I just know that as soon as you heard of my medical difficulties alarms were ringing in your head, you were activating your emergency phone tree to notify your posse and you were badgering the local corner liquor store to set up a fund raising coin jug in my behalf. At the very least, you were wondering who would write such good drivel if I was unavailable. Fear not, good minions. All is well in Bisonia, as it a mere tooth extraction ( Tooth Extraction: A Practical Guide
) necessitated by advanced decay. Now, I take pretty good care of my teeth. Plenty of brushing and flossing, scrub the gums, mouthwash. Fifteen years ago I brushed my teeth waking up and going to bed, period. So it was no surprise I got a few cavities ( entirely coincidentally right after the divorce, which leads me to my new butt pullage theory that stress plays a part in dental issues ). I went to the dentist my insurance allowed ( remember when insurance both covered dental AND was affordable? ), so I got a heck of a deal. I thought. I think it was just a delayed payment plan brought about by half ass work since five years after that one filling popped out while flossing and six months later I had to get it pulled. Now, ten years later, another filling starts acting up. About two months ago the tooth started getting sensitive. About a month ago it started getting painful. A week ago I started losing sleep and being unable to eat much ( and as a last straw, as I groggily made myself ready for work, I couldn’t drink any coffee ). I was getting pretty bad with sleep deprivation ( "Who Needs Sleep?"
), at least the opening stages. I can suck up a certain amount of pain, but I need sleep to stay gainfully employed and, I will remind you my loyal minions, to be able to write ( also read and retain, which was getting harder ). *
So, I went down to the clinic, got a sliding scale discount of 50% due to my low wages ( the unemployed wife allowed the discount, no one wanted to hear about how much I paid in child support- God, don’t get me started there ), and spent $200 for a check up and extraction. Yes, there is a certain amount of aching from the procedure, nothing Tylenol can’t mute. But I feel SOOOO much better. Worlds apart so much better. Bubbling energy so much better. I have two more intact fillings and I’m trying to bargain with Baby Jesus that they don’t need to come out after the Apocalypse ( Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
). I’m sure he will just say something flippant like its ten years in between each tooth, so stop bitching. Who the hell made teeth such an imperfect system? Did God rest on the seventh day, and having forgotten teeth turned it over to a committee? Why can’t bad teeth easily fall out and regrow like when you are a kid? If you have to eat several times a day to survive, why make the tools to ingest it prone to such easy failure? I want answers, by gum.*
Most days, I throw a remark at you with little thought. Then, it pops back at me as I am admiring my own writing. Hey, I exclaim in mild surprise, that is pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Then I pretend to turn it into a thoughtful article. I made one of those throw away remarks in a e-mail and I liked it so much I thought I had better share with you. We are too prone to making the same kinds of decisions that recreate the complex society we live in. Redundancy, back-ups, and contingency plans ( Prepare for the Worst, Plan for the Best: Disaster Preparedness and Recovery for Small Businesses
) are great, except when we engineer in too much complexity, dooming it to failure. We think we are adding protection, but we are adding the chance of failure after a certain point. The subject was wheat. You want to store it away from rodents and bugs in a stable temperature. Every step beyond those basics just adds complexity. I’m not arguing against, say, Mylar ( 10 - 5 Gallon (20"x30") Mylar Bags & 10 - 2,000cc Oxygen Absorbers for Dried Dehydrated and Long Term Food Storage
) in a steel drum. I’m saying that diatomaceous earth ( Diatomaceous Earth-Food Grade-10 Pound Bag
) in the Mylar, with an oxygen absorber, and painted barrels and a temperature gauge system and monthly records, all are overkill. That in itself is not harmful, unless you are this way with everything you do. Then, you are supporting an overly complex system that will fail due to a lack of simplicity. I see this almost every day at Rawles site at http://www.survivalblog.com/ . Yes, we have a chasm between us philosophically in relation to prepping. His is still a valuable resource I admire, no matter how many times I mock the teaching specifics. He has made a very good daily link source for economics. And I like the new category under inflation. Hey, the guys name is Jim, and anyone with that first name is fundamentally good in my book. You guys named Richard are just screwed no matter what you do. *
Yuppie survivalists are hell bent on maintaining today’s luxurious society after the collapse. My basic question is, why? You can’t stockpile enough. No one can, unless you are Soros or Gates. And even then it might be tough as you will need to maintain an army. The only thing you can plan for is a smoother transition down the complexity ladder. You can’t guarantee survival, you can only increase your odds. And you can’t guarantee luxury long term but merely smooth out the journey down to squalor. Yuppies are deluding themselves thinking they can buy time until the system hits the reboot button. What a friggin laugh riot. Rome was an advanced looting system based on agriculture. Their five hundred year decent into misery was from the collapse of a centralized farm economy to a decentralized one. Yet you think it won’t be worse for us as we go from petroleum back to mule manure? We have a lot farther to fall, with no institutional memory of how to survive sustainably ( Sustainably Delicious: Making the World a Better Place, One Recipe at a Time
). You can make your life simpler now, and less of a disappointment after the collapse, by simplifying.*
Three Russian bolts beat one semi with lots of mags and parts kits ( every gun needs parts kits, bolts need far less parts, are less prone to break with less parts ). A solar panel and some 12v batteries beats a generator. Less parts, no fuel, no noise. You have to use less juice, but so what. Generators are toys, not survival tools ( fine for off grid now, not for after the collapse ). Rather than kerosene lamps, and wicks, and barrels of fuel, a solar AA battery recharger, some rechargeable batteries and some LED’s. It will last much longer and be cheaper. A home made abode hut for a retreat rather than a concrete McBunker. A bike instead of a four wheel drive. Rice and beans rather than #10 cans of Beef Barf On A Biscuit. A manual saw and file rather than chainsaw ( Oregon 23820 Sure Sharp Chain Saw Manual Filing/Sharpening Guide
), gas, spare chains, oil. And that is just prepping. You can make your present life a lot easier, simpler, less stressful. You made it sound strange I wasn’t a mechanic. This is one of the few times in my life I’ve owned a motor vehicle ( in Carson I owned the Hippie Bread Van for a retreat vehicle, but I only drove it every other month to charge up the battery ). I don’t like them. They complicate the hell out of your life. I lived five years in Florida without one. I biked down the metro area to visit the kids each weekend, about an hour trip one way. Yes, it was 90 degrees, mosquitoes, hostile ghettos to traverse. Rain. But I had financial freedom. The truck sucks $100 a month between insurance, registration and gas. It is an expensive luxury. Not a necessity that I must learn to maintain with another skill set. A luxury. You really need to learn to distinguish between the two, or you will never live frugal or happy.*
By distilling survival needs to a bare minimum, you can prep cheap and easy. And increase your odds of survival. The more layer of complexity between you and survival, the better the odds of failure.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.
8 comments:
I'm going to the library soon to request some book transfers, since they don't have squat for post-apoc fiction.
Could you please list your top 3 favorite post-apoc books that I should try and get the library to order/purchase/transfer? You've mentioned so many books in the past month, its all a jumble to me.
Thanks
Ol' Heiro here, ending with 'nonymous...
Good the dentist visit went well.
You point out where the yupvivalists are all wet. Right now, in my town, working at McDonald's is a prime job. Or waving a sign for a store. Or stoking at Wal-Mart. Given the choice of that kind of treadmill job with NO monetary slack to stay on the grid, or a homeless encampment, I may prefer the homeless encampment. Sure you live rough, re-discover weather, learn the wonderful qualities of cardboard (It insulates! It cools! It's a dinner plate!) and you have to re-learn social skills (choose your fellow hobos well, and work on your people skills) but now you can save half of your can-gathering, panhandling, or odd-job money. You can choose to take a day off and read in the library, etc. Once you learn that spiders are pretty harmless and you don't need a running-water toilet to poop, the homeless life is the easier, more sane one, compared to the working-poor treadmill. You get to leave the nightmare of broken fan belts, bus schedules, cranky and crooked landladies, 15 minutes to eat lunch and that includes buying it off the taco wagon, etc. You get to relax.
I grew up myself with an abiding hate and distrust of motor vehicles. My Dad got a zippy little sports car and that's pretty much where my parents' marriage started heading toward the rocks. Despite a rather decent bus system, my mom's partners while we kids got by on scraps (and were undersized/underweight for our ages) always insisted they have a car, which THEY never paid for, and which tended to barely run but always need more parts etc in the hope of it someday running.
Owning a motor vehicle simply requires a constant input of money. I'm not sure what the latest AAA figures are, but a few years ago they cited something like $8500 a year that the average American pays to own and operate a motor vehicle. Which means of course about #13000 since it's paid out of after-tax dollars. If you pick up a used motorcycle you can get by quite cheaply if you're into doing your own wrenching. But even that can run the $100 a month you put into your truck. On a microscopic income or living an uber-frugal life, motor vehicles don't make sense.
I suggest you haunt the garage sales and get a good functional mountain bike. The good ones do'nt have shock absorbers on the front, and are made by Trek, Fuji, Gary Fisher, etc. There are some good old Schwinns out there too. You kind of have to become a bicycle aficionado, but bike-appreciation isn't hard to acquire, and bike-wrenching is the easiest of the types of wrenching a guy has to learn. And does it ever pay off.
Compare a car repair shop to a bike shop - one is noisy, smelly, generally unspeakably dirty, and full of surly people who are sure to take you for a ride. The other is full of lots of cute goodies that you don't need but are cool to look at, there isn't a motorized tool in the whole place, most of the tools the mechs use are for sale to you too, if you want them, likewise books on how to fix every bike, and the place is light and airy and clean. They'll do little stuff like stick ends on fraying cables or adjust brakes for you for free, repairs don't cost much, and when done they hand your bike to you and you take it for a ride.
Great post James. I hope the dentist didn't mess up your hair during the extraction.
We have been living the back-to-the-land lifestyle since 1995. I really expected the crash any day--so I'm 15 years off. So when listening to my experiences, remember you get the advice you pay for and mine is free.
I've had lots of experience with simple/complex lifestyle. My personal take on this is get set up for the 1800's simple lifestyle now but throw a few upgrades to keep it fun.
For example, #1 we have an RV water pump that runs off our solar-powered batteries. But, we used a pitcher pump for 5 years and still have it set up.
#2. We use a propane refridgerator, but we have a root cellar and know how to can/dehydrate the food we hunt/harvest.
#3. I have a front loader washer but have 5 gallon buckets and a plunger to wash clothes.
In order for us to keep this lifestyle fun, we've adapted. No sense living like you're in Siberia until you have to. We try to live like we're in outer Mongolia with a foot in both worlds. That's probably why I'm still on spouse #1 ;)
But I can't stress enough that simple is better. Complexity takes money, time, spare parts, repairs, etc. Things you don't have when living in a collapsed society.
Idaho Homesteader
Sorry about the dental emergency Lord Bison. At least you did not have to pull the freaking thing with a Leatherman tool and a shot of whiskey. Here is a cheap way to take good care of your teeth. Get a Water Pik or one of the cheaper clones and a few bottles of cheap dollar store peroxide. Use the Water Pik every day but add a shot glass of peroxide to the water in the tank first. This way you are driving a peroxide and water solution into the deep gum pockets that can hold infection and cause tooth loss. I have lousy teeth and have not had a problem in years since I started doing this along with brushing or flossing. A Water Pik uses little electricity and can be run off a cheap inverter hooked to a 12 volt battery.
HAIL FUCKING DARWIN
It is my understanding, that your typical company vehicle costs an employer about $9000 per year.
You can obviously do a personal vehicle for less if you do not have to drive it too far. But the Federal mileage allowance was up around 52 cents per mile not too long ago, and with having to do repairs, depreciation, oil, gas, insurance, that sounds about right.
My cars have often been one step removed from the salvage yard. Many of the counter people know and recognize us. Sometimes even give us free parts. Dallas is a post WW2 city, so most jobs are not on bus or rail lines. But living without a car could work for some people. I just have to drive 25 minutes to work or 2 to 3 hours by bus. Since my parts are alost all salvage it costs around what bus and train fare would cost.
I have been a lifelong hands on motorcycle and car enthusiast. But any one can get up the curve with Harbor Frieght tools, books and youtube and specialty forums. My current driver cost $725 around 7 or 8 years ago. And I have a reliable van at $325 with poor mpgs but would make a great short commute vehicle.
Saw are good, but don't forget the Ax. Can also be used as an CQB weapon when you fired off your last round, and someone thinks you are ideal to top off the Stew Pot.
One item always on my belt is a Leatherman Wave. Wave is on a lanyard (with QD at each end) to the keyring on a belt clip. In the elastic pockets of the Wave pouch there are a magnesium firestarter (cut in half lengthwise); and (in a piece of slick plastic so it slides in and out easily) two needles, 40 feet of braided 50 lb test Spiderwire (as thin as Brand-X 12 lb test), one small red/white daredevil and eight fishhooks.
Post a Comment