Project: Pioneer is the live weekly reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. Half of all subscription/donation money goes to The National Alliance to End Homelessness, the other half pays for expenses. You can listen to the audio podcast version of this journal at Substack, Apple, Spotify, PocketCasts and others.

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Don’t despair—prepare.

Preparing requires a healthy dose of crystal ball visualization. We procrastinate, think we have time to do all the things to get ready, and then, one day, click. The lights, internet, GPS, cellular networks are off, and the apocalypse is on. Don’t fall for that idea you have “time” to prepare. Zero day attacks mean you have zero days to prepare. The time is nigh.

Pioneer Update

We’ve been offline for a bit, it’s been a hot minute and a very, very difficult time here in pioneer-land. We missed you! Giavana, Pia and I got word we could start moving into our phase two pioneer life small apartment earlier than expected. That means shifting our covered wagon White House RV to standby mode (rather than full time abode). We’ve been making that change through these last twelve days and of course, having to do it in the worst weather—snow, ice, sleet, heavy rain, strong winds. Thus, our incognito silence here on our journal. We’re back!

It’s been incredibly hard. We’re not spring chickens. This has been the kind of stuff that would have, once upon a time, had me raise my fist in anger and ask God why? Why me? Am I so bad to deserve this? As if the weather was all about me—the arrogance of that POV. When we’re stressed, we don’t think right.

Giavana and I soldiered forth through it all. We’re physically and mentally stronger because of it—that’s a blessing, not a curse. I’m writing this pioneer journal post from my “new” desk—an old and scarred (but solid) wood piece we bought for a few bucks at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I love it. I wonder who else has held this seat and what they may have written about over its long history.

We have a single TV in this small shotgun apartment, which we both watch from our desks in the living room converted into an office space, and then simply wheel it around the corner so we can watch something light at bedtime.

We’re on a higher floor—high enough for security, but not too high that we can’t escape. We have a view—another small mountain range provides beautiful sunsets and reminds us of the much larger one that looms behind our former woodland pioneer home. We still have access to that, and will be going to visit the White House RV and care for her today. She’s been good to us, and she will stand ready to house us again should the need arise, and it sure seems like that’s likely.

Blink

We took a break from our moving duress to watch the new hit series Zero Day, starring Robert DeNiro. It opens with a perfectly normal day—people talking on phones, commuting to work. Then, suddenly…blink.

The phones go blankGPS guidance goes blankRailroad crossings, aircraft control, and traffic lights go blankThe electrical grid, water plants, internet are offGas stations and ATMs are offline and useless, no credit or debt card transactions can occurRemember—if this is an EMP attack, backup generators and power sources may not work

Imagine this happening at the very moment you are reading this post. What do you do? You can’t call anyone. You don’t know if your kids or spouse/partner are safe across town. Your neighbors are just as confused and scared as you are. Or, maybe you’re now out on a highway with everyone getting out of their vehicles. Or, maybe in a crowded store in pitch black darkness.

Let’s go back to my opening. Take a moment now, in relative comfort, to crystal-ball visualize that scenario. You can take it to the bank there will be chaos and maybe rioting/looting as people panic, if this isn’t remedied in very short time. Does your current situation require you to fill your gas tank, or are you short on food or medical staples? Got milk? Good luck with that.

These apocalyptic shows are dramatic, but we watch them because they serve an important purpose—they get our wheels turning. Where are we exposed? If you find you are, go back to our posts over this past year and a half to cover your bases in the important areas—food, shelter, medical, financial, energy. When the movie Leave the World Behind came out last year, we wrote about it in the same context. It’s worth a re-watch. What a fun, relaxing(?) way to prepare!

There really isn’t time. This is not hyperbole, this is not clickbait, this is not a drill. Last week in Saudi Arabia, Trump officially aligned the United States with the “bad guys”—the world’s dictators, led by Putin. In all those incredible war stories of the USA past we’ve been the heroes, aligned with the forces of good against the forces of evil. Now we’re the bad guys, led by an aged, corrupt, lifelong con man and immigrant billionaire who’s mad at the world because his surgery “down there” went bad and sees himself as some kind of dark gothic comic book villain. We’re rushing headlong to WWIII, and on the bad side of history.

Europe is forming up their own massive army primarily due to this fact—the USA is now on the other side. So far, the bad guys have always lost these big conflicts. Probably not this time, with the massive arsenal of the USA, but a lot of people will die, and right here on our soil. You, your kids and grandkids will likely be drafted into the meat grinder, and die far away from home.

The problem was never immigrants, woke, or LGBTQ+ people. Trump has plenty of both groups at his resorts. Caitlyn Jenner, for example. Or, the leader of the far-right party in Germany that Trump and Musk are supporting, who is gay with a Sri Lankan partner. JD Vance had an Indian wedding and his spouse is from immigrants. Those things were only tools to agitate vast numbers of ignorant folks into voting. So, who was it that got us here? It was the folks who changed our society in one generation from one where a high school dropout like my Dad could take a job in a small manufacturing company, work weekdays 9 to 5 with a solid hour lunchtime, and provide a good home and car to our family while my Mom stayed home with us, to one where two college-educated spouses have to grind and grind every just to try to stay ahead, and still be told they’re “lazy and entitled.” It was the wealthy who did this to us. It was greed. And now, they’re in charge.

Our democracy is being dismantled before our eyes, day by day. You can safely assume all of your personal information is now “out there” and accessible to the worst hackers world-wide. Freeze your credit reports at all three agencies, as we’ve recommended in past posts. You can assume it’s being used to train AI systems in a way that’s not going to be good for you and your family going forward. We’re looking at a government shutdown in a few weeks. The stock market had two very bad days to close the week. Science and medical organizations are being dismantled as we lurch into a new Dark Ages (narrator: the previous one did not go well). They may be trying to crash the dollar to force us all to crypto currency. They certainly seem hell-bent on destroying the middle class to create a two level caste system of peasants and royalty. Trump has even begun referring to himself as king.

So, do your homework, pioneer readers/listeners. Visualize. Mitigate your exposures. Our favorite YouTube prepper, Kris at CityPrepping, said in his most recent post that in all his years of prepping, he’s never felt such a sense of urgency as he does now. We hear you Kris, same here.

Now that Giavana, Pia and I are semi-moved in, our focus changes a bit. We’re lo...

Zero Day Prepping