Dear Survivor,
It’s foggy this morning, but the light coming from my daughter’s bedroom is bright because she’s away on a trip, and her door is wide open.
It’s heartbreaking walking down the stairs knowing this is what it will feel like when she leaves for college.
Every step I feel the weight of: did I spend enough time with her, will she be ok on her own, is she happy, what will her life be like now? It’s heavy.
That’s being a parent. Your kids grow up and leave you, then you have grandchildren, they visit, they leave, and it’s the same feeling all over again.
And you say to yourself: Next time I need to do this with them.
Being left behind is not a good feeling. When I went to college, my younger sister said, “thanks for leaving me with Mom and Dad.”
Life moves on. The days fly by, or not at all. One morning we wake up feeling pretty good, the next we wonder: what planet are these people from?
The fog’s starting to lift, it’s brighter outside. Time to continue the fight. The fight for what you and I deserve—what our families deserve. We’ve worked too hard to let it be taken from us.
Oceans of time will wash on by
Ebb and flowing through our lives
Why should we hurry the tide
You and I, only have oceans of time
-Jimmy Buffett
What Type of Country Do You Want for Your Family?
What type of country do you want for your family?
Are we ok with the demonstrators driving the conversation? I know I’m not. The cowards destroying the statues are lazy.
In November, do you want more governors going wild closing schools because someone has the sniffles? Progressives will. They will enable bumbling Joe Biden, and the rest will be history.
Do you want governors who govern by headlines? Here in blue state Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo signed an executive order recently to remove “and Providence Plantations” from the title of the state of Rhode Island. What’s next?
Why are we allowing them to write the narrative? Take Trump’s Tulsa rally for example. There was a clip where he explained the steel ramp because fake news like the NYT’s had the story completely wrong.
The media writes about low turnout at the event, but Fox had record-breaking viewership of it (7 million plus). Last time I checked, it’s not so easy to travel around the country, especially to a place off the beaten path like Tulsa (obviously voters are paying attention). It’s time to change the narrative and speak up and ask: What Type of Country Do You Want for Your Family?
Your choices today are between America’s Number 1 job creator, President Trump, and Joe Biden. Who wants to vote for Biden and “Defund the Police?” How about a vote for Biden and a trashing of your gun rights? How about jobs? What will Biden do? Look at what happens when blue state governors go wild. Then you have the Biden family business, China, Inc. President Trump was right from the beginning stopping flights from China. Trump stands up to China while Joe stays in his basement bunker.
Consider the recklessness from blue state governors and their self-crowning press conferences, stirring up resentment from the producers of the world.
The allies of blue-state politicians in the media and technology industries have no problem setting one set of rules for America’s producers, and another for their favored groups.
What if the producers of the world decide to pack it in, decide it’s not worth it?
What if your access to food, water, shelter are temporarily, or forever impacted, by unforeseen events that blue state governors jump all over to fix? We see how their power corrupts them.
Self-reliance is your only solution. Only you know your vulnerabilities. Only you can improve your situation.
You may even need to look for a better place in America. You can start by escaping the city. Read more on that here:
- Your Survival Guy Escapes into the City, Uh-Oh
- Your Life on Main Street will Never be the Same
- Why Would China Have a Problem with This?
- Your Retirement Life: A Grizzly Yellowstone Trip
- Escape From the City: You’re Going to Like What You See
- You Need to Seek Some Shelter for When Things Get Ugly
- Gang Violence Preventing Chicago from Caring for Coronavirus Victims
- The Most Charming Small Towns in New England
- Americans Flee the Big City Blues
- You Can Find a Better America in the South
Life Changes Fast: Need a Boost? Here’s Why I Did
You know, as Your Survival Guy, I’m the guy who gets into tough situations only to discover how ill-prepared I am. You know, like when my backyard almost burned down when a tree landed on telephone wires, breaking the pole at the top, sending the distribution transformer, aka “pole pig” (filled with coils and oil ) crashing to the ground right next to one of our prehistoric trees about the size of King Kong that was ready to burn like the torch on the Statue of Liberty.
As the fire department descended upon our property, Your Survival Guy quickly learned he was no longer in control. Not a good feeling. And so, because of that, prevention is YSG’s best medicine. You’ll note, if you visit me in Newport, that there are no longer any power lines in the air as I spent a pretty penny putting them six feet under, covered with concrete like a ‘good fella.’ (You can read all about that Sunday afternoon here.)
If you read about our recent ski vacation in Telluride, then you know we rented an oxygen concentrator to help prevent (or recover faster from) altitude sickness. It worked beautifully.
“Why should I care, Survival Guy?” you may be asking yourself.
Well, you and I know the terrible outcome of a ventilator from the China virus. It’s just not good. You want to avoid it at all costs. But, as I know, a really nice, comfortable way to receive pure oxygen is through your nose with regular breathing from an oxygen concentrator like the one we rented in Telluride. That is why I decided to buy one for my family.
Will we need it? I hope not. Will it help if we do need it? I don’t know. Is getting oxygen to your lungs important? Yes, and this makes it easier.
Let’s say you don’t want to fork over a grand quite yet, or you can’t get one because supplies are low. Consider getting some oxygen canisters. I buy Boost Oxygen canisters from Walmart. Real easy. They’re the size of a water bottle, and you can pack them in your bug out bag.
Think of a concentrator as your own natural spring of pure oxygen that will last forever, and Boost Oxygen as a quick and easy way to get it. For me both are excellent as a preventive measure and worth every penny, because you and I know how quickly life can change.
Survive and Thrive this Month.
Warm regards,
E.J.,
“Your Survival Guy”
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P.S. It’s time for you to take back your country. Get out. Move around. Have a little courage. Rub your eyes and move. Enough of this stay at home nonsense. Get out there. Just stay away from the cities for now, because the great migration is yesterday’s news.
Anyone with a little money has already figured out how to escape the city. They’re in the Hamptons or are temporarily back home with mom and dad working remotely out of their old bedroom or in your den (sorry!). “Stay Home, Save Lives” is A Fraud of Epic Proportions.
The issue now is how far into your neck of the woods will chaos or government-created disasters spread? Are you seeing a net migration out of your neighborhood? Is it time for you to plan your escape? Remember, our homes are usually our most valuable asset or close to it. What is the trend with your schools, taxes, and businesses?
If I’m starting out in the world today, I’m doing everything in my power to get into the homeownership game. It doesn’t mean I have to live there. I see a ton of opportunities to buy a house with a yard for reasonable money in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.
If you’re on the left coast you know there are opportunities away from the cities. That doesn’t mean you can’t get a job, rent an apartment in the city, and eventually work remotely. I think that’s a great way to start.
If you have the means to live and work in two states, do it. I like the Newport, RI/Jackson, NH combo if you’re a skier, as well as FL/WY or MT. You know where you’d love to live. Make it happen.
In times like these, there are ways for the strong to improve their situation with a little thought and creativity. While others bemoan, you get out and move around and see what your country has to offer you. You’ll like what you see.
P.P.S. You can still have the retirement life you deserve, it just takes a little more time and patience. I think you’ll like these pics from a client who writes:
“Hi EJ- thought you might like to see a few shots from Grand Teton/Yellowstone. When we got home, we ran across an article about that specific bear. Google Grizzly Bear 399 and look for the recent article about her and her cubs.”
Here’s the story about Grizzly Bear 399, from Jackson Hole News & Guide:
Steve Franklin’s lifetime bucket list included both being in Grand Teton National Park on opening day and witnessing the Yellowstone region’s most famous bear, grizzly 399, the day she emerged from her den.
The Glendale, Arizona, resident and wildlife photographer checked one of the boxes Monday, when he was in with the first wave of visitors after a seven-week coronavirus-prompted closure. A grizzly 399 sighting was likely not in the cards, an improbability he confirmed early in the day by chatting with a ranger who told him the matriarch 24-year-old sow had not yet been spotted this year. Then, just after 2:30 p.m., Franklin was driving to fetch a late lunch when he spotted something moving on the banks of a swollen Pilgrim Creek.
“We’re crossing the bridge getting ready to go back, and she happened to be right there,” Franklin said. “I got two of my wishes on one day! And she has four cubs? Give me a break.”
Grizzly 399, he recalled, was pacing about 100 yards off the road along the banks, trying to find a safe spot for her brood of youngsters to ford.
Scores of others soon watched in awe at a grizzly bear who has unknowingly made herself famous by dwelling in roadside areas of Grand Teton Park for the past 14 years. Four cubs is her largest known litter yet, and she’s rearing the youngsters at an age near the upper limit of a typical grizzly bear lifespan.
At first, just 10 or so people gathered at Pilgrim Creek, where two sub-adult grizzlies had passed through a couple hours earlier shortly after the Moran gate opened.
“By about 3:30, it was bonkers,” Jackson resident Erika Lingle said from North Park Road’s shoulder.
Lingle and a couple hundred others lingered in the area even hours after the five-grizzly clan had disappeared from sight, hopeful they’d reemerge into view.
Longtime grizzly lensman Tom Mangelsen was staked out near Pacific Creek on Monday afternoon when a text popped up prompting him to swiftly head west.
“I got here in just enough time to see her head across the sandbar,” said Mangelsen, whose photos adorn the 2015 book, “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek.”
“Lesser bears would have been lucky to make it to age 24,” he said, “but I think she’s obviously extraordinary.”
Mangelsen said he had a hunch a large litter was in store, because when 399 lumbered toward the den last fall she was slinging a grizzly gut that hung “2 inches from the ground.” After driving off her grown 2-year-old cubs, the reliably seen sow was spotted in June mating with grizzly 679, a big boar that goes by Bruno.
“I was quite optimistic she would have cubs,” Mangelsen said. “I was betting everybody that she would have three, because everyone was downplaying her because of her age.”
The data supports proclamations that bear 399’s quad-cub litter is a rarity, no less for a nearly quarter-century-old bruin.
From 2004 to 2018, just three litters of four youngsters were detected in total by Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team researchers on observation flights, according to the research group’s annual reports. Chuck Schwartz, a former study team leader, found that just 2% of all litters in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem consisted of four cubs, according to a 2006 study. (The proportion of one-cub litters was 26%, two-cub litters 51% and three cub litters 21%.)
Grizzly 399 has proven she’s more fecund than most of her species, having reared triplets three times before. Although she’s a veteran mother, there’s likely a bumpy road ahead for her four young ones.
“Her one cub, Snowy, was hit just a half a mile down the road here [in 2016],” Mangelsen said.
It’s not known what’s become of all of 399’s 17 documented cubs, but they’ve been more under the microscope than most grizzly bear offspring. Both in their youngest years and adulthood, they’ve died from vehicle strikes, illegal shooting and being euthanized for depredating cattle and other habituated behavior.
For grizzly bear cubs generally, it’s about a coin flip — a 55% chance — they will survive to see the next year, according to study team data.
Grizzly 399’s emergence Monday marked the third time she’s come into view precisely on May 18, Mangelsen said.
“Whenever she has cubs of the year, she waits,” he said. “It’s amazing that this exact day, she comes out.”
With Grand Teton’s gates open, the grizzly-watching scene is now in high gear in the park. Bear 679, AKA Bruno, has been spotted, and 399’s daughter, grizzly 610, has also been out and about with a pair of 2-year-old cubs, according to park rangers. The sow known as Blondie could also potentially emerge with a fresh litter of cubs, having dispelled her 2-year-olds last summer.
“And with 399 having four cubs now, this is going to be insanity,” Mangelsen said.
All throughout Tuesday morning, there was a “bear jam” in the same area grizzly 399 was seen around Pilgrim Creek the afternoon before. There reportedly wasn’t even a grizzly to be seen — just the possibility of one.
The small gathering of Biden supporters was swamped with a large contingent of Trump supporters who came out to protest the former vice president.
In typical Biden fashion, he gaffed his way through the appearance, claiming that “120 million” people have died from COVID-19, a number 1,000 times larger than reality.
Fox News reporter David Aaro writes of the appearance:
Biden also mistakenly claimed during the campaign stop that 120 million people had died from the novel coronavirus — overstating the number by about 1,000 times.
“People don’t have a job, people don’t know where to go, they don’t know what to do,” Biden said Thursday. “Now we have over 120 million dead from COVID.”
The U.S. has seen at least 124,000 deaths — not millions — from COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, more than 488,824 fatalities from the virus have been reported.
Biden’s comments were immediately questioned by Republicans and the Trump 2020 Campaign team, which deemed the Democrat to be “very confused.”
“WHAT IS GOING ON WITH JOE BIDEN?” Steve Guest, the Republican National Committee’s rapid response director, tweeted out with a link to the clip.
Let’s roll the tape:
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