Storage Thoughts

I have never been accused of wasting anything. In fact, I could be considered a borderline "hoarder". My reasoning for keeping most of the junk in and around my home is that "someday" I can build (fill in the blank) out of that old (fill in the blank). A perfect example: My lovely wife is nicely asking me to clean up the driveway for the umpteenth time. So I'm standing there, looking at an old stainless steel mailbox (the rural kind about 3 feet x 3 feet) and an old wood stove with the insulating bricks burnt out of it. After about an hour of debating whether to haul them to the dump, and another hour of construction, I was able to build a nice cold smoker out of the two of them and 12 feet of 6 inch pipe. Its big enough to smoke a couple of hams in or lots of fish. The smoker will come in handy now for some nice flavored meat, OR come in handy should I need it to preserve meat if I lose the benefits of a freezer.
Everyone has their "thing". Some people like to collect stamps, some people live to ski, or boat or fish. The more of a "Jack-of-all-trades" you can become, the more it will benefit you down the road. There are people out there among us who live to survive, meaning, as some of us have a hobby of collecting coins, or skiing, some people's "thing" is to be a survivalist. In that everything they do has some survival ulterior motive. I have found through my experiences, that these people become more and more paranoid of our government, or their neighbors. As the years go on, the more they actually wish that something bad would happen so that they can show off all their preparations.

My advise to you: Dont become one of these people. Its okay to make preprations, and its okay to have an ulterior motive in your day to day projects, but mainly, simply keep survival prepreations in the back of your mind while doing projects that you would be doing anyway. If you have the time and money to build a full out "bomb shelter", then by all means, go for it. For the rest of us, you could simply back fill with dirt around the outside corner of your basement that you would most likely have to hole up in, plant a flower garden in it to make the wife happy, and you have an improvised shelter. I guess what I'm trying to say is, when you think of a project that needs doing, think of the other uses that project may accomplish IF it were needed. Sometimes no modifications are nessesary, but more times than not, a few minor adjustments to your plans will make it all come together in the end.