Go Bag (Car Version)

I've had a little first aid kit in my car ever since I started coaching my daughter's softball team. Seemed like a good idea. And it came in handy on a family trip when someone got a big cut after falling on some rocks.

But now it's time to build a better kit for the car, something more like a go bag/emergency kit.

I was poking around in the garage and I saw my daughter's old backpack in the "donation" pile. She needed something larger for school so this one went into the pile of things they've outgrown. It's incredibly dirty, but still mostly intact. After I finished putting everything in it, I found out that my daughter was planning on using it again for things like sleepovers. So... Plan B! I found an old duffle bag, and I'll use that until/unless I come across a backpack (I prefer a backpack as it seems more portable...).

Into the old backpack, er, I mean duffle bag:

• first aid kit (existing)
• clothing in ziploc bag(s)

• long sleeve
• hat
• socks/underwear
• sweats

• small blanket
• carabineer (why not?)
• food?
• water bottle
• rope/cord
• scissors
• lighter?
• small bungee cords
• TP

Still to do/Next Steps

Two items I don't have yet are the lighter/matches and the food. I'll work on getting those.
I should probably get a charger for my phone that can plug into the car.   
Oh, and I haven't gotten spare clothes for everyone else, yet, but I'm working on it.

We have two cars, so we'll need a similar bag for my wife's car. Technically, we've already started as I put the small first aid kit in her car when I put a newer, larger one in the bag in my car.

Go Bag and Earthquake Readiness

Look around... Read the paper, watch the news, surf the web. The world is ending. Zombies. Government out of control. Floods, fires, earthquakes, locusts. The place is crumbling and I'm not ready! I'm not prepared!

Ahem.

It's easy to get swept up in a kind of frenzy, to feel so helpless in the wake of so much bad news. I don't want to the let the craziness win. Luckily there are several things I can do to be better prepared for the more realistic emergencies such as earthquakes (I do live in California after all) or flooding (in our neighborhood minor flooding is possible).

I think our best solution would be to sell everything and buy some remote land and begin a homestead. But that's just not feasible for us. We have to have jobs in order to pay for our elderly parents' medical bills.

With that out of the picture, we'll have to settle for handling the things we can control.

So putting together a "go bag" and preparing the family and house for a "72 hour emergency" is a good first step.

I got started on some of this stuff, but as I said before, this won't be done in a week, or a month. It'll take while but every item I cross off the list now is a step closer to being better prepared.

Resolutions / Goals

I've never really been a "New Year's Resolutions" kind of guy. Something about needing to wait for a specific trigger (Look it's a new year!) always seemed to rub me the wrong way. It feels arbitrary. Not that I don't understand why it works or why people like it. It just seems inefficient to me.

I do, however, love to make lists and cross things off. I like to set goals. So that's what I've done. I've started setting my goals for 2012. But after writing a few of them down I looked at the calendar.

I still have a whole month!

So I've decided to start on some of the list items early.

Here are the first two I want to at least get started this year:

1] Replace our desk

We had a desk. It was crappy, cheap, made of particle board, and it disintegrated when we tried to move it when we had the floors refinished. I do not miss it. We got what we paid for: lesson learned. Now we're using a small table. It's uncomfortable and unstable. We've got stuff that used to be in/on the desk (and the attached hutch) piled up in boxes around the room, making a small space feel even more crowded.

We want a new desk made from recycled/re-purposed materials.

Now, I _may_ end up just making one myself. I mean, I have a table saw and many other power tools/etc. I could do it, but I like the idea of supporting a local craftsman and of using recycled materials. Also, I know what mine would look like and I'd like something that's a bit more professional looking.

I think a realistic milestone for this goal would be to find a few places/people that do this kind of thing somewhere near where I live.

2] Put together a plan for Earthquake Readiness

Earthquake Readiness -- you hear it so often here in the San Francisco Bay Area that it becomes mere noise. Everyone knows we should be ready, but we all say the same thing. "Yep, I've got to get that earthquake kit together..."

We have a few odds and ends put away, but we need more. We need a comprehensive plan:

• Evacuation/meeting plans
• Emergency contacts
• Family training (fire extinguisher, gas shut off)
• Buy a fire extinguisher
• Build a "go bag" for the house
• Build emergency kits for the cars
• Build a "72 hour" kit including food/water for the whole family/pets/chickens, etc. etc.

I won't finish this in a week, or even a month. But I'm going to start on this now and try to do something every week.

I think a realistic first milestone for this goal would be to build the go bag. But another might be to do the family training parts.

I'm going to chronicle some of this stuff on the blog if only because then I'll feel like it's more "real."

Loss

A good friend of mine lost his son over the Thanksgiving weekend. As a father I can fathom the loss, I can get my arms around it, measure it, do the math. But I just can't comprehend it. The pain he and his wife must be feeling. I can't imagine it.

I went to the memorial service.

In my whole life I've managed to avoid all but two other memorial services/funerals/etc. I don't do well in those kinds of situations. Heck, I don't even go to "going away" lunches for coworkers. I don't like saying good bye. I don't like sadness. I don't like loss.

I never know what to say or do. You offer your help, your assistance. "Let me know if there's anything I can do." But what can I do? Mow the lawn? (I really did offer to do this, and other household chores) Alas, what I cannot do for them is offer any real help. Anything to remove the pain, the hurt. The loss.

Nanowrimo 2011

Nanowrimo 2011 is in the books. I finished a few days early (look at me, showing off) with a novel I really enjoyed writing. I enjoyed it so much that I've actually looked at it a few times since I finished on Sunday to do some minor editing. Now that's unusual for me.

But what I need to do now is let it sit, let it just rest over there on the back burner for a month or two or five. Then come back to it and see if I still like it and how much editing I can do. And that's a good plan because of how busy I am at the new job.

I did most of my writing on the weekends and the days I had off between jobs or during the holiday. In fact, I think I wrote fewer than 5k words during lunches/etc. at work. Where in past years, I've written all about 95% of the words while I was at the office either early in the AM or during lunch. I've just always had a better writing environment at the office.

This break in the middle of November meant that my Nanowrimo python script's logging data was spotty at best. Hopefully next year I'll have it running the whole time. I was excited about this year because I finally got the web/twitter posting feature fixed. Ah well, next year...

Nano, and Catching My Breath

Nanowrimo continues. It's inexorable, daunting, a clock tick-tick-ticking away. And even though I have started a new job and have even less free time than ever before, I'm in. I'm in and I'm doing well, having crossed 40k words last night. I hope to finish of the story this weekend, marking my 7th straight Nanowrimo "victory."

Seems like I haven't had time to relax. I'm spending any spare time writing or working (where I also write, but not novels unfortunately).

And I'm exercising a lot. Maybe too much.

When I mentioned catching my breath, I was being literal. The other day after a medium-sized workout (pushups, dips, crunches, exercise bike) I spent the whole day feeling like I couldn't catch my breath. I was worried about that, which made things even worse. I was even contemplating the dreaded D word (doctor).

But then I realized that I was incredibly stressed about my new job. Not that it's not stable or fun or rewarding -- I just have very high expectations for what I can do to contribute and after a whopping 5 days I didn't feel I was making enough headway.

I stepped back and put it all into perspective and then took the weekend off. Date night on Friday. No exercising Saturday or Sunday, only writing when I felt I wanted to, not when I felt I needed to. The result was a feeling of rejuvenation.

Monday I came to work with ideas and plans, things that would work, would make an impact.

Things aren't perfect, but I feel better prepared to tackle the bumps and take the bruises.

Moving On...

Friday was my last day at my job. I had worked there for over 7 years. I built the team from zero to ten (10!) technical writers, hiring most of them myself. I loved most of what I did and who I did it with, but it was time to go.

So, I'm moving on to a much smaller company. From 70k people to less than 70.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunity and I really can't wait to get started.

But last week was a tough week. I knew it would be hard, leaving the people I had worked with for so long. But I didn't know it would be _that_ hard!

Monday started out fine with just a tad of melancholy. I had told my team the week before so at this point I was simply running out the clock, doing my best to ensure a smooth transition. By Wednesday I was spending a lot of my time sneaking words in on my nanowrimo novel and generally avoiding human contact.

On Friday, I went to lunch with the team and we did our best to not talk about my leaving. We were all in denial.

After lunch I put the few remaining items from my desk into a box and took it out to my car. I really, really wanted to just get in and drive home, but I felt I needed to say one last goodbye so I went back in.

It's funny, saying goodbye to people. This experience reminded me a lot of the end of senior year in high school. There's a chance you'll never see these people again. The yearbook signing was a way to lessen that blow. "Keep in touch!" we write, not sure if it will ever happen.

LinkedIn is the digital yearbook of the business world.

"Yeah, link me on LinkedIn and we'll stay in touch!"