You Never Think it Will Happen to You… Until it Does.

I can honestly say I use my credit card for just about everything. I use it at the grocery store self-checkout, the gas pump, to buy books on Amazon.com, and at the salon down the street for a haircut. On top of my over-used credit card I have a debit/ATM card. I can’t say I use it very often, but it’s there taking up space in my wallet.

I think I could safely say that a majority of U.S. citizens have at least one plastic card tucked away in their wallet. So my card-loving friends, do I have a story for you.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting in my room doing some homework for the next day, when my phone started ringing. As a rule, I always answer the phone, even when I’m not sure who it is. The number was withheld, but as par, I picked up the phone to find out what the call was about.

“Hello?”
(Automated Voice) “Hello, this is your credit union … blah blah blah … your debit card has been deactivated, press one to reactivate it.”

Well, I was doing my homework and only half paying attention to what was going on in my ear, so I pressed one. I assumed that my debit card had been deactivated because I had not used it in probably over a year.

(Automated Voice) “To reactivate your debit card, because type in your debit card number.”
* I type in my debit card number *

(Automated Voice) “Please type in your pin number.”

* I type in my pin number *

And that is when it hit me.

I was being scammed.

Immediately, I hung up the phone without another word and called my credit union and had them cancel my card.

Now, you might be reading that story and think, “Well I would know right away it was a scam.” But you don’t know that. I have heard tons of stories, and thought the same thing. But when you aren’t expecting to be attacked, you may not see what is really going on.

So here is some advice from consumerreports.org and I:

1. Do not under any circumstances give out your credit or debit card information on the phone.
2. Be skeptical of all calls coming from unknown sources
3. If you do make a mistake, call your credit union or bank immediately. In the end, because I called right away the situation wasn’t a big deal.
4. Don’t type your pin at the pump.
5. Stick with ATMs located at banks
6. Closely monitor your bank accounts to make sure you’re not suspiciously losing money
7. And most important, don’t go under the assumption it could never happen to you. Because it can.

Ignorance is Bliss

9/11 Memorial | photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/485845040/

Yesterday was 9/11, and yesterday was the first day I ever really understood what happened.

On September 11, 2001, I was in eighth grade. My day was exactly like the one before it, talking about cute boys and creating drama to keep life interesting. Nothing was different, until fifth hour.

I was in history. I remember kids whispering and our teacher being confused and nervous. She flipped on the TV in our classroom, and minutes later turned it off. We didn’t see anything on the screen, just people talking about tragedy.

What tragedy?

Our teacher told us that a terrible tragedy had just struck the United States.

What tragedy?

The hour then commenced as usual. Our teacher was more somber and very distracted, but our class was rambunctious and loud. How were we to know what was going on?

My sixth hour of the day was like nothing had happened, besides half of my class being gone. I couldn’t figure out why kids in my school were dropping like flies. Some of my friends got pulled out of school by their parents, not me though.

Finally I overheard someone saying that the World Trade Center got hit by a plane.

Where is the World Trade Center? So what if a plane hit it?

When I arrived home, I turned on the T.V. to see only burning buildings and debris. I watched them show the planes hitting the twin towers over and over. I watched with no feeling. It looked bad, but what kind of impact did it have?

I heard people talking about terrorists and the U.S.A. banding together. I paced my living room making a speech about how upset I was and how we would come together as a nation to move forward. To prove that America won’t crumble under terrorism.

I was indignant because I thought I was supposed to be. I didn’t really understand the impact, I didn’t feel the repercussions, so I truly felt nothing. I know you may think that I was a cold and heartless teenager, and maybe I was. But at that age, you can’t see beyond your own existence to understand.

Last night I watched a documentary on the 9/11 attack. I watched people jumping out of buildings, I heard people telling their stories about how they escaped from the 84th floor. They must still have nightmares. If you saw people jumping out of a building, would you ever be able to get that picture out of your memory? What kind of terror and desparation must one feel to compell them to jump to their death? Can you imagine making that decision? Could you imagine being a firefighter or cop on that day? Running into danger when you are standing in safety?

Take a moment to put yourself in their shoes. I didn’t until last, and now I finally understand.

What tragedy?

The tragedy that was more than just a tragedy. It was a devastation. A loss that no one can truly comprehend the magnitude of. Three-thousand innocent people died, and I don’t think anyone can really wrap their mind around a statistic like that.

I don’t care what people think/thought about Bush. He did well under pressure. Could you imagine being him on that day? You are the leader of a country that has just been hit by catastrophe, and people are looking to your for support and hope.

He gave it. He didn’t crack. I respect him for that. No matter what else he did during his presidency, on 9/11 he was there for the citizens of America.

I feel like 9/11 is just another day now. Which inevitably it will become except for those who choose to remember it throughout their lifetimes. We will always remember, our children may remember, but our grandchildren will only read about it in a textbook in their boring history class. They will not understand, just as I didn’t in eighth grade.

I hate that the schools hid it from kids. I hate that no one sat me down and really made me put myself in the shoes of those who were there; at the Pentagon, on United 93, in and around the World Trade Center. I wish I had understood earlier, instead of finally understanding eight years too late.

Ignorance was bliss, but reality brought clarity. Better late than never.

Visibility can Stop Violence in its Tracks

As readers may or may not know, I just finished my first, and maybe but hopefully not last, journalism class. For one of our articles we could write about anything we wanted, and I decided to dedicate my words to a worthwhile cause. If you haven’t heard of Invisible Children, it’s worth a look into. Can you imagine seeing children walking around with guns as normal? Well Uganda does.

Here is the article I wrote about Invisible Children, it’s not my best, but I’m not proclaiming to be the next big reporter.

*    *    *    *    *

On April 25, 2009, over 77,000 people gathered together in 100 different cities across the world calling out, “Together we are free.”

Grand Rapids was one of those cities to host The Rescue, an event put together by the activism group Invisible Children. It was held in order to raise awareness for child soldiers that are part of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. This army formed for “The Holy Spirit Movement” created by Alice Auma, a spirit-medium who claimed to be acting according to the spirit “Lakwena” in order to combat Uganda’s National Resistance Army. Currently the army is under the direction of Joseph Kony.

“90% of the LRA soldiers are children who have been abducted,” says Shaynon Munn, 21. “The army is viewed as absolutely rebellious today, especially after committing such atrocities for two decades.”

Munn holds a leadership position in Grand Valley State University’s activist group, Students for a Peaceful Africa. In July 2008 she went to Uganda to see first-hand what is going on.

“I did not witness any child violence while I was there and the LRA was outside of Uganda during that time,” Munn says, “but I worked alongside people who escaped after being abducted into the LRA, and every person I encountered in Northern Uganda has a story about how the LRA has impacted them.”

Families have been torn apart and forced to live in the horrible conditions of displacement camps, thousands of children have been abducted as sex slaves and child soldiers, and disease has spread continually, she said.

In order to bring peace to Africa, Invisible Children is fighting to stop the war and free the child soldiers. The Rescue was specifically meant to get media attention for the cause. Participants joined together in specific locations and camped out until they were “saved,” meaning a community figure came and publicly recognized the Invisible Children’s cause. The Grand Rapids participants were “rescued” by Hank Meijer, CEO of Meijer stores.

During the event, a rescued child soldier spoke to the throngs of people.

“It was just jaw dropping almost to just see what these kids have gone through,” says Invisible Children supporter, Colleen Parent, 21. “It is amazing to see what the cause has done for someone, pure amazement.”

After The Rescue in Grand Rapids, some participants joined the “Rescue Riders,” who gathered in Chicago for a week waiting for Oprah to state her support for the release of child soldiers, said Munn. Afterwards the Obama administration began focusing more on the atrocities in Central East Africa, resulting in The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which Invisible Children is currently pushing at Capitol Hill. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin is a cosponsor of the bill. Recently he was joined in Washington by around 2,000 other supporters for “How it Ends,” the June 22-23 event that brought together Senators, House Representatives and other bill supporters.

When asked how hard it is to raise awareness for Invisible Children, Munn responded that she felt that the biggest challenge is many people don’t “truly want to think about such suffering when they may feel obligated to do something about it, when they could just go on living in peace.”

She also said that many people may feel that it is too much too handle.

“We seek to show people the hope in Central East Africa and the hope in the events held for the cause, because then we can show people that individuals do have power when they work together,” Munn says. “It’s not too much to handle. Sure, it’s a scary thing sometimes, and it makes you rethink every aspect of your own life, but positive change is possible when we challenge ourselves to accept new perspectives.”

My new addiction

Spending hours upon hours on the computer is never a hard task for most tech-savvy people. We can check our Facebooks, tweet random thoughts, and search for just about any piece of information we want. But how much of what we do and see on the net is random and new? Well fear not, if you are looking to spice up your Internet surfing experience, then you can join me in my new disease. I like to call it the StumbleUpon Virus.

StumbleUpon was showed to me by my friend Samantha. She showed me a couple sites that she liked, some of which being movies, and another being a map of the world at night that proved how wasteful us Americans are. After a couple pokes and prods and pushing me to add the StumbleUpon toolbar, I caved, downloaded the Firefox application, and will never turn back.

I have only had it for about 5 days, and I can already say I found some of the most interesting information I have ever found through this site. The way it works is that you first fill out a survey. Not a hard one I promise (unless you don’t know yourself very well!). You check off things you like and types of sites you would be interested in. Once you are done, click “stumble” on your toolbar and get ready for a random journey for knowledge.

When I filled out my survey, I added a couple topics that I’m not even really interested in. For example: geography, history, and cooking. Already some of those topics have produced the most interesting sites. Today, I spent a whole 45 minutes working on an online geography test of the Middle East. How depressing is it that the first time I looked at the map, I didn’t know where a single name went? I am now proud to say that I know that Cyprus is an island, Mali is a huge country next to Niger, and Kuwait is super tiny! I also found out that if the name ends is “-stan” then it is more than likely on the far east side of the Middle East. Now why didn’t my public education teach me that?!

I also learned how to make a t-shirt out of a dollar bill. I now currently have a dollar bill t-shirt in my wallet at all times, and we even gave one to our waitress at Olive Garden. I hope she appreciated it as much as we did.

Want to know what it looks like in Antarctica because it seems to cold to go see for yourself? How about a Flickr map of the world and the best pictures taken in each country? Yeah, I thought that sounded like a good idea too, and StumbleUpon made sure I would see it. I still think it’s silly that Iceland is green and Greenland has ice. Who the heck named those?

Overall, StumbleUpon is one of the best things I have ever come across. I think you should try it. It may be one of the healthiest addictions you ever pick up.

The Magic of Photoshop

Today I have been working on photoshopping some of my pictures from last summer’s New Zealand/Australia trip so I can send them off to get printed. It’s a bit tedious, but reliving the experience definitely doesn’t bother me. While in this process,  I came across this picture:

New Zealand Original

And I remember taking it and thinking, “Wow, this would be an awesome shot if it wasn’t so flippin’ foggy!!!” Well, today I discovered the wonders of the exposure manipulator. I don’t know why I haven’t been using this more (because apparently I don’t know how to set the exposure right on my camera. I’m going to have to work on that!). It’s basically amazing.

I also cropped the picture a bit and made the colors more saturated, but I owe it all to that amazing exposure editor. How I love finding new things in programs I thought I knew backwards and forwards!

So here is the finished product:

New Zealand Final

It doesn’t even look like the same picture!!! By the way, the picture is from Auckland, New Zealand, and yes, it was incredible. The pictures do no justice to its beauty. And I know this picture isn’t top quality by any stretch of the imagination, but I never proclaimed myself a professional photographer either. It’s missing clouds, which is lame, and I tried using the render>clouds, but it looked awful. So I just left it white. Oh well. I just love my new discovery and I thought I would share.

How much is too much?

Privacy. Security. Those are the first worries of most teenage parents as they watch the nightly news introducing yet another victim of internet stalking.

And, as a just-out-of-teenhood 20 year old, I know that whenever my mom mentioned it, I just replied “Don’t worry, I’m not putting that much information out on the internet. I’m being careful! Those kids just weren’t thinking.” Well, maybe I didn’t say it in those exact words, but you get the point.

So last night I got to pondering my web security, and I wondered how much I was really letting get out onto the web. So today I did a google search on my name, and this is what I found:

Google Search

So, from just searching google (something anyone can do I might add), I can find out tons of information. I can find out my home phone number, where I go to school, the clubs I am in (thanks Stuey), where I have worked, what my interests are, and even some comments and tweets that I have posted. You can also see that there is a girl from Florida that is the exact same age as me, with the same first and last name. And yes, I am friends with her on Facebook.

What can I do? I like letting people know who I am, especially since LinkedIn is a great connection to other professionals and twitter can help you disseminate info and help you learn about the PR and Marketing industry. Not putting out information about yourself, can lead to many other users blowing you off because you don’t seem legit. So where does the line get drawn? Have I given up too much information? Especially since some of that information (like stuey) I didn’t even realize was online.

Well, no googling this blog! Maybe I should amp up my privacy settings, but I just can’t bring myself to make valuable networking information private to people who already know all of it.

Any thoughts?

You mean nothing if people can’t remember you.

My well-meaning self has been perpetually putting off making this blog for about three or four months now. It may be more, but I would rather not admit to it. My current projects have urged me to finally get things moving and start posting. My first new project is for my best friend, Brendan Quinn,  who is a rising photographer. He is trying to get a jump on his photography business, and since that is right up my ally, I promised I would do a lot of the business and marketing stuff he needed done. I figured the first step was to get the name and logo down, so once he decided to keep things simple with Brendan Quinn Photography (BQ Photography for short), I started working on ideas.

Brainstorming for BQ Logo

This is the beginning of my journey. I did this during class, which I know I really shouldn’t have been doing, but since it’s an advertising and marketing class I figured I was at least focusing on the subject matter. I did some rough sketching and tried to figure out what some of the best ideas were. After talking to Brendan, we decided on his top 4, and I made them into vector art with Illustrator.

In the end, this is what came of it:

BQ Photo

The red looks a little purple when translated over to the web, but the colors are a deep red and a dark gray. Now that I basically have the logo, I need to work on picking fonts and getting some other materials prepared, like business cards and other such things. More importantly I need to start working on his website!

On another note, the Red Wings lost tonight, and I’m bummed. Hopefully the Wings only did this so they could win on their home turf.