You ever look at a high-end ham radio or similar product and they have a ‘tuning’ control and then a ‘fine tuning’ control? The notion being that you make coarse adjustments until youre ‘close’ and then you use the fine-tuning control to really dial it in.
Thats how preparedness seems to go. You do the coarse adjustments (basic supply of food) and then you do the fine tuning (specific food items or quantities).
It seems I’ve pretty much covered the main items and now its time to just fine tune them a bit. An example would be, say, your basic first aid kit. You bought some ready-made kit, tossed it in the cabinet, and crossed it off your list. Now you fine tune it…you replace certain components with better ones, or more of them. You add things that weren’t included. You store it in a better, more protective container. That sort of thing.
I suppose it is basically just upgrading or updating everything I already have to reflect new technologies, new threats, or new attitudes on what constitutes ‘being prepared for XXXXX”. For example, if your preps were predicated on a crippling power outage and you lived in Alaska and since then you’ve moved to Florida…well, you might want to update a few things.
A six-month supply of (very) basic foodstuffs from the local LDS cannery is the coarse adjustment, supplementing it with the Mountain House or long-term canned food is the fine tuning. Three months of living expenses tucked away is the coarse adjustment, gradually bumping it up to six months (or more) is the fine tuning. Getting an EU2000 is the coarse adjustment, getting the tri-fuel conversion and a 500 gallon propane tank is the fine tuning.
Covering your bases with the basic is the coarse, upgrading it and tweaking it out at a later time is the fine tuning.
Of course, some people just skip the ‘close enough’ and jump straight to ‘perfect’. Usually the limiting factor on that is money. But, if you’ve got it, why wouldn’t you just jump straight to ‘exactly what I need’ rather than ‘this will do for now until I can improve it later’.
Although, come to think of it, I think ‘perfect’ is alwys going to be just an unobtainable goal…like the speed of light. You can get 99.9999999% of the way there but you’ll never get to 100%. But, I’ll take 99% over the 0% that most of the sheep out there are sitting at.
Spot on with the fine tuning, it really does change or need adjustment at your area op operations changes or even if your finances change, it is always in flux.
It’s an ongoing project that will never end – sorta like that model RR setup I had as a kid. Never finished no matter what I improved on it. Had a hell of a lot of fun with it though. 😀
Regards
Couldn’t agree more. Good stuff
“Perfect is the enemy of good,” or so it is sometimes said.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” –George S. Patton
Don’t forget that you will never actually get to perfect; it will always be a goal.
I am against buying a big “year supply” type kit since it is more than likely NOT perfect for you and also since you need to know what you have, how to handle it, and if you can actually stomach eating (or using) it.
Don’t forget to build redundancy into your preps,learned the hard way when a fire destroyed almost all preps last month with no bol. Check your insurance coverage and inventory what is insured. It is also having plans(fire evac,tornado,home defense) and skills(build fire,extinguish,defensive driving,barter,grow food,make repairs)
Once upon a time, I obsessed over every type of scenario that I would read about. I spent buckets of time training and money equipping for a collapse/pandemic/EMP/social unrest, etc. even going so far as to include several friends and relatives in acquiring/stocking a remote location should SHTF. Now, as I’ve gotten a little older the fire has reduced to smoldering. Like you, Commander, I’ve come to see that fine-tuning can only do so much. Fine tuning is all well and good, but one should remember that life has to be lived.