To all of the board members...
I just wanted to post a quick intorduction. I've been lurking this board for about a week or so and I've read about 75% of the posts in that short amount of time. I've learned quite a bit from this forum already. So to Sarge, Beo, Nell, Trax and the others I thank you for your insight as my time reading these posts has already been enlightening.
With that said, I figured that I might as well register and introduce myself. My name is Chaz and I live in Massachusetts. I never was a scout and in fact I've never gone camping, but recently I've had this growing desire to address my utter lack of preparedness for any shtf situations (urban or wilderness).
I've got a pack that I keep in the Jeep with what I think is a more than adequate for supplies, so I won't list the contents and ask if you think I deserve a gold star for my efforts...and I've got a knife too but I won't ask for your reviews of it since I'm happy with it...Can you tell I read your blog Sarge? ;)
I do have one comment/question...
Like I said I'm getting into the whole preparedness mode, but I feel like I'm going overboard with some things. For instance, I know that a person should have at least two ways to start a fire...a preferred way and a back up. But at what point does it get excessive? I've got matches in a waterproof container, a flint/magnesium combo, blastmatch, as well as the sweedish "metal match". For tinder/accelerants I've got cotton balls in vaseline in a small waterproof container, a ziploc bag full of dryer lint, some sparklite tinder and some wet-tinder.
Kinda seems like I'm overdooing it...but where do you draw the line? All in all, these items don't weigh much, nor do they take up much space in my pack....So, my question to the more expereinced is this...how do you know when you're "covered"? Is it knowing that you get piece of mind by having so many options, or it simply being confident that what ever firestarting options you pack will work because of your proficiency with that particular meathod?
I guess I'm torn between the "if one is good, then five is better" mentality and being more efficient/minimalist...
any thoughts?
