My “Bug Out Bag” - Hurricane Preparation Time April 27, 2006
I’ve been acquiring supplies over the last couple of weeks in advance of Hurricane Season 2006, the official start date of which is June 1st. The team at Colorado State University are this year predicting 17 named storms, 9 hurricanes, 5 of Category 3 or higher.
I was going to write a much longer post, or series of posts, on risks and responses, and the planning around that, and under what conditions I’d stay put, and under what conditions I’d evacuate, but that could easily lead to some back-and-forward arguing that really wouldn’t be productive - everyone has to make their own decisions, and based on facts at the time that you can’t always plan for.
So, what I thought I’d do instead, is post some pics of the gear that I’ve acquired, and a list of the “72 hour bag” contents. In putting all this together, I decided that:
- when purchasing “gear” (the bags, etc.), I wanted to go with a “system approach”, rather than mix-and-match. This makes for compatibility, expansion if necessary, and also relatively easy replacement if necessary.
- if purchasing “stuff”, aim for things that can be repurposed during or outside of hurricane season.
- caveat: if repurposing /during/ the season, it has to be readily replaceable, not specialised.
(an example of that last one - a jar of instant coffee left aside can be used in a camping/fishing/hunting trip, because it can be easily replaced at almost no notice. An MRE put aside for evacuation shouldn’t be used on that trip, because replacing it /isn’t/ a five-minute job).
Now, everything that’s going to be listed below is just the “worst case scenario, put it on your back and walk out” bag(s) and contents - in addition to it all, I have plenty of water and canned goods, lighting and power solutions, and so forth, at my apartment. You can also be assured that all my plans lead to me ultimately driving away, rather than walking away, if it comes to it, but “you never know”.
So, on to the pictures and such. For “gear”, I chose Maxpedition equipment, based on reviews, comments, and a couple of samples that I was able to see locally. I ended up ordering all the stuff I’ll mention below from Knifeworks, and was completely satisfied with their service.
The pictures below are on Flickr; if you click any of them, you go to the Flickr site, and each image has “notes” on it that I’ll also cover below - and in more depth.
Left-Hand Side View
I started with the Vulture-II backpack. This is designed as a three-day backpack, and is exactly the size and general design that I had in mind. Covered in attachment points, it has a main storage space, a secondary storage space, a slash pocket, and a hydration pocket. The hydration pocket was the first thing I fitted, with a 3 liter CamelBak Omega. That’s what the blue tube is connected to. With the backpack loaded, the tube is tucked away over and into the left-hand shoulder strap, out of the way.
Hanging on the left-top of the pack, you can see a “Mega Rollypolly”. This is an all-purpose sack - stuff a ziplock of ice in there, or some cold cans, food, whatever. It’s there when you need it. It comes with a thigh-strap, and this is currently looped around the backpack’s main strap, and the handles of the attached Proteus Versipack as an additional retention measure.
That Proteus Versipack is in “storage” mode at the moment - clipped to the bottom of the backpack. In actual usage, the bottom of the backpack (the actual underside, not the back) would have a sleeping bag attached, and the Proteus would be detached and worn as a waist pack. The theory is that we’re talking “worst case scenario” thinking here, and there are scenarios where you might want to drop the main pack, and still have some things with you. Not an ideal situation, but sometimes necessary. The Proteus is exactly the right size to hold some things like wallet and keys, a couple of food bars and a rain poncho, a knife and utility tool, and if you’re so inclined (and legal to do so!), a handgun and ammunition. I did say we were talking worst-case here, right? There’s a better head-on shot of the Proteus in the third shot.
Right-Hand Side View
Over on the right hand side of the bag, in a universal pouch, there’s a “shaker flashlight”. Never needs batteries, just shake it a few times to generate the electric current needed. Not the brightest flashlight on the planet, but some light is always better than no light.
You can see the other side of the Proteus from this angle, and also the additional water bottle that is carabinered onto a hanging strap of the bag. Again, this is “storage” mode - for actual wearing, the bottle would be full, and in a pouch that is currently tucked away.
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Back View
Full-on view of the Proteus, clipped securely to the main bag. Here you can see in the center the mini rollypolly. This is the baby brother of the one shown in the first picture - it expands to be exactly the right size for a water bottle. The bottle, plus the CamelBak, put the recommended 1 gallon for one day requirement of water directly available.
So, what exactly is IN all this lot? Quite a lot, actually… Without breaking it down in to what is in exactly what pocket or compartment, here’s the complete list, as it stands at the moment:
Personal Care
1 bottle Advil
1 bottle Essential Vitamins
1 ziplock containing toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shave oil, deodorant
1 7-day container of prescription medication
1 change of outer clothing
2 changes of under clothing
Personal Support
1 ziplock of essential paperwork (insurance policies, birth certificates, etc)
1 ziplock of comfort items (in this case, a couple of cigars, lighter and cutter!), with space for last minute “grabs”.
1 digital camera, ziplocked
1 cellphone charger, ziplocked
Food and Drink
4 liters water
3 instant meals (just add included water)
Instant coffee, coffee whitener and sugar substitute
8 NutriGrain cereal bars
6 Allbran oatmeal raisin bars
2 Powerbar energy bars
2 cans chili with beans
1 pack beef jerky
4 multigrain energy bars
3 cans corned beef
2 2400 calorie food bars
3 8oz water boxes
Equipment
1 coleman dual-fuel burner, and refuel spout
1 “camp kit” (2 cups, 2 pans, 1 fry pan, 1 combitool (knife, fork, spoon, opener))
1 water purification kit
1 sleeping bag (external attachment)
1 survival blanket
1 rain poncho
1 whistle
1 first aid kit
1 leatherman utility tool
1 folding knife
1 12-hour light stick
50 waterproof matches
1 dust mask
1 pair latex gloves
2 fully fueled lighters (1 lighter fluid, 1 butane)
100′ 550lb paracord
I have a pack of a dozen MRE’s on order, and I’ll use them to replace the canned goods and instant meals that are currently in the pack for “actual use” - I’ll use up the canned goods, etc., on a hunting/camping trip. I wanted to be able to put the pack together without relying on those, as they’re not exactly something you walk into your local Albertson’s and buy! The current pack has 7570 calories of food in it, excluding the special food bars. Add those, and it 12370 calories, for an average of 4123 a day, across three days. Not perfect, but good enough, as they say.
And that, as they say, is that - it’s sat in the closet, ready to go, as and when. All I need to do to is take it out, fill the Camelbak, add my personal papers and prescription medicines, drop my cellphone and such like into it, and it’s ready to go.
Hopefully, of course, that won’t actually happen, unless it’s for a planned trip. But after watching last years storm season, I’m a lot happier having it packed and ready, than I would’ve been without it.
Anyone Home? April 26, 2006
It seems that I have, somehow, managed to go nearly two weeks between posts here, and that’s after a vacation! Oops… That wasn’t the intent.
Part of it was that it’s a little hard to get back into the groove after a vacation, part of it was that I was trying some non-blog related writing (didn’t work out, don’t sweat the details - I did learn some things from the attempt), and I guess the Easter break took a few days out of the loop as well.
The biggest aspect, I suspect, was that I’ve been putting together a “Worst Case Scenario” bag, for hurricane season. There’s a post coming up on that - I’m working on it in a different window, so stay tuned. Then I’ll get back to the “usual business at hand”.
Audiobooks & the Personal MBA April 13, 2006
I guess sometimes I’m just behind the curve a little… In this particular case, I’m talking about audiobooks. I was never really been a fan of them, for a couple of reasons:
- I know myself to be a visual, rather than aural, learner. I can work in the “speak and listen” mode, but if I’m given a choice, I prefer to work from a written report, book, etc.
- Technology. Some audiobooks are long - very long. In the past, I had no ready way of stopping listening to the file at some particular point, and then coming back to it later, the next day, whenever, and continuing from where I left off. This was made even worse if I wanted to use a portable player to play part of an audiobook, then something else like some music, and then return to the audiobook.
Well, a couple of things have changed my mind on all of this lately.
- Available time. I’m not traveling as much as I used to, which would have been a great time to have been listening to these things, but my commute is running a pretty regular 45 minutes each way at the moment, and that’s working well as a “sensible” block of time to listen to an audiobook.
- Available technology. I acquired an iPod not so long back, and as well as using it to schlep music and video around, as part of trying out the assorted features, I ran a couple of audiobooks off of it. With no additional action on my part, the iPod remembers where I was in the file, and restarts from there, every time. I’ve noticed that iTunes does as well, and with iTunes connected to my home stereo as well, this gives me a lot of options in playing audiobooks if I want to.
- Personal development (I). No-one stays the same, and as we get older, our styles and preferences, while remaining rooted in who and what we are, change, adapt, and mellow. Given the nature of the work I’ve been doing over the last few years (a lot of face-to-face work), I find I’m more comfortable listening to non-fiction audiobooks as an alternative to
reading the book. - Personal development (II). I’ve been aware of the Personal MBA website for a while, been a member of the site, and browsed the discussion forums, and I have a list of all the books involved in this project readily available at my desk. I haven’t actually been “doing” the Personal MBA for a while, however. It’s one of my Q2 “things to do” for this year, however, and when I’ve finished my current batch of non-fiction reading, I’ll be moving on to something from the Personal MBA list. In fact, I already own several of the books from the list, and will be rereading
them.
In addition to the Personal MBA site, however, my eye was particularly caught by an article “MBA On The Run”, which I originally saw here, but now has a dedicated site. A recent full write up on it can be found here. This is essentially what I’m going to do - I’m going to listen, rather than read, to as many of the books on the Personal MBA list as I can, read the rest, and buy physical copies of any that I particularly like, or feel I’ll want to reference more than occasionally (the finance books, for instance). There’s a few books that aren’t on the PMBA list that I want to listen to as well, that I haven’t gotten to yet for various reasons. Right now, for instance, as well as physically reading “The World Is Flat” at home, I’m listening to “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell on my commute. I’ll have completed it after 5 “commute days” (I haven’t been in the office every day this week), and there’s no way I would have finished it in that time if I’d been reading it. For some more reading on the PMBA, if you haven’t seen it already, you might want to read this Business Week article.
There’s another hidden benefit as well - I’m lucky enough to be able to read fast, naturally, but I also speed read, deliberately, when I read non-fiction. Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - I miss a key point because of that, and have to go back and review it. I can’t do that when I’m listening. Everything just “flows”. I can nudge the tempo of the audiobook if I wanted to, but at least in this case, there’s no need. I’m enjoying the book, and I’m enjoying the “lack of effort” it’s taking me to listen to it.
I got it from Audible by the way. I signed up for their one-year plan, so I have a dozen credits to use (books are one credit, periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review are 1/3 of a credit. How you use them is up to you. If you choose not to use a credit, or use them all up, other downloads run at a 30% discount. I’ve got a
few things from them, which will keep me busy for a while - and as a “freebie”, I get a one-hour digest of the New York Times each day, which I listen to while I’m working through the first batch of morning email in the office. All in all, a good deal.
And finally, I should thank Phil Gerbyshak for the link to the MBA On The Run site - his daily links postings made “catching up” a lot less painful when I got back from vacation - thanks!
Review: Six Discplines for Excellence April 12, 2006
Some time ago, I was sent a copy of the book “Six Disciplines for Excellence”, by Gary Harpst, and asked to do a review when I was done with it. I’ve read it through twice now, and this is the review I promised. It’s a lot later than I intended it to be, and for that I sincerely apologize.
From the back of the book: “This book is NOT for those who are looking for a quick fix. Six Disciplines is a “long-term fitness program, not a fad diet”. I think that’s an excellent description. If you’ve been reading my blog here, you’ll know that I’m “into” ITIL, and process methodology as a whole, with a technical focus. Six Disciplines has made a very nice addition to my process skills arsenal with its focus on the business side of the house.
The Six Disciplines break down as follows:
- Decide What’s Important
- Set Goals That Lead
- Align Systems
- Work The Plan
- Innovate Purposefully
- Step Back
and each of those major headings above breaks down into additional sections, which are then explained fully in the book.
For an overview, you can either go to the Six Disciplines website, or consider the image below.
The thumbnail above will expand to a full-size MindMap if you click on it. In this instance, I’ve deliberately used an earlier-draft of the MindMap that I Was making as I read the book, rather than the completed version, and I won’t be making the actual MindMap available for download - that wouldn’t be fair to the book publishers, and would likely violate copyright as well. You should be able to see from the image, however, that this is a circular, continuous improvement methodology, with outputs from one section readily feeding into another, and that there are linkages throughout the methodology (the MindMap looks a little messy to show that; remember that if you’re working with one of them in the MindManager application itself, you get to filter and turn on & off as much detail as you need at any given moment).
Frankly, I wish I’d had this book a few years ago, when I was part of a project that DID create a global IS department, from several smaller departments, and set visions, mission statements, processes, and so forth in place, many of which are still in operation today. We got it done, but at times it seemed like we were winging it, as there was no central reference like this to go to, other than process steps we defined for ourselves. If I was in that situation again, this would be a process guide that I turned to. I’m honest enough to admit that I might not follow it to the letter - the curse of man is that he likes to change things to his own preferences - but it would definitely be a good starting point.
In reading the book, I’m struck that the author spends time focusing on HOW to achieve maximum benefit from each of the six interdependent Disciplines, and not just providing a laundry list without explanation. There are plenty of “lists” and “summaries” out there, but getting a strong sense of the reasoning behind a recommendation adds to the value.
The book is subtitled “Building Small Businesses That Learn, Lead and Last”, and that’s a great focus; while it may not scale to a larger company in its entirety, there’s no reason individual departments within such couldn’t benefit as well.
I’ll be completing my note-taking of the book shortly, embedding it all into the MindMap that I started, and along with my ITIL maps, project management maps and so forth, the Six Disciplines will form a permanent part of my reference set that I use when I work as a manager.
Kitchen Sites
So, I’m in the market for a couple of new bits and pieces for my kitchen. Naturally, I go to the web to find what I’m looking for. There’s the blindingly obvious - purveyor of almost-everything-under-the-sun Amazon, or brick-and-mortar stalwarts Linen and Things, Bed, Bath & Beyond, or Williams & Sonoma.
But I wanted more… So I went exploring across the web, and here’s a collection of the sites that I found. Haven’t got experience yet of which is better, or how they compare against each other - they’re all stocking somewhat different items, which is good - but I wanted to save the list for the next time.
- www.thekitchenbox.com
- www.chefsknives.com
- www.chefsresource.com
- www.akitchenplus.com
- www.chefknivestogo.com
- www.metrokitchen.com
- www.askthemeatman.com
- www.pot-racks-online.com
- www.kitchensource.com
- www.espressocoffeeshop.com
- www.surlatable.com
- www.discountcooking.com
- www.cutleryandmore.com
The list isn’t intended to be exhaustive; it’s just what I spent time wandering through recently. Any additions, or comments on the ones listed above, are of course welcomed, and encouraged.
A Family Post - Wedding Anniversary Pictures
Posted to give nice easy access to the flickr set that I uploaded of this, this particular photo is my mother (Penny) and step-father (Bill), at the combination birthday-party-for-Bill (I’ll be nice and not post an age here!) and 25th-Wedding-Anniversary-for-them party that I went back to England for at the start of the month.
links for 2006-04-11 April 11, 2006
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Forbes.com is introducing a four-part series: the Small Business Owners’ Travel Guide. In this, the first installation, we share the secrets of getting there cheaply. (Upcoming stories include ways to stay, eat and conduct business for less while on the r
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“The key to making your relationship with a recruiter a happy one is understanding how a recruiter works. Recruiters are job-placement professionals who are paid by the employing company to locate suitable candidates. In most cases, they are conducting a
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Back online
Standby, Standby! April 9, 2006
New content IS on the way, honest… 
You’ll see from the last couple of “links for” posts that I’ve been catching up on my reading. A vacation where you almost completely drop off the grid is a very good thing, but it does leave something of a backlog when you get back…
links for 2006-04-09 April 8, 2006
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Basic stuff, but it never hurts to see a refresher, or run through the list and go “done that, done that, yup, all’s good”.
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Useful summary.
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Penn & Teller on “Gun Control is B*lls*it”
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Not just no, but “HELL no!”
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The list is self-explanatory, common-sense. But there’s always someone that doesn’t know that…
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Entertaining start to a series.
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I have /got/ to give learnoutloud.com another shot. And I think I want to “read” this one.
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I’m thinking of subscribing to Audible. This is part of my “looking and seeing” before doing so.
links for 2006-04-08 April 7, 2006
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Not directly useful (to me), but an interesting approach, well written up.
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Funniest comment on this - “Nyahaha were better at pointing and clicking endlessly than you =/”.
