X-Message-Number: 24622 From: Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 05:57:48 EDT Subject: Re: Greetings from "Sunny Florida." Hello, Dear Cryoneters! This is Rudi Hoffman writing at 5:00 AM in the morning. Our Internet connection just got back up and I am catching up on news. As most of you know, I live in Central East Florida. We have been hit with two, now going on THREE (!) hugely disruptive and severe hurricanes. I may be "running" from Ivan with 12 hours of writing these words. We pull our family heirlooms and some of the irreplaceable pictures off the walls, pack them into our small motor home, along with our 18 year old dog Muffin, making tough decisions on which possessions should go and which should remain at risk. Then we head north, jamming the highways with the other high tech refugees from this weather war. While damage to my personal house has been minimal, much less than many of my neighbors, the devastation to trees, homes, and businesses has been significant. We lost three large trees to Hurricane Charley, the eye went right over our home. One 35 foot Oak was uprooted, falling while I watched from our back porch a few meters away. Fortunately, not on top of me. L0L, kinda nervously. Conducting business amid this chaos has been challenging. Without electric power and Internet connections, the insurance and investment business pretty much stops. Locally, the "corporate culture" has been one of "shell shock." People are inherently resistant to long term planning regarding insurance and investments, and moreso when they are in immediate threat crisis mode. Especially with Ivan looming on the near horizon, the vibes have been pretty weird around here. You go to Walmart, and everyone is dragging around with anxious and worried expressions. Stories of destroyed houses, power outages, hurricane projected paths, and plans for fleeing dominate the conversations. On the positive side, this HAS been good for neighbor bonding! Relevant to cryonics, it has been pretty clear to me that if one of our fellow cryonicists were to become critically life threatened or "die" in a hurricane or similar major disaster, the odds of a good suspension are vanishingly small. With roads and communications blocked, access to water ice minimal, cell phones not working, land lines not working...basically, the infrastructure goes down...you are pretty much "screwed" and permanently dead. Sorry if this sounds downbeat or defeatist. Most of you know how much I love cryonics and life extension...and selling life insurance to fund this suspension. But we MUST deal with a thing called "reality." And the reality is that our odds of "good" suspension go way down in a major social disruption like a severe hurricane. Or war or terrorist activity. Did you guys know that and ALCOR member was among the victims of 9/11? Nope, of course they could not save or preserve any part of him. Dawn and I are scheduled to leave for England for a long anticipated two week trip this Wednesday. But our plans are literally "up in the air" with hurricane Ivan, now a category FIVE killer, heading our way. As we say in the vernacular, in lieu of wisdom or anything more appropriate, "SHIT!" My apologies to anyone you may have referred me to if there were any dropped balls or bad service levels. My intention is to have consistent excellent service levels, great rates, and enormous value added service. With spotty power, phone, and Internet connections it is certainly possible that I missed a callback or email. Please have your referrals understand and keep trying to contact me, preferably by email at _ (mailto:) . Better send this before Internet goes down again. If this were a less sophisticated and religious/superstitious venue, I would end with "Pray for Florida." But since we try to deal with a thing called reality here, and praying does not do diddly squat, I would ask that you take a moment to appreciate life in its more normal contexts. Kind Regards to all, Yours for Centuries, Rudi Hoffman CFP CLU Port Orange, FL 5:42 AM on Sunday, 9/12/04 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24622