Call for Submissions

Who knows from whence on the internet I ripped off the image above, but this short post is a nod to the naysayers.

After all, we have 50/50 odds that absolutely nothing will happen on 12/21/12. If that is the case, what skills and dispositions will we need to carry us into...more of the same?

I predict that the same activities I have been reading about, watching and (in some rare cases) trying will continue to be especially helpful in the event of an S.Q. (status quo)-type Apocalypse.

In addition, the scroll below, which I ripped off from a site that sells it, is a Japanese proverb that says, "Fall down seven times, get up eight."

I was just texting this back and forth with Miss Jodi this week, since I figure what are the people in our lives except our cheerleaders as well as our team to cheer for? Whether the world ends or whether it doesn't, I believe resilience will be humanity's most important characteristic for survival.



However, I am open to suggestions from my few loyal readers. What will we need eight months from now when the world doesn't come to an end?

Skills to Pay the Bills: Works in Progress

For Earth Day, instead of going to the one party in town at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef, I decided to save my money and try something new.

1. I had some bananas.

2. The temperature broke 95 (high was 98) according to weather.com. It was close enough to 100 that I felt fairly confident I wouldn't die from bacteria creeping into my too-cold first experimental batch of potentially-awesome banana chips. (You see, a while ago, like back in January, I read that in order to solar-dehydrate stuff, it has to be a certain temperature or else...risk of death. I e-mailed a woman in town who runs dehydration classes, but she could give me no advice. As a former victim of Guatemalan amoebas [2007], I decided that my iron gut could handle the risks.) Therefore, I followed some instructions that I found online and sliced up two bananas into a lemon-water bath. Not pictured: two bananas. Pictured: part of one banana in a lemon-water bath after I figured out that I should take photos and TOTALLY blog my Adventures in Banana-Chip-Making!

3. I set up my solar dehydrator in a sunny corner on the patio, removed a tray, and arranged the banana slices fairly neatly. 

4. Then I popped the tray into the non-mechanical machine and zipped it up. 

Then I waited for hours (3) and flipped the "chips". Then I waited more hours (3 more) and here's what I found:

The lemony chips are quite delicious. They are NOT perfect. Read: I can't put them in a jar and sell them and/or barter them after the apocalypse comes and the schools shut down. 

Here's why they're not perfect, a.k.a. "What I Learned."

1. I think the bananas were just an inch past their prime. The articles I read on the internet to prepare for my experiment said that the bananas should be ripe but NOT overripe. 

2. My internet searches of the past have yielded recipes for how to make banana chips in a deep-fryer, in the oven, and in an electric dehydrator. My final source said to slice the bananas coin-thin. Since this source appears to be Australian, I assumed that meant "if you live in the desert," which I do. Perhaps coins in the outback are thicker than ours. Next time, I will cut a thicker chip and begin the process earlier in the day. As you can see, at the time of the photograph, the SUN is actually not shining down on the solar dehydrator. 

3. I put the banana slices on nothing, since my dehydrator shelf is well-ventilated. You're supposed to put them on parchment paper, but I was well into the process before discovering that I was out of parchment paper. 

4. Solar-dehydrated banana chips are not like store-bought. I was prepared thanks to my aforementioned source for more of a "leathery" consistency. If you're trying this at home, you should be prepared, too. 

Really, folks, there's not a lot of information out there about how to use the solar dehydrator without dying.

Hopefully my experiment can contribute to the extant bank of knowledge. As the summer continues to only get hotter in the coming weeks, I will try banana chips again. I will ALSO try making fruit leather, which I like to call "homemade fruit roll-up."

Satisfied that I had tried something new, I then proceeded to unceremoniously break one of my pre-form arrowheads during flintknapping practice. I'm going to keep trying on that front, as well. After all, in the immortal words of Wayne Gretzky, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." 

Social Media and Social Action

I didn't post yesterday due to a disturbing lack of blog fodder. Then, today, I went on Facebook, and really, don't all posts begin and end with Facebook?

First of all, salz69 of Northwest Indiana geocaching fame had this image on his wall:

Thank you, salz69, for that.

And then, while scrolling down my news feed, I found a CONTEST wherein you can win an Android phone. I'm pretty sure you have to have a facebook account to participate in this contest. Sorry. Social media rules the day. You can find out more about social media here. If you are already hip to the FB, please enjoy my little story, which is an homage to the BCA/Manchester College days. If you are not hip, you need to be, so please read the January 2012 issue of Wired magazine to help you along.

Anyway, back to the contest. It's sponsored by banthephonebook.org. You have to write a comment that explains the last time you used a phone book.

Finally, to round out this themed post, ever since Miss Gokey and I attended Stargazing Seminar #1 (that's right, folks: yes I did just hyperlink my very own blog) at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, I've been following the Globe at Night Campaign on Twitter.

TONIGHT! Is the very last night! During which you can make a report for Globe at Night during 2012.

So, on that note, I will let you go get started facebooking, tweeting, commenting, reporting, or whatever else it is that you may have to do on this lovely 96-degree (in Vegas) afternoon.

Hasta La Proxima

“We were born with Silver [sic] spoons in our mouths and electric dishwashers to keep them sanitary and clean. We relaxed, didn’t we? What will happen to us, Admiral?” (Lib McGovern to Sam Hazzard, Chapter 9, p. 230)


The book pictured above, which contains the quotation below it that I pasted from the internet, was published in 1959. 1959! The more things change...


I am proud to have finally finished Alas, Babylon, and I would like to highly recommend it to my loyal readers for your apocalypse bookshelves. It took me a while to get through this one. I couldn't put it down once I picked it up, but then I had to put it down again to do unpleasant things like sleep and work and do the laundry, and it was a long time between picking-ups. 


Sadly, that is all I have to say this evening, lest I not be able to begin reading Battle Royale, which is still in a box next to the door. Except...in other news, on the TV front, I'm watching Supernatural, which has nothing to do with anything. Also, the little Survival kit from REI really is handy and useful (thanks, Miss Gokey). And on that note, enjoy whatever it is that YOU'RE watching this evening. 

The First Theme of Geography...

...is location.

And the first of the Ten Essentials is...navigation.

A while ago, I posted links to various articles about places to go at the end of the world. However, that post focused on places to live. This post addresses an equally important question.

It is a question that a friend of mine used via text message to a potential mate:

What's the first store you'll loot during the apocalypse?

The response? Best Buy.

...

...

:/

Fail. She moved on.

Her own answer, as most of ours would be, was REI. But let's be honest. REI is a bit of a drive.
And so we resolve to make a plan of "Where to Loot."

Where to loot from home: CVS, the local gas station, and possibly McDonald's.
From school: Weirdly...the EXACT same places.

Here in Las Vegas and not too far away, we also have a GUN STORE. This could be very handy.
Where would we loot if we were staycationing on the Strip? There are not many options, despite the retail malls in most casino-hotels. I personally think that the best bet would be hopping over to loot Sunrise Hospital, then stopping by the Boulevard Mall and finally hitting UNLV before heading home/outta dodge.

Wal-Mart is of course to be avoided unless it has yarn, but Sam's Club is fair game due to the bulk quantities of merchandise.

And that's it, that's all I've got for today. Give me your insights on this intriguing topic, loyal readers....

Hasta la proxima.

Apocalyptic Landscape #2

"People become weak and inefficient when they cease to struggle." -Victorio, Mimbres Apache, 1970

Apocalyptic Landscape #1

Petrified Forest and Painted Desert
Can you imagine being a Spanish explorer and happening upon this?

Apocalypse Foreshadowing: Earth Hour

In celebration of SPRING BREEEEEAAAAAK!!!!! 2012, the next few posts will be dedicated to experiences and images that I feel might give us an impression of what the world-as-we-know-it will look like after it ends. With this in mind, I was quite excited to kick off my vacation week by celebrating Earth Hour at the Stratosphere. Here's the article from the Las Vegas Sun that describes the event; oddly, the Sun didn't mention our own observations in Las Vegas.

Back in March 2009, I drove down the Strip during Earth Hour and was freaked out enough to want to go back this year. I chose the vantage point of the 1,100-foot observation deck, the highest observation deck in the U.S., from which to do it.

It was windy.

Here's a shot of the Strip BEFORE 8:30, with all the lights on:

Now, at the time, I thought that the minutes after 8:30 were anticlimactic. It will be interesting for me to see the comparison from DURING Earth Hour:

Yeah, it looks very different with the two photos next to each other. Nevertheless, we agreed that next year we will view Earth Hour from the top of the parking garage at the Bellagio. It was definitely more apocalyptic driving down Las Vegas Blvd. three years ago. But it was TOTALLY WORTH IT, because we stayed until 9:30, when the lights began to come back on. The casinos turned their lights on within a span of a few minutes. We stood there and "woo-hoo!"ed each time a new sign or building lit back up.

Some tourists who knew nothing about Earth Hour wandered by to find out what exactly we were yelling about, but the effect was lost on them, because they didn't know which buildings were which. It was much easier to notice the difference AFTER than it was before or during.

Earth Hour 2012 at the Stratosphere Tower was pretty much a perfect way to begin Spring Break.
There will be more otherworldly scenery to look forward to as the week unfolds.

The 3-Month AAR

In some relationships, the parties in the relationship sit down after three months and decide how it’s going, and in what direction. The Single Girl’s Guide to the Impending Apocalypse and I have existed together for three months, so I figured I would do kind of a tying-up-loose-ends post that tracks where we’ve been so far and where we’re headed from here. In the title, AAR stands for “after action report.”

Time is indeed running out. Whether or not the world ends, as the Maya may have predicted, in December 2012, this blog will either cease to exist or revert to its pre-apocalyptic state. I predict that readership will stay about the same. I think it’s fair to break the posts into a few distinct categories: TV/movies, reading, supplies and skills.

On the TV/movies front, I am currently working my way through season 2 of Supernatural at the advice of my family and friends. This show is delicious in its angst and teaches us next to nothing about the apocalypse. If you like scary shows, it’s good for teaching you the (real) history behind some of our society’s treasured urban legends and monster-hunting techniques. I have a great many episodes of Supernatural remaining to be watched, so I don’t plan on switching to/reporting on any apocalyptic TV in the near future. Lucky for us, I’ve reported on some TV about which I was tipped off at the last minute. I found some fun links on buddytv while searching for Supernatural images and then deciding they're probably all copyrighted, including "Which Supernatural Character Are You?" 

As for reading, I’m about halfway through Alas, Babylon. I don’t like to say “original” anything, because as a history teacher I know that there is always something else that came before. Now that I’ve safely set up my disclaimer, I will say that Alas, Babylon MAY be the original American post-apocalypse novel. MAY be. Written at the height of the Cold War, it envisions the trials of one neighborhood of people who are struggling to deal with the destruction of most of the U.S. at the hands of the Commies. It is fabulous. I hope that it is enjoying a sales surge in this, what may be the last year the world exists. After I finish, I plan to read One Second After at the advice of a former co-worker. While reading Alas, Babylon, I am also casually finishing the James Wesley Rawles books as well as Independence days. I stopped reading The Zombie Combat Manual when I got to the part with the workout. I bookmarked the workout, haven’t done it yet, and left the bookmark where it was. I have nothing new to report on the youth or YA fiction fronts.

Like Randy, the protagonist of Alas, Babylon, I’m stocking up, but I’m not sure I’m stocking up on the right stuff. I have a two-month supply of foods like soup, oatmeal, clif bars and protein powder. I also have an obscene number of first aid kits and an outsized supply of Band-Aids. If the apocalypse happens in summer, I will also have a large number of board markers to contribute to the cause. I have enough light to get me to a store where I can loot more light – I probably need to work on the light situation. At least I’ve invested in good food sources instead of Swiss chocolate.

As for skills, I’ll make a bulleted list. I now know how to do the following things which I did not know three months ago:

-          triangulate my position on a map

-          tie a few various knots

-          make 67 rows in a knit stitch

-          get ready to make pointy weapons out of rocks

I may have said it before, and now I will say it again. I wish I would have started preparing for the end of the world a LONG time ago. But I am happy to say that I am starting now, which is better than not having started yet.

On Friday after school, I casually mentioned “zombie apocalypse” as a student I don’t teach was walking by. She said, “That’s stupid. Zombies don’t exist. They never will.”

I said, “You’re right. But the apocalypse WILL come, eventually.”

I hope she takes my words to heart, but she probably won’t. After all, it IS spring break.