My interest in safety began when I experienced a “near-hit” incident early in my engineering career, and when I realized how many of the equipment operators I had known were missing some of their digits. At that time of my life, I was enjoying playing piano and guitar, and I couldn’t imagine what it would [...]
A little thought can make all the difference
Category Archives: Lists
Good Luck or Bad Luck?
In a post last year, I told of an employee who felt he was unlucky because of the accident he was involved in. In truth, he was incredibly lucky that he wasn’t killed.
Luck is a funny thing. We use the terms good luck and bad luck to signify opposite concepts, but when we use the [...]
7 Tips for Runners – Race Day Edition
Last year I wrote a couple of lists about running. The first was for people considering taking up running, and the second was about preparing for a specific running event. Today’s list is for the day of the race.
Last weekend, as part of my first 20,000 days celebration, I ran my second half marathon. In [...]
5 Ordinary Tools Often Used in an Unsafe Manner
The invention of tools is one of the things that differentiates us from other life forms. Not all necessarily, like the sea otter who figured out how to break open shells, but most. Our willingness to use tools, however, is generally not tempered with the desire to use them correctly, or to use the right [...]
2 Physics Lessons That Could Save Your Life
It’s been cold in Atlanta this week. Thursday evening we had a rain and snow event which left our roads icy and dangerous.
I’ve lived in places that routinely get weather like this, but Atlanta gets it so infrequently that people don’t get a chance to develop the skills to drive when conditions are icy. More [...]
5 Steps for Protecting Those Fingers
In some industries, you can walk into a facility and within ten minutes find at least one person that is missing part of a hand. A thumb, a fingertip, or even several fingers.
I play instruments. Keyboard and guitar primarily. Loss of even one part of one finger changes everything. But even day-to-day living is challenged [...]
5 Toys From My Childhood That Aren’t So Safe
Long before everyone had color televisions, video games and personal music players, we amused ourselves with traditional toys. Well, maybe they weren’t all traditional, but they were fun! Even with all our progress, many games and toys from my childhood are still popular today. But there are a few from Christmases past that have gone [...]
7 Things That Require Special Attention at the End Of the Year
Our neighborhood has our version of the Griswalds. They really decorate for Halloween, but as soon as November rolls around, they begin converting their decorations to Christmas themes. Rain or shine, on the weekend they have ladders up and wires run all over the place. They do seem to take their time to do it [...]
Frequently Given Answers – 8 Reasons to Take Short Cuts
Short cuts. As a kid this meant cutting through a neighbors yard, or through a path in the woods at the park. I don’t know when I first heard the word used to mean “anything that shortens the time it takes to accomplish a task”, but that is the way the term is used most [...]
6 Moments When I Wished For a Do-Over
Safety is one of those things that has a fair amount of chance involved. Once a chain of events begins, it can be a matter of several factors that determines the severity of the outcome. For example, I once helped a good friend build a greenhouse in his back yard. He was on a 6′ [...]
