Been awhile since this was posted, but you'll recall that I had to cut
my session short on that day in order to participate in a public
service event...so time now to catch up:

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:02:12 -0500, "Kim W5TIT"
wrote:

Yeah, I remember when I first discovered there was "newsgroups" and then
found this one. I thought to myself, "Self, this is great. Meet more hams
and have great ham discussions." NOT. Pretty much the first exposure I had
to anyone on the newsgroup was Larry Roll, with his obsession about my
callsign...blah, blah, blah.

I was here when you first began to post here. I was off doing
non-internet related activities for about two years. Upon getting back
on the internet and checking the then-current postings to this NG, the
very first thread my newsreader downloaded contained a post where
Larry was making some of his usual comments about your call. I think
what surprised me was not that he was making the comments, but rather
that you were still in here putting up with it. I'd have either
killfiled him long ago, or just quit reading this NG.

Then I learned that many of this newsgroup's participants can't have any
kind of discussion without pulliing some kind of ego trip up out of their
pants.

Heh...Let's just say that, for reasons that I won't bother to explain
here, I try not to pull things out of my pants in public.

The long and short is that this newsgroup became a way for me to take the
day's frustrations out and pretend that my targets were this boss, or that
boss, or this co-worker or that co-worker...heh heh

I never harbored any illusions that my participation in this NG would
relieve any frustrations. In fact, it often adds to them. Fortunately,
my job isn't very stressful, so I can read some of the drivel that
gets posted in here without blowing up on people the way I might have
done a few years back.

Nevertheless, you have an interesting concept there. I can't help but
wonder about the person you imagine Larry being - given the friction
between you two in here, it's rather surprising that a real-world
version of him within range of you in real life hasn't been shot,
stabbed, strangled, and buried in armadillo dung by now, with you
holdfing the gun, knife, piano wire, and shovel. But then, you just
posted in another thread that you don't believe in killing, so...

I think the public service aspect is one of the greatest things about ham
radio...although I'm not much involved any more. Around here, one spends
more time dealing with political garbage than getting any real constructive
stuff done. I wasn't in it just for the sake of getting out there and being
in the middle of storms--I also wanted to see this area become really great
and one to be looked up to.

My involvement in the emergency/public service aspect of the ARS is
basically twofold.

On the one hand, the club I belong to has had a longstanding
relationship with the emergency management department in the city
where our club meetings happen to be held - although we serve a much
wider area than just that one suburban city - and I'm currently
co-coordinator of that club's emergency/public service communications
team. The emergency management EOC doubles as a club station during
contests, which we treat as drills in that it gives us a chance to get
our people, particularly the newer ops, into the EOC for some valuable
hours using the same equipment they would be using if they were
helping to staff the EOC during an activation.

Our last activation for emergency purposes was a severe ice storm in
February 2002 (with attendant power outages, shelters set up for folks
whose homes were without power, etc.). We not only handled our own
responsibilities within the city, but were also able to help out the
county ARES in getting some comms up their chain of command as well (a
task made easier by the fact that we had an assistant director of
emergency management from the county in the EOC with us, serving as
the liason between the city and the county). We also did some damage
assessment on the power grid in addition to our normal duties.

On the other hand, I'm also a member of the county ARES/RACES in the
county where I currently reside (which borders the one in which the
city our club serves is located), and thus also enjoy the status of
being a volunteer disaster assistant in that county's disaster
preparedness office, a part of the county emergency services
department. I'm not in a leadership role in that organization, but of
course have been called out on activations with them as well.

If we have a storm that gets us activated, it tends to be severe
winter weather, not the kind of thing you want to be outside in.
Suffice to say, we're within spitting distance of Buffalo, New York.
It gets pretty nasty up here during the winter sometimes...to the
point of causing deaths of people who can't get inside for whatever
reason. I'm dedicated to this aspect of the ARS, but I'm not really
anxious to get myself killed while doing it!

You folks down there, on the other hand, can get more tornadoes in a
month than we'll see in ten years. We get downbursts, we get wall
clouds, but we don't usually see tornadoes (waterspouts, yes, but not
many funnel clouds over land). I guess I'd prefer to deal with what we
get here. I can take care of cold, wind, and snow by dressing
appropriately...but when a tornado comes along, it doesn't matter much
what you have on.

Thank you. Not used to someone being able to read between the lines
here...LOL

It's a very useful communications skill. Maybe we should have a test
for it in the ARS?

Know what? It's Tuesday and I'm still tired...

I work Thursday thru Monday. Tuesdays are my Saturdays. That means on
Monday when everybody else is grumbling about how much they hate
Mondays, I'm generally in TGIF mode. It also means I'm generally more
tired on Monday than any other day of the week. So, been there, done
that, bought the t-shirt, spilled coffee on the t-shirt. :-)

73 DE John, KC2HMZ