Over heard a discussion yesterday that disturbed me a mite bit, especially since it involves the gun and knife show I'm on my way to this morning. It seems these two college kids were still pissed off at not being allowed to take a picture of a tee shirt that was being sold at the show this past spring. They were especially pissedvat being told that if they liked it enough to take picture of it, then they liked it enough to buy it cause that was the only way they were going to get that design.
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Hey and welcome back. I'm glad you could make it. Last week I rambled on a bit about what to do in a home invasion, and several people asked me if I'd revisit a piece I did a while back on home security. So why don't see what we can do. Now the most commonly overlooked place to start when you're trying to burglar proof your home is also one that almost every article on the subject mentions. Namely the deadbolt on your doors. The fact is that you can have the best deadbolt made, but if the strike plate the bolt fits into is too flimsy you may as well have not even bothered with a deadbolt in the first place. And don't count on the carpenter who installed it to make sure it's secure even if it did come with a selection of hardware. Start by measuring the length of bolt that goes into the strike plate and your door jam. If it's less than an inch and a quarter then you really need to replace the whole thing. Any reasonably fit man can probably move you door and the door jam close to an inch with a cheap pry bar from Walmart so anything less than an inch and a quarter just ain't going to cut it, and an inch and a half would be even better. Next look at the screws holding the strike plate to the frame. If they're not two inches or longer then you really should replace them, preferably with three inch screws assuming there's enough wood to sink them in. Even a complete novice could do the job in under 10 minutes and will make the chance of someone kicking into your door almost nonexistent. The next thing you really need to look at is your windows since that's the second most likely route a bad guy will pick to get into your home. Start by just looking at the age and condition of the windows. If they're the original windows and your home was built back in the 70's or 80's you might want to just go ahead and replace them with ones made with either tempered glass or safety glass. The energy savings alone could end up paying for the new windows, and either type of glass is so hard to break that most crooks will give up long before they get through. Next take a look at the hardware on your windows. Some locks can be jimmied simply by sliding a credit card or knife blade up between the top and bottom sashes, so check to make sure the locks are tight. If there's any play in them at all you should probably have them replaced. Another thing to check is to see if your windows have safety latches designed to lock them in a partially open position. If they do then they probably serve as a second lock as well though most people never think to use them that way. If yours don't then I'd strongly recommend get a bar or rod that will keep your windows from being opened even if a crook does manage to force the locks. The simplest way is just to cut a broomstick to fit, but you can buy bars made just for the purpose. It wouldn't hurt to do the same for your sliding glass door as well. The next thing I'd do is look at how well lit your home is. The last thing any crook wants is to be seen, so having flood lights on the corners and bright porch lights beside each of your doors will greatly decrease the appeal of trying to break into your house. If the idea of having them on all night long makes the Scrooge in you flinch, spend a little extra and get ones with motion detectors built in. Just be warned that if you live out in the country then you might find the deer you never knew were coming into your yard may trigger them unexpectedly. I'm in the process of installing light sensors in mine so that they'll automatically turn on at dusk and then turn themselves off at dawn. Next look at the plants around your house. Lush planting a can really add to the value of a home it's true, but if they block the view of your neighbors of someone trying to force their way in then they need to be cut back or replaced with something as prickly as possible. Say a holly or a nice rose bush for example. And that brings me in a way to one of my pet peeves. Yes, yes, I know. Everyone loves their privacy, and being able to relax in the privacy of your backyard can be priceless after a long day at work; but stop and look at that privacy fence from a crook's point of view for a minute here. If your neighbors can't see into your backyard, how are they going to see the bad guys forcing open your patio door? They can't obviously, and so that beloved privacy fence you paid so much to have put in becomes a bugler's best friend. Okay, I know I'm not going to change many minds on this one; but please at least think about it a bit. Of course the most obvious thing to help secure your home is to get an alarm system installed, preferably one that's monitored by a reputable company 24 hours a day. In my case I actually have two systems, one installed and monitored by one of the better known national companies, and a set of cameras feeding to a DVR that covers every approach to the house I could think of as well as some inside watching the most commonly used ways to get in that was installed and maintained by a local company with an excellent reputation. And both of them are hooked up to a back up power supply in case someone gets the cute idea of cutting the power lines to my house. Hey, what can I say. I'm paranoid. But when a home is broken into every 13 seconds here in the U.S., and around every 7 seconds in Great Britain, being paranoid suddenly doesn't sound all that bad now, does it? And finally, the easiest and most effective way to help burglar proof your home is simply to get to know your neighbors. Believe it or not, most homes are broken into between 10 am and 3 pm simply because thrives know these are the times a house is most likely to be empty. Nothing you can do is going to keep a true professional out, but most robberies are not committed by true professionals and if your neighbors know you well then they'll know when someone who doesn't belong comes around and the chances of the police being called soon enough to do some good goes up astronomically. So there you have a quick primer on how to increase the safety of your home. Are there other things you can do? Certainly. Indeed entire books have been written on the subject and a quick trip to your local library or Amazon's web site will net you a ton of them, but I don't have room or time enough to get that indepth. Still I hope this helps give you at least a few ideas. So until next time dear reader I hope you have a fantastic weekend and an even better week. And as always, remember. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with attitude! Hey there! And welcome back to my somewhat warped little corner of cyberspace. I'm glad you could join me.
A couple of weeks ago I started rambling on about the various materials they use to make knife handles, and I've covered the natural materials fairly well. I had originally planned to do metals in this ramble and then look at man made materials next time, but instead I think I'm going to combine the two into a single ramble. After all, there's just not that many of the two compared to natural materials; so let's go ahead and get started. When it comes to metal knife handles, almost every knife I know of uses one of three metals. Stainless Steel, aluminum, or titanium. Of the three, steel is the most scratch resistant but also the heaviest, aluminum tends to be the lightest, and titanium tends to be the most durable as well as the most expensive. Aluminum and titanium also can be anodized which can result in some spectacular colors, and of course all three can have a "brushed" look applied. Most stainless steel knives in my experience also tend to have some other material mated with the steel, most often in the form of an inset with rubber and plastic being the most common. The reason many knife makers do this is that stainless steel tends to feel rather slippery in the hand and so they add another material to improve the grip. I've also noticed that aluminum seems to get colder in the winter than either steel or titanium for some reason. Admittedly this rather subjective and you may find no noticeable difference, but I have run into several people who agree with me about this somewhat perplexing observation. I'll also freely admit that as a general rule I'm not all that fond of metal handled knives, though there are a few exceptions. The old Colt 668 fixed blade knife comes to mind, however the bankruptcy proceeding Colt went through back in January ended the production of all Colt knives for the foreseeable future so finding one may prove a bit of a challenge. When you start talking man made materials, synthetics to use the proper terminology, things start to get a bit more colorful as well as wide ranging in both quality and price. Some of course use plastic to simulate natural materials, and some of them are really quite amazing in their similarity to the real thing. Still, as a general rule very few knife makers are going to use plastic on any of their good knives so it's probably best to stay away from most knives with plastic handles unless you happen to come across one of the rare exceptions. Perhaps the most commonly used synthetic for knives is micarta. Originally developed by Westinghouse around 1910 as an electrical insulator, it is made by layering sheets of some material impregnated with resins (normally phenolic resins) and then exposing the built up mess to heat and pressure to form a very durable "board". The sheets can be linen, cotton, paper, or even fiberglass; and when two or more colors of sheet material is used, the resulting knife handle can be truly striking. The drawback is that micarta tends to extremely smooth, and is one of the more difficult materials to work. As a result micarta handled knives tend to be more expensive than the other synthetics. Similar to Micarta is a material called G-10. Like micarta, G-10 is a laminate, but it uses glass fibers instead of cloth or paper. Almost as durable, G-10 is also used as an electrical insulator in many industries, but where most micarta tends to be of a darker hue due to the type of resin used, G-10 can be found in almost any color you can imagine. It also tends to be much easier to work which normally translates into a lower cost to you, the knife buyer. Another laminate you may come across is commonly referred to as carbon fiber. Keep in mind that carbon fibers can be one of the strongest materials around, much stronger than steel in fact. The only problem is that all that strength only runs in one direction. As a result a knife with a carbon fiber handle is kind of like a diamond in a way. A diamond is indeed the hardest material any where, and can be used to cut through even the toughest item, but they're so brittle that if you hit it with a hammer all you'll have left is diamond dust. Carbon fiber handles are also extremely labor intensive, for about the only place you'll find these handles are on the very highest grade knives around. I mean, this stuff is expensive! At the other end of the price spectrum is a material known as Fiberglass Reinforced Nylon, or FRN for short. The earliest example of FRN is a material called Zytel, which was introduced by DuPont back in the 1950's. Unlike the others mentioned so far however, the fiberglass fibers in FRN tend to run in completely random directions instead of being lined up neatly. This results in a material that can be injection molded in almost any form you like, which helps to keep costs way down. I know some feel that FRN isn't any better than plastic or rubber as a knife handle, but personally I find it to be as durable as you could possibly ask. In fact, my most commonly carried EDC knife, a Kershaw Freefall, has a FRN handle and the knife has yet to fail me in anyway. One of the newer handle materials on the market is an acrylic based product called Kirinite. Available in a wide variety of colors and color combinations, you can find kirinite in almost any color you could possibly want. It works almost identically to wood, and, at least so far, seems to be as durable as you could possibly want. On the other hand the only major knife company I'm aware of that is currently using kirinite on any of their knives is Case, so at least for now you're most likely to see this material used on custom knives only; unless you're lucky enough to live near a major Case dealer. And that my friends is the nitty gritty of knife handles. Yes, there are some out there who will think this whole series of rambles about the different materials that can be used to make a handle for your favorite knife silly in the extreme. Most of them will try to tell you that the handle really doesn't mean anything, but I personally think they're nuts. A knife with a poor handle will fail you every time. If the handle doesn't fit your hand right, or is made of a material that allows it to slip in you grip, then the knife will be a danger to you and anyone beside you. So pay attention to that handle. Pick the knife up and see how it fits in your hand even before you pay any attention to what style of blade or blades it has or what those blades are made of. If you can't keep a grip on it, then even the best blade isn't going to do you any good. But for now it's late and alas, I must be up all too early in the morning. So until we meet again in this little corner of cyberspace I call my own, I wish you well dear reader. And remember, if it's worth doing then it's worth doing with attitude! Gather round friends and listen to a story of a home invasion that could have gone very, very wrong. A week or so ago one of my friends who happens to be a a fourth degree Black Belt had some idiot try to force his way his house. The would be home invader kicked in the storm door but failed to get through the front door, possibly because my friend's no fool and had replaced the screws in the strike plate and dead bolt with longer screws. Now admittedly most home invasions happen in poorer neighborhoods, but my friend lives in a very nice area making this attempt kind of unusual. Add in that my friend probably could have tied the would be crook in knots, and the fact that the guy took off when he failed in his first attempt to force the door was a wise decision.
So how could things have gone wrong? Easy. Being no dummy, and not having any troubles with the thought of him or me, the first thing my friend did was grab his gun and make sure his wife and child were out of harms way. But then he made a very bad decision. He went out the door after the idiot who had tried to commit home invasion. Now admittedly my friend is a great martial artist. Indeed in all honesty he's better than I will ever be; but no matter how good you are, no form of karate will make you bullet proof! If the intruder had been armed then my friend would be pushing up daisies instead of running a very successful school. So what should my friend have done? For starters, in addition to making sure his family was in a safe place, he should have instructed his wife to call 911. Now in all fairness, I can't imagine him not doing exactly that; but he didn't mention it when he was telling me the story so I have no way to know one way or another. But once that was done and he had his gun in hand, he should have immediately found some form of cover! In my friend's house he could have ducked down behind a couch or darted into the kitchen. Either way he'd have had plenty of cover and a clear shot at anyone coming through that front door. In my house I'd have had a lot more choices, including two stairwells, the kitchen, and, if I had time, the front room where I'd be behind them as they entered. I could also have ducked into the powder room right off the entry way, but then I would be trapped if anything went wrong, and it never pays to discount Murphy's law. It'll bite you in the ass every time! So what should you do? Well for starters you need to look at your own home right now. How might an intruder try to force his way into your house or apartment? Admittedly most home invaders go for the front door. After all their whole strategy is to smash their way in, grab whatever they can, and get back out again as fast as possible; and hang the damage to property or people. But not every crook is going to go for the front door, so look at every possibility and try to figure out where you can get good defensive cover and still have a clear shot at any intruder coming in that way. At the same time try to figure out your line of retreat if things start to go south. Next you need to find a safe place for your family to retreat to where they won't find themselves in the line of fire, yet at the same time there needs to be a line of escape; so an upstairs bathroom with only a tiny little window that no one could possibly get through probably wouldn't be an ideal choice. At the same time your family really needs a reliable way to call the police. After all, you're likely to be too busy to do it yourself, so get them used to having their cell phones with them at all times. And finally, try your damnedest to figure out a way to get the hell out of dodge before the bullets start flying. It may be a cliche, but the best fight really is a fight avoided! Things can be replaced, your life cannot; and no matter how good you may be, there's always someone out there who's better or luckier. So get a good insurance plan with a replacement value rider and let the bad guy have your things if you can safely get out of there. Now comes the hard part. My friend had done all of that. He even practiced it a few times, yet he still went out the door after the intruder instead of following his plan. Why? Because when things get real, we as human being will instinctively do one of two things. We'll either attack, or run away and hide; it's simply the way we're wired! That's why police departments, fire departments, ambulance crews, and hospitals have so many disaster drills. That's why the military trains their recruits to tears. The only way to keep from falling back on that instinct is to practice our plan time and time again. Indeed, you need to practice it till your family starts muttering about white jackets with extra long sleeves since it's obvious you've become paranoid. Admittedly it's as boring as hell, but it's much better than being another statistic in some police report. Of course there are all sorts of things you can do to make your home a much less inviting target, many of which I covered in an earlier ramble. And who knows, I may revisit that ramble again; but I think it's time to bring this one to an end. As always I hope I gave you something to think about, so until we meet again in this little corner of cyberspace I call my own I wish you well. May the sun be always at your back and may the road rise up to meet you. And as always, remember, if it's worth doing then it's worth doing with attitude! Well it seems I'm temporarily between full time employment at the moment due to various health issues, and so I've been neglecting my rambles a bit lately; for which I do apologize my dear reader. None the less, in looking back over some of my rambles I may have given the impression that having a child on the autism spectrum is nothing but trials and tribulations. Believe me, nothing could be further from the truth! Indeed, both my wife and I tend to have rather severe differences with at least one autism group that treats autism as a horrible disease that desperately needs a cure. My son may be wired a bit different from you and I, but but he's NOT sick or broken! Indeed, if someone could "fix" Wills tomorrow and make him completely normal I'd have to say no thanks. Baffling? If you've never been where I am it probably is. Of course I would love it if Wills suddenly gained the ability to communicate with us clearly and could expect to support himself like his neuro-typical sister will, but it's his many quirks and foibles that make him what and who he is. To make him "normal" would remove all of that and he would no longer be the son I love more than life itself. Here, let me give you some examples of what I'm talking about. Many, many young children will, if given a chance, will watch a movie they like until the parents are ready to throw it out into the street and run over it with a tank. Well Wills hasn't out grown that yet, and a couple of weeks ago the movie that had his undivided attention was the SpongeBob Movie. Next thing I knew he had made himself an eye patch that almost any optometrist would be proud of and was running around being Silence! the pirate, a pirate so mean he made his parrot walk the plank when the parrot ignored the command to be Silent! All in all, he made us laugh ourselves sick with his escapades that day. Another time he found a YouTube video of a Hienz ketchup commercial where two tomatoes were arguing over the pronouciation of the word tomato until at the end a bottle of ketchup smashes down between them and a deep voice says very firmly Hienz. For about 3 days he kept repeating that commercial until, just as I was about to scream, he suddenly replaced the word "Hienz" with "Blender" and started laughing. Words just can't picture the event properly. Another example would be his bed. Like many on the autism spectrum, my son has a degree of OCD. In his case, his sheets must be just so and his pillow cases absolutely must match the sheets exactly. If they don't then "something's wrong with my bedroom" and he simply cannot sleep in his bed. Now admittedly this drove us nuts for about a week until we figured out what the problem was. Once we did and made sure he knew where his clean sheets and blankets were kept, well he now changes his own bed when he's not happy with it and he hasn't slept in the family room since. So there you have it dear reader. Admittedly these foibles of Wills would cause many people to pause, but they make him what he is; and if ensuring his ability to survive on his own meant erasing them I would refuse the "cure". Yes, his autism and his limited options for the future adds a measure of stress to my life that, especially now as I work through my own health problems, I could well do with out. But to change him that much would render him a completely different person and I love my son just the way he is. But for now I need to get back to looking for a job that my health issues won't interfere with, so I bid you farewell dear reader. Until we meet again in this little corner of cyberspace I call my own you take care; and remember, if it's worth doing it's worth doing with attitude! Welcome back my friend. It's Wednesday, so it's time to talk knives again and last week we had started to discuss handle materials. So let's see where we were then.
So, you've already listen to me ramble on about the different categories; which admittedly was kind of boring and limited. So why don't we start looking at the first of those categories, namely natural materials such as bone and wood. Is there any thing that can't be used to make a knife handle? Not really. In fact is you go back far enough you'll find just about any natural material you can name used somewhere or other, even stone! So what's used today? One material that's been used for thousands of years, and is still used even today is of course wood; and why not. There's very little out there more beautiful than a nice piece of wood that's been lovingly shaped and worked. Rosewood, cocobolo, ironwood, even birds eye maple, the possibilities are as endless as the type of trees in the forest. Wood is pleasing to the eye and comfortable in the hand, and some are as durable as you could ask. Archeologists have found oak foundations in various parts of the world that are 100's, even thousands of years old, and still as solid as the day they were made. However not all wood will last like this, and like almost all natural materials it will suffer much more from abuse than metal or man made materials. So if your wood handled knife gets wet or dirty, wash it gently, dry it well with a soft towel as best you can, then set it aside to dry naturally over the course of a day or two. Then when it's dry, rub it well with mineral oil or some natural wood oil. And for God's sake, whatever you do, don't put it in a hot oven, on top of a stove, or by the fire! You'll dry it out so completely it'll crack and then you'll have no choice but to either replace the handle or replace the knife. Another material that's been in use at least as long as wood, and possibly longer, is leather. After all, when man was still living in caves and chipping his blades out of flint and obsidian, what was easier to work with? It cut easily, much more easily than trees, and there was plenty to go around after each successful hunt. Even today there are many knives out there with leather handles, but most of them use what are often referred to as "spacers". Wrapping a handle in leather often doesn't work well over time since leather can stretch leaving you with a grip that can turn in your hand at the worst possible minute. Leather spacers, which look like washers made of leather, form the handles of some of the more iconic fighting knives around; from the famous Ka-bar of the U.S. military, to the V-42 dagger used by the British "Devil Brigade" in WWII. The Premium Bowie from Magnum by Boker also uses them, interspaced with piece of cocobolo wood and the entire handle polished to a fair-the-well. Perhaps the most beloved handle material for many knife collectors is bone. Almost as easy to work as wood, bone can be smooth or rough and died in almost any color imaginable. Today cow bone is the bone of choice for most knife makers, mainly because as long as people eat beef there will be a steady supply. Plus it's even more durable than most woods, so it'll last a long, long time. Then there's Stag or antler. All antler material from legitimate suppliers come from antlers that have been "shed" by the animals in the spring before the new antlers start to come in, and it's natural texture make for a great grip. However poorly fitted antler can easily come lose from the tang resulting in a knife that can turning your hand, so I personally would recommend spending a bit more to make sure you get a quality fit and, possibly, sambar stag antler from India since it has a much smaller "morrow" core than other breeds. Along the same lines of antler would be horns. Unlike antlers, most animals do not shed their horns; but since true horns are, believe it or not, a form of hair it does not hurt the animal to have their horns cut off once a year or so. Perhaps the most popular horns are buffalo, sheep, and types of ivory; though getting ivory legally is getting tougher and tougher as countries crack down on poachers more and more. Indeed, every new manufacture knife I've seen in the past 2 years with an "ivory" handle was actually using a synthetic material of some sort instead. Similar to ivory, but no where near as durable is Abalone and Mother of Pearl. Both materials are made from the shell of various mollusks, and while beautiful as all get out, it doesn't tend to be very durable. For this reason they tend to be used mainly for "gentlemen's" pocket knives which will rarely see any heavy use or presentation knives that are not intended to be used at all. It also tends to be one of the most expensive of the natural handle materials since it can literally take a ton of muscles and oysters to get a pair of pieces big enough for one knife. Near the beginning I mentioned using stone for knife handles, and I know I heard at least one or two snorts of disbelieve out there; but stone really is used for knife handles even today. Most of the time it's a semi-precious stone such as turquoise, but I've also seen fossilized wood and mammoth tusks. Don't believe me? Go look. You'll find knives from Case, Rough Rider, Colt, and, some of my personal favorites though I have not yet managed to become a dealer for them (and truthfully, since they're so small, probably never will), Santa Fe Stone Works. Finally, there's a group that some are still arguing over which category they belong in; namely the stabilized woods. What happens here is that the wood (or any natural material that's porous enough for the chemicals toward their way in) is put in a vacuum tank along with a resin like material and the resin is forced into the wood and then cured, most often by applying heat. The result is a material with the natural beauty of wood and the durability of a synthetic. And there in a nut shell are the choices. Truthfully, I find the natural materials so beautiful that they comprise most of the knives in my personal collection. But next week I'll ramble a bit about the synthetic material currently in use, which, in all honesty, tend to be superior in terms of durability; even if many of them don't hold a candle to the natural materials in looks. But hey, some don't agree with me on this; and isn't that part of what makes life so grand? Things would be dreadfully boring if we all agreed on everything after all. But until then, I hope your weeks all you could ever hope for and may the god of your choice smile down on you. And as always, remember, if it's worth doing then it's worth doing with attitude! Oh, hey there. Sorry, you caught me off guard for a moment there. Was just looking back at some of my earliest rambles. Would you believe I've actually been at this for almost two years now? Admittedly I missed quite a few rambles in there due to various health problems, especially when I underwent surgery to remove a tumor; but yeah, it actually will be two years come October. Wow. Who'd a thunk it! But while reading over some of those old rambles, I came across one I wrote shortly after the son of a very good friend had died and I thought maybe I should do some checking to see what has changed in those two years. The sad answer is, unfortunately, very little. You see, one of the things we as the parents of children on the autism spectrum must deal with all too often is a behavior commonly known as "eloping". And no, it doesn't mean running off to be married on the sly; not when applied to people like my son any way. What it refers to instead is a tendency on the part of children with some form of autism to suddenly take off. Sometimes it seems as if they're trying to get away from something that has greatly disturbed them or even frightened them. In these cases they'll often just take off with no thought except to get away from whatever it is that is causing them distress with absolutely no thought to where they're going or how they're getting there. Other times they get distracted by something that fascinates them beyond all reason, like one young girl who was so fascinated by a bird she had seen that she never even noticed where she was or where she was going as she followed it until she suddenly found herself in the middle of a swamp with no clue as to how to get out. And the sad fact is that all too many of these cases end in the child's death. Not all of them by any means thank God, but enough time to give the parent of any child on the spectrum nightmares. One of the items I covered in the original ramble was police programs that provide GPS tracking devices to families of children on the spectrum, allowing the department to track and locate a missing child with in minutes of being informed that the child has eloped. In January of 2014, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York get the Justice Department to agree to provide around $10 million dollars in grants and loans to police departments who wished to purchase the equipment after 14 year old Avonte Oquendo went missing from his school and was eventually found in the East River. Yet here it is two years later and a web search for police departments who have taken advantage of this program is sadly rather short. The equipment is available, and as far as I can tell the money is still available; but no one seems to be interested. Indeed, I've even seen articles and blogs that argue against the program, calling it "government surveillance", interference, and worse. And so our children are still eloping, and all too often, dying. Many who can afford it have bought GPS equipment, and there is a nice selection out there. At least 9 to the best of my knowledge. Three I'm especially impressed with are Angel Sense, the Tracking Watch from Precise Innovation, and the GPS Smart Sole, though I will admit I do not have any direct experience with any of them yet. I would love to be able to actually test them out, but at least at the moment I cannot afford to. No corporate sponsorship don't you know. And while the equipment in many cases are quite reasonable (Angel Sense is currently on sale for only $59.00 for the basic set up), you still have to pay for the GPS service and monitoring. For Angel Sense, that's currently $44.95 a month with a one year contract, roughly $540.00 a year. And yes, compared to cell phone service or cable service, that's a bargain. Unfortunately it's still more than I can afford to pay right now. Nor to the best of my knowledge is there any federal or state program to help low income families pay for this technology unless their local police force has instituted the Justice Department's suggested program. And so there we are. Watching our children like a hawk, but enjoying their presence in our lives as much as we enjoy their brothers and sisters. And so we continue, and so I will continue. Writing my little rambles and hopefully sharing a bit of what it means to be the father of a child with autism with you. Until next time then. I hope what remains of your summer is everything you could possibly want, and remember. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with attitude! Hey there, and welcome back. I hope you've had a great week. Oh, the title? A bit late to be talking about vacations you say? Not really. When I was living and working down in Charleston, August was second only to Spring Break for the number of tourists we got; and why not? In June you're still trying to get the spring plantings and spring cleaning done, not to mention all the little things your boss wants done before everyone leaves for vacation; and July is family time what with the 4th of July and all. But in August we suddenly realize that the kids are about to go back to school and if we're going to get that family vacation in we'd better do it now before Labor Day rolls around and we miss our chance. But still, it's Friday so some of you are probably wondering just what Vacation has to do with self defense. Well it's like this. When we're at home, we instinctively know when something's not right and we might be in danger, but when we're on vacation we can suddenly find ourselves with unexpected danger on two different fronts.
The first danger is the danger of unknown surroundings. After all, unless you have a cabin you visit every year, or vacation is taking the kids to see gramma and grandpa, you're going to find yourself in a place that you just don't know. At home you know without even thinking about it which streets are safe and which ones to avoid. You know when someone is out of place, like a kid dressed gang banger style where no one else would dress that way or a man dressed too well when everyone else would be dress rather casual. But when you're on vacation odds are you don't know the normal patterns, so you really won't know what to look for. So what do you do? Well first, you need to do a little homework. For starters, if you're a regular reader of my rambles then you probably have a concealed weapons permit or license, that or you're considering getting one. But can you take your favorite gun with you? Maybe, maybe not. Let's not forget Ms. Shaneen Allen after all. If you remember, this lady was a health care professional, a phlebotomist, who was arrested in New Jersey for possession of a hand gun inspite of the fact that she had a concealed weapon permit from her home state of Pennsylvania. If Governor Christie had not bowed to public pressure and pardoned her, this mother of two could have found herself in prison for 3 years. So for God's sake, check the gun laws of the state you plan to visit! My personal favorite for doing this is an app I have on my phone called Concealed Carry App, or CCA for short. This app keeps up to date with all the laws covering reciprocity of your cwp so you'll know a head of time whether the state you're planning on visiting will honor your permit or not. Another great resource is the NRA. Naturally the organization best known for defending people's right to own guns of any type tries their best to keep track of every law dealing with guns no matter where you might be going. Another thing I’d recommend is to do a web search for the place you’re going to. Look up crime rates, and reviews by other people. Check the local police department’s web site, often they’ll have tips that you might find useful. And once you get there, check with the people where you’ll be staying. Especially check with the concierge if they’ve got one, and it’s not too uncommon for even smaller hotels and cabin sites to have them now-a-days. The staff where you’re staying want you to have the best time possible so that you’ll come back, or at least recommend them to your friends; so they’ll be more than happy to give you any tips you might need to know to keep you and your family safe. If you’re going to an area known for tourism, consider buying yourself a money belt instead of keeping all your money in your wallet or purse. Most people when they hear the word money belt automatically think of bad fiction or the old west, so you’ve got a reasonable chance that a thief will never even think of the possibility of you having one; and I’ve seen some really nice ones out there so it’s not going to clash with your outfit. You might also consider carrying your wallet in your front pocket instead of your back pocket. I know it’s not very comfortable, and it won’t stop a really, really good pick pocket; but it will slow them down and possibly make them pass you up for an easier mark. After all, most thieves aren’t going to work any harder than they have to, and if your wallet is in a place that’s harder to them to get to then there’s more of a chance they’ll give themselves away which is the last thing a pick pocket will want to do. Set meeting places anywhere you go where the family can meet up at in case you get separated. I know you don’t intend to let that happen, but believe me, it can happen to even the best of us. So set up that meeting place, and set a time that everyone should meet there just in case. Also make sure everyone has recent pictures of everybody as well, that way if little Johnny get separated from you he can not only tell that nice lady at the reception desk that he’s lost his mommy and daddy by also show her what you look like. And let’s be honest, it helps the police to no end should worst come to worst and you have to involve them in trying to find him. And finally, keep aware of your surroundings at all times! I know you’ve never been there before, and, as I admitted earlier in this ramble, wouldn’t know what’s normal and what’s not; but your instincts will pick up on more than you might think, as long as you pay attention! The number of people I saw every year in Charleston who got so wrapped up in the sights that they’d step off the sidewalk in front of moving cars is down right frightening, but thieves know this happens all the time and they look for people who aren’t paying attention to what’s going on around them. After all, it’s so much easier to rob someone who doesn’t even notice the mugger until they’re starring down the muzzle of a gun. Still, these things are not all you need to worry about. You need to take steps to protect your home while you’re away as well. I know, I know; you’ve heard these things a thousand times before. They’re still worth repeating though; and who knows, maybe I’ll give you some ideas you never thought of before. Nothing screams no one is home more than no lights on in a house for several days at a time, but the same set of lights burning 24 hours a day is just as bad so buy your self a timer. I know almost everyone has some experience with these, I mean even in ancient times when I was just a wee lad my father had timers on 3 or 4 lights for when we went away on vacation; but todays timers make those old same time every time timers look pathetic. After all, no one turns their lights on and off at the same time every single day unless they have OCD or are wedded to a schedule like glue as some people on the autistic spectrum can be. Spend a little more than you would on just a basic on and off timer and you can get digital timers that can be set to vary their timing by up to an hour either way. And why stop there? Admittedly, I’m one of those paranoid people who leave their outside lights on 24/7; but very few people do. So why not add a timer to your outside lights as well? Or maybe a photosensor that will turn them on when it gets dark and turns them back off when it gets light. Get a good one, and it will serve you well even when you are at home making turning your outside lights on and off something you never have to think about. Or maybe you have a neighbor or relative you trust implicitly that can stop by and manage your lights for you. This has the advantage that then people will be seen to be entering your house and leaving on a regular basis. If a thief has no other reason to suspect anything, it will look like someone’s home even more than just the lights turning on and off will. Hell, offer them a small bribe in the form of a cake or cookies and the use of your DVD collection while you’re away and I’ll bet they’ll jump at the chance. One thing I’ve heard recommended several times is to make sure your blinds are closed before you go so that bad guys can’t see in. Sorry folks, but in my opinion that’s one of the stupidest suggestions out there. I mean think about it. When you’re home, is every blind in the place closed all the time? Maybe if you work third shift or are extremely sensitive to light, but otherwise I really doubt it. And if I’m not likely to believe it, what in God’s name makes you think the bad guys are going to buy it? No, leave the blinds just the way you normally would or get that friendly neighbor to randomly open and close the blinds for you while you’re away. Aye, you will want to move that laptop or expensive TV and jewelry somewhere where it’s not obvious to someone trying to peek in your windows, but that’s about as far as you should go. Of course nothing shouts no one’s home quite like having your newspapers and mail piling up while you’re away, so call the newspaper and have them hold your paper while you’re away and use the postal services web site to put a hold on your mail as well; but what about those people who leave cards hanging from your door knob or mailbox advertising pressure washing or tree removal? You can’t exactly call them and tell them not to leave their ads at your house while you’re away, if for no other reason that you don’t have a clue who they are or when they’re going to leave them. So once again here’s a job for that neighbor you bribed, or the pet sitter coming in to take care of the four legged members of your family for you. One thing my father never thought to do when I was growing up that I heartily recommend is calling your local police to let them know when you’re leaving and when you’re coming back. Okay, it might not do any good if you live in a huge city or have an asshole for a police chief, but then again it might. Most police departments now-a-days have programs just for this sort of thing, and it might result in them checking on your house every other day or so. If you have a really responsive police department, they might even check on it every day, or at least drive by it to make sure everything looks okay. Next thing to be aware of is be careful who you tell that you’re going to be out of town for a while. What ever you do, don’t announce it on Facebook or your blog. Don’t even announce it in chat rooms. Yeah, you may have your privacy settings set for friends only; but that still doesn’t guarantee that the wrong people won’t see it. And even if they don’t see your original post, who’s to say that somebody who’s not thinking won’t say something along the lines of “That lucky so and so John Doe, he’s heading for Disney next month! Wish I had the money to go.” Yet at the same time you will want to let at least some people know that you plan to be out of town, especially a few of your neighbors. I remember we had a string of thefts one year down in Charleston that were real doozies. The thieves pulled up in front of their victims homes in moving vans in broad daylight and emptied the house they hit just as if the people who lived their where moving away, and the neighbors by and large just thought to themselves “Gee, I didn’t know they were moving. I wonder why they didn’t tell us?” In not a single instance did anyone call the police or even get suspicious until the victims came home and found their house completely empty! In two cases I think the thieves even put up a fake For Sale sign. If these people had just let one or two of their neighbors know they were going away on vacation, there’s a good chance the thieves could have been caught. Instead they hit 7 or 8 houses in the course of a month and a half then skipped town. One more thing you might want to consider, especially here in the South, is whether your car is normally in the drive way or in the garage. Many, many people here in the South don’t bother parking their cars in the garage and instead use their garages for all sorts of other things. But that can be a dead give away that no one’s home if your second car is left sitting in the driveway and never moves the entire time you’re gone. So in addition to the pet sitter, if you don’t know anyone you’d trust to occasionally drive your car just so it doesn’t look completely unused, ask around and see if you can find someone. I doubt you’ll want someone driving your car every day and putting who knows how many miles on it, but maybe you can get that friendly neighbor you’ve already bribed to take it to the grocery store and back once or twice while you’re gone. It can’t hurt, and it might help more than you’d think. So there you have it. My quick and dirty lowdown how how to keep safe during vacation both where you’re vacationing and on the home front. Could I have gone into more details on some of it, or even come up with more ideas? You betcha, but as this thing I call a ramble is a blog post and not a magazine article I think I’ll call it good for now. In the meantime, have a great weekend and I hope the weather cooperates with you. Until we meet again in this little corner of cyberspace; may the road rise up to meet you and may the wind be always at your back. And remember, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with attitude. Hey, and welcome back! I hope you've been enjoying my little rambles on knives. So far we've looked primarily at the blade, which is only reasonable since it's the blade that does the work, right? Well sort of. As we've seen, the material a blade is made out of, the style of blade used, and the final grind all have huge impacts on just what a knife can do best and what it's main weaknesses may be, but it's more than a little difficult to hold onto a knife with out a proper handle. Yet the number of things that handle can be made out can sometimes be so overwhelming as to leave a person new to knives curled up in a ball somewhere staring into space. I mean, one web site I saw listed over 24 different handle materials to choose from, and that still leaves some items out and others put under listings that make them sound like it's all the same thing. So how do you choose?
Unfortunately, there's just too many choices to cover all of them in one ramble, even one as long as I sometimes find myself delivering; but I can at least try to start breaking it down for you. So for today, let's look at the three main categories and then in later rambles I can try to start breaking each category down a bit. The first, and oldest category would be natural materials such as wood, bone, horns, antlers, mother of pearl, etc. These are of course the oldest materials used, and some knife collectors won't even consider a knife that doesn't use one of these traditional materials. These materials have a natural beauty to them that has shined down through the ages, and are generally self renewing. Even those materials that come from animals, with the exception of bone, are most often obtained with no injury to the animal. I mean think about it. Almost every animal out there looses it's horns or antlers at least once a year, and for those that don't it's rarely dangerous or painful for the material to be harvested in a humane way. They tend to be tough, durable, and for the most part relatively cheap. The biggest drawback is that unless they're stabilized, they will start to deteriorate over time. Of course, if you take care of your knife and don't abuse it that may take two or three generations, but still. The next category would be metals, most often stainless steel, aluminum, or titanium (though occasionally other metals may be used for one reason or another). Now I must admit that I'm not all that fond of metal hilts or handles, but they do have their advantages. For one thing they're tough as, well, metal. So you end up with a handle that is as durable as hell, and can be finished in a wide variety or ways. Some even have other materials used as inserts which can greatly improve the grip feel. However they often get hot or cold depending on conditions much faster than other handle materials, which can make holding the knife somewhat uncomfortable under extreme weather conditions. Then we come to the synthetic materials. This can be anything from plastic to a carbon fiber, fiberglass, or even resin based materials. Some, such as FRN (Fiber Reinforced Nylon), can be molded into just about any shape you want. Others, such as Micarta and G-10, must be worked and shaped in a method very similar to the way you'd make a handle out of wood. In this group of materials, perhaps more than any other knife handle materials, you really do get what you pay for though. G-10 for example in almost as durable as metal, doesn't scratch as easily, and can be made in a wide variety of colors. What's more it doesn't absorb or loose heat the way metal will. However it does tend to be on the expensive side. Plastics on the other hand run the gamut from cheap and flimsy to ones that are tough as nails. However unless the plastic is reinforced in some method, it will crack or break much more easily that almost any other knife handle material out there. For those who might be interested Walter Sorrells, a highly respected custom knife maker, has a video showing how to make Micarta here. And there you go. A very fast and dirty look at knife handles. Not a lot of information you say?Well, yeah, you're kinda right there, and I do apologize. But if I started trying to discuss each type of material used I'd have an entire book! A thin book maybe, but still a book's worth of information, and then where would I be? So come back next week and the two weeks after, and we'll start to take a look at each category in a little more depth. I'm figuring on starting with natural materials next week; but hey, if you'd rather I start with synthetics, or even metal, just let me know in a comment post to this ramble. Or you can go to my Facebook page and leave a comment there. Either way my friends, if enough of you want me to start somewhere else I'll be more than happy to do so. Or maybe you have a specific question you'd like me to address. Again, just leave a comment in either place and I'll get you an answer some way or another. But until then, I wish you clear skies and smooth sailing until we meet again here in my little corner of cyberspace. Take care my friend, and remember; if it's worth doing, it's worth doing with attitude! Welcome friend. I'm so glad you could join me again. It's Monday, and so the subject must be Autism and/or Special Needs, right? Well, kinda sort of. What I really want to touch on in my rambling today is Caregiver Burnout, especially as applied to someone who is the parent of a special needs child. If you do a web search for Caregiver Burnout, you'll easilyfind well over 6,000,000 hits; but most of them deal with those of us who are taking care of elderly parents or disabled spouses. Try a web search for Caregiver Burnout in Autism, and you'll also get well over 6,000,000 hits; but many, if not most of them are the same sites and pages as the first search and really don't apply specifically to those parents trying to take care of their special needs offspring. Well, maybe in some ways they do. I mean caregiver burnout is caregiver burnout to a certain extent, but it can happen so much more insidiously for those of us who children are on the autism spectrum. Why? Trust me, I'll get to that in a moment. First though, I really want to go over just what Caregiver Burnout is and how badly it can affect your life. So what exactly is Caregiver Burnout? Well if you look it up on WebMD you'll find that they define it as "Caregiver burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that may be accompanied by a change in attitude -- from positive and caring to negative and unconcerned", which is fine as far as it goes. What it doesn't cover is the truly insidious parts. For example, it's estimated that in 2009 65 million Americans were the primary caregiver for one or more loved ones, and they spent somewhere around $375 Billion dollars providing that care. That's over twice the estimated healthcare expenditure for home health care and nursing homes combined! What's more, in the same year 47% of those caregivers reported that they had to use up most or all of their savings trying to provide for their loved ones, while 66% reported that it had a negative impact on their jobs in one way or another. If that's not bad enough, in 2004 the Naval Academy of Sciences report that long term caregivers tended to have a life expectancy fully 10 years shorter than those who were not. Nor are the lives of the caregivers and their families the only ones affected. A study done by MetLife found that American Businesses lose approximately $34 Billion a year due to their employees needing to care for loved ones, plus and additional $13.4 Billion dollars a year in increase health costs. Starting to get the picture? But why stop there. Here's a few more bits for you to ponder. Among the findings that the CDC found in their study it was determined that long term caregivers had an increased risk of: diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, depression, alcohol and tobacco abuse, drug abuse, obesity, sleep disorders, anxiety disorders, cancer, and chronic pain. Oh yeah, they were also much more likely to get sick with the flu, colds, or other diseases. Gee, ain't they lucky! So what exactly is it that causes this burnout? A large part of it is simply stress. Yes, I said simply stress, and no, stress is not a simple thing by any way, shape, or means. It's been long understood that excessive stress can have a huge impact on our health, and can you truly imagine anything more stressful that trying to take care of a loved one who for one reason or another cannot take care of themselves? All of us have some hobby or form of entertainment we use to relax, and it's doubly pleasurable when it's done with someone you love such as your spouse. But when you're the primary caregiver for someone, you suddenly find that time that would otherwise be spent relaxing is instead spent seeing for the other person's needs. That's true no matter why the other person needs you, whether it's just that they can no longer physically do some of the things they need done or have developed some form of dementia. But it can be even worse for the parents of a child with autism. Why? Well for one thing, if the person you're providing caregiving for is a parent, they often have friends who would be more than willing to come and visit with them while you and your wife or husband go out for a "date night". If your parent has developed dementia too bad for that, there are sitters and "companions" that can be hired to give you some respite; and often Medicare will help pay for it to some extent. Plus there are nursing homes and skilled care facilities that offer respite services. But who is going to watch your autistic child? Bring in a stranger, and no matter how pleasant that stranger is you'll all too often send your child into a complete spin as his or her all important routine is turn all topsy turvey. Then, even if you're lucky and you child deals much better with strangers than most on the autism spectrum do, very few baby sitters have either the skills or the knowledge to competently care for someone with autism. As a result, that all important relaxation time that we all need to deal with the stress in our lives is in very short supply for parents of those on the spectrum. Then there's the added stress of feeling isolated. The various problems of the aged are widely understood to at least some degree, for after all, everyone except orphans have parents and grandparents who either are, have, or soon will be getting up there in age. True, there's misconceptions even here; but for the most part even those who get it wrong are still at least in the ball park. But with autism on the other hand ... Yes, I know I've said many times that 1 in 68 children born today are somewhere on the spectrum, but that still means that many, many people have absolutely no experience with what someone with autism can be like. And as for popular media, well, the closest to the truth was "Rainman", and even that movie got more things wrong than it did right. So the only people you can count on to understand are those who are also parents and, to a certain extent, family. Why only to a certain extent family? Because they have no experience either beyond what they get with your child, and unless they live with you that may not be very much. Not that you can blame them. After all, if they're your parents then society has been telling them all their lives that grandparents are supposed to spoil grandkids, so that's what they expected to do until reality slapped them in the face. Then, because they love you and it hurts them to see the pain you're experiencing, they start to offer advice based on what worked for them when they were raising you. And in all honesty, much of it is wonderful advice, if you're raising neurotypical children. But you're not, and so often the advice is close to useless. You know they mean well, and truthfully they probably would have known the advice was bad if they lived with you and saw what you see day in and day out; but they don't. Plus the further away they live, and the less they see first hand what their grandchild is like, the more likely the advice is to be bad and the harder it will be for you to explain to them why. And thus what should be a bastion of strength is more like a rickety old fence or a old abandon shack, and you end up feeling even more alone. Admittedly, I'm pretty lucky in this respect since my mother lives with us and my in-laws are less than a half hour away, but not everyone is as lucky as I am. Then there's your child "strange" behavior. For someone on the autism spectrum, social skills are not simply hard to learn, often they're completely incomprehensible! Plus they suffer from sensory overload so easily, and from things that make absolutely no sense to us; and so they develop habits to deal with that overload that seem to the ordinary man on the street to be bazaar and baffling in the extreme. We're told by the media that things are getting better. We're told that more and more people are coming to understand that it's not our child's fault and that most people will be understanding. But we find that hard to believe. And sooner or later, we run into someone who doesn't understand; or we over hear some mom telling her daughter "That child needs a good whooping" or "That's what happens when you do drugs during pregnancy", and something deep inside us just wants to hide away and curl up into a ball. When it happens more than once, you start dreading taking your child out in public. What if he or she decides to run up and pull the alter cloth off in the middle of communion? Or grabs something off a strangers plate at a restaurant? And forget taking him or her to a movie. Trying to get a child on the spectrum to sit quietly through a movie at a cinema where everything is too loud, the chair feel strange, and it's more confusing than a Walmart on Saturday? Ain't happening no matter how hard you try. And so all those little social activities other families take for granted may as well be a fairy tale for all that your family will get to enjoy them; and so the isolation grows, and the stress multiplies. Eventually you and your spouse are like powder kegs, just waiting for the fuse to be lit. But what can you do? Well for one thing, as much as it feels selfish; you absolutely must find a way to take time for yourself. If you're as lucky as I am to have family close at hand, get them even more involved in your child's life. It will help your child grow in ways that might not be obvious, but will in the long do them so much good it can't really be described. Even better, as your child comes to accept them as part of his routine, you and your spouse can go on that all important "date night". If you don't already have one, try to get a case worker for your child. A good case worker can find you resources you'll never find on your own, including, if needed, a good family councilor who can help you through and maybe even prevent caregiver burnout. Look for a local support group or maybe a special needs sport league such as the Miracle League, a special needs camp like Camp Spearhead, or similar groups. There you will be able to mix and mingle with people who truly get it, unlike many of your current friends who may be starting to get a bit distant. Maybe you have a neighbor who seems to connect with your child in a way very few others do. Maybe they'd be willing to come over and watch you child for an hour or so, long enough that you can get a nap without worrying that your child might get into serious trouble or hurt themselves. Or maybe you can get your child interested in going for a walk with you, or practice yoga with you, or do some form of craft. As long as it's fun for both of you. Any of these ideas will help; and let's be honest, the more you can relax and let off some stress, the better a parent you'll be. And isn't that what it's all about in the end? Being the best parent our child can have? But once again I've come to the limit of what I have time to ramble on about. Is there more I could cover? You betcha, but it'll have to wait for another time. Until then though, may your day be filled with beauty, and the wind always at your back. I hope to see you here in my little corner of cyberspace soon; but until then remember, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing with attitude! |
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