Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

HAPPY 2010!!!

In addition to having your Smart Home SWAT-Proofed* (more on that very soon), every sensible homeowner should install a well designed Panic Room. This isn’t just the stuff of Hollywood**, the wealthy and the paranoid anymore, it’s essential in this uncertain and volatile world. Doesn’t your family deserve the best protection?

Ideally, Panic Rooms should be concealed, well-protected (armored door, etc) and well stocked with provisions such as guns, food and water. You’ll need the ability to contact the outside world in the case of an actual home invasion. If your home really is Smart-wired (and seriously, why isn’t it yet?), you’ll need full monitoring and control from inside that room.

In full candor, our Panic Room isn’t developed to my satisfaction. Sure, it’s well-stocked, but there will be many improvements in the coming year including a SWATProof Door, SMARTcontrol, oxygen and emergency lighting.

How much do you love your family?

Update: Just recently, when Danish political cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was attacked at home by an ax-wielding man, he didn’t lock himself in the bathroom – instead, he escaped with his 5-year-old granddaughter into his “panic room” when he realized what was happening. Westergaard, who has been threatened for drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, is ordinarily accompanied by bodyguards when he leaves his home, but nobody was on guard at the house Friday, the Security and Intelligence Service told CNN. (src: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/02/denmark.cartoonist/index.html)

* The central tenets of the SWATProof philosophy are Impenetrability, Detection, Containment, and Expulsion.
** 2002 movie Panic Room by Jodie Foster and Forest Whitaker

I know, I know, you were all expecting a shift in blog topics once I got married. No doubt you thought I’d shift from high-octane awesomeness to the mundane. I’m not sorry to disappoint you. I did not turn my Man Card in at the court house.