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Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 7:43 pm: | |
This just in from some friends of mine who are (were?) "vacationing" in thailand...scary stuff...thought you'd like to hear a firsthand story...
Hello Dear friends,
I am finally calming down after this extremely
shocking global catastrophe. Please forward this on to
anyone who is not on this list, internet is difficult
here and I apologize to anyone who is not this list.
You have to imagine what the Adaman sea is like: calm
beautiful, blue and virtually waveless, in fact almost
silent, more like a lake than a sea. The day before we
did a four island snorkle trip and it was gorgeous.
Our group of friends and family had a blast. Sunny,
Leslie, Julia, Suzette, Colleen, and the teenagers,
Sashwa, Jasmine, Raliegh, and Dylan.
Around eight oclock in the morning I was lying in bed
when I felt an earthquake. It was so strange becuase
it went on for almost for five minutes or more. After
about three minutes I said to Colleen,"This can't be
an earthquake, a worker must be doing something to our
bungalow." I even got up and went outside to look and
then decided it really was an earthquake and thought
maybe Tokyo got hit.
A few minutes later I reached Michael by cell phone
and was telling him how safe I felt snorkeling and
that I hoped we would come here together and rent a
boat and sail around, I forgot to mention the
earthquake and wished I had as he would have advised
us to get to higher ground.
We asked Julia and Suzette if they felt it and they
said no. About forty five minutes Suzette came running
over to our bungalow saying there is this surf wave
coming down the beach and we should hurry up and come
and see it. My first response was tsunami! We are
having a tsunami lets get moving and grab our stuff.
Suzette and Julia and Sunny and Leslie had beachfront
bungalows, so we all ran out to see the ocean
retreating and coming in but the waves were small, the
first one almost reached the bungalow but was very
shallow, the second time it was a bit bigger, by then
we were scrambling, waking the kids up and getting
them to help.. The third wave came in and splashed off
the steps, the next one crashed against the door with
Suzette in inside. By this point it was clear we
really had to move and fast. Sunny and Leslie were on
the other side of a small river and could not get back
over. The kids were up but clearly did not understand
the scope of what was happening and although we knew
it was dangerous we could never have imagined how huge
this cataclysm was going to be.
Forget our stuff just save our lives! I was saying. I
looked out and saw the ocean suck out and this wave
started to form a couple of hundred feet out and it
just got bigger and bigger. My heart stopped and I
stood there saying Oh My God!
The locals who had all been stunned and confused, as
they had never seen anything like this, looked
horrified and so did we. We all started screaming run!
run!.
I had no idea how big this wave would get as it was
still growing when I turned my back and started
running. I had a cell phone and reached Michaels
message service telling him what was happening and to
go on line and find out what was happening and how
long it would go on to. I am afraid it was a
terrifying message to recieve . I was describing to
him this twenty foot wave that was bearing down on us
and we were running for our lives. My worst nightmare
was coming true like a bad movie and then we were cut
off.
I was praying please dont let this wave just roll over
us, please let it stop, let it break behind us and let
us survive. I turned around once and saw the wave
breaking between the trees and the two bungalows and
just kept running knowing the water could still knock
us down. We reached the resort reception area and
peolpe were in shock. And we all knew we were really
still not safe.
At that point we ran back to our bungalows and grabbed
our passports and money and fled towards the highway.
Julia, Colleen and Jasmine and I were now seperated
from the Suzette, Sashwa, Dylan Raliegh , Sunny and
Leslie. Jasmine last saw Sahswa grabing the camera
and saying he was goiing to get photos of it!
we knew another one coming for sure.
The locals were all saying go go go. We headed towards
the highway and waited and waited. Local Thai people
were picking people up and heading up into the
mountains. A pick up came by and they said Get in and
we jumped into the truck and they took us up into a
rubber tree plantation. We were all freaking out
around the rest of us not being there. We ended up
driving a bit further to a nice house and about fifty
of us were there like refugees, Some injured, some in
bathing suits, no shoes, some separated from family,
children, loved ones. From the house we could see the
ocean and the water sucking out again. We now knew it
was a huge quake in Indonesia. One English man was on
our beach and he was tossed out of a boat, he was
badly cut all over and he said seven people on the
boat died. He saw his wife and baby on sure as the
wave swept thru. He was in shock. Another woman down
the beach from our place said she was in her bungalow
and held onto the pole in the bathroon as the wave
came thru and it destroyed her place miraculously she
was left uninjured. The bungalow next door to hers had
a wooden long boat crashed on top of it. It was
occuppied by a couple with an infant. They were not in
the cabin and had made it up on the mountain with the
rest of us.
Rumors flew around. more waves, more aftershocks,
ferrys sunk, divers lost, resorts gone. We were
worrying about the others did they make it?
Colleen and Jasmine and I decided to walk down to wear
we heard there was another refugee camp. The Thai
people had already showed up in truck with food and
beer, donation only. They were so kind!
We got a lift over to the elephant camp where many
people had fled too, hoping our friends would be there
and sure enought Cheers and tears and hugs they had
made it too!
Towards evening we decided to go back and get our
stuff, hopefully, and seek accommodations somewehre up
higher. We went back t o demolished bungalows on the
beach front and our stuffed stashed in our place.
Suzette and Sunny and Leslie were so lucky this did
not happen in the middle of the night.
I was riding inside the pickup talking to the driver
who was trying to find us a place up high to stay and
I asked him if he was Buddhist or Muslim. He said
Muslim. He asked me where I was from I said America.
He said America hates us. It broke my heart, here was
this man risking his own life to help us and thinking
we hated him. How do you explain this all in broken
language? I did my best with a very pained heart.
We ended up at the most expensive place on the island
and got to watch BBC and begin to grasp the scope of
this disaster. We knew we were in the biggest natural
disaster possibly ever. The stories came in from all
around us of death and miraculous escapes lost
children, husbands wives.
We were all humbled and as the night went on and over
the next day to realize that there but for the grace
God go I.
Before leaving we gathered on the beach and did a
ceremony and prayers for all and the spirits of all
those who left, the rich, the poor, the royal
grandson, the animals, the children.....
Two days later we took a speed boat back to the
mainland to fly back to Bangkok. There we saw our
fellow travelers bandaged, injured, wheel chairs,
greiving.. It was very shocking and very emotional. We
are all still in shock I think.
In Bangkok as we exited customs all the embassies were
there, so many countries looking for their people and
doctors and nurses were there to help people. It
was again very emotional for all of us.
The Thai people we were with are mainly Muslim. They
were kind, generous and literally risked their lives
to help us.
As I watch the news and realize the enormity of what
we went thru I can only thank the Fates and our
guardian spirits. It is hard to face how some die and
others live and that all of us escaped uninjured when
so many died around us. We are so thankful to be
together, to have lost none of the kids or one
another. This kind of tragedy simply breaks one's
heart open to life and how fragile we all are. How can
we wage war on another becomes even more impossible to
contemplate. My love to all of you and I give thanks
for the protection that surrounded us.
Adele |
Don/TX
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 8:07 pm: | |
Thanks Gary, very interesting reading. |
John that newguy
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 8:17 pm: | |
"How can we wage war on another becomes even more impossible
to contemplate."
Hmmm..... how gawdawful philosophical... I'm happy that they
managed to squeeze -that- into the recitation of a natural disaster.
I'm sure the folks that lost family when the twin towers came
crushing down, felt the same way when we went after the perpetrators.. |
John Rigbyj
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 9:21 pm: | |
John that newguy,
I, 2nd your comment.
John |
Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 10:05 pm: | |
Well said JTNG, I read the whole thing with great interest until I got to the last paragraph. IMO it's very cheap to leverage the emotions of such a cataclysmic event to further your own political position.
Gary |
TWO DOGS
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 10:19 pm: | |
The schoolbus K.G.B. has spoken |
Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 11:27 pm: | |
Well Gary, sorry you were offended by someone elses' genuine feelings towards disasters made by man and god alike... they are all disasters. I didnt put the post here for political reasons and I'd guess she didn't write it to push politics on anyone... it's just what came up in her heart, and whe wrote what she was feeling. Too bad that you feel the need to criticize... perhaps you should have been in her shoes and we'd see what you write about it....
Sorry, but I think you're out of line on this one.
The first Gary |
Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 12:06 am: | |
I find it interesting you chose to reply only to me, when my post was merely a concurrence with John's.
This is not a proper forum to debate the merits of war as a means of change.
The real Gary |
Lin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 1:12 am: | |
Something to contemplate further. If the body count continues to climb, it may approach half the number of people killed in Rowanda a couple of years back. The amount of grief and suffering caused by this natural disaster is staggering, and it may almost equal that being perpertrated by the ethnic Arabs of Sudan against it's own African population. The interesting thing is that the man-made disasters, the ones that people can do something about, are not treated with the same compassion as the natural ones that we have no control over. More people die each year (from 4-6 million) from diahrea disorders, that are relatively easily treated, than any other cause. |
James Maxwell (Jmaxwell)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 2:58 am: | |
GS: Thnks for sharing the 1st hand account. |
John that newguy
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 8:29 am: | |
Before we lose the context of it all and end up "taking sides"
over what no-one really disagrees with..
Regardless of political agenda; of political ideology, or political
leanings.....
Regardless of concerns of sociomedical policies of any political
body...
To take the human losses of a catastrophic natural disaster and
manage to apply it to some political opinion.....
Only manages to cheapen the lives that have been lost in that
catastrophic national disaster, by using those deaths to broadcast
a personal political opinion....
There were many people using the deaths of the Trade Center
catastrophe for furthering their personal political agenda as well....
And -that- rhetoric repulsed me in the same manner.... just as any
similar application of that type of rhetoric should repulse us all...
There's no "stand" to be taken, just sympathy to those that have
been so harmed by this disaster. |
Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 12:18 pm: | |
Sorry Gary, John's post had not shown up on my browser at the time I saw yours. Quirk of the board I guess. I hereby redirect my comment to the both of you.
I'm just sad that some of us comfy people feel the need to be armchair critics and scruitinize, downplay, and undermine a heartfelt letter from someone who almost croaked in the midst of a horrible disaster. I'm sure she wasn't trying to push politics. I'm also SURE that's not why I posted her letter to the board, I certanily don't give a rats ars about pushing politics. I simply posted it **unedited** because I thought it was an amazing firsthand view of how and what happened to a bunch of our fellow human beings.
That said, and that's the last I'll say,
Yesterday I visited a shop that has a water jet cutter, and boy was my mind turned over.
This machine runs a water squirter on an 8x16 foot X-Y table under computer control, and cuts stuff.
The mind blower is exactly what it can do... it can cut virtually any material.
They showed me some automotive 3 layer glass that someone had chipped the edges of, so they simply cut it up into new, smaller shapes.
They showed me some 2" thick marble that he'd cut out a pattern from some black, then an identical pattern from some white, and dropped the cutouts from the one into the other ending up with two perfectly inlaid pieces of marble.
They showed me a bunch of stainless steel sheet with intricate patterns cut out of it.
The mind blower, he showed me some SIX INCH THICK steel that he'd cut some press brake dies from.
This thing has a 6 axis head, so it can cut complex 3-D shapes, the cutting kerf is 10 one thousandths of an inch (.01") width over a 6 inch cut depth and it can cut up to 6 inch thick stainless steel just as easily as it can cut a foam blank for a surfboard!!
Ok, toss your plasma cutters!! $60 bucks an hour, you can absolutely believe that I'll be there a few times!!!
So much for this post, I'm going outside to weld fenders on to my generator trailer now.
THE Gary |
Gary McFarland (Gearheadgary)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 12:56 pm: | |
Hmm....I'm not sure I get it. My post is not completely coherent in the absence of john's post unless you were cognizant of making a political statement. It's too bad when the author closed the writeup they had to insert their own personal bias into the piece. It was a good piece until then, that spoiled it, at least for me. The Tsunami is certainly a tragedy. War is also a tragedy, but necessary as long as despots and tyrants rise to power. Trying to make a point about one within the other is disingenuous, given the two are completely and inarguably unrelated.
They have one of those cutters on American Chopper, the company I work for does Injection moulding, so we have a lot of EDM machines. Thos are very cool too, I always wanted them to make me some gunparts.
Plain 'ol Gary |
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