Here are your tips:

1. Water, Water, Water your live tree. This time of year Christmas tree fires occur regularly, but they are usually avoidable. Start by trimming the base of the tree a bit and provide plenty of water. Most trees do not get enough, check it several times a day and keep the base filled with water.
2. Check your lights, especially before placing them onto your live tree. Broken, missing lights and cracked or frayed wires pose an additional fire risk, and a shock hazard. When it doubt, throw them out.
3. Don't overload your electrical outlets. This time of year we sometimes get caught up in the beauty of all the lights, but too many into one outlet or on the same circuit can be a serious problem.
4.  Reevaluate your escape plan incase of fire. With the added elements of live trees, candles and many other flammable items it is very important everyone knows how to get out and get out safely.
5. Now is the perfect time to check your fire and Carbon Monoxide alarms.
6. When using candles keep them away from flammable objects. A good rule of thumb is if it making the object hot, move the object or put the candle somewhere else.
7. Many candles come in containers that also get very hot and can burn someone if grabbed or even burn through a wood surface. Make sure children can't grab them and place the candle on a surface that will not burn (we use coasters in my home).
8. Wrapping paper can burn very quickly and cause a quick flash fire. Do not burn the wrapping paper it is not intended for that purpose. Reuse, recycle or just throw it out.
9. When setting up your tree, keep it at least three feet away from fireplaces, radiators, and other heat sources. I would even try for five feet if possible.
10. Keep cords out of the way where someone will not trip over them. Don't use tacks or staples to hang electric cords, and don't place them under carpets.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

How to Create a Corporate Culture Dedicated to Business Continuity -

If you would like more of these please let me know.

H1N1 vaccine locations -

Fire is not just good for staying warm, boiling water and cooking food, but provides a great psychological boost.

If you have studied survival techniques and situations like I have you know that much of your survival also relies on your state of mind (I'll get more into this in an up coming post), and anything that can give you that edge including having a fire can improve your odds.

The method you use to start a fire, doesn't really matter as much s the success of actually starting one and there are many methods for doing so.

The one main point to take away from this post is to learn multiple methods, if you can practice them and stick to the ones that seem to work best for you.

The most obvious choice would be to have a reliable lighter or water proof matches but it is important to know what to do when these fail or if you are stuck without them.

Another interesting method is creating fire from forming clear ice into a lens, the best resource for this method the site Wilderness Survival Fire from Ice.

The reactions range from skin rashes, elevated heart rates, and dyspnea (difficulty breathing). About 1 in 20,000 people have had various anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine which is made by GlaxoSmithKline.

172,000 doses of SmiGlaxothKline's Aperanix vaccine are being recalled and the company has asked doctors to stop giving the vaccine to patients.

The company has declined to say at this time how many people have been given the vaccine at this time.

The report, meant to provide deeper insight and clarity into the next phases of the global economic crisis so that clients can take steps to protect their investments.

It is well put together and provides an excellent view of FRM (Financial Risk Management) and suggests selling off the U.S. dollar (a recurring them as of late, but that is another story), buying Government Bonds, and Cherry Picking certain equities and commodities (read buy gold).

They are also predicting a spike in gold prices as high as $6300 or possibly more in the next ten years. Gold today as I write this is over $1100 and climbing.

Since the report is calling for further posible economic collapse I thought I would add it here. The report is below.

Société Générale Worst Case Debt Scenario Fourth Quarter Nov 2009

I've been telling people to back up their data for almost fifteen years now, and I wrote about it in one of my first articles The Importance of Data Backups back in 2005. However, I still constantly run into people and businesses that fail to make frequent data backups and see stories in the news about data loss all the time.

The recent Sidekick and Snow Leopard issues that I did a post on recently also show how vulnerable we can be when we do not properly make these data backups.

Manually backing up your data can save you a lot of headaches in the long run, including issues with compliance and regulatory requirements.

Back when I wrote the article above, someone sent me an email stating that when they have a data loss, they just have the chance to do it all over again and do it better. This may be a great outlook to have, but not a very practical or cost effective one.

According to The Cost of Lost Data, a Pepperdine University report updated in 2003 (Pre-Sarbanes-Oxley) Dr. David Smith estimates the average cost of irrecoverably lost data at more than $10,000 per megabyte lost. This does not take into account the value of the lost data which on average is about $3,400.00 per incident.

In addition to backing up your data, I would also recommend making copies of your Vital records, and other business documents essential to your operations (electronically if you can) and store those off-site as well.

You also don't need an expensive solution, even if you are a small business, indivdual, or on a shoestring budget there are still steps you can take to save and backup your data without having to break the bank.

Fore More excellnet Statistics on Data Loss see this whitepaper from HP & Score:   

Impact on U.S. Small Business of Natural & Man-Made Disasters

The route is a major highway in the area and the Tennessee Department of Transportation has set up detours by using I-75 and U.S. Highway 74.

For more information on this or any other TDOT road construction project, or for weather-related road closure information, visit the TDOT Web site's dynamic TDOT SmartWay Information System or travelers in the local area can call 511.

Video of the Second Rock Slide in Tennessee

Events such as these can cause disruptions to your business, make a plan today.

Posts such as these:

Pakistans President Announces Nukes May Fall Into Terrorist Hands

Taliban May Already Hold Some Key Nuke Sites In Pakistan

Al-Qaeda Declares It Will Use Pakistan’s Nukes To Strike Unites States

(For more posts on this topic use the search box on the right)

Weather or not this actually happens is hard to say, but it is not something beyond the realm of possibility.

I am also a big long time fan of National Terror Alert, as they do an excellent job on reporting on some of these issues, and noticed the story on their site yesterday titled: Are Pakistans Nuclear Weapons Safe?

This post on their site points to the article Defending The Arsenal In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?

My personal views on this is that it is just a matter of time at this point. It could happen 2 weeks from now, or 5 years from now, but the pendulum is swinging in favor of the radicals at this point and they want nothing more than to get their hands on a nuclear weapon.

Make no mistake they are keeping their eyes on the prize, and we in the West are not doing enough to stop it from happening.

Read the articles linked in this post to get up to date on this issue.

Evacuating the Area of a Hurricane

Preparing for a Hurricane

Electrical Safety During a Hurricane