Semi Prepared

Chapter 2: Preparation

2009-08-12T11:01:00.002-04:00

I know the first chapter was a bit deep and required you to think and you really were not prepared for that. Will you be prepared for a real situation or will you panic? I bet what you wanted was to read the guide and see what we had to say about what stuff you needed and what stuff to carry. Well were not exactly like that we are here to help you with your survival experience and help you make it through it. Now with that in mind here we go again with a little exercise to help you think about your house, work and school that your children attend.
Before you can prepare, you must determine what you are preparing to survive and how each disaster threatens you, your safety and survival. From this you can determine some basic items that you will need to carry with you. These items can be either in a small kit for you personally, a 72HOUR KIT for those everyday tasks that you might come across. Should the situation be more sever and the basic items are not enough we will show you the home kit that can be used when the power goes out or put into a car for a BUG OUT kit and the cache that is ready for long term survival. We will cover the kits later in more detail.
This initial exercise isn't tough; it only takes a few minutes of thought. We suggest you jot notes while you work. Go through the exercise a couple of times for the areas that are important to you because each area will be a little different to prepare for and may require some stuff that can be an asset to another. But first, it's important to realize that you cannot prepare for everything -- only the army tries to do that, and we've yet to meet anyone with their resources. There are a lot of scenarios to prepare for and a lot time to prepare for them but what would you do the next day if something happened? Would you be like the Boy Scout and be prepared? We suggest you prepare only for those potential disasters that are likely to occur within the next five years and within 25 miles of your home, school, or work. There are hints for things to do to help you should something small happen on a day to day basis and there are steps to take to prepare for major events. Sure, you may wait seven years for the next earthquake, but remember the survivalist’s creed: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.
What's going to happen to you and your family tomorrow, next year or the next five years? If we knew we would tell you so that you could be ready. So since we don’t know what will happen you'll have to extrapolate, evaluate trends, read the newspaper, and conduct your own research. At the very least, take a few minutes and consider your location. Pull out a map and look what's within a two-mile, five-mile 10-mile and 25-mile radius of your home, school and place of work. While you have the map out also look at where you work and live and look at where your family is during the day. The question is if something happened could you get them together? Put on your pessimist hat and consider what might go wrong that could directly impact you. You will have to decide if that's something you want to prepare for. (See questions one and two, below). For example, if you live a "safe" distance outside of a flood plain, your house might still get flooded in the 100-year flood, should you prepare for it? We would, but it's your call. It's your ass on the line, so you have to decide. That nuclear plant 20 miles away has an excellent safety record. Should a nuclear disaster be on your list? Again, you make the call. Are you worried about a meteorite crashing into your house? Well, it has happened, but it's probably not worth preparing for. Finally, if you've been afraid of something since you were a child -- whether it's a raging fire or nuclear war -- prepare for it. At the very least, you'll sleep better at nights knowing you have done all you can.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. What natural disasters or extreme conditions am I (we) l likely to face in the next five years?
Make a list and rank them in order of most to least likely to impact you. You can review our list of possible natural disasters if you need to.
Your list might look like this:
· Heavy thunder storms
· Severe winter weather
· Nearby flash flooding
· Lose of job
· Hospitalization

2. What other disasters or emergency situations might I face? Add to your list the man-made or other disasters that you might face in the next five years (again, you can refer to our list (if necessary).
Let's say you have added these categories:
· Toxic material emission/spill (from a train derailment)
· Riot or other civil disorder
· Nuclear plant problems
· Terrorism

3. What are the ramifications of each item on my list?
Here is our list of possible disasters. We have broken them down into some basic categories. There might even be some that are not on our list that could be on yours. Think nothing can happen to you?

Natural Disasters
Weather-related
· Hurricanes
· Tornadoes
· Heavy thunder storms
· Flash flooding
· Flooding
· Mud/rock slides
· High winds
· Hail
· Severe winter weather
· Avalanche
· Extreme high heat
· Drought
· Wildfire
Non Weather-related
· Earthquake
· Volcano eruption
· Tidal wave/Tsunami
Man-made Disasters
· War (conventional, biological, chemical or nuclear)
· Toxic material emission/spill (from a train or nearby plant)
· Riot or other civil disorder
· Nuclear plant melt down or other nuclear disaster
· Terrorism
· Fire
· Government action against you
· Stock market crash
· Sever depression
Other
· Plague or disease outbreak
· Comet strike or giant meteor
· Alien invasion (I am not going further with this one)
Personal Emergencies
· Kidnapping
· Mugging, robbery or other criminal attack
· Random acts of violence against yourself or a family member
· Unemployment/financial disaster
· Death in family
· Home destroyed by fire
Now that you have read our list did we leave something out? Send us your suggestions and we'll add them (all calamities must apply or potentially apply to a significant portion of the population to be included on this list). Now, write down our list and add things that you have thought of to the list and create a second column (bet those of you using a word processor are wishing we'd told you this before, huh?). Put the ramifications of each disaster in the second column. What do we mean by ramification? How the disaster or emergency situation could affect you. Think this one through very carefully, as everyone's situation is different. Play the “What if” game. You know the one. It is “What if we won the lottery?” “What would you do with the money?” Well here you are saying What if this happened and beside it you will write what you will do. Again think this through carefully because, families with children have different concerns than those without or singles. We again would like for you to remember that these can occur anytime so think about it.

Finally, note if the ramifications could require evacuation (our next topic).
To keep using our example results in a table like this:

Potential Disaster
Ramifications

Thunder storm with electrical outage for 2 (average) to 48 hours (severe)
· Food spoilage possible
· Lack of air conditioning/furnace
· Damage to house or car from nearby trees
· Possible local flooding (see below)
· Local transportation impaired by fallen trees, wires
· Lightning damage/fire potential
Severe winter weather
· Electrical outage for 4 (average) to 72 hours (severe) would affect furnace operation
· Exposure problems
· Frozen pipes
· Disruption of travel, transportation
· Self or family members possibly stranded away from home
· Possible food shortages and empty shelves at local markets
Nearby flash flooding
· Local transportation disrupted
· Danger while traveling in car or by foot
· Possible loss of some utilities
Nearby train derailment
· Possible leak or spill of chemicals
· Short-term exposure problem
· Long-term cancer concerns
· Evacuation may be necessary
Riot or other civil disorder
· Disruption of commute (i.e. Los Angeles)
· Stranded in car or office while family is at home and/or school
· Danger of riot spreading to my neighborhood
· Danger of local kids/low lives taking advantage of situation
· Attack or threat to personal safety
· Looting and rampaging by otherwise lawful citizens
· Fire with potentially no response by authorities
· Police are overwhelmed, cannot protect law-abiding citizens
Nuclear plant problems
· Reactor vessel damage could result in release of radioactive chemicals to atmosphere
· Evacuation necessary
Terrorism
· Threat to safety at work and during business travel
· Disruption of commerce, travel
· Less personal freedom, privacy as a result of government reaction to terrorism

Once you've created a chart like the one above, you know what situations you are most likely to face and can prepare your survival plan. You then have to ask some questions and then plan out what to do. Remember this though this is only a guide and not meant to be followed to the last detail as a step by step guide. Every situation has different aspects and what you thought might happen and didn’t. You may have to change a few things around a bit but it is a guide that will help you because you have put thought to you plans you are at least thinking and are ahead of the game as compared to that of someone that has not planed.
Now that you have gone through the list and add to it for your unique situation try it one more time but this time be somewhere else, like work or maybe on the road to your house. What would you do if one of the things on your list occurred while you were traveling to or from work or your home? What would you do? Where would you go? How would you get there?

Chapter 1: Psychology/Fitness

2008-10-15T17:50:00.000-04:00

There are groups out there that will tell you that you need these supplies and that you need this equipment. Now before you can even begin to start packing a bag, buying equipment and start saying to yourself or others that you are a survivalist and you are ready for anything, you have a lot of work to do. Often times and I should say majority of the times they forget the most important parts of a survival situation, or they will skim over it very briefly. These are YOU, YOUR MIND and your PHYSICAL CONDITION. To get prepared for survival situations that the others talk about you will have to prepare yourself ahead for some basic survival. To begin with we will start on the mental aspect of survival since it can greatly effect the whole body in these types of situations.

MENTAL STAMINA IS ESSENTIAL

While it is true and vital that energy must be conserved in a survival situation, it is equally important that the mind must be kept busy. When you keep your mind busy thinking, things like fear and stress will not be able to get to your mind and effect you or your situation. To do this you will have to start now and build a mental muscle. You will have to reprogram yourself to think differently than ever before. If you preprogram yourself with positive information you have made the odds better for survival because you will be more alert and active for opportunities that could help you. Positive mental attitude is easy to work on. No we are not talking about drastic changes in your life but we are talking about changes. No we are not here to brain wash people, the world does that already by telling you how bad things are and sometimes blowing them out of proportion. We are not here to tell you what to think, but to try to tell you that you can think for yourself. We are talking about opening your mind to what is around you and think for yourself. Above all things that you could purchase for a survival situation the best investment is the 6 inches between your ears.
A friend of mine asked me once “What is the definition of insanity?” I really did not know and then he said something that I felt was really good. He said it is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So often people get up in the morning go to work see the same people and do the same thing then come home and do the same things at home again until it is time to go to work again the next day. When you talk to them they will tell you that they are trying to get ahead in life, make more money or prepare for whatever. You can put whatever you want there, but the are just driving themselves insane. We have become complacent in our day to day lives and have not really looked at what we are doing nor have we put any thought into our day. We operate on remote control and the only time that we think is when something causes our routine to be interrupted. There will be something’s in life that you will do that will require little or no thought, but their needs to be more thinking in our life.
An example is, I have had people tell me that they drive to work some 30-100 miles everyday one way and there are parts of the trip that they don’t remember at all. Think about it, did you remember anything that happened on your way to work today? Yes there are those who are going to say that they remember everything and I am here to say well maybe you did but just think what you saw as you drove to work or to the store and what did you see. You also here of road rage and cars and people being shot on the side of the road and NOBODY saw a thing. They are correct they didn’t see a thing because they were so wrapped up in their routine they couldn’t see.
In order to start the process for your self-help and to be prepared for any situation you will have to make some changes in your life and your thought process as we mentioned earlier. A good friend of mine told me once “If you are not changing a little thing every day in your life. How are you ever going to change the big things in your life? If you want some things to happen in your life then you will have to change and for some things you will have to be changed all together.” At first I did not understand what he was talking about but as I started to work on my thinking I found out that I was very blinded. A big help in any situation is “Your mind does not know the difference between reality and your imagination”. So play a trick on your mind, keep thinking and fear and stress will not effect you or your situation.
The process is very easy to do. Lets start by reading positive information to help you get through the day. (See the List in the Back of the Survival Guide) Most people start the day off by reading the news. Great! Lets read that after we read some good stuff. It will help us with all of the bad and a lot of the negative things that have happened in the world. Don’t get me wrong it is important to keep up with what is going on in the world around you and to abreast of current events. It is that the world continues to bombard us with negativity everywhere. The world continues to give us negative information throughout the day everyday and we start eventually start to get slow and rundown. If you still feel the need to read the papers, start reading good stuff first and then read the papers and you will see that your days will start to get better. Start easy, like 15 minutes every day for a week, then increase so as to build a habit. It takes 21 days to build a habit and only 7 to do away with it. So start gradually and work towards success. Try to make the reading time the same everyday and if it can be in the morning it will help you through the day. We have included some books to help you get started in the back of this guide to help you get started.
Once you have started to read some good information in the morning time you will notice in about 7-10 days that your days should be getting better. It will also be helpful if you had some time during the day by this time to read one page from a book that you are currently reading. I mean one Page. Take a good book like *************************** and go to a copy machine and copy 10 pages and then start to read them. Only one page a day. It will start to make you get very courious if at the end of the page you are in a thought and you have to wait until the next day to read the rest of the thought. What this will do is to allow you to redirect some of your thinking and will allow you to actually start thinking. It will make you have to remember what you read yesterday and how what you are reading applies to today.
Now that we have covered the beginning of the day and the middle of the day lets finish the day with some more reading. I know there are you people out there that don’t want to read and those that haven’t read a book in years. OH WELL, if you want help you are going to have to work for it. A great way to relieve stress at the end of the day and get a few more worth while minutes of sleep every day is to finish the day with some more positive reading. What this will do is to get you in a better mindset and cause you to remove the negative thoughts that have been given to you throughout the day by work, friends, and people around you that you have very little contact with. This reading will allow you to relax and thing on some good thoughts, thus giving you more time to sleep and less time to worry and toss and turn while you sleep. Now we are on our way to building a strong mental muscle.
A friend of mine once said, “If you do something, Something will happen. If you do nothing, Nothing will happen.” With this in mind you need to get started and the fact that you are reading this guide says that you are all ready ahead of the rest of the people because you have at least done something. If you finish the guide and prepare some materials and supplies together and don’t’ use them you are even further than the people who read the guide. If by some wild chance you read the guide and put together some materials and some supplies and start to think different and use some of what you have read whether you agree with part, some, or all of what is said here have you really lost anything? Now understand we are not making any promises or guarantees in this guide. We are not saying that you can go from the average person to a survivalist go getting Green Baret overnight nor would you want to go that far. We are saying that this could help you make it to and from home with out becoming a statistic. Now that we have gotten some of the tough stuff out of the way lets work on some other ideas.
Another saying that I once heard was “Losers live by preference. Winners live by conviction.” The question is are you a looser or are you a winner. I would like to think that you are a winner and you want to help your family, yourself, and your neighbors. If you are a loser stop reading the book now and through t in the trash or give it to someone who you think is a winner. Now with that out of the way if you have continued to read you are a winner. Don’t let your emotions rule your life. Discipline yourself with time, emotions, and feed yourself mentally. Anything anybody wants they are going to figure out how to get it. Write your plan down. Believe in what you are doing. Believe in why you are doing it. Believe that it will work. If people are not willing to look at how they think about situations that have occurred in their life (or could occur in their life) and how they would handle them then why should we need to here them complain. Learn to speak as if it has already happened. Those are great one line statements that can be written down to help motivate you the day and help you in a survival situation. We will get to a log and how to use it later.

PHYSICAL ENDURANCE IS NECESSARY

Now we must look at the physical side of you and your body. It is much harder to work on the mental side because there are so many other outside factors working on your mind whereas the ones that are working on your body is you and your lazy bones that says I will work out tomorrow. If you haven’t noticed tomorrow is not a day and neither is yesterday so why not Start on Monday, Tuesday, Wensday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Whichever day you are reading this guide is a good day to start. Remember the statement above that said, “If you do something, Something will happen. If you do nothing, Nothing will happen.”
We are not going to spend a lot of time here because there are more self help fitness books out there then there are survival books or guide combined. Find on that you like and start. If it has been awhile since you visited a doctor we would recommend that you go and visit them for some help. First like a physical so that you know what kind of shape you are actually in. Don’t rely on yourself because we all thing that we are in better shape than we actually are. Next start you fitness program and go easy. OH you say that you don’t have enough time well look at the next paragraph and follow the little test for one week.
Yes I said that I don’t have enough time for this and enough time for that. When it came to fitness I really said that I don’t have enough time. A dear friend of mine said take a minute and write down the hours in a day on the left side of a piece of paper. You know start with 8:00 am and go down every hour per line until the time that you go to bed. Next across the top write the days of the week so that you are making a chart. Now that you have done this every time that you are watching television put down the time that the set was turned on and then put down the time that the set was turned off. Be realistic and as accurate as possible. This will be of help to you in the future.
At the end of the week total up the hours of TV you watched. Pretty impressive. It was once said that the average American watches between 75-100 hours of television a week. Now that is two jobs for the average American. Wonder why we don’t have enough money. Wonder why we are leading the world in being overweight. Wonder why we are leading the world in suicides. Well now that you have opened your mind to think it want take long to figure out how you can work out your body to help you in a survival situation.
We are not talking about the New York Marathon. We are talking about being able to walk and get help or even run to get help if need be with out killing ourselves. As we stated above go to your doctor and get a check up and then start a simple exercise routine and stick with it. This will help to clear your mind and give you an opportunity to think about what could possible happen to you and your family and how you would get yourself out of it.
The mental and physical parts to any survival situation are the hardest parts. They will require more time and energy than the getting prepared sections in this guide. Just because you have read the chapters in this guide doesn’t mean that you will know everything. We encourage you to continue reading good positive books and literature so to keep your life, mind and body functioning in the world as you help yourself to prepare for what ever life gives you. Also don’t forget to exercise all of your body. The mind is a terrible thing to waste but so is the body because without the body the mind will cease to exist. Now that we have gotten the hard parts out of the way the rest should be easy.

My Book

2008-08-24T14:42:00.001-04:00

I know there are people out there who are writers. I have read a lot of their work and i like some of it. Some of it is garbage. You may think that of mine and that is OK. It is OK for you to copy and paste the information for your personal use. If it saves your life then it was worth me printing this to everyone.

Introduction

For too long, the term "survivalist" has called to mind paranoid separatists or white supremacists who give up the conveniences of modern society, drop out of the government's databases and live in one-room backwoods cabins like the Una bomber or any other psychopath that has graced the news media. We know survivalists are much more likely to be Floridians buying hurricane shutters a few months before the next hurricane season. They could be Californians preparing a three-day cache of food and water in case the next big one rocks their town. They could be a Minnesota resident who keeps a few blankets, a pair of old boots, warm socks and a few candy bars in the car during winter. This isn't paranoia; it's just good planning. Like carrying a spare tire, even if you never need it. But there are plenty of online resources for people who just want to prepare a three-day kit. This Survival Guide is designed to take you to the next level. Because in a true emergency, three days may not be long enough. It could also only be for a few hours that seemed like an eternity. Because of this we want you to be mentally, physically and financially prepared for any emergency on any scale.

Some Terms to Identify:

· Survival: It is emerging from a natural or man made disaster in a better position than the average person is. In other words, you get to keep on keeping on, while others may not.
· Preparedness: It means making preparations before disaster strikes to improve your chances of survival. Surely you remember the old saw about closing the barn door...
· Survivalists: They have a self-reliant bent and choose to prepare on their own or in a small group rather than rely on the government to help them survive.
· Disaster: You define this for yourself. It can be different for everybody.

So, how can you prepare to survive? What can you do to prepare to become a "survivalist?" How do I react in different disasters? Once it is all over, what do I do then? We have designed this guide for your help in getting prepared for a disaster whether it is man made, natural or something that you were not expecting. We also answer the questions above plus hundreds others that people like you have asked or were afraid to ask. We feel that you will find things in the guide for all occasions. While this guide is designed for the new survivalist, it has plenty of information for the hard-core preparedness expert as well. Even the most prepared individual needs to be refreshed from time to time on things like the basics as well as the hard core information.
As you read through the guide it would be a good idea to have paper and a pen with you so that you are able to take notes. This is so that later on you can reread your thoughts and ideas as you read the guide and this will help you to prepare for your unique situations in life. If you want you can use your computer to take note but remember, in many emergencies, your computer will be inaccessible, so a hard copy of any chapters you find especially helpful isn't a bad thing to have on hand. We have included a section to help with emergency power should you so want it and are able to plan ahead. There is a section on how to protect yourself and the materials that you have acquired, however for those of you that don’t like weapons you may want to look at it anyway just to see what we have to offer you. While we are not totally finished if you have some ideas or comments we would like to hear from you and we will give you the appropriate numbers and stuff at the end to contact us. Thanks and have fun, because if you’re not having fun you are just having.

BOB and other stuff

2008-08-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

Here I am going through my bag and tyring to downsize everything so that I can fit it on a motorcycle and still be able to survive in a pinch until I can get myself back to the main stash. WOW what a job. I have removed duplicated items so that I am only carrying one of them and that is terrible. Now I only have one of something. What if it breaks or what if I lose it or what if. Well I really need to focus on the important things like can I make fire and treat water. I have left the food stuff and bag here at the stash so that I can reduce the amount of weight. I figure that if I need food there will be plenty between me and where I am going. I guess I really need to start rereading my book and get a grip on the way that my "BOB" is taking shape and help anyone who reads this.