Got Skills?

I have been sort of reflecting about my blogging recently. I realized that I talk a lot about stuff and using stuff and storing stuff but not much about skills. So for awhile I wondered why this is. I realized that it was because at least for where I am at in life (when I buy some land and start growing plants and raising animals this will change) I have the vast majority of the skills I want and need. I don't talk much about, just for example .45 acp ammo either. Not that it isn't important by any means it is just that awhile back I got enough that I stopped worrying about it. Since I write about the stuff I think about it is just natural that things which I am not thinking about don't get mentioned.
I guess I was sort of lucky when it comes to skills. My previous interests and work history put me in a pretty good place or at least a pretty good starting point. By the time I got fairly motivated and into preparedness I had just, through the course of my life, acquired a lot of the necessary skills. A lifetime of camping, skiing and backpacking had me pretty solid on being able to handle myself in primative conditions. Living out of a bag, starting fires, rendering first aid, etc. My time in the military and other experiences left me reasonably competent in terms of defending myself with or without weapons. [It was also convenient that I had a ton of camping type gear and was a bit of a gun nut  so was at an OK place there also.] Because of this I just haven't worried about skills all that much.

I suppose in a way this is doing a bit of a disservice to my readers. I could probably talk about skills more as well as the reasons for them and lessons learned while acquiring skills (though I may have forgotten them). I fear that too many skills I just take for granted would be really beneficial to you guys.

I am not however sitting on my lorrels. Over the past couple years thanks to my job I have improved dramatically in terms of tactical stuff from shooting (close quarters or distance, magazine changes, etc) to planning and conducting offensive or defensive operations. I have forgotten more about tactics and field operations than I used to know. I have also learned to use world band radios and make all kinds of food from scratch. I also have learned to brew my own beer.

There are definitely some more skills I want to acquire. Right now I am pretty much in a holding pattern because most of the skills I want to acquire are not available here or the cost benefits derived from them are skewed in my current location. I would like to take a couple of defensive pistol courses as well as a defensive shotgun course. I would love to go to Appleseed and work on being a better shot (the great thing about this is pretty much everyone can improve). If I found a place I thought would actually teach me anything in terms of tactical carbine stuff at a price I could afford I would go there. When we get back to the states we will start canning food and other food storage stuff. I would like to get a ham radio license. The list goes on. Being a jack of all trades is hard.

I think I will try to talk more about skills.