Tornado! Disaster Preparedness and Donation Tips

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In light of the recent tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri, I’d like to take time to remind people of some basic safety and donation guidelines.

Although meteorology has come a long way, tornadoes can still drop out of a thunderstorm like ninjas.  Wrapped in rain, they are nearly impossible to see, especially at night. TAKE WARNINGS SERIOUSLY!  Just because you don’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s not there!

Signs of A Tornado (from the NOAA website)

  1. Strong, persistent rotation in the cloud base.
  2. Whirling dust or debris on the ground under a cloud base — tornadoes sometimes have no funnel!
  3. Hail or heavy rain followed by either dead calm or a fast, intense wind shift. Many tornadoes are wrapped in heavy precipitation and can’t be seen.
  4. Day or night – Loud, continuous roar or rumble, which doesn’t fade in a few seconds like thunder.
  5. Night – Small, bright, blue-green to white flashes at ground level near a thunderstorm (as opposed to silvery lightning up in the clouds). These mean power lines are being snapped by very strong wind, maybe a tornado.
  6. Night – Persistent lowering from the cloud base, illuminated or silhouetted by lightning — especially if it is on the ground or there is a blue-green-white power flash underneath.

What to Do

  • At home, take cover in an interior room or basement, as far from windows and outside walls as possible.  Crouch on the floor and cover your head.
  • If you’re in a mobile home, get out and go somewhere else.  There is nothing there that can protect you.  Debris can penetrate the walls and tornadoes love to toss mobile homes.
  • Office or school – follow established tornado procedures—interior room or lower level, away from windows.  Stay off the elevator!
  • In a store – get away from the front windows, toward an interior room or storage.  Employees may direct you; listen to them! Do not stop to videotape the tornado!
  • Outside or in a car – leave the car and get as far away from the road as you can.  Lie flat on low ground and cover your head.  DO NOT TAKE SHELTER UNDER AN OVERPASS.  It will act as a wind tunnel and is dangerous!
  • Do not stop to video the tornado. Flying debris can kill!

After a Disaster

If you are the victim of a tornado, you may be in shock or very upset.   Watch where you walk and keep your family together.  Wait for emergency help to arrive and follow instructions when it does.

  • Don’t go back into a damaged building.  It may collapse.
  • Don’t smoke or use lighters or matches.  There may be gas leaks.
  • You can give first aid to people if you are qualified to do so.

DO NOT DRIVE TO THE DISASTER AREA TO SIGHTSEE.  You will get in the way of emergency response and may cost people their lives.  You may get arrested if you try to enter a restricted zone.  Don’t call me to bail you out, because I won’t!

Tornado Donation Tips

Many people want to help the victims of a disaster.  Sometimes they don’t think about what they’re doing.  After the Birmingham/Tuscaloosa, AL tornado, ill-considered donations left people with a mountain of crap they can’t even use.  Think before sending anything.

  1. Check out any organization you plan to donate to.  Scams are rampant after a disaster.  Look here for ways to scope disaster relief.  Legitimate charities will also publish their financials so you know exactly where your money is going.
  2. Do not send torn, worn or nasty old clothes you don’t want anymore.  Those belong in the rag bag or the trash.  No used underwear either!
  3. Same goes for household items.  Would you want a bag of someone’s junk?
  4. Most organizations and churches asking for donations will have a list of items needed on their website or will share it via email and social networking.  Stick to the list to avoid saddling a storm victim with stuff they can’t use.

Everyone should have a plan in place for the disasters that are typical of the area.  Practice and review your plan periodically so everyone knows what to do when something bad happens.

How to Tell if What You Just Heard Was a TARDIS

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I’ve been watching Doctor Who on DVD and Netflix.  Great show! How did a nerd like me miss this?

It occurred to me that it’s very hard to come up with something original for a story.  People would argue it’s all been done.  Well, blimey, I think the TARDIS is pretty original.  “Time and Relative Dimension in Space” is a pretty funny name for a spaceship.  But then, the TARDIS is no ordinary ship.

Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, published one of the first successful time travel novels, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in 1889.  So time travel fiction has been around for a while.

For those unfamiliar with the show, it’s produced by the BBC, and was on from 1963 to 1985 originally,  and was revived in 2005.  It’s the madcap adventures of a 900-year-old alien, a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey, who flies around in his TARDIS.

The Doctor is one character, played by different actors, because he goes through a periodic regeneration.  My favorite was David Tennant, the tenth Doctor.  The current eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, is kind of growing on me.  I plan to watch as many of the older shows as I can.

The Doctor is just known as “The Doctor,” and someone invariably asks, “Doctor who?” Hence the show’s name.  He travels with one primary companion and often a few extras.  The companions are usually women, caught at a crossroads when the Doctor comes into their lives.  He doesn’t date them, but he does love them in a deeply protective and mentoring way.

His TARDIS looks like a 1950s blue police box, something like a phone booth, and makes a very distinctive sound as it materializes and dematerializes.  It’s sort of a mechanical wheeze.  According to a recent episode, it’s not supposed to do that, but it’s due to some wonky adjustment.   The Doctor likes it so he left it that way.

Click HERE for the sound of the TARDIS!

Its most distinguishing feature is that it’s bigger on the inside than the outside.   This often amazes first-time visitors.  It contains many outfits from different time periods, although the Doctor and his current companion never seem to change clothes when they visit the past.  And no one there seems to notice.

Despite the incongruities, the show is a plethora of fast-talking sci-fi / fantasy action adventure with great character and awesomely creative villains.  Because it’s time travel, they can encounter everyone from Shakespeare to a giant slumbering futuristic head (The Face of Boe).  And since they can go to other planets, monsters and aliens abound.

One of the scariest monsters in any show ever appeared in a Season 4 Doctor Who episode called “Blink.”  Weeping Angels are classical-looking statue-like creatures that feed off energy.  They don’t move when you’re looking, but when you’re not…**

The Doctor tricked them into surrounding the TARDIS and then dematerialized it so they were trapped, looking at each other, and couldn’t move.  Clever!

Sci-fi and fantasy genres give television, film and novel writers endless possibilities.  There’s almost nothing you can’t do.  Speculative fiction has produced some real dogs, but there are lists and lists of excellently written books out there.  Tons of good TV shows, too.  I know people who don’t like that sort of thing.  That’s cool.  Go read some boring political thriller and leave me to my TARDIS!

If you have any suggestions on sci-fi books or shows to share, please do tell in the comments.

** CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Vocabulary: Ja, Baby!

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I’ve been dying to get back to the vocabulary posts.  They are fun.  Today’s letter is J for junior, jitterbug (it used to be a dance; now it’s a phone), jacket and Jell-o.

Oh you dear sweet mound of jiggly goodness.

Jabot –  a frilly ruffle worn on the front of a dress shirt.  Somewhat seventeenth century.

Jackalope – a cross between a jackrabbit and a small deer.  A mythical animal.  OR IS IT??

Jejune (ji-JOON)– dull, insipid, immature, or inexperienced.  Buffy’s attempts at painting were jejune at best; she could not seem to move past stick figures with fangs. 

Jerkin – a close fitting jacket or leather vest, medieval-style.   Ren Faire, pirate and re-enactment attire.

Jib – small triangle-shaped sail that comes off the foremast of a ship.  The expression I like the cut of your jib refers to the way a person looks or their personal style, and has its origin with sailors who recognized the shape of sails from different nationalities.

Jicama (HIK-uh muh) – a sort of pale brown turnip from Mexico, eaten raw or boiled.  Nice and crunchy, something like a water chestnut.

Jo–  mama! J/k!

Jongleur (Fr., ZHON-glur) – itinerant medieval minstrel.    Caught in mid-grope, Fred and Daphne stared aghast at the gibbering jongleur running through the deserted Renaissance fairgrounds. 

Jocularity – joking humor.  Anyone who ever watched M*A*S*H will remember this as one of Father Mulcahy’s words.

Jungle cock –  a male jungle fowl found in India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia.  No, it’s not that;  get your mind out of the gutter right now!

Think he may be stuffed…poor bird.

Click here for a video of a live one (around 1:35).

Judder – a heavy vibration, as in a car whose clutch is going out, or an airplane in trouble.  Batman clenched his teeth as the Batplane juddered, smoke pouring out of the damaged engine.  Beside him, the bound Joker giggled wildly through his gag.   

Jy – I can’t find any words that begin with –jy.  If you know any, please share in the comments.  Or, make one up!

That’s all for today.  See you next time!

The End of the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2011

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I’m a couple of days late, but here is my reflection post.  In retrospect, I think the picture thing was too ambitious for someone who spends all her time in about three places.  Unless you wanted more pictures of my flowers, I feel almost as though I cheated you.

This year’s challenge was really tough.  Work has been a mean bear, plus the stress, plus the second work, plus a kind of a social life, etc.   I struggled to come up with topics.   I would come home and park it on the couch and vegetate for a few minutes before remembering that I was supposed to post.  The worst part was not having time to read many posts from other participating bloggers.

It got away from the pictures and back into writing again.  I think that is good.  I don’t want to lose focus too much.  If I want to play around with something else, I can always start another blog.  The thought produces a mental “Gah!” right now, but it’s something I’ve been considering, since the current novel is kind of stalled.

I need a break.

In less than a month, I’ll be traveling so hopefully I’ll have more pictures for you.  There’s at least one picture I plan to get that I didn’t get last time.

Here’s a toast to all those who participated in the A-Z Challenge!  We made it.  See you next year!

"Toast" by brofosifo, courtesy of stock.xchng

Zest

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Sign on facsimile of sea life at Biosphere 2

I don’t know why it’s depressed, poor thing.  Perhaps it’s lost its zest for life.

With the recent recession’s layoffs, soaring prices and piled-on workloads, many people have succumbed to stress.  Their energy levels are at an all-time low.  Zest?  Forget it.  They feel sick, defeated and angry.  I’m one of them.  My job is in jeopardy.

What are the most common symptoms of stress?

  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Chest pain
  • Stomach problems
  • Anger and irritability
  • Forgetfulness
  • Overeating or lack of appetite
  • A feeling of defeat or despair
  • Substance abuse

Stress can steal your zest.  It also causes serious illness if not addressed.

  • Heart disease.  Yes you can have a heart attack from stress.  If you experience chest pain that won’t go away, numbness or pain in your jaw or arm, nausea or vomiting, call 911 immediately.  Don’t try to drive yourself to the hospital or go with someone; ambulances have medical support you may need.
  • Stroke.  Numbness or paralysis on one side of your body, loss of balance, confusion, trouble talking or seeing, and the worst headache ever are signs of a stroke.  If in doubt, call 911.  Time is of the essence here.
  • Depression.  Fatigue and feelings of hopelessness, lack of concentration, sleeping too much or too little, thoughts of death or suicide all mark major depression.  Often people think of it as simply a sad feeling that a person can banish with the right attitude.  It’s not.

Serious depression, whether it’s situational or chronic, causes changes in brain chemistry.  If left untreated, it results in substance abuse problems, physical illnesses and death by suicide.

  • Migraines.  Throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head, visual and auditory sensitivity and nausea are some symptoms.  These painful headaches sideline you and keep you from accomplishing anything until they pass.

How do you handle stress and regain your zest?  There are several things you can do to start.

1.  Visit your doctor. 

Make sure your symptoms aren’t coming from illness.  There may actually be something wrong that stress has either caused or worsened.  Treatment may actually relieve it.

2.  Remember to breathe.

When we’re agitated, our breathing quickens and becomes shallow.  We don’t get enough oxygen, which makes the stress worse.  Take a long, slow breath in through your nose, and blow it out slowly through your mouth.  Pretend you’re blowing out a candle some distance from you.  Do this several times and remember to do it slowly.  This will ease your heart and respiration and calm you.

3.  Try to let go of things you can’t control.

Boy, is this a hard one for me!  You have no say over what other people do, but you do over how you react to it.   Sometimes under conditions of chronic stress, people’s response mechanism becomes extremely sensitive, so things that ordinarily would not bother them trigger an outsized reaction.  This can be physically exhausting.

Let it go.  Remember what you do when your kid throws a tantrum.  If you freak out on someone who attacks you, it only makes the situation worse.  Take that slow breath and keep your cool and the other person looks like the raving fool.

4.  Set your priorities and take them one at a time.

If it’s work stress, know that you can only do one thing at a time.  Multi-tasking is a myth.  Our brains can’t do it.  Get done what you can and don’t worry about the rest until you get to it.

5.  Find the humor.

Even if it’s the blackest comedy anyone ever conceived, you can find humor in almost every situation.  Look at cops.  They have some of the darkest gallows humor on the planet.  It keeps them from screaming.

Naturally, you will not want to joke about things that others are taking seriously.  Remember Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of AFLAC’s duck.  One ill-timed tsunami joke, and he’s quacking to a pink slip.  People do use humor to cope but when it’s not your disaster, it comes off as tasteless.

6.  Eat right and get plenty of sleep. 

You need to take care of your health.  No one else is responsible for that but you.

If you’re trying all you can and still not getting anywhere, find a qualified counselor.  There’s no shame in asking for help.  The counselor will help you identify your stressors and deal with them.   Above all, don’t lose hope.  Life is change and nothing lasts forever.  Your zest will be back before you know it.

Y Do We Try?

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I made this LOL! That's my mom's cat, Ariel. She tried...to claim the bag. Didn't last.

Wondering why we keep trying in the face of overwhelming odds?  It’s because we can’t stand to lose.  We’re conditioned to compete and to win, to avoid that feeling of suck when we fail.

Take your job, for example.  Say things are stressing you out.  Most people will stay until they get fired rather than quit.  They just don’t want that designation, quitter.  Sometimes your boss will decide for you.  In some ways, that’s a relief, taking the burden off your shoulders.  In others it stinks, because then you don’t have a job.

If you’re truly unhappy and it’s not just a function of stress or immovable circumstances, it’s probably a good idea to take steps toward opening an alternative for yourself.  Don’t wait until there is a pink piece of paper with your name on it, or you’re left by the side of the road with a suitcase.

Try to make it better.

Your boss just put you on a performance improvement plan.   What do you do?  Well, time to look at why it happened, camper.  If they’re giving you a shot, and even if it’s bogus, it behooves you to do what you can to make an effort.   They may fire you anyway (because many PIPs are just a CYA so you won’t sue) but at least you can say you tried.

Open up a dialogue. 

So many people just hold it in until they explode, which isn’t good for health or happiness.  Before you get there, try to talk to people and let them know you’re overwhelmed.  If they don’t listen, find someone who will.  People in struggling relationships often don’t go to counseling since they think the other party should be there too.   But you’re doing something to help yourself.  Whether the relationship lasts or not, you still have to live with you.

If all else fails, know that failing is okay.

You put in a good faith effort to right a wrong that you did, or improve a condition of your own making and it doesn’t take.  What will people think?  Does it really matter?  If you can confidently say “I made a mistake and tried to make it right.  I will continue to ensure I don’t make that same mistake again,” then there is nothing to fear.  Even if you do screw up, you will recover.  Few mistakes are permanent if you learn from them.

If you’ve tried and failed and it has changed your direction, please share in the comments.

X-rated! Is your content suitable for all your readers?

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I bet you thought I was gonna write a sex scene here, didn’t you?  Sorry!  Maybe next time!

The Internet is rife with all types of content, some of which is kind of raw for kids.  If you’ve got a wide range of readers, how do you keep your content from offending one or more of them?

Does double-take; is apparently not offended.

The MPAA uses X as a rating for films meant to be seen only by adults.  This is not a designation purely for sex, but also for exploitive or extremely violent content, unsuitable for minors.  The reason people think of it as a sex thing is its heavy use in the pornography industry.  Now they use NC-17 to rate non-porn films that are still too heavy on adult content.

You can use some of their guidelines for your own material.  In books, hey, anything goes.  I wouldn’t expect a nine-year-old to read Rose’s Hostage if (When! When! Not if!) it gets published, so I feel comparatively safe putting some of the old ultra-violence and a bit of in-out in there.

On a blog? Not so much.  Here are my own versions for bloggery.

G rated

A little kid could read the post and not freak out, get upset or go “Mommy, what does ‘in-out’ mean?”  It might be about Hello Kitty. Or my kitty!

PG rated

Using the term “in-out”  makes it PG.  I might run naked through the post, but it would only be played for laughs and my naughty bits would be covered.

PG-13 rated

There will be talk of violence.  I might hit someone.  There may be a slight slippage of my coverage and a flash of nipple.  The subject matter will be controversial, but still okay for people old enough to be thinking about their first prom.  One use of the F-bomb in a suggestive manner would catapult me into an R rating, if I were a film.

R rated

Now we’re getting into the good stuff.  *evilly dry-washes hands*  My post about sex scenes could theoretically be rated R for content, even though the worst thing I said was H-E-double hockey sticks.  If I posted a knife murder scene as an example (and I have two that are very graphic I could show you), I’d have to put a little warning at the top.

NC-17 rated

My niece would not be reading any of these posts.  Think Cannibal Holocaust, Trainspotting, The Exorcist.

X rated

The dreaded X.  Bane of non-porn filmmakers who would like to at least make their money back.

Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion on hard topics.  But before you delve into the waters of controversy, make sure you’re doing it for a good reason.  Is it just to drive traffic to your site, a la shock value, or are you actually contributing a legitimate opinion to the subject?

Take a look at your readership and see who is there.  You might want to warn them if you’re going to do something like review a questionable film or book, discuss something divisive, or run free and naked through your post.

A well-defined and prominently-posted comments code comes in handy.  On most blogging platforms, you can set your comments for approval before they show up so you can weed out people who are obviously trolling or get out of control.

Wrong

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Wow, what wild weather we’re watching!

Since the weather is so horrific (104 tornadoes reported since this morning, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa in Alabama extremely damaged tonight), this picture seemed fitting.

Also, it’s Administrative Professional’s Day!  I got nothing!  Well, one coworker said happy day, which was nice.  Thanks, dude.  :)

Don’t you hate when you’re reading something and you come to a hugely erroneous fact?  How about a gross misspelling?  When a paper makes a mistake, they print a correction.  When a writer makes a mistake and it gets into a published book, it’s a little more difficult to fix it.

Bloggers have the advantage of fluid editing; they can go back and fix posts whenever they want.  I had to correct my Q post.  I put costume for the dress of the Native American dancers I wrote about, and a Lakota friend kindly pointed out to me that I should have said outfit or regalia.  It’s fixed now.  Thanks, Istagi.

If a boo-boo gets into your book, there’s not a lot you can do but you’ll sure hear about it.  I’m not talking about copy editors changing a word so the sentence doesn’t scan, but factual errors or terminology mistakes like mine.  In a later edition, it might be corrected, especially if it’s a non-fiction book that is selling well.  I don’t really know.  Before you write something, it’s wise to check out your material.

I read a book not too long ago that had a great concept, but was riddled with factual errors, wrong words (affect for effect, sheesh) and outdated information.  It read as if the writer had simply lifted all his material off the Internet without checking anything.  I didn’t finish the book and gave it a firm thumbs-down in a written review.  It pained me to do it, but I had to.  I would get the same treatment if I released such a sloppy work and expected people to pay for it.

Do your research and you can avoid these mistakes.  Double-check facts and techniques.  This is especially important if you’re writing about law enforcement or something equally popular and frequently misstated.  It may take extra time but the accuracy will pay off in the end.  Your readers will not even notice that the story isn’t real, because it will feel real.  And if your work is non-fiction, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing they will have the best information you can give them.

Ugly

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Gah!

Oh my damn, look at this ugly lamp.

What some people find beautiful, or once did, appears hellish to others.  It’s true of lamps, clothing, furniture and people.  Styles change, preferences shift.

When you see something that strikes you as ugly, your first reaction may be to recoil as though the object is coming at you.  In the case of this lamp, that’s exactly what I did, rounding the corner of the flea market booth.  I believe I even said “Gah!”

It’s fun to walk through the flea market and look for objects that once embodied the finest décor.  My personal preference is nineteenth century, which is a bit hard to find in such humble establishments for an amount of money I can afford.  Would that I could go back in time and purchase them at Victorian prices with my current salary!

Ugly things tell us a lot about ourselves. Why don’t we like a certain fabric, texture, color?  How is it that we prefer blond hair on a guy or gal and find brown or red unseemly?  What makes us decide what ugly is?

Writers like to tell us what their characters prefer.  Heroes and heroines are always pretty people, played in movies by real-life beauties.  How boring and bland that can be.

Why not try making someone a little less than perfect?  Think how much more interesting that character would be.   Case in point: Quasimodo, Victor Hugo’s tragic bellringer in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Yes, campers, it was a book long before Disney got hold of it.)

I read a Clive Barker novel, Coldheart Canyon, where the heroine was an overweight, average fangirl who had a thing for the hero, a film star.  I loved her because she wasn’t tall, gorgeous and windswept or named Kate.  She did kick butt when the chips hit the fan.

My bank robber in Rose’s Hostage is extra good-looking, to disarm the captive.  The ugliness comes from the violence of his world.  In the somewhat literary novel that’s bumping around in my head, the protagonist isn’t at all handsome.  In fact, he might be considered ugly, but that isn’t why he is special.  (Can’t tell you; I’d have to kill you.)

Or a character could have a taste for ugly things.  Maybe they remind him of a more innocent time, maybe he’s a complete nerd with a yen for macramé owls.  You decide.  Make the choices reveal something about him.  If he’s repelled by a deformity, the reader will wonder why.

Throw a little ugly in your WIP.  Contrast is a good thing.