The Blast Shelter

[ Reading time: 12 - 20 minutes ]

Originally created November 1996

Hi, I’m Richard Fleetwood and this is my personal web page (originally started in late 1996)… I’m married to my lovely wife, Annie, and we have 3 great kids that we homeschooled–Laurie, Robert, and Kenny. All three are in college, along with my wife and I, here in Riverton, Wyoming

I was a letter carrier in Bessemer, Alabama by career choice, and for fun and education I play with computers with some of my spare time. I now do freelance web development, video projects, and on air radio and audio work for a living.

This particular web page is only the FIRST of a (hopefully) large site that will have some UNIQUE CONTENT, a really good collection of great web links, some interesting graphics, and maybe even a few downloads.

The Fleetwood Family – 1998

(I’m the cute one in the middle!!)

My main reason for this page is to find individuals with similar interests, to share information, and to help anyone I can who might have a question about anything found within these pages. SO, look around, check out the links, send me some email, and lets all have some fun!

My specific interests are:

OUTDOORS-

camping, canoeing, orienteering, primitive woods, hiking, astronomy, mountain biking- I spent most of my youth fishing anywhere that there was more then a cup of water; hunting in north Texas for quail, mourning dove, squirrels, and a few ducks; and camping all over north and east Texas (favorite places were Lake Texoma, Crockett State Park, and Bonham state park).

I spend more time now stargazing with binoculars and a 60mm refracter scope, and riding bikes with the kids every chance I get.(Tanehill State Park is a few minutes away and has some great trails to ride on). Also collect older bikes at various places for scrounging parts, building new bikes, and experimenting (ask me how I used bike parts to fix my old 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser with a non-stock carburater!)

I am on the lookout now for a couple of old beatup but still useful canoes and/or kayaks. I am toying with the idea of building them my self next year (have the plans, good instructional books, all the tools, all the skills BUT no garage or carport yet).

The TRIP—1998

I got to take the trip of a lifetime on June (1998), although be it the hard and uncomfortable (read CHEAP) way. My good friend David xxxx, from high school in Plano, Texas who owns a campground in Lander, Wyoming ( I put up a website for him at http://www.xxxxxx.com – since deleted, as he never paid me for it…for the COMPLETE story, visit this page… http://www.survivalring.org/startingover.htm ) and will be adding a few pics here (and there) as soon as I get them developed.

While there, we got to take a day trip to Yellowstone National Park, going thru Grand Teton National Park, and we (my then 14 year old son Robert, my friend Dave, and his foster son Loren) saw THE most awesome, spectacular, incredible, and just unbelieveable majesty I have ever seen with my own eyes. The wildlife, the valleys, the canyons with raging rivers hundreds of feet down, the slowing moving rivers full of elk, buffalo, trout AND a few fly fisherman, the geological features, the geothermal activity all around, and the utterly unbelieveable Yellowstone Lodge, and the jaw dropping span of forest fire damage from 1989 that went from horizon to horizon…..I will forever remember this trip for the rest of my life.

I won’t mention Greyhound Bus Lines crappy service, missed schedules, crappy buses that had parts dropping off (I got on in Bessemer, Alabama, and before the bus went a hundred feet a piece of the exhaust system fell off as it left the driveway of the bus station, or the extremely dangerous driver who, while taking us from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Denver via the “scenic” route (NOT the interstate) was traveling DOWN these mountain roads (three lanes wide…one downhill, two uphill for passing) PASSED slower cars going down hill, by crossing the double yellow line IN A SNOWSTORM, on June 6th, 1998. Don’t believe me?

I will put the PICTURE I took from mid bus, looking forward thru the front windshield, SHOWING just this FACT the moment I have it printed. I have already forwarded my displeasure of this trip to the CEO’s office of Greyhound, and will send them the URL of the picture when its online. I guess when you get the cheap fare ($59 anywhere in the coutnry) you get what you paid for…..

COMPUTING-

Old one….Packard Bell 620cd, with 64 meg of ram, 4.3 gig HD , Win95 OSR2, Umax 600P 30bit Color Scanner, plus several other gadgets.

New One…HP 864n, with 512 meg of ram, 160 gig HD, Win XP Pro Media Center Edition, 200 gig and 80 gig external USB 2.0 drives, 48x external CD burner, DVD(-) burner, TV card, 128 meg video card, wireless net access, and a whole lot more….upgrades are nice sometimes!

I like to play around with Desktop publishing, shareware collections, 3d games, surfing the web, creating web pages (for myself and others)– I have many years of experience with IBM compatibles, 4 years of VAX mainframe operations (was Operations Manager for a AC/Heating Co. in North Dallas for 2 1/2 years), ran a users group, BBS, newsletter, and ONE computer faire for a long defunct toy computer, and wrote some Basic language software for that computer and got a little fame with that. Published a few articles in an old magazine ,that I have come across on the net with somebody(s) else’s names attached (I HATE THIEVES!)….

Now designing webpages, doing computer repairs for friends, coworkers, and one furniture store in town, and having the time of my life on the world wide web. I have also helped my wife Annie jump into the confusing world of GENEOLOGY ONLINE. We use Family Tree Maker Deluxe III and between her skill, my dad’s work, and many NEW friends we have increased our family tree by hundreds of new members we never knew about.

CUSTOM VEHICLES-

Vans, trucks, radical bodywork, motorcycles, imagineering new stuff to old vehicles. I had an old 1974 Ford van back in 1978, that I began to play with by rebuilding interior parts for it after I got it.

van pic

Little did I know how bad a bug I would get and join the custom van craze of the late ’70’s/early ’80’s. That little van (actually large, 302ci, dual exhausts with chrome sidepipes, two sunroofs, flares, spoilers, 50 series tires, metallic paint job with candies, pearls, fades, stripes (no mural!), and a fiberglass hood with a low but wide scoop) became my first work of art, and showing it at van shows, van-ins, and three Dallas Autorama car shows got me one 2nd place (1st show) and six 1st place trophies, including a BEST MID FORD in TEXAS at the Houston Van-in in 1980.

I also just happened to be working at Roadrunner Vans in Dallas while going to college, and the interior was simply amazing with woodwork, button-tucked walls, sofas, cabinetry, consoles, and ‘The Snack Tray From Hell’. More pictures will be posted later as I dig them out and get them scanned in. Also did some bodywork for others including an extended 6-wheeled chevy van, a swb Ford with gullwing doors front and side, chopped tops, shaved handles, and one chopped, channeled, and sectioned long wheelbase 79 Ford van. Have also worked on many pickups, some cars (not nearly as radical), a few boats, and one airplane.

Last project was a 72 dodge D100 with slant six 225ci, 3 speed on the floor, and lots of little things to fix, with a 73 D100 with 318/auto as a parts truck….. Lots of possibilities, little time to play right now. I now have a 1975Jeep Cherokee 4wd, just waiting to get rebuilt into a fun machine.

And the family car…a Hot Rod Lincoln. It’s a 1992 Lincoln Towncar LS…purchased a in 2003 for $1200…with a book value then of $5600…. Absolutely superb condition when I got it. A friend who was going to trade it in sold it to us for the same price that a car dealership offered him in tradein value, helping us in a time of car repair issues….the nicest thing ANYONE has done for us in years. Just made two trips from Riverton, to Salt Lake City in a week…and have never had a more comfortable car for Road Trips….pix soon.

FISHING-

bass, fly-fishing, fly-tying, small water fishing.- As above, I spent a LOT of time fishing as a teen, fishing creeks, farm ponds, small lakes, larger streams, and later in jr. high and high school I spent every weekend in Cedar Creek Lake ,Texas. While fishing the whole 50,000 acres for black bass, sandbass (also known as white bass, but when they schooled and several acres of surface over sunken sand bars erupted in a feeding frenzy, well, you know….), and loads of crappie and catfish…..I think this ranks as my favorite part of growing up.

I got into flyfishing and making my own fishing lures and flies…I collected materials from every where for special flies…in fact, my favorite teacher in High School bought all the salt water flies I could make for him, and he used them when he wasn’t scuba diving in the Gulf and Cozumel, Mexico.

This summer of 2005, is going to be the ultimate…fly fishing in the Firehole and Madison Rivers in Yellowstone National Park…My dream for almost THIRTY years…and it’s gonna be a blast!

READING-

Clancy, Streiber, Cayce, Heinlein, Johnstone, Redfield, Angiers are some of my favorite authors– I have always enjoyed reading, and the past few years have built up an incredible library by shopping used book stores and thrift stores often and selectively. My best find was several leather bound books from the Harvard Classic series of classic literature for 50 cents each. Titles such as Homer, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, and Burke. I LOVE finding special books…its like bird hunting used to be, only I’m not standing in mud freezing to death.

BOOK COLLECTING-

How-to, history, science, technology, self-reliance, fringe science(ufo,etc.)– see above

PREPAREDNESS TRAINING

–study, learn, and practice emergency response to many possible scenarios–This is an area that means alot to me. I am outside every day from morning to dusk, watching the weather change, the seasons pass, and sometimes coming upon frightening accidents. In just the past 5 years my family has had to deal with two tornadoes near the house, one blizzard that trapped us in the house for 5 days without power and no way to go anywhere (1993, Alabama, 25 inches!), two Hurricanes -Danny last year (some flooding) and Opal in 1995 (blew an 80 foot Hickory tree over..by the ROOTS…missed falling directly on the house by 8 feet), and one lightning strike on the house while we were gathered inside 20 feet from the bolt during a severe storm (2 foot hole in the roofing and plywood!)

ADDED July 25, 1998

On April 8th of this year, My family and I were witness to one of the DEADLIEST tornadoes to ever strike Alabama. An F5 twister with 200 mph + winds hit just north of us by a couple of miles. My wifes aunt and uncle lost almost everything they owned, including almost losing their daughter Sherry, when the storm hit at 8pm. I have a full report with all the information, radar images, damage photos, and tornado sutvival information at this address http://survivalring.org/twister98.htm PLEASE read it and be aware the next time the sky darkens near you.

On my job as a letter carrier, I have seen several car accidents happen in front of me or at an intersection near me. SCARIEST accident….in 1996, 2 days before christmas a full size gmc truck ran a stop sign, t-boning a passing suburban, catching the rear corner of the vehicle. The suburban spun to the left, the rear glass and presents spewing out as if in slow motion, and as it went perpindicular to its line of travel it started to roll over on the passenger side, flipping twice before coming to rest on the drivers side of the vehicle.

My problem….it stopped less then 30 feet from me as I had just finished delivering mail on a short side street. After realizing I wasn’t going to get hit, I sprinted to the vehicle and was at the windshield seconds after the vehicle stopped. The driver was an elderly lady in her 70’s, fortunately wearing a seatbelt with shoulder strap attached. She was very shaken but appeared unhurt…no cuts or obvious broken bones. A motorist directly behind the accident went in thru the broken rear window as I realized I couldn’t climb on top to get in to help her…he saw the opening before I got around to look.

In mere moments, a crowd of dozens of people had gathered immediately around the vehicle. The fire department was literally three blocks away and got there with 2 minutes. After the lady was immobilized by the other helper before the fire dept got there, I turned and started getting the crowd back. A few helped gather items (presents, broken parts, etc) and place them on the curb, in front of a fellow postal worker’s home.

What irritated me, and made me even more interested in studying preparedness and emergency service, was that some people in that crowd, the GAWKERS, actually seemed perturbed that I, a lowly federal employee, was trying to HELP someone else, and THEY were in the way of that help, standing exactly where a fire truck, rescue truck, and ambulance would be in EXACTLY one minute.

MY comments to everyone reading this……it could have been YOU or YOUR LOVED ONE……think that next time you see an accident happen right in front of you…..either HELP or GET OUT OF THE WAY.

WEATHER BUFF

–I collect books & videos on Tornados and other natural phenomena-I love TLC!(if you read some of the above you’ll know why!) And, as of Spring of 2004, I’m officially a CERTIFIED Storm Spotter. In June of 2005, I also got CERT training.

EARTH CHANGES

-geological changes, weather systems, internal and external forces– My interests in science and physics, astronomy and weather, geology and history–all come together here. Anything on the earth, be it lakes, streams, rivers, flood plains, mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, wind and water erosion, will affect and change the landscape all around us…..always has, always will.

Throw in a few uncertainties like the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the 21 comet fragments that plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter in 1994 (substitute “earth 1999″), the giant meteor explosion in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 that flattened hundreds of square miles of old growth forests and killed untold numbers of wild animals, or locally the May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens volcano, killing dozens of people, or even the 1994 Northridge Earthquake killing over 60 people.

Take Kobe, Japan’s recent earthquake. Japan has some of the best earthquake damage prevention architecture in the world. Yet over 5000 people died as a result of this earthquake. Most recently, just 3 days ago as I write this (Oct. 26, 1997), in my current home state of Alabama, a 4.9 earthquake hit the southern part of the state at 3:30am. 6 1/2 hours later, in a town rocked hardest by the quake (actually very little damage) a line of thunderstorms caused a tornado that did some residential damage. Only in America!

If one pays attention to what HAS happened in one’s location before, one can ASSUME that those things or events will REPEAT themselves in the same place over a period of time. KNOW what MIGHT happen to YOU where you LIVE, so you’ll be able to learn some stratagies to deal with the damage as best as possible.

PROPHECY

-I’ve studied quite a bit here, using Edgar Cayces info, John Hogue’s books, some Nostradamus, with several dozen books by many authors…best collection so far is J.R. Jochmans “Rolling Thunder” (ARE Press) (will add a list of planned stuff for the near future is anyone is interested. I also collect all information from church records (my church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and reports on preparedness and any prophecy that pertains to that.

ELECTRONICS

-computers(obviously), stereo, control panels, small projects (see Computers and Vehicles above for details)

RADIO-

police scanners, shortwave radios, talk radio shows-Chuck Harder, Bo Gritz, Art Bell– jeez, I used to spend 4-8 hours a day listening to talk radio on weekdays…..only occasionally Limbaugh or Liddy. A little am/fm pocket radio as I deliver mail keeps me up to date on the latest political faux-paus of Clinton, congress, the latest terrorist activity, the ‘Conspiracy O’ the Day, or Chucks interviews with interesting book authors…its not always good, but its never dull, and I’ve actually learned quite a lot in the past few years how government REALLY works, or more specifically, DOESN’T work.