Saturday Evening Post

Hope everyone had a wonderful summer.

Seems like it went by in a blink of an eye. I am hoping for a nice crisp fall season. A few tent camping trips are in the planning stages for September and October.

Let me start by saying I usually enjoy the nightly news and like to stay informed of what is going on around the world. But lately it had been pretty hard to watch to say the least. Things are just a mess, plain and simple. Lets just hope the leaders can come together and find a peaceful solution.

I did pick up a useful, fun read from Amazon a few weeks ago.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide by Bernie Carr.

101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home For A Disaster.

This is truly a small pocket guide with 200 pages plus of great ideas and tips to get prepared for just about anything.

Chapters:

• Getting Started
• Financial Readiness
• Water Needs
• Food Supplies
• Ready Your Home
• Personal Health and Safety
• When the Power Is Out
• When You Have to Get Out

I am half way through it and so far it's well worth the ten dollars I spent. After spending close 8 days without power from hurricane Sandy a few years ago, its nice to have a plan in place.

Weekend evenings I have been enjoying listening across the shortwave bands, music talk, etc.
A nice way to relax.

Enjoy your weekend!

Nat Geo Preppers Show

Over the weekend I watched a few episodes of Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic channel. An very interesting show which offers the viewer a few solid ideas for surviving a disaster or worse case scenario.

Some of the prepping was over the top but if anything ever does happen on a large scale these people will be in pretty good shape. I witnessed first hand 3-4 females on a gas line wanting to fight each other last week, so things can get out of hand fairly quickly. In this day and age, adult females no less fighting over gasoline, who would have ever thought you would see that. Maybe this show is on the money with being ready.

Besides the usually supplies I was happy to see one guy mentioned ham radio as a useful tool of communication when the lines go down. Guns and bullets were big on the show. One of my work customers mentioned to me he has stocked up on bullets to be used for protection or to trade for food.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/galleries/meet-the-preppers/#megan-hurwitt-the-young-urban-prepper-42386

The new season begins tonight on Nat Geo channel, should be interesting.

Future Emergency Ideas

It has been a few days since the two storms have passed and everyday life is back to normal. The parents beach house in hard hit Ortley Beach is another story and we might not know the overall damage for another week or more.

My home lost 25 shingles from the super high winds and were reattached by my roofer at no cost, he is on the holiday gift list. During the storm we lost power at 10:00PM and did not get it back for ten days. Thanks to my neighbor for lending me a receptacle on his generator. This kept the basics going and the house semi warm with space heaters. We owe them a dinner out over the next week or two. A few items on my to do list for future emergencies include:

Generator
Stock up on water supply
Portable lanterns
Two thick extension cords
Small TV antenna in case my Verizon Fios goes out
Inverter
Batteries

A big help were my sleeping bags which kept my kids warm at night.
This list is sure to grow but its a good start. This is the second year in a row we lost power, 3 and 10 days.

Here's a tree that came down across the street from my house. When it hit the ground my house shook. Just glad it fell in that direction.