Why : "It's The Thought That Counts"

When you give someone a present, it's just a way of showing them that you like them, or care for them.
-----But in modern holidays it's somewhat just making someone the happiest that they can possibly be by giving them exactly what they've always wanted, and now you pale in comparison to the actual gift.(gift giver= worth less than the actual gift)
-----But if you were to give a cheap gift that "said"(the same thing inexpensively) which is that you like the person, and care about them, and want them to stay around(as in a card that said it in words about how you like the person ; or something that was homemade). Then in that scenario you would have given a gift where it was the thought that had counted, and not the price tag.

Complete Wilderness Survival Supply List : For Camping (updated 4 times)

To survive for extended periods you may want triple redundancy of each one of the essentials, so that there is always a backup plan if something fails. You may also want to be prepared for all eventualities, and not take unneeded risks.

• Medical: Fungicide, antiseptic, antibiotic, duct tape as bandage(It stays on better than band aid and is just as sterile, and water proof). Use alcohol as a disinfectant, if needed.
  
• Indefinite Water supply: Find water along the way, and then use "Chlor Floc" developed by the military as a foolproof way to make fresh water cheaply out of any water source other than salt water. Or you could just boil the water, and use a coffee strainer to filter out contaminates. This is good when free wood is available. It's also possible to boil water by dropping fire heated rocks in water 1 at a time.
  
• Indefinite Light source: Get a "Solar Powered Folding Battery Charger" with a voltmeter feature and auto shut down function when fully charged. You can get this at a reputable online science catalog retailer. Look to This other posting of mine, for more info. Then put some freshly recharged nickel metal hydride batteries into a head lamp and a table lantern. Batteries won't work in extreme cold, so for that use wind up flashlights because they use capacitors(which can't freeze) instead of batteries. Or use a self made invention that is at this link.
  
• Indefinite Fire supply: A "ferrocerium, firesteel " and scraper(works the same way as flint but better)is the best way to start a fire and won't run out for 30 years at 1 fire/day. And bring a small tin to hold dry tinder in, or to make charred cloth in, because you need very combustible tinder with firesteel. And if you economize by relighting left over embers whenever you can in the mornings after a fire, the flint set could last a lifetime.(Specs) LATER ADDED: I just got my firesteel in the mail from Amazon.com. And it can set cotton on fire or lighter fluid, and also palm bark hairs. I plan on making some charred cloth or charred paper with an altoids tin and a hole poked in the top. The hole being there to let you know that it's done smoking, and is now char cloth. But only with great effort can you start fire with friction.
• Indefinitely sharp knife: Bring a small diamond embedded course grain sharpener, and fine grain polisher, all in 1.
• LATER ADDED: I just got a small (5in.x5in.) carbide(coarse grain) and ceramic (fine grain) knife sharpener for $5 @ Walmart, in the camping section. And it makes my previously dull knife sharper than a razor blade and sharp enough to cut thin layers of skin off of my fingers with hardly any pressure. And I'd estimate that it will keep knives sharp for me for maybe 50 years.
• Keep organized: I have all of my survival epuipment on one "keychain caribeener" that I bought at a dollar store. So I can easilly get the particular item off of the caribeener. It includes a small rechargable flashlight that uses a lithium ion battery, firesteel, knife sharpener, multi-tool, all on separate rings attached to the caribeener. This doesn't include big items like a good knife, or large lights, or a gps, or charcloth tin(may get a better tin that can attach to a ring).
  
• Food: Guide book on edible plants and animals of the area.
• Cooking equipment: Metal meal sized bowl(held by a handle over fire), and utensils collapsible water jug, cast iron portable grill, and cover to bake. I once made designs for a super camp stove (LATER ADDED:It's not useful enough to bother making, I'd now rather just have a mini coal burning BBQ. You can also make your own wood coals); An interesting novelty is a pop can alcohol burner (see link: "cool little stove") with dollar store, or homemade, alcohol. But old fashioned fire and wood coals in a dirt pit, work just fine out in the wild, for cooking.
  
• Perfect Clothes & Washing: Look to How stuff works(use this link), to see what they say about what to wear, and to do in the cold. To wash clothes with soap, use a water bucket, soap, and a clean plunger to agitate the conventionally washed clothes. Otherwise clean nonabsorbent material clothes with an alcohol soaked rag, over a sturdy platform/frame.
  
• Shelter: A good hammock with a mosquito net add-on. And a slanted aluminized heat reflective tarp over it, to be a radiant heat reflector for a fire that is on the other side of the hammock, for warmth at night, and to shield you from rain, but also has a rain catch to collect fresh water. Hammocks are above the ground to not conduct away your body heat as fast, but it helps to also have very warm clothes or a good sleeping bag in the hammock. But make sure that the hammock is made to be easily tied to a tree, either with straps that use the principle of friction around the trees to hold you up, or have a nail in the tree to stop the string from slipping, or a self tightening knot like a "snare knot",which is also easilly untied when done(called "breaking the knot"). This is the lightest weight shelter. But be sure to place your shoes upside down over 2 sticks in the ground to avoid scorpions getting into your shoes at night, when you get into your hammock.
  
• Knots: It's good to know how to tie knots for camping, look to "Youtube" under "Camping knots".It's good read up on most knots because you never know when they'll come in handy. The knots that will be used regularly are the snare knot, and a truckers knot and a falconer's knot for the tarp, half hitch(Useful in many ways, easilly remembered by"around and through"), anchor bend or the two half, constrictor knot(a variation of the clove hitch exept you make one of the free ends of rope go through one of the 2 half hitches that the clovehitch is comprized of), prussik knot(fot climbing), sheet bend(for tieing 2 ropes of differing diameter's together, clove hitch, tension/taughtline hitch, Bowline(one of the most useful, and easilly remembered by first making a bite in the rope, and then:"The rabbit goes out the hole, around the tree, and then back into the hole"). Feel free to improvise when making knots, and even to invent your own knots. And the clinch knot for fishing.
  
• LATER ADDED: I was recently notified of hammocks being uncomfortable to sleep in, because of not being able to roll over and also sparks may fly from the fire and catch you on fire, and also smoke can get in the hammock. But in reality when the fire is burned down into red coals there isn't smoke or sparks, and it only gets safer as you sleep, so I doubt that those are very big problems, and to fix them just sleep further from the fire and tie the hammock lower to the ground. Also some people don't mind sleeping in one place, and the best hammocks are impossible to fall out of because they wrap around you, so you are still able to roll over during sleep. Or just put heated up rocks in the hammock instead of being close to the fire, or be in tent and have a hanging alcohol candle holder on a hook on the top of the tent. And really warm clothes may be needed to equal the warmth of a well made sleeping bag if you don't have a fire. Also you need to tend to the fire at night, which gets easier with bigger fires because they last longer and give more heat from further away. And the smoke rises faster to not get into the hammock. See: Hammocks on Wiki.
  
• Transportation: A van can act as a warm shelter for inclement weather. Have a paddle boat on top of van for water excursions.
  
• Safety equipment: Gun: AR-15(Or try: Survival weapon), or a .357 magnum revolver, weather radio, sattelite cell phone, GPS, LED headlamp, (Charge it's batteries with solar powered battery charger : Look to this for a good place to buy one).You can make your own bow also for spear fishing. Epinephrine can be used to save you from anaphylactic shock by acting as artificial adrenalin.
  
• Tools: Twine/rope, or tree roots, your shoelaces should be able to double as cordage. Sewing kit, Multi tool (w/scissors, knife, tweezer, pliers, needle pick, screw drivers, file, magnifying glass and light, find for sale at the store "Ross"). Also bring manuals on edible foods and medical techniques. And always bring a good, all purpose, sharp knife along with sharpening tools. Foil is good for making standing structures to collect water, or anything else. And bring a supply of small chlorine tablets(AKA: "Chlor. Floc.")/and a water jug(to fill up with water as you go, so that you don't carry too much). May get a crank or solar powered power supply/lamp, that can charge a cell phone in a pinch, or other things too.
  
• Ultimate Navigation: GPS military grade for durability, and is rechargable, See: consumer reports ; Or make a map as you travel by the time of travel/and direction/and landmarks/in a field notepad. For being rescued, leave a line of rocks, or personal items, or spray paint, to indicate your direction of travel to others. To find true north, point the hour hand of your watch at the sun and half way between that and 12:00 is south(if you're in the northern hemisphere).
  
• Entertainment: Camera, video games, music, E-Books on a PDA. LATER ADDED: I recently tried putting Roms of games onto my Games'n'Music cart for the DS. But the games and music device isn't reliable because the micro SD card malfunctions, and now won't work properly. So the best way to have games and comics and videos in a tiny device is with just a conventional PDA or Iphone, or laptop, because PDA's are being replaced by cell phones w/ screens. And to have infinite free comics you should buy one by one or in bulk at a comic sale, and then sell in bulk on ebay(so that you get the most profit from low shipping costs to buyers) after you have scanned their pages and put them onto portable media. To have a complete collection to read anywhere in compact form. But this requires too much effort to be worth doing.
  
• Personal Hygiene: Either use TP or do the arm rub test on different types of leaves to choose one that doesn't create rash. It is possible to use homemade alcohol/lemon scented soaked rag that doubles as shower and clothes washer : This is in essence the same as a "Wet nap" or "Wet wipe" or "Moist towelette"(Put the clothes on a frame and then scrub them with the homemade "Handiwipe"rag).The alcohol rag is also self cleaning, because of it being antibacterial, and a solvent. Or just use the regular warm soapy water and rag for showering. And reserve the alcohol for your water proof material clothing cleaning, or medical disinfection. But for conventionally washed clothing use a bucket, and soapy water, and a clean plunger for agitation. Also bring: razor, comb, shampoo, and toothpaste.
  

Also, it's good to learn to make things out of nothing. You can make an ax or wedge or a knife out of certain types of glass like stones, called "flint knapping" (paleontologists say that we evolved our hands by doing that). Or you can make rope out of the roots of small trees, or nettle stems skin. Or make a hammer out of a log or a stone. Or tent pegs out of sticks cut to shape. Or you can make an oven out of the ground, and hot rocks, and leaves(or soil) on top. Or boil water with hot rocks added to the water(It's good to drink hot water in extremely cold weather). And make bug repellent out of wood ash or just dirt/mud.
But in the end if you ever actually feel like you are ruffing it, then that just means that you're doing things wrong. When camping or hiking or surviving, it is a choice to be cold, or wet or uncomfortable at all, because with knowledge you can avoid all of that out in the wilderness anywhere.
Research:"Bush craft" on youtube. Or research: "SERE training" on youtube.
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LATER ADDED: The absolute essentials: Knife/sharpener,firesteel, good cordage for shoelaces, appropriate clothing that is water resistant, knowledge of edible plants and animals, alcohol, duct tape, metal water container,wrist watch.
With those few items, and some knowledge, you can make: Fire, potable water, food(and it's preservation by smoking it), tools, shelter, navigation, weapon, medical, and the same hygiene as most animals.
When surviving basic instinct should take over. It eat or be eaten. And you're only in it to survive and do anything to get there. This is a different mindset than just saying over and over again"I want to just go home please". In survival you should never think about family and friends because they are on the very bottom of your priorities of things to think about. And if you hear a noise in the woods this should never be scary if you have the survival mentality, and logic, and don't let emotional hangups about the city get in your way. The survival instinct should say to be prepared and follow the "please remember what's first rule". (P)rotection, (R)escue, (W)ater, (F)ood. Keeping busy is also a good trick to keeping up your moral.
Sometimes it's the greatest feeling to be in the middle of nowhere, with no way for anyone to ever be able to help you, just to test your own abilities and independece. But only if you're not scared of the actual universe.

The one thing that you will always be able to trust, and rely on 100% of the time, for the rest of eternity, is... the universe. Because it can never malfunction, or lie to you, or be incorrect like humans have the potential to be.

New Self-Built House Design : November,08,'07

----- This is my new simpler above ground rammed earth house design. You would make the rammed earth bricks out of subsoil and water and put the mud into a press which you use leverage to compact the sand/loam/clay mixture (test different mixtures for the best composition)
-----The solar panels can be the new nanotech printed kind now that it's available and it's bound to lower in price. The company name is "Nanosolar" go to www.nanosolar.com to be able to buy it through their integrator people in your area and is $00.30/watt instead of the $3/watt of conventional solar panels, or the $1/watt of coal power(from pg. 102 of "popular science December 2007")
-----The solar heating window is south facing and warms up the house during the day and is a highly insulating window. And you may cover the window in the summers.
-----The foundation may not be needed if the house doesn't settle much in the short term and the structure isn't heavy enough to crush you(only being a metal roof/thin solar cells, and the metal poles keep the walls from collapsing inward) . But for flooring you still need either stone or hardwood floors with a moisture barrier in between it and the ground to stop expansion/ contraction(stone slabs don't need a moisture barrier but you still don't want mold and mildew growing, so use liquid vinyl paint and plywood then a flooring style on top. If you don't just put in a cement foundation in the first place!
-----For the metal roof research "roof" on Wikipedia under "metal roof" for the best kind to buy. And for the underside of the metal roof you may use "spray foam" as insulation unless it is actually toxic which they may not be telling us. In which case use something lightweight with high insulating ability that you can stick to or stretch across the whole roof(i.e.wool blankets or packing material sheets bolted on).
-----Lighting: To light the house you may use the "EverLED tube" from "everled.com"or at "ledsupply.com" for $150 that looks just like a florescent tube but it lasts 5 times longer and uses 25% less energy and is nontoxic.
-----Power storage: Just get deep cycle lead acid batteries, or if it's practical at all you may use the new nanotech lithium-ion batteries from "a123systems.com" and get the developers pack for 130$ to store the power for the house at night. Or if you're really good you may even make your own electric vehicle with this. But since there is no place to charge up along the way, it's pointless to make an electric vehicle.
-----Trash: Have a 2 plastic bins that are in a slide out drawer under the counter. In one of the bins you put biodegradable material and add sawdust and water as needed. And in the other bin you put nonbiodegradable trash or recyclables.

Super Camp Stove

Have regular ceramic range top(which is tungsten covered with a ceramic to not oxidize) that is connected to a potentiometer ( or in other words variable resistor) and then you need a high flow rate battery such as a nanotube-lithium-ion battery(from"a123systems.com" if it works) or a supercapacitor. For the reason of being able to pump extremely large amounts of energy through the wire without over heating the power source, which is what would happen to a conventional battery.
And to charge the battery you need a reliable power source that will be sufficient to charge the battery on the worst day that the power source would have.
Power source options are:

• Solar- It works less on cloudy days but still works if you have a big enough panel or a full spectrum absorbtion panel(which may or may not be available some day- these were used on the Mars landers).
• Solar heated chimney with DC duct fan generator- Is just an invention of mine that is a black colored heat conductive pipe surrounded by glass to collect heat. And cold air comes in through the bottom of pipe and is heated as it rises with turns the blades of the fan to produce energy. And works on cloudy days and absorbs only heat rays.

Benefits of Super Camp Stove:

• You can produce you're own fuel for it and live indefinitely outdoors.
• It can work at any temperature by using the potentiometer and having a good kind of battery that doesn't overheat.
  
• It will never break.
• Is easy to clean.
• Is compact in size.