Monthly Archives: July 2015

Followup – Wife stranded in desert was prepared to die next to husband

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A followup to this post/article about a couple that got stranded in California.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A woman stranded in her car for two weeks in the Southern California desert in May said she forgave her husband for making a wrong turn and was prepared to die with him.

 

“I told him, ‘Honey, we all make mistakes. We all make wrong choices.’ That’s all that was,” Dianna Bedwell said Friday after the memorial service for Cecil “Paul” Knutson, who died a week into the ordeal. “We had 29 wonderful years together. If we make it out, fine. If we don’t make it out, fine.”

Touching. Eight pounds of oranges must last a while, but I can’t imagine being diabetic and having nothing to eat but oranges and pie….thats like having a choice to either starve or eat radioactive cheeseburgers.

There’s a couple lessons in this story, and they’re really the same as in most of the other ones: let people know where you’re goin, your route, and pack some supplies.

Article – The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit

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An interesting tale about a man who ran off into the woods and didnt come out for almost thre decades. What makes it interesting isnt so much the psychological exploration (which is interesting) but rather the techniques and strategies used to avoid detection for 27 years. Camouflage, it seems, is paramount.

The hermit set out of camp at midnight, carrying his backpack and his bag of break-in tools, and threaded through the forest, rock to root to rock, every step memorized. Not a boot print left behind. It was cold and nearly moonless, a fine night for a raid, so he hiked about an hour to the Pine Tree summer camp, a few dozen cabins spread along the shoreline of North Pond in central Maine. With an expert twist of a screwdriver, he popped open a door of the dining hall and slipped inside, scanning the pantry shelves with his penlight.

I can relate to wanting to just disappear, but when i fantasize about it it doesn’t involve never being seen again…its more along the lines of new location, new name, and new life.

Admin – Real life intrudes

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Real life is intruding so posting may be thin for a little while…leastwise until I can wrangle enough neurons together from other issues to put out some cohesive posts. Think of it as a mini-summer vacation.

Article – German authorities seize tank, other WWII weapons in raid

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Neighbor Kristin Schroeder told the local Kieler Nachrichten newspaper that the man had even fired up the tank during the particularly bad winter of 1978-79 and helped plow others’ snow.

“It was well known, at least to all the older Kitzebergers, that he had a tank,” Schroeder said.

Plowing snow with a Panzer. Thats like Mr. Rogers lighting your kids birthday candles with napalm.

I know that every so often little leftovers from WW2 turn up in peoples posession over there…just recently some grandma passed on and the family found her issued Sten gun tucked away. In Russia, there are groups that go into the forests specifically to find old WW2 relica, dig them up, get them running, and sell them illegally. In Germany, it seems every time they dig a subway tunnel they find something interesting.

Point is, guns last a long time…and they can fall to apretty crappy state and still be restored enough to go bang with some reliability. As something of a collector, my ears always perk up when I hear about someone’s aged grandpa or uncle passing away and the kids going through his mountain of ‘stuff from WW2 or Korea’.

I suspect that this article is mostly a guy who had some awesome toys from WW2 and somehow, inadvertently, got on the wrong side of the law when something wasn’t dewatted 100% he way the rules called for. Look at ATFE’s guides on dewatting a gun and you can see it’s changed quite a bit from the old days when filling the barrel with lead was pretty much all you needed to do. There are quite a few machineguns on the registry that were ‘re-watted’ from guns that had been dewatted in the earlier, easier, manner.

 

Article – How to Survive Societal Collapse in Suburbia

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Came across this article from a few years ago and tohught I’d link to it since I don’t think too many people saw it. It’s interestingbecause while there is a bit in there about preparedness there is a bit more information on the preparedness industry/market.

On a clear morning in May, Ron Douglas left his home in exurban Denver, eased into his Toyota pickup truck and drove to a business meeting at a Starbucks. Douglas, a bearded bear of a man, ordered a venti double-chocolate-chip Frappuccino — “the girliest drink ever,” he called it — and then sat down to discuss the future of the growing survivalist industry.

Many so-called survivalists would take pride in keeping far away from places that sell espresso drinks. But Douglas, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and founder of one of the largest preparedness expos in the country, isn’t your typical prepper.

At that morning’s meeting, a strategy session with two new colleagues, Douglas made it clear that he doesn’t even like the word “survivalist.” He believes the word is ruined, evoking “the nut job who lives out in the mountains by himself on the retreat.” Instead, he prefers “self-reliance.”

When prompted by his colleagues to define the term, Douglas leaned forward in his chair. “I’m glad you asked,” he replied. “Take notes. This is good.”

An interesting sidebar to the article: Let’s Put Hundreds of Things on Your Front Lawn, O.K.? A spectacular example of privacy-fail.

The guy is ‘in the industry’ so it’s worth it, from a business standpoint, to get all the PR hits but he’s gonna be on someone’s list somewhere now. Of course, I suppose its possible the house and supplies were all a decoy and his real house, with his real stash, is elsewhere…but I doubt it.