HARDCORE OUTDOOR-GEAR REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HUNTING, HIKING, SEARCH AND RESCUE, MILITARY: Raw Notes From The Field, er, Street

HARDCORE OUTDOOR-GEAR REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HUNTING, HIKING, SEARCH AND RESCUE, MILITARY

HARDCORE OUTDOOR-GEAR REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HUNTING, HIKING, SEARCH AND RESCUE, MILITARY: Raw Notes From The Field, er, Street - Travel And My Very Minor Celebrity

Raw Notes From The Field, er, Street - Travel And My Very Minor Celebrity

all knotted up in one of my other "uniforms" on a different kind of mission, hunting another kind of quarry.

it cracks me up but always makes me a little uncomfortable when a complete stranger recognizes me from this site. i couldn't imagine what it is like for somebody that is really well known and legitimately famous. i don't think i would wear it very well, in fact, i am pretty sure somebody would get hurt. i have never, ever in my entire life asked anyone for an autograph and would never dream of interrupting someones private dinner to stand over them gushing about what a big fan i am like i have seen happen to celebrities. pretty sure that won't ever be a problem for me and i couldn't be happier about that.

i was getting an overpriced coffee in the lobby of a high rise office building in a major american city recently when i noticed a guy across the way checking me out pretty hard (always in code yellow and aware of what is going on around me). as it turns out he is an avid reader of my ramblings here. eventually he comes over to me and says, hey, i am sorry for staring but you aren't by any chance wade nelson are you? i admitted that i was and he said i thought that was you but the suit and tie threw me off. anyway, i let him buy me a cup of coffee and we had a nice but brief conversation.  good guy. he knew his gear and appreciated what i do here. impressed the hell out of the guy i was with though.

on that same trip i watched (on my verizon samsung netbook and itunes account thank you very much) a movie called 127 hours which is about the kid that was solo hiking in the slot canyon country of utah a few years ago when he fell and jammed his arm between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  try as he might he could not free himself and ended up cutting his own damn arm off to survive. pretty impressive actually because if he hadn't he surely would have died before he was found. you see, nobody knew where he was because he didn't tell anybody where he was going or when he would return.

side bar - i got an invitation to preview this movie before it was released to the general public and I regret not taking them up on the offer. i didn't think that hollywood would do a good job with the story but i was wrong. they did. i thought it was a good movie and would recommend that you see it. it was realistic from a self-amputation anatomical viewpoint and accurate gear wise. the will to live in some people is amazingly strong. never ceases to astound me what people will do to live.

now i am not one of those nanny staters that preaches that you should never hike alone, after all i do it all the time but how many times do i have to tell you people, be smart about it and use your head. you don't have a tv show where you are so ill-prepared that you have to sleep inside the carcass of dead animals, bear grylls, and you don't have your own personal safety crew following you around just in case you stub your toe. if you are gonna do the solo thing make sure you at least "file a flight plan" with a responsible person so the sar gods know where to start looking for your sorry ass when you go overdue. and carry the right basic gear which should include a SPOT unit although that would probably not have helped this guy considering how deep and narrow the crevice was. oh, word to the wise, don't buy the el cheapo multi-tool. go ahead and splurge on the one with the good blade lest you ever have to saw one of your own limbs off.

always remember that your actions or decisions have consequences, sometimes unintended ones. your loved ones will worry themselves to a frazzle and good people will bust a gut and risk their lives to help you but those kinds of desperate situations can be avoided or minimized with a little forethought and preparation. savvy grasshopper?

which reminds me, i don't want to do the whole glenn beck thing here but do you have your act together at home regarding emergency preparedness? you should because from what i can see we live in crazy times and you never know when you might have to do without access to your local piggly wiggly for a week or two. i will talk more about that and how we have addressed the issue at my house later.  and no it doesn't involve storing 5 gallon buckets of beans and rice in our underground bomb shelter. this is just good common sense stuff that everyone could and should and used to do.

later taters.