At the office, a flurry of “CNN Top 10” spam with nefarious links is making it past our mail filters. I put a special blocking rule to catch it, but did find two users (one who should have known better) clicking on the links.
More info about the spam is over on my “Security Dawg” site.
Weather has been nice around here, only in the low 90’s, with nice cooling at night. If you can get past your fear of earthquakes, forest fires, and less-than-helpful politicians, this is a nice place to live.
The recent earthquake in LA showed that the phone network will probably get overloaded in any localized emergency.
One of the things that you want to do in emergency preparedness is to be able to contact you family. You establish a central meeting place, or a way to communicate with your family. Most people will automatically reach for their cell phones. And they’ll probably get a busy signal, because all the circuits are busy.
Smart people will reach for their cell phone, but will send a text message to their family members or other contacts. Text messages, because they are transmitted differently, will get through when a cell phone call won’t.
So, you may want to ensure all members of your family know to use text messaging during an emergency. We know that your older children probably know how to text message (and you’ve probably got the cell phone bills to prove it).
If you don’t know, ask your children to teach you.
LRN 2 TXT.
California. Earthquakes. Fires. Smoky air.
— yawn —
Didn’t feel a thing here.
So, what’s new with you?
The Jensen family (our daughter Christine, husband Jared, and children Joelle (8), Liam (6), Max (4), Dane (2), Lucas (9 months) — came for a weekend visit. They were here for an Alzheimer’s Fundraising Run (Jared’s mother is affected), and to visit with Jared’s family. We all got a chance to have a nice visit.
They are on the road now, which could be interesting with four children in the car (Joelle is staying here for an extended visit). Although they are used to the noise, I suspect.
So now the house is a bit quieter than it was this weekend. We enjoyed the noise and the visit, though.
Got word yesterday of the passing of Mom’s brother, “Uncle Fred”. He was a good old cowboy, although I didn’t know him well.
My brother Skip wrote a nice farewell for him; family members can find it on Bob’s site.
Didn’t get a whole lot done last night. For some reason, was a bit sleepy, so took a nap after work. That reminds me of a joke an older fellow told me:
“So, Fred, how are you sleeping?”
“Well, I sleep OK at night. And I take a nap in the morning and evening. But in the afternoon, I just toss and turn!”
On Friday, we started getting some small breezes, which helped to clear the air a bit in some parts of this area. More breezes over the weekend also helped. The sun was actually visible as a yellow star, rather than a red-orange star. Still problems with the forest fires all around us, but it’s nice to have less smoke.
Went to the mountains Saturday for a few hours. At about 4000 feet elevation, the air was pretty good, with no detectable smoke odor. Visibility was 5-8 miles. It was a “Cousin’s Cabin Day” — we had a nice visit with various cousins that we don’t see very often.
Sunday was the usual. After the round of church meetings, went to my sister’s house for a nice dinner. On the way home, the temps were about 80 degrees, so opened up the sunroof on the new car (a 2007 Camry SE) which was quite pleasant.
Today’s temps are still warm, predicted for 95, but only 82 at noon, so may not reach the predicated high. But a small breeze is helping to cool things down; at night, we’re able to open the windows to take advantage of that (and to turn off the AC).