Cosmic Echoes…by Rich Fleetwood

Archive for the ‘Do It Yourself’ Category

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It’s been a very long time since my last posting…again, sorry about that. Many updates with this posting, and a commitment to make do better in keeping this site updated regularly, with a target of at least WEEKLY posts.

Here’s what this posting will cover…

• My new career in Corrections…
• Finding a job online
• SurvivalRing Website Projects
• New hardware and software upgrades
• My view of the current state of the US and World Economies
• My view of the current state of family preparedness
• My view of the current state of survival skills training needs
• My view of the current state the online prepping community, and some problems in the very near future
• Continuing education
• Home based business ideas, suggestions and getting started.
• Technical needs of the new year…and coming future

This will cover many ideas and comentary of what I’ve had floating around the last year or so, but there should be plenty of interesting things for all casual readers.

Let’s get started… Read the rest of this entry »

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Hi folks….

I’ve been doing a lot of scanning over the last many years, of a LOT of the huge library and collection of original government created civil defense, nuclear preparedness, nuclear war planning, and most specifically, nuclear fallout shelter documents I’ve amassed over the last 15 years.

I solved a mystery tonight, that had been vexing me for a couple of years.

The document named in the title above is probably the SINGLE best compendium of FALLOUT SHELTER RADIATION SHIELDING I have ever run across.

I’ve had the first 124 pages scanning in for almost three years, and had lost place of where I was.

In my move of my main computer system from a tiny desk in the corner of the bedroom, to a huge corner desk in the living room, I also brought out several of the boxes of prepping hardcopy in my collection. A small part of it consists of xerox copies of the originals that I had checked out from interlibrary loan, and couldn’t scan completely in time. My fix was to xerox what I didn’t scan, and set aside for future scanning.

In this repurposeing of my living room corner into a work area, I went through a LOT of material, added two new bookcases to the living room, and sorted out hundreds of books.

Amongst the misc. stuff….several xerox copies of things…some complete, others partial. The most vexing one was around 150 pages, that started with page “4-81″…and all throughout, no mention of the title of the source book.

Great stuff, including that most astounding piece of fallout shelter info I have found yet that I’ve never seen online…7 full pages of a TABLE OF MASS THICKNESSES…also known as appendix B of TR-20(Vol. 1).

Examples…Adobe 12″ thick gives a P.S.F (protection safety factor) of 116.
4″ common bricks PSF 40, Ceramic tiles PSF 3., 6″ Cinder Blocks PSF 30, etc, etc.

Very useful info.

So, in other words, *I FOUND THE MISSING HALF OF VOLUME 1*

My last big batch of scanning was in the 2nd full year (2004/2005) of my return to college life full time with my wife and kids. Well, all but my middle son have earned several degrees, and I’ve been able to bring some focus back into getting these docs put out to the masses, and finishing already started projects.

With all of the world seeming ready to fall apart at the seams (russian planes, stock woes, Iran borders, dogs and cats living together), I’ve had that little voice in the back of my head the past few weeks saying “finish your work…finish your work”.

A few of you that know me really well know that can mean a lot of things for me, but for this middle aged guy, finishing this scanning job and getting THIS manual online is that *one note * that rings true in my very near term responsibilities.

Here is the first 7 pages of the scan, and a shot of the cover.

and here is the pdf file of the Table of contents…

http://www.survivalring.org/TR-20(Vol_1)Shelter_design_and_Analysis(sample-TOC).pdf
(166k in size and 7 pages long)

I’ll put many hours into it this weekend.

Something tells me this kind of info really needs to be available NOW.

Here’s the short version of different kinds of nuke bursts, blast waves, radiation and fallout, decay rates, values for dose and dose rate formulas, radiation effects on the body, barrier effectiveness vs. photon energy, mass thickness for different kinds of protection, and on and on.

This puppy is chock full of MATH, way over my head, has multitudes of charts for figuring out doses, effects, and such, and fallout shelter analysis of simple building to complex angular radiation paths.

There will be a few who really get the math part, and most folks should be able to get enough info to create safe fallout shelter spaces in whereever they plan to shelter…IF they need to shelter.

Here is a taste of the math part….

So, stay tuned. I also have vols. 2 and 5 scanned in already. No luck on 3 or 4. I’m still looking for those.

Comments welcome….

Rich

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In times of emergency, when natural disasters area doing everything they can to take you down…when Mother Nature is kicking your ass…when Life is taking every breath away from you….

What are you going to do? Will you give it all up, because it’s too hard to keep going on?

Or…will you Go The Distance?

Watch this.

You make the wrong choice and give up early because it’s too hard, you are not only hurting yourself…you’re affecting everyone else around you.

Don’t. Give. Up.

Figure out what YOU need to do…to be ready for the rest of your life.

Rich

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Well, looks like it’s time for an update from yours truly on the CE blog. Lots of news, updates, software projects, business opportunities, and more…a virtual plethora of digital goodness.

Yet another school year has passed here at Central Wyoming College, and we’ve added yet another college graduate to our family, as my son Kenny earned his music degree. As an extra treat, he arranged and sang a duet right before commencement began on the stage of the Robert A. Peck Arts Center here in Riverton. What was really cool was that the entire commencement exercise was broadcast via Wyoming Public Television for the entire town to see on the college’s education access channel.

I’ve got a DVD of the events, and will create a Youtube video of Kenny’s performance for his blog at www.automaticboymusic.com. Kenny’s graduation brings the total number of degrees earned by our family in the last three years here at CWC to SEVEN college degrees. I am very humbled by my entire family working so hard for full and complete educations, and pursuing further college goals in the coming months.

I’ll be starting classes via the University of Wyoming this fall, and will continue working towards my bachelor’s degree over the next couple of years, while working on my home business project. I’ll keep you updated on any news associated with UWyo from this end.

In other family news, we’re going to taking care of our grandchildren for the summer (and possibly longer) so our time for summer fun and travel plans have been put on the back burner for a while.

The SurvivalRing website is undergoing a MASSIVE redesign over the next three months, with EVERY webpage, every documentn, and every download being upgraded to state of the art web design and content management systems. Once all editing is done, changes are tested by a host of SurvivalRing supporters, and hundreds of downloads are added and cataloged into a database tracking system, we’ll flip the switch and let you run with it. Wanna peek at the new design? Check it out at www.survivalring.org/sr to get just a taste of what is coming.

While we’re doing the long awaited update, I’ll also be finishing off some entire new sites that will be part of the *new* SurvivalRing. These new tools include a Product Reviews website for prep and survival gear, a complete EVERYTHING FALLOUT SHELTER site with all the documents I have put all in ONE place for ease of use (and using the www.myfalloutshelter.com domain), and some over yet to be released projects still in the planning stages.

Once nearly all projects are up to speed, the new homepage for SurvivalRing will be a portal into all areas of the entire SurvivalRing network, that loads fast, gives a short bio of each site section, and let’s you just jump right into the area you are most interested in, without having to jump through any hoops.

As SurvivalRing moves forward, and the major updates are done, we’ll be creating a series of podcasts, videos, and new ebooks (and possibly even hardcopy versions) on all areas of preparedness.

Our Podcasts, to be called SurvivalRing Radio, will start broadcasting in July, and will include news, alerts, threat analysis, prepping tips, interviews, reviews, and a whole lot more. I’ll be producing weekly 30 minute shows at first, but the long term goal, after things are all said and done (all major projects for the site are finished), is to have a daily one hour show, which if things work out, may go on broadcast radio through any of a number of web/on air broadcast organizations.

Our Video Projects, to be called SurvivalRingTV, will start appearing after the first of the year, and will feature hands on tips, outdoors adventure, survival how-to’s, preparedness tools and uses, and eventually a complete series on fallout shelter building, designs, systems, and use.

As all these creative outlets are being worked on, I’ll be building up the business side of SurvivalRing as well, to support upgrades to dedicated hosting of the entire SurvivalRing network, HD video cameras and tools, audio mixing systems and needs for live radio broadcasts from my home studio, and a variety of other tools to create unlimited potential for online education for all website visitors. The business at SurvivalRing consists of CD ROM publications, online digital media content, membership sections, our new forums system, advertising opportunties, home business creation packages for anyone needing extra income.

Finally, to round everything out, our long overdue SurvivalRing Newsletter will begin production again in June. Expect weekly updates, free download links, news, tools, and commentary on the world of survival and preparedness, from someone who’s spent a lifetime living it. Yep…me.

More to come later. Stay tuned. This is The Summer of SurvivalRing.

Rich

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This evening, I took my wife out on a date. This one we planned for a few days in advance. It was a fun evening…filled with facts, video, pictures, fun, laughs…and deadly serious work.

We both went to the Weather Spotter class held on our college campus here in Riverton, Wyoming, with Chris Jones of the National Weather Service (now a good friend after 3 years) leading a great evening of VERY educational information for folks who, among other things, just like to be part of an active community wanting to help their neighbors.

This spotter school is the second one I’ve taken (the first one was in Spring 2004), and was even better than the last time. The college class room was crowded, with close to 30 folks showing up from all over the county, and even some from neighboring counties.

The class earned Spotter cards, which contain the info we need to report troublesome weather in our area of the state. Most threats we’ll see here are occasion thunderstorms, outflow boundaries, a rare twister or two, straight line winds (86 miles an hour last August), flash flooding from spring runoff in the nearby Wind River Mountains, and the good old Wyoming winter weather.

A quick look at the web found the Skywarn homepage, the very interesting Storm Spotter Guides Online!, the National Weather Service Skywarn info page at Weather.gov, and more. Interested in looking for a local class? Click there and find your state, for a list of upcoming classes you can attend.

What does a Skywarn Spotter report?
Although all reports are welcome, the National Weather Service is particularly interested in the weather elements described below.

Weather Phenomena	Call The NWS if…
Wind	50 mph or stronger
Hail	3/4 inch (penny or dime size) or larger in diameter
Tornado	Any tornado or rotating cloud
Flooding	Any significant amount of water in normally dry areas
River Flooding	Any river rising above their normal bank level
Heavy Rain	Rain rates of 1 inch per hour or greater And – Rain greater than 1 inch in 24 hours
Heavy Snow	Call while snowing at a rate of 1 inch per hour or greater And – Call with total snow fall if >= 1 inch when the snow ends
Low Visibilities	Visibility less than 1/2 mile due to fog, dust, rain, or snow
Freezing Rain	Any freezing rain

Do something good for yourself…and something good for your community. Become a certified weather spotter for your area.

Rich

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One of the big problems we’ve seen in the US, and just as much around the world, is how to obtain needed items (food, water, shelter, etc) in disaster areas. The best thing to have on hand in times of extreme distress is enough cash to get the basic survival needs covered…as frugally as possible. This can always be mitigated to a NON need if you are prepared with a 72 hour kit, bug out bag, or a safe place that is already stocked with those same basics of survival.

Here is a excellent article posted on The Simple Dollar blog a couple of weeks ago. Give it a read, and see what you can apply to your life to make the future, however safe, or not, at least a little easier.

Rich