Survival:Beyond the Bug-Out Bag

Staying Safe and Vigilant: Mastering Situational Awareness

• Bill Bateman • Season 6 • Episode 19

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Buckle up with me, Bill Bateman, as I guide you through the art of situational awareness, helping to ensure you're never caught off guard. Shaking up your routine is more than a mere change of scenery—it's a critical strategy to keep your senses razor-sharp. This chat isn't just about making it safely from point A to point B; it's a deeper dive into the psychology of vigilance, from smarter parking choices to the nuances of seasonal safety shifts. I'll share firsthand why varying your drive and keeping your neighborhood in check can make all the difference when it comes to personal and community security.

In the throes of warmer days and longer nights, we don't just bask in the sun; we're also shining a light on those who weave the fabric of our community stronger, like Phoenix's Modern Prometheans theater. Let's revisit the trusty tools in our safety arsenal to see if they still stand the test of time. Join me as I recount a car alarm tale that underscores the symbiotic relationship between home defense and neighborly awareness. We'll also talk tech, weighing the pros and cons of outdoor cameras, and giving you the lowdown on leveraging emergency services effectively. So tune in, share with your family and friends, and let's fortify our collective safety one episode at a time.

Links & Ccontacts:
911 Dispatch Center  541-776-7206 (Jackson County,OR) Option 6

The Modern Prometheans: New Phoenix theater space opens with Gothic ghost story | Go Rogue | rv-times.com


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Speaker 1:

Last week we were talking about situational awareness and staying alert. We're going to go deeper into that this week and things that can help get you out of your comfort zone and a little more aware. We're also going to take a look at the video version of this program Yup, that's coming up down the road. We're also going to take a look at the warmer weather ahead and how that can impact your home security and safety. All of that plus a visit to Mr Bill's neighborhood. Come on in, let's get this going Well. Hi everybody, I'm Bill Bateman, part of the team here.

Speaker 1:

It refused to be a victim. Personal protection training. We're located. You know where we are. We're in the Medford White City area of Southern Oregon, specifically 6800 Kershaw in the old Camp White shooting range. That's where Kershaw and Corey come together in an annoying sharp curve, so slow down when you're pulling in, but we do want you to do the pull and end part and come see us.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about changing up our routine. Sometimes we get too comfortable. I know I'm guilty of this in a number of different areas. Habits are okay, but they can become a rut and you get this almost fog over your vision. It's like your glasses fog up or your windshield gets impaired because of it being cold outside. Well, there's a lot of ways to snap yourself out of a rut and bring your awareness back into focus. Life will do this for you, whether you want it to or not, in the form of an accident, a health scare or the car breaking down. It's one minute, you're fine. The next minute there's that thump thump, thump, thump and you've got a flat tire, a car accident. It can be an accident in the home, falling off a ladder I knew this ladder was defective or a health scare, finding out that, oh my god, it really does take 10 to 14 hours in the emergency room, even if you're going in with chest pains. So when should you worry about this? I'm going to say now, or when you're done listening. Don't turn this off and run over, and well, that might you know. I think it might be a good idea to do exactly that.

Speaker 1:

Some of this stuff is important. Don't wait till you're sitting next to the side of the road waiting for an ambulance to realize you've been in a haze. Focus on this. Too often, those routines, we hear it often in an accident, that car came out of nowhere. No, it really didn't. It's about. You know, 2000 pounds, bright silver, and had the radio and the lights on. It was pretty easy to spot. You had gotten complacent, you had gotten fog. So how do we deal with this? How do we break this? Well, first of all, just admitting yeah, I've done that. It can happen to me.

Speaker 1:

Take different routes whenever possible. Now, sometimes life will bring you a different route, just without even being asked, in the form of a detour, a form of construction delay. You've got to get around an obstacle. These are good little. I hate this. It makes my blood boil because it's not really announced on the radio. Or yeah, foothill Boulevard is still closed. It's been closed for about a year. Off and on, they're doing some good work up there.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure I have stopped using it entirely, which means I'm now coming across Highway 62 or taking the bypass to other ways I can go, and sometimes coming across the street and there's construction. There'll be a detour. Yes, they're annoying. Yes, the neighbors are out there in lawn furniture looking at you and many of them are smiling, but it's a good way to find out more about your community. Can you get to such and such an area by going down this street? Oh my gosh, this would not be good in a truck. It's a very thin street, a narrow street and there's cars parked on it, so you're not going to get that big moving van down the road.

Speaker 1:

Staying alert, staying aware of your surroundings is important when you're driving. It's also important in case of an emergency. So what about other areas that we can apply this thought? Well, parking, parking in different areas of the parking lot. Now, if I go to the market, if I go to Fred Myers, if I go to Albertson any of the number of shopping areas you can go I don't like to park in the most highly used portions. I don't like to get door dings, especially trying to get my car in next to the 4x4 Dooley which is trying to park in the compact spot and you know you do it and we know who you are. Stop it, reduce your door dings by 50%, choose that end spot that has a curb or a tree there and park close to that, and you've reduced by 50% the amount of damage your car can take, thanks to other drivers. Also, I don't like to park close to a whole lot of other cars If I happen to be the only car at the end of the row and I notice people are following me and there's no other cars down there. Well, they could be going on through, they could be going to the gas station or this could be something I have to be aware of. I prefer to be alert. I prefer to have my eyes open and evaluating the entire time. So just some ideas.

Speaker 1:

Don't let your routine lull you into complacency. Don't let your need for convenience Put you in a bad spot in a parking lot or especially like if you're going to a club or a theater, parking down by the dumpster in the corner where the lights out. No people, no, even if you carry a flashlight. Bad plan. And especially now, as we're the weather's getting nicer. Criminals don't like cold weather any more than you do, but as the temperatures warm up, they kind of thaw out. Now, yes, if it is snowing, try and get by the door. Hopefully there's been at least a an attempt at de-icing. But now that things are getting a little bit better, keep your eyes open. Think about it in advance. Don't wait until the last minute to make some of these choices.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned we're getting started on a video version and I mentioned we're gonna start doing these on video. Well, I'm excited about this. It's been a long process and I got kind of a jumpstart to get this happening. Habits and we're just talking about that can interfere in regular day-to-day processes as well. Let me tell you how I'm a zoom guy.

Speaker 1:

When I was at the university I did a lot of zoom. I worked, in fact. Well, I was one of the first people bringing zoom on campus Through. Some of the IT department brought it on. It came to our department. We worked with helping people get it to work for them. So zoom is what I think of. Automatically it became a habit. Well, I decided to use zoom for our new recording of the video cast, going from podcast to video cast. Except zoom does not like to adjust portrait to landscape, and I spent half a day trying to make it work and getting pretty frustrated I mean, I'm mr Zoom, for heaven's sakes. Well, I had to do a little research and discover that the Video on my cell phone not only works faster, but it's got better quality and it's going to be easier to Edit. So the camera setting on my cell phone in this case topped my zoom. This allowed me to complete my camera testing. We're also testing audio and wireless microphone systems.

Speaker 1:

The whole plan of this is to get more location work done, a lot of this. I do the research, I do the testing. You never see any of that. I just write it down and come back and I talk to you here in my little studio. Well, we're gonna be out in the field and we're gonna be adding more content. Now my wife God bless her. She's helped me in the past few years with my videos that I use in my ollie class at SOU and it turns out she has quite the knack as a camera person and as a producer. So eat your heart out.

Speaker 1:

Stephen Colbert, if you don't pick up on that reference, he's a nighttime talk show host, does the late show and during COVID he and his wife did the show, first from their home and Then from a little corner of his studio. They got permission to use and they did this nighttime show all on their own, the two of them producing it together, and it's in a whole another story. That's pretty funny. So these podcasts are going to continue on schedule. You'll find the podcast where you normally do. There'll be a link at the bottom which will take you to the video segment, and I want to avoid just sitting there talking. I mean this is riveting to see how this is done.

Speaker 1:

But, like I said, more location work and we're not going to be doing product recommendations, me playing with a folding knife or Trying to roll up a sleeping bag on camera Hours of fun. But really, do you really care? We're gonna have more content, like at the past few weeks, expanding the viewpoint of survival beyond the bug out bag, day to day Life hacks, ways to be a more engaged member of our community, and I hope it works out. We're getting some good response to just the changes in content I'm doing here. We're going to continue with that and, as always, the doors open, cards and letters always welcome.

Speaker 1:

On that topic, I'm going to have a new feature. I'm going to call it How's that working out for you? Over the past seven years and I got people who'll verify this I have bought a lot of stuff Products we're not sponsored, although it's about time for that to happen too, but we're not sponsored. If I say I like a product, it's because I bought it, I paid for it and it did what I thought it would do. I'm not going to go easy on a product just because they're bankrolling us, because nobody's doing that.

Speaker 1:

We're going to look at things like did this thing work? Was it durable? What were some specific problems we had in the products I purchased? More important, I think, to you, would I still recommend it? What's new in that area of utility? Is it a better sleeping bag? Is it a better solar generator? What are possible new ideas and new options? So that's one thing we're going to be doing. How's that working out for you? And if you got anything you'd like me to talk about, I'd be happy to entertain that. I'm not going to go buy something new. I'm retired folks, sorry, but yeah, let's look at that. Also, something brand new, mr Bill's Neighborhood. Yes, indeed, new perspectives. I'm open to new things. We're talking about changing our focus, breaking out of ruts.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to put a recommendation to a community business that's caught my attention and helps you do that Break out of the box. Now there's interestingly enough, this is a new theater in Phoenix. The name of the theater company is the Modern Prometheans and it's located at 310 North Main Street in Phoenix About 30 to 40 seats. The actors are right there in front of you and it's called Black Box Theater, minimal Props. This was a really good show. I enjoyed it. I'm going to go see future work with them and I'm going to include a link out of the Rogue Valley Times. They mentioned the story and a little bit about the theater company, the people doing it. I'm going to put the link on the front page. So look for that right under the link to the emergency phone number. And if you like theater, if you like new ideas, if you like keeping the gray cells just a little more flexible, check it out. I think you'll like it. Also, let's see coming up.

Speaker 1:

Hey, it's time to start booking your classes. This month's Concealed Carry class did sell out and, thank you, we appreciate it. We appreciate your support and your interest. It is held indoors and they're like there's restrooms and soda machines. You'd have to bring your own lunch, but yeah, you're not out there in the rain. It's nicer to take a class there. We're also seeing increased interest in the home defense class. We have two home defense classes and more and more people are taking a serious look at defending your own kingdom. Now let's take those classes, let's come on out, let's read, let's study, let's learn and also let's change our point of view.

Speaker 1:

Around our house we look at it from the point of a prospective criminal. If you've ever locked yourself out of your own house, how easy is it for you to get in? Who in the neighborhood would notice if you broke a window or a door? We went over and this is kind of telling family members heading off on a vacation and instead of parking in the parking lot at the airport, they got an Uber over and then we're going to take their car over and drop it out in one of the lots. We have an arranged area. They know where to look for it, so when they come out, they'll be paying for three or four hours parking instead of four or five days.

Speaker 1:

Well, we went to pick up the car, they gave us the key and their car alarm went off. Now, this is a big truck, to be 100% honest. So this big truck alarm is going off. It was loud, it was the middle of the day Honk, honk, honk, honk, honk. We couldn't get it to turn off the little button. Long story we finally got things under control, but I noticed that alarm had been going off for 10 minutes. 10 minutes of a blaring truck alarm. Nobody looked out a window.

Speaker 1:

So what is in your area? We've got a new view of this apartment complex. But in your neighborhood, who would notice if the car alarm went off or if the front porch lights were flashing on and off or you had an internal burglar alarm system, who would hear it? And do you have a response system and have you updated that? So let's look at the point of view of bad guys. How easy is it for bad things to happen in your house, in your neighborhood? Let's take a little more personal responsibility. Is the gate latch broken? Look around after the winter it's been a pretty good winter rain, snow in many areas, wind stuff banging back and forth as the gate latch broken out there as that loose board Our lights out from either wind damage or simply burning out. That leads to dark. So in the backyard, are there new people in the neighborhood? Have you met them? Do you know who they are? Whose car is that you see driving up and down the street? Are you alert to that type of thing?

Speaker 1:

A lot of folks turn to outdoor cameras. They don't want to go out and confront, they want to just see what's going on, and really that's not a bad idea. You're not a law enforcement officer. If you see something that you think is dangerous, you should report it. If it's an emergency, use 911. If not, have that non-emergency number located right by the phone or in your speed dial. But if you're interested in outdoor cameras, come on back. Next week we're going to talk more about them. There's some good points, there's some bad points, and they can run you a little bit or a whole bunch.

Speaker 1:

Let's turn to calling 911. That's what we do in an emergency. That is the correct thing to do. However, here's something you didn't know. Okay, in an emergency, as we just mentioned, you're going to call 911 and ideally, your number is going to pop up on the screen of the dispatcher. It won't always happen. If you're using on a VIOP or a computer based phone, it may not be there. So it's your responsibility to know what your phone system will do. But let's take this little further. If you're in a situation where you can't get to the door you've fallen, you broke your leg. I hate the I've fallen and I can't get up thing, but it happens Give the dispatcher a little extra help. Well, you still can, before a medical emergency, call the dispatch center and I'm going to put the number at the front. I mentioned it earlier. I think I got off my script, but the dispatch center's phone number for 911 is going to be at the front of the broadcast, right there in the stuff to remember section.

Speaker 1:

You're going to call and ask for option six key location and give them the location of an emergency key. Now I strongly advise having one of these and don't put it under the mat, don't put it under one of those stones that doesn't look like any stone that occurs in nature. We used to have a key box, like realtors had. It was padlocked to the chain length fence to use a four number combination to open it and there'd be a key inside. That's pretty obvious and somebody could probably get that apart if they had enough, not like a car alarm blaring for 10 minutes and no one noticing it. But we now have an official hide key and we have a special hide key location and it's a combination and you still have to deal with our alarm inside which has people responding to it. It's making a lot of noise and annoyed the dog. If you're going to have an emergency key and I recommend you do reach out to the dispatch center If you call and you have a medical emergency and they can't get in easily. They are going to come in and I thank you for that. That's what they need to do to come in and save your life. So don't be surprised if you hear the door splinter when they come in and lets. You've given them at the dispatch center, where your emergency key is hidden.

Speaker 1:

So these are just all things to think about as we approach the change in season. New seasons, new time, change spring forward. All that business, new things to do. Stay alert, stay aware. Keep your mind agile. Don't get focused on what's going on in the radio. Look at what's going on around you. Keep your situational awareness high. That's all we got for this week.

Speaker 1:

I'd like to invite you back next week. Like I say, we got more things coming. Mr Bill's neighborhood might have a new suggestion. We're gonna look at our first installment of how's that working out for you, and we're gonna look at cameras, outdoor cameras and possible ways to ensure You're gonna stay safe. We will see you in class or we'll see you out at the ranger, and I certainly hope we'll see you here next week. Remember, download this, share it, put the word out on it. We want to build some listenerships, we've got some things to talk about and we want you to share Everybody's welcome here. So come back and see us. Until then, be safe, have a good week. The preceding program was a presentation of retired guy productions.

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