New York City

I admit it, I'm hard on New York City. I'm a Midwestern guy, I grew up in Ohio, I've lived in Ohio my entire life. It was a rather large jump for me to move from Akron to Columbus, I thought I was in the "big city" when I moved down here. However, after traveling to New York city for the 4th of July weekend, I realized how small Columbus really is (despite being the 16th largest city in the nation). The sheer magnitude of people in New York is intoxicating. There are people everywhere you turn, bumping into each other, knocking each other over, and even urinating into a plastic grocery bag on the subway. Despite all of its downfalls, and my sheer frustration with that lifestyle, there are few things in my life that will be as amazing as the picture below.

For those of you that can not quite make out the picture. The large fire on the right side of the picture is the fireworks display (not even the Macy's display) we saw on 7/4. To the left, if you look closely, you'll see the newly opened Statue of Liberty. I was not surprised to learn that tickets to tour Lady Liberty's crown was sold out. It was a long time coming that the crown was reopened. I understand the thinking immediately following September 11th to close the Statue. However, if one was to sit back and think about it objectively, the Statue of Liberty is not a high value target to terrorists (would never be a significant number of casualties). It would be more of a symbolic target then anything.

Enough with my rambling, despite all of my problems with New York City, that picture above sums up what was a great weekend, one of the best July 4th's in recent memory for me. If I could recommend two places to visit just once on the 4th of July, it would be Washington D.C. and New York City.

Social Media & Emergency Management

There has become a great deal of talk about Social Media since the beginning of 2009. Call it what you will, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Social Media, etc., one thing you shouldn't call it is fad. Based on recent events throughout the world, social media has proved it is more then college students communicating nonsense with one another. Some recent examples of social media:

-Mumbai Terrorist attacks were reported by users on Twitter.

-Hudson River plane landing: The first image seen of the plane in the Hudson was from twitpic, the program used to post pictures to Twitter.

-Iran Election: Because on the Iranian government's crackdown on the amount of bandwidth it was releasing, Iranians turned to mobile devices and posted rally updates, photos and even videos on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

In my field, Emergency Management/Homeland Security, the use of Social Media has exploded. A number of highly respected Emergency Managers are using Facebook and Blogs to get their Preparedness messages out. They are also using Twitter for Response and Recovery, posting constant, real time information so that their citizens can be constantly updated on events. One of the most proactive Emergency Manager's is Eric Holdeman. His blog is an everyday read for me, despite Eric working in the Tacoma, Washington area, his insight and knowledge is useful to anyone, I highly recommend you check out Disaster Zone is you get a moment.

Taking a break

I'm in the process of finalizing a power point for tomorrow's presentation about Terrorism and the internet. I wanted to reflect a little on what I've learned in preparing for this presentation. I have forgotten how much I enjoy studying and researching terrorism. I've been tied up with Emergency Management and Volunteer Reception Centers for the past couple of months and gotten away from the happenings of terrorism in the world. The ever changing landscape of the topic would keep one reading forever. The troubling part I've noticed in the past couple days worth of research, not much has changed in the war on terror since the new year, OBL is still submitting tapes and the terrorist propaganda machine is outworking the American media. The first step the United States needs to realize if eventual victory is still the goal, is that we need to do a better job at winning the war of ideals and rhetoric. All of the military strength in the world won't solve a determined, motivated enemy.

New York terror plot

News broke yesterday about a plot to blow up multiple synagogues in New York City and shoot down military reserve air craft with surface to air missiles.  The good news that came from this story was that Federal officials, in conjunction with local law enforcement were able to target these would be terrorists over a year ago.  The bad news that came from this story, for me at least, is the news that these four men were American citizens.  The threat of homegrown, domestic terrorists is growing everyday.  One can only expect with continued polarization amongst the American public, the economic downturn and unpopular wars we should expect to continue to see a raise in domestic terrorist threats.  

One final piece to take from this story is that we need to continue to address citizen preparedness and awareness.  Officials identified these suspects when an informant within a New York mosque learned about their desires to do harm to American.  We should continue to remain vigilant and prepared.

These gaps are too long

I really enjoy blogging, however I'm just having a hard time keeping up with this blog.  I'm hoping to start finding a little more time to post shorter, more important blogs in an effort to keep the blogging bug going.  With that being said, I'm hoping to make some additional posts today, hopefully to generate more readers.

How fast your life can change

I know it has been an extremely long time since my last post.  I really hope to get back into blogging soon.  Unfortunately, this post will not be that long either. 

I guess I'm just really amazed at how fast one's life can change.  A few months ago, I didn't have work, had just finished my Masters degree and really didn't have much direction.  Since then, I've started a new job in a field of my interest, Disaster Preparedness and just this past week, I was offered an adjunct professor position for the upcoming fall semester as a Professor of Homeland Security.  I go from no employment in January, to having a great full time job and now being offered an amazing part time position.  

The Big Bang Piano Bar

I've noticed that I've never really offered my opinion on different establishments around the Columbus area.  However, I went to a place on Saturday night for my wife's birthday that I just such a great time at, I had to make a note of it on here for all of my dedicated readers.  Big Bang Dueling Piano bar is by far the most fun I've had in a long time.  The musicians at this bar are out of this world.  For them to be able to know the music and lyrics to just about every single song that gets requested is truly amazing.  With that being said, anytime there are out of town guests coming to visit me in Columbus, the first place I will suggest going is the Big Bang Dueling Piano bar.

For more information about the Big Bang, click here