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The end of an era….
0Today. Friday November 16th, 2012 marks the end of an era. Today Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, announced they are closing for good. Its a sad day for the all night gamer. The guilty pleasure snack. Most importantly what the hell will we strive for in the Zombie Apocalypse?
All kidding aside about 20,000 people are about to lose their jobs. I had no idea the Hostess bakers were on strike. Its really a shame they couldn’t come to terms and now everyone is out. I know Hostess has been going down for awhile. They even closed the our local bread plant but I didn’t know it was this bad.
Maybe this is a good thing? Those “cakes” are just damn terrible for you. I always liked Ding Dongs more than Twinkies anyway. Those are gone too. I guess I should go snag a box and enjoy. Even if someone else picks up the brands and recipes we all know it just wont be the same.
Everyone enjoy your last one.
Can you make dinner if the power goes out?
0Can you make dinner if the power goes out? It’s a simple question that we all need to think about. I think the question is even more prevalent today with the arrival and devastation of Hurricane Sandy on the east coast. The last number I had seen was some 7 million people without power. Can those people make dinner?
I think “prepping” gets a bad reputation. It’s seen by a lot of people as crazy, paranoid or delusional. I’m sure there are plenty of preppers up and down the east coast and in the north east that are sitting ok even without power. I’m sure they have plenty of food and water for themselves and their family. Even if you have to evacuate to a shelter a bag of stuff you already had packed could really lessen the blow of a disaster.
A good place to start is http://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit. There are some good suggestions there to keep you basically prepared for a storm or any other event. One thing they do not cover is how to cook your food. I’m sure no one wants to eat cold food from a can. A grill or outdoor fire pit can be used. A small camp stove is also useful but can be expensive. If you are on a serious budget you can look at the Hobo Stove (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_stove)
I have recently been guilty of not being prepared. I have an electric stove and our power went out. I had some rice and chicken in a pot. Luckily it was to the point that the resonant heat was able to finish our dinner. The power was back about 45 minutes later but it really got me thinking about how I am not very prepared for a longer term event.
Staying Home?
My first suggestion would be to consolidate. We all have flashlights and candles around the house. Get them in one spot. An easily accessible tote or back pack in a closet will keep you from having to fumble in the dark. Remember to keep something in there to light those candles.
If you are like me you have a little one to worry about too and lets face it, most kids are electronic-centric now a days. My son was, of course, mid Sonic and Knuckles when the power cut. My son is also Autistic so it made the transition even harder on him. We had to pivot fairly quickly to something new. Board games are a good idea to have around. An inexpensive thing to have on hand would be some coloring books and crayons.
Being in the Midwest a huge storm can blow through in the form of a tornado or snow and ice. If the heat was out for any sort of time during the winter months I would have to find a place to hold up with the family until it all came back on. A lot of people do not have that option. If you live in a place that gets cold you may want to think about a propane heater. Even a small one with some blankets up to the door ways could mean a comfortable versus freezing night.
Evacuating?
In researching this a little further I found this website http://72hours.org/go_bag.html. This site can help you build your “Go Bag” in the event you have the leave your home for what could be an extended period of time. Some things they mention for an emergency bag would be a change of clothes, a warm hat and a list of emergency point of contact numbers. The list of numbers are a good idea because lets face it, most of our contacts are stored in a cell phone. If we are without a charger we are stuck.
I don’t want to give the impression that if everyone would have prepared in advance for Sandy that the result wouldn’t be similar. There is mass devastation and almost 100 people have lost their lives. I do think that we should at least get a lesson from this tragedy and prepare ourselves in case we are faced with a similar crisis situation.
Check out the links below for a lot more information.
Death Curve- The ghost of Julia Markham
1I thought in my 27 years living in this area I had been to every “paranormal” place in driving distance. After some Googling it turns out I was wrong.
I stumbled across the story of Julia Markham. Basically she killed her 8 kids, ranging from 5 months to 8 years of age, with an ax in the front yard. Then she set the house on fire and slit her own throat killing herself. There is a lot of speculation as to why she did it, from her husband getting sick to just loosing her mind. Every story is a little different.
The legend says that you can see a woman in white roaming the fields. It is said this is the ghost of Julia Markham. I had to check this out for myself. I packed the flashlight and the camera and set out on my trip.
Juila and the kids were supposedly buried at the nearby Rosedale Cemetery. Its about a mile from the site of the murder. I couldn’t find any of their graves but I did get some pictures of the cemetery.
It was just about dark and I wanted to see the site and get some pictures before the sun went down. In horror movie fashion I missed the turn that I needed to take and I had to go the long way around. I turned down a very winding and hilly road that was barely enough for one car to get down. I made my turn to get back on track and at the top of the hill before my intersection was a big black Labrador just sitting in the middle of the road. It scared the crap out of me to be honest. Maybe it was some omen to “not go that way” or something. Ignoring the obvious warning sign I pressed on.
I arrived at the site of the massacre. It is a very quiet road for being so close to town. I am only about 3 miles outside of Cambridge, IL. It was actually kind of creepy even in the day time.
The site of the former home is marked with the “A” on the map below
. 
I took some pictures of the site before the sun went down
Since it was still about a sold hour before I would have total darkness I decided to go grab some food and let it get nice and dark before I came back. I wont bore you with my McTrip but that new Daily Double they have isn’t bad at all.
Back at Death Curve in the dark. It is just as creepy quiet as it was in the day time but now its dark. I am sitting on my tailgate just waiting for Julia to come around. I shot some random pictures of the darkness but nothing came of them. Just a lot of darkness. I sat in the cold for about 45 minutes before I called it quits. I didn’t see anything. Not even a car.
All in all it was a pretty good trip. I didn’t see anything but I would love to go back when its not below freezing for a little longer investigation. Its a really creepy area and has a good back story.
You can read more about the story from the links below.
http://trueillinoishaunts.com/haunted-places/roads-and-bridges/cambridge-death-curve/
Welcome!
1Hello everyone and welcome to The Buzz! To those of you who are familiar with The Buzz welcome back and to the newcomers we extend an extra big WELCOME! My name is Smoothie and I will be one of the many contributors here on The Buzz. You may know me from my involvement in many of the other Howdy Inc. projects, specifically Howdy Radio. So I say again I say welcome to The Buzz and we hope you enjoy what we have to offer.
What is The Buzz? For those of you who may not be familiar, The Buzz is a presentation of Howdy Inc and a blog that covers many different topics. Some of topics you can expect to find covered on The Buzz are music, video games, and movies, to name a few. The Buzz started out a monthly e-zine and grew into the blog you see today. We here at The Buzz are always looking to keep things new, fresh, and cutting edge. If there is anything you would like to see covered feel free to contact any of the contributors by visiting the contact page.
Thank you for visiting The Buzz and we hope to see and hear from you soon.
Smoothie
The Buzz: Mobile
0Just a quick note, I’ve activated a plugin for the site that allows you to view a quicker and easier version of The Buzz on your iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Blackberry devices.
Also make sure you are following The Buzz via the Howdy Inc. Twitter Page. We’ll all be updating on that page when we do new posts on here.
Lastly, if you would like to come chat with the guys that run this site, visit the Howdy Inc. Forum. We also have a really nice mobile version of the Forum as well thanks to Tapatalk so make sure you check that out as well.
Welcome Back to The Buzz!
0The Buzz actually started a couple years ago as a bi-weekly ezine ran by the guys and girls of Howdy Inc. After just a few issues we called it quits and haven’t done anything with it again… until now.
Myself and a few more people from The Howdy Inc. Nation will now be running The Buzz as a normal good old fashioned blog site. We’ll be doing reviews of video games, movies, music and a whole lot more. Crazy rants, funny YouTube videos and whatever else we find on these fine internets that we think is interesting enough to post on our own site.
It should be good times had by one and all. Read our posts, leave us some comments, and tell all of your friends that The Buzz is back.
Also, As of right now I think we have about 5 people that will be writing posts on this site, but there is always room for more. If you are interested in being apart of The Buzz team, just shoot me an Email and I’ll get back to you.
Enjoy Howdy Inc.
Brandon