Mister Rawles:
First off, I want to thank you for running SurvivalBlog. Its an awesome resource–sorta “one stop shopping” for folks like me that are getting prepared.
I first read your book three years ago, when I was on my second deployment in Iraq. Your novel [“Patriots“] was in a big pile of books in our unit’s MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] room. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I was following advice from my home-town librarian when I picked your book. She once advised me: “Look for books with ‘broken’ spines and that show lots of wear. Those are the ones that have been read a lot, and that ‘s usually for a good reason.” Well, your book looked like it was about ready to fall apart, it was so worn out! I gotta admit that the first time I read your book, I was saying to myself: “Suuuure. Like an economic collapse will ever happen. Not in my lifetime.” Well, the past three weeks of [reading the] newspapers have given me a whole new outlook on that subject. The first chapter of your book is practically prophecy. It is eerie how many things you got right. And you wrote it ten years ago? Word.
Thanks to you, I recently cashed out of my West Valley National Bank [of Arizona] savings account and will lose my checking account once the last few checks clear. That will save me some sleepless nights, I’m sure. Thank you for your repeated warnings to people about getting out of banks that are “under-capitalized” (broke)! I used the bank safety rating service that you recommended, and found out that my bank had a “D” rating! Well, I definitely now owe you a [10 Cent Challenge voluntary] subscription, and I’ll do so A-SAP.
Next, I have a nit-picky complaint: There is way too much in the [SurvivalBlog] archives to be able to read through it all. Do you have any ideas on how I can access it better, to research [particular topics]? Oh, one funny thing I gotta mention: Whenever I start to research prep[aredness] things with Google, almost always it is SurvivalBlog posts that end up in the top 10 or 20 items found, whether is its “HK91 alloy magazines” or “paracord and LC-2 harness'”, or “infrared cyalume trip flare”. I can’t think of a compliment better than being waaay “up there” in the Google rankings. SurvivalBlog is the Hotel Sierra blog!
Up until last week, I also had one other complaint, but I solved that one myself. It was distracting to have all the advertisements crawl by while I was reading the blog. But then I realized that all that I had to do was leave my [browser] cursor arrow on top of any ad, and they stopped moving. Simple, and it stops the eye strain. Thanks and Lord Bless You! – Ray V. in Arizona
JWR Replies: Thanks for your kind letter. There are now more than 5,300 archived SurvivalBlog articles, letters, and quotations. You are correct that there it is too much for the average reader to read through sequentially. To research particular topics, I recommend that you take full advantage of the article categories and blog database search feature available at the SurvivalBlog site. Say, for example, you want to learn more about how to secure your home. In the right hand bar, down below the scrolling advertisements there is a list of topic categories. By clicking on the “Retreat Security” category, only the articles and letters tagged with that topic will be displayed. Or, you can do a more detailed search, using the Search box at the top of the right hand bar. For example, if you enter “Security AND Infrared AND Starlight” only those posts that include all three of those words will be displayed.