MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I didn't make this up (wish that I would have, but simply reposted it).

To My Liberal Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2011 but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

To My Conservative Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1149468-greetings-both-my-liberal-conservative-friends.html#ixzz1hHnyA6ag

Redux to Solar

So, it has happened!  You were preparing for this moment, hoping and praying that it would never come, but deep down inside, knowing that it would.

The 2012 solar storm hit us with a vengeance bringing EMP destruction with it.  It was the Carrington event to end all others.  Coast to coast, even around the world, computer chips that controlled everything from your toaster, to your modern automobile, to the multi-million dollar switching station that sent power to your home were fried with the immense electronic storm that took a millisecond to sweep through everything connected (and most things not connected) to the grid.

So, you, being the dedicated prepper that you are, begin preparing for the grid-down scenario.  You prime your hand pump well system, you begin turning all of your steak and roast that is in your freezer into jerky with your solar dehydrator.  You break out your solar oven, and get ready to fix your first "TEOTWAWKI" meal.  You strap on your Glock 19 and lay the AR15 down beside you.

Things go pretty well until later in the evening and you realize that its getting dark.  DOH!  You realize that your dusk to dawn light outside isn't going to come on and no matter how many times you flip the light switch out of habit as you walk from room to room in your house, the lights are not going to come on.

So, you go get your checklist and see what provisions that you made for light.

VIOLA, you were a great prepper and made the proper provisions.  You had a faraday cage specifically for this very thing.

You run into your provisions room (as quick as you can, because it is dark in the house now), look for your ammo-box turned faraday cage that has your stuff stored and open it up.

What greets your eager eyes is worth its weight in gold now.

First off, you see four of your Olight M21 Warriors.

 

Olight


You gingerly pick one up and flip its switch.  You are greeted with a blindingly bright and very reassuring stream of light.

You take a moment to revel in its beautiful brightness before you continue your rediscovery.

What awaits you next is equally reassuring.

12 volt 15650 battery charger

This is what is going to keep you in light for many years to come.  You made provisions to hook this small battery charger to your solar panels that are on your outbuilding.  Sure it takes a while, but you will have light.

You set this aside, with a sigh of relief, then reach the final bundle at the bottom of your ammo box.  Its pretty heavy and you forget for a moment what you might have down there, as soon as the clear wrapper comes into view, you remember with yet another sigh of relief.

18650 rechargeables

You lift the heavily cellophaned wrapper from the bottom of your box.  In it contains almost 3 pounds of 18650 rechargeable batteries.  Enough to keep you in light for quite some time to come.

And not just any light, but blindingly brilliant white light that is sure to cut through the darkest night to let you know what goes "Bump".

Things are not going to be easy at all, in fact, these will be the days that try men's souls, but you have taken as many prudent preparations as you could have, and now they will begin paying off in spades.

Everything you wanted to know about solar power, but were afraid to ask.

Ok, so this article isn't actually going to be THAT comprehensive, but I wanted to share a few thoughts.

I work in an office environment and have 2 other prepper minded folks that are just steps away from my office door.  The other day we were talking about solar power and one of them commented that it was just so expensive to do anything with solar, that they were just focusing on other preps.

I told him that I disagreed and I shared with him how solar is fitting into my plans.

I have a very simple setup that consists of 45 watts of solar panels, 4 deep cycle batteries, a 1500 watt inverter and a charge controller (to be expanded as $$ allows).  This simple setup allows me at least a modicum of electrical availability and expands my abilities exponentially.  Here are a few examples of the avenue's that are open to me just because of this fairly small outlay in cash.

Before I begin, we have to remember what we are prepping for.  Sure something like this might cost $400 now and is not nearly as glamorous as a new Eotech, but some of the things that the simple setup affords me in a potential WROL scenario will be worth substantially more.

First off, I can charge 12 volt batteries.  Sure it takes a while, but I can do it.  Certainly not as fast as hooking it to a 12 volt charger plugged into the grid, but remember what we are talking about here.

Secondly, I can charge other batteries.  I have begun to stock up on an assortment of rechargeable batteries.  AAA, AA, C, D, CR123 (for that Eotech), 18650's (for those that don't know what these are, I will be doing a review in a few days).  Having a good stock of batteries and the ability to re-charge them will be a godsend during grid-down. 

In a WROL scenario I certainly will not be advertising that I have flashlights and the ability to power them.  But in a dynamic critical incident, it will be a wonderful force multiplier.

Thirdly, I can have artificial light in my house.  Sure you can stock up on candles, kerosene and lanterns (which are all good to have in abundance and I do), but at $4/gallon for cheap kerosene, it doesn't take long to really come close to the cost of solar, and the solar will continue to provide its services long after the kerosene is used up.

Fourthly, once things start settling down and if I have survived the initial bump, I can trade recharged batteries for things that I need with the understanding that I get the dead batteries back so the cycle can start over again.

A full scale off-grid whole house solar system might not be in your future, but a small scale solar setup certainly should be.

Good article here. Choosing a knife

Every prepper/zombie hunter worth his salt should have an assortment of good blades for various tasks and is not the place to scrimp. 
A good rule of thumb for buying a knife: If price is the only questions, then the answer is going to suck.

Before buying a blade, do some thinking and find out what you need it for, or for what purpose you are getting it. 

You can get a big Rambo looking blade that will work great for batoning wood for a fire, hacking through brush or slaying that zombie that got too close, but for cleaning an animal, or getting a splinter out of a finger, it just won't do.

I am in no way associated with this site and some of the descriptions are a bit crude, but they have some very high end blades.

http://zombietools.net/tools/

Not fun being sick

I am not sick very often.  In fact, except for yesterday, I have not been sick all year (sound of me knocking on wood).

But yesterday, I contracted a stomach virus that hit me pretty hard and got me thinking.  Yesterday, I left work early, went home, poked up the fire, and laid down on the sofa and watched my big screen and recouped.   It's really gonna suck getting sick during a WROL scenario.  There won't be any downtime.  Up-time will need to be very near 100%, at least in the short term and intermediate term.

This is one of the reasons where a medium to large group will be best.  If I am down, someone else can step up to fill in the gap and vice versa.  If its only a single family, there is no one else since everyone else will be utilized at close to 100% anyway. 

Would be best to get your group squared away early.  

PARADIGM SHIFT

I don't know if anyone reading this is into the hit TV series "The Walking Dead", but it is quite a popular show and invokes quite a bit of discussion at my place of employment and almost everyone in my back office, from the owner of my company, the VP, all the way down to little old me is eager to discuss the latest episode each week.

Last night's episode which was the mid-season finale, had one of the main characters (Shane) basically have a mini-meltdown when it was revealed that there were "walkers" in the old man's barn.

Some of my co-workers felt that Shane should have been dealt with since he was causing a significant level of anxiety in the small survival group. 

However the owner of my company had a different take.  He said that Shane was one of the few that had made a paradigm shift into the new reality. 

Rules had changed, the old "morality" was no longer in effect.  For better or worse, as a survivor, you had to make choices that you would never make in the "old world". 

As the owner was talking about this, this struck me particularly hard.  I tried to step out of my soft, cushy office chair, out of  the heated, air-conditioned completely pacified office environment and put myself into a state of mind where I and my family's survival were dependent on the choices that I made.

Would I be like Rick, the Sheriff, and be willing to give up some measure of my families safety to appease and pacify someone who was clearly delusional and not able to accept reality? 

Or would I be more like Shane, and be willing to change my paradigm and make the decision to do what was necessary to secure the safety as much as possible?

I still don't have the answer to these questions.

Take a bit of time out today and think about what you might do in a similar circumstance.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My wife and I were watching a bit of news on the TV when they did a spot on Black Friday.  The news spot showed people running, screaming, shoving, slamming into other people etc just to save a few bucks on something that they didn't need anyway.

Sometimes I weep for my society.

Whatever happened to enjoying a nice quiet day of rest surrounded by your friends, family and neighbors? 

Consumerism has destroyed our society. 

Now don't get me wrong, I love to look for stuff that I need that will add quality to my life, and I have more that I need or deserve.  But the simple act of acquiring has pushed our society to the edge.  Its not the having that folks are eaten up with, its the getting.

It seems that once a person has something, that it no longer generates joy in their life and they feel the need to go acquire something new to feel happy again.

There is a TV shows that is out that I have watched a few times called "Hoarders: buried alive".  It is about people that have an inordinate desire to have stuff.  Whether the "stuff" makes their lives richer, or more meaningful, that is beside the point.  They need more and more.

I dare say that most of our great, grandparents would put all of us in the category of a hoarder. 

With this said, I think this quote sums it up nicely.

THE PARADOX OF OUR TIME.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less; we plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we have more food, but less appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill. 


I know this is not the time of the year yet to make resolutions, but maybe it should be.

I am back!

My blog has been hit and miss for a long while now, but I have made a commitment to posting at least once per week regarding what is happening in my life and around me.  I will give my own limited view of what I see, what I feel is coming and what I and my group are doing to help ourselves.

One preparation item that we just did to our homestead was having a wood stove installed.  We had an outside wood furnace before, but it required electricity to operate.  For a while I was contemplating solar and wind along with a battery bank to use in case of power outages, but even with all that, we still wouldn't be able to cook off of it, so we decided to make the move to an internal wood stove.

I am going to have to get used to the much smaller wood box.  I can only burn 21 inch logs in it now, but with our old outside wood furnace, I could put 3 foot + logs. 

Good thing about the internal fireplace is that we are capturing a lot more heat out off of the flue that was going to waste outside, so it should be much more efficient.  I have little problem in heating our house up to 75 degree's in a very short amount of time. 

This winter there will be a pot of stew or chili up on top almost at all times.  Throwback from when I was growing up.

Gone too long.

My apologies out there to anyone (really, anyone at all??) who attempts to read my blog.  It has certainly been a while.  Now don't get me wrong, all of this time I have been watching, waiting and preparing as you should be too. 


Watch here for at least weekly updates, if not daily.