Plan a Holiday Romance
By Jessica Walker
When you think of a Holiday Romance do you think of meeting someone in a tropical paradise with its warm gentle breezes, exotic plant life, and the opportunity to wear as little clothing as possible? That kind of vacation many times ends up being the one you read in that steamy novel you took with you on that trip. On these types of vacation holidays many people want to be left alone to read their books, bask in the sun, sleep in the afternoon and maybe schedule a massage with a Swedish masseuse named Sven ( got a little carried away there ). Anyway, why wait for the romance to just happen? Plan for it!
We all work too much so that limits the time we can just hang out and meet other singles. Planning an adventure holiday that offers a lot to see and do is the perfect way to unwind, discover new places, and meet someone. It’s less awkward and you can meet doing something you love. There is a bond that forms when you share an extreme experience and it’s accelerated when you’re on vacation.
Imagine fulfilling your deepest romantic fantasy with some of these dating adventures: Skiing in Colorado and then snuggling in front of a fire sipping a hot toddy. Try white water rafting in Costa Rica followed by dinner then dancing the night away. Go on a rain forest safari in Australia then learn how to play the Didgeridoo. Take a biking tour through Canada and bask in the spray of Niagara Falls. Plan your own roman holiday and take a cooking class in Italy.
The newest trend, Adventure Dating, is a fun way to meet singles and have a great time. Whether you join a singles Adventure Dating group or plan an unforgettable romantic adventure on your own, here are a few important tips to take with you.
- Stay in the present and don’t talk about home or work (leave the baggage at home).
- If you are going to another country – learn the language.
- Hang out with the locals and strike up plenty of conversations.
- Just be yourself.
- Be honest about your feelings.
- Be aware and use common sense when it comes to your personal safety: Don’t take rides from strangers, accept invitations to non-public places, including meeting someone at their house for dinner or drinks, and always let someone know where you are at all times. You can socialize safely and meet new people by just adhering to a few simple precautions.
To put it briefly, Adventure Dating is rejuvenating and there are no strings unless the universe collided and you want more than just an everlasting memory of your adventurous holiday romance. If that’s the case, make sure to get their information before leaving. Things also change when you are back in your surroundings and no longer in your romantic bubble, so buy those airline tickets soon and plan on visiting each other next.
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
About Jessica Walker~”Safer in the City” columnist I was very excited when asked to write a column for saferdates.com. I’ve been influenced by safety and self-defense pretty much my whole life. While other girls were making macaroni necklaces in Girl Scouts, I was sparring with boys, breaking boards and doing knuckle push-ups on cement in Tae Kwon Do class. Read my column titled Safer in the City.
Creep Creep
By Jessica Walker
I’d like to share something that happened to me to prove that awareness is your MOST important tool in self-defense.
I was at a bookstore on Saturday morning right after they opened about 9:15am. I ran out of books to read so I had a list of new books and authors that I wanted to research. I knew the section where those types of books/authors are housed so I walked to the back right corner of the store. I found my aisle and had just started my search when a man walking briskly, abruptly stopped when he saw me and acted like he was looking at the books on the shelves at the end of the aisle. He startled me and made me kind of mad. He was “normal” looking, about 40 years old, slightly shorter than me but nothing out of the ordinary. Immediately I felt something was off with this guy. I knew he wasn’t there mustering up the nerve to ask me out. I tried to ignore him and continued to look for the books on my list. He enters the aisle and acted like he was looking for a book and hung around the section for about a couple minutes. Then he walked away briskly.
I felt so uncomfortable by his presence that I actually feared for the other people in the store and wanted to observe his behavior from a distance to make sure my feelings weren’t just paranoia. I grabbed a book and sat in the section to the left of my aisle in a position where I could see just about everything. He was pacing around the store anxiously as if he was trying to get his “fix.” He definitely wasn’t looking for a book. I noticed the other patrons in the store and compared his behavior to theirs. Everyone else was calmly perusing the aisles, stopping to read a couple paragraphs of a particular book before placing it back on the shelf or cradling a book as if they had found “the one.” There was an older man sitting a couple tables away from me reading a poetry book very intently, not even noticing anything or anyone around him, he was that engrossed. I said to myself, “These people are acting appropriately, this man is not!” Then he appeared again, this time walking through the children’s section at which point I perked up to see if there were any children present and thankfully there were not. He continued through that section and headed for the restrooms. He was in the restroom for a while, doing God knows what!
He exited the restroom and walked over by me again close enough that I could hear his breathing and I could tell he was definitely anxious, that’s the best description. He walked behind me, which gave me the heebie jeebies, and grabbed a random book and sat at the table to my right. I had, had enough at that point and got up to put my decoy book back and slowly walked towards the register fully expecting him to follow me. When he didn’t I thought I was just being paranoid. I checked out feeling silly, shaking my head and doubting the whole thing. But that all went away as I was walking towards the door and noticed out of the corner of my eye, there he was bent down in the clearance section reading a book. Now remember, less than two minutes ago he grabbed a book to sit down and read. Yeah, I was right on about this guy.
I doubled back and approached the information counter and asked for the manager. When he arrived I softly asked if we could talk in private, to get out of hearing distance of the stalker guy. I explained the whole situation to the manager and described the man in great detail. The manager was very concerned and said he would take care of it, thanked me and signaled over an employee to walk me out to my car. When I was heading for the door I watched the manager walking around the store looking for the man.
Now what I’d like you to take away from my experience is three fold:
- Trust your instincts; they are a very valuable survival tool.
- Predators do not turn off their urges just because it’s Saturday morning. For the majority of them, these feelings are constant! I cannot stress that enough.
- Always alert someone who can help because even if you are “out of the woods,” that predator is still going to look for his/her next prey.
Being aware empowers YOU while simultaneously weakening the predator by taking away the element of surprise.
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
About Jessica Walker~”Safer in the City” columnist I was very excited when asked to write a column for saferdates.com. I’ve been influenced by safety and self-defense pretty much my whole life. While other girls were making macaroni necklaces in Girl Scouts, I was sparring with boys, breaking boards and doing knuckle push-ups on cement in Tae Kwon Do class. Read my column titled Safer in the City.
Burglars Use Social Networks To Find Empty Homes
By Jessica Walker
I read this article the other day about two teenagers involved in burglaries, some of which resulted from information they gathered on social networking sites. Ironically, over-sharing your information online is what these digital burglars and the creators of the location based services are banking on. Although these services are great for businesses, there are some serious privacy concerns for personal use. I immediately decided geolocation services was to be the topic for my next article and started my research.
Later that evening I went out with a friend. Before leaving the house I went through my usual routine of turning on a few lights and another light bulb literally went on in my head. How many people leave the lights on when they go out at night? How many stop their mail and newspaper delivery, or put their lights on timers when they go away on vacation, all to make it look like someone IS home? Then why do they sabotage that effort and announce to the world that they are NOT home online? Do they think only their “friends” see what they’re doing on Facebook?
Geolocation apps work like this: They report your location to other users and they associate real world locations (like restaurants, events) to your location. If you are on a social network and participate in this service, regardless of the privacy level you set, you’re increasing your level of risk. I found a related article written by Linda Criddle, the president of the Safe Internet Alliance, called “Think You’ve Got Nothing to Hide”? I especially like the last sentence where she sums it all up with a great piece of advice, “Perhaps the guiding privacy principle should be – always share less about your private life than Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, or Sergey Brin”.
As more social networking and geolocation services appear we need to revisit how we protect our digital lives like we do our real ones. Here are a few good places to start:
- Was Facebook and ‘Places’ burglars’ roadmap? Technolog on msnbc.com
- Facebook introduces ‘Places’ location-sharing program. msnbc.com
- Burglary ring targets Facebook users in New Hampshire. necn.com
- Where are you? Tips for using Facebook’s Places. msnbc.com
- Please Rob Me. saferdates.com
- Think You’ve Got Nothing to Hide? safeinternet.org
- Location Based Services: Safety Tips Video with Christopher Burgess. casttv.com
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
About Jessica Walker~”Safer in the City” columnist I was very excited when asked to write a column for saferdates.com. I’ve been influenced by safety and self-defense pretty much my whole life. While other girls were making macaroni necklaces in Girl Scouts, I was sparring with boys, breaking boards and doing knuckle push-ups on cement in Tae Kwon Do class. Read my column titled Safer in the City.
5 College Campus Safety Tips
By Jessica Walker
I was shopping the other day and noticed the department stores already switched over their clothes to fall attire and it hit me… its back to school time! Instantly I was reminded to write something on college campus safety. When I got back to my office, I spotted an overlooked note, penned on my calendar back in May, as a reminder to write a post on this very topic. I remembered adding that note right after reading an article about the Virginia lacrosse player murder on www.foxnews.com.
My initial thought for this post was to gather as much information as I could get my hands on without overwhelming everyone at the same time. Then I found the following website and hit the jackpot: www.securityoncampus.org
Today, Security On Campus, Inc. (SOC) remains the first and only nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of criminal violence at colleges and universities nationwide through educational, awareness, and policy initiatives. SOC’s website provides access to a comprehensive database of campus crime statistics and other pertinent information. SOC has many major legislative accomplishments, one in particular called the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, a federal law that requires institutions of higher education to release campus crime statistics and security policies to their current and prospective students and employees.
I recommend all students and parents of students bookmark this site for easy future reference.
Plus check out the following five safety tips to consider when moving onto campus. Feel free to pass them around.
- Always be aware of your surroundings. We can’t say that enough! Be aware of strangers in your dorm. During the day, walk the campus to learn a couple different ways to get to and from class. Plus make a mental note of vulnerable areas and steer clear of them especially at night.
- Contact your campus security officer and request a report on campus crime history and talk to them about the vulnerable areas you spotted.
- Contact the local community safety officer assigned to the neighborhood(s) around the campus. Anyone can do this to learn more about their neighborhood. Your local community safety officer should know every criminal or future criminal in the area, that’s their job. Pick their brain, I did before purchasing my home and learned what neighborhoods to stay clear of.
- Make sure your dorm room or apartment has adequate locks on the doors and windows. You can have your parents install more locks before they head back home, if needed. Also make sure your door has a peephole and if it doesn’t ask to have one installed.
- Run a background check on your roommate and surrounding roommates by gathering information nonchalantly. Act like you’re getting to know everyone and just want to jot down their full name and date of birth. It should seem harmless to them. If not, just explain you like to pass out cupcakes on birthdays and what college kid doesn’t like cupcakes.
My college years were a blast. I would go back in a heartbeat. So have fun, be crazy, party, eat lots of pizza and cupcakes, while your metabolism allows it, but always remember to never, ever get too comfortable and let your guard down! Oh and I forgot to mention the most important thing, try and learn something while you’re at it. And I don’t mean how to become a master at chandeliers. My favorite drinking game!
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
About Jessica Walker~”Safer in the City” columnist I was very excited when asked to write a column for http://www.saferdates.com/ I’ve been influenced by safety and self-defense pretty much my whole life. While other girls were making macaroni necklaces in Girl Scouts, I was sparring with boys, breaking boards and doing knuckle push-ups on cement in Tae Kwon Do class. Read my column to learn more.
When You Are Open Things Happen
By Jessica Walker
I’ve been practicing Feng Shui in my home, office and yard for a couple years now and swear by it. The overall peaceful feeling you get from decluttering and putting everything in the right place is indescribable. I really notice it when friends and family stop by my home or stay for an overnight visit. They say how at ease they feel and confess what a good night sleep they had.
I live in a small house so decluttering my life was simple; the lack of space forced me to make decisions about what to keep, donate or trash. Once your space is organized, you can focus on highlighting certain areas that you want to draw energy towards. Feng Shui helps with just about everything in life such as health, wealth, happiness, relationships etc…
You can hire an expert like the author did in the article Can You Feng Shui Your Way To Love?, or do what I did and head to your local library or book store and pick up a couple Feng Shui books with lots of illustrations to maximize your inspiration. Map out the area(s) that you want to energize and start out slow to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Moving furniture around and rehanging mirrors and pictures is a great no-cost starting point. Trust your instincts and I’m confident you’ll open the doorways to a more Zenful environment.
- Jessica
About Jessica Walker~”Safer in the City” columnist I was very excited when asked to write a column for http://www.saferdates.com/ I’ve been influenced by safety and self-defense pretty much my whole life. While other girls were making macaroni necklaces in Girl Scouts, I was sparring with boys, breaking boards and doing knuckle push-ups on cement in Tae Kwon Do class. Read my column at http://www.saferdates.com/category/blog/jessica-walker-safer-in-the-city-by-jessica-walker/ to learn more.
The Expendables
By Safer in the City Columnist Jessica Walker
I am a HUGE action hero fan, so you can guess I was super stoked to hear about the movie The Expendables that hit theaters this weekend. I grew up watching Sylvester Stallone in Rambo and Rocky, Arnold in The Terminator and Conan the Barbarian – which I am totally dating myself there – and Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Now hearing they would all be in the same movie along with other action heroes like Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and countless other fighting meat heads was like music to my ears! Although, I have to warn you that Arnold and Bruce Willis only had cameos which was disappointing to me. I can only hope they will have bigger parts in a sequel. Fingers crossed!
For the women reading this post, beware this movie is a pure testosterone enhanced flick in every sense of the word. If you are down with that like I am, right on! But for those that aren’t, I just wanted to give you a heads up. If you can tough it out for your man, you will definitely score some brownie points I guarantee it!
As for the guys reading this post, this movie is not going to win an Oscar but I bet you’ll want to hit the gym or sign up for an ultimate fighter course when the credits start rolling. I know I did! There are fight scenes, upon fight scenes, upon fight scenes that I wish they’d slowed down so you can see the moves more clearly, but none the less they were AWESOME! The weapons were over the top, of course, and my favorite scene involved this “mother of all guns” a souped up shot gun that actually blew people in half. I know what you’re thinking, both disgusting and totally cool at the same time. 
The best part about this movie for me is that actors like Sylvester Stallone prove they are far from expendable, while he is still looking good and kicking ass at 64yrs old. Yo absolutely!
- Jessica
Let the Universe Rush In
By Jessica Walker
I was very fortunate last week to be invited to an early preview of the movie Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
starring Julia Roberts due out August 13th. I will refrain from spewing the details but I do have to say… FINALLY A GREAT MOVIE! The casting was spot on. All the actors truly embodied their characters and the connection between each of them was effortless. The scenery was astonishing -- no better word than that -- each country was beautifully depicted. If I had a private jet at my disposal I would be writing this post from Bali right now.
I did not read the book but I heard from several ladies at the preview that the movie was actually better than the book. After further discussion with these ladies, I learned that if I had read the book I would have had a lot of my questions answered. For example, I was wondering the whole time how the heck did the author of the book, Elizabeth Gilbert, pay for all this traveling? Come to find out the answer is literally in the book.
I do feel the need to warn our male readers as this movie is totally a chick flick. But, if you are looking to score some brownie points, I highly recommend you tough it out. It will be worth it in the end, I promise!
To the ladies reading this, I am very confident that you will enjoy every minute of this flick. To me this movie was nourishment for the soul. It reminded me that the one constant relationship in life is the relationship with ourselves. If that relationship is broken, bruised or battered, we will be unable to work on any other relationship around us. Hopefully we can all learn to clear out our minds and open the doorway that will allow the universe to rush in.
Check out Eat, Pray, Love Movie Trailer! I would love to hear your thoughts. Stop back and leave me a comment after you watch it.
- Jessica
Priceless Traits in Men
By Jessica Walker
I just had to write something about this article the moment I read it, it’s called “So What If He’s Not Rich?” When I was a little girl my family as well as friends of my family would advise me to bat my eyes and smile to get anything in life and they always emphasized that I marry someone rich. Which now that I think of it… that explains why they pushed me more athletically and not academically.
Any way, I am cracking up as I type this because even then I hated being told what to do. In fact, I loathed it. The stubborn rebellious child that I was, use to stomp my foot to the ground like a bull and confidently reply that I was going to be the rich one and boys should worry about marrying me and my rant would always end with my favorite line, “because girls are better than boys!” My Grandpa would always laugh, shake is head and say, “The world better watch out for you my dear!”
It seems I was on to something then and didn’t even know it because the scientists in this article claim that, “guys with smaller paychecks are emotionally available, faithful and better in bed.” I think that combination is priceless!
- Jessica
Please Rob Me
By Jessica Walker
I received a LinkedIn Network Update email the other day, you know the ones that communicate new connections, account updates, new posts, etc…, and one of my contacts announced they were about to leave on a seven day business trip. I immediately said to myself, I sure hope this person trusts the 500+ people on their contact list otherwise they just gave an open invitation for someone to rob their home while they’re gone.
My second thought was about the website www.pleaserobme.com. I remembered hearing of this site on the news a couple months ago and when I checked it out back then I was amazed and very concerned with the amount of information that was shared online by people leaving their homes on business trips, vacations, to go to the store, the gym and the list goes on and on. The site is currently being reevaluated according to a message on the home page so to give you an idea of what it originally looked like, the home page had a continuous stream of posts picked up from different social networking sites concerning people leaving their homes. When I say continuous I am not exaggerating, at times the posts appeared within seconds of each other. Criminals must have been drooling over this site which may be why they took it down. Although, the company states their intentions were not to have people burgled.
Now social networking sites are wonderful, I am not knocking them, but we need to start developing our online “street smarts” and thinking about what we are communicating and if it can be used in any way to harm us. By no means am I asking you to be a paranoid Polly but take a minute and think before you type. You can start right after reading this post and going to Facebook or LinkedIn are great places to practice.
On LinkedIn, review your privacy settings as you can control your sharing capabilities. If your privacy settings are left open you could potentially communicate a message like the one above to way more than just the 500+ connections my friend has. Just take a look at your Network Statistics under your Contacts tab and you’ll see that only two degrees away boosts your sharing capabilities up into the 1,000’s. To change your privacy settings on LinkedIn, go to your Settings link at the top right.
On Facebook, review your wall for any posts that may give away more than needed. I just checked out my News Feed and there was a perfect example. A friend of mine commented three hours ago that they can’t wait for their beach vacation to start in 13 weeks. All they had to do was take out the time frame and that post would have been fine. It’s little tweaks like that, that can make all the difference. Now it’s your turn.
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
Authenticity meet Anonymity
By Jessica Walker
I’ve become very familiar with the acronym RSA over the past couple days. RSA stands for Rivest, Shamir and Adleman, the three MIT researches responsible for describing it in 1978. According to Wikipedia, RSA is an algorithm for public-key cryptography. It is the first algorithm known to be suitable for signing as well as encryption, and was one of the first great advances in public key cryptography. RSA is widely used in electronic commerce protocols, and is believed to be secure given sufficiently long keys and the use of up-to-date implementations.
RSA is also the Security Division of EMC, which is a world leader that designs, builds and manages secure information infrastructures.
So why have I suddenly gone “geek” on you? Well, I stumbled upon an article, “The evolution of online identity and trust,” written by Scott Charney, corporate VP, Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft and wanted to share as much as I could on the topic of online security.
Mr. Charney was recently a keynote speaker at the 2010 RSA Conference that ended on March 5th in San Francisco, CA. The RSA Conference attracts top security professionals from around the world to collaborate on IT security.
In his presentation, Mr. Charney discussed creating a safer, more trusted Internet and he touched upon identity security with a focus on authenticity and anonymity. Mr. Charney and the folks at Microsoft have a vision of working with the public, private, social and economic sectors to create a kind of digital identification card that can be used much like we use a passport or a driver’s license. Mr. Charney envisions the online user registering for this digital identification card in-person at a government office. This card would allow a web user to interact online without having to pass along private information which in turn lets the user remain anonymous when needed.
It’s like flashing your driver’s license to a bouncer when entering a night club. The bouncer only needs to verify that your face matches your photo and they will probably scan the card to prove it’s authentic. The bouncer doesn’t store your address, birthday, height or eye color for later use nor do they require you to answer security questions before entering such as what is your mother’s maiden name or what was the name of your first pet? The bouncer knows that the DMV has reviewed your birth certificate and social security card prior to issuing your driver’s license.
This is very exciting news, especially for the online dating industry. The whole premise behind the SaferDates.com site is to try to ensure authenticity while maintaining a degree of anonymity. We are thrilled to hear that the security industry is working diligently to develop digital identification technology.
Now how does all this tie into our site and your member profile in particular? Well, this is very good lead into a service that we have woven into our member profiles and it’s called ReputationShare.
You’ve probably already noticed the ReputationShare box located at the bottom of your Personal Details section. ReputationShare is just another tool that we offer to help you take control of your safety.
When I interviewed Linda Criddle, ReputationShare President, last year she had this to say about her product, “It helps identify and manage rogue users because, like credit bureaus, ReputationShare literally shares people’s online reputations across participating sites. If someone has been abusing other Dating sites or their members, Safer Dates can see that information even as the person is registering and take appropriate steps. Unlike credit bureaus, the ReputationShare service does not receive or store any information about who the user is. Users stay entirely anonymous, but both positive and negative behaviors associated with their email alias are collected. Second, it gives users the ability to make more informed choices about who they choose to interact with.”
I contacted Linda again to see what she thought about Mr. Charney’s article on authenticity and anonymity and this is what she had to say, “Partial anonymity isn’t about a need to know, it is about a user’s choice to share information to achieve greater trust. In an online dating scenario this could be manifest when a potential date wants others to know that they have a track record of decent behavior. In this case the potential date does not need to know anything about WHO you are, they just need to know HOW you behave. ReputationShare is a great example of a system that ensures anonymity of identity, and personal privacy, while providing solid information about a reputation.” To read Linda’s blog click here.
Safer Dates believes abusive behavior in the cyber world can sometimes cross over into the physical world and we feel the ReputationShare tool will empower you to manage your own safety more effectively.
To learn more about ReputationShare please visit http://www.reputationshare.com/.
Until next time, here’s to keeping you Safer in the City!
- Jessica
