Survival Hooch!

The “Pocket Shot” really is the best thing to ever be invented by the hand of man and I’m amazed it took the human race this long to actually get to it. The basics are it’s a plastic bag of booze that fits in your pocket, sock, bra or wherever. Totally concealable and an awesome add to a BoB or and EDC bag. Hell or even just your pocket! Urban Survival can be a bit of a bummer sometimes thinking about all the possible badness that can befall us city dwellers from without and within. When you’re feeling down after a week of eating MRE’s, sleeping in a tube tent and crapping in a chemical toilet who doesn’t want to have a good snort? While technically not a “survival” product it’s still one of those pretty freakin cool inventions that really do make life just a little bit better.

I taste tested the vodka this morning which you can see in the accompanying video after the jump and it wasn’t too too bad. If you used it as a mixer and not straight up it would be totally passable at any cocktail party. The form factor is just amusingly awesome but I don’t think I’d really keep one in my back pocket. It seems like that could really be a recipe for disaster especially if you’re out and about and don’t want to smell like a homeless alcoholic all day. I’m going to keep my eye out for the other “flavors” and see if they stand up to the quality of the vodka. What would only make this thing better is if they licensed real brand name hooch. I’ve got a bottle of Lagavulin in my survival kit for “emergencies” but it would be great to be able to keep a smaller and lighter load in my BoB for cross country GTFOOD hikes. And yes, I wrote this review AFTER I did the taste test

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How to get out of hand-cuffs

There’s a great thread on the forums regarding escaping handcuffs. Member ’subneural’ tipped us off on an awesome video by Brian Brushwood over at Scam School. Side note: I was actually in an early episode of the show and spent a good amount of time getting drunk with Brian at the shoot and love his stuff. The video is extremely informative showing you the inner workings of the standard Smith & Wesson handcuffs that 80% of the police in the world carry and how to escape from them.

When Sean and I took the Urban Escape and Evasion class handcuffs were an integral part of the class and we spent a lot of time practicing various methods of escape. Sean did a quick video that shows how easy it is to get out of those things. That is if they aren’t very good at cuffing you. A properly trained person can cuff you in a way that’s nearly impossible to get out of. Which is exactly how I was cuffed in the van during our field test and required a little help from my friends to get out. And one very important thing that we learned in class is that even if you can escape from your cuffs the cops don’t think it’s very funny at all when you hand them back to them…

Check out the videos after the jump!
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The walls might not have ears, but they certainly are talking

Earlier this week I noticed some fresh gang graffiti on a wall near my house and told my wife what it meant as we walked past. She was shocked that to learn that what she had previously written off as useless scribble and vandalism was actually a very clear message, if you knew what to look for. Gang tagging, not to be confused with street art, has been an interest of mine for a while and I often forget that it’s not as blatantly obvious to everyone so I took this photo and wrote up a translation which you can read here if you are interested. The long and short of it is that 3 different but clearly recognizable gangs are competing for that location, which means there could be trouble ahead.

This got me thinking about how often in an urban environment the walls themselves can give us as much if not more information than a local newspaper about what is going on in an area, if we know what to look for. Unfortunately most people don’t, so I think when talking about urban survival brushing up on some of these languages and codes can be very useful. That said, there are a very few universal codes blended together with a near endless amount of specialized local ones but knowing a few things can help out a lot. Read more…

Some thoughts on CERT

One thing I neglected to mention in my post about networks the other day was that I’m not only thinking about plans when you are away from home, but also developing some kind of network inside your own community can be very helpful. That’s one of the reasons I decided to take CERT classes here in LA in fact. Making sure that you are covered is one thing, but I thought it might be valuable to both know what I could do after an event to help my community, as well as who else in my neighborhood was out there doing the same thing. At the very least I thought it would provide some more valuable skills and info for keeping me and my family safe.

When I first looked into it honestly I was confused by the schedule on the local site but luckily I had some more patient friends who figured out when a class nearby was starting. You can find something near you on the national site and then try to decipher their scheduling on your own. If you aren’t familiar with CERT it’s short for Community Emergency Response Training and is basically a 7 week course that covers a wide range of disasters that might occur in your area and things you can do to help out. The initial set up is that in any given disaster official services are going to be overextended in minutes and most people will be on their own, so if you have a basic level of training and can team up with others in your neighborhood there is a lot of work you can do on your own before real rescue teams ever show up. This seemed like worthwhile info to have. Read more…

Book Review: Brave New War

A book on war and terrorism doesn’t seem to fit on a site about urban survival. With the exception of a few big notable events, terrorism isn’t a threat most people need to prepare for. However, Brave New War by John Robb examines a new direction in terrorism, away from blood and guts towards system disruption.

Terrorism is generally thought of in the blood and guts variety. When thinking of terrorism, people imagine 9/11, Oklahoma City, The Unabomber and Israel. From a terrorist’s standpoint, this type of blood and guts terrorism loses its effectiveness as it happens more often. In other words, blood and guts terrorism suffers from diminishing returns. Over the past five years, some terrorists groups have moved away from blood and guts terrorism towards systems disruption which becomes more effective as more attacks occur. Read more…

The importance of your network

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about gear and theory but I don’t think we’ve mentioned something incredibly important yet which shouldn’t be overlooked – your personal network. That is, your circle of friends and people you can count on if and when you need them. Of course taking precautions to make sure you are covered yourself is important but a larger group can have it’s advantages as well. Similarly, just knowing that you have a friendly place to turn if you can’t get back to your own place can be very reassuring.

We all have this to some extent, mostly on an informal level. We know where our friends and family live and if you were driving one day and got a flat tire and knew your friend lived half a block away it would be natural to go there for help rather than sitting on the side of the road. In the scope of a larger disaster those connections become even more important, as does a little bit of forethought. Everyone has a different skill set and if you know someone with medical training or something who is a really good mechanic, these are people that it would be beneficial to be near should something terrible happen. Read more…

Some thoughts on food

Every preparedness article you will ever read will have something about how much food to have on hand, and most 2-3 day kits on the market come with some kind of ration bar. In my experience this is something that everyone just knows, but no one really thinks about too much. Being someone who likes food, it’s something I may have given more thought to and I wanted to share some of what I’ve figured out with you. Read more…

A Framework of Disaster

It occurs to me, while thinking about survival and disaster prep, that we need a framework to work with within and organize our thoughts around.  There are three axis that encompass all disasters: duration, area of effect and intensity.  When possible disasters are viewed as they relate to these three metrics, it becomes possible to determine which disasters and what type of disruptions we can and should prepare for.  Not all disasters are equally likely, nor do they cause the same amount of disruption.  Through the use of this framework, it is possible to identify which disasters are likely enough and disruptive enough to make it worth preparing for.

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Review: Medium A.L.I.C.E. Backpack

When I first started reading up on Survivalist boards and forums almost everyone was recommending a Medium sized “A.L.I.C.E” backpack to carry your goods. I’d never heard of them so did a little more research and discovered there is a serious rift in the communities over these bags. It seems you either totally love it or completely loathe it. I decided to find out for myself what all the hullabaloo was over so I broke down and bought a black one with an external frame.

Previously I was using a cheap European style rucksack for my general BoB. It was durable, fit everything I wanted to carry (albeit with very little room for expansion) and most importantly was pretty comfortable to schlep. All in all I was happy with it but in the name of science I gave it up. The Alice w/frame when empty wasn’t too heavy at all and stored pretty flat. When I transferred all of my BoB gear to it there was a lot of extra room which was a plus because I had some new stuff to add thanks to the comments on my first post and the forum discussions. (Thanks guys!) The new bag weighs in at 25.5 lbs and is a bit unwieldy to handle. The bottom is apparently designed to have a bedroll which I don’t currently have so it won’t stand up on it’s own which is pretty annoying and I have to lean it up against a wall to store it conveniently.

The next step was to do actual field trials. I found a nice 2.5 mile circuit by my house that had hills, dirt and street walking and for the next 5 days I wore it and walked this circuit. The first thing I noticed is that it takes a lot of tweaking to get it to sit comfortably. Once I got it dialed in though it was incredibly comfortable. Since it’s got an external frame there are only 2 points of contact on my back which I was dubious about but after my first walk I was sold on it. The open back design kept me cool even when I was hauling my ass up a giant hill. Even with it’s weight it was incredibly comfortable even after day 5. It has a waist belt to keep it firmly attached to you but I found it to be more uncomfortable so I leave it unbuckled to no ill effect. After the full field test the only complaint I have is the lack of padding on the straps and they definitely started to bite into me after repeated use. It’s a good bag and carry’s a LOT of stuff but I can see how some people may not care for it since it is a pain to get dialed in to your particular physique. That said I’m going to be keeping it as my primary BoB as well as taking it for a walk every day as part of the physical side of my personal training. I’ve got a post up on the forums to discuss more baggy goodness.