How my parents taught me to save electricity

When I was younger my parents down here in Aus stuck me in some military cadet thing where they taught me a manner of things but that's a different story. Why? They wanted to get rid of me for a week. Anyway every year they would dump us in the bush in the middle of spring or summer and if you live in Australia you would not want to live for seven days in the bush! We were given supplies like ration packs and water some crappy tents that had holes in the roof so if it was rainy and you were unlucky enough you would wake up drenched or in some cases the early stages of hypothermia. Now during this week there was no unnecessary tech meaning no phones no Gameboys etc. We had radios to receive orders and walkie-talkies to communicate and some night vision goggles to make sure no one was messing about after dark however. Sometimes if we were lucky we'd find the boy scouts we’d wait for them to leave then steal their nicely cooked food and drinks. Hey don't judge! we were given ration packs for seven days and the chocolates in those packs were filled with laxatives (laxatives make you go to the bathroom and empty your bowels if you don't know what they are). So a word of warning if you see a chocolate bar in a ration pack DO NOT EAT IT ALL AT ONCE! Experience comes from watching other people run to the closest makeshift toilet. We also didn’t shower for seven days so you can imagine how we smelt.

So anyway most of those seven days were patrolling, stalking people through the bush, watching kangaroos eat grass, teaching lessons to the younger kids of how to read maps, communicate by radio all that other stuff. If we were lucky we would be allowed to go on the nearby military base and fire guns. If we couldn’t go on the shooting range they let us go to their simulated shooting range which wasn’t as good as the real thing but still fun. So yeah that was basically 1 week of my school holidays when I was a teenager.

Now why am I telling you this 1. Because I have some free time for once. 2. I noticed so many teens stay locked up in their rooms so go get out there, go for a walk I don’t care how long the walk is could be to the kitchen and back JUST GET UP!. 3. Those camps practically stopped my dependence on unnecessary technology, I will admit I have a really good laptop a IPod and a PS3 most other household appliances I mean come on I’m not really going to have it there if I’m not going to use it I mean hell if I don’t want to watch TV or if I’m not playing PS3 I’ll unplug it saving me some electricity and money $$$. 4. I feel like talking and typing today it could be all that coffee I drank?

Anyhow if you could read it congrats you’ve won a complimentary imaginary high five. Oh and you also gained some self-esteem from reading don’t you feel proud of yourself!

I had a Pittsburgh dad. We learned to save electricity a different way.

God help me if I am lying, it is just like this, even the basement thing.

Ah when is was a cadet(army) they took us out on Schemes which usually allowed us the use of a range or someplace where we could play at war.....
As i had a little rank, it was always very entertaining and informative....(if you ever wanted to know how a bren gun came apart or a radio net gets set up....)
We ran amok after dark with compass marches and mock infiltrations etc....
The boy scouts we considered to be sissy boys.....though we never encountered any to rip off.....we ate the rations chocolate and all too......
My favourite was the 30 cal browning aircooled machine gun in cal 3006.............

reply to post by blueyezblkdragon


Lucky childhood. Did the same for my young ones. Eldest daughter was highest ranking CUO in the territory (16 at the time) and now CUO in NSW. Lots of travel and experience especially in the bush.

Has a ball and loves it for the time out. I can recommend it.

Bally. Happy Aust Day,

reply to post by blueyezblkdragon


Ahh that's just not fair, I wish my parents would have dumped me out in the bush for a week in the school holidays

Having said that, can I hang out with you when the SHTF?

So where do I enrol my kids in that kind of course? Is it only through the army cadets?

reply to post by bally001


I probably could've run into her. However it's unlikely seeing as I'd sort of dropped out quite a while back.
And as late as it is happy day after aus day. Just got back from a party.

reply to post by Cinrad


It's rather easy just look it up on google in your area. I'll try to give a link later.

P.S. Yeah you can join me when SHTF bring some beer too

I can do better than that, I can make beer out of just about anything that has starch in it about 5 different ways, old bread, rice, rye, wild grass seeds, cassava, jerusalem artichokes, chicory root. Flavoured with the right herbs (read weeds for most people) it doesn't taste too bad either.

reply to post by Cinrad


You win.