This is an old revision of the document!


Mike's Blog

  • Archive of previous posts: 2008

NOAA maps the tornado's path with Google Maps

My friend Wade sent me this Google Map created by NOAA to track the May 23rd tornado. Pretty wild to zoom in on the area near Milliken, Highway 85 and County Road 38 where we worked this weekend. I could see both houses and the field where we picked up insulation and tree debris on Saturday.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Wet day on the scooter

Woo – that was a wet ride to work on the scooter! It's been raining in Fort Collins since yesterday, including my ride home Wednesday and all night. Everything was good until just east of the intersection of Horsetooth and Shields. Then the bike lane quickly became a river! I plowed into a few inches of water and then merged with traffic and stayed in the main lane until Stover. That was the only dicey bit.

One high note – the fleece face mask did a great job protecting my nose, cheeks and lips from raindrop pelting. Can't say my Home Depot work gloves are the best for rainy conditions, but any gloves would've been soaked and it wasn't all that cold this morning. Another fun day of “extreme” scootering.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Scooter fill-up June 4, 2008

06/04/2008 86.8 miles on .959 gallons = 90.51 mpg ($4.06)

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Cool retro Vespa

How about this sweet Vespa scooter I saw today:

Similar color to mine too. I like the spare tire, passenger seat and front/rear racks.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Tornado volunteer schedule update

An updated schedule from the Vineyard Gang.

Greetings again!

We had an enjoyable day today… the sun finally broke through and we got to spend an entire day serving one home. We sent our 10a and 2p teams to a horse ranch just north of Windsor. She was really grateful to have truckloads of strangers show up and help clean up her field after the tornado dragged her huge barn across her field. One team was one of our small groups from Fort Collins and they commented how enjoyable it was working together!

We've got plans nailed down for the next 4 days! Here your choices:

Thursday @ 10:00 am: Meet at the the Windsor Campus where you'll be met by a gal named Nancy. She's our volunteer coordinator for the day. We'll be joining probably 40-50 other folks for a “field walk”. This entails walking shoulder to should picking a field clean of debris. Wear your comfy walking shoes and gloves!

Friday @ 10:00 am & 2:00 pm: Meet at the Windsor Campus. Outreaches yet to be determined but will likely be sweeping up streets and sidewalks after the crews have picked up piles of rubbish.

Friday @ 7:00 pm: Windsor Night of Worship with Steve Jones. a rockin' good time and we'll really connect with God too!

Saturday @ 10:00 am: Meet at the Windsor Campus. This one will be exciting as we're expecting “family” from the Smoky Hill, Arvada, and Grand Junction Vineyards…we should have well over 250 folks! We'll be doing more street/sidewalk cleaning so if you've got a pickup, trailer, or the like bring it! Also, we've been asked to start going door to door in Windsor just “checking up” on the residents of the city; asking how they are doing, and if there's any help they need. This will be a day where it is easy to come and go at various times, so feel free to come for 30 minutes, or to stay for the day!

Sunday @ 2:00 pm: After church, meet at the Windsor Campus. We'll be having a huge BBQ with pounds and pounds of BBQ beef plus burgers and hot dogs! We'll feed you, workers and folks from around town. Plus we'll figure out how to show God's love in a practical way!

Drop offs are still a huge help. Water, snack bars, diapers, kitchen stuff! Feel free to bring it to the campus in Fort Collins, or to 11th and Main in Windsor (the old Steele's Market).

Finally, for updates dial our Info Hotline at 970.631.4871. If you have help to give, or help needed, shoot us an email at tornado@vineyardotr.org.

Finally, finally ;) Jeff Hirschoff is heading out on Friday to return to his post in New Orleans (and to his wife!), if you see him say thanks!

for the Kingdom,

Jack & Wendy English
Windsor Campus Pastors

H. Dean Hines, Jr.
Outreach and Mission's Pasto

~~DISCUSSION~~

Scooter fill-up May 28, 2008

I thought it would be fun to post my Honda Metropolitan scooter gas mileage figures each time I fill up.

05/28/2008 90.5 miles on 1.077 gallons = 84.03 mpg ($4.55)

05/19/2008 96.2 miles on 1.061 gallons = 90.67 mpg ($4.14)

On the 05/19 tank the scooter got a little over 90mpg so I'm surprised to see the dip to 84. Of course I also think I squirted in a little too much gas this time, and with a 1.32 gallon tank, an extra 1/10th of a gallon can skew the numbers quite a bit. Still kicking the tar out of 15 mpg and $117 to fill my Suburban!

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Windsor tornado volunteer schedule this week

The Vineyard of the Rockies church is coordinating a Windsor tornado volunteer schedule throughout this week and weekend. If you want to help the people of Windsor but aren't quite sure how to get involved, jump in with these guys and do some good.

The Vineyard of the Rockies Windsor Campus is located at:

679 Southwood Lane
Windsor, CO 80550
Phone: 970.219.9454

Here is a message I received today detailing the volunteer plans for this week and weekend.

Greetings again from Windsor!

Today was drizzly and overcast, and as the sirens wailed by one lady mentioned to her daughter, “I *hate* hearing those sounds”. As I was standing line I struck up a conversation with the gentleman beside me: “Do you live here or are you in to help out?” “I used to live here,” he mused, not quite to me. His home had been demolished and he seemed a bit at a loss of where he'd go next. But we've had a thank you notes coming in, and smiling faces as well.

Today we sent out another 40 folks or so to continue the clean-up around town. The excitment to lend a hand is high and there's still more to do. Tomorrow we're slated to help a horse farm north east of Windsor, and we're working on some more exciting plans that I hope to unveil tomorrow!

Here's the schedule:

→ Read more...

Tornado volunteer opportunities

Here are some details on how you can help the people impacted by the tornadoes that struck northern Colorado on Thursday.

Volunteering

The United Way of Larimer County’s 2-1-1 volunteer program has set up a volunteer reception site and all volunteers who want to help must go through this site. The site is located in the Community Room at Poudre Valley REA, located at the corner of Highway 392 and REA Parkway (7649 REA Parkway, map). You can register to volunteer today, May 23rd through Monday, May 26th. The United Way 2-1-1 staff will facilitate volunteers as needed in the Windsor, Greeley, Milliken, Gilcrest and Platteville communities.

Directions to REA: Take I-25 to the Windsor Exit, Go East on Hwy 392, Turn right at REA Parkway. Map.

Monetary Donations

In addition to the reception site for volunteering opportunities, United Way 2-1-1 is accepting monetary donations to assist in tornado relief efforts.

In addition, the American Red Cross is accepting donations. Please visit http://www.northerncolorado.redcross.org/.

(Information courtesy of an email circulated at my office.)

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Missed the window

During all the wild weather yesterday I thought I'd wait for a good weather window to jump on the scooter and ride home. Around 6pm I thought I had my chance. Decided to pull on my rain pants just in case, though it had been drive for a couple hours at work. Just as I threw my leg over the scooter and started rolling, big dollops of rain started falling. I was pretty much pelted with rain and buffeted by wind the whole way open. Even with my rain coat and pants, my teeth were chattering by the time I rolled into my driveway. Rain in the face, and the lips in particular, stings at 35MPH. Not sure how the motorcycle people do it without a full-face helmet.

Still, not worth mentioning compared to what our neighbors in Windsor and Greeley had to endure yesterday.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Tornado near-miss (for Fort Collins)

We just had to cluster to the middle of our building near I-25 and Harmony Road here in Fort Collins. A large tornado touched down near Gilcrest and seems to have run east of us towards Wellington. It was an unusual storm because temperatures were cool all morning and then the storm ripped loose before noon. Typically we see hot temperatures to fuel the storms and then things get wild in the afternoon. Beyond that, we don't usually get tornado-generating storms this close to the mountains.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

Older entries >>

~~DISCUSSION:off~~

blog/start.1211461627.txt.gz · Last modified: 2008/05/22 5:32 pm (external edit)
www.chimeric.de Creative Commons License Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki do yourself a favour and use a real browser - get firefox!! Recent changes RSS feed Valid XHTML 1.0