Thoughs on Preparedness (or Why Boy Scouts Rule)

From time to time I'm going to write some preparedness articles here.  Getting into a better preparedness mindset is only a small part of stuff I'm interested in learning and doing.  A small but significant part.  It's a little like exercise.  When I'm on a good program I really only work out for about 45 minutes.  The rest of the day is spend doing a wide variety of other things.  The benefits, however, of spending that small amount of time and effort working out, accumulate over a period of time and lead to a number of good things.  It's really a small part of what I do and yes, it requires a bit of sacrifice in areas of time and effort, but what doesn't?  In the final analysis though, I have to ask myself if the effort is worth what I put into it.  For me the answer is yes so it's something I'm going to pursue.

Before we go too far I probably better distinguish my outlook on this from a lot of what you find on the web about it. My perspective is more like the Boy Scouts.  They have a motto of  "Be Prepared."  It's so simple.  Yet it also covers a lot of territory.  Can you be prepared for every eventuality?  Nope.  Can you be ready for a lot of common ones?  Absolutely.  Let me see if I can provide an example of how I look at it:

My preparedness mindset:

I used to live way up north.  I spent several years in Minnesota and upper Michigan.  It gets cold up there in the winter.  The kind of cold that will kill you.  For most people that's not something you take lightly.  It's also something you get ready for.  Must you spend every waking moment getting ready for it?  Obsessing about it?  Fearing it?  Well, if you were a settler in the 1800's you probably did do some of that because you knew you were dead meat if you didn't.  What do you do now?  Buy a proper friggin coat and some mittens!  Viola!  You can now stay outside for hours in sub zero weather without dying.  And yet, during my school years, many of my fellow classmates had their applications in for the Darwin awards and would stand outside in sub zero weather, without a coat, with wet hair, while waiting for the bus to come.  Because they were cool.  Or stupid.  Hard to distinguish the two sometimes.  As an adult I spent time in upper Michigan.  It was common practice for people to have a survival or emergency kit in their cars in case they got stuck somewhere going from point 'A' to point 'B'.  Why?  Because the result of not doing so could be deadly.  Did it take forever to assemble a couple of blankets, candles and food?  Nope.  Did everyone do it?  Nope.  Did you have to use that kit very often?  Nope.  Sometimes never.  Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it though.  Unless, of course, you're cool, or stupid, or infatuated with Darwinian fame.

Now, a lot of what I don't believe in bothering with is found all over the web usually under the guise of "Survivalism".  Taking the above examples I'll see if I can put them into a more 'survivalist' mindset as found on some of the more entertaining web sites out there.  Especially look for ones that have the words "biblical proportions" in them somewhere.  They're awesome.

Winter Survival Techniques (WST's):

You're goal is to stay alive (and use a lot of acronyms).  At all costs.  Under extreme conditions.  The temperature outside your fortified bunker complex is -20 degrees fahrenheit.  You've seen that kill hardened men in minutes, up close and personal, on You Tube at least, often after they rode a shopping cart down a hill and plunged into a frozen pond...  That won't be your fate!  After researching all summer you found the X13 Mark 12 winter survival suit system.  It protects down to -200 and has a 4 hour rating for temps as low as -300.  It's white so you can blend in and not give away your position.  This is critical due to the prolific number of coat seeking zombies roaming the countryside.  It comes with 49 special purpose pockets, each filled with quality survival gear to help you make it through any situation you may encounter.  Your favorite is the 12 minute SCUBA attachment for those "just in case" auto plunges into water hazards that happen so often.  Yup, you spent $14,699.00 on this baby and it was worth every penny.  You.  Will.  Survive!!!

I enjoy a lot of things in life.   Living like that is not one of them.  If you have a bunker complex up in the mountains someplace more power too you.  I hope you really enjoy it there.  If you do, you likely worry about things perhaps a little too much.  Just in case you were worrying that you might not have covered every conceivable angle of surviving ever possible disaster known, I found another one a couple of days ago you might want to read up on.

Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event

This one rocked.  Stretched even beyond my wild imagination!  Practically perfect TEOTWAWKI scenario.  I have another acronym to describe it though - BOAKYAG.  I'd rather take the Boy Scout approach and enjoy the camping trip.