Wrong way

They are big red signs to prevent this kind of tragedy. They warn all drivers in foot-tall letters “Wrong Way,” practically screaming at those behind the wheel to enter at the risk of possible death. Apparently a 36-year-old mother and aunt didn’t notice this sign as she turned onto the Taconic State Parkway just north of New York Sunday afternoon.

After driving down the road for a ways, the van the mother was driving collided with another vehicle, killing eight people in a wreck suited for Hollywood.

Why did this mom not pay attention to the sign? That is the question the police and family members are asking right now. While I don’t know the majority of the facts, like whether drugs or alcohol were involved, but I do have a theory.

I think the mom just didn’t see the sign. Researchers define this as “inattentional blindness.”

“We perceive and remember only those objects and details that receive focused attention,” said Daniel Simons, a psychology professor.

If the mother was not focused on the task at hand, driving, the there is a good possiblity that the sign didn’t even register in her brain. With a van full of children, it would of been easy for the mom to be distracted by an argument about a toy or a brother pinching a sister.

As the mother turned the wrong way onto the road, she could of had no idea that she was hurtling towards an unpleasant death. So stop reading this blog on your phone and start paying attention to the road!

The superman chemical cocktail

roar!

Your palms start to sweat, checks become ashen as your blood is redirected to your skeletal muscles, pupils become as big as marbles. Your heartbeat quickens along with your breath. All of this is happening because a cocktail of chemicals are coursing through your veins. Cortisol and epinephrine are the main ingredients, along with a dash of norepinephrine for good measure.

No, you haven’t been drugged, at least not by anyone besides yourself. These chemicals are the human brain’s response to stressful situations, commonly referred to as the fight-or-flight response. Evolved over several millenia, this physiological reaction helped our ancestors out-run predators and gave (and still give us) them the ability to preform superhuman feats of strength.

Anytime you hear about a mom lifting a car to save her baby, or a climber throwing a boulder off a buddy and then carrying him to safety, it is possible because of the fight-or-flight response. But that doesn’t mean everything about this brain chemical cocktail is positive. It also makes you dumb.

Your vision and hearing are narrowed. Most likely your hearing will be almost completely gone and your peripheral vision will cease to exist. And your reasoning, your executive thoughts, what sets us humans apart from our chimpanzee relatives, shuts down. Without this higher level of thinking, people can make dumb mistakes that us living look back on and wonder ‘what were they thinking?’

The answer is, they weren’t.

Working on it

I know it’s been a few days since my last post. Things have been hectic for me and I’m not going to apologize for the perceived laziness. Get over it. I’m working on some content, so keep a weathered eye on the blog.

Drew

You might as well off yourself because how do you top this?

Circumnavigating the earth in a sailboat is a dangerous proposition, even for those who have done it before. Look at the example of Quen Cultra. He had done the Ferdinand Magellan dance before. But on his latest attempt, the boat was capsized and only one of the three men on board survived.

Unfortunate as that is, it makes what Zac Sunderland is doing that more impressive. Sunderland is expected to complete his circumnavigation of the globe in is 36′ sailboat, the Intrepid, this morning. It took Sunderland 13 months to complete the journey, and he did it all before his 18th birthday.

This has to make you ask, what have I done with my life in the past 13 months?

Sunderland’s Web site can be found here.

Shake up the future

Predicting the future is usually best left to the sages and mathematicians, both who come to their answers in equally mysterious ways. The sages of the scientific community have been foretelling of a giant earthquake in California’s immediate future. So far nature has yet to deliver on this promise, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking preventative measures.

Today the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation will be shaking a 6-story wooden condo at a force equal to a 6 on the Richter scale. This building has been undergoing ramped up test in Miki, Japan for the past several weeks. So far it has survived with minimal damage.

THIS IS A PREVIOUS TEST

“Basically, what happens during an earthquake in multiple-story building is something called a ’soft story,’” John van de Lindt of Colorado State University, the condo designer, told Wired. “It’s not as stiff as the story above it, and the earthquake demands more stiffness from the lower story. This can develop into a pancake collapse, which damages the building and can kill people.”

There will be an update today after the live Webcast of the test.

Airbus planes not safe?

There have been two major plane crashes with only one survivor since the first of June. The planes’ destination, France, wasn’t the only thing they had in common: both planes were Airbuses. A third Airbus plane almost joined this trend on June 9, 2009.

Flying from San Fransisco to Tokyo, the Northwest flight reported an engine failure shortly after takeoff. It was able to return to San Fransisco safely and there were no casualties reported for the 194 on board.

Despite the safe landing, the question needs to be asked, are Airbus planes safe? I don’t have the definitive answer but think someone should be looking into it.

Death by poor judgment

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about decision making recently in an effort to figure out why people do the things they do. Now this is obviously a daunting task and I don’t expect to find a definitive answer. Much smarter people have been trying to figure this out since Plato.

The death of five people in Detroit is a prime example of why I am curious about the subject. A young man, 19-years-old, was driving a Ford Fusion when he came to a railroad crossing. The warning signals were going off and a sports utility vehicle was stopped in front of him.

Despite all these warning signs, the man swerved around the white SUV, attempted to cross the tracks was was struck by the train, killing himself and the four other people in his car. So far, there is no indication of drugs or alcohol, but obviously his judgment was impaired by something.

Had he faced a similar situation and escaped without harm? If so, then that model would be imprinted in his memory and maybe he was just following the pattern of success. Maybe he had somewhere important to be and weighed his options and thought the risk would be worth the reward. We don’t know, and I doubt we ever will. But just by examining what could have been going on in his head, I think we can learn from the tragedy and avoid a similar situation ourselves.

Video of the incident can be seen here.

Federal Terrorist

Right now I’m pretty wiped from finishing a six hour test for a potential job, so pardon the brevity of this post.

They are armed only with $150 worth of materials and temperaments as cool as ice. As they approach the security checkpoints at different federal buildings, they have to stay calm. Deep, controlled breathes. At all 10 check points, they make it through with their homemade bomb materials, but not explosions go off.

That is because the people smuggling the bombs were part of a sting operation set up by the Government Accountability Office.

Despite the creating of the Department of Homeland Security and the investment of billions of dollars after Sept. y11, 2001 into preventing more terrorist attacks from happening, members of the GAO were able to sneak bomb making materials through 10 check points in federal buildings.

According to several reports, the GAO sting team was able to penetrate “level 4″ buildings. The only level that has higher security is level 5 and that includes facilities like the White House.

The checkpoints penetrated are monitored by the Federal Protective Service. 1,236 ful-time employees and about 13,000 privately contracted security guards. The findings of the GAO were part of an audit of the FPS that will be coming out later this year.

If today’s reports are any indication, the GAO’s conclusion will be we are not safe considering who is standing watch.

The following is a list from the Chicago Tribune of additional findings of the GAO. Some of the latter ones are astounding.

* In one region, the agency has not provided the required eight hours of X-ray or magnetometer training to its 1,500 guards since 2004.

* In another region, 62% of contract guards had expired certifications in at least one of the following areas: weapons, CPR, first aid and baton use.

* At one high-security facility, an armed guard was found asleep at his post after taking the painkiller Percocet.

* In one major city, an improperly trained guard sent an infant in a carrier through an X-ray machine.

* A guard who was supposed to be standing watch was caught using government computers to further his for-profit adult website.

* A guard failed to recognize or did not properly X-ray a box containing handguns at the loading dock of a facility.

A race to the grave

peakraces.com

There is a point when extreme sports blur the line between great feats of athleticism and clinics in masochism. There is such a race in Vermont who’s name gives a glimpse of what kind of contestants it draws: the Death Race.

A 24-hour endurance race, those crazy-brave or stupidly-naive enough to sign up have to dodge barbed wire, ford rivers, jog, bike and preform numerous tasks that are equal parts pointless and physically grueling.

This year’s co-winners were two British and American marines, a testament to the kind of personality the Death Race draws.

Onward and Upward

The following was written about two years ago. It isn’t my best work but it seems to fit the theme I’ve tried to establish here and I’m going to be away from here for a few days while traveling. Enjoy.

Every muscle in my body tenses and screams to not lean back.

Hovering above adults who appear as small as children, I tell myself, “deep breath, you can do this.”

An eternity passes by then the rope tightens as I lean back, my instincts pleading with my hands to not let go.

“Put some more weight on the rope and lean back,” the belayer yells up to me.

She has to be joking. There is a nuisance present called gravity and it will exact revenge on me for defying its laws. Finally, after defeating all the safety mechanisms built into my brain, I lean back, let go of the ledge, sit in my harness and let gravity pull me down 40 feet of climbing wall I so easily climbed up.

The place I climbed was not a giant mountain or cliff face; rather it was a climbing tower at the 92 acre Horn Field Campus, just 1 mile south of Macomb, IL. The wall, which has been in place since 2000, offers three different levels of intensity; beginning, intermediate, and advanced as well as a rappelling wall.

Before climbing, I had to learn the verbal commands; belay on, on belay, climbing, climb on, belay off, off belay and the all-time favorite, I can’t go any farther so I’d like to come down.

The belayer served as an anchor in case I lost my grip and fell off of the wall. In order to climbing, and more importantly, in order to get down, you must put all trust in the belayer.

It is much easier to trust someone you feel comfortable with, and the belayers at HFC did an excellent job of being personable. With a genuine smile and a brief introduction they sent me to the wall to show Issac Newton his theory on gravity was bunk.

“We use it for a lot for group processing and to help build self-confidence and trust,” said Mindy Harpman, Horn Field Campus program director.

While the experience helps create trust in others, there are other benefits. Some come to hone their climbing skills for the real thing.  Others do it for the exercise while others just enjoy being outside on a beautiful day.

After summiting several times, I found myself entertained by another attraction of the HFC, the belayers themselves. I found myself in a half hour conversation with one belayer ranging from different places to climb, the bike trails at Macomb’s Spring Lake and fishing.

However, the climbing tower is not the only place to scale around McDonough County, and this would not be the last time Fear and I would face-off. Five miles southwest of Macomb resides Argyle Lake State Park. Located around Argyle Lake, the park features several single and hiking trails.

The real treasure of the park, though, is the jagged outcroppings of slate. While it is against park rules to climb them, and I am not suggesting breaking any rules, some people, including me, have done so.

What makes these climbs especially heart poundings is the fact that the slate shifts and moves, so when picking a line and holds, severe caution is needed. Also, the rocks are usually damp and feel like grabbing a slime-covered reptile. This could also be driving reason behind the climbing band.

After selecting a 10-foot wall, my friend Dave and I decided to test our new found climbing skills acquired at HFC. He went first and picked a relatively strait path and made it no problem. I followed after he came back down to spot me and I had little problem making it to the top.

We did this several times and decided to move on. After bouldering a few other outcroppings of about the same size, I spotted a small cliff that cried out to me “please climb here.”

When an inanimate object talks to me, I obey. Once again, Dave went first, picking a solid line that ended with a small leap to a tree for the final pull up. There was no way for him to come down in a timely fashion so I decided to go anyway.

I made it up about 12 feet of the climb with my right hand on a piece of slate which was roughly 150 pounds and my left gripping the tree which held the key to the top. As I was about to make a move for the top, pulling up with my right hand, the 150-pound boulder gave way, and fell towards my face.

In that instant, thousands of years of evolution took over my brain. Synapses fired, triggering an unconscious move of jumping out of the way, grabbing the tree with both hands and watching what could have been the end of me fall 10 feet to the ground.

“That was some life threatening stuff,” said Dave with a nervous laugh once I made it over the top.

“Try life affirming,” I responded with smile on my face that only comes when someone has face death, or at least serious injury in the face and came out unscaved.