Diary of a Survivalist
Today was a shopping day, and an interesting one at that. First stop was the bank, where I withdrew $1,000. First interesting point: The teller could only give me $700 in hundreds, and she had to borrow most of those from another teller. Now I went to a large bank in a mall, because I knew it was open Saturdays. So I was surprised that they were out of $100s. What does this mean? Is someone already withdrawing their money and hiding it under their mattresses? I have about $1200 in my gun safe, but it's mostly in $20s and a few $50s. I even have $10s and $5s, since you never know when you will need exact change.
Ok, so stop two was the coin dealer. The only gold bullion type coins they had was the Chinese Panda. Now I will admit that I had never heard of the Chinese Panda. I've heard of the American Eagle, the Canadian Maple Leaf, the South African Krugerand and even the English Sovereign. But not the Chinese Panda. So if I have never heard of it, how many others have never heard of it? And in that case, what kind of a transfer ability will it have in Y2K or some other emergency? It might be harder to use as a coin.
OK, so stop three was another coin dealer, and this one had Canadian Maple Leafs. I bought three, and it came to just about $1000 with tax and their markup. This was a bit of a surprise for me, I mean paying tax for money!
But the dealer was very nice. I learned some interesting things. I knew there were 31 grams in a troy ounce (31.1, actually) and the Canadian Maple Leafs are pure gold. (You can scratch them with your fingernail, if you aren't careful.) The American Eagle, however, is 22 karats, so it weighs more, even though they both contain one ounce of gold. (Since I have a powder scale, which is in grains, he told me how many grains are in a troy ounce, but, to be honest, I've forgotten.) All three coins weighed the same, but he said it is not unusual to have a tenth of a gram difference in a coin or two in a lot.
So now I have three gold coins resting in my safe. It's nice, but I'm not expecting three coins to a hedge against inflation. But if we need to bug out, they are portable and could help us buy something we really need in the days of rationing and shortages.
The rest of my shopping took place at a much more traditional location, the grocery store. They had chicken noodle soup on sale for three for a dollar. It's amazing how many cans of soup my family can consume in a week. And this is good when you are sick, or cold. So I bought 12 and I may go back for more. I also added some canned pasta. I kind of feel like we have an awful lot of canned foods, but I guess it won't hurt to have a dozen more.
I also bought a new winter coat, a dark-colored one, that was on sale. This year, everyone in our family is going to get new winter clothes, plenty of warm socks, a few sweatshirts and new boots. Just in case our heat is out.
I had lunch today with a friend who is a financial advisor for one of the major financial planning companies. He told me that while his official company line is that they are prepared, the planners believe that there will be a stock market crash, simply because it is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Now, I must apologize to everyone reading this who thinks I talk too much about finances. But I feel that how goes the stock market, so goes the nation. So if we have a crash, I think we will have a bank run the next day. I bet the president goes on TV and is reassuring and calls for calm. And Greenspan may cut rates or proclaim there is not problem, but I think a small "correction" like we saw last year will quickly turn into a collapse. In short, it will be much worse than last year.
The truth is, the only money I have in investments is in my 401(k) plan. I do not play the market, primarily because I do not have the funds to do so. I work a regular job, and I pick up some freelance assignments on the side, and that pays the bills and helps us buy survival products -- which in a sense are our investments. We have to car payments and a mortgage, and we are probably considered comfortably middle class, but it has been a struggle to get to where we are today.
My friend also told me that many people spend, and then invest the leftovers. He says the trick to successfully building a fortune so you can comfortably retire, put your kids through school, or whatever, is to do the opposite. Invest first, and then spend what is left over. This is why the people who are millionaires live next door to you in three bedroom houses and drive seven-year old minivans. But I think this is the same tactic you must make for setting aside survival items. Buy them first. Don't put it off. Set aside money each paycheck and do things like paint the house, buy new carpeting or take a long vacation the following year.
I have read on the bulletin board about people who buy a brick of .22 ammo every payday, or buy Spam every time they go to the Warehouse Club. That's smart. By buying a little at a time, they don't feel the hit. Imagine buying 25 bricks of .22 ammo at one time. But buying one every two weeks means you don't really notice the missing $10 in your pocket.
As a kid, I could save up for anything, but I couldn't save for the sake of saving. If I needed a new bike, wanted a remote-controlled airplane, a stereo, or whatever, I could work and save and work and save until I had enough money to pay for it. Then I would never save again until I had a goal. Well, I've got goals now. I ordered two year's worth of Perma Pak food from Captain Dave, wanting to beat his coming price increase. I'll feel better once we have it in the basement. I figure this will give us close to a year of food for the family.
Well, I haven't written lately because I had some bug, and I'm still a bit tired as a result. It was not bad enough to be the flu, but worse than just a cold. We've been pretty healthy this year, so I should knock on wood. But doesn't it just figure that I would get sick on a weekend?
But it does raise the question of what we will do when sick or ill during a TEOTWAWKI situation, whether it is Y2K or something else. I have "Where There is no Doctor" and "Where there is no Dentist," as well as several more traditional medical books, but I have to admit that I have not yet had the time to fully read either one. This is the downside of having a family and other responsibilities. Plus, I keep hoping our friend the doctor will be with us in Y2K.
I do have a pretty good first aid kit we have made up ourselves. I find it much cheaper to buy normal quantities of things than to buy a pre-packaged kit that has only a few of everything. We stocked up on hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, topical antiseptics, lotions, anti-fungal and anti-itch creams, bandages of all shapes and sizes, ace bandages, athletic tape (this stuff is very useful), rubber gloves a surplus medical surgery kit which includes all sorts of instruments and even sutures, and a whole list of other items. (Please don't e-mail Dave with suggestions for me -- this is not an all-inclusive list, it's what I remember.) We also have a whole range of over-the-counter medications, from aspirin to cold medications to wart removal stuff. And we have a small cache of antibiotics. It's been almost a years since I've had to be on antibiotics, and I like to minimize the frequency of which I take them.
OK, so when I was sick, I didn't go to the doctor, and some Alka-Seltzer gel caps was all I required. But I did spend a lot of time in bed. And in a survival situation, that might not be possible. I might be needed to stand guard, to carry wood in for the fireplace, to hunt or check traps, etc., etc. Now the rest of my family can do this, but it is an added burden on them. To me, this is another argument for having more people in your home, or retreat, when Y2K hits. You need redundancy.
Y2K presents a medical challenge. If airplanes are down, and hospitals operating at partial strength, if there is a shortage of medical supplies, then you are probably better off being treated at home for anything other than the most severe medical emergency. If the streets aren't safe, stay home rather than risking others. And that's a choice no one wants to make.
Anyhow, if it gets that bad, we can hope that whatever flu bug is out there, won't be ale to spread as easily. There will be no classrooms of kids, airplanes full of people or offices of sniffling coworkers to spread germs. Of course, without proper hygiene, we have a whole host of other problems waiting for us. Especially in the city.
Like I said, I'm still not 100 percent, so I apologize if this is a bit off my normal pace and a bit short. I'm not 100 percent sure I'm making sense here.
Y2K has certainly been getting a great deal of media coverage lately. It kicked off around the 1st, with all the networks and most of the news stations covering it, but it has been EVERYWHERE in the three weeks since then. Despite this, I don't see many people being convinced. I think we have a higher awareness, but I don't think that many more people actually understand the potential impact of Y2K
And I think this is because the media is down playing it. They are encouraging people to store a few days or a week's worth of food and keep "some" money on hand, but no one is doing anything that could be close to inciting panic. Perhaps this is what they consider "responsible journalism." It's as if there was a carefully orchestrated campaign to increase awareness a little bit at a time. First, it will be a week's worth of food and money. Then in March, they'll say two weeks. Then this summer, they will recommend a month or more. Little baby steps and incremental increases will make it seem less of a reason to panic.
About the only people who seem to be taking this seriously, besides survivalists, are the Christians. They cover it in TV and magazines. I hope every church everywhere prepares, but all the Christian charity in the world will not allow them to feed the rest of the masses if there is no food to be had. It will take another bread and fishes miracle.
A friend gave me a copy of an editorial from the January 4 edition of Inter@ctive Week. I was impressed to see that this computer publication is talking as if problems are not only assumed, but also widely acknowledged by everyone in the industry. Here are some quotes from their made up scenario:
"But no sooner had the ball dropped atop festive Times Square, when the awful reality stepped forward. The lights went out. No ball could be seen…But the mainstream press is instead focusing on stories about how well companies and the government agencies are doing. And as a result, only an estimated 3 to 10 percent of people are preparing."Small banks…have burned to the ground, as depositors who could not withdraw funds took matters into their own hands…
"Two of the six leading online brokerage houses appear ready to give up the ghost and declare insolvency, unable to process new trades -- or give an accounting of their customer's holdings…"
For many, apparently, preparing means taking their money out of the bank. An alarming 16 percent of those surveyed in a recent USA Today poll were planning to withdraw all of their money from the bank before Y2K. If I were a banker, I'd be worried
Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say in an article that told people "Organizing your finances now is the smartest way to avoid computer-related headaches come the year 2000."
"Regulators say that individuals should avoid taking drastic steps that could put their finances in jeopardy, such as taking all their money out of the bank…"
Now why would regulators say that? Because they are worried about a bank run and they are joining with the newspaper read by the people with the most money in the bank to discourage them from liquidating their funds. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think a bank run will be the first and most likely major Y2K-related emergency. The question is when will it occur. I think if it happens early in the year, we'll get over it. But if it happens after August, it will probably be one big panic attack from there on to Y2K.
(Am I a conspiracy nut? I never thought so, but I think someone somewhere is soing a great job managing this issue and how it appears in public.)
Speaking of money, I received the check from my 401(k) today. Only I'm afraid to put it in the bank…
Well, it's been a few days since I was able to write because our family came down to visit over the weekend and we were pretty busy. They are not as strong believers in Y2K as we are, but they are concerned. They know they are welcome are our place during Y2K. That's one reason I purchased so many split peas -- my mother makes great split-pea soup -- and like the nursery rhyme, it really is better a few days old.
But the subject of who stays with us at the "homestead" during Y2K is one that comes up occasionally. Jill and I were talking about Y2K last night (each time it comes up, she is more and more supportive, which is great) and the problems of convincing others to prepare. She has one close friend, a doctor, who says, "hey, if we run into trouble, we'll just come to your place." Unfortunately, many people have said this and I am sure more think it. I have discouraged it, of course, joking that well shoot first and ask questions later. Fortunately, Jill agrees with me that it is family first. We will turn people away if they do not have something to contribute or come with a very large stash of supplies. If we know them well, we may give them a hot meal and some food to go, but no free rides at our place.
Now in this case, having a doctor (single mother) with a teenage son come to stay with us isn't a bad move. I think we could use a few extra bodies around the place for defense, for helping hands and a doctor is certainly high on the list, as it is one set of skills neither of us have. Plus, we can use her to get prescriptions for common medications beforehand. A teenage boy can run the trap lines and help with the guard duty. I have enough guns and ammo for more than our family, and we can certainly teach them both to shoot.
The problem is convincing her before hand that preparing has some merit. For example, I could use some help buying food if we are going to add two more people to our storage plans, and they should preposition supplies at our place. Clothes, medical supplies, personal care items, etc.
Also, they should be here before the problems arise. The idea that you can travel the 25 or 30 miles out from their suburban home to our rural one if Y2K is bad enough to require a bug out is a dream. Maybe, if the lights go out at midnight and your hop right in your car, you could make it. But if you wait two or three days and then decide to run, it could well be too late. The last time we had a big ice storm, they declared a snow emergency and banned travel by non-essential/non-emergency personnel. I think the chances of this happening at Y2K are pretty high. Now, maybe as a doctor, you could get a pass, but what are the chances that they will believe you are going to the hospital when you have your teenage son and a car full of personal items?
The next time she brings up the topic and talks about coming to our place, we'll make it an official invitation, but one with strings attached. If she wants to use our place as a "plan B," she better do it in a smart. Well-planned manner, not a last-minute move.
We've gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare our home and ourselves for long-term survival. I think we will come out far ahead of many others. It is frustrating to realize that many others, including people who are close to us, will be out on their own, unprepared. We can only prepare for so many extras before we start undermining our own preparations.
350 days to go.
Today I continued addressing my finances. I will admit, I was both a little disappointed and greatly relieved to see the market shoot back up, although it did end the week some 300 points lower. Normally, such volatility doesn't bother me, since I am in it for the long term, but now that I expect a crash, I am more nervous. I guess we can only wait and see. I have to stand on my decision, for good or bad.
Anyhow, I opened a second bank account at a different bank. I figured this would be an advantage in a bank run or similar emergency. If banks start rationing the amount of money you can withdraw, then by going to two different banks, you can get twice as much money. If you have to go into the bank and wait in lines, I can go to one and Jill can go to the other. In fact, there are so many damn banks around here that in many cases, one is across the street or down the block from another. It just make sense, too, if your ATM card from one place doesn't work, you have a fallback. Redundancy is good when you are preparing for the worst case scenario.
In case you cannot tell, think a bank run scenario is very likely. Why? Because it depends on people and the herd mentality, not on whether Y2K really happens or not.
Even if every single software program is fixed, even if every embedded chip were to roll over on the big day as if there were nothing wrong, a rumor and some news coverage would be all it would take to start a bank run. Why? Because people follow a trend and once it starts, it will be tough to stop. The Federal Reserve knows this; that's why they have printer extra money to meet the anticipated demand. Only I do not think it will be enough.
Now let's face it, I have lived paycheck to paycheck for much of my adult life. There were times, especially in my 20s, when I would write checks on paychecks that were being deposited the next day. I would pay off one credit card with an advance on another, and the car payment people would call me every few months. And in this case, a bank run would be no big deal.
But now, as I am further into my wealth building years, as they call them, as my two jobs and Jill's income ads up to more than my outstanding bills, it's not unusual to have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank. And I would be pretty pissed if someone suddenly said I couldn't go and get my money.
And I can only imagine if I was nearing retirement, with a good chunk of change in the bank, that I would be darn worried if I thought that money would suddenly vanish. And, in fact, if we start seeing TV coverage of scenes like we saw only last year in Jakarta, with people lining up at banks, I expect every senior citizen that can get out of bed to be out at the bank the next day ready to withdraw their money.
Thankfully, much of our money and our payments are electronic. So people like me will not be able to withdraw all their money, although the more you have, the more you can safely withdraw. And when they do, their paychecks or Social security will be automatically deposited the next week. I do not think I could pay my mortgage in cash without traveling to another state where the mortgage holder has offices. And one of my vehicle leases is with a California bank, which would be a very long trip. One of my credit cards is from a local bank, so I could conceivably go in and pay cash, but another one is in Delaware. So even if I wanted to withdraw all my money, for safety's sake, I would have to leave enough in to pay the really big bills. And I think that will help us if there is a bank run.
Another problem about the bank run scenario, is how many banks will be driven out of business by it? How many people's life savings will be tied up until the FDIC can come in a sort it all out and another bank can buy their assets. And how quickly will the FDIC run out of money? It will be the savings and loan failure all over again, but potentially worse.
I like the scenario in which the Federal Government has to declare a banking holiday after a day of bank runs an limits withdrawals to $500 or a similar number. This will increase concerns and generate even more news coverage, fanning the flames. Only if they can get enough money to the banks so that they can give everyone the money they want will we see and end to the run.
And here is another thought: If a bank run results in a shortage of money, will we se deflation? Deflation is caused by tightness of the money supply, and this usually means the availability of money for loans. But if it's suddenly impossible to go to the bank and get money, will the cash you have be worth more? Will the dollar in your pocket suddenly buy more than it did a week before? And if so, will gold coins, a hedge against inflation, we worth less?
All good questions to ponder.
I took a major step in preparing for Y2K today. I took a large loan out against my 401(k). Well, large for me, anyhow, in the very low five figures.
This was a tough decision. In a way, I am glad I don't have hundreds of thousands in there and I'm glad I'm not near retirement. I don't know what I would have done in that situation.
I had already been shifting the contents from aggressive funds to safer ones, including T-bills and even a fixed interest account. But I decided the risk of one year of lost income on that money was a good price to pay to protect as much principal as I can from a market crash.
I think it will happen. I don't think the market will crash this week or even this month, but I think it will in 1999. Captain Dave and I have discussed this, and he thinks it will crash in the summer. I think it could happen in the spring, after first quarter earnings statements. Then again, sometimes I think it may happen in the fall, at the last minute.
I had always thought about taking money out, but didn't think I would do it. But the thinking about it really got me halfway there. And then when the market dropped 125 points yesterday, I was worried, although this is less than 1.5 percent. But then when it started dropping this morning, I made the call. OK, so the market didn't loose any more than it had earned so far this year, but the volatility of the situation and the knowledge that the time to buy survival items is a limited window convinced me.
Now I have to decide what to spend it on. Actually, I am not going to spend it all, at least not on consumables. I think I will tuck a few thousand dollars away in the savings account to be able to access them quickly, if necessary. Even if it means standing in line during a "bank run." I will also buy a few gold coins and some junk silver to put in my safe.
I am also going to order two years worth of Perma Pak food and the Country Living Grain Mill from Captain Dave. I have planned to buy these later in the year, but will act now instead.
The big question mark remains the generator. I have thought about buying a big diesel generator, batteries and inverters. Of course, this will at up all of the remaining funds and probably diminish the amount I was planning to put in the bank.
If I go this route, I guess I can count on having plenty of electric in my retirement years, even if I can't afford to pay the electric company.
I read an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the electrical companies claiming they are making good progress. Later in the story it says that some experts doubt their word because they are not being certified or inspected by an outside organization. Plus, they are only testing their computers, not the plants themselves. They plan to test the plants in the spring when electrical demand is lower.
Now I'm not going to deal with the electrical issue, the will we or won't we have power question. I'll address that when I decide whether or not we will get a generator.
But what is interesting about the story, what makes me wonder, is the comment about outside certification.
When the Social Security Administration announced they were compliant, they were certified by an outside organization. And, in fact, there are outside experts and consultants who do this.
So the question is, how many companies are not useing an outside certification company and being lied to by their employees or by their consultants? This apparently happened at the Defense Department, when an audit found out that some systems noted as Y2K compliant had never been tested. Someone just signed the paper work and figured they had saved themselves a whole lot of time and trouble. Who knows, maybe they planned to be out of the service by the time Y2K rolled around.
And let's say that lying isn't really a problem, but a rare exception. You still have to worry about the repairs that are done wrong, or that add more errors.
Another item of concern I have seen is that the phrase "Y2K compliant" is being replaced by "Y2K ready," usually because of legal reasons. (My guess is some lawyer brought this up at a big seminar and the others all went home and told their companies to do the same thing.) To me, this phrase is not only a reduction in their commitment, but it is an easier target. Imagine:
Boss: "Are we ready for Y2K?"
Employee: "Yep, we know its coming and we're all going to be in the office that weekend, just in case."
Great, but are they compliant?
After all, the people who make these repairs don't make any guarantee or warrantees, a fact they will tell you loudly and clearly. So you can hire a well-known organization or buy the best testing software out there and not be guaranteed it will work. I mean, even if 2 percent of repairs fail, it could get pretty ugly. Especially if your paycheck depends on one of the systems included in that 2 percent.
Here's the bottom line, as far as I am concerned. If you receive someone's namby-pamby legal disclaimer that passes for a Y2K compliant document but doesn't really say much of anything, can you rest easy? I don' think so. But then again, I'm a survivalist. I don't take it for granted that someone is going to come and save my butt.
Well, I was going to end it right there, but I want to add the following: Another interesting point form the article is that it mentioned that the electrical companies would bring back retirees if they needed to in a crunch situation. What a great idea! So many industries probably have people that were retired due to automation or acquisitions or just to please the stock market. They probably remember the good old days when you had the thrown the switch or turn the dial manually. The question is, are their old manual systems still in place, or have they been removed after the automated systems were installed and the computer seemed to be running fine for a few years.
I bought 50 candles on sale today for $7.95, each with a burn time of 6 hours. Then I also bought 100 tiny "tea lights" for $5.95, which are supposed to have a burn time of 4 hours each. So in terms of hours of light, the smaller ones are actually a better buy, although due to the thickness and height of the wicks, I would guess that the bigger candles cast more light.
I keep a ziplock baggy of these tea lights in the car in case we are stranded in the winter. They will help keep you warm, although you have to be careful of carbon monoxide. The cold weather and snow of the previous weekend killed almost 100 people, last I heard, although I have not heard any reports of people freezing in their cars.
I already have a fairly hefty stash of candles put aside for emergency use and Jill loves to make candles. We have colorful candles in all manner of shapes and style all around the house.
Now I believe everyone should have candles and other alternate light sources that do not depend on being plugged in. This could be flashlights, oil lights or kerosene lanterns. Since Y2K may well result in no electricity for days, weeks or even months, this is as good a time as any to talk about our personal preparedness plans relating to light.
OK, candles are a good standby, as long as you have a good candleholder. It's been mentioned in the Survival Talk forum that most of the stores sell candles very inexpensively after holiday sales. You can get the big, long candles for pennies. The pack of 50 I purchase may cost 16 cents each, which isn't bad considering they can often be found for 89 cents up to a few dollars (outrageous!), but you may be able to do even better.
I'm not going to render fat into wax or encourage you to go raid beehives. That's fine for someone who wants to be totally self-sufficient, but for the temporary survivalists who need a Y2K lighting contingency plan, just go buy some candles. If you have paraffin, beeswax, old candle remnants, etc., you can make your own candles. You can dunk the wicks repeatedly and let layers of wax build up, as they used to do, or simply mold candles in a small glass. The latter is easier.
We also have several oil lamps and a few quarts of oil and a 5-gallon keg of kerosene. (The oil lamps will burn kerosene just fine.) These include the inexpensive lamps you can get from Walmart and the more robust hurricane lanterns, which are good for carrying around with you. The fragile Walmart-style ones are better for leaving in one place. Speaking of fragile, but a few extra chimneys and plenty of extra wicks.
We have not invested in the Aladdin lamps, mostly because of the expense. These lamps are works of art and cast as much light as a 60-at bulb. If I lived off the grid, they would probably be a must, but for Y2K we are choosing to spend our money on food instead.
We also have Coleman lanterns, which burn Coleman fuel (white gas) or unleaded gasoline. These are quite bright, but are not recommended for indoor use. They are perfect for lighting up an outdoors area, the barn or even the garage. They come with one or two mantles, and we will need to buy some more spare parts, just to be safe.
We have flashlights by the dozen, including a few florescent table lanterns. These use either the square six-volt batteries or four D-cells. They will be excellent in the winter when it gets dark at 6 p.m. We also have plenty of rechargeable batteries and a solar recharger.
Obviously, the ultimate in standby lighting would be to have a generator. We do not yet have one, but I am seriously considering purchasing one. It's a cost issue as well as a priority issue. We can always eat the food if Y2K disruptions last only a few days, but what will I need with a $3000 diesel generator? I guess a gas model is a good compromise, but I think if I will make the generator leap, I'll probably go all the way. Well, I am sure that this will be a topic for future articles.
Finally, before I close, someone was nice enough to e-mail Captain Dave about my plans to cook on an open fire using the grates from a refrigerator. Turns out that these grates -while free - are not designed for high temperatures and could either fall apart or leach lead into our food (from the solder). Guess there is a downside to salvaging. Come to think of it, cooking grates are usually much heavier than the ones in your fridge, so I guess that makes sense. Looks like I will either buy a few grates or salvage one from a barbecue grill!
Well, they tested our computers at work for Y2K today. I have a recent PC, 300 MHz Pentium, so there were no problems. A few spread sheets that used 97 and 98 as column headers, and some two-digit dates in database files, but that's it. The BIOS worked, but they updated it anyway. The software was pretty nice. Checked every file with a specified extension and determined how serious the problem was. None of the problems were serious.
We have a mix of PCs, and most passed fine. None are running Windows 3.1 anymore, so I guess that's a good sign. They don't tell us anything about the networks and the servers, so we will assume they continue to work, just like we assume the Phone Company will be able to keep things running.
My home computer is a Win 95 200 MHz Pentium. Just about 18 months old now. I upgraded a Win 95 fix from the Microsoft web site, so I will cross my fingers and assume it will work. We have an older 66 MHz 486 the kids use for games. I'm not really worried about what happens to it. It is far from mission critical!
I have done a complete inventory of the home. Starting from one end of the house and working across and down, writing down every electronic device that could cause a problem. And you know what? I'm not worried about them failing. As long as we have power, just about everything should run. I have an electronic thermostat, but it runs on a Sunday through Saturday schedule, and doesn't know what day of the year it is. I'm not worried about the microwave or the VCR, which isn't even set to a year. It just blinks. One of the TVs has a date, but would it really stop working if the ate portion failed? That would be a hoot! I guess I would just unplug it, let the date reset and try it from scratch. Maybe I will unplug it before Y2K, or reset the date to 1990, just to be safe.
Captain Dave says that some days he feels good about Y2K, other times bad. I can see what he means. This test has left me pretty confident about Y2K about my computers and devices. But, of course, I don't have any old COBOL programs lying around. Now, how the governments and the corporations with their old systems and software, that concerns me. The embedded chips in manufacturing devices concern me. I think they are the most likely culprits when it comes to a shutdown of systems and resultant problems.
For months, pundits have been saying that Europe's conversion to the Euro has been delaying their preparations for Y2K. "The massive computer reprogramming required to convert most of Europe to a common currency would have been better spent preparing their computers to recognize the year 2000," they say.
And maybe it would have been, but its interesting to note that there have been no stories about wild computer glitches costing companies or banks millions. By all accounts, the Euro conversion went pretty smoothly.
I have read many times that every time you fix a program, you create other errors. Now I haven't done any computer programming since I learned Pascal and Fortran on an old creaky Vax some 15 years ago (which is like saying I haven't handled a gun since they had Damascus barrels), but it looks like the Euro conversion went pretty well. All that programming and debugging and the result is smooth sailing. I'm sure there were hiccups, and people working the weekend prior to make last-minute fixes, but nothing that crashed the system.
So the question is, what does this mean for Y2K?
Does it mean that when we all pull together in a massive effort, we can succeed? Despite a late start, despite low budgets, despite a shortage of programmers a lack of public awareness, will we pull this rabbit out of the hat?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. Perhaps the success of the Euro conversion proves that programmers can meet deadlines (when they are important and not arbitrary) and can successfully manage large projects. But the problem with Y2K is that not everyone is on the bandwagon yet. There as there are millions of people ignoring Y2K, are thousands of small companies that are choosing to do nothing. While most large companies are meeting most of their deadlines, these are only for converting their "mission critical" systems and are not paying enough attention to their supply chain. So what we are getting s a partial job.
Imagine how the conversion for the Euro would have gone if 20 percent of the companies decided not to convert but insist on francs, marks, etc. And if those that did convert only had time to change over 40 percent of their programs. Companies embraced the Euro, despite grave misgivings, because the financial imperatives were clear-cut. Companies had to accept the Euro lose customers and probably be driven out of business. Not a hard choice for a board of directors to make.
Unfortunately, only now are the CEOs and boards realizing that Y2K presents an equal challenge not only to their profitability but to the company's ability to stay in business, and a threat to their own bloated salaries.
In sum, I believe the Euro conversion is a hopeful sign that Y2K remediation can be done. But I've read many of the SEC-mandated disclosures, and I am not reassured. We have a long way to go and my preparedness list is getting longer every day.
We are one year from the first work day of the next millenium. Where I work, there are still people on vacation and most others are just getting abck to work. It will be interesting to see how many business are open and how many people are able to get to work. Personally, I think I will be taking a vacation day, and I bet lots of people call in sick -- assuming that the phones work at all. It will be interesting to see if police officers, national guardsmen and others who are called to duty will respond, or will stay home to protect their families. When does your duty to your country or paycheck outweigh your duty to your family and loved ones? That is a moral dilemma I will not have to face. My absence from my job hurts no one and nothing except my paycheck. I have already unvolunteered myself from the group that will be at work over the big weekend.
Well, let's see, I wanted to pass on some more comments about our supplies, specifically our non-food ones.
We have multiple water containers, from dozens of 1-gallon jugs to some 5- and 7-gallon containers. I plan to order a few 55-gallon drums and add a few more cases of one-gallon jugs. They are convenient, and even the kids can carry one. I buy them with water in, so it increased our storehouse of water while also giving us the use of the empty jug afterwards.
I have the Pro Portable water filter that Captain Dave sells, as well as the First Need filter, which has been in my bug out bag for probably six years. We recently looked into the Katadyne filters, but they are also backordered substantially. The TRK drip filter looks great, but that $275 could buy a great deal of food.
Also, we have a well and there is a small stream at the rear of our property, so I am not overly concerned about water availability. We are looking into ways to get water from the well without electricity, but that is probably a topic for another day's report, possibly in the spring. It snows in the winter and rains frequently enough the rest of the year that we should be able to manage on the water perspective.
We have a grain mill that was made in South America. It looks like a meat grinder or a sausage maker, but we tried it with corn and it worked pretty well. To get a good fine four, we had to grind it twice. I have thought of getting the Country Living Mill, which is almost impossible to find in stock and is back ordered three or four months. It is supposed to be the best, but we may look into some other brands as well.
I have several guns. I do not want to be too specific here, but suffice to say that we have concentrated on 9mm and .223 to be our main calibers, in part because they are the standard for our armed forces and NATO and they can both be reloaded on my Dillon 1050. We don't own Barettas, but do have AR-15s because of the parts availability. I have some 20 magazines, which I hope ill be enough. I also have a 30-caliber deer rifle and a couple of revolvers, so 38/.357 is another caliber that I can reload.
.223 ammo can be found for good prices at local gun shows, usually between $160 and $175 per thousand. I also buy USA remanufactured ammo on sale in boxes of 50 for about $9. It has a soft point, so these will be fallback hunting rounds, even though I do not consider the AR to be an ideal hunting gun or the .223 a great hunting cartridge. Suffice to say I have several thousand rounds on hand and the components to make more. Same with 9 mm and .38. I can also cast bullets for 9 mm and .38, if it comes to that. I have two cases of the hunting rounds, some 400 total. I may add this to my too buy list, but it is not a huge priority.
Oh yes, I also have every survivalist's standby, a Ruger 10/22 and a .22 pistol. Since I owned it before the ban I actually have some 30 and even 50-round magazines, although I feel the value of a 110/22 in combat is questionable. It will make them keep their heads down, of course, but I prefer the .223. Still, I should probably pick up another 10/22 some time, just to be safe. I have a very cheap 4x scope for the 10/22, to improve my hunting range.
We also have a 12-gauge shotgun. A Remington 870 Wingmaster, for those wanting to know. Probably America's favorite gun. I may add a short-barreled version to it as well. These can be had for close to $200 at the start of hunting season, and in some pawns shops this time of year for even less. I have only purchased one gun used, and I had to send it back to the manufacturer for some work, so I am a bit leery about buying used guns. Still, money has to be a concern, especially when you are buying the second gun.
Hmm. What else.
We have a pretty good selection of gardening tools and equipment -- all manual, of course. We've had a garden for years and have a stock of seeds on hand for future use. We also have a chain saw, spare chains, sharpener, maul, wedges, axe, hatchets, bow saws, etc. With a wood stove and fireplace, we need plenty of wood for heat. We may get a fireplace insert, but will have to wait and see.
Jill has extensive sewing equipment and has sewn clothes for the kids. One thing we don't have is bolts of cloth. Our kids seem to outgrow their clothes before they wear them out, and in Y2K, the youngest will be glad to have hand-me-downs from the older one. Luckily, it is easier to hand boys clothes down to a girl than vice versa. At least at this age.
We have some cast iron cookware, and plenty of pots and pans that we don't mind using on an open fire. I have stored away the metal wire racks from an old refrigerator to use for cooking over an open flame. We have also added cookie sheets and bread pans to our cupboards. If the oven works, I want to bake as many loaves at one time as we can, for efficiency.
For cooking, we have a backpacker's stove that works on gasoline, a barbecue grill that requires propane, and a small single burner that burns propane. We'll be getting a Coleman dual-fuel stove soon.
Wow, I've only been writing this or three days, and already my list of things I still need, or want to buy, is growing. Of course, it all comes down to money and priorities. This year, Y2K will be a bigger priority than even last year.
I am sure there are other items I haven't thought of, but that will have to do it for now.
Well, I have read over yesterday's comments and noticed that I did not talk as much Y2K and how 1999 should be a year of planning as I thought I should.
I am convinced by everything I read, see and experience that Y2K will be pretty bad. Dave and many others say it will depend on electricity and whether or not we have blackouts. I agree, but I think it will be bad regardless.
I am preparing for power outages, no phone service, food shortages, stock market collapses, a collapse of the banking system and possible total global economic disruption, failure of municipal water, gas and other utilities, riots, fires, business failures, mass layoffs, epidemics, martial law and just about every other bad thing you could imagine. I don't expect all of these problems, but I am doing my best to prepare for them. In my book, that's what a good survivalist and responsible father does.
1999 will be our last year to prepare. I've made a good start, but most people haven't. Most won't, until the last minute. So stock up on everything from food to toilet paper while you still can. And forget about preparing to survive for a few weeks. If they can't fix it by 2000, what makes you think they will be able to fix it in a few weeks?
I think the government is at the root of our biggest Y2K problems. I don't mean that they are causing the Y2K bug (although THAT would be quite a conspiracy, huh?) but that the federal, state and even county and local governments have rooted their way so far into our lives, many people will not be able to live without them. Look around. Government is intertwined with the governed. How many people in your neighborhood or town are dependent to some extent on a check from the Government? How many are on social security (which might be OK), Medicare (which won't), get Veteran's benefits, are on food stamps or WIC? How many are occasionally on unemployment? Did you know that unemployment, for example, is orchestrated down at the county level? So your county might be fine, but the one next door might have a computer SNAFU that made Hal in Space Oddessy look benign.
And even if you never have needed such support, you still pay the IRS. What if they think you owe back taxes? Or what if you are supposed to get a refund? Don't count on seeing that money in 2000. We saw tax horror stories last year when Congress stopped worrying about the oral office long enough to hold hearings on the IRS. Well, here's a local one I heard about.
A friend in another community received a bill from his township for local taxes from several years back. Outraged, he stomped off down the town hall with his tax returns and a copy of the canceled checks. The treasurer, who had by now been through this dozens of times, apologized and explained. Turns out that the town's previous treasure had kept poor records, so when the town council hired an auditor, they found hundreds of people had not paid their taxes over a period of four years. Only after they sent dunning letters did they learn that it was the town's mistake, not the individuals. But think about the person who no longer can find those records. Or who moved and will now have a credit agency chase him down. Now think about what could happen to YOU if your town or county or state or federal government looses its records because of a Y2K computer failure.
Anyone that visits this web site probably knows that most sections of government are getting failing grades on the score cards for Y2K compliance. But you need to realize that those reports are only on their "mission critical" systems. Many sectors of the government are not planning on being completely Y2K compliant until 2003 or 2004!
So let me ask you…What exactly is a non-essential computer program? And if it was not mission critical, then why did you go spend our tax dollars to have it developed?
I believe we have too much government, too many regulations and too few rights. We have WAY too many taxes. Something like 60 percent of every dollar you and I make never even has a chance to make it into our pockets. Some 40 percent are sucked right out by taxes we know about while the others go to pay for regulations, licenses, fees and other secret taxes.
And with all this money, all this redistribution of wealth, and the largest employee base in the country, they can't even get their computers working. Sure, the governments can monitor how many guns I buy, and determine if my car is spewing too much pollution into the air, or force me to wear a seatbelt on an airplane, and prevent me from buying an antibiotic without first paying my doctor a fee that's driven out of proportion to the service by burdensome regulation. But will they be able to exist in 2000? I plan to be here. We'll just have to see how well our government makes it through the crisis.
A hopeful man might think that Y2k will change our government for the better. I fear that they will instead use it to tighten their grip on the population, to crack down on those few areas where the light of liberty shines through the oppressive cloud of government corruption.
People like you and I have had the foresight to prepare. Perhaps our neighbors have not. Perhaps, despite our best efforts, they will starve, or freeze, or be raped and killed by looters, or fall victim to illness brought on by drinking unpurified water, or epidemics caused by poor hygiene and people not knowing enough to dig a hole, but this is their choice. By not preparing, they are choosing to face Y2K unprepared.
Add because of them, our government will be able to declare martial law. It will be able to march right in, with oppressive laws and rules we would not tolerate in normal times. And when the "emergency" is over, how many of these laws will still be in place? How much more of our rights will have vanished? Will we still have a democracy?
OK, enough ranting for one night. I just hope thinking about this stuff doesn't keep me up all night.
January 1, 1999
I guess most people are probably recovering from various parties and the resultant hangovers. Jill and I stayed home New Year's Eve and went to bed shortly after midnight. Jill likes to say New Year's Eve is for amateurs, but the days of all night drinking and partying are behind both of us. Jill likes an occasional glass of wine, and I may enjoy a couple beers during a football game, but we rarely drink that much. We don't have any plans to store alcohol for Y2K, although I may put some away for medicinal purposes or barter.
Anyway, while most people are recovering and looking back at the night and the year that was, we are looking forward at 1999. 1999 will be a big year for anyone with a survivalist bent, and I fully expect the last months to be quite hectic.
I have always tried to be prepared, and usually this meant bug out bags, some extra cash in the safe in an envelope labeled "grab and go," a few cases of MREs, a well-stocked pantry and about 50 gallons of water. It also means carrying a firearm and having a shotgun in the bedroom closet. We've upgraded our state of readiness substantially in 1998, and I see doing more so in 1999. This will be the year in which we really bear down and prepare for the worst.
I've been preparing for Y2K since I first ordered buckets of grain from Walton Feed in January of 1998, and back then it only took six weeks to arrive. Today, we're talking six-month delivery times, if you're lucky. My first two orders of Ready Reserve food came from Captain Dave in about six weeks, but I am still waiting for my order from October. What will it be like in November and December of this year, when people are desperate for long-term storage food, but there is none to be found?
Since I am on this topic, here is what we have on hand. I estimate that it is enough for this family of four to last six months. I have more items on order and plan to add to it later this year, probably with some of the Perma Pak packages Dave sells.
#10 cans 4 garbonzo beans
2 soup Stew blend
1 carrots
1 corn
2 potato granules
2 chopped onions
3 whole egg solids
2 peanut butter
2 beef TVP
2 chicken TVP
1 ham TVP
1 orange breakfast drink
3 bread and roll mix
3 buttermilk pancake mix
2 mountain stew
12 regular milk
2 ABC soup mixes
2 long spaghetti
6 cornmeal
6 rolled oats
4 granola
3 Pinto beans
3 Navy beans
4 spit peas6-gallon buckets: 8 wheat, 4 golden, 4 hard red winter
4 rice
4 corn
2 sugar
2 macaroni#2-1/2 cans
2 dry yeast
2 baking powder
2 baking soda
4 hot chocolateMREs
6 cases
48 entréesOther
10 lbs honey
canned goods galoreThis is just a start, but I have tried to purchase grains and other basics first, and am working up to more expensive products, like fruits and more vegetables. I figure I have between $1,500 and $2,000 worth of food on hand.
We have plenty of self-stored products as well, including lots of canned meats and soups and other vegetables. Sometimes you can buy store brand soups -- which I figure are probably made by Cambells -- for 4 or 5 for a dollar. When this happens, I stock up on several cases of basics like tomato, vegetable and chicken noodle. We also buy canned vegetables when they go on sale. Mostly you can find French-cut beans, corn, cream corn, beats and peas on sale for 4 for a dollar.
Tuna and canned salmon sometimes go on sale, but it is hard to catch a good buy on Spam. I don't particularly like Spam, but it makes even powdered eggs taste better. We eat a can occasionally just to remind ourselves what Y2K holds in store for us. Canned chicken is VERY expensive, even from the warehouse store. This is ridiculous, since you can go out and buy chicken parts at the meat counter for around $1 a pound. So why should it cost $3 for a 12-ounce can? We don't have much stocked away.
Maybe we should look into canning chicken. Jill hates canning because she just doesn't like the pressure cooker. I think she think it's going to explode or something. We're not doing much canning, but I have several cases of cans and many lids tucked away in case we need to can our garden produce in 2000.
We also plan to buy more pasta, crackers, flour, rice, popcorn and other products from the warehouse store as we get closer to 2000. We bake our own bread, so we usually have a 25-pound bag of flour around the house. The hard part will be determining when to buy these items. We will have to buy them before the panic starts and the store shelves are stripped clean, but late enough in the year so that they will last into 2000. Jill says that if Y2K fizzles and it is business a usual, we'll be eating good in 2000.
Well, that's all for today. More on our supplies and preparations tomorrow.