Skip the Myan calendar mayhem, the prophecies of your favorite seer, heck even skip the recent popularity of zombie movies. The world is a wild place. And a real disaster could strike your home town tomorrow. I personally like the idea that the world as we know it might come to a screeching halt. It would give me a chance to catch up on some sleep and maybe do a little fiction reading.
Terms you will hear pretty often are SHTF (Shit Hits The Fan), WROL (Without Rule Of Law), TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It), Apocalypse (It's not an acronym, it's so cool it doesn't need one), Grid-Down (Massive power failure), End Times (A catchy title for a news paper perhaps). No matter the term that's getting thrown around they all boil down to the same thing. A situation has developed that will require you and probably many of your neighbors to function outside your comfort zone, possibly for a week or more.
This blog is being put forth at the suggestion of my lovely wife. I've always been the type of person who wanted to have a plan in the event things went badly. This isn't a new idea for me, but it's getting new attention because the world is a more connected and complicated place than it was when I was in my twenties. The population is larger, and there is a perception that there are more threats than ever before. With the amount of information available to the average person it's easier to research these sorts of things, and to be prepared for them.
So we're going to put some things up for folks to look at, or if nothing else so that I can have the multitude of links that interest me in one fairly easy to get to place. Granted, if the world does end I wont be able to get to it, but I'll have other things to occupy my time.
Where to begin?
Let's start with what started this whole mess, realizing that my Jump Bag was woefully out of date. I have had a Jump Bag since I was about thirteen years old. You might have heard the term Bug Out Bag, that's the evolved term for what I call a Jump Bag. If you have to jump, defined as leaving your normal environment for an unknown environment under adverse conditions, you grab your Jump Bag and....jump. It's not logical for most people. When you plan a trip you pack your bag based on what you know you will need for the trip. You know where you're going and how long you're going to be there. A situation which would require you to employ your Jump Bag will not abide by any of those elements.There are countless people with countless ideas about the Jump Bag (It's my phrase I'll use it as often as I like) and what should be in it, if you should have one at all. I have one because I like the idea of having things that might be handy. And there it is, might. You can't plan for everything. I was a Boy Scout, which will come as a shock to some of the people who know me and absolutely no surprise for those who are closest to me. They have this phrase, "Be Prepared". What can I say, it stuck with me.
So what's in this Jump Bag?
What's in my Jump Bag isn't really that important, but I do plan on doing a post on that topic a little bit later on. I try to work from the idea of Don't have anything you don't know how to use. Sure it could be really cool if the surgeon stuck in the collapsed highway tunnel said "Damn, if only I had an emergency field surgical kit!" and you were able to give him the one in your Jump Bag. But, it's probably of limited use to you. Certainly not useless, but it's use to weight ratio might not be all that good. Use to weight? That's not in my How to survive the Zombie Apocalypse manual! Or maybe it is, I did skip a few chapters in that one, but to me it's the idea that if I have to carry something I need to get a very high use to weight ratio out of it. And my use to weight ratio for an item wont be the same as yours. Most people will tell you that anything you carry should have multiple uses. It's the same basic idea.
A well stocked Jump Bag might have water, food, ammo, guns, knives, fire-starters, signal flares, Cotex panty liners, a first-aid kit, a shovel, four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.....er, sorry I'm a film buff.
The point is that you need to figure out what needs to go into your bag. And I realized one day that mine was filled with out dated items of low importance and poor use to weight ratio. So I spent some time doing research and picking up things to determine if they would meet my needs.
Human beings generally need few things to survive. Water, food, and to maintain our body temperature. That third one can be tricky. If you live where it's routinely very hot, perhaps more water is in order as well as sunblock, sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat. If it's routinely below freezing where you are perhaps something else? (like moving!) You might have to update the contents of a Jump Bag seasonally. Rotate cloths, batteries, food stuffs. A Jump Bag is not a set it and forget it tool.
Why am I doing this again?
I want to share my finds. The things I have that I think are cool and useful to me. Maybe along the way you'll find something and think it's cool and would be useful for you too. If I can turn you on to something that you might not have otherwise found that's cool, then I'll call that a win. So check back. I have a back log of cool things to share, and I keep finding more and more cool stuff as I go.
Take stock of your Jump Bag, or Bug Out Bag, or consider putting one together. It's something everyone should have in the event something goes wrong and you have to jump!
Until the end of the world as we know it, or TEOTWAWKI as it's often called (it's NOT some Hawaiian word), I'll keep posting stuff.
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