I have this on the scheduler thingie...When certain people ask "Why do you NEED an AR15?"
Friday, September 25, 2015
Why we need an AR?
I have this on the scheduler thingie...When certain people ask "Why do you NEED an AR15?"
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Some things never change....
I had this picture in my stash for a while, to me it shows that even though times change, some things still remain the same.
I remembered joining the Army and joining my ancestors as they say, every male in my family if they were able, were in the Military, it is part of how we honor the privileges of being a citizen of the republic and what we do to be good citizens. People whom served tend to know the sacrifices that are necessary to be a good informed citizen of the republic. We don't take stuff for granted.
I also am using this to show something else. Bob Hope came to see the troops in the middle east in 1990. I was not fortunate to see him. My dad was in Vietnam the same time Bob came to do his U.S.O shows. Even though he didn't see Bob Hope, it was heartening to see something that the G.I's in WWII saw. It shows a history if you will, something that is in the timeline and that is very comforting to a G.I.
I use the Viking prayer to show the same thing...our forefathers doing the same thing we are doing and that is comforting.
I also am using this to show something else. Bob Hope came to see the troops in the middle east in 1990. I was not fortunate to see him. My dad was in Vietnam the same time Bob came to do his U.S.O shows. Even though he didn't see Bob Hope, it was heartening to see something that the G.I's in WWII saw. It shows a history if you will, something that is in the timeline and that is very comforting to a G.I.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Monday Music "Shake your booty" by KC and the Sunshine Band
I have been very busy, between work and scouts. My apologies for not posting sooner, life got very busy real fast. Now we are going on a Disney cruise. I spent Saturday running a .22 range for the Boy Scouts.
When I had some slots open up, the Adult leaders had a shoot off, I will not throw my brother from another mother under the bus and announce the results;)
We had a good time and the boys shot a lot...We went through about 3000 rounds of ammo for the event. I think the boys had a good time.
We got home and packed up and rolled out Sunday and the drive was top filled with adventure, from my getting my first speeding ticket in years....then discovering that the ticket was for naught when I had to return and head back home when I realized I forgot the one thing I couldn't forget...no not the kid....my CPAP machine. Nothing like wasting 5 hours of time, luckily my brother from another mother went to my house, got the machine and so it saved us a couple of hours. We will try to get on the ship today:) I will post some stuff on the scheduler thingie and keep my blog active.
I decided to roll with KC and the Sunshine Band partly because we are in Florida and I was listening to some disco on my music stash in my car and decided to roll with it.
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" is a song recorded and released in 1976 by KC and the Sunshine Band for the album Part 3. The song became their third number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as their third number-one on the Hot Soul Singles chart.[ The song was met with a degree of controversy, since the lyrics were interpreted or likely speculated by many as having sexual connotations. However according to KC it had a lot more meaning and depth. During his performance he would witness the entire crowd having a good time except for some minority. The song inspired people to "get off their can and get out there and do it". The B-side of Shake Your Booty was "Boogie Shoes", which later became a hit on its own when it appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in 1977.
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" holds the record for being the only number-one song title with a word repeated more than three times in it. The chorus consists of the title expression with the word "shake" appearing eight times.
The styles of the Disco era can't be duplicated. It is a unique time on our music history.
When I had some slots open up, the Adult leaders had a shoot off, I will not throw my brother from another mother under the bus and announce the results;)
We had a good time and the boys shot a lot...We went through about 3000 rounds of ammo for the event. I think the boys had a good time.
We got home and packed up and rolled out Sunday and the drive was top filled with adventure, from my getting my first speeding ticket in years....then discovering that the ticket was for naught when I had to return and head back home when I realized I forgot the one thing I couldn't forget...no not the kid....my CPAP machine. Nothing like wasting 5 hours of time, luckily my brother from another mother went to my house, got the machine and so it saved us a couple of hours. We will try to get on the ship today:) I will post some stuff on the scheduler thingie and keep my blog active.
I decided to roll with KC and the Sunshine Band partly because we are in Florida and I was listening to some disco on my music stash in my car and decided to roll with it.
I have this album in my LP stack...what can I say.....
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" holds the record for being the only number-one song title with a word repeated more than three times in it. The chorus consists of the title expression with the word "shake" appearing eight times.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Democrats: the origional surrender monkey
I ran across this article in our local paper, I was surprised to see a liberal paper actually print an article that wasn't gushing over "Dear Leader". I have known since the 80's that the democrats were the original apologist for the Soviet Union, they would take the side of the Soviets over the American issues. I guess they would rather be "Red than dead". The stuff continues, from my history it was the democrats that shafted the South Vietnamese when they wanted help and aid against the North Vietnamese and this culminated in the "Easter offensive" where the North overran the South and South Vietnam ceased to exist as a country.
It was the Democrats that had all the hearings against the U.S. in the Vietnam war with the "Winter Soldier" where Flipper A.K.A. John Kerry made a bunch of lies against the U.S. Military because it was politically expedient for his budding career as a politician. I always commented that to the democrats, it is Party First, then self, followed by Gaia and the country is the last priority.
* The cartoons come from my stash
The Democratic Party has been weak-minded on defense for decades, but with the Iran capitulation, they've achieved a new threshold of cowardice and treachery.
While it's true that an honorable handful of Democrats have resisted the president's pressure, the overwhelming majority have chosen to go over the cliff with Barack Obama, a president who never met an enemy he didn't wish to conciliate or an ally he didn't seek to betray.
Democrats have long tended toward
appeasement of aggressors. Throughout the Cold War, they scared
themselves (and everyone else) silly conjuring specters of nuclear
holocaust. Then-Sen. John Kerry was one of many prominent Democrats who
endorsed the "nuclear freeze." It wasn't America's enemies that we
should fear, the Democrats argued, but the weapons themselves.
Democrats
rejected the insight of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and others
that the surest way to prevent war was "peace through strength." Reagan
was regularly accused of courting Armageddon because he described the
Soviets accurately (something liberals were too intimidated to do) and
because he declined unilaterally to disarm. The dumbfounding reality is
that the Democrats have never acknowledged that Reagan's approach
succeeded. Instead, with Iran as our chief enemy now, they hope to
replay the Cold War so that this time, we fully surrender.
At
least the Soviets made it easy for them, playing up the "peace" angle at
every opportunity and investing heavily in organizations with names
like the "World Peace Council" and the "International Institute for
Peace." Soviet leaders and propagandists of the 1970s and 1980s spoke
silkily of their desire for "peaceful coexistence" with the West even
as, behind the curtain, they were engaged in every form of subversion,
terror, espionage and violence.
Iran, by contrast, doesn't bother
to disguise its hatred for our country. There is no disingenuous talk
of coexistence. "Death to America" is their motto, and the Supreme
Leader (not some mythical "hardliners" in the background) has repeated
it with grinning audacity even as his negotiators sat across from Kerry
in Vienna.
No regime on Earth has been as diligent in executing
attacks on Americans since 1979 as Iran. By itself or through proxies,
the Islamic Republic took Americans hostage, bombed our embassy and the
Marine barracks in Beirut, bombed our embassy in Kuwait, and destroyed
the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia housing U.S. servicemen.
Hezbollah's tentacles extend far beyond the Middle East, with a
flourishing branch in the tri-border area (Argentina, Paraguay and
Brazil) of South America. During the Iraq War, Iran's IEDs accounted for
up to a quarter of the 4,400 casualties we suffered there. Even members
of the Obama administration acknowledge that Iran has an ongoing
cooperative arrangement with al-Qaida -- though the administration
declines to publish the extended evidence discovered at Osama bin
Laden's bunker.
The world's leading terror state is expanding
its hegemony and contributing, through its brutal support of Syria's
Assad, to the horrific refugee crisis now swamping Europe. Even the
grotesque Sunni extremist group ISIS owes part of its success to Iran,
which has so frightened the Sunnis that some have been willing to
support such monsters of their own sect. And the Islamic Republic has
threatened, unabashedly and consistently, to annihilate the state of
Israel.
This is the regime the Obama Democrats propose to enrich, to grant international legitimacy to as a nuclear threshold state, and to invite to monitor its own nuclear sites. No other signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is permitted to enrich uranium. This is beyond naivete -- it is sheer lunacy. The Democratic Party has forfeited any claim to national leadership.
Republicans cannot
simply shrug and announce that they lack the votes to stop this
catastrophe. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a reputation as a
shrewd inside player. He has many possible options. 1) Pass a rule by
simple majority declaring that the filibuster cannot be used for grave
matters of national security. 2) Announce, as David Rivkin and Rep. Mike
Pompeo have proposed, that because the president is not in compliance
with the Corker/Menendez legislation (which requires that all side deals
be submitted to Congress), the 60-day review period has not yet begun.
3) Decide (as Andy McCarthy has suggested) that this agreement -- so
crucial to the security of the nation and the world -- is clearly a
treaty and can only be considered by Congress as such, requiring a
two-thirds vote in both chambers for passage.
If this is not a
time for considering every possible congressional strategy, what is? The
Democrats trashed the filibuster for some second-tier appointments.
Republicans can revive it to prevent terrorists from getting the bomb.
* The cartoons come from my stash
The Democratic Party has been weak-minded on defense for decades, but with the Iran capitulation, they've achieved a new threshold of cowardice and treachery.
While it's true that an honorable handful of Democrats have resisted the president's pressure, the overwhelming majority have chosen to go over the cliff with Barack Obama, a president who never met an enemy he didn't wish to conciliate or an ally he didn't seek to betray.
This is the regime the Obama Democrats propose to enrich, to grant international legitimacy to as a nuclear threshold state, and to invite to monitor its own nuclear sites. No other signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is permitted to enrich uranium. This is beyond naivete -- it is sheer lunacy. The Democratic Party has forfeited any claim to national leadership.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Monday Music "Africa" by Toto
I have been real busy and wasn't able to check the technical issues with Blogger.
I have been working a lot of $$overtime$$ and I have no complaints. We are doing some major interior mods to the 757 series of airplanes upgrading the older interiors to give the customers a better interactive flying experience.
I remembered this song hitting in 1982 while I was a sophomore in high school. When the song first came out, I didn't care for it much. But the song kinda over the fullness of time grew on me. Now I like hearing the song, partly because it reminds me of my high school time and the optimism of the Reagan era.
"Africa" is a hit single by rock band Toto, and is one of the band's most recognizable songs. It was included on their 1982 album Toto IV, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1983 and number three on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The song was written by the band's keyboardist/vocalist David Paich and drummer Jeff Porcaro.
The initial idea for the song came from David Paich. Jeff Porcaro explains the idea behind the song: "... a white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past."
David Paich said: "At the beginning of the '80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about if I was there and what I'd do."
Musically the song took quite some time to assemble, as Paich and Porcaro explain:
The music video was directed by Steve Barron. In the video, a researcher in a library (portrayed by band member David Paich) tries to match a scrap of a picture to the book from which it was torn out. As he continues his search, a black female librarian (Jenny Douglas-McRae) working at a desk takes occasional notice of him, while a native in the surrounding jungle begins to close in on the library. When the researcher finds a book entitled Africa, the native throws a spear, toppling stacks of books. Africa falls open to the page from which the scrap was torn, but a lantern lands on it and sets it on fire, after which the librarian's eyeglasses are shown falling to the floor. The scenes are inter-cut with shots of a spinning globe and the band performing atop a stack of hardcover books, in which Africa is the topmost.
This video also features Mike Porcaro on bass, replacing David Hungate, who had already left Toto before the video was made.
I have been working a lot of $$overtime$$ and I have no complaints. We are doing some major interior mods to the 757 series of airplanes upgrading the older interiors to give the customers a better interactive flying experience.
I remembered this song hitting in 1982 while I was a sophomore in high school. When the song first came out, I didn't care for it much. But the song kinda over the fullness of time grew on me. Now I like hearing the song, partly because it reminds me of my high school time and the optimism of the Reagan era.
"Africa" is a hit single by rock band Toto, and is one of the band's most recognizable songs. It was included on their 1982 album Toto IV, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1983 and number three on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The song was written by the band's keyboardist/vocalist David Paich and drummer Jeff Porcaro.
The initial idea for the song came from David Paich. Jeff Porcaro explains the idea behind the song: "... a white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past."
David Paich said: "At the beginning of the '80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about if I was there and what I'd do."
Musically the song took quite some time to assemble, as Paich and Porcaro explain:
"On 'Africa' you hear a combination of marimba with GS 1. The kalimba is all done with the GS 1; it's six tracks of GS 1 playing different rhythms. I wrote the song on CS-80, so that plays the main part of the entire tune.""So when we were doing 'Africa', I set up a bass drum, snare drum and a hi-hat, and Lenny Castro set up right in front of me with a conga. We looked at each other and just started playing the basic groove. ... The backbeat is on 3, so it's a half-time feel, and it's 16th notes on the hi-hat. Lenny started playing a conga pattern. We played for five minutes on tape, no click, no nothing. We just played. And I was singing the bass line for 'Africa' in my mind, so we had a relative tempo. Lenny and I went into the booth and listened back to the five minutes of that same boring pattern. We picked out the best two bars that we thought were grooving, and we marked those two bars on tape...Maybe it would have taken two minutes to program that in the Linn, and it took about half an hour to do this. But a Linn machine doesn't feel like that!"
The music video was directed by Steve Barron. In the video, a researcher in a library (portrayed by band member David Paich) tries to match a scrap of a picture to the book from which it was torn out. As he continues his search, a black female librarian (Jenny Douglas-McRae) working at a desk takes occasional notice of him, while a native in the surrounding jungle begins to close in on the library. When the researcher finds a book entitled Africa, the native throws a spear, toppling stacks of books. Africa falls open to the page from which the scrap was torn, but a lantern lands on it and sets it on fire, after which the librarian's eyeglasses are shown falling to the floor. The scenes are inter-cut with shots of a spinning globe and the band performing atop a stack of hardcover books, in which Africa is the topmost.
This video also features Mike Porcaro on bass, replacing David Hungate, who had already left Toto before the video was made.
Friday, September 11, 2015
9-11 2001
I posted late, apparently "Google" took a dump and I lost 3 years worth of pics that I have used on my blog. I had to look for my favorite picture. Better wordsmith than I have said what was necessary.
This is my favorite picture....to me this shows the resiliency of America after the tragedy of 9-11.
Honor those that served and died and those that still serve.
Honor those that served and died and those that still serve.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
lets see if I can get this post out.....rant...
For some reason Blogger has been uncooperative....I have several post including Monday Music in limbo right now...One of them involved "Labor Day". I may have to schedule that one for "Next year" or something.....
But I digress. I will make a quick post on the Kentucky clerk issues and what I see going on with that. The Federal Judge had her locked up for a week after she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. I have had people tell me.."Well the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land...so she has to do it......". Well lets get technical....the Supreme Court issued a ruling...not a law. The last time I checked my handy civic book....the Legislative branch makes law not the Supreme court. The supreme court can rule if a law is "Constitutional". They cannot make the law.
I do have several questions.....This lady said she couldn't sign her name on these certificates because it violated her religious beliefs and Kentucky Law. I am surprised that there was no attempt for an administrative compromise? Have somebody else sign their name on the certificate. I am amazed that the feds had her arrested, perp walked and booked then keep her in the pokey for a week? This screams of "Agenda". The feds move fast on this lady...but Hillery is still out and campaigning...?
We have 11 million illegals running around, we have people out there pushing for other people to kill cops....and they are still free..we have a presidential candidate that violated federal laws on handling of classified documents...but the Fed colossus has to pile on thie lady from Kentucky?...This is totalatarianism. When laws are selectively enforced...not applied equally, the age of the Banana Republic has arrived.
There is a part of our legal system that recognizes the "moral law", where you can't do something that you really believes is immoral and against your belief system. You don't have to do it. The German officers during WWII used the "Dienst ist Dienst" defense at the Nuremberg trials ...Basically "Dienst ist Dienst" is "Job is Job." and they did the horrible things despite their misgivings because it was their job. Same with the U.S. military....you can disobey an immoral order if it violates your moral code. This is what separates our military system from the Prussians.
From what I saw, there was no attempt to work an administrative compromise....to move her somewhere else.....they had to instead have the Obama's department of Justice have her arrested....This wasn't from the state level...this was the federal level. I personally don't care for the gay issues...but my libertarian streak also believes that what is done in the bedroom between two consenting adults ain't my business. That being said, this is pure muscle flexing by the LGBT lobby, they put political pressure on the feds and they had to lock this women up...to teach her a lesson, how dare she defy her federal overlords...
This is done to teach a lesson to any body else that will not toe the line. 20 years ago, I remembered the gay lobby was preaching "tolerance" of their lifestyle....be accepting. Now the pendulum has swung the other way...if you are not accepting of their lifestyle...they will destroy you.....Where is the tolerance that they were preaching? I guess be tolerant until you get political power and influence...they can force obedience at the point of the sword.
But I digress. I will make a quick post on the Kentucky clerk issues and what I see going on with that. The Federal Judge had her locked up for a week after she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. I have had people tell me.."Well the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land...so she has to do it......". Well lets get technical....the Supreme Court issued a ruling...not a law. The last time I checked my handy civic book....the Legislative branch makes law not the Supreme court. The supreme court can rule if a law is "Constitutional". They cannot make the law.
I do have several questions.....This lady said she couldn't sign her name on these certificates because it violated her religious beliefs and Kentucky Law. I am surprised that there was no attempt for an administrative compromise? Have somebody else sign their name on the certificate. I am amazed that the feds had her arrested, perp walked and booked then keep her in the pokey for a week? This screams of "Agenda". The feds move fast on this lady...but Hillery is still out and campaigning...?
From what I saw, there was no attempt to work an administrative compromise....to move her somewhere else.....they had to instead have the Obama's department of Justice have her arrested....This wasn't from the state level...this was the federal level. I personally don't care for the gay issues...but my libertarian streak also believes that what is done in the bedroom between two consenting adults ain't my business. That being said, this is pure muscle flexing by the LGBT lobby, they put political pressure on the feds and they had to lock this women up...to teach her a lesson, how dare she defy her federal overlords...
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
Situational Awareness.....How to develop it and use it.
I saw this article from this Website and in the past I will shamelessly snag something that I think is cool or that the people that read my little corner of the internet might like. Having Situational awareness and what I call "Heighten Time Awareness" are crucial for living in today's world. I had posted some stuff as had Momma Fargo, Old NFO, Murphy and others about bad things catching up with you when you least expect it.
This a funny video that shows somebody being totally absorbed to their own world and ignoring the "Real World", and she pays the price for her inattention. We laugh at the video, but it does highlight a fact that many people are totally self absorbed and not paying ATTENTION...Stuff like this does set my teeth on edge, how can somebody be totally uninvolved...people like this are PREY when the bad things come knocking.
There is always what I call a "tell" or a premonition of a bad thing coming and you ignoring the feeling due to social pressure. You know that "Gut" feeling...it is your subconscious giving you a nudge that something is wrong. The primitive part of you is more aware of your surrounding than the "civilized" part of you. if you are on top of your game, you will realize it and quickly depart the area or make preparations so you are not surprised and caught flat footed. I have spent many years developing mine. I surprise people all the time by the things I notice. I just pay attention. I quickly learned in Europe that we need to pay attention....there were bad people that liked to beat up or injure GI's like Turks for example.., they liked to stab you in your butt cheek, something about taking your manhood in their culture. I don't know if it was true but I have had Turks come at me in clubs, and they always wanted to fight and I always had a German beer stein in my hand.
I had several robbery attempts since the early 90's...they failed.....they discover that Pizza boy carries a revolver and I was ready. After the 3rd robbery attempt, I got hired by my present employer and I turned in my 2 week notice and quit. I was afraid that the next time I faced a robbery attempt, I would find myself having to shoot...and I didn't want all that headache. Can you see the headlines "White Male shoots African American youth" Yes I am making a blanket assumption, but the prior attempts were by black teens and the odds of the next one being committed by a "Minority Urban Youth" were high in my favor. I knew that the black grievance industry would have a field day and I didn't want to deal with all the B.S.
I saw what happened to Zimmerman 5 years later and I felt vindicated in leaving that profession. I told myself that I would never do that kind of job again..I had done it on and off for 21 years and if I needed extra money I would get hired to deliver Pizza. But truth be told, if the wolf was at my door, I would do it again...reluctantly.
*Sabotage and Espionage directed against Army
There’s a scene at the beginning of The Bourne Identity where the film’s protagonist is sitting in a diner, trying to figure out who he is and why he has a bunch of passports and a gun stashed in a safety deposit box. Bourne also notices that he, well, notices things that other people don’t.
That superhuman ability to observe his surroundings and make detailed assessments about his environment? It’s not just a trait of top secret operatives; it’s a skill known as situational awareness, and you can possess it too.
As the names implies, situational awareness is simply knowing what’s going on around you. It sounds easy in principle, but in reality requires much practice. And while it is taught to soldiers, law enforcement officers, and yes, government-trained assassins, it’s an important skill for civilians to learn as well. In a dangerous situation, being aware of a threat even seconds before everyone else can keep you and your loved ones safe.
But it’s also a skill that can and should be developed for reasons outside of personal defense and safety. Situational awareness is really just another word for mindfulness, and developing mine has made me more cognizant of what’s going on around me and more present in my daily activities, which in turn has helped me make better decisions in all aspects of my life.
I’ve spent months researching and talking to experts in the tactical field about the nature of situational awareness, and below you’ll find one of the most complete primers out there on how to gain this important skill. While the focus is primarily on developing your situational awareness to prevent or survive a violent attack, the principles discussed can also help hone your powers of observation in all areas of your life.
This definition isn’t wrong. That’s exactly what situational awareness is: knowing what’s going on by scanning your environment. But I always found this explanation lacking. What exactly am I looking for? How do I know if I’m paying attention to the right things? Are there behaviors or warning signs of an imminent threat that I should know about?
Today we’re going to start by discussing the general principles of increasing your observational abilities, and then dive deeper into situational awareness itself to answer these important questions.
The OODA Loop is a learning system and decision-making process that was first laid out by Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. The four steps of the OODA Loop are Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a head-to-head competition, like air-to-air combat, a violent confrontation in a parking lot, or even political contests, the person who can cycle through the OODA Loop the fastest wins.
Obviously, the Observe step in the loop is what most people associate situational awareness with.
But it’s the second step in the OODA Loop – Orient — that answered my questions about what developing situational awareness actually involves. Orientation tells us what we should look for when we’re observing, and then puts those observations into context so we know what to do with the information.
So Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness.
But how can we become better observers so that we can improve our situational awareness? And how should we orient ourselves so that we observe the right things and understand the context for what we’re seeing?
For optimal situational awareness, Cooper recommends that we always stay in Condition Yellow.
Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.” There’s no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a particular scenario from the sounds (or lack thereof) and even smells in the environment.
Even though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. By adopting a calm demeanor, you won’t bring any unnecessary attention to yourself. If you look antsy and your head is swiveling frantically while you scan your surroundings, people are going to notice you. Additionally, staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our environment.
Look up from your smartphone, don’t zone out, open your eyes, ears,
and nose, and calmly scan your environment to take in what’s going on.
Besides staying in Condition Yellow, here are a few more tips to improve your observational abilities:
Put yourself in a position for optimal observation. To achieve effective situational awareness, you need to be able to observe as much of your surroundings as possible. Positioning yourself in obstructed spots will inhibit the flow of information coming in. For example, something might be in your way that prevents you from seeing a bad guy enter a theater or restaurant. You also don’t have eyeballs in the back of your head, so you can’t see what’s going on behind you.
So whenever you enter an environment, put yourself in a position that will allow you to see as much as you can. My buddy Mike Seeklander at Shooting Performance recommends finding a place where you can view all or most of the exit points, and that allows you to put your back to the wall. This position readies you to make a quick getaway, and eliminates the possibility of failing to see a threat materialize behind you.
Granted, this isn’t possible in all situations. You don’t have much control as to which table a restaurant hostess seats you at on a busy night, and you’d likely get a lot of strange looks if you stood with your back in a corner while you’re waiting in line at Five Guys. So do your best within the given circumstances. In that busy restaurant, you might not have control of your table location, but you can choose which seat you take. Pick the chair that gives you the best view from your table. When you’re standing in line at a fast food restaurant, just nonchalantly look around and take in the scene.
Hone your observation skills by playing the A-Game. Mike plays a game with his kids called the “A-Game,” or Awareness Game, to help them (and himself) strengthen their observational skills. To play, when you go into a business, make note of a few things about your environment: the number of workers behind the counter, the clothing and gender of the person sitting next to you, how many entry/exits there are, etc. When you leave and get into the car to head home, ask your kids questions like “How many workers were behind the counter?” “Was the person sitting next to us a man or a woman?” “What color was his/her shirt?” “How many exits were there?”
It’s fun to play, but more importantly it’s training your kids (and you) to be more mindful of their surroundings.
Master memorization. Another fun activity that will help improve your situational awareness is to practice memorizing things. Bourne knew all the license plate numbers of the cars outside the diner. You can gain this skill by practicing with a deck of cards, or strings of numbers. Here’s a guide on how to gain the ability to memorize anything you want.
The Orient step provides three things to help us achieve situational awareness: 1) baselines and anomalies for our particular environment, 2) mental models of human behavior we should look for, and 3) plans of action depending on our observations.
Every environment and person has a baseline. A baseline is what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person and environment to environment. For example, the baseline at a small coffee shop will usually entail people reading a book or working on their computer or speaking in hushed tones with their friends. The baseline at a rock concert would be loud music and people looking at the stage while either jumping up and down to the music or swaying their bodies to the beat.
We establish baselines so that we can spot anomalies. According to Patrick Van Horne, situational awareness expert, instructor of the Marine Combat Profiling system, and author of Left of Bang, “Anomalies are things that either do not happen and should, or that do happen and shouldn’t.” Anomalies are what direct our attention as we take in our surroundings and what we need to focus on to achieve situational awareness.
So the first step in orienting ourselves is to establish baselines so that we can direct our attention to anomalies. How do we do that on the fly? Van Horne suggests that you mentally ask yourself these questions every time you enter a new environment:
Our inability to pay attention to everything all at once makes it impossible to obtain complete situational awareness. The human mind can only handle so much information at a given time. Thus in the domain of personal safety, where things unfold quickly and seconds are often the difference between life and death, how we direct our attention is paramount.
So we need to focus on a few things at a time that provide the most bang for our attentional buck. And we do that, Van Horne argues, by relying on heuristics. Heuristics are quick and dirty problem-solving and decision-making mental shortcuts our minds use to figure things out when minimal information is available and time is limited. Decisions made from heuristics aren’t always perfect, but in the context of your personal safety, they’re usually good enough.
In Left of Bang, Van Horne lays out six domains of human behavior that Marine Combat Profilers use on the battlefield in order to quickly determine whether someone is a friend or foe. To get an idea of what civilians should look for in everyday situations, I interviewed Van Horne for this article. He told me the most important category of clues is what he calls kinesics, an area of behavior that involves people’s conscious and subconscious body language.
Within the domain of kinesics, three clusters of body language are of particular interest for situational awareness. They are: dominance/submissive behavior, comfortable/uncomfortable behavior, and interested/uninterested behavior.
Dominance/submissive behavior. Generally, most people try to get along with others, so for the most part people act in accommodating and submissive ways. Van Horne writes that dominant behavior “is an expression of the limbic system’s fight response” and often manifests itself in “gestures and postures that make a person look larger to intimidate ‘smaller’ individuals into submission.” Smaller vs. bigger here doesn’t just apply to physical size, however, but also relates to relative positions of power.
Because most people get along to get along, dominant behavior often constitutes an anomaly, and the person displaying it deserves more attention. If someone acts in a pushy, authoritative, or overbearing way, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat; context matters. You’d expect a boss to act dominant in relation to their employees and the employees to act submissive to their boss, but seeing extreme dominant behavior exhibited by a customer towards an employee isn’t as common. That’s something to keep an eye on.
Comfortable/uncomfortable behavior. Most people are going to look relatively comfortable in most situations. Think about a bus or a subway ride — passengers generally appear pretty relaxed while they stare out the window or read a book. If someone looks uncomfortable, that’s an anomaly that warrants extra attention, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a threat. They could be distressed because they’re late for work or maybe they just heard some bad news about a relative. Again, it’s just something to keep your eye on.
Van Horne says that a common display of uncomfortable behavior you’ll see from individuals up to no good is that they’re “checking their six.” This is when a person looks over their shoulder to see what’s behind them or generally scans their surroundings. People who are comfortable generally don’t do this because they don’t feel any threat. So if you see a guy looking over his shoulder a lot when he should be standing there aloof, that’s an anomaly that should get your attention.
Now obviously, “checking your six” is something that situationally aware good guys do too. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be noticeable to others, but it takes practice, and some guy with his head on a swivel might still be green. But until you verify that through further observation, be suspicious.
On the flipside, someone acting comfortable when everyone else is uncomfortable would be an anomaly. One of the ways law enforcement was able to identify the Boston Marathon bombers was that they noticed in surveillance footage that the men looked relatively calm while everyone else was running around in a panic. The reason they looked calm was because they knew the explosion was going to happen and thus weren’t surprised by it, while everyone else was caught off guard.
Interested/uninterested behavior. Most people aren’t paying attention to their environment. They’re too caught up in their own thoughts or whatever it is they’re doing. So individuals who are showing interest in a particular person or object that most people wouldn’t be interested in is an anomaly that warrants further observation.
These three body language clusters establish baselines for every situation in which we find ourselves and allow us to direct our limited attention towards things that are potentially more important and/or dangerous. If a person’s behavior across these clusters fits the baseline for that particular circumstance, you can pretty much ignore them. If their behavior doesn’t fit the baseline, they’re an anomaly and you should observe them more closely.
Shifty hands. Military and law enforcement officers typically check the hands first on any person with which they’re engaging. This is for two reasons. First, “checking the hands of a person ensures that the person is not holding a weapon and is not preparing to strike,” writes Van Horne. Second, hands often telegraph hidden nefarious intentions. People who are concealing something they don’t want discovered, like a gun, knife, or stolen object, “will often touch or pat that area on the body where that object is concealed, as if to ensure the object has not been lost or is still hidden from view.”
“Acting Natural.” It’s difficult to “act natural” when you’re not completely focused on whatever it is you’re really supposed to be doing. People “acting natural” will appear distracted and over- or under-exaggerate their movements. Insurgents in Afghanistan will often try to act like farmers, when they’re in fact attempting to collect information on U.S. military patrols. Marine Combat Profilers are trained to look for these “farmers” who appear to be trying too hard.
In addition to asking yourself the baseline and anomaly questions every time you enter an environment, Van Horne suggests you ask yourself a third question: “What would I do if I saw an anomaly?” In other words, come up with an action plan.
So let’s go back to the coffee shop example. Let’s say the anomaly for which you want to create an action plan is “guy comes in with a gun.” The best course of action in this scenario depends on a few things. And knowing what those few things are requires you to be situationally aware. If the robber came in from the front door and you’re near the rear exit, your best action would be to book it out the back door right away. On the other hand, if he entered through the back exit near you, according to the Department of Homeland Security, your best action would be to immediately close the gap between him and you and incapacitate him.
Establish baselines. Look for anomalies. Have a plan.
That’s what situational awareness comes down to.
Practicing situational awareness goes a long way in keeping you from appearing like an easy target. When you’re out and about, look alert. Get your nose out of your smartphone. When you’re walking back to your car at night, have your keys at the ready and constantly scan your surroundings. The less vulnerable you look, the less likely someone is going to mess with you.
Here’s another tip on not looking like a victim, from the guys at Sage Dynamics: Always keep a tactical flashlight on you and bust it out at nighttime. Having a light allows you to better observe in the darkness, but it can also act as a deterrent to would-be bad guys. Because law enforcement officers are usually the only ones shining flashlights down alleys and under cars, if you’re shining your light as you walk to your destination or back to your car, the bad guys are probably going to think you’re a cop and will likely just leave you alone. If worst comes to worst and you do end up getting jumped, you can use the tactical flashlight as a defensive tool by blinding your would-be attacker with the bright beam or even hitting him with the beveled edge that’s often built into the handle.
Situational awareness is a mindset that you have to purposefully cultivate. You want to get to the point that it’s just something you do without having to think about it. To get to that point, you have to practice it regularly. Starting today, consciously remind yourself to look for entry/exit points whenever you enter a new building. Start observing people and establishing baselines and generating possible anomalies while you’re at work, at the gym, or on a date. And then start coming up with action plans on what you would do in that specific situation if you see a possible threat. Don’t be paranoid, just mindful. Do that day in and day out, and situational awareness won’t be something you have to intentionally think about, just something you do naturally. And not fake farmer natural, but Jason Bourne natural.
Until next time, keep your head on a swivel, check your six, and keep your back to the wall.
Oh, and stay manly!
__________________________
Further Reading and Resources on Situational Awareness
Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley. Patrick has spent his career researching and teaching situational awareness to Marines through the Marine Combat Profiling system that he helped create. This book, coupled with the articles at his site cp-journal.com and a personal interview with him went a long way in helping answer my questions.
www.cp-journal.com. This is Patrick’s company website. He has tons of free content that provides insanely useful information on developing your situational awareness. If you’re looking for something more structured, he also offers online courses.
“Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness” by Dr. Mica Endsley. Dr. Mica Endsley is the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Air Force. While Dr. Endsley’s paper is pretty technical, she does a fantastic job explaining the minutia and nuances of situational awareness that helped clarify a few things for me. I highly recommend you check it out.
Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making by Gary Klein
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
There is always what I call a "tell" or a premonition of a bad thing coming and you ignoring the feeling due to social pressure. You know that "Gut" feeling...it is your subconscious giving you a nudge that something is wrong. The primitive part of you is more aware of your surrounding than the "civilized" part of you. if you are on top of your game, you will realize it and quickly depart the area or make preparations so you are not surprised and caught flat footed. I have spent many years developing mine. I surprise people all the time by the things I notice. I just pay attention. I quickly learned in Europe that we need to pay attention....there were bad people that liked to beat up or injure GI's like Turks for example.., they liked to stab you in your butt cheek, something about taking your manhood in their culture. I don't know if it was true but I have had Turks come at me in clubs, and they always wanted to fight and I always had a German beer stein in my hand.
They got the Stein upside the head.(Talk about wasting good beer). and I have heard stories of "snatches" of certain people with certain military specialties or skills. I don't know if it was true or the imaginations of the G-2 and S-2 at *SAEDA briefings. But I paid attention to my surrounding back then and my occupation after I got out of the service as a pizza delivery guy really affirmed it.
I do remember one time I got robbed in a "nice" area. This was the early 90's and I was much younger than now. I wasn't expecting it and got an ugly surprise, 15 stitches later I swore I would never get surprised again. What did I do wrong? I made an ASSUMPTION that all was OK...and let my guard down. I paid the price. I got lucky....Thugs tend to shoot pizza drivers...it helps them build street creed with their fellow thugs. I only got stitches....I could have got a bullet. I continued to deliver on and off until 2007 when my present employer hired me. I swore I would never do that kind of job again, I used to love meeting the people and interacting with the customers, but the times have changed. it was getting more dangerous,
*Sabotage and Espionage directed against Army
There’s a scene at the beginning of The Bourne Identity where the film’s protagonist is sitting in a diner, trying to figure out who he is and why he has a bunch of passports and a gun stashed in a safety deposit box. Bourne also notices that he, well, notices things that other people don’t.
That superhuman ability to observe his surroundings and make detailed assessments about his environment? It’s not just a trait of top secret operatives; it’s a skill known as situational awareness, and you can possess it too.
As the names implies, situational awareness is simply knowing what’s going on around you. It sounds easy in principle, but in reality requires much practice. And while it is taught to soldiers, law enforcement officers, and yes, government-trained assassins, it’s an important skill for civilians to learn as well. In a dangerous situation, being aware of a threat even seconds before everyone else can keep you and your loved ones safe.
But it’s also a skill that can and should be developed for reasons outside of personal defense and safety. Situational awareness is really just another word for mindfulness, and developing mine has made me more cognizant of what’s going on around me and more present in my daily activities, which in turn has helped me make better decisions in all aspects of my life.
I’ve spent months researching and talking to experts in the tactical field about the nature of situational awareness, and below you’ll find one of the most complete primers out there on how to gain this important skill. While the focus is primarily on developing your situational awareness to prevent or survive a violent attack, the principles discussed can also help hone your powers of observation in all areas of your life.
How to Develop Situational Awareness
Many of the resources out there on situational awareness say it can be cultivated by generally keeping tabs on your surroundings — “checking your six” and “keeping your back to the wall.”This definition isn’t wrong. That’s exactly what situational awareness is: knowing what’s going on by scanning your environment. But I always found this explanation lacking. What exactly am I looking for? How do I know if I’m paying attention to the right things? Are there behaviors or warning signs of an imminent threat that I should know about?
Today we’re going to start by discussing the general principles of increasing your observational abilities, and then dive deeper into situational awareness itself to answer these important questions.
Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness
The thing that helped me finally understand situational awareness was framing it within the OODA Loop. For those of you who haven’t read my in-depth article on this important cognitive tool, here’s the CliffsNotes version:The OODA Loop is a learning system and decision-making process that was first laid out by Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. The four steps of the OODA Loop are Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a head-to-head competition, like air-to-air combat, a violent confrontation in a parking lot, or even political contests, the person who can cycle through the OODA Loop the fastest wins.
Obviously, the Observe step in the loop is what most people associate situational awareness with.
But it’s the second step in the OODA Loop – Orient — that answered my questions about what developing situational awareness actually involves. Orientation tells us what we should look for when we’re observing, and then puts those observations into context so we know what to do with the information.
So Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness.
But how can we become better observers so that we can improve our situational awareness? And how should we orient ourselves so that we observe the right things and understand the context for what we’re seeing?
Observe: Stay in Condition Yellow
In his seminal book, Principles of Personal Defense, gun-fighting expert Jeff Cooper laid out a color code system to help warriors gauge their mindset for combat scenarios. Each color represents a person’s potential state of awareness and focus:For optimal situational awareness, Cooper recommends that we always stay in Condition Yellow.
Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.” There’s no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a particular scenario from the sounds (or lack thereof) and even smells in the environment.
Even though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. By adopting a calm demeanor, you won’t bring any unnecessary attention to yourself. If you look antsy and your head is swiveling frantically while you scan your surroundings, people are going to notice you. Additionally, staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our environment.
Situational awareness isn’t just for times when your enemy is of the human variety…
Besides staying in Condition Yellow, here are a few more tips to improve your observational abilities:
Put yourself in a position for optimal observation. To achieve effective situational awareness, you need to be able to observe as much of your surroundings as possible. Positioning yourself in obstructed spots will inhibit the flow of information coming in. For example, something might be in your way that prevents you from seeing a bad guy enter a theater or restaurant. You also don’t have eyeballs in the back of your head, so you can’t see what’s going on behind you.
So whenever you enter an environment, put yourself in a position that will allow you to see as much as you can. My buddy Mike Seeklander at Shooting Performance recommends finding a place where you can view all or most of the exit points, and that allows you to put your back to the wall. This position readies you to make a quick getaway, and eliminates the possibility of failing to see a threat materialize behind you.
Granted, this isn’t possible in all situations. You don’t have much control as to which table a restaurant hostess seats you at on a busy night, and you’d likely get a lot of strange looks if you stood with your back in a corner while you’re waiting in line at Five Guys. So do your best within the given circumstances. In that busy restaurant, you might not have control of your table location, but you can choose which seat you take. Pick the chair that gives you the best view from your table. When you’re standing in line at a fast food restaurant, just nonchalantly look around and take in the scene.
Hone your observation skills by playing the A-Game. Mike plays a game with his kids called the “A-Game,” or Awareness Game, to help them (and himself) strengthen their observational skills. To play, when you go into a business, make note of a few things about your environment: the number of workers behind the counter, the clothing and gender of the person sitting next to you, how many entry/exits there are, etc. When you leave and get into the car to head home, ask your kids questions like “How many workers were behind the counter?” “Was the person sitting next to us a man or a woman?” “What color was his/her shirt?” “How many exits were there?”
It’s fun to play, but more importantly it’s training your kids (and you) to be more mindful of their surroundings.
Master memorization. Another fun activity that will help improve your situational awareness is to practice memorizing things. Bourne knew all the license plate numbers of the cars outside the diner. You can gain this skill by practicing with a deck of cards, or strings of numbers. Here’s a guide on how to gain the ability to memorize anything you want.
Orient: Baselines, Goals, and Action Plans
Being more observant isn’t enough to master situational awareness. You have to know what you’re looking for, and then put that information into context so it has meaning and becomes actionable. That’s where the Orient phase comes into play.The Orient step provides three things to help us achieve situational awareness: 1) baselines and anomalies for our particular environment, 2) mental models of human behavior we should look for, and 3) plans of action depending on our observations.
Establish a Baseline Wherever You Go
Every environment and person has a baseline. A baseline is what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person and environment to environment. For example, the baseline at a small coffee shop will usually entail people reading a book or working on their computer or speaking in hushed tones with their friends. The baseline at a rock concert would be loud music and people looking at the stage while either jumping up and down to the music or swaying their bodies to the beat.
We establish baselines so that we can spot anomalies. According to Patrick Van Horne, situational awareness expert, instructor of the Marine Combat Profiling system, and author of Left of Bang, “Anomalies are things that either do not happen and should, or that do happen and shouldn’t.” Anomalies are what direct our attention as we take in our surroundings and what we need to focus on to achieve situational awareness.
So the first step in orienting ourselves is to establish baselines so that we can direct our attention to anomalies. How do we do that on the fly? Van Horne suggests that you mentally ask yourself these questions every time you enter a new environment:
- Baseline Questions: What’s going on here? What’s the general mood of the place? What’s the “normal” activity that I should expect here? How do most people behave here most of the time?
- Anomaly Question: What would cause someone or something to stand out?
Behavioral Clusters to Look For
Our inability to pay attention to everything all at once makes it impossible to obtain complete situational awareness. The human mind can only handle so much information at a given time. Thus in the domain of personal safety, where things unfold quickly and seconds are often the difference between life and death, how we direct our attention is paramount.
So we need to focus on a few things at a time that provide the most bang for our attentional buck. And we do that, Van Horne argues, by relying on heuristics. Heuristics are quick and dirty problem-solving and decision-making mental shortcuts our minds use to figure things out when minimal information is available and time is limited. Decisions made from heuristics aren’t always perfect, but in the context of your personal safety, they’re usually good enough.
In Left of Bang, Van Horne lays out six domains of human behavior that Marine Combat Profilers use on the battlefield in order to quickly determine whether someone is a friend or foe. To get an idea of what civilians should look for in everyday situations, I interviewed Van Horne for this article. He told me the most important category of clues is what he calls kinesics, an area of behavior that involves people’s conscious and subconscious body language.
Within the domain of kinesics, three clusters of body language are of particular interest for situational awareness. They are: dominance/submissive behavior, comfortable/uncomfortable behavior, and interested/uninterested behavior.
Dominance/submissive behavior. Generally, most people try to get along with others, so for the most part people act in accommodating and submissive ways. Van Horne writes that dominant behavior “is an expression of the limbic system’s fight response” and often manifests itself in “gestures and postures that make a person look larger to intimidate ‘smaller’ individuals into submission.” Smaller vs. bigger here doesn’t just apply to physical size, however, but also relates to relative positions of power.
Because most people get along to get along, dominant behavior often constitutes an anomaly, and the person displaying it deserves more attention. If someone acts in a pushy, authoritative, or overbearing way, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat; context matters. You’d expect a boss to act dominant in relation to their employees and the employees to act submissive to their boss, but seeing extreme dominant behavior exhibited by a customer towards an employee isn’t as common. That’s something to keep an eye on.
Comfortable/uncomfortable behavior. Most people are going to look relatively comfortable in most situations. Think about a bus or a subway ride — passengers generally appear pretty relaxed while they stare out the window or read a book. If someone looks uncomfortable, that’s an anomaly that warrants extra attention, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a threat. They could be distressed because they’re late for work or maybe they just heard some bad news about a relative. Again, it’s just something to keep your eye on.
Van Horne says that a common display of uncomfortable behavior you’ll see from individuals up to no good is that they’re “checking their six.” This is when a person looks over their shoulder to see what’s behind them or generally scans their surroundings. People who are comfortable generally don’t do this because they don’t feel any threat. So if you see a guy looking over his shoulder a lot when he should be standing there aloof, that’s an anomaly that should get your attention.
Now obviously, “checking your six” is something that situationally aware good guys do too. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be noticeable to others, but it takes practice, and some guy with his head on a swivel might still be green. But until you verify that through further observation, be suspicious.
On the flipside, someone acting comfortable when everyone else is uncomfortable would be an anomaly. One of the ways law enforcement was able to identify the Boston Marathon bombers was that they noticed in surveillance footage that the men looked relatively calm while everyone else was running around in a panic. The reason they looked calm was because they knew the explosion was going to happen and thus weren’t surprised by it, while everyone else was caught off guard.
Interested/uninterested behavior. Most people aren’t paying attention to their environment. They’re too caught up in their own thoughts or whatever it is they’re doing. So individuals who are showing interest in a particular person or object that most people wouldn’t be interested in is an anomaly that warrants further observation.
These three body language clusters establish baselines for every situation in which we find ourselves and allow us to direct our limited attention towards things that are potentially more important and/or dangerous. If a person’s behavior across these clusters fits the baseline for that particular circumstance, you can pretty much ignore them. If their behavior doesn’t fit the baseline, they’re an anomaly and you should observe them more closely.
Other Behavioral Threat Indicators
Besides the above three kinesic clusters, Marine Combat Profilers are taught to look out for a couple other behaviors that could apply to civilian situations as well:Shifty hands. Military and law enforcement officers typically check the hands first on any person with which they’re engaging. This is for two reasons. First, “checking the hands of a person ensures that the person is not holding a weapon and is not preparing to strike,” writes Van Horne. Second, hands often telegraph hidden nefarious intentions. People who are concealing something they don’t want discovered, like a gun, knife, or stolen object, “will often touch or pat that area on the body where that object is concealed, as if to ensure the object has not been lost or is still hidden from view.”
“Acting Natural.” It’s difficult to “act natural” when you’re not completely focused on whatever it is you’re really supposed to be doing. People “acting natural” will appear distracted and over- or under-exaggerate their movements. Insurgents in Afghanistan will often try to act like farmers, when they’re in fact attempting to collect information on U.S. military patrols. Marine Combat Profilers are trained to look for these “farmers” who appear to be trying too hard.
Have a Plan of Action Based on What You Observe
You visit your favorite coffee shop and a bad guy with a gun decides to drop in as well. But because you’ve followed the principles above, you’re the first to see him as a threat. Great. But what are you going to do about it? Seconds matter here. You don’t have time to formulate a well-thought-out plan. What’s more, the stress of the event will muddle your thinking and decision-making.In addition to asking yourself the baseline and anomaly questions every time you enter an environment, Van Horne suggests you ask yourself a third question: “What would I do if I saw an anomaly?” In other words, come up with an action plan.
So let’s go back to the coffee shop example. Let’s say the anomaly for which you want to create an action plan is “guy comes in with a gun.” The best course of action in this scenario depends on a few things. And knowing what those few things are requires you to be situationally aware. If the robber came in from the front door and you’re near the rear exit, your best action would be to book it out the back door right away. On the other hand, if he entered through the back exit near you, according to the Department of Homeland Security, your best action would be to immediately close the gap between him and you and incapacitate him.
Establish baselines. Look for anomalies. Have a plan.
That’s what situational awareness comes down to.
Situational Awareness as a Preventive Tactic
Animals are creatures of opportunity. They’ll typically only attack another creature if they look vulnerable. Lions will go after younger, sicker, or older gazelles because they’re easier to catch. The same goes with humans. Criminals are typically going to go after a person who looks vulnerable, whether the victim is physically weaker or will simply be easy to catch off guard.Practicing situational awareness goes a long way in keeping you from appearing like an easy target. When you’re out and about, look alert. Get your nose out of your smartphone. When you’re walking back to your car at night, have your keys at the ready and constantly scan your surroundings. The less vulnerable you look, the less likely someone is going to mess with you.
Here’s another tip on not looking like a victim, from the guys at Sage Dynamics: Always keep a tactical flashlight on you and bust it out at nighttime. Having a light allows you to better observe in the darkness, but it can also act as a deterrent to would-be bad guys. Because law enforcement officers are usually the only ones shining flashlights down alleys and under cars, if you’re shining your light as you walk to your destination or back to your car, the bad guys are probably going to think you’re a cop and will likely just leave you alone. If worst comes to worst and you do end up getting jumped, you can use the tactical flashlight as a defensive tool by blinding your would-be attacker with the bright beam or even hitting him with the beveled edge that’s often built into the handle.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Situational awareness is a mindset that you have to purposefully cultivate. You want to get to the point that it’s just something you do without having to think about it. To get to that point, you have to practice it regularly. Starting today, consciously remind yourself to look for entry/exit points whenever you enter a new building. Start observing people and establishing baselines and generating possible anomalies while you’re at work, at the gym, or on a date. And then start coming up with action plans on what you would do in that specific situation if you see a possible threat. Don’t be paranoid, just mindful. Do that day in and day out, and situational awareness won’t be something you have to intentionally think about, just something you do naturally. And not fake farmer natural, but Jason Bourne natural.
Until next time, keep your head on a swivel, check your six, and keep your back to the wall.
Oh, and stay manly!
__________________________
Further Reading and Resources on Situational Awareness
Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley. Patrick has spent his career researching and teaching situational awareness to Marines through the Marine Combat Profiling system that he helped create. This book, coupled with the articles at his site cp-journal.com and a personal interview with him went a long way in helping answer my questions.
www.cp-journal.com. This is Patrick’s company website. He has tons of free content that provides insanely useful information on developing your situational awareness. If you’re looking for something more structured, he also offers online courses.
“Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness” by Dr. Mica Endsley. Dr. Mica Endsley is the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Air Force. While Dr. Endsley’s paper is pretty technical, she does a fantastic job explaining the minutia and nuances of situational awareness that helped clarify a few things for me. I highly recommend you check it out.
Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making by Gary Klein
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Musings and Rants...
I have been wanting to do a rant since last week but time and stuff has transpired against me. I have had several musings and intemperate thoughts.
By now y'all have heard of that county clerk in Kentucky that will not pass out any same sex marriage license and the LGBT lobby is in a tizzy.
They are waving the big stick..."The United State Supreme Court" has ruled in their favor and byGod Gaia they want their license. How dare this elected county clerk from some podunk county in flyover country defy her federal Overlords and do what her constituents elected her to do. She must heel and obey her Federal Overlords..." Well the truth of the matter there is the federalist system where the local governments have a say. What is the point of the federalist system if the local governments are an extension of Mordor on the Potomac.
I have been watching the "Trump" effect on the election cycle....The establishment GOP is trying to ram Jeb down our throats as the next candidate. if they are successful in making Jeb the candidate, millions of conservatives will stay home and the Democrats won't even have to cheat to get their candidate to the White House. Sure Trump is over the top...but he has tapped into the anger that is prevalent with the conservative base that is tired of being told how things are supposed to be rather than how things are. The average conservative know that the immigration system is broken, when you have 1 out of 5 people from El Salvador living in the United States...we have a problem. When there are people are having kids here in the United States just so they can access all the welfare and other benefits, they see this is wrong. Sure there is the 14th Amendment and they use that to beat us on the head. The 14th Amendment using the "Original Intent" was to keep the freed slaves from getting screwed out. It was never intended to support the cultural suicide that the United States is doing.
Now on to the Democrats....Well the Establishment Democrats are trying to get Hillery in there as their candidate and there is a lot of anger from the leftist that don't want Hillery. They are wanting another candidate...Apparently Hillery has trust issues
The elitist are trying to make sure that Hillery gets the coronation, she is one of them and the rank and file leftist are also angry...they are seeing things going on and they don't like what they see, they see the same old stuff and they want something different. I know for a fact that if one of us "little people" did what she did....we would already be convicted and in Leavenworth making gravel for somebody's driveway. But because Hillery is who she is, she might actually get out of it. If she does, she will ride this to the White House. Many of the lefties want another candidate...they are liking Biden, or the old guy Sanders...or fauxahauntis herself Elisabeth Warren.
Either way, this does highlight an anger that is on both the left and the right, both believe that they have been blown off by the politicians in D.C. and they are pissed.
On a different note, Apparently it has become open season on the Police, the "Black Lives Matter" and Obama have fired up the bonfire of racial hatred and they are targeting the Police for execution. Several police officers have died in the past few days and everybody is tiptoing around the issues
They bring up several shootings from Ferguson, Baltimore and New York and they are drumming up the hatred from the police being killed to Farrakan telling his followers to "kill Whitey". They are enjoying their 15 minutes of fame, totally disregarding the real cause of the myriad of deaths in the black community.
On a screw America note...Apparently "Dear Leader" decided to rename "Mt McKinley" denali because the aboriginal residence used that name. Nothing like having "Dear Leader" thumb his nose at the American way of life. To him it reeks of colonialism and he has to ride to the rescue of all the non white people and smack down the specter of a dead white dude and their way of life.
By now y'all have heard of the Gay black dude that killed those 2 white people in front of the camera. Funny when that jerk killed those people in the church, and since he had a confederate flag in his possession...in case you forgot what the flag looks like...
Yes the flag of "St Andrews", well the leftist and other people saw a chance to use this incident to strip the "symbol" of racism and they beat the drum on all white people for the crime of that idiot in Charleston. Well now this fired black guy who has a "gay flag" in his apartment shoots 2 people and the same people who piled on the confederate flag, don't see how they are the same thing.
It will be interesting the next few months.....
By now y'all have heard of that county clerk in Kentucky that will not pass out any same sex marriage license and the LGBT lobby is in a tizzy.
They are waving the big stick..."The United State Supreme Court" has ruled in their favor and by
I have been watching the "Trump" effect on the election cycle....The establishment GOP is trying to ram Jeb down our throats as the next candidate. if they are successful in making Jeb the candidate, millions of conservatives will stay home and the Democrats won't even have to cheat to get their candidate to the White House. Sure Trump is over the top...but he has tapped into the anger that is prevalent with the conservative base that is tired of being told how things are supposed to be rather than how things are. The average conservative know that the immigration system is broken, when you have 1 out of 5 people from El Salvador living in the United States...we have a problem. When there are people are having kids here in the United States just so they can access all the welfare and other benefits, they see this is wrong. Sure there is the 14th Amendment and they use that to beat us on the head. The 14th Amendment using the "Original Intent" was to keep the freed slaves from getting screwed out. It was never intended to support the cultural suicide that the United States is doing.
Now on to the Democrats....Well the Establishment Democrats are trying to get Hillery in there as their candidate and there is a lot of anger from the leftist that don't want Hillery. They are wanting another candidate...Apparently Hillery has trust issues
Either way, this does highlight an anger that is on both the left and the right, both believe that they have been blown off by the politicians in D.C. and they are pissed.
By now y'all have heard of the Gay black dude that killed those 2 white people in front of the camera. Funny when that jerk killed those people in the church, and since he had a confederate flag in his possession...in case you forgot what the flag looks like...
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Monday Music "Lido Shuffle" by Boz Scaggs
I was thinking about running with "Africa" by Toto but this song was running around in my head. On the way to work I heard it on the 70's channel and on the way home I heard it on what they call "Yacht-rock" what ever the heck that is...I first heard of "Lido Shuffle" in the mid 70's, this song was put out on the "Wolfman Jack" show that I would listen to late at night while we were living in Germany when I was suppose to be asleep to go to school but had the radio behind my head playing softly as to not disturb the parents....and bring their wraith kinda stuff. "Lido shuffle" ranks up there in my top 10 favorite songs, to me it is a good driving song when you are on the road and watching the blacktop roll under your wheels.
Silk Degrees is the seventh album by Boz Scaggs, released on Columbia Records in 1976. The album peaked at #2 and spent 115 weeks on the Billboard 200. It has been certified five times platinum by the RIAA and remains Scaggs's best selling album. Silk Degrees spawned four singles, of which "It's Over", "Lowdown", and "Lido Shuffle" all made the Top 40, while the fourth, What Can I Say, peaked just outside the top 40, at #42.
"Lido Shuffle" is a song written by Boz Scaggs and David Paich and introduced on the 1976 Boz Scaggs album Silk Degrees.
Scaggs recalled: "'Lido [Shuffle]' was a song that I'd been banging around. I...took the idea of the shuffle [from] a song that Fats Domino did called 'The Fat Man' that had a kind of driving shuffle beat that I used to play on the piano, and I just started kind of singing along with it. Then I showed it to Paich and he helped me fill it out. It ended up being 'Lido Shuffle'."
Members of the backup band on "Lido Shuffle" - including David Paich - later formed Toto.
Released as the album's fourth single, "Lido Shuffle" reached #11 US and #13 UK.[5] In Australia the track spent 3 weeks at #2 as a double A-side hit with "What Can I Say".
Silk Degrees is the seventh album by Boz Scaggs, released on Columbia Records in 1976. The album peaked at #2 and spent 115 weeks on the Billboard 200. It has been certified five times platinum by the RIAA and remains Scaggs's best selling album. Silk Degrees spawned four singles, of which "It's Over", "Lowdown", and "Lido Shuffle" all made the Top 40, while the fourth, What Can I Say, peaked just outside the top 40, at #42.
"Lido Shuffle" is a song written by Boz Scaggs and David Paich and introduced on the 1976 Boz Scaggs album Silk Degrees.
Scaggs recalled: "'Lido [Shuffle]' was a song that I'd been banging around. I...took the idea of the shuffle [from] a song that Fats Domino did called 'The Fat Man' that had a kind of driving shuffle beat that I used to play on the piano, and I just started kind of singing along with it. Then I showed it to Paich and he helped me fill it out. It ended up being 'Lido Shuffle'."
Members of the backup band on "Lido Shuffle" - including David Paich - later formed Toto.
Released as the album's fourth single, "Lido Shuffle" reached #11 US and #13 UK.[5] In Australia the track spent 3 weeks at #2 as a double A-side hit with "What Can I Say".
Sunday, August 30, 2015
"What causes Workplace violence......"
I saw this on facebook and laughed my butt off...was some funny but twisted stuff lemme tell you.
" Cause of Workplace Violence..."
I had commented that in my workplace...that stuff has magical properties..we use them to barter favors, thank a crew for doing good...or if you are coming in late...you stop and bring in donuts. The leads don't dock you...but you pay anyway.....it all balances out....when somebody else is late...you benefit from their oversleeping.
Then the next day...this appears.......compliments of the "Coffee Fund"
I was showing the previous picture around as we were eating the still warm, melt into your mouth fresh donuts...the only way you get them is when the light is on..... Everybody in my crew commented "whomever did the donut to veggie switch is an evil, wicked S.O.B that there would be a special place in hell for somebody that would do such a dastardly deed.......Like I said...this stuff has magical properties at work.
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