Hassig

Blog­ging, much like nearly every project or hobby I set my hands on, seems to be a roller coaster. I enjoy it, I really do, but it’s so incon­stant. In my defense though… who is con­sis­tent? Nearly every­one in my fol­low list starts a blog, makes a big deal about it, makes 3–4 post then noth­ing for months, comes back even­tu­ally, makes a few more post, then noth­ing again (please don’t take that per­son­ally, I do it too!)

I don’t even know what the point of this post is and that’s com­pletely alright with me. As sev­eral of my for­mer post illus­trate (or at times flat out say), I’m not look­ing to present top-notch writ­ing, con­sis­tency, and heck, I’m really not even writ­ing for any­one but myself. If you hap­pen to enjoy it regard­less, then won­der­ful. There’s been so much on my mind lately. I can’t even think straight. I’m blog­ging at work and I really don’t feel like I’m wast­ing time, because if I don’t get some­thing out then I’m just going to be com­pletely and utterly unpro­duc­tive and useless.

I’m in the mid­dle of buy­ing a house. Which is awe­some, but it’s unbe­liev­ably stress­ful. I’m get­ting mar­ried, to a girl who I’ve lived over 2 hours from for almost 6 months now. Wed­dings… are also quite stress­ful. I love my job,  but at times my job place­ment and my tem­pera­ment do not mix well. Most of my close friend­ships are dis­tant and it’s very dif­fi­cult for me to start new ones. And com­pletely worst of all, my sense of self-identity is in flux. I’m sup­posed to be a designer, I’m sup­posed to be in charge of a web­site and learn­ing about web­site, but I’m behind on cur­rent tech­nolo­gies and trends and I can hardly even find moti­va­tion to catch up.

Hm, well that is slightly less than pos­i­tive… um, yeah…

I’ve been get­ting worse at this con­sis­tent design thing. I thought it would make me bet­ter, more cre­ative, but I feel so dry, so unmo­ti­vated right now. I do think it has helped, but in a more tech­ni­cal sense. On that note, I have been telling myself all day to put some thoughts on paper (or blog, not the same but close enough).

Some­times I won­der why I blog at all, but deep down I think I know. I really do love shar­ing things with friends and peers, but for the most part I think I would still have a blog if I never had a sin­gle vis­i­tor. Some­times I just need to write stuff out, and paper is prob­a­bly bet­ter, there’s some­thing spe­cial about phys­i­cally writ­ing it out in your own hand­writ­ing, but sim­i­lar prin­ci­ples are at work here.

There has been so much on my mind lately. Work seems to hit me in very large waves. I don’t feel like I have the nec­es­sary skills at times nor the time to learn. Try­ing to bud­get. To plan. To pos­si­bly buy a house, mean­ing find a real­tor, look, bud­get… Prepar­ing for a wed­ding and all the things that go with, with a fiance that lives in a dif­fer­ent city. I think the worst thing of all is the close friends I have in my life are hun­dreds of miles away, mean­ing I often don’t have that out­let to share my thoughts, feel­ings, ect ect. At least not at the same level from for­mer times. I sup­pose that’s why I’m express­ing here, let­ting some­thing out.

Any­way, over­all things have been quite good. There’s so many rea­sons to be thank­ful. I find it chal­leng­ing even writ­ing this though because as I do there are so many thoughts basi­cally knock­ing each other down, try­ing to get out, like the open­ing of a pop­u­lar woman’s store on black fri­day. I should really let them out more. Well, if you man­aged to read all of this non­sense then thanks, and I appre­ci­ate your con­cern, or inter­est, or bore­dom, or what­ever it might be that would keep to read this drib­ble. As always, I wel­come your com­ments (except for spam­mers, that’s get­ting old).

- jason

My new cre­ative exer­cise book instructed me to come up with a sur­vival guide for when the inevitable zom­bie infec­tion strikes. I fig­ured as long as I am com­ing up with it, I may as well share it just in case…

The Ulti­mate Zom­bie Sur­vival Guide:

First off, this is not a guide on how to be well liked or how to save the largest num­ber of peo­ple. This is a straight, self-survival guide. Select agile, intel­li­gent peo­ple to aid you in your sur­vival. Now is no time for com­pas­sion. If you and a few other peo­ple sur­vive then you can make more babies and you will even­tu­ally become the elderly.

Sec­ond, time is of the essence. At the very first signs of an out­break it is time to set the sur­vival plan in motion. Any time wasted greatly decreases your chance of your sur­vival. Quickly gather what­ever weapons you can muster. Guns are best. Shot­guns are the best choice if you’re not a marks­man. Semi-automatic guns are an excel­lent choice also. Blunt objects are a fair sub­sti­tu­tion. Sharp objects are bet­ter than noth­ing, but they have a ten­dency to get stuck… so keep that in mind.

Third, secure a vehi­cle. A large, pow­er­ful vehi­cle like a truck or an SUV would be handy in case you have to break through things or off-road. But if those are not avail­able, any vehi­cle will do.

Alright, now that you have secured weapons, a vehi­cle, and pos­si­ble a team to aid you, it is time to start the next phase of the plan. There is a bit of flex­i­bil­ity from here on out, but be sure and mind the main concepts.

If time allows, head to your near­est hard­ware store. You’re going to want to get ply­wood, 4x4’s, con­crete, rebar (if pos­si­ble), ect. Basi­cally, you need to gather sup­plies to prop­erly for­tify entrances. Nails, screws, tools, ect… as long as time allows you need to get as much as pos­si­ble. This is your one and only chance to gather most of these sup­plies. (as stated sev­eral times before… if you are run­ning low on time then move on, you do not want to be stuck in hard­ware store)

Now, head to the near­est Wal-Mart. If you find that you can not make it due to lack of time, over­run with zom­bies, or already over­run with peo­ple, a Sam’s / Costco will work. If those are not avail­able, a large gro­cery store or super­mar­ket will be your next choice. You want some­where that is easy to for­tify and full of sup­plies. Wal-mart is your best choice because it is full of food, weapons and ammo, med­i­cine, other sup­plies, and does not have many entrances. If you find your­self there late at night or after most peo­ple have evac­u­ated to their homes, con­sider your­self in luck. Few peo­ple in the store means your sup­plies will last sig­nif­i­cantly longer. Dri­ving a truck into the store can be help­ful incase you have to make a hasty exit.

Once you are in the store, begin to for­tify the entrances imme­di­ately. If peo­ple are there and want to leave, do not stop them. Fewer peo­ple, longer last­ing sup­plies. Begin assign­ing peo­ple to gather mate­ri­als and bar­ri­cade entrances. Use any mate­ri­als you hope­fully secured from a hard­ware store, shop­ping carts, shelv­ing, and any­thing else you can find. You need to make sure there is no gaps and that it will hold for a long time. You do not want any­one get­ting in or out. Dou­ble and triple, and even go around a 4^th time to make sure every entrance is bar­ri­caded. Check other peo­ples work and make sure every­thing is secure. On every entrance is secured, go ahead and add to the bar­ri­cades. Mak­ing sure noth­ing gets in is the high­est priority.

When you are finally sat­is­fied with the bar­ri­cades it is time to move on to set­ting up the store. Divide peo­ple into teams. First, gather ziplock bags and put all fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles into them and then into freez­ers. Use the camp­ing sup­plies to get up liv­ing and cook­ing areas (even if your store has a kitchen, set­ting up propane grills / cook tops will help if you lose power). Gather all the bat­ter­ies, flash­lights and other sim­i­lar items in a cen­tral loca­tion so you can find them quickly if you lose power. Also gather up all the weapons and ammo and have that ready to use.

Try to find safe access to the roof. This will give you a look at what is going on in the out­side world, fresh water, fresh sun­light and air, and a chance at being res­cued. Put out cups, tubs and basi­cally any­thing that can hold water out all over the roof. This is for if and when you loose run­ning water. Also, set up some writ­ing on the roof so air­planes or heli­copters will know that you are there.

If you were lucky enough to have a store that sells plants, take the plants and spread them all around the store. If you don’t have many peo­ple with you then you can be fairly relaxed about food. How­ever, if you have more than a very small num­ber of peo­ple you will need to ration food. You could be here a long time so there is no rea­son to run out of food. Eat items that will go bad first. Use fresh food and items with short expi­ra­tion dates. Save food that will stay pre­served a long time till you’re out of every­thing else.

Now comes the wait… see­ing as how this has never hap­pened before, there is no real way to know how long it will last. Peo­ple will get impa­tient. As their impa­tiences grows, so will there stu­pid­ity and des­per­a­tion. Try to head this off before it’s to late and you find some des­per­ate per­son tear­ing apart your block­ades from the inside in an attempt to get out at 3 in the morn­ing.  Try to keep spir­its up with music, games, and a gen­eral sense of good leadership.

Well good luck, and if any­thing ridicu­lously unlikely and bor­der­line impos­si­ble should hap­pen, you know where to find me.

- Jason

Have your own thoughts, tips, or more? Leave a comment!

It never ceases to amuse me how we inter­act with one another as humans. We con­stantly have things we would love to say to cer­tain peo­ple, but for a myr­iad of rea­sons we hold back. We bite our tongues, devis­ing a strat­egy to deliver our mes­sage. This is not directed solely at con­fronting peo­ple with words; it is a much larger scale. We are dri­ven by needs to con­nect, to be loved, to be accepted, and we are more often than not will­ing to sac­ri­fice who we are and who we would like to be to obtain those needs. And while we all seem to be in the same boat, we fre­quently estab­lish walls between our inter­ac­tions, only to be opened with time and com­mit­ment like a small stream carv­ing a canyon. Although I don’t believe we could han­dle it oth­er­wise. It seems as if we will always live with this strange dichotomy. No mat­ter how much we talk about or long for authen­tic­ity, we will never be com­pletely free and direct in all of our inter­ac­tions. Oh well, we learn and we adapt — some bet­ter than oth­ers. Despite it’s com­plex­ity, our inter­ac­tions oper­ate on a sys­tem and always will.