09:00 – It was 53.4F (12C) when I took Colin out at 0650, partly cloudy.
Barbara and I were in downtown Sparta yesterday from mid-morning through mid-afternoon. She was volunteering at the historical society museum while I helped man a booth for the Sparta Amateur Radio Club. That was one of a hundred or so booths set up for the annual Mountain Heritage Festival. They closed off the streets downtown, and there were probably a couple thousand people wandering around over the course of the day.
One thing that struck me immediately was the racial makeup of the crowd. I actually started counting people as they passed the booth, but gave up when I got to five hundred. In that first 500, there were 497 white people and only three non-whites, an Hispanic couple and their child. The rest of the day, I spotted five more Hispanics, a group of teenage age boys together, and a total of five blacks, two couples and one child.
The other notable thing was people’s weights. I know we’re supposed to have an obesity “epidemic” in this country, but in all the hundreds and hundreds of people I saw, I noticed only one that I’d consider morbidly obese, a handful that I’d describe as “fat”, and maybe 20 more that I’d describe as “chunky” or “chubby”. The rest were of normal weight, ranging from many who were actually very thin, what I’d call underweight, through some middle-aged and older people who had slight beer bellies. But a very, very high percentage of the people I saw appeared to be in a normal weight range.
I see that M. D. Creekmore is still going on about the supposed collapse in prepping activity.
https://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/prep-week-5/
FTA:
I’ve seen no such decline in prepping since Trump’s election. If anything, I’m seeing more interest and activity. I think Creekmore is confusing a drop-off in people buying overpriced and unnecessary items from specialty “prepping” companies as being a general decline in prepping activities. Just because people aren’t buying from his advertisers doesn’t mean they’re not buying.
The difference is, a lot of people have wised-up to what they really need and where to buy it at the lowest price. Just since Creekmore first mentioned this issue, I’ve heard from many people who are relative newbies at prepping. They’ve collectively spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for prepping gear and supplies. But most of them, on my advice, aren’t patronizing specialty prepping companies. Instead, they’re stocking up from Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Sam’s Club, the LDS Home Storage Centers, Home Depot, and other vendors who sell the items they want, and sell them at competitive prices.
I’m sorry that Creekmore and other prepping website owners are finding it harder to make a living from ad revenue and affiliate links, but the truth is that they and the companies whose products they were pushing were adding no value to start with so it’s no surprise that people have started noticing this. Getting prepared is not rocket science.
I saw plenty of fit Yanks (mainly in and around DC) when I was there in 2003 but generally speaking Americans are fatter by a long way than Aussies, let alone Poms and Europeans. I assume Sparta isn’t typical.
Oh, no, Sparta isn’t typical, at least of the country as a whole. I suspect it is typical of rural areas. If I drove 90 minutes down to Winston-Salem for a similar event, the streets would be full of wide loads, people who weigh 400 pounds or more, what some commenters here call Wallyhogs.
You see almost no one like that up here. Soon after we moved here, we made a run to the Walmart in Galax, Virginia. Barbara was expecting the usual Walmart staff and customers. What we found was that both staff and customers were just regular people from around here. No underclass. Friendly and helpful staff.
And the people around here tolerate diversity, as long as no one tries to force weird progressive crap on them. For example, I spent half an hour or so yesterday talking to a woman and her 15 YO daughter. I didn’t realize until Barbara told me later that the woman’s partner is also a woman, and that they’d adopted the girl and her twin brother when they were babies. And they’re all accepted as just regular people, which they are. Same thing with our non-white population. They’re not treated any differently, because they’re like the rest of us. It’s a microcosm example of how the whole US should be, and used to be.
WRT a dropoff in prepping, I think all that frantic activity got people to a point where they wanted to be. Now they can organize the piles, take stock, fill in gaps, etc., but they no longer have to buy like crazy. I do feel a sense of relief and a sense people are catching their breath.
WRT fat people, the issue has been around a long time, but was more prevalent in certain populations. When I was a kid and we went camping on vacation all the time, my dad called them “campground ladies”. You could be certain to see plenty of ‘double wides’ at every campground.
With the high percentage of hispanic here (40%) if even some of them are illegal, (and they are, ranging from some to most) the economic impact of their departure would be dramatic. Practically every local business has only or mostly hispanic customers. IDK where the whites shop (probably amazon) but it isn’t locally.
nick
We have a pretty small resident Hispanic population, most of whom I suspect are legal. This time of year, the migrant workers show up to harvest pumpkins and Christmas trees by the megaton. At that point, our crime rate soars, but it’s mostly burglaries, fights, and other relatively minor crimes.
The one Wallyhog I spotted yesterday was a white woman. The few blacks and Hispanics I saw were all in a normal range of weights.
I had lunch with some old Seventies uni friends today. They said that law and accounting firms aren’t hiring here. Indians come here, get an accounting degree and return to India, where they land well paid jobs (by Indian standards) that do work for Australian firms. Everyone’s a winner, except local grads who can’t get jobs here. A family member got a tertiary entrance rank of 99.5 (you can’t go higher), spent five or six years getting Law/Arts degrees and joined an Adelaide law firm where she was paid piddle and had no future. She got a teaching diploma and is now working in Singapore.
I said I would advise anyone who would listen not to do IT, the lawyers and accountants present said they would advise against their own professions.
Had a very interesting chat with a health department scientist about the shortcommings of Adelaide’s new hospital, and why our coal fired power stations were (rightly) shut down.
As far as preppers being where they want to be, that’s certainly part of it, but many of the newbie preppers I exchange email with are in the buy-and-stack phase. Thing is, they’re not buying from specialty prepping vendors. One couple, for example, just made a major purchase of solar gear last month, about $4K worth. They didn’t even bother to check the specialty vendors. Instead, they compared products and prices on Amazon, Walmart, and Lowes/Home Depot for their PV panels, charge controllers, and inverters, and bought their deep-cycle batteries locally. I’m seeing that more and more. Why pay much higher prices at Preppers R Us when they can get literally the same products from mainstream vendors for a lot less money?
“I said I would advise anyone who would listen not to do IT, the lawyers and accountants present said they would advise against their own professions.”
Same situation here. In fact, many of my correspondents who are physicians are trying to steer their kids away from med school. The truth is that for average people there’s little available in the current economy. If you’re smart and hard working, the best course is to go into business for yourself. Find something you like and are good at and for which there’s likely to be a continuing demand, and go for it. I’ve said before that if I had college age kids, I’d be encouraging them not to go to college. Instead, I’d rather see them go into a manual trade that can’t be outsourced, something that can’t be done by phone or Internet.
Barbara is having me order a clear tote bag to use this coming weekend. She’s driving down to Winston Friday afternoon, staying with Frances and Al, and the three of them are driving up to Boone Saturday to attend the Wake Forest/Appalachian football game. I suggested that she stick her Ruger .357 Magnum revolver in the clear tote bag, since open carry is legal in NC.
My Walmart order of eight cans of potato slices arrived yesterday. Remarkably, nothing was dented or broken. Not for lack of trying. Untrained monkeys could be more detail oriented. The cans were loosely tossed into a box twice the need size, with a long strip of mostly deflated air-pack bags.
Even if any were damaged, it would still be a good deal.
I appreciate the periodic heads-up shared by the contributors here, and our host. I save money, and have good products to show for it, along with advice, observations, and colorful commentary. Quiet the mixed bag over the years too; eye glasses, chemistry, health, tobacco, grammar, Latin, FLASHLIGHTS, prepping, books, shortwave, news, computers, astronomy, and more.
Ya’all keep me on me toes.
One thing I find interesting, and all too lacking amongst us mere mortals at least by comparison, is how our host is continually counting, measuring, comparing, and noting anything and everything. I am certain this has been mentioned before. It is another feature here I admire.
Keep it up, Dr. Bob! And thanks to all the contributors here.
This is the kind of cr@p I hate seeing in my inbox. It’s the same sort of cr@p you see about “health secrets” or “money secrets” or other things. It’s loaded up with hidden persuaders (promise of secret knowledge,appeal to authority) and it’s based on a cr@p premise.
nick
And speaking of prepping,
The coast has Jose to watch, and there are TWO MORE named storms in the atlantic, headed our way.
Maria is gonna hit Barbuda and the other islands. FEMA is moving people back to the mainland in front of Maria’s arrival.
And TS Lee is following behind.
n
WRT careers, why the push to learn “code”? Why the desire to double the pool of workers with STEAM backgrounds (massive effort to get females into STEAM)?
Hmmm, what happens to price when there is a surfeit of goods available? What happens to wages when there are too many workers? No one in mgmt likes dealing with foreign workers. They are hard to understand, smell funny, eat weird things (and stink up the lunch room), and teleconferencing with overseas contractors means staying up late or getting up in the middle of the night. So, what’s a long term thinker to do?
Increase the number of local drones until it pushes down wages WITHOUT having to resort to unproductive foreigners.
n
“I suggested that she stick her Ruger .357 Magnum revolver in the clear tote bag, since open carry is legal in NC.”
Two potential issues: I’m not a fan of off-body carry but I realize women generally don’t have pockets or belts. Not sure what a solution would be, either. And…if “clear tote bag” means what I think it does, i.e., transparent? then I dunno as I’d be toting a handgun in it off-body. But I could be all wet here; I often am.
WRT prepping materials and gear; it’s basic human needs, really, and for the most part they can be bought at local stores and businesses, i.e., food, water, tools, gubs and ammo, clothing, toiletries, radios and batteries, heating fuel, etc.
75 and hazy here today with temps likely to hit the low 80s, same for the coming week; this is the weather we should have had in July and August, but we had weeks at a crack of wind and rain and temps in the 50s and 60s, instead.
Back to minor cleanup ops and homework today; I’ll be reading psychoanalytic theory while watching the Pats game in Nawlinz. Don’t laugh; long time-outs, five minutes of commercials every five minutes, etc. Then I gotta finish watching “Analyze This,” and the Ken Burns thing on Vietnam, covering when we took over from the Froggies. I’ve done a lot of reading on that period and we also have a 78-year-old ex-paratrooper in our little group who was in Laos circa 1960-61 and I have come to the conclusion that we learned NOTHING from the French debacle. Yours truly also got over like a big dawg speaking my middle-skool French with some young hotties in Cambodia in 1974. They couldn’t believe it; this was also in the middle of nowhere, and I was the only farang for about 100 miles or so, and mos def the only one speaking farang-set. My lucky day, and there weren’t many back then.
Just another old war story from the old idiot veteran, good for a laff, maybe.
And oh shit, tomorrow is gonna be a busy day; hope I don’t fall on my face. Literally!
“Increase the number of local drones until it pushes down wages WITHOUT having to resort to unproductive foreigners.”
And there it is!!! Some of us in IT were watching this happen over the last twenty years; it was amazing how our pay and bennies increasingly sucked and yet the management was offshoring and outsourcing just as fast and wide as they could. Soon there will be lotsa IT jobs again here, but the pay will be terrible, with no bennies to speak of, and I’ll be close to dead anyway. Drones will be needed to screw around with actual hardware inside vast data centers; I hope no one actually thinks the “cloud” is really just some amorphous “cloud” up there in the sky with the FSM.
As for advising our grandkids what to do for work? I agree with telling them to learn stuff that can be done face to face in meatspace, w/o resort to the net or smartypants cell phones. Like the manual trades, fixing stuff, and fixing people. And by fixing people, that means not only their busted limbs but what has gone wrong in their heads, so they can rejoin “society” as happy and productive members again, insofar as that is possible, esp. the “happy” part. We have a LOT of distressed war vets here now, and a LOT of addicts; it would behoove us to do something about them as the Empire disintegrates further. I hope to do my little part as long as I can and You-Know-Who is willing.
“One thing I find interesting, and all too lacking amongst us mere mortals at least by comparison, is how our host is continually counting, measuring, comparing, and noting anything and everything.”
Thanks, but that’s just a characteristic of people like me who are strongly Asperger’s, which is why we make good scientists and engineers. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t compulsively count, measure, compare, and note. It’s just how I deal with the world around me.
That’s also why spending so much time in such a large mass of people was so stressful for me. I learned very young that I had to pretend to be social, and that’s just what it is, a pretense. I can seem perfectly normal in that respect. Only people close to me know that I’m actually an anti-social person who’s happiest alone or in small groups of people whom I know well.
Another aspect of that is moderating what I say. By nature, I’m rigorously honest and outspoken, without considering people’s feelings. I remember saying one time about Mary Chervenak that if she ever murdered someone and the cops showed up to accuse her of the murder, she’d freely admit to it. It just isn’t in Mary to lie. But, OTOH, knowing Mary, the cops would never even suspect her.
Speaking literally often raises eyebrows. Recently, I was talking with someone about about self-defense and mentioned that I “used to have” a black belt in Shotokan. The person asked if they’d taken it away from me somehow, and I had to explain that although technically I still held a black belt, I couldn’t do now what I could do then, so in effect I no longer had a black belt.
Incidentally, speaking of math made me think about the one useful thing I learned in MBA school. It was an aspect of math I’d never encountered called Operations Research. Since learning about it and appreciating its elegance, I’ve routinely used it. It’s related to or even a subset of n-dimensional analysis, but can provide definitive optimum answers to extremely complex multi-variate questions.
I remember bringing it up with Pournelle, probably around 1990 or thereabouts. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, and that Pournelle did that for a living.
” I didn’t realize that I was teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, and that Pournelle did that for a living.”
exactly what I was thinking when I read your first paragraph…
n
Jerry was very gentle when he pointed out that he already knew a bit about OR. But Jerry was that kind of guy. Rough and irascible on the surface, but a big old Teddy Bear underneath.
And he was also strongly Asperger’s, and rigorously honest. I remember one time we were talking in detail about a PA world. He’d spent a lot of time on outlining a book already, and one of the key elements was that the survivors had no access to iron, aluminum, and similar natural resources because all of the readily-accessible ores had been mined out and they didn’t have the technology to go deep for what remained.
I pointed out that there were gigatons of steel and other metals sitting there on the surface, readily accessible in the form of bridges, skyscraper frameworks, automobile junkyards, etc. etc. There was a long pause, after which Jerry said, “Shit! You’re right.” He never did mention that book again.
In fact, many of my correspondents who are physicians are trying to steer their kids away from med school.
My spousal unit recommends nurse practitioner schools if someone asks about a career choice for a child who is interested in practicing hands on medicine.
Back in WA State, my wife’s job is still unfilled after three years so the group has resorted to a combination of nurse practitioners and Fred Meyer pharmacists, supervised by her former associate, in an attempt to try and plug the hole.
http://www.columbian.com/news/2017/may/31/vancouver-clinic-will-close-two-pharmacies/
Third and fourth paragraphs from the bottom. Giving pharmacists the contraceptive renewal authority with the doctors assuming the legal responsibility is beyond insane IMHO.
“But, OTOH, knowing Mary, the cops would never even suspect her.”
Heh, I remember seeing a picture of her standing on a lightweight PC case. She looked harmless.
Ah, yes:
http://www.ttgnet.com/images/mary-standing-on-lppc-small.jpg
Wouldn’t think of it to look at her, but that girl thought nothing of doing 70 real pushups. I was afraid of her.
It was an aspect of math I’d never encountered called Operations Research.
My Master’s focus thanks to the free Army MS program. During Summer break, unless you “went back to the Army”, you had to work an OR problem with some company/gov agency (a 1-3 credit course). Real world practical experience using OR techniques.
Well, as future Military Governor of the Novacadian Republic, I will be counting on you gentlemen to run the organization. So I can concentrate on eradicating commies back here, like I should have been doing 45 years ago. Instead of farting around SEA. Not to worry; you don’t have to actually move up here; phone it in over secure lines and Jitsi.
And now back to psychoanalytic theory and counseling ethics….
Getting prepared is not rocket science.
Um, yes it is. Preliminary prepping for food and water is easy. Cooking beyond a week gets harder. Developing a bug out place (or two) is dadgum hard.
When I wanted to bug out a couple of weeks ago, my first bug out place, my parent’s home in Port Lavaca, had a hurricane on top of it.
My second bug out place, my office building, had enclosed cover, food, and water. And no freaking levee and 10+ ft higher than the house. And no beds or cooking means other than a microwave.
While I was moving stuff to make our secondary bug out more useful, we got islanded in our home. We could have walked out, like some of our friends did, but I judged that as making a bad situation worse. We got lucky and Harvey went south of Houston instead of north of Houston. I estimate that cut our rain by 10 to 20 inches, saving our home from flooding.
Uh, nothing you mention is difficult. Apparently, you didn’t do some or all of these things, but that doesn’t mean any of them are difficult.
My second bug out place, my office building, had enclosed cover, food, and water. And no freaking levee and 10+ ft higher than the house. And no beds or cooking means other than a microwave.
Your second bug out place sounds like my apartment in Issaquah (Seattle).
I did have an air mattress, however.
Just got back from a short shopping trip. Needed some anchor bolts for my project, took the wife’s vehicle as mine is loaded with stuff.
She was below E on fuel. Lines at costco were much longer than normal. So I thought, I’ll go to the grocery, get gas and pick up the cream and eggs that were out of stock when I shopped….
No gas at HEB.
Ended up at another station. filled up.
Some observations- gas is still in short supply here.
-eggs and cream are in short supply they were out of cream at costco, and eggs at HEB which is why I was shopping today.
-drywall choices are limited. Normally Lowes has thin drywall. They are out of stock, and loaded up on standard stuff.
In other words, we’re still feeling effects from Harvey in the stocking choices stores are making and in the supply line.
Oh, and 2 more TS/H headed toward us…..
n
Take this chance to restock! I restocked my starting fluid and carb cleaner too, having used it to get the gennie running.
Uh, nothing you mention is difficult. Apparently, you didn’t do some or all of these things, but that doesn’t mean any of them are difficult.
Sorry, but I disagree. I did not even realize that we needed a secondary bug out place. I did have food and water stashes at the secondary bug out (my office building). But nothing else other than normal office materials and supplies. The food and water stashes are to backup the home stashes.
Working through all of this stuff is difficult. Just working through the decision to bug out was very difficult and I wasted precious hours on it. Leaving your home is not easy and is against one’s nature. You need more than just a bug out place, you also need a bug out plan. With buy-in from your significant other(s).
One thing to remember is that a month ago, I had no idea that we could get flooded from within. I just considered the chance of us getting flooded from outside. So if we have a 1% chance of getting flooding from within, and a 1% chance of getting flooded from outside, that is a 2% chance of getting flooded any year. I actually felt before that the previous chance of getting flooded over the levee was less than 0.1%.
And the potential flood from within will be anywhere from 1 inch over the foundation to 2 ft over the foundation. This will be from rainfall that cannot be drained into a high level river (must be pumped). Just horribly inconvenient, not life threatening.
The potential flood from outside the levee will be 8 ft or more over the foundation. The subdivision will become a part of the river with water moving through at 8 to 10 mph. Very, very dangerous and life threatening. Don’t be there if it ever happens. We were voluntary evacuation this time, I suspect that we will be mandatory evacuation next time.
To sum up, many difficult decisions. And the decision making has way more trees on it than I considered before. Just thinking about food, water, toilet paper, cooking, etc is not good enough.
“I did have food and water stashes at the secondary bug out (my office building). But nothing else other than normal office materials and supplies.”
What I hear you saying is that it’s not difficult to know what to do. Your problem is actually making a decision to do it and then carrying through.
I hear the same thing; it’s one thing to stock up on all the stuff and still forget a few things, which we’re all gonna do. It’s quite another to start running into various decision trees as Something big and bad is about to come at us at what appears to be warp speed. As it turns out, Mr. Lynn and family made it out of the whole mess OK, and apparently there was “buy-in” at some point from the other residents of his house, one way or another. The mind concentrates wonderfully sometimes as whatever shitstorm approaches.
I so suspect, however, that Mr. Lynn is taking on too much thinking about that stuff, all the numbers and measurements and so forth; if it looks like you gotta go, then GO. Don’t wait around until it’s too late. If I see the lake water coming across the road and still coming, pretty fast, and I see it doing that around the whole bay shore for some reason, we’re grabbing some bags and bailing out ricky-tick for the ridges and hills to our east. Or likewise I hear about a train derailment two miles to our east and reports of a cloud of something blowing across the landscape toward us, ditto; time to sky up and head for someplace else at warp speed.
What counts is that Mr. Lynn et. al. all got out OK. And that furthermore, he knows what he didn’t think of or forgot and had the gumption to post it here, hats off!
“It was an aspect of math I’d never encountered called Operations Research.”
I recall that I was introduced to that subject in college and that was fortunate as I had to perform such 20 some years later on my job.
“Getting prepared is not rocket science.”
This type of comment relating to rocket science is made in my presence from time to time. Consequently, my consistent response is: “I’ll be the judge of that.”
CowboySlim, who performed the duties of one for a number of years.
Internet today is spotty. As in “get 1 of 7 new messages”and getting one message.
Yeah, I’m gonna be a pita and ask for a credit on my bill. Because if they can slap on an extra $3 a month because so many folks are streaming, while changing my plan to 3m speed which sucks for streaming.
Since Thursday the net has worked all of 4 hours.
Getting prepped isn’t rocket science. But before we all pile on Lynn for his blind spot, step back and look at your preps.
I wouldn’t pile on Mr. Lynn; he knows best what happened in his AO and he had a great response to it under immense pressure and an honest reportage of it here. Hats off, goddammit!
It does point out the problem with living in your “bug out location.” or deciding not to plan and provision a bug out because “you’ll have to be carried out feet first.”
Problem is, that’s a pretty big commitment and come the time, very few are ready to pack it in. Very few people who are not already on their deathbed are willing to say, “ya fukit, i’m stayin.”
Hence the bug out bag, and the bug out location.
Like Lynn, I’ve got a secondary location we could go if we had to leave the house but not the area. It’s in use for other things and would need some reconfiguring, under duress. I’m working on that, but there are lots of things on my list…
I’ve got food, stoves, water, batteries, hygiene, pots and pans, plates and cups, camping stuff – thermarest pads, yoga mats, etc. No cots, or really any furniture at all. It would be a lot like squatting in an abandon building, except for the power and water.
I started with just storing food there and my ebola response supplies. I realized I needed the kitchen stuff too. Then the camping stuff. but there is always more needed, and more to do.
If I were mr Lynn, I’d get a couple of aerobeds, whatever will make his daughter’s life easier or what she needs to get by, and I’d add that to my office right now. Another coleman stove or a butane countertop cooker, and fuel, and a water filter, can opener, set of cookware, and he’s TONS better off. I’d fill one of those metal cabinets that are ubiquitous in offices and fill it up.
n
We’ll most likely be carried out feet-first from here, but yes, we have secondary and tertiary locations, neither of which is fully stocked yet. More work is needed on the BOBs, however, while we already have a long list, like Mr. Nick and others, of stuff here at the main house to do. Only so much money in the accounts and time in the day.
Watched most of the first Ken Burns episode in his/their Vietnam series; didn’t care for the video tricks at the start, almost a mockery of the whole thing, and wondered, if they had no trouble contacting just the “right” American and Vietnamese veterans and civilians, they couldn’t seem to locate any French vets. I’ll miss tomorrow’s episode due to class but would probably skip it anyway and will so report to the other guys on Thursday, also wondering if any of them are watching it.
Like Lynn, I’ve got a secondary location we could go if we had to leave the house but not the area. It’s in use for other things and would need some reconfiguring, under duress. I’m working on that, but there are lots of things on my list…
Well, that is the problem. I did not realize that I needed a secondary bugout location. That really took me a while to make a decision about.
I was totally and completely sold out for our neighborhood levee and bayou system. I had 100% trust in our levee, bayous, and pumps. We did come through a “1,000 year flood” smelling like a rose. Well, except those four neighbors out of 4,000 homes that reputedly got flooded. The funny thing is that is 0.1%. But if Harvey had gone north of Houston instead of south of Houston, I might be typing in 8 ft of water in my house tonight. So, I am no longer sold out for our levee and do not feel safe anymore.
I’ve already got another Coleman stove for the house. The original stove is in my office. I’ve got a camp cot at the office now and am going to get three more as those are easy to get at Walmart or Academy. We have cookware, bedding, and everything else that we need at the office now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KH4CU42/
I had a guy dump 14 truckloads of dirt at the office property Friday for free. He was putting in a pool and had a lot of just dirt (clay and topsoil) to dispose of. One of the office neighbors saw it and was wondering what I am doing. I told her that we might build a house at that spot after I elevate the area five ft. She said that we’ll never flood up here. Amazing, we just went through a huge flood and she is already dissing flood prevention efforts.
Sorry, but I disagree. I did not even realize that we needed a secondary bug out place.
Prepping would be much easier if there were say a guide book, prepared by a world renowned scientist, *cough, cough*, by the name of Dr. Bob…
“we just went through a huge flood and she already dissing flood prevention efforts.”
yup, that’s how I felt about Irma. Everyone saying ‘oh it won’t happen again’, based on WHAT? A model? A model with a hurricane in front of it and one behind it and one to the south of it? holey krep that’s a lot o modelin’…. if it had crossed into the Gulf, just a little bit more west, coulda been a whole ‘nuther story. It’s especially ludicrous when the same person who had absolute faith in that model will tell you they’re not bugging out because ‘the storms are never as bad as they say, and never do what the model shows.”
I built up my secondary location to hide my ebola preps from the wife, and because I saw the aftermath of the tornadoes in OK that year. All the preps in your house won’t do you a bit of good if your house gets hoovered up into the wild blue yonder….
n
“Rocket science”. Bah. Rocket science can be summed up in Newton’s Laws plus gravity, also by Newton. A fifth grader can understand rocket science.
Rocket engineering, now, that gets tricky.
I built up my secondary location to hide my ebola preps from the wife
Yup, the new secondary bugout place was originally to hide extra LTS food storage from the wife. Uh, hide is such a strong word, how about offsite storage instead ?
Prepping would be much easier if there were say a guide book, prepared by a world renowned scientist, *cough, cough*, by the name of Dr. Bob…
Shoot, RBT thinks @nick, @ech and I should move to Sparta. Sparta does look beautiful.
My uncle drives his RV up to NC somewhere each late spring, summer, and fall. He and my aunt love NC too. And one of my wife’s aunts and 3 or 4 of her cousins live in NC and SC.
Keep in mind that I moved here from Southern California. Houston is a major step up in prepping and survivability from San Diego. We’re not hosing down our streets with bleach and hoping the Hep A won’t kill too many more people…
And you can see hurricanes coming, earthquakes not so much…
And I can carry and own what I need to defend myself from ‘civil unrest’ and ‘mostly peaceful’ protesters…
And with the lower cost of living we own a home, only one of us works full time, and I have money for preps….
so big win for me!
nick
I note that the weather dweebs are forecasting “Maria” to follow “Irma”‘s path. Of course, presitions…
Awareness is the key.
Up here in the Olympic Peninsula, our first rain and mild wind today. Wind gusts up to 15mph, and 0.25” of rain at my place. We’re sort of sheltered from higher winds around here. But the higher winds can cause trees into power lines around here.
We’re in fairly good shape. Our power outages at the house max out at about 8 hours, and usually are around 2 hours. But the generator is ready, extra fresh gas is ready, and I installed the generator bypass switch this summer. Lots of fresh batteries ready for our lots of FLASHLIGHTS.
Bigger storm Tuesday, but just more rain, not a big wind event.
“Shoot, RBT (and OFD) think @nick, @ech and I should move to Sparta.
FIFY
I moved up here from central VT, after moving up from central MA, and now both of those places are like unto big cities for me, to be avoided. Hell, the “city” of Saint Albans about three miles east of here is the big city to me now, pop. 7k. We can see big snowstorms and ice storms coming, but earthquakes not so much, and we’ve had the rare tornado warning a couple of times, and that’s it. I’m more concerned with railroad accidents where tanker cars are involved, and our local gremlins and goblins.
Go Pats! 36-20 over the Saints. Woulda been 40-something but Gronk dropped two passes, one of them in the end zone, and when he caught one, he got injured again. Brady looks to be at Super Bowl level at age 40. Holy smokes. But they’ll have to win pretty much all their remaining games.
And I still have a minimum of 25 more pages of psych stuff to read tomorrow whilst I wait around for the new laptop and printer delivery that I have to sign for. Doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s dense; still, not as bad as reading Hobbes, which is an exercise in keeping a thought in your head for about three pages of just one sentence. At least in Leviathan. And if you read his translation of Thucydides, he’s channeling the latter, kind of an unsettling experience when you recall that this is a guy who lived 400 years ago channeling a guy who lived 2,500 years ago, give or take a few years.
And there I go again, rambling on about a lotta boring chit.
Time to check on a few other things, and then crash and burn.
Pax vobiscum…
I am reading the book “Wool” and am halfway through. This is the most depressing book that I have read in a decade. But, it is so good. Does it ever get less depressing ? It is about the x,000 inhabitants of a 144 story underground silo about 200 years after something poisoned the air.
https://www.amazon.com/Wool-Hugh-Howey/dp/1476733953/
Jerry Pournelle was a fascist. That didn’t take long at all.
(h/t: Instapundit)
Don’t know about that, but my wife read the zombie girl book and said it’s one of the most disturbing things she’s read in a while….
n
but my wife read the zombie girl book and said it’s one of the most disturbing things she’s read in a while
I assume that this is
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-All-Gifts-M-Carey/dp/0316334758/
Yup, it is depressing also. Until the end. Now I want to see the movie:
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-All-Gifts-Bluray-Blu-ray/dp/B01LTIAQE6/
We have stopped, or mostly redirected, our prepping. With retirement about a year away and relocation to an as yet unknown home, we have suspended all LTS food purchase and are working our way through the deep pantry to reduce the volume to be moved when the time comes. Guns and ammo are already mostly relocated to the sons house in our target area. Primary goal for next few months is to figure out where we will live and start moving crap down there. I figure it will be more sensible to rebuild our food / water storage than move it all 400 miles.
“I wouldn’t pile on Mr. Lynn; he knows best what happened in his AO and he had a great response to it under immense pressure and an honest reportage of it here. Hats off, goddammit!”
It was not my intention to give Lynn a hard time, merely to point out that getting prepared for emergencies isn’t complicated. People have been doing it routinely ever since there have been people. It’s only in the last 50 years or so that prepping has come to be thought of as an unusual thing to do. Until then, pretty much everyone did it just as a matter of course.
“Shoot, RBT thinks @nick, @ech and I should move to Sparta. Sparta does look beautiful.”
Well, yeah. More prepared people are always a Good Thing. And Sparta, like all rural areas, is beautiful, at least to me. I just had Colin out a few minutes ago, and walked down to the back fence to chat with the cows. I told one that, if push came to shove, I was going to eat her. She put her ears back and ambled away.
Re: staying put
Yeah, it would take a lot for us to bug out. Oh, sure, if a tanker of toxic chemicals wrecked out on US21, we’d evacuate, but that’s a short-term issue, and we’d be back in our house as soon as the problem was resolved. Meanwhile, I’m sure we’d stay with Lori or Barbara’s friend Joanne, and they live only a few miles from us. And we’d obviously do the same for them if the situation were reversed.
The only reason to bug out for anything longer than a day or two is a widespread, long-term disaster that affects the immediate area. A hurricane, major earthquake, severe rioting/unrest, wildfire, etc. etc. And we’re not subject to any of those. We just had the strongest earthquake in a century, with the epicenter up in West Virginia, and we didn’t even notice it. Hurricanes don’t affect us, other than some heavy rain and stiff winds. Severe unrest/rioting is likely to be limited to major cities. We do have wildfires in the region. Every few years, there’s a big one that burns hundreds of square miles. But we don’t live in the woods. We’re surrounded by open fields, so any wildfire in this area would affect us only in the sense of a lot of smoke in the air.
@lynn: no, it doesn’t get less depressing. I hate depressing books. I read it twice, it’s so good.
”
Jerry Pournelle was a fascist. That didn’t take long at all.”
Read as much of that as I could stand. What a mess. How do you get Jerry wanting an all powerful authoritative government?
Don’t waste a second reading it.
n
Regarding the sporadic/occasional discussions relating to “rocket scientists” and now “rocket engineers”; I’ll take a MacGyver any day (and I place myself in MacGyver’s camp).
This is why I generally refer to “rocket surgery”, because I know we don’t have any rocket surgeons active on this site.
Lynn,
Read the entire Silo series–can’t guarantee it gets less depressing.
.mg
Read the entire Silo series–can’t guarantee it gets less depressing.
@Mike and @brad, that is what I expect. The old maxim rings true here, do a good job and the only reward you get is more job. Unless they space XXXXX clean XXXXX eject you.
From the Let’s Us and Israel’s Likud Party Team Up and Get A War With Iran Going Department:
https://forwardobserver.com/2017/09/iranian-army-chief-issues-new-threat-to-israel-on-eve-of-trump-netanyahu-visit/
Failing that, there’s always Russia, North Korea, Red China or stirring things up even more in Syria and Iraq. Gotta have one going in every generation and so far our record is pretty dahn good, ain’t it.
Keep in mind that I moved here from Southern California. Houston is a major step up in prepping and survivability from San Diego. We’re not hosing down our streets with bleach and hoping the Hep A won’t kill too many more people…
And you can see hurricanes coming, earthquakes not so much…
Ah, out of the fire into the the frying pan, eh ? And yes, that was a good move. Kalifornia is looking for a place to lay down and die. Soon there will be proof that you cannot tax yourself into prosperity.
And you can see the Brazos River rising also. Generally about 48 to 96 hours of lead time.