Organic food?

Organic food is a pop-cultural thing. Not all of it, but you cant say your not lining someones pockets when you buy your $3.00 "all natural organic" fruit smoothie, which should go bad if it wasnt refrigerated.
Im all for keeping pesticides and fertilizer out of our water and food, but I have seen alot of things in organic groceries that have no difference in food content or manufacture.
And anyone who says they just want to know what theyre eating would be vomiting if they knew the names of the chemicals in blueberries that give them there flavor. Do you know what the chemical 8,9-cedrene epoxide 2 is?

Good survivial books

I highly reccomend the SAS Survival Guide by John Wiseman. I've had it for ten years, and it's definately very useful. Very, very informative. Worth looking into.

I have this aircrew survival booklet. It's quite outdated but I like to read it anyway. I was made in 1985, which was still the Cold War era, so it has some extreme information like how to survive nuclear or chemical conditions. Or how to survive behind enemy lines. ^_^

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http://www.thegadgetshop.com/pws/ProductDetails.ice?ProductID=190

this book is the ffucking shit its amazing

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This was a good book that covered all bases, if you can get past the forced eccentricity of the Author:

98.6: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive

This is a good *contingency* read:

Wilderness Evasion: A Guide to Hiding Out and Eluding Pursuit in Remote Areas

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Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival http://tinyurl.com/e4uul

That, indeed, is all you need.

Pearl Diving

I've been reading about pearldiving, and numerous sources have said that there are indeed freshwater oysters that produce pearls in the united states. Unfortunatly, that's about as much as they say. I havn't been able to find any site that says how, when, and where North American freshwater oysters that produce pearls can be found. There's a million clams in lakes that I live by, but I don't think these make pearks.

Has anyone ever gone pearldiving? Have you ever FOUND ANYTHING!?!? And how many oysters would I have to pluck off the bottom until I found a pearl?

New boat

well, the 3 horse outboard i have weighs about 35lbs probably and can push the jon boat, 2 people and gear at around 5 knots on calm water like rivers.. roughly that's about 12mph.

i doubt your 7' boat weighs 15lbs or else i'd extremely dislike her chances of being seaworthy. i'd say you could accommodate a 2hp or a 3 at the most and achieve about 5 knots with it - if it's the efficient design you claim it to be. here's a nice 2hp 4 stroke for only $765 new. 4 strokes are a bit more complicated and harder to repair but they are more reliable. of course, the 2 strokes produce twice as much power as the 4 strokes but they're fuel efficiency and pollution levels, caused by unburned oil in the exhaust gas, arn't too great. yet if simplicity is what you prefer, nothing can be more basic than a 2hp 2 stroke engine - an engine almost anyone can upkeep and maintain by themselves. outboards are so advanced these days you need a damn mechanic to service most of the 4 stroke outboards above the 9.9hp mark. complicated just means that there are more things to go wrong and more tests to conduct when they do.

but overall, i'd recommend a 2hp 2 stroke for your boat if you're just getting out on the weekends and have little mechanical knowledge in this field.

Backpacking and survival suggestions

I'm a minimalist when it comes to backpacking and survival. Maybe not the best approach with survival, but it certainly keeps you mobile.

I've been building and revising a BOB for a long time now. It's never perfect. So far, my necessary equipment is:

ALICE pack (main ruck)
Load Bearing Vest (powerbars and gear)
0 Degree Bag
Bivy Sack
.357 Handgun (50rds)
2L Camelbak
2x 2-Qt Canteen
Katadyn Hiker
Smashed Roll of TP and toothbrush
FM 21-76
LED Headlamp
Bic lighters and trioxane bars
Gauze, antiseptic, ace roll
Line, hooks, bobber, splitshot, 3 lures
And lightweight calorie dense food

Anything else is more of a pleasure than necessity. I try to pack:

E-Tool (maybe)
Mess tin
More food in a buttpack
Paracord
Tarp or two
Thick Vinyl Ponchos
Garbage bags
Emergency strobe (better than a flare)
Bug Repellant
Batteries

Always wear polyblend pants (BDUs are good), underarmor shirt, gloves, good boots, and a hoodie.

I do everything I can to keep effectiveness to the max, weight to a minimum and look somewhat civi. I usually end up carrying extra weight to make sure I stay dry and warm, because winter plain sucks. I can always find food, city or woods.

What to pack in a Survival Kit

I'd take John Wiseman's (former British Special Air Service, did operations all around the world, wrote survival books) advice. This is his reccomended survival kit (not word for word, largely paraphrased):

-Matches
-A square candle (square just so it fits in best)
-Flint
-Magnifying glass (to start fires from sunlight)
-Needles and thread
-Fish hooks and line
-Compass
-Beta light (a self-powered light-emitting crystal for reading maps, compass, etc in the dark)
-Snare wire
-A flexible saw
-Butterfly sutures (stitches)
-Flares
-"Mess tin" -- small container to keep cooking utensils in
-Flashlight
-Fluorescent marker panel, for signalling
-Survival bag -- basically a warm cozy blanket to wrap around yourself
-A quality knife -- Wiseman reccomends a parang knife for tasks such as gathering materials for shelter, firewood, rafts, and so on, in addition to a smaller knife, something along the lines of a buck knife
-Block of sandstone, quartz, or granite to sharpen knife
-Light but durable tent & sleeping bag
-Food -- simple, healthy food which will ensure you get enough nutrients.

Tree Climbing

I love climbing trees, although I do not possess equiptment. Fun tree climbing stories-I always use trees to win games. Once in my neighborhood when I was about twelve we were playing cops and robbers, so I decided to find a good hiding spot. I climbed a small pine tree(40') up till where it was bending a good deal and I figured I might snap it if I went further. That got my hands sticky, so I said screw this and got down to find a better tree. I ended up on the other side of the yard, climbing another pine about the same size and bending it to swing over to the lowest branch of an oak tree, about 20' up. When they finally found me, it took them a while to figure out how I had gotten up. This made me quite proud.
Another time, I went to an audubon camp on an island in ME, basically nature camp. We went into the woods at night and played hide and go seek-ish game. We were on a path, and the rules were that we could only hide 10 feet off the path on either side, so I just climbed a tree right over the path. I won the game, as once everyone was found they realized I wasn't there and had to start looking for me. I ended up jumping in front of someone and scaring the crap out of them. Good times.
Although I like going up in trees, heights in general scare me. I was at a small ski area a few weeks ago where my friend was working as a life guard at a pond at the base of the hill. When he got off we hiked up the hill(it is really a hill, like it shouldn't even be a ski area it's so small) and got to the top. We hung out for a while, and I was looking around when I noticed those pads they usually put on the chairlift poles weren't there and the ladders were easily accessable. Climbing the 30' up one of those was far more scary than climbing a tree of the same height, but I have no idea why.

Best outdoor areas in the US

So your thinking of moving to a place where people are friendly and the great outdoors is rife with wholesome diversions
montana is a good choice
the town of bozeman is under 100k people mostly white, there are large rivers near by the gallatin, massive genus of trout lurk in the depths
huning is exc. black bear, dear, elk, many people live off the land to some degree, moose meat mixed with fat is tasty
the main street in the town has brewerys,tackle shops, bars with electronic poker
the university of montana is integral to the livelyhood of the town specializing in wildlife management, forestry programs
a non profit ski area named bridger bowl is close to town and over 300 inches of light snow falls each winter
i recommend bozeman montana
how about your suggestions?

Starting to Ski

If you've never ridden before, try skiing. It's much easier(unless you already surf/skate and habve the balance down). If it's cold you'll want a baclava, and good gloves are always nice.

Yea, it is pretty expensive, which is why I buy stuff used. Most of the clothing I get for christmas, and the 3 main components I buy myslef(board, boot, bindings). Right now, my board is probably worth about $50(bought 4 years ago for $100, but it was a good deal then), my bindings were the cheapest model they had, they absolutely SUCK and break a lot, although my friend with the same ones has never had them broken. My boot are the most expensive part of the ensemble, at $170. I can't stand having cold feet and shitty boots, but I can stand my bindings breaking, so I put the money into boots. They have BOA lacing which uses wires and a crank knob, which is really nice although it can over tighten and cut off circulation if you aren't paying attention. I'm selling them in november though and buying new ones. I've had them for a year so the value should be pretty friggin high, maybe $120-$135, and I can get nice boots for $40-$50 more.

Mountains I've been to-
Vail(didn't get to ride though )
Abasin
Wachusett
Loon
Sunday River
Sunapee
Okeemo
Nashoba(tiny hill near me)

Loon was my favorite, gondolas kick ass, and the day I went there was a foot of powder.

Snowboarding and Skiing

Well, I snowboard, live in northern Massachusetts, and my home mountain would have to be Wachusett. It's pretty small, about 30 minutes away, but the lifts are fast and on weekdays no one is there. The park is pretty good, they have a superdragon for the pipe, and park passes to keep idiots out. Before there were dads going over jumps with little kids between their legs ruining the lips . Now it's less crowded and safer. I suck at tricks, as noted in a thread I made in GT! before this forum existed, but I love big airs with tweaked grabs/shifty's.
Wachusett changed their jumps last year, now they are cut away right after the lip about 6 feet down and a huge flat leading to a sharp landing instead of the whole thing being curvey and having flow. It's kinda lame, the old ones felt so much more natural. These new ones give you about a 1/2 second more air, that's the ONLY upside. That and they make you feel higher. The biggest jumps Wachusett has are 30 footers, I hit the new ones a few times this season, but you have to land exactly where the slope starts for the landing, otherwise you land flat and break your legs. If you land to far down, there's ice from kids skidding after they land so it's incredibly hard to stay in control. The good news is that with the really sharp angle from flat to the landing makes it good to jump off, almost like jumping a cliff if you're going fast(the one thing I'm good at ). I did that most runs through the park as it let me tweak out some grabs without fear of being killed upon landing.
The summit has some better trails, the oh-so-scary black diamonds(would be rated blue squares to green circles at any other mountain). The best thing about those is that(most of the time) there are no beginers to slow you down, it's just bombing the whole way. Last christmas I got the materials and learned how to hotwax, and it's very useful, espescially on those trails. There is always a massive crowd waiting for the trails to be open when they're almost done grooming, and this is when that wax really comes into play. I went from about 50th in the pack to 2nd because of my wax, and it was sooooooo good. I LOVE groomed trails, you can carve as deep as you want, go as fast as you want and there is NO chance of falling! And even if you can manage to fall, there is no ice! When I grow up I would love to own a mountain somewhere in colorado, cut out maybe 4 trails, buy one chairlift, one snowcat with the groomer attachment, and just ride all day. With no one else (or very few friends...maybe) you could groom in the morning and have corduroy all day. This is, of course, if I am filthy rich(keepin my hopes up).

I ride a 2002 151 burton custom with burton freestyle bindings and vans boots with BOA lacing.