One of the major fallicies is that you can buy stuff even to the point of a "survival retreat" and if / when something happens, you can then leave your comfortable, urban, sheeple life and survive. In order to be successful it has to be a move to a change in lifestyle, however gradually. So many people laugh at and ridicule the extremes seen on Doomsday Preppers but EVERY ONE OF THEM believed and lived for what they see coming and continue to do so. You can plan to stay in your current home...bug in... but you have to develop sustainable means to live without what you have now in the way of energy and comforts. As the military puts it... IMPROVISE..... ADAPT.... OVERCOME.... and I will add one more.... PERSEVERE. Without these you will get no where. Just my 2 cents
JAB
HA! I'd bet more than a few people are actually DISAPPOINTED that nothing happened...
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." . ~Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881
I havent met a single person that expected anything to happen dec 21. Not one. So much so that we threw an end of the world party and got fully trashed. None of the regulars on this board expected anything to happen as well.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
If it is slower around here, I bet it's because of the holidays and not the freaky date stuff. Everyone I know seems to have trouble remembering what day it is because things are so slow and lazy and out of whack.
We'll pick up again once life resumes to it's normal pace I'm sure.
If your home library contains more volumes about survival-related topics than your local public library, you might be a prepper.
I heard a guy on Coast To Coast AM Radio on 21/12/12. He called in to the show to say that he had spent about 24 hours in his shelter with his family. At about 8pm, he decided to pop his noggin' above ground to, you know, "see what's going on". He was actually disappointed that he had spent all that money and time on his shelter and his food stores and nothing had happened. The idiot actually wanted something to happen so he could justify his preps. He then said he would likely sell his equipment and eat the food.
Just watch, within a few months, there will be a local emergency and he will have to take his family to a FEMA camp for a sandwich made with white bread, margarine and processed meat. Oh yeah, for a drink, he will have the purple kool-aid that the government will supply.
For him, prepping was all about ONE day, 21/12/12. I slept in that day. It was around 2pm when I realized what day it was. I nearly forgot!
I woke up that morning with my alarm flashing as the power had been off for a few hours. My first thought was Hmmmm that wasn't as bad as they predicted. Then my next thought was, Someone at the Hydro was bored and wanted to screw with the people waiting for the end to come :).
I'm continuing to Prep. Slowly but surely I'll get there.
Yeah, if I was working at the power company, I might have considered something like that. I'd imagine it would make for a great laugh at the lunch table.
We also had an end-of-world party just to see if any crazy cults drank some Kool-Aid... We ended up disappointed in the cults but had fun with poker and pictionary.
Interestingly, a few months ago some associates were over and noticed our 250gallon emergency water tank in the basement. They asked some questions and we explained about 72 hour self-reliance. They only live in the moment, so I wasn't going to waste time explaining about 6 month+ self-reliance. They went home and later mentioned to mutual friends that we were obviously paranoid and that nothing would happen in their lifetimes... maybe in their children's children's lifetimes but not any time soon. I'm not sure how they came up with that estimate. They jumped to the conclussion that we were preparing for 'the end' even though I was careful only to mention sheeple-level preps.
So, this weekend a water main blew in the town of Strathmore, where they live... no water for maybe 4 days... emergency rationing only... hmmm10,000 smelly sheeple. I wonder what they'll say the next time we bump into each other?
As many of us have said before; think about those high-impact/low-probability events but be ready for the obvious.
You do realize those people would be the first ones at you door if something did happen
Ya, we know, and they have a little kid to add to the 'emotional' appeal.
Unfortunately for them, if it is that bad (total breakdown), they'll arrive here on foot only to find an empty house... though they'll be able to use the water tank as that is only in case of short term emergencies and I've no way to transport it in the bicycle trailer. I hope they bring some dehydrated noodles with them.