For some reason I've been on this civil defense/nuclear protection kick lately. Don't know why.

Watched the Atomic Cafe last night after SNL. When I called my mother this morning, I commented on Duck and Cover, and how she probably would enjoy the documentary because she probably would have been subjected to all that in school.

She agreed, and said she remembered doing Duck and Cover through elementary school and possibly through high school.

"You must have done it through high school," I said, "because I remember doing it in elementary school and through fourth grade."

She didn't think that was possible until I reminded her that I had gone to school during the later parts of the Cold War. And then I quoted Wikipedia's entry on Duck and Cover: "Duck and Cover was a suggested method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear detonation which the United States government taught to generations of United States school children from the late 1940s into the 1980s."

I then shared the story of being in my music teacher's room, which had only folding chairs, but no desks. The teacher told us that we'd be safe because even though there weren't any desks, her room was made out of thick cinder block.

Anyone else remember doing that kind of stuff in school?

While watching Top Design

Am I the only person who, when walking around in places that I frequent, still looks for the fallout shelter signs on nearby buildings?

Working on the 57th floor of Pittsburgh's tallest building, I figure that I'm gonna die anyway if a bomb hits, but at least I know where to go if I'm waiting for the bus.

Except, according to a city website I just read, the placards no longer are accurate as the buildings are being used for other things. Screw it. I'm still heading to the church across the street from Steel.