Alert from the big orange. Here in Bellingham, we've had Big Ole.

"I didn't get the memo;" the US government emergency test to cellphones. My phone is often turned off as Facebook and face to face communication are more of my thing. When I turned on the phone to look at messages, that memo (or whatever) wasn't there; assuming I looked in the right place.

Some folks are upset that the message came from the "Big Orange." Another name for our blessed president. I heard this message called "an orange alert." People worry if the whole country steps in line to a rouge leader. Remembering Trump's comment about respect for North Korean President Kim Jong Un's ability to get his people to stand at attention.

I guess that hasn't happened. There's lots of good people in civil service. They can buffer us, maybe, from some leader who would try and use it to "get his people to stand at attention." An emergency alert system, of some kind, isn't necessarily a bad idea.

I really think much of the bluster from Trump is humor. Something to worry about a bit, but maybe not total worry.

Reading about it later in the newspaper, I realize that I didn't get it because my phone was turned off. I guess it wasn't a message that would stay in memory. Just getting the phone to sound and then the message telling people what the sound was about at the moment.

Here's a unique emergency alert system they considered using at Western Washington University. The steam whistle from an old lumber mill. Called "Big Ole." I'm not sure if it's still considered useful for that, but I've heard them test it, a few years back. Also they used it on the Fourth Of July.