Life and Various Things EDC, Caches, ETC

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Hey All, I spent about half the summer in Eastern Europe for work. Maybe I will talk more about that at some point but I am back in the US now. I also have the kiddos with me for the remainder of the summer. So I went from being busy with work to being busy with the kiddos. Thoughts have been brewing in my head lately. Also since the kids go to bed early and I have them with me there isn’t a ton of stuff to do after they go to bed so you may hear from me more in coming weeks. No promises though.

Here in eastern Kansas it is hot and humid. Not quite the sauna that is Louisiana but still a hot and humid. So I am pretty much living in shorts and tank tops outside of work. This has some EDC challenges as cargo shorts have officially jumped the shark. I am toying with some new carry methods for my Ruger LCP and a new knife. The theme is maintaining basic capabilities in a way that fits within my lifestyle. In a couple more weeks I will talk about the specifics of these things some more.

Along these lines I have been thinking about the ‘naked bag’ that lives in my vehicle. I got the idea from Pastor Joe Fox’s book The Survivalist Family. I have it in a separate bag in my vehicle so I can change, if needed, then rock out in some functional clothes. One might say this is redundant as I am obviously wearing clothes in the vehicle but I may be coming or going from the gym, being lazy on the way to the store for milk, etc. The first time I did this the clothes in it were really pretty outdoors/ paramilitary in nature.

I realized this is dumb. Odds are far, far higher I will be using the clothes in this bag for some sort of normal mundane reason than some emergency scenario. Maybe I cover my shirt in BBQ sauce at the beginning of a day in town. Maybe I forget to pack something for a trip. Maybe some nice young woman takes me home for the evening. All of these things have happened and not once have I needed to change into my crazy pants (literally) and run off into the woods with a back pack. Also I no longer live in a rural area. I live in a mix of suburbs and exurbs of a city with intermittent farms in between.

So what does this mean? My ‘naked bag’ looks a lot more like a generic overnight bag then some survivalist thing. I need to choose clothes I would actually wear that would work for me to actually wear and have a useful secondary function of JIC clothes. This means sturdy non cotton clothes and a good pair of shoes. I added a fleece and a rain jacket which generally lived in the back of my vehicle anyway. In addition to those items I included a pair of gym shorts to sleep in and a hygiene kit. Maybe I will post on it later.

For whatever reason the idea of caches has been in my head for awhile now. Maybe I was bored and had wandering paranoid thoughts or maybe that little voice is telling me to spread out my risk. Recently I was visiting family in a place where I could potentially end up if things go sideways. Having an EDC setup, a rifle, ammo n ancillary stuff next to an old ALICE pack full of camping/ survival stuff in their attic would be a win win as they are like minded but on a tight budget. Depending on some other things I may put together a couple more caches.

Before we get into a discussion about money where people call each other poor or yuppie survivalists I should note I do most of this type thing with stuff already on hand. The costs are sunk so its not like I am writing big fat checks today, which I could not afford.

The next post I write will probably be on some things I am working on right now.

Take care of each other