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.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
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?
-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?
Thursday, March 7, 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Where To Get Prepping Supplies 2
...continuing my previous post on where to find prepping supplies:
Food for long term storage: restaurant supply chains, bulk food, and carefully selected sale items.
No pictures here, sorry. For stocking up on rice, beans, flour, sugar, spices and the like, you just can't been the restaurant supply stores. 25 and 50lb sacks of all these things exist for much less that the 5 or 10 lb grocery store buys. In addition, if you have friends or do dehydrating, canning, etc, they also carry large bags and boxes of potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, meats, and other things. Some of the items, I noticed, aren't priced better than normal sale costs, but a 50 lb bag of red potatoes for $5.78 is hard to pass up. Keep harvest seasons in mind for the best prices.
Books (fiction, non-fiction, classics, knowledge base): used book stores and second hand stores.
I love used book stores. Larger towns always have a couple of good ones, don't they? In addition to book stores, second hand shops usually have at least a small bookcase full of random tomes. Prepper fiction is hot right now, so the newer novels are hard to find, but the older ones (Lucifer's Hammer, Alas Babylon, etc) I have seen go by multiple times. The best buys I have come across from used book stores have been garden guides, cooking, outdoors and woodworking. The best buys from general second hand stores have been medical and drug guides, car repair manuals (don't you buy one when you buy a "new to you" car?), and other random books that strike me as interesting. I have found that second hand stores usually have "paperbacks for 25 cent" signs whereas used book stores usually sell as a set fraction of the original cost (50% around here). I have more guides and how-to manuals that I will ever read, but for 25 cents to 2 dollars depending upon the book, I am happy to have the knowledge base to refer to if I ever do need them.
Books (internet): As a side note to books, I mention the internet. I don't just mean Amazon. If you know how to search, there are tens of thousands of books available for free as .pdf downloads; everything from old cooking methods, ship building, animal care and husbandry, to older, classic fiction. Google has a huge library of free "out of copyright" books online or you can use the Google search engine by typing in the title or subject then filetype:pdf . This will return .pdf documents and will shorten your time spent searching immensely. Download it onto a flash drive for safe keeping, print off the pertinent parts, or read what you need and let it go. In addition to books, I have found pretty much any instruction manual I have ever needed this way; everything from a slide rule to rototiller to pressure canner. If you are looking for it, someone has probably posted it. I should probably mention about being sure the pdf isn't a copyright violation before you download and distribute it to friends.
Final Thoughts:
-Keep a list with you of things you think you need or would like to have. I know I constantly walk into a place trying to remember the list of stuff I am keeping an eye out for. If you regularly eye prepping supplies you get a feel for the going price. Then you know when you see something for a really good deal. That's the time to go for it.
-Small, useful, low-tech items are good to stock for barter in case of TEOTWAWKI. They are also useful in regular daily living. If you have a supply of nails, screws, nuts/bolts/washers, tools or misc construction pieces that you can loan or give to a neighbor, you are establishing some useful good will.
-Haunting local second hand stores and pawn shops gets you to know some useful local people... if you talk to them. If they are selling tools for $2, you know they paid less for them. Where do they get their stock- auctions, estate auctions, consignment? If you talk to them and/or occasionally offer to help with something you are getting to know some good, hardworking people. If, after a while, you let them know what you are looking for, I'd bet they can give some good ideas on where to find stuff or will give you a heads up on an upcoming sale or auction they know about. If they do consignment, they will probably be willing to take some items in that you are asking about, even if they wouldn't normally stock that "thing".
-If you don't need "pretty" and are willing to put in some effort, you can get items for next to nothing. $6 for 3 cast iron pans because one needed elbow grease. A 20-something dollar wrench for $3 because it needed cleaning.
Do you have any other places were you have found a good deal on prepping items?
Food for long term storage: restaurant supply chains, bulk food, and carefully selected sale items.
No pictures here, sorry. For stocking up on rice, beans, flour, sugar, spices and the like, you just can't been the restaurant supply stores. 25 and 50lb sacks of all these things exist for much less that the 5 or 10 lb grocery store buys. In addition, if you have friends or do dehydrating, canning, etc, they also carry large bags and boxes of potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, meats, and other things. Some of the items, I noticed, aren't priced better than normal sale costs, but a 50 lb bag of red potatoes for $5.78 is hard to pass up. Keep harvest seasons in mind for the best prices.
Books (fiction, non-fiction, classics, knowledge base): used book stores and second hand stores.
I love used book stores. Larger towns always have a couple of good ones, don't they? In addition to book stores, second hand shops usually have at least a small bookcase full of random tomes. Prepper fiction is hot right now, so the newer novels are hard to find, but the older ones (Lucifer's Hammer, Alas Babylon, etc) I have seen go by multiple times. The best buys I have come across from used book stores have been garden guides, cooking, outdoors and woodworking. The best buys from general second hand stores have been medical and drug guides, car repair manuals (don't you buy one when you buy a "new to you" car?), and other random books that strike me as interesting. I have found that second hand stores usually have "paperbacks for 25 cent" signs whereas used book stores usually sell as a set fraction of the original cost (50% around here). I have more guides and how-to manuals that I will ever read, but for 25 cents to 2 dollars depending upon the book, I am happy to have the knowledge base to refer to if I ever do need them.
Books (internet): As a side note to books, I mention the internet. I don't just mean Amazon. If you know how to search, there are tens of thousands of books available for free as .pdf downloads; everything from old cooking methods, ship building, animal care and husbandry, to older, classic fiction. Google has a huge library of free "out of copyright" books online or you can use the Google search engine by typing in the title or subject then filetype:pdf . This will return .pdf documents and will shorten your time spent searching immensely. Download it onto a flash drive for safe keeping, print off the pertinent parts, or read what you need and let it go. In addition to books, I have found pretty much any instruction manual I have ever needed this way; everything from a slide rule to rototiller to pressure canner. If you are looking for it, someone has probably posted it. I should probably mention about being sure the pdf isn't a copyright violation before you download and distribute it to friends.
Final Thoughts:
-Keep a list with you of things you think you need or would like to have. I know I constantly walk into a place trying to remember the list of stuff I am keeping an eye out for. If you regularly eye prepping supplies you get a feel for the going price. Then you know when you see something for a really good deal. That's the time to go for it.
-Small, useful, low-tech items are good to stock for barter in case of TEOTWAWKI. They are also useful in regular daily living. If you have a supply of nails, screws, nuts/bolts/washers, tools or misc construction pieces that you can loan or give to a neighbor, you are establishing some useful good will.
-Haunting local second hand stores and pawn shops gets you to know some useful local people... if you talk to them. If they are selling tools for $2, you know they paid less for them. Where do they get their stock- auctions, estate auctions, consignment? If you talk to them and/or occasionally offer to help with something you are getting to know some good, hardworking people. If, after a while, you let them know what you are looking for, I'd bet they can give some good ideas on where to find stuff or will give you a heads up on an upcoming sale or auction they know about. If they do consignment, they will probably be willing to take some items in that you are asking about, even if they wouldn't normally stock that "thing".
-If you don't need "pretty" and are willing to put in some effort, you can get items for next to nothing. $6 for 3 cast iron pans because one needed elbow grease. A 20-something dollar wrench for $3 because it needed cleaning.
Do you have any other places were you have found a good deal on prepping items?
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