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Now available at www.lulu.com

Now you can buy my book: "Dealing With Danger -- Be Prepared, Aware and Decisive"

My Book, Dealing With Danger is now available at Lulu.com. Also available at Amazon.com price $15.95

Available from Barnes & Noble as an e-reader Nook book price $ 8.99

Available for download on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes as an eReader book price $8.99
'dealing with danger: be prepared, aware and decisive' is Available on the iBookstore
It's an instructional book to show people how to develop a straightforward, but comprehensive mindset or mental attitude to be aware of their surroundings, make simple but effective plans, and know when to put them into action. You can read a preview of the book online. A lot of people say that we need to develop a warrior attitude, but that just doesn't work for everyone. In my book I'll show you, regardless of age, gender, background, physical ability, and especially attitude how to be better prepared to survive the bad events in life by becoming a junkyard dog. Just click here.


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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Three Little Words That Can Be So Dangerous

Readers of this blog know that we examine various things that people can do to either avoid or deal with all kinds of threats to their well-being: violent crime, dangerous weather conditions, terrorism. etc.

Over the years I've had conversations with lots of people about various scenarios concerned with these types of incident. When I talk with people who are just beginning to realize that they need to take responsibility for their own safety and come up with simple but effective plans before anything bad happens, I often hear them blithely state some one-line plan that may at best address just one small slice of the problem. In other words, a lot of people don't really think through the entire scope of the problem before coming up with their plan.

For example, problem: violent mugging; solution: shoot everybody.
Problem: natural disaster--hurricane, earthquake, volcano; solution: leave town.

There is never any mention of a plan, never any mention of determining the exact criteria to enact the plan, never any thought about the possible outcomes.

When forced to think about how they would deal with a life-threatening disaster, many otherwise rational people seem to treat it like the script to a Hollywood disaster movie where common sense and adherence to the law go out the window and are replaced with a superhuman capability to "wing it."

It used to take me a while to detect some people's ability to dive head first into Hollywood Reality at the first mention of a disaster scenario, and their preference for relying on horsepower and cool equipment instead of planning and logic.

But I finally figured it out.

Any conversation about disaster preparedness that includes the phrase, "Well, I'll just ... " is a waste of everybody's time.

"Well, I'll just shoot the bad guys."; "Well, I'll just fire up the 4x4 and head for the hills."; "Well, I'll just dial 911." (You and everybody else in town.)

"Well, I'll just ..." One of the three great examples of not thinking things through, along with "Officer, I've only had two beers." and "Honey, I don't know how that lipstick got there."

Sunday, April 11, 2010

How Your Car's GPS System Might Make you a Crime Victim

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have become so popular as a means of navigating while driving, but like most things, there are pros and cons to having one.

There are basically two types of GPS used in cars and other vehicles: The portable system that attaches to the inside of the windshield with a rubber suction cup, and plugs into the cigarette lighter, and the built-in system that comes with the vehicle from the factory.

Security conscious drivers remove the portable system from it's suction cup windshield mount when they leave the vehicle and either take it with them or hide it somewhere in the car. Unfortunately, thieves look for that tell-tale ring left on the inside of the windshield by the suction cup, and often break into the vehicle, expecting to find the GPS unit stuffed under the front seat. This happened to a couple of friends of mine in Austin, Texas a few weeks ago. The cost: replacement of one broken side window and a GPS unit. So, the lesson learned here is to regularly clean the ring left by the suction cup off the inside of the windshield.

Car owners with an installed GPS system should be aware that all the information in that system: owner's name, home address, bank, friends names and addresses, etc. stays with the vehicle when it is sold. Car dealers are under no obligation to delete that personal information before selling the car. Since identity theft is so comonplace, it pays to remember to delete all information from the GPS before selling the car. I'd even go one further and say only input the minimum amount of information necessary, because you never know who else might access it: car thief, valet parking attendant, mechanic, etc.