Stephen Besch - Member - The Prepared

Discussions

Reply to: Is the blog being retired? Posted January 14, 2021

I definitely liked the summaries of weekly events. Those were dominated by COVID info, understandably, for much of the time, but they weren’t always limited to that (and certainly wouldn’t need to be, going forward). It was a trusted barometer for me on salient developments around the world (whether they might be COVID indicators, signs of economic downturn anywhere across the globe, damage to US crops from storms or insects, etc.) that might influence the need to tweak my prepping supplies for the short term. For example, the explanation of how capacity limitations and the routing of almost all container shipping through China was exacerbating many of the supply-line interruptions helped me understand why they were so random (i.e., that nearly anything could be absent from the store shelves from one week to the next) and for how much longer they might continue (despite any improvements in the COVID situation). Even if they were very short more often than not, I still love the idea of a regularly scheduled “state of the world” update that’s tuned to a prepper perspective. The update could also mention new articles that were posted elsewhere on the site, as I didn’t visit those areas as much after reading through the initial bolus of existing info in each area.

Reply to: Is the blog being retired? Posted January 12, 2021

I agree – I greatly appreciated the synopsis approach with links to more detailed data if desired. The mentions of new articles/features across the rest of the TP website made the Blog a convenient one-stop-shop that I could check for prepper-oriented news (both inside and outside of the TP website). I kept it open in a browser tab and refreshed it daily. That seemed to be more reliable than relying on email alerts for new content. Maybe something similar could take it’s place (a chronological landing/summary page?) that doesn’t require quite as much legwork to maintain. I recommend your site to lots of people. Thanks!

Is the blog being retired?

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Posted January 12, 2021

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 12, 2021

Another idea for emergency lighting – I picked up a dozen solar LED sidewalk lights on Amazon for just over $20. They’re serving a purpose to light my walkways each night but, during a power outage, they can be popped off their stakes and brought inside for the evening. We had an outage a couple of months ago and only needed 6 of the lights to create enough ambient lighting in our living area that we didn’t even end up using any flashlights. They pretty much glow all night and you just pop them back onto their stakes the next day to recharge (and, since they’re charging daily, there’s no forgetting to top them off every few weeks/months). For the price of a typical solar battery charger, I got 12 solar chargers and 24 rechargeable batteries – hard to beat. I’m surprised it’s not a more common prepper recommendation.

Is the blog being retired?

Meta 33

20

Posted January 12, 2021

Reply to: Is the blog being retired? Posted January 14, 2021

I definitely liked the summaries of weekly events. Those were dominated by COVID info, understandably, for much of the time, but they weren’t always limited to that (and certainly wouldn’t need to be, going forward). It was a trusted barometer for me on salient developments around the world (whether they might be COVID indicators, signs of economic downturn anywhere across the globe, damage to US crops from storms or insects, etc.) that might influence the need to tweak my prepping supplies for the short term. For example, the explanation of how capacity limitations and the routing of almost all container shipping through China was exacerbating many of the supply-line interruptions helped me understand why they were so random (i.e., that nearly anything could be absent from the store shelves from one week to the next) and for how much longer they might continue (despite any improvements in the COVID situation). Even if they were very short more often than not, I still love the idea of a regularly scheduled “state of the world” update that’s tuned to a prepper perspective. The update could also mention new articles that were posted elsewhere on the site, as I didn’t visit those areas as much after reading through the initial bolus of existing info in each area.

Reply to: Is the blog being retired? Posted January 12, 2021

I agree – I greatly appreciated the synopsis approach with links to more detailed data if desired. The mentions of new articles/features across the rest of the TP website made the Blog a convenient one-stop-shop that I could check for prepper-oriented news (both inside and outside of the TP website). I kept it open in a browser tab and refreshed it daily. That seemed to be more reliable than relying on email alerts for new content. Maybe something similar could take it’s place (a chronological landing/summary page?) that doesn’t require quite as much legwork to maintain. I recommend your site to lots of people. Thanks!

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 12, 2021

Another idea for emergency lighting – I picked up a dozen solar LED sidewalk lights on Amazon for just over $20. They’re serving a purpose to light my walkways each night but, during a power outage, they can be popped off their stakes and brought inside for the evening. We had an outage a couple of months ago and only needed 6 of the lights to create enough ambient lighting in our living area that we didn’t even end up using any flashlights. They pretty much glow all night and you just pop them back onto their stakes the next day to recharge (and, since they’re charging daily, there’s no forgetting to top them off every few weeks/months). For the price of a typical solar battery charger, I got 12 solar chargers and 24 rechargeable batteries – hard to beat. I’m surprised it’s not a more common prepper recommendation.