can I keep it up?

Its apparently as I am noticing quite a challenge to keep a blog going daily while still doing a day job, it does so get into the way.
heres a few questions to everyone, are you a casual camper, when you camp what is your idea of camping? in an RV, bringing a tent, constructing a shelter.
 I know if you want to prepare for a survival situation, you can just start camping normally and each time just leave out bringing one item of comfort. the first thing always to go for me would be the tent, and since my last shelter idea bombed.
 I wouldn't attempt making a group shelter, I would make a small personal one, and when you make one of those mainly in the winter, you want it as small and close to you as possible, because the more air that is in there with you the more cold air you have in there with you. trust me cold is bad.
 I've also had a few friends, war re-en-actors tell me that you should always change clothes before sleeping, stating that no matter what you try you will sweat and be wet while attempting to sleep, this does work I know, but in attempts to travel with as little as possible.. that is hard.
 Just bringing what I did with me, my bag was overly heavy and I felt tremendously loaded down. and I do not know what will be the next thing I decide to remove from my camping, always will take a first aid kit, I like my ground tarps, and I like taking tarps for water proofing. something in that will probably be gone. In the summer, when next I will camp, it will be just me and the hammock and I hope the people that were suppose to come then will come this time for sure.

QOTD- When ( season ) do you plan camping trips?

drop a few cents in

well I am still thinking back on my camping trip on the things I could have accomplished had I stayed out there video wise, and I keep telling myself I will do something that will make up the things I didn't complete like the product reviews, and I do want to at least do a proper review of that hammock, and I want to stand by the fact that you do not have to buy name brand things, or things you see as over priced, for me that hammock was an impulse buy. something I wanted, I like how compact it is and how easy it is for me to set up, but I saw a hammock a few weeks later at a major mall store for 20 bucks, thats a stark difference from the 70 I paid.

I am going to do a video review of the hammock AND show you how make a cheap tarp like the one I made out in the woods, and even make it better since I will be making it in the comfort of my mothers house.

One thing I dislike about the world anymore is the fact of how much this nation is a consumer nation, made in the USA is a joke, even if something is branded that, the materials aren't, its like thinking back through how food is made, well a loaf of bread, what made it, flour and water, yeast, where did you get that? did you make it or buy it, yes there is a Simplicity to buying it but its so much easier later on knowing how to make something when you don't have the ability to buy it.

even todays news story today I found, he had no knowledge of his own, relied on information obtained at the point of tragedy, he had an iphone, and a first aid app, rather funny, but it did save his life, now he is writing a book
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2010/11/27/nr.baldwin.woolley.cnn?hpt=C2

Now question of the day, lets start a new thing to get people commenting. What is one thing you can make without buying something, anything, to make it? it can be anything, food, a charm, neckless, weapon. and I'll make it easy, you can scavenge garbage. show me, don't just say you can make it, do it and post a picture.

sunday sunday sunday

I was trying to pawn off some of the writing of this blog to some other authors so my opinion isn't the only one being viewed, so I have given the pen to two others, if they decide to pull the pen and start writing it is up to them and I will allow them to introduce themselves. I couldn't find much towards issues in the news today. and my words of wisdom are lacking when I can't think of a topic. 

I do know I need more prepping for winter time, last night I sat in my car for too long( to me ) waiting for my windshield to defrost, I could not find my ice scraper, I never could find it during the day today, I worked the most of it, and tomorrow will be much of the same. and 4 days until wedding thing. sorry my post is lacking today, I waited too late to do it, and lacked proper content. come back tomorrow 

Saturday 27th 2010

I couldn't think of a title besides News stories, and too many of those and it will get boring, I should think of just one or two days a week to do news stories, or should I still with the random I am out of ideas so I search the news? anyway three stories today from two days ago. still in reason for the week.

first 50 days out at sea for three teenagers, this is a good thing, I do not know if I could take the coconut, and the laxative that it is. perhaps later in life, or a few weeks they will have a tell all story of at least how they caught the bird and where they learned the information that helped them survive.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AP0BJ20101126?pageNumber=1

next story, permanent war for the USA, honestly probably not because like the last depression we were in, war "solved" it for a few years, 50 or so, and during that all they did was refuse the idea that we were in a depression. and the economy is still failing, I make no money even having a job, prices for everything is going up, and the small business world can barely pay their employees with the min wage which leads this whole cycle to repeat, min wage goes up, costs go up, prices go up, min wage goes up. all the while the government is printing money to fuel this fire. the only thing constant is money or product being taken or used in other countries with a half stable economy.
the world has been good at war, america has been good at war, fighting and loving are two constants that are world wide, and loving only makes money for the porn industry.  I do not think this or the other few wars that we are involved in right now will continue, but there will always be another one coming next. \
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/23/war.afghan/?hpt=Sbin

this next one talks about the tsa again, still in the news, however to me this one is a funny backlash, wear a kilt, like a true Scotsman, I don't know that I am Scottish however I am Irish and I laugh at the kilt anyway.  I know one thing about a kilt, why its name, cause if you call it a dress you get kilt.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/going-commando.ars

now I have to go shave off my red beard I grew during my days off work, well for work was fun while I had it, this has been a decent vacation.

camping trip gone bad.

Well it turned out nothing of how I wanted, I shot no video, reviewed nothing, beyond just using them, the shelter wasn't made how it needed to be to keep us any kind of warm, I should have left the two I camped with gone off and made my own personal shelter. one person was dictated into not being able to come by his mother, the only under 18 person in the group, and the other two, well one kept leaving camp to go back home since the woods we were in was part of his families property, the idea was to sleep in shifts, and I let him have the first shift since he didn't dress properly and crawled into his sleeping bag first. but then after 6 am, his time to get up and someone else's time to sleep he decides to go get plastic to work on the shelter more,  which the shelter it's self needs to be remade it was rushed by a bit of rain that came through early the first day. he leaves for 3 hours, he went back home and went back to bed, and left me and knight out there cold and tired, and I will have to rethink my thoughts on cold weather camping, I was wearing clothes I normally wearing out into the snow, and I was cold to the bone.
the night the experience didn't work how I wanted, I will probably have to wait for another camping trip, this time not with knight or berzk cause knight also ruined it by running out of the shelter in the middle of the night and taking a dump about 10 feet away from camp, that ruined the site and we would have had to move the site well away from that nastiness. it wasn't the best experience.
the knife I made before the trip worked perfectly, it kept an edge, even after cutting through my hand, it could fell trees quite easily, cut through everything I needed.

one of the things I used while I was out there, a eno hammock- hammocks are not made for winter time, doing this with pads under you will keep air from flowing up under you but it doesn't make it warm, hammock would be good perhaps in the summer and to keep you off the ground from the bugs, something you don't have to worry about in the winter. I paid 70 dollars for this and I haven't used it much, but whats bad after getting it, looking at the design I should be able to make one myself, ill attempt it eventually, I did not buy the straps, bug net, or rain fly, I made a tarp from garbage bags, and I used truck tie down straps for hanging it up.

http://www.eaglesnestoutfittersinc.com/




the other main thing I was gonna test, is an Eton flashlight, this flashlight worked pretty well as a flashlight but the fact that I was using it as a weather radio too showed its flaws, it only lasted about 2 minutes on a few minutes of cranking, it was night so it wasn't easily charged from the solar panel, it also advertises it charging a cell phone from a usb port in the back of the flash light, its apparent this wasn't meant for my iphone the solar panel does not charge the cellphone at all, so if thats what you were wanting spend your 30 bucks on a solar panel charger. the crank is iffy at best for charging a phone, you can tell when you are charging the device or your phone because of the resistance it has when you are charging something but otherwise its a rather free flowing crank. the light worked as long as I needed and worked even after the radio would cut off. also the weather radio apparently uses more power than fm/am. when I bought this it was on special and I got a free blackout buddy flashlight with it. haven't needed it yet but I like that one too.
http://www.etoncorp.com/product_card/?p_ProductDbId=914953

another day of news

Ok this first article hits home for me, when I first moved out of my parents house into this appartment my first course of action was replacing every bulb in the apartment to cfls perhaps I am just a fan of Tesla, but I do not know if this action has saved me money, but I have not had to change a bulb since. not to mention that most of these bulbs were free from my local energy company, and got another box of them from the energy company, after I had gotten the coupons, so they bought them, not me.  this next article not only talks about cfl but newer and well, more expensive led bulbs.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20023357-54.html

I did have more articles but. I believe that is all for tonight since its already 3:30 am, I had to help the SO write a paper for school. and camping starts in the morning, I am so looking forward to it.

late in the day

well I have a few stories to talk about, reading the news last night showed me the stories I wanted to write about today, and unfortunately I am not getting to this writing until nearly 3 am the next day, the first story is speaking about the tsa and all these privacy intrusions we are now just witnessing because of all the terrorist thoughts through out the flight around the world. now I wonder if a full body scanner or groping I mean pat downs would even be helpful to how those planes were apparently high jacked, not with bombs, with box cutters, and with box cutters I honestly do not see any plane full of american people being scared of one or two people on a plane, there has to be some facts wrong about those statements. please come see me in 50 years when the documents are released. right now we are dealing with this invasion of privacy because we are allowing it, we allowed the patriot act to come into play and let it slip by us letting the government avoid completely the 4th amendment, a law that has been in place since the birth of this country. a government agency can bug your house while your away, no search warrant, no court order, no reasonable suspicion no urgent circumstance. the entire  4th amendment was put in place to protect persons places and things for your privacy. knowing this, the statement given by the tsa is that a person, a reasonable person would have no expectation of privacy in an airport, well this is a statement I know we all believe, we all, the american people, have a reasonable expectation of privacy by wearing clothes we assume in our no wrong doing, there should be no reason to see what is under our clothes, nor should a random check by an employee give the reason for a pad down, the pad down, a terry stop, the first pad down, means you have to have reasonable suspicion for a pat down, the only person I see having the ability to judge this is a trained police officer, not a hired tsa employee.

the other story I marked in my book to write about was this http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-20-new-orleans-water_N.htm?csp=usat.me  

these guys cant get a break can they? move maybe? ok with katrina, hurricane after hurricane, and the oil spill, its almost surprising to find people still wanting to live in this place, but ok I understand its home and a way of life. they are going through another problem, a power outage? hmm these have happened in new york and they never told them to boil water, which gene pool are they trying to thin...  I joke.

On both of these stories, I have flown on a few planes, after 9/11 mind you I was 16 then, 25 now. even got stopped once cause I attempted to walk through with some hotel shampoo, I let them keep that, I didn't like taking off my shoes or understanding why an xray machine can see inside my laptop, and my bag, but not inside my laptop while its in my bag. on the other story, I have been through hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters. hugo was the worse one I remember, I was 4. most of the time these things happened I was in rather safe locations inside brick structures, so I have been lucky, and I was taught by my parents to have plenty of things, like batteries or things that work but don't require batteries on hand in those times, and I do love the invention of hand crank powered devices.

tomorrow, or this morning is Monday, I am sending off my laptop later today, and then work till midnight, doing my next blog then, then then then going camping for a few days, ill be attempting to film while I am out there and I hope I get a lot of the product reviews I wanted to go over, done with while out there.