General Preparedness

At any time we could be plunged into a word were we are helpless. The chances of this happening grow less and less as we grow more prepared.

...

I think my cryptic warning needs some explanation.

The future is unpredictable, we can't tell what it holds. Sure some things we can see that are unavoidable and we can say that they will happen and they will. For example I could say that there will be turmoil in the Middle East and no one will bat an eyelash. But if I told someone that someone they knew was going to have a heart attack and the only way they could save them if they had a cell phone on them and knew CPR, then do you think that person would go and learn CPR? Most people wouldn't pay attention, because I'm not a doctor, people only tend to pay attention to warnings about heart attacks from doctors, and sometimes not even then.

We never know when we will need to preform CPR; chase down a runaway train, or guinea pig; or nail that zombie about to grab your buddy with your throwing knife. This is where you say 'But there are so many things that could happen, how can I prepare for them all?' Not to worry my friends, I'm not here to teach you CPR, how to tie a bowline, or even do jumping jacks, at least not today, anyways. I just want to outline three basic ideas that everyone needs to follow to be prepared for the random stuff that can happen.

These three ideas are mental, physical, and martial preparedness. These can be broken down even further into smaller groups. Mental is the first item on the list. Being prepared mentally is half knowing what to do and how to do it, and half having the guts to do it and not give up and go cry in the corner. Seeing as I've already set a patern of going back to my CPR example and using the word "prepared" every other sentence, why stop now? If you find your friend laying on the ground not breathing what would you do? Would you know that you need to check for blockage in his throat, and to support his neck (in case its broken) while doing so? Would you have the "guts" to start doing chest compressions knowing that it will break bones? Would you know... Okay you get the point.

But despite being extremely important, knowing and determination are only the first step on the path to survival. The next is being physically fit. You know that fat kid that you're friends with? When the zombies come he better hope he has a good hiding place because there's no way that he is going to outrun even the creepers. There really isn't much to say about this one. If you aren't fit then you have to rely a lot more on the other two parts of preparedness to get you through. If we go back once again to the CPR example then we can see where this would be a problem, in two ways. First you have to break bones to do chest compressions. This being said, you just have to be heavy enough and not necessarily strong. The other problem is that it is unlikely that you will revive someone by giving them CPR. (I think the statistic is about 1 in a hundred but I'm not sure.) This means that you have to preform CPR until help arrives, this could be hours.

Finally we have martial preparedness. This would include everything from a house built in a non-flood zone, to portable generators, to the clothes you're wearing right now. As you know, my family has a portable generator, what you don't know is that our house is built on a area that won't flood, I'm also wearing clothes. Sometimes it isn't enough to be physically and mentally prepared, sometimes you need a tool or other physical object to help. My CPR example is less potent here as you do not need any items to do it. I have four items that I like to always have on me: my cellphone, my wallet, a pocket knife, and a flashlight. I find that these can come in handy quite often in day to day life and are extremely usefully in survival situations. I recommend that people at least carry a knife around with them, I use mine daily and don't leave the house without it. It's become something people expect me to have and ask to borrow it often. My dad like knives as much as I do, in fact he has two on his key chain.

Other then knives there are other items that you want to have: canned food, spare batteries, radios, tents, sleeping bags, large-caliber weapons...  Also, never go on a camp out without rain gear, I swear the sky knows when you have it and when you don't.

Well I hope this helped. Now go out there and BE PREPARED. (I am suddenly reminded of a certain singing lion...)

Zombie Killing Technique #98:A brick and a belt or a shovel.

Zombie Setting

As I'm sure all of you know zombies vary from story to story. Some zombies can only be stopped by destroying their head, others don't care if they have a head or not. Some are corpses animated by magic, others are simply diseased people who have lost their minds. The only thing that seems universal to zombies is the desire to eat and/or brutally shred human flesh. Now I want my own sandbox zombie infested world that I can tinker with and write stories in. So after a bit of thought this is what settled on. (I have also decided to only tell you what most people in the US would know in this sandbox world. This lets me make stuff up on the go and lets me sneak in surprises.)

First, this is still Earth and not much has changed ecologically or geographically. For the most part the only countries dealing with zombies are Canada and Mexico. The US is sadly only a area and not a global power. Federal government has been eaten, and was in fact, the first thing targeted.

Zombies was created by a mad scientist around the end of 2009. After this monumental, but hidden, break-through he gathered an army of soldiers and like-minded people. During the Fall of 2010 he unleashed his his disease into the water system of a medium sized city of which I have yet to chose.

The zombies are not truly dead, but rather mindless drones of terror. They seek to consume human flesh for food and reproduce by biting. They were spread by the mad scientist to all over the US from which they started spreading zombism at an incredible rate.

I will likely link back to this post often and update it as I post stories in this setting. I also want to explain some of the reasons I chose some of the details. First, the is no magic. This is for a more realistic setting to draw the audience (you) into. Make it feel like this could be you counting your remaining ammo and food.

Next, for the most part the world is the same. Especially outside North America. The reason the zombies haven't been wiped out by a joint group of world powers such as the United Nations is because no one knows whats going on and they're too scared to find out. A good part of this the doings of the mad scientist who has his own personal army and who's motto is “Today the States, tomorrow the world.”

There is a Bad Guy. This give Heroes a chance to appear. This is important to stories. Heroes typically need some goal to step above and beyond the normal man, or woman. Because I put a central Bad Guy, who has lots of smaller Bad Guys I can create Heroes to do battle with them, and not just hordes of mindless zombies.

There is some hope of outside rescue. The other countries could get off their tails and do something like save some of the survivors or take on the mad scientist. I would like to say here that I have a good deal of respect for most of the countries that I'm talking about. But for the sake of the story they have to be frightened, for good reasons of course.

I also let things open for me to chose different elements. I can say “Well this town dealt with the first wave of zombies fairly well so they don't have as many problems.” can say that because I gave nothing away as to how the zombies spread other then biting, and even with that I didn't say with what kind of regularity the bite would cause the bitten to turn.

For the most part I just left my options open so I can make stuff up as I go, because that's what I'm best at.

Zombie killing technique #99: First find a narrow ally. Then take and slaughter one, two-headed cow. Take a long length of rope and suspend the cow in a way that will cause the cow to ram into a zombie triggering a trip wire. (Please note that two-headed cows should be plentiful after long term nuclear fallout. Also note that this zombie killing technique could be non-discriminating as to zombies and survivors alike.)

Introduction

The last dregs of winter are melting away and we find ourselves looking for excuses to replace "It's too cold outside." Welcome New Readers, let me introduce myself. My name is Daniel. I recently turned 19, live near Terre Haute Indiana, and I am pursuing an Associate's Degree in Architecture Ivy Tech Community College. 

Now the name of this blog is slightly misleading, it implies that I intend to talk about zombies, however this is not the goal of this blog. I've started this blog as a creative outlet for talking about writing, especially plots and character development; survival, including real and unlikely situations (thus the name); and other things that I feel like sharing with the world. The lack of zombies may disappoint some and calm others. I will run the hundred and one ways to kill a zombie, one and the end of each post. Some of these will be comical, some will be serious and others just random.

I want my readers to be involved in what I do so I will look at and ask for comments on what I should do next. I will also make use of the polls that Bogger so nicely provides. This was a short post and I hope to do another one soon, most likely about everyone’s new favorite weather: Ice Storms!

Zombie killing technique #101: Bore the zombie to death with an introductory post.