Emergency one-person survival stove- the best choice is alcohol, 91% of the time.

So, we have trail equipment stores, hardware stores of various types, liquor stores, drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, boating equipment stores and marinas as possible sources if you’re afoot on your own. That’s pretty versatile. I don’t think any other liquid fuel comes close, unless you’re willing to use automotive gasoline, which requires special stoves and a lot of ventilation and there’s still danger.

Bye-bye, Fear of the Walking Dead. I seem to be easing out of pop culture.

I get the whole grand metaphor going on here- people need a way to think about the unthinkable, a way to mentally prepare to some extent for the worst-possible-scenarios that the future might hold, but they don’t want to have to mentally deal with those scenarios in raw form. They need to mull over the issues but at a certain remove.

Book – Survival Hacks by Creek Stewart

In the 21st Century it is spectacularly difficult to get completely away from trash. If you’re in the suburbs, or rural areas, or even the trails and parks that pass for wilderness in most people’s experience you’re bound to have access to some of the junk that these hacks utilize, and might be very, very grateful for some clues as to how to use it someday.

Survival – Tilley Hats

I first became aware of Tilley by realizing, somehow, that my favorite brimmed fabric hat, one that I think I found in a surplus store, was indeed an imitation of something else… something famous. I eventually tracked down the “original” back when there was pretty much just one model, in canvas, in one color. I ordered direct from Canada, lucked out in that the fit was pretty good (more on that later), and over time became impressed with just how much better made it was than my previous favorite.

Survival – Hazard 4 Evac Plan B Sling Pack (in black)

I’ve always lusted after what is probably their most classic and successful pack, the Plan B, or more properly Evac Plan B (I don’t think “Evac” was always in the name, I’m not sure when it was added or why). It’s somewhere in-between the two extremes, large for a “day pack” and small-to-mininalist for an overnighter. I’ve had one in the “to buy later” section of my cart on Amazon off and on for a couple of years…. but I’ve got a LOT of packs, some of them never saw much use, it’s hard to justify the expense, so there it sat.

Fake TV

What this is, is a small inexpensive box that plugs into the wall with a panel of multi-colored LEDs. It can be set on, off, or to come on for various periods after dark. When it’s on it uses the panel of LEDs to effectively simulate the light coming from a television set… and does a good, convincing job of it. From outside of the room the indirect light coming from the room looks very much as if there were a TV on, with the typical changing and flickering patterns that one would see from pans, jump cuts, commercial breaks, etc., with no repeating pattern that I’ve been able to detect, giving every appearance that the room must be occupied.

Knives in Space… 1

I don’t mind going into more detail about any or all of this, at least what I know and can find out about the subject, in fact I’d rather enjoy it, but my personal interest is even more about the future, and especially the key question of how useful and necessary knives are likely to be for those leaving the planet in the decades and generations to come… or not.

A Great Bit of Kit, the USMC Watch Cap

These things are right up there with the venerable P38 can opener near the very top of the list of generally-useful stuff that the military has come up with. I buy mine on Ebay, I don’t know if they’re factory overruns, or “seconds” (I’ve heard that the USMC inspectors are really tough, and will fail a sewing job if there is one letter of the tag partially blocked or the USMC globe is distorted) or “fell off of a truck”, and I guess I don’t care, I’m just glad they’re available.

Sling Packs- The Best Type of Short-Term Survival Pack

‘m a pack junkie. I spent a large part of my spare time in my youth on trails with everything I needed on my back, sometimes for weeks at a stretch, and it made some sort of permanent impression. I feel sort of naked out-and-about anywhere without one, at least in a nearby vehicle. I’ve got a lot of the things, mostly smaller sizes now just for kicking around, not the huge ones I used to live out of, but I highly value a good pack and it seems I can seldom go for much longer than a year without acquiring another one for a specific purpose or feature.

An ice storm

The first thing I noticed while driving out of our neighborhood in the still-mostly-dark was that the power was out for a lot of our neighbors just blocks away, and for a lot of other neighborhoods. The first traffic light I hit was dark, but there was nobody around. The second light, in a much bigger intersection, was down- literally down, the cables that strung the light across the intersection had failed and the lights themselves were scattered around on the road. Still nobody around, so I carefully drove around the fallen lights and toward town.

The Urban/Suburban EDC/Get-Home kit list

I’m a firm believer in versatility. The more detailed the scenario, the more specific you get in trying to predict the future, the more likely you are to be wrong, so I believe in just generally enabling yourself to handle more situations as they come up. Knives, flashlights, and multi-tools are among the most versatile tools there are, and can make you a whole lot harder to kill in a “collateral damage” sense. Insulation, water carrying capacity and the ability to make fire are almost universal needs.

Escape from Bureaupolis… the base scenario

After a few more blocks you come over a rise and have a clear view of the river downhill and ahead of you. You freeze at the spectacle, trying to make sense what you see. There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people teeming along the bank of the river, unable to go further. The crowd is undulating in waves as it packs ever denser with more arrivals, seemingly everyone shouting at once. There is one large bridge visible to the left, packed with stationary cars jammed in bumper to bumper, but only a very few people moving on the bridge. It occurs to you that those few are abandoning their cars. For some reason not visible yet nobody in the crowd on this bank of the river is able to get onto the bridge. There is no sign of authority, police, military, emergency, anywhere, except for at least two helicopters overhead. There is another bridge far up the river to your right, but it’s too far to see if anything is moving on it. People are still streaming past you, seemingly intent on joining the huge mass already stopped at the river. Some sort of herd instinct.