Reality man does it freaking suck

Before i get started-

This blog was started as a way for me to vent. My views do not reflect the views/ideas of PAW productions or any of their affiliates! They are my own and no one else's.

Now that we got that out of the way.


Reality, freaking blows the big one dont it.


Recently i have immersed my self back into the realm of the Internet. By this i mean, that i signed up on a BUNCH of smaller "survival" forums across the web. What made me do this you may ask. Well i was bored one day pretty much and wanted to see how things go on in a smaller more "communal" setting. Plus i wanted to get out of the " big city" of large 100K plus member forums for that "small town" feel ! LOL.


Man, what a mistake for the most part . Oh this is where i tell some of you that if you are on a small forum some of this may not sit well with you if your guilty of it!


The crap you gotta deal with on these smaller forums is insane. It is like lord of flies on an internet level. Someone will post about how great it is to use old lead based paint cans they found in their granddads basement to store baby formula , and as soon as someone points out that it may not be a great idea, the poster will get pissed, tell his buddy who is the mod ,who then runs off to the site owner !

Then WHAM your driven from the tribe, chased down a washout while being yelled at, until some one picks up a rock and the rest of the pissed off pogues stone you and any other people they perceive as a threat to their ego to death. Meanwhile everyone sits around and just watches it happen like a bunch of "littleun's " afraid that they may be next.

THAT is the reality of small forums. BUt not all of them.

Granted i am on some that are VERY well maintained and the members are both productive,helpful and will honestly put for a conceded effort to help a person out both online and off line.

The rest, well lets just say that they have a pig head covered in flies stuck on a pole near a cave that drives them to stupidity!

Well the web is not reality. Not in my eyes. Sorry but some screen name typing about this and that is not real. That's just some guy typing away. Until i meet that person face to face i do nothing more than respect their views ,IF they are sane or I write them off as some fat loser hiding from his wife ,95% of the time it ends up being the latter. Hell write me off, ya know what they say about opinions! But i am not to keen on someone spewing out BS like store your rice in garbage bags for your LTS.


So anyway, now we have these small forums.

The good the bad and the posers. cue the music someone please.

Because sometime in while on one of these forums your going to see a thread called "meet and greet" or "camp out" or gathering. Like a cheap house of horrors or magic show your about to blend fantasy and reality into a mushy sticky mass of what the hell did you just get yourself into .You do end up wishing you were really on that island running away from rocks and spears ,hoping you dont catch a rock in the back of the head like piggy and can hide out till helps arrives like jack !

I suggest if you have not gone to a meet or camp out on any forum. Go. You will be shocked. Amazed and even awed by what you may see. Now, that's not to say it will be bad. I have been to events that i had a BLAST at , met some awesome people and walked away learning more in 2-3 days than i ever had hanging out arguing with some just a has been on the web.

Other times though , I've slept with one eye open, with my pistol in my hand waiting for daylight to creep over the tree's so i could get the hell outta there, to literally BUG OUT !
That has only happened ONCE so far out of several dozen meets/camp outs i have attended over the years.

Maybe I was just not on the same level as these survivalist at that camp. After all their FAQ or about us page did say that they were serious survivalist! Maybe i was not serious enough? I tried my best, i slept on the ground under one of my tarps in the cold and rain, i wore my GHB all weekend, participated in all of the events. Even ones that the owner himself did not do. Like some survival death race 5000 where you had to do push ups and sit ups and walk farther than 10 ft.

I dawned on me later as me and only 1 other person were attempting to make fire from a bow drill ,while 15 other well "rounded" folks milled about. I just was not as hardcore as these online survivalist. Later i walked around amazed , no..awe struck at tents that would make a GP large look small. Air beds that could hold the harem of a sultan and still have room to romp. Grills and gas cook stoves that would make Emril Lagasse jealous. Right then i realized that i was no where near the skill level of these people.....i my friends had fallen into the gold mine of online survivalist and i wasnt gonna let this networking chance pass me by.
I was in heaven from that point on.
I learned that there was running water only 20 yards from my bivy ( why did i even pack that hiker pro filter ), hell there was a HOT shower as well. I even learned that if i was to walk the 30 yards back to my truck..well maybe 50 yards as i was parked behind some Pt cruisers and mini vans . That i had to only drive 5 minutes down the road to a store and get fresh milk, more beer and late night munchies!

I sat down under my tarp. Thinking to myself what have i been doing all these years. I could have left my GHB and BOB at home, slept a good nights sleep on a king sized airbed and enjoyed a cooler full of steaks and several cold one's by the camp fire.


Reality hit me then, and boy did it hit me hard. Right then, slumped under my tarp, in the cold I knew the only way i would ever be considered a serious survivalist was to sell all my gear and purchase a RV!