Five Father's Day Gift Ideas - For Dads Who Kick Butt!

We're going to do a series about Gift Ideas - For Dads Who Kick Butt! Hard core guys who like cool things. Remember, Dad's Day is June 21st - third Sunday in June. So, let's kick this first series off with...

Mo Hotta, Mo Betta! - You may have heard about Dave's Insanity Sauce and Salsa, consider Dave's Special Reserve - a veritable collector's item weighing in at a cool 93,000 scoville units. In comparison, a regular jalapeno is only about 2,500 scoville units. There are "sauces" out there that can get up over a million. Trust me, 93,000 scoville units will make a grown man cry. One jar of Dave's Insanity Sauce is sufficient for more chilli than your Dad is likely to eat in a lifetime, unless he really likes hot chilli, double chilli-cheeseburgers with extra jalapeno peppers and of course chilli cheese-fries with extra jalapenos and a side order of chilli...and an Ice Cold Coca-Cola. There's more super hot sauce at Mo Hotta, Mo Betta than you'll know what to do with - and with all kinds of great names, like "Scorned Woman", "Lynchburg Tennessee BBQ - Firey Smokin' Hott (86 Proof)" and "Arizona Gunslinger Hot Sauce" - just to name a few. Then, there's the Ass Kicking Pistachios and Dave's Microwave Popcorn. So, if you want to see your father break into tears on Father's Day - this is the place to go. Personally, one of my favorite online stores in the whole world. If it doesn't make you cry, it ain't worth eatin'! - Available in Gift Certificates, too! Caution - see video below - read the warnings on the labels, they are serious.

Casio's G-Shock Watches - I guess you could say this is like the Samsonite of Men's Jewelry. The testing of these watches actually makes the 600 pound gorilla look gentle in comparison. There's the ice test, the underwater test, the drop test, and then there's the vibration test. If those four don't convince you, there's the piston test...and the HAMMER TEST! By golly, it looks like this thing is darn near indestructible! We could probably ship it over to North Korea to see whether it can stand up to their nuclear testing. So, if you're dad goes through cheap watches like underwear, get him a G-Shock Watch - he will probably never wear it, but it will keep him entertained for years!

Machines that Go BING! - Tech, high tech and cool stuff, and lots of it - too much tech stuff to cover so, we'll hand it over to Machines that Go Bing's Blog because that's what Steve does and he was very helpful in recommending the best Twitter application for Blackberries - that being UberTwitter.com. What kind of stuff does he cover? Let's start out with the Mazzer Robur - the MEANEST Espresso Grinder... ever....an Espresso Grinder so powerful it can reduce your coffee beans to dust. Then, there's the Dual Fuel Cocktail Shaker which puts a spin on the old twist and shake. Hard core tech stuff - Machines that Go BING!. While you're at it, make sure to follow him on Twitter at @meteorit.

Angler's Access - A fishing/hunting trip to Lake City, Michigan where you can stop by Angler's Access and meet Denny and Beth. Angler's Access is a "24 hour bait and tackle shop" located in downtown Lake City, Michigan. They provide everything you need - fresh bait, tackle, camping supplies and great conversation. They know what's best locally for lodging, for boat rentals, and everything else. It's summer and a weekend out to Michigan would be a good way to get away for a few days and let Dad relax. Okay, that last part about relaxing - that's not going to happen. But, it's the thought that counts. You can also hook up with them on twitter at @anglersaccess

BulletBlocker's Executive Briefcase - Yes, this is a shameless plug, but it fits perfectly for Dad's who are very protective about everything on their laptop than they are about themselves. Instruct your dad, that the briefcase is for him, too. This is a briefcase that will stop 9mm, .357 and .44 Magnum shells from penetrating and taking out his entire computer... and providing him some protection, too. It's airport friendly and has everything that other briefcases have - and it is bullet proof, too. If James Bond was going to a meeting, this is what Q would give him. And, of course, BulletBlocker has many other great products for men, women and children - bullet proof vests, bullet proof backpacks, and school safety kits, and more. Be prepared wherever you go - because you never know when something tragic will happen, but if something does, you'll have a fighting chance. Get us on Twitter, too at @bulletblocker

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Okay - so there's a lot of cool stuff here, but it is easy to get carried away... like with the Hot Peppers. Dave's Insanity Salsa is about the hottest sauce anyone would want to try. It has a warning on the label to not eat it if you have heart or stomach problems. The sauce is made to be diluted, like a few drops for a full vat of chilli. I've had one drop on a chip and my face was red for a good 30 minutes. Dave's Insanity Salsa is more tolerable, but it is very, very hot. That's about 93,000 scovel units - meaning it would take like 93,000 equal parts of water to eliminate all trace of heat. Here's what happens when you try to take it too far, serious stuff. Yes, it starts out funny - but it can get extremely serious, real fast. So, use some common sense. Jalapeno peppers are one thing, a little bit of really hot salsa is another - but after that 100,000 scovel units, you really don't know how it will effect you... or your dad.

BulletBlocker Performance! Zero Penetrations.

Just came across another great video of BulletBlocker's My Child's Pack being put through some serious testing. This video shows a live fire test of a BulletBlocker backpack being shot with a 9mm handgun for the Armed American Report published by the United States Concealed Carry Association by Cody S. Alderson

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Threat Response...

What can you really do when someone does have a gun and is shooting?

I'll start with a story. When our group first arrived in Iraq, we were treated with a nearly constant barrage of warning sirens - indicating an incoming rocket or mortar attack. If you hear the siren, per official instructions, you are to grab your personal protective equipment (PPE) and head immediately to a bunker. The sirens don't tell you when or where something is going to hit, just that something will hit, somewhere. After a solid eight hours of this, no one in our group had heard a single explosion. Night time. The sirens continued into the night. Gradually, fewer and fewer people were grabbing their stuff and going to the bunker. Once everyone got in bed, almost no one was going to the bunker. At about 2330 - Very, very big BOOM - followed by our tent getting sprayed with dirt. No one was hurt, but in five seconds everyone had their PPE on and they were sitting in the bunker. Yeah, that got our attention. Getting concerned after the fact does not help very much - though it certainly impacts how you respond to every future incident. But, all it takes is one time of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

According to iCasualties. org, there have been 4,311 military deaths and 31,169 military injuries in Iraq since we first went in (2003). Civilian casualties are not tracked. Civilians from the United States and other countries with contractors in Iraq are not quite as exposed, though there are certainly exceptions to that general rule - especially in the case of truckers - the guys who are the lifeblood of everyone there. However, it is appropriate to bear in mind that this reflects cumulative casualties over a six year period in a zone of conflict. The burden has been enormous on Iraqi citizens. Iraq was not particularly a safe place even before this war, the threat just changed names. I have no intention of diminishing the value of any single life - military or civilian, American or Iraqi or Indian (lots of Indian workers in Iraq), or those from any other country. I've worked with them, they are all good, hardworking people.

Over six years, military deaths stand at an average of 718 per year, combat related injuries at 5,195 per year. That is for a whole country, close to the size of California, in a conflict zone, where Americans are targets and stand out like a sore thumb. In contrast, Detroit experienced nearly 24,000 violent crimes in 2007, of which 418 alone involved murder or non-negligent manslaughter. One city for one year has over half the fatalities associated with violence as the entire country of Iraq.

Wikipedia's statistics on fatalities from automobile accidents is also a good comparison where the average number of fatalities for handgun related causes also tops 40,000 per year. We have mandatory seat belt laws and air bags, but our chances of dying in an automobile accident or about the same as our chances of actually getting shot. Or, we can look at drowning - 7,000 deaths per year, and yet it is mandatory for every boat to have a life vests and floatation devices.

Point is, that you don't know when someone is going to freak out and go on a rampage at school, in a mall or simply just drive by and pop one off. There are some who take precautions and are prepared for situations when they happen, and they have a fighting chance. Leastwise, if you hear a gun shot, and you are still standing, you can take action to defend yourself. Get down, low to the ground, reduce your chance of being seen, reduce your profile in the case that you are seen. The military trains soldiers to use cover and concealment, but also to crouch and crawl. But, you can also get the equivalent of a safety belt or life preserver, by getting some bullet resistant protection. Nothing is completely bullet proof, but when something has a 97% chance of stopping a bullet from virtually any handgun from hitting your vital organs - you do feel much safer.

You do what you can. But, to say this is hype or over-reaction? It is when nothing happens. It is not when something does happen. America likes to react to things after they happen - like this global financial crisis. We've been talking and talking about the growing amount of household and government debt since at least the 1980's. Did we do anything about it? Only after it became a massive crisis. We like to laugh at the people who warn us - like Roubini and Celiente. After it happens, after it gets personal - that's when we get concerned. Or, we can look at the trends, look what is happening, and maybe take a reasonable step or two to prepare for them before the problems do get up close and personal.

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More Twitter Apps, More Coffee... and Sugar

If you have not done so already, go check out what Mark Shaw is doing, and check out his free 19-page Twitter for Business E-Book. Then you can follow it along, or you can scroll down a bit on this page and see the first six applications covered. Twitter without 3rd party apps is like a cup without coffee, or sugar. That's my feeling anyway. The more you understand how to use third party applications, the more you will love Twitter. Following on my previous posts, I want to introduce you to a few more applications that are also covered in Mark Shaw's book.

• Tweetake.com - Now, if you followed the video along yesterday on Tweetdeck, you probably note that you don't want to push the "x" on your groups - cause that deletes everything. Everything. I hate it when that happens. But Tweetake.com lets you back things up - your followers, favorites, direct messages, friends, tweets...and everything. Is that cool? That's cool. It gives it to you in one nice neat Excel file that you can save on your hard drive and another storage back up... just in case. Just make sure to put your secondary storage unit someplace away from your computer. You never know when there'll be a flood taking out your fourth story apartment. Okay, that is a little extreme, but you get the idea. If it's really important, it's best to keep it in a secure second location in a different building.
  
  
• Twitbiz.com - Another very easy to use and add your listing Twitter Busines Directory. I just did it in like 15.375 seconds. I will be back to add more to it, but easy-easy, if it was any easier, it would already be done...so go do it. Now.
  
  
• Tweetbuzzer.com - Give this one 15.376 seconds to load and it will start retweeting the top 100 buzzing brand names. Down on the left hand corner, you will see some small text. Try clicking on it, it does something. Otherwise you might be watching the screen for a while. If your favorite brand name is not bee-ing buzzed, then go ahead and submit. I don't know what happens after that...but it never hurts to try. Well. Sometimes it does.
  

Okay, so that's three... Going to get another big coffee. Incidentally, in Europe - it is not a always easy to find places that have big coffee. Their big is like a small cup in the United States. The waitress always looks at me strange when I try ordering a pot. You've been to restaurants where they leave the whole pot - right? Well, they used to leave the whole pot. I don't care what I do here, they won't leave the whole pot. So, I got smart, and now bring my own 64 ounce mug with me and ask them for 8 cups of coffee. Believe it or not, that does work.

Now, if you are going to come over to Europe and plan on staying for a while - two options. A) Bring your own Mr. Coffee with you. or B) Buy one when you get here. I bought three. Also, I know there is another crew getting ready to deploy to Iraq - there's one awesome thing about Iraq during the summer, it gets so hot that you never have to worry about your coffee getting cold. If you set it down at 0800, it will still be hot at 1400. Never let coffee go to waste. Just pick out the flies first.

So... now that I've got my fix again, we're gonna do one more.

MrTweet.com - First, make sure you are following MrTweet with your Twitter account. Next... wait a little while after you sign up. Then... Okay, well - there's what it says it does, but I don't believe anything until after it has happened. Even then, some things defy imagination. So, tomorrow - I'll come back to MrTweet after I've seen Mr Coffee again, and tell you all about what this does and what it is good for.

Twitter, Law Enforcement & Social Networking: Now and... Tomorrow?

At the London G-20, the Guardian, the Telegraph, Al-Jazeera and other mainstream media used Twitter to provide continuous updates on how things were going. So did the protest organizers. And, so did the police...and the secret agents?

Per the Telegraph, "In the weeks leading up to the G20 summit, the police have been monitoring these sites in an effort to stay one step ahead of the protesters. One senior officer warned it could turn in to a "cat and mouse" game around the streets of London, with police trying to stop incidents, organised hastily and online, as they flare up... Marina Pepper, one of the organisers of G20 Meltdown, said that Twitter was a key tool in terms of “mobilising people and shifting them around”, because it allows people to file and read updates via their mobile phones."

What we saw in London, however, was a police force that knew what was coming, had trained and prepared for it, and was no stranger to very large and disruptive protests. So, what happens when something similar happens where there is no training or preparation? Moldova. Twitter's role is under debate, but there is consensus that a variety of social media was used by protest organizers. An extended article on Moldova is not intended, social media was used. To protest anywhere in Eastern Europe requires a more guts than it does in the west, as the police have no qualms whatsoever about using excessive force.



So, for the above to happen, even if violence was not the objective of the organizers, is more than noteworthy. These films don't show all of the damage that was done to the parliamentary building, suffice that the entire first three floors were pretty much dismantled. If they don't have computerized records, it will take decades to get all of their paperwork back in order. Police and Fire departments throughout the United States have started using Twitter and other social media to connect with their communities. That's realistic and progressive, something you would expect to see in the United States, Moldova's response was simply to shut down local internet service providers, thereby cutting off the majority's access to Twitter messages. In the United States, doing that might actually cause a riot...

The point is, that organizationally, it is increasingly important for someone to have their thumb on the pulse of social networking tools, techniques and methodologies, now. Thirty years ago, the idea of a small business having a computer was unbelievable. In 1998, even into 2001, people still thought the Internet was just a fad, and early on said the same about some social networking venues. Yet, the Internet has effectively brought down some of the most prestigious mainstream newspapers in the country, is pulling revenue from both radio and television. If you really want to get deep into the understanding of technological bellcurves, development and proliferation, you might try to pick up Ray Kurzweil's "Age of Spiritual Machines" to see exactly where we are headed. Here are some excerpts. He's quite possibly one of the most intelligent people you will ever learn about, alongside Stephen Hawking, working in the development of Singularity University, a joint effort between Google and NASA.

Whatever is going on with the Internet now will only be more pervasive in five years, the names may change, but the essential dynamics don't. Observe the trends and think how they will play out in five more years. Yes, there's enough to worry about the way things are today, but it is the fixation on the near term that really got us into this global financial mess - and it is so big that it will require a lot of long-term planning to sort out.

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Recap of Six Twitter Apps (Day One)

The more one gets into the Third Party applications for Twitter the more you will like Twitter, because the more useful Twitter becomes. As mentioned in my post this morning the first place to start is to get Mark Shaw's Twitter for Business E-Book. It's easy to follow and gives you like $50 Million worth of free advice just in his recommendations of people you should follow. Is that a deal or what? Well, you have to put everything to use, but... let's not get too technical. Heh!

So, Twitter pretty much kept me busy all day - just going through the following third party applications...learning how to use them, and using them, with pretty good effect for my first day putting it to use. We'll go over these one by one (not all 26...just a select few).

• TweepSearch.com - Enter a keyword and you'll get a load of people associated with that keyword, which requires further screening. I'm not seeing a direct link from the results to people's actual twitter page, but all you need to do is add their name to twitter.com/ - like twitter.com/bulletblocker so you can read what they're saying, message or follow them. Pretty easy.
  
  
• Twellow.com - Very useful, lets you add more information to your Twitter details - local to Twellow; and lets you do keyword searches and find people in specific geographical locations. Basically like a Twitter Yellow Pages.
  
  
• FriendOrFollow.com - This one - highly, highly recommended - you get to see who is following you but who you are not following; who you are following who is not following you and who is following each other. Confused? No need to be - this is important so you can give attention to those who are following you. You can only follow 2000 people on Twitter before you run into a 10% proportional margin that paces relative to how many are following you. It's a quality control mechanism to offset networking by the numbers. So, I'm going to spend some time right now to make sure we are following everyone following BulletBlocker!
  
  
• TweetStats.com - Okay, I like stats, but this looks to be useful for the more hard core Twitter users out there. I don't know what to do with it, so... for now, I'll do nothing.
  
  
• Twitalyzer.com - This is mainly an aggregator of how well you are measuring relative to others on Twitter, comparing among other things your signal to noise ratio (outward informative links vs. "my cat just took me for a walk" type posts, a measure of generosity (retweeting), etc. Useful, but not essential.
  
  
• TweetDeck.com - This is an awesome Twitter management tool - so good that it deserves a video...voila - video - below!
  

So, that's going to be about it for... today. Why? Because we're going to do some more, tomorrow! And... the day after that. Is it useful? Yes, if it wasn't I would not be doing it. I'll be adding some of my own ideas in this, too. Everyone have a good day and remember - if you don't stay out of trouble... you will be in trouble.

Networking & The Best Gourmet Coffee Shop in Iraq

Did anyone tell you that networking takes time? Okay, well it does take time. There's a few things to keep in mind with... Everything. A little bit of effort toward anything every day, consistently, will yield results. Moreover, the more you work at it, the more efficient and effective you get.

Starting out at anything is kind of scary. Starting out with Social Networking is kind of scary. My moving out of my comfort zone is kind of scary... but, you can sit there and do nothing about it and complain that nothing's happening, or you get proactive. When I went to work in Iraq, the team I was with arrived at a totally new work site to support the Marines. Marines will be the first to tell you they don't get many luxuries - it's the basics and that's about it...if they are lucky. It's better today, today they are elite - first on the ground just about everywhere. They guard our embassies - and it's not just because they have the sharpest looking uniforms.

So, Iraq in the summer easily gets up to 110 - 120 degrees Farenheit. That's acceptable if you're out on the sand trying to get a tan. It's something else if you happen to be wearing 30 pounds worth of personal protective gear which was contracted by KBR for all of their civilian contractors and subcontractors. Ours consisted of an ugly blue vest with two very large, very heavy metal SAPI plates. Depending on your size, it ranged from 20 - 30 pounds. After six weeks of wearing those while working... I lost a good 30 pounds. In the heat, my record was drinking 18 liters of water in one day - and going to the bathroom once. Evaporates as fast as you can drink it. When we first got there, there weren't many refrigerators, virtually no air conditioning anywhere. We had warm water, sometimes hot - whatever it was, we had to drink it.

Terry, one of the guys in our group (he's on the left, that's me on the right), decided he would refurbish the basement of one of the old Iraqi bunkers. The basement amounted to a single dark set of stairs leading down 10 ft x 10 ft cement room with an air shaft that leads to the roof. It was filled with lots of old trash that had been sitting there for a good year... about two dozen bats and lots and lots of bat guano. That's poop. Bat poop. Cleaning that out? Gotta start somewhere - and he did. At first no one really helped, but the more he went at it the more others started lending a hand. Soon, Terry had a clean 10 x 10 room. Then he went about the requisitions process of trading a piece of copper wire for a favor, then he traded the favor for a small broken refrigerator... and so on and so on.

Two months later? Best Gourmet Coffee Shop in Iraq - for marines and civilians, even some army, to sit someplace cool, out of the sun, and have some cold water or some hot gourmet coffee. He had to fight for it, but soon everyone was fighting for it. There's nothing like seeing a grizzled old US Marine Sergeant Major, mean and tough as nails, who never smiles... get a nice cup of coffee, good coffee, and smile. We had pictures of it, sure they are still floating around somewhere - hard drive crash took mine out, might go looking for my backups. But, that's one story of thousands world wide - a little bit of effort, day by day, builds into something meaningful.

Now... about those 30 pound "bullet proof vests" - BulletBlocker's vests can do the same thing with the same level of NIJ Threat Level IIIA protection for under five or six pounds depending upon your size. Pretty close to the same weight that the Marines used, except better.

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First Six Stops on the BulletBlocker Twitter Tour!

Alrighty then, the first stop in the Twitter Tour is to check out what Mark Shaw is doing, he's a friendly English guy who also happens to be quite active with Ecademy.com. Mark's produced his own Twitter for Business E-Book which is a free download. It's a 19 page book for first time users that guides you through setting up a Twitter account, how to use it, how not to use it, and a number of high profile users you can immediately start to follow to learn more about Twitter and Social Networking for business.

That list of people to follow is worth a million times its weight in gold, free - yet massive corporations spend millions of dollars in sales and marketing seminars every year. By following these guys and gals, you are always able to tap into quick tips and complete e-books, and brilliant ideas regardless what you are doing. So, I just went in and added about 15 people who I will be following on Twitter. Obviously, you won't be watching everyone all of the time, you don't need, too - you can do it as you see something of interest. As we learn more, we'll be able to home in on the precise things we want to learn more about, "Now". Blogging is not always easy, but it goes hand in hand with Twitter, so the first thing that attracted my attention was Chris Brogan's 23 Essential Elements of Sharable Blog Posts. You can always risk sticking with what you know, but the world will evolve around you - and leave you in the dust.

The next thing in Mark Shaw's free e-book is a list of 26 third party Twitter Apps. 26? We're going to pick five, because there's plenty of overlap. On Twitter, a keyword search is not very useful without a third party app, so we're going to look at TweepSearch.com. Another thing you can't do without an app, is find people by profession or location, so we will also look at Twellow.com. As I mentioned yesterday, I also downloaded TweetDeck.com which helps you to better manage your... Tweeting. Another good one is FriendOrFollow.com and TweetStats.com. Ultimately, I will probably look at all 26 of these. A tool is a tool... and most auto mechanics have more than a screwdriver and a hammer in their shop. Not sure what they use a hammer for... but I'm certain it does get used.

So, I'm going to go do that and provide a quick recap at the end of the day of how each of these work...

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Twitter Marathon Day

Good Morning! Today's Twitter Day here on the BulletBlocker Blog. And you're asking, What does Twitter have to do with BulletBlocker? That's not a bad question. Now, I could say it is a marketing ploy and that would be mostly honest. Where do you get honesty these days? But that's not the only reason why we're focusing on Twitter today. There are other questions to answer, too - like, How is Twitter of relevance to you It's a social media tool, it works for business, for law enforcement, for mainstream media at the G-20 conference in London in early April, and for protesters in Moldova.

I've been part of the Twitter Club at Ecademy run by Mark Shaw for a few months, participated in an extended review of Twitter, but personally the nature of my work and projects is usually more discreet. One of the things echoed by several high placed businessmen who also participated in the review were along the lines of, "Do I need to know when someone is getting on a bus or eating a triple chili cheeseburger with extra chili? No, I don't need to know that, so why waste my time?" Another line echoed was, "Social media like Twitter can be an enormous distraction from work."

These are valid points, but like every tool you need to learn how to use it in a manner that supports your work. Not 25 years ago, a lot of business were like, "Why do we need a computer? Those are for IBM and NASA, what possible relevance could they have to my business?" And, then just 12 years ago, we were asking the same things about the Internet. Now, we're asking about specific functions of the Internet.

Twitter is one system, but it is supported by a number of third party applications that really help bring out its true usefulness. It takes some effort to work through all of this - may involve time you don't have. My intention today is to learn everything I can about Twitter and its third party applications that I can. Then I want to share it with you in a manner where it will take you mere minutes to an hour so you can more easily make it work better for you. This will involve several posts throughout the day for those who wish to follow along. At the end, I'm going to do a summary to consolidate all of the best information into one super-valuable post...so you can skip all of my other ramblings.

Forget the salad. Forget the soup. I don't want any veggies. Keep the fries. All I want is a great big steak. Charbroiled. Medium-rare. Some A-1 Steak Sauce. And... a Cheesecake. Heh...

That's all I want.

Processes and Perfection.

Waking up is hard to do without coffee. My mother started giving me coffee when I was three years old - to try to stunt my growth. It didn't work.

So, there's a lot to do, so much to do in fact that it all has to be taken step by step. Shortcuts do not work, at least not very well. I'm a huge fan of documentation, of gathering information, organizing it and increasing accessibility to it. That solves a LOT of problems. It is why good companies develop "Standard Operating Procedures". An SOP is a step by step instruction on how to do any given task. Each step has a desired outcome. Everything you do should be associated with a desired outcome. It runs from accurately matching product to order to avoid returns or packing it in a manner so it does not get damaged in transit. So, I would like to talk about that a little bit.

Especially with small businesses - family run businesses or a sole proprietorship, there is a tendency for a very small handful of individuals to try to do everything themselves. Scaling to growth is not always easy. The threshold of exactly how much you can do and still be efficient about it usually hits a wall faster than one would expect. Starting out, too, you operate on the basis that you will always be there to take care of business. We can call that optimism bias - it's hard to factor the future. That's why there's contingency planning - for the days that you are too sick to get out of bed, or when after a year, you decide that you do need a vacation. Entrepreneurs can easily put in 80 hours a week and still never be done.

An Standard Operating Procedure assists you in scaling for growth by providing step by step instructions so that anyone who walks in the door can do your job. There are a lot of companies who define their profitability on less than a 10% profit margin. Okay, so some of them have some pretty fancy accounting tricks. We know that the bigger a company gets, the fancier those tricks get. That's a different story for a different day, though.

Lets look at that 10% margin. You take three days off in a month, that's a 10% net loss in work hours. Five percent of your products are returned for replacement by your customer? Is that a 5% loss? More than that, probably like 7.5-8% loss per item in actual work hours - which is fine if you are not at capacity, but then... if you aren't at capacity, you could have done things right the first time and not jeopardized customer satisfaction.

Yes, SOP's are boring, but they make it possible for you to have fun while being more productive. But, What does all of this have to do with BulletBlocker?

Ahhh, you're reading my mind! It has everything to do with every business, ever. My intention is to share as much as I can about what and how I'm doing in the course of developing our online program - to essentially build an SOP for social networking and online business development. I'll make it a little more interesting to read than a technical manual written in twelve languages in font size 1. A lot of it is not new, but some is. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of other examples out there you could use, too. Point is to get it all organized into one coherent set of documents that you can easily access anytime.

So, yes - we're going to have some fun - because if you look around at the economy, what you are seeing are the results of excessive fixation upon short-term results. If you focus on results, sometimes you'll get it right, most of the time you won't. Focus on the process and perfecting that process and your result will be consistently and predictably near perfect. There's always room for improvement. Perfection is impossible, because by the time you reach perfection, your standards for perfection will have changed.

Coffee is a good thing.

New Web Guy?

For the sake of an introduction, Dave Soucy said I'm boring. And Seth Godin said it, too. Truth is that I can be at times, depends on comfort zone. I'm the new guy working with BulletBlocker's online efforts and my name is Dabbs, Mark Dabbs. I like my coffee shaken, not stirred, in 64 ounce buckets. Bill and Joe may use me as target practice if I don't show what I can do... they didn't say whether that was with or without BulletBlocker protection. So, if nothing else, I need to be a moving target.. Sitting in the comfort zone? Boring... and not safe.

So, briefly, I'm an expatriate - originally from Tacoma, now living in Odessa, Ukraine. I moved here in October 2005, after completing a 16 month contract in Iraq with Lear Siegler. My background is in logistics/operations and corporate communications - having also worked with Continental Satellite Co/Primestar, Amazon.com and CyberCraft Corp. Why am I in Ukraine? Not a simple answer, so I'll put it this way. Most people go to where everything is to see what is there. In logistics, we have a tendency to go where everything isn't and get it there. So, that's the other part of my life that doesn't have much relevance here, except may offer a little different perspective on things... as may be seen living in a portion of the Former Soviet Union.

BulletBlocker's Mission is to save lives. The objective here, of course, is to promote BulletBlocker online - through the blog, through the web site, and through social media. There are a couple ways to go about this, but sitting in the comfort zone is not one of them. BulletBlocker products like bulletproof vests and My Child's Pack are of a very serious nature. Bulletproof products support one half, sharing information supports the other half of Bulletblocker's mission. So, we're going to share an awful lot of information - some of it serious, some of it lighter. Life without some fun is... boring? I think worse than that. And, that adds another dimension to this effort.

It's easy to dwell on the negative. Looking around today, there's not a lot of good news. But, when the going gets tough, the tough get going - things could always be worse. In Iraq, when our latrine was hit by an enemy rocket... we were all just very thankful they didn't hit our baby wipes. Sometimes, gallows humor is appropriate. Grown men using baby wipes and having baby soft skin? Wrong. Very wrong - but very effective!

Vests & Vital Organs?

Some Statistics. In 1992, the Center for Disease Control initiated the Firearms Surveillance Study. Their intention was to understand firearm injuries better, in that intentional gunshot wounds rank as the 15th leading cause of death in the United States. On average 50,000 people die annually in the United States for causes attributable to firearms. This includes accidents and suicide. Its significance extends from data over one year spanning non-fatal shootings from sixteen states.

Per the CDC's 1992 Study, what were the locations of non-fatal shooting injuries?

Head/Neck 14.4%
Upper Trunk 21.3%
Lower Trunk 15.8%
Arm/Hand 13.3%
Leg/Foot 32.6%
Not Reported 2.6%

Finding the location of fatal injuries is proving a little more elusive, but we're working on it. Leastwise, we can generally presume that the majority of fatal gunshot wounds are not specific to gunshot injuries to the extremities. That is not to say that this does not happen, only that a significant majority do not. Why? Vital Organs

Vital Organs. Most of us aren't doctors, but let's list some important bodily organs thta come to mind - brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, and gallbladder. We can add the spinal cord in here, too.

Center Mass. Most weapon instructors teach to aim "center mass" - which can be defined roughly as the mid-upper torso. It's the easiest target to hit, the portion of the body that moves the slowest, has the largest concentration of vital organs. Even if a shot does not kill someone who has been hit "center mass" - odds are they won't be moving quite so fast afterwards.

Vest Protection. How many of these vital organs are completely or mostly under the protective area of a bullet proof vest? All of them except for the brain and top/bottom portions of the spinal column. Bullet proof vests provide the best front and back protection for your "center mass" - and the majority of your vital organs.

That's protection against 47.1% of non-fatal bullet penetrations; and we can reasonably say the vest provides even more protection against what would otherwise be a fatal penetration. We're working on finding better statistics for this - but even this is quite noteworthy.

And if Your Child Can't Wear a Vest at School? BulletBlocker has a full line of school safety products including the original My Child's Pack providing National Institute of Justice Threat Level IIIA protection. Backpacks provide coverage to one half of your child's body by wearing it on their back. However, it can also be used as a shield against threats from the front. When you have time to react, it's nice to have something convenient at arms reach to provide near immediate protection.

1.5 Million Non-Fatal Crimes at School in 2005

In the National Institute for Justice’s NIJ Journal, Issue #262, pages 42 – 46, managing editor Beth Schuster examined trends of violence and safety in public schools bringing to light some important information. Her article cites studies regarding 37 school shootings and patterns of behaviors of attackers before attacks. There’s a wealth of very good and important information in her article and in other government publications deserving broader attention. We will be referencing some of this information so that it gets more public exposure.and use it in a follow-up article to get an even better quantitative understanding of what is happening in our school system, today.

The following comes from one section of her report, “The Larger Scope of School Violence”:

School shootings are only part of the problem of violence in schools. During the 2005–2006 school year, for example, 86 percent of public schools reported that at least one violent incident, theft or other crime occurred at their school, according to the 2007 Indicators of School Crime and Safety by the U.S. departments of Education and Justice.

In 2005, students aged 12–18 were victims of approximately 1.5 million nonfatal crimes at school. In the same study, 8 percent of students in grades 9–12 reported being threatened or injured with a weapon in the past 12 months. Add another 28 percent of students reported having been bullied at school during the previous six months. Six percent more said that they had avoided a school activity or a particular place in school during the past six months because of fear of attack or harm.

This really should not come as a surprise to us. If you think back to when you were in school, how many times did you witness some pushing and shoving in the hallway? How many times did you actually see a fight? It happened frequently enough when I was in school more than twenty years ago. If anything, we’ve seen people become less civil to one another, growing quicker to anger over the years.

What used to be "old-fashioned fist fights" have a greater potential for escalating into the use of weapons – about one in twelve students have reported being threatened with a weapon? Yes, some of it is hot air with kids letting loose steam, but 1.5 million non-fatal crimes? That deserves attention and we’ll be on it with more articles coming soon.

School's out for the summer, but if you are interested in personal protection, bullet proof vests, take a look at everything available at BulletBlocker - products good all year round for hunting, travel and commuting to work.