10:41 – I need to spend this week mostly doing science kit stuff. We’re in reasonably good shape on chemistry kits, but I just shipped the last forensic kit this morning and we’re down to half a dozen biology kits. I’ll be making up and bottling chemicals, building subassemblies, and building kits most of this week.
I’ve been putting a lot of effort into the prepping book and I need a break from it. Thinking and writing constantly about disasters gets depressing, particularly the types of disasters that are essentially impossible to prepare for. As I’ve said many times, unlike some of my readers I don’t really expect an apocalyptic end of all things. What I expect is a gradual slide into dystopia, with increasing poverty, social unrest, and government intrusion into our lives. That’s why I want to get away from the city, and that’s why I’m storing foods, guns, and other supplies and developing more useful skills. But in a true catastrophe like a long-term grid-down situation or a nightmare pandemic, there’s no real way for anyone to be prepared. The simple fact is that we have too many people who are entirely dependent on a complex, interlocking network. If something catastrophic enough to break even part of that network occurs, there will be a mass die-off in the US and there won’t be anything anyone can do to stop it. The most that Barbara and I can do is relocate to thinly-populated farming country, stock up, and hope that when the crunch comes we’re prepared to ride out the worst of it with our family and friends.