The Peoria Dispatch

A few minutes ago I heard the blaring of the weather radio and was alerted to the first tornado watch of the season.  It was a good reminder that severe weather is upon us, and I encourage you to get a good weather radio, or upgrade to one of the modern versions if need be.

New weather radios are pretty sophisticated.  I have ours set to turn on for just certain alerts, and only when they’re affecting our county.  The alarm is really loud when it goes off, and a text displays accompanies the announcer.  It has a normal radio and alarm clock too, so it completely replaced the bedside clock.  Throughout the year we turn it on every morning just to get the weather forecast, so it’s useful beyond severe weather.  Last year I picked up the Midland model shown here for $50 on Amazon.

Late last summer I realized a big advantage of the radio over other warning methods: time.  It was night, around 10pm, and I was up watching TV.  I heard the alarm go off and scurried to the bedroom to check it.  “Tornado Watch”.  Since Angela was already in bed, I brought the radio downstairs with me and continued watching TV.  About 30 minutes later, the alarm turned on again, this time with a “Tornado Warning” message.  I went upstairs and convinced Angela she really should get up, and we should go in the basement.  We did, and sat there for a few minutes.  After about 5 minutes, the local tornado sirens started blaring outside.

Ultimately the tornado did not touch down, but what if it had and we didn’t have the radio?  Would we have heard the outdoor sirens, and would that 5 minute delay have been too much?  I’m convinced that these radios are essential in every house, and I encourage you to considered getting one as we head into spring.

It’s been sometime since I wrote on the main blog, so I suppose I do owe the readers a story/update.  A week ago, I had trouble sleeping and decided to get on the internet to surf the web.   I’m definitely not the techno savvy sort of person who knows all about the latest web gadgets.   As I browse the internet and checking out twitter, I thought I’d try some names of old friends which I have lost contact with.  To my very surprise I found a friend from childhood,  and I mean a friend from 20 years ago.  Yeah… yeah.. i know.. sounds old .   We used to play a lot together and visited each other after school.   After 1989, she moved to a different state.   We tried to keep in touch but after a year or so we lost contact.  Oh… it brought back a lot of good memories of us just running around ragged,  chewing on sugar cane like candy and playing fire crackers during Chinese New Year.   I sure do miss those good ol days.

Erin left a comment that others may have:  how do you “subscribe” to this or other blogs?  One of the most common ways is with a newsreader, such as Google Reader.  Here is a screen snap showing my Google Reader page (click to zoom):

All of the blogs that I’m interested in are in one place, and I can easily see which ones have new posts.

There are a lot of web-based and standalone news readers.  I’ve been using Google Reader for a few years and it has worked just fine.  Check out Google Reader for Beginners for a good introduction and getting-started video.  You don’t have to use Google Reader though–any newsreader will work with any blog.

As mentioned yesterday, the Garden page is a separate blog and feed, so you’ll have two addresses in your reader:

http://pd.kalafut.net                 (this blog)
http://pdg.kalafut.net               (garden blog)