72 Hour Kits

Here is a guide for a 72 Hour kit that I really liked:

http://providentliving.com/info/emergencykit/

It gives good starting tips and provides helpful advice.  I've found that a really important thing to do is be sure to rotate your foods.  You might just put a reminder on your calendar or in your phone like "Change out the granola bars"  or set a specific event as the indicator for checking back in on your 72 hour kit like at each General Conference.

Here's my little guide to starting out on the path to preparedness:

Emergency Preparedness

For my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), we all get different callings or assignments of things to do.  In Korea, I was Sunday School teacher for the basics class of our church for people just joining our religion.  Back in America, I got called to be an emergency preparedness specialist.  You learn new things with each assignment you get and here are some of the things I have been learning so far and links to different sites for preparedness!

1)  Our church has a website called Provident Living that has a lot of tools for becoming more self-reliant:

http://www.providentliving.org/?lang=eng

Summary:  It emphasizes seeking stable employment, developing a supply of food storage for emergencies (72 hour kit, then 3 month supply), and creating and living within a budget with savings for a rainy day.

Tips:  Here are some interesting things I found while looking around the site that might be of use to a poor college student:

a)  There's a set of financial calculators that might give you a basic idea of things like how long it will take to pay off student loans or get out of credit card debt.

http://providentliving.org/self-reliance/finances/financial-calculator?lang=eng

b) There is a guide to starting food storage (a starter kit of canned food items is about $27).  You can find the items that the church storehouse has on the order form.

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage?lang=eng

http://providentliving.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-order-form?lang=eng

c)  There are a lot of resources for job hunting and job development at:

https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/?lang=eng

2)  Here is the government's website

http://www.ready.gov/

Summary:

They suggest having an emergency plan with your family (Where you'll meet up, what you will take for food, having your prescriptions and copies of important documents etc.)  They have a quick checklist for an emergency kit:

http://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/checklist_1.pdf

3)  For those with a little bit more cash on hand (and less time to spend) there are websites that will send you freeze dried or packaged long-term foods.  Here are a couple I have heard of:

http://www.thrivelife.com/foodstorage
http://www.wisefoodsupply.com/

Electrical Expert

Today I got an email from a kid at my church asking questions about electricity for a school project.  I thought I would just post the letter, questions, and my responses.  I did lie to him a little bit though because I told him about how metals conduct electricity without using the words "magic" and "unicorn" at all...

Dear Mr. Coats,

I'm researching electricity for a project at school. My dad says you're an expert. Can you answer these questions, please? If you could respond by Sunday, I would be grateful. 

Sincerely,

Ethan

-Why did you decide to go into a career in electricity?

When I was maybe 10 years old, my dad was building a computer and asked me to help.  He taught me how to properly protect the components from static electricity (like when you get shocked by touching a door knob).  We installed all of the parts from the computer by ourselves, and then every time after that when we needed a new computer or to fix the computer that we had, my dad and I would look at the parts we needed and decide what we needed together.  I got interested from there in electronics and what it takes to build them!

-How do you use electricity in your job?

We create an electric signal and then send it down a coaxial cable (like what you use to connect your TV to the cable box).  When the signal goes all the way down the cable it bounces back and we can tell by the time the signal takes to return how long the cable is.  If the signal hits a part of the cable that is bad, it comes back sooner and we can measure where the bad spot is.  It's like bouncing a ball against a wall and then counting how long it takes the ball to return.  If someone gets in the way and you hit them instead, you know that you didn't make it all the way to the wall!

-What's the coolest thing you've done in your job?

One time I built a system to control a helicopter propeller.  It could push the plate underneath the propeller one way or another to change the direction of flight.  I have gotten to travel all over the United States and now all over the world, which has been really great!  

-Why does electricity flow through metal?

Metal is called a conductor, which means that electricity can flow through it.  Everything in the world is made up of tiny parts called atoms and in the way that metals arrange these small atoms they create a sheet of these atoms all in a line.  Then electrons, which carry electricity, can easily move from atom to another and form something called a "sea of electrons."  What we as humans do to use metals as conductors is create an electric field that guides the electrons the way we want them to go.  In computers or electronics, we often use something called semiconductors which let us control when electricity flows or doesn't flow and insulators (stuff that does not allow the flow of electricity).

-Do you think think that electricity is a type of energy we should keep using?

I sure do.  We can do a lot of great things with it like power hospitals that help so many people or simple things that we don't always think about like heating our homes and showers.

-How much electricity have you seen used at one time?

One time I toured a power plant, and I saw the furnace that they burn coal in to generate up to 600 Megawatts of power.  That is enough electricity to power several cities.  They let me put on a special face mask so that I could look inside the burning furnace and see how hot the coal was.  It was like looking inside of a volcano!  I also used a piece of equipment that went up to 50,000 volts one time.  To give you an idea of how much voltage that is, a typical AA battery like what you might have at home is 1.5 volts.

-Do you think electricity is essential or could we live without it?

People lived a long time before electricity was used like it is today, but I feel like it makes our lives much easier.  People used to go to bed almost as soon as it got dark, but now we can stay up a little bit later and get more done in the day.  We can fly to places all around the world, or I can talk to my family on the other side of the world.  

-Does electricity have any negative effects on our planet?

It does.  A lot of power comes from burning coal or diesel fuel (like gas that you use in your car).  This can cause pollution.  Now people can use what are called renewable resources like solar or wind power, and the effect on the planet is not as bad.   People are working to fix many of the problems that are caused by electricity.

Easter Nostalgia

Hristos a Inviat!  (Christ was resurrected or Happy Easter in Romanian)

This came up in one of my newsfeeds and has some details about one of the places in Bucuresti, Romania I visited with my family (and Stefan) in 2007 after my mission there!  I walked past it on the mission maybe once or twice, but I don't think I managed to tour it while I was there!

http://io9.com/strange-architecture-of-the-tito-and-ceausescu-regime-463206623

This is a little late, but I wasn't quite ready to celebrate Easter this year because in Romania it's always later (because the Orthodox church goes off of the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar).  I think it's on May 5th this year in Romania.  Some of my favorite Easter memories were of times I spent on my mission!  

The first year I was an extremely fresh (not fresh with the ladies, but new in the mission) missionary in a city called Galați near the Danube river by the Moldovan/Ukrainian border.  I think we had two separate families feed us 5 course Easter dinner/lunches, and I have never been more full in my entire life (including that one time Will Erskine and I stopped in the Combination KFC/Taco Bell and doubled down on dinner).

Easter is a three day celebration there (in Romania not at the Combination KFC/Taco Bell), and we would always take off our name tags and go to the Saturday night mass of the Orthodox church!  One of my favorite things that they did in that mass was the lighting of candles by Orthodox priests.  They normally wore all black robes, all year round but would wear these sweet white robes with gold inlay and elegant embroidery on Easter only (a day of victory).   They had this huge candle that they would light to symbolize the light, life, example, and Resurrection of Christ and would then pass that light to the congregation (a room packed so tight with humans).  Each member would then pass it on from person to person until everyone had light and the whole room was bright (from being previously kind of dim).  It was one of my favorite symbols of Christ.

My second year I was in Constanța, by the border of the Black Sea, with five of my favorite mission companions/favorite people (Step-M-wolf came later and was also a favorite).  We had heard that if you made it all the way back to your house with your candle still lit the Virgin Mary would grant your wish/prayer.  I'm pretty sure I didn't make it very far (the wind off of the sea was killer), but it was fun trying!

Easter in Korea was great too; I just wanted to share some nostalgia. I hope it was a great holiday for everyone and your respective families!

Much Love,

David Lee Coats