Hi, all!

Yes, I'm still here. I've been pretty busy lately, but I have not forgotten about you. Check out the photos on my blog while I come up with new stuff, which I have some of. Please be patient.

Later,

The Navigator

Hi, all!

Sorry for the gap in posts, nothing exciting has happened around here for some time.

Until the explosion.

I was sitting down to watch "Cops" on TV, not realizing I would actually be talking to some in a few minutes. First, I heard a "bang" outside, as if a car had backfired. I got up and looked outside, but nothing unusual could be seen. So I sat back down.

Then, KABOOM!!

The whole neighborhood was shaken by something, but WHAT?

I ran outside to see what was going on, as did everyone else in the neighborhood. My next-door neighbors asked me if I had heard it, but I think it was pretty obvious by this time that everyone had. I saw a police cruiser coming down the street and flagged him down. The officer asked me if I had heard an explosion, and I said, "Yes, we all did.". He asked me where it was, and I said, "Well, we don't really know.". He then pointed down the street at a cloud of smoke wafting into view and asked if that was it, and I said that it was worth checking out. So off he went.

Grabbing my camera from inside the house, I headed down to the scene along with the neighbors. Of course, when I got there, I found that my camera batteries were dead. I had to run back to the house to switch batteries and then head back. By the time I got there again, the fire department had the yellow tape up around the scene already. I was told that two guys were in the garage at the time, one of whom emerged looking black from head to toe. Both men were transported to the hospital, one of whom was subsequently transported to Columbus for expert care.

The story I heard at the scene was that the two men said that they were working on an exhaust system with an acetylene torch when the blast occurred. Well, no...

The Columbus Bomb Squad and the ATF discovered that some kind of homemade fireworks device had gone off, and they found materials to make more.

The two men are claiming to have no knowledge of any homemade fireworks. However, I get the feeling that someone's gonna get in trouble over this.

One neighbor who lives close to the garage told the newspaper that the couch he was sitting on actually jumped off the floor when the blast happened. Thankfully, no damage (other than that to the garage) was reported anywhere in the area.

Well, that's all for now. If anything else happens here, I'll be sure to take a picture and write about it. Please stay tuned, but be patient. This is supposed to be a quiet neighborhood, but you never know.

Later,

The Navigator

Well, I guess I should be careful what I wish for. I might get it.

It wasn't anything like the Blizzard of '78, but I still had to do a bunch of shoveling.

I was scheduled to go into work four hours early, and shortly after I arrived we learned that the plant would be suspending operations due to the approaching storm. I got two hours of overtime and everyone who got "called off" still gets paid for their scheduled hours. This company seems to actually care about their employees.

I skied down to the store to get my Sunday newspaper, and saw another set of ski tracks. I have never actually seen other people's ski tracks here, though I have a friend who says he has. I followed them to the YMCA and they ended in the parking lot. So I now know there is someone else with skis; if only I could collaborate with (him/her) to establish trails when weather permits (and this isn't often), then maybe more people here will see this as being normal human behavior.

No real blizzard conditions here. A foot of snow, but not a lot of wind here. A truck driver friend of mine who drives around Columbus told me that there were whiteout conditions in certain places at certain times.

Nothing more to say for now.

Later,

The Navigator

Hi, all!

Well, we finally got enough snow for skiing here. I got to go out for about 40-45 minutes before I had to go to work so I could make sure the ski repair I did would hold - everything seems OK. Temperatures are supposed to go back up into the 30's over the next couple of days, so we may lose the snow cover we have... But next week's weather may bring more snow as the temperatures drop again, I just hope we don't get a bunch of ice with it.

Hopefully we will get some snow that will last through a weekend, then I will have more time to get some more (and better) photos to post.

Later,

The Navigator