When the power came back on yesterday, after 3 hours of having nothing do to but read (actual books printed on paper and not blogs or news sites), I turned on my TV to see footage of a flooded Louisville, Kentucky. As I watched footage of 10,000 library books ruined at the main library and cars driving through newly made rivers, I thought “Wow, that’s just like the great flood of ’97!”

As I slowly approach the age of 30, there have been several indicators of the aging process that have nothing to do with grey hairs or the number of pills I pop at night. I can remember when Green Day’s first video played on MTV, and when I do the math I realize that was 15 years ago. The latest milestone I noticed is that I have disaster stories to tell the young kiddies.

In 1997, I lived in Louisville, Kentucky and after I returned home with my family from seeing the special edition release of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, I rushed to [...]

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This is what the Megabus looks like after it has been set on fire:

No, I did not set it ablaze, but after my recent experiences I would not blame anyone who did. As with most disaster victims, I had no idea what was going on until it was over. I was confused when the Megabus driver pulled over to the Kankakee rest area on northbound I-65, because there were no scheduled stops between Indianapolis and Chicago. Yes, the construction had forced us into one lane and an accident in that one lane had turned the freeway into a linear parking lot for an hour, but we’d finally gotten past the congestion. Why were we still traveling at 25mph?

When we pulled into the parking lot and the driver dove for the fire extinguisher under the front seat, I began to realize something was wrong. Then he opened the door and white smoke started to billow in, at which time I almost pissed myself and decided I needed that rest stop after all. I grabbed my backpack [...]

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