Get Home Bag (Bug Out Bag) Creation

I have slowly been building up a Get Home Bag (GHB).  GHB is a more specific and accurate term for something more commonly called a Bug Out Bag (BOB).  The idea behind the bag is to hold items that you would need to safely get home if something were to happen while you were away (at work, running errands, etc) and you wouldn't be able to just drive back. 

I live away from a major population area in a smaller town and most of my work and errands are 20-30 miles away from home in the larger city.  My bag is being built around the idea of a couple/three days of foot travel through populated and unpopulated terrain.  It consists of items I think I might need that I don't normally carry on my person.

It's not finalized yet and honestly probably never will be as I get new ideas and new stuff is acquired to add or replace current items.  Let's take a look at how it has progressed so far:

Current GHB contents

Broken up we have the bag:

LAPG Bug Out Gear Bag with a couple affinity patches

The first row of items:

 

A Gerber takedown saw with bone and wood blades; a Cold Steel Bushman knife with a small, folding sharpening stone in the pocket; a generic led flashlight with a beam head, wide area side and magnet base; a Buck Revolution XT; a couple tubes of superglue in an old pill bottle; the large white square is an Emberlit collapsible stove; under that is a Cold Steel Voyager; a countycomm widgy pry bar wrapped in small paracord; bug repellant; two butane lighters in a larger pill bottle; and a double bagged, hand rolled, bunch of TP.

The next row:



The white square is a handkerchief; an led, elastic banded headlamp; then a small bottle of water purifying tablets.  Below those are a handful of instant heat pads; a folding metal stove; hexa-mine fire starting tabs; a roll of gauze; and a roll of medical tape.  The gauze and tape are spares from my first aid kit that are here since they fit and need to be somewhere.

The bottom row:



Warm gloves, dry socks, and a watchcap.

The water bottle...



... is a Sport Berkey that will safely filter water from any source so I don't need to carry heavy water filled bottles around.

The cold weather items are things I will swap out with warm weather items when it gets hot... if I remember.  As much as possible I have tried to pack for the "two is one and one is none" theory which is why I carry several items on my person and some in a different bag that is also generally with me when I am out and about more than a few miles away from home.

Several things missing from here that I either carry on my person or elsewhere in my vehicle are a multi-tool, defensive firearm and reloads, decent but not extensive first aid kit, tarp or other waterproof covering, pen and paper.  Things I need to get loaded in the GHB that I don't currently have are some extra batteries, food, duct tape, cordage, and one or two more fire starting methods.

So let's discuss this: 
-What am I missing that I need to consider adding? 
-What do you have in yours that's completely different from mine and why?  
-Do you have a completely different take on your GHB? 
-Any questions about why I have a particular item here?

Now... What Will You Do?

Surgery Update. One down...one to go

Okay, I had my eye surgery on March 14th and took the following week from work off. The surgery went off without a hitch. The eye surgeon told me she was only going to operate on my weak (right) eye and that if further down the road she wasn't happy with the results she would operate on my good (left) eye. That was great. I fully expected to have both eyes operated on and I would have been severely impaired for quite a while. As it was--I still had my good eye!

My buddy CopperKnight came over and kept me entertained on his days off. We even made a trip out to the local Pawn/Gun shop so that was a treat.

I still have double-vision--the surgeon 'tightened' my right eye in to line up with my left eye. It's an interesting sensation. Up close--like where my monitor is--I see just one object. If I look up I see two of everything. It is getting better though. The brain is adapting. I still feel a little disoriented sometimes. Probably a few more weeks and it will be fine. (Fingers crossed)

Next up is the shoulder rebuild! June 5th! Woo-Hoo! I'll be off of work for about 3 weeks--and in a sling for at least 4 weeks. I've read a lot in the last couple of weeks of folks who have had rotator cuff surgery and they all say the same thing. If you do all the PT, no matter how goofy it sounds--you should be better than new when you're done. I can live with that. I just picked up a Mossberg 930 SPX and currently it is a little difficult to hold it up to my shoulder. I put about 20 rounds through it before my shoulder told me it was done. Looking forward to spending some time at the rock quarry and breaking it in.

Remember--if you have been putting off having medical work done, and you can afford it--get it done. Who knows how long our current medical system will be in place.

Useful Skills in a Collapsed Society

Imagine a classic post-collapse society:
-Electricity flow is erratic at best.
-Gas and diesel are rare to find. 
-Medical facilities no longer function.
-Food shipments cease.
-Merchandise shipments cease.

The world never really goes back to the middle ages because modern knowledge is out there.  It's stored in books and on millions of computers.  It's only a matter of time before groups of people independently rebuild local infrastructure and neighborhoods start trading between themselves. 

This is one vision.  There are more extreme versions and there are lesser versions out there.  The truth being no one knows what it will look like; the situation depends upon too many factors.  But... taking a middle case collapse, let's discuss a couple of professions or skills that would make you useful in such a situation.  I know I can't hit them all and I guarantee I'll think of "one more" as soon as I publish this article, but here are a few in no particular order with my opinion of why they will be useful:

Doctor/Nurse
-This one really doesn't need much in the way of discussion.  Medical professionals have been highly regarded throughout history in all civilizations. 

Carpenter
-When things start falling apart, someone has to fix them.  Nearly everyone can Mickey Mouse their way to fixing a broken table or wood chair, but someone skilled in woodworking can do it right, make it look good, and can correctly repair larger things (say... a house after an earthquake).

Blacksmith
-A rare breed in modern times where everything metal is made by machines.  Like the carpenter, it takes someone with skill to do effective repairs.  This guy's job is thougher: there are fewer of them and it's harder to repair metal.  A beginning blacksmith, however, can make tools and that will be important for the other professions as items wear out.

Gardener
-Distinct from the farmer in that I am defining a farm as a large monocropping operation and a garden as a small plot of land with multiple different items growing in it.  Without fuel, a million acres of corn will be useless except to those in the immediate vicinity.  It can't be harvested by machine, nor can it be shipped around the country.  A garden, however, requires only local inputs and can be tended by hand... as long as you have the seeds to get it started.  A local experienced gardener is skilled at balancing all of the things necessary for a successful harvest.

Electrician
-Wait... what?  So many people have generators and solar powered things, but with an intermittent power grid, someone with knowledge is needed to set up or repair a system the right way to keep it running.  You can run your laptop and other items off a car battery, but if it's not set up right, things will go horribly wrong.

Cook
-Not a New York City chef and not someone who can do up a box of Hamburger Helper; but a real, old time cook.  Someone who can make a pot of those rice and beans you have been storing edible for the 5th night in a row.  Someone who knows what to do with all those funny things that come out of the garden.  One of the best examples of what I mean is Clara whose family has a YouTube channel: DepressionCooking .  This is a 90some year old lady who talks about cooking during the Depression of the 1930s.

I suppose that's enough for now.  Maybe I'll do a second post on this.  Or maybe I'll convince my cohort to do a follow up post with some more opinions.  Either way, here is this gist of what I'm getting at - nearly every profession on this list is a skill that we call can learn and get fairly proficient at over time.  You don't need to be a world class anything to have useful, barter-able skills during hard times.  Learn a hard skill- take one up as a hobby if you want- but keep making yourself better and more useful to your family and those around you.

So... what useful skills can you come up with?  What useful skills do you have already that you can teach others?  What new useful skill are you going to learn?

Rotator Cuff Surgery

I met with my orthopedic surgeon yesterday after having an MRI w/contrast last week. The MRI shows I have a small tear in my rotator cuff that will require surgery. I was hoping he'd say, "You're fine, quit your whining." But sadly he did not.

I will be off of work for a couple of weeks--up to four--and then I will have limited mobility for the next three months.

Not wanting to hurt my co-workers too much I will tentatively plan to do this surgery in June. Fingers are crossed that our great nation will hold together until then.

What I plan to do prior to my surgery is actually PRACTICE doing things with my left hand and arm. Brushing my teeth, eating, shaving, cleaning, you know...all the things you do with your 'good' arm. I'm lucky(?) that I have this time-span to practice. If I were to break my arm in a car accident or something I wouldn't have the luxury to actually try to practice. I'd be immediately thrown into it.

I may have to put a cork on the end of my fork like Steve Martin did in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' but we shall see.

If you knew you had three months to practice doing something before an event like this happened....would you?

I plan to start today.