First, check out two great articles over at Lockergnome about preparing for a disaster, and how to create a “bug-out bag”. After you have digested that information,  I recommend following these steps:

• No matter where you live in the USA, make sure have a NOAA Weather Radio. More information on that here. There is no excuse why every household should not have one of these invaluable tools.

• Assess your weather/environmental threat level, and prepare appropriately. I live in Tampa Bay, FL, so my biggest threat (as I see it) is that from a hurricane or similar tropical event. Because of this I have familiarized myself with weather systems, and obtained the necessary food and supplies to survive such a disaster. I have also taken the needed steps to prepare my home, and created an evacuation plan. If you live in Anchorage, Alaska, your threat level might be a little different! To help you get started, check out this information from FEMA. [FEMA recommends having three days of supplies on hand for each person in your home. I recommend two weeks, three days is nothing.]

• Don’t forget your car / mobile preparations! While many of us have survival supplies in our home, we often forget about what we would do in an emergency if we are not at home. I recommend keeping a bag in each vehicle that have some basic survival supplies, tailored to your location and environment. If you have a family, make sure they are prepared as well, and everyone knows what the “plan” is should something happen while one or all of you are away from your home. Check out this information to further prepare your vehicle.

• Prepare within your budget! While you might have some initial upfront cost if you have no preparations ready, preparing (or “prepping”) should not be a budget buster. First, assesses what supplies you already have, then make a list of what you need after doing your research. What I do, for food preparations, is to be on the lookout for “buy-one-get-one” deals at the supermarket on canned foot that my family eats. When you buy a few cans each week, those add up fast. Check out this resource on food preparations. 

No matter what you do to prepare yourself and your family, try to incorporate preparedness into your everyday life. No one is asking you to build a bomb shelter (though I think those are cool) and put tin foil on your head. Prepardness is something all normal responsible families and individuals should do. While we appreciate and relay on first responders, we have to realize they might not always be available in an emergency.

As an Eagle Scout, the motto “be prepared” his always been my guide. If you saw the preps I have you would probably think I am crazy! :) Happy Prepping!

I would like to first say that I am honored to have you represent me in Washington. My family has valued our friendship with you and your father for decades. I am always confident that you will represent the 9th District well by stopping the liberal agenda whenever possible.

I am writing to you in regards to the current “SOPA” bill. As a professional blogger and YouTube Partner with over 600,000 views, I have some concerns about the details in this bill. First off, I want to make it clear that copyright infringement and piracy is wrong, and when it is discovered it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law within the current legal framework. However, in SOPA, it appears to me that powerful entities would be able to (with very little cause or evidence) effectively shut down websites that they felt were in copyright infringement. Seemingly giving one side an unfair advantage.

This could have devastating effects on thousands, possibly millions, of independent blog/websites just like my own. I think that a balance needs to be struck, where copyright laws are strictly enforced, but at the same time we do not give corporations with well paid lobbyists the ability to use the courts to arbitrarily shut down independent websites that would not have the legal resources to fight back. 

I ask that if you are asked to vote on the current version of SOPA, that you vote NO, and would work towards a compromise that would both protect copyright laws and at the same time protect smaller websites from frivolous infringement claims that would put them out of business. 

While I am not an expert in copyright law, I do know a lot about technology and blogging, and I would be happy to speak with you about this issue should you have any questions. 

Sincerely,

David Banther 

Lessons Learned:

1. ALWAYS put your branding/URL in your videos! They used a video of mine that had no branding, so I received no free advertisiment. No big deal, but would have been nice.

2. When filiming something, always know you never know when and how that footage will be used once you put it on YouTube! That footage they used was from 2008, long forgotten!

Sign up here.

Happy Listening!

To the point of this blog post, I was interviewed by my local paper, The St. Petersburg Times about Speaker Gingrich. You can read that article here. I got the interview by responding to a reporter on Twitter, which goes to show it never hurts to speak up!

Who are you supporting for President, and why?

My local news station, Bay News 9, interviewed me via Skype (while I am traveling in Seattle) asking my thoughts on the recent changes. You can watch the video here. Do you like the changes?

1. First, if you don't know a lot about hurricanes, learn about them here.

2. Always use the National Hurricane Center as your primary source for information on active storms.

3. May favorite amateur web sites that contain model forecast information are Hurricane City and Mike's Weather Page.

4. If you really want to channel your inner weather geek, some great amateur metrological forums are Cane Talk and Central Florida Hurricane.

Remember, the Atlantic Hurricane Season runs from June - November, with the most active months being August-October (peaks mid-September). If you have any useful sites for tracking hurricanes please leave them in the comments!

Reasons why it is Awesome:

1. It is streaming music done right. I have used Pandora at work for the past few years. It is a great service, but you are limited to selecting a "type" of music, and then it decides the rest for you. I tried Rhapsody for a while, but I found it clunky and slow. Not to mention it did not have all the music I like. Spotify picks up where these two other services slack off - high quality with lots of features.

2. It is social. I love how the desktop app integrates easily with your Facebook account, allowing you to listen to your friends' playlist. I just think that is Awesome, and helps me discover new music. Also, the desktop app lets you access your iTunes library - #win.

3. It is easily mobile. When I got to the gym I use my iPhone as my iPod. With the Spotify iPhone app I can listen to whatever music I want, and have full access to my playlists that I built via the desktop app. Also, the offline mode lets me listen to my music (that I have marked for offline mode) when I have no internet connection. 

These are my three main reasons why Spotify is now how I listen to music. How do you listen to music? If you are still waiting on a Spotify invite for the free version, try this link - courtesy of Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins!

1. It's new and uncluttered. I love Facebook, and have been an active member for 6 years, but it is often a cluster of random information for which I don't care. I use Facebook to keep in touch with my college and high school friends, not for a news source. As of this writing, the information produced by the people in my "circles" on Google+ is much more of a fresh news / humor source on the topics that interest me, such as technology. 

2. I LOVE the "circles" concept. So many times on Facebook I want to post an update, but don't necessarily want all my 450+ friends to see it. With Google+ I can choose which "circles" receive any given update or post. This will become even more useful as the subscriber base grows on Google+. I am sure Facebook will add this feature soon.

These reasons are very personal to me, in the sense that someone else may use Google+ completely differently, and that is fine. I will continue to use both Facebook and Google+ for their respective purposes. Facebook for social reasons (primarily offline friends) and Google+ more for technology news and socializing with "online" friends.

Feel free to add me on Google+ http://www.davidbanther.com/googleplus