Strollerderby : gps tracking

Tracking the Baby Jesus

Kelly Mills — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:05:00 GMT

I don't know if you are aware of this, but around this time of year there's typically a rash of stolen baby Jesus stories. Pranksters (I love that word) make off with baby Jesus out of nativity scenes all over the country, and often there's a sort of cat-and-mouse game where nativity scene keepers try and devise methods of preventing the infant savior from disappearing. Well, after a Florida town's Jesus went missing from the founder's circle nativity scene despite being bolted down (Mission Impossible 12 anyone?) a Jewish attorney in Cincinnati donated a new figure, and this time the scene keeper has taken unusual precautions to protect him from disappearing again. In addition to erecting a plexiglass screen in front of the display, people in the town raised money to do something else. Can you guess what? I'll give you a hint: Once the season is over, someone could probably get extra use out of the figure by afixing him to the dashboard of a car, perhaps next to a plastic adult version of his holy self.

Yep, the townsfolk raised money to outfit Mary, Joseph, and the infant lord with GPS devices. Scene keeper Dina Cellini says, "I don't anticipate this will ever happen again, but we may need to rely on technology to save our savior." Of course, it might have been prudent to equip the original baby Jesus with such devices, cuz it would have saved those wise men a ton of time in tracking, and we'd have Epiphany pageants happening closer to Christmas. Though if you think about it, the star over the stable was sort of an early GPS thing itself.

Giggle Bug: Because Tracking Children Is No Joke.

Kelly Mills — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:19:00 GMT

Whenever I worry that I’m too controlling or anxious, I pull out a copy of the One Step Ahead catalog and remind myself that there must be an army of parents out there who live in mortal terror of germs and falls and not being able to see their child’s face for a full twenty seconds. Then I laugh and laugh and feel like the most laid-back mom in the world.

My current favorite product is the Giggle Bug Toddler Tracker. It’s a plastic ladybug you clip to the back of your kid’s shirt, and if they get out of your line of sight, you simply press a button on your remote and the bug beeps--a 90 decibel beep, in fact. Now call me crazy, but if I was a kid just minding my own business and all of the sudden a piercing beeping sound starting coming from the back of my shirt, I might get a little spooked. And if mommy came running up thirty seconds later, well, I’m visualizing toddlers completely conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to associate a maternal face with being really startled. Did I mention that the ladybug’s eyes also light up and blink with a terrifying glow?

Oh, and don’t try and take the thing off, because that sounds an alarm too. House arrest for kids!

The site pitches the product by saying, “Why pay $300 for a fancy GPS device, when our affordable child locator does the same job?” Good point, we were seconds away from buying that GPS when the Giggle Bug came along. However, if you get your kids implanted with a chip, you can still track them when they go to college.

MOCHIP: A New Tool to Help Track Missing Kids

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:00:00 GMT

It's a great idea -- collecting important information about your children in the horrible event they go missing, or worse. You'll have instant, one-stop access to a CD filled with a digital photo and digital fingerprints, as well as a cast of their teeth and saliva for DNA testing. "You hope you never have to use it, but if you do, it's there and you're glad that you have it," said David Gallagher, a program organizer

The name of this powerful crime-fighting tool? MOCHIP. MOCHIP? It sounds like something I can order at the ice cream parlor. And why, please tell me, is this program run by the Freemasons and not, I don't know, cops? The Missouri Freemasons are running around trying to collect information about the state's children in the event of an emergency, claiming they don't actually retain the information themselves. Where's Agent Mulder when you need him?

Jokes aside, it's not sinister. MOCHIP is the Missouri form of a national Masonic Chip that says it has been recognized by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (I searched that site and couldn't find mention of masonic or chip, but details, details). It's still a good idea. One I wish no one had to think about, which is why it's easier to joke about it. But a good idea nonetheless. Are you prepared for the unthinkable?