Expect the Unexpected: Have an emergency kit

For years I told myself I should have an emergency preparedness/survival kit at home and in my car, but never followed through.  Then, after spending a day hiking in the mountains, my wife and I discovered the remote, one-way road we drove up in the morning had been blocked by a landslide in the afternoon.  Luckily a crew was already working on clearing the road, but during the few hours we waited and I considered the other possible outcomes of my predicament, I decided the next time we drove up to the mountains we would have a few emergency supplies in the trunk.

After dinner that night, I started checking out recommendations for emergency preparedness on the internet.  As usual with the net, I had to do a lot of weeding out.  The "survivalist" sites were the first to go into the weed pile.  I wasn't interested in gunning down my neighbors and repopulating the planet after the Apocalypse, I just wanted to get through a few days on my own, if need be.

I narrowed my search to "Emergency preparedness" and noted my search results could be divided into three categories: for profit businesses selling emergency preparedness kits and supplies; not-for-profit organizations advocating for emergency preparedness; and blogs.  The not-for-profits sites like RedCross.org, and ready.gov had a wealth of credible  information.  The blogs?  Not so much.  The for-profits?  Shocking!

I discovered there are no regulations or standards governing the emergency preparedness industry.  Anyone can pronounce themselves an expert, hand out bogus advice, throw a few band-aids and a granola bar in a cheap day pack and call it a "72-hour emergency preparedness kit."

The one exception? Big 3 Survival (http://www.big3survival.com).  These guys sell ready made 72-hour emergency survival kits that actually follow the advice and recommendations of the American Red Cross, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the CDC and the U.S. Coast Guard.  At first glance, the Big 3 Survival  Kits seemed to cost a bit more than average, but when I looked closer, the cheap kits all came up way short of expert recommendations (in spite of claiming otherwise).

I considered building a kit from scratch, but it didn't take long to realize I wouldn't be saving any money and it would be a time consuming project - not to mention the future time and expense of replace perishables at regular intervals. After considering all the options, the 5 year shelf life, Big 3 Survival Kits actually looked like a bargain to me.

In the end, I ordered a one person Big 3 Survival Kit to keep in my car and a two person kit to slide under my bed at home.  Hopefully, I'll never need either one, but the peace of mind they provide and knowing that I'm taking responsibility for myself and my loved ones is well worth the price.

How To Keep A New Year's Resolution

In this post: How I lost 20 lbs. and enjoyed doing it & The Top 10 New Year's Resolutions

How many people do you suppose stick to their new year’s resolutions?  My New Year’s resolution was, “to not make a New Year’s resolution,” but I broke that one as I was making it. Now I’m trying to settle on a new one. Lacking a national task force to help me cull the list of potentially beneficial resolutions down to just one, theoretically achievable resolution, I took it upon myself to browse the internet in search of the most popular resolutions.  Based on what I found, I’d have to say I’m a regular Joe, straight from Main Street, USA.

Snowboarding - It Didn't Happen

In This Post: Alpine Skiing, Big Bear Mountain Resorts, Snow Summit, Snow Valley Mountain Resort, Big Bear City 

Map 

Weather  

End of the day at Snow Valley

Last week we were trapped inside, first by tropical storms that dumped more rain in Southern California than we usually get in a whole year and then by colder storms out of the north that dumped a couple of feet of snow in the local mountains. Being that the local ski season can be unpredictable, Simmons and I decided to take advantage of the fresh snowfall and get to the mountains while the get'in was good. We went to the  Snow Summit website and signed up for a "First Time Beginner Board Package." The package included equipment, lessons and an optimistic guarantee that we'd be snowboarding down  the bunny sloops by day's end.

Gear Report: Why Buy A Heart Rate Monitor/Fitness Computer?

In this post: Heart rate monitors / fitness computers, Polar FT60, Polar RS300x, Polar G1 GPS, fitness improvement, weight loss

Mine is a common story.  Somewhere in my mid forties, during a routine annual check-up, my Doctor pointed out that I had gained 3 pounds during the past year.  He warned me I had reached the age where my metabolism was slowing down and predicted I’d be packing on a few pounds every year, unless I made some lifestyle changes.  He was right.  Over the next decade my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar went up right along with my weight.

Then, early in 2010, I was introduced to heart rate monitor/fitness computers (thanks Kathy!).  These cool gadgets consist of two parts: 1) a chest strap with a small heart rate monitor/transmitter attached; and 2) a specialty wristwatch/receiver/computer that gathers, stores and interprets your heart rate data while you’re exercising.


The basic reason for using a heart rate monitor is to maximize the weight loss, health and fitness benefits of the time you spend exercising.  In a nut shell, this is accomplished by monitoring your heart rate while exercising and varying the intensity of your exercise so as to keep your heart rate in the specific range that has been determined by the computer to most efficiently address your personal fitness goals (e.g. weight loss, cardio fitness

improvement, performance improvement, etc.). But wait…
there’s more.

First 50-Mile Bike Ride!

In this post: Bicycling, Billy's At The Beach (Newport Beach), La Palapa del Mar (Long Beach)
Note: This post is a follow-up to, "Beach Bike'n Fandango" (Dec. 5th) 
Map

Weather

WE DID IT!  Our first 50-mile bike ride!

The night before, the weather forecast sounded perfect; sunny, warm and no typical afternoon headwinds.  A.R., Kathy, Janet and I had never ridden our bikes further than 40-miles in a single day, but we felt like we were ready to push our "personal bests" up.  With a perfect day in the offing, we planned to get an early start, ride at a slow-to-moderate pace, take plenty of breaks, make a day of it and push our previous high mark up by 25% to 50 miles.

When we got to Newport, we decided to take the ferry across
the bay & ride to Billy's At The Beach for lunch.