Like a lot of people, the recent series of disasters in Japan has prompted Mandy and I to take a hard look at our own disaster preparedness and adjust our plans and expectations. One of the greatest lessons from the terrible tragedy is that disasters rarely come alone; after a hurricane, you will probably get flooding; after a quake, in our area at least, you may expect a tsunami. After any widespread disaster, you can expect fire, disease, and the ordinary depredations of seasonal weather that many of us subconsciously tune out in our electrically-powered, environmentally-controlled bubbles of habitation. It takes a particular degree of unlucky to have a nuclear plant melt-down thrown into the mix, but utilities and industry in general may experience any number of secondary catastrophes that could impact surrounding areas. So on top of suffering damage, you may find it necessary to evacuate further, without any significant degree of assistance. As we saw with Katrina and as we are seeing on the Sanriku Coast (I only know it's called that because I am watching Japanese TV right now... the coverage throughout the disaster has been excellent and they are running an instant retrospective at the moment), that assistance can take significantly longer to arrive than the government claims.
The Tohoku Quake is in many ways a good model for some of the likely disasters we face here in the Pacific Northwest. The most likely major seismic event we face is also from an off-shore fault at a similar distance and depth; we have water and large population centers in close proximity. So the quake/tsunami combo is something we want to be ready for, and there are some hard lessons learned in Japan that we are working to assimilate.
The biggest one of those is the size of the wave. Our plan, while house-sitting up here in Hadlock, had involved climbing the nearest hill. Turns out it's only about forty feet above sea level; predictions for the wave that might be generated by the Cascadia fault range up to a hundred feet. That's at the coast; even if it's only half that here, though, we're still ten feet under water. So we've had to re-think our evacuation route. Complicating matters are a lack of models for that sort of information. We haven't been able to find any information from NOAA or the USGS about how big waves here might be, or just as importantly, how long they might take to get here. To get to any hill higher than that forty footer, we have to go down first; the only thing worse waiting on a hill too small would be getting caught in a valley too soon.
There's not much we can do about that and there are no certainties in most disasters anyway, so we're working with what we can control.
We have long maintained two medium-sized bins with emergency supplies. I've always felt that the three days/three ways mantra preached by local government is a little lightweight (they do say, in the fine print, that government assistance "may not be available for several weeks or more" which is more realistic) so we have packed up enough gear and supplies to be able to rebuild civilization brick by brick should that become necessary. While here in Hadlock (we don't take the bins to the boat; in a way, the boat is an oversized bin full of emergency supplies already) we have been keeping them up on shelves at the shop, on the theory that keeping them further inland might keep them safe should something happen to the house, or if in fact what was most damaged was the shop itself, then at least we might still have everything that is already in the house itself. The Tohoku incident showed the folly in this. The shop probably isn't going to be any safer from a wave than the house. Worse, the shelves would likely collapse from the quake or at least disgorge all their contents into a jumble on the floor, which we then would have to spend precious time digging through to get the disaster bins out. So, we have moved them (and our portable generator) down here to the garage, where they can be chucked into the back of the truck and we can be out of here in two or three minutes.
Of course, that's assuming we can get out of the garage. I figure the power will go out first thing, so the automatic door openers aren't going to work. There's a manual override, but what are the odds the tracks are going to be bent out of alignment if there was a severe earthquake?
Even if all that goes well, there may be trees down across the driveway or other roads out of the area. So we're looking at being on foot. The smart folks have backpacks to carry along with them rather than bins, but I like the durability of the bins and the capacity, so I have come up with a plan B for taking them along on foot as well... wheelbarrow! I actually tested this for the first time while bringing the two of them down from the shop to the house. It was surprisingly easy to push both of them along in the wheelbarrow, one atop the other, even down the bumpy gravel driveway. Although, come to think of it, that's all downhill; I should re-do my test going the other direction sometime.
The thing that seems to have got most people nervous right now is the nuclear incident and at first glance, that doesn't seem like a major concern here. The only working nuclear power station in the state is in Richland, well away and downwind from here. Upwind, there's just ocean. So we haven't been tripping over ourselves to get in on the rush for potassium iodine tablets. Still, when the furor dies down, I think we will get some; right out the front windows on any given day we often see submarines or aircraft carriers tied up over at the naval station on Indian Island. That's right: portable nuclear power plants, right on our front porch! And they are all right upwind of us, too. The US Navy has perhaps the safest nuclear program in the world, a program that produced our greatest president: Jimmy Carter. But accidents still happen. A quick review of Wikipedia's list of military nuclear accidents reveals quite a sordid history of mishaps, from which the Pacific Northwest has not been immune: there are at least two warheads laying around loose somewhere below waters we sail in fairly frequently. And these are just the ones we know about.
Incidentally, I think that all makes a pretty good argument for the comparative safety overall of nuclear energy; for all the incidents and the many, many accidental releases of radiation, there have been damn few documented long-term environmental hazards... far less than, say, the Exxon Valdez spill or the recent Deepwater Horizon incident. For that matter, they have generated fewer human fatalities. It may be years before we find out the full story of everything that has happened in Japan this month, but I wouldn't find it surprising at all if there were more deaths, short and long term, attributable to the refinery fires that broke out than from the nuclear accident.
Still, we're getting the pills.
You might ask why we're not more concerned about being right next to a major ammunition depot in the first place, either while we are staying here in Hadlock or when we anchor out near here. The answer should be obvious: if something goes wrong over there, it will be quick and there will be little we can do about it. Actually, I think we're pretty safe. Other than on vessels in transit, it's unlikely that there are any nuclear weapons over there, and although a conventional explosion may be significant, I think we're situated to avoid the worst of the blast. And once it's done, it's done... no waves to worry about, no significant destruction of local infrastructure.
Apart from the pills I am fairly happy with how we are stocked up with the bins. We don't have as much water as recommended, but a filter, and in the Pacific Northwest there is never a source very far off. While we have plenty of food, much of it is dehydrated, which could still put a strain on the water supply, particularly if for whatever reason we are on the move. So I've also been looking into picking up some MREs, which are fully hydrated but still relatively lightweight and well-preserved. That would also help me avoid the onerous task of sorting and replacing expired food products in the bins every couple of years... in this environment, an MRE could stay good (for a certain value of "good") for thirty years or more. So I have been looking into buying some of those.
Turns out MREs are really popular with certain folks. There is a whole website dedicated to them. You can pretty much only get them by the case, though, and the whole thing would come to around a hundred bucks with shipping, which gets me more than I want for more than I want to spend. I'm thinking of going in with some other folks on it, though.
Of course our most fervent hopes are that none of this is ever needed and that this is mostly just an exercise in planning, but I feel somewhat better for the fact that in the wake of the Tohoku event, we at least know what questions to be asking even if we don't have all the answers yet.
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Mail Fail
We've had terrible luck with mail this year. Not having a fixed physical address for "home" we instead have a mailbox at a small copy shop in West Seattle. West Seattle is not particularly near to any of the places we ever keep the boat or lay our heads, but the shop owner is a terrific guy whom we have both used for various business services for years and his flexibility and service are well worth the extra distance when it's time to collect.
One of the services he offers is to bundle up your waiting mail and forwarding it to wherever you happen to be, a handy thing if you happen to be in Canada or some place unusually distant from West Seattle. Or at least we thought it might be handy when we headed north this year, so after about the first month we'd been gone, we had him package up our stuff and send it general delivery to a Canada Post office in a city we planned to be visiting in a few days. That was in late July. When did we finally get that mail? Yesterday, after the package finally cleared Customs both ways and skulked back to its point of origin, here in West Seattle. Turns out that mail to or from Canada isn't all that reliable, and isn't even remotely predictable.
The Canada Post folks told us a package could be held for up to two weeks in Customs, and that they would then hold something another two weeks in general delivery before returning it. If you do a little math on that, you will quickly realize that you have a window of about a month during which you must be near the place you hope to collect the mail from; if it comes through immediately, you only have two weeks to pick it up before it gets sent back, but if it gets hung up in customs, you may have to wait two weeks before you can pick it up. If you're only going to be gone for three months, that is not tremendously useful.
In the event, it seems like it got held up far longer than two weeks in Canadian customs, so it's a good thing we didn't hang around waiting for it.
Besides that, we tried sending a gift back from up there which never arrived (or hasn't yet, at any rate; maybe it come through in another three months).
But it's not just Canada; we're having as many problems here in the States. We sent a birthday card ahead from Friday Harbor which never reached the intended recipient, nor has it yet been returned. Maybe the mail boat sunk and we didn't hear about it.
And I've been having a run-of-the-mill streak of bad luck this past week, missing by hours or days a series of important letters or packages that have come in. Either Mandy or I have had to go collect the mail just about every day this week for something that came in the previous day that we need, only after we had already checked in. Twice, we've gotten the call that it showed up less than an hour after we had been there.
At least my e-mail is still getting through. I think.
One of the services he offers is to bundle up your waiting mail and forwarding it to wherever you happen to be, a handy thing if you happen to be in Canada or some place unusually distant from West Seattle. Or at least we thought it might be handy when we headed north this year, so after about the first month we'd been gone, we had him package up our stuff and send it general delivery to a Canada Post office in a city we planned to be visiting in a few days. That was in late July. When did we finally get that mail? Yesterday, after the package finally cleared Customs both ways and skulked back to its point of origin, here in West Seattle. Turns out that mail to or from Canada isn't all that reliable, and isn't even remotely predictable.
The Canada Post folks told us a package could be held for up to two weeks in Customs, and that they would then hold something another two weeks in general delivery before returning it. If you do a little math on that, you will quickly realize that you have a window of about a month during which you must be near the place you hope to collect the mail from; if it comes through immediately, you only have two weeks to pick it up before it gets sent back, but if it gets hung up in customs, you may have to wait two weeks before you can pick it up. If you're only going to be gone for three months, that is not tremendously useful.
In the event, it seems like it got held up far longer than two weeks in Canadian customs, so it's a good thing we didn't hang around waiting for it.
Besides that, we tried sending a gift back from up there which never arrived (or hasn't yet, at any rate; maybe it come through in another three months).
But it's not just Canada; we're having as many problems here in the States. We sent a birthday card ahead from Friday Harbor which never reached the intended recipient, nor has it yet been returned. Maybe the mail boat sunk and we didn't hear about it.
And I've been having a run-of-the-mill streak of bad luck this past week, missing by hours or days a series of important letters or packages that have come in. Either Mandy or I have had to go collect the mail just about every day this week for something that came in the previous day that we need, only after we had already checked in. Twice, we've gotten the call that it showed up less than an hour after we had been there.
At least my e-mail is still getting through. I think.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The cost of clutter
This year when (as every year) Mr. Frye drills us for New Year's Resolutions, I was ready. I was actually so excited about my New Year's Resolution that I had started it before the new year actually began. Scott said that was cheating, but I am not aware of any such New Year's rule. My resolution was to organize my life. My plan was to tackle little things, bit by bit, and create a lifestyle of organization.
Anyone who knows me knows that I innately possess few organizational skills. Very few. It is quite unbecoming of a sailor, actually. My first task was to tackle my email inbox. At the time I had over 3,500 emails sitting in my inbox. The goal was to delete 20 per day until I got to 50. Then, I would keep it under 50. Always. I am currently at 350 emails in my inbox. I am still deleting daily. I feel good.
Beyond tackling email, I found I needed help. I needed guidance and I needed inspiration. My past quests to organize myself were hit with an immediate roadblock. I don't know HOW. Truly. I did not know the steps. I didn't know that I didn't know the steps until the process of moving from the house to the boat this past summer. Lucky for me, I have a retired mother-in-law who DOES know how to organize. Linda came and spent a few days with us and I immediately knew I was in the presence of an organizational expert. I watched and learned. I could see that I did not possess the skills to make sense of piles of stuff. Not yet.
To learn how to organize myself, I went online and I found wonderful, insightful answers. I found bloggers who DO know how to organize and simplify life. To begin with, I found Unclutterer. From Unclutterer, I learned small steps and tricks. I learned WHY we hold on to things we no longer need.
Then I began to learn the benefits of simplifying. Leo at ZenHabits has become a good digital mentor for that. Ever so slowly, I am learning how to let go of my stuff: physical, digital, emotional.
In many ways, right now is the perfect time for this. My physical stuff is packed up into boxes that I can readily access, but don't need. A few weeks ago, during a drive to Seattle, I started thinking about my boxes of dishes. I love these dishes. They were a slow accumulation of Christmas and birthday gifts from my former mother-in-law. They have beautiful colors and textures. They are heavy, thick, and solid. They are bad for a boat, but they are beautiful. They are beautiful plates, bowls, and mugs, all packed away into boxes. Scott and I really have no intention of re-entering a life on land (other than winter house-sitting, if it comes up). During my drive I pictured reopening these boxes, years and years from now. Would I still find them beautiful, or will my tastes have changed? What if the Graebels move? I'll need to move these boxes to a new storage home. I started to think that it was not actually worth having boxes of beautiful dishes packed into the Graebel's shop attic. Having a potential use for them 10 years from now does not make them worth holding on to now. Plus, though they are beautiful, they are still from a life very, very, different than the one I am living now. The more I thought about it, the more silly it all seemed to be. I began to see that I did not benefit in any way from these boxes of dishes. These boxes have a current emotional cost. When I need to move them next, they will have MORE actual cost than the first cost of getting them across the US to begin with.
Somewhere, in one of the blogs I was reading, it said that finding an appreciating home for your stuff made it easier to give away. I started to wonder who would like my dishes. Then, inspiration hit. Who else liked these dishes given to me by me ex-mother-in-law? My ex-husband did. I had one of those wonderful 21st century divorces where the couple truly departs as friends, and can call each other up, out of the blue, and ask: Do you want those dishes your mom gave us 10 years ago?
It is perfect. My ex has just completed his doctorate in some weird nuclear physics field and is moving to Tennessee to start a new career at Oak Ridge. He will, for the first time since we split, be not living with house-mates, and will appreciate a nice set of dishes. So I called him, and yes, he'd like them, and we'd split the cost of shipping them. The project had begun.
I found myself up in the attic, digging out heavy, but appropriately labeled boxes. I brought them down to the house, and re-packed them for shipping. I also brought another sizeable box that I thought contained a bit of art he was interested in. The boxes of dishes were easy. The box of miscellaneous other house stuff was a different story. The first time I opened it, I quickly re-closed it and put it in the hallway to be dealt with later. I started to regret that I ever started the project to begin with. Why hadn't I just let the boxes where they were? I had no idea what to do with all that stuff. A few weeks passed. Finally it caught up with me. My ex is moving next week, and my "later" had come to deal with this box.
Today I emptied it out on the floor and Scott and I decided what to keep, what to give to Linda (yes, you've acquired another box of stuff), and what will go to Goodwill. In the end, we'll keep about 3 things, we put about 15 in a box for Linda, and I'll give about anther 15 things in the Goodwill box.
Tomorrow I will ship the dishes, and hopefully make a stop at Goodwill as well. Linda's box will live in the hallway until she returns to decide what she wants to keep and what she wants me to send to Goodwill as well. In all, I got about 6 boxes emptied from the shop attic. It is actually probably about 10% of what was up there. I feel good.
Another blog I just recently found had a post title Purge Just 7 Things – A Weekend Challenge. I took her up on that challenge, and I am glad I did. I will continue to do so.
All of this is really about boat-dwelling, and the type of lifestyle Scott and I are working toward. We both realize that life is too complicated and needs to be continually simplified in order to gain the freedom we are striving for.
I have a lot more to organize and simplify. I have a lot to let go of. Luckily, I'm not in a rush. My goal isn't to get organized, it is to be organized. And my goal is to enjoy the journey. Hopefully much of that journey is spent just floating along, at our own pace of life.
Cheers,
Mandy
Anyone who knows me knows that I innately possess few organizational skills. Very few. It is quite unbecoming of a sailor, actually. My first task was to tackle my email inbox. At the time I had over 3,500 emails sitting in my inbox. The goal was to delete 20 per day until I got to 50. Then, I would keep it under 50. Always. I am currently at 350 emails in my inbox. I am still deleting daily. I feel good.
Beyond tackling email, I found I needed help. I needed guidance and I needed inspiration. My past quests to organize myself were hit with an immediate roadblock. I don't know HOW. Truly. I did not know the steps. I didn't know that I didn't know the steps until the process of moving from the house to the boat this past summer. Lucky for me, I have a retired mother-in-law who DOES know how to organize. Linda came and spent a few days with us and I immediately knew I was in the presence of an organizational expert. I watched and learned. I could see that I did not possess the skills to make sense of piles of stuff. Not yet.
To learn how to organize myself, I went online and I found wonderful, insightful answers. I found bloggers who DO know how to organize and simplify life. To begin with, I found Unclutterer. From Unclutterer, I learned small steps and tricks. I learned WHY we hold on to things we no longer need.
Then I began to learn the benefits of simplifying. Leo at ZenHabits has become a good digital mentor for that. Ever so slowly, I am learning how to let go of my stuff: physical, digital, emotional.
In many ways, right now is the perfect time for this. My physical stuff is packed up into boxes that I can readily access, but don't need. A few weeks ago, during a drive to Seattle, I started thinking about my boxes of dishes. I love these dishes. They were a slow accumulation of Christmas and birthday gifts from my former mother-in-law. They have beautiful colors and textures. They are heavy, thick, and solid. They are bad for a boat, but they are beautiful. They are beautiful plates, bowls, and mugs, all packed away into boxes. Scott and I really have no intention of re-entering a life on land (other than winter house-sitting, if it comes up). During my drive I pictured reopening these boxes, years and years from now. Would I still find them beautiful, or will my tastes have changed? What if the Graebels move? I'll need to move these boxes to a new storage home. I started to think that it was not actually worth having boxes of beautiful dishes packed into the Graebel's shop attic. Having a potential use for them 10 years from now does not make them worth holding on to now. Plus, though they are beautiful, they are still from a life very, very, different than the one I am living now. The more I thought about it, the more silly it all seemed to be. I began to see that I did not benefit in any way from these boxes of dishes. These boxes have a current emotional cost. When I need to move them next, they will have MORE actual cost than the first cost of getting them across the US to begin with.
Somewhere, in one of the blogs I was reading, it said that finding an appreciating home for your stuff made it easier to give away. I started to wonder who would like my dishes. Then, inspiration hit. Who else liked these dishes given to me by me ex-mother-in-law? My ex-husband did. I had one of those wonderful 21st century divorces where the couple truly departs as friends, and can call each other up, out of the blue, and ask: Do you want those dishes your mom gave us 10 years ago?
It is perfect. My ex has just completed his doctorate in some weird nuclear physics field and is moving to Tennessee to start a new career at Oak Ridge. He will, for the first time since we split, be not living with house-mates, and will appreciate a nice set of dishes. So I called him, and yes, he'd like them, and we'd split the cost of shipping them. The project had begun.
I found myself up in the attic, digging out heavy, but appropriately labeled boxes. I brought them down to the house, and re-packed them for shipping. I also brought another sizeable box that I thought contained a bit of art he was interested in. The boxes of dishes were easy. The box of miscellaneous other house stuff was a different story. The first time I opened it, I quickly re-closed it and put it in the hallway to be dealt with later. I started to regret that I ever started the project to begin with. Why hadn't I just let the boxes where they were? I had no idea what to do with all that stuff. A few weeks passed. Finally it caught up with me. My ex is moving next week, and my "later" had come to deal with this box.
Today I emptied it out on the floor and Scott and I decided what to keep, what to give to Linda (yes, you've acquired another box of stuff), and what will go to Goodwill. In the end, we'll keep about 3 things, we put about 15 in a box for Linda, and I'll give about anther 15 things in the Goodwill box.
Tomorrow I will ship the dishes, and hopefully make a stop at Goodwill as well. Linda's box will live in the hallway until she returns to decide what she wants to keep and what she wants me to send to Goodwill as well. In all, I got about 6 boxes emptied from the shop attic. It is actually probably about 10% of what was up there. I feel good.
Another blog I just recently found had a post title Purge Just 7 Things – A Weekend Challenge. I took her up on that challenge, and I am glad I did. I will continue to do so.
All of this is really about boat-dwelling, and the type of lifestyle Scott and I are working toward. We both realize that life is too complicated and needs to be continually simplified in order to gain the freedom we are striving for.
I have a lot more to organize and simplify. I have a lot to let go of. Luckily, I'm not in a rush. My goal isn't to get organized, it is to be organized. And my goal is to enjoy the journey. Hopefully much of that journey is spent just floating along, at our own pace of life.
Cheers,
Mandy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)