Distractions

[rat31465]

Back in 2007 many across the midwest suffered power outages for days and even weeks. Myself I was without power for 17 days and while I was somewhat prepared with food, water, Kerosene, Battery Operated Radio/B&W Television combo etc...what I found to be the most problematic was the down time. My wife and I kept ourselves busy as best we could throughout the day, but once the sun set it became quite monotinous.
Not wanting to burn through the deep cycle batteries I used for power...we watched Television sparingly so the boredom was great.

I decided that some sort of distractions were needed for a long term survival situation. I am currently looking for a book on games which utilize just dice...and one with rules for Card games as well.
We have added a travel sized yahtzee game and a back gammon board to our survival gear...

Curious as to what others may have considered?

[Outlander Systems]

Playing cards. I've thought about board games as well. The problem I have is that the Mrs. isn't terribly fond of board games, whereas I love them.

The thing to consider is whether or not we're dealing with long-term, or short-term shutdown of the grid.

One of my favourite games of all-time, that I played very frequently as a kid with my family, is the Dictionary Game.

It's almost like a play on poker. The way it works is that one person is the "dealer" on a given round. Each time a new word is chosen, there's a new dealer.

So, say you are the dealer this round. You choose a word from the dictionary, and write the definition down on a sticky note. Everyone else has sticky notes as well. You read the word aloud, and then everyone has to write a definition for the word. Then you read the definitions back, and people vote on which one is the correct one. For every vote, that person gets a point. The dealer does NOT get points on the correct definition.

It's pretty simple, but it works.

I would much rather play the Dictionary Game, than the latest titillating, mind-numbing videogame, any day of the week. That's just me...

[MIKE G]

I picked up a few board games on sale at one of the big box stores. Also keep cards and some puzzles to occupy down time during such an event. As well, I keep a pretty solid library of both leisure reading and reference that could easily occupy me and the wife. That is for a short term event. On a longer term event those reference materials would be used to develop programs of instruction of various topics from offense and defense, self aid/buddy aid, comms, signaling, shooting, tactics, medicine, farming, preserving, etc, etc. It does me no good to be the only one who has any knowledge on a topic so it would be time to share knowledge around the proverbial or literal campfire.

[Jerm]

No reason to go totally primitive.

I'm about to pick up a Surge NT02 solar charger for my Ipod Touch.It should keep me running for years after the lights go out.

Between the games,music,videos,and my Kindle books it could provide endless entertainment(until it burns out completely anyway).I'd like to get a few more for the kids and wife...Maybe an extra solar charger or two as well.

It also has alot of practical tools.Many in the SAS Survival app alone(there's alot of other apps that could have varying degrees of usefullness)...I've saved all of my schematics,ballistic charts,and diagrams to it.NTM the little tools like calculator,unit conversion,etc.

I wish I could transfer all of my PDF files...For now I've been doing screen grabs and saving them as pics.

Now if I can just find a relatively cheap/easy way to keep my laptop up indefinitely.

[chavez_e_chavez]

Uno and Yahtzee is a personal favorite of my wife and daughter..they have travel versions so its little and compact..

[tampam4]

No reason to go totally primitive.

I'm about to pick up a Surge NT02 solar charger for my Ipod Touch.It should keep me running for years after the lights go out.

Between the games,music,videos,and my Kindle books it could provide endless entertainment(until it burns out completely anyway).I'd like to get a few more for the kids and wife...Maybe an extra solar charger or two as well.

It also has alot of practical tools.Many in the SAS Survival app alone(there's alot of other apps that could have varying udegrees of usefullness)...I've saved all of my schematics,ballistic charts,and diagrams to it.NTM the little tools like calculator,unit conversion,etc.

I wish I could transfer all of my PDF files...For now I've been doing screen grabs and saving them as pics.

Now if I can just find a relatively cheap/easy way to keep my laptop up indefinitely.

Only bad thing I have to say about using electronic storage devices for such purposes, is that if something happens to it, you are SOL and just lost tons of valuable info.

[Jerm]

Only bad thing I have to say about using electronic storage devices for such purposes, is that if something happens to it, you are SOL and just lost tons of valuable info.

Yeah,I'm working on as much redundancy as possible...Even printing out alot of what I consider the most important info(that I don't already have in book form).

...I'm currently working some small scale EMP protection.

[Biz Kizzle]

of course cards are a great option due to the relatively small size and variety of games. cribbage is a great game to play also. but i think a great use of down time would be reloading ammo

[tampam4]

while reloading ammo may be a good thing to do short term, it will obviously not be the long term solution, and if you have to leave your area, forget about it. I think cards are just about the most versatile past time you can get. Very compact in size, hundreds, if not thousands of game varieties to keep things interesting, memory games, math games, quick thinking etc etc.

[Mac5.56]

I paint military style miniatures, (30mm), and I have enough to last through two generations of people. Eventually of course I will run out of paint. But for the short term it is an awesome hobby to pass large amounts of time.

If your not into that, how about going to a hobby store and picking up some model cars, or planes?

Also of course board games and playing cards.