in this heat, dehydration sucks, if kills people every year, more and more younger adults want to drink sodas, and sugar drinks for thirst rather than water, there really should not be a substitution,  and if you are about taste, get over it, train your taste buds and body to just prepare for it, drink water, drink it hot, you never know when you might need the ability to do so, get your picky kids to do it too.

I know this from my own past experiences and my own past spoiled nature. I did not like just plain water. went on a long camping trip, two weeks, ended up in the hospital in the middle of it. My friends and I had all the supplies needed to survive out there, but our bodies were not prepared. your body is the most important thing remember to train yourself for anything.

I dislike thinking that is only June and this warm already, because this same camping trip, was eight years ago now, in the middle of June and I remember being cold at night outside, now it would only feel comfy, and miserable during the day, just like it was this last week when I went on a hike through those same woods. Still I plan on a camping trip later this month. I hope it will be cooler up on those mountains.

hiking randomly

Yesterday was a friends birthday, the wife made him a very interesting cake
Beyond that we bullshitted around at his house, but I was bored, I wanted to go do something, not wanting to force the birthday guy into doing anything really we went out to the cars, talked more and agreed to go get another friend, from there we, or should I say I just started driving, to the point where even my wife wondered where we were going, I drove up to the mountains. we walked through a little town first, then jumped on the blue-ridge parkway stopped at a few overlooks, then thought about driving out to linville falls.
We did not make it to linville but along the way there was a parking area and a set of trails, and my friends wanted to go hiking. this was at 6:30 or so at night, it would get dark soon, I pulled out the three flashlights I had, grabbed my Go bag, and my wife had hers, we went off up this trail.
My friends including the birthday boy were barefoot going up this trail since they were wearing flipflops out. I guess I should have warned them, I ended up going barefoot down the trail letting my wife have my shoes since her flats weren't working for her. I was the only one wearing proper shoes.

I had my camera, but did not get many pictures and they are all dark since there was no lighting. From this random trip for me I figured out I need one more flashlight between us, 4 people with three flashlights wasn't quite cutting it, also I should just keep my waders in my car so I can loan out other shoes I am wearing, or keep a pair for my wife in the car.
If I hadn't had to work today I could have and would have stayed up there, My friends were in the same frame of mind, my wife was the only one that wanted to leave.

it took us at slow speed an hour both ways on this trail, I forget the name of the trail but we parked at rough ridge parking, and hiked the shortest trail, if we had had more gear, IE proper shoes we could have done a longer one.

To end this night, I drove back down the mountain and took us all drinking, I still couldn't bring myself to drink, but they had fun.

I threw in a picture since ya cant see anyone really. They liked climbing though.

Glued to the News

Literally I have been, working or not, this has me stressed out, I do not know anyone in japan, but just watching the news I see how much they are not telling us, you compare the information coming out of cnn, to bbc, the information is different in leaps and bounds, then compare it to the videos in youtube or the messages all over twitter, stark differences, its easy to see that this era, the news is all on the internet, and not even on old news media sources, if you want the news, you have to know where to look. The best way to know where, twitter, people broadcast their lives, their stories, and their problems. 

From the many stories I've read or watched about japan, there was a 9.0 earthquake, for japan they had minor damage from this because of how many earthquakes they apparently have over there, (not a piece of news we hear everyday) they have most of their building codes to withstand a 7.5 quake. the tsunami went 6 miles inland, now that the tide has drawn from the tsunami the island is 12 wider, the tsunami also hit Hawaii and California, doing some damage to California' coast, mostly to boats. 

A nuclear power plant was in the path of the tsunami, the tsunami knocked out power from the area causing this power plant to be unable to cool its 6 ( I believe) reactors, one by one these have been heating up, during this time the USS ronald Regan was approaching to aid japan, yet stopped and moved further from the coast after a helicopter detected radiation. that was about 2 days ago. 

between then and now I have heard back and forth of reactors and buildings exploded or didn't explode, or did explode but didn't cause a meltdown. This is all depending on which network, or news source you are reading or listening to. 

What I understand is, Japan hasn't had any help in cooling the reactors, from anyone, they have been trying to cool them with water which has cause hydrogen explosions,( thats quoted from cnn) they have gone back and forth saying there is no meltdowns or there is, BUT I know they are evacuating people for "possible" radiation leaks( and even CNN is saying that this company that owns the plant hasn't been completely forth coming with information.)  There have been explosions, between the reports and a US aircraft carrier not getting closer to help, beyond that some people have already been tested positive for radiation, I state that one or more of those reactors is leaking radiation. they have been telling people to keep their skin covered if they must go out, or just to stay inside. Honestly full chemical suit would be handy at this point for those people. 

I was dumbfounded at the first reports telling people to cover their mouths with a wet washcloth, I was thinking what could that accomplish. 

Now What news you may not have heard! there has also been a volcano eruption in japan, right like there were not enough problems, it was north of most of this from what I recall. New Jersey is flooded, still, and the Ohio river is close to flooding, so there are some problems close to home that I have not seen even hitting the news, which is why my segment on them is also rather small. 

sorry I've been missing for almost a week, work has had me stressed, my car broke down, which didn't put me in a happy place, now tomorrow I get to attempt to fix it.

reading a new book

What to do When the sh*t hits the fan by Dave Black, it was on clearance in B&N, so far enjoying it, it is slow going for me to read through it with work and everything. It seems to go through the Fema handbook as well as going through some of the authors own opinions. I wont review the book yet till I read through the entire book.

Its interesting for me though, its in the beginning of the year, and I am already getting the feeling of wanting to go camping, and I wanted to plan several camping trips this year, with different people in several different places of  NC, and depending where I am shows the factor of how much I am really camping, if I camp in a friends woods, I can fell trees and make a shelter, if I am in a public forest, I respect the laws there and take shelter, I will eventually show a video of me making a rain fly for my hammock out of garbage bags and duck-tape, I already have the different designs in my head for it, not really gonna go too elaborate on it but it is gonna be nicer than I would be able to make while out in the woods.

Moving

No the wife and I are not moving, yet. This has been the topic of our conversations for months now, where we will go from here. Do we go to the cities to help our chances of finding work that will pay decently for her and I, do we move out to the location where we would like to settle for our life time. We both want to move around some, enjoy life before having children, and currently we have that luxury. We are young, smart enough to stay away from having children, and waiting till we are ready, mind that we do want kids.

I want to move away, and its been much debate to where, I want to move someplace where I can be out in the woods, have lots of land in be smack in the middle of it and go on my relaxing walks when ever I wish, it's something that takes me back to my childhood, being alone, doing what I wanted when I wanted, fishing, swimming, walking in the woods. I never got lost in the woods, I never got hurt out there to the point where I couldn't just walk home. I feel I was lucky. This is something I  want for my son, freedom. I didn't grow up having friends close by or people to talk to really, it was just me and some form of nature.

My wife's childhood was in a suburb, friends all around to play with, not having to walk even a block to find one of her little girlfriends to play with, and during her childhood she moved from that and out into the country, where her and her sister then played in a creek and had miniature horses. Her childhood had two vastly different worlds, and she liked the first better, and she wants the first world for her daughter.

The other big debate is when we have kids, she wants us to be close to where we are now so all the parents, then be grandparents can be close by to witness the birth of our children, I would rather just fly them out to where we are.

The big question still remains, where do we move to? Well in the end the wife has said that when we are settled down I get my big mass of land and woods, so I am happy with that idea, but where? What state should we live in. NC is has a lot of woods, just like the ones I grew up with. Should we do somewhere west, perhaps more north, What is everyone else's ideas, I would like to hear them.

Driving

Okay, I see I have used this topic before, perhaps this post will have more information.

Driving is the most dangerous thing we do in our daily lives. You may not realize this because of how much you do it, and be annoyed at things you pay for because of your driving habits like insurance.
We the people give minors as young as fifteen the ability move a large heaping powered piece of metal, that could possibly bring death to anyone in its path. From all the states I have visited in the US everyone says their state has the worse drivers, there are many reasons people are bad drivers, in good or bad conditions. in the south we are not used to ice and snow, in the west they are not used to rain.
I wouldn't want to lose my car to a tornado in Kansas, and people from other parts of the world might stay in the car and watch as they are taken up and beaten to death.

Regardless of all that. You as you are driving on the road, how many people do you pass? Hundreds most likely, you have no idea how old they are, what their driving experience is; if they are on their cell phone, texting (which is illegal now), changing the radio station, doing make-up, smoking, driving, eating, typing on their gps We have so many distractions that keep peoples eyes off the road.
This is an easy statistic, most people die in car accidents, than any other type of vehicle. Cars kill more people than guns, cars kill more people than terrorists. and cars are in your back yard, cars are sold everywhere, without a licence, no waiting period.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

I personally work in a job where I can spend the entire shift of working on the road driving, delivering, people like me are most at risk because we spend more time doing this dangerous action, and people like me feel more confident in our driving so will do more while driving, in that we might set a bad example for anyone, like the others I train to do my job. What is out of my control are other drivers, and I see a lot of bad ones, swerving, running off the road, stopping unexpectedly, and turning without signal.
 I personally stop and slow down while looking for the place I am delivering to, so I become a road hazard while I am searching for someones address wither they actually have it posted or not. In the day time or night. At night your pretty bronze numbers on the side of your brick house are invisible, and those plants growing up your house looking pretty covering your house numbers, it doesn't stop my progress getting to you.
This type of non-marked home would stop Emergency vehicles too.


I'll attempt to make this post part of a series, everyday dangers.

Snow day?

I randomly skipped a day? Sorry. I am surprised at NC and our schools and businesses, the schools have been closed all week, and this is suppose to be the first week back to school, that is rather crazy. I know that the roads have been bad, more so than most since I have had to work each day of snow and ice and drive on the roads during it for my job. I have seen many cars on the sides of the road, and even co workers sliding and one crashing, he is fine however. I guess in the south people are not required to learn how to drive in any condition, like bus drivers.
The co-worker that wrecked did tell me a good story about seeing two police cruisers sitting in a parking lot then one backing up preforming a reverse 180 then drifting in circles around the other police cruiser. I would have liked to see video of this.

Winter time

I never have understood why holiday poems involve snow, it never happens here, and as far as I am aware you have to be rather far north to see snow early in winter, also in the north you see people with two sets of tires, winter and summer, and even owning chains on tires, if I ever move north I will have to deal with this. In the south I have all season tires and everything this winter has thrown at me so far has been drivable, at least for me. I have a few pictures or snippets of video where I saw trucks on the side of the road from crashing, and I was driving in a small 4 cylinder front wheel drive car.

Speaking of cars, trucks and other. I want something other, an Suv, I have access to a truck, a Ford F 150 that was my father's. It doesn't fun to well at this point, I have never been that great at car upkeep, and money is also a requirement of that, not something I have much of.
Regardless, I would like a Jeep or a Subaru beyond that I do not know, I want some luxury in a vehicle, but I do  want it to have the capability to go off road and have 4 wheel drive. I also want something 4 door so I can carry people, things and future family easier, and most of all I am tired of sitting on the ground while I am driving.
Any suggestions on an SUV please comment and tell me what you think?

few days away

I know I haven't been very daily in my postings lately, lots of things have been going on here, also it seems my car is broken or in the process of breaking, so that is another expenece against this poor prepping survivalist, I have been wanting a new car for two years but it hasn't been in my cards to obtain a new one. Who knows what will happen, but tomorrow I have a convention to go to, so no Saturday news. go read about the birds and fish and crabs all turning up dead.

Book review Survive!

Okay, I have said I will do product reviews, know hows, and such. Time to review a book I read before starting this blog. Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to get you out of anywhere alive. by Les Stroud.

Now First I will say, I like this guy, to me he is smart on his survivor man shows, and I like his filming, as in being alone, that said, I don't like Canada speak in book form. Sorry Canadians. Most of this book related back to things you can learn just by watching his show, it did finally show how to make a figure 4 dead fall with some detail that he always speaks about in his shows. It is a good travel copy of 3 seasons of survivorman, and his one episode of urban disasters. Plus the stranded series he did to start up survivorman for the networks.

The book does have good tips, he is worth the read, but always do not just listen to one guide for all information, he also makes many references for everyplace he goes he consults local survival experts, something we all wont have if we were to get stranded in remote locations. it would mainly be book research like we would try to be doing with this book. I wouldn't call it an all knowing guide to survival, but it does have some tips tricks and opinions, like much hate for the the lean to shelter, why the hate Les?

I give it a 3 out of 5, I need to read more survival books honestly, this one didn't keep me that interested that I couldn't put the book down, but I did finish it.

Reading more books and reviewing more will come with time but money is tight like always for those with dead end jobs making it through life.

Also note, the leaving pages in the back of the book for tender was creative.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061373516?ie=UTF8%20&tag=harpercollinsusbuypage-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061373516

 I was attempting to not be bias on this review because I do like Les and his show, I like that even with having a show he is slow going, he is alone out there and takes care of himself, unlike Bear Grills who runs in headlong with no rhyme or reason to us the viewers, and he just works to make a good show rather than show someone how to survive, he shows ya just how to die faster.

Returnith

I really do not feel as if I have missed much, so that means my good people, you have not missed much from my own comments.

It snowed on Christmas, the first white Christmas in North Carolina since 1947, and honestly first white Christmas for many states and cities for a good many years, I hear for Atlanta this is a first in 128 years. With all this snow I far too realize that people in North Carolina do not know how to drive in any condition, I worked all day today out driving, and the roads were quite clear, you see the snow was a fine powered snow, it sticks to the ground and did also to the roads, but it did nothing to make them slick, that is ice. We have not seen ice yet this year and maybe tonight the melted snow will bring ice, but I doubt it.  It baphles me that someone seemingly prepared for the weather driving a hummer or a large SUV would be driving slow to the point it annoys me, knowing they can handle the road at a higher speed when I am only in a front wheel drive sports car.

enough about the weather, I have enjoyed my holiday, I didn't really see much in the way of presents, thats fine,  I was given money, money is always good, it can be put forth useful things. I enjoyed giving presents to my new inlaws and watching them play.

During my break I believe some may have noticed my presence on twitter, I have an auto post for my blog, however I can access it from my phone, so I put a twitter feed on the blog to display. follow and comment and such, here there and everywhere, also take some time and rewatch the walking dead, I did.

QOTD What prepper stock should I get with the money?

to Survive

What would you be willing to do?

Now I am not referring to the end of the world, Perhaps just the end of your world. You find yourself homeless your family dead, what do you do now? Do you live on the streets clam-mering on clinging to what you may still own squandered away from what is left of your own life? Will you sell those last possessions to get a bit further a grain of food in your stomach? What job would you be willing to do, what would be beyond what your pride would allow?

I know in my own mind, my capabilities I can and would do anything to promote my wellbeing, and in my slight heartless nature no longer having anyone would lead me to the point of no worries in my own actions. If you have no one to look down on you that you know, there is nothing to low for you to stoop to. This is probably too drastic for someone who living comfortably to think about, you have a home, internet service Television most likely, a family pet you pay to take care of, children, these are all luxuries that most do not find as such. Television seems to be thought as a god given right anymore, and I find it to be the least necessary thing I pay for, it only adds to the time I waste spending it retaining information that has no suiting to my everyday lifestyle.

would you turn a trick as my mother says to obtain money? meaning towards prostitution, be a servant of some other sort, clean what others will not. anymore these are not even jobs that lower class people seem to be able to obtain, they go to foreigns that are now in the country, yet thought to be good job in england, working for noble being given room and food for service, but that is an era far past.
Now what most people stoop to is food service jobs, fast food, Mc Donald's is a low job for most, Walmart mostly unthinkable, just yet, obtainable if you look and ask.
so why I ask are there so many homeless? because if you do not try before the world falls out from under you, if you do not lie just slightly while you are already damned. If you say you do not have a home, no job will hire you anywhere. so what would you do to obtain a home? or would you lie.

Geocaching

This is an interesting game that if done correctly teaches an interesting set of skills. the idea behind the game is to find a geo cache near your home or near a destination you are taking for that day, I could have probably found many of them out in Cherokee when I went, but I was enjoying the relaxing too much for that. I know there are several geo caches near my house and have thought about making another one near me.
I have only found one geo cache and thats near my wife school it was done by one of the classes there.
what you do is go to the website and download the set of coordinates for the location of the cache and plug it into a gps, which it could also go into a detailed map, you go out search for it on food, the website gives a lot of information for helping you hunt, but most of the information comes from the person that set out the cache and those that have already found it, perhaps given a hint or something to that nature, and there are some code hints in the name some times. then once you get to the given area, since gps isn't completely accurate, you have to look around. which this makes for some skills there, looking for something that is meant to be hidden, like an explosive device perhaps. it gives a slight attempt to make you more aware of your surroundings, more so if you go and look at the site and see how many geo-caches are near your home. it might surprise you how many there are.
if  you don't have a gps, use a map, I first downloaded the app to my iphone and tried it. I had fun dragging the wife through some woods to that one cache and I want to try it again, I still haven't found the one thats at the store near where I work.
https://www.geocaching.com/

vacation prep

Well if it isn't apparent not I just got home from a short honeymoon, money goes quickly, yes it does, but we had much fun. All the things I've been reading and putting into my own practice, as well as my new wifes own paranoid packing we surprisingly only left with two bags of stuff for a destination two hours away up a few mountains and further into the cold. North Carolina is an interesting state in all seasons, and it is one where there is a little bit of everything here, beaches, mountains, swamps, lakes.. its all here, we lack a desert, but I'm not missing it.
One of the main things I made sure to take with me was insulated suits for both my new wife and I, because I did expect the cold, I didn't really expect the snow but it did not become a problem since it only came during the trip home. I have said before that I got stranded with my mother once on a mountain road, it was the same road I was traveling for this trip. I remember the cold of last winter. but the only bag I brought was my normal carry bag, that I started carrying everyday to work and such. it has a rain coat, some winter gear for the winter months, food, and it has my computer stuff normally, and things encase I stay at my mothers for a night.

I really should  see more of this state, and the country, I remember going to some of the places around this state when I was in school, but it was long ago.