A telling statement by someone in one of the groups “Where’s the bathroom?” sets up parts of the show nicely. This was by one of the younger people in a group and makes me wonder if the older folks will have a slightly easier time adapting. I plan on watching the entire series. Watching this makes me wonder – how would I fair under such circumstances? It also makes me think about my lifestyle, and about food. The drive, the need to eat is such a basic instinct. I see now really how the lessening of this constant need has made so much possible.

Technorati Tags: alaska, As Seen On TV, discovery, survival, wilderness

I was watching Discovery Channel recently. It’s one of the few channels I consistently watch. I came up a show called Man VS. Wild. It’s an interesting show in that it takes a wilderness survivor type guy – Bear Grylls and has you follow him in various environments.

I watched a couple of episodes in disparate environments recently. The show is somewhat contrived in parts due to the creation of situations for him to show off various techniques. This does not take away from it in the least though. It’s informative and entertaining in that you can see how he does things. Now I may not be likely to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with just a knife and my wits, but hey you never know.

The episode I really like was him in the Copper Canyon in Mexico. In it, he shows how to use an Agave spike as a thread and needle. He also goes over things like how to get direction without a compass. Talks about fishing and fish – how freshwater fish are always safe to eat. There are a few lessons I’ve taken from all his shows though

1. Be aware of your surroundings.
2. Use what you have
3. Science rocks!
4. So does Nature.
5. Proper shelter is always required.
6. Don’t push too hard.

Copper Canyon

I also ran into this as well. This bit scares and amuses me more than anything – http://www.degreeinpjs.com. The commercial on Discovery consisted of a bunch of scantily clad women talking about earning a college degree online while wearing their pajamas. Pajamas which happened to be the skimpy, VS kind, and not the granny kind.

So my lessons for that day? First is that you can survive in the wild if you know a few things. The second is that it is possible to get a college degree if you are a twenty-something pretty girl wearing sexy PJs.

Technorati Tags: As Seen On TV, copper canyon, discovery, learning, man vs wild, mexico