I took the week off from work (both the department and the task force) just to spend some time at home and take the kids to the beach. Going to the beach from my house involves loading up my folding cart and a half-ton of crap (my needs are in the cooler, but I have a wife and three girls, so picture the load), and walking about two blocks. Our home has been here at the beach for over ten years now and yet my only visit to the ocean's edge would be on Memorial Day Weekend and on Labor Day Weekend, and just because family or friends were in town. These days, its more often because my wife and I want the girls to enjoy the place they are blessed to live in; plus, staying home is much cheaper than going anywhere else. Have you seen what Disney is getting for park fees these days?

The idea to take the week off was to relax before the end of summer (which doesn't really happen here- summer keeps on going until around November). Taking some time off would normally involve not dealing with anything important, except with my wireless, the cell phone, and the fact that I work out of my home a lot anyway, it really doesn't seem too much different than any other day. The point of taking a vacation is to relax and recharge the batteries, but I've found that checking in on FirefighterNation, wondering whether the 2K mark would crack by Sunday and all the other stuff was a welcome break from working on my station budget, writing the strategic plan for the Task Force, and wondering which storm was going to affect more of my friends than another. In fact, part of my vacation this week has been running through the deployment scenarios in my head for any incoming storms, because it's almost a game to play- that whole "What If" question.

If there's something you should be doing in your area of responsibility (AOR) it is playing "What If". It's how you get good at your job, because in most cases, it's not a matter of if, but when Murphy will come calling. Vollie or career, you need to plan for the worst and if you aren't doing planning on "what if", you will be unpleasantly surprised when things go wrong.

When I was a rookie officer returning from calls late at night in my district, I would look around at the lights on in all the occupied buildings and realize that I was responsible for thousands of lives and for millions of dollars in real property. It's a pretty sobering thought. If that won't make you run worst case scenarios in your head to think about the things you need to plan for, nothing will.

These days I'm running scenarios that are more Katrina-like in their awfulness, since that's the business I'm in these days, but it doesn't take away from the notion that the better I get at playing these disasters in my mind, the better off my AOR will be when something tragic does occur.

I've been to plenty of your communities as well, on vacation and while working. It is my hope that when my family visits YOUR place, my family is as safe there as you can be reassured your family is when they visit Hilton Head Island, or the State of South Carolina, because I take this stuff seriously, as do my colleagues. For now, though, I'll just drag my family across the street here (along with the umbrella, cooler, five beach chairs, Emma's boogie board, sunscreen bag, etc.) and enjoy being away from it all while I can.