The Random Ramblings Category
Tacticool is not survivalism
Tacticool is not survivalism:
Wearing woodland camo in the urban jungle does not make you a survivalist.
Bragging to your friends how you stockpile food does not make you a survivalist.
Wearing combat boots does not make you a survivalist
Trying to maintain a constant-stay-of-readiness does not make you a survivalist.
Buying a gas mask and keeping it in your car/suv does not make you a survivalist.
Having a get home bag does not make you a survivalist.
Having a bug out bag does not make you a survivalist.
Having a closet full of military gear does not make you a survivalist.
Having mud tires on your 2 wheel drive truck/suv does not make you a survivalist.
Having night vision does not make you a survivalist.
Having a Kevlar helmet does not make you a survivalist
Having a flak jacket does not make you a survivalist.
Having a bug out location does not make you a survivalist.
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Girl throws puppys into river
Sometimes you just have to ask yourself, what is wrong with some people. In the video, a young lady that looks like she is in her teens, throws several puppies into a river.
The video has sparked outage on forums and message boards all over the internet. Members of the popular message board 4chan are trying to figure out who the girl is, and there have already been threats of violence.
Caution the video contains graphic scenes that some people might find disturbing.
Looking forward to deer season
With the summer heat starting to break just a little bit – the past couple of days have been around 91, 92 or 93 degrees, a couple of weeks ago day time temps were in the 97, 98 and 99 range – its time to start looking for deer season.
My daughter and I just got finished eating breakfast, and I’am getting the truck loaded up. Over the past few days I charged 5 or 6 – 6 volt batteries for the feeders. When we leave home, we are going to go by Tractor supply in Jasper, Texas and pick up something like 12 bags of deer corn. We have 6 feeders to check on, and I’am figuring 2 – 50 pound bags just to get the feeders started.
Besides the regular deer stands and feeders, there is a certain creek bottom that I want to setup a ladder stand on. Every year a buck goes through the creek bottom marking its territory. The nearest box stand is about 100 yards away on top of a hill. Instead of moving the box stand, I’am going to setup a ladder stand.
I have an old climbing stand that I could move to the creek, but over the past few years I have been using my climbing stand less and less. In my younger years using the climbing stand was fun to use, and it provided a degree of flexibility that box stands did not. If I wanted to move the climbing stand over 75 yards, it was a 15 minute job. If I wanted to move a box stand – it would take half a day.
One of the nice things about hunting in a big box stand, it provides plenty of room for you to take someone. If you want to take you son, daughter, grandkids,,, having enough room for 2 people is nice.
There does not seem to be enough young people getting into hunting. As more and more of our nations population moves into the urban jungle, fewer and fewer people want to make the drive to the woods. Combine that to more and more hunting land is being sold off to developers. Land that has used to belong to the timber companies and has been hunted for over 100 years, is being enveloped by urban sprawl.
But anyway, its time to load up the truck, and my daughter and I head out to the woods.
Summer is almost over
As Labor Day approaches, this marks a good time to reflect over the past summer. Overall, the summer of 2010 was a great summer – my dad gave me a boat a few months ago, so a lot of time was spent on the river fishing and camping. My wife and I got to go fishing a couple of times. Being sick for the first 2 weeks in August was no fun, but I’am felling a lot better now – except for a slight residual headache. With all Texas summers, the heat has terrible.
Labor day plans include a bar-b-q with a brisket, maybe some ribs, chicken, sausage, ranch style beans and whatever else I can fit on the grill.
After Labor Day focus is going to shift a little more towards hunting. My kids and I might head out to the deer lease to check the stands and feeders out.
This hunting season there is a certain creek bottom that I want to put a ladder stand up. Every year a buck goes through the creek bottom marking his territory. The stand is on the top of a hill, so I never get to see him. This year is going to be different, I’am planning on setting up at least 1 ladder stand 50 – 75 feet from where that buck makes his marks every year.
There is always “something” that is skipped over during summer, and this year it was taking my son to Lake Sam Rayburn to go fishing. Fishing on the river is nice, but I wanted to launch the boat at Mill Creek Park and go across the lake to Bear Creek and do some bass fishing over there. Maybe we can do that before the cold fronts start moving through and the bad weather sets in?
Some of my new favorite pieces of gear include a large MOLLE pack, and a Vargo Hexagon wood stove from readypro.org.
After some debate, I decided it was time to move away from the medium and large ALICE pack and get with the times. I have seen people on youtube talking about the MOLLE packs, so I decided it was time to get one.
I even made a video comparing 2 different MOLLE packs and a medium ALICE pack. For the full review, check out this link – MOLLE pack VS ALICE pack.
Overall, I like my new large MOLLE pack, I just wish it had more outside pockets and the internal radio pouch.
After testing the Vargo hexagon wood stove in my yard, I took it on a few camping trips – and it did a great job. Instead of using wood like the stove was designed to use, I used a can of sterno. In about 10 minutes I was able to cook noodles.
Here is a video about the Vargo Hexagon wood stove while I was testing it in my yard.
Labor Day is fast approaching, which means we only have about 1 more month of warm weather to go fishing and camping.
My wife and I have been wanting to go camping at Martin Dies State Park, which is at Dam B, but the weather has been so hot, we would have been miserable. So we are going to wait until the weather cools off just a little bit – maybe until the night time temps drop into the 60s.
We also want to take the kids camping before the weather gets too cold. But here in East Texas, sometimes its still hot all the way into early November.
So summer is not fully over yet, nor is Labor Day the “official” end to my summer plans. Its more like a mile marker saying “whatever you want to do, you better go ahead and get it done.”
As I look back over the summer of 2010, it was a good summer. It was one that will not be forgotten very soon.
What is life
Its a pretty simple question, what is life? Is it as simple as a heart beat? As long as the heart is beating we have life? Surely there is more to it then that.
Where does love and relationships fall into the picture of life? Without love, friends, family and relationships, is life worth living? Would you “really” want to be stuck on a desert island all by yourself forever? Some people might say “sure, why not?” But after awhile your going to start missing other people.
People are social animals, we like to mix, mingle and herd up into groups. Just look at sports events where 100,000 people might be in a stadium. Look at music concerts where people share a similar interest.
Back in June (2010) my 14 year old daughter called and told me she wanted to spend the summer at her mothers house. Knowing that kids need their room and space, I said ok and acted like nothing was wrong. Regardless of what I showed on the outside, I was heart broken on the inside. To get ready for summer vacation, I had built my daughter a new computer – dual core AMD 245, 2 gigs of pc800 memory, 160 gig SATA drive. It was not exactly top of the line, but it was a lot better then the single core Pentium 4 she was using. I had laid a book on my daughters bed for her to read – “The Raven: a Biography of Sam Houston”. My daughter has always shown interest in our families history, and a little interest in Texas history. And then she had a brand new game on her computer desk to play on her new system. Everything had been laid out of her, and she did not come of the summer. After getting the news she wanted to stay at her moms house, I walked into her bed room, looked around, and felt like crying. The tears were held back, but only for a little while.
My 16 year old son came to my house for the summer – and we had a great time. A few months ago my dad gave me his old aluminum boat. My son were out on the Angelina river fishing, camping, swimming. My nephew, my son and I went on a camping trip in July – the heat was terrible, but the fishing was good. On another fishing trip my son and I spotted some gators, it was the first time my son and seen gators in the wild like that. Having grown up in Bridge City Texas and spending a lot of time on Cow Bayou swimming and hyrdo-sliding, seeing gators was no big deal to me.
So what is life? Its an odd mix of love, heartbreak, relationships, friends, family,,,, and everything else we go through in our daily lives.
Teaching someone to fish
There is an old saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you will feed him for life.” I think that applies to more then just fishing.
If you give someone a pay check and a grocery store, you will feed hm for a few days.
If you give a man some land, and some seeds, you may feed him for a few weeks or even months.
The difference in the 2 above comparisons, most people pick their lifestyles. Given the choice between feeding themselves, or having someone provide their food for them, most people will pick the easy way out and have someone provide their food. This makes us variable and weak. This makes us sub-servant to others.
For a true survivalist, the idea of being sub-servant (or dependent) is repugnant. We want to stand on our own feet, we want to be independent from grocery stores, we want to know where our next meal is coming from.
When you say to yourself “I need some cucumbers for that salad” – do you think about going to the store and buying your cucumbers, or do you think about growing your own cucumbers?
There is nothing wrong with buying your food. But always keep in the back of your head, that you can stand on your own feet and grow your own food.
Lets say that a disaster happens – whether its some kind of disease outbreak, nuclear war, meteor impact,,, and there were no grocery stores, what would you and your family do for food? I like to call that situation “The Dog Bowl Theory.” This is where people line up at the grocery store, looking at the empty shelves, and wondering how they are going to eat.
People along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard have seen examples of this kind of situation. When a hurricane is expected to make landfall, wherever the strike zone is located at, people will make a run on the stores – cleaning out the shelves. And its not just in the impact zone, people traveling along the evacuation routes will clean stores out.
Lets take the town that I live in for example – we have 2 grocery stores, a super Wal-mart and a Brookshire Brothers. With a population of 8,000+ people, it would not take long to clean those 2 stores out if the public went into panic buying mode.
Once the food is gone, what then? How many people will be looking for a hand out? How many people will be calling their friends and family asking for food? And how many people will go fishing?
2 Weeks in Hell on the Discovery Channel
Yesterday afternoon after my wife and I got from from a trip to Beaumont Texas, I turned on the Discovery Channel and there was a show on called “2 Weeks in Hell.” The program documents a 2 week test for candidates trying to get into the Special Forces school.
I would like to state that not joining the military is one of the big regrets of my life. Instead of joining the Army, I got married, went to work and had some kids. If I could do it all over again, I would probably serve my nation first, and my own interest second.
At the start of the program, the men the men were put into “The Pit” – where they worked together in teams to lift a log that weighed close to 1,000 pounds. After a few hours of physical training (PT), the candidates were vomiting, suffering injuries, and dropping out right and left – and this is just the first morning of the first day.
After watching the first 15 – 30 minutes, I had to question my own physical fitness. Staying in physical shape while sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day is not impossible, its just going to be difficult.
One of the mental test was a nighttime navigation course. Candidates had to navigate through the woods at night – with no light – and they could not follow roads. For people who were raised in the city, and never been in the woods at night, this must have been a pretty bad situation. Every sound in the woods at night brings up a primal fear that “something” might be out there. For people that have spent a lot of time in the woods at night, they probably would have been more at home.
The teamwork projects show how well people can work together under stress. Do they come together like a jigsaw puzzle, or do they look like a map that has been run through a shredder.
After watching 2 Weeks in Hell, you have to question everything about your lifestyle – everything from your level of physical fitness, to your metal conditioning.
Personal hygiene kits
This is a description of my personal hygiene kit. Personal hygiene is one of the topics that I take into consideration everyday. I wear contacts – everytime I put my contacts in, I think about if my hands are clean or not. Having infected eyes is no fun. If an eye infection can be prevented by washing my hands before I put the contacts in, then it needs to be done. My daily routine is – get up, shower, put contacts in – that way my hands are clean from the shower.
Years ago my buddies and I used to go camping along the salt marshes of southeast Texas – Bridge City and Orangefield, Texas. We would load up the boat with our ALICE packs, and head out for a weekend of adventures and exploring. One thing about those bayous and low lying areas, there is a plentiful supply of mud, and a short supply of fresh water. Its one of those situations where you bring plenty of water, some canteens and a good water filter.
Even if I had to use the water from my 2 quart US Military canteen to wash off my hands, I did whatever it took to get my fingers clean to take care of my eyes.
Maybe I should have just wore glasses instead?
My personal hygiene kit is kept behind the sink and contains:
personal size shampoo
personal sized soap
contact case
spare contact case with spare set of contacts
contact cleaning and wetting solution
comb
tooth brush and tooth paste
zip lock plastic bag – this is to hold the liquid soap and shampoo. That way if the bottles leak, the fluid does not get into the kit, and is contained within the plastic bag.
After using the liquid soap on a couple of camping trips, I have learned that its no replacement for liquid soap. With the small amount of space that a bar of soap takes up, I see no reason not to bring one along.
When I’am camping on the river, first thing in the morning I like to get up, go to the boat, take a bath, wash my hair and brush my teeth. Even its river water, its better then nothing, and its better then stinking all day long.
Post your comments in this forum thread about Personal Hygiene.
Three day trip to the camp
On July 30th, 2010 my family and I headed to the camp for 3 days for a little get away. One of the things that I like to do on these little “get aways” is to take notes, and figure out ways to improve – what went right, what went wrong, and what can we do differently.
One thing that I wanted to test on this trip was the Royal Berkey water filter from Directive21.com – this will be covered in another article, its just too much to go into right now.
One thing that happened, was while the guys were washing off the 4-wheelers, the water hose was left on and the well was drained. So we were without water for about 12 hours – 8pm, until a little after 8 am. By turning off the water pump, the well had time to fill back up.
The propane tank is down to about 40 percent, so it needs to be filled back up. If you wait until the winter to fill it up, your probably going to be put on a waiting list.
In all, there were 7 people staying at the camp – and everyone had a place to sleep with a little room for more.
We had a 128 quart ice chest in the kitchen that was helping keep the food cold – but we also have a refrigerator and freezer.
Dealing with weather conditions – One of the big issues was the heat – the day time high temps were in the high 90s and low 100s. Any time of physical activity in the direct sun light resulted in instant sweat and fatigue. After only a couple of hours of working in the sun, it felt like I had been working for 8 – 10 hours.
One of the projects was to work on the shed – water had been getting around the door jam for several years and the boards had rotted away. It just so happened and the door of the shed faces east – straight into the rising sun. Even though work was started around 8 – 9 am, it felt like I was working in an oven.
This brings up an interesting topic, lets say that some kind of long term SHTF situation occurs, a lot of people are not going to be up to the physical labor needed to start a working farm. Lets say that a family has access to a 2 acre field that they can plant crops on. First the land has to be cleared – which can take days, if not weeks. And what about the physical demands that its going to take to work the land? Can most people of this current generation work a field with hand tools – in the hot sun – for 8, 10, 12 or 14 hours a day?
Some of the common problems with using hand tools includes injuries to the hands and feet. Why the feet? Because people that do not know how to use hoes and rakes my hit their feet by accident. People who do not take foot safety seriously, may learn their lesson the hard way.
So here I am, on the lawn mower, cutting grass that is almost 2 feet deep, wondering “how” this would be going if this was a SHTF situation and not a relaxing trip to the camp. Would it be better to burn the grass, and put the fuel towards a tiller, or save it for the truck in case I needed to go somewhere.
Food for thought – Lets say that you have 2 – 3 weeks worth of food at the camp – SHTF – its going to take a few days to get the crops planted, and several weeks before anything starts to grow. So what do you do between the time your food preps run out, and your crops come in?
July and August are the worst months for the Texas heat. You step out of the door, and it feels like your stepping into an oven. The physiological and physical effects that can have one someone can be very profound. When you working outside, it feels like a weight has been attached to your body, and the heat feels like its sucking the life out of your body. Even with shade and plenty of water, expect very little relief.
Some of the big issues that I see:
Fresh food – within a few days people are going to be living out of cans. With eating a lot of canned goods also increases your sodium intake.
Keeping food good – even though you might have a freezer full of food, its going to do little good if the power is off and the food spoils.
Physical demands – most people today are not used to physical labor for 6, 8 or even 10 hours a day.
Transportation – your camp might only be 100 miles from your location, but its not doing you any good if you dont have fuel for your car or truck.
This video was posted to youtube on February 22, 2009. I think its related to the subject of this article.
Post your comments in this forum thread about survival retreats.
Is web 3 here and now
Is it time to start using the phrase “Web 3.0″?
Web 1 – noninterative sites. These are static html and php sites that can not be interacted with.
Web 2 – interactive sites. Examples – forums, blogs, youtube, facebook, myspace,,,,,.
web 3 – interactive sites based on mobile technology – where your not tied down to a desktop or laptop. These are the sites that are designed to be accessed through smart phones – droid, and iphone for examples.