fandomhigh | Shop Class: [2/13]

...

Sam very desperately wanted to see the computer with which Mac was arguing, especially since it looked like he might be losing this particular discussion. That would have to wait until she finished her project, though.

First, she gathered some dried branches, twigs, and leaves from the ground and used her waterproof matches to start the fire.

Then, while that was burning down to coals, she took some of the glass canning jars and walked down to the stream, gathering water in them, then carrying them back and placing them next to the fire. She'd put them on the coals to boil when she was there to observe.

Next, she took a green branch from one of the nearby trees, and cut it off using the swiss army knife. She used the knife to start a rip in the muslin, then tore off a strip, which she then ripped into three different pieces and began to braid together, tying off each end with the duct tape. Sam then duct-taped one end of the fabric to the branch.

"I need bait," she said to herself, evaluating her options.

[tbc]

With some regret, Sam decided to sacrifice one of her chocolate bars to the cause. She unwrapped the bar and taped a few squares of it to the end of the pole. Knowing from experience how long ~~and boring~~ fishing could be, though, Sam decided to make her shelter before she went back to the stream.

She took the remains of her cotton fabric and draped it over a low-hanging branch, then used the cheap ballpoint pens as tent stakes, taping the ends with duct tape so the fabric wouldn't slide off the ends of the pens.

That project completed, she put the glass jars closer to the coals and wandered down to the stream. "There better be fish in this stream, that's all I'm saying." She sat down to wait for the fish to bite. If there weren't any, she'd have vodka and chocolate for dinner.

While she was waiting for the fish to bite, she dozed off on the bank of the stream. Probably should have put some coffee in the survival pack.

Suddenly there's a pull on the line followed by the sound of a monotone voice.

"Ms. Carter. I believe now would be a good time to wake up and attend your fishing apparatus."

Sam jerked awake and pulled on the pole. The end came out of the water attached to a very grumpy looking (and small) fish. She looked at the fish, it glared back at her, and she promptly slammed it against a nearby rock until it was dead.

She used the swiss army knife to gut and clean the fish, then placed the whole fish in the coals of the fire, surrounding it with the glass jars of water. Eventually, the fish was overcooked and bland and the water had boiled, and she was able to eat.

Nadia waved tiredly to both Mac and the computer console when she came in. She wondered vaguely what kind of trouble Hal was giving Mac, but figured as long as it didn't result in being locked in the basement forever, she wouldn't worry about it.

She set to work on the assignment. The fire was easy, so she left that for a moment while she worked out what she could do for the other things.

She cast a glance at Sam's jars, wishing she'd thought to include a container in her pack for water. She had the one with the vodka in it, but didn't want to waste the vodka . . . .

She put the water issue to the side for the moment and focused on the shelter and the food.

She spent a few minutes wandering about the faux forest in search of several really thick, long branches. This required her, in some cases, to cut the branches down herself using the saw on the Leatherman, but soon enough she had a large armful of two foot long branches, and one branch that was a good seven feet long. She went back to the stream and propped the long branch against a nearby tree. After spending several moments debating how to get it to stay there, she pulled out her super glue.

That accomplished, she began propping the shorter branches along the longer branch about half a foot apart, at an approximately 60 degree angle, until the construction had a ribbed, skeletal structure. She grabbed a bunch of thin, branching branches and scattered those across the skeleton, occasionally using superglue to hold them on, then put a good 3 inch layer of dried leaves on top of the thinner branches until the entire thing was covered. Then she grabbed even more branching branches and covered the leaves with those to hold the leaves on.

When she was finished she had a six foot long squirrel's nest, just the right size for her to lie down in for the night.

Now, food, water, or fire?

[tbc]

Nadia spent about ten minutes with her gaffer's tape until she had something approximating a cup. She built a fire on a raised, flat rock from the stream with some smaller branches and dried leaves, with a touch of vodka for lighter fluid, making sure to keep it well away from her rather flammable shelter. Once it got going, she grabbed a great many paper clips and used the pliers on the leatherman to twist them into a long set of tongs, which she used, once she'd filled her gaff tape cup, to hold it over the flames.

After a few moments, the cup started to smolder.

Then it caught fire.

Gaff tape seemed to be flammable. That was good to know.

She didn't know what else to do for water, so she plopped herself down between her fire and her shelter, pulled the GORP out of her bag and had a snack.

Three out of four wasn't bad.

Xander held out his bottle of Holy Water with a grin. "Thirsty? That GORP can get kinda salty."

Nadia smiled and accepted the bottle. "Thanks. Solution to the problem of having water while in the woods: bring a friend." She took a sip and handed it back.

"Exactly. Camping buddy to cover your ass and watch for ~~monsters~~ bears? Priceless. Also, free. "

"It's the most important thing to pack." Nadia looked at Xander's lean-to. "If you promise not to poke too many holes in it, you can borrow my sweatshirt for your shelter,"

"Thanks!"

"Hrrm." He studied the structure. "Actually, if you can stand the thought of duct tape touching it, I could probably get by with not poking any holes at all."

Nadia considered this for a moment. "Does the residue wash off?" Then she shrugged. "Sure. I keep forgetting I can buy a new sweatshirt if I want to." She shrugged out of her hooded sweatshirt and handed it to Xander.

Xander rubbed absently at his mouth, and grinned ruefully. "Yeah, it washes off." He added the sweatshirt to the shelter, trying to gum it up as little as possible.

"Good job Nadia!"

When John notices the first thing on his list, he smiles. First, he digs a small hole in the ground using his hands. He gathers from dry braches, bark, and leaves, puts them in the small hole and uses the matches he'd gotten from Jarod at Caritas to starts a small fire.

Using the blanket he'd purchased from All and Sundries, John manages to puts together a makeshift tent. He puts one long branch in the middle of the blanket and wedges it in the ground. Then, he finds several large rocks that he uses to anchor down the sides. Not the best tent but it does provide shelter from the elements.

The food's easy. Xander's two boxes of Twinkies will suffice until he can figure out how to make a pseudo fishing rod to catch fish and determine if any berries on plants would kill him.

With the fire started, he uses one of his buckets that he'd used during the Lee/Kara versus Cally/Anders war and gathers a large portion of water into the bucket. Holding the bucket over the fire makes his arm hurt but he doesn't have any sort of spit to hang it on.

So, right now, he's doing all right...

Since he's got some leftover items, John takes the notebook and pencil he'd gotten from Janet and begins to write his memoirs.

Being an outdoorsman is a rough job. Sometimes you gotta drink unclean water and sleep on the ground. Other time, there's Twinkies. I faced many a danger during my time alone. But, being buff and strong and the most intelligent man in the world has its advantages and I was able to overcome. When I got back home, the President gave me the Presidential Medal of Honor and my own island.

After that, he attempts to cook a Twinkie and it kind of explodes. That won't be going in his memoirs.

But it'll be going on his clothes... and his face.. and his hair....

Of course it was. Twinkie bits decorated John's hair, pants, shirt and face. Oh well. It was good sunscreen!

"And you talk about my custardy issues on the radio?"

Xander stared at his collection of supplies (30minutemall.com that will even deliver to Fandom Island, though it takes 45 minutes and the nervous looking delivery guy really doesn't seem to wanna stick around too long? Priceless.) ~~which he mostly totally didn't cheat on by reading today's class ahead of time, because the holy water and twinkies, he was always going to include~~ and shrugged.

The food was already in there; he laid out a couple of Twinkies on the grund in front of him. Likewise the water; you can drink Holy Water just fine, unless you happen to be a ~~really stupid~~ vampire.

Fire, he had matches and lighter fluid for; collecting leaves and twigs for the real fuel didn't take long.

Shelter... Well, he did have tent pegs, but only two of them.

However, a couple of large branches could be -- with a lot of work -- whittled down to peg size, while a few more, duct-taped together, could serve as a frame.

For, uh. The tent he didn't have.

When in doubt, go back to the basics, Xander supposed. At least this time it wasn't coffee. He took off his outer shirt and draped it over the very rough lean-to shape he'd created, pegging down the sleeves at one end and the tail at the other. It would keep the rain off for... well, not very long, especally since it woldn't cover very much of a six-foot tall humanoid type person. Might block the wind a bit, though.

This is what you get for asking a suburban California boy to think about shelter from the weather. What weather?

Duo, who now actually knows who Xander is ~~and has no reservations snickering about why~~, gives him a wave and a grin.

"Hey dude. Almost tripped over you on the stairs the other morning. Rough weekend?" He notices the "Cheerleaders Rock" water bottle and laughs. "Maybe worse than I thought if that's the bottle you grabbed!"

Xander winces, at more than one memory, but waves back. "You could say that." Then he glances down at the water bottle. "You don't think cheerleaders rock?"

Duo scrunches up his face for a minute. "Man, I'm more than enough high-energy by myself. I couldn't take someone yellin' happy stuff all the time." He laughs. "Though if you knew where to find one, I'd sure have a helluva time siccin' her on my roommate."

Xander snickered. "The one I dated wasn't so much into the yelling happy stuff except on the field. Most of the yelling when she was out of uniform involved words like 'idiot' and 'die now.'"

Boy is he gonna feel guilty when she's all nice to him in 5th period...

Duo laughs. "Dude. I know how you feel. I got this friend that says that to me allll the time! Only the guy says it in Japanese so 'baka' and 'omae o korosu' took me a while to figure out he was sayin' 'idiot' and 'I will kill you.'" He thinks. "Though maybe that was a plus; that way nobody else knew what the hell he was sayin' either. At least you got a date out of it," he adds with a grin. "All I got was a few broken bones and gun pointed at my head."

"I'm fairly sure Cordelia would've pointed a gun at my head a couple times, if she'd had one and known what to do with it." Xander coughed and winced. "Though if we compared war injuries from our relationship she definitely wins. I can't trump 'iron rod through the torso."

Duo raises an eyebrow. "'Iron rod through the torso?' Yeesh. What business you in? Spies? Terrorists? Construction workers?" He thinks for a minute. "Is that the same Cordelia who's here at Fandom?" He grins. "We only met briefly, though she seemed nice enough. A lovely lookin' lady, that's for sure."

"High school students." Xander shrugged. "Let's just say our hometown actually makes Fandom look kinda fluffy."

He nodded. "Same Cordelia, more or less. And you are not wrong. The girl's not hard on the orbs."

A few minutes later, he added a hooded sweatshirt to the lean-to, securing this one at the sleeves and zipper-ends with duct-tape, instead of pegging it. Now at least it would cover.. say, a medium sized Labrador Retriever puppy, instead of just a Chihuahua.

"So Xander? Are you just be going to sleep with your head under that shelter?"

"Well, there are those who say it's probably not my most valuable asset, but I can't figure out how to fit any other parts under there," Xander said, looking down at it dubiously. "Except my feet, maybe, but I'd look awfully silly sleeping out in the woods with just my feet stuck in a tent."

Duo, ~~who also didn't cheat like Xander so much as not have internet access last week and so only saw the assignment today~~ checked out his collection of stuff (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/613525.html?thread=29901717#t29901717) and figured out how to complete today's assignment.

Fire was pretty straightfoward because he had the waterproof matches. So he gathered together some sticks and leaves and general dried foresty materials to start a fire.

The water and the food were next. Silently thanking Heero for being ohso Japanese and always carrying Miso soup as possible nourishment and thus leading Duo to choose the same, he got some water from the stream with the empty cookie tin he was carrying everything with and boiled it over the fire. It took a while, but it eventually worked. He added the Miso soup mix to it, and, while he's not a huge fan of the stuff, it's still something to eat.

For shelter, he tries stringing up the poncho using the Swiss Army knife to cut the fishing wire, but the poncho is a little thin so it doesn't really keep out much of the elements. It's only real use is if it starts to rain. Duo shrugs and settles for hoping for sun, or using the compass to get the hell out of the wilderness as soon as possible.

"Good job Duo."

Izzie sits down and opens her survival kit. She pulls out one of the magazines and uses her waterproof matches to start a small fire. She then pulls out her crochet hook and yarn. After several minutes she has crocheted herself a little tent like structure, which she rigs up with her twine and a nearby tree.

"That's quite a knitting job Izzie."

Ivanova limped into the shop, leaning heavily on her cane. Now this was an assignment she could do. She reviewed the contents of her survival kit, and figured on how to complete three of the four tasks.

Then she glanced down at her arm. Make that two of the four. Shelter construction would have to wait until she could actually use her right arm. So she began with a fire, stomping out a wee fire pit and surrounding it with rocks before scavenging for leaf litter and dry twigs. Her teepee stayed up through extreme effort, but four matches later she was growling in frustration.

So Ivanova did something that was probably pretty stupid. She couldn't make a little boom, but add some hairspray and there was a pretty little big boom. She grinned in triumph, then stood back to admire her handiwork and rest for a moment, leaning on her cane.

[[TBC]]

[[Growl. LJ ate my comment and I didn't realise so this is the short version, without the MacGyverian voiceover.]]

Food would be just as simple. Many summers spent with her country uncles meant that if this holographic forest produced a holographic boar, everyone would be eating pork. Er, if her arm were healed, that was. So, instead she rigged up two rabbit snares and limped off to see if this holographic forest had game trails. It did. She set her traps, but as a precautionary measure against not catching any rabbits she fashioned a fishing line out of a stick, some thread from her sewing kit, a paper clip for the hook (sharped to stabby pointedness), and the shiny reflective wrapper from her gum.

Stark ~~who, like Xander and Duo, really only cheated a little tiny bit~~ examined the contents of his kit before getting to work.

Fire was easy enough. Dig a bit of a hole, put some rocks around it, gather up some sticks and any cardboard or paper that might have been involved in the packaging of any items in the kit and light it. It took a while to get a fire that was actually large enough to do anything useful, so he added a little rubbing alcohol to the mix. While he fed the fire, he drank his tea and then filled the bottle up with water from the stream, filtering it through a piece of the gauze first just in case.

Setting the bottle on a fairly flat rock next to the fire, and waited for it to boil. Then he added the instant coffee to the mix. It wasn't good, but it was caffeine.

Food he already had in the form of the bag of beef jerky, but that seemed too easy. Glancing around, he saw that Sam had attempted fishing. That could work, if there were fish. The shoelaces tied to the end of a stick and reinforced with duct tape, and one piece of jerky tied to the other end of the laces made a very crude fishing pole.

And then there was shelter. He had the t-shirt. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. He cut the shirt along one seam, then stretched it over two low-hanging branches and duct taped it in place. Well, it wouldn't keep him warm, but it couldn't hurt to have it in place.

"Looks good, Stark."

...

Shop Class: [2/13]

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Open Shop/Office Hours

OOC: [2/13]