The McKenzies' Blog…

So, as I was walking to Subway to get my lunch today, just outside my office building was a broken down 5 tonne Lorry.  I first noticed a pool of motor oil about 3 foot x 3 foot or so .. a few partial tire tracks then the lorry with an even larger amount of oil under it.  It looks like he had parked himself immediately over the waste water drain so as to get rid of the leaking oil.  A guy walking just a few paces ahead of me said what I would have if he weren’t there .. he leans in towards the lorry and says “Hey mate, seems your machine is leaking oil and it’s running in the drain..”  The driver responded with something like “Yeah I know, I’m broke down” then leaning out his window, looking down at the drain says “it’s alright..”

I comment to the guy walking ahead of me how the driver didn’t seem to care about the entire situation .. the guy said “He should do, the EPA is just here” and he points to the building next to us. 

I decided that something needed to be done, not only because of the oil in the drain, but also because of the general mess all that oil will be making everywhere as well as the fact the drivers attitude sucked.  I called the fire department (non-emergency number) and enquired if they were the correct folks to speak too about this.  The guy that answered put me through to the Chief immediately who took the details and said he would contact the police who would then alert the EPA about the issue.  Being satisfied with that result went and got my sub.

Walking back to the building not more then about 8 or 9 mins later the fire departments HAZMAT response truck was rolling up and started to speak with the driver.  I continued on into the office.  I assume that the police and EPA would be attending shortly as well.  If the driver of that truck thought he was having a bad day before with a simple break down, things would have just gotten a lot worse for him.

Perhaps his attitude won’t suck so bad the next time

Some might have noticed a sub-page I started off my Ham Radio page.. there are a group of us going from Cambridge to the Isle of Mull on the West coast of Scotland at the end of April for week.  This is a DX-pedition to Mull to active some rare squares, WAB, IOTA and SOTA locations.  While we are away one of our guys will be staying behind with his expecting wife and will help co-ordinate things for us back home and update the CAMB-HAMs website.

I won’t update the page I have on here with info about about the trip while we’re away, the best place will be the Camb-Hams Website

Last night was the AGM of the local Cambridge RAYNET group.  It’s a small group that is really only active on a handful of annual events around the Cambridge area.  RAYNET is the UK’s Radio Amateur’s Emergency Network.  This is a group of volunteers from around the UK that are all licensed radio amateurs from all walks of life that are prepared to give up their time when disasters or emergencies arise across the country.

The AGM, is much like others in any organization.. read the minutes, hear from the various committee members and treasurer etc, including the elections.  They needed to fill the position of Training Officer for the group.  I agreed to do this for the coming year.  I’ve no real idea what can or will be done in this role, but we’ll see.  If nothing else I hope it will provide some valuable links to the Disaster Planning and Emergency Comms related folks both at a national level as well as the local level.

I’ll keep some postings on this as I go along with this role.