Well, sum­mer is offi­cial­ly upon us.  When it came it came with heat and humid­i­ty.  With that there are sup­posed to be severe thun­der storms all week here in NJ.  I’m get­ting used to the rain, and am going to start call­ing New Jer­sey, “New Seat­tle” short­ly.  Heck, I’ve only been camp­ing twice all sea­son, and both of those were camp site main­te­nance week­ends. I’ve (and I am spec­u­lat­ing) been watch­ing the weath­er pat­terns from a dis­tance, and over the past cou­ple of years, I have seen some inter­est­ing changes.  As I men­tioned, spec­u­lat­ing, I am of the ama­teur opin­ion that since the 9.0(ish) earth­quake in Japan in 2011, and with NASA’s dis­cov­ery that the quake has moved the Earth­’s axis by 10 inch­es, that it is affect­ing the weath­er pat­terns that we are used to.  I am hypoth­e­siz­ing, of course, but to me it makes sense.  Wind pat­terns we have not seen in the past, earth­quake pat­terns we have not seen in the past, rain, heat, and snow weath­er, cer­tain geo­gra­phies have not seen in the past.  I may be com­plete­ly wrong, but in my mind I do not believe I am.  Addi­tion­al­ly, I am going out on a limb and say that over the next few years we are going to con­tin­ue to see the shift until it sta­bi­lizes as the new nor­mal… Nonethe­less, sum­mer is here and this year it seems hot, humid, and wet.  I get flash flood alerts on my smart­phone sev­er­al times a week and am no longer sur­prised. Work has been a bear, late­ly too.  Being in sales, (and if any of you are), the feel­ing from the boys at the top of the food chain are “what have you done for me late­ly.”  For those that don’t know what I am talk­ing about is, that you are only as good as your last sale for the com­pa­ny.  Thus, this means that they always want more, more, more, sales and mon­ey com­ing in.  Before you get all, “well that sucks for you,” it’s no sweat off my brow.  It’s my choice, and I real­ly can­not bitch about it.  It is the career I have cho­sen.  There­fore, it is what it is at the moment.  How­ev­er, what it has done is lim­it my band­width regard­ing blog­ging for you about my prep­ping, and oth­er prep­ping activ­i­ties.  But I am going to make the con­cert­ed effort to blog more for you, and ulti­mate­ly, for myself.  It’s time to get on the band­wag­on again, and keep this prep­ping thing mov­ing along. Speak­ing of which, prep­ping.…  Uneasy silence… Hmmm.… I’ve been, well, for lack of bet­ter words, lax.  I’ve recent­ly picked up a few items, and I have divert­ed some funds into the Bug Out Vehi­cle recent­ly get­ting it up to snuff.  In fact, I had an inci­dent in Hobo­ken recent­ly where my duf­fle bag full of gear was stollen.  Yeah, if you’ve been read­ing this blog a long time, you know I had a Get Home Bag stolen out of my last vehi­cle too.  This was not a Get Home Bag, how­ev­er, it was my hitch for the Jeep, tow straps, rope, change of clothes, boots,gloves, etc… Need­less to say I was pissed off.  I quick­ly added, to my finan­cial cha­grin, a Tuffy Secu­ri­ty Deck Enclo­sure.  I must say, I was pret­ty impressed with the sim­ple design and the thought that went into it.  It was­n’t the eas­i­est to install, but I can tell you in no uncer­tain terms that it will def­i­nite­ly be a deter­rent.  Again, a bit expen­sive, I lose my back seat, but am hap­py that I can effec­tive­ly lock stuff in a ‘trunk’ and not have to wor­ry about items being eas­i­ly stolen from the back of the Jeep because of the soft top…

Back to prep­ping… It is def­i­nite­ly time to get back on the band wag­on.  I feel I have become some­what of a ‘gear whore’ as well.  it seems the more prep­ping I do, the more I feel like I need stuff. This is true to a point, but I am start­ing to more strate­gi­cal­ly think about what I real­ly need and do not need.  This some­times being con­flict­ed and not mak­ing a pur­chase when I pos­si­bly should be.  Hur­ri­cane sea­son is com­ing.  Between Irene two years ago, Sandy last year, and a fan­tas­tic girl­friend and her dog to wor­ry about now, I feel like I need deep­er roots in prep­ping to be sure that “if” we are hit again this year or in the future, that I’m pre­pared for the three of us.  I weath­ered Sandy last year, and was cer­tain­ly not hit as bad as those at the New Jer­sey Shore.  Areas of the shore are still dev­as­tat­ed, despite what has been report­ed for good PR and to bring peo­ple to the shore to spend their mon­ey to keep the econ­o­my afloat.

In con­clu­sion, I’ve been busier than nor­mal, with work, with life, with stuff, and I’m try­ing to focus on all of it.  Sad­ly, I’m learn­ing you can­not focus on every­thing.  How­ev­er, in the near future, look out for a few new reviews of a cou­ple of packs, and some oth­er gear.  I’m try­ing to get back on the band­wag­on for all of you, and myself…

Stay tuned.  More to come!