Remember That Many Are Playing A Role

 

I have been following the latest story in the media here in Vancouver BC about an elderly couple that vanished while on a trip in their recreational vehicle from Edmonton to Chilliwack area of British Columbia, Canada that is a stark reminder of how this is so true so many strangers we meet.

Although they might seem very friendly and sweet such as the person a friend of ours recently met in a bar. "He even told me how I look like his wife who recently died of cancer and showed me her picture," she said.

While this person might be genuine often, as recounted in the newspaper as well as such shows as Americas Most Wanted and other programs, that friendliness is often just as mask to hide vicious intentions.

Everyone, but especially young attractive women and elderly persons should keep this in mind when meeting new persons. During your first encounters with people you should view them as an unknown risk or threat until they prove what their intentions towards you really are.

Women who meet that sweet, good looking guy in a bar with that hear breaking story about how his wife just died etc. etc. etc. just be extra cautious.

But this is a caution that everyone should be practising. Ask yourself if that sweet smile or personality is really genuine or if it is a mask.

This is not so difficult and t here are some excellent books on reading people that are on the market such as People Watching and Body Language by Desmond Morris that can help you become more adept at detecting phones and other dangerous persons by looking beyond their facade of friendliness and love.

Master this art to protect yourself and family members from the unscrupulous persons you meet and trust your finances or personal safety with practically everyday of your lives. Remember as Shakespeare said that all the world is a stage and everyone has their role to play – and that with some people that role is not very nice.





Note:   See also new post today  below.





 

Protect Yourself from Dementia

Protect yourself from dementia the scourge of the "Golden Years" of retirement that are turning out not so golden for hundreds of thousands of persons succumbing to this this disease after they retire.

In one study conducted by researchers in California they found that if you are physically active during your teen years the monsters of dementia will retreat in your Golden years.

 

Researchers in San Francisco and Ontario included 9,395 women 65 and older in their study. They found that women who were active as teens had much better cognitive scores that those who were more prone to be couch potatoes during their earlier years.

According to the editors of the Journal of The American Geriatric Society who originally published the story, said the researchers did an assessment of these women when in their teens, thirty's and fifties and found that those who were more active during the teen years had better cognitive skills when older. Those who caught the exercise bug in later years did not do as well although those who started when they were in their thirties and continued to exercise did reap some of the benefits.

However, don't be discouraged by the results of these tests which seem to indicate that you have missed the boat if you started an exercise program when you were older than that.

Other studies have shown that a regular exercise program (especially one under a doctor's supervision when you are older) will help to stave off dementia and other cognitive plagues.

The thing to take away from this story is the fact that a good – continued – exercise program involving a sport or activity which you enjoy doing will help to fight dementia when you are older. The important thing is to start to one – and as early in life as possible to protect your mental and physical health throughout your life.

You can find more information on this topic in the Los Angeles Times in the story written by Karen Kaplan and The Vancouver Sun of July 1, 2010 which carried her original feature.

 

Protect Your Communication Equipment

How well do you protect your communication equipment?

Silly question you might say. "Of course I take care of communication equipment. I make sure my cell phone is kept in a proper case to protect it against falls or dampness. The same thing with my tape recorder and cameras. They're all kept in proper cases and in secure places at home – and especially when I have to leave them alone when I travel or have to take them with me in my vehicle."

And I'm sure you do, but how well do you protect the communication system you were born with – without which most of this stuff would be useless? Your brain. Your lungs, your throat (along with its larynx and voice box), your tongue, your teeth, your lips – and your ears and eyes. all make one of the most awesome communications systems in the world – without which we would be unable to gather information or share it effectively with others.

Everything you want to say starts off as a puff of air in your lungs which forces the air up your throat past your larynx and voice bocks which turns it into sounds, on past you tongue, teeth and lips which all do their part to transform this initial sound into meaningful words.

And with our ears and eyes we can quickly appreciate not only how our voice sounds and ideas are going over from the response from our audience but we can also continually increase our repertoire of ideas and information by listening to others or researching new ideas.

Ironically, while nobody would deliberately drop a cell phone on the floor all too often we don't think about how we are destroying our brains and other components of our vocal system through smoking, excesses with drugs and alcohol or other detrimental lifestyles.

Yet if we want to have long careers as successful presenters whether we are singers, actors or speakers we must give as much care to our "natural equipment" as we do our electronic aids.

 

 

 

 

Capture Them on Film

One of the best deterrents and tools to help to identify people who break into your business or residential property is some type of video camera system – but a surprising number of persons don't seem to be making use of if.

I was talking to the General Manager of construction company specializing in renting the climbing cranes after the fourth alleged theft of copper wiring from construction cranes which would reportedly cost about $100,000.00 to replace according to one police officer.

Amazingly even thought this has allegedly happened on four previous occasions nobody has thought to install a camera system around this property and the Manager seemed absolutely stunned that I would suggest such a thing.

Yet a good quality colour camera system that could be set to work in concert with a motion detector so it was not running all the time would be one of the best ways not only to discourage such crimes but more importantly to get good descriptions for the police. Something they do not seem to have in this case.

In addition to such installation around business property it would be a good idea to install such camera around the perimeter and interior of the homes of any elderly family members who are living by themselves.

You could discourage any such attacks by posting notices on the exterior of the house and making sure that the cameras where installed with battery back-ups and in locations where criminals could damage or remove them before trying to break into the house.

These cameras nowadays do not have to be huge (think pin-hole cameras) to take excellent pictures.




 

Gulf Oil Crisis Illustrates Murphy's Law

The recent explosion at a BP oil drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragic illustration of Murphy's Law (that if anything can go wrong it will and at the worst possible moment) in operation and also the need to create a continuous assessment, planning and action program in order to deal with emergencies of all kinds.

With modern technology it would have been too difficult or design and create working models of that oil right coping with all kinds of natural or man made disasters from tropical storms and hurricanes to disasters such as the one which resulted in many deaths as well as the continuing destruction of animal and bird life in the Caribbean.

If they had any it doesn't appear that it included a plan to cope with things like explosions and how to deal with them. This has left BP having to play a desperate catch-up game which does not appear to be working.

Ideally one of the most critical things they should have done – and on a smaller scale – every person should do – is make it a practice to not only develop a plan to assess problems, plan effective responses and take the most effective action as they are erupting but also to make it a practice to anticipate problems -- before -- they happen so an effective solution can me put it place immediately instead of experimenting in the hope that something will work.

Maybe some of the game developers so preoccupied with creating war games could divert a little of their attention to creating a few games with possible solutions to such problems if nobody else can dol it.



See the report from AP  on the Google News  page Saturday, June 26, 2010 for a good illustration or example of what I mention here. Click on "Little Spent on  Oil Spill Clean Up Technology"


 

Assess – Plan --  Act

Whether your are working in the law enforcement and security fields or just going about your daily business, social, or recreational activities this is a critical formula if you want to protect yourself.



Now I know that everyone does a lot of this stuff automatically, but if you're at all like me you probably don't do it as much as you should and the more we make a conscious habit of all this the more likely  the APA habit will become more a beneficial havit in  our all of our daily activities.


A perfectly good example of this is a little accident I just had in running my car wheel up against the roadside curb. This resulted in one of the plastic hub caps getting pushed in.  My first inclination after taking a quick look at the wheel was to run over to Canadian Tire here in Vancouver and buy a new hub cap which I was sure was ruined.


Then I remembered the APA formula, drove the car home and discovered that the damage was wasn't as bad as I thought and that I could probably repair it  myself with a kitchen knife and a small hammer.  In the end this worked and I saved  myself a needless bill (about $75.00 Cdn.) for a new hubcap.  So making that careful assessment, then planning  -- before acting worked. And it can work for everyone in a wide variety of situations.


It involves the need to carefully assess situations we are entering either while working as a security professional or while just out for a stroll in the evening.

You need to constantly analyze the situation you find yourself in. This of course requires not only that you stay aware of not only of your ability to handle any possible violent encounter, but also of any sudden changes in disposition or demeanour in the person or persons you are dealing with.

Their initial friendliness or cooperativeness could be only a tactic to get you to let your guard down, leaving you open to assault.

It is also critical to maintain good peripheral vision when dealing with anybody you do now know -- or when you are just talking down the street by yourself -- to protect yourself from being suddenly attacked by somebody you were not even aware was nearby.

Even professional security professionals , such as a Loss Prevention Officer in a store who was suddenly attacked by a person with bear spray make this mistake. He was so engrossed in dealing with another man that he had not noticed his attacker sneak up on the other side of him. He took a full blast of bear spray right in the face. Fortunately in this case a paramedic team just happened to be parked outside the store and were able to flush out his eyes.

You might not be so lucky. One young lady I was reading about in the news a few weeks ago was not. She ran down a trail into a park by herself and just disappeared. Her burned body was found some time later.

This assessment should continue from the start of our encounter with this other person or persons -- or while we are passing through a potentially dangerous area by ourselves -- right through to the time it is all over and you are away from the person or area.

You do not want to make a nervous wreck out of yourself with all of this but you do need to be constantly assessing your surroundings and then be ready to take quick evasive action to protect yourself from dangerous people and other threats.



It is even something you should be doing when out riding your bicycle in traffic or driving your car or other vehicle. You should stay aware of your surroundings, alert to potential dangers and ways to protect yourself from them.

What would you do, for instance, if a car suddenly cut you off while you were riding your motorcycle or bicycle. or was suddenly heading right for you from behind? Or what would you do if an approaching vehicle suddenly swerved into your lane and was on a collision course with your car or truck? Is there another lane to turn into? Would it be better to go over a bank? These are things you should thinking about (in a very relaxed manner).

Such assessing, planning, and acting (sometimes very hastily) could become a part of your daily activities.

Although we are talking only about physical dangers here this APA formula can be put to good use in just about all of your daily activities – even when you are planning and engaged in carefree recreational activities.






 

Playing Russian Roulette with Your Eyes?

 

The old game of putting one live cartridge into a chamber of a revolver, spinning the cylinder and then putting the pistol to your head and pulling to trigger Russians used to force captives to engage in –with the promise that would be spared if the gun didn't go off is still played today in many countries and with many different versions.

One version which popped up here in British Columbia, Canada , was created by the Ministry of Health and has to do with your eyesight and probably exists in other parts of the world as well.

 

The game started here in British Columbia when the Ministry of Health in BC, Kevin Falcon reversed his ministries previous stand and has decided to allow people with existing prescriptions to buy glasses directly from such online lens retailers as Coastal Contacts without an optometrists examination.

The about-face not only made this possible but it has also made it possible for opticians (who have less training than optometrists) to conduct sight tests without having their findings reviewed by a medical. Until now their clients still had to have this done in order to have a prescription filled.

Falcon's rationale for this is that by lowering the standards it will open up more opportunities for customers and that there is no medical evidence to show that an examination by an optometrist -- is absolutely necessary -- in healthy adults.

What all of this has done of course is to put the whole problem in the hands of the customer which is fine –except for the fact that things like cataracts, and glaucoma have a habit of sneaking up on you –even in otherwise health adults.

The bottom line is that if you are tempted to buy your eyewear here in British Columbia or anywhere in the world where this is an option, you should still be having your eyes examined regularly by an optometrist who is trained to detect such problems at an early stage. (In addition to this they can also often detect other health problems during such examinations).

Protect your eyesight in this way and there should be no reason why you could not also save money by filling existing prescriptions online. Just make sure that you have made a diligent background search about any such online retailers – first.

More information about this topic can be found in the April 24, 2010, edition of The Globe and Mail on page A7/