PP #34: Be Prepared, It's Coming
Project: Pioneer #34, May 12, 2024 Sunday 12pm
Hello from the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. It’s another washout weekend here at our woodland pioneer enclave. Water and mud are everywhere. That’s good, the weekend yahoos mostly stayed home and it’s nice and quiet. Our White House RV is holding up well. I’ll get into the solar activity and what that’s meant for us (and will for you) later in this post (preview: this is only the pregame show, be ready!).
Project: Pioneer is the live weekly reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. Most posts are free, more personal posts are to reward our loyal paid subscribers. Audio podcast at Substack, Apple, and Spotify)
In this journal post:
Updates: Who’ll Stop the Rain?
Be Prepared, It’s Coming (Prepping)
Election Security (Politics)
What’s Next?
Updates: Who’ll Stop the Rain?
Back in our winter site, we had a huge propane tank hooked up, since we were using that as our primary source of heat. In the spring/summer site, that’s gone and we’re subsisting on the two 20lb tanks that sit on the White House tongue. Because it’s still been quite cold in the mornings, I was worried we’d be refilling frequently, or run out if I wasn’t paying attention to the automatic switchover gauge that sits between them. So far, they’re lasting quite long. With the recent solar and weather events (and what’s to come), it’s quite clear we need to up our solar game, or it’s going to get quite uncomfortable.
A few nights ago, we were jacked awake by a loud jolt that shook the rig. Further investigation revealed our huge awning had triggered its fail-safe mechanism to drop itself down due to a massive amount of water accumulating on it from all this rain. The resulting waterfall outside our window was a momentary treat. I didn’t know about that feature and happy to discover it. Those awnings are ridic expensive to replace!
Be Prepared, It’s Coming (Prepping)
Can I say I told you so, regarding the coronal mass ejections and geomagnetic solar storms (see my past posts)? This week’s solar storms were exciting for many. It was all “Oooohh, pretty lights in the sky.” And yeah, the aurora borealis is incredible to behold and beautiful. But, keep in mind exactly what that is. It consists of geomagnetic particles in our atmosphere—a storm of them. NOAA measures those storms by severity, and this one was the most severe on the scale, a G5. (Which is actually beyond “severe,” which is G4, and labeled “extreme” at G5).
There were minimal disruptions, thankfully. Starlink satellites had some issues, and there were some radio outages. The benchmark (as I’ve written about here in the past) is the 1859 Carrington Event. If we have one on that scale, we’re in big trouble. The sun isn’t yet done with its solar storm season, an eleven-year rotational event that won’t peak until next year. That means this is the warm-up act. Per usual human behavior (especially of late), people just buried their heads in the sand and said, “Oooohh, pretty lights…” These storms won’t be over until early this week, so take heed! Keep an eye on the NOAA alert site. Oh, look at the pretty bear, I’m gonna go pet it, honey!
I saw one mainstream media weather scientist that actually recommended that people unplug or turn off the breakers on any sensitive electronics or appliances. Oh, yeah and of course Bill Nye the Science Guy warned of the danger. This kind of event can cause significant power surges, sags, blackouts, brownouts, and more. That means frying expensive stuff at best, a house fire at worst, and extended power outages. It happened in Sweden in 2003. It happened in Canada in 1989, causing power and communication blackouts into the northeast US. We are far more reliant on satellites, GPS, electronics and power now than we were then.
As I wrote about in the last post, our primary protection against stuff like this is our power management system (PMS). It failed on us last week, just before all this happened. There’s my ridiculously bad timing at work again! So, I had to unplug White House from shore power to protect us during the worst of these storms the last few days. During that time, I re-attached our PMS to the pole outside, because although it won’t deliver power downstream, it does still show readings. The inbound voltage was extremely unsafe, over 140V, due to the solar activity. You can bet this was happening at your home as well. Maybe no house fire this time, or fried laptops, appliances, etc. Next time you might not be so lucky, so get to work!
Our replacement PMS should be here tomorrow. My mistake was not having a backup for such a critical piece of equipment (well, we did, the generator, but it’s a noisy and expensive solution). I’ll be fixing that problem soon, because, well, Murphy loves me. Fun story, those of you following my horrible situation in my paid posts, you’ll relate. Yesterday I took a short drive to the campground laundry building. It’s about 200 yards away, not even. I was in a rush, it’s all private gravel road, early morning, so one of the very rare times I didn’t buckle up. Sure enough, as soon as I skirted the public road, there was a cop there staring at me. I thought for sure my cop magnetism would result in trouble, but this time I was fortunate. Sigh.
Anyway, back to the topic. Make sure anything expensive/valuable is connected to a good surge protector, or even better one with uninterruptible power like this one we use, or even better one like this one. Or, even better, a whole-house one for extended blackouts, so you have heat and air and the fridge still works. Have a dual-fuel generator. These coronal mass ejections and the resulting solar storms on Earth will continue into next year. During the summer, at peak power use, blackouts and brownouts will be much more likely. Once, we were on vacation with a very young nephew that was on life support equipment, and one happened (along with a bad flood). It was very scary. Be prepared! Although, keep in mind statistically you’re much more likely to die by the hand of an angry white dude with an assault rifle. The coming climate disasters are also very much in the running. Check with the folks in Texas and Florida just recently, and all through the mid-west.
Learn up on all aspects of preparedness. I thank my background in scouting for mine, starting at an early age. I’m glad to hear their recent changes to be more inclusive. Hopefully, they also root out all the molesting, because I have wonderful memories of those camping trips and all I learned about survival. My parents weren’t into that stuff, but they supported me and made sure I got to experience it.
Also, for some years my friend and I used to take the money our parents had given us to put in the basket during collection at church, and instead of going to service we’d stop by the local deli, get some hot dogs and snacks, head into the woods, check our traps, build a fire, and have a feast. Good practice, and money put to better use. Dad would always test me by asking what color robes the priest had on, and I’d throw out a color with confidence, knowing he had no clue.
Another big influence was when I read the book My Side of the Mountain at a very early age. It was a fantastic book about a young boy that was unhappy with his city life and parents and runs away to the Catskill mountains to live on his own. I’ve always wanted to write a similar book, based more in modern times, maybe as a result of the climate apocalypse to come. Maybe I will. Maybe it will help wake up some of the younger generation to the danger we’ve put them in.
At least learn to build a fire. It’s wonderful entertainment here at Camp Pioneer to watch some of these knuckleheads try to make a fire, especially after spending the day getting liquored up. Bubba, with his beard and all his tattoos, big, loud truck carrying his big, loud motorcycle in the bed (not riding, Bubba?), along with his big, loud dog and big loud spouse, tries to do it old school, with some leaves and matches and some big logs of damp green wood on top. When he begins to fail, and Bubba Junior and spouse start to doubt his masculinity, he then begins to drunk-panic and resorts to very stupid go-to techniques such as burning the trash, squirting lighter fluid all over it, or dumping some gas on it. Jesus, Lawd hep us.
Learn how to make a proper file. Teach your kids. You don’t have to go all the way old school with flint and steel, but it would be a bonus. I learned that in scouts. Gotta get that merit badge! FYI my scouting career ended when, at the Klondike Derby winter event, I was caught with a bottle of blackberry brandy. Hell, it was damn cold and I was already a young man of twelve, just trying to survive. One of the earliest examples of how anything bad that happened to me (or I happened to me) had alcohol involved. I digress.
Election Security (Politics)
Giavana and I attended a discussion panel on election security. It was very informative and a ton of critical information leading up to this election. Please read this so that you are well informed against these tactics being used by the far right!
This was a bi-partisan panel - clearly some Democrats and Republicans, including election judges. They *smashed* the propaganda talking points being pushed by Trump and his team, stating with emphasis:
1. Mail-in voting is safe and secure, and there are only political reasons (and no good reasons) for delaying the pre-processing of them so that we can get results on election night. This tactic of delaying processing until election day is being used for the "See, you went to bed and Trump was ahead, when you woke up, poof, Biden won, it's a scam."
2. Same adamant point was made about ballot drop-boxes. They work, and there's also no reason to make it illegal for folks to drop off their family member's ballots, since they can just as easily put a stamp on a mail-in ballot and mail it for them.
3. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 tightened up and eliminated many of the tactics used to try to overthrow our 2020 election. It clarifies that the VP's role is purely ceremonial with no ability to change or reject electors, and allows federal judges to quickly step in if states start playing games with rejecting results.
4. Dead people and undocumented people cannot vote! Our elections are secure and accurate.
Funny, the very few attempts to do things like this in the past elections, and caught, were all folks trying to vote for Trump. Not the smartest tools in the shed.
As I keep reminding you, they are preparing for a loss by stoking these untrue fears above. They are also preparing by sending the traitor General Flynn around the country to build cells of insurrection. Back to our theme—be prepared. We are prepared by selling all the crap we never used, turning it into cold hard cash, and moving into a home we can up and take with us on a moment’s notice. Until then, we’re living in paradise for $700/month including utilities. We’re preparing by scoping out alternatives, such as Canada, Mexico, and setting up our dual citizenship and second passports. Be prepared. It’s coming.
What’s Next?
Giavana and I are heading to an exciting concert tonight, so we’ll report back on that next week. She’s plowing ahead on the dual citizenship for us. Only six months until the election! She’s becoming more nervous and upset about all this. I want to turn it all off, but burying our head in the sand only enhances the chances it will happen. I’m pissed off they are stressing my beautiful wife and affecting our lives like this. Six more months.
I’m working on a post about turning points in history. For example, how would the world be different if JFK hadn’t been killed. Or RFK. Or if the Supreme Court hadn’t given the election to Bush Junior rather than Gore (an actual rigged election!). Hopefully, that makes it into next week’s offering.
Memorial Day is coming. Don’t forget, it’s not about hot dogs and wearing flag swimsuits and bib overalls. It’s about those who gave all, gave their lives for our freedom and democracy. Like the Marines who died at Belleau Wood, who Trump called “suckers,” and the fallen soldiers at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery who Trump called “losers.” He didn’t go honor them because the wind and rain would be bad for his hair.
Yes, those are verified quotes, along with many he’s made about heroes like John McCain, the Gold Star family who lost their son in Iraq, and other veterans that are on video. How any veteran can vote for or support a disgraceful draft-dodger like that is beyond me. I and every generation of my family have served, some bravely in combat. It’s disgusting.
This pioneer journey continues… Don’t forget, commenting is now turned on for everyone on these free posts. Let’s interact! Too many of you reply to us personally, share the love with the Project: Pioneer community :-)
“There's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.”
― Stephen King, Different Seasons
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