TWD – season2ep1

Posted by admin on October 17, 2011 None comments

The Walking Dead is back on AMC, Sunday nights. I started doing “survivalist reviews” of the show when it first came on, and those have by far been my most popular posts. “Are you going to write up the new season?”  Of course I am. Deputy Grimes and his group of survivors continue to stumble through a SHTF world; let’s break down some things we saw.

 

observations – just saying
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Suicide, and making decisions for other people. This episode was pretty dense with this theme, the idea that in a world gone to hell some people are going to “opt out”. I can only imagine things being so rough that suicide was an option, but the story certainly presents a rough world, and I have no doubt people like the ones I know in my daily life would be at the edge of that cliff. Do you have a right to opt out? My thoughts are that it’s a personal choice, but what I know for sure-positive is that it would come up in a dire situation, and like any crisis it’d better to think beforehand about it then get caught off guard. Someone you care about “can’t do this anymore,” and thinks it’s time to check out. What’s your plan? Remember, zombies and death are everywhere; if a person has lost their will to fight, do you think it’s right that they need to be bitten and turned before they can check out?

Morgan, and faith. Even in his absence, Morgan continues to be one of the strongest characters in the show, if only through his inspiration of Rick. Morgan is a stand-in for Christ in some ways, for Rick – having just come out of a coma, Rick stumbled in a hospital gown into a world destroyed and overrun with the walking dead. Morgan plucked him up out of his shock, shook him off, calmed him down, and bonded with him. Now Rick wishes his friend well, speaking to him through the radio in something very close to prayer. This kind of faith and friendship is very powerful, and an important factor in survival. Rick has several reasons to live, people he cares about. His wife and son and friends are near at hand, but Morgan is transcendental, that thing that gives him power, purpose, and hope beyond his reach. In this episode we also saw Rick talk to an image of Christ in a church. Without commenting on the spirituality, it is very important to be able to express your feelings, verbally, in times of crisis. Keeping them in all the time is a sure way to meltdown.

Looting “a graveyard” Rick and his group come upon a traffic jam on the highway, where many vehicles full of supplies and corpses choke the way forward. One of the group says they feel very uncomfortable “looting a graveyard”. In a grid-down situation where the environment is full of predators, they’re confronted with a moral quandary. My own opinion is this: clothes, food & water, tools and such are not doing the previous owners any good, and there’s effectively no chance related owners might claim the remains. I’d be mindful that it’s important to be respectful of the dead, but I’d take the time to speak to this, and then see if the dead had anything useful for the group. It’s a much more finders-keepers kind of world, in the show…  and a personal decision for the starving, huddled masses. I’d never deprive someone living of what they’d gathered, but the dead? Surely.

Cuts and scrapes These will kill you in a disaster situation, just as surely as a zombie bite or a bullet wound. Just more slowly. I’m not just talking about post Z – Day; in any grid-down situation hygiene is probably going to be much different than it is today, and taking care of every cut and scrape is going to be very important. Learn how to do that -now- and plan accordingly.

The “right” to bear arms In this episode we saw the group come around to thinking that maybe it’s not a good idea to give everyone a gun, for several reasons. Lack of training, suicide, or maybe even shadiness of character. Every situation is different, and of course we’re talking TEOTWAWKI. Even in that world, ( especially in that world ) it’s always better to have training with weapons than not. In my opinion it’s a logical inconsistency with the show that during a month of downtime all “civilians” were not taught gun safety and marksmanship. But let’s let that pass for a moment. Do you give an untrained, stressed-out person a loaded handgun? Do you let them keep one they own? Myself, I’m probably not taking anyone’s guns away, unless the demonstrate harm to themselves or the group. But it’s also a very high priority of mine to get them trained. If they refuse training or demonstration of skill, I’d cut them loose; not worth the extra shooter ( maybe ) to me to have an unknown or unskilled person wielding a deadly weapon in times of stress. Overall, anyone ten and older would get straining as soon as possible, and would be armed with what I could get for them. I’ve had civilian training with kids this age, and done properly they can be very competent.

weapons with reach Beyond guns, it’s natural in a post Z-Day setting to find and use melee weapons. In this episode the group finds a wonderful product-placement cache by Gerber, consisting of a few machete-like implements. Better than nothing, better than ( perhaps ) a baseball bat, but if you’re going to be dispatching Zach by hand, it’s much better to use something with some reach, so as not to get splashed with icky stuff when you strike, and to not have the zombie right -on- you if you miss.

good things we saw
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gas in approved containers – gas is still dangerous to gather and store after Z-Day, using safe containers is never a bad idea.

motorcycle use - motorcycles can go places cars can’t. An even better option might be an off-road vehicle, though the motorcycle can squeeze through some pretty tight spots and takes way less gas than a car. If you can’t find a motorcycle and a car isn’t an option for some reason ( clogged roads, can’t drive ) then a bicycle is a very good alternative to walking everywhere.

cleaning guns – It was used in this episode as a plot device, but in truth maintaining your weaponry is -very- important, because when you need it you absolutely need it to work perfectly. One way to insure that is through regular cleaning. Shooting a gun and not cleaning it is just asking for trouble next time.

sling use – We saw very good marksmanship form from Rick, who presumably has had training. When readying a shot with his scoped long gun he utilized the strap to help support his aiming platform. It’s hard to over-communicate how valuable this can be. If you’re a prepper and think there might be some situation where a life you care about is on the line with a shot you make, please get some training and learn to be effective. The Appleseed Shoots are very very good for this.

calm in the chase; having a plan, being rational - always, always better than freaking out. Utilize the times of stress in your life now to take note, and practice coming at solutions in a calm way. This trains you for calm under fire. Panic kills.

work gloves – these are worth their weight in gold, whether you’re working around sharp edges, or performing zombie autopsies. Get a pair. And then get another pair.

bad things we saw
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no socks – always wear socks, even if you have to loot them. Blisters are bad, infections are worse.

bad times to learn to re-assemble a gun – again, we saw this mostly as a plot device, but it’s very very important to learn your weapon -before- you need it. Not in the middle of an emergency. You’d hate to be stuck in an RV toilet with a disassembled gun in your lap, Zach banging at the door, right? Especially when there was a whole bag of put-together guns in the RV you could have grabbed one from.

everyone not armed – everyone should have a weapon, if only a melee weapon. It’s true someone clumsy or incompetent might hurt themselves, or someone else, but this is balanced against the fact there are Zombies Everywhere. Give grandma a baseball bat. Give little Timmy one too.

silent is better than not-silent – this goes to training; train everyone in your group to STFU in stressful situations. It’s dramatic and natural to scream, but doesn’t help you or your loved ones at all.

no plan for being separated - ugh. Again, bad planning and bad use of downtime. Always have a few things going in your head; in a Zach world you should always be in Condition Yellow – have a way to escape your current location and a plan for what to do if separated from the group.

disabling the churchbells – hands down the dumbest thing we saw in this episode. A little girl is lost, and the group is drawn to a church with loud bells ringing. It turns out the bells were a timed recording, and in anger one of the members ripped the circuitry out. And stopped the ringing. If your goal is to draw a lost little girl to you, timed church bells are a very good thing, even if they’d also draw zombies. Your milage may vary, but I’dve kept them ringing.

prepping right now – camping

Posted by admin on June 9, 2011 None comments

from Flickr poster LoimereCamping exercises a lot of the same muscles, mental and physical, that you’d use in an actual disaster or TEOTWAKI situation. And you don’t need to go all Castaway; even just “car camping,” where you and the brood pile into the family truckster with that huge tent, 3 coolers and 10 bags worth of gear only to spill out into a camping space within walking distance of the parking space. Let’s use that as an example, and riff on it a bit.

  • the logistics of planning the move, the whole family from where you live to where you camp, involves organizing a multitude of details. Preparing lists of what you’ll bring, gathering it all together, making sure the kids are provisioned with food & snacks, clothes, all the things to keep them occupied, sunscreen, hats, and so forth. Get all of that on a list, packed, and in the truckster.
  • detaching from your wired world. You’ll undoubtedly bring your cell phone, but perhaps you’ll leave the laptop, the fax ( old school ), and the flat panel behind.
  • adapting to all the important things you forgot: charcoal, tent stakes, rain gear, a water bowl for the puppy, and so on.
  • Handling those medical situations on the fly. Little Johnny bumps his head when he trips over a tent wire, sally cuts her finger unpacking gear, and their friend Jenny throws up from all the excitement. Or was it from something else?

How much effort does it take to get your family off the grid for a weekend? The planning, logistics, supplies, coordination, stress, and raw energy required is substantial when you think about it. But all of this sounds like very good practice for prepping.

But Pete, it’s just camping

Well, sure. You have your cell and car, and the immediate care clinic might not be a long drive…  but you’re starting to develop a keen awareness of what it’s like to be in a situation where your normal life is gone and you’re building an echo from bits and pieces. Dipping your toe in the apocalypse.

In time and with multiple outings you’ll be a bit more high-speed, low-drag. Getting good at taking the family camping might not seem the same as prepping, but getting practice in at paying attention to the details, moving the family on a schedule and turning on a dime, improvising when problems arise, and keeping a cool head when Murphy comes to visit – handling problems like medical issues or forgotten gear…

…all that sounds like the very -essence- of prepping to me.

Hank the Gun Guy is no prepper

Posted by admin on June 9, 2011 None comments

“All I need to do to prep is keep guns and ammo.”

How many of you have heard this line before, or something like it? A recent conversation with Hank on the train about prepping brought this lovely thought to light, and I was repulsed. Pretty much what this thought means is “When things get rough, I’ll take my gun and use it to get what I need. It’s easier for me to do this than to actually go through all the work and expense of prepping.”

Ugh.

The more I get into prepping, the more I come across this thought. More than any other single phrase or sentiment I can think of, It’s an affront to the whole prepper mindset. It’s an acknowledgment that things can happen, a refusal to adequately prepare, and an admission that someone is much more likely he’d be a violent parasite all bundled into a tight little package of dumb.

Don’t be this person, please.

If you keep guns but don’t know the first thing about storing or filtering water, if you rely on the GPS in the car because you’re not good with maps, if you have an inability to rig a shelter, build a fire, or move up your own stairs without wheezing at the top you’re really not a prepare…   you’re a gun guy.

Why do people get into Prepping?

Posted by admin on June 6, 2011 None comments

from jma.work, at FlickrPeople get into Prepping ( or Survivalism ) for lots of different reasons, and at different levels. The commuter who won’t sit in the train cars immediately next to the locomotive, grandma teaching the kiddies how to preserve peaches by canning, and the suburban homeowner who realizes it’d be a great idea to plant fruit and nut trees to augment other preps… all of these people are Preppers. the Prepper mindset pokes out in lots of different ways; you never know when circumstances will strongly favor the prepared person. Ben Franklin tells us that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Along these lines, if you’ve never read the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant, please take two minutes and do so now. Consider it an easy Prepper exercise. We’ll be here when you get back.

“Why are you so paranoid, ant?”

In discussion with non-Preppers I hear this question every so often. Assuming the person isn’t just trying to raise my ire on GP, it can seem like a strange thing, being the ant in a world full of grasshoppers. In our culture, our lifetime of plenty and ( relative ) peace, Prepping for trouble seems to raise the hackles of some people. The underlying assumptions of many people are that the water would never stop flowing, the lights would always come on, and WalMart would always have everything you might need, in a pinch, the the cops/firefighters will always come when you dial 911. These are basic assumptions, and when you start questioning people’s basic assumptions, they start to freak out a little. When Galileo suggested that perhaps the Earth might indeed revolve around the sun, the world back then rose up and tried to smash his square peg-ness back into a round hole. “Heliocentricism? What, are you crazy?”

Anyone who’s ever been laid off, had their house burn down, their town knocked around by a tornado or hurricane, lost power for a few days after an ice storm, or gotten a must-boil order for the water knows differently than the peeps who think everything will always be all right. These personal or local kinds of disasters can be amazing teaching tools, opening the eyes and creating new Preppers with just a dash of kick-in-the-pants-reality. As it turns out, the people who laid in some extra food, bought that generator, had resources and a plan for safety that didn’t depend just on their home…  those people, the Preppers, had a very different experience in the above disasters.

“Ah. Well, that’s just once, right?”

I only need to be mugged once to keep my eyes open for the rest of my life. I only need to be denied 911 service one time where I -really- needed it to have a whole new view of how the world works. I only need to pay for my basement re-do once to know that flood insurance is a good idea. Keeping all of us fed, lighted, hydrated, gassed-up, and protected is a circus act of many plates spinning int he air at once…  and thinking the system is going to always keep all those plates in the air is kinda silly. The reasonable person, especially the one with responsibility for a family, transitions from grasshopper to ant. Maybe this doesn’t happen over night, but it happens.

Preppers are reasonable people

So the reasonable person understands that Things Can Change at a moment’s notice, and that being prepared for that change only makes sense. Your neighbor Maggie might believe ( hope ) that most of the time, most things will be juuuust fine, so why bother to expend energy or pennies to plan for just in case? To the reasonable person, the Prepper, Maggie seems a bit silly. And sad. Or maybe just misguided. A new gi-normous flatscreen would be sweet, and Maggie would never spend hat money instead of an extra few weeks of food for her family.

As it turns out, people become Preppers for a very basic reason. They don’t want to be devastated somehow when fate throws them a curveball… be it personal, local, or systemic. There’s more to it than this, but this is probably at the core of it. Other benefits of prepping such as confidence, peace of mind, situational awareness…  I’ll cover those in another post. Be prepared for it.    ;   )

EMT-B

Posted by admin on June 2, 2011 None comments

The other week I finished my state’s Emergency Medical Technician ( Basic ) curriculum. I was fortunate to have blindly wandered into the most rigorous  program in the state, and it definitely felt like an accomplishment. I’ve had Ph.D level coursework that was nowhere near as demanding as that class.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, EMT-B is the entry level of certification for work as emergency an responder on an ambulance, or in the ER as a tech. The next step in some states is “Advanced” EMT, although in my state the next step is “Paramedic” ( we do away with the intermediate AEMT here, for some reason ). Some police officers and other first response personnel are trained as “Emergency First Responders” which is the level “below” EMT-B.

What does this have to do with Prepping, Pete?

Before I completed EMT-B, I had a fairly decent understanding of first aid. CERT training upped this a bit, but if CERT has ten basic skills the volunteers learn, medops was my weakest. I knew enough to apply direct pressure to a bleeding wound, and that sticking something in a seizing person’s mouth was foolish, but that was about it. As far as my own Prepper skillset went this was a gaping hole. Regardless of whether my disaster was a tornado or something systemic, if my medical emergency went beyond stopping moderate bleeding or confidently directing people not put anything in the mouth of the guy that was seizing in front of us, I’d have a problem.

So I manned up and took the course. Giving up four months of Friday nights.

Class was 3.5 hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights for four months. I had to do ride time in ambulances and clinical time in the ER in addition to all the coursework. Beyond all of this I did a -lot- of studying. And at least in my program, you really couldn’t afford to miss a day as everything was important.

So what’s the payoff?

Now I can’t think of anything trauma- or medically-related that could happen where I wouldn’t know at least how to start to respond. I might not have the gear I’d eventually need, but I wouldn’t stare like a deer caught in the headlights. I’d react, with skill.

EMT-B is definitely not a replacement for more fully-trained, skilled and experienced medical practitioners with technology. A paramedic, a nurse, a PA, all have more ( in some cases astoundingly more ) knowledge than the most skilled EMT-B…   but the sweet spot Emergency Medical Technicians live in are handling the first few minutes of most anything medical or trauma, with very little equipment on hand.

Does this sound desirable to any Preppers out there?

It did to me. I wholeheartedly recommend the EMT-B class to anyone serious about Prepping. It’s a definite commitment, and if you can’t put up that kind of time, knowing CPR and basic first aid are certainly helpful skills. But the competence and capability you receive while studying the EMT-B course far outstrips even advanced first aid.

And also…  in any kind of situation where your Prepper skills might come into play, I imagine the phrase “I’m an EMT” might be pretty useful, to you and your family.

Falling Skies ep 1 – survivalist analysis

Posted by admin on June 1, 2011 None comments

Rolling out of bed this morning I had no idea that tonight I’d even meet actor Noah Wyle, much less be giving him, and 500 of our closest friends, a critique on how his latest pilot “Falling Skies” depicted survivalist techniques.

It turns out that it was inevitable. At my nerdy day job I work right next to -the- @rodrakic, a guy who’s just skittering north of a “50″ Klout score in the Twittersphere. TNT was running an early screening of their new post-apocalyptic show and tapped Rod and a few other noted influencers in Chicago to come take an early look. Rod asked if I’d care to be “+1″

Post-apocalyptic… how could I refuse? See? Inevitable.

And it’s also inevitable that I’d seize on the opportunity to watch the pilot of “Falling Skies” with a critical survivalist eye. While not exactly famous here at NewPrepper we seem to exert a certain charm that draws people and spammers alike with our discourse on Prepping. So in the finest tradition of our “work” before, let’s take a look at the show of apocalypse and alien invasion.

The Setup

The series is set six months after the hammer came down from the sky. Military and government assets world wide destroyed, EMP-like pulses burning our electronics into junk. To weave some sci-fi analogy goodness together, Skynet is out for extinction, and the rag-tag fleet of refugees is making it’s way through, er, Massachusetts  and away from the colonies, one jump at a time.

Noah Wyle plays Tom Mason, former BU History Professor turned XO with Will Patton reprising a role as the PA my-way-or-the-highway military commander named Weaver. Together the two are barely holding the 2nd Massachusetts ( a shaky post-military unit consisting of 200 civilians and 100 fighters ) together by scouting and plundering, living from one cache to the next.

The Critique

Logistically keeping 100 armed combatants and 200 civilians fed, warm, clean, and in serviceable clothing and gear is undoubtedly a nightmare. Let’s assume for a moment that all the intrigues, illnesses, and irritants that’d normally tear such a happy rave apart have been dealt with or set aside in focusing on the Main Goal, which is “retreat, regroup, return, and revenge” if I recall correctly.

On the plus side

There’s a chain of command, with a clear leader in charge with a prioritized list of objectives; hard to overstate how important this is in groups larger than you and two drinking buddies.

Most people are armed. Everyone seems to be picking up and maintaining weaponry. Also a good sign when invading enemies are looking to extinguish us.

School is in session. Teachers gather kids together on a regular basis. In rough times when stress is high, pressure and movement are constants and there are kids along for the ride, some kind of schooling kills many birds with one stone, and not just for the students.

There’s a doctor, regularly seeing to the ills of PA life.

The 2nd Mass is a true guerilla force, gathering intel on the alien’s vulnerabilities and positions, using their own potential weaknesses ( lack of tech, lack of central command, diversity of skillet ) as assets all while running away from stand-up fights. Also in keeping with this ethos, kids old enough to manage weapons and receive training are in the fight.

The combatants ( and presumably the civies ) maintain real interpersonal relationships with family members, friends, and lovers. Even though it’s the end of the world, holding hands keeps us human.

On the minus side

The only military tactics seem to be at the battalion level, and not so much at the squad level. In fairness it might be that in the pilot we’ve only seen the one squad. But as I look around the compartment of the commuter train I’m writing this post in, I see a few individuals I’d peg with military experience. I know the according to the story the active army is decimated, but the people I’m looking at now probably aren’t in the active army. In a group of 300, you’d have some small unit tactics experience.

Civilians sleep in tents, combatants sleep in houses and get much better rest. Weaver the commanding officer tells us this is because the fighters need sleep, and it’d be too much of a hassle to quickly muster civilians out of the houses should the need to amscray arise. This sounds ridiculous, as anyone who’s tried to break camp “in a hurry” will tell you. It also makes poor tactical sense, as tent city is easier to spot from a casual look-see than everyone quartered in now-vacant housing. Even if the invading aliens can’t get a good scan on a group of 300 ( setting this aside, remember? ) the first ep shows us that other humans are also a problem, and presumably can identify a tent city pretty easily. As we’ve seen in other shows, this wrinkle is probably more for drama and to show class distinction and less because someone with military expertise thought it was a winning tactic.

The refugee shuffle. If your goal is to insure the safety of 200 non-combatants and you have enough downtime to teach the kids biology, you probably have enough time to drill everyone that can talk and walk on how to spread out and move as squads, instead of as a huge grenade-friendly snake-like cluster target shambling up the road. Or across the bridge.

and to nitpick a little- if it’s cold enough to risk burning fires indoors, it’s probably cold enough to wear a hat. Hypothermia isn’t fun now, and likely sucks more after the balloon goes up and aliens are shooting at you.

Worth noting

Wyle and Patton are great from “go,” as is the outlaw leader, though most of the other characters need a little more fleshing out to feel 3 dimensional. I liked the analogs to our own country’s history, and the metaphors that were brought out. I’m looking forward to more episodes, and understanding a bit more about the aliens’ method of fighting, and how the human’s adapt.

Thanks Rod, for the invite. Thanks Noah, for remembering me in a sea of Many.

“What makes this show different from others ( in this particular genre )?” one audience member asked after the screening.

“Well, we haven’t been canceled yet,” quipped Noah.

True enough. My fingers are crossed for many more episodes.

Snow-pocalypse Chicago – a post mortem

Posted by admin on February 4, 2011 None comments

The worst is passed, and you survived with a story to annoy your kids and grandkids with.

“Hey you kids, this snowfall is ‘perilous,’ according to the artificial intelligence know-it-alls we have ‘predicting’ the weather today. But it’s pretty lame next to The Great Snow-mageddon  of ‘11. Have I ever told you that story?”

“Only about a zillion times, Grandpa.”

“Well, sit yer ass down and listen again…”

Most of us in my social circle had this experience: Monday we heard stories of the local supermarkets being out of things like bread and milk. We were warned to leave work early Tuesday afternoon. By early Tuesday evening things were starting to “look kinda hairy,” and by Tuesday night people were abandoning their cars on Lake Shore Drive en masse, seeking shelter in Hoth-like conditions on foot without a tauntaun.

Wednesday was mostly spent trapped in your abode, though the intrepid, crazy, or very fortunate might have ventured out a bit. Shoveling a small place for the dog to pee. ComEd and Comcast fell down in lots of places. By Wednesday evening, the spark of normal connectedness started to show again. Some people still had no power, and thus no heat. But by Thursday life was mostly back to as close to normal as was normal for you. The power was probably back on, the internet back up, and the dogs had places to walk.

We had a few days heads-up, and we here at ( where I work ) had accommodating management encouraging preparation and safety.

So… what’s something you wished you had done better, or knew about, or learned?

Or what’s something that surprised you in a good way?

My own answers:  I’m kind of a wingnut, here; I was pretty well prepared. Even if the power had gone out, the internet dropped off, and gravity stopped working, I had redundancies. Something I could have done better was not head out with a few friends late Tuesday for White Castles; that was dumb. I was very lucky, and of course WC was closed.

Something that surprised me in a good way: I ran a shelter for the Red Cross in my area, for the first time evah, and I learned people come to disaster shelters for aid, for relief on one of the worst days of their year; but others also come out to be helpful. They bring toys for kids, and DVDs, laptops, and projectors for everyone to watch movies with. They bring things they’ve baked, blankets, cans of soup, and stuffed animals. They open their homes to strangers and say “you can come stay with us, so you don’t have to sleep in a gymnasium on a cot.”

In my corner of the world, it was the “best” kind of disaster; I had a heads up it was coming, it lasted a day or so, and was just rough enough to teach me some valuable lessons without anyone getting hurt.     How about you?

The Walking Dead – Survivalist’s Analysis – ep4

Posted by admin on November 22, 2010 None comments

observations

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earrings & makeup

The group members have been living out of tents in the wilderness for at least 6 weeks, but we still see hair styling, makeup, and earrings being worn. Part of this could simply be written off as “it’s just TV,” but part of it could also be a clinging to what’s normal. While it’s easy to armchair and ask why in the world someone cares about wearing earrings when the zombie apocalypse party is ramping up to full swing, the answer is probably straightforward: it’s what people do. It’s how they acted in normal times, and it gives a sense of normalcy and routine that probably helps them in trying times. We see this in the most dyer of circumstances; a ritual like this can be comforting.

grave digging, and just  being pain creepy

Your friends, family, and neighbors are rotting away before your very eyes, seeking to prey on your living flesh. Tensions are high, people are starting to show their not-for-polite-company true sides. What you probably don’t want to do now is act in a seriously unsettling way. No uncalled for nudity, no breaking out Glee-like into musical numbers, and also… no digging graves pre-death. Things are stressful enough, and there will always be more than enough irrational behavior to go around and manage. But the truly bizarre behavior tends to upset the tribe, and sort of makes strapping your ass to a tree seem like a good idea. Keep it together, take a walk, though sweet Lord not unarmed, and not by yourself.

Justice & group safety pt 2 – stocks

Justice when the world goes sideways would likely be broken down to the basics. For serious stuff, the perpetrator is just killed. For the non-kill stuff, maybe exile works. There’s probably some gray area between being chewed out and being exiled, though; without jails and jailers, for these kinds of offenses ( like grave digging for no good reason ) we have the stocks, some kind of modern analog to the pillory. Strapped to a tree or some other handy sturdy thing until you can convince the alpha you’re crazytime is over and your timeout should end would come back into vogue. Interestingly enough, I suspect that this reduced set of options is on a sliding scale…  the erratic violent ex-con might get ventilated, the erratic hairdresser gets exiled, and the erratic doctor gets a firm talking to or time in the stocks. Funny how that works, eh?

social mores – respect for age – wrapping birthday gifts

This goes along with the note about earrings, above. It’s more social, though. Earrings, hair and makeup are more personal anchors to keep you stable in the sea of turmoil, but social norms such as respect for the elderly and wrapping birthday gifts is an expression of something more social, and maybe more profound. It’s beyond keeping your world calm; it’s extending that calm outward from you, and making an effort at keeping the world around you calm as well. In a survival situation you might see this expressed as social celebrations, religious observances, and rites of passage. Even  ore than our own personal rituals, these are the things that keep us human.

circumstances bring out what’s inside

I’ve written about this before; this week we saw it expressed vividly in the caretakers of the old nursing home, banding together and drawing the line around the place where loved ones were kept. Some would cut and run, writing the elderly and infirm off; others stay and draw the line in the sand at the doorstep to the nursing home, because when it comes down to it, you take care of mom, dad, and whomever else when they can’t take care of themselves. We see this time and again in social situations where the normal measures of honor, purpose, and value are stopped away. In the absence of “normal” measures of such things, people will invent them. There might be no practical upside to staying on as a defender of a nursing home during the zombie apocalypse… but it provides a much clearer sense of purpose ( and thus stability ) than perhaps hiding out in the hills in a bunch of tents might.

Appearances v. reality

The meeting of the two groups was very rich in lessons; how Murphy gets invited to every party, why it’s smart to identify all targets before sending lead downrange, how it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that a group of well-armed and organized individuals of a single ethnic background is a “gang”. The truth is almost always more complex than the little packages we tend to put it in when we’re under stress.

The weird stuff starts to make an appearance

In times of crisis or change, it’s not unheard of that occurrences or abilities beyond our understanding start to manifest. Incredible feats of strength or perception can mostly be attributed to the sympathetic nervous system… but there are interesting reports of things not easily explained happening when our world changes. We see an example of that in this episode with the dream of graves being needed…  I suspect they’ll need exactly the right number that have been dug up.

good things we saw in this episode

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hats/umbrellas

always a good idea to protect your head in the sun. A hat or umbrella is invaluable. Dehydration and heat stroke are real possibilities, especially if you’re used to being inside and “working” at a keyboard. Your “get home bag” should contain a hat.

planning with visual aids

Got something complex and mission-critical to discuss? If the plan is more complicated than “When you hear me yell, you haul ass,” then it’s always a good idea to plan with visuals. Crude drawings in the sand work, but even better are sketches, and even better than that is a 3d model of some sort. These representations stick in most people’s brains much better than spoken or written plans, and are more easily recalled under stress.

good cop / bad cop

Always a classic. Sweet things ( and gentle voices of rationality ) seem sweeter when accented by bits with salt. If you’re interrogating a member of the group that kidnapped your buddy, remember the words of Al Capone- “You get further with a kind word and a gun than you do with just a kind word.”

still keeping up lessons

We saw what looked like a school lesson being taught. From what I’ve mentioned before, this is good on several levels…  it keeps people occupied, it reinforces a comfortable mindset via a familiar ritual, and it ( presumably ) teaches something ( like the value of hats in the sun ). A clear win.

bad things we saw

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useless work in the sun

…is to be avoided. Period. Necessary work in the sun is done with a hat, plenty of water on hand, and necessary breaks. People who violate this guideline should be watched for possible locking-up-in-the-stocks behavior. Even if they don’t bug out for some reason, they’ll be a greater drain on your group’s resources than the person who keeps their head.

leaving a watch

The USMC fifth General Order for sentries standing watch is: “I will quit my post only when properly relieved.” This means that if it’s your turn up on top of the Winnebago with a rifle and a pair of binoculars and you happen to notice one of the group is digging graves ( without a hat ), then you yell for someone to go check it out. What you don’t do is leave your post and check it out yourself. This sets a very bad precedent; maybe later, when it’s cold and there’s a campfire burring, if you’re used to leaving your post it’ll seem like no big deal to come down from the roof of the RV and snuggle up for some hot coco and feel good. This would be bad.

not keeping a watch

Perhaps worse than leaving your post is not posting a watch at all. This gets people killed. Luckily, a working backup warning system might save lives in this case.

faulty warning systems

So, your warning system repeatedly fails to give you warning? Time to upgrade, or get very comfortable with the fact that it’s useless and plan accordingly. Imagine that lives depend on this…. because in a survival situation, they do. Not only when you discover it, but also a week later, when it’s a pain in the ass and things seem fine. Murphy is lurking just beyond your crappy perimeter wire of rock-filled tin cans.
no plan

Hands down the worst thing we saw this week. When the shit really hit the fan, it was obvious there was no plan, and people ( some of whom we didn’t even recognize? Hmmmm ) died. Plan on being attacked. Plan on being surprised. Planning and drilling for this not only gives you something to do, but helps move this stuff from your frontal lobe ( where it will sit useless when the real emergency comes ) and drive it deeper into the brain and muscles. Think of drilling as “drilling” something into your body so that it’s there for you when you don’t have time to think. 

Quick Shopping Runs of the Apocalypse

Posted by admin on November 20, 2010 1 comments

Assume you’re on the road, and Something Bad happens.

You’re somewhere away from home, and maybe you have your go-bag, but maybe you don’t. Regardless, you have the chance to swing into a store and grab a few items before your drive/hump home. You’re just ahead of the tide of panic, and have an opportunity to wing through the Jewel before you start the journey home to your family.

What do you buy?

Let’s assume you have to be able to carry it on your person. What’s your shopping list?

John over at survivalism.blogspot.com has taken a shot at this. I like his list, a lot.

He stays away from the topic of water, but clearly it’s very important. Always stay away from pop and alcohol. Those two things will only hurt you in this situation. In addition to the items he suggests, I’d say get 2-3 big bottles of water.

It will suck to carry them, but it will suck more to not have water. If you’re in a vehicle this is not a problem, if you’re on foot it would be good to improvise a way to carry water. Pockets work, but also think about grabbing a bunch of the plastic shopping bags and improvising a carry bag, or go at it hobo-style with a broom handle ( plenty of those still in the store? ) with a triple-bagged pouch at the end for your water.

How do you feel about what’s on his list? What would you swap out?

The Walking Dead – Survivalist’s Analysis – ep3

Posted by admin on November 16, 2010 None comments

observations

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keeping calm – There’s a saying from the military: when you get into a tight spot, you’re ability to react will only be half as good as your last recent day of training. This is due to a number of factors but one of the largest is that we naturally get stupid when we panic. Our ability to utilize the higher functions gets severely compromised; it’s one of the reasons why soldiers train so much. The movements and skills become second nature, because having to rely on thinking everything through in the heat of the moment is no way to move the ball.

Staying calm is huge here, too. You naturally get jacked up and dumber when you’re under stress, but panicking brings you to a whole new level of Dumb. It’s a very good idea to cultivate a few methods for calming yourself down before things get amazingly stressful, so you won’t be “going full retard” and you’ll have the ability to think through options when you really need it. Like when you’re seriously considering severing your wrist with a hacksaw.

collapse justice: Leaving People to Die & Wholesale Beatings R Us – When the zombies overrun the local Tea Party shindig, one phrase that you won’t hear too often will be “You’ll hear from my lawyer!” Things we rely on today like 9-1-1, evidence teams, due process, and the criminal justice system as a whole just go away. If there’s a problem, you have to deal with it yourself. The phrase “That’s against the law,” also gets kinda strange. Looting? Sam Walton probably isn’t a factor in your decision to lift some property from the local WalMart, but now your decision to swing by the neighbor’s field and pick up some of his apples will get you shot.

No one is coming. No one is solving your problem with the people in your group that don’t work and play well together, except you. What do you do?

It’s probably a good idea to set up some expectations, as a group. We tend to revert pretty quickly back to tribal sorts of rules: no stealing, no harming without good cause, no slacking. This stuff gets met with some serious repercussions. Trespass is also probably a really bad idea, if someone with a gun is claiming that bit of property. What do you do if someone starts smacking around their spouse? or kid? Or your kid? Do you bounce them out of the group? Shoot them?

For a while maybe you get by without having a conversation about this… but it’s only a matter of time before people start fucking around, and if you’re going to keep your group together, you need a plan.

Going back for The Merle-ster – Merle was a violent, drug-addicted racist and Olympic-class trouble maker. The group left him behind on a rooftop, but when they got back to safety they decided to head back to retrieve him. Able-bodied peeps made a decision to take a functioning vehicle, some weapons and ammo, and go straight into Jacked Up and get the asshole back.

A tough call, here. If you feel responsible, you may have to serve your conscience and head back. But in leaving, you’re saying that being true to the idea of not leaving someone behind ( even an -asshole- someone ) is more important than the concrete reality of being as safe together as you’d be if you didn’t leave. I’d also probably wind up wanting to go back and retrieve him, but it would still probably be a mistake.

gender division of labor – this week we saw women doing the laundry, men out getting food. Two schools of thought here: one is that this is dumb, and not right, and possibly harmful. Let’s let the tough chicks help patrol, fight, hunt and gather and make the detail-oriented, gentler dudes help with the laundry. The second opinion is that we have so much history as a culture with gender-biased work ( in a tribe ) that it’s what we’re comfortable with on some level, and in a stressful world overrun with flesh eating former-neighbors we seek comfort where we can find it. I suspect the best answer here is to discuss it, make sure everyone has a job and is pulling their weight, and contributing as best they can.

skillsets vs. social compatibility – Let’s say you’re in a survival group and the only doctor, a chick with experience in trauma and infectious diseases, is herself toxic and almost unbearable. Most groups give her much more latitude than the toxic, unbearable computer analyst who’s skills don’t count for much now. The idea is that post-collapse there are certain skills that are invaluable ( medical, mechanical ), some that are good to have on tap ( security ) and some that are much less valuable now ( barista, Copy Guy ). Everyone has a mouth to feed and water, and in a survival situation there’s a balance somewhere between what you bring to the tribe, the resources you consume, and how big a jerk you are. On the show Merle’s brother is volatile, but clearly has valuable skills. How about you?

timeline issues – It seems like the camp has been set up for about 6 weeks, in a tent situation. Not a lot of real organization or directed effort going on; you see more productivity on a given episode of Survivor. In a collapse situation, it’s important to give the group and individuals goals, for so many reasons. Just hanging out together in a loose clan with no real leader or direction is a recipe for badness. What we see so far is a big strong alpha-dude who had authority in the Old World sort of taking charge. This works for the short term, but not really over the long haul.

good things we saw this week

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perimeter setting – definitely a good idea to set up a perimeter, though make sure it’s functional and effective. Perimeters also need to be patrolled.

around the clock watch – Someone’s always awake. Added to this ( hopefully ) is some kind of system for alarm, besides shouting “Hey, everyone wake up!”

crossbow – the very quiet “gun” that you can reuse the “bullets” with. I’m kind of a hater when it comes to bows and crossbows as post-collapse options, but in this case it seems that the crossbow is a very effective tool.

bad things – counterproductive to survival

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panic – The Zombie apocalypse is tough, I’d imagine. Seeing friends and loved ones killed and turned is rough, living in a tent in a camp with a bunch of strangers is rough, being handcuffed to a steampipe on a rooftop in a city swarmed by zombies is rough. Panic kills. Take some breaths, wiggle your toes, go to your happy place for a few moments. It’s easier to practice this sort of thing now when you’re merely upset and not chained in place with the undead coming your way.

not shutting the car alarm off – Tip: If you know the zombies are drawn to sound, and you live in a quiet place relatively free of zombies, disable your stolen car’s anti-theft siren before driving up to your hidden camp. Just saying.

heavy sharp object gangbang – The campers came upon a zombie feeding on a fallen deer, and standing in a tight circle and proceeded to hack away with various heavy sharp objects. Very dangerous… easy to accidently take out a fellow camper, or spray them with infected blood as you hack. If you spend six weeks together, practice doing this sort of thing with a goal of not killing one another. Drill a few times.

social malaise – if you find yourself encamped with a group of survivors of some trauma, it’s probably important to get organized and working towards some goals. Gathering supplies, scouting new locations, beefing up security, and so on. Just hanging out, indeed having an appreciable amount of free time at all is probably not a good thing, in the beginning. Keep busy as a group, find talents, practice important skills, motivate one another.