How Do I Kill An 'X'? (Part 2)

Vampires:


In the movies you see some tough guy try to shoot a vampire to no effect, then the pansy guy with a cross or some holy water steps in and drives the vamp back. Popular culture will tell you that you should drop your gun in favor of some holy item. That's just false information being fed to you from the vampires! What if that doesn't work? What if it's a Jewish vampire?

The deal on Christian symbols and the vamp-hate is based off the idea that Vampires have been forsaken by God so they go around targeting those that God hasn't forsaken. (Doesn't seem like a good manner to get an appeal to me.) They so hate God that they are repulsed by His symbols.

If Judas Iscariot is the first vampire in your way of thinking - they can't stand silver because of the whole selling-out-Jesus-for-silver-coins thing. Additionally, if you're going with a wooden stake, make sure it's made from the wood of an Aspen tree as that's the type of tree Judas supposedly hanged himself from.

There's also the idea that vampires came from Lilith. Lilith is considered by some to be the first wife of Adam. She was shunned by Adam because she demanded to be treated as an equal. Adam hooks up with Eve, Lilith hooks up with demons. Adam and Eve's offspring are us humans while Lilith's offspring are vampires. They are purportedly females that steal into nurseries killing babies and then seducing their fathers. These vampires can be held at bay with lullabies (prayers against Lilu [the Lilith begotten vampires]) or by placing pendants around their necks inscribed with the names of the three angels sent by God to round up Lilith. Sing lullabies to your babies but don't put chains or necklaces on them - that's frickin' dangerous - hello, choking hazard!

Pop culture will have you use a wooden stake (any wood though I'd go with a hard wood, finely sanded). In more recent years silver bullets have been added to the list (I guess via the Judas theory). In most stories you can cut off a vampire's head as well (this is actually difficult to do by the way).

The Stake Method:
You have to either angle up from beneath the rib cage and into the heart or go right through the sternum. Contrary to all that left side of the torso crap, the heart is located directly behind the sternum. I don't know if you have to just pierce the heart or go all the way through it, but I'd go for all the way through just to be safe. Your stake should then be a minimum of eight inches long but I'd go with a foot-long. You need to have a tapered tip, but not too thin or it'll break going through the sternum. In order to get through the sternum you're going to need some help - get a rubber mallet to help drive it in. I'd suggest that you try this when during the day when supposed vampires are sleepy.

Silver Bullets:
I guess I could buy it. I'm certainly of the mind that throwing bits of metal at high speeds into a vampire is likely to distract it a bit. Go for it, just be sure to use lots.

Decapitation:
Here's an experiment you can do at home. Buy several watermelons. Find some fence posts or put some nails through a board at about five to six feet tall. Mount the water melons at that height. Now use that cheap sword you bought at the mall or a hatchet and try to cut through them in one stroke. A watermelon is about the same overall density of a human head. (I know - to take off someone's head you go through the neck, but don't you want to be sure you can do it? Frankly I know I'd rather be over prepared.) It's probably not going to work too well. If this is the route you're taking I'd get a nice katana.

Incineration:
Burn them to ashes and then scatter the ashes - pretty straight-forward, right? You have to be fairly thorough to make a fire hot enough that will burn the entire vamp - bones and all.

Verdict: OVERKILL! Incapacitate them with silver bullets, cut off their head, burn the head and the body separately, and scatter the ashes in LOTS of different places. If you've ever seen a Dracula movie, those vamps always find a way to come back. The least we can do is make it hard for them.

Composting

There are numerous reasons that you should take up gardening as a hobby. Chief among them is that you have the opportunity to create food! This could be an immensely helpful ability down the line.

One of the important parts of gardening is supplying the nutrients that your plants require. You can hop down to the store and pick up a bag of compost or manure today, but you can also make it on your own.

Composting is also a good way to deal with some of the trash we produce. I could go into what compost is and why you should do it, but this wikipedia entry does better than I could:

Compost wiki-style

Last weekend I built my first-ever compost bin with the primary intention of creating compost for my wife's garden, but also as a way to deal with some of our trash.

It's been coming along fairly well. I have added scraps a few times and I think I'm starting to see the beginning of the compost process. It's pretty cool.

Composting is an important part of becoming more self-reliant. It's getting harder to say with certainty what state the world is going to be like in the coming years. During World War II food was rationed. In today's world there would probably be rioting in the streets if the government tried to ration your Lucky Charms or Doritos - imagine what would happen if the government imposed rations on sugar, nylon, copper - that's what happened in World War II. Start your Victory Garden now.

TWO MONTHS LATER: I've built my second compost bin and the first is nearly ready to be emptied back into the ground. I filled my first bin over about eight weeks and have been letting it compost since. It'll be fully composted in about four weeks or so. At that point the second bin will be full and ready to sit. I'll then start using the first bin actively after that.

The experiment has thusfar been successful. I'm excited to see how the compost helps the garden next year.

How Do I Kill An 'X'? (Part 1)

While my blogs typically deal with pragmatic concerns, I do also intend to have a little fun from time to time. Dealing with Supernature is rather unlikely, it basically fits the definition of impossible, however it is fun to conjecture. Here goes!

You run across a werewolf, vampire, zombie, or whatever. You're going to be pretty safe if you cut off their head and burn everything. However, in hand to hand combat you can't really gather firewood and make a campfire. You need a quick and forceful way to subdue your target.

Werewolves:


A werewolf is basically a wild beast, with the supernatural exception. You need a silver bullet! Well, don't set down your gun loaded with lead bullets - shoot the damn thing! A bullet made of lead (or whatever else you have) is going to do some damage. If shooting a werewolf isn't going to kill it, it will give it pause. A wild beast is going to go for the easy kill, it's not going to enjoy getting shot up. Of course, some myths will say that a werewolf will have some level of cognitive ability in which case it will likely go for the most dangerous target first. If that's the case you're still best off to unload your gun directly into it!

There are several ways to kill a werewolf as myths tell us - silver bullets, decapitation, cut out their hearts, death by werewolf, or kill the werewolf that created it. Finding and killing the werewolf that created the werewolf in front you isn't a solution to your immediate problem - not gonna help you. If you are a werewolf and are trying to kill another - for one thing you shouldn't be reading this blog, but also you're a werewolf - you should be hunting down those tasty humans! Cutting out the heart seems like a pretty safe way, but isn't going to be all that easy. I don't think I want to tangle with the person that can cut out the heart of a werewolf. Cutting off the head is a fairly good idea - but unless you're a trained samurai with a katana it's not easy. Using explosives to blow the thing up effectively should have the same result as cutting off the head. I'd still want to make sure that the head stays separated from the rest of the... stuff. Burn it to be safe. Silver bullets are probably the way to go. The nice thing about silver bullets is that they're bullets and will work on wild, rampaging, ferocious beasts that aren't supernatural.

Verdict: silver bullets.

Smoke Detectors/Fire Alarms

The smoke detectors in your house are probably past their prime. It is recommended, by... whoever, that household smoke detectors get replaced every six years. That's a bit overkill if you ask me, but it's a good idea to inspect your smoke alarms at least once a year.

Smoke alarms in private homes typically are battery powered and are either optical or ionization style detectors. Optical detectors are a bit more expensive but are less likely to go off on a false-positive. Ionization alarms are cheaper but tend to go off if you burn the toast.

The smoke alarms in my house were at least ten to fifteen years old. They've been replaced, but I really ought get a few more. It's suggest that you put one in each room that someone sleeps in as well as one per level of the home in a common area.

Smoke alarms are either battery operated and/or hard-wired directly to your house. The best is obviously with both power sources, but unless you're dealing with new construction battery-operated is just fine. The cost of having an electrician come out to wire you up some detectors isn't usually in the budget for most of us.

If you hear a loud, regular chirp sound from your detector - you need to change the battery. It's best to preemptively do that every one to two years.

Since we're on the subject - you should also pick up a Carbon Monoxide detector. Those combined units won't actually detect hazardous levels of CO gas without the presence of smoke.

Leaving Home

There are several situations that would require you and your family to leave your house very quickly. These situations include a fire, flooding, earthquake, and so on. If your house is burning down or you're going to be unable to get in it for a time, you will need to have some important items with you. Here's a partial list:

Copies of important paperwork:
Insurance policies
Birth certificates, marriage certificate
Identification
Prescriptions/or someway to get them filled
Small first aid kit
Cash ($100 to $200 should be good)
Phone card (and phone numbers for people if you don't have your address book or cellphone!)
Matches in waterproof container
Flashlight (with batteries!)
Whistle
Portable NOAA weather radio (hand crank or battery)
Food, bottled water (high-energy bars)
Baby needs
Change of clothes – everything for a complete change of clothes for all people
work gloves (in case you need to go through the wreckage of your house!)


Once you assemble all of these things - get a sturdy backpack or duffel bag and keep it in a very easily accessed place that also isn't obvious. The top shelf of a front hall closet or by the back door would be good places.

You need an evacuation plan - young children need to be helped and pets need to be gathered up. Designate places in the yard, or in the neighborhood where your family should meet. Additionally find a place a few streets away for people to meet if the area around your house isn't safe.

You need to practice getting out. There's a reason that people run fire drills and whatnot - so that when a real emergency occurs and people are possibly in a panic they stand a solid chance of getting out.

That's all I have for that for now.

Food-time! Part 1 of Many

Any average American family, at least that I've seen, has an ample supply of food in their homes. Sure, you can look at your cupboards or fridge and proclaim that there's nothing to eat, but you're wrong. There's a lot of food there - you just have the luxury of being able to procure something you want more someplace else.

At a rough guess I'd say you probably already have at least 7 to 10 days worth of food to make reasonable enough meals. Beyond that you probably have another week's worth of meals like "canned beets with plain rice on the side" but that's still a meal.

The majority of situations that are likely to occur that would leave you stuck at home likely aren't going to keep you there for much longer than a few days. In the unlikely event that you're stuck at home for an extended period of time and there is no help coming then you might want to have a few extra things.

Don't pick up MRE's or a case of spam (unless you like spam), rather pick up canned foods that you eat normally. For less than fifty bucks you can buy several days to weeks worth of non-perishable food items that you normally use or could easily incorporate into your normal diet. This is important because when a year has passed and you haven't had to dive into your emergency supplies you'll want to rotate out these items so that your supplies are always fresh.

We have an area in our basement dedicated to extra food supplies. It's actually a buffet/hutch that we also store our large cooking tools that we don't frequently use (ie wok, cake pans, etc). This area is cool and dry year round.

MOST IMPORTANT ITEM TO STOCK: A freaking manual can-opener! Electronic can openers are not all the helpful if you don't have power. I suggest that every household should have two manual can openers. Sure you can open a can without a can opener, but why not go spend a couple of bucks and get the right tool to make the job easy?

In future entries regarding food I'll cover putting together meals, cooking without your stove, finding alternate food sources, and more!

Water, Water, Water

There's the rule of four - you can go four minutes without oxygen, four days without water, and four weeks without food. In my way of thinking, if there's an emergency that requires I supply my oxygen... well chances are I ain't gonna survive that anyway. Perhaps someday I'll be able to make preparations for that, but financially and space-wise that's a ways off. Food is a pretty large concern, so I'll address that in another blog. For now it's all about water!

The adult human needs about 1 liter of water daily to survive. To be comfortable you need a bit more water than that, figure about 3 liters. A young child of about 40 lbs needs about 1 liter. A cat should have about a 0.25 liters available. In my house there are 2 adults, 1 toddler, and 4 cats. Daily water consumption stands at about 8 liters a day. This factors in exercise, physical work, and/or illness. Hopefully this is entirely over-planning.

We have 5-gallon jugs of water delivered to our house. We have anywhere from 1 to 4 of this jugs at any given time. We have an old house that has a lead pipe for the water feed from the city. To minimize exposure to the lead in the water we mainly use bottled water. The fact that we have this water on hand is fine then because we use it regardless if there's an emergency going on so it stays fresh as we cycle the jugs out. Hypothetically something happens where the water supply is tainted - we have anywhere from 2+ to 9+ days of drinkable water. This should hold us out comfortably until the water supply can be cleaned or relief supplies arrive. If it's a situation where there isn't a likely water source coming, we can ration the water supply (2.5 liters/daily for humans and 0.5 liters/daily for cats). Rationing would give us anywhere from 6+ to 25 days worth of water. Figure in all the soda, juice, canned goods, and so on that you have around the house and you can last for a good long time.

Another thing to consider is that normally we get about 20% of our daily water through the food we eat. This will stretch your water supply by, you guessed it, 20%!

Even considering all of the above, we're increasing our water supply by ordering an extra jug of water. I will rotate this jug out with our normal cycle every few months so it too will stay nice and fresh.

For longer term concerns, you have to think about purifying water or finding alternative sources. I was going to talk about these here, but really there is so much to think and talk about regarding this that I won't be able to cover it all now.

Thanks for reading!

Can I panic now?

First off - don't panic over this Swine flu business - I'll talk about that later.

When is it ok to panic? It's never a good idea to panic, though it can make you feel better from time to time. When is it ok to initiate the plan? It's all right to hunker down under two circumstances - 1) you have "actionable information" or 2) everyone else around you is freaking out.

In the second situation - if everyone around you is freaking out about such and such or flipping out because of a perceived threat, well - boom - auto-magically you have yourself a situation that you need to take care of immediately. If there isn't an actual problem occurring to spur on the mass hysteria, then just head home with the family and lock the doors. Sit tight - it'll come down soon.

The first case is really what is the problem. When is a situation enough to take action? When I do bar the windows, fill the tub with water, and clear out the local grocery store? There have been a few examples in recent memory that may have been or turned into times when you need to take measures.

In the 1990's, let's see what wikipedia has to say - August of 1998, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on a pharmaceutical plant. At the time I was a college kid and really just opening my eyes up to international crisis. It was a moment for me that in my ignorance thought could have been the trigger for a much larger conflict. Fortunately nothing much came out of it except for a brief distraction from the Lewinsky business.
VERDICT: No action required.

The next item that sticks out in memory was Y2K. This was a media-hype, scramble for ratings, piece of crap, non-issue. Everyone was convinced, myself included, that something was going to happen. Imagine my surprise when nothing happened - wait - you probably had those feelings too so you needn't imagine my surprise.
VERDICT: Good example of public hysteria but also good opportunity to openly discuss survival plans without seeming like a kook.

September 11, 2001. The first days we didn't know what in fuck was going on. The first couple of hours, I was trying to figure out who could possibly be invading the US. Who at the logistics to secretly position an invasion force? No one - Red Dawn wasn't happening, that's for sure. People got really freaked - rightfully so. A whole new vein of possible disasters were opened up for consideration - dirty bombs, weaponized viruses, nukes, whatever. This was a wake-up call not just in the way that we interact with the international community but also what could realistically happen on US soil.
VERDICT: Opportunity to begin preparations and planning.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly created a hostile international situation, but there was little immediate concern of an additional attack on the homeland.
VERDICT: No action required.

I guess next would be Katrina. Wow - under-respond much? If you lived in New Orleans or even within a couple of hundred miles - you damn straight had better enacted your plan! This is an example of when it's necessary to get the "Hell outta Dodge" and right quick! Part of any good survival plan includes a section on leaving your home and finding appropriate shelter elsewhere and what to bring along. Obviously not enough people in New Orleans had a good survival plan. This is a good wake-up call to not blindly rely on the government or authorities to bail your ass out. You're not a bank after all.
VERDICT: Relocate if you are in the effected area or use this as an opportunity to learn from this situation if you're not in the area.

Finally comes the Swine Flu. It's important to note that hundreds of thousands of people die every single year, IN THIS COUNTRY, from the regular-old-run-o'-mill influenza virus. The problem with the Swine Flu, to my limited understanding, is that it is very easily transmitted between humans and is very severe in its symptoms. This is an example where you should be prepared to stay in your own home either because you have contracted the virus or the likelihood of contracting the illness in public is very high. I believe in this particular instance the biggest threat you will face will be from the panicked and hysteric public. Stay away from large crowds, stock up on supplies now so you don't have to go out when there are shortages.
VERDICT: Start preparing for a one to two week stay in your home, otherwise treat as an extra flu-season.

Thanks for reading - more later.

What is iCHAoZ?

For years I've been a huge fan of zombie movies - and really anything apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic. When the whole Y2K thing came around everyone started talking about how to survive a real world catastrophic situation. I started thinking - this is the first time you jerks are thinking about this? Of course, planning for the worst is nothing new - ever since the Cold War people have been building bomb shelters and crouching under their desks in "duck n cover" drills. What was different about Y2K is that the mainstream populace finally realized that there are a lot more situations out there besides a nuclear war for which they'll need to plan and prepare.

My brother and I were sharing an apartment at the time and we began formalizing our plans. Admittedly I was a bit more involved with the general idea than he was, but I shouldn't minimize his contributions. We structured the plan based on what situations we would respond to. This was insufficient so we switched over to the concept of a stepped system. A through G if I recall correctly. The "A" level was relatively inane - stay in your house for a day or so type of thing. The "G" level was basically balls to the wall, might as well kiss your ass goodbye.

It's now years later - I'm married with a child and hopefully more to follow. My contingency plan requires a bit of a face lift. First and foremost it must be made much more practical - it literally has to save the lives of my son, my wife, myself, and our four cats. Secondly it needs to be reasonable and rational, I can't start putting bars up on the windows and digging a moat right now. Finally, it needs to be completely comprehensive - there is a wide-range of situations that need a direct and immediate response in order to be properly countered.

My wife and I came up with the concept of iCHAoZ - in Case of Hectic Anarchy or Zombies. Basically, the idea is to have plans in place to deal with just about any major catastrophe by level of response. The levels of response basically range from stay out of the major cities for a while to hunker down in the house with the aforementioned bars and moat. While "Zombies" are in the acronym, the plan really does focus on society and the rule of law either breaking down or disappearing all together. Of course we do have some plans for the more outlandish possibilities, you have to keep it fun after all.

Blogs to come will involve either one-off thoughts about some various aspects of survival or more likely various parts of the actual plan. Thanks for reading!