Starting on YouTube

Well we are going to try and advance with the times here. We have started a a YouTube Channel under the name Corsair Trainers.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXxUPVndSDypJFlx8G2AwlA

The name comes from a group we are trying to put together come the beginning of the year. With my eminent retirement coming I need something to do!!!! hehehehe!

Still plan on writing the blog. Writing even more since I will not have to work. Going to start the YouTube adventure by translating the blog post here into videos. Something I am finding harder to do then I thought it would. Caveman learn new thing!!!

The videos won't be word for word. Some I will update. Others might be missing things written on here. Trying to keep the videos short as I have tried to keep these entries over the years. Harder to do when your talking!!

Hope some of you go over to the link and check out the videos. Let me know what you think.

As Always,

Stay Safe!

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

  

Inventory - Check your stuff

Quite randomly the month of July was the month I put into my phone to inventory and take stock of where we are for emergency preparedness. Best reason I can remember is I had achieved some goal at this point in the years prior.

Having a time you plan to check what you have, replace stuff and see where you want to be is a really good tool. I must admit life seemed to get in the way with my inventory this year. Work, kids, etc etc etc. Honestly there is not a whole lot to go through at the house, no we do not have a bunker full of every item we might need if the aliens invade, but I found enough to work on when I did sit down to go through our get home bags.

I know as our situation at home changes we need to adapt our planning and gear to the new situation. Kids grow, grown folks get older, you move or any of the other things which can change your situation come up and having a day or in this case a month to review your preparedness comes in handy. Biggest thing I found was duplicated items. I have a habit of getting items and just stuffing them inside of the bags. Of course I forget what I already have in them!

Expired or poorly packaged items were the next thing I found. Over the course of the last year I had found higher quality items but had failed to move out the older stuff. (going back to my habit of just stuffing stuff in the bag)

Somethings do not change, expire or need upgrading. Rain cover for the bag, first aid supplies, mirror, whistle and headlamp.

I realized my water purifying equipment had gotten a bit out of hand. The bag is packed to help get me home from work on a really bad day. If I need three types of water filters to get home things have gone way, way bad and the bag is not designed for a really, really bad day. Just a bad day!!! Although having multiple ways of doing something is a really good idea this was kind of a waste of space when I realized what I had done.  

I also realized my medical supplies needed to be revamped. The focus was more on the gunfight and needed to move toward covering regular issues one might have walking home. My background leads me to see things through the gunfighter lens. We should all make sure we look at our planning through the lens of disciplines outside of our own.

I also needed to trade out the MREs which had sat in my car for a year or more. Ok I know people will say you should do this more often because they go bad. Ate on of the ones I took out for lunch that day. Tabasco sauce had evaporated magically somehow but the rest of the meal was good! I couldn't remember if I had water bladder in the bag until I looked. Another good reason for going through the stuff.

I also had recently bought a new pack for everyday carry and decided to move the stuff over to the new bag. Having both bags open at the same time lead me to again find some gear which was duplicated and did not need to be carried in both bags. This bag is the Vertex EDC bag, after I carry it for awhile there will be a review.

One of the first things I did with the new bag was add a tourniquet and extra bandages. With everything going on in the world right now I felt I needed to add more medical stuff to the EDC.

Just inventory of this gear seemed to take up all of the spare time I had this month. Of course I have to still go through some other stuff but this gave me a good indication of where we are and where we need to go during the next year. If you can't deal with situations with what you carry everyday, combined with the gear you have to help you get home than what you have at home might just not matter.

Venezuela update.

A while back we talked about Venezuela and the crisis they are having in which people could not find food or other basic items to survive. Again we will try to stay out the politics and focus on what the people are doing to survive. By doing this maybe we can pull ideas or answers which can assist us in our own emergency preparedness. If the opportunity presents itself we should learn from other people's experience instead of having to learn the hard lessons ourself.

Here is link to the original post. 

http://broadheads.blogspot.com/2016/05/venezuela-reality-check.html

Not much has changed from the time we originally looked at the situation. This is a really good example of why people need to realize emergencies can last long than a day or two. Help just might not be coming along any day soon, preparedness needs to be thought out for both the short and long haul and at the end of the day, you are responsible for your family.

The bridge talked about in the link below. Read the article. These people traveled by public transit and walked to secure food for themselves. Then look at the photo of what they came home with. These were not people already close to the poverty line or part of an underserved community. No, the husband was an auto mechanic and had his own garage before things started going south. The wife has a good job but with the situation spiraling downward her income is not enough to sustain the family.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-food-shortage-family-liquidates-savings-to-stockpile-food/

  

I hope you read the article but if you did not here is what they brought home. How long could you and your family live on this amount of food? 

Here is what another family brought home after "shopping". They expected to eat for two weeks off of this amount of food.

Daily people stand in these lines hoping they can afford the prices of what little might be in the store.

Everything you might have stored up is likely to be used up after what, two weeks, a month, six months? Most of us do not have the space to stock up on much more than a maybe a weeks worth of food.

Yet food is not the only thing in short supply. Medicine is also lacking with doctors and hospitals not having anyway of getting more.

How long could you last on this? Heck do you even have the cooking skills to utilize these ingredients? Some of us have no idea how to cook from scratch and for these folks at this point in their situation all there is to work worth is items to make food from scratch.

http://todayvenezuela.com/2017/01/10/venezuela-set-for-murderous-2017/

The situation is not just one in which people can not find food. Read the article linked above. Not only are they looking for food people are more and more having to defend what little they have. Protecting their supplies not only from other hungry people. They have to defend themselves against gangs and the government. Problem for most of this people is when they try to defend themselves the gangs, police and military are the only ones who have firearms.

This is starting to get kind of long. Let's bring this around.

Prepare for the 'quick' emergency. Three days maybe a week.
Always be mentally prepared to go longer.
Utilize whatever supplies you have but always work to add more. Do not wait till you are running out of supplies to try and acquire more, everyone else is probably doing the same thing.
Be prepared to defend what you have, even from people you shouldn't have to defend things from.

As Always,

Stay Safe

Doing!

Reading the internet, magazines and a book or two lately something struck me. Most of these things geared toward emergency planning talk about what stuff you need. You need so much water per day, you need so much food per day, you need this and you need that and we got the best thing you can ever need. Of course you want the best thing ever so you go and buy thing one.....

 But then you realize Thing 1 is not the best thing ever because your 'what if' is very specific!

Of course someone has the best thing ever, specifically made for your "What if Marvin the Martian really does try to take over the world?" And you have to have Thing 2 because Thing 2 fits your need!

Now you have Thing 1 and you have Thing 2 and now you do not have to think about any-thing!

But now that you have Thing 1 and now that you have Thing 2, have you ever tried to use either thing? Maybe Thing 2 is cheaply made and in your time of need is not the thing you need? But you have Thing 1 as back up and even if Thing 2 is cheaply made you have Thing 1 to take Thing 2's place. (and that as good as my Doctor Seuss gets!)

Have you ever used either thing? Prior to having to use or do something under the pressure of an emergency? Have you tried them? Having things is not enough! You have to DO!

Take fire, you need it to cook, for heat and to keep the darkness at bay. So you stuff a lighter in your bag and of course you have a bow drill set stashed in there also. Because if the lighter doesn't work you have redundency and somewhere you read redundancy is a good thing.

Some of you my not know this, it is a secret only us evil smokers know...... these things run out of gas! Either by use, being stored in a position the button is pressed down, letting the gas out or they just get old and the gas leaks. But if Thing 1 doesn't fit you have Thing 2 and you have watched enough TV you are sure you can use Thing 2. It looks easy enough on TV!

If you look at that picture and did not almost immediately know what you were looking at we have an issue. Having Things is great, not knowing how to use them is just dangerous....

Your fun hike with the family could easily turn into a very bad day. One missed turn or moment of distraction could lead to you and the family being lost. You suddenly could find yourself without cell phone reception and night closing in fast. When the lighter does not work, you realize you have never used the a bow drill.

 This not an option.........

Neither is this........

Especially when things like to creep up in the dark.............

We must practice things before we need to use things. Now you are saying "Well I do not have time to hike fifty pounds of gear into the woods just to practice! The kids have soccer, people are coming over to watch the Super Bowl and we have church on Sunday." Yes you do. We just have to look at practice differently..........

Take soccer practice, yes soccer practice, how much stuff do you haul to the practice field? I know on game day we seem to have to move a ton of stuff. There is the basics, kids, ball, cleats, water, sunscreen, shoes to wear other than cleats, jackets and oh yeah we got to get the kids dressed!

This is just the basics! Now if you want to do anything besides sit on the ground you have to have the intermediate kit. This includes a sun shade, chairs and maybe a cooler. Of course we haven't even factored in maintaining your fashion sense!!

Point here is think of this as practice for having to abandoning your house. What if you had to leave? How would you haul the stuff you need? What do you need? How long would you be able to maintain some level of normal and comfort? If you set up camp at the park because the kids teams play at different times, use the time to plan and work on 'What If's' in the back of your mind. Then take a look at the other people around you...........

Got people coming over for the big game? Ever tried cooking everything on the BBQ? You know how you plan to cook if the gas ever stops coming into the house? Give it a try this week end. (yes I started writing this before the big game) Maybe not everything but break out the Dutch oven and cook a thing or two you normally cook inside the house. Things do not work the same on the BBQ as in the kitchen!

Heck break out that flint and steel. Bring along the char cloth or Vaseline covered cotton balls, maybe even just use stuff in the backyard to start the BBQ? Now do not delay the BBQ till you figure this out. You might end up with some annoyed and hungry guest. Take five or ten minutes and try to start the fire the "hard" way. If after ten minutes put the tools away and break out the lighter fluid!!

You might find out these things are harder to use then you thought. Also you might see why cheaper on the wallet is not always the way to go........

Maybe use your fitbit to see how long it would take you to walk home. Practicing or training is anywhere and way you can. Can you really walk ten miles? How long does it take you to walk ten miles?

How heavy is your Bail Out Bag? Can you carry it further than just from the house to the car? What about your Get Home Bag all crammed full of Things Numbered One and Things Numbered Two, can you really shoulder it and carry it any distance worth discussing? Let us not even discuss Bug Out Bags at the moment...............

During an emergency is not the time to find out how Things work or to find out they do not work. There is a big difference from what you think you can do and what you can do. Needing to get to higher ground when the water is rising is not the time to find out you can not make it further than the distance between the fridge and the couch............ 

Do two things this week. When was the last time you started a fire without a match or lighter? Start one this week. Maybe it is the BBQ, fireplace or bonfire out back this weekend. Take a walk, do something physical. Maybe you just walk for a block or two. Instead of thinking of it as exercise think of it as learning about resources are located in your neighborhood. How many fruit trees are there? 

Find time to practice. Find time to prepare. Find time to gain knowledge and skills. Life is about learning and doing. If you are done learning and doing, well..............

As Always,

Stay Safe!

Conflicted Card Game - Review

While scrolling along on the internet I came across this card game, Conflicted. Always looking for items which can be useful I went ahead and ordered the first deck of cards. Using Amazon the cards came a few days later.

Below is the 'about' section from their website

"Conflicted: The Survival Card Game was born from friends debating why the world is the way it is. Discover where you will draw the line between your morals and your humanity.

Know Your Self
Conflicted was designed to help you think about life in a post apocalyptic world. After playing it, you'll be more aware of your own strengths and weaknesses and areas needing improvement. How far are you willing to go in order to survive, when the choice is life versus your own morals?

Know  Your Friends
When you play Conflicted: The Survival Card Game with your friends and family, their answers will tell you all about their philosophy on prepping and survival. What they say or don't say, their body language - it all matters.  You will probably re-think who you'll bugout with after the first game.

Know  Your Enemies
By playing Conflicted: The Survival Card Game you'll realize that the thin veil of civilized behavior our current modern society portrays is easily torn apart. We all have a breaking point where our will to live speaks louder than our own morals. That breaking point is at a different place for everyone."

I thought this could be interesting and went through each card to see what the questions were like. To be honest the questions, for the most part, are extreme. They set up situations which almost no one will find themselves in, hopefully! Of course the entire idea of the game is these situations take place after an extraordinary incident has happened, a post apocalyptic situation. Which gives them the setting and ability to ask some of these extreme questions. Even in this setting some of the questions are........ just ........ heck I do not know the word, extreme doesn't seem to fit right.

People are asked to make life or death decisions.  On first read it appears they could simply give an answer, with no reference point to make the decision in their life to draw from. A lot of the questions ask about helping others but helping others would cause your family to starve. It is easy to say you would turn children away who are starving to allow your family to survive longer when the kids are not in front of you. Especially if you have never seen starving children or been to places where people are going hungry. Other questions ask about killing people for one reason or another. Again it is easy to say you would kill someone who is a threat to your family or group. Especially if you have never hurt someone else or had to use deadly force against another person. Some of the questions seem to give you only one way to answer the question but leave out other options. Here is an example;

"The airplane you stole lost 30% of it's power in mid air and is about to crash" The question goes on to say you have dumped everything you can to lighten the load and are now faced with two of your six person group having to "...... leave the plane... suffer an excruciating fall to their deaths." Did I forget to mention there are no parachutes? Your supposed to decide who is sacrificed for the greater good............

Here is an issue with this question, if you have a pilot in the group wouldn't they know how to land the plane? Why would you dump supplies, fuel and other items you stole? Why would you then sacrifice two of your group?

Completely understanding the concept here is to start a conversation with people and to get an idea of how they think. The question would seem to lead people into thinking the only answer was to have two of your group willingly or unwillingly sacrifice themselves. Which seems to guide people into a thought pattern where they are preprogramming themselves to think death is the only answer in a apocalyptic situation. Seems to embed what some folks call "training scars" into people which could lead someone to make what could be interpreted as poor decisions under pressure.

My personal answer is to land the plane as soon as the pilot thinks they can no longer stay airborne. What was the point if you lose all the supplies and people? Of course there could be other variables but given the question as it is written, landing the plane seems to be the one answer you are not lead toward. Once on the ground you could see about repairing the plane or lightening the load by having some of your group walk. Maybe they can take enough supplies with them the flight can be completed and the plane might even be able to come back to get them somewhere along the line?

Some questions are really good ones;

".... What do you think you could offer any community in exchange for food, water and shelter?" They narrow down the answers nicely by saying the community "...already have enough security and caretakers." The best part of this question states "This must be a skill you currently have."

Think about that question for a minute................. What skills do you have which would REALLY be needed after a total collapse? Think of the situation as they have framed it. The world is closer to all out Mad Max than Sex In The City..............

Well these sound like good skills to have at work tomorrow! How would they help if people are struggling to feed themselves?

We all know people who would believe this is the right answer!!!!

What can you do? Most of us have become specialist in our daily lives. You are a lawyer, how is that going to work out if people are reduced to scavenging for food? Maybe you do odd jobs, manual labor kind of stuff, a few times a week, then spend the rest of your time surfing and smoking as much dope as you can? How is that going to translate over?

Let's not even start discussing Human Resource types or folks with jobs like Life Coach...... And if I just made you mad because you are one of these, do not fear there are lots and lots of people out there who have less useful skill sets.

If the community has enough guys dressed like this I personally had to stop and think about my answer to the question. My go to thing is security, weapons, military and stuff like that. If the billet is already filled I would be hard pressed to make myself useful!! Sure I got some skills but not enough to sell myself as an expert farmer, healer or wizard! If the community needs male strippers I might be able to pull that one off!!!!!

What could you function as if the world went south? Be realistic about your answer since you are only answering the question to yourself!

Alright, last question from the deck of cards. This is a good question with multiple answers due to the open ended way the question is asked. This might be the best question in the deck to figure out how someone thinks they will respond.

"You are behind on rent and now that the Electromagnetic Pulse went off and the banks aren't open, your landlord came trying to collect. He said either pay up in cash or in goods, or he will evict your family and put them on the street in three days with the help of armed security. You were not prepared to bug out at all..... in three days he will bring armed men to take you out of the house, but right now he is standing in front of you, alone. How would you handle this situation?"

The parts in the question which just repeat the same situational information were cut out.

Let's start the answer with some thoughts about avoiding the question. Preparing for a bad day does not focus solely on the actions you take after something has happened. You shouldn't only focus on having gear, food and solar panels for after something happens. What you do before an event directly affects how you can respond during and after an event. This is one reason I think this question is one of the better ones in the deck.

If we square away our finances and put some cash away inside a safe in the house we have avoided this question for a moment. A moment which might buy us time to better our position. Having our finances squared away could allow us to buy a house. A house which would allow us to not be living under the rule of a LAND LORD. Taking these actions before an event would help us cover several problems at once and we try to cover as many issues with the least amount of resources. Moving back to the situation laid out by the question.

For these of this discussion let's say we are in the position the question has us in. Your options seem to be 1) find a way to pay the Landlord, 2) leave your home, and 3) do something to the Landlord? Going in reverse order to answer this question.

3) Do you assault or even kill the Landlord? He is threatening to put your family in a position of grave danger? If so how? Do you threaten him back? Can you threaten him? Do you have the ability to put 'the fear of god' into him? Do you have the ability to back up any threats you make? No really do you? If he comes back with armed men do you have the ability to resist? Are you willing to take the chance with your families safety you will be able to deal with him and others later, still keeping your family safe?

Do you assault or kill her now? Right now, when she has no back up? Is the situation so bad you need to end this threat right now to protect your family? Do you have the ability to killer her? Put your ego aside........ no really take an honest look at your life experience and skill set. Someone is at your door right now, can you kill them where they stand? I'll answer the question for you, no. Most people are not prepared for this kind of action. Nothing wrong with this! Most of us are not programed to be able to do this and not being able to easily kill another human is a GOOD THING! While your yelling at me insisting you could do this to protect your family I'll ask another question. You start to take action against the Landlord.... did you check to see if there are any witnesses to report your actions? If you kill the Landlord in the doorway are you going to get away with it? Are others going to come looking for her? Did you think about any of that before you thought of killing the Landlord in the doorway? Remember, life is more complicated than black and white answers.......

2) Leaving, could you? How would you pack up? Are you walking or driving? Where are you going? Can you get there in the situation the question is asked? Let's take the worst case and say you have to walk. Where is the closest place you could go? Are you and the family prepared to walk that far? No really (I keep repeating this on purpose)? Five miles to grandma's house is nothing in the car. Could you and the family make that walk carrying, pulling or pushing everything you could take from the house? What would you take from the house? When was the last time you walked a mile under weight?

1) Coming up with money or goods to pay the Landlord. Do you have money or goods on hand to do this? If you do this are you just delaying the time until your family is starving? Once you pay how too till they come back for more? If you pay are you letting them know or think they know you have enough to pay and have more inside? Do you have another way to pay? Are you skilled at negotiating or sweet talking your way out of things?

If you go into a situation with nothing you have greatly limited your options......

Take a moment and seriously consider your options in this situation. The situation does not have to be after an EMP, this can occur if someone loses their job tomorrow! Remember we are not just planning for the end of the world we are planning for everyday emergencies also!

At the end of the day I find myself really neutral about the deck of cards. I understand what they were trying to do and commend them for trying it! I feel some of the questions are to extreme. They lead people to much especially if people are new to preparedness. Will I be spending any more resources or time on this deck of cards, no.

I realize they have made other decks of cards with other questions. Maybe someone has read other decks? I would love to hear about what you thought about the other decks. As for me I can go without investing any more in these.

https://www.conflictedthegame.com


As always,

Stay Safe!!