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Only in Hawaii: Tsunami 2010

By Marsha Joyner

Isn’t technology wonderful! You can see our TV 6,000 miles away.  And Facebook brings everyone within a keystroke.

Just before the late evening news in Hawaii, my husband Kenneth said, “a tremendous 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile.”

“That’s awful,” I responded and went to bed thinking no more of it.

Until 5:20am my cell phone rang and rang and rang—“Oh damn, nobody calls this time of morning unless it is bad news.” By the time I was fully aware the landline rang. “Yes Scott, no Scott—thank you Scott” Kenneth said and promptly turned on the TV. We have a Tsunami warning because of the earthquake in Chile.”

“Oh dear, I must get Kaspar’s (the cat) carrying case . . . do we have enough fresh water. . .I hate canned foods. . . etc,” I began the emergency check list in my head. Knowing full well that we have everything. Living next to the water demands a level of preparedness that most people do not have to deal with.

HoneyGirl (the dog) was breathing heavy next to the bed and Kaspar (the cat) was standing on my chest daring me to open my eyes. What a way to awake from a dream. Or am I still dreaming? No, this is real!

The TV news was showing lines at the gas stations and it was still dark. Local residents were scrambling to stock up on water, gas and food as sirens pierced the early morning quiet across the islands ahead of the tsunami. Some stations had enough gas, but other stations reportedly ran out. At supermarkets, residents stocked up on essentials like rice, water and toilet paper in anticipation of the high waters. The TV repeatedly ran the picture of a sign at a store limiting families to two cases of Spam. A must in every local menu.

My first of many calls was to Marilyn, my daughter, to warn her… “Damn!” The sleepy voice on the other end of the phone said. “Mom what a wake up call. Thanks Mom, I’ll get my young’ens together. Aaron is at the airport leaving for a class trip to America and Ashley has to go to class today.” They live at the top of a step hill in Maile, a very safe place to ride out a Tsunami. The home has an unobstructed view of the ocean. It’s about 50 miles from me as the crow flies. But then we have no crows. And I really don’t know how crows fly.

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§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on February 28, 2010 at 10:16 pm

§ Filed under breaking news, civil rights movement, friends, guest post, katrina, marsha joyner, social media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Twitter in Plain English

You’ve seen me mention twitter on this blog, or you’ve noticed twitter updates in my sidebar. Still wondering what it is? Lee LeFever can explain.

This is actually only part of what’s cool about flickr. @lenedgerly points out that the video “misses power of links- Twitter as news & idea source.” You might have to try it for a little while to see what he means.

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on March 5, 2008 at 11:23 pm

§ Filed under tech and tagged , , ,

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Check Out Beth’s Blog

Yesterday, I mentioned on Twitter that I gave a presentation at work about using an internal blog for sharing news and announcements.

Before I knew it, non-profit tech consultant Beth Kanter was interviewing me via IM about the presentation and the launch of the internal blog. I gave Beth my slides from my presentation and she put the whole thing together as a blog post called “Blogging Behind the Nonprofit Firewall: The ROI Approach.” If you are interested in the subject of using technology for social change, you should check out the rest of Beth’s blog.

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on January 24, 2008 at 11:12 pm

§ Filed under Weblogs, boston, tech and tagged , , , , , ,

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Video Blogging

I didn’t know much about video blogging except for zefrank’s The Show, so I found this overview of the history by Steve Garfield quite interesting. It’s also interesting, if you’ve been wondering what seesmic is all about (it seems to be all the rage on twitter). Some may have noticed that I’ve been bitten by the twitter bug; I also liked Steve’s concise characterization of twitter: “where you can participate in conversations in a central spot.”

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on December 25, 2007 at 2:32 am

§ Filed under tech and tagged , ,

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Happy 80th to My Dad

I was up late getting a few things done and hanging out on twitter when …

twittering Dad's b-day 1

I was feeling sad that way you do when loss catches you by surprise. Then I figured out what I’d do.

twittering Dad's b-day 2

The older poems are all in the archives, along with a few others.

Now I’m trying to decide if I should also post one of Dad’s autobiographical sketches. I just might.

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on December 22, 2007 at 12:29 pm

§ Filed under family and tagged , ,

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