Timestepper

I think that it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference what I think. Or anyone else who wasn't there for that matter. Aside from watching the video and reading 2nd hand comments made by others, none of us really knows what happened or what the officer was thinking at the time. We can tell by watching the video that the patrol car slowed down a bit as it passed the area where the subject crashed - what we cannot see is whether the officer actually LOOKED at the crashed car, just checked the intersection or even just found a straight-away and used the rear view mirror to pick his nose or something! There's no sharp intake of breath in the audio (which is generally an automatic and involuntary reaction to something like this) even though the audio is clear enough to pick up pretty much everything else. WE SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW and I, for one, refuse to second guess. It's simply not up to me or anyone not directly associated with the case to pass judgement. It's too bad that the young man died - I guess somebody should have told him to never drive faster than his guardian angel could fly. What the officer deserves or does not deserve is not up to me to decide, nor is it any of my business. ...TS...

Just make sure that whatever you stock up on will be something you and your family will willingly consume - I once carried 5 pounds of rice on an extended backpacking trip in the Rockies and still had 4 1/2 pounds left when I left the mountains after a month because I found out that I don't much care for rice (and I'm a forager - I was eating things like roots & rose hips & fish head soup and making tea from pine needles and doing other stuff that'd make a buzzard puke, but I just couldn't get hungry enough to make rice taste good). ...TS...

My oldest brother lives in New England, but I guess I'm missing something - is New England the land of holy chips or something?

Maybe it's a tattoo of a gun?

Well, I ain't real for sure, but I think that first, you gotta' die. On a more serious (but somewhat less topical and considerably more profound) note, a friend of mine put it pretty succinctly not long ago when he said, "There's religion and there's spirituality. Religion is when you believe in hell... spirituality is when you've BEEN through hell."

My best friend gave me a subscription to Backwoodsman for my birthday last year... and renewed it for me yesterday (my birthday) for my birthday gift this year. Love the magazine!

Long ago broke myself of the habit of noticing stuff I can't afford, broken or otherwise - helps me sleep easier - so I'm barely aware of any ads on this site at all. Sorry that it bothers you so much.

Amen!!!

You could very well be right - 30 years ago I worked in a potato chip factory for a while. Didn't last very long - Oddly enough, I got fired for sticking my finger in the potato slicer during afternoon break. (Well, okay, she got fired, too... and we were both escorted off the property. Geez, talk about a bunch of hardasses!) :-\

I've spent considerable time over the years learning about "survival." I've taken and taught "survival courses." And I've gone about it from a 20th/21st century perspective as well as an 18th/19th century perspective. (And learned along the way that, for me at least, less is indeed more.) Funny thing is that I never, until recently, considered the 18th/19th century skills I've learned to be "survival" skills. I guess that's mostly because the folks who lived back then weren't "surviving" but just going about daily life. Hear that? They were LIVING. They didn't know any better. They didn't have the laptop I'm typing this on or (in most cases) the corner market. They made do with what they had or they did without. Life was simpler back then, but it was harder, too. Think about what Merriwether Lewis, William Clark and a double handful of men and one woman did when the most technologically advanced piece of equipment available was the wood burning stove. And they LIVED. My God, how they lived! Every waking moment of every day was spent IN THAT MOMENT instead of eternally switching from memories of the past to anticipation of the future as we in the 21st century seem to do. In a true SHTF or TEOTWAWKI situation, most "civilized" people won't last long without taking advantage of others. And I somehow doubt that most others will care to be taken advantage of. I know I won't. Doesn't mean I won't help out or render aid, but I'm not willingly giving up what little I've got just so that someone who hasn't put forth the effort I have can live a few weeks longer at my expense. In any "grab your @ss and go" scenario, fancy clothing and fast cars won't mean diddly squat. My elk skin breeches and buck skin war shirt and moccasins will outlast and out perform anything Gucci, Versace or Armani ever made and my beat up old Dodge Dakota will still be going when Porsches and Lamborghinis are being used as parapets for defense ('course the Dodge won't be worth squat compared to a good horse or mule). And the skills I've LEARNED will trump 3 bookstores full of survival manuals. Having said all that... People are weird. Can I grab my tumpline bedroll, gourd canteens and head out the back door and live comfortably just about anywhere away from people? Sure! Will I have the necessary skills to get by in a post-apocalyptic society? Beats the hell outta' me, people are weird and I'm not sure what "society" will be like in that scenario. And I'm not really sure I want to know. But I do know this: "Surviving" is one thing and actually "LIVING" is another and if all I'm reduced to is just surviving, then it probably won't be worth the trouble to live...

And you can't eat survival books.

Reminds me of the time a buddy and I were outfitting for an extended back pack trip in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming: While I chose good, well broken in packer boots, he was extolling the virtues of his running shoes "just in case we should meet up with a grizzly." After listening to him for several minutes, I finally said, "You really think you can out run a bear in those things?!!" He looked at me and grinned (and I knew immediately that he'd been setting me up from the start) and replied, "Nope, but I'm pretty sure I can out run YOU!"

Just read through the comments over there. Were it not for the fact that I didn't want to jump through the hoops to join the site just so I can get spammed into oblivion, I would have commented myself. That comment would have read: "I'm not paranoid, macho or homicidal. I carry a gun because I'm too young to die, too old to take an ass-whoopin' and too out of shape to carry a cop. Statistics show that 96.3% of all statistics are made up, but that can't change a couple of immutable facts: Guns are inanimate objects wholly lacking the ability to decide who uses them or for what purpose. Rocks and sticks can't make those decisions either, but were being used long before guns were invented. "Just as a power drill is more efficient, convenient and easier to use than a bit and brace, guns are more efficient, convenient and easier to use than rocks and sticks. I guess that makes me as lazy as the rest of the population, because, if I find myself needing a tool for a specific application, most of the time I'm going to go for efficiency and ease of use. And that takes us back to my initial statement; I carry a gun because I'm too young to die, too old to take an ass-whoopin' and too out of shape to carry a cop." ...TS...

Not that this will come as a shock to anyone, but I just came back from the creek and we've been flooded out. 'Bout the only survival skill we could practice today would be water and mud rescue for the dumb ass who's hosting it. Gonna' try again on the 28th and if that doesn't work then I'll try once more for sometime later in the Spring. (And if THAT doesn't work, then I'm just gonna' give up altogether.) Sorry...

My apologies if I rained on your thread - Popular history and factual history are often not the same and books (even "Historic Accounts") are usually geared toward popular history, or what "sounded good" rather than the more mundane and oftentimes less flattering facts. Case in point: Eight miles from my home town of Larned, Ks., just inside the town of Pawnee Rock, Ks. is a "Historical" marker for the Santa Fe Trail installed by the Kansas State Historical Society. Until a few years back it claimed that a young Kit Carson had shot his mule near that location, mistaking it for an Indian. Cute story, but it never happened. On a slightly weirder note, some of the things that should have gone into the history books were completely overlooked. (Like the time that a man named King Fisher - a rather notorious Uvalde, Tx. gunman - held up a circus and killed their Bengal tiger to make a pair of chaps.) All things considered, Hickok was in many ways larger than life. He was an amazingly fast draw and had nearly unerring accuracy (at least until his eyesight started failing). Remarkable insofar as he wore his pistols in either a belt or sash (rather than the low slung "fast draw rig" favored by some and over-used by the movie and television industry), with the butts forward which necessitated a so-called "cavalry" or "reverse" draw. Can't fault Charlie Rich for refusing to change seats with Wild Bill on that fateful day in the Number 10 Saloon, but one can't help but wonder if maybe it was better for Hickok's personal legend to go out that way rather than continue on the path into pauper hood and obscurity he'd been on the last few years before going to Deadwood? My apologies for the hijack. Again, the OP was very good and informative reading and I look forward to more. ...TS...

Been thinking about this since I first saw it last night and I honestly don't know which scares me worse: The fact that she's carrying a gun, or how easy it would be for her to carry concealed... :-\

WEATHER UPDATE: The rain gods have once again decided that they LOVE East Tennessee weekends and the forecast is now calling for possible thunderstorms after midnight Friday and a near 100% chance of rain on Saturday. For those who are still committed to coming, we'll probably be forced UNDER the bridge just to avoid trying to make a lean-to big enough to fit everyone. Same as before, we'll do the best we can and as much as we can with whatever we have to do it with. (Provided we don't get washed out completely.)

Sounds fun, enjoy!

Yeah, me too. For a minute there I thought they must've been referring to my ex... :-\

Believe me, I know exactly what you're going through, but be careful of what you wish for because it might not explode but just lock up and stay that way like it did with me. I'm here to tell you, I've suffered through pancreatitis, kidney stones, bumps, bruises and a plethora of broken bones and none of that holds a candle to having my right knee locked in a 90 degree angle for eight days - even morphine would just barely scratch the surface of the pain. And when the tech, not knowing for sure what he was dealing with, forcibly STRAIGHTENED my leg and strapped it down for the MRI, well... let's just say that passing out would have been a blessing. (Being my father's son, I gritted my teeth and never made a sound, but tears rolled down my cheeks for the entire 30 minutes of the test. When it was done, they unstrapped my leg, my knee resumed the 90 degree angle and I finally feinted from sheer relief.) Luck to you!

Yeah, life is what happens when you were making other plans, so don't sweat it. I'll see you on the 28th. Right now we're looking at at least 8 definites for the 21st, but I figured not everyone who wanted to come would be able to make it so I added the 28th just in case. (Problem solved.) But after the 28th, my sweet, kind, lovely, oh so darling wife has informed me that I've gotta' get started back on honeydo's. :-\

Used to run quite a bit, rode bareback Broncs when I was rodeoing, biked frequently and roller-skated regularly. After 3 surgeries in my 30's (two right knee, one left) to repair and or excise median miniscal tissue, due to locking issues (right knee locked on me one day and stayed locked for EIGHT incredibly painful days before "emergency" surgery) all I can do now is walk and cycle. Do not make the mistake I did and think you can ignore your knees. Biking is good therapy, as is swimming, but running is incredibly tough on them. (So is riding Broncs, but that's kinda' beside the point. lol) Good luck - bad knees ain't fun!

Good enough for me. If this turns out to be worthwhile, then I'm not above doing another one later in the Spring.

Wow. Just wow!

That sucks! Is there any way you can file a claim against the supplier or something? Man, I really feel for ya'!