There comes a time when you look at the world and decide you want to hide something. Where you hide it depends a lot on what you are hiding and when you think you will need access to.

It also depends on who you are hiding it from.

Every parent when I was a kid knew that they checked under the mattress for hidden things and on the top shelves of closets. As a 12yo I knew every hiding place in the house where my parents could hide Christmas presents.

And yeah, I did move the dresser from in front of the “unused” closet under the eves in order to peek in and see all the loot that would be mine on Christmas day.

For an even better and sicking look, watch the scene in Schindler’s List to see the German solders searching the ghetto for Jews that stayed behind in hiding. What you didn’t see and likely didn’t know was that the German’s had cleared that particular ghetto multiple times. They already knew all the hiding places.

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It is 0900 on Tusday after Memorial day. There has been lots of talk about Congress looking to create new infringement laws. I decide to contact my Senators to voice my position and stance.

First I call the DC numbers for both. I’m given an option of leaving a message for my Senator. Nothing else.

I then call the office of my Senator here in my home state. A staffer answers, I give him my name and city of residence. This establishes me as somebody that is represented by my Senator. I request to make an appointment.

The staffer says “Tell me more about your concern and I’ll make sure they get your comments.” Now this is a blow off. So I again ask “How do I make an appointment to speak to my Senator?” Staffer again refuses to answer. This goes back and forth a half dozen times. He won’t tell me how to make an appointment. Keeps demanding to know what I want to speak about. “Her support of infringing on the rights of US citizens” isn’t good enough.

In the end he ends the conversation. In the course of the conversation I learned that I would have to tell an anonymous staffer what my concerns were. He would pass it to a staffer who would decide if they would pass my request to the schedulers who might then contact me to make an appointment.

So I called Ted Cruz’s office. He’s not my Senator. There is a message that Ted recorded, given multiple options including “Press zero to talk to somebody on my staff.” That staffer was unable to help me get an appointment with my Senator but explained how it worked for Ted. I had a pleasant conversation, said thank you. Told him I wished that Ted was my Senator, then corrected that to “I wish my Senator was more like Ted.”

Using the suggestion from Ted’s office, I went to my other Senator’s webpage and put in a request for an appointment with my other Senator. I’ll wait to see if I get an appointment.

In the mean time, I’m writing a letter to send to my Senator’s and Representative.

In terms of how much weight a political representative puts on any communications, they are ranked:

1. Comment on Social Media
2. Directed Tweet or other bulk comment
3. E-mail
4. Phone call
5. Typed/printed letter
6. Hand written letter
7. In person conversation

I’ve normally opted for making a phone call. I’ve attempted to get an in person conversation with my Senators. I’ve written a letter which I will print and send out later today.

Report your attempted contacts or contacts in the comments below. Let us know how well you did in communicating with your Senator or Representatives and what sort of response you get.

The sailor slumped in his life raft, surrounded by the deep blue sea. He was slowly dying, because even though there was water as far as the eye could see, none of it was potable.

You can go about three days without water before there are serious health issues. On the other hand, going without water for even a few hours can have a tremendous impact.

In order to study the effects of different water consumption models on soldiers, the Aberdeen Proving Grounds (Maryland) performed a number of experiments with different drinking models.

• Keep your canteen full, drink only when ordered, conserve water.
• Drink when you wanted
• Drink at rest times
• Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

They then had groups of soldiers march 20 miles with full load out and then deploy for battle. They evaluated the combat readiness of the troops at the end of the march.

The WWII method of either having a full or empty canteen with water conservation being a primary concern left the troops combat ineffective for over a full day.

The drink when the soldier wanted left the troops combat ineffective for a bit more than a full day. Less than the conserve mode but still requiring a significant recovery time.

Having the soldiers drink every time there was a rest stop worked better. They were only combat ineffective for around 8 hours.

For the “hydrate, hydrate, hydrate” method, the troops reached the end of the march, deployed, and were combat effective.

You don’t notice it but even small amounts of dehydration have a noticeable effect on performance.

Make sure you have enough water to keep going.

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So the little BLEEEEEEEEEP left some BLEEEEEEEEP behind.

He was a little sneaky this time. He left a javascript behind which pulled a javascript file which in turn pulled still another javascript file. He used a URL for his jumping off point that looks legit but wasn’t.

Since he has a server that responds to the request for the third javascript file he was randomly returning redirect code. So sometimes you could go to a page and it would redirect you to the phishing site and sometimes it wouldn’t. And he could look for clues that said if it was coming from a browser or a developer.

Sneaky little BLEEEP left his calling card at the end of posts that already existed. Thus we weren’t seeing the issue on new posts but if you were to look at older posts, there was a random chance of being redirected.

We’ve cleaned his latest BMs from the database. No promises that we got it all.

On the down side, we’ve had to send a bill to Miguel for this work. Trying to clean up everything has cost us over 40 man hours. That includes research, security evaluations, custom database work and a host of other things to protect this blog. We are eating most of that because of the value the blog provides to the community, but he is getting a bill for part of it.

We hope all of you take the time to click on the donate button on the right to help Miguel out.

AWA

You’ve decided, for whatever (bad) reasons, that you are heading into the woods. There are a few considerations to keep in mind as you head into the woods.

You’re Not the Only One!

Yeah, there are any number of other people that think they are going to be living in the woods after a SHTF situation.

The good news, for you, is that after a couple of weeks, you’ll start to come upon caches of goods. You’ll be able to spot them by the smell of dead bodies near by.

Most people won’t survive in the woods for very long. If you plan on surviving in the woods, you need to be able to shelter and survive and move back towards living (as opposed to surviving).

Your biggest enemy will be time. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you are going to need to do.

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This morning the site was unavailable for a few minutes as we updated software. At the same time we ran some more site testing code to verify that the site is “cleaner”.

Over the next few weeks we will be working with Miguel in order to remove plugins and themes that are not in use. This might cause a few hiccups along the way but we expect them to be short lived.

As Miguel has stated, this might affect the look of the site slightly but nothing major.

So Miguel might be unhappy tomorrow. And J.Kb might be talking to Miguel in clipped tones.

Once again somebody got into the files that drive gunfreezone and modified them. Not nearly as badly as last time.

They added a simple “redirect” to a site that claims to be upgrading chrome. It didn’t it doesn’t, it is a nasty site designed to get you to install software on your PC that you shouldn’t.

If you did “upgrade chrome” form the update-googlechrome(dot)site please know it was a bad thing. Run you virus protection software. You have been infected.

I’m personally sorry this happened to you.

I’ve locked the site down. Miguel can’t make changes to the site software. This might mean that our intrepid bloggers might have issues uploading images. But between Miguel and myself, we’ll get if figured out.

Again, sorry.

In the best of all possible situations, you are at home and are going
to shelter there. As I said in Part A, my lady prefers to sleep in her
own bed. If you are in your own home, you should be able to sleep in
your own bed.

So what is needed to shelter in place?

You need to be able to:

• stay out of the elements, wind, snow, rain, sun
• stay warm when it is cold out
• stay cool when it is hot out
• stay clean and healthy
• stay hydrated
• stay fed.

If your home is undamaged, it is currently keeping the elements at
bay. Unless something happens to break your home, it will continue to
keep the elements out.

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The second rule within the rule of threes is “shelter”. Shelter
includes everything that protects you from the elements. When
evaluating “shelter”, start at your skin and work your way out:

• Socks
• Underwear
• Gloves
• Hats
• long johns
• pants/skirts
• shirts
• scarfs
• coats/vests
• Rain coat/rain suit/poncho
• umbrella
• blankets
• sleeping bags
• sleeping systems
• tents
• improvised shelter
• car/truck
• camper
• huts/cabins/caves
• boats
• houses

In addition to the above, “shelter” includes those things that modify
your environment to make it better for you.

So what are you prepared for?

A few years ago we were at a range day and one of the people that had
been brought as a guest was bragging:

I spent a year living in the back woods. When the SHTF, I’ll just
grab my go bag and disappear into the woods again. I can survive in
the woods as long as I need.

What are you going to do, you’re fat and out of shape?

And my lady, to her credit, had the perfect response:

I’m going to go home, cook dinner, read a book and go to sleep in my
own bed.

Yes, it is good to be able to “survive” in the woods for an
extended period of time. Knowing how to hunt, trap, fish, collect,
and grow your own food is wonderful. So is knowing how to create a
primitive shelter that keeps the rain off.

But the best shelter you likely have right now is your own home, be it
a single family house in the middle of nowhere or a tiny apartment in
the big city. After that, the next best shelter you likely own is
your vehicle.

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