I remember the freeway looked like a normal sunny day in California  but coming around the 680 bend traffic came to a stand-still,  I was dripping in sweat from the June heat and the stress, I didn't know how my daughter was and just wanted to get home. Traffic didn't budge for over an hour and eventually people just got out of their cars and started walking,   I followed suit grabbing what little water I had, and some graham crackers and walked 12 hours straight all the way home.   When I got home and didn't see my daughter  I was so worried but I was exhausted had no choice but to sleep and try again the next day.


That morning  there were people all over the streets,  there was alot of screaming, fighting, and crying,  I looked out my backyard and saw people breaking through windows looting.  I couldn't leave, I had to stay and protect the fort.  I had little food but plenty of water,  I ate what I had eventually eating cold hamburger helper without the hamburger.  I waited 7 days for anyone I knew to come to me eventually running out of food.    so now I  grabbed my valuables and hit the streets, riding my bike  to where I thought my daughter might be.  I trekked for 6 weeks  going to different cities  only to be dissapointed every time. I slept on benches and at parks,  I bartered for food, water, and batteries.  I ran into acquaintances many times, some gave me food and water, others I bartered with and others I paid.  Eventually I made it back home to find my place was still safe and secure thankfully  my roommate had stayed. She hasn't had her usual cocktail of Xanax and other anti-depressants in months, she pretty much stays in her room yelling obscenities at her cats telling them to "SHUT UP" and "GET DOWN"!  She comes out to  look in the cupboards for food several times a day  as if something new might be there that wasn't there before.  I don't know what she eats or where she goes to the bathroom, nor do I know how she's feeding her cats but I do know she won't survive much longer I check on her from time to time just to make sure she's not a corpse rotting up the place.



The  Country is in a total Police State, surprisingly some of the police arent even Americans  they mostly have eastern European accents, and are pretty much the only people driving the streets nowadays. The other day one of these euro rent-a-cops banged on my door, yelling OPEN UP PULEEZ,  I don't know if he was saying Police or Please but I grabbed my Mosin Nagant and   looked through the peep hole, he was  holding his stomach bleeding, possibly a gun or knife wound.  




There is no food at the grocery stores, from what I'm told, even the tile has been ripped up,  I hear alot of people are surviving on FEMA Rations  but I have not actually seen any delivery trucks.  The girl above me told me she was leaving and that I could have the food in her cupboards, after I cleaned her out I eventually started cleaning out my other neighbors places as well,  assembling a stash of canned food, soda, juice, water, beer, wine, even some  batteries, clothes, blankets, I pretty much took it all and have been using what I don't need as barter.


 These cool apartment restaurants that have been springing up,  some people have  opened up they're front rooms with tables and chairs like a restaurant  and have hot food and clean water. They usually have staples like rice, beans, potatoes, and soups.   Some are still accepting Old World U.S. Dollars and change others charge one Silver Dime or one Silver quarter per meal  but whats most valuable is  sugar, salt, and coffee they always barter for things like that. The food is good and it's nice to have someone to talk to, this is where I get my updates from,  the grid is back up but very minimally it took two weeks after the grid to come up to finally connect to the internet, TV is almost nonexistent there is only one news source and it's the Homeland Security News  which just loops the same message every five minutes, stating "Please stay calm and indoors a FEMA response team has been dispatched to your area,  food and water will be available, a 9:00 curfew is mandated,  breaking curfew is punishable by imprisonment"  then it repeats again.


We're supposed to have  rolling blackouts so I'll try again in a couple days with an update.