|
Rafleet's The Blast Shelter - Home Page, Shelter, Safety, Hazard Maps,
Books, Skills, Survival, Preparedness, and More
|
|
Welcome to The Blast Shelter!
Site Additions... May 29th, 2001
Another little update of the huge Blast Shelter/SurvivalRing empire is here...
A lot has happened since my last update of this main page of The Blast Shelter. On April 24th, 2001, just over a month ago, my life and family and world came to a standstill. I lost my job, my home, and entered the world of "the homeless"...due to a "friend" with whom I'd invested my life savings with in a business opportunity delivering campers and rvs across country with...(see the last update below for more detail), and who decided that it just wouldn't work, and shut the whole thing down, after I had put $14,000 of my postal retirement into the venture, with no chance of financial recovery ( his RV park is $300,000 in debt, and I'd never recover anything anyway...but at least I'm not losing any more).
It has been incredibly difficult here...we have everything in storage, except for a few clothes, the computer, and some books and small things. We have (my wife and three teens) been spending the past 5 weeks in a one room, 3 bed motel room, paid thru the 1st of June. Thanks to the support of my church, we will have a small 2 bedroom apartment to move into on June 1st, and with my new job ( please, don't laugh, it is ALL I could find in this small 7000 person town) at McDonalds as a Crew Person with very good possibility of starting management training in a few weeks, we are starting completely over in this world, in a strange town, with just a few friends, a lot of dreams to rebuild, and a lot of hope to recover.
I never thought I would be in this position, but now that I am here, I know I will never be here again, and I also know that my family staying together and working together in the extreme tough times means more than anything. I hope you will say a few prayers for me, and continue your support of my web projects in the future.
Speaking of which, check out the very latest at
http://www.survivalring.org
including the incredible amount of information in CIVIL DEFENSE NOW. Visit it, spend time there...and share the URL and web address with EVERYONE who might find it useful. More to come as we put our home back together in our new place in the next month.
If you can offer any help or support of any kind at this time, it would be much appreciated in this low point in our little world. Thanks, to all of you, for your past interest in all my little rantings and ravings in these pages, and please, share your thoughts with us, thru the email lists, the guestbook, or emails to me. Just a few words will make my day.
Your friend in the beautiful state of Wyoming,
Richard
|
|
Site Update...March 27, 2001
By Richard Fleetwood (rafleet)
Hi again, from the highlands and mountains of Central Wyoming, as the state motto says, "Like No Place On Earth".
It has been quite a while since the last update, and I do apologize. The best laid plans sometimes don't work out, even when you are trying your hardest. It doesn't help when little things like web hosts, web service providers, and other online companies buy and sell each other, change service from free to paid, alter web addresses for site extras (like webrings, guestbook, and other site enhancement items) and YOU don't find out about it till weeks or months later after you've been on the road and offline for a virtual eternity.
The change from federal employee (Postal Letter Carrier of ten years) to self employed entrepreneur (hot shot over the road truck driver-coast to coast) has been tough, fraught with peril and danger, but full of unexpected excitement and unimaginable beauty and incredible sites and scenery, and I think, well worth the tough times.
Changes right now, that need fixing, are setting up again of the civil defense download library. Seems that XOOM sold out NBCi, and in so doing screwed up web addresses that used SUB-directories, which the new system can't handle. 40+ meg of files will be uploaded to replace what was lost in the changeover, and another 40-100 meg of new stuff will go online with it, since XOOM/NBCi allow 500 megs of storage, with 11 meg maximum download filesize, which I can definitely work with. Also, Yahoo bought out webring last year, and the ring management functions have been profoundly screwed up, and I have a solution coming up to fix that as well. Other items include removing items from both sites that I can no longer stay caught up with because of being on the road weeks at a time. All will add to increased usability, enhanced site navigation, and faster download times.
What have I accomplished OFFLINE in the past 6 months or so that has anything to do with this website and upcoming additions, information, and learning material for YOU, the Blast Shelter/SurvivalRing visitor/supporter?
Well, let us start with the basics. I now have an HP Laptop computer to take with me on the road. It has taken a couple of months, setting up new and better software, recovering files from my OLD computer (486SX2 50mh), teaching myself some new tricks (dhtml, javascript, audio encoding, graphics design upgrades, SSI, and a few other things), getting new software (PhotoShop, Realproducer for realaudio production, various web design and production tools, and more), gathering more background material (nuclear safety, cold war history, self reliance data, and so on), more hardware (another power system for my wife, with 30 gig of harddrive space, 128 of ram, and finally a CD ROM burner), and other similar things.
What do these things let me do, for you? Create better and much more interesting presentation of content, using state of the art tools; offer REAL multimedia experience in sharing information, stories, and facts; create CD ROMS of my original work, scanned in ORIGINAL public domain goverment civil defense and preparedness material, and other like things; and, of course, increase everyones preparedness quotient by having great material all in one place.
Other things I have had to deal with in the past half year have direct bearing on SURVIVAL and PREPAREDNESS. In switching careers and moving cross country, my family gave up a LOT of things we were comfortable with, changed our lifestyles, and live a much simpler, and decidedly much more frugal, life. I also have had to put into REAL practice both theoretical and long unused (not for lack of want) skills to simply stay safe and alive while driving the equivalant of almost 2 and a half trips around the world in this new job. Horrible storms, unheard of road conditions, the worlds worst drivers in the nations biggest cities, errant wildlife, and truck breakdowns in the literal middle of nowhere (how about the middle of the Mojave Desert for fun?)
Some of my stories are written ( ready to put online ). Others are floating around in my head waiting for a little bit of quiet time to get them typed in. Some are wonderfully exciting, with personal thoughts of the majestic grandeur of the landscape of this nation's most well known, and least known, places. Others are horrifyingly fearsome, with details of honest to God life and death experiences of the past year. I promise you all that they are worth a few minutes of your time to read and ponder. As with anything I put on my sites of a personal nature, I put them there for YOU to think about, and to wonder yourself, "what would *I* do in a situation like this?".
Most things I have needed to do to get caught up after this move, and so much time on the road, are done. Some, like creating a full blown self sufficient RV out of a 40 foot 1995 flat nosed Blue Bird School Bus which we now own, still need to be done (this project to be FULLY documented for all of you, and trust me, I know what I'm doing here....I put myself thru college doing this for a living). Many other real world projects are in work, and all have something to do with skill building, self sufficiency, and confident readiness for the future. I will share all with you.
A word here on DIRECTION, before I close this update to you, my friends all over the world. From the beginning, this site and SurvivalRing have been about BEING PREPARED. If you are familiar with me, my sites, and my goals already, you KNOW that I don't cover just a few simple survival areas. I consider EVERYTHING, from natural disasters, to nuclear war, from terrorism, to household accidents, from catastrophic planetary annihilation via comets and asteroids, to falling off your chair and breaking your arm. ALL these threats, and more, are out there, and as one of Rush Limbaugh's little satirical commercials says, "It Could Happen!". Whether it WILL happen, or not, ANY of these threats, remains to be seen. Preparedness for ANY of these, is in essence, preparedness for ALL of these and more.
Take preparedness seriously. Always. Never let your guard down in good times or bad. Lives change, and end, in the blink of an eye, or in a fraction of a heartbeat. My goal is to help YOU be ready, or avoid being there in the first place when it hits the fan.
Stay Tuned. The world is changing everyday, and this website is going to help you stay ahead. Site updates will happen at every opportunity, and this quest of mine to save the world, one person at a time, will continue....NO MATTER WHAT.
Your friend and Brother in Preparedness,
Richard Fleetwood
Founder - The Blast Shelter, and SurvivalRing
|
|
-
NEW! Happy Holidays to all visitors from
the Fleetwood family. Jump over to our
Greetings page for
a short message from all of us!! Good for ANY season!
-
NEW! With so much responce to me regarding
SurvivalRing, media need for Y2k contacts, and people wanting to help, I've
created a new page
Y2k Media Help.
Editors from TIME, NEWSWEEK, LIFE Magazine, and TV shows and news reporters
have made contact in places all over the country, with help from
my contacts and friends. The goal? To help spread the "IDEA" of being PREPARED
for ANYTHING, not just Y2k. Will you help? Includes a LISTBOT mailing list
also.
-
UPDATED! I have fixed the
LDS Prophecy and
Preparedness pages, which have had some color clash problems making their
reading very difficult. They should be nice and clean and easy to read now,
and I also added some linkage between all the pages for reading enjoyment.
Comments are welcome, and a couple of new files will be added
shortly.
-
Stay informed!
The one and only BLAST SHELTER email
discussion list. This is a new way for all visitors to the
site to discuss questions, thoughts, ideas, suggestions, or concerns about
this website, its topics, and its message to the world. Once you subscribe
to the list after filling out a small questionaire, all messages sent
to the email address
theblastshelter@listbot.com
will be forwarded to you. I subscribe to MANY other mailing lists and
news services, and when really juicy stuff comes thru, I will forward it to
this list to be dispersed to those interested soles who wish to stay
on top of things in this way. Sign up right
here....
-
-
-
Be Alert!
An article about the
April 1998 Tornado
disaster in Birmingham, Alabama on 4/8/98, of which I was more then just
a spectator. Graphics, photos, info, and survival information may be
found here.
-
Information about an exciting new addition to The Blast
Shelter website - The nation and the worlds FINEST collection of U.S. Civil
Defense information. Its coming, and boy will it be a doozy...and a
NEW webring!
-
How to contact me if I'm online and you'd like to chat,
here's a novel, and quite useful way to do it.
-
My webring called
SurvivalRing--the
ORIGINAL webring for Survival and Preparedness issues. The worlds LARGEST
preparedness webring, with over 730 member
sites and growing bigger everyday!
-
Hot-Links to all my pages that presently exist on this
site, a short description, its status, and the current number of visitors
each page has had to date.
-
Links to my family's webpages, either current or
planned.
-
FUTURE PAGES I hope to put online someday
soon.
-
My STANDARD disclaimer that applies to ALL pages found
at this web site.
|
|
The Alabama April '98
Tornadoes |
Please take a few minutes and read this article
about the April 1998 Tornado disaster in Birmingham, Alabama on 4/8/98, of
which I was more than just a spectator. Tornado season is here again,
and graphics, photos, info, and survival information may be found at the
Alabama April
'98 Tornados - A Personal Report page. This terrible tragedy happened
just a few miles north of my home, and even involved some members of my family.
Read all the latest available info about the disaster, see what kind of damage
an F-5 tornado can do to a neighborhood, and see what you might be able
to do to help the survivors of this deadly storm.
U.S. Civil Defense - "The
Collection" |
COMING SOON!
Information about an exciting new addition to The Blast
Shelter website - The nation and the worlds FINEST collection of U.S. Civil
Defense information. I will be adding an ENTIRELY new section, including
a NEW webring called the "USA Civil Defense Webring". I have dozens
of files , including charts, graphics, and reports and articles, both small
and large, from 2 pages to 50 pages, from the 1950's to the 1990's, covering
EVERY aspect of CIVIL DEFENSE....all OFFICIAL, non-secret, classic and recent
, including a WEALTH of training information. If you have an interest
in REAL PREPAREDNESS, and MAKING A DIFFERANCE to your country, you will LOVE
this new and truly unique area. I will notify you by way of THE BLAST
SHELTER online newsletter and mailing list, when it comes online. PLEASE
go to the NEWSLETTER/MESSAGE base page section below, jump to that page,
and SUBSCRIBE to the newsletter there.
ALSO, if you have actual, ORIGINAL Civil Defense information in
the form of REPORTS, BROCHURES, BOOKS, TRAINING MATERIAL, or files, PLEASE
HELP me by LOANING or DONATING them to this website for posting onto this
new page. Please contact me for info on what I have, what you may have
to donate, or how to send items to me. My GREATEST THANKS to JOHN TALBOT
of TEXAS for the loan of a portion of his WONDERFUL library of information,
much of which will be posted in this new section. I am also interesting
in obtaining actual CIVIL DEFENSE hardware and other memoriabilia.
Contact me at rafleet@aol.com
if you have either of the above to offer to this project.
More to come later....stay
tuned
Lots of folks like chatting online, and while I enjoy helping others,
or just relaxing online sometimes with friends, I just don't have the
time right now to hand in chat rooms like I used to. I still spend quite
a bit of time online, and if you wanna chat for a few minutes,
the best way that you can reach me is thru AOL's Instant Messanger program.
This is the most comfortable way for me to be available currently and
is the easiest to use for anybody. You can download it directly from
AOL's main website at www.aol.com.
After setting it up, just add my email address , rafleet, to your buddy
list and you can activate it quickly and see when I'm online and available.
This will work with anyone, not just AOL users, so give it a shot.
IRC, Java, and webbased chats are ok, but right now, I prefer this
method. Give it a try if you want.
|
|
PLEASE HELP SUPPORT THE CONTINUED EFFORT AND COST OF
PRODUCING THE MATERIAL FOUND AT THIS WEBSITE. PLEASE VISIT "THE
BOOK BUNKER " FOR YOUR BOOK NEEDS.
We now have an online bookstore to sell books,
thru an association with that great online bookseller, AMAZON.COM. We will
be offering a full selection that will cover the same topics that you should
be interested in, since you found this website thru no easy effort.
We are starting off with a selection that includes
Underground Homes, earth-sheltered homes, emergency shelters, survival shelters,
and fallout shelters. We will follow these soon with
topics such as earth changes, emergency management, disaster preparedness
and management, and civil defense.
Future additions will include home schooling and
education, prophecy, communications, food storage and gardening, homesteading,
warrior skills, primitive skills, repair references for auto, home, small
engine, tools, some great fiction books that I can personally recommend,
homeopathy, herbs, archeology and geology, ancient history and mysteries,
medical reference, and much more. |
|
The Blast Board, Maillists, Newsletters
Visit the Blast Shelter
Email and Message Base
Page . It has 8 email lists
to subscribe to, as well as the new BLASTBOARD message Board. You can
receive the latest news as it becomes available via e-mail, or you can read
and post to the BLASTBOARD. The email lists each have a link to view the
archive of previous messages.
Add Your Site link! Fast, Free!
This is a GREAT new addition to this website, the
ADD YOUR LINK
page....A new message board that allows you to ENTER your VERY OWN Website
or webpage URL directly into the LIST of VISITORS "RECOMMENDED" webpages.
All entries to this page STAY on the list for following visitors to see and
DIRECTLY link to the websites from the page. Check it out, and add your URL
right away! You can enter as MANY URLS as you want, one at a time.
But PLEASE, keep'em clean!!!
Need Your Feedback!
Please visit our new
Blast Shelter Feedback
Page and fill out the SURVEY FORM. Give
us some feedback on what you like and don't like about The Blast Shelter
Website....Let us know what you REALLY like...or would like to see more of!!
It will only take a few minutes of your time to fill out, and will greatly
help us add features to this site that all will find enjoyable and
useful.
|
|
My web projects and links
Visit ALL My Pages from this
Table
Page Title and hot-link |
Description |
Updated |
Status |
| Underground
Shelter Online |
Current Big project/masterwork * |
01/23/98 |
In-work |
| The Blast Shelter
Links Page |
Now at 500 categorized links |
12/11/97 |
Ready |
| Build A Fallout
Shelter |
Info, pics, tip, facts, instructions * |
01/23/98 |
In-work |
| The SurvivalRing
Homepage |
Survival and Preparedness
WEBRING!! Pushing 700 members! |
03/20/99 |
Ready |
| U.S. Hazard
Maps |
Maps of tornado,attack,fallout,etc |
10/29/98 |
Ready |
| LDS (Mormon)
Prophecy |
8 full pages of reasons to prepare |
01/23/98 |
Ready |
| Rafleet's SEARCH
Page |
Search DIRECTLY from here! |
11/28/97 |
Ready |
| Rafleet's
PERSONAL page |
Learn More about Rafleet |
10/27/97 |
Ready |
| Sundancer Digi-Pros |
Webpage DESIGN, repairs,
tutoring,more |
01/23/98 |
Ready |
| Rafleet's MIDI Page |
My music and midi page |
11/03/97 |
Ready |
| Blast
Shelter Feedback Page |
Please take a moment to answer |
12/06/97 |
Ready |
| Newsletter and
Messages Page |
Subscribe to email list/post a msg. |
12/25/97 |
Ready |
| Read
My Guestbook entries |
See what others have to say about the this
site |
12/25/97 |
Ready |
| Add Your
Link Page |
Add any links for others to surf! |
01/23/98 |
 |
| Bio Toxins
- warnings/symptoms |
from U.S. Army Medical Research Institute
of Infectious Diseases |
01/23/98 |
|
| Fallout Shelter
PLANS |
DOWNLOAD actual plans directly
from this page! |
02/24/98 |
|
| The Book
Bunker |
Buy books on topics found at this site...help support our research!! |
01/23/98 |
|
* -- These TWO pages
are currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION, but already have LOTS of good, solid
information available to all. Please read them now, and check back often
for updates. I hope to COMPLETELY finish both of them within the next month
or two. These are both my babies, being written completely from scratch,
compared to other sites that often just regurgitate OTHER peoples work and
words.
|
|
My family's Planned Web Page
Projects
Annie's Geneology Project (soon)
Lauries "Dreams" page (soon)
Kenny's Scouting Page (soon)
Robert's 1st Homepage
Pages to be added
someday...by Rafleet (if I ever decide to give up
SLEEP!)
Man Powered Transportation Page-Bikes, boats, planes,
trains! (Now Accepting ideas you'd like to see)
Home Schooling and Unschooling Resource Page
(What our family does, links, suggestions)
Flea market sales and ideas (what works for
me, suggestions)
Useful Money making tips (my ideas, proven
concepts)
Custom Vans and Truck Projects and
pics (I used to do this for a LIVING!)
Rafleet's POSTAL Page - The CAREER, NOT the
GAME!!! (Info, Links, Clipart)
|
|
NOTE: Your Comments are very welcome regarding any site changes
and/or
additions. Ideas for new sections? Email
us! Best ideas are entered
into a contest to win prizes! |
|
You are the
 visitor
to this page since October 27, 1997 |
|
DISCLAIMER: All links within these
pages are provided strictly as a convenience to the visitors of these pages.
The Webmaster is not responsible
for any content on pages not found at this specific
site. Any responsibility
for the opinions, references, contentions, deletia, lapses of memory, or
changes to these pages are those of the
Webmaster , and not that of AOL,
the U.S. Postal Service, the federal government, any talk show radio hosts,
or small furry mammals, even including the Ecuadorean Long Haired Red Dwarf
Llamas found digging in the trash behind my house occasionally. Yes,
really.
THANKS: My thanks and
sincere appreciation go to the following for their sincere comments, thoughts,
and ideas about this webring website and how to make it better and even more
useful: My wife Annie and children Laurie, Robert and Kenny
for allowing me the time to spend on keeping it updated and growing
at LEAST once a day; Bruce Beach, for his vast experience and
simple yet useful ideas on communicating the theme even better: Randy
Stephens, for his wonderful work on the main SurvivalRing logo image
at the top of this page and others as well; all the folks who have
joined the SurvivalRing since its birth and have stayed with it and kept
it fresh and incredibly worthwhile to visitors; and YOU the
reader for taking the time to email your comments and spend so much
time traveling the ring and find those jewels of a site that make
the internet such a powerful tool for learning.
IF you are the originator of any art found here,
please notify me so that I may add your name, email, etc. to the
credits
page.
|
