Throw Back Thursday

This is a photo of the graduating seniors from SAI (sigma Alpha Iota), a music sorority I was a part of in college.  It was fun times.  I think we were membership from like 10 to over 30 in the 4 years I was a part of it.  I wonder how it's doing now?

May 20th Moore Tornado

This was such a devastating event that all happened with 1 hour on a Monday afternoon.

We watched the live coverage from a computer at work and sat in awe as the the helicopter panned out to show the massive tornado rip through and destroy blocks of residential housing.

Controlled chaos ensued for days after the event.

First, immediately following the events, every police, fire and EMSA worker was seen driving south.  Parents frantically trying to get to Moore and see if their kids were safe at school.  This was all happening right as school as letting out for the day, so they put all the schools on lockdown and didn't let anyone leave.  Homeowners that lived in the area were trying to drive to Moore to see if their home was spared or obliterated.

No power, limited cell phone access, no water.

We tried to get a hold of our friends who lived 3 blocks from the damage path and finally heard back from them hours later that they were fine.  Thankful they had an underground shelter where their kids and mother were seeking shelter.

The eery thing was watching the continuous live coverage and seeing families pull what belongings they could salvage and carry from their homes and just walking...walking away from the damage and walking to a place to shelter for the night.  It was really sad and scary.  The unknown of what to do next and where to start to put your life back together....

Second, they completely blocked off exits from the highway into Moore that were in the direct path of disaster.  This put traffic at a stand still for miles.  They also blocked off entire blocks that were reduced to splintered wood while they did search and rescue, then recovery and clean up.  If you were trying to get into that part of town  and you lived there...you had to have your id checked.  If you wanted to volunteer, you couldn't just show up unannounced.  They urged people to register with the Red Cross, be trained, and then be dispatched to an area of need.

The following are pictures from the aftermath just two weeks after the storm.    This is just a tiny snippet of the damage.  Below is what you see on one side of the highway, and if you look to the left, you can see a neighborhood that was badly damaged.

Warren Theatre, 7-11, Moore Medical Center, TFCU branch

The following photos are taken at Veterans park, just three blocks away from where our friends live.

The last photo you can see in the distance a sidewalk and driveway, but no houses.  It's very weird to see truly how a tornado even a mile wide can pick and choose what to destroy and want to just leave standing.

We had to drive through the "unaffected" parts of the neighborhood to get back to the main road.  You could look down a street and see a few perfectly fine untouched homes, then some badly damaged ones, then one that is half gone and then absolutely nothing after that because every home was then just torn to pieces.

Veterans Park

Veterans Park

Veterans Park

Veterans Park

Nature

The other day I bought a green pepper from the store.

I cut it open and found this.

That's a tiny caterpillar and eggs. 

And yes, it was alive and crawling.  

I was super grossed out. 

I mean, I know it all comes from nature, but I just wasn't expecting this from store bought veggies.

Thunder Game

So I uploaded pictures from my camera and realized that I have so many things to blog about now!

Way back in April, gold prices dropped like a lot.  That meant that Stephen's place of work suddenly became super incredibly busy with packing all the orders that were placed.  They even did $35 million worth of sales in one day.  In a normal week they place about 7,000 orders.  However because of the massive drop in gold prices, I think they did about 25,000 orders in one week.

So yeah, they were busy.

The owner  and some other high paid peeps tried to think of ways to push these order out in an easy and effective way. After tossing around different ideas, someone just said " ya know, we just need some family and friends to come in for a fews and one day on the weekend".

Genius idea!

Stephen and I volunteered on a Sunday to work in the vaults from  7-5pm (and we got paid to do it).  It was a long and tiring day.  Stephen pulled orders, I worked in shipping most of the day, and then did some coin prepping for last 2 hours.

It was pretty cool to see the thick vault walls and understand how the production line works down there.

Well anyway, that was to preface why we got to go to the first game of the NBA playoffs this season. The owner has 4 floor seats right across from the Thunder bench.  While we were wrapping up our day of work, the owner pulled Stephen aside asked asked if we would like to go and to keep it "hush hush".

Um...we said yes.  How could you not!

The great thing about experiencing floor seats too is that you get to eat a really great free dinner buffet, have drinks by court side and have dessert at half time!