08:37 – Barbara was watching an episode of Chicago Fire last night when the crew was called to a site where a house had collapsed from the weight of stuff a hoarder had collected. I expected her to make a snide remark about hoarding, and she didn’t disappoint me. I pointed out that I wasn’t a hoarder. Hoarders are mentally ill, and collect massive amounts of random junk like old newspapers and magazines that are of no possible future use. Preppers collect a careful selection of stuff that’s always useful and may at some point become essential. Granted, someone who saw my collection of several yard waste bags full of empty soda bottles might confuse me with a hoarder, but I’m keeping those for a very specific purpose: storing food and water.
Not, as I’ve said many times, that I’m really expecting a catastrophic event like an EMP attack or a killer pandemic or widespread severe civil unrest. But the chances of such a catastrophic event are high enough that anyone with any sense of history and self-preservation understands that it makes sense to be as prepared as possible to deal with such events.
I’m not obsessed with prepping. I’m not going to go out and convert everything we own to cash and then buy silver and gold, hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, and a 50 year supply of food. Nor, like some serious preppers, am I actually secretly hoping that an apocalypse occurs. I’ve read enough history to know how bad things can get and how badly even well-prepared people will suffer if the SHTF. Like most people, all I want is a comfortable, boring life. I can do without the excitement of a catastrophe. The only difference is that I recognize that there’s a reasonably high probability that we will suffer such a catastrophe, and I want to be as ready as possible to ride it out.
On the one hand, I’ve personally lived thru or lived in areas affected by multiple earthquakes, civil unrest (Rodney King riots), multiple hurricanes (Katrina, Rita, Ike), and terrorist attack (9-11), and the world/society hasn’t ended.
On the other hand, for some of those affected, their own personal world DID end, or their lives were irrevocably changed. In some cases, I was just lucky. In others, my preps helped my get thru relatively unscathed.
When any of these local disasters, or even more personal disasters like a prolonged illness in the family or loss of a job, strike, your preps will help.
Of course the best prep is to not be there, but as in self defense training, that advice is snide and useless, as you have no control over where “there” is. EVERY part of the nation and the world is subject to natural and man-made disasters. Any area can become a bad area if the bad guys move there. So best to take steps for an effective response afterwards.
It’s vital to remember that if it HAS happened, it CAN happen. And just because it’s never happened, it doesn’t follow that it won’t happen. We are only 70 years from the horror of a world war, with government organized mass extermination of civilians. (And even less time from other mass exterminations in other places) We’re only a bit longer from a massive worldwide economic depression. CMEs, and asteroids striking the earth are both historical fact. Even alien invasion could have happened in the distant past, there are certainly some weird things that have happened.
Unlike our host, given where I live, I know with certainty that we will have another local or regional disaster. I KNOW I will use some of my preps.
I hope I will never use some of the others. But I’m getting ready, just in case….
nick
Yes, I wasn’t talking about hurricanes or other local/regional disasters. I was talking about national/international level ones.
And I always think of Benjamin Disraeli: “The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.”
Just as a quick example: the city of Boston, MA. Only about 600k pop. Over its history it’s had a major earthquake, sudden and massive immigration over a few years, the loss of a significant percentage of its young men during the War Between the States (to be repeated in the Second World War), massive and sudden “urban renewal” (a disaster for the little people living in those neighborhoods), riots, criminal gangsterism, and an act of terrorism that shut down the city for days. Of course all this stuff took place over a couple of centuries, but any of those things can happen anywhere now.
But if we do end up with an asteroid striking the planet, or a widespread pandemic like the flu of 1918 or the Black Death, an EMP, or terrorists or an actual nation-state managing to light off multiple nuke devices here, all bets are off, in the third-largest country in the world.
_Sunrise (Ashfall Trilogy)_ by Mike Mullin
http://www.amazon.com/Sunrise-Ashfall-Trilogy-Mike-Mullin/dp/1939100046/
Book number three of a three book series. Young adult post apocalyptic series about the Yellowstone super volcano erupting. This particular book is set twelve months after the eruption. The book format is trade paperback, my favorite. This is not a POD book.
There is 2 to 3 ft of volcanic ash in Iowa and Illinois. Now after twelve months of forced volcanic winter, there is another 2 to 4 ft of ice and snow on top of the ash. Everyone is starving and the cannibals are everywhere. So, our hero and his girl start building more greenhouses heated by wind turbines using water heaters so they can grow more kale and wheat for their small community.
One should prepare in a very general nature for this and other types of events. History tells us that non-interesting times are limited in scope and tend to change quickly and violently. A very minimum set of things to do is:
1. three months of water storage for each person in the house
2. three months of food storage for each person in the house
3. some sort of protection against crazy people, I prefer guns and ammo
4. there are many other things that you can do to prepare for natural disasters, traumatic life events, national wars, civil wars, etc
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (145 reviews)
“Intel: How a vein of gold turns into a big hole”
https://twothirdsdone.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/intel-how-a-vain-of-gold-turns-into-a-big-hole/
“When I joined Intel in 1984, it was primarily a semiconductor memory chip company. I use to joke that it sold silicon by the ton, but that was true. Then, the memory business was under attack by the Japanese because it was a commodity, and the Japanese were just better at manufacturing and therefore had lower costs and a longer time horizon. I remember driving the now deceased Andy Grove to the airport and he told me he was afraid that Intel might not survive, and perhaps it would be best to sell the company to one of the Japanese competitors. Intel’s revenue was just over a billion dollars and I think the market cap was the same. It would have barely qualified as a Unicorn.”
I do wonder what is going to happen to Intel and therefore, the PC market.
If he’d kept it in his pants, it wouldn’t have been bitten.
Seriously, what is it about Australians? They’ll fuck anything — sheep, Hillary Clinton, baked goods.
“They’ll fuck anything…”
True, that, but this guy wasn’t screwing anything, only taking a Number One or Number Two on the porcelain altar. Now imagine if it was Larry Klinton or Harry Reid living in Oz; their peckers would be completely gone by now; as it is, Larry’s is reportedly tiny and deformed, probably from any number of venomous things that bit him there over the decades of debauchery.
Now, OFD, don’t be ruining a good slander with facts or any of that bullshit. The slander is the important thing and accuracy takes a distant second place, if that.
“The slander is the important thing and accuracy takes a distant second place, if that.”
Wow, you’re now at cutting-edge of Western Civ! Slander, libel, false accusations, made-up chit, all flying high while truth and facts disappear down Alice’s wabbit hole. I gotta get on-board ASAP!
Damn. If I’d stayed at grad skool and gotten my PhD, I’d be cutting-edge now, too….
A word to the wise…
https://brushbeater.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/a-few-items-to-invest-in-now/
My family had the hand-powered meat grinder when I was a kid but everything’s gone electric since then. We’ll be on the lookout for these gizmos at the local farmers’ markets and ag stores this coming season accordingly. Fun to work/play with, too.
From the Learn Your AO Department:
Recommended texts:
“Outside Lies Magic,” by John R. Stilgoe
“A Field Guide to Roadside Technology,” by Ed Sobey
“Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape,” by Brian Hayes
Get outta the cah and walk or bike around. I’m walking now, but am looking at 19″ mountain bikes for extended travel. Also learning Mrs. OFD the firearms while she learns me the hosses.
Get some local topo maps and a decent compass and learn some map reading and land navigation stuff, too.
Pack heat.
“They’ll fuck anything — sheep, Hillary Clinton, baked goods.”
Hey…!
We normally draw the line at “if it doesn’t have a pulse”.. Note that I said normally..
SOP for outback toilets was to “bang the seat twice” to dislodge the little buggers.
However if the thunderbox has no seat… and it’s dark… Risky business..!
Cloudy with a few showers in the land of sand 20C (68F)..
On which side of that line does Hillary Bitch Clinton fall?
@OFD – “A word to the wise…”
I managed to rescue all of the items mentioned (and many more) in your link from both of my grandmothers. I have been slowly cleaning/refurbishing/preserving them to working condition. The hardest thing to find though are grinding stones for the grain mills.
When my son was getting his Machine Technology AA Degree he reproduced some of the worn parts on the lathe and a CNC machine. The hardest parts were the feed screws. His instructor and most in the class were quite intrigued by the antique devices. One of the meat grinders had a cracked body and one of the welding students fixed it so well that you have to look real hard to find the crack.
“…his Machine Technology AA Degree…”
“…one of the welding students fixed it so well…”
Outstanding skill sets for the coming ‘brave new world.’ I’m in the process of trying to pick up some mechanical and electrical skillz myself at this late date/age.