Do you have what it takes to survive "off grid" after mom nature struts her stuff in your neighborhood?

[badbluesplayer]

18 hours ago, sparquelito said:

 

 

Dale Earnhart Jr.'s jet bounced a couple times and ran off the end of 24 and through the ditch and fence onto the road a few years ago.  It's a tight approach.

Here's some choppers from maybe Fort Campbell flying over the other day -

 

Edited yesterday at 03:22 PM by badbluesplayer

[merciful-evans]

I suppose I'll find out when it happens

[Sgt. Pepper]

3 hours ago, badbluesplayer said:

Dale Earnhart Jr.'s jet bounced a couple times and ran off the end of 24 and through the ditch and fence onto the road a few years ago.  It's a tight approach.

Here's some choppers from maybe Fort Campbell flying over the other day -

 

I’ll bet our resident fly boy Sparky can land anything, anytime, anywhere.

[sparquelito]

1 hour ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I’ll bet our resident fly boy Sparky can land anything, anytime, anywhere.

Hmmmm....
Technically, no. 
Not these days. 

Back when I was hard at it, and still enjoying it, maybe. 

I retired from flying because my fear of heights, and flying in general, became crippling. 
I hung in there that last two years to do my job as a professional, but it got more and more difficult, emotionally and psychologically. 

You could probably hold a gun up to my head and make me go fly right now, but in general I'm much happier with these two feet firmly on the ground. 

🥲

[rct]

7 hours ago, merciful-evans said:

I suppose I'll find out when it happens

I have to agree.  I find it somewhat odd and unhealthy to spend one's life prepared for some disaster or another. 

rct

[MissouriPicker]

My wife is always keeping lots of canned goods in the house, but beyond that I suspect we’ll just become part of the walking dead.  Aside from that, I’ve never been one to wait for a cataclysmic event.  Too many songs to be played.

Edited 16 hours ago by MissouriPicker

[gearbasher]

Don't forget to stock up on toilet paper.

[sparquelito]

Like anything else, how comfortably well prepared we are for disasters and emergencies is relative to the likelihood of bad things happening. 

My grown daughter chooses to live on the Atlantic coast of Florida. 
She loves it there. 

But there a price for her choosing to live there. 
Hurricanes are likely to roll through, a number of times each year. 
She is wise to keep her generator well maintained, with lots of ethanol-free gasoline in steady rotation. 
She is wise to be ready to pack up and drive away at a moments notice, if a particularly bad hurricane is on the horizon. 
Therefore, filling up her car with gas is a 'many times a week' thing, and not a rare and cavalier occurence. 

I choose to live in an area known for wicked thunderstorms and the occasional tornado. 
Power-outtages happen a few times a year. 
I'm wise to take all the precautions listed above, surely. 
And the walk-in closet in the northeast corner of my house is the defacto tornado shelter. 
I keep some basic supplies in there, for just in case. 
A small case of water. 
A storm radio. 
Some MRE's. 
First aid kit. 

When I first bought an emergency generator years ago, I would roll it out every two weeks and exercise it. 
I kept the oil changed in it, and maintained fresh ethanol-free fuel in it. 

At one point, my wife came out to visit me on the driveway, and she said, 
"I'm happy you have that toy to occupy your time. You spend a lot of time tending to it. But you KNOW that we're never going to actually need  it, right?"

I replied, "I hope that we never need it. But there's no down side to being ready. It's like insurance."

She smiled, shook her head, and went back inside.

A month later, in April of 2011, a super outbreak of tornadoes occurred. 
A deadly F-5 tornado rolled thru, and missed us by less than a mile. 
Power was out in the worst-hit areas for weeks. 
Power was out at my house for seven  straight days. 

I kept that generator humming, and it powered the house. 
My wife had her fridge and freezer working, her ceiling fans going, and she had her household appliances churning along brilliantly. 
Half the neighborhood kept their cell phones charged via that generator, and the outlets at the front of our house. 

My wife, to her credit, came out every single day and kissed that generator right on the gas cap. 

She's almost as weird as I am, I reckon. 

🙂

[RBSinTo]

Sparky,

Any woman who will kiss your generator on its gas cap without even being asked is definitely a keeper.

Lucky you.

RBSinTo

[RBSinTo]

ok, ok, ok,

Here we go again.

An ode on The Sparquelita

Sparky's so busy he can't nap,

while preping for a big weather flap.

But what keeps him going,

is simply just knowing,

that Sparquelita will kiss his gas cap.

Thankyouverymuch.

RBSinTo

 

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

13 hours ago, rct said:

I have to agree.  I find it somewhat odd and unhealthy to spend one's life prepared for some disaster or another. 

rct

The end of the world is coming - just not today and probably not tomorrow. The day after the election - yep.

[Sgt. Pepper]

4 hours ago, gearbasher said:

Don't forget to stock up on toilet paper.

It was strange during Covid people stocked up on TP for a disease that affects the respiratory system. Anyone have Covid and get explosive diarrhea. I didn’t.

Edited 7 hours ago by Sgt. Pepper

[fortyearspickn]

13 hours ago, rct said:

I have to agree.  I find it somewhat odd and unhealthy to spend one's life prepared for some disaster or another. 

rct

I have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.   Not that my wife's cooking is disastrous, odd or unhealthy.  

[Sgt. Pepper]

30 minutes ago, fortyearspickn said:

I have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.   Not that my wife's cooking is disastrous, odd or unhealthy.  

Huge difference between a kitchen fire and the end of the world.

[Notes_Norton]

On 10/9/2024 at 7:21 PM, sparquelito said:

All our thoughts and prayers are with you and Mrs. Notes. 

Thanks.

We made it through, just fine. We lost a couple of tree limbs, plenty of branches, and dozens of palm fronds (nature's pruners). Our landline and Internet were gone, and our cell service was practically useless. Our biggest loss was this week's gigs. In other words, we got lucky.

I've been in every hurricane since the 1960s, and the trend seems to be for the storms to be getting nastier. It's the global warming effect. Perhaps it's time we:

• Paint our roofs white, according to a major university, if we all did that, it would buy us a century
• Turn off the AC, which warms the planet as it cools our houses
• Get rid of the family pickup truck and buy something fuel efficient
• Drive with slow acceleration, and use coasting to limit brake usage (I get 100 miles more per tankful doing this)_
• Hang laundry outside
• Get rid of the lawn and plant trees
• Know the difference between what we want, and what we need, and limit it to what we need when purchasing things (that includes new phones, fashion, shoes, guitars, cars, and so forth).
• And so on

Notes ♫

[Sgt. Pepper]

Good you made it through. I would never in 1 million years choose to live on the coast of South Carolina, but my wife inherited her father‘s house when he passed away and it was paid off, so that’s hard to turn your nose up at. Hurricanes are a major inconvenience and when the experts say evacuate, there’s probably a reason you should evacuate. Some people don’t trust the experts. Well who do you trust. Someone with a 10th grade education? There’s a reason every month I make a homeowners insurance payment to USAA.

Edited 4 hours ago by Sgt. Pepper

[merciful-evans]

9 hours ago, gearbasher said:

Don't forget to stock up on toilet paper.

 

I hadn't realised it was going to be that scary.

[Sgt. Pepper]

45 minutes ago, merciful-evans said:

 

I hadn't realised it was going to be that scary.

Any event now and people loose it in the USA.

[gearbasher]

6 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

It was strange during Covid people stocked up on TP for a disease that affects the respiratory system. Anyone have Covid and get explosive diarrhea. I didn’t.

They stocked up out of fear that none will be available. Not because of any physical problem.

42 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Any event now and people loose it in the USA.

Do you get sarcasm? That is, unless your first statement that I quoted was sarcasm.

[Sgt. Pepper]

28 minutes ago, gearbasher said:

They stocked up out of fear that none will be available. Not because of any physical problem.

Do you get sarcasm? That is, unless your first statement that I quoted was sarcasm.

Do “I” get sarcasm. I’m probably the most sarcastic MF-er here.