Friday, April 16, 2010

The Road Trip - What to have

Welcome to another episode of the Be Prepared Channel. Well I am about to hit the road this morning for Omaha and thought I would make a quick blog post about road trip preparedness. I have another load of preps to take out to Omaha, and we will be spending another weekend looking at homes for a possible homestead/retreat and will be in Omaha area for a couple of weeks. The bad news is all the driving that is involved with this and I can see there will be at least 3 or 4 more trips like this minimum before I am have all our excess gear out of our home in Colorado. So I will be getting plenty of practice doing this! So let's quickly get into the preps you should have for the road.

Things to know:
Know your route - Be familiar with the road and possible fuel points and alternate routes. A GPS is no replacement for good maps, and you should have familiarized yourself with the route before leaving.
Know the condition of your vehicle - A vehicle inspection before leaving is needed, check your vehicle fluids, tire pressures, and do a general walk around and look things over before hitting the road. Make sure that anything that needs attending to is addressed before leaving.
Know the condition of your gear - Make sure your things you have with you are there and are in the condition you expect, make sure cell phones and other devices that use batteries are fully charged.

Things to have:
Emergency phone number list - Make sure you have phone numbers of family, friends, AAA or towing service.
Communications - A cell phone, CB, or some way to communicate in the case of an emergency.
Supplies - I carry a road kit that has coolant, oil, jumper cables, basic tools, rags, electrical tape, bungie's, rope, windshield washer fluid, and basic vehicle supplies, fire extinguisher, good quality flashlight
Emergency kit - first aid kit, emergency supplies like water, candles, space blanket, road flares, reflective triangles, and some food.
Cash - You should have emergency cash on the road incase of a breakdown or problem. Don't depend on credit cards or checks as you may not be able to use them.

Summary:
Sorry this is so short today. I have to finish up loading the truck and getting on the road. We will go into more depth going forward and I will show you my own road trip kit and the things I carry with me in my truck for these trips. Of course what you carry with you may vary based on the length of the trip, where your going to be, and what space weight constraints you might have. So we will be visiting this topic in greater depth in the near future.

I think I have what I need to do the podcast and blog from the Omaha location so if things work out as planned I will be posting a couple of shows this trip out. I will do a audio podcast on our homestead search and we will be circling back to Energy Self Sufficiency, and start talking about our "Plan". So until then I will see ya next time!

In the News:
As you know from my previous posts on Precious metals investing that a prepper or survivalist plan includes precious metals. Well the last few weeks have been shocking with revelations of massive fraud and corruption manipulating the precious metals markets. So I wanted to post a special note here on metals and some links.
- When you buy metals take possession of them. DO NOT hold them in bullion holding vaults or in accounts. The banks are leveraged 100 to 1 and do not have your metals even though they are charging you the fees for holding them for you. Demand delivery.
- Do not buy metals ETF's or IRA's, or other "paper" gold, silver investments. It appears that there is no gold backing these things and those who think they have precious metals will be rudely awakened when they realize they have been robbed.
- Manipulation in the markets has finally be verified by whistleblower traders and we know just how badly they have manipulated the market and the regulators have been told, acted shocked, and then have done nothing. JP Morgan is hiding behind statements that they are acting on behalf of the Federal Reserve and acting as an agent for the US Government so any fraud or manipulation facts we have they are trying to say this information is classified.
- Given what we know now the physical gold and silver markets are very very tight. The banks are using naked shorts contracts to hammer metals down, but yet prices are still rising in the face of trillions of dollars of fraudulent money being thrown at it to keep prices low and extending massive leverage. The game is up as this info is getting out to the world.
- It is time to step up your metals investment plan if are considering buying precious metals. Keep them safe and in your possession. It looks like time is running out for the criminals and manipulators and when this fraud finally breaks thier backs metals are staged to soar.

Bombshell - Whistle Blower comes forward with proof of price manipulation
Audio Interview with Andrew McGuire - metals trader whistle blower
Audio Interview with Harvey and Lenny Organ - demanding to see their gold and it was not there

Forclosures only 1 in 10 homes saved by loan modifications and other measures
Massive jump in forclosures the first 3 months of the year - Ghee isn't recovery great?
Govt stimulus - Multi trillion dollar free lunch

Income Tax vs Consumption Tax: