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Come Inside my Project
By Richard A. Fleetwood - January 2002
Way back in 1996, when I first got on the internet, I knew absolutely nothing
about webpages, webdesign, internet communications, or anything on the web.
I had run a BBS on a tiny toy computer (48k of memory) years and years
before, but the web was something knew. Within a few months, I started
playing with my very first, very tiny, personal webpage. Interesting,
and useful....the BBS background starting coming back and I found that I
was getting the urge again...the urge to SHARE.
Why did I choose the topics of survival and preparedness for my first web
SITE? Probably has a lot to do with surviving SEVERAL close calls with
nature, dodgeing some real bullets in a 10 year career as a letter carrier
on the mean streets of Birmingham, Alabama, and the fact that I had always
liked the fact that by being prepared for things...anything...you can get
a lot further in life, no matter who or what is throwing the curve.
Stepping into the interesting arena of civil defense, along with all aspects
of natural hazards, nuclear war, terrorism, and even more disturbing things,
was natural. My main concern was shelter from tornadoes, as we had
WAY to many close calls with them in Alabama. Tornado shelter info
was very hard to find, but find it I did. Very little of it, though.
I did start coming across reference to fallout shelters in my "shelter"
searches, and started looking into the techical aspects of them. Made
sense, since nuclear shelters in many cases were capable of protecting from
blast winds of hundreds of miles per hour from nuclear detonations in tests.
Many years later, with many thousands of dollars spent on collectible material,
computer hardware, computer software, books, videos, and more, plus
thousands and thousands of hours of research in every possible venue....on
and offline...and I have created the single BIGGEST personal collection of
civil defense material *I* know to exist. Well, guess what....this
page is to show you a small portion of this huge collection to get an idea
of just HOW I am getting these things online to YOU.
The pictures below were taken during a recent business trip to Denver...training
for my new career managing one of a chain of stores for one of the largest,
multinational, service corporations in the world. My ideas for my site
and my goals in life are have the ability to create content on a moments
notice...recording ideas and thoughts WHEN I have them....and to be able
to digitize ANYTHING I can in the genre I have chosen. I have a portable
system that I can take with me anywhere I find documents...where I can't
remove them from their source, I can record them right there. The system
consists of HP laptop, a Canon flatbed scanner, a very small Aiptek USB digital
camera with video streaming capability, and a couple of large sized padded
computer bags to haul the "stuff:" in.
More images will come as time, and projects allow. I am about to move
upstate and commute home on weekends, in a career enhancing move that my
family will allow me to persue. It will give me some more time to work
on the projects as mentioned on my websites, as well as more quite time to
create an even MORE expansive and useful base of information in entirely
new areas and directions...still all connected with teaching and showing
everyone how to be safe, stay prepared, and grow skills.
So...enough verbiage for now. Below are just a small handfull of images
for you to see a little portion of what I have for you. Explanations
will be below each image of what you are seeing.
Comments welcome, and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who, so far,
has supported me and this site in making it one of the LARGEST portal sites
in the world for preparedness issues.
Richard Fleetwood
Founder - SurvivalRing, Civil Defense Now, and The Blast Shelter.
http://www.survivalring.org
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CAPTION: My workbench. The Canon scanner in the center of the
picture is about slightly more than an
inch thick, and is powered ONLY by the USB cable that plugs into the back
of the laptop. The stack
of docs on the left of the picture is just a portion of my entire collection,
I am working on an article on
Nuclear Preparedness right now, and the shelter docs are quite interesting.
The notes between
the scaner and laptop are my outlines for various projects, and directly
behind them are a small stack of
cd roms with much useful resource on them. Underneath the Daytimer
binder behind the scanner is
several years of notes on what has become my "life's work". In other
words, what you see is my
life .... that part of it that is NOT family time, eating, sleeping, working
full time, or training. |
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CAPTION: Another angle of the first picture, showing the thickness
of the stack of this particular set
of docs. You can see I have worn a rut into the touch pad right below
the keyboard of the computer...
in only a year of use. |
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CAPTION: A small sample of some of the more hard to find items. The
bottom center title is NOW
online in Adobe Acrobat PDF format for YOU to read. The others....soon.
The top center doc is only the
first chapter of NINE on the US's traning material for prepareing for recovery
from nuclear war. It is
the only chapter I have now. The top right book is from the Swiss
government, and is quite interesting
in some of the areas of shelter preparation that it covers. The two
books on the left side came directly
from FEMA publications...but are NO LONGER available...why is that? |
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CAPTION: Here is a closeup of the image below, so you can read
some of the titles better. Most
were found thru ebay purchases...some came thru individual donations...and
some where found in used
book stores. |
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CAPTION: EVERY title here, over 24 unique titles, has SOMETHING
to do with FALLOUT
SHELTER. The blue book on the left side, leaning against the back of
the couch, was particularly
hard to find. It is from the Association of Civil Engineers, and is called
"Design of Structures to
Resist Nuclear Weapons Effects". At 162 pages, is is a virtual encyclopedia
of useful
equations that really help you understand the physics of nuclear survival. |
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CAPTION: These are some older titles from the old Office of Civil
Defense.
All are from the late 1950's. |
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CAPTION: These manuals all have something to do with
radiological
equipment operations, maintenance, skills, or repair. Look for
these titles soon. |
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CAPTION: This xerox copies came directly from the Swiss Civil Defense
Agency,
and are very enlightening. It seems the Swiss have much more interest and
skill at
helping ALL of their population learn nuclear preparedness skills, as compared
to
the LACK of same with the U.S. government. |
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CAPTION: This package of docs came to me directly from the Norwegian
Civil
Defense Organization. |
More items and images to come as time allows.
Again, your comments are welcome.
Richard
Founder - SurvivalRing
Updated January 21, 2002 - © 2002 By Richard A.
Fleetwood
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