Here's my story (and I'm sticking to it!)
Hello there! My name is Joe and have been an avid camper and survivalist ever since I was Honorably Discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps way back in ancient times (1982 to be exact). My life after the Marines had a number of ups and downs, but never have I been so close to complete disaster, as I was in 2013.
As you are well aware, the economic situation in the United States of America has been at it’s worst since the stock market crash on Black Tuesday of 1929. Sadly, I was not as prepared for what would come, as I had thought. I was making a decent living working for a defense contractor until the President of the U.S. ordered a Budget Sequestration. The budget cuts for my employer came swift and harsh. Only fifty or so of the original two-hundred employees were saved. I was not one of those fortunate enough to remain.
What I hope to be able to look back on someday, is a “comedy of errors”, that left me in financial ruins, hungry, and quite nearly homeless. I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and no one to ask for help. I was on my own. I would need to muster all of my past training and experience to “bug out”, and live life as a survivalist. During the final month or so before I was evicted from my place of residence, I prepared as much as I could for the impending doom. I saved up as much food and supplies as I could carry in my bug out bag, and searched the internet for the latest camping and survival gear that might my coming situation a bit more tolerable. Do you know what I discovered? Thousands of retailers and wholesalers who will sell anything that looks “tactical” and claim that it’s for survival. The fact of the matter is that I would not trust my LIFE to much of this foreign made junk, and many of the so called “equipment review websites” give the best product reviews to the equipment vendors that advertise on the review site! Talk about a conflict of interest!
I’ve created this website, Survival and Camping Technologies, for the purpose of comparing honest-to-goodness survival and camping equipment, manufactured by various companies, head-to-head, in a winner take all competition, and reporting the results to you in an unbiased manner. You will then be able to make intelligent purchasing decisions, that you can take to the bank field.
Wishing you a bright future…
Joe
BTW - If any of you happened to view my website here at WA, the above may look familiar to you. I'll give you a hint - it's from my "About Me" page.
Recent Comments
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Sadly the biggest problem with review sites is they are simply full of affiliate marketers who are giving decent reviews to the products they will make the most commission on. It is also one of the reasons why a lot of people fall for the scams, because on the surface they appear to get such good write-ups.
But I hope you get through your current situation as soon as possible and use WA to find a way to warn a living that isn't so dependent on the labor market. Here in the UK it is not much better if at all, but the attraction of WA is that it is possible to learn to earn an income without having to worry so much about job security.
Joe, you and I have some things in common. I was honorably discharged from the Air Force in even more ancient times than you lol. A few years ago I was living homeless on the streets of Dallas. Pulled myself out of a very bad situation and made a long climb up. The oil crash of the 80's smacked me back down and I did it again, climbed back up and thought I was good to go. Nope, after a nasty divorce and several years of making mistake after mistake I re-met an old girlfriend and things started looking up. It took us living off the land (literally) for a year living on a piece of property I had bought in Livingston Texas before I finally got a decent job climbing towers. We bought an old trailer and thought we were on our way. Seven years working at heights up to 1200 ft took it's toll on my knees but I stuck with it. Then hurricane Ike came along and suddenly I was unemployed again (refused to leave my wife in a hurricane to go to Arizona) the hurricane spawned a tornado that took out our trailer ( back to survival mode) and I wound up leaving the wife with family and going to Longview Texas to build a porch on my sister's home. While I was staying at her house I found a good steady job. The last two years have been good, steady money, rebuilding my credit, new car, buying a house. Fast forward to last week. The knees failed me completely in front of a safety guy at work and now I am on short term disability. Looking at a very familiar scenario. I had tried over the last couple of years in Livingston to break into Internet marketing but got scammed so many times I gave up. Then I found this site. Oddly enough by searching scam reviews. So here I am trying again to become my own boss. I wanted to wish you well and encourage you to go for it with your survival gear web site, sounds like a darn good niche to me. :)
Oh Mike....wow a few knocks I would say....Glad you are ok now and love your 'can do' attitude. We could all learn a lot
LOL. MikeyB, I graduated suma cum laude from the University of hard knocks but those experiences have taught me one thing...If it don't kill ya it makes ya stronger. I was never accused of being a quitter so here I am plugging away at it again. Who knows, this time may just be the answer. If it ain't it won't be because I quit. Thanks for the response buddy. :)
I've seen some Orca in real life before but YOU are one of the prettiest I ever saw. Welcome to WA and thanks for the well wishes. Silver linings exist in every dark cloud, you just have to be able to get through the storm to find em. Hope you have found your's Orca. Let me know if I can help in any way. Your friend Mike.
Heavens no MikeB, lol. Unless you mean the part about finding your Silver Lining, I extend that hope to everyone. :)
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I thought I recognised it lol