Chenda's sober ramblings.

[chenda]

Christmas parties are a bit rubbish sober tbh. I don't miss the alcohol per se but did miss the feeling of been inebriated.

Nozecco mixed with orange juice makes a great 0% bucks fizz though. Very refreshing and makes the nozecco very drinkable.

[Seppia]

We have been successful in keeping our alcohol consumption low.

A bottle of wine lasts us 4-5 days usually, and we throw some away or use it for cooking after it’s been open for longer.
We have now gotten to the once-unbelievable stage where I drink less often than my wife. Overall I still drink more in quantity because she never has the occasional “big” night.

The coolest thing is that now a “big night” for me means half a bottle of wine. Those happen once every other month and that is fine by me.

I still have a couple (one or two) “really big night” per year though. Not proud of those, especially because I now feel them till dinner the next day.

[7Wannabe5]

A lot of social and entertainment events are "rubbish" for the sober. I've always noticed this as somebody who simply has very little inclination towards alcohol or marijuana consumption. Unfortunately, it's not considered acceptable to read a book when somebody drags you to a baseball game or their high school reunion. Luckily, I only tried coke once and it had no effect on me, otherwise quite likely that might have been my downfall given my average level of coffee and sugar consumption.

[chenda]

Good to hear @Seppia.

@7w5 - Yes the few times I have tried coke and ecstasy they didn't do much for me. Neither did marijuana. The only times I have got high is when I was drinking on anti-depressants.

[suomalainen]

I’ve been soberish (alcohol) for ~7 months. Tried a drink once and got an immediate headache. Not even a temptation any more.

I take thc gummies when I really need some sleep. The “buzz” and paranoia are generally unpleasant, but boy do I fall asleep quickly.

[chenda]

I've not heard of gummies before, I don't think there legal here.

In Peru you can legally buy sweets which have an extract from the cocaine plant which give you a nice buzz. I brought some back for my colleagues to try and the whole office spent the afternoon high as a kite. You're not really supposed to import them but the worse they would do at Heathrow is confiscate them. I wouldn't suggest bringing them anywhere in Asia.

[birding]

chenda I’m jumping in very late here. I read through your thread here awhile back and my memory is hazy. Anyhow, how goes it?

What I wanted to write previously is that I really relate to Christmas parties being lame with people imbibing all around.

I’m long away from the drink. More recently it seems like NA bevs have blown up and my curiosity factor led to a Guinness zero experiment two summers ago. Pretty tasty. I chose to not keep up with that, and have decided against it recently mainly due to cost. Multiples more expensive than coca-cola!

And a story: So I was at a Christmas party (3 months ago lol) with my GF’s family & now it’s apparently an option - “Oh you want a beer, would you like alcoholic or nonalcoholic?” I guess it was good in that context NA is becoming a bit more commonplace as an option to ‘blend in’. Though I’m betting this is the exception than norm and if I actually went to more parties heh, would opt to BYOBev.

[chenda]

chenda I’m jumping in very late here. I read through your thread here awhile back and my memory is hazy. Anyhow, how goes it?

Still sober Yes the issue with Christmas parties is its the one night of the year where people have a full on blow out and let off steam, which is hard to do sober. Although I suspect my tolerance level has now dropped back to 17 year old Chenda if I tried alcohol now. Guinness zero is a great choice.

[chenda]

I was quite unprepared for the Iberian power cut, despite power cuts not been uncommon in Portugal. Power went out at about 11:30 am and we lost 4G and phone networks shortly afterwards, so had no internet or any idea what was going on in the world. Most shops and eateries shut for want of card payments or natural light. A nearby corner shop stayed open for cash payments, but I didn't have much cash. Neither did we have any torches except our phones. Fortunately had bought some matches the previous day so we could light candles and the gas cooker, as the sparker thingamajig didn't work without power. We also had some battery charges for our phones. By nightfall we were genuinely worried there had been some catastrophic cyber attack across Europe and we planned to ration food and filled up a few canisters of water, in case that failed too (which it has in the past) Went for a walk in the evening and the streets were pitched black save for a few solar powered lights, it was quite eerie. The power returned about 12 hrs later but I made a useful list by candlelight of things which I should have in case it happens again. The stars looked great though.

[Ego]

The power returned about 12 hrs later but I made a useful list by candlelight as things which I should have in case it happens again.

Do share!

[jayritchie]

Do share!

Agreed! I've been pondering emergency planning!

[chenda]

Do share!

* Cash, preferably in small denominations to buy things. Card payments of course don't work without electricity.
* Battery chargers for phones. Even if the networks are down they are useful as torches or playing downloaded music (which is very nice to have)
* Candles, self standing ones in glasses or tealights.
* Matches, lots of them.
* Torches with spare or rechargeable batteries. Head torches are very useful.
* Bottled water
* Solar powered lights for external lighting or charging.
* Local maps. No GPS without power.
* Several days worth of tinned food. Freezed food won't last long in a prolonged power cut.
* Gas cooker

[jacob]

[...] filled up a few canisters of water, in case that failed too (which it has in the past)

This should be very near the top of the first things to do. Several days (or more) is the right answer(*). Sometimes city water is delivered by gravity (water towers) but usually it's based on pumps that rely on backup generators. I wouldn't count on humans stuck without their indoor smartphone entertainment to not think that a power outage would be a great time to obliviously use up the emergency system to water the garden, take a long shower, fill the pool, etc.

(*) Also consider how you're going to flush the toilet eventually or figure out alternatives.

I would also note that cash might not work. The muggles operating the registers won't necessarily know how to ring it up if the register no longer works. (This has been seen before.) Never overestimate the ability of the average human to improvise or add up numbers w/o electronic assistance.

[chenda]

This should be very near the top of the first things to do.

I already had several 5 litre bottles of water, otherwise yes I would have filled the bath or something. The guy in the corner shop had an old fashioned till so he could operate it. I suspect the tills in the supermarket require electricity even for cash payments. Notably the few cafes still serving bottled drinks (no draft available) and cold food wanted cash payment upfront. They soon run out of food, as holidaymakers probably had no alternative, and its a tourist town.

[suomalainen]

Mormons are generally pretty good about this. Everyone is supposed to have at least a three day supply of food/water, which is fairly simple to assemble and rotate through. Google for ideas. Beyond that, they also do month or more for extended emergency preparedness. This is tougher as many people don’t regularly eat the kinds of foods that will store w/o electricity for a month or more.

[ertyu]

A solar oven might be nice.
E-ink ereader w epubs: a little power goes a long way if screen not backlit

[IlliniDave]

I've been through extended power outages (i.e., 5-8 days) three times that I can recall (one due to a ice storm/blizzard combo, one due to a massive tornado outbreak, and one due to a 6" diameter birch tree that fell across a wire in a remote area during a widespread thunderstorm outbreak). Only the one inked to the tornadoes was widespread enough that phone and internet were disrupted. And that only lasted about 1-2 days as most services had backup generator power. Your list looks pretty good.

My collective takeaways:

-I keep an amount of canned food on hand. In general a person can go quite a long time without food so I don't make a special effort with that one.
-I keep a case or two of bottled water on hand when I'm at my summer hideout (well water, so no power means no running water). That's a convenience as I have a lake nearby and redundant options to boil/purify water.
-I keep my vehicle at least half full of fuel--gives me about 250 miles minimum bug out range plus a charging option for my phone.

Losing power up in the woods for a day or two or three is a fairly common occurrence. The worst part is losing a lot of perishable food from the fridge and freezer. My neighbor and I are looking generator options to smooth those over and keep the well pump we share powered.

I have a small LED "lantern" that's bright enough to read by that should give me about 1,000 hrs per set of batteries which is probably the single most useful "emergency" item I have. With it I keep a half dozen or so unread books around. Normally I find it best to just try not to fight nature, and just go to bed when it gets dark, but it's a nice option.

That's enough to keep me limping along through relatively localized/temporary outages. A long-term failure of an entire grid is not something I'm prepared to withstand.

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm in the Algarve for 5 weeks and we were here for the power outage too. We always have at least 20L of drinking water and a good supply of food that doesn't need to be cooked along with 2 charged battery banks for our phones while traveling.

The scariest part was the Portuguese power authority announcing it could take them 5-7 days to return power and normalize the grid, after Spain declared 6-10 hours.....then our internet cut out completely.

But we were asleep before it got fully dark, and power came back up at 10:30 PM local time, so it was a non-event.......but it could have been much worse if it did in fact take 4-6 days to restore. For DW and I the struggle was that we are cat sitting and don't know anyone around here.....having community/social capital is likely one of the more important things on the list of preparedness for these situations....along with some of the other stuff you listed.

[Jean]

@illinidave
You can still buy manual pumps. Ours is the same model that they put in nuclear submarines for emergeny maneuvrability.

[jacob]

@Jean - Swiss Navy surplus?