Month: August 2021

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Games We Play – Situational Awareness

When I was a kid, we would play games. Hide and seek, chase, kick the can… As I started getting more responsible within my family, my father would start to play awareness games. For instance sitting down in a restaurant, he would ask how many people were wearing hats, or eye glasses in the main room. My first reaction would be to start looking around to try to count them. But he would quickly say “Nope, no looking! Try to remember how many you saw on your way in.” Of course I had no idea, so as a kid I’d guess, and usually get it wrong…

Well after a number of times of going through this embarassment, I’d take on that challenge anytime we went out to eat. I thought of it as that, a challenge, and eventually a game. As I got into my early adulthood, I felt I was getting pretty awesome and would try to get others to engage in this type of game. My wife was not all that keen on the game, but it was kindof a fun thing to do.

Some of you may recall the Bourne Identity movie from 2002. and there a scene in which Jason and his lead lady are in a cafe, and he starts spouting off all these facts he captured just walking into the restaurant.

In the clip Jason points out so many different areas, like identifying license plates in the parking lot, and which hand their waitress prefers to use. But he also then starts transitioning into other areas, more relative to Situational Awareness. That term may be new to some, so here’s a quick definition to set levels…

“Situational awareness is the use of the sensory system to scan the environment with the purpose of identifying threats in the present or projecting those threats into the future.” — SecurityAdvisor.net

We’re basically looking, listening and sensing the common, and then trying to extract out something exceptional. All in the hope that we can avoid threats in the future.

I find it interesting that even as a child I was being taught this skill by playing a game. And I’ve just learned to hone the skill over time. I can’t say I do this every time I go into a restaurant, or department store, or gym. That’s not really the point though. If we take on this, or similar, challenges, we can all grow this muscle a bit more and be more prepared.

There’s a term my wife and I share, “Head On A Swivel”, that gets us both pretty close to upping our awareness in day to day activities – like going for a walk, or going through a grocery store parking lot. Of course what we mean by this is “make yourself situationally aware when in possibly strange or dangerous situations”.

Give it a try on your next restaurant visit. Or consider this, when you’re in the grocery store next time, take a brief moment, locate the exits, and sometimes that closest exit might be out the back door through the warehouse! try to conceptualize what you would do if a fire breaks out at the front of the store, ,or God forbid if an Active Assailant enters through Door Number One, what’s your best path to another door.

One more scenario to ty is the next time you’re at a deparment store, or one of the big box retailers. Again, locate nearby exits, and your paths to safety. Then also consider locations for concealment (meaning a place you could hide from an assailant), and locations for cover (meaning if real bullets were flying, would that rack of cotton t-shirts be better, or should I get behind a pile of generators?).

The goal over time is to get to a level of familiarity with your surroundings and the more you do it, the fast you will be able to do it. Ulitimately, this will help us avoid or respond to threats more successfully, and get us all home safely.

I was watching the recent docuseries “9/11 : One Day in America“, which I would highly recommend if you want to get a real feel for boots on the ground reaction and recovery during the September 11 attacks. The series very good, and highly engaging! One of the points I saw come up regularly was basically “Don’t Panic!” Meaning, when they calmed down, they were able to see more clearly, and get to safety. By running through scenarios when the danger is NOT present, it helps one’s mind better deal with those situations when danger IS present.

Everyone can “play the game”… of course, we may not all hit it out of the park and be as good as Jason Bourne. But hey, we gotta start somewhere, and we gotta start some time. Why not here? Why not now?

— Matt Marshall, GenXTalkin – On Being Prepared

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GenXTalkin Whats In A Bag – GXT-EP03

GenXTalkin What's In A Bag

Hello there again and welcome back to GenXTalkin…

In one of our recent shows we reviewed the several different types of bags one could build or buy to start the process of becoming more prepared.  We thought we’d take some time in this episode to review some details of what goes into building a bag, and maybe even answer the question why.

Of course there could be a lot of bleed over between the several different types of kits, so lets consider some of the fundamentals.  Within every kit, no matter the name or purpose, we should consider the survival rule of threes, and we’ll bring these up fairly regularly throughout the existence of this podcast.

  • A person can survive 3 min without air
  • 3 hours in a harsh environment, extreme hot or cold
  • 3 days without water
  • And 3 weeks without food

The reason we start from this framework is to establish a baseline of need for every situation no matter what it is.  

AIR

So to keep it simple, we’ll start with air, and we’re not saying that within your everyday carry you should always have a world war 2 gas mask to protect against atomic or nuclear war.  Because the vast majority of events one should protect against could be simply handled with a cloth face covering, like a Mission buff.  But it is beneficial in many other cases, as we just experienced during covid, that N95 masks are the standard.  

You know it’s amazing how many people were stuck in a “left-behind” kind of mindset when they couldn’t get their hands on just ONE of these N95 masks.  It sure did cause stress for so many people.  

It wouldn’t hurt to pop on over to your local hardware store and pick up one of those little packs of 3, 5 or even 10 masks for less than 20 bucks.  During the covid supply shortage, these were selling OUT at 50 bucks EACH!  Later, you can start to worry about the full-on Gas Masks for Nuclear War, eh?

HARSH CONDITIONS – SHELTER

Next up…  Harsh conditions!  What we’re mainly referring to is exposure to the elements.  So this becomes more of an exercise of knowing your surroundings, and what is the likelihood you might be stuck in extreme conditions (again, this could be extreme cold, or extreme heat), without some form of protection.  Basically, this comes down to shelter or personal protection.  This could mean simply having an appropriate heavy coat, or an insulated bivvy sac in colder weather, if the possibility exists you could be stuck for extended periods of time.  

Or it could mean the ability to cover oneself to protect from the sun or other heat source in extreme heat.  In many cases sunscreen and a packable umbrella might suffice.  But it could mean stocking your kit with a tarp and poles to protect from heat in the hottest parts of the day.

When you start getting into preparedness, one of the best by-products is improving your ability to observe your surroundings and consider possible “worst-case” scenarios in your mind.  And then try to work out how you might respond.  

This is part of preparing a proper shelter or personal protection…  what are some of the possible scenarios I might find myself in between work and home,  or between the grocery store and home.  Are we in the colder or warmer months.  So you wind up changing the contents of your bags based upon potential scenarios.

We’ll ultimately wind up discussing this topic on a couple of other shows all by itself.  But playing these scenarios in your mind gives you insight into what could happen and how you might react if they do.  There is a reason flight attendants go through the emergency briefing at the beginning of each flight, right?  This is to put it into the mind of the passengers this worst-case scenario, so that not EVERYONE freaks out, “in that unlikely event…”, as they say…

Here’s an exercise, and it may seem morbid, but the next time you’re in a grocery, or a department store, be thoughtful through your entire shopping trip.  Consider the question…  How would I react if an Active Assailant came into the store and started shooting?  Do I have my kids and spouse with me?  Where’s the closest exit (it’s not just for the movies).  What would I do if someone was injured right in front of me?  Would I run to, or away from the shooting?

I assure you the more you do this, the more comfortable you will be in any situation similar to this.  

WATER

Let’s talk about water, probably the most important area to focus on.  But first, we’ll dispel a couple of myths right off the bat.  

Myth #1 – To store a bunch of water, I can just fill up a bunch of 2 liter bottles right? Although in an emergency situation in which you think the water system may fail, yes, an effective short term way to collect water is to find any and all containers you have (pots, pans, bathtubs) and fill them with good water.  But for long term storage it’s just a bit more complex.  Water can “go bad” if it sits for too long without some type of treatment.  So if you choose to store your own water, you’ll want to add a few drops of bleach into a 2 liter bottle which will keep the nasties from forming inside the bottle.

Myth #2 – Water lasts forever.  Not exactly.  If not stored properly, different particles can get into the bottles and make it taste bad, and possibly allow some nasty growths to form inside the bottle making the water non-potable.

Myth #3 – Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon…  Not a myth.  This is true, and the point here is water can weigh a TON, and can take up a lot of space!  Which leads to the main points of water in our preparedness bags.  

Water Filtration and Water Purification.  

These are two areas that are highly important when planning your bag.  

Put technically, Water filtration is the process of removing or reducing the concentration of particulate matter, including suspended particles, parasites, bacteria, algae, viruses, and fungi, as well as other undesirable chemical and biological contaminants from contaminated water to produce safe and clean water for a specific purpose, such as drinking, medical, and pharmaceutical applications.

So this process takes particles from water in an effort to make it drinkable.  Adding some form of filtration to a bag will always be a smart move.

But one often forgotten area of water preparedness is purification.  Like water filters, water purifiers work to remove impurities from water. However, water purifiers focus on killing biological contaminating agents in water with the help of either iodine or chlorine.  There are several different ways purification can be accomplished, but simply using iodine tablets will work for the purpose of our bug out bags.

FOOD

Here we are with our final breakout for the survival rule of threes, FOOD.  The simplest and most effective way to include food…  well, lets call it, nutrition… is including emergency rations.  I like to think of these little bars as wafers of waybread from the Hobbit Shire!  

PARTING SHOTS

–        Subscribe to this podcast to get more information and regular reviews of different items that we put in our kits and you could put in yours as well

If you like what we’re discussing, please dont forget smash that like button, hit the bell, tweet and retweet about it, share on your favorite social media.  You can find us on most platforms at GENXTALKIN.

To find more content as it comes out, check out podcast.genxtalkin.com, or look for us on spotify, amazon music, iheart radio or just about anywhere you search for a podcast.  

We hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you next time

AUDIO ONLY VERSION AVAILABLE BELOW…

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GXT Unboxed Prepping – Head For Survival Bandana – GenXTalkin

Hello again and welcome back to Unboxed Prepping brought to you by GenXTalkin – on being prepared.

Today we’re talking about the Head for Survival Triangular Bandana or Cravat. 

Gun shows are a bit more difficult to come by here in my slice of the eastern seaboard, so I often find myself traveling to PA or VA to get in my fix. 

I was at the Nations Gun Show in Dulles a couple of months back and I found a pretty cool little item I thought would really augment my bug out bag or even one of my grown up kids bags. 

It’s the Head for Survival Triangular Bandana and along with it comes a couple of really nice, larger safety pins. All of it folded up nicely in a little zip locked packet. It set me back about 12 bucks but I think it’s really worth the cost for what you get. 

For those of us with any sort of medical, or even just your simple first aid training, if you think triangle bandage you already get a sense of what this looks like. It’s an Isosceles shaped triangle with the long side being about 52 inches and the short, equal sides being 39 inches. Of course it works perfectly for its more common first aid purposes. Namely:

  • Sling to stabilize an arm or support a shoulder injury
  • Head cover for injury or keeping the head out of the elements
  • Stabilizing sprained ankle
  • Using in conjunction with harder item to splint leg or arm breaks
  • Possible tourniquet or means to slow bleeding down
  • Covering an injured eye
  • Or holding a broken jaw in place
  • Of course, there could be countless others…
  • As well this cool little piece of (not) technology can be used for other non-medical purposes, such as:
  • Pre-filtering water
  • A Simple face mask
  • And, if cut into strips, it can be used as cordage or even possibly tinder for fire starting

Now for the cool part. And I’m sure some of you may have seen these before… but printed on these little beauties is a whole host of survival concepts. It’s broken down into sections for:

  • Navigation
  • Knots
  • Signaling
  • Fire starting
  • Water collection and purification
  • And shelter
  • Each section contains very clear instructions on how to perform steps to success in these areas. For instance, within the Signaling section, it breaks down ideas on how to best use a cell phone in urgent situations. It also explains how many signal fires (three) you should build and in what shape… a triangle of course. 

There’s a section on ground signaling, offering recommendations on how big to make an SOS sign on the ground – think about 18 foot tall letters!!!  And when trying to hail a searching aircraft, make sure you wave frantically, not friendly. If you can, wave with a bright colored cloth… did I mention this triangle bandage is bright orange!!

Also within signaling, it breaks down ideas for SIGHT signals (SOS in Morse code) versus SOUND signals – think whistling or banging metal objects together. These sounds travel farther or course.  And this is just the section for signaling. 

Each section goes into quite some detail on its own topic. Very clear and concise. Not to mention helpful. 

let’s answer the question – Add it or chuck it?

Personally I love this item and will probably look for more to add into each pack I have; edc, bug out, get home pack. Doesn’t matter I can always use one of these, or two. 

So yep definitely give it a thumbs up and recommend it for anyone. 

Thanks for joining us for this installment of unboxed prepping from GenXTalkin. I’m Matt Marshall. So long and thanks for all the … FISH!

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48% of Americans lack the emergency supplies for use in a disaster!!

Now think about this for just a minute all you GenXers. And I don’t mean the generation…

When was the last time you experienced a power outage, or prepared for a weather event, or had a state-wide lockdown? How long were you without power, or required to stay home? What… couple of hours maybe? No problem right?

What if it happened a bit longer? Say 24 hours? Would it still be ok?

Now consider if that power outage happened in your entire neighborhood and there are approx 150 houses affected. If 48 percent (around 70 homes) are not prepared with supplies, then those without will eventually start getting concerned, frustrated… or even desperate?

I’m just sayin… maybe we should think about that. Maybe we should be one of the prepared homes…

Seems like it would make things a bit more… comfortable, a bit more… peaceful, eh?