Goodness, I've been here for probably 6 years! I bought the "SAS Survival Flickbook" and Googled how to find supplies for my own PSK. I came across Doug's Altoids tin kit first, then the forum, and then after a while I started posting. Spent quite some time being thoroughly amused by an Italian fellow named "Bountyhunter" (does anyone else remember that guy?) and the rest is history.

Yeah, I remember him. It took me a little while to get used to him but once I did, I enjoyed his posts.Funny, for no appearant reason, he just crossed my mind a couple of days ago. Hope he's doing well.

Yeah, I miss bountyhunter, mamabear2, and a host of others that have left. I was excited to see Goatrider back. Christina, you should check him out. He's just outside the Twin Cities (Maple Grove, maybe?).

-Blast

Don't rightly remember the when and how. I do remember lurking here for several months before creating an account and my first post (reaction to 9-11 issues). I guess that I found this site while Googleing some time in 2000.

Somehow I have member #34 now, which is strange because there were a whole pile of posters here before me. The only thing I can think of is that when the forum was redone that a whole whack of people who had stale memberships were dropped.

I'm with Jim.

I started by seeing a kit very much like this http://www.survival.com/best.htm on one of the blog sites like http://www.instructables.com/ via a link from Digg.com I would imagine (that's the best I can do, but I *do* for sure recall seeing the saw blade attached to the kit like the above link.

So I was Googling personal survival kits and checking out military aviation ones and happened upon D.R.'s homemade kit.

Then the news was broadcasting their usual FUD (this time about avian flu) and so I decided to join the boards and join the discussion about long term supplies.

I was searching for fresh ideas for a PSK and this was what I found.

I think it was the survival kit reviews that got me here.

After watching "Alone in the Wilderness" for the 100th time, I decided to switch it up and watch the new DVD "Into the Wild". Well, I got all excited about survival again and hopped on the internet to look up some stuff. And there you guys were, waving at me from a top Google spot.

I had made a trip into the interior (the "bush") and found that there were a lot of things I could've done better if i had some basic equipment with me. Back then "basic equipment" to me meant a knife.

I started on my favourite website (Amazon.com) looking for survival knives and started looking at this with the complete kit in the handle. However, the reviews (this is why I shop at Amazon mostly) were sparse and I decided to look for 3rd party reviews (I was leaning towards a Coast Cutlery knife with a saw at the back of the blade).

I did a Google search and the ETS pages on knife selection came up high in the search results ranking.

The good advice and common sense hooked me after a few mins. The ETS forums are permanently open as a tab in my browser.

Nas.