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…

Lock pick Friday!

There’s a holiday weekend on the horizon here in the U.S. and everyone is going to be chomping at the bit to GTFOOD and hit the swimming pools and BBQ’s so I’m keeping it light today because I’m one of those people. Below are a bunch of videos on some of the basics on locks you can get into with regular household items. I couldn’t believe how easy some of these are to do. If you’ve never seen anything like this before your illusion of security is about to be shattered. I learned some of these techniques and had them pretty well down inside of an hour and so can you. These are all found on YouTube but we’ll be posting some original videos of more advanced lock picking in the near future.

How to open a Combination Masterlock

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Half-full is all empty

One of the better habits to get into if you drive much is to start treating the half-empty mark on your gas gauge as the empty line. People who live in colder climates will be used to doing this one. When I lived in Chicago I remember the yearly ritual of always keeping at least a quarter tank in the car at all times because otherwise it could completely freeze up overnight. Nowadays though I keep my car at least half full at all times in case there is an emergency and I need to travel fast and not stop for a fill-er-up. This is an easy one to get in the habit of and can really save you some serious headaches if you need to put the miles on in a rush.

Tip: if you have an analog gas gauge try putting a piece of black electrical tape over the last half of the tank as a point of reference while you’re getting used to it.

Photo credit: chego101

Bug-out Bag Basics

One of the most talked about pieces of must have gear in the “survivalist” communities are bags. Go bags, bug-out bags, get out of dodge bags, so forth and so on. And like other sites we’re going to be talking about them quite a bit because they really are a staple of any preparedness regime. I’ve started a thread in the forums to keep this discussion going and talk about what you have in your bag/s and what you as an individual are preparing for. When you get right down to it planning and making your bags should be directly related to specific threats that are possibilities in your particular city. Some places like mine have the threat of earthquakes while others have hurricanes and tornadoes etc. Tailor your particular bag to your particular needs.

So I want to say from the get go I’m not a hardcore gear head. I don’t have any military MRE’s or hyper expensive gear that I carry with me for a variety of reasons. One being that cars get broken into all the time and carrying a grand worth of crap in your bag is just asking for heartbreak. 95% of my gear can be picked up at the local Target in about 45 minutes of general shopping. This is a work in progress and designed for the sole purpose of having a few days worth of general gear to make my life easier if for any reason I can’t go home. Since I live in Los Angeles the most prevalent threat is earthquake. If I’m on the other side of town and a big one hits there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to get back home for a while so this bag is geared towards being in my trunk at all times so I’m cool if I’m stuck out for a while.

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