Excursions

Excursions is a site that is concerned with Recreational Survival Engineering. It’s recreational because it’s intent is to have fun. It’s survival because its intent is to learn principles that will be useful in survival situations – whether on vacation in a beachfront hotel or stranded in the middle of a Northwestern United States rain forest. It’s engineering because it involves designing and creating.
There are a two rules here –
1. The excursions involve no more than you can take with you –
on your person – for strategizing
           in a pack – for field work
           or, in a vehicle – for base operations.
2. The excursions must be, ultimately, applicable to real life, practical.

Now, there are four really basic principles at play in these little recreations:
1. Knowledge – read books, take tests, learn by experience.
2. Memory – There are two big factors in raw potential. The ability to remember what you learn and the ability to shuffle information around in your head.
3. Problem solving – the ability to put that information together in useful and insightful ways, and
4. Equipment – whether you buy it or make it. Humans didn’t survive this long because we have fur coats, big claws and teeth, or wings and/or fins. It was language and that funny looking digit on each hand – both potential for equipment.

Now Survival engineering proceeds by collecting and discovering:
     Basic information
     Technics – how to do things
     Recipes – how you mix things to get a desired end result.

In these pages, I’ll be playing with these principles in various permutations. My only regret is that I don’t have forever to truly cover it all.

At the very soul of recreational survival engineering is……..
Collecting Stuff!
There are two ways of handling this
       Buy as you need
       Collect as you can
But it’s terribly frustrating to need an Allen screw and realize that you’re going to have to go to the hardware store to get one and five minutes after you get back, you’re going to realize that you need something else. Best bet is to be a packrat. That increases the chances that you will have something when you need it.

There are some things that you already know that you’re going to need.

Equipment: I don’t skimp on this. If I start after the illusive millivolt and find out that there are 12 of ’em – I want there to really and truly be 12. On the other hand, it’s fun to build it yourself. I’ll take both tacks – but what I buy will have to be portable and practical. My gotta have list includes:
     Calculator
     Balance
     Camera
     Thermometer
     Multimeter
     Telescope/microscope
     Timepiece
     Weather instrument
     Compass
     Flashlight
     And a collection of spring scales.

Hardware. Go to the discount and dollar stores for assortments and such but your gonna have to order stuff like lenses, magnets, etc. – hmmmmmm, unless you salvage them from junk.

Supports – You only have two hands. I’m thinking in terms of rods and clamps, a pegboard, and an Erector set.

Labware – just basic stuff to start with – test tubes and/or heat resistant vials, a squeeze bottle, some glass dishes (of the Petri variety), a funnel, a graduated cylinder, droppers, and an alcohol burner or some such.

Tools – A handtool set is cheap as dirt in dollar stores and multitools (such as the Leatherman) are just plain cool. You also need blades and an X-Acto kit isn’t very expensive. Lab equipment (test tube clamp, rack, and brush, tongs, forceps, spatula/scoop) – and, oh! An AC adapter with exchangeable plugs and variable output.

Chemicals – the world is going down the drain. Chemistry sets are safe now days (yeech!). Okay, we’re just going to have to scrounge around and come up with some honest to goodness chemicals. Actually, it’s amazing what you can come up with just grubbing around the house.

Recording equipment Nothing real high tech – pencils, pens, notebook, quad paper pad. Of course a tape recorder wouldn’t hurt and I’ve already mentioned the camera.

And something to carry it all in. I have two soft briefcases like the ones you’d put a laptop in, a “fanny pack”, and a hard shell portable cabinet type case for chemicals and such. I also have a clipboard that you can keep stuff in for my first excursions (which will have to do with mathematics, logic, scientific exploration, and philosophy).

Now, why would I go there, because that’s where everything else starts from. So I’ll spend a year or so there; but I’ll take a few side trips.

You’re welcome to come along if you want…….

Addendum: Over time, my focus and methods have changed somewhat. I’m still interested in survival technology but Excursions has become more about lifelong learning and providing information to amateur researchers. Here, I provide tools, like the series of spreadsheet documents for research and analysis (DANSYS), user guides, and LabBooks (interactive texts). As a companion to the LabBooks, I also provide the blog, Adventuring: The Bear Creek Commentaries, that describe my own adventures in lifelong learning and invite the reader to enjoy their own.