A Girlie Blog

How prepared are you?

Last week, I was in an Earthquake training course in San Francisco.  It got me thinking about how prepared are we for the next big earthquake.  Earthquake is a common issue in California.  There are so many fault lines below the surface from LA to SF and beyond, it isn't unthinking that one of those fault can shake everyone up in California, regionally or state-wide.  Many local cities have started working on this but what about us? 

Here are some things we should think about:

1.  Your cellphone will work for the first 30 second of a massive shake.  Because afterward, the public safety personnels will need the airwave free for them to use and respond to various emergency. 

2.  Who is your emergency contact?  Is he or she local?  Should he or she be out of the affected region?  A landline will be available for use with 30 minutes to 3 days depending on whether the phone lines are damages and how severe. 

3.  If you can't access your cellphone, palm, or other electronic gadgets, do you know how to contact your emergency contact?  Maybe a business card of important phone list should be in your wallet at all time.

4.  Food and water.  Your city, state, and Fed will try to distribute these to you, but it may take up to 72 hours.  Do you have enough for three days?  Especially water.  Human can survive 3 days without food but not water.

5.  Does your city have a reverse 9-1-1 service?  This is a great resource for residents.  Many cities may have these information on their official website.  This service provides information on shelters and evacuation location.

6.  Money:  Not that we should have a jar of $1 dollar bills under our mattress but any credit card dependent person knows how difficult it is to get food in china town or any heavily chinese populated area.  Cash and small bills will be important. 

7.  Red Cross: They are can help local jurisdictions on setting up or providing resources for shelters and they also have a national database to reconnect families. 

Of course, Christians should have faith in the Lord but we should also be prepared.  If you are prepared, you could also look into how you could help your neighbors.  Becoming local CERTS with the local fire department or volunteering with Red Cross and be certified to manage a shelter are some of the ways we can help our neighbors.  We should not worry about tomorrow, however, we should be prepared and if we have the ability to help, that will be great!

Just a thought! 

Currently Anastasia: Music From The Motion Picture (1997 Version) By David Newman, Stephen Flaherty, Aaliyah, Richard Marx, Donna Lewis see related

Blogging

Onigiri

So G & I tried making onigiri for the first time.  This is how it turned out

Not bad eh?  And here's G eating one:

It wasn't the easiest thing to make.  The key is to make it when the rice is hot and dip your hands in cold water to keep it from sticking to your hands.  The concept is simple but it was hard to shape and compact when it's hot! 

Complicated money moving technique

I use to think that moving money from one bank to another is complicated.  I mean, how can you transfer money from savings to checking without checks?  That's why I just kept my personal banking simple by having the Savings and Checking accounts with the same bank; hey, at least I can transfer from one pocket to another without time delay or fees.  But today, I got an awakening.  Without going into detail, because I still don't understand it, I never knew our tax money can be moved in such strange ways, from us to the state, back to the city, back to the state, then to the school districts then to the city... what?  I got lost after the money moved back to the state the second time.  I guess that's why Financial Analyst gets the big bucks!