5 Days in Missouri - Zombie Con 2012

Hey everyone, It’s been quite a long time since I last posted and I apologize but life has been hectic. I’ll cover that some other time. For this post I am going to tell you about 5 days in June I spent in Missouri. I belong to a group called Zombie Squad. Zombie Squad (please check out their website HERE) in a collection of people interested in disaster preparedness. I have been a member since 2009 and am an active member and supporting officer in charge of the Wisconsin territory for the Chicago Chapter ZS:020. I have met some outstanding people in this organization. I have also learned a great deal about myself and the world around me just by being in contact with these people. Every year Zombie Squad holds an event called “Zombie Con” which goes from Wednesday through Sunday in which members backpack up onto a mountain in the Ozarks near Irondale, Missouri and camp. There is no electricity and no indoor plumbing so it is a very extreme version of camping for most people and this year I went. I recorded a video log of the trip. Check it out.

Zombiecon 2012 from Chris Koterba on Vimeo.

In the video I said it was in the upper 80’s, I then said it got cold at night and that I was bad at judging temperature. I found out that it was consistently in the mid to upper 90’s every day we were there and that it got down into the lower 60’s at night. Trying to show the angle of ascent is difficult but you can see it pretty well when I was talking to Alex the cook in the video. I also gave you a tour of my hammock which is a Clark NX-250 Jungle Hammock and was a life saver on this trip. If you're a regular camper, I would suggest trying a hammock out. The rest is so much better! There were people from all over America there. My own chapter (ZS:020 Chicagoland)had a great showing with 9 of our chapter members showing up. We even gathered for a chapter photo.

Photo courtesy of Mystic_1 Members from Canada also make the yearly trek down south to Missouri. Alex (who appears in the video) truly is an outstanding cook. Not only is his food tasty, it’s also made from whatever he has at hand. He’s kind of a culinary A-Team. He got me to try curry which included sardines, two foods that I figured I’d never EVER try! It was excellent. He also introduced us to cheap red wine and Coca-Cola which is a strange but wonderful concoction. We didn’t just sit by the campfire and eat though. On Thursday there were a series of workshops held by various members of ZS. There were seminars on primitive soap making, self-defense, physical education, first-aid, and miniature radio building. Friday found us at a local rifle range where there were various competitions held as well as an open “Shoot n’ Share” where members brought their own guns for others to try out. Around noon a group of local folks showed up consisting of some older folks and some elderly people as well and within minutes, one of our members had one of the gentlemen, who was a veteran, on the line sharing his M-1 Gerund. Several members stopped over by them and chatted with them so that by the time they left there were many handshakes and “thank you’s” exchanged. It was a good time. Saturday’s event was a canoe “float trip” down a river which I didn’t participate in due to my sissyness about canoes (click HERE for a recap). Instead I used the day as a sort of personal day. I did up whatever dirty dishes I found around camp, took the footage you saw above, chatted with whoever was left in camp, and let my mind wander! That night we had a meeting about ZS and its future. We are becoming a 501C3 Non-profit Organization which will help us gain respect in the community and help us do more charity work! We also heard from several chapter leaders on how things were doing in various parts of the country. Every night after dark we watched zombie movies courtesy of a portable generator that was hauled up to base camp by one of the more lovable ZS members affectionately known as “Eggnog”. Most of the zombie films were low budget, obscure films but we did watch “Zombieland” and that movie it even better when watched in the dark, on the side of the mountain with a bunch of friends! Sunday found us packing up camp and hauling back down off the mountain and coming home.

Everyone helped out. Most people hauled their own gear down from camp then went back to help carry everything else down. Those that didn’t help carry helped stage the equipment so it could be taken back to the cabin. This was a great example of how people from across humanity with all different backgrounds and beliefs can come together as a group and exist together through communication and cooperation. As I mentioned, Waukesha was closed down because of a bike race so when I got home I couldn’t park near my apartment to unload. The footage showing the cyclists was from my original final video segment. I ended up scrapping most of it because it didn’t serve this post and was filled with a little more ranting than I felt was appropriate. Instead, as I said, I went upstairs, dumped my gear and showered which helped my perspective and allowed me to shoot a better end piece. I also snapped a picture of the boots I wore all weekend.

These were a Christmas gift from my good friend Mel and they saved me several times from slipping on the rocks and rubble we climbed over all weekend. This trip has been a long time coming. I’ve had ideas of going for the last couple of years but never felt I was ready. I signed up this year as a spur of the moment action that actually concerned me after the fact. Like “(CLICK)..Oh Crap! Now I actually have to do this!!” As I rode home on Sunday I reflected on the past few days and realized just how proud I was that I managed to do it. This was a big challenge for me both physically and mentally and with the support of my ZS friends I made it through and enjoyed a great deal of it. There were a couple of times when I asked myself “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” But that was usually around 3 or 4am when I was cold and in need of a restroom. I always ended up answering my question to myself with “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m getting it done and it’s more than I thought I could do!” That, to me, was the key. I was doing more than I thought I could and the satisfaction of feeling myself succeed is a sensation I wish everyone could feel for themselves. There are a lot of forces telling us not to look for obstacles, try to find the easiest path so that you don’t have to deal with hardship. However, you can’t fully appreciate the smooth road you’re riding on without walking barefooted down a gravel road. I am lucky in the fact that I got to choose to walk down that road. Many others don’t. Even as I carried my gear, stinking and sore, from the parking garage to my apartment I knew a shower, a bed, and a fan awaited me and I was very thankful. There are a lot of details about this trip that are difficult to put into words and would be diminished by description but I will have the memories for a long time. I do want to thank my buddy Bryan for letting me ride along in his jeep there and back and for the apple! It hit the spot. I’ve been asked if I’ll go again next year. Last Wednesday my answer was, “I’m not sure”; today however, my answer is “yes!” I look forward to the camaraderie, the stories, new experiences and maybe even some more cheap red wine and Coca-Cola.

Run Away!!

I remember playing a gig with Bluefire at a friend’s house in Janesville. It was for their 4th of July party and we were set up in a tent in the orchard in their backyard. They had a kiddie pool full of bottles of beer and a fridge full of Jell-O shots. They had also gone to Illinois and bought fireworks in the amount of several hundred dollars and had quite a show prepared. We would start playing about 7:30 PMish and were going to play until sundown. Then the fireworks display and then finish playing until we got tired or the cops were called.

It was an outside gig so there are all sorts of things you have to deal with. The main issue was of course the weather. The sky had some clouds but nothing that looked sinister. The forecast called for scattered showers, which I think they say when they are even less sure of what’s going to happen then usual. Of course three songs into the set it starts to sprinkle. Nothing you could call a shower or even drizzle, just a light, brief, smatter of water from a cloud that was walking to fast with a cup that was too full. We didn’t even stop playing. It lasted maybe 10 minutes. I had been struggling with hay fever all day and was glad for the moisture hoping it would knock down some of the pollen so I wouldn’t have to keep slamming down antihistamines just to make it through the show.

Their property stretched for several acres and they often employed an old golf cart to travel around the grounds. As I mentioned before there was a considerable buffet of alcohol to be had and it was flowing with much ease so when I saw the golf cart hurtling toward the tent we were playing in I became concerned and looked for an escape exit. I have some strange gig stories but being run over while playing “Pink Cadillac” by a drunken golf cart driver in an orchard would be one of the top ones. The driver managed to slide to a “Blues Brothers” style stop and inform us that they would be starting the fireworks in about 15 minutes and that I should make an announcement to that fact and also that I wasn’t nearly drunk enough yet. I told him I would make the announcement, watch the fireworks and proceed to drink myself into a pickled corpse like state. He gave me the thumbs up and careened off into the orchard. In fact, I had not intentions of having anymore alcohol that night because I wanted to drive home to my own bed and sleep away the allergies that had been the bane of my day, but there is no arguing with a drunk, just smile and send them on their way. We made the announcement and grabbed a seat to watch the display. From where we were, we could just make out the site where things were set up; four little figures moving around quite a large banquet of explosives. It’s at this point when I thought about the potential interaction of inebriation and explosives, but there was not a lot I could do except hope for the best.

The first few shots were wonderful, giant, brilliant flowers blooming in the sky. I think it was the fifth or sixth shot we saw the flare of the torch and the fizzle of the fuse and then a little “foop” followed by distant cries of “run away!” “Run away!” It appears as thought our little rain shower disagreed with firework that were already set in place when it happened.

So here is the situation; there are several drunk people standing near a pile of fireworks that have been dampened to where it is unknown if they will light right away, not light at all or stall out and then explode. In the end everything turned out fine. Most of the fireworks went off with out a hitch and if one did “foop” out the guys would scatter and wait to see what would happen and if they remained dormant the guys would proceed with the next show. After the show, they came roaring back on the golf cart to a huge round of applause and the rest of the evening was spattered with cries of “Run Awaaaaayyy!!”
We finished out gig around 1 AM when I no longer could even sing. We packed up the gear and headed on home. Almost everyone there stayed and camped out or slept where they landed but I wanted my shower and bed. And that’s what I got, in addition to a pretty good story.