There are very few men I truly admire and respect for being Who They Are. Besides the obvious ones, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Neil Armstrong, and Ronald Reagon, I truly admire the late Charlton Heston, who passed away last week.

Not because he played Moses…Ben Hur…the Omega Man…or many dozens of other characters he brought to the big screen for millions…but because of what he PERSONALLY stood for.

He marched to support Civil Rights. So did my current professor and good friend Dale Smith.

He believed in the utter simplicity of the Constitution. So do I.

He spoke his mind to people who didn’t want to hear the truth…as do I when given the chance.

And, he made people unconfortable…by shining the light of truth in ways that made supporters of evil and bad things…well, decide to change their ways at times.

He advocated Civil Disobedience, as he learned it from some of the greatest men in history, as he says…”from Dr. King…who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.”

What honor…what integrity…and what compassion he had. Standing up for those who could not stand for themselves, due to laws, threats, or societal “norms”.

Read Heston’s speech below, as given at Harvard in 1999. It’s a good read…worth printing out and putting on your wall to remind yourself what we, as Americans, really should stand for…the rights of ALL.

Rich

Heston on Winning the Culture War
By: Charlton Heston

The following is a speech NRA President Charlton Heston gave to the Harvard Law School Forum on February 16, 1999.

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. “My Daddy,” he said, “pretends to be people.”

There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling repainted I’ll do my best. There always seems to be a lot of different fellows up here. I’m never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I’m the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight, it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty…your own freedom of thought…your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at a Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, “We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that’s about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you…the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Ok…this is getting fun. I was asked Francis “Frank” Steffan to appear on The Frank Show, on American Voice Radio. This makes the second time in less than a week to be on that network.

This being my second “real” radio interview on big time radio, I felt a lot better and was much happier with how the show went, including topics covered, and some darn good questions.

So, please give it a listen, by clicking the Play button below, or download the mp3 and add it to your Ipod to listen to later.

Comments are most welcome…

Rich

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

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

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

For those that have never lived in the western states of the US…some tips about dealing with bears..

You GOTTA see this (Youtube)

Here in Wyoming we’re in the beginning stages of a snow storm of historical possibilities…biggest spring snow storm in years….

But, the entire midwest is also getting hit with all kinds of OTHER weather…

Be Careful Out There!

Rich

My thanks for Morgan of GlobalIncidentMap.com for this forward…

In the midst of a tornado outbreak …

James Bryant, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel 34 minutes ago

Severe thunderstorms, including several that are unleashing twisters, have exploded over the western High Plains. More than 45 tornadoes have been reported during the evening hours. These big and dangerous storms will persist into early tomorrow as they coalesce into one or more squall lines with a threat of heavy rain. The area under greatest threat extends from south-central Nebraska southward into West Texas. But isolated nasty storms have blossomed as far north as western South Dakota and as far south as the Rio Grande River in Texas. Isolated severe storms, primarily packing large hail, may also chimney up along a cold front in North Carolina, southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee this afternoon and evening. Overnight, as an offshoot of the severe thunderstorms in the Plains, heavy downpours are expected to unload on parts of western Kansas, the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, and the northern portions of West Texas. On Thursday the slow moving thunderstorms along the I-35 corridor will feature rounds of repeat severe thunderstorms with a real concern for excessive rainfall. Please don’t drive over flooded roadways or during flash flooding. You are better to turn around and don’t drown. In the Interior West, heavy wind-driven snow is plaguing a good chunk of the Rocky Mountain region. Heavy snow, winter and storm warnings and even are posted for much of southern Montana, most of Wyoming, a large area of Utah and the mountains of western Colorado. Blizzard warnings are in effect for a small portion of southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming where travel over I-90 and I-25 is extremely difficult if not impossible. Travel in the region is discouraged till the storm weakens late on Thursday. By the time the storm winds down late Thursday to early Friday, snowfall in some spots could reach three to four feet with drifts as high as a house. Heavy snow is currently being reported from Buffalo and Sheridan, Wyo., and winds have gusted as high as 60 mph.