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Hey Ken,
Just for your information my daughter started swimming lessons at age 4 months. By a recognized Red Cross instructor. To start the class she brought her 6 month old daughter to the class with her. She walked out on the diving board and told everyone about the class. Then before taking any questions she said that she had used the same course to teach her very own daughter to swim already. Then she dropped the baby into the water as she was standing on the end of the diving board . From she was holding her. She just held her out kissed her and dropped her into the water. Very easily at least a fall of 6 feet! This class was being held on the naval station Agana Guam and there were 15 very young mothers there with their babies ranging in age from 4 months to 1 year old and I believe that every one of them screamed. One of them actually got in the water. The little girl "bobbed" up to the surface and started swimming toward the people sitting around the pool. The young lady who had handed her baby off and jumped in the water stopped and we all watched that 6 month old swim about 10 feet to her. She was laughing and giggling most of the time. with in 3 sessions my baby girl was dog paddling like a pro. My wife was with her every second she was even close to the water, and all they did for a two weeks was practice practice practice. Deb taught her to hold her breath by blowing in her face. When Deb would blow in her face Elizabeth would shut her moth and quit breathing, then for a second Deb would take her under water WITH HER then they would both pop up laughing and squealing... My daughter is 38 now, and her kids all learned how to swim by the time they were 6 or 8 months old also. As did my son's daughters as well.
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Funny thing, I am the "E-911" county committee chairman for my county. We completed phase two the fall of 09 but out of the 77 counties in Oklahoma I think there are still several (like maybe 20) counties that are not "Phase II compliant" Narrow banding did help force teh issue though. BUt we still have two fire departments in the county that are analog only still for radio capability. Matter of fact we had a meeting Monday night about it.
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The engineering world is a bit beyond me on telephony but as I understand it Progeny will install transceivers throughout the city. If a 911 call comes in the system will triangulate using more than 3 transceivers to determine longitude, latitude and elevation. From there it's simply an overlay on a building schematic to determine office, which I'm sure is programmed into the computer. My guess is at some point they are going to be able to turn the camera on to determine what kind of emergency is in progress first hand and if you are wearing a simple patch it could tell BP, pulse, rate, etc. There really is no end to what they can pull off using a phone.
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....."Next, step right up and get your chip....No charge,...it's gonna help you in, oh so many ways.....There, That wasn't so hard, was it? Exit to the left......"
.....Next.......
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it will only hurt for a second.....
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Hi, my name is...."Yeah we know...move along."
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In a society that would actually buy electronic cigarettes..think about that for a moment...electronic cigarettes ... is there any limit to what they would buy?
"Hey George, check this out. Electronic cocaine! Is that cool or what?"
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I don't see what's so unusual about kids being taught to swim before their first birthday. I was 8 months old when I learned how to swim...when my father threw me into the ocean on a trip to Bermuda. The old man was useless in all other ways but he somehow knew that babies are accustomed to water (amniotic fluid). It's only when they get older that they lose that familiarity.
I was a latchkey kid so my mother made sure I knew all about how to take care of the house and how to handle an emergency (especially since I'd probably be the one creating the emergency).
Rick, I'm sure it's just a coincidence but doesn't risk culture also reduce (or substantially mitigate) the cost of emergencies? If people are trained in emergency response, that reduces the stress on your emergency management infrastructure as well as the resources behind that infrastructure. For example, if people are taught to keep their trees pruned, you reduce the impact of fallen limbs on homes during storms. In short, theoretically it's in everyone's best interest to employ risk culture because it saves everyone money. It kind of falls apart though when few people see the promised cost savings (like how insurance companies are loath to pass down their savings to their policyholders).
I think risk culture is best undertaken on the grassroots, personal level (like Ken illustrates). When it becomes an encompassing force, it falls prey to everything else that becomes institutionalized: corruption, greed, cronyism (i.e. Mike Browne as head of FEMA), and so on. You begin to have entities with undue influence pressing the "What's in it for us?" argument, leading to boneheaded legislation where the core idea suffers in its implementation. We've all seen it happen over the years.
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Or perhaps you were bait. (shrug).
On the risk culture, of course it does. That's what I was alluding to in my OP. That's why I think it's important in the personal world not just the corporate world.
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My dad was this way with us as kids. Only took on one of us though. LOL. The others still rely on AAA and the installers.
Instructions, schmuctions. Who needs those.
If you are gonna teach your kids things, make sure they can do them. For instance, as a youngster I couldn't turn the water main handle off by myself but dad cut a 2' piece of pipe that fit over the short handle to make a longer one. More leverage, instant success.
I think the best thing my dad taught me was how to figure stuff out and "make it work." We built forts, we built go-carts, we fixed the lawn-mowers and patched the sailboat. We had a big garden, we had chickens (and we ate them), and we were always going somewhere fishing, camping or to an NPS site or museum. He was always working with us and letting us do things to help. He wasn't as subtle as Ken though. If we screwed up we knew it right then and there. At least by the time I was old enough to remember all this.
Funny I don't remember learning to swim. I remember swimming lessons when I was 8 but think I already knew how by then. Maybe dad chucked me in and the experience was so traumatic I blocked it out. LOL.
I miss him.
But he left behind a relatively self-sufficient adult when he left.
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