There is one situation I know of where I failed to listen and needed to be smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four. "Listen! He already told you how many rolls of Co-Flex that you need!"

Other times I don't know what is going on. I have not been secretive about my mental health. Though I have not spewed every detail; I had revealed, more than once, what I believe is need-to-know information. I've struggled with anxiety since I was in high school. It started out small; now, almost twenty years later, I can't be in a car for more than a few miles without being medicated and somehow I'm able to drive more than ten miles to the nearest college to take an EMT class, volunteer in an ER and volunteer for SAR? Was there something that I failed to mention?

I mentioned that the EDC bag I have on me at all times is close to what I built when I lived in Dallas which is essentially a 24 Hour urban survival kit. I went into more details before.

I recognized I may need something more than my 24 Hour urban survival kit. I considered a premade kit since this is new territory for me. This forum, as a whole, has told me to build a kit that fits my situation. That is certainly very specific. After a lot of research into this subject, I considered what I referred to as a "starter kit" and wanted to build from there.

I received positive feedback such as get a baseplate compass in addition to the button compass that comes with the PSP. From previous research, the Suunto A-10 seems to be an affordable compass that should work for me.

I have mentioned that with my EDC bag (24 Hour urban survival kit) being the exception, I've had bad experiences with attempting to build something from the ground up. I take part of that back. I accepted a challenge and succeed in building a working Pentium Pro computer out of junk. Geeks know how to live life on the edge. Those exceptions aside, somehow I'm able to walk blindfolded down the aisle of an outdoor store, grabbing items randomly, and build a better "starter kit" than what GATA is selling?

I can get a VCR to record a radio broadcast but when it comes to building a survival kit from the ground up that goes beyond my experience, I don't know what I'm doing. Could someone please tell me, in which area have I failed to communicate?

Jeanette Isabelle
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I'm not sure whose twisted idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded schools run by people whose dreams were crushed years ago, but I admire the sadism. -- Wednesday Adams, Wednesday