Gear Review - GearRuk chest harness

http://atmosphereadventuregear.com/

I first saw this chest harness in The Sportsman's Guide. I've been wanting some sort of chest harness for a while now--and this one is a steal of a deal at $36 for the non-member price. I can wear this one with my Glock 21 when I go out to check the game camera at the far corner of my property and not get tangled up in the brush if I were to have it on my hip. I've got the game camera smack-dab in the middle of coyote country. They are becoming less scared of people and we have heard that the neighbors have seen cougar in the area as well. And to top that off--we now have a wolf pack moving south into our area. Those are something I really don't want to tangle with.

The great thing is the universal aspect of it. If your holster has a belt loop, you're good to go. Remove the screws, take off the holster you don't want on there, and then put on the one you do. I can switch from the Glock to the Taurus .44 holster in about two minutes tops. I'm going to give it a try mountain biking with my Glock 26 under a light fleece jacket. I doubt it will print at all.

These pictures are from the factory website. I will try to take some the next time I'm out checking my game camera. I've had the pleasure of talking to the owner of the company through Facebook (you can follow them) and he is a very nice guy. Check it out. For the price I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Post-Surgery Update! Don't stop doing PT!!

Sorry for the long break between posts.

I will try to do better.

My shoulder surgery went fine. The surgeon said that the only thing holding my shoulder in place was my bicep tendon. He was actually surprised that I could use my right arm at all.

They give you a cool DVD to watch of your surgery and I waited a few weeks before I watched it. It was amazing. At first I thought I was watching an underwater video on the Discovery Channel. I could see lush beds of kelp and fish swimming by. Then I realized the kelp was shredded cartilage and the fish were just debris that shouldn't be there. Woosh! In come the tools! They started mowing the kelp and vacuuming it up. Then came in files and polishers to work on the bones. Then the drills came in and put in nine titanium bolts that had pre-attached Dacron thread on them. He then started pulling things into position and sewing it all together.

Amazing stuff, I have to say.

The healing process was long. They didn't want me doing anything with my right arm for five weeks other than squeezing a rubber ball to keep circulation going. Eventually I came out of the arm sling and then was able to start doing small things like empty-handed curls. It was almost three months later that he let me start going to physical therapy.

I have an awesome physical therapist. She is a walking encyclopedia of the human body. She got the movement back into my shoulder and then started to build up the strength. I saw her for almost three months. Got signed off from her to my primary care doc and I was free!

Then I quit doing my exercises.

Then the issues started up about six months ago.

I type for a living. (Exciting stuff, I know.) I have bad posture, and I do bad repetitive movements all day long. I went to grab the mouse with my right hand (like always) and my shoulder made a noise that sounded like an old door closing in a horror movie. I kid you not. There was no real pain involved, but it freaked me out.

So...back to the doctor I went. X-rays and examinations later they determined that I have arthritis and need to go back to PT.

Long story short...if a physical therapist tells you to do your exercises....do them. Don't stop.

I'm back in PT, with the same doc, and I have a new set of exercises that I can do every day...for the rest of my life.

Survival Consideration: Skills vs. Stuff

For as long as I remember there has been mild discussion and lively debate in the survival circles between those who feel you need a lot of "stuff" to survive a disaster and those who say you need minimal stuff but will fare better with "skills".  I am someone who does much better when I have time to ponder things and work out the details for myself, sans emotional rhetoric.  I do this because once I reach what I feel is a well thought out conclusion, it is very hard to convince me otherwise... and I really don't like to be wrong.

Having read scores of true survival stores, dozens of "post apocalyptic" and "prepper fiction" books, and reviewing the events of a couple recent high profile disasters (Hurricane Sandy (US east coast 2012) and Typhoon Haiyan (Philippines 2013)) I have come to some conclusions about this subject.  Unfortunately my conclusions don't settle the dispute for me.  Let's talk about that.

The true survival stories I read and the recent disaster events I reviewed (none of which affected me, personally) are all short term, localized problems.  The effects on different people ranged from some people being isolated and without power for a couple weeks to others losing their entire homes and all their possessions.  If you were one who lost all of his possessions, then having "things" would not be a lick of help to you at all since all of your stuff is now destroyed, buried under a ton of mud, or floating somewhere in the ocean.  If you were isolated and without power, then having a generator and stocked pantry ("things") made it so you could make it through with relative ease.  Similarly, if you cannot go anywhere and are without power due to a heavy snow storm, having "stuff" will be of much more help than having "skills".

Let's switch gears from recent events to things much more widespread and theoretical: disaster fiction.  A couple years ago I got on a kick of post apocalyptic fiction novels and have slowed down a bit, but am still going.  The disaster initiators of these books ranges from nuclear war of the 50's (On the Beach and Alas, Babylon); massive comet strike from the 70's (Lucifer's Hammer); to modern power grid down, economic collapse, political upheaval, or even a combination (One Second After, Patriots, Lights Out, 299 Days).  Now, don't discount the fiction genre as a place to learn some things.  One of the reasons I started reading this type of book was because I was curious about some different possible scenarios and what others thought might occur during those scenarios. 

A common theme throughout almost all of the books (certainly all of those listed above) was a sense of community.  Specifically, organized communities of individuals existing to help each other instead of acting as lone survivalists.  Many of the books went into detail about how the community was organized and how it was defended to keep others out who may threaten the resources of that community.  As time went on several of these communities found themselves lacking in people with certain important skills.  Five of the books (Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles, Lights Out by David Crawford, 299 Days series by Glen Tate, Deep Winter trilogy by Thomas Sherry) contain protected communities where individuals or families that are passing by and looking for a safe haven are interviewed in search of skills that will contribute to that community.  Those possessing helpful or needed skills found a place to reside that offered protection from the evils and violence of the outside world.

A recent podcast: Doom and Bloom interview with Charley Hogwood author of MAGS
 really helped cement the idea for me that useful skills are a necessity.  Charley wrote a book about building Mutual Assistance Groups.  I have not yet read his book (although I fully intend to do so very soon) but one of the ideas covered in the interview was building a group of people with complementary personalities and skills.  In the book he discusses how to build groups pre-disaster and post-disaster; how to find people who will be a benefit to your group and avoid people who will merely be resource consumers.

There are a multitude of posts in the Prepper blogosphere about useful skills in addition to a website dedicated to just that: learning useful hard skills- http://www.13skills.com/

Think about it.  If you have a solid community, are you going to let in a sluggard who offers nothing in return or, with your limited resources, are you going to be looking for someone with a skill that will benefit your group?  If you had such a group, what kind of skills would you need?  A few on my list are medical, auto repair, metal and wood worker, security expert, gardener/permaculturist, food forager, food preserver, and herbalist among others.  If two people come to my group looking for a place to stay and I have the choice between a medic and someone who only knows how to cook microwave dinners but knows what happened on every episode of the MTV reality shows, which would I choose?  Or a choice between an auto mechanic and someone who worked in "customer service" but never took the time to learn a solid skill?  What about a lawyer or an older lady who spent years gardening and canning her surplus?  Some skills may be out of reach for the average person (doctor, military trained security expert) but so many useful skills are learned by your average Joe over time.

My conclusion:
In a short term, more localized disaster, "stuff" is necessary.  Choose your "stuff" carefully and always take into consideration what would happen if your "stuff" went away (burglary, house wiped out, etc).
In a long term problem, "stuff" will help you start, but you need "skills" to make it through.

So, both are necessary.  Take into consideration where you reside, your bug-out location (if any) and what disasters are likely to befall you.  If you haven't started prepping for survival during a disaster and don't know where to start, I'll offer some advice: pick something and do it.  Yep... just choose something and get started.  While you are growing your pantry or planting a garden or learning some herbal remedies read articles and blog posts from a variety of authors (don't get caught up in any given authors' biases).  Maybe make it a goal to read one article or post each day to expand your view.  Better yet, choose some "stuff" to gather (canned or dry food is a good place to start) and a skill to start learning.  Frugal Squirrels and The Survival Podcast are both great forums to get help with skills.

Hopefully I have planted a seed in your mind about how you will make it through a disaster.  Now... What Will You Do?

Long Term Food Storage: Mylar Bags

I plan on doing a couple of posts on long term food storage.  Since I have been playing with mylar recently, I figured I should start with that.

The purpose of mylar bags for the prepper is to store dry goods for long term.  Mylar is impermeable to light and can be sealed air tight with a simple application of heat (vacuum food sealer machine, hair straightener, clothes iron) across the open end of the bag. At the most basic description, mylar bags are layers of plastic and foil laminated together to make it impervious to light, air, and moisture; these being three of the four things we try to protect dried food from to extend storage life. The fourth thing being heat.

Since you want to keep out light (the easy part), moisture and air (specifically the oxygen part), a mylar bag is frequently paired with an O2 absorber and occasionally a desiccant (moisture absorber).  If your storage food is sufficiently dry, only an O2 absorber is needed.

The most common sizes are the 1 gallon and 5 gallon bags.  The 5 gallon bags have the convenience of a one bag 5 gallon bucket.  The drawbacks are... 5 gallons of beans is a lot to open and use all at once.  The 1 gallon bags are convenient sizes for use, but are less convenient for storage as you really can't get 5 bags in a 5 gallon bucket.  You have to decide what will work better for you when the time comes to use the food.  If you have or plan on a large prepper group, 5 gallon bags in buckets probably have no real drawbacks for you.  My personal choice is the 1 gallon size.  An open bag has less of one type of food that needs to be used up quickly and allows for a variety to be stored in a 5 gallon bucket with spaces between the bags for other supplies (condiments, spices, plastic utensils, etc).

Food items suitable for storage in mylar bags are beans, rice, flour, sugar, oats, pasta... see the trend?  Small grains and legumes that are generally stored dry.  Some preppers have had trouble storing grains that are sharp (popcorn, some pastas) as they will puncture the mylar.  If you want to store these items, you can leave them in their original bags (or a zip top type bag) so the bag is padded from the sharp ends of the food being stored.  Just be sure that your O2 absorber can draw the air from around the pasta or corn by puncturing its original plastic bag in a couple places or by not sealing the zip top bag completely.

The basic instructions for use:
-fill the bag (not completely, leave some room for sealing), drop in an O2 absorber, then seal the mylar.  That's it.  After sealing, be sure the bag is in a secure, safe place and let it go.  Keep it in a stable, cool, environment for maximum storage life of the food items.

The details:
-fill the bag:
Put in the food (in this case white rice) and an oxygen absorber.  Leave enough room to be able to seal the top and have a little extra (I'll explain why in a moment)

 -seal the bag:
I have tried a couple of methods for this and settled on one.  First the not-so-best-choice ones:

the food sealer:

Notice the thin line of seal below a lot of wasted space?  I didn't like the wasted space, nor did I like the thin seal line on this one.

the thicker seal with space above:

This has a thick seal space with a small amount unsealed on top.  There is no reason for the unsealed top since you can't pull the bag open.

the one I settled on:

This one shows the seal I settled on along with some technique used.  This is a top seal that is about 1 1/2 inches deep. 

The sealing process:

These bags fall over very easily making a mess.  I put the bags in a box that is just the right height for them.  This way I can fill several, drop in the oxygen absorbers, then seal them all quickly.  When I have 4 full one gallon bags (what fits in my box), I put my wood stick on the edge of the box, bend the top over and use a regular clothes iron on high to close most of the bag up.  I then insert a straw, suck out as much air as I can, hold the top closed while pulling out the straw out and applying the iron to the last couple inches.  You don't have to pull all the air out, the O2 absorber will finish the necessary parts for you.

Once they are sealed, label (food and amount) and date them (I know I won't be remembering what and when next week, let alone in 10-20 years) and set them aside.  After a short time (say... a day...) the oxygen will be absorbed from the inside of the bag and you should see a good seal:

Here are a couple things I have learned from reading various blog posts and forum threads, then from doing:

- don't fill the bag completely.  Leave some space below the seal, so, if for some reason you need to, you can cut the sealed top off (the only way to open this), then reseal the bag without wasting it.  You could mess up the seal, forget the O2 absorber (ahem... no... I've never done that...), or need to open it to use just a part of the product.  If you leave a bit of room, you will be able to reseal the bag.  If you fill it to the top, or seal it to the top of the food, you won't be able to just reseal it without removing some of the product.

-oxygen absorbers work as soon as they are exposed to air.  To keep them fresh and functioning, keep them out of the air (simple enough).  My method: put my spare ones in a small glass jar.  I drop them in, fill the rest of the jar with beans (less air left to waste their functioning power), the snug down the top.  It looks like this:

In review: have your product, bags, O2 absorbers, hot iron and sharpie ready to go.  If you are opening a new bag of absorbers, have a plan on what you are doing with the extras that aren't needed for this session.  Bag the product, drop the absorber in, seal the bag, label the bag, then record the item somewhere so you know what you have in storage without having to check and count bags.

Friends, this is simple, cheap, and easy.  I suggest doing it now while food is cheap.  So now... WWYD?

What have you sealed up?  How do you store it?  Have you run into any problems or learned a technique that others can benefit from?  I would love to discuss it with you in the comments.