Book Review: World Made By Hand

World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler was part of my last Amazon book order. For whatever reason I picked it up to read first. It was a very easy and pleasant read and I finished it in part of one afternoon and a little bit of the next. 

The basic plot is that by a combination of peak oil, resource wars, economic difficulties thereon and terrorist attacks our fossil fuel based just in time delivery system world falls apart. Without getting too into details I would say it falls somewhere between a slow slide type scenario and an immediate One Second After kind of situation. The book takes place some years after this event has happened and the population of the region is significantly diminished. It follows a small town through a summer full of interesting events through the eyes of an older but healthy and lively widower who makes his living doing carpentry. A variety of events happen and they lead to other developments and stuff happens. Now onto our standard format.

The Good: I enjoyed this book more than I have enjoyed any book in a long time. It is really a great read. I appreciated that it talked more about how peoples lives developed, the economy changed and how folks got through everyday events than anything else. I found that particularly noteworthy and thought provoking.

The book went into significant detail about how people did the little things and got along with each other and such. I mean there was some action but the ratio was probably a lot more realistic than most books in the genre which are almost just action/ adventure and gun porn. Instead of writing one paragraph about how the main characters grow a garden, cook and preserve food, etc and then devote whole chapters to very lengthy and detailed discussions of the exact rifle with such and such modifications this book talked about how people got everyday tasks done without electricity or fossil fuels.

One thought provoking thing I appreciated in this book was that it was realistic in that people interacted and worked together. There was still a fair amount of division of labor. Of course everybody had a big garden and usually some chickens and rabbits it was realistic in the sense that they still needed to do something to get a surplus of money/ trade goods to swap for stuff they can't produce.

In a world made by hand the need for semi skilled physical labor will be significant, if just to meet local food production needs. The days of a 70 year old man and his 50 year old son working a huge piece of land with tractors and combines to grow one or two crops would be over. The amount of labor a farm needed would go up exponentially. Seeing as people will (even with a garden and some chickens) need to get some surplus to trade lots of folks would likely end up in this capacity. To compare people who ended up in this role to serfs or peasants would likely be more accurate than not. Just like any other economic system (life isn't so good for somebody who works at McDonalds)  it is better to be close to the top or at least not at the bottom. This got me thinking about skills and how one could position them self to be as comfortable as possible. In the short term stocking food and goods would help but in the long run it would be about wits, skills and productive land.

I could go on for a long time about the great parts of this book. Seriously it was a great book.

The Bad: It probably leaned a bit to peace nick/ everybody just gets along to be realistic. The town didn't have any sort of security plan (like say an informal checkpoint or a night watch) and aside from a couple people getting beat up everything went just fine for a long time after it was clear law and order had collapsed. I halfway just put this here because there should be a "bad" for this review format to work. It was sort of refreshing after reading book after book that are like a mix of a war book with occasional references to storing food and gushes of gun porn about the authors favorite guns/ gun accessories.

Edited to include: I also found it curious that in the book though our federal government (as well as state and pretty much county) had collapsed people still used dollars as currency. Especially in a slow slide type scenario I don't think dollars would go away quickly. Somewhere around when the power goes out and people realize things have changed for the long term I doubt the dollar would be good for much except keeping track of friendly games of poker and monopoly. In the book barter was the most common followed by silver and they mentioned that gold was pretty much hoarded. I just found it curious that in the book people still accepted dollars albeit at a highly inflated rate. I just can't see it working out that way.

The Ugly: It was clearly written from a New England small town perspective. The book was at best halfway condescending of Christianity/ religious people and really anybody who isn't from New England. A good friend of mine found it quite condescending to Southerners. He also noted that while the town folks mocked these people they relied on them for protection. I can't say I entirely saw what he saw but them again I am not a Southerner. Anyway if it bothered him it might bother some other people too.

I really enjoyed this book and think you would too.

And The Winner Is

The winner of our Survival and Emergency Preparadness DVD giveaway is Did It MY Way. Please send me your address so we can get the DVD to you.

Please thank World Info CD for making this contest possible.

Zombie Apocalypse Objects by Usefullness

On a lighter note.

Privacy and Data Mining

There has been some weird stuff going on lately. I have heard the words written by bloggers read on the news while their pictures are shown and their area of residence is mentioned. Privacy, open source information and data mining are becoming concerns for me.  I have no delusion that somebody with a super computer or just the cooperation of a big company or two could track me down on a coffee break.

I am not particularly worried. Long ago I decided not to say anything on here that I would not want read back to me in a court of law. However this has gotten me thinking about what companies I choose to deal with. I got a new email for the blog. It should pop up if you try to email me but for those who would just open an old email to write me I want you to be advised. Please contact me in the future at theotherryan@yahoo.com. I will be checking my google email for awhile during what I imagine to be a couple month transition.

I deleted the blogs various social networking pages. I only regularly talked to two people on there anyway and I made sure to get their emails so we could keep up. It was a nice idea but didn't really blossom. I have a busy life and it was just another thing to do anyway. Also I have been taking a look at my personal social networking stuff. Balancing privacy concerns versus having a fulfilling life and keeping up with friends/ family around the world leads to some compromise on both sides.

I have also been thinking about the various internet personalities and sites I choose to associate with. In the last year or so the world has been pretty crazy and it seems to me like the blogosphere is really radicalizing. I am not saying it is right or wrong or justified or not justified. Just that I have found myself becoming less and less comfortable with some things I have been floating around. This is a shame because I can really enjoy 80% of what is on a given site and the rest makes me want to disassociate myself.

Quite frankly this whole thing sucks. I don't like it much at all. I am reacting in ways I see as reasonable to the world I live in. Maybe this wouldn't be a concern if I was an insurance adjuster in Omaha or an auto mechanic in Missoula but I am not.

Looking for the clouds silver lining I see two good parts to this whole thing. First I am not going away. I have had a couple of moments where I seriously considered it recently but after reflection this path seems to make more sense. I derive a lot of happiness from writing and reading the writing of others. There would be a real hole in my life without it. Secondly and more significantly this whole unpleasant thing has lead to serious reconsideration about what this blog is and where it is going. By ditching unproductive spin offs the blog is leaner and meaner. My available time will be more focused on the core mission instead of sifting through announcements about somebody's frickin Mafia Wars or Farmville. My core mission here is that I want to chronicle and otherwise talk about getting into better shape, becoming more financially secure and all around better prepared. I would like you guys to do the same thing with me so we are all more prepared for a very uncertain future.

Fitness

I started a new work out program today. Not exactly sure quite how I would classify it. As a co worker pointed out nobody really has a corner on most of these ideas anyway so it doesn't matter. Once I really figure out what I am doing it may get written about.

This should be good.

Finally a Modular System That Fits My Needs

3 Things You Can Do That Cost Nothing

So much in preparedness costs money be it saving, storing food, whatever. It is great to say you can do all this stuff by changing your lifestyle and to some degree that is true. However seeing as most people are not willing to significantly adjust their lifestyles it is not an accurate statement. Buying more or less what you already consume and some more stuff on top of that takes more money. Money is probably the biggest single limiting factor in most peoples preparedness efforts.

I got to thinking about stuff we can do that costs nothing. Two things came to mind immediately and I sorta tossed a third in.

The first thing is physical fitness. Yeah it probably helps to have a decent pair of running shoes and access to gym equipment is good also. However for lots of people who have no physical fitness plan and are in horrible shape though just doing some brisk walking, body weight exercises and a few pull ups goes a long way.  I think physical fitness is definitely the most ignored and under rated effort in preparedness. Along those lines showing a bit of self control in terms of what and how much you eat is essential.

Next is taking care of your chompers. At least brush your teeth and floss regularly. That is just too easy. Dental visits cost money (or insurance usually costs money) so it doesn't fit the bill of this but probably are a good idea also. Brushing and flossing regularly goes a long way. Also avoid excessive amounts of sugary stuff which will help get you in better shape anyway.

The last thing is to keep some cash on hand. I got to thinking if this really fits my "no cost" parameter. I believe it does because everybody over 18 or so should have at least a few hundred bucks sitting around. If you honestly do not have a few hundred bucks sitting around I urge you to strongly reconsider your lifestyle and get your stuff together. Take part of those few hundred dollars every adult should have and keep it at home. It is the same $300 or whatever but just in the form of mixed bills at your house instead of the bank. With today's insanely low interest rates there is little incentive to not have some cash at home.

So get yourself in shape, take care of your teeth and keep some cash at home. Too easy.

Product Review and Give Away

Our friends at World Info CD wanted to send me their Disaster Survival & Preparadness DVD to check out. Seeing as they pay me money and I was sort of curious I said or course. I got an envelope in the mail surprisingly fast.

When I opened the envelope and  case I was initially impressed that it the DVD has a very nice professional label. This is a real nice product and is characteristic of the attention to detail put into their work.

I put the DVD in and the menu immediately popped up. I started clicking through it and I was quite impressed. First of all it is very intuitive and easy to navigate. The main menu has a list of subjects ranging from general survival to food storage to terrorism. Each of those links takes you to a huge list of resources. There is all sorts of neat stuff under each subject. A truly massive amount of information including pictures and videos. Best of all a lot of this stuff was brand new to me! Survival and preparedness are obviously a topic that interests me and I am a pretty prolific reader so this pleasantly surprised me. I don't know where they got it all it but they did.

There are real short basic articles that would give you a basic introduction to a topic as well as very in detail books and manuals. The volume and variety of information ensures that anybody will see some things that are new to them. Some stuff is public domain type and there is stuff those folks did themselves. Some of it is very strait forward and factual and other stuff has some opinions to it. I really appreciated that they were quite clear about which was which.

I would like to go more into detail about what I learned from the DVD but to be honest I am overwhelmed with the sheer amount of data on so many subjects. Saw a couple things I will definitely go back and read later.

The last thing I looked at was the cost. I was pleasantly surprised that the DVD costs just a nickel under 9 bucks delivered to your front door. Can you find some of the information contained on this DVD around the net for free, yes. However I don't have a clue where you would find a good chunk of it. Also like a lot of things there is a question of convenience vs expense. I don't know about you but I do not have a huge amount of free time and thus I consider my time worth something. If you consider your time worth say .25 cents (let alone more!) an hour I don't think you could find much of this stuff online before it would make more sense to buy the DVD.

Now comes the give away part. Our friends at World Info CD are going to give a reader the DVD I just reviewed. Just leave a comment saying you would like to win this cool product. In two days I will pick a winner randomly and they will just need to send me an email with the address to ship it to.

Manliest Thing I've Seen in Awhile

Apparently Vladimir Putin hunts bears shirtless.

Katrina and Law Enforcement/ Medical Personnel

I had a interesting conversation with a fellow from work today. He was in the 82nd Airborne and went down to Katrina. He said it was pretty crazy and coming from a guy who has seen the elephant that means a lot. They took and returned contact around famous historic areas we have all heard of. I could talk more about that but it doesn't bring any real lessons; except that if people were crazed/ angered/ stupid enough to shoot at a bunch of guys in uniforms with guns they would surely shoot at a couple random people.

That wasn't the really interesting part. When the guy observed that he saw precisely one local cop the whole time somebody else said more or less "it would take a lot to go to work when your family was in that mess".  Seriously a whole lot of people died of all sorts of causes. Given the delayed response, the conditions bodies were in as well as the rapid cleanup I am not convinced we will ever know the true number of people who died violently. That got me to thinking about what I would have done.

First I thought the point was mute because Wifey and Walker and the cats would be watching the whole thing from a motel room or a friend/relatives house several hundred miles inland away from the whole mess. Seriously the first rule of surviving a disaster is to not be there in the first place. Especially in that scenario there was ample time to leave if you had any motivation. We would have rapidly (in a pre planned manner) packed a vehicle with all the essential stuff like some food and water, a few jerry cans, important papers and pictures, compact and high value items such as electronics, guns, etc and sent her on her way. If possible we would go together but if I had a job that prevented it she would have gone alone or with some friends. Her and the trusted family from down the block would probably travel together. I would have the majority of our supplies due to necessity and bulk so I would be well situated in terms of food, water filtration, and whatever else didn't fit in the vehicle. I would keep a couple guns (a spare pistol, a shotgun and a rifle come to mind) with ammo.  With Wifey safe I could do what I had to do. Now if it was an unexpected event that would not allow Wifeys convenient and safe evacuation the situation becomes a lot more complicated.

The bottom line is that in a widespread disaster many police, fire fighters and medical personnel will be calling in sick. You will be truly on your own. Just get that in your head and prepare accordingly.

Welcome to the Jungle

Gold Is Safe and Stable?

Is gold really a safe and stable investment? Well I guess that is two separate questions. Is gold safe? Gold is safe in the respect that there is no counter party. Gold is safe in that the price is not reasonably going to drop to zero. An ounce of gold is going to continue to be an ounce of gold regardless of outside factors. However this misses the primary point which is being able to trade that gold for goods and services you want and need. It doesn't matter that an ounce of gold is an ounce of gold, it matters what that ounce of gold will buy you. We have this very convenient way of telling what something is worth called money. The beauty of the free market is that large groups of people making individual transactions "set" the price of a given item be it butter, eggs, gold or whatever. Some prices are relatively stable and others vary wildly. Gold is one of those that varies wildly.

It is true that over a very long time gold has been very good at holding its value. If you wanted to bury a capsul to pick up 75 or 150 years from now gold would be a good thing to put into it. Who knows if a given kind of currency will still be around but people have considered the shiny yellow stuff valuable for a long time.

However most of us don't live all that long. Figuring one would probably need to be in their teens or even twenties to have a decent enough job to buy some gold we are looking at not all that many decades.

Over the short term gold prices swing radically. It is interesting that folks who talk about the dollar having 3% annual inflation (just to make up a number) making it totally worthless and unstable seem to think gold which can regularly swing far more than that in a day is just fine. Take a look at the chart above. You will see that somebody who bought gold in about 1980 would have had to wait almost thirty years to sell it and break even and that is BEFORE FACTORING IN INFLATION.

It is simply not accurate to say that gold is always worth the same and the dollar just moves around. Over the long run that might be true (the comparison of a silver dollars value from 1913 to now and inflation is interesting) but not over months or years or even decades. If you look at any of the huge swings gold has made there is just no way to honestly say the real value of a dollar (in terms of what it will get you) changed that much that fast. If the price of gold plummets as it has a couple times that gold will be worth less money if you sell it or fewer goods and services if you barter it.



In my personal opinion there is no way you can consider gold as being stable.
There is sort of a cop out in some circles that every time gold drops in value it is a buying opportunity and every time the price goes up it is a sign they are right.

Some people make money buying gold when the prices are low and selling it when the prices are high just like any other commodity or stock. Also some people make a great living acting or talking on the radio or playing a sport but that doesn't mean I am capable of doing the same.


I am not saying gold is bad. In fact I am fiddling with an old European coin right now, it is sort of my thinking piece. I like gold as an insurance policy. If things go all inflationary or even worse it is going to be worth something. I fall into a buy and hold camp with gold (and silver). I don't put money into gold that I ever plan to use for something else. That gold is going to sit there and occasionally get fiddled with until either I need that "insurance" or I die. I buy it regularly and slowly it is accumulating. The price of gold in terms of currency or by default the goods and services it would get me doesn't matter. I am aware of "spot price" because it lets me know how much and how often I can buy plus it is sort of an interesting economic indicator. Right now in case you missed it the indicator is that people are very scared.

As for people who see massive inflation coming and want to sock every dime they have into shiny metals. I dunno.  I would say that most of the time putting all your eggs into one basket is usually not the best idea. First of all if you want to become more secure then try to get out of debt or at least pay down the nasty high interest consumer stuff. You might want to consider looking at non US stock/ investment options. Pick a part of the world (Asia maybe) and stash some bucks in funds or stocks  of companies there. If you have big money then real estate is a very good choice. A small condo or house or maybe even apartment complex purchased free and clear that can be rented is probably the best way as you get income now and eventually there may be appreciation in a sale.

For a person who was sure there is going to be high inflation over a long period splitting their given wad of cash between precious metals, non dollar denominated or foreign investments and maybe real estate is probably better both in terms of returns and stability than just putting everything into the shiny stuff.

Thoughts?

Fantasy vs Reality

It occurred to me just a minute ago how much of a role fantasy plays in survivalism/ preparedness.

Part of it is that while we don't want to admit it preparedness is in many ways a hobby. Yeah it could be real important some day but on a normal everyday basis it is a thing we allocate resources and time to because it gives us enjoyment/ entertainment in some form or another. In that respect it is not so different than being in a softball league or bass fishing or stamp collecting or any other hobby. Seriously you can sharp shoot that statement all day long but it has at least some truth.

We can also want to be vindicated and thus entertain very specific worst case scenarios that let what we like and prepare for shine. A guy with a super fancy tricked out rifle envisions it saving his life and whatever. A guy with a closet full of Mosin Nagants imagines arming/ forming a large neighborhood guard or a militia. An avid gardener imagines their massive crop feeding the whole neighborhood. A person with great preps envisions being able to be the neighborhood hero. Somebody who has an awesome "retreat" but debt up to their eyeballs sees things falling apart and them being in a great position.

More concerning is the inverse of this fantasy worst case scenario. Simply put by focusing too heavily on this tailor made scenario they ignore a variety of other scenarios, much to their detriment. The guy with a super fancy rifle who also doesn't have any food ignores the possibility that we will not be attacked by a bunch of thugs and will sit there bored and very hungry. Instead of another sweet mil spec wanna be accessory he should get some frickin food. The very nice friendly gardener lady (The ones who go whole hog preparedness but totally ignore defense tend to be women) ignores the distinct possibility that she could need to protect herself from violence or theft. Somebody might want all of her food instead of a basket full or they might even want her. Instead of another garden bed she should buy and learn to use a defensive firearm. The guy with a basement full of preps doesn't have any savings. He somehow sees complex and unlikely worst case scenarios playing out but not say an unexpected emergency car or home repair. I wonder how these guys plan to push a homeless guy cart around with a years worth of food and a dozen guns in it after a fairly normal life event leads to their financial situation falling apart. 

The guy with the awesomely setup and well stocked retreat but debt up to his eyeballs sees scenarios where his debt is almost magically washed away but he still has all the cool stuff and preps. This guy is probably the most idealistic and fantasy fueled of all. He is almost wishing for (a narrowly and conveniently defined) TEOTWAWKI. He talks about how the "sheeple" will get their due and he will finally get to live free and untroubled by money concerns. He really thinks it would be great to not have to pay back the guys who loaned him the money for the land and the house and all the stuff. He thinks about how his sucky money situation would be washed away but fails to see that in significant ways people who have never even heard of preparedness but just keep their financial houses in order are probably more likely in the long run to have good outcomes than he. Instead of looking at his massive mortgage (possible an ARM) he sees a wonderful "retreat" on a nice piece of productive land and instead of a huge visa bill he sees a pair of night vision goggles and a pair of cool rifles. 

When doing a final edit on this I  realized that in all but one of the above scenarios the individual was specifically identified as a man. This wasn't conscious but is definitely significant. Upon 5 seconds of reflection I realize something. Aside from the (predominantly liberal and pseudo environmentalist) woman who make great preparations in many ways but completely ignore protecting themselves; women tend to take a pragmatic and realistic stance toward preparedness. It is us guys who seem to fall into these at least partially fantasy fueled preparations.

I am certainly not going to claim perfection. I have fallen into a stereotype or two myself as I started with a pretty solid gun collection and went from there. However as time goes by I am allocating a majority of my resources in a more reasonable manner which is the goal.

It is fine to day dream now and then. Just don't take the next step and focus too heavily on scenarios that involve buying toys you like, hobbies you enjoy or happen to just work out real conveniently for you. At a minimum at least consider your vulnerability to scenarios that do not happen to be tailor made to your interests and position. I urge you to be realistic and prepare for a variety of scenarios, not just the one that happens to be convenient and ideal.

A Bit Of Sharing

This has been asked a couple times recently. I have mentioned work but not necessarily in an explicit manner. I used to be enlisted and then became an officer. Well now you know.

One Thing That Has Been Bothering Me

Why is it that some folks seem to think the first thing to do if you get into survivalism as an adult is to pull every penny you have out of retirement and put it into preps? It reads like a worn out record. "I saw the light and immediately pulled every penny I had out of retirement and bought food, guns, etc."

This bothers me for a lot of reasons. First it is more emotional than rational. People see (legitimately) a threat and this is their knee jerk reaction. Just like a super fast halfway from the hip "point shot" it is almost always a miss. To continue my shooting analogy they would be better off to get a half a shooting stance or at least bring the gun level and the front sight onto the target before squeezing the trigger.

Second I have an issue with this plan because it is almost binary. It eludes to there being only two options, normal life and TEOTWAWKI. The unfortunate fact is that life is not that simple. You can definitely get a mix. A great example is Katrina. I am sorry to tell you this but in terms of realistic worst case 'survivalist' scenarios this is about as bad as it gets. For several weeks things were completely screwed. Not killing your neighbor over Krispix or all Mad Max but pretty screwed all the same. Assuming he wasn't stupid enough to stay right on the coast or in New Orleans proper a guy who had enough food and water to be comfortable and maybe some to share with the neighbors, batteries to run a radio and a couple flashlights and a couple guns with some spare ammo things were manageable. After awhile things got back to normal. In 20 years that guy who was well rewarded for having plenty of food, water, fuel, a couple/ few guns and ammo is going to sure want to stop working. So for a period your life can be completely screwed and then it can go back to normal.


As much as it is nice to think you will be richly rewarded for cases upon cases of canned food and rows full of buckets of dried goods and cases of ammo that may not be the case. Food and bullets are great and all but will not pay a mortgage or property taxes or buy a tank of gas. Do consider the question of "what will this do to me if the world doesn't end?"

I do not gamble. Not saying you are bad if you do but it just isn't me. Even aside from all games being rigged to give the house an edge it just isn't me. For example if you think it is 51% likely that the world will genuinely end is it smart to put your whole darn nest egg towards that? What about that other 49%. However if you honestly believe 51% that a full on genuine end of the world Mad Max scenario is going to happen I would submit that either you have a screw loose or have some information (prison planet type stuff doesn't count) I have not seen. Our world might get a bit crazy now and then or even change in significant ways but digging a fighting position in the front yard or bayoneting your neighbor to protect your canned goods is probably not so likely.

Any financial adviser worth the title will say that unless you can absolutely avoid it raiding retirement accounts is the absolute last thing you want to do. While it is true that I would not ask their opinions on storing wheat in buckets or pooing in a bucket I also think it is equally imprudent to let a survivalist tell you what to do with your money or how to plan for retirement.  Of course a "survival expert" will say you should put all your eggs into that. Kinda how guys who work at Motor Trend probably think you should spend more money on a car than is prudent or guys from Gaming Laptop probably like gigabytes and ram more than they do your pocket book.

Of course if you have a few bucks just sitting around putting it towards preps isn't a bad idea. Raiding the money you plan to live on in old age however is just a bad idea. For most people the money maker is going to be selling off unnecessary toys (swap an old dirt bike for a good rifle, etc) and cutting/ changing your lifestyle to create money to go towards preparedness.

I plan for things going all crazy AND the world going on more or less normally with me getting older and wanting to work less or not at all. I think you should do the same.

Batching It

Wifey is going home for about 3 weeks. She is going to see family and just kinda hang out. I am really glad we are in a place where she can do that. It helps a bit with being so far away from home.

Anyway it will just be the cats and I for awhile. Work will take up a lot of my time which will help. Other than that I have some projects in mind to help fill the time after work and weekends. Plan to set up the Grundig in the living room and listen to it a lot.

So I guess you should expect to hear from me a lot for awhile.

Take care of each other

TOR in 20 years

Semi-Literate Former Gold Prospector Given Own Cable News Show

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

It was a pretty crazy week at work for me. However I did get some stuff done all the same. Bought a gold coin and a bit of silver which is always good. Also got to fiddling with the Eneloop batteries which I am glad about.  Got to mess with the charger next week and sooner or later figure out a rechargeable D battery solution. I will have to do some research on the matter.

Also I got a CAT Tourniquet which is just a good thing to have lying around.  At some point I will build full on IFAK style trauma first aid kits for us but at this point I am just picking stuff up one piece at a time.

Wifey and I took some time to talk about our long term financial goals. As things get further out in the future they become a lot more broad and conceptual. Instead of "buy a $300 gently used couch" it is more like "pay off mortgage at accelerated rate" or save lots of money. Anyway we came up with long term goals we are both comfortable with so that was good.

Listened to the Worldband Radio some this week which is always fun.

What did you do to prepare this week?

Little Bit of Life: The Dreams We Were Sold and Reality

This relates to a series of posts I did awhile back (1, 2, 3). My Generation of mid 20 somethings to 30ish were largely sold a pack of exaggerations and outright lies by our parents, teachers and society at large. We were told that the roads are paved in gold and if we get a college degree or a skilled trade (mostly a degree) it is going to be easy and we will quickly settle into very comfortable lives a la the American Dream.

My values and beliefs do not allow me to absolve people of responsibility for their actions.  Somebody who chooses to go to a private school and take 50k in loans to get a degree that correlates with a job whose starting salary is 27k is in a tough spot of their own choosing. A person who makes 30k somehow got a loan for a 350k home then go figure can't pay it is a fool who deserves their misfortune.

It is hard to look beyond what most parents, almost all teachers and society tells us. Especially for teenagers who are sold a dream of how awesome a private college, or college at all it is hard to see the truth.

The thing is that baring programs at a few elite schools which get you internships that lead to crazy high starting salaries things aren't cake, even for those who manage to leave college with that piece of paper. When people graduate or otherwise enter what I call the big boy job market there is a choice. You can get stuff/ whatever rather quickly by borrowing money or you can wait and slowly accumulate things by paying cash.

A person with a normal albeit modest starting salary who goes out and buys a new average but respectable car (Honda Civic, Toyota, etc) and furnishes their apartment/ townhouse on a store card then gets a nice entertainment system on a payment plan will have some nice things 2 months into their job. However they will be paying for those things forever with lots of interest. Also they will be so busy paying all those loans, not to mention their student loans as well as rent, food, utilities, insurance, etc. That means instead of getting ahead they are just trying to catch up to the stuff they don't need they already have bought.

If you follow this blog halfway you already guessed we went the cash route. I am not going to lie it kinda sucks. There are times I get pretty down on the whole thing. Some days the knowledge that you are making the right move doesn't matter much when you have a hard time getting your piece of S car to sputter its way to work, come home after a long day to sit on a beat up hand me down couch your parents bought 25 years ago and try to watch a piece of junk TV without a remote control. I work hard and save and don't have much to show for it. You worked hard to get through school and get a solidly respectable job, made the right choices and things just come so darn slowly.

 Life is so often two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back. We scrimped and saved for a long time to have a half of a decent emergency fund. Wifeys car died and that cash became a low end used car. That used car four hundred dollar'ed us a couple times and then proved entirely unreliable and died. So we had no emergency fund AND no second car. We started saving again and finally built up a comfortable 3 month emergency fund. We then saved up and bought a decent used car which should run well for a long time. We put money aside every month for furniture and slowly but surely our house is filling up with halfway decent stuff. In a year or so it won't look like a college kid apartment anymore. At least in our life things are slowly but surely coming together.

We are now focused on getting my student loan wiped out in about one year instead of the projected three. In the last two years we will save what was going to the loan and that will be a solid down on a modest home. We will then work to pay that home off at an accelerated rate as well as saving and other such stuff.

Even though it sucks some days I like that we only have one outstanding debt. Student loans suck but since it got me into a job with a solidly decent income and benefits it was a worthwhile investment. No car payments and couch payments and TV payments or whatever. Of course I would love if things could go faster but I am happy with the direction we are moving in.

As a final thought if we look at history with some perspective we are all just a bunch of whiners; blah blah blah it takes a long time to pay off a student loan or yadda yadda yadda I can't afford a 4,000 square foot mansion on a janitors salary, I can't afford to buy a fancy boat and lastly, I never saved anything and now at 60 when I want to retire it is somebody else's fault. Seriously do a little bit of reading or just google terms like siege, crop failure, famine and black death. Heck take a walk in an old cemetery (pre 1900ish) and read some headstones. I do not know a family who lost 5 kids to cholera or was wiped out by smallpox or influenza or starved to death in a famine. Seriously we have it pretty darn good.

Too good to pass up

There is more truth in this than I am willing to admit...

Weakness in the Australian Dollar

I was catching up on Claire Wolfe's blog and saw this. Pretty interesting.

Read This

FerFal wrote something awhile back that says a thought of mine better than I could.

One thing I do to keep things strait is to kinda mentally divide investment and preparation type stuff. Investments are something I do with my money to put it to work making more money (value). If I get enough of my money working I can sit back and do what I like. Preparations are a form of insurance to me. A thing I do to try and keep Wifey and I alive if things get crazy.

Battery Semi Failure

I have been feeling kind of out of sorts when it comes to preparedness and the blog for awhile now. Just kinda in a funk if you will. I think it has shown in my writing too. I have been doing this whole blogging thing for awhile and this happens sometimes.  If it goes on for a short period I just plod forward (even hobbies aren't constantly fun in every way, they just have to even out to be a majority of fun) in the normal fashion. If it goes past that stage which I think it did a couple weeks ago I have to break out of that stagnation by getting back to concrete preparedness. Often for me somehow these stagnation's correspond with getting away from concrete preparedness and towards more conceptual type stuff.

I seem to do best all around when I do stuff and write about it or what I think about it. Of course I enjoy writing about work stuff which interests you guys and analyzing news and fun debates but those are really more of side dishes.  

Anyway I felt the need to  do something. As it is late and I wasn't feeling THAT motivated it had to be something already lying around the house. I remembered a box full of Eneloop batteries that have been doing nothing. I went and dumped it out on the bed. My intent was to discharge some of the batteries (they come already charged) and then when it gets sunny use my also untested Bruton solar charger to recharge them.

I got to thinking about what stuff I have around that would discharge batteries the fastest. I figured my big d cell Mag Light would be it. That was also a happy coincidence because I also wanted to fiddle with the AA-D spacer/ adapter things I got. In past talks people suggested I just get AA's and spacers/ adapter thingies instead of D sized rechargeable batteries. It made sense as well as being logistically simple and cheap so I went that route. Tossed some AA's into the thingies and put them into the Mag Light and got nothing.

Fiddled with it some more and still nada. The Mag Light would run with 2 normal D batteries and one of these AA's in a spacer but now 2 AA's with spacers and one normal D battery. I thought this was peculiar but not a big deal. I grabbed one of the LED lanterns we keep near the bed for when the power goes out. These things are energy sippers and last about a million hours on 3 D batteries. Put them in and NADA.

I got curious if these batteries were charged at all. Grabbed my electric electric shaver and threw a pair of AA's in. It ran fine which confirmed that they were charged.

This leaves me a bit confused and perturbed. I am confused because I don't understand what the problem is. Honestly I know essentially nothing about electricity or batteries. Am I doing something wrong or does the whole using a spacer/ adapter to have AA's in a D cell item idea just not work? Also about half of our significant battery powered stuff runs on D cells so this is not cool. 

Ideas or suggestions?

RE: Everybody Draw Muhammad Day

ReeBz said...
According to the dictionary of "Oxford University Press"- "Oxford guide to British and American culture", Freedom of speech is :"The right to express any opinions in public. This right became part of American law under the "First Amendment". If the opinions expressed are false or damage a person's reputation,however that person can take legal action under US law. In Britain people are free to express most opinions,but it is against the law to express some ideas,e.g ideas that aim to cause RACIAL hatred."

All those who are defending the "draw Muhammad day" because of freedom of speech then they must learn that freedom of speech has certain limits too. it doesn't mean that you start jumping on others necks or you start humiliating them.

If the cartoon is just cartoon for you, then wait let me draw a very offensive and humiliating cartoon of yours,when you will be sparked with anger I will slap hard on your face and say "hey dude, do not be angry. Its freedom of speech." Same is the case now, first Molly Norris drew images for south park, when she was threatened by the Muslims which was of course natural and reasonable, followers of Molly Norris started a terrible contest on the name of freedom of speech. Shame on All! If hurting some ones sentiments is freedom of speech then m sure no one will mind if we draw same dirty, offensive images of yours.

OK, TOR here. As you might imagine I have a response to this. First I am pretty amazed that somebody from Pakistan read my blog. Seriously it is a small world these days. Anyway it is interesting that I wrote a whole post to go with the advertisement for draw Muhammad day. I decided not to publish it to keep things civil and avoid argument and such. Looks like that is out the window.

Not going to lie I read this in the morning and am replying later on my lunch hour. Sometimes it is better to cool down and write with a clear head. I will try hard to avoid personal attacks or attacks on religion.

Here is the American First Amendment- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. It is a  very complex amendment but among other things it says you can pray however you want, whenever you want and to whomever you want and I can say what I want. The concept in Britain that some speech should be banned or censured because people don't like it does not apply in America. We are different countries. In fact America fought a war with them in order to be able to make our own laws. Also I would point out that Muslims are not a race.


As to our First Amendment there is an interesting court case you should read called Hustler Magazine vs. Falwell.

The whole point of FREEDOM OF SPEECH is precisely that it does not have limits. Of course you can't slander people or yell fire in a crowded theater but other than that go for it. I can say whatever I want and so can you. In America I have to put up with the stupid opinions of all sorts of idiots saying ridiculous things. Some of their opinions anger and offend me. However everybody else has to put up with the stupid stuff that comes out of my mouth too. That is called freedom.

It is just fine to me if you do not want to draw Muhammad or not drink alcohol or eat bacon or whatever. I do not seek to impose my beliefs on you through force or any other way. Heck I won't even try through the free exchange of ideas. However I will be damned if I will let you force your opinions on me. As long as I follow the laws of my country (or wherever I happen to be) and don't harm anyone I will do exactly what I want, including drawing Muhammad.

You said "If the cartoon is just cartoon for you, then wait let me draw a very offensive and humiliating cartoon of yours,when you will be sparked with anger I will slap hard on your face and say "hey dude, donot be angry. its freedom of speech" " I am just fine with you drawing a picture of me or Christ or whomever you please. First I am fine with it because I believe in free speech. Secondly I have a sense of perspective and don't get my panties in a bunch every time somebody says or does a thing I do not like. Lastly I am fine with it because I just don't care at all about you or anything you do. You can die tomorrow or live forever, I am ambivalent. As a great quote said more or less "my freedom to swing my arm around ends when it hits someones nose."

"Same is the case now, first Molly Norris drew images for South Park, when she was threatened by the Muslims which was of course natural and reasonable" Here is where you really loose me. Your desire to force your views on others through the implicit threat of violence is not so cool. Do you think it is acceptable for everybody to do that or just Muslims, or just you? What if 10 men with guns came to your home and said if you continue to practice Islam they will do horrible things to you and kill your family? Would that be natural and reasonable?

There is no shame on all. SHAME ON YOU! Also shame on all those who try to force their views, religious or otherwise, onto other people through the threat of violence. 

Draw whatever you like and I will darn sure do the same.

Have a good day

Ryan

Please note I would never want my readers share whatever views they have on this comment to its authors email (simplicity.my.charm@gmail.com) or at its authors blog.

Everybody Draw Muhammad Day

Wrote a post to go with this and decided to skip it. The picture really speaks for itself.

Tomorrow I will draw Muhammad.

Got To Make A Living

Our friend Wyn Boniface wrote something the other day that reminded me of a boring and harshly realistic fact. People talk about all sorts of criteria for where to move and how they are moving to 90 miles due west of BFE, Idaho/ Wyoming/ wherever. We look at all sorts of different stuff. Rawls's acronym WALLS (water, access, location, light, security) is great for analyzing an individual piece of land.

The thing is that it doesn't matter if you find the perfect place to ride out the end of the world unless you can make a living. Unless you are retired AND can afford to pay cash for the place you need income. I urge people to have a realistic plan about how they are going to pay the bills because you need money even out in the hinder boonies. Living at the most ideal place to ride out the end of the world where you can support yourself is probably a reasonable choice.

The New Supreme Court

With the nomination of Elena Kagan to the SCOUS, for the first time, we might have a Court without a single Protestant... Or will we? According to CNN, 6 Catholics + 3 Jews = 9 Protestants. According to CNN, Catholics and Jews think the same as Protestants, so it is really a Protestant court.

This is bullshit. Now, I am not Jewish, but I am a Catholic, and I can say that Catholics are not Protestants. To begin, Protestants focus on individual systems of belief. Each individual reads the Bible, and comes to his or her own determination of what it means, and what lessons are to be learned. Catholics differ in two regards here. First, Catholics read the Bible, but also look to dogma and tradition. Second, the Holy Mother Church sets guidelines for interpretation, with the Pope having final say over theological arguments.

I don't need to remind people of the history between Catholics and Protestants, let alone the history between Christians and Jews. Basically, anyone saying that Catholics and Protestants are the same ought to spend a weekend in Northern Ireland.

Now lets look at the Court. Stevens is the only Protestant. He is on the far left frienge of interepretation, feeling unbound by stare decisis (tradition) or by rules of interpretation (dogma). At the other end of the spectrum on the Court are the Textualists, and Originalists. This is composed of Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and Roberts, all Catholics. They are strict observers of tradition, and dogma.

It should be noted that this is not a totally accurate reflection of the Court. Sotomayor is a Catholic, and is a left winger, much like Stevens. The Jews on the Court tend to also move to the left. However, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum, it is clear that at least the Catholic are not Protestants.

Buy American

Golden Thoughts

It is about precious metals buying time at the TOR house. Gold isn't cheap and shipping costs add up so we seem to purchase PM's about quarterly.  We dollar cost average more or less buying roughly the same amount of metals at consistent intervals. Prices just seem to keep going up. I am not smart enough to say why they are going up or where they will go.People talk about putting your money where your mouth is and I am still buying. If worst case in a few years or a decade or two the price has dropped I will be content to laugh about it.

I was thinking about exactly what kind of precious metals to buy. It is hard to compare prices, especially when you start looking at various fractional stuff that doesn't compare readily. It is really interesting to compare what the cost of an ounce of gold or silver costs in a certain coin. Seriously, go to wherever you buy PM's and use a calculator to figure out the real price some time. It is pretty interesting.

I can not help but have this be a reminder that the types of coins and bullion many "experts" push so hard are the most expensive options. If I was a cynical person I would say their advice is driven by motivation for profit not your well being.

Some other people suggest the same kinds of coins and bullion without any financial stake in it. I don't know if they are right or wrong but at least their advice seems genuine.

Personally I lean towards fractional government minted gold coins because they are the cheapest way to buy gold in smaller quantities. The price differences can be quite significant. An ounce worth of roughly 1/4 ounce fractional gold coins can cost almost a hundred dollars less than an ounce of 1/4 ounce Eagles.  Unless I can find a dealer who sells 90% at sane prices I buy one ounce rounds. Considering these are coins of non numismatic value essentially we are just buying the gold or silver in them. Since with these coins the purity and such are consistent (if in different in some coins but you know what it is) why would you want to pay more that necessary for a given amount?

I can see the benefit of getting relatively common coins (gold or silver) and ones in smaller sizes which would be useful for those little everyday transactions. When it comes to convenient to figure fractions I am less sure. To rephrase that I am not sure how much of a premium I would be willing to pay for a round number. It is interesting to me that the people who suggest buying only American Gold Eagles and Canadian Maples because of their convenient fractions also suggest pre '64 90% silver coins which are decisively not in convenient to figure with fractions. Not going to say somebody is wrong for thinking either of those are desirable but they are among the most expensive ways to buy gold and silver respectively.

Well I need to go to bed now.

Later

Priorities

Today was one of those days. I got off work and it was dark which is is pretty bad since it is spring. Tomorrow starts early and everything will be completely ridiculous. Oh well.

Anyway sometimes in life you just can't get everything done. I've had a few moments like this in work lately. You just have to take a cold calculated look at things and decide what to do and by default what to blow off. I must say it is a very weird thing to come to the harsh realization you can't do everything and intentionally decide which to blow off.

Case in point. I have to be at work in 7.5 hours and I posted something on here. However it was pretty short, to the point and literally the first thing that popped into my head.

Just do the best you can with what you have.

quote of the day

"I wish that I was being overly vague because I’m not allowed to write about time lines for redeployment. In reality, they haven’t told me anything."
-A Military Guy I know.

There is one thing I can add to his quote. With time and observation/ experience I gain on "The Dark Side" I am beginning to realize that it isn't so much that the people at the top don't share plans with their subordinates; more that there is no plan or the plan fell apart and they are just figuring it out the best they can right then.

quote of the day

"I’ve said before that I don’t think most of us will face what I call the “George Romero Scenario” — starving zombie hordes battering down our doors in desperate search of our dried lentils and pre-1964 silver quarters. But we clearly have some hell to go through." 
-Claire Wolfe

Score!

I have been trying to order a darn beer brewing kit for awhile now. Nobody will ship to an APO for less than 100% of the cost of the darn kit. Jen said Mother In Law might be willing to just re ship it for me. She asked a couple minutes ago (they do weekly Sunday phone calls) and MIL said no she would not do that. The reason she will not do that is because that is what she is getting me for my birthday!

I feel bad for people who really don't get along with their Mother In Law. Mine is pretty frickin awesome.

Now I will take the cash that was going for a beer brewing kit and put it towards something else. I will have to think about that for a day or two. Either spare parts or mags as they are the last two relatively big things I want to get this year. It is probably a decently good sign that I am rapidly approaching the end of my years goals at about the halfway point. Either that or I low balled the whole thing.

Anyway MIL is awesome and stuff. Also I'm gonna brew beer.

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

It was a pretty busy weekend here. We did all sorts of shopping for great deals. Got cases of paper towels and toilet paper and cereal and brownie mix and some other stuff at awesome prices. Also got a used $4 Coleman battery lamp. When I got it home it didn't work but I will see what can be done at some point. We needed to pick up some more batteries and since AA's were on a great sale we got 3 big packs instead of 1.

Today was a cleaning day and that included the medicine closet. We got everything organized and put it back into there in an organized manner. Stuff was all over the place now we have shelves for preparedness stuff/ first aid, Wifey's 'essentials', over the counter medicine and extra hygiene stuff . This let me get a good look at what we have and also what we do not. It was helpful that I had a piece of paper and a pen there to write down gaps I noticed in our inventory. I will take that list to the store this week and pick that stuff up.

Ordered a pair of new boots. My old Altama Exospeeds are still in fine condition but are getting to the point where they are not cosmetically fit for work. They will become dedicated ruck marching/ backup boots. They are still plenty good for functional use and good to keep around.

We realized a couple of holes in our preps that need to be addressed. Every sort of life change leads to new preparedness needs. I will write more about that later as those holes get plugged.

Also I started a spreadsheet for stuff to get. Seeing how useful they can be at work I want to use that same technology at home. It will probably take a long time to get that figured out so it is halfway useful but small steps are still useful.

What did you do to prepare this week?

Jericho and a Random Thoughts

I recently picked up Season One of Jericho off the DVD rack and watched it again. I enjoyed it immensely on the nice new TV. Yeah since it was network TV there wasn't cannibalism, gang rape and massive violence but it was still good. Sorta got my thinking shaken up a bit. Even despite ones best intentions to prepare for a variety of scenarios it's easy to slip into worrying about just one thing. I will order Season Two on the next Amazon order. TV here isn't so good and that is a lot of entertainment for about $20. These days I am honestly more worried about economic troubles and inflation than anything else. Having my financial house in order, stashing some PM's and such consume the majority of my preparation type thoughts.

Jericho got me thinking about other scenarios. Not just the dreaded EMP but a variety of more generic survivalist scenarios. There are a few odds and ends we can use. A couple more cans of gas and some propane would be good. If nothing else we just need to stash more fuel to give the SUV a comparable range as we would have had in the gas sipping Jalopy. As it is bigger and would hold more stuff, plus is more reliable makes its default BOV status a non decision. I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where we would just drive somewhere but it is better to have the option. In that respect $100 will greatly increase our preparedness level.

Also I would like to pick up a couple more Mag Lights, the big 3 D cell ones with the new LED bulbs. Yeah surefires and LED flashlights in general have spun the flashlight world on its head. Our total amount of flashlights is quite comfortable now but I rather like these. Their biggest benefit might be being big enough that they are hard to lose and easy to find. Also they are pretty darn rugged and make a good discrete impact weapon. Some more bedding would be nice. We have a mish mash of different blankets and sleeping bags and such but a few wool blankets would be nice.

Reconsidering non economic/ inflationary scenarios a little bit is a good thing. 

Little Bit of Life

We were real busy today. Definitely the busiest non traveling weekend day in awhile. We got a whole bunch of super cheap used baby stuff. Everything is major brand (same stuff we would have gotten anyway) and in very good condition. We seem to be paying between 10 and 15 cents on the dollar. Of course we could buy the stuff new without it being an issue. That is because unlike so many young people these days we waited till a decent financial place to have a kid. However (except for safety stuff) I see no reason to shun perfectly good used stuff. As soon as Walked Texas Ranger slobbers, pees and barfs on a given item it is used so why not save the devaluation. Reality is that quite often people who can afford to not worry so much about the cost of stuff (because they make choices to earn a good living and spend below it) do worry about it and make intentional plans to put themselves in the best position possible.

We also got a great deal on a chest freezer. It might be a sign of adulthood but I am so excited about more freezer space. Now we can store more meat and other low frequency stuff (popsicles, breakfast sausage, hamburger and hot dog buns, etc) which will be super nice. Also instead of picking up 1 extra when there is a good deal we can now pick up 5. This will let us save even more money and keep more food around.

Wifey decreed that we are moving things around in our residence. It falls inside her area of responsibility so my only real function will be physically moving stuff to its new locations. On the plus side she decided that we need more shelving, like big industrial type metal shelves for the kitchen. First we can just use more space for food storage in the kitchen and second we need to improve the ability to organize and easily access food. It is generally easy to find the canned stuff you use often and thus keep around in quantity. Spaghetti sauce, rotel tomatoes, baked beans, tomato soup and such are easy to find. Laying your hands on that one can of a thing you hardly ever use but really want to make a recipe at 8 in the evening is a bit harder if it is buried in a cabinet. I've been thinking when we get more shelves having a dedicated random area will be good.

Tonight we got Chinese food which was very tasty.

The Euro tanking is nice. Well it is nice for me anyway as I'm paid in dollars. It is fair to say that the shift is more a realization of the Euro's weakness than the dollars strength reemerging. I don't know what will happen with Greece or Spain or the Euro Zone at large but it sure makes for interesting reading.

I haven't been on the world band in awhile. Will probably fire it up tomorrow night. That is all for now.

Take care of each other.

quote of the day

"I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros, and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers."
-Robert A. Hall read the rest here

Total Insanity In School

Teacher Apologizes for recorded beating of student, well that was nice of her. Seriously. I am a licensed teacher. How to fix our broken educational system is a long and complicated discussion and even then it's based on all manner of values and preconceived notions. However if teachers could just not have sex with or physically attack students that would be a good frickin start.  I don't think that is too much to ask. I get that teaching is a secure job with poor pay and thus attracts some mediocre and lowly motivated people but those two things seem solidly reasonable to me.

Interestingly enough I would give 13 year old boy (sorry ladies but when it comes to the physical capacity for combatives we are absolutely not created equal) a decent chance in the squared circle against an adult woman. Then again that boy would be greatly handicapped if his parents taught (rightly) not to fight with women.

Me thinks if some woman did this to our kid Wifey would beat her mercilessly. I mean like viral video ghetto  using their hair to bounce their head off the floor style. Then I would bail her out and it wouldn't go to trial because in any given group of 12 adults you could find one who wouldn't convict somebody who beat up a person that attacked their kid. If some dude beat up my kid I would feed them their teeth. I mean like Fight Club Angel Face style. Yeah we are both people who have the capacity for violence and are know firsthand what it takes to win fights.

Not beating up or having sex with under aged kids isn't too much to ask.

Ideal Times To Make Smart Intentional Choices

So much of what we talk about in terms of preparedness costs money. Not scrounging spare change from your ash tray to buy a 40 of Busch Light but real money. It is nice to say that you can just cut your expenses by doing basic prudent things and then there will be plenty of money for all sorts of preparedness. While more realistic than the spare change plan (though that's good for a 40 every other week or so) there is not that much wiggle room (well without the "have to have's" which back lots of folks into corners) in most peoples budgets.

Of course food bills can be cut as can entertainment and you can ditch the 900 channel cable and such without radically changing lifestyles there is a limit to what can be done. Maybe you want to radically change your lifestyle and maybe not. I can't suggest what you should do, that's on you. Substantially reallocating income you are used to having is quite hard and most people just won't do it. One could say they are sheeple who just want their stupid comforts and thus deserve any misfortune that may come their way. However I would submit that through this blog I interact with a lot of decisively non sheeple folks who aren't willing to radically change their lifestyles even to pursue goals they deem worthwhile.

However when writing an email to a friend today I realized something, well more that I realized something worth mentioning on here. To be blunt most of us spend or otherwise allocate (to savings, preps, whatever) every penny that comes in. As talked about before things have to add up. When you look at setting up an emergency fund or maybe buying a "retreat" or whatever those dollars have to come from somewhere.

The easiest resources to intentionally allocate are ones you aren't used to having! Starting out a job or getting a promotion is the perfect time to make a smart intentional choice. My Co Author Ryan just finished Law School. Soon he will be making significantly more than he has been. He will have the choice between living a low key lifestyle and being able to do some real good things or not. From what he has said in our conversations it will be more of the former than the latter. As his close lifelong friend I sincerely hope he makes the right choice.

Not long ago I got a nice raise. We could have increased our lifestyle and in 3-4 months life would be just the same albeit with a bit more fun money and a but less concern about the budget and a couple nicer things. We didn't do that. Instead we decided that making our lives better is more important than an extra dinner out now and then and some random stuff. We really wanted (not going to say NEED but darn close) a better and more reliable second vehicle. Prior to said raise we really wanted a more reliable second vehicle. Saving for it at a couple hundred bucks a month or whatever we could stash without really taking from other places would have taken roughly forever. Enter said raise. Around this time Wifey started working close to full time.

We took that money and put it away. A few months later we had enough to get a reliable second vehicle. Now we can take that percentage of our income and put it towards our next goal which is whipping my student loan and becoming entirely debt free. After that we will get to the next goal. It is a lot easier to make smart intentional choices if you don't have to worry about which part of your lifestyle or other current plans is going to have to be cut.

Next time you get a raise or a bonus or come into some money take a bit and do something fun that you otherwise wouldn't. Go out to a downright luxurious dinner or take a little trip or buy something you've been wanting and can't justify or whatever. Enjoy whatever you decide to do then put the majority of the money towards smart intentional choices to put you and your family in a better position. It is a lot easier to make what you know to be smart choices (buying stuff with cash, paying down debt, making an emergency fund, significant preparations, buying some land, whatever) with money you aren't used to having.

Take care of each other

Living In a Duel Currency World

I live in a duel currency world. I am paid in one currency and it isn't the currency of the country I live in. I routinely (if not constantly) carry 2 currencies and use them to buy goods and services in order to live my everyday life. Here are some random thoughts that come from these experiences.

This is one of the many things that Americans simply do not deal with. An American can live a normal life and just never come into contact with anything but good old US Dollars. America is a huge and powerful country. For a normal persons life in the US there (except paranoia or unorthodox financial transactions) is simply no need to hold anything but dollars.

Many Americans end up going on a trip here or there at some point, if just to Canada or Mexico. These people end up dealing in a foreign currency but often exclusively. They change the dollars they are going to spend on entertainment, dining and shopping into pesos or whatever and just use that currency for the duration of their stay. While dealing in a foreign currency is a novel experience it doesn't compare to dealing with two (or I guess more) currencies on a regular basis to conduct normal transactions.

People will not accept currency they are not used to. If they don't know what it looks like or what it is worth they will not take it. Businesses will deal with currencies that pop up regularly in the hands of intended customers, well that and the owners know what it looks like and is worth. I recall a few years ago some TV blip about how the Dollar was dying (long before the Sub Prime mess) because some trendy shops in NYC were accepting Euro's. A big part of why it made the news was that there were trendy wanna be European (it is a sort of East Coast thing I think) Wankers involved. A more practical example would be a city near the border with Mexico or Canada accepting their currencies or a store in an area with a large immigrant population accepting that currency. Also the theme of a business accepting currency that they know the look and value of which shows up repeatedly continues. In my immediate area a good percentage of businesses will accept dollars, of course as well as euro's. If I drove 25 miles to a little random village they would only accept euro's.

While a wad of "stable" currency could be valuable as an inflation hedge don't necessarily expect the local grocer in Peduke, Iowa or Andersonville, Texas to accept Swiss Franks or Australian Dollars or whatever.  If the local currency goes to heck in a hand basket some people may learn more about different kinds of currency. Often people end up using a precious metals shop/ money changer to convert their currency into local money at the current exchange rate to buy whatever they need.

The biggest thing you need to live successfully in a dual currency world is the ability to rapidly make fairly accurate calculations between currencies. This means knowing what the exchange rate is and being able to do some math rapidly. Unless it is making huge shifts don't worry about this one too much the goal is to put the cost of a service or item into terms you can work with. Think about it like converting metric to standard or whatever. Really for average personal transactions a pretty accurate figure is good enough. To put that into perspective 2 percent on a hundred dollar purchase is 2 dollars. When you talk about transactions in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars or more a 2 percent difference matters but for a round of drinks or dinner or such it really doesn't.

You just need to be able to do this to know if a given price is good or too much.

What I am describing is a (relatively) free market scenario. Anybody inclined to do so can carry whatever kind of currency they want. Only my resources, desire and ability to find random currencies limits what I can carry or hold. The key is to see what value you are exchanging for a given good or service. Does it really matter if I pay ten dollars or about 7.60 E for a given item? No it does not because they are worth the same.

The same could be said about precious metals. Does it really matter if you pay for something with $340 or a quarter ounce of gold (lets say the value is the same, I know it is close)? No it doesn't.

Where things get downright crazy is when the system is strongly regulated by a government, go figure! Governments with a weak or essentially worthless currency often try to keep their currency alive through price and wage controls. Also it might not suprise you but this doesn't work real well. At best it works in the most utterly authoritarian and isolated regimes like the former USSR which was also big and resource rich enough to be able to manufacture (at least junk versions) of most things they need. These governments will find a way to trade for essential items they can not produce nationally. Following typical authoritarian priorities this means fancy cars and luxurious stuff for the elites and things to keep the military running to hold down their unhappy population. Not much else gets imported because go figure an appliance plant in a place that doesn't suck has no interest in their worthless currency.

Also these countries at least try to limit possession of and transactions in other more stable currencies or precious metals. Part of this is Gresham's Law but the bigger issue is (official) exchange rates not being equitable. Getting back to my free market example for a minute. If a nice dinner at a little restaurant/ bar/ hotel costs the equivalent of 10 euro's or 13 dollars (or lets say a half ounce of silver) and I can easily trade between the three at the current honest rate I just pay with whatever is most convenient. Now back to a sucky (generally socialist) country. Their currency is valued way too high. The "official" exchange rate is a joke. Often these governments will (with varying degrees of success) restrict or outright ban the possession of other currencies.

I think somebody said once that when the free market becomes criminalized then criminals will run the free market. People will find a way to smuggle in goods that are otherwise rationed or unavailable (to the non elites). Authoritarian Communist regimes are big on security of their borders. Despite their propaganda it is really more about keeping their people from leaving than anybody from invading.

The thing is that authoritarian communist regimes conscript a large amount of their force and pay is generally quite poor. So unmotivated poorly paid people guard their borders. While I have zero sympathy for corruption in military and government of non sucky countries I understand why it exists in sucky ones.

If I had an equivalent job in a sucky socialist country with price controls I might well be put on border guard. I would likely be in charge of some random intersection and the land around it. I would be poorly paid and my men would be paid worse. If an enterprising individual wanted to bring a truck of black market items across that checkpoint and wanted to make a deal I would be sympathetic. I would get some cash and my guys on guard would get a bottle of Jack Daniels or a carton of Marlboro's or some Levis or whatever. Would we stop spies or shoot at invaders, of course, but a little black market action is another matter.

Sucky authoritarian communist countries have black markets to varying degrees. People smuggle stuff in or steal stuff from work or whatever and trade it. In more extreme cases the local currency might not even be accepted there, but if you have something they want you can trade. Many average and poor people are stuck out of this market in its most narrow meaning because they do not have access to other currency. They may however have a skill or some stuff they snagged from work to swap with a neighbor who works at a place that makes something they need.

This sort of duel currency world is infinitely more complicated. It is often impossible to trade the local currency for a more valuable one. It is often illegal (if just poorly enforced) to possess other currencies or precious metals. Instead of just going to a store and getting what you need it can be a pain.

In conclusion. If you can afford it having a percentage of your resources in an alternate currency or precious metals makes sense. Knowing the value of different currencies and precious metals is prudent. It is essential to be able to rapidly figure out the real cost of goods and services.

quote of the day

"The reason we have a court system is so people don't show up at each others doors with rifles to settle disputes."
-Judge Alex

Weekend

Well it is the weekend for me, a much deserved 3 day weekend. Well actually I have some work to do tomorrow. Probably 2-3 hours. However it is sort of different if you can cruise in at ten or noon or whenever in sweats to pick up what you need (work is real close or I would have brought it with me) then do it at home in the recliner.

This weekend our big push is going to be trying to get some cheap baby stuff and just maybe furniture. We have been doing pretty good on baby stuff. Wifey knows about these sort of things and she made a list with estimated prices. We are working our way through the list and are far below the anticipated price. Mostly we buy stuff used. This week we got a Pack and Play for ten bucks which was pretty awesome. Baby stuff seems to be one of those things that pops up fairly frequently on the used boards especially since military people move a lot. There is definitely a correlation of time and money just like most other things and well we are cheap. A few bucks we save buying stuff used can go into savings or preps or be the first buck in Walkers college fund. Got to get working on that one.

Anyway I hope you all have a good weekend.

Upcoming Giveaway

I got an email from some folks the other day. They wanted to work with us. We did some talking and a give away is in the works. Expect some more details soon.

On a more random note we need to pick up some more furniture. Wifey has been looking at a lot of different furniture lately, specifically sectional sofas. We have a pretty big living room here and also at some point we might need more seating.

quote of the day

"Here's a simple task. Try to find someone who can explain to you how we will be able to afford to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits ... together with ObamaCare ... in, say, ten years."
-Neil Booritz

Avoiding Blisters and Foot Problems

I used to hike when I was younger. Ya know nice little 3-6 mile walks on an enjoyable trail to a nice place with enough gear to be reasonably comfortable for a couple nights of camping. I don't do that anymore. Maybe someday when Walker Texas Ranger gets old enough I will again but that would be about him, not me.

I stopped hiking about when I got into the Army. Like most things, except shooting guns, jumping out of planes and maybe drinking good whiskey and fooling around with beautiful women (the last two are a guess as I've never been paid for them) it stops being fun when you do them for work. Another reason is that the loads got heavier, the pace got faster and the distances got a lot longer.

Here are some random thoughts on avoiding blisters and foot problems. Lets work from the outside in.

Boots. Get good quality comfortable boots that really fit you well. There are a lot of places to cut corners and pinch pennies but your feet aren't one of them. I would rather have a cheap sleeping bag or other piece of gear than boots and socks.

For a good all around boot I like the Altama Exospeed. They are very light and comfortable but pretty darn tough. My current pair are about worn out but after a year of non stop use and abuse that is pretty typical. They are great if you have to run 5 miles or walk 15 with an 80+ pound ruck. What more can you ask from a pair of boots?

Of course I have some Gore Tex and Thinsulate boots for when it is real cold outside and if you are smart you will get some too. They are generally too big, heavy and clunky to be that good for serious moving. Great for standing around or short moves and normal type days in the cold though. 

Also it should go without saying but break those darn things in. Getting a pair of boots soaking wet in hot water (submersing in a bathtub works well) then wearing them till they dry has been said to help fit a pair of boots to your feet. This is a good thing to do on an off day when you are going to do some errands or just hang around the house. Also just wear them for awhile before you try a long hike or something. A week or two of wearing them on short walks or during a non intensive work day is a good move.

Some folks do the whole two sock thing with a thin pair of nylons or boot liners then a heavier pair of socks. When it works it works well. However the odds of getting that rolled up type uncomfortable spot increases significantly with the second pair of socks.

Unless it is real cold I use one good pair of medium weight type socks. The new Xstatic socks the Army issues are nothing short of AMAZING! They are super comfortable and wick and last almost forever. I wore them at first because they were free and keep wearing them because they are awesome. I genuinely do not have enough good things to say about them. Lots of folks I know wear Fox River or those socks the under armor people make.

The above are my choices but there are a lot of good boots and socks out there. Many people choose different boots and socks based upon their needs and individual tendencies. The important thing is to find a combination that works well for you.

So we have talked about boots and socks. That leaves the foot itself. In this area some people are lucky and others are not. I tend to have fairly tough feet and just don't get blisters very often. Some other folks have feet that turn to hamburger when they ruck. After the EIB 12 miler my feet were just fine but a buddy had to have the head medic perform what was essentially minor surgery on his feet. If it is any indicator he literally bled through his boots and was messed up for a month. We both had good broken in boots and equal conditioning and such. I don't know why this is but it is.

In any case it is my observation that the foot itself should be conditioned to walking long distances and absolutely must be conditioned to walking long distances carrying a heavy load. Take an average person off the street and have them walk 10 miles with a 50 pound pack and even assuming broken in boots and such their feet will be jacked. The good news is that while you build the rest of your body (another topic all together) for long foot movements while carrying a load you are also conditioning your feet. Both must be done in a slow and incremental manner. Slowly increase the length and weight of movements over time in an incremental manner. If you want to walk 10 miles with 50 pounds on your back then walking 2 (maybe cut this out if you are in shape) , 4, 6 and 8 miles with gradually increasing weight first is the way to get there. If you try to toss a big heavy ruck on your back and walk a really long way in a hurry the odds of getting broken off are high and the odds of success are very small.

So basically get good boots and break them in. Wear good socks under them. Condition your feet to moving long distances carrying a load in a slow incremental manner.

I do owe you guys a post on dealing with what happens when your feet get messed up. I will write it tomorrow if nothing better pops into my head.

quote of the day

"A cardinal rule of ethical living is that you take responsibility for your own choices and you don't place the burden of them on others."
-Knight Kiplinger

Read This-Massoud's Letter To The People Of America

A Message to the People of the United States of America

Date: 1998

I send this message to you today on behalf of the freedom and peace-loving people of Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen freedom fighters who resisted and defeated Soviet communism, the men and women who are still resisting oppression and foreign hegemony and, in the name of more than one and a half million Afghan martyrs who sacrificed their lives to uphold some of the same values and ideals shared by most Americans and Afghans alike. This is a crucial and unique moment in the history of Afghanistan and the world, a time when Afghanistan has crossed yet another threshold and is entering a new stage of struggle and resistance for its survival as a free nation and independent state.

I have spent the past 20 years, most of my youth and adult life, alongside my compatriots, at the service of the Afghan nation, fighting an uphill battle to preserve our freedom, independence, right to self-determination and dignity. Afghans fought for God and country, sometime alone, at other times with the support of the international community. Against all odds, we, meaning the free world and Afghans, halted and checkmated Soviet expansionism a decade ago. But the embattled people of my country did not savor the fruits of victory. Instead they were thrust in a whirlwind of foreign intrigue, deception, great-gamesmanship and internal strife. Our country and our noble people were brutalized, the victims of misplaced greed, hegemonic designs and ignorance. We Afghans erred too. Our shortcomings were as a result of political innocence, inexperience, vulnerability, victimization, bickering and inflated egos. But by no means does this justify what some of our so-called Cold War allies did to undermine this just victory and unleash their diabolical plans to destroy and subjugate Afghanistan.

Today, the world clearly sees and feels the results of such misguided and evil deeds. South-Central Asia is in turmoil, some countries on the brink of war. Illegal drug production, terrorist activities and planning are on the rise. Ethnic and religiously-motivated mass murders and forced displacements are taking place, and the most basic human and women's rights are shamelessly violated. The country has gradually been occupied by fanatics, extremists, terrorists, mercenaries, drug Mafias and professional murderers. One faction, the Taliban, which by no means rightly represents Islam, Afghanistan or our centuries-old cultural heritage, has with direct foreign assistance exacerbated this explosive situation. They are unyielding and unwilling to talk or reach a compromise with any other Afghan side.

Unfortunately, this dark accomplishment could not have materialized without the direct support and involvement of influential governmental and non-governmental circles in Pakistan. Aside from receiving military logistics, fuel and arms from Pakistan, our intelligence reports indicate that more than 28,000 Pakistani citizens, including paramilitary personnel and military advisers are part of the Taliban occupation forces in various parts of Afghanistan. We currently hold more than 500 Pakistani citizens including military personnel in our POW camps. Three major concerns - namely terrorism, drugs and human rights - originate from Taliban-held areas but areinstigated from Pakistan, thus forming the inter-connecting angles of an evil triangle. For many Afghans, regardless of ethnicity or religion, Afghanistan, for the second time in one decade, is once again an occupied country.

Let me correct a few fallacies that are propagated by Taliban backers and their lobbies around the world. This situation over the short and long-run, even in case of total control by the Taliban, will not be to anyone's interest. It will not result in stability, peace and prosperity in the region. The people of Afghanistan will not accept such a repressive regime. Regional countries will never feel secure and safe. Resistance will not end in Afghanistan, but will take on a new national dimension, encompassing all Afghan ethnic and social strata.
The goal is clear. Afghans want to regain their right to self-determination through a democratic or traditional mechanism acceptable to our people. No one group, faction or individual has the right to dictate or impose its will by force or proxy on others. But first, the obstacles have to be overcome, the war has to end, just peace established and a transitional administration set up to move us toward a representative government.
We are willing to move toward this noble goal. We consider this as part of our duty to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence and fanaticism. But the international community and the democracies of the world should not waste any valuable time, and instead play their critical role to assist in any way possible the valiant people of Afghanistan overcome the obstacles that exist on the path to freedom, peace, stability and prosperity.

Effective pressure should be exerted on those countries who stand against the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan. I urge you to engage in constructive and substantive discussions with our representatives and all Afghans who can and want to be part of a broad consensus for peace and freedom for Afghanistan.
With all due respect and my best wishes for the government and people of the United States,
Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Baby News

It's a Boy! Walker Texas Ranger is in fact a he.

When it got right down to the anatomy ultrasound all I really wanted was for La Bebe to appear healthy and normal with a good heart, spine and appendages. Though I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't happy it's a boy.

Top 5 Pistol Rounds Winchester Sells

1. 9mm- Winchester also has a military contract
2. .40 S&W- Number one LEO round
3. .38 Special- I found this surprising
4. .45ACP
5. .380ACP- our topic finally shows up!

I would not have guessed the exact order (which could be a bit skewed by military and police contracts ) but the top 4 doesn't surprise me at all. We "gun people" tend to think that non gun people have the same tastes and inclinations that we do. I think this is grossly inaccurate because for every guy with three 1911's (or whatever) and a 1911 hat and a 1911 shirt and a 1911 bumper sticker there are a whole bunch of folks with a 9mm or a .38/ .357 in the night stand/ closet. In my informal observation is that average "non gun" people under 40ish almost always buy either a 9 or a .40 S&W. Average "non gun" people over 40ish generally have a .38/ .357 revolver.

As for .45acp owners they span the whole age range but lean toward being "gunnies" and own/ shoot/ talk loudly about the .45acp's great virtues. This makes them appear like a larger group than they actually are. If they prefer the 1911 they yell about its history and virtues through a megaphone. Not saying they're not great folk, they are just vocal.

Thank our friends at The Firearm Blog for this interesting report.

It Has Got To Add Up

Alternate title- Mutually Incompatible Ideas

I was never very good at math. Pretty much all I remember about equations is that they have an equal sign and thus one side equals the other plus that you get to what it equals by canceling stuff out. I forget which order to cancel stuff out in but that isn't important. The thing is that it has got to add up.

Time is the most definite application of this. Simply put there are 24 hours in a day. It doesn't matter if you are dirt poor or filthy rich, you don't get any more time. You can make choices that facilitate more time for leisure or whatever but that is just dividing your time differently. An hour spent on spreadsheets for work can not be spent practicing Karate or on a walk with your spouse. However I find the most practical application to be money. Even if we do not rely on every dollar that comes in to pay bills we generally have them going somewhere. A dollar that goes to a Visa bill is not going to a 401k or whatever. 

One area I have seen this multiple times recently is the topic of stay at home mothers with people we know. Couples say "when we have a kid she will be a stay at home mom" but do not consider the second half of that equation. To me the second half of the "when we have a kid she will be a stay at home mom" equation is to live a lifestyle that can be maintained with his salary. It is one thing to want her to be able to stay home with babies but it is entirely another thing to actually want it enough to make it work. These couples simply live far beyond what they could afford on one of their salaries. Having two new cars with loans to match and credit card debt, etc, etc is not reasonable given what they make. When these couples have a kid they are either going to realize they simply can not afford for her to stay home. Well also they might not even consider the economic side of things and have her go home anyway. Shortly following their financial situation will deteriorate rapidly.

Saying "I believe a woman should stay at home with her kids" or "I believe you should have a years worth of food" or "I believe you should have an emergency fund" or whatever is one thing. It is another thing entirely to do what it takes to make these things actually feasible. The reason these things often turn out to not be feasible is because we look at them in isolation. Because we look at them in isolation we are not seeing what it takes to actually make them work.

Thinking about doing a certain thing is nice. However thinking about what you are going to do about balancing out the impact of what you are going to do. Often the difference between a plan that gets shelved and a plan that gets successfully executed.