It's been a busy week thus the lack of posts. Here's what I am doing and how these things are related to preparedness...
- Getting ready to travel across the country to visit my son who will be heading to Afghanistan within the next couple of months. Building family unity is always important as is lending support to all of our men and women in the military.
- Volunteering with the Homeless Count tomorrow. This is a nationwide activity that surveys the homeless one day each year. I got talked into volunteering with this project last year and it was truly enlightening. Survival skills are what the homeless are all about and I always learn more from these people than what they learn from me.
- Gearing up for a full-scale exercise in a couple of months. This is a high level disaster preparedness exercise which is always full of lessons learned (but which requires lots and lots of planning and coordination).
- Am marginally concerned about a news clip this evening about a whole bunch of fertilizer that was stolen today. For those who don't know how fertilizer can be used in the wrong hands, note the destruction that 5000 pounds of fertilizer did in Oklahoma City. Not good, especially considering the winter Olympics are getting ready to start next month just north of here.
- Exercising. Actually I should be exercising more as I have a marathon in April, a 175 mile bike ride in July, possibly a Canada to Mexico bike ride in August, and a recent invitation from a friend in Japan to do a two month trek around one of the islands there. Exercise is always a good step towards better preparedness. This may be too much of a good thing.
- Evangelizing the need for everyone to have basic preparedness supplies on hand. The Haiti earthquake provided yet another "teachable moment" which emphasized the need to have even the most basic of emergency supplies on hand because after a disaster it will be too late to acquire these items. By show of hands at a recent meeting (of well educated people on the periphery of disaster planning) less than half of the group had BOBs or emergency supply bags in their home, office, and car. I was thoroughly amazed that these people didn't have BASIC emergency supplies. Ayayay
- Looking forward to meeting up with friends who have been in Haiti providing disaster response and medical services. The stories from these people, after having responded to disasters around the world, is better than any information you can find in books and how-to disaster manuals.
- Craigslisting and eBaying stuff. Between me and my goal of downsizing stands a whole lot of stuff taking up space in the garage. One of the best ways to get rid of all of this unneeded stuff and make some money to add to the emergency fund is to sell it. Which is what I am doing.
Sounnds like your a busy man.You are so right even if people are not wanting to become full on preppers,basic emergency supplies is only common sense.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about hearing the story firsthand from your friends who had been to Haiti reminds me of something. I have an uncle who was an international cargo flight pilot for many years, and the best part of family get-togethers was always his comments on the news from the european/asian news and newspapers that he saw in his travels. You would not believe how different their perspective was on the same stories! Many of the big papers in London, Rome, Singapore have online versions, and most have a translation into English where applicable. Interesting stuff.
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