TommyLog – Things Happen for a Reason!

Hey Kids it’s dad, and for today’s TommyLog I want to talk to you about how things happen for reason.

For the weekend, Drew was diagnosed with strep throat. Monday morning mom and I flipped to coin for who would stay home. I decided it would be good for me to stay home from work. A few minutes later as I was walking out to take the trash to the curb and, I noticed the smell of gas around the outside heat vent exhaust. I spent a moment and the smell went away so I didn’t think anything else about it. A few minutes later back inside I heard a strange noise coming from the heater. I immediately called the heater guy to have it checked out. I thought to myself I’ll be home all day might as will get it taken care of. A really nice guy named Eric came over to check out the heater. He found that a smart relay device was defective.

Apparently at the beginning of a heating cycle,  the heater sends out 2 bursts of gas. One small burst to begin and then a much larger burst after that first burst has been ignited. Well the regulator wasn’t working properly and there was no first burst of gas only a second much larger burst of gas. Eric stressed to me how dangerous this was and could have led to an explosion. He didn’t want to scare me but he was certainly firm on the fact that this was a bad bad situation.

So let’s think for a second if Drew had not gotten strep throat, I would not have stayed home, and could not have had the heater guy come over to take care of the problem. This could’ve been tragic.

Things happen for a reason. The good Lord was watching over the Clifford family for sure!

TommyLog TECH – Keeping Safe When Storms Hit #VZWbuzz #AD

TommyLog TECH –  Keeping Safe When Storms Hit #VZWbuzz

I love living in North East Wisconsin where we have 4 beautiful seasons. Along with those awesome seasons comes some not so great extreme weather. Floods, blizzards, severe thunderstorms even an occasional tornado or 2 can be the order of the day. Thanks to my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 from Verizon along with 2 great free apps, severe weather doesn’t catch me by surprise.

Storm Team 5Today I want to share with you 2 mobile apps that can keep you informed and alerted 24 hours a day.

The first one on my list is a simple text only alert mobile app called Simple Weather Alert. This one is for Android only, sorry IOS fans. Simple Weather Alerts is a text only application that allows you to set your favorite locations and get text-based weather alerts based on those locations. You can even set the severity of the notifications as well as override a muted phone. I like that feature… who hasn’t put their phone down while it was silenced and missed an important call? One cool feature not seen in any other app I’ve tested is the ability to email an alert to friends or send via text message, so they can know of the danger as well. Simple Weather Alert is just that, simple, no fills, does what it says, no more, no less.

Now if you want an app that gives you much more information and can be used as your daily weather app, then look no further than the Storm Team 5 weather app for both Android and IOS. This app was created by WFRV5, a local TV station in Green Bay, WI, but works wherever you are. This app builds on many of the features of Simple Weather Alert and adds local radar, hourly forecasts, and 10-day outlook. The Storm Team 5 app lets you save multiple locations as well as a home location. One cool feature hidden in the preferences is the ability to overlay a compass.

Zooming out on the radar gives you a big picture of the inclement weather on the map. The radar even overlays watchs and warnings so you stay safe when trouble’s headed your way headed your way.

You can download Simple Weather Alert from the Google Play Store here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.globalcanofworms.android.simpleweatheralert&hl=e

Look for the Storm Team 5 app for IOS here https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storm-team-5/id382465013?mt=8 and the Android app here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wfrv.android.weather&hl=en

For more information on how to get your very own Samsung Galaxy Note 3 from Verizon, Here’s a link http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/device/smartphone/samsung-galaxy-note-3-black

[DISCLAIMER — I’m one of the cool kids who has been asked to play with and test technology for Verizon. They asked me test and share my thoughts. All my words are original and my own.]
VZWBUZZ Badge