A series of storms moving through New England this afternoon have created havoc for the nation’s busiest airports in New York City. In addition to the weather restrictions, a fire at the Federal Aviation Administration’s technical center in Atlantic City is further impacting traffic, canceling hundreds of flights throughout the region and stranding passengers.
Twitter user @911Buff posted the above photo on his feed this afternoon with a caption, “HUGE FLAMES AT THE FAA TECH CENTER. ONE FIREFIGHTER INJURED.” Another caption says, “HUGE SMOKE FROM THE 2ND ALARM FIRE AT THE FAA TECH CENTER. BUILDING EVACUATED.” Checking with the American Airlines SABRE booking system, canceled flights are displaying “ATC equipment outage” with no further detail. There is no word yet on the cause or current state of the fire.
Travelers passing through the region this weekend are encouraged to check their flight schedules and contact respective airlines for rebooking.
In its 2011 “A Call To Action” plan the National Park Service outlined a host of initiatives that it wished to pursue as the organization prepared to enter its second century. One of those was preserving the night skies so that visitors to the parks could continue to enjoy amazing views of the stars, the Milky Way and other celestial bodies. Dubbed the “Starry, Starry Night” plan, this initiative will actually be put into action this weekend in Voyageurs National Park.
Located in northern Minnesota, not far from the border between the U.S. and Canada, Voyageurs National Park is a remote and wild place. The park incorporates a series of interconnected waterways and dense Boreal forests that are home to moose, wolves, deer and even black bear. Located far from the lights of any town or city, visitors can get an unfettered view of the night sky, which is often clear and bright.
Tomorrow night members of Duluth’s Arrowhead Astronomical Society will gather inside the park where they will train their high-powered telescopes on the heavens. The event kicks off with a presentation inside the Rainy Lake Visitor Center where visitors are encouraged to gather at 8 p.m. Once that presentation is complete, the group will then head outside to observe the night sky starting at about a half-hour after sunset.
The event marks the start of the park’s Night Explorer Series, which includes a host of other stargazing activities throughout the summer. No fees or registration is required and a “Dark Ranger” will always be on hand to help facilitate the programs. The full schedule of those events can be found by clicking here.
Apparently, there is now a dress code when boarding a flight. A female passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to New York on June 5 was told to cover up her cleavage before boarding.
The passenger told the online blog Jezebel, “I didn’t want to let the representative’s Big Feelings about my breasts change the way I intended to board my flight. And lo and behold, the plane didn’t fall out of the sky…my cleavage did not interfere with the plane’s ability to function properly.”
To help smooth things over, the airline is now issuing the woman an apology, as well as a refund for her flight.
Lucky students can recall one or two teachers from their academic career that stand out as truly motivational. That motivation can come in a number of ways too. Some engage us with thought-provoking discussion. Others insist on the best from us. A very few plant seeds that take root in our young minds and will blossom later in life. I had the pleasure of having one that hit all that and more.
In 8th grade Social Studies class we had a teacher with a love for travel and world history. Mr. Hoobing’s passion was so intense that when studying ancient Rome, students were required to hand-draw renderings of iconic structures to exact scale.
Over the course of the semester there were probably a dozen of those drawings, many of which were rejected if not totally accurate. But by the end of that grading term, most students had a greater understanding about what it took to build them so long ago, when modern construction techniques had not even been thought of.
On the last day we would spend with Mr. Hoobing, finals were done. Summer, high school, college and the rest of our lives were ahead of us. Summer was of interest to all – the rest of our lives, not so much. Mr. Hoobing made us an unusual offer on that last day of class, one that we would most likely forget all about.
The deal was this: “promise me that sometime in your life, you will visit one of those places you drew and I will raise your grade for the semester by one letter grade.”I remember every hand in the class instantaneously going into the air to take him up on that offer. What did we have to lose? How would he ever know if we did or did not go to Rome to see the Pantheon or Coliseum?
This week I made good on that promise, visiting Rome for a day, stopping to touch not one but several of those structures.
The drawings are long gone, lost in probably the fifth or sixth move I made after leaving home. But along the way, between then and now, the seed Mr. Hoobing planted 40+ years ago survived.
Walking down the cobbled streets of today’s Rome, it was as though I had been there before. The exact memories of life in ancient Rome were a bit fragmented but I felt very familiar with the area I had learned about so long ago.
If you want to beat the heat this summer, there’s no better way to do that than to explore a cool and beautiful cave.
Missouri is one of the best states to see them. A combination of lots of limestone and plenty of water has honeycombed the state with some 6,000 caves, from tiny little crawl spaces to grand and glorious show caves. One of the most popular is Meramec Caverns in Stanton, Missouri, on Route 66.
Like many caves, it was first used by Native Americans. In the 18th century, French explorers mined the cave for saltpeter, an ingredient used in making gunpowder. Saltpeter Cave, as it was then known, became tactically important in the Civil War. Union troops were stationed there mining the saltpeter until 1864, when Confederate guerrillas attacked them, drove them off, and destroyed the works.
The cave didn’t become a public attraction until the 1890s, when dances were held in the main gallery, appropriately called “The Ballroom.” Showman Lester Dill bought it in 1933, renamed it Meramec Caverns after the nearby river, and opened it to the public. He systematically explored the cave and discovered several impressive chambers. Soon people were flocking to see the stalactites and stalagmites, and beautiful stone drapery that looks like giant curtains. The action of the water depositing minerals on the walls had created amazing shapes and contours on every spot.
%Gallery-158676%Dill decided to create some clever advertising by linking the cave to Jesse James. He claimed it was one of his gang’s hideouts, although James scholars dispute this. The Jesse James/Meramec Caverns legend got a shot in the arm when the public became aware of a man claiming to be the real Jesse James, still alive and spinning a tale about how he faked his own death. Actually this old coot was named J. Frank Dalton and had one time passed himself off as Billy the Kid.
Local booster Rudy Turilli brought “Jesse” to Meramec Caverns to celebrate his 103rd birthday on September 5, 1950. This brought in a huge amount of publicity and Turilli offered $10,000 to anyone who could prove he didn’t have the real Jesse James. The James family took him to court and won. Turilli never paid the $10,000.
The tour and the nearby Jesse James Wax Museum explain this conspiracy theory in detail. The whole experience is fun and a bit cheesy, having the roadside appeal of The Thing? and South of the Border. There’s no denying the natural beauty of the cave itself, and beyond the showbusiness aspect of the place that’s its real appeal.