What the fuck was a 7 year old doing running around with a knife?
To be honest, she’s been pretty easy to raise. Given my background (which caused me to basically be on the road for the last 15 years), I have to give a lot of credit to my wife. She’s been an amazing Navy wife, and continues to be in my current career.
As for my daughter, she only had one boyfriend in high school, and that didn’t last long due to the heavy schedules both were carrying (school, jobs, athletics for him, theater for her). The couple times I met him he was completely courteous and well-mannered. I think I also managed to inform my daughter of the truth early on: my older sister got pregnant literally the night she lost her virginity. Her junior year of high school. Being one of those people who had their life completely mapped out, all that immediately went out the window. She loves her kids and likes the life she has, but I’m sure she would agree things would have been easier not raising a kid at 17. I started telling my daughter that around 11, including the truth about contraception (effectiveness/failure rates, etc.). We also told her (in a loving way, not to be assholes) that she was conceived due to a condom failing. And as she progressed through her teenage years, we allowed her more and more latitude, including letting her make her own decisions (with our guidance of course) and some of them came back to bite her. But overall, she’s been a lot easier to raise than guys tend to think teenage girls will be.
Would you expand on this for others? What type of food and your method of cooking? Gas grill? portable generator? fire pit?
The reason she is so level headed for her age is because she received the proper parenting from you and your wife. I would say “great job” but that would sound a little stupid for a subject this serious. However, I am just going to stick with it: Great job.
Thought for the day:
“My brothers and sisters, whether you are a professional gunfighter or not, do not stop learning. Pursue knowledge. Court wisdom. Read about the old guard and warriors who have come before us and understand the tactics and methodologies of the next generation. You will only grow as a person if you constantly seek self-improvement through reading and learning. Along with these intellectual and philosophical tools, train your body. Train it in violence and endurance and strength. You may be your only line of defense when trouble comes, because help might not be coming”
Some highlights from the latest Tactical Games in N.C.
50lb packs for a 5 mile ruck is no joke.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2zzavoAWpR/
Yesterday’s work and skills:
heavy bag, speed bag, Kali drills, Krav Maga class.
Question of the day:
LondonBoxer brought up a great point, lets stick with his question:
do you know how to properly dress a wound with an object still in it/with a bone projecting - both to stem blood flow and to reduce the risk of further penetration/injury?
Yes sir, I’d be glad to.
For cooking I keep several extra propane tanks for the gas grill, and I keep a little camp stove with extra fuel bottles. I don’t know if this is enough fuel to cook 30 days worth of food, but it’s a start.
You can sometimes find extra propane tanks on craigslist and facebook marketplace, and if they’re in good shape it’s much less expensive than buying tanks at an exchange station. It’s also usually cheaper to refill your tanks at a farmer’s co-op, or Southern States, than it is to exchange tanks at a gas station or Walmart.
Building a nice fire pit is on the list, but having a 9 month old daughter takes up a lot of time these days. We own 4.5 acres, most of which is wooded so fuel is free. I’d also like to learn how to cook in a dutch oven. It’s good to have multiple ways of doing things.
For food, I buy extra of things my wife and I eat everyday, especially ones that have a long shelf life and don’t require refrigeration. For example, the common cardboard tube of oatmeal has a best by date that’s about 16 months out. Now, I don’t keep 16 months worth of oatmeal, but we do have enough that our family could eat oatmeal everyday for the next 4-6 weeks. And we rotate through it, and none will ever get near it’s best by date.
Meat is a little more complicated, there aren’t many options that are even close to be healthy. Canned chicken like they sell at Sam’s club is ok. I keep an eye on the best by dates, and when it gets close I’ll use it for stir fry or chicken salad. You have to stock what you eat and find a way to eat what you stock. I also keep a stash of canned Salmon, it’s good for Salmon Cakes, or Salmon Salad but takes more work to make it taste good.
I also hunt, and can some of the deer meat. It saves freezer space, and tastes good cold straight out of the jar. I won’t start eating last seasons deer until I harvest one this year.
I’ll post more about my thoughts on food and water shortly.
Seems like the kid saw his mother working with a knife on some vegetables in the yard, managed to get up onto the kitchen counter, find himself a knife from the block, and was running to try to help his mum. I’m sure with hindsight there are a ton of things that they’d do differently, but it just seems like on of those terrible accidents, where usually the kid would be fine and the parent would chew them out for being so stupid.
Sometimes you don’t get to have that learning moment, I guess. Sometimes, the first opportunity to learn just kills you stone dead.
1 Like
That’s terrible.
There is no easy answer for how to keep water. First and foremost you have to have space. My wife started drinking bottled water exclusively when she found out she was pregnant and that has continued while she’s nursing. I buy bottled water by the case, and she goes through about a case a week. The lowest I let the supply get is 4 cases. The most we’ll have after a trip to Sam’s Club is 8 or 9, because storage space is finite. That’s her water.
I make homemade wine, and keep the 5 gallon carboys (and a few 3 gallon) that I’m not currently using clean and filled with tap water that has a teaspoon of bleach in it, and of course I rotate through them. Tap water, properly stored, is supposed to be good for 6 months. I rotate through it faster than that. Right now I have 26 gallons, and as soon as I get around to bottling a batch of Mead that’s finished I’ll have 31 gallons. That’s my drinking water.
Of course I’ll share, but my wife is sketched out by the idea of drinking “stale tap water” so in an emergency she can drink her bottled water and I can drink the stuff in my Carboys.
“I don’t make wine so that doesn’t help me.” Sure. The point is, you’ve got to be creative and what works for you. If I had a vegetable garden, I’d get a rain barrel, then I’d try to figure out how to keep the water relatively clean without using chemicals. Or a cheap and easy way to filter it to the point that I could treat it with bleach or iodine tablets. If I lived in an apartment I’d figure out how to tap into my hot water heater and siphon the water out, and keep the equipment I need handy.
I also believe in having multiple systems, so I would recommend keeping a fresh bottle of bleach (bleach loses 20% effectiveness every year), and use 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons to treat clear water. I write the date I buy the bleach on it with a sharpie, and try to buy a half gallon jug every 6 months. A half gallon because that’s about what I go through, and there’s no sense having a lot of extra that’s losing it’s potency. The older jug is used for cleaning.
I bought a Sawyer Squeeze as a filtration option, but haven’t tried it out yet. No camping since my daughter showed up.
In a hurricane scare last year a buddy went out and bought several blue plastic water storage containers. Personally, I would have bought clear. It’s reassuring to be able to see how clean it actually is. I don’t know if I would recommend glass carboys for water storage. I’m generally creeped out by plastics, but glass adds weight and is somewhat fragile. If you do want glass carboys search craigslist and facebook marketplace for beer or wine making equipment. I’ve found them as cheap as $10 a pop.
We don’t have a generator. Supposedly my father in law is going to give us a portable one soon. And an electrician I work with will help me wire it up simple enough that my wife can run it, in exchange for a few bottles of wine.
I keep a lot of batteries, both rechargeable and disposable, have a wide variety of flashlights, headlamps and lanterns. I’ve been looking at getting a small foldable solar panel for keeping things charged. I’ve tried a few of the smaller cheaper options on the market and they weren’t hitting on much. I need to do more research, but if someone knows what the magic number of watts you need to get a good charge, please let me know.
I’m not a prepper, I guess that’s obvious. I’ve always tried to keep some extra food and water in the house, and for a while I even would keep a case or two of MRE’s on hand, but they kind of suck. But my feeling as a single was mostly that I can get by, and whatever happens happens.
Since getting married and especially becoming a father I’ve gone from feeling like being prepared is not just a good idea, but a serious responsibility. If and when I get called in to work I can leave knowing my wife and daughter will be ok.
Having extra means that we can help out our neighbors during a crisis.
I have seen this several times, well said. We are always on the knife edge, the sad thing is, hardly anyone realizes it.
Well said and thank you for two very informative posts. Good, solid, information for everyone.
Thought for the day:
Something that came up yesterday. I am sure all practicing martial artists have experienced this:
“Doesn’t matter what your instructor can do, it matters what he can get you to do. The fact is, I once grappled against an instructor that was double jointed in his elbows. When it came to armbars, he never even bothered defending them because he was seemingly immune. However, that physical abnormality didn’t apply to me. Thus, I needed to know how to avoid the armbar and even how to escape if I found myself in one. The same can be said in the reverse. Some instructors possess amazing skills, but if that information cannot be passed on to his students, what difference does it make?”
Yesterday’s work:
Assisted in teaching a class last night after work. Obliviously a mistake, since, I have a hard time relating to “average” people. Lesson learned.
Questions of the day:
Yesterday I was in the gun cleaning room and a guy asked me: Do you go fishing? I said yes and he said he had never been fishing and wanted to catch a fish. We talked a little and when I said fishing was a lot like combat because you had to strategize for different types of water, he looked at me like I was from Mars.
So, do you know how to fish a stream? pond? river? both small and large? lakes, large impounds ?
A bottle of crystallized iodine is a good option. It doesn’t spoil and it can purify a ridiculous amount of water.
Of course, that’s only helpful if you can find water to purify, but that’s not a problem where I live.
It’s not my primary option but it’s a great backup system that won’t break the bank.
Not replying to anything with this k?
Just Fuck!!
I broke the damn clip on the SOG Trident Elite knife. Did the online for for a free replacement. Meanwhile was carrying kt loose in my pocket like the dumbass i am instead of just using a straight blade with a scabbard or other option. Next thing u know,i lose the damn thing had to order a replacement cause I love the knife.
Only good thing was, the base had one in desert camo. Got the replacement today, put the Gerber Strong Arm back up…
Yeh, im barefoot there - can do that on my front patio dammit 
2 Likes
Actually the kit in the first pic is a 6’6" two weight, my absolute favorite rod in the world, but not the one that caught the fish in the pic.
Awful handy though. Breaks down in 4 pieces, super light, easy, convenient, etc. And even got me out of a bad stickers on my car thing when the cop went from “License and registration…” to “Hey! Did you build that!?!”.
Ha, you got it brother. Beautiful water and trout, looks like a Brook or Brown. That is really a nice rod, will check it out , thanks for the pictures.
Ha, now that is the way to fish! No outwitting a crafty bass or trout, just light and throw. Just don’t drop it in the boat. LoL.
Damn, brother you and I are just alike, we live under a dark cloud when it comes to keeping knives. Good luck with that one.