Welcome! Feb. 17, 2011

Thanks For Visiting!

I've had a ton of new readers today coming over from Modern Survival Online (thanks, Rourke)!  I thought I'd kind of give a quick introduction of my self and of If It Hits The Fan.

I live with my wonderful wife on a wooded two-acre spread in rural Central Virginia.  We're getting ready to start our second year of gardening, have chickens for neighbors, and occasionally have to defend the homestead from intruding skunks.

I've been practicing survivalism since I was a young suburban teen in the early 80's.  I read Mel Tappan, Dr. Bruce Clayton, Jerry Ahern, and every gun and survival magazine I could get my hands on.  I had what would now be called a BOB (Bug Out Bag) packed up under my bed with some food, a canteen of water, some purification tabs, a Ka-Bar knife, and a flashlight.  I also had my .30-30 Winchester and pistol-gripped Mossberg 500 12 gauge ready to go.

I served 6 years in the Marine Corps Reserve as an artilleryman.  Part of that time was Operation Desert Storm where I had my first true personal survival test.  In the buildup to Y2K, I was a true believer.  Several friends and I were truly ready for the breakdown.  I lived in a huge rented farmhouse on over 200 acres, and had enough food for over a year and enough weaponry to defend it.  I encouraged my family members to prepare, and some of them still have their Aladdin lamps and propane camp stoves.  Two friends and I even bought a 1-900 number and a developed a website called SimplifY2K.com.  Catchy name, good idea, horrible execution - we knew nothing of running a website (who did in 1998?) and I think we had like 2 calls on the 900 number.

For the past 23 years, I've worked in various capacities of law enforcement and security.  For the past 5 years, I've been the director of security and emergency management for a large urban school division.  In that role, I've become very involved in municipal emergency management and have been in the city's EOC (Emergency Operations Center) during several major storms and near disasters.  I've attended numerous disaster and emergency management courses, and am a Certified Emergency Management Assistant (one of only 40 in Virginia).  In addition to being prone to tropical storms, the city where I work is surrounded by three different nuclear facilities.  I've really developed a passion and skill for emergency planning and it is a major part of my professional and personal life.

I started this blog on an almost weekly basis in May of 2010.  January 1st, I committed to daily posts (I've missed one a month) and building it up.  My readership has drastically increased since I made that change.  I'm very humbled that folks take time out of their busy days to read what I have to say.  I don't take that for granted, and I strive to meet and exceed their expectations.

As a new visitor, please look around.  Check out some of the different topics.  I've written about gardening; guns; fishing; food storage; product, TV and even music reviews; and current events.  Use the search box on the right.  Please "like" us on Facebook in the upper right corner of this page.  Leave comments on the posts that interest you.  Shoot me an email here if you have a question or suggestion.

Thanks for checking me out.  As the balladeer from The Beverly Hillbillies used to say, "Y'all come back now, ya hear?"