Category: SurvivalBlog

The SurvivalBlog Ten Cent Challenge — Annual Reminder and the Silver Dimes Option

I only post one reminder each year about Ten Cent Challenge subscriptions, and this is it. Unlike Jimmy Wales at Wikipedia and the whining leftist hand-wringers at PBS, I don’t do endless pledge drives. I depend on my readers to help pay the bills to keep SurvivalBlog up and running. Our web hosting on a dedicated server costs $650.00 per month, and our local ISP bill is $129.00 per month. We also have other expenses including liability insurance, phone bills, computer hardware, software, accounting, subscriptions, writing contest prizes, and so forth. My appeal is simple: If you feel that you …


SurvivalBlog’s IP Address — A Modest Insurance Policy

We post SurvivalBlog’s IP address (also referred to as a “dotted quad” or IPv4 address) as a sort of insurance policy. Recent events have proven that a government agency or a malicious hacker can fairly easily seize or hijack a domain name. This has already happened to at least 75 U.S. web sites without due process of law. Their DNS records were changed, essentially erasing them from the “phone books of the Internet.” To insure against this, we are distributing our IPv4 address. This can be pasted or typed into a web browser window in place of “survivalblog.com” What you …


An Answer to Prayer–Introducing Avalanche Lily

By God’s grace, there was a strong response to my late wife’s July 2009 Bucket List post. One of the responses came from a lovely young widow. She is a committed Christian, a homeschooling mom, and very outdoorsy. (She is an avid gardener, target shooter, hiker and kayaker.) In SurvivalBlog posts, my new bride will be known as Avalanche Lily. She plans to chime in on various blog topics, and she has already started helping me edit articles and my book manuscripts. It was abundantly clear that it was God’s hand that put us together. We both stand amazed at …


Update on Writing Projects

I’ve had several readers ask me about the status of my upcoming novels. Here is the news, in brief: I submitted the manuscript for the first sequel to “Patriots” in July. Atria Books (a division of Simon & Schuster) plans to release it around October of 2011. It is currently being edited. OBTW, I had the chance to meet my editor, Emily Bestler, in person for the first time last month. She is a very skillful editor. After seeing how wonderfully she edited Glenn Beck’s new novel “The Overton Window“, I am convinced that she will do a great job …


SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Winners — Round 29

We’ve complotted the judging for Round 29 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The winners are: First prize goes to Old Dog in Wisconsin for Getting My Lists Together, posted on July 15th. He will receive all of the following: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) …


How Long Can You Tread Water? by Tom S.

Noah may have questioned God about why he should build such a big boat.  To quote the comedian Bill Cosby, God might have asked: “How long can you tread water?” In the event of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) burst 250 miles above Kansas or a super solar flare, the loss of the electrical grid would stop almost all food production and importation in the USA.  Some estimate there is, at any given time, more than 1,000 pounds per capita of food in consumable form available in the USA.  Unfortunately, it is very poorly distributed and will not be available to …


Just the FAQs, Ma’am

I get regularly deluged with more than 200 e-mails per day, and that’s not counting spam e-mails. I regret that I simply don’t have the time to respond to all of your e-mails. To save time, here are some answers to some frequently-asked questions (FAQs): 1.) “Can you recommend a retreat group in my region?” See my static web page titled: Finding Like-Minded People in Your Area 2.) “Why do you have a comma in the middle of your name?” I use the comma to make a distinction between my Christian name, and my family name. My Christian name (James …


Follow-Up on a New Preparedness Documentary Television Series

As I mentioned in SurvivalBlog once before, I’m involved with development of a preparedness television show for a major cable television network. I’ll be doing voice-overs for the show, critiquing the participants. For fear of having the show’s concept get hijacked by competitors, I can’t mention many details. Suffice it to say that this is a legitimate project. I personally know two of the principals in the production company. I can assure you that they are sincere, and not out to do a “hatchet job.” Rather, they are serious about preparedness, and want to show some “best practices” in the …


Announcing a New Preparedness Television Show in Development — Seeking Prepper Families

I have been asked to be the primary on-air subject matter expert for a new reality/documentary television series that is now in development. This should be an awesome show! It will be a great way to get people not just thinking about family preparedness, but going that crucial step further and actually training and preparing. My involvement in the show will be as its narrator/commentator, critiquing and making suggestions on how the families can improve their preparedness, in voice-overs. Here is their preliminary “Casting Call” announcement: Are you a self-sustainer, survivalist or a squared away preparedness family? Do you have …


SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Winners — Round 28

We’ve completed the judging! And the winners are… First Prize goes to C.F., for A Southwesterner’s Experience in Family Preparedness, posted on April 2nd. He will receive: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) …


Letter Re: Two Observations on Expected Post-TEOTWAWKI Behavior

James, I wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed the preview to your new book. I am really looking forward to reading the entire book. I also wanted to pass on two “observations of life”, if you will, that I have made in the past few years. First, in a post conversation that I had with a person I had worked with at the time, this person was laughing about a pre-Y2K conversation he had with an elderly neighbor. This person lives in a fairly rural area and his single, elderly female neighbor was asking if he was …


Novel Sample (Draft) Chapter From “Veterans” (Part II)

Just before they stepped out of the Mercedes, Ian straightened his borrowed silk tie.  Blanca whispered: “Bring your video camera. My papa will want to see pic-tu-ers.” After the maid ushered them in, they met Blanca’s father on the screened patio.  Haltingly, Ian made a formal introduction in Spanish. He did this fairly well, since he had practiced it with Consuela, but he was obviously nervous. After shaking hands, Aurturo Araneta asked: “So, Lieutenant Doyle, My daughter tells me you are a pilot of F-16 fighting planes.” “That’s right, sir. Pointing to the rucksack on his shoulder, he said:  “I …


Two Letters Re: Preparedness Digital Archives

Hi Jim, On Friday, Angus suggested downloading the different sections (Body Armor, Sanitation, etc) of SurvivalBlog for keeping on a USB drive. May I suggest that people download by the month instead of [by the topical] section. This way, when JWR has archived a months’ worth of articles, you can easily update your archives on your USB by downloading the most recent month, rather than updating every different section. I love the Blog! – Ryan in BC, Canada   James, When I make a backup of SurvivalBlog, I use the following command: wget –recursive –no-clobber –page-requisites –html-extension –convert-links –restrict-file-names=windows –domains …


Novel Sample (Draft) Chapter From “Veterans” (Part I)

Chapter 24:  Down In Hondo “We are steadily asked about the age at which to teach young people to shoot. The answer to this obviously depends upon the particular individual; not only his physical maturity but his desire. Apart from these considerations, however, I think it important to understand that it is the duty of the father to teach the son to shoot. Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. …


Letter Re: JWR’s List of Lists in an Excel Spreadsheet

Sir, I would like to thank you for your excellent site. I have been steadily working my way through your archives for the past several months now. I have been a prepper for quite a while thanks to my upbringing. However, for me it is more of a serious hobby than anything else. Being in the military and changing duty stations fairly rapidly is not conducive to long term prepping, as has been mentioned before on your site. That does not mean that I cannot plan however. I have attached a “List of Lists” in MS-Excel spreadsheet format. The initial …