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  • Are You Prepared?

    Here's something to think about during the holiday season...

    The Black Swan Theory is used by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the existence and occurrence of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations. One example often put forth by Taleb is the life and times of the Thanksgiving Turkey.

    The turkey spends the majority of its life enjoying daily feedings from a caring farmer. Weeks go by, and it’s the same thing day-in-day-out for the Turkey. Free food. Open range grazing. Good times all around.

    The thinking turkey may even surmise that the farmer has a vested interest in keeping the turkey alive. For the turkey, it is a symbiotic relationship. “The farmer feeds me and keeps me happy, and I keep the farmer happy,” says the turkey. “The farmer needs me, otherwise, why would he be taking care of me?”

    This goes on for a 1,000 days.

    Then, two days before Thanksgiving on Day 1,001, the farmer shows up again.

    But this time he doesn’t come bearing food, but rather, he’s wielding an ax.

    This is a black swan event — for the turkey.

    By definition, it is a high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event for the turkey, who not only never saw it coming, but never even contemplated the possibility that it could occur.

    For the farmer, on the other hand, this was not a black swan event. The farmer knew all along why he was feeding the turkey, and what the end result would be.

    The very nature of black swan events make them almost impossible to predict. The point of this parable is to put forth the idea that sometimes we are the Thanksgiving turkey and understanding this may make it easier to begin to, at the very least, contemplate the possibility of far-from-equilibrium events.

  • A Bible Lesson

    "When a wise person debates with a fool, the fool rages and laughs."
    Proverbs 29:9

  • Jay THomas and The LoneRanger

    This is a great story told by Jay Thomas on Letterman about Clayton Moore who played "The Lone Ranger".

  • WHO'S LOOKING AT MY XANGA

    I have had some of my posts become somewhat popular from all over the world.  They are some old posts, but are still getting traffic.   According to my site counter, most of the hits come from search engines, but some of them come from e-mails.  Go figure!

    These are the most viewed:

    Our Gang - 6109 views
    http://guypithecus.xanga.com/255293398/our-gang/

    Lucky Penguin - 6519 views
    http://guypithecus.xanga.com/702148557/one-lucky-or-very-smart-penguin/

    Will & Maeva Dancin' The Boogie - 8626 views
    http://guypithecus.xanga.com/682390780/more-will--maeva-dancin-the-boogie/

    Since I've been using the site counter, there have been 45,000+ looks at my Xanga, and these three posts account for about 47% of them.

  • EAST BOUND AND DOWN

    I don't know why, but this song just won't leave my head.  I love me some steel guitar and 5-string banjo!.

    It came out about the time we loaded up the U-Haul and headed east to Illinois.


    Lyrics | Jerry Reed lyrics - East Bound And Down lyrics

  • THE DRINKS ARE ON ME!

    Today is my 10 year
    XANGAVERSARY

  • SO YOU THINK YOU'RE EATING BLUEBERRIES

  • MAKE YOUR OWN LAUNDRY SOAP

    Ingredients:
    -1/4 bar of Fels Naptha soap
    -2 Tablespoons Borax powder
    -1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda)

    Yield:
    (2) 1.17 gallon bottles of laundry detergent. Serving Size: 1/4 cup per load in a front loading “high efficiency” washer and 5/8 cup for a top loading machine.

    Directions:
    Cut a Fels Naptha bar into fourths and store the extra three in a ziptop bag.  Grate the Fels Naptha and put the shredded soap in one cup of water in a sauce pan and melt over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until the soap has dissolved.

    Pour 10 cups of water into a large container or bucket and add the cooked soap mixture, Borax and washing soda.  Stir, and add 10 more cups of water, then stir again.  Cover the mixture and let set overnight.  The soap mixture will gel.  Stir it up and transfer into two containers.

    Dilute the gel mixture one to one with water. If you’re storing the mixture into empty milk jugs or some other size container, fill the container half full with soap and then finish filling with water.

    Then you’re ready to use the soap.  Use 1/4 cup per load for front loaders and 5/8 cup for top loaders.

    This recipe is so simple, and the soap is so effective, there is no excuse for not using it.  Making the soap doesn’t require any skill.

    It costs about 20¢ for the ingredients to make a bottle of detergent!  Translate that savings over a year’s worth of laundry and that puts a nice sum back into your budget.”

  • 65 SIGNS THAT THE ECONOMY IS COLLAPSING

    Some people still believe that everything is going to be just fine, but .....over the past 40 years, the United States and Europe have piled up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and now a tremendous amount of pain is heading our way.  Economic conditions in the United States and Europe have already deteriorated badly and they are going to continue to deteriorate. 

    Nothing is going to stop what is coming, and most people are still in denial about our economic decline. 

    To read CLICK HERE

  • BUILDING ROCKET STOVES

    Last Sunday some of the members of our prepper group got together and built rocket stoves.

    A rocket stove is a simple cook stove that is very energy efficient.  They burn so hot that they also burn the wood gasses, generating very little or no smoke at all. You can boil a pot of water in a few minutes using a few twigs or small pieces of wood.  They are used in places where not everyone has electricity and fuel is scarce.

    The ones we made are made from a small metal garbage can and some stove pipe.  They can also be made from tin cans or other materials.