Crash course

Alright, I haven’t done any writing in my novel today.  I admit it, and I admit that I have no excuse for it.  I just didn’t do it.

The reason that I didn’t do any writing (not the excuse) is that I’ve been way too busy checking out this series of fascinating economic presentations.

These presentations, known as the “crash course,” are extremely fascinating.  They go beyond the current housing bubble and financial crisis to put them into a broad historical context that explains how it all came about, and where it may ultimately lead.  Besides that, it gives the big picture and points out a number of other alarming crises that are on the horizon, such as resource depletion, inflation and possible hyperinflation, skyrocketing national debt, the global population explosion, peak oil, etc.

When I first started listening to these presentations a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty skeptical.  After all, the author went from scientist and university professor to rich financial advisor to living with his family out in the woods in New England, growing all his food and home schooling his kids. On the surface, that may look a bit suspicious (at least, the stereotypes might seem suspicious).  But after listening to all of these presentations, I can say that this guy, Chris Martenson, is very reasonable and moderate.  For the most part, his very objective and rational, and backs up all of his claims and arguments with verifiable facts.

I listened to the last ten presentations or so today, and they were very engrossing.  They were also very motivating.  This guy is not a pessimist or an end-of-the-world doomsday kind of guy–he’s actually very optimistic and pragmatic.  After listening to his presentations, I’m very motivated now to start doing the things that the church teaches us to do: home storage, budget, etc.

Specifically, here is what I want to do:

• Prepare a small, highly portable 72  hour kit.
• Learn how to cook bread (pita bread to start with, then some other kinds perhaps)
• Attempt to convert my pantry into a 3 month food storage

The first one should be kind of fun.  I’ll have to plan it all out, look around for prices and stuff, etc etc.  It’s more of a long term project, though, and I’ll make it one of my new years resolutions and put a finish date on it.

The second one should be really, really easy.  I cooked pita bread for the first time this semester, and it was WAY easy.  Really cheap, too.  Now, I just want to get the recipe down so I can make it tasty.  And really, the same applies to more than just pita bread, too.  My mom gave me a granola recipe a while ago, and I’m going to try that out this week.  I’ve already learned how to cook hummous and koshary, and those are also way good.

The last one is going to be difficult.  Almost all the stuff I eat is pretty perishable, and I don’t really cook dinner most of the time anyways (since in the FLSR, I only have to cook it once a week).  It will almost certainly take a lifestyle adjustment.  Really, honestly, I don’t know how to do it.  I’ll have to look into some other church resources for suggestions and stuff.

Anyways, that’s the plan for now.  I should probably do a deeper inventory and more planning before I undertake anything drastic, but this is where I want to start.  Basically, I want to start living the church teachings on home preparedness.  It’s not something I’ve really thought about too much, but I know now that I need to start doing it.  And really, I’m excited and very enthusiastic, too.  Hopefully, this isn’t just a short term interest, but the start of a longer commitment.  After all, if the church has been counselling us to have a food storage and be prepared and self-sufficient, shouldn’t we be living that way?