I wanted to do something big for my 30th birthday. The original plan was skydiving, but I weigh too much. My fabulous wife found something almost as good, a guy in Madison Indiana flys people in his open cockpit bi-plane. With him you can just fly, do some aerobatics, and even take “the stick” and fly the plane.
Unfortunately with our hectic schedule, making this a reality became too much for us to handle and that idea was eventually scrapped.
Fortunately our airport often hosts airplanes that travel the country and offer flights. These are not just cessna’s, but historical airplanes. Last fall we checked out the WWII B17 bomber. While I would have loved to, we could not afford the flight as the $450 price was just too much.
It’s an amazing piece of avionic history. We actually climbed through the plane, which has very tight quarters. It was made even more difficult by to us carrying a 1 year old through it.
Last month a Ford Tri-Motor came, and this time the price was very reasonable.
This plane was one of the planes that started commercial aviation, just to have the opportunity blew me away. This was also the first time I had ever flown from my local airport.
Our flight path was simple and took less time than I had expected. We flew to the south side of Bloomington, near where old 37 and new 37 meet. We then turned north and headed to 2nd street where we flew between 2nd and 3rd street back to the airport.
Due to the proximity of my home to the airport, I got a picture of my neighborhood(if you look at the hi-res version you can see fires & tree damage from the tornado)! We see planes take off and come in for landings all the time, but I had never got to see the plane’s perspective before.
Planes today hold hundreds of passengers, this one only held 9. The cabin was tight, but I felt more comfortable in this plane than in our modern counterparts. I was sitting in the very back, a seat that was reserved for the “steward” was the only thing behind me.
I was busy while we were in the air. I had my camera and an iPhone; I was utilizing all of their capabilities. I even tweeted mid-flight!
I say this often, and I can’t reiterate it enough. Without the past, we have no future. I have to give thanks to the EAA AirVenture Museum for giving me this opportunity. I greatly appreciated it.
I’ll leave you with our landing. If you notice when we touch down, the wheel on my side doesn’t touch for a while!
Those are the words my mind tricked me into believing were true. I heard a fireman say something that sounded like that on the night of May 25th, the night a EF1 tornado touched down very close to my home.
My wife, a person who is always concerned with the weather told me that the night was going to be a rough one. I hear this on a fairly common basis, but something told me that I should stay on alert that night. She had radar from WRTV 6 up on her computer, and we had a combination of the local weather and The Weather Channel on our TV the entire night.
I remember the exact moment when I knew we were going to be in for something. While watching the TV, they were showing all of the tornado warning/watches in Illinois. The state was covered in red; meaning the state was covered in tornado warnings.
Around 10:19pm our power went out, and almost instantly after that our weather radio went off; it was a tornado warning for us and we knew that this was serious. My wife headed for our basement and told me to grab Amelia from her crib if I thought it was appropriate. While I knew this was a serious situation, I had to see it for my own eyes. That’s when I picked up my flashlight and looked at the large maple tree in my backyard. It’s large canopy was swirling in a clockwise motion, something I had never seen before in that large of a tree.
I immediately ran to grab Amelia from her room and rushed to our utility room where Rachel was waiting. Even though I had experienced a similar event when I was 12, I had never felt the urgency or threat that I felt at that moment. It was the first time we had ‘ran for shelter’ from a storm. While in our utility room, we could hear the intensity of the storm. There was no sound like a train, rather the sound of a large volume of air moving at a high rate of speed. It went away after a minute or so, but we decided to stay in our safe place for a few minutes, just to be sure.
Immediately, I went outside to inspect for damage. The first thing I noticed was that a large limb from one of my trees had broken and fallen on my neighbor’s fence. I called him to let him know, and that was when my mental state took a dive that it hadn’t had in a very long time.
He told me that his daughter had called him and by listening to the scanner, she had heard that the trailer court right next to our neighborhood was completely wiped out. I felt a tremendous urge to go see what I could do to help. I got in the Kia and discovered that a war zone now existed less than 1/4 mile away from my home; I was also trapped in our neighborhood.
I discovered another one of my neighbors outside, I asked him what he knew. He said that there were several children trapped in one of the trailers. He told me that he offered his assistance, but they didn’t want anyone who wasn’t trained in search & rescue to help out of the fear that they might also be hurt.
I then heard those words that I couldn’t get out of my head, “the little girl is dead.” I had to run back home, I couldn’t help and I could barely hold my tears back.
Out of what seemed to be pure survival instinct, I started tweeting. Besides our land line, it was my only way of communicating with the outside world at that point. Here they are:
I’m a prisoner in my own neighborhood and there are people dead less than 1/4 miles away from me
Trailers stacked on top of trailers, it’s a sickening sight! If I only had a line to the outside world besides this
I can’t sleep knowing that my poor neighbor children lost everything, almost their lives tonight. I also confirmed with the fd, no death …
I now wish it would stay dark so I cannot see the remains of what was #didthisreallyhappen
I’ve only lost a few trees, which I loved -I feel bad for mentioning it, but I think it should be noted.
Please put the children who just lost everything in your thoughts and/or prayers. They really didn’t deserve this
You never realize how much you appreciate freedom until that freedom is taken – quote me
I then went back and found a larger group of my neighbors. One of which had a friend over who is a policeman. We went back and actually did some searching with the fire department. I snapped some photos on my phone, but due to the atmospheric conditions, they didn’t turn out too well.
I went back home and told Rachel that I couldn’t go to sleep, and that I was going to leave as soon as I could. I felt disconnected from what was happening, I needed information. Around 3am, I started seeing headlights from cars driving around our neighborhood – the road must have been finally cleared. I packed up my laptop, phone and associated cables to charge everything and headed into the unknown. My destination was the IU Wells Library, but I wasn’t sure if I would make it. I had to try.
The journey is only about 6 miles, but it seemed like 50. The entire west side of Bloomington was pitch black. No stop lights or street lights. When I finally made it to campus it was even worse. Trees were down everywhere, what is normally a somewhat linear route ended up to be a criss cross puzzle.
I finally felt okay. I sat with some of my TCC co-workers and briefed them of the situation. I logged onto a computer and started my hunt for information. I printed every article I could find, from the Herald-Times, to the Indy Star to even MSNBC.
Once everything was charged, and my search for information was complete I headed back home. Little did I know that the drive home would be even more treacherous than the drive in.
Still no lights or businesses open. It was daylight now, I what I had feared was true; it had to have been a tornado that came through. While there were spots here and there in town and on campus that had tree damage, there was a defined path of destruction starting just west of Curry Pike/Leonard Springs Road on Highway 45. This defined path followed me on my journey home, and that’s when I encountered the sheriff’s deputy blocking the road to my home. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked me. “Home” I passionately stated. He let me through.
The next day we left on a planned vacation to Michigan. We felt it would be better to leave the sadness and destruction, than to stay and be constantly reminded of it.
With the “Great Recession” the economic outlook in Indiana has been downright bleak. It’s so bleak that the state has been forced to cut funding to K-12 schools and all publicly funded post secondary schools. This is primarily due to the cuts in property taxes passed several years ago, which is where our public schools get their money. A decade ago, I didn’t really care, as my time in school was horrible at best. I have a daughter in 4th grade now, and another who will be in school before I know it. It’s important to me that they have the same opportunities to enrich their lives that I had.
While the post secondary schools can handle these cuts by many different means, our public (K-12) schools have very limited means to deal with the lack of funding.
Many are closing or consolidating schools, requiring payment to ride a bus, adding fees for extra-curricular activities. This is almost all options our public schools have, and it really ticks me off.
While I’ve been hearing about school systems around Indianapolis having meetings and public forums to discuss how they are going to handle these shortfalls, it didn’t hit home until our local school system, MCCSC (Monroe County Community School Corporation) brought up the subject. They are proposing to eliminate many of the programs and services that make our school system diverse and great.
There has been talk of a referendum that if passed, would help eliminate that shortfall. I’m all for it, but I don’t know how much support it really has. My property taxes are so low, that it wouldn’t bother me at all to pay a little extra to help my childrens education. Property tax caps are the reason for this mess in the first place. Thank you Mitch Daniels, you’ve done a wonderful job ruining the surplus our state had.
• Eliminate elementary and middle school media specialists.
• Eliminate middle school foreign language.
• Eliminate middle school Family and Consumer Science.
• Eliminate one assistant, part-time athletic director at each high school.
• Reduce high school assistant coaches (no specific numbers or areas revealed)
• Possibly reduce extracurricular activities (brain game, spell bowl, etc.) at high schools and middle schools.
• Eliminate six elementary assistant principal positions for 2011-12.
• Eliminate the unfilled assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction job and the secretarial job for that post.
• Eliminate the healthy school coordinator position.
• Freeze all administrative salaries.
• Reduce school board salaries.
• Consolidate Aurora Alternative High School into an existing high school with some reduction to staff.
• Close the Teen Learning Center.
• Close Alternative to Suspension.
• Close Youth Outreach.
• Eliminate the Bradford Woods.
• Eliminate Honey Creek School.
• Eliminate elementary strings program.
• Drain the high school pools out of season.
• Eliminate Batchelor Middle School pool and fill it in.
• Eliminate substitutes for building secretaries.
• Eliminate summer school.
While some of these cuts make sense to me both financially and logically others do not. Here is a list of the programs/services that should be saved in my opinion.
Elementary and middle school media specialists (librarians). This is a bad move, really bad. As a child I loved books, and I believe librarians are the reason why. Without librarians, our children won’t receive the proper knowledge, appreciation and enthusiasm about books. This seems like a gateway to eliminate libraries altogether.
Reducing some extra-curricular activities. Some kids aren’t athletic, some kids like to expand their minds through some of these activities. Why punish those kids while leaving the ones who enjoy athletics alone? Why some and not all?
Consolidation of Aurora. I’m a little on the fence about this issue. My generation was the first to use this invaluable resource. Some kids don’t learn well in normal learning environments. Aurora allows these kids to learn on their terms. In many cases these kids would simply drop out. While consolidation may help the bottom line, it’s not beneficial if it hurts the education of it’s students.
Alternative to Suspension. Is this “In-school suspension?” That’s what the alternative was when I went. It should be saved so those students don’t fall farther behind, this is essentially turning your back on the students who need help the most.
Eliminating Bradford Woods. When I went, it was a week long event. It’s now only a day or two I believe. While I understand it’s not completely necessary it is a nice treat to get away and learn about nature and your surroundings.
Eliminating Honey Creek School. This astounds me. This school is a two room schoolhouse that is used as a learning lab for elementary students. They get the opportunity to act as if they are living in the 19th century. If you don’t appreciate your past, you’ll never appreciate what the future brings.
Eliminating the Elementary Strings Program. This program is dear to my heart, as I was in this program in 4th and 5th grade. Without this the only interaction children have with instruments is the recorder in 4th grade. It’s really an eye opener to the world of music. Without this program, I don’t think I would have played the violin in the school systems’ orchestra from 7th grade until I left high school. I can’t wait for the day I can get my hands on another violin and start playing again. Music is essential to creativity, something that doesn’t transmit on paper.
Eliminating Summer School. Hello? Seriously? I don’t even think I need to explain this one.
I hope the community will rally behind our children. They are our future! If you want to voice your opinion, the MCCSC has a web page you can visit and let them know. I’ll be sending them a link to this posting. Do the same! As Spock always said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
For the first time in my lifetime, the Indiana Primary has become an important step in the process of deciding who will become the next president of the United States.
The hardest part, for this household anyway is deciding on who to vote for. We are not “hardline” party voters. We instead vote for the issues that are more important to us, and try to make an effort to vote for a person who will do their job, and do it well.
Since G.W.’s administration has made everything under the sun a nightmare, we are voting Democratic this time. One point I have been making since it has become a Obama vs. Clinton showdown is that history will be made no matter who wins the nomination.
Both canidates have made appearances in Bloomington. Obama showed up for the Little 500, and was here last night. He gave a speech at Assembly Hall with a crowd of 13,000 present. I sat comfortably at home and watched it via a live feed on the Herald-Times website. Hillary, Chelsea and Bill Clinton have all made appearances here. While I have not gotten a chance to see any of them speak, I haven’t heard much buzz regarding those appearances either.
When all of this began I was leaning towards voting for Hillary, but I have changed my mind, I think. The turning point for me was last night when Obama said that, his entire campaign was funded by the american people, one $25 check at a time.”
Last night, we went to my grandmothers for dinner. We have to drive by the airport to get there, and saw a large plane. It had an american flag and “The United States” printed on the sides of it. We knew it was for Obama. While there, we were watching the news and they had a live feed from Indianapolis. He was there speaking. About 11pm, long after his speech here was over, we felt that plane leave. It was an experience unto itself.
This country needs a change, and while I see it happening with either canidate, I see it happening better with Obama behind the wheel.
Planes today hold hundreds of passengers, this one only held 9. The cabin was tight, but I felt more comfortable in this plane than in our modern counterparts. I was sitting in the very back, a seat that was reserved for the “steward” was the only thing behind me.
