Risk Management

I have a recent event to share with you. I was accomplishing a task that I’ve done many times before. Although the task is familiar to me, I do not accomplish it with great frequency, usually about 2 or 3 times a year. It is a seemingly mundane task. However this time, during the execution of the task, my hand became entangled in the mechanism. No broken bones, but a little blood and a lot of pain. There are a couple of things that stick out in this scenario. One was discussed earlier, the frequency and seemingly inconsequential character of the task. But the other point is, I was caught in this mechanism and could not get my hand out of it by myself.
Now, understand, I’m a mechanic at heart, I knew exactly what to do, but did not have the proper tools to do it. I could not go get the proper tools because I was “attached” to this mechanism. I was extremely lucky that there was a good friend close by. Had I been alone, well…it would have been a lot more painful. My friend was able to free me from my predicament and I applied some ice, probably should have had a couple of stitches, but a tight band aid kept the bleeding to a minimum.

The main point here is that things happen completely unexpectedly. In an earlier post I referred to my youngest son and a mishap while snowboarding. As people, we walk a fine line between staying active and being cautious. I remember a quote from a friend, “A ship is always safest in port, but that is not what a ship was designed to do”. We can always just so nothing, take no risks, but that is not what we, as people, are designed to do.

So Risk Management is the key, a little like Blue Bell Ice Cream. We can eliminate all the risks we can, and manage the rest. (For those of you who do not know Blue Bell Ice Cream, contact me later and I’ll clarify). Even with the best Risk Management, there is just going to be sometimes when things do not go as planned. That’s why we send men and women into space. We could just send robots, but a robot cannot be programmed to “adapt, improvise and overcome” obstacles that were not in the original plan.

So, plan, do your best to manage risk, and live life to the fullest.

Bubba out.

Mixed Emotions

As some of you may or may not know, one of my sons is on a Study Abroad program through Texas A&M University. He is traveling and studying in several European countries along with numerous marketing venues to learn international marketing techniques. There are days when the group gets to take a break and take in the local culture and it is on one of these days that my son had a little mishap. Seems like he decided to go snowboarding in Austria. While he was snowboarding, he made some contact with a stationary object. He was mobile at the time. The result is a broken nose, a couple of stitches and some (temporary I hope) loss of memory. He was taken to a hospital where they determined that he did not have a concussion, but that he would probably be black and blue the next day.

Now, having heard that story a flood of emotions come into play. Emotion 1; happiness or joy in that he was not seriously hurt. Emotion 2; sadness or concern that my son has been injured. Emotion 3; anger and disappointment that he would go snowboarding by himself, in a foreign country. The emotion that is winning out, right now anyway, is happiness that he was not seriously hurt, but sneaking up on the outside is emotion 3. Why in the world would you go do something like that by yourself? I need to remember that he is a man and…uhh...well…uhhhh. SCREW IT, I’m still his Dad and if I want to be concerned, angered or disappointed, I have the right!!!! I’m hoping this is one of those things that will make a lasting impression on him and he will learn a better lesson than if his Dad was hollering at him. So, I’ll mention the concerns I have with that particular decision when he returns, and hope he learns from it.

Now, having said all that, I couldn’t be prouder of him for being chosen for this program, and all the work he has done so far. Keep it up Dude, but take some friends with you!!!

Click-it or Ticket

I had the opportunity to respond to a traffic accident just outside one of our gates at work today. It was a single vehicle roll-over crash. There was a lady and a young child (guessing about 7 years or so) occupying the vehicle. When I arrived on the scene, ambulance crews (un-sung heroes in my book) were attending to the lady inside the vehicle, the young child was out of the vehicle and apparently unharmed. One of the members of the ambulance crew (there were 3 ambulances there) was holding the child and talking to him. The lady was extracted, placed on a backboard with the neck thing and her arms were also in some kind of device. She was coherent and talking to them. I overheard one of the police officers say that they were both wearing seatbelts.

I worked for the National Hot Rod Association’s Safety Safari for 25 years and have seen firsthand what good safety equipment can do for you in a wreck. This vehicle in the wreck today, a full sized SUV, was totally demolished; all windows broken out, seat backs broken and laying the fully reclined position, all sheet metal completely distorted, 1 wheel broken off at the axel (the end of the axel and the brake drum was still bolted to the wheel). And yet the child and the lady were relatively ok. With my work at the race track, I’ve seen horrible accidents involving lots of speed and yes there have been fatalities, but they are very few and far between. I have seen cars roll multiple times from speed in excess of 200 and 300 miles per hour, bounce off concrete walls on fire and drivers un-buckle themselves and walk over to the ambulance.

We never think that we will be involved in a wreck; this lady today certainly did not. But it happens. There is a push right now in the state of Texas on seatbelt enforcement; it’s called “Click-it or Ticket”. I’m not so sure I agree with the tact of issuing a ticket for not buckling up, but it is a documented fact that seatbelts save lives. I believe it is a personal choice. So is smoking, doing drugs…blah blah blah, I don’t want to go into all of that. But people, it’s easy and it is free, doesn’t cost a dime, just buckle up. If not for yourself, think about your friends and family that will have to take care of you if you are crippled or worse yet, you are killed. It’s not all about you or me, it’s about the effect it will have on the ones around us.

I didn’t mean to preach, and I don’t want anyone to take this as preaching (I’m not qualified). Just think about your family and your friends and buckle up.

"Point and Shoot"

How many times have you noticed a car on the road in front of you that is weaving over the line, back and forth and you thought that the driver must be under the influence of drugs or alcohol? I have seen lately more people texting on their phones or blackberries while driving and they are all over the road!!! Look, I drive a little Ford Ranger pickup truck with an extremely underpowered 4 cylinder engine, standard transmission, and no power steering. What I’m getting at is that I have to “drive” this little truck; it takes 2 hands, 2 feet and lots of planning ahead due to the low power thing. I have to concentrate on the job at hand. When the cell phone rings, or the blackberry goes off, too bad, leave a message, I’ll call when I get to my destination.

My youngest son has recently left for an extended study assignment in Europe and his car is sitting in my driveway. It’s a 2005 Chevy Impala with, you guessed it, power steering, automatic transmission and about 5 times the power of my little truck. Well heck, I paid for it, I might as well drive it. It is like night and day. I could drive this car with my knee!! It’s like you just ‘point and shoot’, no thinking or concentration required (compared to my little truck).

I can draw a correlation to life. We live in a ‘point and shoot’ world (not literally, please don’t come after me with anti-gun, or pro-gun comments). We have so much communication ability and information at our finger tips; we don’t have to worry about thinking or coordination. Most times we are overwhelmed with all the information and communications. We cannot drive to the corner convenience store without talking to someone on the phone, checking our tweets, or our facebook page. We are paying attention to everything except what it directly in front of us. If we are driving, we should drive. If we are talking to a loved one, we should talk… You get the message. We can, and do, lose track of what is important to us. I was having dinner with my wife recently at a restaurant and found myself checking email and my facebook page from my blackberry while we were at the table, and she was not happy.

Don’t get me wrong, we do live in a fast paced society and we should try our best to keep up. But each of us is different and each of our “levels of concentration” is also different. We need to prioritize our lives, concentrate on the important things and get to the lower priority things later. So, I’m going to try to keep the cell phone and blackberry in their holsters while I’m driving. Heck, with all the overcrowded highways and seemingly constant road construction, we take our lives in our own hands every time we get behind the wheel. We don’t need the further distraction of phone calls, tweets or facebook pages. So drive your high powered ‘point and shoot’ vehicle (life) like it was an old ford ranger with no power or automatic anything

Some Things You Might See Here

Hmmm, first post...scary, well, here it goes. I can tell you that I'm not really your typical "Bubba". Yes, I do live in Texas and there a bunch of "Bubba's" here, but I don't fall into the typical Bubba category. I can offer some humorous observations of "Bubba's" because I am one. I don't have a mullet haircut, I don't know a thousand ways to cook shrimp, I don't know Larry the Cable Guy, I've never shot a juke box, and yes I can dance (but don't do line-dancin', that just ain't right). I have a bachelor of science degree in Aerospace Engineering from my beloved Texas A&M University and I work at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. So yes, I am a "Rocket Scientist named Bubba". So there you have it.

You might see in this blog my thoughts on safety, space and yep, you guessed it, basic random thoughts. I have a strong interest in cars; restoring them, modifying them, driving them, etc... You might see some of my random thoughts on how human nature is related to safety, space, and, yep you guessed it, cars.

I had originally approached my management at work about a safety blog. Something event driven, short, to the point, spontaneous and hopefully humorous. But as with anything involving the government, it quickly grew to the huge animal that was impossible to train to do the original job. So, I've moved on to this venue. Let see how it works.