Get Your Peanunt Butter While It's Cheap........

Bad harvest, poor crop.  Major brands are planning on raising prices next month - November 2011.  FYI.

Leave Your Troubles Behind.....

Our Hometeachers came by tonight and gave us a nice lesson on the Church Welfare system, and how able the Church is to respond and help in so many areas in the world when there is an earthquake or a hurricane or other natural disaster.  This line of conversation led to various points about personal preparedness and no matter where you live, you can find yourself in a situation where you will not be able to buy what you need.

We talked about hurricanes and tornadoes and the possibility of an earthquake along the Wasatch Front.  We have had a tornado, but it was a little one and it's damage was not widespread.  If an earthquake struck the cities up north, even Sweet Haven might find itself without power, communications, natural gas, and possibly resupply of food and fuel. 

We talked about an epic trip that S2 and D2 took one day on their bikes.  We were slated to pick Annie up at the airport sometime in the early evening.  These two kids were pretty restless and wanted to go on a bike trip, so I told them to take off, and I would pick them up along the way.  I had chores and projects - I don't remember exactly what, but I didn't get on the road until they had about a 5 hour start.  We drove and drove in the old Ford Van and I kept thinking I would see them over the next hill, but that was not happening and I was getting worried that something had happened to them.  Finally about 43 or so miles from Sweet Haven we caught up with them.  They hadn't taken much in the way of supplies - if you read this S2 or D2, please fill in any detail that my old brain has forgotten.  I think they took some water, but used it up, and didn't take any food.  They were expecting me to pick them up much sooner than the 5 hours it took me to get on the road.  I was amazed at how far they had traveled.  I think D2 was 9 or 10, and S2 would have been 13 or 14.

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was surprised to find a good friend show up at my doorstep, on his bike with little more than a book pack and light jacket. He had biked down from Moo U. to Flatirons U - about 60 miles when he decided that he just couldn't go back to his apartment. He really couldn't. As he approached his apartment, coming back from class, he saw several police cars and police men, and they were packing his roommates into the cars and they were in handcuffs. Lief continued right on by the scene and just headed out of town. It seems that one of the roommates had a marijuana plant in the window of his room, and a meter reader saw it and turned them in. Lief didn't know what was going on at the time, but he knew he didn't want to get hauled off in the confusion and so he just disappeared. I doubt that the police spent any time looking for him, but a lone guy, riding a bike is much less conspicuous than a guy in a car with a color, make, model and license plate. So he just continued on down and stayed the weekend with me. On Sunday I rode about half way back with him, and when he got back to Moo U. everything had been sorted out, and he was in not trouble.

I didn't start this post with the idea of singing the praises of the bicycle,  but that must be a little on my mind as these stories came easily to mind.  We see quite a few long distance bicyclers on the roads going to and from Sweet Haven.  Some of them have panniers and packs, some of them are hooked to trailers.  None of them are moving very fast.  But they have all come a long distance - we know this because Sweet Haven is near the edge of no-where, and many miles from any city of even modest size.  Sweet Haven is not in a well watered, verdant, fruitful landscape.  The topography varies from reasonably productive, irrigated farms nearby, to juniper covered desert hills, to parched sandy flats, to empty, seemingly endless greasewood covered plains.  And still they manage to come.  Carrying water, food, shelter, dodging cars, semi-trucks and buses, the crawl along the roads at a few miles per hour.  When night comes, they might be in a town, but they might be on the road and just pull off into the scrub and make a quiet camp.  You will never see them, not at all the same as if they were driving.

I guess that I don't have a real conclusion to this other than I am frequently surprised how far you can go, and how much you can carry on a bike.  If you had to go from the airport in SLC to Sweet Haven on foot it might take you two weeks.  On even an bargain basement bike, a thrift store special, and weather permitting, you would stand a good chance of making it in two days, at the most in three.   All with no gas, no electricity, with nothing more than a tire pump, a patch kit,  a couple of gallons of water, and maybe a jar of peanut butter and a couple of loaves of bread.  

If you have airless, flat free tires your bike repairs are decreased by 95% - just my opinion.  You can drive over broken glass, sharp rocks, and puncture weed without a qualm.  Try 'em, you will love 'em.  We recently and somewhat reluctantly retired our old Yard Sale/DI Specials and are now riding about Sweet Haven on regular tube, and worried about the bumper crop of puncture weed that is everywhere.  So far we haven't had a flat, but I know that it is just a matter of time.  And after following the adventures of our Intrepid S2, who bikes 7 miles each way to work and home, except when he has to walk 25 blocks in the rain because of a flat tire....well I think I am going to be ordering some new airless tires and then we can ride without worry.

We All Need A 'Bottom Bank'

Some of you might remember a few years ago when some near (and hopefully dear) relatives of yours were going through South Jordan and were stopped and had their truck impounded because they were/are not the best at book work, and a just-past-teenie-bopper-girlie cop took exception to their lack of organization and had the truck impounded.....

So, there we were, grandparents in our mid-50's at 11:30 at night, on the Redwood Road sidewalk with the contents of the truck cab and truck bed stacked beside us like a couple of homeless people.  We could not see how this had come to pass - it just seemed beyond bizarre, but it might have been worse.

As it was, we called Chandler and he and Julie brought us their extra car and we drove home and came back on the next Monday and paid all the fines and tow charges and claimed our pickup.  But what would we have done if we hadn't had a cell phone, or someone to call, or any money to walk to a motel.....

We are wonderfully fortunate in that we have a depth of resources that could help us, but not everyone is so lucky.  In this article : "The Criminalization of Poverty" ,  Barbara Ehernrich writes about how, if you are poor, it is very possible for you to end up being a criminal, and it isn't that hard.  I'll just include a short quote - the part about having your car impounded kind of struck home to me:

"...... there are two main paths to criminalization, and one is debt. Anyone can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors' prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can't pay fines for things like expired inspection stickers may be made to "sit out their tickets" in jail.
More commonly, the path to prison begins when one of your creditors has a court summons issued for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another, such as that your address has changed and you never received it. Okay, now you're in "contempt of the court."
Or suppose you miss a payment and your car insurance lapses, and then you're stopped for something like a broken headlight (about $130 for the bulb alone). Now, depending on the state, you may have your car impounded and/or face a steep fine -- again, exposing you to a possible court summons. "There's just no end to it once the cycle starts," says Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. "It just keeps accelerating.""




It is of course a good thing to not be poor - we all are working to avoid that.  Things happen, rocks fly up and break windows and headlights...... there is an endless limit to what can break, or what we need or think that we need.  But we all need an emergency fund of some kind.

When our kids were little, they would sit on their money when they were playing 'Monopoly' so as not to let their siblings know how much they had.  One charming daughter coined the term 'bottom bank' for this little trick.  It was a good thing.  I don't know if she won or not, but she had a pretty good poker face, and I don't think her siblings knew how much she had in the bank.

We have all been advised to have some money available for emergencies.  If you are being advised by a financial guy, they will talk about having 6 months of your yearly wage ready to go - which I think would be nice, but is really silly.  I don't know of anyone that really needs money in the paycheck-to-paycheck sort of way that we and most of the people that we knew actually live that has anything like that.  

But when you think about actually falling into poverty, we should all have some kind of reserve that can be a 'last resource'....something that we would not use even to pay our cell phone bill, or for high speed internet...  Maybe it's only $50, maybe if we save our change we can grow it to $500 or $1000 or more.  That would be a pretty nice rainy-day fund for when the rain is coming down hard.  We are not a nation of savers.  Saving doesn't come easily to me, but it is important.  Anything you can save will give you some power in your life.  

Here is a little clip that shows the value of a 'Bottom Bank' over an investment bank...

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83 Year Old Japanese Woman Escaped Tsunami on Her Bicycle

This is kind of fun.  Annie and I ride our bikes around Sweet Haven quite a bit, especially in warmer weather.  We used to get some looks from people whom I assume think that unless you under 30 or dressed in $500 worth of bike costume gear and ride a $1000 bike, that you have no business on one.  We often ride to church, which is admittedly pretty close, but got quite a few disbelieving looks for a while as well.  We even reclaimed the bike rack parking place from the cars - first come, first served after all.

So I was really interested to watch this little clip about this lady that escaped the tsunami on her bike. She was a farmer all of her life, and is proud of being strong and fit.  Actually, as I write this, I remember the story that Mom told me several times of Great Grandpa Barthel ( I think) and his bike.  If I remember the story right, he never learned to drive a car and rode his bike into his late 80's.  (Mom: If you read this, correct any mistakes in the 'Comments' section).   Anyway, I thought is was a great story.  Hope you enjoy it as well.  Happy riding!

Taming Chaos with a Personal Plan - by Scott Stewart of STRATFOR

Taming Chaos with a Personal Plan is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

By Scott Stewart
Over the past week we’ve seen a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan that caused a nuclear accident, the Saudis sending troops into Bahrain to quell civil unrest there and the government of Yemen taking measures to expel foreign media as protests have swelled against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
We have also recently seen large-scale evacuations of expatriates from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and it is not unreasonable to assume that we might see a similar exodus from Bahrain and Yemen if developments in those countries deteriorate. Moreover, in Japan, the risk of radiation and conditions that are not yet under control at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could force further evacuations there.
In light of this uncertain environment, STRATFOR thought it prudent to address once again the topic of personal contingency planning. Indeed, we also made this topic the subject of this week’s Above the Tearline video. While we have often discussed this topic in relation to terrorist attacks, its principles are also readily applicable to crises caused by natural disaster, war and civil unrest. When a crisis erupts, having an established personal contingency plan provides people with a head start and a set of tools that can help them avoid, or at least mitigate, the effects of the chaos and panic that accompany crisis events.

When Chaos Reigns

When a crisis erupts due to civil unrest, natural disaster or a major terrorist attack, a number of things happen rapidly and sometimes simultaneously. First, panic ensues as people attempt to flee the immediate scene of the disaster, usually seeking safety using the same escape routes. At the same time, police, fire and emergency medical units all attempt to respond to the scene, so there can be terrible traffic and pedestrian crowd-control problems. In the event of large civil disturbances, roads can also be clogged with protesters, troops and panicked civilians. This can be magnified by smoke and fire, which can reduce visibility, affect breathing and increase panic.
In many instances, an attack or natural disaster will cause damage to electrical lines, or the electricity will be cut off as a precautionary measure. Natural gas, water and sewer lines can be damaged, causing leaks, and in the case of natural gas lines raising the threat of explosions and fire. Earthquakes and mudslides can cut roads and shut down mass transit. Often, people find themselves trapped in subway tunnels or in high-rise buildings, and they are sometimes forced to escape through smoke-filled tunnels or stairwells. Depending on the incident, bridges, tunnels, subway lines and airports can be closed or jammed to a standstill. Grocery stores are frequently inundated by people scrambling (and sometimes fighting) to obtain food and supplies.
In the midst of this confusion and panic, telephone and cell-phone usage soars. Even if the main trunk lines and cell towers are not damaged by the event or otherwise affected by the loss of electricity, this huge spike in activity quickly overloads the exchanges and cell networks. This means the ripples of chaos and disruption roll outward from the scene of the crisis as people outside the immediate vicinity of the crisis zone hear about the situation via the media and wonder what has become of loved ones who were in or near the crisis zone.

The Need to Plan

Those caught in close proximity to such a disaster site have the best chance of escaping and reconnecting with loved ones if they have a personal contingency plan. While such planning is critically important for people who live and work overseas in high-threat locations, recent events have demonstrated that even people residing in places considered safe, like Cairo and Tokyo, can be caught in the vortex of a crisis. Taking this one step farther, sudden disasters, such as tornadoes, earthquakes, school shootings or the derailment of train cars carrying chlorine, can strike almost anywhere. This means that everyone should have a personal contingency plan.
Emergency plans are vital not only for corporations and for schools but also for families and individuals. Such plans should be in place for each regular location — home, work and school — that an individual frequents and should cover what that person will do and where he or she will go should an evacuation be necessary. This means establishing meeting points for family members who might be split up — and backup points in case the first or second point also is affected by the disaster.
When school-aged children are involved, parents need to take the time to coordinate with the school to learn what the school’s crisis plans are so any measures the school employs can be accounted for during the planning process. A crisis plan should also account for any pets a family may have.
The lack of ability to communicate with loved ones because of circuit overload or other phone-service problems can greatly enhance the sense of panic during a crisis — especially in this age, when people are so dependent on almost-constant communications via the ubiquitous smart phone. Perhaps one of the foremost benefits of having personal and family contingency plans in place is the reduction of stress that results from not being able to contact a loved one immediately. Knowing that everyone is following the plan frees each person to concentrate on the more pressing challenges presented by their personal evacuation. This is critical because someone who waits until he or she has contacted all loved ones before evacuating might not make it out.
It also is important to have a communications plan, which should include the contact information for the designated rallying site as well as an alternate communications hub outside of the area. It might be difficult to communicate from point A to point B, but someone at point A or B might be able to get through to a person at point C. For example, it may be impossible to call from Tripoli to New York, but both parties may be able to call through to Rome.
Alternative means of communication also should be included in the communications plan. If the phone lines and cell phones are clogged, many times text messages can still get through and Internet connections may work to send e-mail. Satellite telephones, though expensive, are also very useful in a communications blackout, as are two-way radios. Analog fax lines can also prove useful when other forms of communication are shut down.
People who are going to serve as communications hubs need to be briefed on the evacuation plan and have contact information (landline and cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.) for each person who will be participating in the evacuation. The communications hub should also be provided with important personal data on each person, including full name, date of birth, passport numbers, etc. The communications plan also will be helpful in case one member of the family is unable to evacuate immediately or finds it unwise to evacuate at all. In that case, he or she will know where the rest of the family is going and how to contact them once communications are restored.
Planning is important because, when confronted with a dire situation, many people simply do not know what to do or where to start. It is not unusual to find people wandering aimlessly at the scene of a disaster. Not having determined their options in advance — and in state of shock over the events of the day — people quite often find themselves unable to think clearly enough to establish a logical plan, so they just drift around or collapse in helplessness. Having a plan in place gives even a person who is in shock or denial and unable to think clearly a framework to lean on and a path to follow.

Evacuating

One of the keys to surviving a catastrophe is situational awareness. Situational awareness allows people to recognizing a potential threat at an early stage and take measures to avoid it. Situational awareness also helps people know where to go when an unforeseen disaster strikes. For example, if the airport is closed by the crisis, situational awareness enables one to understand the alternate means of leaving the country, and if a bridge is damaged on an alternative land route, you can locate another way out. Being aware of the layouts of your residence and workplace is also critical. If an office building is hit by an incident of workplace violence or catches fire, people with a plan will know where the fire exits are and where they lead. Situational awareness will then help them realize when an exit could lead them out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Situational awareness also aids in reacting to a dangerous situation while on the move. If a subway tunnel is filling with smoke from a fire or bombing, situational awareness tells one to keep low in order to avoid being overcome by smoke. Better still, proper preparation can lead people to carry important items such as a smoke hood that can be worn to protect against smoke and a flashlight to help navigate a dark place like a tunnel.
For individuals who work in high-rise buildings, frequently travel or routinely take a commuter train or subway, these two items can greatly assist you if the need to evacuate arises. Smoke hoods are relatively inexpensive devices that can be carried in a briefcase or purse and quickly donned in case of emergency. They will usually provide around 20 to 30 minutes of breathing time, which could quite literally mean the difference between life and death in a smoke-filled hallway, stairway or subway tunnel. Likewise, a small flashlight could prove to be invaluable in a crisis situation at night or when the power goes out in a large building or subway. Some of the small aluminum flashlights can also double as a handy self-defense weapon.
Of course, in some situations, evacuation might not be the best idea. If there is no immediate threat at a specific location, it may be more dangerous to join a crowd of panicked people on the street. In some cases, it might be safest to just stay in place and wait for order to return — especially if the shelter is stocked with food, water and other basic necessities. Situational awareness will allow you to make the call on whether to stay or go.
As part of a contingency plan, it is also prudent to prepare a small “fly-away” kit containing clothes, water, a first-aid kit, nutritional bars, medications and toiletry items for each member of the family. It also is a good idea to include a battery-powered or crank-powered radio and other items such as appropriate maps, multi-tool knives and duct tape. An appropriate amount of cash can also prove quite useful. The kit should be kept in a convenient place, ready to grab on the way out. Even if it is impractical to keep all these items in constant readiness, keeping most of them together and using a prepared list to collect the other items quickly can help get one out the door in seconds. Maintaining important papers, such as vehicle titles, deeds, licenses, birth certificates, passports and credit card information, in a central file allows it to be quickly retrieved in case of an evacuation. Of course, passports are of vital importance in an overseas situation.
Another important part of situational awareness is having the means to receive instructions and information from the authorities. In addition to radio and television, many locations have emergency text and e-mail alert systems that can provide critical information. Overseas, embassies also maintain networks for disseminating information to expatriates such as the U.S. Department of State’s warden system. Individuals should register for such services and ensure they know how information is disseminated before the crisis hits and results in communication disruptions.
When it comes to information pertaining to emergency plans and fly-away kits, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration’s ready.gov site is an excellent resource. For people residing overseas, the U.S. Department of State’s travel information site and the Overseas Security Advisory Council are also valuable resources filled with helpful information.
Now, while it is important to listen to authorities in the case of an emergency, individuals cannot rely on the government to take care of them in every situation because the resources simply may not be available. This means that individuals must have a plan in place designed to take care of themselves and their families.

Flexibility Required

In order to be effective, an emergency plan must be fluid and flexible. It is important to recognize that even a good plan can be worthless if reactive measures taken by authorities during an emergency impede execution of the plan, or if the catastrophe itself closes down the airport or a section of a primary escape route. For these reasons, it is best to have several alternate contingency plans that account for multiple scenarios and include various routes and modes of evacuation. Once the emergency is announced, it likely is too late to start devising a back-up plan.
Plans must be also reviewed periodically, at least once a year. A plan made following 9/11 might no longer be valid. Bridges and roads included in the original plan might be closed for construction at the present time or could have been changed to a one-way traffic pattern. Communication plans may also need to be updated if family members move or change telephone numbers.
The contents of fly-away kits should be checked periodically to ensure the kits are functional. Flashlight and radio batteries can lose their charge and need to be replaced. Items such as smoke hoods can become damaged by being carried around in a purse or briefcase for too many years. Food can become stale and inedible. Medications can expire. Children can grow and require different sizes of clothing.
Finally, while having a contingency plan on paper is better than having nothing, those plans that are tested in the real world prove to be far superior to plans that are never tested. Running through an evacuation plan (especially during a high-traffic time such as rush hour) will help to identify weaknesses that will not appear on paper. It also will help ensure that all those involved know what they are supposed to do and where they are supposed to go. A plan is of limited use if half of the people it is designed for do not understand their respective roles and responsibilities.
No plan is perfect, and chances are that individuals will find themselves “shifting on the fly” as conditions on the ground change in the event of an actual emergency. However, having a plan and being prepared allows a person to be more focused and less panicked and confused than those who have left their fate to chance.

Read more: Taming Chaos with a Personal Plan | STRATFOR