From Ready.gov

Before a Tornado

• To begin preparing, you should build an emergency kit and make a family communications plan.
• Listen to NOAA Weather Radio or to commercial radio or television newscasts for the latest information. In any emergency, always listen to the instructions given by local emergency management officials. Listen for the siren warning system.
• Be alert to changing weather conditions. Look for approaching storms.
• Look for the following danger signs:
• Dark, often greenish sky
  • Large hail
  • A large, dark, low-lying cloud (particularly if rotating)
  • Loud roar, similar to a freight train.
  • If you see approaching storms or any of the danger signs, be prepared to take shelter immediately.

Tornado Facts

Quick facts you should know about tornadoes:

• They may strike quickly, with little or no warning.
• They may appear nearly transparent until dust and debris are picked up or a cloud forms in the funnel.
• The average tornado moves Southwest to Northeast, but tornadoes have been known to move in any direction.
• The average forward speed of a tornado is 30 mph, but may vary from stationary to 70 mph.
• Tornadoes can accompany tropical storms and hurricanes as they move onto land.
• Waterspouts are tornadoes that form over water.
• Tornadoes are most frequently reported east of the Rocky Mountains during spring and summer months.
• Peak tornado season in the southern states is March through May; in the northern states, it is late spring through early summer.
• Tornadoes are most likely to occur between 3 pm and 9 pm, but can occur at any time.

Know the Terms

Familiarize yourself with these terms to help identify a tornado hazard:

Tornado Watch - Tornadoes are possible. Remain alert for approaching storms. Watch the sky and stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio or television for information.

Tornado Warning - A tornado has been sighted or indicated by weather radar. Take shelter immediately.

During a Tornado

If you are under a tornado warning, seek shelter immediately!  Most injuries associated with high winds are from flying debris, so remember to protect your head.

IF YOU ARE IN:	THEN:
A structure (e.g. residence, small building, school, nursing home, hospital, factory, shopping center, high-rise building)	Go to a pre-designated area such as a safe room, basement, storm cellar, or the lowest building level. If there is no basement, go to the center of a small interior room on the lowest level (closet, interior hallway) away from corners, windows, doors, and outside walls. Put as many walls as possible between you and the outside. Get under a sturdy table and use your arms to protect your head and neck. In a high-rise building, go to a small interior room or hallway on the lowest floor possible. Put on sturdy shoes. Do not open windows.
A manufactured home or office	Get out immediately and go to a pre-identified location such as the lowest floor of a sturdy, nearby building or a storm shelter. Mobile homes, even if tied down, offer little protection from tornadoes.
The outside with no shelter	Immediately get into a vehicle, buckle your seat belt and try to drive to the closest sturdy shelter. If your vehicle is hit by flying debris while you are driving, pull over and park. Stay in the car with the seat belt on. Put your head down below the windows; cover your head with your hands and a blanket, coat or other cushion if possible. If you can safely get noticeably lower than the level of the roadway, leave your car and lie in that area, covering your head with your hands Do not get under an overpass or bridge. You are safer in a low, flat location. Never try to outrun a tornado in urban or congested areas in a car or truck. Instead, leave the vehicle immediately for safe shelter. Watch out for flying debris. Flying debris from tornadoes causes most fatalities and injuries.

After spending the weekend checking off tasks that were on my list, my wife and I went out for a nice afternoon drive.  There were quite a few bikes on the road with users of all ages.  I even saw one with training wheels attached on a side street.  I went to a web site, link included, to see what everyone should already know.  Besides all the facts I found, one must realize that bikes are considered a non-motorized vehicle and must obey all traffic signals.  Vehicle drivers must also be aware of their presence and the bike lanes throughout the city.  

Bike

There are so many great reasons to ride your bike: It offers fun, freedom and exercise, and it's good for the environment. We want kids and families to ride their bikes as much as possible. Here are a few tips so that you'll be safe while you do so.

The Hard Facts

More children ages 5 to 14 are seen in emergency rooms for injuries related to biking than any other sport. Helmets can reduce the risk of severe brain injuries by 88 percent – yet only 45 percent of children 14 and under usually wear a bike helmet.

Top Tips

• We have a simple saying: "Use your head, wear a helmet." It is the single most effective safety device available to reduce head injury and death from bicycle crashes.
• Tell your kids to ride on the right side of the road, with traffic, not against it. Stay as far to the right as possible. Use appropriate hand signals and respect traffic signals, stopping at all stop signs and stoplights.
• Teach your kids to make eye contact with drivers. Bikers should make sure drivers are paying attention and are going to stop before they cross the street.
• When riding at dusk, dawn or in the evening, be bright and use lights – and make sure your bike has reflectors as well. It's also smart to wear clothes and accessories that have retro-reflective materials to improve biker visibility to motorists.
• Actively supervise children until you're comfortable that they are responsible to ride on their own.

- See more at: http://www.safekids.org/bike#sthash.lAJTgg9z.dpuf

Motorcycles

Last weekend I noticed a lot more motorcycle riders on our streets. We need to take the time to notice motorcycles and their limitations when we are driving full sized vehicles. Did you know the following:

This is a list of numbers of motorcycle deaths in U.S. by year from 1994 to 2010. United States motorcycle fatalities increased every year for 11 years since reaching a historic low of 2,116 fatalities in 1997, until a decline in 2009. In nine years motorcycle deaths more than doubled.

From 1980 motorcycle ownership among riders aged 40 and over increased dramatically, from 15.1 percent of all riders in 1980 to 43.7 percent in 1998. The mean engine displacement of the motorcycles involved in fatal crashes also increased, from an average engine size of 769 cc (46.9 cu in) in 1990, to 959 cc (58.5 cu in) in 2001, an increase of 24.7 percent. It has been suggested that the combination of older riders on higher-powered motorcycles might have been partially responsible for the increase in motorcycle deaths from the late 1990s until 2004.

Half of motorcycle fatalities in single vehicle crashes relate to problems negotiating a curve prior to a crash—almost 60 percent of motorcyclist fatalities in single-vehicle crashes occur at night.

In 2009 motorcycle fatalities in the US declined for the first time in 11 years. The yearly total dropped from 5,312 to 4,469. Automobile fatalities continued to decline for the seventh straight year. A decline in recreational motorcycling due to the late-2000s recession might account for the decrease in accidents, according to the authors of a report by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), but a state motorcyclists' rights organization, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, said motorcycle use appeared to have increased, influenced by motorcycles' better fuel economy. A preliminary report by the GHSA estimated that the number of motorcyclist deaths in 2012 was more than 5,000, a 9% increase over 2011.

Annual U.S. motorcycle deaths

Year	Deaths
1994	2,320
1995	2,227
1996	2,161
1997	2,116
1998	2,294
1999	2,483
2000	2,897
2001	3,197†
2002	3,244
2003	3,661‡
2004	4,028
2005	4,576
2006	4,837
2007	5,174
2008	5,312
2009	4,462
2010	4,502
2011	4,612
† some NHTSA lists show 3,181 ‡ some NHTSA lists show 3,714

 Motorcycle riders need to have the following:

Items of Personal Protection Equipment

A full-face helmet credited for saving its user.

Half helmets or "skid lids" meet minimum legal requirements.

• Helmet — A full-face helmet provides the most protection. Thirty-five percent of all crashes show major impact on the chin-bar area. However, 3/4- and 1/2-helmets also are available. Some motorcycle training sites have banned the use of half-helmets because of avoidable injuries sustained by riders wearing them.
• Gloves — Commonly made of leather, cordura, or Kevlar, or some combination. Some include carbon fiber knuckle protection or other forms of rigid padding. Gloves designed specifically for motorcycle use have slightly curved fingers and the seams are on the outer surfaces to allow the motorcyclist to maintain his grip and control on the handlebars and clutch/brake levers. Some gloves also provide protection to the wrist.
• Jackets — Generally made from leather, ballistic nylon, cordura, Kevlar or other synthetics. Most jackets include special padding on elbows, spine and shoulders. Airbag system technology is now available fitted to jackets and vests for accident protection and impact protection for both riders and pillions. Competition-approved hard armor is superior to soft padding. Competition-approved back and chest protectors can be worn underneath jackets. Inflatable airbag jackets can offer an additional airbag for neck support.
• Pants — Made of the same material as jackets, usually including special protection for the knees and hips.
• Boots — Especially those for sport riding, include reinforcement and plastic caps on the ankles, and toe area. Boots designed for cruiser-style riders often have steel-reinforced toes (However this reduces sensitivity of the foot when changing gear). Boots should always have a rubber sole (as opposed to leather or other less flexible materials). Despite their toughness and protection, most boots are very lightweight. Some even include titanium plating.
• Goggles or Helmet Visor — Eye protection is of utmost importance - an insect or a kicked-up pebble in the eye at speed has enough momentum to cause significant damage. Such an event could easily cause the rider to lose control and crash. Besides this danger, squinting into the wind is unpleasant at best and watering eyes are quite distracting.
• Ear plugs — Most riders experience substantial wind noise at speeds above 40 to 50 mph (64 to 80 km/h). Ear plugs help protect against hearing damage, and reduce fatigue during long rides.
• Vests — Made with high-visibility colors and retroreflective materials, vests can be worn over jackets to increase the chance of being seen and allow drivers to better judge the speed and position of riders, especially in adverse conditions of dark and wet.
• Other PPE — Dirt bike riders wear a range of plastic armor to protect against injury from falling and hitting other riders and bikes, running into track barriers, and being hit by flying debris kicked up by the tires of other riders' bikes. This type of armor typically covers the back, chest, and sometimes the extremities.

It is increasingly common for gloves, jackets, pants, and boots to be outfitted with hard plastics on probable contact areas in an effort to ensure that when a motorcyclist contacts the ground, his clothing will permit him to slide relatively easily as opposed to "crumpling", risking injury to body parts being stressed in abnormal directions.

Since the first line of protection in crash contact is the outer shell of clothing, designers have moved that further from the body. The ultimate protective shell so far is an airbag that stays with the driver as he flies off the bike. However, increasing use of "exoskeleton" plastic shields attached to clothing points toward design of a complete roll bar belted to the driver. A near-stage design is a plastic or light alloy double "wheel" perimeter rim around the driver, over his head and in front and behind him. When the driver unbelts himself and gets off the bike, he leaves the wheel roll bar with the bike. But when the driver flies off the bike, the roll bar flies with him and makes contact with hard surfaces. The driver is relatively safe from contact, belted within a contact rim extending out around him.

Riders sometimes use the acronyms MOTGMOTT and ATGATT, which stand for "Most Of The Gear Most Of The Time" and "All The Gear All The Time", when describing their personal gear preferences.

COMPUTER SECURITY - HACKERS - ALL THE ABOVE, SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW. 

FROM:   Rafe Needleman can be reached at rafeneedleman@yahoo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @rafe. 

Everybody panic! On Tuesday, April 8, Microsoft will stop “supporting” Windows XP. If you’re still using a computer that’s running this old operating system, you do have options. I covered them very recently: Still on Windows XP? Here’s Some Bad Advice. 

But what if none of the options work for you? What if, for a perfectly good reason (like the fact that upgrading from XP will cost you either money or time, and you have neither), you’re stuck with a computer using XP? What’s going to happen to you and your computer on April 9?

Nothing you’ll notice, at least not right away. Windows XP will continue to work. But your risk of a security breach into your computer increases over time. Microsoft is adamant that Windows XP can no longer be considered a safe place to store your digital assets.

Even though the operating system has been repaired (“patched”) literally over 1,000 times, it’s got an old foundation, and it can’t stand up to modern security threats. Unless you want your data stolen, your home network hacked, or your computer taken over to be used as a slave to send spam, you need to get off this creaky platform. That’s what Microsoft says.

But if you have to keep using an old XP machine, you can decrease your exposure in a few ways:
1. Get the last version.
Make sure you have the final version of Windows XP. Connect your computer to the Internet and let it update itself. Or find Windows Update on your computer and let it run. Make your version of XP as secure as possible, because it’s not going to get any better after this.

The author digs out his old IBM laptop to give it one final update.

 2. Update your antivirus software.
Microsoft will continue to support its own Security Essentials add-on app for Windows until July 2015. Make sure it’s updated (it should handle this itself, or you can force it by opening the app and asking it to update). Security software is a strong line of defense, but it can’t protect you from everything.

3. Make sure your browser is up to date.
Since the most common threats your machine is likely to see will probably come through websites you visit, be sure you’re running a modern and up-to-date browser. All the current versions of the major browsers offer better security than that other giant Microsoft product that people still use, Internet Explorer 6. Get off that thing right now. 

4. Be extra careful with email.
Do not open attachments on your XP computer: PDFs, Word files, attached programs, and so on. Even those that appear to be from people you know. The “from” line in an email message can be forged, and happy-looking emails from friends are great vectors for infection. 

5. The same goes for Facebook.

It’s fine to read updates, but you’re at risk if you click on links to stories or sites that show up in your feed, even if they appear to be from people you know.

6. Be extra, extra careful with USB sticks, CDs, and DVDs.

These can carry malware. Your security software might catch it, but it might not. Best bet is to not use any kind of external media with this computer, especially USB sticks. 

7. For the ultimate in safety, disconnect from the Internet. 
Not a joke. And it’s actually a workable idea for people who are using their XP computers for dedicated functions, like cash registers. If it doesn’t need to be connected to the world, disconnect it. Do your email and web browsing on a modern device, like your smartphone or tablet, if you can.

All things end
Microsoft has a public document stating when it will stop supporting various versions of Windows. Today may be the end for XP, but its newer products have termination dates, too. If you’re on Windows Vista (which hopefully you’re not; it’s terrible), you have until April 11, 2017. Windows 7 users will be abandoned on Jan. 14, 2020. The clock is even ticking on Windows 8.1: Microsoft is planning to end support for today’s operating system on Jan. 10, 2023.

EASTER EGG SAFETY TIPS

It's that time of year again and above all we want our children to be safe. I have attached a few thoughts to ponder before the "Easter Egg Hunt".  

CANDY

To prevent choking and exposure to choking hazards, children under the age of 5 should not be given small candy. Be sure to give out age-appropriate candy and be watchful of little ones at all times.

TOYS

Toys with small pieces are also choking hazards so be mindful of any toys handed out to young children.

EGGS

Decorating eggs is one of the most fun Easter traditions for children. However, remember that eggs can be hazardous and quickly spoil if not refrigerated properly before and after you decorate them. Hard-boiled eggs left out for several hours as part of a hunt or centerpiece should not be eaten.

CLEANLINESS

When preparing eggs for the hunt, wash hands before and after working with raw eggs, as well as any utensils or dishes used. Do not use eggs that have been cracked or broken.

SUNSCREEN

If you are going to be outside for long periods for an Easter egg hunt or other outdoor games, remember to apply sunscreen.

NUT ALLERGIES

Remember that some kids have nut allergies that are very serious. Check with parents before offering any chocolate bunnies or other candies that might have nuts.

BOUNDARIES

Set up a boundary for an outdoor Easter egg hunt so kids are not wandering off or into places that aren't safe or supervised.

NO RUNNING

Separate age groups so that the large kids are not running off for their eggs and knocking over smaller children. Or enforce a no running rule.

INDOOR SAFETY

For indoor egg hunts, do not hide eggs near outlets, hard to reach areas, near glass or other breakables or dangerous spots.

SUPERVISION

Designate only certain rooms of the house for indoor egg hunts so children aren't running around the house unsupervised.