The Long Interesting Day

Two interesting things happened today.  I found human remains and I was the guest speaker at a dinner. 

When you are out in the woods you never know what you are going to come across.  Today was just one of those days.  There were five of us working, and although I had asked if I could volunteer on this project I ended up in charge.  That was fine with me because it was a learning experience for all.  Then we found the remains.  Just a bunch of finger bones actually, not an entire dead person.  It's something that I come across fairly often (as compared to the general public) and not something that I get really excited about.  The person that was actually in charge was in a tizzy.  Who did he need to contact?  How quickly?  I reminded him what the law said so slow down, take a breath, and just go through the process.  Not too long after that we were joined by two of the area's finest peace officers.  Or rather one stuffy officer and one that was interested in our project and tried to help out.  It was fun to get someone else involved. 

On my way down the hill I stopped at GI Jim's.  I told him that I thought the interview went well.  He did too.  He said that the crew was really interested in the whole preparing topic.  One of them was Mormon and had grown up with a storage plan at home.  I ordered some paracord and a net for the kids to crawl under.  (Yes shopping, although I didn't buy anything, just ordered it)  Jim has an interesting selection in his shop.  He's always getting new items plus the regular type of items that you would expect in a surplus store.  The nice thing about his shop is that if he doesn't have it he knows how to get what you need. 

I had to rush back to town because this evening I was a guest speaker at a meeting with about 50 people.  Good sized crowd but rather diverse backgrounds between professionals and students.  I got to pick my topic so I spoke about mines.  I've read so many blogs about if TSHTF you could go out into the woods and find an old mine to hang out at.  You may even be lucky and find a gold mine.  So while I discussed the 50,000 or so abandoned mines just in California I also mentioned things like arsenic, cyanide, mercury, and other nice poisons that you can stir up without noticing what you are doing until it is too late.  I personally know of one person who is comatose from a cyanide poisoning at a mine two years ago, two twenty-somethings who hiked about 25 feet into a mine to succumbed to poisonous gas, and another friend whose son fell into a mine shaft and died.  Mines are not places you want to hang out, no matter how glamorous they may seem.