Good spot

Been awhile since I wrote anything. Life kind of jumped up and got in the way. The good thing about not writing or focusing on preparedness for awhile? I got to see if my stuff was up to snuff a few times. The best part, this was without the subject really being anywhere near a focus in my life. Without realizing it I had hit a "good spot" in my personal planning.

What does a good spot mean? This good spot is a place where you do not have to think about preparedness to much. When something unexpected comes up, your prior planning has lead to your appropriate response to the situation. This is a good feeling! I have a joke with myself. The future me either likes or dislikes the past me depending on what the past me has done to prepare the future me! Over the last nine months or so we have had power outages, cuts/bruises/bumps, fires, floods and other issues come up. We have done pretty good through all of these issues.

Remember, an emergency situation to you might be different then what an emergency situation is to me. This is why everyone needs to focus on what their personal situation requires. There are no one size fits all.

Scrapped knees, bonked heads and other child injuries came up. Our medical preparedness allowed us to make it through these 'emergencies'. You would be amazed how much a Spider Man bandaid can change a situation. One second you have a small child whaling at the top of their lungs swearing the end of the world has begun. Some Neosporin treated the physical wound. The decorations on the bandaid treated the mental wound. End of emergency!

More then once an ice pack from the freezer cured the bruised egos of little ones who were on the losing end of a tussle. Sometimes they even kept the swelling down from whatever they had failed at doing or the knot they received from the other one. The ice packs in the freezer even helped to keep the fridge cold during our several power outages. Between the incidents the ice packs were tested to see how long they could keep the ice chest cold after the power came back on. Two and a half days before I thought stuff started to get to warm. (No I was not opening and closing the ice chest. Just kept it closed to see how long water stayed cold.)

Being able to use a single item for multiple uses is a wonderful ability! Just hope someone does not get a bump and you need the ice pack for keeping the chest cold!!!

Our communications abilities were tested during the power outages. The ability to still communicate with the little ones, who's iPads had no internet, was a big one! Hehehehehe! Between text messages, cellular, radios and talking to our neighbors we thought we had a grasp of what was going on around us. Some of our friends found the lag time between news or official information was to much. This lag between what was happening right now to them and what was being put out caused stress to be added to their already stressful, if not life threatening, situations!

Found more resources for staying up to date. Phones have all kinds of applications for staying informed. The ham radio and police scanners helped a lot. Yet at the end of the day we found looking around the house, talking to our neighbors, City Workers and keeping our own situational awareness were the best tools.

Nothing was better then during our first power outage. The children came home to find the house had lights. Each of them had their own flashlight. And best of all....... Pizza had been ordered for dinner!! Took the time to teach the older one how to put batteries in the camp lanterns. Did not seem like a big deal till the next power outage. Someone had to show mom where the batteries went and the best places to put the lamps.......... Future me laughed at that one!

We personally escaped the worst of the fires this year. Friends of ours were not so lucky. I will not put any names in this story. If you figure out it is you...... do not tell anyone! I called it!!!

Two families, we will call one family #1 and the other #2. Let's focus on just the first few minutes of the emergency. Both were faced with the same issues. It was time to go, fire was coming and there was no time left to figure out what to do.

Family #1, no idea what to pack. No real idea where to go. No prior planning at all from what I could figure out.

Family #2, set their planning into motion. Had a rough idea of where to go. Had time to gather more information, pack more items.

Family #1, all over text messages and FB venting their frustration.

Family #2, using the internet to check in with folks and keeping people informed of their situation.

Family #1, basically appeared to melt down.

Family #2, held it together.

This was just the first couple of minutes of the emergency. Why am I pointing this out? Those first couple of minutes could make all the difference. Prior planning prevents poor performance. Am I 'Monday Morning Quarter Backing' either family? Nope just giving my impression of what each family was doing.

They both faced many of the exact same issues. Family #2 was obviously dealing with the situation much better. Why? Seems they had hit a good spot in their personal planning. The situation might have exceeded what they were truly facing but their prior planning obviously helped them through the situation.

Having dealt with a few situations of our own. With the knowledge we gained from what our friends personally went through. The goal now becomes to close up some of the gaps in our abilities. We want to cover more of the basics. Add some more abilities. Plan out a few more scenarios.

Going to be doing all of this with the intention of moving our "Good Spot" a little further down the line.

As Always,

Stay Safe! 

Corsair Trainers

  

WISE COMPANY 5-Day Survival Backpack review

Let me start off by stating any equipment or supplies are better than none. I rather be in a bad situation and have this backpack than find myself standing there empty handed. (Yes this is my "say something nice" statement before I write things some people might not like.)

As I started to really educate myself on the realities of emergency preparedness a few things stood out to me. One of which was the prepackage emergency bags or backpacks. What could be better than a bag all ready to go? All you would have to do is grab the bag and go! Man, that would be great!

I came across a sale on this item and decided to purchase one. The idea was to see what the bag could do by touching, feeling and using what the bag came with. Ordering the bag was simple and it came exactly when they said it would. Just for the record this cost me less than a hundred dollars, I think! I can't find the receipt right now, DUH!

First thing I noticed was the bag claims to hold food, water, first aid and warmth for five days if you read what is written the way most people read things.

Looking at the placard attached on the backpack one would think you are ready to deal with tornados, hurricanes, wildfires and floods just by having this bag! What could be better? Even the smaller print makes it seem as if this is what I need to be ready in the event of an emergency. This bag comes with 32 servings of gourmet entrees! Water, a stove, not any cup but a stainless steel cup, flashlight, survival whistle thing, matches, blanket, emergency poncho and even a set of playing cards! If they can put a set of playing cards in the bag the bag must be really loaded for a bad day! The 42 piece first aid and hygiene kit will come in handy if you have to survive out of this bag!

This morning I opened up the box the bag came in and was kind of like a kid at christmas! I couldn't wait to see what I could learn from this bag. They managed to get five days worth of supplies for one person into a rather small bag and I wanted to learn how. 

The bag is about the size you would buy for an elementary school child. There are pockets and straps all over the bag which gives you options for packing gear. The material is a really thin type, the straps  are not padded and do not seem to be made for any long periods of use. Inside the bag I found three bundles of supplies. As you can see one was filled with water packets, one with food stuff and the third had equipment.

Let's start with the water supply provided. You see these packets being sold as emergency supplies. One might think from the presentation of the bag five pouches of water would equal enough water for five days. After all the bag is labeled as a "5-DAY SURVIVAL BACKPACK".

The amount of water in each is 4.227 fl oz. or 125ml. "Well how much water is that? Must be enough if they are saying this bag will last you five days?" Let me see if I can put this in prospective for you. I emptied one of these packets into a regular sized glass from the kitchen, looking forward to a nice glass of water while I went through the rest of the bag.

Obviously I was disappointed at what the pouch held. Good thing I was not really thirsty, you know like after surviving a tornado or running for my life from a forest fire. This is some hard core rationing for even the hardest ones of us out there if this is all the water you get for one day! How about a few more visuals to help you.





















That is all the water included in one of these pouches, half a drink glass or martini glass. No the pouch is not filled with liquor for either of these! Which might be a good selling point or marketing scheme to another company. "We got booze for your emergency kit!"

There is no way you are going to be doing much physical activity if these are supposed to be consumed one a day, for five days. Of course the bag also comes with water purification tablets. Issue is the bag does not come with anything I can use to hold the water in I want to treat? This was really the first WTF moment I had with this bag. If you are going to say this bag is a 'grab and run' or a bag you can use to survive for five days you might want to include items needed to utilize the supplies you put in the bag. Otherwise what is the point of putting items into the bag I can not use? Would suck to be standing next to a stream with no way of filtering water. And no the stainless steel cup does not allow you to follow the directions provided for the water purification tablets...........

The water purification tablets and other supplies were contained in a separate plastic bag from the water. Five tablets and their directions are located in the lower left section of the photo. The directions state to transfer the water from one container to another. Containers not provided in the bag... The plastic bag also contained a medical kit, matches and other items.

I am not sure what was supposed to be hygiene items in this bag or advertised '42 piece first aid and hygiene kit'. There are some tissues provided, the kind and size to blow your nose and I really hope they do not expect you to use those on your rear. But you should have enough q-tips to keep your ears clean for five days. Unless you get a small scrap or cut this first aid kit is almost useless.

Let's focus on the food stuff provided in the bag. Water and food would probable be the two top items of concern if you were suddenly stranded on a roof top or stuck up a tree during a flood. You know a flood like the one pictured on the placard. Water all the way to the roof tops of homes.

Six pouches of food items is provided. I am not sure but the items seemed to have just been randomly thrown into the plastic bag and tied off. Not sure why I think this just my impression of how the package was packed. Pasta, beans & rice, tortilla soup, two types of cereal and whey milk....... These are supposed to last five days.......

Here are the directions printed on the food pouch. Yeah, about that 3.5 cups of water, where do I get that? This is an emergency bag, bag implies the situation is bad enough I have had to leave or other wise can not use the comforts of my home. Isn't electricity one of the first things to go out? Followed by gas? I know in California if the Big One hit we can expect an interruption to the electricity and gas supplied to our homes. Guess that would leave you with option three, using an emergency heat source. They did provide me with one in the bag! I'll try that but first;

We have covered this in other post, you need at least 1200 calories to stay alive and over 2000 if you are being active. Total calories in this food pouch 1040? Guess this is what you get to eat for one day. Once you prepare the food plan on eating it right than because there is nothing provided to save your uneaten food with. If you manage to find 4 cups of water I guess you also can find a Tupperware bowl or something else to store your cooked food in.

For some reason milk was included but no other drink choices (should have included alcohol). Of course some how they figure I have procured water which was not provided to make the milk. Milk, really?

Having opened the box right before lunch time I decided to try and prepare a meal from this bag. I quickly found out I would need items not included in my 5-day survival backpack. Water, water in an amount not provided in the bag was the first thing I needed, along with a way to measure the amount of water in order to follow the directions.

Four cups is a lot of water to carry around in a measuring cup........ sarcasm intended. Next I took the items outside to cook up my lunch utilizing the items in the bag.

Took me a minute to figure out how to open the "stove". And just so you know I picked the tortilla soup for lunch, I really like tortilla soup.

Took four of my twenty matches to start one of my four fuel tabs. Wait, I got four fuel tabs in a 5-DAY SURVIVAL BAG? Twenty minus four, minus four, minus four, minus four leaves me four other matches to use for five days? Well maybe it does not take four matches each time to light the fuel cubes?

Found out my stainless steel cup does not fit on my portable stove....... Which means I had to find another way to heat up my 4 cups of water.......

I had to find an old pan in the cupboard. Did not want to get in trouble for using one of the new ones. I guess if a disaster struck and I had to utilize this bag finding a pan would not be a big deal. Especially since I already found a measuring cup, along with extra water.

The water never reach boiling as the direction wanted.

The fuel cube ran out of flame before the water boiled. I decided to just keep trying to make lunch and not use another of the three remaining fuel cubes.

Well the next thing I found out I needed was a spoon and a lid to follow the directions on the package. Really, not a single piece of this kit can help me eat the food I am trying to make? I guess if already found water, measuring cup, pan, a lid for the pan, there should not be any issue finding eating utensils.

Following the directions I ended up with this. A pan filled with flavored water sitting on top of uncooked rice. If there is any tortillas in here, you know to make it tortilla soup, I could not find them.

Well not wanting to waste food I took the "soup" inside the house. You know the house which I might have to leave carrying this 5-day survival backpack. I utilized the gas stove, which is lite via electricity and this bag of tortilla chips to try and salvage the meal. After ten minutes on the stove and the addition of the tortillas to the tortilla soup I had a decent lunch!

In all fairness I will report the soup was decent, even had extra I might take to work with me.

After the attempt at lunch I did not even try to test out anything else from the bag. I figured the quality of the the other items and thought put into the planning of this bag was determined already.

Why am I being rather negative in this review? Because I hope everyone reading this will understand a few things from this.

One, you are responsible for you! People will package and sell anything someone else will buy but at the end of the day they will not be relying on the items to survive.

Two, there are no prepackaged one size fits all answers. If there was a company selling bags which could do this I would be adding a link and filling my garage with them!

Three, you get what you pay for. As I stated this bag did not cost me much (still can't find the receipt) but is almost a complete waste of resources. I literally could walk around the house, with maybe a trip to the dollar store and make a more useful bag than this one.

(trying to end on an upbeat note)

If you have nothing else this bag is a starting point from which you can build a far better 5-day survival backpack............

As Always,

Stay Safe!

Corsair Trainers

Bugging Out - Ounces Equal Pounds, Pounds Equal PAIN!

Ounces = Pounds = PAIN!
This is a saying some of us might have heard before. Anyone who has spent some time living out of a backpack will know the truth behind this. Add in a long walk, couple of hills and the sun following you, you might even take this to the level of misery.

Before we move further along let's clarify the situation we are discussing here. We are not planning for "The End Of The World As We Know It" instead we are planning on having to leave our home to a place not affected by the situation.This means we do not have to pack the start of a new civilization on our backs!! The reason to leave can be anything from natural to man made. We just need to get out of the situation we are presently in.

Weight can be a surprising thing in the way it quickly will add up on you. Small items add up and everyday items are shockingly heavy if you have to move them any great distance. A good example of this is water. Something most of us use and carry around everyday without giving it much thought.

For this post let's say you and the immediate family need to change your position or "Bug Out". You want to take water of course, you give everyone four, one liter bottles to take with them for personal use. These they drop into their packs. Of course your trip might take two days and the daily recommended amount of water per person is one gallon........ you do some quick math...... 3.7 and some change makes one gallon, four liters of water per person covers one day with a little extra. Now you pass out another four liters of water, everyone is set for two days of travel and you are a genius!!

Of course you just added 16 pounds of weight to what your five year old is expected to carry. Each gallon of water weighs 8 pounds....... 4 one liter bottles of water weigh 8 pounds. Add into the pack clothing, food, shelter and everything else you want to take with you and the pounds sneak up quickly.

You might be able to haul this pack around....... me, not so much any more and my little ones are not going to be able to. The SMOKING HOT, SUPER INTELLIGENT, ALLURING AND DOWN RIGHT SEXY women who graces me with her presence in my life, well......... she ain't getting any younger, only better and I know she has never tried to live out of a backpack...... So when most of use think of bugging out we should think first of using a vehicle.

"Of course! Duh, we can carry everything we want in the car! You're an idiot and the problem is solved!"

Yeah you might have a solution there...... The weight of everything and everyone you are taking will suddenly go away..... Oh dang it, gravity still works on your car..... For those of us who commute or drive trucks or spend a lot of time on the road odds are we know how much gas it takes to get us where we want to go. Now add in the weight of the family and all their stuff. Your gas milage will decrease the more you are hauling around. Maybe you plan on hauling gas also? The gas has weight...

Alright, we load up the car, we head out and suddenly we find ourselves in gridlock. Everyone else had the same idea. Of course someone ahead of you did not plan correctly and their car is sitting in the middle of traffic out of gas and now you sit, burning the gas in your car at an idle. Maybe the road is blocked? Mother nature has decided you can not use the road or your car simply breaks down? You need to plan for worst case situations and what if's. You decide you will just take the bags you packed for everyone and get to walking!

Of course some of you might look more like this..........

I really would like to know how far he walked with all of that on him? If you have to go and you have another means of carry your stuff utilize it. Maybe the car is not an option? Having someone else carry your gear would be great!

Remember to make horse sounds as you skip along. Of course using a real horse might be a better option.

Take a moment and look how he has the gear spread out between the two horses. You can tell he has spread the weight out. Without even opening the bags you can bet money he has the items situated to allow him to get at things he would need most often first. More on packing later. The point here is to be able to improvise a means of moving you and your gear outside of what you might think of as 'normal'.

You gotta go, you pack the car and go! You get stuck, you start reshuffling gear to address the new reality of the situation.

Reality comes a knocking and does not go along with your plans. Otherwise known as Mr. Murphy showing up. You have to change plans and you can only use what is available to you.

Take a moment and look how these real life refugees are dealing with the situation. The man with the child seems to have the best chance of hauling his stuff. The rolling bag will work great on cement or asphalt, of course how well made the bag is will come into play. To his left, the couple with the child.... I hope they are not going far! The baby is going to get heavy and they do not appear to have enough to sustain themselves through the next few hours. To the man with the rolling bags right, notice the man with the yellow shirt and the two women with him? They have already appeared to have had to take a break. Notice the two bags sitting on the ground next to them?

Here is a different group of people who needed to change locations. Notice the repurposing of the bicycles by the man in the middle of the photo? Take a look at the children, they are not carrying anything. Kids get tired quickly, they are little, and tired kids will slow you down.

Take a look at how this man has improvised a way to keep moving. For those of use in the big cities shopping carts are everywhere! Ever notice how much stuff the homeless move around with a cart or two? Let's take a look at a few more photos of people who have been faced real life situations and what they did......

Did you notice they are not carrying a lot? They are not weighed down by 50, 60 or a 100 pounds of gear. Why? Because this is reality! These people are moving by foot where every pound counts. Their possessions are decided by necessity. The ladies in the center photo are dressed differently than the folks in the other photos, the things they are carrying seem to be driven by the environment they are moving through. Sure they might want to be carry tents, stoves and a case of MREs but reality tells them to bring blankets, warm clothes and you move faster carrying the little ones instead of more gear. The people in the bottom picture. Seems the ones old enough to be expected to carry something are carrying a small back pack. Why? Because the reality of the situation dictate they can not carry more on the small boats they are using to change positions.

We could bet some of these people started out with cars, maybe riding a train or a bus. Somewhere along the line they had to change their plans and put one foot in front of the other...........

Knowing how to pack a bag is very important. Packing properly makes the weight ride right and cuts down on the pain the pounds bring. Carrying extra clothes in properly packed bag beats the hell out of carrying extra clothes in a plastic bag! Taking a properly packed bag and putting it in a shopping cart on on a horse's back makes it even easier to carry!

This cart can be useful when you start to pack. Gives you an idea of how much weight you should stuff into the pack. But this cart is only useful if you let reality come into the equation. Looking at the chart you see your body weight is somewhere in the middle, let's say 175. Now you have to be honest, is the 175 pounds you carry around everyday useful weight or just more weight you have to carry around? Are you 175 pounds of 20 year old muscle or are you 175 pounds of 50 year old couch potato? Remember we have to tailor our plans to the reality we live in.

You may think you can step out of the house and hike fifty miles to your brother's house geared up like this and maybe you can. Can the wife? Can the grand kids who were visiting you? What happens if you have to cross a border or check point?

In reality this might be the better way to travel. Light, faster and with less pain per pound!

Your planning will be situational drivin. You can do a few things to help you prepare for having to relocate. Pack a bag and take a nature hike. Pack enough for a picnic, gather up the family and walk a mile or two to a place to have a picnic. Let a reality come into your prior planning. If the time comes you have to go, the roads are out and you have to walk is not the time to realize you packed to much and to high expectations of yourself. Remember improvise, adapt and be ready to dump what you do not NEED to make it to your destination!!!!

As Always,

Stay Safe.

Corsair Trainers