Greetings and salutations……. Over the next few months I shall endeavor to tap dance across many of the holy grails and sacred cows of some of the Myth-Conceptions I have seen here. Yeah, the Tin Foil Hat Brigade best be stocking up on Reynolds Wrap. I had considered doing this on my Blog Site, but if someone wanted to comment, they could easily do so, but without revealing their identity. This way, everyone gets into the act. The more the merrier. First of all, I do not believe in TEOTWAWKI. Seriously, let’s face it, we got through that situation every time we lay our head down at night. The next morning is a brand knew world. As simplistic as it sounds, it is reality. Events occurring halfway around the world as we sleep effects our oncoming day. Most go unnoticed, while others are blasted across the morning network news. Then we have the incidents that change everyone’s lives such as 9/11. As far as a SHTF situation, well hell, anyone that lives in the Northern Quarter of Texas up through the Southern Half of Kansas lives with this possibility 365 days of the year. If it not tornados, then it is ice storms. But what the hell, life is too short, you have to have some excitement in your life. NOW….. I shall advise the readers to do what I have advised the readers of my Blog to do. Read everything once, then read it twice, and once you think you have a handle on what I am saying, read it thrice. Then before you push the Quote/Reply button, you have to determine if I am serious or just jerking someone’s chain. So, why am I doing such a thing? Simple. Survival in any situation requires much more then supplies and gadgets. It requires a positive mental attitude. We’ll expound on this more later. Some will call me a Troll. Some will think I’m an Agent Provocateur. Most will think I’m full of more crap then a Christmas Turkey. And before someone starts PM’ing the Administrators about me being some agent of disruption, consider this: Those folks are already here. And have been here for some time. Now for your entertainment pleasure, I offer two (2) of my earlier Blog entries. ******************************************************************************** Survive What…. Once more we bring forth the concept that survival is not always of the fittest. In this time and age of mankind, it is most likely survival of the prepared. I’ve seen these macho survival sites telling folks about all the specialty gear they need, the amount of ammo required, best calibers for survival, and such. When you explore these sites, you will discover they are only thinking in a short term manner. All of their supplies are set to the short term. I suspect they figure on relieving others of supplies if things go beyond their predictions. But if everyone is estimating in like form, who then will have the supplies necessary to extend beyond humanities expiration date? Remember one vital aspect to this mental wanderlust, is that most survival sites are selling something, where as I sell only the idea that I might be certifiable. The real question becomes who is really in need of mental health care. The writer or the reader? I invite each reader to take stock of their needs to provide for themselves and their loved ones over the long term. Would the storage of a years supply of food stuffs be enough to survive until the governments get their collective heads out of their collective arses? Next, we should remember that the more people with knowledge of a secret, the more likely everyone will know. Good and bad alike. Absorb that concept folks, cause it seems like most, if not all those survival types posting on bulletin boards seem to have forgotten it. Okay. It is at this point I should say something profound and thoughtful, but sorry, nothing comes to mind. We’ll do this again another day. More concise, precise and slice & dice. Chew on this until our next meeting: The A&P will be closed. Ace Hardware will be closed. Wal-Mart will be closed. The closer to major cities the more likely you will be overran by the survivors escaping those death traps. Communications today requires electricity, which will fail through incident, accident or sabotage. Vegetables require earth to grow in. Shall I continue? I think not. You have a basic idea here. A pen and paper can assist in making this longer. 14 January 2006 Alone in my own mind. Survival 101 OK… enough is enough. We are going to end this and move onto other less appealing subjects. As I was saying earlier, most sites only give you the basics to hunker down for a day or three, or to grab and get out of the way of trouble. Nothing stable for long term. Long term. Can we say Katrina? Let’s each and everyone understand one single vital piece of knowledge. Without power. Without electricity, everything comes to a complete halt. Even if what caused the trouble does not directly effect you, loose the power grid and you will find yourself in a world of hurt. No lights, no heat, no water, no nothing. Am I serious? Certainly. It takes pumps to move water, fuel oils and even natural gas from Point A to Point B. Loose one and you loose it all. Water will flow until gravity flow empties down all water tanks to a neutral level, ergo, no water. Natural gas may be flowing, but your expensive heaters and kitchen appliances will not light due to safety measures implemented in the electric ignition circuits. Turn the knobs all you want, but no gas to the oven to heat the room cause the tiny servos cannot move and have the gas blocked. We will see you at spring thaw. Within days, the cities will begin to feed upon themselves. And like cockroaches in the dark, the criminal element will venture into those areas they feel can support them. And once they realize the urban situation is not livable, they will slowly creep out into the rural areas, looking for food and water, and whatever else they think they need. William W. Johnstone wrote a very interesting description of what I have been talking about in his Ashes Series. The first three (3) books are the good ones as they explain some basic concepts and ideas. Forget the rest as they were written for the money, in my opinion. If you intend to stash and store for the Big One, then might I suggest you plan for Day 101 and beyond. Ever wonder what a roll of toilet paper will be worth on Day 105? A cup of sugar? A Cup of Flour? Things we take for granted, will become worth as much as gold or diamonds to some folks. Worth killing to obtain by other folks. I put this back into the recesses of my mind and hopefully move onto other intriguing things. I’ll let these previous thoughts run rampant within or without your mind. See if you are ready for Day 30.… then look to Day 101. 18 Jan 06 Cooling my jets in Creek County
I'll take first stab at that, Mortis. TEOTWAWKI has already happened in my life. I watched education turn into indoctrination. I watched the laws of natural selection legislated into oblivion. I watched the death of a Republic as it drowned in democracy. I make my living as a damage control and crisis management professional; the real stuff, not the psycho-babble bullshit that you read about in books sold by Ophra. I put out fires on burning ships at sea, rescue sinking ships, and raise sunken ones even in places where the bombs that sank them are still dropping. I work on the tail-end of every marine disaster; hurricanes, sunamis, earthquakes,oil spills, explosions, collisions, fires, piracy; if it's in trouble, we respond. There is the key to survival in that little statement....We don't react; we respond. I am away for months at a time and have to be prepared. My home is well stocked with food, a renewable food source, and is very defendable but even that will fail if you don't exercise the use of it.My house was broken into last weekend while we were home and asleep. I had house guests and we had locked the dogs in our bedroom to keep them from bothering our company. I had left the alarms disarmed and the back door unlocked, in case they wanted to go outside and have a smoke or something. My foolish mistake. We are pretty much self contained without the social infrastructure. It is convenient to have all the amenities and we will keep them as long as they last but we don't rely on them. I plan on near total self-sufficiency when I retire and I plan on enjoying planning and implementing the construction of that self-sufficiency during the next several years until I am ready to retire. Survival is a mind-set. It has little to do with preparedness and more to do with adaptability. It is not what you are shooting but that you are prepared to shoot if necessary. It is not how fast you can run as often as it is knowing which way to run.I have every confidence that when the infrastructure fails, natural selection regains a toe-hold.
I'm havin a tough time understanding quite what your gettin at Mortis. I hope you don't think that "Wal-Mart will be closed. The closer to major cities the more likely..." are things we haven't thought of around here. If so, you really need to go back and read about a thousand or so threads and get up to speed. That would be kinda like me taking a basic math course and then informing Albert Einstein there's some things about math I need to teach him. I'm just kinda confused I guess.
Blackjack.... You think you are confused, you should have been inside the demented mind that wrote that!! In my Blog, I tend to be a tad ambiguous at times. I do so in order to get my readers to THINK! It is much the same manner when I trained young NCO's in the Corps. Give the reader something to consider, but do not lead then by the nose, otherwise they will only learn that someone will do their thinking for them. I consider my readers to be of the intelligence to understand what I am saying and make their own conclusions drawn from the information provided. The final answer is not always as important as the journey to find it. If I have done my job right, then those that take the journey will eventually arrive at the same results as all others. Some take longer in the journey then others. If you desire to ramble through my Blog, I will provide the site. BUT if you are confused now, you might consider R&R in a padded room after rambling through my world. And you certainly will determine that I am in much need of professional mental health care. And as I said, read things twice or thrice.
Seacowboys....... First of all, all educational systems since the dawn of time have indoctrinated the students into the world about us. What we are seeing at this time is indoctrination in a different direction from which we were indoctrinated. But no worries, I can cover this better at a later date. As far as your physical security problem, I'd be looking closer to home. The cop in me does not like what I read. Too many unusual circumstances to be a random act. But this is just me. Oh well...... time to head to work.
I'm in a grouchy mood right now, so take that into account when I ask you WHO died and left you as the only EXPERT? Again, the grouchiness causes me to ask if you meant "Perceptions" instead of "Conceptions"? Conception means the beginning of life, or the beginning of anything else. Perception is PROBABLY what you meant? Exactly WHO are you, that we NEED to read your blog? Can you give us a short bio, and list your credentials? You came on VERY strong which went against the grain with me. Then you tried to impress us by mentioning that you used to train NCO's in the "Corps", and you also mentioned "...the COP in me does not like what I read". I'm not quite sure of where you're going, other than, perhaps, self-aggrandizement! Please correct me if I'm wrong! Hey, I'll look at your blog if you post it!
Well DesertDawg, let's see what we can see if we look hard enough to see it from the point that it was seen at the point of observation. YOU: I'm in a grouchy mood right now, so take that into account when I ask you WHO died and left you as the only EXPERT? ME: Take 2 asprin and call me in the morning. And hopefully no one died. Also, anyone claiming to be an Expert in this field is only trying to get into you wallet. What I bring to this discussion is training and experience only. Training: Graduate Jungle Warfare School, NTA Okinawa; Graduate SERE School, Subic Bay; Graduate Mountain Warfare School. YOU: Again, the grouchiness causes me to ask if you meant "Perceptions" instead of "Conceptions"? Conception means the beginning of life, or the beginning of anything else. Perception is PROBABLY what you meant? ME: It is obvious that you do not read the same books I read, so I will explain the meaning. It's a play on the word, Misconceptions. An erroneous conception; mistaken notion. So, the only mispreception here is not on my side of the monitor. YOU: Exactly WHO are you, that we NEED to read your blog? Can you give us a short bio, and list your credentials? ME: No one needs to read my Blog. I do not believe I made that requirement. I did make the offer just in case someone wanted to be totally confused. YOU: You came on VERY strong which went against the grain with me. Then you tried to impress us by mentioning that you used to train NCO's in the "Corps", and you also mentioned "...the COP in me does not like what I read". I'm not quite sure of where you're going, other than, perhaps, self-aggrandizement! Please correct me if I'm wrong! Hey, I'll look at your blog if you post it! ME: If you feel I came on very strong then might I suggest you step back away from the computer, draw your sidearm and shoot the beggar. Cause I was really, really trying to keep it cordial. I am a Retired Marine Master Sergeant. The function of any Marine NCO is to train the subordinate NCO's under him. Train them to replace him. Add into that by the Oklahoma Statues, I am a duly certified Deputy Marshall. Even though I have not put the uniform on in several years. As far as self-aggrandizement, those here on the board that know me and have even met me will laugh at that assessment. Although, if you desire to hold that thought, please, be my guest. And as far as trying to impress anyone with mentioning the Corps or being a Cop, since when is examples breast thumping? Here is my Blog. But you won't like what you read. http://thetowncryer.blogspot.com/
It does sound like you were a little grouchy this morning DesertDawg but there is room for all opinions in Monkeyville. I enjoy having my mind challenged to think beyond my comfort zone so Mortis's post was an interesting drop of oil in the water. I'm looking forward to more thoughts.
RightHand.... ever the diplomat I enjoy having my mind challenged as well, but when the "challenger's" thoughts are jumping around without any real coherence, all the while proclaiming dominance..... I'm thinkin we've got a relative of gunkid here. Agreed, we have room for all opinions, but arrogance should always be challenged. I've gotta agree with Desert Dawg here, when you come into a place wearing your ass for a hat, someone needs to call you on it.
Maybe I'm in a mellow phase at the moment but how do we ever expand our thinking without being challenged - it gives us the inspiration to revisit the origins of our own thinking, either to be reinforced, amended, or even discarded. If we're interested, we can examine the others position and decide what is wheat and what is chaff. If we discount the poster's opinions, individually we don't pursue the discussion. I wasn't offended by Mortis's posit because, having hung around in Monkeyville for a couple years, I'm accustomed to people with opinions whether they are my opinions or not. That what I like about the neighborhood.
I have to side with RH here. I too was a little leery of the first post. But I have read his blog and while I don't agree with a lot of his thoughts, I found his ramblings to be interesting and well written. There is room for all opinions here and we certainly do have our share of them. That is one of the things we all love about this place. If, and I am making no suppositions here, but IF Mr. Mortis is not what he claims, and is just blowing smoke then the facade will become apparent soon enough. I say post on Mortis, share with us the cobwebbed recesses of your mind.
Well having met Mortis numerous times I will tell you that he does write in circles at times. He also will make you think and when you have decided that you know exactly what he was trying to say he will throw somthing else out that not only challenges what you have just decided but makes you view it from a whole new angle. As far as if he is a btdt, well the answer is yes but since I have admitted to knowing him then you could very well say that I'm just covering for him. For that matter as one of his "blogs" says how do we know that what anyone posts is real.? Remember I could very well be some federal agent that is sitting around wearing pink underwear, playing solitaire with a deck of 51. In short folks read his posts if you don't like them fine but remember when he posted about what his survival kit contained and why we all gave him kudos because it was somthing that fit into our context and agreed with what we already thought. Just my pennys worth. Take care Be safe Poacher.
It's cool. The opinions aren't my problem, it's the attitude. That's my opinion Guess I'm accustomed to everyone else around here having such impeccable manners.
Mortis, as I said, I was in a grouchy mood when I originally read your post. By the way, thank you for posting the link to your blog....and I took a look at it. You were correct, it's NOT for me, but only because I don't have the time to sift through so much reading before FINALLY getting a small "Pearl of wisdom". In a way, I'm probably quite a bit LIKE you, for I tend to get VERY "wordy" when I post responses. I try to keep them short and sweet, but sometimes it's difficult. Also, I am a veteran, saw combat back in 1967-1968, and was a LEO for 31 years. I doubt if I would have responded to your post at all if you had originally posted the link to your blog! That wouldn't have been so difficult to do!
Your site is an interesting read. You are clearly intelligent and have a lot of experience and info to impart. However people don't want to play games and "read it twice, and once you think you have a handle on what I am saying, read it thrice". If you just want to have fun, do what you're doin'. If you really want to reach and educate people, refine your delivery. Fewer words, more focused and concise.
He doesn't really want that, I've run across him (in one incarnation or another) many times. He wants to make everyone think he's an uber-genius by talking in circles while dropping hints about all his wonderful accomplishments. In just 2 posts he's told us all that he's "trained young NCO's in the corps", is a cop, and won MULTIPLE purple hearts. Mortis, your still at the stage where most here find you interesting and think you may actually be smarter than most. So please, post more often so that everyone will tire faster of your fleeting attempts at faking brilliance, and your condescending, self proclaimed prophet status. Right now they still think I'm just being mean and rushing my judgement a bit, but the more you post, the more that will change. Then you can bring this little episode to it's pre-destined conclusion where you declare us all unworthy of your genius, and incapable of understanding someone of your obviously monumental intellect, and you'll go back to your blog feeling quite superior not to be troubled by us inferior beings anymore. I do agree with you on one thing though.... you really are "full of more crap then [sic] a Christmas Turkey" p.s. The proper form of the word would be "than", your highness.
I love this. We need to continuously re-evaluate our plans, supplies and preps. Audits are usually performed more completly and honestly by 3rd parties. I once caught a whole lot of flak over my suggestion that people concentrate less on guns and more on food on another forum. Long term food stores just isn't a very sexy topic I guess. There are some on this site that get it and those that don't. We also have varying degrees of resources and gumption to follow our plans. We have some here that are just beginning and another that just picked up a screw press for extracting oil from sunflower seeds... I'm a high-tech guy on a journey to get to a simpler life. As I shed layers of my "civilized" shell, future disruptions to services will not hit me as hard. Thought provoking Mortis. thanks melbo
Agreed Melbo, sometimes having a chance to look at somthing from a completly different point of view is the best way to see your weaknesses whether it's from location to beans. Take care Be safe Poacher.