Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest

The Freedom To Make Bad Decisions

2012-01-26T00:29:00.002-07:00

Alternate Title: Libertarians and Puritans
I am typically a pretty concrete writer. I write about things I have done, things I am doing or the like. I am far more likely to be talk about how to pack a bag, ways to get in shape or how to improve your finances than some philosophical or political stuff. These are my strengths and the things that typically interest me so I play to them. Today we are going in a whole other direction. I posted a picture recently (probably a couple weeks or even months by the time this posts)that basically said if you don’t want people telling you what to do don’t try to tell them what to do and it brought a lot of discussion. I replied to folks in the comments section but it got me thinking.

The thing about freedom is that it isn’t just about good decisions. In fact I would argue that it is mostly about bad ones. Also there is the thorny issue of which omnipotent power decides what exactly constitutes a good decision and what gives them the right to tell anybody else what to do.

Everywhere you go there is some darn politician or expert who wants to be able to tell people what to do. Now I like experts. I have a money person, a weight training person, a conditioning person, some tactical training people, etc. The thing is that I choose to solicit their advice and follow it if I want to, for as long as I want to. If someone wants to tell me what I HAVE TO DO that is an issue for me.

Who the hell do they think they are? Why are they so inherently superior to me that they can tell me what I have to do? If their argument was actually convincing I will probably have gone along in the first place and they wouldn’t need a regulation or a law at all. I don’t think anybody has my best interests at heart more than I do. More to the point if I am doing something that isn’t clinically and scientifically perfect but I really enjoy it then why should they get to tell me that I can’t? It could be smoking or drinking or eating ice cream or whatever. If I want to spend my time and money on something to try and bring some enjoyment or happiness to my life it really isn’t anybodies business.

Look at the First Amendment to our Constitution, freedom of speech and religion and a bunch of other stuff. You never hear about a freedom of speech case where a nice woman said something polite to her friend. Freedom of speech is about Larry Flint offending just about everyone and the Westborough Baptist “church” spewing ignorant hate at military funerals. These things are offensive to any reasonable person.

Not many people would like to have Larry Flint over for Sunday family dinner. Pretty much everybody hates that “church” full of idiotic hate mongers. If 20 rough men with ax handles showed up at their next funeral protest and cracked some skulls I would be fine with that, and I don’t think I would be alone. The thing is that the freedoms built into our governmental protect those idiots. This is a good thing. It is built on centuries of accumulated customs and philosophy which culminated in the great nation of America. Really if you want to get deeper I believe these rights come from God.

The point of freedom is that you can do what you want unless it infringes on somebody else directly. Not “well studies show” or “second order effects of” or “society” but directly. Obviously Rapist Jim’s desire to rape doesn’t allow him to infringe on Suzie’s right not to be raped. More to the point as long as I am not threatening, menacing or vulgar I can tell anybody what I think of them at any time.

I can quit my job and start hitchhiking around the country like some 50’s beatnik. If I could physically do it I could smoke a whole carton of cigarettes in a day. I can wear my shoes on the wrong feet and tap dance in the rain. I can borrow money I know I shouldn’t for stuff I don’t need.

All of the things I talked about are stupid. Quitting my job to chain smoke cigarettes and hitchhike around the country tap dancing in the rain while running up a huge visa bill would be stupid all around. The point simply put is that it is my life and I am free to do with it what I wish, good, negligible or bad.

I can bust my hump, save like crazy, start a business, invest wisely and then make huge money or I can get a shack in the woods, have a still and some chickens and get drunk in a hammock during the summer and a recliner in the winter. It is my life to do with what I wish.

The thing about freedom is that it doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. I am free to tell a 6’8” 400 pound biker covered in prison tattoos that black leather and motorcycles are just a sad cry for help based on impotence, homosexual tendencies and mommy issues but I doubt that would end well. I am free to tell my boss what I really think of him and after that I would be free to find a new job. I am free to eat McDonalds twice a day every day if I want, and I will become obese and probably have a heart attack at 50. I am free to blow my earnings on gambling knowing full well the odds aren’t in my favor and if I play long enough losing is a virtual certainty but I have to deal with the after affects. I am free to neglect my family and start chasing cocktail waitresses but that is going to cause issues in my marriage and likely I would be doing it from a half empty studio apartment before long.

For everything we do there is a consequence or more accurately numerous ones. There are first, second and third order affects of everything we do if you look hard enough. Take enough simple little decisions like charging a nice dinner out or hitting the gym and skipping desert and they add up to huge things.

To say you believe in freedom except for this that and the other thing doesn’t work. Really that is just “I am right and you are wrong”. To think that everything you believe is good should be allowed and everything you think is bad should be banned is the most egotistical and idiotic political philosophy out there. My son thinks that way. He will move things or throw them to suit his desires. He will hit people or try to move them or harass them if they don’t want to/ can’t pick him up or otherwise are bothering him. Whatever he wants is right and what he doesn’t is wrong. This is ok because he is a one year old and thinks the world revolves around him. Over the next few years he will grow out of this. I expect it from him so I don’t think it is too much to ask of adults.

That reminds me of the Puritans who fled England because they were persecuted and ultimately came to America, where they promptly persecuted anyone who didn’t believe exactly what they did. I find the comparison between the modern religious right and the pilgrims to be striking. They have strong beliefs and think they should be able to force you to have the same beliefs. Moreover they think they have the right to punish you if you do not have those beliefs. At least the pilgrims went to a new place to force everybody to act like them (though they did it because they were persecuted back home) unlike the religious right who think they can make everyone act like them wherever they are.

My family is very socially conservative. This is for a lot of reasons but it boils down to us believing it is the right way to live. Other than the various sects that say we can’t have booze and have to do other wacky things we live a lifestyle that meshes quite well with conservative republican/ Christian standards. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that we choose to live this way; we don’t do it because somebody told us to or wants to compel us.

I have realized recently that I can’t even call myself a Republican with a straight face anymore even though I may (or may not) vote for them. There are probably some republicans who are not fascists or puritans but they have been keeping a low profile for awhile now. Is it too much to ask for a candidate who isn’t a shameless whore to big business (crony capitalism, not free markets) or an evangelical who wants to force me to live by his particular religious code?

I just don’t see why anybody has the right to tell me what to do with my own life, money and body and by logical extension I don’t get to tell them what to do with theirs. When it comes to some religious issues I do not see why it is any different. I’m certainly not going to live under Islamic law and someone who is a Buddhist or an atheist shouldn’t have to live under a set of rules they don’t agree with. Also I tend to think that religious issues get sorted out elsewhere.

I have a live and let live philosophy about other people’s beliefs and ways of life. This extends from whacky religious nut jobs and vegans all the way people into weird sex stuff, drug users and the like. To paraphrase Commander Zero “I don’t really care if people have gay orgies while snorting a mountain of cocaine on top of rocket launchers as long as they do it on their own land and kids are not involved.” It doesn’t mean that I approve of it, just that it is none of my business and as such I stay out of it. We all have to bite our tongues now and then but we get to do what we want, seems like a fair trade off to me. Also life is short and if a person thinks something will make them happy then I wish them the best.

In closing the freedom to make bad decisions is something I firmly believe in.

Taking A Break

2012-01-24T00:27:00.003-07:00

Sometimes the best thing you can do in pursuit of a goal is nothing. Lots of folks don’t like this. We want everything to happen overnight and the idea of taking a break means it won’t (hint, it won’t anyway) and thus we don’t do it. The thing is that you are taking a step back in order to take 5 steps forward. I think in Western, and particularly American thinking this concept has been somewhat lost in recent years. Maybe it is TV shortening our attention spans or that we are just so sure we can do anything overnight that we are really impatient. I don’t know, maybe it has always been this way.

In terms of fitness the benefits of taking a break are definitely quantifiable. In terms of strength, cardio, etc recovery is so underrated. Often the best thing to do is to take a couple days off in a row and just recover. Heck, a week now and then is probably a sound idea. In terms of weight loss/ composition the benefits of breaking a strict diet are documented. Having a day now and then (weekly or bi weekly) where you eat more to avoid having your metabolism go into starvation mode are reasonably documented.

In terms of preps and finances the benefits are more human and thus inherently less quantifiable. The benefits come from renewing your spirit and continuing the effort. Since both of these are long term projects you are simply not going to finish this week or month or even year. By taking a little break now and then you are relaxing and keeping your spirits up so you can continue and avoid the dreaded burnout. Better to take a break for a week or a month then to get tired and just quit.

It is a good idea to have a plan and use some common sense and moderation. Unless you have a serious injury like say a broken back taking 6 months off of all exercise is a bad idea. Take a week and then start hitting it again. Have a few Christmas cookies, not the whole batch. Spend some of your disposable income on something non preparedness oriented that you have been wanting for awhile but don’t borrow 25k to buy a boat.

Think about what applies to your situation. If you have been hitting something hard for awhile, be it weights, the track, preps or finances maybe it is a good time to stop and take a breather. Remember, sometimes the best thing you can do is to take a break.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-22T00:26:00.002-07:00

“Why would you risk your life for a #*$*&bag like Meryl Dixon?”-Steve to Rick
“You best choose your words more carefully”- Daryl (Merly’s brother) to Steve
“Oh no I did, #*$*&bag is what I meant”- Steve
Wifey got me season one of The Walking Dead on DVD for Christmas.

Stay At Home Mothers

2012-01-20T00:21:00.008-07:00

A girl I know that just had kiddo #2 brought up the idea of staying at home with them. That got me thinking and talking about this topic. I thought an update might interest some of you.

In case you didn’t know Wifey has been at home with the kid since he was born. It has worked pretty well for us and while he drives her crazy occasionally she likes it. We know what he eats for meals, because she feeds it to him. We know if he hit his head, because she was there. No worries about him being abused or neglected or whatever else happens in daycare. There is lots of one on one time to play and try to teach him words and all that stuff. Studies consistently show that a stay at home mother is the best situation for a kid’s development and all that stuff. I don’t think anybody will seriously argue against that point.

So far it has turned out to be a very good decision for her to stay at home with him and I don’t see a reason that would change. Mothers staying at home and raising their kids has been, as of the last few decades, going the way of the Dodo bird. I don’t know why exactly.

There are two fundamental questions when it comes to momma staying at home with the kids. The first question is does momma want to stay at home with the kids and where dad is with the whole thing. A simple enough question really. The best part is that there is not a right or wrong answer. Some women have interests and goals outside of the home and that is fine too. While the women’s lib fantasy that a woman can have a big important career and balance a marriage and children could be debated it doesn’t matter. If she wants to work then that is just fine, I’m not the Taliban.

The second question is whether the family can make the numbers work to afford for momma to stay at home. This is a more complicated one and will be addressed at more length. For momma to stay at home the family needs to live off what dad makes. To back up a second this means dad needs to be in the picture and that there is a cohesive family unit which today is sadly not a given. This is one of those things that is simple but not easy, sort of like how the way to lose weight is to eat less. This is really where the hypothetical meets real life.
To paraphrase Ronnie Coleman, a champion body builder, “Everybody wants to be strong, but they don’t want to lift the weight.” Lots of folks talk about staying at home with kids but it doesn’t happen. The reason is that with only one income you will not be able to do what you could if both partners were working, especially if both are capable of more than menial labor. To say it another way; living on one income means a more modest lifestyle than you could otherwise have. For a lot of people that is a hard pill to swallow.

Personally I don’t really mind it. I have run the numbers on what we would be able to save and invest and otherwise do if Wifey worked and they were pretty attention grabbing. However it is not worth it to me. I certainly wouldn’t mind a nicer vehicle or whatever but at the end of the day it is just stuff. How much do some bigger numbers in some electronic accounts really matter?

For other folks the math simply doesn’t work. That is a more complicated discussion. Sometimes it just doesn’t, especially if Dad is a part time non union janitor or works for minimum wage. Unless you are willing to live REAL CHEAP that won’t work. However I would say if he is making more than 30-40k or so a year (or course cost of living is a factor, 30k in Manhattan, Kansas is a lot different from Manhattan, New York) income probably isn’t the whole issue. What gets a lot of folks stuck is that they have a debt load which can’t be covered by one income. It could vary from rent/ mortgage to credit cards and vehicles or whatever which just can’t work with one wage earner. This is yet another reason to stay out of debt. You can radically change spending habits tomorrow should the need arise, it sucks to go from steak and lobster to spaghetti or rice and beans but it can be done. However money that has been promised is baring default, not an expense you can change. This is, more than most folks will admit, the reason the numbers just don’t work. Either they can’t drop their living expenses due to it being locked in obligations or they choose not to for whatever reason.
When I hear folks say it is impossible to have a parent stay home with the kids I want to ask what their cars are, what sort of toys they have and where they went on vacation last. The answer is that yes, it may well be impossible to buy a nice new car or two every couple years, have their toys and vacations on just one of their salaries. However all that stuff is a choice, not a given. I am not sure if they are unwilling or don’t even consider it but usually the answer is that yes, they could afford for her to stay home if they changed their lifestyle.

On the plus side having a wife at home helps with expenses or at least it can. Home cooked meals instead of eating out all the time, stuff like that. The possibility of having one car or an older one that will just go to the grocery store, etc is legitimate. She doesn’t need professional clothes or have those types of expenses. One of the biggest places a second income goes is daycare. Daycare for two or more kids adds up in a hurry. The bitter irony is many wives are working for a tiny salary once daycare is considered. Their real take home is just a few hundred dollars. I would submit to them that cutting that amount from their budget is pretty doable should they be so inclined.

I don’t want to get anybody down or poke at however you choose to live your life. You are free to make whatever choices you want. All I want is for folks to know that having mom stay at home with the kids is quite possible if they are willing to make a few sacrifices. It is quite worth it to us and Wifey will stay at home until the kids (planning on getting Walker a battle buddy) are in school then she will likely start some sort of job.

Reality Bites

2012-01-18T00:20:00.002-07:00

It is interesting to me that I have never met an anarchist or a libertarian who is basically an anarchist that has actually been to a failed state. Talking about anarchy from a dorm room or college party house or a nice quiet farm out in the middle of nowhere is very different from actually seeing it. I am not saying there isn’t a person like that out there it is just that I haven’t interacted with one yet.

First of all anarchy is a very relative term. It is sort of like socialism in that it never truly happens, and when it does it is only for a short period of time. There is going to be some form of government clinging at the greased string of power until the last possible moment. Either that or some sort of a thug stepping up to try and carve out his own little princely state, most likely a lot of thugs trying to carve out their own princely states. You can have bad government or ineffective government or illegitimate government but some sort of system will at least be trying to keep or take power.

Secondly it is really not something you want to be involved in. Between crime, general lawlessness and assorted thugs and former government entities vying for power there is often a lot of fighting. Basic rights such as property and relative (there is always some crime) safety which we take for granted would be gone overnight. Now granted there hasn’t been a civil war or riot or massive disaster of Katrina proportions in Idaho or Minnesota but ever indicator we have is that these events bring about the worst in people. Sure there are a few neighbors helping each other out and some good Samaritan will save somebody’s grandma but those are few and far between. My observation is that folks will typically do about whatever they think they can get away with in these situations. Also these situations are more likely to lead to another, even worse government, not a better government or a long term lack of government.

Look at how the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left the Afghan commies fought on for a few years (till the money dried out with the fall of the Soviet Union if I recall) and then a transitional type government was set up for about a week followed by the big players like Heychmar and Massoud and other smaller regional guys fighting it out for power. The Taliban came to power because they could do a few things. They made roads safe to travel (a relative term in tribal central Asia). They had a court system that, while very harsh, was quick to deal with problems and most people found it to be fair. In short they offered the basic securities of rule of law.

The honest truth is that a pretty bad government is, by any functional measure, better than this sort of situation or the government which stems from it. It is not nice to say and goes against a lot of American ideals but if you look at history it is true. Our revolution is probably the only time in history that a revolution led to citizen’s lives getting better in the long run.

I file Anarchy under a “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”

Thoughts?

Quote of the Day

2012-01-16T00:19:00.004-07:00

That’s the trouble with you Americans, you expect nothing bad to ever happen when the rest of the world expects everything bad to happen, and they are not disappointed.
Svetlana on the Soprano’s

Email issues

2012-01-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that we have had an issue with the blog email. Some stuff got sent to the spam folder and stayed there for awhile. I will reply shortly to the emails we found. Other emails may have been eaten by the internet (amusingly my father blames Bill Gates for all such events to the point of loudly cursing him from the room with the computer).

It is pertinent to note I respond to all personal emails (though I sometimes ignore forwarded paranoia and links to prison planet/ etc all). In any case if you sent me an email and have not received a response or seen its content on the site within 48 hours or so please resend it. Sorry for any inconvenience,

Ryan

Quote of the Day

2012-01-14T00:17:00.003-07:00

"Why did you do that, why did you light the fuse man?" - Hugo
"Why wouldn't I light the fuse?" -Locke
"Maybe because I was running towards you waving my arms and yelling don't do that." -Hugo
"laughter... well you got a point there, I guess I was just excited."-Locke

Marital Decision Making

2012-01-12T09:00:00.004-07:00

I am writing about this because it is, aside from money which I have talked about in the past (recap, prioritize and take a long view), the biggest roadblock I see people having in preparedness. I see folks whose preparedness efforts are stalled or seriously slowed, sometimes resorting to hiding spending or prep stuff from their spouse (not a good idea for numerous reasons). I see marriages (I am going to use the term marriage but if you have a long term partnership that is similar it applies also) strained with bitter survivalists and their frustrated spouses. Different folks make decisions differently and it is very results based. If what you are doing works then by all means keep it up and feel free to discuss it in the comments section. If what you are doing doesn’t work then please read on with an open mind. Hopefully I can help, if just in some modest way.

Here are 3 basic concepts
It really helps to have a spouse with whom you share a similar long term vision. The way to do this is to really get to know someone and make you’re your big long term goals are aligned or at least compatible before committing to a lifetime with them. Somewhere between happily dating for the long term and seriously considering getting married Wifey and I had a series of conversations on what we want our life to be like, how we want to raise children, where we want to live, etc. We both had a few things that were really important to us and if I recall correctly we each had one or two things that were deal makers. We didn’t fight about it and weren’t mean or anything but both of us had a couple things that were serious enough for us to potentially reject the other as a spouse. We did some talking and thinking and figured out what we could compromise on and that we could both accept the others non negotiable issues.

It is sweet and cute to say that love will make it all work out but real life doesn’t usually work that way. If you want to live in rural Montana don’t marry somebody whose dream is a condo in LA or an apartment in NYC as somebody is going to lose to some degree. (For those who choose a partner then have a significant change of heart on something that puts them at odds with their spouse over long term vision I don’t really know what to tell you. Maybe some ideas here will help.) If you want kids and your spouse doesn’t that is an issue. If you are dead set on raising the kids in a protestant church but you are dating an equally devout something else that is an issue.

Next is fairness. No unilateral decisions on major topics. To me major topics would be things that affect your everyday life or reach a monetary point where they are significant relative to your situation. I look at it sort of like a 2 person council where both people have a veto. If Wifey decided we should sell everything we own, donate it to some cult and go live in their compound in French Guyana that wouldn’t work. Why should I get to decide we should liquidate and move to a little ranch 200 miles from anything in Wyoming? Along the lines of fairness money which is left after the basics of everyday life like shelter, food, utilities, etc should be spent on things you both want to do and or divided pretty equally. Not always exactly the same parse but it should be pretty even over the long run. Yeah that is a harsh pill to swallow but it is fair and right. (Sometimes the survivalist wants to consider everything they want for preps as essential expenses and thus outside of this sort of give and take. Unless the spouse is on board that just isn’t going to work. For us it is figured out on a case by case basis. Some purchases come from our money and others come from mine.)

The last is respect. Sometimes I hear, though it is fair to observe that I am just getting one side of the story, about someone openly dismissing or mocking the concerns or desires of their mate and making decisions by decree. A wife or husband who says that you can’t buy a couple extra cans of soup or a bag of rice at the store because they think it is not necessary. There is no way that I would ever put up with someone treating me like that and neither would my wife. We are both pretty strong personalities so that is not an issue in our house.

I look at it like this. My wife is very important to me. That means things which are important to her are by default important to me, even if I do not understand or necessarily agree with them. At times we have spent considerable time, energy and money on stuff I would not do otherwise, because it is important to her. Lord knows the same is true for her with all the crazy I bring into our house.

Now onto more specific ideas:
-We have had success with floating an idea and letting the other person have time to think about it. Simply mentioning “I have been thinking about…..…” and then waiting a few days or a week or two then talking about it again. This lets the other person think about something, figure out how it relates or affects other things and maybe do some research. This lets them be in the right frame of mind and prepared for a future conversation.

-Don’t set yourself up for conflict. If at all possible avoid this or that situations in favor of more open ended ideas and then deal with the finer details. Instead of we have to do/buy/etc this plan/thing/lifestyle talk about the broad concept you are interested in. Even if you have something specific in mind leave wiggle room to come to an agreement. Also don’t push for a decision on anything right away, especially the first time it is being discussed. Think shades of grey not black and white. The worst case is one where it is yes or no right now that is pretty oppositional as you obviously want to do something right now. You are leaving your spouse no room to maneuver and they either have to go along with your crazy scheme or not. They are either with you or against you, more likely against you otherwise you wouldn’t be having the conversation. Frame the situation in your favor by giving both sides room to maneuver and come to an agreement when it naturally occurs. Better to get most or some of what you want in a week or two than none right now.

We have had luck with one person telling the other about a broad concept they would like to pursue and after they have some time to think about it comparing ideas on how to get there. Example, awhile back we needed furniture, pretty much a whole house worth. Instead of necessarily discussing every piece Wifey wanted to have a furniture allowance so to speak. My wife mentioned this and that we were only going to be able to find so much stuff sitting by dumpsters so we would need to spend some money. After I thought about it a bit the idea seemed sound and I proposed a dollar amount. I think we had the same idea but her letting me come up with a starting point for the discussion/ negotiations was a good way to go. It means that you have an agreement, if not a perfect one, right from the beginning. We have done the same type of thing in numerous other situations.

-Don’t make your spouse be the bad guy. Bring ideas to your spouse that are affordable, logistically feasible, fair (remember, every free dollar is not yours to spend on preps or whatever you want) and pass the common sense test. My wife spiked down my dream (thanks to the Matthew Bracken books) of retiring onto a sail boat like Gabriella Reece in her prime and I have buzz killed Wifey’s ideas to get all sorts of animals that were for sale on Craigs list; having a horse/ alpaca/ pony when you live in an apartment would not work well. However these are extreme cases and it rarely happens. Spending every dollar you have in savings on a sweet rifle is a stupid idea and you don’t need the spouse to tell you that. Not surprisingly, most folks don’t want to move to a shack out in the woods and rather like indoor plumbing. While I am in general on the side of the paranoid survivalist in the relationship I can see that sometimes their expectations or ideas are not very realistic.

-Lastly I have observed that a good way to get the spouse (within reason) to go along with what you want to do is to go along with what they want to do. Or more accurately the opposite is true. I’ve seen folks get into a tit for tat cycle with this and it just makes everybody unhappy. If Wifey wants to do something I am about always agreeable. [With the small to medium stuff if it is important to her we make it happen though the exact dollar amount or timetable may need to be adjusted. For the big stuff we tend to share a common vision of where we are going so it generally falls into place pretty well.] Conversely we act on a significant amount of my ideas. Considering I am a paranoid and have all sorts of crazy ideas that is pretty darn good. The end state is that, within economic and logistical reason we both get most of what we want.

These ideas and concepts have worked pretty well for us. We don’t really have conflict or tension about this kind of stuff and I am able to action a lot of goals and ideas which other folks have difficulty with. Hopefully this will at least give you some ideas.

How have your experiences been when it comes to marital decision making and survivalism/ preparedness?

Bringing Yourself Back Up

2012-01-10T09:00:00.002-07:00

Not so long ago I wrote about mentally dealing with deployments. I happened to be in a good mood then so it was a pretty up beat post. Right now I am kind of down. No particularly valid reason. I had to deal with a lot of those little things we put off because they are irritating to get done. I didn’t have my usual appetite and probably consumed 2/3rds of my normal intake. It is test week for my workout routine and I may have pushed myself a bit hard yesterday so I am sort. Also for no particular reason I have been tired since the afternoon though I slept fine last night. I think what’s going on is that I let myself think about leave (which is getting closer but still a long way off,) and redeployment. Thinking about good things made me bummed out to be here. It all kind of combined into blah.

In survival situations people will definitely have to deal with emotions, particularly if there is significant loss of property or lives or some sort of great suffering. Someone who is 55 and watching their hard earned 401k sink like the Titanic or a person who is involved in a violent situation have different, but very heavy stuff to deal with. Now that we have covered that life is hard and sometimes I am a whiny emo kid let us move onto how to deal with it.

In the short term I am a big fan of distractions or treats. A dvd and a snack will go a long way toward boosting your mood. A cold beer or two might help you relax also but be careful with that one. The line between a couple before dinner and a case alone in the basement is thin and grey.

In the midterm avoiding things that bum you out to the maximum extent possible is good. Getting some good endorphins going by working out is another solid one also. I also think finding things to look forward to can help considerably. Most situations do come to an end and looking at the end of whatever is bothering you will typically help. Beyond that the good old, fake it till you make it saying applies.

On a broader scale try to build a life that makes you as happy as possible. Eliminate toxic people, relationships and situations when you can. Don’t put yourself in a situation where money problems are likely by living beyond your means or borrowing excessively. Our outlooks on life help considerably here. I truly do believe that over the long run we do choose to be happy or unhappy.

Now please excuse me, I am going to have some snacks and watch the Soprano’s.

Angry

2012-01-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

The concept of student loan repayment forgiveness as a public program fills me with rage. I have talked about this before so there is no need to rehash it in full. It doesn’t bother me that for a year we put a huge amount (something like 1/3rd) of my wages toward paying off my loan. We decided that instead of making normal payments forever we would knock it out and of course I borrowed it so paying it back is only fair. However that some folks should get a pass because they borrowed a lot will have a hard time and (probably in part due to degrees in underwater basket weaving and gay transgender Eskimo studies) paying it back seems insane to me. We could debate the politics and economics of higher education all day long but if you borrow money you should pay it back. A guy who makes $25k a year and was stupid enough to borrow 40k for a big shiny truck shouldn’t get a pass anymore than someone who goes to an expensive private school and gets a degree which tends to pay poorly. Hint; don’t borrow a ton of money to go to a private school and study communications or education or sociology. If you want to go into those fields I recommend a much more reasonably priced public school.

Also the topic of mortgage write downs came up again somewhere. That might fill me with even more rage. The reason why is simple. I haven’t bought a house yet, dun dun dun, because I couldn’t afford it. Sure I could make the mortgage but I didn’t have any savings, let alone a down payment. Idiots and hopeful fools who made bad choices I was smart enough to avoid should not be rewarded. However if it is any conciliation to me I don’t see this one happening. It is clear to me that the trend is to hook up the banks at the expense of the people, not the other way around.

It pisses me off when we bail out individuals or companies who make stupid choices. Here is an n unavoidable truth, people learn from stupid choices by suffering their consequences. A person who makes stupid choices and feels the consequences stands (assuming he doesn’t blame everybody else) a good chance of learning a thing or two and just maybe making better decisions in the future. If we bail these idiots out they will not learn how to make good choices. Also there is significant risk that we are telling a whole other group of up and coming idiots to go ahead and be idiots as the government has got their stupid back.
Both of these things make we want to start a fire bombing campaign to show my displeasure. I don’t even know who I want to firebomb, I am just really angry.

On the bright side I had a really good talk with Wifey today which as always, helped turn down the burner under the boiling pot that is my rage. She pointed out that we can take a good amount of pride in knowing that we are doing the right thing. Also that in years to come (these programs come and go, woe is a person or a business who is only viable because of a government subsidy or tax deduction) we will be fine and able to take care of ourselves because that is the sort of people we are.

Note, this article is about a month old. I am trying to clean out my writing folder a bit.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-06T00:11:00.001-07:00

“Please check for me. Not that I don’t trust the system, but I don’t trust the system.”
LTC XXXXX

Interesting Times

2012-01-04T00:09:00.003-07:00

The Chinese saying “May you live in interesting times” has stuck in my head over the past year or two. There is a lot going on and not much of it is positive. I see a lot of things coming and none of them are good. I see violence and riots coming, maybe soon or the cold weather might keep a lid on things for awhile. I am not sure, being over here I am pretty out of touch.

This doesn’t worry me in a personal security sense. Mostly because I don’t go to big cities very often, let alone to big cities to hang out at protests. What worries me is that after these folks get too far out of line the hammer will come down. I’m not worried about them personally. Maybe they are right and maybe they are wrong and maybe neither of those things matter. They are adults making decisions. If the sort of thing I envision actually happens people and politicians get scared. When folks get scared who knows what can happen. I could be keeping my head down and in the span of a few months face radical changes. Have I mentioned these changes are almost never a good thing? That is what worries me.

What can I do about this? Well I started a new more ambitious running program recently. I need to be fast and able to go for a long time and this should help with that. Right now I am not where I want to be with running and am working to fix it. I have been making real inroads with strength training recently. I am approaching and in some cases breaking lifetime PRs which is pretty exciting. I don’t know what I may need to do but as Jim Wendler says “If you are strong and in shape the chips always fall in your favor.”

I would like to be more in touch with the news, particularly for the area I happen to be living in when I return to the states. As noted before, that will be easier when I am not in Afghanistan. I can read articles and stuff but I don’t hear what people are saying in the grocery store or in idle chat at a bar after work. If I was more of a hippie I would call it vibes.

I need to spend energy and time with my tribe. I am pleased to say there has been recent progress in our overall level of preparedness in the last year or two but I need to redouble my efforts. Also I need to have some serious conversations with people. Sort of “what if’s” which could lead to new topics or discussions. It is like trying to herd cats but that is what I’ve got to work with.

On the bright side we are at the point where things are really starting to move for us in terms of finances and preparedness. Hard work over the past couple years is definitely paying off. Sure it is always better if you have a few more years but I am starting to feel OK about a lot of things.

I Get A Feeling of Peace

2012-01-02T00:07:00.004-07:00

For the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of heavy stuff floating around in my head, worries about our economy and all sorts of stuff. For reasons I am not entirely clear on that has all just faded away and left a feeling of peace.

A lot of it is that I have figured out the answers to some heavy and dark questions. “What would I do if….” type stuff. The kind of stuff that, for a variety of reasons I do not talk about on here. I’m a person who can deal with just about anything once I wrap my head around it which sometimes happens quickly and other times it takes a bit longer. The speed of the OODA loop (so to speak) is definitely related to the necessity for action. Bigger, conceptual, but no less dangerous things take longer and can be mulled for a period of time.
It doesn’t hurt that I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this deployment and that our long term plans are really starting to snowball (not the Dave Ramsey debt one as we don’t owe anybody money, just a normal snowball rolling down a hill). We have a solid foundation and can put a good amount of energy towards whatever problem we decide to attack.

Where we are, where we need to go and what has to happen to get there is very clear to me. Certainly there will be delays, difficulties and complications but the path is clear. I am optimistically waiting to get moving forward.

Will I feel this way in a week or a month, I hope so but who knows. Sometimes I get down and worried so I guess this is the other side of that coin. I guess that I will enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

Concealed Weapons Permits

2011-12-31T00:04:00.001-07:00

While I was home on leave Wifey and I went and got concealed weapons permits, a renewal for me and an initial for her. While we were in the county seat doing the paperwork the lady noted that we “were the last two people from Redacted to get a pistol license.” This really didn’t surprise me much because rural and small town folks tend to be armed at a pretty high rate. This isn’t surprising given the 45 minute response time to get a sheriff out there.

Having a pistol license/ CCW is a good thing. It means you can legally carry a concealed handgun which is a very good thing. The necessity of one varies by state. Some places have open carry, or allow you to have a loaded gun in the car, or carry one without a permit in rural areas/ while hunting or fishing or such. A few states have “constitution carry” where if you aren’t a crook (or a couple other narrow well defined things) you can carry legally without the need for a permit. This is really the gold standard.

Other places have very little “wiggle room” and unless you have a permit you are on the wrong side of the law. In some of these places it just means you need to get a permit. Permits vary between a mild administrative annoyance (fill out some forms, show up at a government building during working hours, etc) and a modest fee and almost impossible to get. In places like California unless you are somehow affiliated with law enforcement or are otherwise deemed by the totalitarian administrators to be special (which typically means .gov or .state) it isn’t going to happen. One could argue that there is at least an anecdotal relationship between how hard it is to get a pistol license (aka CCW) and how much the state sucks.

I think that it is important to have a concealed weapons permit, even if you have no intention to carry a handgun. Things may change in your life or region and with a license you can pack heat and still be on the right side of the law. There is nothing like a string of violent crimes in your area, a personal threat, a natural disaster or a riot to make you want to take a handgun on a trip to the gas station or corner store. Sure if nuclear bombs drop or zombies rise from the dead a permit doesn’t matter but in other situations it may very well matter.

Also in states with a waiting period for firearms purchases you can skip it. I always thought waiting periods were stupid anyway, especially so for people who already own guns. Personally I can’t see somebody who already has a decent collection like many of us, deciding they just have to go out and get a new pistol to shoot somebody and then being discouraged by needing to wait a few days to get it. “Well I was going to murder that no good SOB but I didn’t want to use any of the guns I already have and I can’t get a new one for a few days due to the waiting period so I will just forget the whole thing.” Stupid.
If you can get a concealed weapons permit then do so, you never know when it may come in handy.

Building Food Storage in Small Spaces

2011-12-29T00:02:00.002-07:00

My long time friend Maggy dropped me a line the other day. She has been on hiatus from our sister blog for awhile as she has been busy having a kid. Anyway she has relocated to a very small apartment (she said the size of a postage stamp) and is looking to rebuild some food storage that got eaten up. She asked my advice on small spaces noting that under the bed was full of baby stuff and thoughts on stocking up beyond ‘if you need one buy two’ plan. Here is my sanitized and slightly edited reply to her:
First of all it has been awhile so I want to congratulate you on the kid and all that stuff. I am happy for you guys. Next there are two separate issues: space and stocking up.

For space: I am really not a huge fan of under the bed. Been there and done that, it just didn't work great. The issue with it is that stuff under there tends to stay under there and not get used, because it is a pain to get to under the bed. Not an issue for a water filter, a case of rifle ammo and some MRE's but for food you want to rotate regularly it is problematic. In my experience if accessing and thus rotating stored food is hard folks won’t do it. If you don’t somewhat regularly rotate food the whole storage thing doesn’t work so well.

I would say first to be more organized in the kitchen (example instead of having 3 drawers of tupperware and other crap have 1 or 2 organized ones) to get the most of the space you do have. Throw away any junk and organize the rest. This should free up some space. Next I would say to look at other shelving/ storage areas in your place. Wifey and I did this with success in the RV. Having a cupboard full of food in a different place isn't ideal but we have to work with what we have available.

Another idea to free up some space is to use small quart or whatever sized containers for staples, rice, beans, flour, etc and keep those in the kitchen. The big bags could then live in a closet or someplace a bit less accessible as you don't need to access them daily, just to refill the jars/ tupperware things.
Really it comes down to prioritization. Thinks we decide are important tend to happen and those we prioritize lower often stall out when they meet any resistance. If you start from the perspective of “I am going to fit X amount of food in my residence, where is it going to go” instead of “How much food can I conveniently fit in the kitchen as it is organized now, without adjusting anything?” there answer is going to be very different.

So in review; first organize the kitchen and then consider using other available cupboards and such outside the kitchen. If it is important, and food is important, then you can find a way.

Restocking on food: The buy 2 cans/ boxes/ packages when you really only need one plan is good. It lets you stock things you are actually eating in better varieties than say buying a case of chili and a case of stew.

The thing is that nobody, except maybe Redacted (her significant other and my longtime friend who doesn’t have a name on here, or I can’t remember it) and he probably did it because he is lazy, wants to eat chili for a month in a row. Far better to have 6 cans of chili, 3 cans of stew, 3 cans of clam chowder and 6 meals worth of pasta with both red and white sauce, etc.

One good way to give your food storage a sort of jump start without getting sucked into too much of any one thing is to get a good baseline of staples. A 20 pound bag of flour, 20 pounds of rice, 10 pounds of corn meal, 10 pounds of beans, a big bag of pancake mix with a large jug of syrup, some peanut butter, jelly, oil and spices and you can eat for a pretty long time, especially since you can cook. That stuff just about doesn't go bad (you can't store a ton of it just in bags but if you cook at all a big bag will get used up well before it would go bad). It doesn't cost a lot and in a pinch you could eat off it for awhile. Maybe do that to get the ball rolling and keep up with the need one buy two and pretty quickly you will accumulate a lot of food you will actually eat.

FWIW the one shelf stable food we probably can't stock enough of in my house is pasta. It is cheap and easy and can be used a lot of ways. Cook a package of pasta, maybe do up some meat and veggies (or not) and toss it in some sauce and you have an easy dinner. In my observation one of the biggest ways for a plan of staple cooking to break down is getting busy. If you get busy and don’t have some reasonable options to get dinner on the table in 15-20 minutes with minimal hassle it is going to be convenience foods or pizza. Pasta is great for this.
Also we eat a lot of rice and I have cereal for breakfast most mornings so we usually have a dozen or so boxes of whatever has been on sale recently.
I hope this gives you some ideas. Feel free to hit me up with any questions it may bring.
-Ryan
If you have anything to add please do so in the comments section.

Book Review Shatter by TC Sherry

2011-12-27T00:00:00.002-07:00

This is book two of the deep winter series. To recap the last book began in the winter with a massive earthquake and ended with some other problems. This book sort of skims over the tail end of winter and covers the spring and summer. During this book bad turns into worse. It becomes apparent that the Spokane region and the PNW in general are not going to receive help from the outside and things are not going to return to any sort of old normal.

The Good: This book, as well as the previous book, lays out a compelling vision for a very bad future.
To me it is sort of a “and then what” kind of book. So things went to heck in a hand basket, you get stuff set up initially and after a couple months most of the looters have been naturally selected AND THEN WHAT. Folks start figuring out how to feed themselves in the long term, trade, reorganize society and move forward. That is what this book is about.

MILD SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NEXT COUPLE LINES.
Basically in the first book after the earthquake things internationally then nationally go to hell in a hand basket. The dollar collapses and there is war. In this book things get even worse, and then worse again, like dealing with all that had happened in the first one wouldn’t be enough.
END SPOILER ALERT

The book brought up some interesting stuff when it comes to property rights, scavenging and ethics. What has been bothering me in a couple books I have read recently, and to some degree the first book in this series is hypocrisy. In this book the main characters actions on the whole were IMO were pretty close to what they expected from others. I won’t say that I agreed with every thing that happened but on the whole it wasn’t offensive and was very thought provoking so that was good.

I think this issue gets complicated if there is a significant die off or long term population shift. There are definitely more questions than easy answers as far as I am concerned. If folks are dead or gone and heirs are not able to be located who does the property belong to? If your neighbor was visiting his cousin in Maine and the balloon goes up at what point do you decide he isn’t coming back? What happens to his stuff?
I think it is pretty clear that stuff which belongs to people who are present or realistically may be present is theirs. However if things get nuts enough that big companies fall apart and such who do their buildings, stores and equipment belong to? Some level of nationalization albeit at a city or county level is likely, at least with this sort of stuff and is probably fairly ethical.

I liked that government didn’t magically go away. It is really a pipe dream to think that some sort of government won’t exist, especially at the local level of city and county. It will hopefully change and help set the conditions for people to take care of their selves, or at least not cause any real problems in a new world though it could get nasty and totalitarian.

In this book there was a sort of barter network that morphed into a sort of general store. For somebody with a knack for that sort of thing, access to a suitable space and some stuff to sort of seed the effort it might not be a bad idea to take some notes about that part. That people were more interactive vs just staying at their homes alone was good I think. People have a tendency to be social animals and it is difficult if not impossible to produce everything you could need or want. It definitely reinforced the desirability of being able to produce, above and beyond your own needs, something which people want.

Personally I do not stock things specifically for barter. However that is at least in part because I am not quite there yet. If one was so inclined they could probably do pretty well with a few hundred dollars of the right stuff. Stuff like kerosene, lamps, .22 LR and small game shotgun loads, sewing stuff, matches, booze, etc.
This book is a good reminder that in many ways local government is more important than at a higher level. To paraphrase Ragnar Benson the county zoning or agricultural commission is far more likely to cause problems in your life than men dressed in black carrying MP-5’s from an alphabet soup agency. This is probably far truer in a long term serious situation as they will have a lot more freedom to maneuver. Bad local governments could turn into little fiefdom’s or Stalinist collective experiments very easily. It was also illustrated in the book that if people don’t stand up to these things as a group they will inevitably get dealt with piece mill and picked off accordingly.

The Bad:
There was a distinct flavor of population and resource control. Think checkpoints and fuel usage restrictions, curfews, etc. I think these would likely be reality in this sort of situation but it isn’t something I particularly like.
Checkpoints I think would be a fine idea, probably a necessity so long as they didn’t hamper the free movement of individuals in the area and allowed some sort of through passage through for those who need to get someplace. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way that there were passes for people who were deemed special which of course included the main characters. Personally in that situation I would be awful curious about who the heck decided which people were special and what the heck they thought gave them the right to say they could move around freely but I could not. They really didn’t go into detail on exactly what these restrictions were or how they affected people who, unlike the main characters, were not deemed to be special, so I can’t say if I really have an issue parse.

Fuel restrictions I have a hard time with. Now if the local government has fuel and is distributing it then some prioritization to EMS, food production, etc makes sense. However telling someone what they can do with fuel they have is another thing. If someone has a 300 gallon fuel tank in the barn and a 74 stingray and wants to go drag racing down their driveway it really isn’t anybodies business but theirs and their neighbors.
A few things happened that were just a little bit too convenient. The main characters stumbled into some stuff in a way that was awful darn lucky. Not so much as to really mess up the book but enough not to show the benefits of having some things squared away beforehand or the downsides of not having them squared away.
The author talks badly about politicians and government officials who are anything other than perfect public servants and folks who said public positions carry privilege. However the main character definitely uses his position to his advantage a few times getting favoritism or special treatment that Joe down the block wouldn’t. It was government choosing winners and losers at a small local scale. Nothing nasty parse, more like good old boy stuff.

The Ugly:
Not really anything ugly about the book in the usual sense that something is worse than the bad. However the book did expose (which is a good thing and thus doesn’t really belong in the bad part) a couple of ugly and very real possibilities. The first is that a default on our debt would cause all sorts of international problems. It is the kind of thing that starts wars. Even if our country fell apart we have a huge and awesome military. Somebody who thought we were weakened and that they could take advantage or attack our allies might be making a very serious mistake. Even if we were pretty tired and confused we could wipe the floor with most countries.

The next is that some places would try to continue suckling from the teat of government. Big, blue rustbelt and New England cities come to mind.

Lastly the balance of government would go all out of whack. Everyone more or less marches to the same drum in normal times and any pull from individual organizations or departments is canceled out by checks and balances or equaled out by pull from other organizations. However as people and agencies had competing visions, conflict over resources and such things might get crazy. The usually boring game of whose budget and staffing will go up by 3%, whose will stay the same and who might (though it rarely happens) face cuts could turn into serious infighting, like 3rd world stuff. Also in a die off scenario the whole line of succession thing could fall apart pretty easily leaving the US without a clear leader.

The vision of massive cascade failures laid out in this series is compelling, disturbing and seemingly plausible. I was familiar with that concept but had never heard the phrase before.

In closing I enjoyed this book and recommend it to readers. It is definitely worth paying $5 for the electronic edition.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

2011-12-25T23:50:00.002-07:00

Let us start out with a question. When (in a defensive situation) would I prefer a shotgun to a rifle?

I have been thinking about it for a couple days and haven't come up with a situation yet. If I am going to have to fight somebody I would like an AR or an AK. Both have a viable defensive round, especially considering I would be using modern defensive ammunition. They hold a lot of bullets and are self loading.

This got me thinking about the role of shotguns in home defense. They are sort of a weird beast anyway. Everybody pretty much agrees you should have one, myself included, but they are fraught with disinformation and misunderstanding. When we strip away the myths it is easier to talk about them.

First of all we have to deal with "stopping power" and penetration. The prevailing myth is that shotguns will utterly destroy all flesh and bone but won't go through wallpaper, let alone the whole wall. I would say that is half right. At close range buckshot does really nasty things. However in a sort of funny way projectiles that will devastate one type of stuff will do the same to another. Buckshot will go through walls no problem. Interestingly the performance is not that differently from .223 or 7.62x39.

Next comes accuracy and shot spread. Shotguns are not a land mine or a magical death ray. You have to have the thing pointed at someone for them to work. Shot spread varies by load, choke and weapon but at "in house" ranges it is going to be closer to fist than dinner plate or trash can sized. I have heard the rule that buckshot spreads at about an inch a yard but you really need to pattern a gun with the barrel/ choke to be sure. [A smart guy I knew took his new shotgun to the range with a 5 pack of 2 or 3 different types of buckshot to see which worked best. That might be an idea worth putting in your kit bag.]

The next is that shotguns are super easy to use. I won't say that is entirely wrong but using them in a realistic combat situation takes some practice. The real issue is that these folks are using two very different standards. The standard for using a shotgun is that they can load it, chamber a round and shoot a target or a cardboard box 15 feet away. The rifle standard is that you have to be able to field strip it while hanging blindfolded from money bars and engage man sized targets out to 300 meters with iron sights in driving rain and wind. See an issue here? If we narrow the rifle standards to CQB at ranges of 50 meters or less (which greatly decreases the marksmanship factor) it is a whole different discussion.

To be honest I would give the rifle an advantage because it is easier to make fast follow up shots with due to the lower felt recoil and being self loading. If, after a short orientation you handed a dozen random people a shotgun and had them put one shot per target into a few targets at realistic defensive ranges and did the exact same thing with an AR or a Mini 14 or an AK I would bet an 18 year old bottle of Scotch the rifle would win out.

Let us look at it another way. What would you think of a rifle which must be manually reloaded and has a capacity of 5-8 rounds? Why should a shotgun somehow be different?

Now onto rifles. I will talk in generalities about AR and AK pattern rifles and most of it would apply to a Mini 14 or whatever you run. I would call stopping power even as both are quite sufficient. You can't exactly kill people twice or anything. Rifles win hands down in capacity with 3-4 times as much ammo as a standard pump shotgun, also they penetrate soft body armor. While home invasions are relatively rare they are getting more common. This scenario is definitely an ugly one, but an ugly one where rifles shine. Also rifles are useful at much longer ranges. An AK or AR which could defend your living room could hit a man sized target a couple football fields (or much further, I’ve seen 800 meter hits with an M4 and an ACOG) away. Past 50ish meters or maybe a bit more with slugs and iron sights, cursing is more effective than a shotgun.

That does not say shotguns don't have some real strengths.

Cost is a huge plus. New pump shotguns cost somewhere around $300. You can buy gently used Mossberg 500's and Remington 870's for around $200-220 all day long. Seriously shotguns are great because everybody can afford one. If you can't afford a basic pump shotgun with a little bit of planning then I recommend you reexamine your life and finances.

The next biggest plus is versatility. With one weapon you could shoot a turkey in the morning, pheasants at mid day, a deer just before nightfall and have something very comforting in your tent or cabin at night. With a long choked barrel and a short open cylinder you are good to go for a lot. Toss in a rifled one to shoot slugs and that is even more versatility. There isn't (not including oddballs like those single barrel rifle/ shotgun things) another weapon out there that can do that.

Also pump shotguns are good because they have evaded pretty much every anti gun law out there. You can’t have an AK in Cali or Washington DC but you can have a shotgun. Lastly you can't get much more common than 12 gauge. If they sell bullets they have shotgun shells. Also if I had to come into a place and need to mooch ammo a shotgun would be a good gun to have.

Now before somebody bites my head off just because something else is better doesn't mean shotguns aren't an acceptable tool. To the question are shotguns, in a standard over the counter configuration sufficient for home defense I would say yes. To be honest if you can’t handle a problem in the house with a tube full of buckshot you probably can’t handle it anyway. That however doesn’t mean I don’t like to put the odds in my favor as much as I can.

I own both and you probably should too.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has a good Christmas (or whatever else you celebrate).

Spend time with family and relax and generally give doom a week or so off. Like work, it will be there whenever you get back to it. Eat lots of good food and drink plenty. Spend time with friends and family. Give and receive gifts.

Things over here are about as good as they can be. Holidays should be spent with family and friends, anything else is really sub optimal.We are doing just about enough to keep the walls guarded, the lights on and people fed. This means a decent amount of time to relax or watch movies or think or whatever else folks do.

Personally I am just kinda hanging out. Eating some good food and relaxing. Lots of time to think about life and other stuff. Really it is probably more like a lazy Sunday than the holidays but it is what it is. Next year I have a high confidence I will be with family so that is something to look forward to.

Anyway before I go I just want to remind you not to get too stressed or succumb to the petty inevitable junk that comes up. Life is too short, just take a deep breath, have a couple sugar cookies and focus on the good stuff.

Merry Christmas!!!

Picture of the Day

2011-12-23T23:00:00.002-07:00

Quote of the day

2011-12-21T22:58:00.002-07:00

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock”
-Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the day

2011-12-19T22:57:00.002-07:00

“How about I stay out of your whoring and you stay out of my thieving”
-CPT Reynolds to Leonara
Firefly

Gay Marriage

2011-12-17T22:53:00.002-07:00

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Western culture and traditions as well as the bible make that pretty clear to me. I also believe in Glock handguns, single malt whisky, cheap light domestic beer, bacon, salt and vinegar potato chips and catsup. I do not believe in car loans, Smith and Wesson (though the new M and P series shows some real promise) or Ruger semi automatic pistols, gin, miller genuine draft, BBQ potato chips or pickles. That is just fine. The reason it is fine that nobody really cares what I think. The great thing about America is that you can (or could/ should) be able to do whatever it is that makes you happy as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.

Doesn’t anybody have anything more important to worry about? Between terrorism, fuel prices, the destruction of the middle class, economic collapse, the creep of socialism into our lives and numerous other issues can’t we apply our time, energy and resources into more useful areas?

To me if consenting adults individual happiness and freedom comes in conflict with other people’s conceptual displeasure and desire to impose control on others that is always a non decision. So somebody doesn’t like the idea of gays being “married”, why the heck should they get to tell other people what to do? Lots of holy rollers (mostly the annoying Church of the Holy Visa TV types) will be up in arms but so what. They don’t get to tell people what to do. This isn’t Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, it is America and one of the many reasons our country is great is that we have freedom of religion.

If I choose to be a part of their church and consider them important/ wise/ whatever I will listen but otherwise I will ignore them. As far as I am concerned some other Church of the Holy Visa type has about as much right to tell me what to do as an Iranian Mullah. If you haven’t picked up on it they have no right to tell me, or anyone else in America what to do. If they really want to make me do something they can come to my house and give it a try.

The really dumb thing about this is that gay people exist and preventing them from getting married doesn’t change that. Gay people aren’t being strait now because they can’t get married. Unlike prohibition two or prostitution or gambling not even the most deluded totalitarians or religious zealots can pretend this affects the gay population of the US in any way. It is not like dudes who like dudes are living strait lives now because they can’t legally marry or strait people will become gay because it is legal to get married to somebody of the same sex.

For anybody that wants to go down the sanctity of marriage road I have three things to say: Kim Kardashian, internet ministerial services and Reality Television.

Next someone will inevitably mention the good of society or decaying morality or something like that. Those are what people say when they want to control other people’s behavior and can’t come up with a good argument for it. Preventing people in long term stable relationships from getting married in the eyes of the law is sure doing a bang up job of keeping up the sacred institution that is marriage; reference previous exhibits A-C: Kim Kardashian, internet ministerial services and Reality Television. Rubbish is what I say to that argument.

I do not see why the state is involved in marriage anyway. My marriage is between myself, Wifey, our families, whatever church we choose and God. The states only involvement is that I had to pay them for permission. (On a side note it amuses me in a sad way that it is harder to get a drivers license than a marriage license.) If someone else’s partner, family and church say two dudes can get hitched why should I care? What grounds do I have for it being any of my business anyway? Unless one of them is a kid or being coerced I say none at all. Seriously if people think something will make them happy, maybe for the rest of their lives I wish them the best.

If I were the dictator in chief with sweeping powers to solve these sorts of things my solution would be as follows. The government would no longer be involved with marriage. Aside from minimal record keeping I am not sure why it is at all now. It would from now on only certify civil unions. Any consenting adult can get a civil union with any other consenting adult or adults they wish. In a legal sense civil unions have the same powers and protections as marriages have currently. Now if you want to get married and a church or person with access to the internet and $20 wants to marry you then go for it. (Why somebody needs a license to marry people anyway? Especially since you can get one over the darn internet, that however is a whole nother rant.)
Personally I wouldn’t recognize Bob, Jill and Tom’s marriage at the church of the holy threesome but that is my right. They could in turn feel free to think my marriage is a crock and disregard it. This is after all a free country. Just leave people alone to live their lives.
Flame On!

Crossfit

2011-12-15T22:51:00.009-07:00

I did crossfit exclusively as my workout plan for about 5 months during this deployment. Over the past 3 I have gone away from that which we will revisit later. During this time I lost some weight (which is more that I had been drinking more and eating a lot of junk right before deployment than anything else) and improved on some skills. I definitely hit a plateau and got stuck in multiple ways.

Crossfit is designed to make you fit across a variety of areas (they break it into ten functional areas: strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, speed, etc) but not really great at any. Also it is admittedly not a strength program. I started on a dedicated strength program and was doing some other stuff like pushups and sit-ups for our PT test. The daily WOD was just getting in the way at this point. Now in fairness to crossfit the more I learned about it the more I learned how flexible it really is. It is much more than just the main site WOD. It is a philosophy that can be used to meet a variety of goals. One particular crossfit formula I like a lot is doing a big lift (CF emphasizes squat, deadlift and presses but it could be jerks or bench or whatever), then body weight exercises followed by conditioning. I have tried doing my own crossfit programming and it just didn’t work over the long term.

I am not going to bash crossfit. It does a lot of good things. In particular I love that it emphasizes having a broad range of skills instead of just hammering at one thing. Being a hulking weightlifter who can’t walk up 2 flights of stairs without getting winded is not a good way to be functional. A 6’ 145 pound tri athlete probably can’t do 5 decent pull-ups and a high school freshman who plays JV football can probably whip him in a fight. If your goals are functional you have to be at least decent at everything.

If your goals are about general fitness and health you can do a lot worse than crossfit. For those without too may specific goals it is a great option. It has gotten weight lifters running and doing cardio and runners lifting weights and everybody doing pull-ups. This is a good thing.

What I found with crossfit is that at some point I was only getting better at crossfit’s specific flavor of workouts which combine body control, light to moderate weights and or running together in various, sometimes random combinations. So my time at a given crossfit workout was going down but I wasn’t able to do more pull-ups or squat more or whatever. It was like teaching to the test if you will.

I think a person has to figure out what their fitness goals are and choose a program based around those goals. A kid who wants to bulk up for football shouldn’t be doing yoga, he should be lifting heavy weights, sprinting, getting plenty of sleep, eating a lot of healthy food and drinking a gallon of milk a day. Conversely an overweight 40 year doesn’t want to put on 25 pounds of anything so they need plenty of longer duration cardio and a reasonable diet. As time goes by you can evaluate the program’s effectiveness based on the measures of effectiveness which are nested with the goals.

The reason I eased away from crossfit is that it wasn’t meeting my goals. I don’t care how fast I can do 20 wall ball shots or how long it takes me to do 65 65 pound sumo high pull dead lifts. The “waiter walk” is pretty much just ridiculous. These do not really translate into anything I care at all about. Part of the problem I have with some crossfit programming is that it confuses something being hard with it improving a capability or making you a better athlete in some way. Doing 300 pushups or 200 burpies is hard but what does it do for me. Unless a workout translates into improvement in some measure of effectiveness it is either wasted training time or counterproductive.

Personally I want to be strong, crush body weight stuff and able to run, both fast over short distances and decently over longer distances and do decent on the Army Physical Fitness Test. Unless an exercise or workout helps with those things it is a waste of my time.

In any case I decided to do something different. It is called 5/3/1 and was designed by a fellow named Jim Wendler. It is quick and there are no complications of what workout or reps or sets I am going to do. In any case we can talk more about this later. I will however say one thing. Jim Wendler believes there should be a specific reason for doing a specific exercise. Not that you should only do certain exercises or whatever but TO HAVE A SPECIFIC REASON FOR WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
Crossfit is certainly not a bad way to go but it isn’t the way for me.

Budgeting for Christmas and the Holiday Season

2011-12-13T22:49:00.008-07:00

It is pretty early yet but we are approaching the holiday season so it is time to start thinking about how to not let it ruin our finances. I am going to come out and say I don’t think this one is really that hard. Seriously it is checkers, not chess.

Total Expenditures:
I am not going to tell you how much or how little to spend. Provided that you are not going into debt and are continuing your other financial plans (bills, investments, savings, and such) on schedule then spend as much as you want to.

Events and Gatherings
Most people with normal lives have jobs, family, friends, a couple clubs or associations and who knows what else. This means a slew of parties and activities and such. Many of these things are cheap but some cost money, potentially a lot of it. Being choosy about what you really want to be involved in is a darn good start. Do you really need to go to the annual hockey game and bar night with 3 guys you barely liked back when you worked with them a decade ago? If you do in fact like the guys but don’t want the expense suggest a cheaper activity, possibly at an alternate time. You might just find they could cut out the expensive evening also.

Gifts:
This is where I could say something about the spirit of Christmas and family and all that but I am not going to. Gifts are a big one that gets a lot of people. I think that in general it is a lot easier to be reasonable in a family where other people are reasonable. Both Wifey and I are part of solidly reasonable families. We don’t buy gifts for random uncles and cousins or anything but with both of our families and some close friends the list gets long in a hurry even when we are pretty strict about it. Here are some strategies I have found work to keep everybody happy and costs in line.

With pretty much everybody we exchange gifts with there is an (approximate) agreed upon value. Often it is unspoken and other times it is spoken. In my family over the last few years we have had kids born and people get married and various income changes. We have had discussions about how these various events affect gift giving. At times when things are particularly tight for an individual we have found that giving people a heads up that for whatever reason gift giving is going to be a bit lighter than normal works really well. Here is a hint, they know it already and don’t care. I don’t know anybody who wants somebody close to them to hurt their self financially to give gifts. The emphasis is on making sure nobody gets unpleasantly surprised, has an awkward moment or hurt feelings.

Budgeting for Gifts:
You certainly want to plan for this one and might want to save a bit of money out of every paycheck for a couple months if money is tight. I and then we did this for a long time. In the last couple years our income has gone up and our expenses have gone down which gives us more disposable income. That coupled with our relatively modest gift giving means we don’t need to save up this year.

My advice is that you (or you and your spouse) figure the total amount you have to spend on gifts, give it a 10% haircut and then decide how to divide it up figuring about how much you want to spend on each person. My experience has been that if you plan to spend 25 bucks a person some gifts will be 21 and others 28 so it sort of averages out and with the 10% set aside you have a small cushion. We have used both cards and cash for gift shopping but typically use cards. If you don’t have the discipline to do that then take an envelope of cash to the store.

Tipping: I hear about this on the TV every year and to be honest I don’t get it at all. Is this some sort of an east coast thing? Is it a big city thing? The list of people they talk about tipping and the amounts are staggering to me. I know folks typically make more money over there (on paper at least as it is largely eaten up by much higher cost of everything) but it seems nuts to me. My folks used to give our paperboy a card with a few bucks if he had done a good job and I think MIL gives a bigger than normal type to her hair dresser around the holidays but both of those are for one person and are a small amount (20 or less I think). Maybe the news is totally out of reality but it seems like some folks are sending giant wads of cash to all kinds of people. Maybe it is a cultural difference but it seems ridiculous to me. We don’t tip anybody just because of Christmas.

Giving: Times are really hard for a lot of folks right now so consider that in your financial planning. If you can afford it and want to then good for you, if not that is fine also. We do gift giving for a few kids via those tree things. In general we are cheap and I am heartless (Wifey has a big heart but is also cheap so that keeps it reasonable) but little kids shouldn’t have a bad Christmas because their parents are having a hard time or just plain suck at life. If memory serves me correctly we have also done some food bank donations in the past. Both are causes we will continue to support in the future.