The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘weirdo’

Emergency Plan

Ok kids, it’s paranoid Uncle Weirdo here with some unasked for and likely unlistened to advice.

And yet, here I go anyway.

If cells or landlines stopped working … where would you meet your spouse or loved ones? Who would pick up the kids or pets? Of course, in any kind of emergency, you would just call – but that could potentially not be an option. A default location (or, better yet, several) is easy to come up with, and it would prove incredibly necessary in the event of an emergency situation.

Here’s how I got on this kick.

Recently I was driving to get the kiddo a wonderfully long nap. While I do this I enjoy the sights of my town, and listen to NPR. I listen to NPR because a, I’m a commie, and b, they have a pretty reliable relaxed tone that doesn’t shift dramatically. If I listen to music, you never know what’ll come next on the radio.

The program I listened to on this particular drive was about the northern California wildfires last year and it was heartbreaking. A story about a man, a father and husband, running into a cop and being told he couldn’t travel up the hill toward his family. When the fire fighters eventually got there the man’s wife was ok, his son was dead, and his daughter was hospitalized (only to die later).

There were a number of ways the protocol for dealing with the fast-moving fire seemed to fail (in my opinion) and one interesting thing to note, which is a new problem, is the lack of landlines. Some systems are set to call all the local landlines to warn you of events, but if you are like me … that woudln’t do much good.

And what happens if there is a terrorist attack that targets cell towers? Or a series of unfortunate events that knocks one, or enough out, to render your cell essentially useless? It’s not outside the realm of possibility that such a thing could happen accidentally (e.g. fast moving fires), and it could CERTAINLY be a deliberate target.

So. Do like me. Form your emergency non-communication plan.

If you can’t reach whatever parties, establish your rendezvous points. Pick a specific address and make that destination 1. Can’t make it to destination 1? Go to designated destination 2. Etc. I picked out a spot to the north, south, east, and west. Then I did a quick map search to see that, if our kid is at daycare, and I’m at work, and my wife is at work, given each designated destination, who should pick him up?

If we are going to the spot in the north, she will pick him up. If south, I will pick him up. Etc.

And, speaking now as someone who likes clear instructions … Make it obvious. Leave no room for doubt. Write the instructions as though a 5 year old had to follow them because if you ever actually need them, it will be a time where you don’t want to expend a single bit of energy attempting to interpret something or make deductions.

Take 10 minutes, use your favorite search engine to pick out 4 locations, and then email those to the people you will rendezvous with. (If you want to be real paranoid you would save them to your phone outside of email in case your email becomes inaccessible.)

 

P.S. It’s funny to me to think about the fact that this is a blog post. I have posted a LOT of dumb things, and now I’m posting this? What’s happened to me?

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Du Jour of the Week

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Weekly Wacko (49)

Don’t Be THAT Guy

I’m going to depart from my usual trend – I’m going to make fun of someone besides myself.

I will still make fun of myself, but this time the focus on this is to poke fun at someone ELSE. Usually I try to keep these to just making fun of myself – but in my defense, I think this story is pretty funny.

When I was in the 7th grade I lived in West Point, New York. The home of the United States Military Academy. My family lived on post because my dad was in the Army.

I signed up, through the Youth Center, for soccer in the fall and spring seasons. I can’t remember if this was the fall or spring season – but I’m tempted to say fall.

The coach of our team was a cadet – those guys were everywhere (God’s Gang, a youth group through the church I went to, also had cadets helping out). Our coach seemed like a pretty committed guy, considering it was a soccer team comprised of 7th and 8th graders (let the ribbing begin…).

I told some friends of the family, who were also cadets, that so-and-so was my coach. They informed me that they did not like him, he was a tool, and he … get this … cut the sleeves on his PT (physical training) shirts, and then sew them back so they were tighter. This way his shirts would hug his arms.

NOW, I’ll be honest and tell you that I doubt this was true. But it was still an odd thing to hear about someone. And an awesomely odd rumor to have about someone.

Our soccer team that year was amazing. Seriously.

Kids on our team also ran cross country or did track, or hockey, or basketball – we were machines. Two guys on our team dominated cross country all that season. One guy was in 8th grade and about 6 feet tall. He scored a goal from midfield one game.

But, as good as we were … we almost lost a game. It was the same game as the midfield goal.

After the game we noticed that our coach was still sitting over on the sideline where he’d been during the game. What’s that all about?

He called us over for a talk. And what a talk.

“Guys …,” I’m not sure how exactly the talk went, only four points stick out in my mind.

1) He was disappointed in us because we didn’t perform like we should’ve.

2) He sounded disappointed. You could tell by the tone.

3) He said (4) sincerely, sadly, and with regret (because he’d spoken too soon). More impressively I somehow managed not to laugh in his face.

4) “I even told my girlfriend I was proud of you guys.”

There you have it. One of the great motivational speeches of all time.

Pride: REVOKED!

(On a plus note one of my other coach’s was named Sven. How cool is that? Coach Sven is very fun to say.)

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Weekly Wacko

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