Tag Archives: warning

Uncle Henry! It’s a Twister!

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Just endured a Tornado Warning here at work. Everyone proceeded in a calm and orderly fashion into the basement of Walwood Hall and all in all we did quite well. The only thing I could really complain about was the stairs to access the area, for older folk with bad knees it’s definitely takes some time.

Once we were down in the basement technology shined. Everyone gathered around me and my iPad. I also had water, a fire extinguisher, and my Ready.gov emergency preparedness kit in a man-sized duffle bag. Several things I noticed were a lack of timely (where minutes count) updates from the National Weather Service, The Weather Channel app being sluggish to load and not having up-to-date data, again, in a timely fashion. I could access all the network resources I needed to, which was comforting. I have to find some source on Twitter that has as-close-to-realtime weather data as possible. For the entire event the only procedural problem was doubt surrounding the all-clear signal. Custodial Services delivered a premature all-clear that was in contradiction to the warning provided by the NWS. Which to follow? Who has authority? WMU really needs a centralized “GO” and “SAFE” system, what we have with the NWS is okay, but the confusion and doubt surrounding the “SAFE” declaration is rather upsetting.

Perhaps there is a technological solution, I’ll have to investigate. If anyone has any experiences, please feel free to comment and share them here. TIA!

 

Moving back to Blogging…

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I suppose it started when LiveJournal, the journal I used to use was sold to a russian company. SixApart couldn’t hack it anymore and sold out – about that same time Facebook and Twitter were starting to garner some real attention and I couldn’t justify writing on LJ anymore, few people remained. It was a lot like IRC. Once everyone left, it went by the wayside.

Oh how times have changed. Everything that is old is new again. Twitter’s limit for 140 characters is certainly perfect for their design but sometimes my thoughts and, lets face it, my ranting and raving takes more than just 140 characters. Sometimes it takes a heapload of characters for me to express myself completely. Facebook could have been a blogging platform, but there is no way AFAIK to write a “Note” and then share that with anyone you like. Perhaps they’ll work on that, in the mean time I can work with WordPress.

I’m not expecting a readership, mostly it’s a vent for me to express things that otherwise would get bottled up inside. I imagine a fair amount of this blog will pertain to my job, higher education in general, politics, weather, as well as my odd beliefs and faiths. A secular humanist-deist. If you like what you read, I invite you to continue. Be prepared however, for these things:

  • More Left and Liberal than most people
  • Critical – Both for Gadgets, Companies, My Workplace, <grin> Everything.
  • Passionate – I’m outspoken, I don’t hide my feelings and I share compulsively.
  • Purposeful – I know what my purpose is in life, I’m not guessing, I’m not fumbling.
  • Technical – I’m a Geek. I’m a Morlock. I hunt Eloi for sport. Tech is a passion.
  • Gay – Gloriously Gay. While my sex life isn’t on display usually, I am what I am.
  • Angry – I get angry a lot. I share that anger, a lot. If you don’t like it, don’t read.

So here we are, a blog again. A personal journal again. I have HTML from my old LiveJournal blog, over time I might dredge some of that back up again, we’ll see.

So be it, Jedi.