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EDC – Priorities

EDC (Everyday Carry, that which is always at hand) can vary a bit depending on circumstances and carry options.

General categories:

  • Personal items
  • FAKs
  • Tools & equipment
  • Self-defense
  • Communication
  • Water/food

There are other elements, and some of the above elements may not be included in some EDC configurations. (For example: EDC included only in clothing worn is going to be more limited than an EDC bag/backpack.)

For this post, I want to deal briefly with one essential element: First Aid Kits.

There are three basic levels of EDC FAKs:

Bare “stop the bleed” kits focused on THE one most likely life-threatening need for first aid: bleeding. Tourniquet, gauze impregnated with blood clotting agent, bandages, etc. VERY small pack. Specialized, so it’s limited, by design. In a pocket in worn clothing, so ALWAYS available.

General, basic FAK with anti-biotic cream, pain relievers, “Israeli Bandage and more tourniquets, etc. – just more general first aid materials and equipment (scissors a good add, for example). This, much larger kit clipped to (or Molle—attached to) a medium-sized backpack with full EDC loadout. I usually keep one in each of our vehicles along with a separate roadside emergency kit.

Mini trauma kit: Expanded FAK including splints for skeletal injuries, sprains, etc., more med supplies (mainly for pain), pre-made (temporary!)sutures of various kinds for open wounds, and much more. Not a full EMT loadout, but not all that far off. One in each vehicle.

Key: what can I get to most quickly and easily in an unexpected situation. If a gunshot or stab wound is involved, I’d want one of the car kits immediately. If just a quickly dealt with arterial wound on an extremity, what’s in my pocket with almost certainly stop the bleeding quickly in most cases.

Other injuries? Need the full FAK or mini trauma kit.

Now, suppose you injure yourself while alone. Have you practiced bleed stop (or other procedures) one-handed? With your non-dominant hand? You MUST practice! And practice at though you are on your own and injured.

Note: what you carry in your FAKs should be influenced by your circumstances. Do you have meds you might need in an emergency? Pack those (and replace them pretty regularly). What kinds of environments will you be in and how do environmental factors affect what you should carry (applies to all EDC contents). What are your daily expected activities? What are some abnormal circumstances you can reasonably imagine?

Think about what you might need, the space you expect to use, and there sources you can afford. Max those as much as you can.

And practice, practice, practice.

 

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Ambivalence

Sitting here and contemplating the pros and cons of digging in and doing the work that MAY fix a bunch of keyboard errors on a laptop or just parting the thing out to upgrade a new one with a few improvements*. . . On the one hand, replacing the keyboard MAY work (and be a less expensive option, discounting my work), but. . . involves—on this compy—almost complete disassembly (including mobo removal, which is a royal PITA.

So, $$ vs time and irritation. . . and no assurance of effecting a fix. Meanwhile, when kybd errors irritate me enough, external BT kybd to the rescue.

*Would need new one to use compatible RAM and have open slots; be able to accept an extra storage drive, for starters.

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Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum

9mm NATO is definitely not the most potent self-defense round, but, in contemporary loads, most would deem it a more than adequate SD round. Its chief benefit, IMO, lies elsewhere, though. Until NATO adopted its standardized version, it was known only, AFAIK, as the 9mm Parabellum, invoking the wise attitude, “Si vis pacem para bellum.” Hence, I will always and ever think of the round as the 9mm Parabellum, a round made for the ethos that says, “Enforce peace,” because, in this world, one cannot rely on civil government to (even attempt to) perform its primary function of sowing fear in the hearts of evildoers.

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Gun Control

The principle applied to limiting a right that government has specifically been put on notice as “shall not be infringed” should be: “How much raw sewage do you want in your glass of milk?”

Licensing, taxing, or in any other way limiting a right is infringement, therefore, the “middle ground” in gun control should be selling the ATF to a group bent on establishing a chain of convenience stores selling alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

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“Stupid? Hold My Beer.”

rom a comment thread elsewhere:
OP: “Y’all think of me as smart, I know, but you have NO IDEA how stupid I get with no fuel in me.”
ME: “More of us are that way than might admit to it. . . I cannot count the times (because I am coffee-deprived and forgot to eat breakfast? Maaaaaybee. . . ?) I have turned to my Wonder Woman and said, ‘How stupid am I? *smh*’
“¯\_(?)_/¯”
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Updated Children’s Song?

With the apparent collapse of society including “grooming” childrn in grade school, maybe the lyrics to “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” should be modded to “Fists and elbows, knees and feet” with plenty of dojo time subbed in place of “grooming” time in kindergarten and grades 1-. . . 12?

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Condition Yellow

Waiting room, self-seat restaurant, etc.: where do you sit?

Walking from car to store/P.O./wherever: head on a swivel? (For that matter, survey of parking lot before parking?)

Puttering in your own yard: have you cleared your six. . . in the last few seconds? (Let alone been on the lookout for “snakes in the grass”?)

In home: one ear cocked for exterior sounds?

What’s that in your pocket(s)/”holstered” by your easy chair?

Etc.

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Data, Give Me More Data ;-)

So, I got one of those neat GSR-sensing bathroom scales. *huh* Pretty closely confirmed muscle mass/fat ratio determined by waist-height-weight measurements, but added somee useful details. Approved. *heh* (More data to take with me for next “permission slip” visit o doctor. 😉 I like data to go along with signs he may notice and symptoms I have noticed—if any.)

Now let’s see how a newly modified exercise regimen and some “snake oil” impacts measurements. . .  😉

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López-Escobar, Borel Sets and Polish Spaces, Oh My!

Just Another Tuesday. *heh*

I feel my mental cogs slipping day by day, so I play memory/card games, read papers (mostly pubmed, given age/health stuff), and try to  keep any math I do “between my ears” (though I do account balances/reconciliations on paper).

But still. . . while I can recall mor advanced math concepts, performing actual advanced math is. . . not so much in my wheelhouse, nowadays. *sigh* Neglected for years, such things are all fog, now, and I’m left with simply checking basic math/stats in the papers I read for entertainment and information: my own lil “edutainment” program.

Oh, well. Heading off fairly gently into that good night, I guess.

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To Retire or Not? That Is the Question

Car. Retire a car.

We buy used cars. Always have, and probably always will. It’s worked out pretty well for us, but after 10 years on a car we bought used, even with good maintenance and repair all along, sometimes a moderately large repair bill will start the head scratching.

And so it is now with my Wonder Woman’s car, one of our favs over the decades—very comfortable, good handling, excellent fuel economy, etc. While I agree with her desire to keep it and keep it running well, a repair bill equal to 25% of is purchase price 10 years ago is right at the edge of “noper” for me. Still, worth it for her comfort, and the rest of the car checks out as solid, so. . . I’m looking forward to writing the check. I’ll even throw in the almost worthless Haynes manual as a tip. . . 😉