Podcasts about Fulton Street

Twenty-five years after September 11, I still believe that day has important lessons to teach us about fear, preparation, and leadership. This time, Michelle Abraham from AmplifYou takes over the hosting seat and interviews me about my experience escaping the World Trade Center with my guide dog, Roselle. We talk about why knowing the building and its emergency procedures mattered, how I worked to keep fear from taking control, and why focusing on what I could control helped me keep moving. I also share how September 11 changed the direction of my life, led me into professional speaking, and helped shape the Unstoppable Mindset philosophy I continue to share today. Highlights: 02:30 – The ordinary morning that became September 11. 08:04 – How preparation shaped Michael's response when the tower was hit. 18:34 – How Michael and David helped keep panic from taking over. 27:15 – Why trusting Roselle mattered during the collapse. 31:38 – The lesson of focusing only on what you can control. 41:52 – How September 11 helped shape the Unstoppable Mindset philosophy. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:00 Everyone, I am Michael Hingson, the host of Unstoppable Mindset. You've heard my voice for the last 471 episodes, but I'm calling you all out today and asking you to listen to this because we're going to make a special announcement now regarding the next four episodes, starting with 472. We're going to help commemorate the historic events of September 11, 2001. Yes, they're definitely historic, although not necessarily the most positive things that have ever happened. But as many of you may know, I was in the World Trade Center working on September 11, 2001, on the 78th floor of Tower One, and escaped with my guide dog. I've delivered a speech about that, which we put in the first episode of this podcast series back in August of 2021. But this Friday, episode 472 is going to have an updated speech that I delivered just a few years ago at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. That festival is a yearly event celebrating different kinds of things that have happened in American history, and I was invited to come and speak, which I did. I'm going to put that speech up for you as episode 472. I think you'll find it enlightening. It'll teach you something about blindness and blind people. It'll tell you my story, and it'll give you some inspiration that I hope you will find helpful. Next Tuesday, september 8, Michelle Abraham is going to interview me. Michelle is with Amplify You, the company that does all of our back office stuff and helps me with the editing and other things regarding the podcast. Michelle owns her own podcast, and she is going to interview me about September 11th and other kinds of things relating to what I've learned and things that have happened over the past 25 years. She's also going to be putting this up on her podcast Amplify You, so you can find us in a lot of different places. On September 11th, I'm going to chat with Bob Ellis. Bob was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and had literally just walked out the door of the Pentagon when the plane crashed into the Pentagon and did the things and the damage that it did, and of course generated all the things that occurred at the Pentagon. On the 15th of September, I'm going to come back and have a conversation with all of you about lessons that I've learned over the past 25 years, and just reminisce a little bit about all of that. While the podcast is occurring on September 11th, I will be actually in Kilgore, Texas, doing a speech about September 11th. So lots of things going on, I hope you listen to these episodes. I hope that you'll tell everyone that you can about them. I really enjoy all of the support that you've given us over the years, and we're going to continue to do things with Unstoppable Mindset. And of course, as always, if you'd like to come on or know anyone who would, please let us know. We're always looking for guests. Thanks very much. We'll see you on Friday with the first of these four episodes. What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. When and today is a little bit different than what we normally do because I'm going to be the guest on the podcast, Michelle Abraham from Amplify You, who is also putting this particular podcast episode on her podcast, but Michelle is going to mainly be interviewing me. As many of you should know, this is the 25th commemoration or remembrance of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and we thought it would be very relevant to to spend some time on a few podcast episodes talking about that a little bit. Michael Hingson  04:46 For those of you that listened to the last episode before this one, you heard me deliver my speech talking about what happened to me on september 11. I used. A speech that we we delivered just a couple of years ago. So it's a little bit different than the one that, if you listen to the initial episodes of Unstoppable Mindset, you heard way back 472, 473 episodes ago. But this one still tells the the same story, which is which is kind of cool, and so we're going to talk about that, and we'll talk about our next episode, which will be delivered on September 11th, and that one will be a conversation between me and Bob Ellis, who was in the Pentagon on September 11th, and so that'll be a little bit fun, and then we'll talk about some other stuff as well. But I'm going to turn this over to Michelle because she's the the interviewer, the the boss, and I'm just a guest today. So hi, Michelle. Amplifyou   05:50 Hey, Michael. Well, thanks for being a guest on your own show today for us. It's great to be here with you, and we've been with you all along the Instoppable Mindset Show. It's been really fun to work with you on this show, and so I know we've had we've recorded episodes around your story, and our listeners would have just listening to your keynote. But I would like to tap into Michael 25 years later. When you think back of the morning of September 11, 2001, what comes to your mind? It Michael Hingson  06:23 was a typical day. We we did have a thunderstorm about 1230 that morning, and Roselle, my fifth guide dog, who was my guide dog at the time, was afraid of thunder. She had developed this phobia. The theory, basically, about dogs being afraid of thunder is it's not just the thunder sounds, but it's also the fact that the dogs have a static charge that builds up on their fur, and that gives them a tingly and kind of a strange feeling, and between that and the thunder, they learn to equate the two, and that just causes a lot of angst. And in Roselle's case, at 1230 in the morning, we weren't even hearing a thunderstorm, but she started getting really nervous, and so I took her down to my office. And as I was going downstairs, we started hearing thunder, and the storm actually came right over our house. So I love to say God clearly has a sense of humor of some sort because the thunder-I had never heard thunder like I heard That morning, that is, literally, it came right over our house, so we heard what were explosion sounds. It was it was different than I had ever heard before, but I didn't have any message that said you shouldn't go into the World Trade Center or go to work that day, and I had been planning on going to work that day because we were going to be conducting some sales training seminars, teaching about 50 people from a bunch of resellers under the auspices of Ingram Micro, our major distributor. We were going to be teaching them how to sell our products, so I was going to be there. David Frank, a colleague from our corporate office, was going to be there. He was flying. He flew in to deal with the pricing and distribution models that the Ingram Micro salespeople and resellers would be dealing with, but I was going to be doing the majority of the seminar. Well, anyway, at 1230, I took Roselle down and we stayed there in my office at home until 2o'clock, and then the thunderstorm had passed away and Roselle had calmed down. So we went back up and got to sleep, and woke up at five in the morning, which is what I originally planned on doing. I'd actually planned on going in a little bit earlier than usual, just to be able to spend more time preparing. And I got to the New Jersey train station in Westfield, the New Jersey Transit train station, at somewhere around 615, and I had been planning on taking a 6:18 train into the city. And at about 6:20 or 6:21, train having not arrived, an announcement came over the PA system that there was a problem with the train, and another train would be coming. The next train would be there in a little bit, and we could get on it, and and all that. The day was a calm day. It was a nice autumn day. was great. No indication of of anything to worry about. And I didn't read anything into trains not working, much less the thunderstorm before. So when the train finally arrived, I got on the train and we went into Newark. Then I caught the train that takes me directly to the World Trade Center. It's called Path Train. Path stands for Port Authority Trans Hudson, and that train went straight in from Newark Penn Station with the well to the World Trade Center, and so I got there. And by the time all of a sudden done, I got there at the normal time I would get there rather than getting there 20 or 25 minutes earlier. Go figure, but I went upstairs and I went to the office and there was a person standing outside the door with a big cart. We had ordered breakfast for all the early arrivals, and so I took him in and showed him where to set up, and then I went in. And got my laptop projector and other things that I needed to be able to set up to do the presentations, and went in and set all that up. And then David Frank, my colleague from our corporate office, got there about 8o'clock and helped do the final things, like making sure the projector was totally appropriately aimed. His aim is better than than mine was, anyway. Michael Hingson  10:21 So again, everything was proceeding just as we expected it to do. David came with some early arrivals from Ingram Micro, and we put them in the in the conference room where we were going to be doing the presentations, and the the cart was all set up so they could have breakfast. As I love to tell people, best ham and cheese croissants in the city-they're still good, as far as I remember-but all was was going well, and so we we were getting prepared. And the last thing we had to do before the seminars were to start was to create a list of all the people who would be attending that day and put it on letterhead. We had a spreadsheet with all the names, but we had to put it on letterhead and then fax the list on letterhead to the Port Authority security people so that they would have a list that they would recognize was legitimate. And then when people came into the World Trade Center, they'd go up to the security counter, they'd show their ID, and their names would be compared with a list, and if their name was on the list, then they would just be given a badge with a a barcode where they could go to the appropriate elevator and come up to our floor. So that was kind of the last thing we had to do before the seminars were to start. Amplifyou   11:34 Kind of sounds like business as a norm and business as usual kind of morning for you. It Michael Hingson  11:40 was. It was a total business as usual morning, by every stretch of the imagination. No clue about anything else. Amplifyou   11:48 So, did you guys begun your seminar when the the troy towers were hit? Michael Hingson  11:55 No, the seminar was supposed to start at 9o'clock, and literally, I was reaching for letterhead to print the list at about 845, 846. When suddenly we heard a muffled kind of explosion, the building sort of shuddered. And then, if you imagine my hand as the tower, literally as I'm tipping my hand towards the camera, that's exactly what the tower did. It started tipping and tipping and tipping, and we moved maybe about 2025 feet before the building stopped. Now the thing is that I had spent time learning all I could know about the World Trade Center, learning what to do in an emergency, learning what the fire department did, learning what the police would do, learning where the emergency exits were, learning about all the emergency evacuation procedures, and the reason that I learned all of that was I had opened this office for Quantum Corporation, and I was the Mid-Atlantic region sales manager. I was the leader. I was going to be the person who would be running the office, and I knew that I needed to do what any other leader would do difference being I didn't see stuff, so I needed to learn rather than rely on signs and other things that most sighted people would do. I actually had to learn everything to be able to function. But the difference is that by doing that, what I didn't really realize was I was creating a mindset that says you know what's going on, you know what to do. I knew why the building tipped because tall buildings like that are built with expansion joints. They're made to be buffeted in windstorms, and I had felt that happen many times at the World Trade Center. If there were a wind, we could feel it sort of shake a little bit. But who would have ever thought that somebody would fly into the building with a plane load of jet fuel, 36,000 pounds of jet fuel? But nevertheless, I knew all that I could learn about everything. I learned where different offices and built and and organizations were in the World Trade Center. I had explored the kiosks on the first floor and the shopping mall, so I knew where all the phone kiosks were and where other things were. I knew where the restaurants were, so that if we ever had guests in and we were doing demonstrations and then we were going to be negotiating contracts, we decided to take a break for lunch. I could say, "What kind of lunch do you want? "Oh, you want a deli sandwich? There's this great restaurant downstairs called Fine and Shapiro. Let me take you there, and I would take them. I would lead the way because I couldn't very well say, "Oh, I don't know how to get anywhere. I'm blind. Someone's going to have to lead me. How's that going to work a couple of hours later if we're negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? I needed to literally work, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but from a position of strength. I needed to know all of this in order to be able to do my job as the appropriate leader of the office, and so I learned all of that and put all of that together for whatever was going. On in the World Trade Center at any given time, and so when the building was struck and and the building was tipping, I was standing in my doorway, the doorway between my office and the other parts of of our facility, and the building tipped. David was holding on to my desk as it was tipping. Roselle was asleep under my desk, and finally, David and I were speculating about what was going on. He thought maybe it was an earthquake, and I said no because the building's not shaking around; it's going in one direction. I thought maybe it was just some sort of an explosion, which in a sense it was. But he said it didn't sound like it, and it didn't. But the issue was that we were 18 floors on average below where the tower was hit and on the other side of the building, but that was a calculation that came later. But the bottom line is that the building tipped and then it stopped, and it came back the other way and got vertical again. Amplifyou   15:54 That's incredible! Wow. Michael Hingson  15:56 And as soon as it got vertical, I went back into my office. I met Roselle coming out from under my desk. I took her leash. I told her to heal, which meant to come around on my left side, which she did. She sat down, and about that time, the building dropped straight down about six feet. Amplifyou   16:10 Wow! Michael Hingson  16:10 Now, the reason it dropped is because tall buildings like that are constructed with expansion joints, which is why that it tipped in the first place, and the building didn't break off, but then when it got to be vertical again, after a few seconds, literally the expansion joints contracted and the building went back to its normal configuration, which is exactly what happened. Amplifyou   16:32 Gosh, interesting like technology that that's built in there. I know you you never really I would never known that. Had you not explain that in the story? That's very interesting. That expands like that, and then the six foot drop was then it contracting Michael Hingson  16:47 again. The expansion joints were going back to normal configuration. Amplifyou   16:50 Interesting. If Speaker 1  16:55 you enjoy unstoppable mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week. We've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Amplifyou   17:28 And so there's so then what happened? So take us to the next steps. Michael Hingson  17:32 So the building dropped about six feet, and then David turned from holding onto my desk and looked out the window, looking south toward Battery Park, and he started shouting, "Oh my God, Mike! There's fire and smoke above us! There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our window! And I could hear stuff going by our window, and I was wondering what it was because normally the sound was sort of like what window washers would do if they were on their tracks washing windows, but that wasn't what was going on. It was debris falling, and David was describing it: millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our window, and he said, "We got to get out of here right now. And I said, "Slow down, David. We'll get out, but we're not going to rush. No, we got to get out of here right now. Slow down, David. We'll get out. Don't worry about it. And finally, I I said several times, "Slow down. He kept saying we got to get out of here right now, and then he used what I call the big line: "You don't understand. You can't see it. Well, first of all, I knew everything that David was seeing and saying because he was telling me about it. So I knew we had millions of pieces of burning paper. Clearly, he said, "There's fire and smoke above us, so the building's on fire. I had all that information, but the problem was that it wasn't what I wasn't seeing that was the issue; it was what David wasn't seeing. David wasn't seeing that sitting next to me was my guide dog Roselle, yawning and wagging her tail, going, "Who woke me up anyway? I was sleeping real good here, sports fans, and and Roselle was not reacting. I wasn't smelling anything that gave me an indication that we were in such peril that we had to run for our lives, and so I kept telling David to slow down. And finally, David did. He stopped. I said, "David, get our guests to the stairs. Do not let them take elevators, because I had learned, of course, that if the building's on fire anywhere, if fire gets into elevator shafts, then anybody in elevator cars is probably going to perish, which did happen. And so David took our guests out of our office, got them to the stairs, and I made it really clear: do not let them take elevators, because there could be fire in the elevator shafts. Well, he got them to the stairs, and then he came back. Meanwhile, I called my wife Karen to let her know that something had happened, or an explosion, or something. But we didn't know. People tell me all the time, even today. Well, of course you didn't know because you couldn't see it. You know, I think all these people who tell me I didn't know because I couldn't see it need to get a. The problem is they really don't know a whole lot about blind people. The airplane hit, on average, 18 floors above us. It hit between floors 93 and 99, so I just say 96, which is 18 floors above where we were in on the 78th floor. But it also hit on the other side of the building. It hit on the north side, and we were on the south side. The last time I checked, Superman and X-ray vision are fiction, and people can't really see through buildings, see through rebar and steel and concrete. The fact of the matter is that they no one knew what was going on. I didn't know, but other people did, and I'll prove that in a moment, but the fact of the matter is, you can't see through all that stuff. Blindness had nothing to do with it, but people keep saying, "Well, you didn't know because you couldn't see it. Well, yeah, well, we'll get to that. Anyway, David got our guest to the stairs. I called Karen. I told her that something had happened. We didn't know what. She wanted to know more, but there was nothing else I could tell her, and so we we parted. I just said, "I'll call you back as soon as I can, and by that, you know, the media hadn't even gotten the story yet. Michael Hingson  21:12 So I love to joke around and say that I beat Charlie Gibson in Good Morning America by eight minutes, but I still haven't gotten a Pulitzer Prize for it. But it's very disappointing. But anyway, so I disconnected with Karen. David came back. We swept the office. We went to the stairs, and we started down. Almost immediately, I began smelling an odor, and it was a familiar odor, but I couldn't quite place it. And it took me a while to realize I was smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I did a lot of traveling for my company, and so I was very used to what was in airports and the smells and the odors. But it took me like four floors to figure out that I was smelling burning jet fuel. Other people were speculating, wondering what happened, why were we evacuating, what was the building doing, why did it shake, and all that. And then I observed that I was smelling burning jet fuel, and other people said, "You're right. That's burning jet fuel. We must have been hit by an airplane. But you see, we didn't know. We had no clue. Eyesight had nothing to do with it. The fact is that we only figured out we were hit by an airplane because the blind guy realized he was smelling burning jet fuel, and so anyway, we went down the stairs. A couple of burn victims passed us along the way, and a woman, when we got down about 10 floors, stopped and she said, "I can't go on, and we're not going to make it out of here. And I literally just stopped and turned around and gave her a hug right there on the stairs. Roselle gave her some kisses, and other people stopped and joined us. And we all said, "Come on, you can keep going. You can do it. Let's go. And she was able to keep going as we went down the stairs. But we knew instinctively we had to make sure that panic didn't ensue on the stairs. Amplifyou   22:56 Right. Michael Hingson  22:57 We got to about the 50th floor, and then David suddenly said, and he had been getting quieter, but suddenly he said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And I said, in my best sharp voice, "Stop it, David. If Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he told me that that brought him out of the funk that he was singing into. And he said, "I want to walk a floor below you, if it's okay, and I'll tell you whatever I see on the stairs. But I got to do something to get my mind off of worrying about all this stuff. Is that okay? And I said, sure. If that's what you need to do, go ahead. Did it really matter? Well, you know, it did to David, and that's all that really counted. But anyway, David walked a floor below us, and so when I got to the 48th floor, for example, I heard, "Hey, Mike, I'm on the 47th floor. All's good here. Going on down the stairs. We went down, and finally I got to the 45th floor. And David said, '44th floor is where I am. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is. Not stopping. Going on down the stairs, and he did that all the way down the stairs. Why is that important? And why do I even mention it? Because we all did everything we could to keep panic from taking over on the stairs, and by definition, because David was just speaking up, "Hey, Mike, 42nd floor, all's good here, and just shouting up to me what he saw on the stairs and sounding confident. By definition, anyone who was in the sound within the sound of his voice heard someone who was sounding okay and just able to go down the stairs and wasn't seeing any problem, and so they focused on him, and that certainly had to help keep panic from ensuing on the stairs as we went down, and it's so often not even mentioned, but David had to do that for maybe hundreds or 1000s of people who could hear him all the way up and down the stairwell, and I think that's just one of the most important things that I remember about the day that David had to, by definition, help keep panic from going on on the stairs. Now, meanwhile, I was up. Encouraging Roselle, what a good dog, good girl, Roselle. Keep going, let's go, good dog, doing that all the way down the stairs. And I've had people come up to me at speeches that I've given ever since. For example, one in Kansas City, and a woman came up afterward, and she said, "I came into the stairwell on the 54th floor just as you passed by, and I heard you praising your dog and encouraging your dog and sounding very confident, I and other people just followed you because you sounded really good and you didn't sound like you had a problem at all and weren't afraid. We just followed you, so you know that's why I also know that what David was doing was so important because people focused on his voice. Amplifyou   25:42 How fascinating! Someone that was right behind you that day in the stairwell, too. Michael Hingson  25:46 Yeah, yeah. So we continued down. We got to the 30th floor, and that's where we met firefighters coming up. They wanted to help me go down the stairs, and I didn't want their help. I didn't need their help, first of all, but I didn't want their help because that would have meant we were always walking at least two abreast, and they were going to grab my arm and try to lift me as we were going downstairs and do other things that sighted people think you got to do if you're helping a quote a blind person go down the stairs. But there was a more important reason that I didn't want their help, and you know when the firefighter, the first guy, came up and he said, "We're going to send somebody with you. I kept saying, "No, don't do that. We don't need that. What I knew because of all that I had learned was that they were a team. They had to carry all their equipment up the stairs with them. Why? Where would you store it? Let's say you decided to store it on the 34th floor, and fire broke out on the 33rd floor. You'd never get to the equipment. They had to carry all their equipment up with them. They were a team, all 50 of those firefighters, and so I was not about to want to break up the team when, especially, I didn't need it anyway. And I I worked at getting them finally to focus, and I said, look, I got my guide dog here, and they started petting Roselle, and it wasn't the time to give them a lecture about don't pet a guide dog in harness. And by the way, don't pet a guide dog in harness. If you see a guide dog in harness, you can ask me if you can pet the dog, and if I have time, I will stop and I'll take the harness off because Roselle likes to relax, Alamo, my current guide dog, likes to relax. The dogs all love to relax, but if I don't have time, I'll say, "Look, we're kind of in a hurry, so sorry, but we just don't have time. But the firefighters were petting her, and it wasn't the time to give him a lecture about don't pet the guide dog and harness, and it wasn't the time to give him a lecture about don't worry about the blind guy just because he can't see and you can. The reality is that blindness isn't the problem; it's your attitudes about blindness that are more of the problem. But anyway, they finally agreed. When I finally said, "Look, I got my friend David over here who can see, and David and I are going down the stairs together, and they turn to David and they go, "You're with him. And David said, "Yeah, Lee Malone, he's fine. And mention all the hundreds Amplifyou   28:06 of people that are following you. Michael Hingson  28:08 Yeah, and and they all had to stop as we're talking to the firefighters. But anyway, so they eventually started going up the stairs, and I continued down. David reassumed his scouting position, and we followed David by a floor down the stairs, and and did what we needed to do, and then we we finally got to the first floor. Well, David did, and he said the water sprinklers are on. You're going to have to run through a curtain of water to get out of the stairwell, and the the reason there were sprinklers on is if there was fire in the stairwell, the water sprinklers would be keeping the fire from getting into the lobby. But if it were in the lobby, the sprinklers would be keeping the fire from getting into the stairwell. That's part of what was supposed to happen. Well, it it all worked perfectly. So David went through the curtain of water, and I got down to the first floor, and I took Roselle's harness and said forward and hop up and let's go. And we went through this curtain of water and came out the other side into the lobby of Tower One. There was a guy with a bullhorn going, "Go this way, no, no, don't go over that way, go this way, go to the central part of the building, don't go outside, no, no, don't go that way, go this way. And that was because that if they had gone outside, they would have been below where people were jumping, and you know who knows what else, so they didn't, and and they went to the central part of the building. We got out, and I was hearing the guy with the bullhorn. This guy comes up to David and me, and he said he's with the FBI, and he'll take us where we need to go. And I asked him what's going on. He said, "There's no time to tell you. I wish he had, but he didn't know me. He didn't know that information was what I really valued more than anything else, and I wasn't going to panic just because I heard information. But he took us through the complex and eventually up an escalator by the borders books, as far away from the towers as we could be, and then we got out. And as soon as we got out, David saw fire in Tower Two. We had no idea where that came from. We speculated that maybe our building, which had been tipping toward Tower Two, had its fire sort of jump across, maybe somehow. But we didn't know what was going on, and so we were told to leave the area, which we did. We went over to Broadway, which is again what we were told to do and told to get away from the complex, so we went over to Broadway and started walking north on Broadway. So as we were walking north, on my left side was the building, on my right side was Broadway. We're on the west side of Broadway as we're going north, and we passed several streets, and then after we passed all the well, we passed a number of streets, and we finally got to Vessi Street. And David said, "You know, we're very close to Tower Two. I want to take pictures of this fire I see in Tower Two. I said, "Okay. I took out my phone. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through. The circuits were busy, as we now know. Of course, people were saying goodbye to loved ones, but for me, I couldn't get through, so I put my phone away. And David was putting his camera away when a police officer yelled, "Get out of here! It's coming down now! And we heard this sound, as I describe it, as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. What we heard was Tower Two collapsing like 100 yards away from us. You could hear glass breaking and shattering, you could hear metal clattering, and then the white noise of Tower Two just collapsing straight down, which is exactly what it was supposed to do. David and everyone turned and ran. I lifted Roselle by the harness, turned her 180 degrees, and started running back the way I came. David was long gone. Michael Hingson  31:36 I got to the next street back that we had crossed a little while before, and that was Fulton Street. Turned right on Fulton to get more of a building between us and what was collapsing, and we ran about 25 yards and caught up to David. It turns out that we had gone the same way he went, but he had stopped realizing that he had left me and was going to come back and find me. But I found him first, and he apologized. I said, "Don't worry about it, David. Let's keep going. And we kept running. We got caught in all the dirt and the dust and the debris from Tower Two's collapse. As David said, he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his nose. For my part, I couldn't. With every breath I took, I could feel debris going down my throat into my lungs and settling. It was crazy, and we ran, and eventually, I decided we got to get out of this. So I started telling Roselle right, right, giving her hand signals. I don't know whether she could hear me over the noise of the building collapsing, or whether she could see my hand signals. But I kept telling her to turn right because I wanted her to, because there was a building on my right. Now that we were going the other way, I wanted her to go into the nearest opening that she could find. As we ran, I suddenly heard an opening, and Roselle obviously knew what I wanted because she turned right. She took one step. She stopped. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle, you can do it. Keep going. She wouldn't move, and I realized, wait a minute, she's a guide dog. She's doing what she's supposed to do. She stopped for a reason, which she had. I checked. I stuck out my foot, stuck a hand out along the wall, discovered we were at the top of a flight of stairs. Roselle had done her job perfectly. She stopped. So when I gave her the command to go forward, she went down the stairs, and we went down into what was the Fulton Street subway station, and we were there for about 15 minutes or so. Then a police officer found a bunch of us together and said, "The air is clear up above. You need to leave now. And didn't wait for a response; just turned, and we all followed him back to the stairwell, up the stairs, through the little arcade that we had we had passed through part way down the stairs before, up the rest of the stairs and got outside. David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no Tower Two anymore. And I said, "What do you mean? He said, "All I see are pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. There's no Tower Two. It's gone. Are you sure, David? "Yeah, it's gone. It's not here. We stood there for a moment, and then we continued to walk west on Fulton Street. And we walked for about 10 minutes, and then we were in this little plaza area when suddenly we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we figured it was probably our tower collapsing. David looked back and he saw another dust cloud coming our way, and in this plaza where we were, there was a small retaining wall, probably a planter or something, but anyway, there was a retaining wall. We got behind it, we ducked down, and we just waited till everything passed us by and stopped. And then we got up, and David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no World Trade Center anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "All I see are fingers of fire and flames, hundreds of feet tall, and pillars of smoke. It's gone. The towers and everything are gone. And we stood there a moment, not able to fathom it. Then I tried to call Karen again, and this time I got through because all the circuits freed up from all the loved ones saying goodbye. Needless to say, and after, as I put it, tears on both sides of the phone line. Michael Hingson  34:59 Karen was finally the first one who told us how two aircraft had been crashed deliberately into the towers of the Pentagon, hijacked aircraft towers at the World Trade Center. That is, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth was still missing over Pennsylvania at that moment. And so that's kind of what happened. The rest of the day we spent getting up toward Midtown Manhattan, and eventually was able to get trains back to New Jersey and so on. And David walked up to where he was staying with his sister, who lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Amplifyou   35:30 What an experience, Sue! Thank you for going through that with us again. And you know, there's there's a lot of things that I want to well, there's something I want to ask you. It's like we often talk about preparation of that day, like all the things you did to prepare for what what you actually were able to do during that day. What mattered on that day from all that preparation? Michael Hingson  35:55 That I knew what to do in an emergency. Also, although I really started learning to verbalize it more later, what I learned was how to control the things that I could and not worry about everything else. We what if everything to death as human beings? Yeah. And we what? Well, what if what if you were in the build in the World Trade Center and it collapsed? Well, okay. What could I have done about that? So it's no sense worrying about it, because I, you know, I didn't have access to something to hold the building up, you know, and so many different things. Well, what if Roselle had panicked? Well, that's why I encouraged her and praised her so she wouldn't. But the bottom line is, I didn't have control over that, other than the fact that I encouraged her and and worked with her so well. Well, what if other people panicked on the stairs? I didn't have control over that, other than doing all I could to try to keep panic from happening. And you know, I and other people did a number of things like what David did to keep people from panicking on the stairs. But the bottom line is, there was no sense worrying about those things because we had no control over them. And when we got home that night, I took Roselle's harness off and I was going to take her outside. She ran off. She wouldn't. She wouldn't go outside right away. She grabbed her favorite tug botobone and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linnie. And they were having a good old time just playing. When I talked to the veterinarians of Guide Dogs for the Blind the next day, I asked them, "What's it going to be like for Roselle going forward? And they asked, "Did Roselle have anything that specifically threatened her? And I said, "No, not really, because nothing hit her, nothing threatened her in any way, shape, or form, and the veterinarian who I spoke with said, "Well, there you are. She wasn't threatened. Dogs don't do what if about everything. They live in the moment. It was over for her. She wanted to play, and that's what she did, which was great anyway. But we what if everything to death, and we need to learn how to stop doing that and worry about just the 5% over which we really have control, and not worry about the rest. That's one of the lessons that I learned. I learned about don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on what you can and leave the rest alone. I learned about what if you know and things like that. Amplifyou   38:18 You and Roselle really understood each other in those moments. So what she realized what her job was, and you you were a leader in keeping everyone else under under control from you know reacting. Did you ever? You seem to have been very positive right from the beginning. Were there other moments that you were not sure that you or guys were going to get out of there. Michael Hingson  38:44 No, and my response is there wasn't time to worry about that for me. I was focused on Roselle. I was focused on listening because if people started to panic, I wanted to deal with it. There was a time on the 37th floor where people just started not talking. They were getting very quiet, and I went, "Oh, they're going to be like David was, and so I said, "Hey, everybody, whether you can see me or not, my name is Mike, and I've got my guide dog Roselle here. I'm blind, but I don't want anybody to worry, because if the power and lights go out in the World Trade Center, we're offering a half-price special to get you out today only. You know, and and that's exactly what I wanted them to do was to laugh, and I got people to laugh, which, which I'm sure helped. But those are the kinds of things that that I could focus on dealing with. But I I didn't worry about what I couldn't control, even though that was sort of an instinctive thing. But the mindset kicked in. All the things that I had learned that led up to September 11th kicked in that day, that allowed me to be able to function and and also help other people, and that's the the important part about it is that they all did kick in the mindset kicked in and it all worked well. Amplifyou   39:54 You've told this story so many times. Has the meaning of the story ever changed for you over 25 years? Michael Hingson  40:00 No, I got to say that it hasn't. Well, in some, yeah, I guess in some senses it has. Maybe some of the reasoning has changed. For example, speaking today, I'm speaking to oftentimes a generation of people who have absolutely no memory of the World Trade Center because they weren't even born yet, or they were too young to remember it. Probably, if you're under 30 years old, you really don't have any memory of it. And if you're under 25, you weren't even born at the time. My job, I believe, and so I've expressed this more lately than I have in the past. But my job is to take people in as I speak to the building with me, and take them down the stairs. Take them through the experiences that I had and went through, and why I went through those experiences, and the lessons to be learned from those. And then bring them out when we get to the bottom and outside. Take them all the way through and out, so that they get the full sense of what I experienced. And I've had so many people tell me we were with you every step you took down the stairs. You tell the story so vividly and so well, and and you just you just had us with you all the way down the stairs, which is exactly what I wanted, because I want them to understand that in reality you can learn to deal with things that come along, there are going to be things that you can't deal with because you don't have the skill or whatever. But we all have a lot of skills that we don't think we do, and one of them is that we can learn to control fear. We can learn that fear is around us, but we don't have to let it overwhelm, blind, or paralyze us. We can learn to use fear in a very positive, constructive way to keep us focused and going down the stairs. Amplifyou   41:45 What made you to decide to keep using your experiences each other's? Michael Hingson  41:49 Well, after September 11th, we and and the media got the story, and then people started calling because we got very visible in the media, and people started calling and saying we'd like to hire you to come and talk to us about what we should learn from September 11th. Learn about teamwork. Learn about what happened that day. Learn the lessons of World Trade Center, and so I decided that I would would do that and teach people what they could remember and and take away from it, and people started calling and saying, "Gee, would you come and let us hire you to tell the lessons of September 11th? And by the beginning of 2002, I had so many of those kinds of requests that Karen and I decided that selling life and philosophy was a whole lot more fun than selling computer hardware and being a computer hardware sales manager, and so that's what I turned to doing full time, and learning to help people understand that the reality is that you are a lot better than you think you are, and you need to learn that. But you really can do in a more strong way what you think you can do than than a typical way. Amplifyou   43:02 That's what I was just going to ask you: is if September 11th changed the direction of your life, and it did, from the career you had into now being a professional speaker. Interesting. Michael Hingson  43:13 Oh, yeah, it's helped a lot. And you know, I I also there are other things that that helped me in terms of dealing with public speaking, I love to tell the story that when I was growing up, before I had access to braille, I had braille in kindergarten in Chicago, but then I didn't have braille in California until the fourth grade, and my parents helped me learn things, and I learned all the spelling words that you know you had every every week you had to learn words, and then on Friday you the teacher would tell you the words, and you had to write them down, and you change papers, and the teacher would write the words on the board. Except in my class, in my class the teacher didn't write the words on the board. The teacher would say, "Mike, you have to spell the words out loud for everybody. So I learned how not to fear crowds and learned that I could spell the words. I know one time I messed up a word, and I don't even remember what the word was, but I heard somebody go, "Uh-uh, and I and I went, "Oh, I must have got it wrong, and I figured it out, and then I spelled it right. But that that only happened one time that I can recall. But clearly, that helped me learn not to be afraid of audiences. And today, I don't even understand why people are afraid to speak publicly. The fact of the matter is, audiences don't come to hear you so they can joke at you, make fun of you, yell at you, and so on. They come because they value what you're you're going to talk with them about, and they want to hear it. They want you to be successful, and they'll help you be successful if you let them, Amplifyou   44:41 I think you were always destined to be a public speaker, but it seems like the September 11th really just the universe conspired to make that happen. Maybe sooner than it would have. Did you ever see yourself before that becoming a public speaker? Michael Hingson  44:57 I never thought of being a public speaker before that. Neither had I ever thought of being an author. I I was used to it because working at Quantum on any given day I could be speaking to anybody from the board of directors of a Wall Street firm to IT people to other management people and so on. So I got used to doing it, and I and I learned all about selling and being articulate in sales, so I kind of learned a lot about public speaking from that. But I never really thought I would just be speaking for a living. But given what happened on September 11th, and that I get the opportunity to talk with people and help them see that in reality, what happened on September 11th is a day of lessons that taught us, or can teach us about resilience, can teach us about dealing with things that we don't expect to happen, and that we can learn how to control fear and so on, rather than letting it overwhelm us. So it it is it's really been pretty good. Amplifyou   45:57 Yeah, and when you hear the phrase "unstoppable mindset, how much of that philosophy do you think was shaped on that day, september 11? Michael Hingson  46:05 Oh, I think a lot of it came from from that day and and beyond. You know, the mindset kicked in on september 11 because of what I knew. But I think also that when it came time to start this podcast, which someone asked me to do as part of being involved with the company. I heard a lot of people talking about resilience and so on, and I just thought of unstoppability, unstoppable mindset, because the reality is we all are more unstoppable than we think we are, and so the podcast is literally an opportunity to converse with anyone who wants to come on, and it is a conversation more, much more than an interview, but it's a conversation about them, their lives, what they've done, and including what did you do that made you realize that you're more unstoppable than you think you are, and maybe you didn't realize that, but you are, and here's let's talk about this, and so those are those are things that I talk about. But I believe that everyone has a story to tell, so I'm always looking for people to come on the podcast and tell their stories and talk with with me about their experiences and so on, and that's how you know we found Bob Ellis, who's going to be with us on the Pentagon. I had actually contacted him about speaking to his organization, and I always mentioned the World Trade Center in initial introductory letters. And he wrote back and said that he would love to help, but he also wrote back and said, you know, I was in the Pentagon on September 11th, and that opened our dialog. And the result was that we finally set up for him to come on Unstoppable Mindset. And when when we did our conversation, I learned, for example, that he walked out the door, and it just he was supposed to be in a meeting that was right near where the plane actually came through the window, and in Bob's case, he had literally just left because the meeting ended up not happening, and he had just walked outside the door when he heard the plane, and he didn't really understand what was happening. But the plane sped up, and then it just crashed right into the tower, into the Pentagon, and he ran from the area, but he was very much involved with with talents that allowed him to help acquire things to help other people survive and so on, and did that for a couple of days or four days. But Bob will tell his story on September 11th. But he was literally just out the door when the plane hit. Amplifyou   48:42 Wow! Well, your guests can look forward to that interview. Will be the next up after this one. And I want to thank you, Michael, for sitting down with me today. I oh, it's always a pleasure, and thanks for allowing me to take over the hosting seat for today on your show, so we can hear more of your story, and thank you for sharing all the lessons you've learned from this experience. Michael Hingson  49:07 Well, well, thank you, and and I hope people will take them to heart. And I would say, if anyone wants to be on the podcast, we would love to have you send me an email at speaker s p e a k e r at michael hingson m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com. If you know of any speaking opportunities that need a keynote speaker to come in, not only to tell an inspiring story, but I want to make it very clear, but to teach also lessons about resilience, business continuity, and other things like that, email me at speaker@michaelhingson.com. Would love to talk with you about that. My website is www.michaelhinkson.com, or you can go to www.michaelhinkson.com/podcast. But we'd love to hear from you in in any way and and get to know you better and you know go from there. Amplifyou   49:57 Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Michael, for today. We'll take care and see you soon. Michael Hingson  50:02 Sounds good. Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhingson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.

Surviving September 11 took more than courage. It took preparation, trust, and the ability to manage fear. I share my experience escaping from the 78th floor of the World Trade Center with my guide dog, Roselle, and the lessons that shaped how I responded that morning. You'll hear how years of learning my surroundings, trusting my training, and understanding my role as a leader helped me stay focused during the evacuation. I also explore blindness, the limits society places on blind people, and the power of teamwork between a guide dog and handler. Most of all, this story is about focusing on what you can control, trusting the relationships you've built, and preparing yourself to act when fear shows up. Highlights: 00:10 – Why Michael is revisiting September 11, 25 years later. 11:45 – How Michael learned that blindness itself isn't the limitation. 32:50 – Why preparation inside the World Trade Center mattered when crisis hit. 36:40 – How staying calm helped Michael lead others toward safety. 44:46 – The lesson Michael heard while running from the collapsing tower. 51:59 – What Roselle taught Michael about fear, trust, and moving forward. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Transcript: Michael Hingson  00:04 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and today we're doing something a little bit different. This is Friday, september 4, 20/26, and this is the first of four episodes commemorating all of the events that happened in and around September 11, 2001. As many of you know, I was in the World Trade Center working for a company. I had opened an office for them on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center, and on September 11th, I was in my office because we were going to be doing some special sales training for people, and I was there getting prepared to do all of that when the terrorists attacked the towers, and then later the Pentagon. And as you may know, a fourth aircraft was crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, because people on the aircraft took it over from the terrorists or tried to anyway, so one of the things that we thought would be helpful would be for me to give you again a taste of what I actually went through and what occurred on September 11, 2001, when we started this podcast back in August of 2021, I played a speech that talked about some of what happened to me in the World Trade Center. But today we're going to do a different speech. In April of 2024, I was invited to be a speaker at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. Now that festival is a yearly event celebrating and commemorating different events in American history. In 2024, I was invited to come and speak and talk about my experience at the World Trade Center and to help put some of that into context. I thought it would be very relevant for all of you if we played that speech for you, so that you would again get a taste of what occurred with me, why I was able to survive and escape, and a little bit about the lessons that we should learn about not only September 11th, but frankly, from my perspective, being the fact that I have been blind since I was born in 1950, I want you to learn a little bit more about blindness. So we're going to present to you now my speech delivered in April on April 27, 2024, at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. I hope that you'll enjoy it. I hope that it will teach you some things, and don't forget that we have other episodes coming up. We have another episode occurring on the eighth of September where I'm going to be interviewed by Michelle Abraham from Amplify You. Amplify You is the company that I work with to get these podcasts out twice a week, and Michelle has her own podcast, and she's going to interview me to talk about lessons we've learned, to talk a little bit about what happened on September 11th. But we won't give anything away for what's going to happen later in this series of episodes. On September 11th, I will be talking with Bob Ellis. Bob was at the Pentagon on September 11th and literally just walked out the door just before the aircraft hit the Pentagon. We're going to talk about that and again, hopefully, put some of things in perspective for you. Then on the 15th of September, I'm going to come back on episode 475 of our podcast, and talk a little bit more in detail about the lessons that I've learned, and talk about things that I hope people will take away and remember from september 11. I know many of you weren't even born when the World Trade Center terrorist attacks occurred, and so this episode 472, especially, I hope will give you a little bit better sense of what occurred, and from my perspective, why things occurred the way they did, and and how we proceed. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. Hope that you'll enjoy what it brings, and we will definitely be moving forward to talk about some other things later on. Speaker 1  04:24 There are moments in American history that changed the national conscience. Yesterday, we heard about the assassination of President Kennedy. Some of you might be old enough to remember the attack of Pearl Harbor, and for most recently in American history, of course, the terrorist attacks September 11th. Today, you're going to hear a riveting account, a a heroic story of a man whose story I believe will really pull at your heartstrings. And to moderate that panel today, or that interview, to do is conduct our interview. Today is Mary Acher, who's no stranger to this stage, good friend, presidential historian, and a great interviewer. If you'll put your hands together for Miss Mary, Speaker 2  05:11 I just am so honored to met Michael Hinkson and Alamo. You know by what you see that he came down on the 78th floor of the North Tower with his guide dog Brosel, but I have a friend named Doug Weed who always told me, "You don't brag on yourself; you get somebody else to brag on you. And I want to brag on Michael before we start this. Before I ask him to tell this story, Michael was a premature baby, and at the time when he was born, they put the babies in pre in a the premature babies in a incubator sealed with 100% oxygen, and the doctors didn't know that then, but it blinded the children, and Michael was blinded at birth. So Michael was very fortunate that he had parents that refused to allow him to even think about being disabled. They mainstreamed him before mainstreaming was even known, and they taught him to ride a bicycle. They let him drive a car, and later in his life, he actually piloted an airplane. Is that amazing? He loved mathematics. He loved physics. He was taught geometry. He solved math problems in his head. He's got a master's degree in physics and another-not a master's, but a regular in in teaching. So that is why he is such an amazing man. He's never ever let this what enough people call a disability stop him at all? As a matter of fact, he has been such an amazing gift to the unsighted community in in the Braille and things that technology that blind people can utilize to be online and be all kinds of of things that they wouldn't ever have been allowed to do even 50 years ago. So anyway, I'm just so honored to have met you, Michael. It's just been amazing. I'm going to take him to Lambert's tomorrow. He says I have to catch the rolls, or somebody else will catch them and they'll eat them and he won't get it. I promised him I'd catch the rolls. All right, my dear Michael, would you start telling us about that horrendous day? I am Michael Hingson  08:00 going to not do what I said I was gonna do. I'm gonna stand up, and I'm gonna be very interested to go to Lambert's to see what they do with me, since normally they would throw the rolls, as I understand it. And I'm gonna point out that doesn't really work. So now, what are you gonna do? Because if they all fall on the floor and the dog gets them, and the dog gets sick, you guys are in trouble. So I'll be interested to see exactly what happens. No, I'm sure it will work out. Mary, thank you for those those kind words. I'd like to start by defining a couple things to help us in all of this. Mary is absolutely right about what my parents did in their position, the doctors told my parents when it was discovered I was blind at about four months of age that I should be sent to a home because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything or contribute to society. If you think that's bad, it was worse in other parts of the world where, when children were born who were blind, were just drowned in a bucket of water. So, in a sense, it wasn't as bad. Not every child who was born premature and put in an incubator did go blind, and it's unfortunate, in a sense, that at the time that I was born. Dr. Arnold Papps at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University had discovered that, in fact, oxygen could cause blindness, and even a few minutes a day of a non-oxygen environment would drop the incidence of blindness down to zero. But medical science didn't believe him because they said, "Well, too much oxygen can't be a problem. And what Dr. Arnold Pats essentially really proved is that too much of anything can be a problem. So it is it is an issue. I finally actually some time ago got to meet Dr. Pats. Before he passed, it was it was fascinating to talk with him about that. The condition at the time when I was born was called retroenterial fibroplasia. If you want to know how to spell that, I wrote a book called Thunderdog: The Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, which we plan to have here, but the publisher messed up, so it wasn't. But you can go buy Thunderdog anywhere, and you can learn how to spell retrolateral fibroplegia. It is now called retinopathyoprematurity. I guess that's a little easier to spell. I don't know still why they changed the name, but they did. So fine, I don't care. I am blind. I don't care. Blindness isn't the problem. I've learned from my parents and growing up and being alive now for yep 74 years, blindness isn't the problem. The problem is our perception of blindness, what we believe blind people can and can't do, as opposed to what they truly can and can't do. If you want to really see a story or something about a blind person driving a car, there is a website www.blinddriverchallenge.org. Blinddriverchallenge.org. The president of the National Federation of the Blind in October of 2001 challenged private industry and universities to create a vehicle that a blind person could drive, not an autonomous vehicle, but truly a vehicle that would transmit to the blind person the information necessary for them to drive the vehicle. What you will see at blinddriverchallenge.org is a video of a gentleman named Mark Riccobono. Too many marks. Mark Riccobono driving a vehicle independently without any assistance around the Daytona Speedway, right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race, he will go through an obstacle course. He will pass boxes that are being thrown out of a van to try to block his way. He will pass the van and a number of things like that. The reality is, what is driving? It's all about you having the information necessary for you to control your vehicle, and as far as I'm concerned, given what Mark Riccobono did, and given the reality that the information is available to us, given the way most sighted drivers drive, I'll take me any day, especially where I live in Victorville. My gosh! But the the reality is, blindness isn't the problem. I grew up believing that I went to public school. I went to college. Michael Hingson  12:26 I did get a master's degree in physics. As I love to tell people, I'm as good as Doc Brown from Back to the Future in building reactors and nuclear bombs. The only difference between me and Doc Brown is I won't go steal fissionable material from some source that might come after me later. So you know, I think I was a little smarter than Doc Brown, but the fact is, again, it's not the problem. I was also the program director of the campus radio station for a while, and I worked at the campus radio station KUCI 89.9 on your FM dial for seven years. I did a show playing old radio shows every Sunday night from six to nine. Didn't even know what 60 minutes was. I heard about it, and one day finally somebody from the show or from the the Orange County Jail called and said, "We really got a situation. We want you to know about it here at the jail. People who heard about you, they've heard about 60 minutes, and on Sunday nights we have to divide the jail in half. Half of the people go up to a television room to watch 60 Minutes, and the other half, which is the bigger half, want to hear your show playing old radio shows on Sunday nights. So you know we must be doing something right. That even at the jail, they liked us. I went to work in 1976 for the National Federation of the Blind. It's the largest organization of blind consumers in the country. I was offered a position because I was in in the science world, one of the few at the time in that world. And the president of the federation, Dr. Jernigan, told me in late 74, early 75, we got a situation. There's a guy named Ray Kurzweil. You may have heard of Ray. He's a futurist. He's an inventor. He's invented the singularity. I'm not totally sure I agree with everything that Ray says. You know, Ray once said the only problem with God is we haven't invented it yet. I don't agree with that. And the other part about it is Ray says that we're really going to all become part of the world when chips are created that will allow us to directly interact with computers. Well, we'll see. I don't want to chip in my brain yet. But Ray at that time had developed a piece of technology that would actually look at a printed page. It actually had to build it up line by line, so it wasn't like snapping a picture. But it would learn to recognize all the characters on that page, no matter what their type styles or print styles were, and it would read it out loud, called the Kurzweil Reading Machine for the Blind. Just like with blindness and retro-entral fibroblasia, the government didn't believe he could do it because nobody else had been able to do it, and so they wouldn't help fund it. He came to the federation, and the federation said, "Tell you what we're going to do." Ray, I'm not sure they said it quite that way, but tell you what we're going to do, Ray. We're going to send somebody up there with a bunch of material, and if your machine reads what we bring up, not what you want to read, if it reads what we bring up, then we're going to help you get funding. And Ray, I'm sure again it wasn't quite the way he said it, but he said, "Bring it on. They did. It did, and a relationship began that exists to this day-a machine that literally would read print out loud. And Ray wanted the first application of omnivore optical character recognition to be a machine that would read print out loud for blind people. We created a project where we purchased several machines, and then for 18 months, from 1976, in October through June of 1978, I lived in suitcases or out of suitcases in hotels, traveling around the country where we put machines at places like the New York Public Library, the Iowa Commission for the Blind, the San Francisco Public Library, and some other agencies for the blind around the country. Michael Hingson  15:59 The idea being that we wanted blind people to come and use the machine, read whatever they wanted to read, and then give us information about what needed to go into a final production model of the machine. I wrote training curriculum. I wrote the the technical manuals for teaching people how to use the machine. I taught people to use it. I observed people using it. Sometimes grabbed my old soldering gun and fix things that broke on the machines. These were $50,000, 400 pound machines. They weren't little things like an app on an iPhone today, right? So anyway, we finally wrote the final recommendations, and then Ray said, "I want to hire you to come and do the same sort of thing within the company. So I went to work for Ray, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Actually, I learned I moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts, learned how to go from Winthrop to Cambridge every day, and we began a relationship. And I worked at Kurzweil Computer Products, in and that started in again October of 1978. In May of 1978, I was called into the office of the VP of Marketing, and Andrew Parson said, "We're laying you off. What? We're laying you off. Why? Oh, it's not that you're doing a bad job or anything, but unfortunately, like a lot of engineering startup companies, we've hired too many people who aren't revenue producers, and we have to have more revenue producers. And so, as important as your job is, it's not as important as making money for the company. So we have to lay you off. Then he paused and he said, "Unless you'll go into sales. Now, I'm a science guy. However, I thought about it for a micro nanosecond, and I said, "Sure, I'll go into sales. As I love to tell people, I decided I would lower my standards and go from science to sales, and did. I said I don't know anything about sales. He said we'll send you to a Dale Carnegie sales course and all that. Well, I started selling, but not the reading machine for the blind. Instead, I sold a new product they had called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, and unlike the reading machine for the blind that sold for $50,000, if you want one, we might be able to find one of the old machines for you for 49 995. Instead, I sold a new product called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, which was only $125,000. I guess they had confidence in my ability, and I was very grateful for it. The real reason that I didn't want to refuse the sales position is I knew that at that time, and it's still somewhat today, the unemployment rate among employable blind people is close to 70. That is seven 0% It's not because we can't do the work; it's because people think we won't be able to do the work and don't give us the opportunity. So the bottom line is, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales, and did that for a while. And then in 1981, while Xerox was considering and actually working toward buying the product, I was asked by Ray and the VP of Sales to move back to California, where I was from, to help integrate Kurzweil into the Xerox West Coast environment, including their research center called Palo Alto Area Research Center Park, and I did. And my thanks for that was that after the the whole sale was consummated and Xerox completely took over. I was the last salesperson in June of 1984 to receive a FedEx letter saying thank you for your service, but we don't want you anymore. Goodbye, because all Xerox wanted was the technology. They didn't want the people. Now I was confronted with the situation. How am I going to find a job? What am I going to do? 70% unemployment. and I went out and I wrote lots of cover letters, sent out lots of resumes, and I even got a headhunter who called me and said, "Love your resume. We're going to have you interview with this company up in San Jose, California. We'll send you a ticket. They sent me the ticket the night before the flight. The guy called. Back and he says, "You know, I was just looking at your resume again. I see you do a lot of things with blind people. Michael Hingson  20:04 Is there somebody in your family who's blind? You notice that? And I said, "Yeah, I'm blind. You're blind? Well, I'm going to have to call them. They're not going to want to talk to you. I said, "Nothing has changed. My resume is still the same, but you're blind. It's all changed. No, it hasn't. There were no laws to stand on. The reservation was canceled, and I didn't do the interview. Their loss. If Speaker 3  20:30 you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson  21:02 Eventually, not finding a job, I started my own company selling computer-aided design systems to architects. A blind guy selling CAD systems? Why the heck not? I didn't need to work the machine. What I needed to know was how to work the machine, so I could describe it to architects, and I could sit them down in front of a machine and talk with them and talk them through it. We also hired people to demo CAD systems, and I did that for four years. And then I went back into the workforce. And when I went back into the workforce, my wife and I were talking one day, and she said, "You know, I got this great job I just discovered in the newspaper. It's selling high-end, new, revolutionary, hot, pluggable disc technology. It's perfect for you. You should apply. And I said to my wife Karen, who I had married in 1982. By the way, Karen also had a disability. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. She reads. I push. Worked out well. I said, so do I say in my cover letter I'm blind or not? Because typically, if you say you're blind, same thing will happen with the headhunter. You won't even get a call back if you don't say you're blind. You might get a callback, but then they're going to have all their defenses go up when you show up for the interview. And she said, "You're an idiot. Wives can do that, gentlemen, and it's fine. You're an idiot. Why? What's the most important thing you always said to every salesperson you ever hired, well, I wasn't quite sure which things she was thinking of. I had several things that I always said to salespeople I hired. She said, "You always told every salesperson you ever hired turn here's the operative word perceived liabilities into assets. You ever watch those little cartoons in the newspapers and all that, where the light bulb goes on over your head. Well, that's what happened, and I went and I wrote a cover letter to send with this resume to this company. And here are the last two paragraphs of the letter. The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am blind. As a blind person, I have had to sell all my life just to be able to function and survive. I've had to sell to take my guide dog on airplanes. I didn't tell them that we had to sue one airline because they violated their own policy because they wouldn't let me go on an airplane with my guide dog. I've had to sell to convince people to let me buy a house, move into apartments, sometimes take my guide dog into grocery stores, and do anything else because I was blind, I've always had to sell. So, second paragraph: When you're hiring someone for this job, do you want to hire somebody who comes in and works for eight or 10 hours a day, and then just goes home because the job is over, or do you want to truly hire somebody who understands sales for the science and art that it is, and who sells 24 hours a day as a way of life. Sent off the letter. Waited for two weeks, wondering if I'd get a call or an email. Well, no, not an email, not back then. But in late June 19 or May 1989, I got a call. This is Doug Cooper, head of marketing for Articon. We love your letter. Would you come for an interview? And I said sure. Next day we were down there. I was hired and started on july 2, 1989. Love to start on the second of July, or actually the third of July, because then I got the next day off. It was great. So I went to work for them, and we moved from where we were living in Mission Viejo down to Vista, California. The company was in Carlsbad. I began selling to the East Coast, selling our technologies and other technologies, Sun Microsystems products, and so on. And then in 1996, the owner of the company asked me to move to New York for them because we were selling to Wall Street. Michael Hingson  24:37 Wall Street was always good at getting and demanding and getting what they demanded, and they always said, "If you are a manufacturer and you're selling products to us, we want a representative, not an agent, but we want the company in Wall Street Arena to be able to to hold responsible and deal with. So we moved to New York. And I went to work on the 23rd floor of Tower Two of the World Trade Center, and was there for about a year, and then was recruited away by another company, and it wasn't hard because Articon did not figure out how to support a branch operation. So I was recruited away, and then in 1999 I was recruited away by Quantum Corporation, and now we're getting to what Mary asked about. But I needed to give you the background. Hope it was okay. So in 1999, I was hired to open an office for Quantum Corporation on well in New York City. Quantum was a company that made products called tape libraries. They were big boxes that consisted of tape drives and lots of tape cartridges, and you would attach them to computer networks, and then you would use software like one called Veritas, which is still used today. And what you would do is you would back up all of your data over the network into these tape libraries, onto tape cartridges, and then you would take the tape cartridges out and store them off-site. Now I gotta stop and be spiteful because in New Jersey they love to say that they stored them in a town called Mountainside Under a Mountain. You ever see a mountain in northern New Jersey? I came from California where we had mountains that were eight, 910, 1000 feet tall. They didn't even have decent hills, but they still called it a mountain. That was fine, whatever. They still were able to store the tapes in safe places. But the point is that all the data was backed up off-site, which is what they needed to do. We opened the actual office on august 1, 2000. I hired a staff, and we had a staff that came in and and sold, and we also worked with resellers. And in August of 2001, our main distributor Ingram Micro said, "You know, we got a lot of resellers who are selling your products, but they don't really know how to do it. Can we hold some seminars to teach our your reseller partners, our customers, the resellers, how to sell your product? I said, "You bet. We worked it out with the folks at Quantum. David Frank, who was in charge of pricing and distribution, said he wanted to come back to be a part of the seminars, and we set up doing the seminars. The idea was that we would teach them. I would be their main point of contact since I worked and lived there. David would be the person that I or they would contact without with any pricing issues, but I would be the technical point of contact contact. Master's degree in physics helps, and so we set up the seminars. And wouldn't you know it, we set them up to be held on september 11, 2001. The evening before, or the morning of September 11th, about 12:30, Roselle, my guide dog at the time, woke me up. She was very nervous and fidgety. I knew what it was like when she was fidgety. It was usually because it was a thunderstorm. She didn't like thunder, and we went down to my office. And of course, a thunderstorm did happen, and the storm literally came right over our house. I've never been in an environment where bombs went off around me, but I got to say that in this case, the thunder claps were, as I said, literally right over us, and it had to be like what a bomb sounds like going off. Anyway, it went on till about two, and then we went back up and got a couple more hours of sleep, three more hours of sleep. I got up. We went in and got to the office at about 7:40 in the morning on September 11th. As I came to the door, somebody came up with a cart. It turns out it was a guy from the Port Authority cafeteria. Michael Hingson  28:33 We were going to be providing breakfast and snacks for the first and second seminarians. We had seminars going all day, so we went in. I showed him where I wanted to set up everything in the conference room. I went in, got my laptop computer out of my backpack briefcase. I got my PowerPoint projector, and I went into the conference room and set everything up because I was going to be doing a PowerPoint show that day to give people all the information they needed about the ATLP 3000, the ATLP 1000, and so on. Yes, blind people can do PowerPoint, folks. It's not magic. You sighted bigots. So I had a script, and my wife and I had created the script, and I'd used it many times. The script was in Braille. I knew what was on every slide. We put a couple of things in addition on the script. We put all the wording from the slides on the script, and we also put on the script descriptions of the pictures, as well as where the picture would show up on the screen. So I would, for example, when we showed this to other customers around the city, I'd blow their minds because I would be doing the presentation. My sales guys loved it when I went out and did PowerPoint presentations because I could just point over my shoulder. On the left side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 3000 with 16 cartridge, 16 drives, 326. Cartridges, and you see the label that says Prism Technology. We could hook five of them together. On the right side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 1000, which was a single unit with 30 cartridges and one tape drive. And people would come up to me afterwards, and they say, "You know, we're ticked at you. I go, "Why? Well, first of all, your presentation was not boring, which usually they are. But second of all, you never turned and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, even though you were pointing right to where everything was with your laser pointer. We didn't dare fall asleep. We forgot you were blind. And my response was, "You don't get it. My dog was down here taking notes. If you'd fallen asleep, we would have got you anyway. But that was what it was about. My responsibility was to be the leader of that office, and I had to do what anyone else would do. One of the main things that I did was spend hours, days walking around the World Trade Center, learning what the kiosks were in the shopping mall on the first floor, learning where different offices were, consulting with the Port Authority police and the fire prevention people learning what to do in case of an emergency because sometimes I might be in the office all by my little self. There would be nobody else around. I didn't want my staff in the office. I wanted them out selling and working and supporting customers. Not being in the office, of course, they did usually come in at least once a week. And and so I learned never watched The Sopranos, but I got to tell you, I learned more about the Sopranos from all the Italian Americans on my staff who talked about the Sopranos constantly. Bada bing, bada boom, and I learned a whole lot about Tony Soprano without ever watching the show. But the point is that I needed to know all that stuff. I needed to know where the restaurants were. Customers come into the office. Oh, you want to go out to lunch? What kind of food do you want? There's a great deli downstairs called Fine and Shapiro. Let me take you there. How would it have looked if I didn't know how to do that, and I had to say to someone, "You're going to have to let me take your arm and lead me there because I don't know how to get there, and two hours later we're supposed to be negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? No, I needed to know it. I didn't have the luxury, and I don't regard it as a luxury. I regard it as a disability of reading signs. I needed to know all of that stuff. What I didn't realize is that was creating a mindset in me, which I'll talk about in a moment. Michael Hingson  32:15 Anyway, got all the laptop projectors and everything set up. The only thing I knew I didn't know how to do extremely well is to get it exactly aimed right, but about 8o'clock, David Frank came in and I said, "Say, David, this is all set up, but let's aim the projector just exactly where you want it on the screen. And we did have to turn it just a little bit, but not too much. But anyway, at 845, I was in my office and David was with me. We were creating a final list of all the people who were going to be attending the seminars, because the Port Authority police, the security people, needed to know who was coming. There were two ways you could get into the building: either we faxed on letterhead a list of people who were coming on any given day, and then the people coming in would show their photo IDs, and it would be verified against the list. And if they were allowed in, then they would be given a badge that they would put over their neck, and they would carry that, and they could scan barcode and go into the appropriate elevator to come onto our floor, or they'd have to call us every time somebody came in. And I didn't want a lot of phone calls coming in, so we were faxing the list. I was reaching for Letterhead to fax to to print the list on Letterhead when suddenly I heard and felt kind of a muffled thump and a vibration. And then literally, if you any blind people in the room, well, I'll do it anyway. I'm holding up my hand, and what happened was that literally, as I'm now tipping my hand toward you, the building began to tip. We probably moved about 20 feet. The building kept tipping and tipping. David and I said together, "What's going on? I don't know. What's going on? What do you think? Was it an explosion? I said. David said, "Didn't sound like it. Is it an earthquake? David was from New York, and now he's living in California. He didn't know about earthquakes. I said, "No, the building wasn't shaking around. It was going in one direction. And finally, and I went over and I stood in the doorway between my office and the the outside lobby of our our offices, and I stood there. Roselle was asleep under my desk. David was just on the other side of my desk, holding it near our windows, looking out over Manhattan, the south side of Manhattan. And finally, David and I both said goodbye to each other because we thought we had moved so far that the building was going to take a 78 floor plunge to the street. And then the building slowed down, and it stopped, and it moved back. As soon as it got vertical, I started walking back into the office. I met Roselle coming around from under my desk. I took her leash. I said "heel, which meant to come around behind me to sit and lie down, which is what I would normally have Alamo do, but he's comfortable, so we'll just leave him there. Roselle sat down, and about that time. The building dropped straight down about six feet. Why did it drop down? Because tall buildings like that literally are springs. They're made to flex in windstorms and other things like that. An Empire, an airplane hit the Empire State Building in the 1940s because it got lost in a fog bank. Tall buildings are flexible. They have expansion joints, and when the building was hit, the expansion joints took up all of the the things that were going on. And then when the building got straight again, the expansion joints dropped back down to their normal configuration. I knew that because I had talked to people about stuff like that. I'd forgotten it until later, but I knew it. What I hadn't realized is that what was happening when I was learning so much stuff was that a mindset was being developed in me that said, "You know what to do in an emergency. And as soon as the building dropped, David turned and looked out the window and started shouting, "Oh my God, Mike! There's fire and smoke over us! There were millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the windows. Michael Hingson  35:59 We got to get out of here right now! Slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here. The building's on fire. I could hear things rushing and brushing outside our windows, and now I knew what they were. David told me millions of pieces of burning paper, right? And I didn't smell any smoke. Roselle wasn't doing anything to indicate any concern, and David kept saying, "We got to get out of here. The building's on fire. And I kept saying, "Slow down. Our guests began to scream. We had like five or six who were in our conference room. Early arrivals. They started coming out, but then they heard me say, "Slow down, stop, David. Just wait. And they waited to see what was going to happen. And finally, David used the big line: "You don't understand. You can't see Speaker 4  36:37 it. The Michael Hingson  36:38 problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing, the problem was what David wasn't seeing-a dog sitting next to me, wagging her tail, yawning, going, "Who the heck woke me up? I was comfy, not giving any indication of fear. And I eventually got David to focus, and I said, "David, get our guests to the stairs. Don't let them take the elevators, because I knew if there's fire, especially because if there's fire, the elevators could become fire traps. The fire could get into the elevator shafts, which it did, and anybody in the cars would be burned. David left with our guests, got them to the stairs. Meanwhile, I called Karen and told her that there had been an explosion or something. We had no clue. There was no way to know. I love it. Reporters, even today, and other people say, "Well, of course you didn't know you couldn't see it. Excuse me, you numbskulls. The last time I checked, Superman and X-ray vision were fiction, and the airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. No one knew. All the way down the stairs, we didn't know because no one saw it. No one knew. Anyway, I called and told Karen she wanted to know more. I said, "I don't know anything else. I've got to go because we're not staying here. We knew instantly that we had to leave, but we got our guests out. Then David came back. We swept the offices one last time. Went to the stairs and we started down. If I knew it was the last time I was going to be in the building, I would have taken a couple of things that I didn't take. Like I had a really neat talking scientific calculator that I couldn't replace. And if I had known that I wasn't coming back, I would have taken it. It would have been a little heavier, but I would have taken it anyway. We started down the stairs. There were other people, of course, on the stairs. We got down about four floors, and I was smelling an odor. I couldn't quite figure it out, and suddenly I realized I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I traveled 100,000 miles a year for my company. I knew what the odor of jet fuel was like. I knew the kerosene smell, but it took a while to associate it with the World Trade Center because no one would have ever thought you would have smelled it there. When I realized what it was, I observed to the other people around me on the stairs, "I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. And they said, "Yeah, you're right. That's what it is. We must have been hit by an airplane. You understand? Nobody knew. We must have been hit because of what we're smelling, so we all accepted that that was what was going on, but we had no clue. We continued down the stairs, about 10 floors down. At one point, a woman stopped right behind me, and she said, "I can't go on. I can't breathe. We're not going to make it out. And I stopped and turned around and said, "Sure, we are. Come on, this is my guide dog Roselle. He's guiding me, and and she'll encourage you. Roselle gave her kisses, and this lady gave Roselle a few pets, and so on. And other people surrounded her, and we had a group hug, and the lady was able to keep going. A few burn victims passed us on the stairs as we went down. At about the 50th floor, David, who had gotten a little quiet. Suddenly said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. Now you heard that I have a teaching credential. What you don't know, and teachers won't generally acknowledge it, but I'm going to tell you anyway. There's a secret class we take called Voice 101: How to Yell at Students. Didn't know that, did you? And anyway, as soon as David. Said Mike, "We're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. I just said as sharply and with a snap into my voice that I could, "Stop it, David! If Rosella and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And David told me later that that brought him out of his funk. Michael Hingson  40:12 What he then said is, "I got to keep my mind off this. I want to walk a floor below you and shout up to you what I see on the stairs. Is that okay? And I said, sure. Did I really need him to do that? No. Did it matter? No, but it did to David. However, what I came to realize over time was, David doing that was one of the most important things that I experienced on that day. So I'm going down the stairs. I get to floor 49. David, I'm on the 48th floor. All's clear here, Mike. Going on down. I get to 48 floor, 47. We keep going down. Finally, I get to the 45th floor, David. I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is. Not stopping. So David was obviously doing better, and he kept going down. Why do I say what I did about David and doing that? Because David became a focal point for anyone within the sound of his voice who could hear him say, "43rd floor, all's clear, everything is good. He had to have helped 1000s of people stay focused and not panic going down the stairs, and I think that was so cool that he did that all the way down 42nd floor, all good. We kept going down the stairs. We met firefighters on the 30th floor. They wanted to escort me down, and I finally convinced them that I was capable of going down without them. And I did it by playing the sight card. I said, "Look, my friend David is here. He can see we're good, and the firefighters let us go. I didn't want them to escort me. First of all, they don't know how to work with a blind guy and do sighted guide. But second of all, I didn't want to break up their team because I knew that each of those people were carrying the equipment that they had to use to fight the fire. You couldn't store it somewhere. Where would you store it? Oh, the 34th floor. And what happens if a fire broke out on the 33rd floor, you couldn't get to it. You had to carry the equipment, so we kept going down the stairs. Finally, got to the first floor. David got there, and I was at floor two. And he said, "Hey, there are water sprinklers running. You're going to have to run through a waterfall or a down torrent of water to get out of the stairwell. Why was there all that water? Because it wanted to keep fire either in or out of the stairs, if fire was around. David ran through. Then I got to the bottom. Roselle stood there, and I picked up her harness and said, "Rosel, forward, hop up, which is a command to speed up. We went through this torrential downpour. It was a waterfall, and we came out the other side, soaking. David was there, and there were voices. Hey, don't go outside! No, no, don't go that way. Go this way. A PA system, a guy on a bullhorn. No, no, no! Don't go outside. Don't go to the outside. Go this way. What we didn't know is, if they had let people go out, they might have been right below where people were jumping. And so that was one of the reasons they didn't want anyone out. They wanted people to go through the complex and get out at the far side, as far away from where everything was occurring that they could. This guy comes up to us and he goes, "I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And of course, I'm sitting there with my warped sense of humor, going, "I'm sorry, I only talked to McGarrett, and I didn't do it. I'm innocent. I just thought that I didn't say any of it out loud. Anyway, he got us through out to the outside of Tower One. We passed now the empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream kiosk that was there. Darn didn't get a chance for a scoop. Kept going. Finally, went up an escalator and got outside into the sunshine outside of Tower. Well, of the whole complex, as far away from the towers as we could be, we got outside. Michael Hingson  43:44 We were told to leave the area, but David looked around and he said, "Mike, I see fire in Tower Two. And I said, "What are you talking about? There's fire in Tower Two, really? What's that all about? We didn't feel a thing going down. We were in our own little cocoon, our own little cave. We had no clue. Anyway, we were told to leave, so we went to Broadway. We walked across the plaza to Broadway, turn left, going now north on Broadway. There was a building on my left. Broadway was on my right. We crossed several streets, crossed Fulton Street, finally got to Vetsy Street. David said, "I want to stop because I can see the fire in Tower Two really clearly from here, I want to take some pictures, and I said, "Great, I'll try to call my wife. I got out my phone. David was taking pictures, which I have today. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through. Later, of course, we learned that people were saying goodbye to loved ones, and that was why the circuits were busy. I had just put my phone away, and a police officer, and while David was putting his camera away, and a police officer yelled out of here! It's coming down now. We heard this rumble that became this deafening roar. I describe it as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass breaking and tinkling, and metal crashing down, and then this white noise sound as Tower Two, 100 yards away from. Pancake down. Everyone turned and ran. David ran. He was gone. I literally lifted Roselle by the harness, turned her 180 degrees, and started running back the way we came. And the first thing I remember saying in my mind was, "God, I cannot believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard in my head as clearly as you hear me now, a voice that said, "Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. Who is God? Absolutely no question. Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And so I also had this incredible sense of peace and calm that came over me. That said, you're okay if you work together. We kept running. We got back to Fulton Street, turned right on Fulton Street, and ran about 25 yards. And suddenly we caught up to David, who had apparently gone the same way. And David suddenly realized that he had left us behind and he was going to come back, but we caught up to him first, and he apologized. I said, "David, don't worry about it. Let's just keep going. The building's coming down, you know. And we both just started to run with Roselle, and suddenly we were engulfed in all the dirt and debris and the dust cloud from Tower Two. It was so thick that David said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face, and all I can tell you is that every breath I took, I felt dirt and debris and junk going down my throat into my stomach, and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle, "Go right, right. There was a building on our right side, and I wanted her to find the nearest opening if she could even hear me, see my hand signals, or whatever. And I was also listening for openings. Yes, I can hear when I pass an opening, and I and I can tell it's there and deal with it accordingly. Like during a time when you're running away from a collapsing building, run into it. Suddenly, I heard an opening on the right, and Roselle must have known what I wanted. She must have been able to see my hand signals or something because she turned right, she took one step, she stopped, and she would not move. Come on, Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle. Nope, wouldn't do it. And I realized, focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. So I stuck out a foot. Michael Hingson  47:13 I trailed a hand along a wall, and realized that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. Roselle had done exactly what she was supposed to do, and I knew what I was supposed to do if I wanted to get her to move. But before I did that, I gave her a big hug, good girl, and then I said, "Roselle, forward! That's the command. And we went down the stairs into an arcade area that was the entrance to the Fulton Street subway station. There were a few other people down there. Then a guy came up from the subway system and saw about eight or nine of us there. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system, and he took us down to an employee locker room where we could sit down and and kind of hack and cough and get the dust out of our lungs. There was a water fountain and there were fans. We were there about 10 minutes. Then a police officer came, and he said, "You got to get out of here right now. The air's clear up above. You can't stay here. And so we followed him. Of course, he probably had already been told that Tower One was going to collapse. the The officials knew that each building was going to collapse probably about a half hour before it actually did. At least that was their presumption, and that's what I've been told. Anyway, we followed him back up the stairs, through the arcade, up the last two flights of stairs. We got outside. David looked around and he goes, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no Tower Two anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "All I see are pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. We stood there for a moment, and then we just turned, and we kept walking. Now west on Fulton Street, we walked about 10 minutes, and we were in this little plaza area when we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it must be our tower collapsing. We saw a little retaining wall David did, and we got behind it and ducked down, and we waited until everything stopped, and then we stood back up. And David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no World Trade Center anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "I just see fingers of fire and flame, hundreds of feet tall. We see, I see pillars of smoke. It's gone. Are you sure? Yeah, it's gone. It's not there. We stood there a moment, then I tried to call my wife Karen again. That was kind of my first thought. I need to tell her we're okay. This time I did get through because clearly the circuits were were free. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she is the one who told us how two aircraft had deliberately been hijacked and crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth at that time was still missing over Pennsylvania. Who would have thought? We spent the rest of that day getting up toward Midtown Manhattan, and eventually I got to Penn Station, learned that the trains were running, and went back. Out to New Jersey, David wanted to go back up to be with his sister, who he who he was staying with. She lived on the Upper East Side, so I got on trains and I went back over toward New Jersey. I called Karen and told her what was going on, and a friend of ours, a friend that Karen had known since high school out in California, Tom Painter, was also living in New Jersey, he had come down to be with her, not even knowing at the time whether I was in the World Trade Center or working from home that day or whatever. But he drove her to the station in our accessible van, and as I came off the train, I heard the van show up. I went downstairs, climbed and went up the ramp into the van, and got to hug Karen about 7o'clock that night, for the first time since leaving home, we got home. Tom drove us home. We all went inside. I was going to take Roselle outside because she hadn't been out since like five that morning. Michael Hingson  50:53 Well, I take that back about six that morning, and I took her harness off. But before I could do anything else, she was off like a shot. She went to her toy box, found her favorite tug bone, and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linny. Why? Because it was over for her. And I talked to the guide dog people later, and I said, "Will any of this affect her? And they said, "Was she threatened? Did anything hit her or injure her in any way, and I said no. They said then no. It was over for her because dogs don't do what if. It was over. It was done. She was fine. Lesson to be learned. Lesson you will learn more about if you buy our new book, Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Guide his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity, and walking in faith. That that book is available for pre-order, and I've been signing bookmarks all day. I still even have a few with me. But the point is, you can pre-order it, and and it's about something that I learned later. I thought about during the pandemic. I've talked a lot about escaping and not being afraid because I developed a mindset that said you know what to do, but what I've not done is to teach others how they can learn to recognize that fear is not something that needs to blind or overwhelm you. You can use fear as a very powerful tool to guide you and steer you in the right direction if you know how to control it, and live like a guide dog is all about that. So I hope that you'll all get that when it comes out in August. But again, you can pre-order it now if you go to michaelhinkston.com. There's a link there where you can go to a web page to get information and to go to a link where you can pre-order it. And like I said, I have some bookmarked with a QR code on it, and and I'm and I yes I am plugging the book, but I'm also saying, look, folks, the bottom line is we operate in so many ways with misconceptions about things. I've talked about blindness. Anybody could have been in the World Trade Center, and and a lot of people were. The reality is, though, if you learn what to do and how to prepare for situations in general, when it becomes something specific, you'll know what to do. People have asked a number of times, "Well, wasn't your guide dog trained to operate in an emergency like the World Trade Center? How are we going to do that? No, the dog isn't trained to do that. The guide dog's job is not to lead. Guide dogs do not lead blind people. Guide dogs' jobs are to make sure that we walk safe. It's my job to know where to go and how to get there to give the dog direction. The dog depends and relies on me to give it direction. The dog's job, as I said, is to make sure we walk safely. It's a team effort. We each have a job to do, and we develop a trusting relationship when we learn to trust each other and respect the job the other member of the team is doing, which is what it's all about. Which is what happens on any team, trust is all around us. Trust is under attack in so many ways from our politicians, and in so many ways. But the reality is, trust is all around us. I think we all trust that the roof isn't going to fall in on the church. I think that we trust that the PA system is going to continue to work, and so on. Trust is all around us. The difference between dogs and people is that dogs, while they do love unconditionally, do not trust unconditionally. But dogs are open to trust unless some incredibly traumatic thing has happened to them where they lose that ability. But dogs are open to trust, dogs want humans to give them direction to establish rules, and all too often with our pets and so on, we don't do that. We don't really develop the relationship that we should and can with them. Michael Hingson  54:54 If we would, we would have so much stronger bond and relationships with them. It would be. Amazing for for all of us, but the bottom line is that's the relationship that I get with each guide dog. That's the relationship I have with Alamo. He trusts that I am going to feed him before too awfully long. He trusts that you guys are going to buy books, so he'll have kibbles for me to feed him. Just saying, but but seriously, the the trust has to be earned with a dog or with people or whatever, and if you find that you you discover you can't trust someone, don't wish them ill will, forgive them and move on. So you don't trust them, but you know what you have, and you go off and make new friends and learn other trusting relationships that you can develop. Focus on running with Roselle; the rest will take care of itself. The reality is, we worry so much about so many things. We are always doing what if we create most of the fears that we face in our lives, and we Don't need to do that. If we would focus on just the things that we have some control over and leave the rest alone, well, we might want to be aware of them, but we don't have to worry about them. We don't have control over them. Trust and deal with the things that you have to deal with, and let the rest take care of itself. And that was what I learned on September 11th, listening to the voice of God, absolutely, and that is something that I pass on to all of you, and I think that's the most important thing that I can leave you with. Hi again, everyone. This is Mike Hingson. I hope that you found that speech to be helpful and relevant and interesting. I hope that you learn some things from it. From a personal standpoint, I hope that you learn that blindness isn't really the big problem that I face. The challenge that I face really comes from the fact that people who have eyesight tend to believe that blind people are not capable of doing much because they can't see. Wrong thing to believe. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because we did it during the speech, but I just wanted to thank you for being here today, for listening and watching this episode. I hope that you will also tune in for our episode on Tuesday, where I'm in conversation with Michelle Abraham on next Friday, the 11th of September, that you will tune in to hear the conversation with Bob Ellis, and then episode 475, which will occur on the 15th of September, where we will talk about lessons to be learned and and give you some things to hopefully take away that maybe you haven't thought about. Thanks very much for being here with us. I really very much appreciate all of your support. If any of you have any questions or want to reach out to me, you are welcome to do so. Please feel free to email me at speaker@michaelhinkson.com. That's s p e a k e r at m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com speaker@michaelhingson.com hope to hear from you and as you gather I do speak I continue to speak publicly I've been a keynote speaker since September 11 if anybody knows of anyone that needs a keynote speaker or you can use us in events that you have please reach out to me at speaker@michaelhingson.com let's talk about it. Let's see how we can help. I'm always looking for ways to inspire, but also to teach and help. And I'd like to be part of your world in that regard. Thanks again for being here. Thanks for listening, and come back next time for another episode of Unstoppable Mindset.

Downtown Brooklyn has a history that is often overlooked by New Yorkers. You'd be forgiven if you thought Brooklyn's civic center — with a bustling shopping district and even an industrial tech campus — seemed to lack significant remnants of Brooklyn's past; many areas have been radically altered and hundreds of old structures have been cleared over the decades. But, in fact, Downtown Brooklyn is one of the few areas to still hold evidence of the borough's glorious past — its days as an independent city and one of the largest urban centers in 19th century America. Around Brooklyn City Hall (now Borough Hall) swirled all aspects of Brooklyn's Gilded Age society. With the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and a network of elevated railroad lines, Downtown Brooklyn became a major destination with premier department stores on Fulton Street, entertainment venues like the Brooklyn Academy of Music and exclusive restaurants like Gage & Tollners. The 20th century brought a new designation for Brooklyn — a borough of Greater New York — and a series of major developments that attempted to modernize the district — from the creation of Cadman Plaza to New York's very own ‘tech hub'. In 2004 a major zoning change brought a new addition to the multi-purpose neighborhood — high-end residential towers. Today these streets are darkened with the shadows of the borough's tallest buildings -- including the very tallest Brooklyn Tower. What will the future hold for the original heart of the City of Brooklyn? How do vibrant New York City neighborhoods react to major changes to city life while retaining their historic character? For the next three weeks, we will present three neighborhood-history shows from the Bowery Boys podcast in a new light, exploring how these historic areas survive sudden changes in economic growth, housing needs and tourism. See last week's show on SoHo for the first part in this series. This episode was remastered by Kieran Gannon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Fulton Street Market has been a Grand Rapids gathering place for more than a century, connecting the community with local farmers, growers, food producers, artisans, and small businesses. On this episode of WYCE's Community Closeup, Phil Tower welcomes Dana Eardley, Executive Director, and Anissa Mathiasz, Marketing & Communications Coordinator with Fulton Street Market, for a conversation about the Market's mission, its year-round presence in the community, and the importance of supporting local agriculture and small businesses.Dana and Anissa also preview a busy lineup of fall events, including the Market's biggest annual fundraiser, A Night at the Market on September 17, along with ART! at the Market on September 13 and October 11 and the Fall Rummage Sale on September 27. They also discuss what's ahead as Fulton Street Market moves into the fall and winter seasons and why there's always a reason to visit this historic Grand Rapids destination.Learn more, plan a visit, explore upcoming events, and find information about A Night at the Market on September 17.

For the full, ad-free, 33-minute podcast, either subscribe to Discograffiti's Patreon at the Major Tier or higher, or just grab the episode as a one-off at the same link: https://www.patreon.com/discograffiti Purchase the 32-episode Jefferson Airplane series at a 33% discount (hear as they appear): https://www.patreon.com/collection/2123066   New to the show? Start at Jefferson Airplane Part 1. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/discograffiti/id1592182331?i=1000765230378 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5l7O6r4JMTfH7FsGT3EXj3?si=AE4HUYPKSs2Ymc1I8TdSKQ The Full Version: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-episode-1-1-156815363   Discograffiti is the deep-dive podcast for music obsessives. Feed Your Head: The Great Jefferson Airplane Deep Dive is an audio documentary that was consciously crafted to act as the ultimate repository of fact and opinion on one of the greatest bands to ever walk the face of the earth. It includes long-form interviews, commentary on their history, wild stories, and star ratings for every release.  Part 14 of the series covers the one year period from November 1967 to October 1968—that is, from the release of After Bathing At Baxter's to the recording of Crown Of Creation—in the style of an audiobook.  Here are just a few of the many things discussed in this episode of Discograffiti: How Rolling Stone's birth wound up impacting Jefferson Airplane's career; The reviews pour in for After Bathing At Baxter's; The death of the Haight Street hippie; The Grace Slick solo career of the Sixties that never was; Their third—and final—manager enters the scene; The Airplane gets into the ballroom business; The band get their own very unique headquarters at 2400 Fulton Street; And Grace sings in blackface on The Smothers Brothers Show. CONNECT Join our Soldiers of Sound Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1839109176272153 Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/discograffiti Podfollow: ⁠⁠https://podfollow.com/1592182331⁠⁠ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClyaQCdvDelj5EiKj6IRLhw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/discograffitipod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Discograffiti/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Discograffiti Order the Digital version of the METAL MACHINE MUZAK 2xLP (feat. Lou Barlow, Cory Hanson, Mark Robinson, & W. Cullen Hart): https://www.patreon.com/discograffiti/shop/197404 Order the $11 Digital version of the MMM 2xLP on Bandcamp: https://discograffiti.bandcamp.com/album/metal-machine-muzak Order the METAL MACHINE MUZAK Double Vinyl + Digital package: https://www.patreon.com/discograffiti/shop/169954 Merch Shop: https://discograffitipod.myspreadshop.com/all Venmo Dave A Tip: @David-Gebroe Web site: http://discograffiti.com/   CONTACT DAVE Email: dave@discograffiti.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hooligandave Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/davidgebroe/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaveGebroe There is no other Patreon in existence where you get more for your money. 4 shows a week is what it takes these days to successfully blot out our unacceptable reality…so do yourself a favor and give it a shot for at least one month to see what I'm talking about.   If you're already a member, please comment below about your experience.   https://www.patreon.com/discograffiti

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The month of October 2025 marks the 200th Anniversary of the first presentation of paintings of the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains by Thomas Cole (1801-1848) – a presentation that changed the course of American art. The display of three paintings took place from October 26 to November 4,1825, in New York City – in the windows of Colman's bookstore on Broadway near Fulton Street in Manhattan.

As we witness a growing hunger for spiritual truth in our culture, we have to ask—are we on the edge of another Jesus Revolution? Pastor Greg Laurie shares why he believes we just might be. Notes: Focus verse - Nehemiah 9 Could this be the start of another spiritual awakening? The objective of proclamation evangelism is to clearly preach the gospel and invite people to Christ. Isaiah 43:19 (KJV) Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? Acts 2:17 (NLT) 'In the last days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.’ Psalm 85:6 (NLT)Won't you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? Younger men are more likely to become Christians than younger women. Is this another national spiritual awakening? I hope and pray it is. Gen Z has the highest suicide rate of any generation. Teens regularly use AI companions instead of human interaction. The only hope for this generation is Jesus and, for that matter, any generation. #1 In the US we have had four great spiritual awakenings.The first one happened in America before we were a nation in 1740. George Whitfield’s preaching drew massive crowds. The first Great Awakening didn’t just change hearts, it helped shape the moral DNA of the United States. America is exceptional. America is unique.America has been established by God. George Washington was quick to give credit to God for his success on the battlefield. #2 The second Great Awakening occurred during 1790s to 1840s and was led by many, including Charles Finney. #3 The third Great Awakening in America was from about 1857–1859.This revival began when a 48-year-old businessman namedJeremiah Lanphier began a prayer meeting on Fulton Street in New York City. “Revival is the rekindling of a flame, and when the fire is lit,it doesn’t just warm the church—it lights up the world!” —David Jeremiah #4 The fourth Great Awakening was the Jesus Movement. #1 Revival is coming back to life. Revival is refreshment; it’s restoration; it’s returning to original condition. Psalm 80:19 (ESV) Restore us, O LORD God! Let your face shine, that we may be saved! A revival is when God’s people come back to life again. A spiritual awakening is what America needs. Revival is what the church needs. Revelation 2:4–5 (NKJV) "…you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works,” #2 Revival is waking from sleep. It’s turning from sin. God’s prescription for revival or restoration is in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Read Nehemiah 9:1–4 (NLT) #3 If we want to see revival, we must pray with passion. Matthew 15:22 (NLT)"Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is possessed by a demon…" We need to pray like early church prayed for Peter to be delivered from prison.Acts 12:5 Fervent means displaying passionate intensity. #4 If you want to see revival, you must confess your sins. We all have sins to confess each and every day. 1 John 1:8 (NKJV) If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. A sin of commission is doing what you should not do.A sin of omission is not doing what you should do.James 4:17 #5 They separated themselves from ungodly influences. #6 They heard God’s word, and they acted on it. The Bible is our model for how we ought to think and to live. John 15:14 (KJV)You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. God told Joshua the secret to success.Joshua 1:7 (NLT) #7 Revival always leads to evangelism. The evidence of revival is a changed community. Acts 2:41 (NIV) Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. John 4:35 (NIV)“I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” New believers need older believers to stabilize them.Older believers need new believers to energize them. --- Learn more about Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries at harvest.org. This podcast is supported by the generosity of our Harvest Partners. Support the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we witness a growing hunger for spiritual truth in our culture, we have to ask—are we on the edge of another Jesus Revolution? Pastor Greg Laurie shares why he believes we just might be. Notes: Focus verse - Nehemiah 9 Could this be the start of another spiritual awakening? The objective of proclamation evangelism is to clearly preach the gospel and invite people to Christ. Isaiah 43:19 (KJV) Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? Acts 2:17 (NLT) 'In the last days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.’ Psalm 85:6 (NLT)Won't you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? Younger men are more likely to become Christians than younger women. Is this another national spiritual awakening? I hope and pray it is. Gen Z has the highest suicide rate of any generation. Teens regularly use AI companions instead of human interaction. The only hope for this generation is Jesus and, for that matter, any generation. #1 In the US we have had four great spiritual awakenings.The first one happened in America before we were a nation in 1740. George Whitfield’s preaching drew massive crowds. The first Great Awakening didn’t just change hearts, it helped shape the moral DNA of the United States. America is exceptional. America is unique.America has been established by God. George Washington was quick to give credit to God for his success on the battlefield. #2 The second Great Awakening occurred during 1790s to 1840s and was led by many, including Charles Finney. #3 The third Great Awakening in America was from about 1857–1859.This revival began when a 48-year-old businessman namedJeremiah Lanphier began a prayer meeting on Fulton Street in New York City. “Revival is the rekindling of a flame, and when the fire is lit,it doesn’t just warm the church—it lights up the world!” —David Jeremiah #4 The fourth Great Awakening was the Jesus Movement. #1 Revival is coming back to life. Revival is refreshment; it’s restoration; it’s returning to original condition. Psalm 80:19 (ESV) Restore us, O LORD God! Let your face shine, that we may be saved! A revival is when God’s people come back to life again. A spiritual awakening is what America needs. Revival is what the church needs. Revelation 2:4–5 (NKJV) "…you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works,” #2 Revival is waking from sleep. It’s turning from sin. God’s prescription for revival or restoration is in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Read Nehemiah 9:1–4 (NLT) #3 If we want to see revival, we must pray with passion. Matthew 15:22 (NLT)"Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is possessed by a demon…" We need to pray like early church prayed for Peter to be delivered from prison.Acts 12:5 Fervent means displaying passionate intensity. #4 If you want to see revival, you must confess your sins. We all have sins to confess each and every day. 1 John 1:8 (NKJV) If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. A sin of commission is doing what you should not do.A sin of omission is not doing what you should do.James 4:17 #5 They separated themselves from ungodly influences. #6 They heard God’s word, and they acted on it. The Bible is our model for how we ought to think and to live. John 15:14 (KJV)You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. God told Joshua the secret to success.Joshua 1:7 (NLT) #7 Revival always leads to evangelism. The evidence of revival is a changed community. Acts 2:41 (NIV) Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. John 4:35 (NIV)“I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” New believers need older believers to stabilize them.Older believers need new believers to energize them. --- Learn more about Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries at harvest.org. This podcast is supported by the generosity of our Harvest Partners. Support the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's episode, WYCE station manager Phil Tower welcomes Dana Eardley, executive director of Fulton Street Market, and Anissa Mathiasz, assistant market manager at the Fulton Street Market.Fulton Street Market celebrates the power of community and grassroots activism. Established in 1922, Fulton Street Market has been a staple of Grand Rapids and beyond, evolving to meet the changing needs of our diverse population. Dana Eardley talked about how Fulton Street Market has been working hard to create a vibrant marketplace experience that connects communities, supports local farmers and artisans, celebrates diverse cultures, and ensures sustainable food access for all. We also learned that their mission is to inspire agricultural participation in Grand Rapids by tending to meaningful connections and experiences at the Market. Other topics that Dana and Anissa touched on in this episode included:How the Fulton Street Market is working to achieve its mission of increasing food access in our community.Workshops and other learning opportunities that happen at the market.How the market is evolving to meet the needs of our growing and diverse West Michigan community.  Learn more online: Fulton Street Market

Join Nicole and Drew as they uncover the fascinating history of 2400 Fulton Street, the legendary Jefferson Airplane house.

Born of psychedelia (when "it" was still good) and the S.F. scene of the mid-1960s, the Imbalanced Boys dig into the formation and early ways of this R&RHOF (class of 1996) band this week! 2400 Fulton Street, their mansion's address, was Golden Gate Park-adjacent, and a short walk to the Grateful Dead's house "in the Haight." In the early daze of the scene, things were "still coming together." Later, Marty, Grace, Jorma, Paul, Jack & Spencer would rock the universe! In that atmosphere Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane formed and took flight. Prime flying time, festival glory, plus years of commercial success can't prevent major changes, as the story unfolds. Catch the tale in this week's episode, plus some really groooovy tunes! All of our episodes are available where you get podcasts AND on our web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born of psychedelia (when "it" was still good) and the S.F. scene of the mid-1960s, the Imbalanced Boys dig into the formation and early ways of this R&RHOF (class of 1996) band this week! 2400 Fulton Street, their mansion's address, was Golden Gate Park-adjacent, and a short walk to the Grateful Dead's house "in the Haight." In the early daze of the scene, things were "still coming together." Later, Marty, Grace, Jorma, Paul, Jack & Spencer would rock the universe! In that atmosphere Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane formed and took flight. Prime flying time, festival glory, plus years of commercial success can't prevent major changes, as the story unfolds. Catch the tale in this week's episode, plus some really groooovy tunes! All of our episodes are available where you get podcasts AND on our web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias is proposing shifting Arthop from a once-a-month event to biweekly, and also considering allowing vendors to buy permits for $14 a day and even potentially closing down Fulton Street for the event and vendors are not happy.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias is proposing shifting Arthop from a once-a-month event to biweekly, and also considering allowing vendors to buy permits for $14 a day and even potentially closing down Fulton Street for the event and vendors are not happy.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The year was 1858. Many had forsaken God to seek gold in California. New York City was going through economic hard times; 30,000 men were unemployed and idle. Churches were leaving Manhattan for the more affluent suburbs. It was in this desert that Jerimiah Lanphier began to seek for people to come to pray. Listen to this week's podcast, which explores the story of one of the great revivals in American history, now known as the Fulton Street revival, which brought tens of thousands of people to a time of prayer and repentance.

In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Niobe Way about her new book, Rebels with a Cause, which expands on her earlier work about boys and friendships. Niobe explores "boy culture," a term she uses to describe the privileging of stereotypically masculine qualities over feminine ones. As she discusses, this creates a crisis of connection for everyone, not just boys and men. Niobe further emphasizes that "hard" and "soft" skills are equally important for being a full human, and should stop being gendered. She also discusses how this cultural imbalance regarding skills affects parenting, research, and societal issues. She encourages parents to foster emotional sensitivity and perspective-taking in their children and to model self-reflection and curiosity. Additionally, Niobe emphasizes the importance of prioritizing relationships and listening to others.  Please join Dr. Way for her book launch of Rebels with a Cause on July 9th at McNally Jackson, Seaport, 4 Fulton Street, New York, NY at 6:30pm.  RSVP

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Imagine being a nobody but with tons of faith and a burden to reach your fellow man for Christ. In this episode, Tracie is joined by Abigail Medford, and they discuss Jeremiah Lanphier, the man who started the greatest homegrown prayer revival of the 1800s. His great faith and overwhelming burden led him to start what would become the famous Fulton Street Prayer Meeting that spread like wildfire across the United States and beyond, changing hearts and seeing perhaps millions come to Christ in a few short years! Please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing this podcast in your podcasting app! If you know of someone who can be helped by listening to the Abundant Living Podcast, please share this podcast with them. We love hearing from our listeners, whether through comments on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠our Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or messaging us on our website, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠christianladiesfellowship.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You may also apply to be a part of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠our private Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, but be sure to answer all the questions and agree to the group rules when you click to join. You can also email Tracie directly at tburns@immanueljax.org. Thank you for being part of this uplifting and encouraging community of ladies who want to live abundantly for the Lord!

On Today's EpisodeHow to Get the Perfect Paint Match [00:00 - 09:41]RepcoLite specializes in matching paints and stains (and more!) but not everyone is aware of that. So we're letting you know because color matches can be life-savers! Maybe you need to repair some damage on a wall, or maybe you need to replace a piece of trim. A color match can make those repairs flawless. But to get the best results, there are some things you can do to help!THE TARGET MATTERS!If you're matching paint on your wall or trim, bring us a sample of the actual paint on the surface. So, bring in a piece of the trim if you can. If the color you need matched is on the wall, cut out a piece of the face paper from the drywall. Be careful--you'll need to patch it later--but grab one from an area that's been exposed to the light. Don't grab one from a closet because it might not match. Just try to find one from an out of the way spot to make your patch easier!If you're matching wallpaper, wait until you've got your actual wallpaper in hand! Don't match from a book or from a sample.If you're matching to an old gallon of paint, don't bring us just a cutting from the label or the paint formula. Instead, bring the whole can with you! If there's wet paint in there, we can make any number of samples!Finally, bring as much as you can--don't be embarrassed. Bring your comforters, your pillows, your couch cushions!LET 'EM COOKMy kids use that phrase to let me know that I need to be patient--I need to let them have time to plan, to think, to work. Same is true with color matches! Sometimes we can crank them out quickly. Other times, it takes some time to dial it in. So, drop off your match and then run some errands! In a couple hours, we should have it ready for you!CALL AHEAD WITH QUESTIONSLast bit of advice: call ahead and tell us what you're working on. We'll tell you what you should bring us for the best results!Timeless Design: Morris & Co. Wallpaper [09:41 - 18:59]Wallpaper is something we talk about a lot. And in the recent past, we've talked about contemporary designs. We've wanted to focus on how wallpaper is current and trendy and definitely something to check out. But we haven't focused on another superpower of wallpaper: to connect us with history and tradition!Morris and Co. Wallpaper draws its inspiration from designs from over 100 years ago. And it's still available for purchase today. In this segment, we talk about William Morris, the founder.Also, as we mentioned, RepcoLite is one of only 2 places in Michigan where you can order Morris & Co. wallpaper! We've got their books in our Fulton Street store in Grand Rapids, and our Lakewood Blvd. location in Holland. The 2024 Last Minute Gift Guide [18:59 - 39:21]The RepcoLite Home Improvement Show Gift Guide is an annual classic. This year, here's our list of gifts to consider:BOY and GOING SOLO by Roald DahlChildren's author, Roald Dahl, wrote his autobiography in two different volumes: Boy, and Going Solo. These books are not your average, boring, dry, autobiography. They are short stories of events from Dahl's childhood (Boy) and his time in the RAF in the war (Going Solo). The stories are beautiful, funny, sad, and profound. They are amazing books and can be shared with anybody--you don't need to be a Roald Dahl fan to enjoy them! Find both of them in one volume, right here.TREERUNNER ADVENTURE PARKLooking for some fun on a zip line? Want to run an obstacle course as a team-building exercise or...

In this weeks episode, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. We first talked about the Title Pending merch event that echoed through Fulton Street. We then continue with the podcast by talking about the renovated Hotel Fresno, which is looking for tenants. We talk local sports as Fresno State starts their Mountain West Conference schedule vs. Nevada at Valley Children's Stadium. We conclude talking MLB playoffs, NFL power rankings, and the NBA trade that has my head scratching. Be sure to support all your local businesses, artists, and podcasts. Have a blazing week! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theblazepodcast/message

On this Behind the Mitten podcast, co-hosts Amy Sherman and John Gonzalez interview teachers and students who participated in Consumers Energy's 2023 SmartArt Competition with Grand Rapids Public Schools and ArtPrize.On Sunday (Sept. 17), students were recognized for their clean energy-themed artwork in a ceremony presented by Consumers, GRPS and ArtPrize.GRPS student Joshua Kortenhoven won the 2023 SmartArt competition with artwork titled “Green Shoes.” He received a $2,000 college scholarship from Consumers Energy. He is a 10th graders at City High Middle School.The Peoples Choice winner was Mathew Pierce, a junior at Ottawa Hills High School. His work was titled "Striped Hyena."On this podcast Gonzo and Amy interview:Art teacher Marci Hanley of University Preparatory Academy, who had two students who made the Top 20. She explains the SmartArt competition.Winner Joshua Kortenhoven joins in next to talk about his winning artwork.Art teacher Teagan Burns of Museum High School, whose student Mathew Pierce was the People's Choice winner, talks about how important it is for students to be validated.And Josiah Willink (who finished #4 in the competition), a senior at City High Middle School, who is considering art education as a major. He explains in detail his work titled "Sunclimbers."Artwork from the finalists included mixed media, oil painting, ceramic, yarn, digital, ink, plastic, and more. They were selected from 41 entries.The 20 finalists, along with their artwork title, grade, and high school are, in alphabetical order:Quinlyn Angstman, Connected, 9th, Museum HSZy'Aira Blackmon, If I Could Wear It On My Shell, 9th, Innovation CentralAlice Cork, A Better Future, 10th, City HMSImoni Curry, Healing, 9th, U-PrepYoselin Diaz-Deleon, Imagine, 11th, C.A. FrostJacey Doyle, Reusable Energy, 11th, Museum HSAmelia Ferenczi, Military vs. Future, 9th, UnionChloe Gust, Reaching for the Sun, 10th, C.A. FrostA'Nyah Harris, Just Another Rainforest of the Sea, 9th, Museum HSCarneiscia Harris, Power Cleaner Greener World, 11th, Innovation CentralPrecious Herrera, Una Hermosa Bendicion, 11th, Southwest MHSEmma Hoogewind, Stories, 9th, C.A. FrostClara Kirkbride, Whales, 9th, C.A. FrostJoshua Kortenhoven, Green Shoes, 9th, City HMSMathew Pierce, Striped Hyena, 10th, Ottawa Hills HSAzaria Powell, Mother Earth, 9th, U-PrepEliot Redwine, Biomass, 11th, City HMSRachel Sackett, The Veil, 11th, City HMSConnor Thompson, Economic Greed, 9th, Museum HSJosiah Willink, Sunclimbers, 11th, City HMSThe winner's artwork, along with the art from Top 10 finalists, is on display during ArtPrize ona large banner hanging outside the Consumers Energy electric substation downtown at Fulton Street and Market Avenue. ArtPrize continues through Oct. 1.To see photos of all the Top 20 winners and learn more about SmartArt, go to force4michigan.com.To learn more about Behind the Mitten go to amyandgonzo.com.Follow Gonzo and Amy:Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/behindthemittenTwitter at @BehindTheMittenInstagram at @BehindTheMitten

In this episode, we recap what we did over the week. We start the pod talking about the controversial decision to put a Needle Exchange on Fulton Street. We continue to support our local events as Title Pending will be dropping their new capsule of merch along with a live show with more deatilss in the pod. We talk about local sports as the Fresno State Bulldogs will be on the road at Arizona State on Saturday. We conclude talking MLB, NFL, and NBA. Be sure to support all your local businesses, artists, and podcasts. Have a blazing week! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theblazepodcast/message

Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld, Miguel Arias and Mayor Jerry Dyer held a press conference to discuss their strong opposition to Fresno County's recent decision to bring Needle Exchange Program onto Fulton Street. These leaders view this decision and move as destructive and dangerous. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lisa Dent welcomes Michael Muser, Director of Operations and Owner of Ever, for this edition of Foodie Friday. Ever, located at 1340 W. Fulton Street in Chicago, is the creative obsession of Michelin-starred chef Curtis Duffy and his business partner Michael Muser. Ever is for those who enter their four walls looking for an experience of […]

Black Business Month: Fulton Street Books & Coffee --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andrea-lashea/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andrea-lashea/support

Jody Hudson was born in Michigan but has moved a number of times since graduating high school. She spent 15 years in the retail industry. She then spent five years being a stay-at-home mom before finding new employment in the nonprofit sector. Her story sounds somewhat typical, right? Not really. Jody has a much different story to tell which you will get to hear on this episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Jody is the penultimate unstoppable person. Jody's second child, Alex, was born in 1995. Alex was a very active child and worked hard at everything she did. While in the fifth grade, Alex began exhibiting physical symptoms which eventually lead to her no longer being able to be an athlete and active person. In high school, she began losing weight. No doctor could diagnose what was happening. It wasn't until college that happenstance lead Jody and Alex to a doctor who correctly diagnosed Alex's condition as Lyme's Disease. Listen as Jody tells hers and Alex's story. She will tell you about the book she wrote as well as about the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation. This episode is very powerful, and Jody leaves us with strong advice we all can take to heart when we are presented with life challenges. About the Guest: Jody Hudson, Grants and Philanthropy Director for California CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is a fundraising professional with over 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience. She is the CEO and founder of the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase research efforts and patient support for Lyme disease and MCAS. Before joining California CASA in 2021, she served as Vice President of Development and Communications for Girls Scouts of Central California South and, before that, led the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno as Director of Operations. In 2018, Jody was honored with the Marjaree Mason Center Top Ten Professional Women Award. Hudson is also an author and speaker. Her book, My Promise to Alex: Through Pain Comes Purpose, is a memoir about her daughter's journey with Lyme disease and her passing at the age of twenty-two on March 24, 2018. For more information on Alex's foundation, please visit www.alexhudsonlymefoundation.org About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes You have been listening to the unstoppable mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes please visit w w w dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast. Michael Hinkson is spelled mi ch AE l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site. Please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of anyone or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hangsen.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free ebook entitled blinded by fear. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessibility and is sponsored by accessibility. Please visit w w w dot excessive b.com excessively is spelled ACC e ss IBE. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again ne Michael Hingson  00:00 Access cast and accessibly initiative presents unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet Hi, I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief mission officer for accessibility and the author of the number one New York Times best selling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion, and acceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessibility, that's a cc e ss I, capital B II. Visit www.to. Access a b.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well, Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Jody Hudson and Jody has got a very good and strong and compelling story to tell. She is a person who has worked in the world for a while. She is the Director of of grants right for California casa.   Jody Hudson  01:43 That's correct. The advanced philanthropy director,   Michael Hingson  01:46 advanced philanthropy director Wow. And, and, and again, but there's a lot more to Jodi than that. So we're gonna get to it. So Jodi, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Now, where are you? Exactly.   Jody Hudson  01:58 So I'm in Fresno, California. And we have just been getting hit with these recent rains. It's really sad to see what's going on out there. But in fact, before I jumped on, we just had another big downpour. So we're, we're right now good, but you never know when a next one is going to hit us.   Michael Hingson  02:18 Yeah, we don't get that level of rain in Victorville. I don't think it's rained here today. We had a little bit of rain Tuesday, but we just don't get that kind of rain here. And as I mentioned earlier, I heard on the news that there are a few places in the Sierras that have had something over 670 inches of snow, and they've gotten more snow this week. So how will this affect the drought it will, at least in the short term, but whether this is really going to have enough of an effect on the aquifers to really give us long term aid remains to be seen. But the way it's going, I think we're going to see more years of a lot of rain and other things happening. So we'll we'll kind of see how it goes.   Jody Hudson  03:05 I yeah, I agree. It was crazy. Last week, the 99 was shut down because of flooding. So you just never know what's going to happen. Right?   Michael Hingson  03:15 Go figure I know. Well, so let's start a little bit by you maybe telling us some of your background. As a younger God, what you did when going to school and all that give us all the highlights from an earlier time.   Jody Hudson  03:33 Oh my goodness. Okay, we could be here a long time because I'm not a young man. You know, I'm in my early 60s here now. But now I'm teasing.   Michael Hingson  03:41 So just talk about the early parts.   Jody Hudson  03:44 So I'm a Michigander born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, went to school at Central Michigan University where I graduated with a degree in retail. I've always loved fashion clothing. And so that's what I did for quite some time. Worked at Marshall Field's Lord and Taylor made my way west to Los Angeles. My claim to fame was that I was the manager of the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I felt like I had arrived, so to speak. Then got married and made my way to Fresno where I currently reside. Two children, Garrett and Alice, my son's 29 My daughter's 22 And I stayed at home for about five years just to be a stay at home mom. And then when I decided to get back into the work environment, I got into the nonprofit world which I absolutely love. I have a servant's heart and it really spoke to that worked at Catholic Charities for about 1314 years. I worked at Girl Scouts for a little bit until I couldn't eat any more cookies. It was not good for my waistline and at all. And then I've been with California, Casa for two years, and we oversee all of the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. I am a product of foster care, I was born to a single mother who put me up for adoption. So I was in the foster care system for the first six months of my life until I was adopted. So I've kind of come full circle in that whole realm. But so that's what I'm currently doing. And then we'll get more into my true purpose and mission, which is the Alex Hudson line foundation.   Michael Hingson  05:46 So Marshall Fields, so did you get good deals on Franco mints?   Jody Hudson  05:50 Oh, my gosh. I know, Chris, and at Christmas time, because I worked out in Chicago at State Street at their flagship store. And during Christmas time, they'd have like the big pyramids of frango mints and I just devoured those. Like there was no tomorrow I have a weakness for sweets. I could not have sweets in my home, because they will be gone. I don't have willpower. I don't know what the word means.   Michael Hingson  06:17 No. Have you ever had mint? Meltaways? Yes. Which do you like better? Franco mints? Yeah. I like them both. But I do have to admit that there is something about Franco mints.   Jody Hudson  06:29 Oh my gosh, that just brought me back. I love that brought me back in time for sure. Yeah, and I miss them. I do too. I do too. I love those Frank moments. So good. It's kind of like melt in your mouth.   Michael Hingson  06:42 Yeah, really tasty stuff.   Jody Hudson  06:44 I think that's probably why girls with the Girl Scout cookies, then men's is my favorite. Because I was born and raised with the kids go mess with men. Go into the cooking mode. Then minutes. So what's your favorite Girl Scout cookie?   Michael Hingson  07:00 And Miss? Then Miss? Yeah. Although I've also enjoyed venture foals, which is one of the newer Well,   Jody Hudson  07:06 that's yeah, that's one of the the newer ones.   Michael Hingson  07:09 A new one rasberry one that I haven't tried yet. Yeah, you   Jody Hudson  07:12 know what I'm not a big fan of of the data, kind of like to keep my my the fruit and the chocolate all separate love them both, but really like the the combination together, but anything with chocolate, mint, peanut butter, I'm down for all of that stuff.   Michael Hingson  07:31 So I bought a case of Thin Mints. Well, actually, last year, I guess, I bought a case of Thin Mints. But somebody misunderstood and they made the order for two cases. Oh, and so I accepted that and I took them all. But even with the one case, what I did with two would have been the same with one which is they all mostly get put away mostly in the freezer. And for me, especially out of sight out of mind. And so most of them are still there. And they will be eaten over time. Which makes it a little bit frustrating for the Girl Scouts every year because I don't buy a case every year. It'll take me three years sometimes to eat those two cases, as I said, out of sight out of mind. But I do know where they are now having thought about them. This may cause a open so   Jody Hudson  08:26 I think I know where you're going after this little conversation here.   Michael Hingson  08:31 Yeah, I promise I won't get up and go do that while we're talking. Okay, but still. So So you got into this whole idea of the nonprofit Well, I actually another memory going back to Chicago and Marshall Fields. Do you remember Robert Hall? I do. Where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down? Down? Down?   Jody Hudson  08:52 Yep, yep.   Michael Hingson  08:55 Ah, those were the days having been born in Chicago and live there for five years and been back occasionally. But still. Great stories, great stories.   Jody Hudson  09:05 Yeah, I just don't like Chicago when it's December, January. It's like 80 degrees below with the windchill factor and you're trying to make your way from where you live in Lincoln Park down to State Street a little bit.   Michael Hingson  09:18 A little bit tough. And even with the L it could be tough. Oh yeah.   Jody Hudson  09:23 Oh, yeah. But boy, I had good good times there. I just graduated from college. So I was making a little bit of money hanging out and living with my sorority sisters. So it was just like an extension of of college. But when you have a little bit of money, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:41 Well, you were you bring back memories for me also, a few years ago, I was in Chicago for a speech or I was there for a convention I don't recall which now, but they were doing the event where you Um, to raise money for something, they did the Polar Plunge so everybody would go and jump in Lake Michigan. And I think Rahm Emanuel was the mayor. And Jimmy Fallon was there and they decided they were going to go do the plunge. And I was watching it with my cousins on TV. And they went in the water. It was zero or colder. Oh, we were very happy to be in a heated house. And the reporter said, these guys are doing it all wrong, because they went in in their suits, you know. And as soon as you get out of the water, you can go into a tent that was warm, where you could dry off. But just before they got out, a woman got out who was just wearing a bathing suit. And the reporter said, How much smarter she is because it'll dry right off and she won't be cold very long. And they were right, you know, but Well, that's the difference between intelligent people and politicians sometimes, I guess. I don't know.   Jody Hudson  11:01 My gosh, when my dad had a summer camp in Grand Haven, Michigan, and that brings me back to those memories that summertime with like the Polar Bear Plunge, we had that with the kiddos getting up early in the morning, like at six o'clock and going down. And if you if you did it every day, then you got like a special award. But yeah, I never did it. I watched my campers go in. But I'm like, Yeah, that's too cool for me.   Michael Hingson  11:29 Yeah. But you know, it's part of our country. And it's always fun to go to, to different places. And of course, go into Chicago go always for me at least. There I'm sure better places. But I like to go to UNO's and get a nice good deep dish pizza to   Jody Hudson  11:46 deep dish pizza. And it's a fun place to be in Chicago on St. Patty's day too. So Oh, yeah. That's always a blast. Dine the river green and drinking green beer and all that good stuff. Yeah, Chicago. Chicago is a fun fun city.   Michael Hingson  12:02 Yeah. Memories will tell us about California casa a little bit. So you've been doing that for now? What two or three years? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  12:10 for two years. And as the grants and philanthropy director, I helped to raise money not only for California, casa, but for our network. So California, CASA is the the parent, the umbrella so to speak, over the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. And we our initiatives, our mission, our you know, philanthropy, everything is in support of foster children. And there's 80,000 foster kids in the state of California. And what a casa does is they are that one person that link to help these kiddos to navigate through the court systems to be that voice for them, to help them where maybe they don't have a mom, dad and adult anybody to help guide them through life. And it can be transformational for these children to have a casa appointed, watching over them, it really makes a big difference.   Michael Hingson  13:24 Do foster parents help with any of that? Or is this really kind of pre them or our in spite of them? Sometimes,   Jody Hudson  13:31 you know what I mean, it's kind of done in conjunction with them as well as a CASA is a volunteer, they go through a training which I went through a training as well, just to kind of better understand what a CASA volunteer does, it's about a 3040 hour training commitment. Once you go through, you actually get sworn in as a casa and the in the court system. And then you are assigned a child and you could be assigned a child for maybe a year, two years, some people have had classes for, you know, even greater longer periods of time. It just depends upon, you know, the the cases. But it really is such a great meaningful program. And we definitely, you know, right now, we have probably 12,000 classes, but as I said earlier, there's 80,000 foster kids, you know, in the state of California, so there's definitely a gap. And that's what we try and do is you know, raise money raise funds to recruit classes, to train them to help the local network, you know, really pouring into the hearts of these foster kids.   Michael Hingson  14:51 So are their centers that these people are based out of or how does it work?   Jody Hudson  14:55 The classes themselves? They Yeah, so There's, you know, like I said, 44 class of programs throughout the state of California. So there's like a casa in Kern County, there's a casa and Fresno County. It's all, you know, based upon that the counties, each county is really supposed to have a CASA program. And, you know, there's what 51 counties, I think, in the state of California, so, yeah, 58 So we're, we're missing obviously, a couple of Casa programs, but each CASA program is you know, their own 501 C three, they, you know, raise their own funds money, they have their own board, executive directors, own staff, and we come alongside them to support them, and to give them you know, additional training, additional resources, and help where we can, we were lucky enough California casa, to be working with a lobbyist team who petitioned and we did receive a state appropriation in Governor Newsom budget for $60 million. And that is, you know, going to be funneled out to our Casa programs. However, as we know, the state of California is a little messed up right now with with budgets, and we only received the first wave of that $60 million, we received $20 million, and we were able to pump out that money to our network. But the other two bases are in jeopardy right now. And we are petitioning and trying to get that money back. So we will see   Michael Hingson  16:39 is that because of the legislature in some way or what? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  16:45 we are very grateful for what we did receive, and that was a blessing, we didn't even think that we were going to get that. And it really is to help our, our programs with infrastructure, it's to help them with, you know, recruiting, it's to help them just really build upon their their programs. So yeah, we're hopeful though, the, you know, legislators and other government officials and senators and people in the Capitol, they were not happy that our funding was was cut, because they really have become aware of our programs and the impact on the foster children. So we do have some really good people in our corner. So we'll, we'll see what happens.   Michael Hingson  17:30 He cut it. Who cut the funding, if the governor had it in his budget, and so on what happened,   Jody Hudson  17:37 it was in the legislative portion of the budget. So I don't know all the details. Yeah, in our inner workings of how all that happens. And, you know, with politics, things can be moved around, things can be cut, because maybe they're negotiating and looking for something else. Who knows what goes into all of those discussions. But like I said, we've got a lot of good champions and people in our corner, and it wasn't just cost of that was cut, there was a lot that was cut. So yeah, we're just hoping that we're gonna get that back.   Michael Hingson  18:14 I remember. Now, a number of years ago, the national level, there was a major discussion about the government. And what it had been doing through what was called the Talking Book program, which later became the National Library Service of the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And they, the Congress decided that they wanted to cut a bunch of the funding. They said, we can get things from other ways. And one of the magazines that was produced under the program was playboy. And the Congress people's fee with a conservative said, Well, that's ridiculous to publish Playboy, that blind people can take advantage of all the pictures and stuff. And the answer to that was, that's correct. But go read Playboy read the articles, because there were there were many, well written articles. And mostly, they are really good articles in Playboy. The original story, the short story, the fly came out of Playboy among other things, and eventually it got dealt with, but people do get some very strange ideas about things from time to time, don't they?   Jody Hudson  19:26 They sure do. And, you know, I've never seen a playboy, but I did hear that. There are some really great, great articles in there. So but yeah, so you know, well, we'll just have to kind of wait it out. I mean, we're so full speed ahead. And we are, you know, implementing what we can with the the funding that was awarded to us in our in our programs and and we're grateful for that.   Michael Hingson  19:49 We are a 501 C three, right. So you do you obviously do a lot of soliciting outside of what the government provides.   Jody Hudson  19:55 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have, you know, government money. We've got you no private funding. So, yes, we have different pockets that we definitely, you know, reach out to. But, you know, from the pandemic, it's it's tough. Yeah, for for fundraising for nonprofits, I mean, everyone, you know, that was was losing out because they weren't able to have fundraising events and other things. And people were really tightening up their belt. So, yeah, well, we'll have to see how how things work out. But the nonprofit world is definitely definitely hurting.   Michael Hingson  20:37 Yeah, and it's gonna be a process. Well, for you, though, what made you go into the whole idea of doing nonprofit stuff? So it's different than what you've done in the past?   Jody Hudson  20:49 Oh, absolutely. Retail and nonprofit, very, very different. But   Michael Hingson  20:54 although you, you can tribute it to the nonprofit of Marshall Field's with Franco mints, but that's okay.   Jody Hudson  21:00 That's right. So, so I had my son in 93, I had my daughter and 95. And then I stayed home for for five years. And then when I was deciding to you know, get back into the workforce, one of my girlfriends, became a development director over at Catholic Charities, and she called me up. And she said that she was going to be starting this position at Catholic Charities, and she was going to be forming a women's Guild and that she wanted me to be on it, there was gonna be about 12 of us that were going to, you know, be the the pioneers of this Guild, and a common, you know, take a tour of the facility and see what I think, see what I thought so sad to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, but I had never heard of Catholic Charities before. So got my car went and down and opened up the doors, took a tour, I saw the clientele, I saw the people there that were, you know, waiting for services. And I just had this aha moment where this was where I was supposed to be, I was supposed to be giving back. I was supposed to be helping those, you know, less fortunate. And I told my girlfriend Kelly at that time, I said, Yes, I go, I want to be part of this guild. But even more importantly, I want to see if there's employment here, I would love to work at Catholic Charities. And as luck would have it, there was a position open. And it was for in the food pantry overseeing the food pantry. And check this out, overseeing the thrift store. Well, I think with my degree in retail, and working on Chanel boutique, I qualified to oversee the Catholic Charities thrift store. So the joke was always, you know, hidden, here's Jody from Rodeo Drive to Fulton Street, where Catholic Charities was and yeah, the price tags are just, you know, a couple of zeros off, but hey, she's, she can handle those. So, I fell in love with it. And it was so good as my kids were getting older, you know, to bring them to these, like food drive events, and, you know, the the farmers market that we would have, and they would see what the face of poverty looked like. And they fell in love with it. And you know, they were always there supporting my fundraising efforts. And and, you know, just supporting, giving back. So it was it was wonderful. It was really good. It must   Michael Hingson  23:45 get pretty emotional. Because you see so many people who are facing challenges and so on. How are you able to just move forward and not take it so emotionally personal, if you will?   Jody Hudson  23:59 You know, that's an excellent question. And it was very hard for me in the beginning, I wanted to take home these children that I saw, I wanted to fix everything I wanted to be the Savior. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor and I realized that I couldn't do it right. I mean, there I was limited in what I could do, but I could go out and raise money so that the pantry would be full of food so these families could eat so these families could you know go into the thrift store and purchase clothing or be given clothing, clothing and hygiene every so often so I can I can do you know what I can do in my in my wheelhouse. But you're right, it was tough. The first six months, I took it home with me there was no separation of my work and my life. But it just became more of a driving force for me in my job, more motivation to really get out there. and get the community involved with our mission and what we were doing. And even though the names of Catholic Charities, we never asked what people's religion was, hey, if you have a need, then we're going to be there. And we're going to meet that need.   Michael Hingson  25:18 Yeah. And it's, it is a an issue and a challenge for, for I know a number of people to get beyond the being so emotionally involved that you can't separate it, while at the same time developing a greater empathy. And I in fact, I think it's, it makes sense to develop the empathy and the understanding. But you can't take it personally because you didn't cause it all. And all you can do is try to work to fix it.   Jody Hudson  25:45 Right? And, you know, I said about my children going down there and being exposed to that, to this day, my my son, he'll tell me, Mom, he goes, it's a blessing and a curse, this empathy that has been passed on to me because he wants to be now that fixer, and he wants to, you know, when people come to him and share their problems, I mean, he wants to, you know, help them and he's going through that process right now realizing that he can't fix everyone's problems, right? He can, he can only do so much. But yeah, it's definitely tough. What does he do? So he used to work at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from ASU in 2008. Teen got a job right out of college, I mean, super smart, young man. And he worked at Merrill Lynch for over a year. And that just wasn't him. Like I said, he has that empathy, that very sensitive heart. And we also had a, you know, family crisis during that time. And I'll get into that later. But he just really, and then we had, you know, the pandemic hits. So he left Arizona, came home to Fresno to try and figure out what it was that he wanted to do. And now he's been with his current job for over a year. And really, really excelling in it and doing well. And I think he has found his niche. And he works for this organization called behavioral stars. And they are assigned troubled children from the school system. And he meets with these kids one on one, he has about 12 kids right now in his caseload, and he really tries to work with them on behavior modification, trying to work with them on just, you know, being a positive influence in their lives, because so many of these kids come from such troubled homes that they don't have that. And so Garrett is kind of trying to fill that void. And he's done very, very well, just this morning, he sent me over a text and he had to present to his team on some like motivational, inspirational messages. And it was like a 2030 minute presentation. And I love the two YouTube clips that he shared, and one of them spoke about how, you know, you can't let your past you know, dictate what you're doing today. It's like the overcoming and, you know, we're all going to have challenges, but how it's how you rise above from it. And I love it, because as he is administering to these kids, and helping them with their life challenges is also healing for him.   Michael Hingson  28:44 And it's clear, you've passed on a wonderful legacy that that he is taking advantage of, and he'll he'll expand out and I suspect,   Jody Hudson  28:58 Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote a book, and I keep telling my son, I go get, your story is going to be even far greater than mine. And I can't wait to read your book one of these days, because it's going to be so inspirational with everything that you have gone through. I mean, I'm just really, really proud of him for climbing Klein, and just, you know, making it happen.   Michael Hingson  29:25 Well, we've talked about Garrett, and we should get to Alex, I know you want to talk about all of that. So you said that Alex was born in 1995. Correct. And, and a lot of things have happened. So tell us a little bit about Alex, if you will.   Jody Hudson  29:42 Sure. So Alex was supposed to be a Christmas baby. Her original due date was December 25. But she came a little bit early and she was just a sweet, sweet baby. She and her first five years I mean just a very sweet, shy, innocent little girl. And then she discovered sports and the tomboy in her really came out along with the the big brother that was right by her side helping her. So she was very active. She played soccer, she played softball, she ran track, she did cheerleading, volleyball, you name it, and she was very, she was a very good scholar to her brother definitely had more of the smarts. But he didn't apply himself out, worked much, much harder for her grades, and did very well with that. And then in the fifth grade, she started developing joint pain, inflammation, and we thought it was all related to her sports. And that's what the doctors thought as well that she was just an overworked you know, athlete. And so she would suck it up. She would like tape up her legs, ankles, do the ibuprofen. Well, that went on for several years, and nothing really changed. In fact, it just kept getting worse. To the point where her freshman year in high school, she was playing basketball running on the court, and her knees ballooned up to be like the size of grapefruit. And she dropped to the ground. And she was carried off by her teammates and coach. And they ran some X rays. And they discovered that she needed to have knee surgery that she had some issues with with her knees. So she had one knee surgery done on her right knee and they said if that took and did well, and it was successful, then they would do the left knee. Well, it didn't help but it didn't change anything. So basically from her freshman year in high school on Chica never run again. She it was the beginning of the the end for her because she couldn't play sports any longer. Everything that she had identified with was gone. And in high school, that's especially hard when you lose your your peer group. And so she really went through a dark period for a while only had maybe a friend or two, started losing weight started developing digestive issues. Then we, you know, started thinking, well, maybe he's got anorexia or an eating disorder. I mean, we just really went through hell and back. And she graduated from high school went to a junior college because we were still trying to figure out what was going on with her health. And she did well at junior college and applied to several colleges and ended up getting a full ride at UCLA. But she wasn't able to carry that out because she was losing weight. And she was down to about 87 pounds. And we were going from doctor to doctor probably 40 Plus doctors, and Alex on her own just by going on the internet, found this doctor down in LA who specialized in digestive issues. And she said mom goes I think I found a doctor that might be able to help me. And at that point, I'm like, Sure. What's what's another doctor? I mean, we we've been, you know, striking out with all of our local doctors and everybody at this point, just that she and I both were crazy, right? Because they would run tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. So we got in the car went down to LA. And within a half hour of talking with this doctor, he asked me Mrs. Hudson, has anybody test tested Alex for Lyme disease. And I innocently said, What is Lyme disease. And then he told me what it was and this was in 2017. And I'd really had never heard about it. And here I am from Michigan, you know, thinking that maybe I would have heard about it growing up. But we consented to her getting tested for Lyme disease and a couple of weeks later, sure enough, came back with a diagnosis that she she had Lyme disease. So now test, what's the test the test. If you go to a regular doctor, most of them are still testing with an outdated western blot test, which will give you false reads on it. This doctor was smart enough to have outs tested through iGenex and iGenex is out San Jose area. And they are very detailed. I mean, it's everyone sends people to iGenex just to because they know that testing that's part of the problem with Lyme disease. testing can be so. So what's the word I'm looking for? Not not reliable, inaccurate, inaccurate? Yeah. So tested her with the iGenex. And that's what it came back with. So in that moment, you know, I had to first of all, as a parent, figure out what this diagnosis was. And then second of all, how do I treat it, because I'm disease, you just can't go to any doctors, so many of them don't know about Lyme disease and how to treat it. And therein lies the problem trying to find proper doctors that know about this disease. And also, you know, the the treatment, because it's not like cancer, where there's a tried and true path. With Lyme disease. It's almost like, here's your buffet, you can do antibiotics, you can do this, you can do that. Or maybe you can do a combination. And it's a trial and error. But Alex didn't have have time to go through a trial and error. You know, she was at 80 pounds and 2017, down to a handful of foods that she could eat without reacting. And I had to get her better quick, like,   Michael Hingson  36:17 do you before going on? Do you have any sense of how she got Lyme disease?   Jody Hudson  36:25 No. And that's the thing. 35% of people that get Lyme disease will have what's called the classic bullseye rash, where it's a circular little red ring on your body of the point of impact where people are a bit, the majority of people don't know they have Lyme disease, until maybe they've been sick for a while. And by then it's hard to treat, because it's you know, once it gets into your bloodstream, and in your system, it can wreak havoc on every part of your organ. I mean, people have died from Lyme disease, because of, of, you know, getting into their heart, people have died from it from, you know, getting into their brain. It's, it's really quite horrific. And I mean, that can be adopted at this point from everything that I had to get schooled on real quick like in 2017. Till she passed away in 2018. But yeah, the majority of people when when you first have Lyme symptoms, it's like a summer flu. So you, you know, might have just being you know, feeling lethargic, joint pain, inflammation. And it's not until other symptoms appear when it can really become quite critical, like an Alex's case where it affected her whole digestive system.   Michael Hingson  37:53 You How did you how did you end up handling it? What did you do, because you certainly had to do something in a hurry.   Jody Hudson  38:01 So what I did was, you know, social media can work for you or against you. And in this situation, it definitely worked for me two things happen once I got Alex's diagnosis. Interestingly enough, she was diagnosed in May, which may is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and our local TV station, KC 24 had just done a episode a segment on Lyme disease. And I knew these people very well through all of my fundraising efforts at Catholic Charities. So I called them up and said, Hey, you guys just did a episode. You guys just did an episode on on Lyme disease. My daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I need to know these three women that you spoke with because I need to find out how to treat my daughter. So that was number one. Number two, was I took to Facebook with Alex's consent. And I basically made a play saying, you know, my daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I'm still trying to figure out what Lyme disease is. If anybody has any resources, know of any doctors locally, can put me in touch with people, please, you know, DM me, and you'd be surprised at how many people that I didn't realize had Lyme disease in the central valley that reached out to me. And Jessica Devine was one of them that lived right in Clovis, a couple of you know, Fresno, who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease had been battling it for a couple years. And she gave us the name of her doctor in Pismo Beach, and that's where we started. So it definitely helped by, you know, getting the message out there. And when you're a parent, parent and your child is struggling and you need answers, you do what it takes. aches. Right?   Michael Hingson  40:00 Right. So you reached out to that doctor.   Jody Hudson  40:04 So we reached out to that doctor. And then at the same time, we googled best Lyme facilities, best line treatment, because, you know, I'm a mama bear. I single mom at that time, Alex's dad wasn't in the picture at all, financially, emotionally, any of that. And I was working parents. And I thought, Okay, I need to tackle this, right. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, we've got a diagnosis, we're gonna get the doctor treatment, she's going to be better in a couple of months time, I was so naive. I had no idea what I was facing. And so we had this appointment with, you know, this doctor in Pismo in June. So Alex had been diagnosed in May that this appointment for June. But then I started researching best Lyme clinics. Sofia Health Institute was one, there was a couple others and I basically got on the phone. And I begged and pleaded to get into these facilities. And insurance doesn't cover a lot of this. In fact, it didn't cover most of it. In a year's time, I spent over $100,000 Trying to get Alex better, I sold cars. I had people give me money. I mean, it was crazy what I did. But again, any of us would do that in our situation with a sick child. So we went to the doctor in Pismo, we also went to Sofia Health Institute. And with every doctor that we saw, it was a whole new protocol. Everybody, you know, had their own opinions. And it was just, it was just really tough. Like I said, you know, with cancer, it's tried and true. These are the treatments that you go through. But with Lyme disease, because there's so many different co infections. You have to figure out who you know what symptoms are the most troublesome, you start there, and it's like, okay, eliminate that. So that symptom, and then let's move on to the next. And that's what we were trying to do with Alice. But at the same time, she kept losing weight, and she couldn't be strong and healthy enough with her treatments. Because she was so malnourished, so it was just, it was a mess.   Michael Hingson  42:35 And no matter what happened, nobody was able to come up with any solution that seemed to help.   Jody Hudson  42:41 We had a team of about 12 doctors we had, because as I said, once Lyme disease is in your blood system, which for Alex, it had been since. You know, if you go back when her symptoms first started, which we thought was just that overworked athletic body. It was in fifth grade. Now here she is in college, right? So I mean, it'd been 10 years that this had been living in her her system. So she had cardiologists she had a gastro doctor. She had, you know, a doctor, the doctor in Pismo that was kind of like the the lead on this. But we had so many other people that we had to bring onto the team. And then not to mention, just she was in and out of hospitals, just trying to get IVs and other stuff in her system to keep her healthy.   Michael Hingson  43:42 When did you get to the point where you realize that you weren't going to be able to fix her and how did you reconcile that?   Jody Hudson  43:52 So May of 2017 She got the diagnosis by December after going through a whirlwind of in and out of hospitals, different doctors. I knew in December that I was losing her she was we just we couldn't get a leg up. And from June until December, we literally had gone cross country Now mind you, I was still trying to hold down a job at this time, right? So I was just going back and forth and people were giving me their their sick time and vacation time. And I was just trying to uncover anything that I could to get her her better. But we realized that not only did she have Lyme disease, she had something else called mast cell activation syndrome, which she basically was allergic to almost every type of food she was down to like four or five safe foods. She could eat. And I detail all this in my book because I mean, it could take hours and days to go into all of this because it's just such a crazy, crazy disease. But   Michael Hingson  45:12 was that caused by the limes? Disease?   Jody Hudson  45:15 Correct? Yeah. When your immune system is compromised, it creates havoc in your in your system. And so everything gets Miss wired. And her histamine levels, everything we're, we're off. So you know, her treatments, she would try and have different types of treatments. And her supplements things that normally she could take before now, it was as if it was an enemy entering, you know, a danger zone here, she would try and swallow these supplements and take her, you know, treatment. And her histamine levels would just start attacking, thinking that was, you know, something bad that was coming into her system. Just horrific the pain that she was going through, but it was December. And I remember, you asked me, How did I reconcile with this, I remember getting in my car, and just driving. And I pulled over and I found it on the dashboard. And I had the serious conversation with God. And I was in tears. And I basically said, listen, here's the deal. Like I'm telling God what to do, right? I said, here's the deal. I go, you either take her right now, because I can't deal with this anymore, or you heal her. But this purgatory is not working for me, I cannot do this any longer. And that says, you know, and so that's what he did a couple of months later.   Michael Hingson  46:47 So you had so hard and I have some associations with Lyme disease in a different way. First of all, when I was living in New Jersey and the selling some products, I knew a couple guys who had accompany the turns out they they did have Lyme disease, it was apparently somewhat controlled, but they did have it. And I only know that because they told me but my fourth guide dog was bit by a tick relatively soon after we moved to New Jersey and we knew she was bitten we, we got the tick and we got it out of her and and the vet said there's nothing you know, we can do to analyze it or anything. And you know, as long as she's okay, she's okay. Well. One of the things I've learned about guide dogs is that they are and a lot of dogs, especially when there's a lot of love, and they want to please, they're incredibly stoic. We never detected any illness in her until May 1 of 1999 When I called her to dinner, and she didn't come and we found her on her bed, almost unresponsive. And through getting her to an emergency vet and then going elsewhere and so on. And finally meeting a woman who we regard as a very dear friend, although I haven't talked with her for a while Tracy Gillespie, who is in the University of Penn system. And working for emergency vet in Toms River, New Jersey, as I recall. She said Lynnae has glomerular nephritis. And it is morphed from Lyme disease. So she wouldn't keep the good stuff in her system, the kidneys would pass it out along with the bad stuff because the Lumeria went bad. So she had to retire. And we were able to keep her for three more years. But still, we we knew that there was was something there but it was just one of those things. So I appreciate all you are saying that's my closest brush, fortunately, or whatever with Lyme disease, but it's it is a very insidious thing.   Jody Hudson  49:04 It really is and you know, that's can be carriers of Lyme disease and, you know, with with the ticks and that's why I always when I'm you know talking make make sure that I recognize that it's not just humans. I'm glad that you shared that story. I mean, it is, you know, as we do tick checks from head to toe on our body, we need to do that as our animals come in from the outside because they are just as susceptible to it as as we are.   Michael Hingson  49:38 Well I'm being a guide dog. We kept a close eye on her so we found it right. Still it occurred. Well so. So Alex past, God listened to you and and did take her then what did you do?   Jody Hudson  49:57 So, what I did was yes, she she passed on March 24. In fact, tomorrow's her five year anniversary, I cannot believe. Yeah, I can't believe it's been five years and some aspects of it, I feel like it was just five, five minutes, five days and other times. So I feel like maybe it's been longer. But she and I were very close, we were just with everything that I'd gone through being divorced. And being a single mom, I mean, the mother daughter bond is very strong. To begin with, and ours was especially strong just with our our life experiences and challenges. And when Alex was, I mean, she was bedridden for for several months before she passed away. And she was always so positive. And she kept, you know, thinking that she was going to be this Lyme warrior, she was going to, you know, get to UCLA, finish that degree and start her own nine nonprofit. And when we knew that, God, you know, had other plans for her, I made a pact with her and said that I was going to basically carry her torch for her. And so after she passed, money started just flooding in. There was a GoFundMe account that someone had set up for me and I started receiving quite a bit of money. And I knew that was going to be my my seed money to start the outsets in line Foundation. And here again, I was working for a nonprofit, I was still working at Catholic Charities. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, petition, I'll get someone to help me to, you know, see what that looks like. And, you know, people have told me, it's going to take about a year to get a nonprofit up and running. So that okay, good, that will give me time to adjust and make the transition. Well, I received status that I had been awarded 501, C, three for the outsets, in line foundation in 30 days. And in my classic CPA, comment, my CPA when I got the letter, I said, Okay, roll in, tell me that this is like a joke. Like, this isn't true, right? Like, I really didn't get this approved so quickly. And he said, God, sometimes the good Lord does things that there are no explanations for Congratulations. You have a 501 C three. Yeah. And so yeah, we were up and running in June, we started our first fundraiser, we were able to work with global Lyme Alliance and do a research grant with them, we were able to award some financial grants to lyme patients. So we, you know, we're doing everything according to Alex's wishes, and five years later, we're still doing that. So it definitely, like I said, before this mother daughter bond, I know I'm not doing it alone, I know that she, you know, is helping me every step of the way. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. And that was something that I did not expect at all, like I am a business woman, I write reports. I don't journal I don't write for fun. But this was something that was just laid on my heart. And I was a member of the Fresno State book club. And there was a gallon there who had just written a book, and I started talking to her. And I said, you know, I feel like I need to get this stuff out of my head and onto print. Because just as I'm chatting with you, there's so much that people didn't realize of the journey that Alex and I went on, especially that last year, even my closest group of friends, you know, when they read my book, they're like, God, God, we just didn't realize everything that you had gone through, we thought we did. And I said, No, I, I feel bad. I wasn't able to catch everybody up on this, I said that I was running so fast to get my daughter better, that I didn't have time to bring my team along with me. So this book was written for so many different reasons. Just to let people know how amazing my daughter was and what she went through, also to, you know, give people hope, inspiration. And also just to, you know, give validity to this horrible disease that so many people's still in the medical community don't recognize, or, you know, give it such a stigma. So the book came out. Last February, I self published it and Uh, you know, it's, it's done pretty well, I mean, I've received over 100 plus five star reviews on Amazon, which, to me, if I just, you know, was able to impact one or two people at that, wow, that would be great, you know, people would really understand what I'm trying to convey. But you know, just the, the impact, and what I'm getting back from it that people, you know, write to me or call me. It's just so overwhelming, you know, and for them to appreciate my daughter and love my daughter, with what she went through, it's pretty, pretty touching.   Michael Hingson  55:42 What a blessing. Well, tell me, what would you like people to take away from listening to you today.   Jody Hudson  55:51 So what I want people to take away from listening to meet today is, no matter what challenges you have going on in life, it's how you show up that people are going to remember. And for me, in that moment, when Alex passed away, it could have been so easy just to throw the covers over my head, and give up and be, you know, this grief girl, but I didn't want to be defined by that I wanted to, you know, have people look at me, and be that example, for others be that example for my son, be that example for my friends, that no matter what I had gone through, that I can still show up every day, and that there's still like to be lived. And to do that, also, you know, in honor of my daughter, right, with everything that she went through, how could I just lay it in bet. And I mean, she's suffered far greater than, than I did, and, and I just, I couldn't do that. So I needed to make some, you know, purpose out of what she went through. And that's what I'm I'm trying to do and I'm trying to accomplish?   Michael Hingson  57:05 Well, how can people reach out to you and communicate, correspond or learn more? And   Jody Hudson  57:11 yeah, so we have a website alexhudsonlymefoundation, website, www dot alexhudsonlymefoundation.org, there's ways that you can get a hold of me on the website, you can also go into Amazon, and look for my book, my promise to Alex written by me, Jody Hudson, I would love it if you know, people would, you know, by the, by the book, and, you know, support me through that, because all the proceeds from that book, go right back into the foundation. And, you know, if people are out there, struggling right now with, you know, medical mysteries, you know, check out Lyme disease, check out and see maybe if that's something that you might have in the doctors just haven't been able to diagnose. You know, be your own advocate, never, never give up. And that's one of the things that Alex and I never did, no matter how many times that door was slammed in our faces from the medical community. We still kept opening it up and trying to get to answers.   Michael Hingson  58:22 Never giving up is extremely important. We do it all too quickly. And we, we don't realize that we can do a lot more than we think we can.   Jody Hudson  58:33 Amen. Amen. You don't know you know how strong you need to be until you are in those moments where strength is all you got?   58:42 Well, I want to thank you, Jody, for being with us today. And for telling your story and having the courage to do it and to continue doing, what you're doing and anything that we can do to help through this podcast and so on, please let me know. And we met through accessibility, which I'm really happy about. And I appreciate your desire to help in dealing with inclusion and website accessibility but more important, anything that we can do to continue to promote what you're doing. We're in so I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate it reach out to Alex through Jodi reach out to Jodi especially and Alex will know and we want to hear from you please email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. Accessibe is A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening and like especially if you're on iTunes, please give us a five star rating. Those tend to show up a lot and we appreciate it. But Jody most of all, once more. I want to thank you for being here and for not only inspiring us but I hope educating a lot of people about Lyme disease and just being stronger and more unstoppable than we think.   Jody Hudson  1:00:00 Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and Alex's story It really means a lot to me   Michael Hingson  1:00:11

Everyone knew to avoid the house at 99 Fulton Street in Poughkeepsie, NY. There was a feeling about the dilapidated building, an air that both caused the air to catch in the throat and the skin to crawl when walking past it. When the young women who worked the streets of the cities downtown area began to disappear in late 1996, no one noticed that the smell coming from the house had gotten worse. Listen Now:  https://link.chtbl.com/LniUSTnK Merch Store: https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/user/the+deathcast/   Join the coffee club: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Deathcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Deathcast-102690125566672 The Deathcast is a Production of Corpse Creek Publishing   #truecrime #TheDeathcast #truecrimeaddict #truecrimefiend #truecrimepodcast #Poughkeepsie #serialkillings #NewYork #PoughkeepsieKiller #prostitutekiller #kendallfrancois  

We read pages 7-8 and discuss a fundamental aspect of storytelling: setup. We look at how the Coens put pieces on the board and advance them, and how these opening moves set—and set off course—expectations for what's to come. We also discuss Theater 2 at the Lincoln Square 13. >>> IMPORTANT LIVE EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: If you're in NYC, join us at the Dunkunsthalle gallery at 64 Fulton Street, New York, NY (DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN) on April 4th at 7:30 pm for a screening of artist and filmmaker Z Behl's exhilarating short film Geppetto 2.0 and stick around for a Q+A afterwards. Z will also be our first guest on next week's episode.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2023/03/29/south-street-seaport-museum-announces-monthly-sea-chanteys-and-maritime-music-live-sing-along-hybrid-at-12-fulton-street-and-on-zoom/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

Katie Zenovich is the Senior Vice President of Development & External Affairs and the Chief Fund Development Officer for Community Medical. Tuesday, she extended an invitation to the Fire & Ice Gala coming up Saturday March 25 at The Grand at 1401 Fulton Street.   Learn more & get your tickets at FCfireandice.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2023/02/22/south-street-seaport-museum-announces-monthly-sea-chanteys-and-maritime-music-live-and-virtual-sing-along-hybrid-at-12-fulton-street-and-on-zoom-2/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2023/01/25/south-street-seaport-museum-announces-monthly-sea-chanteys-and-maritime-music-live-and-virtual-sing-along-hybrid-at-12-fulton-street-and-on-zoom/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

Summary:  In this episode, our host Adrian Ellis speaks with Vincent Chang, Deputy Chairman and Partner at Grimshaw Architects. Together, they explore the distinctive contribution of architecture. Having been with Grimshaw for over 20 years, Vincent also talks about his role managing the practice, and how vital it is for all to share a strong commitment to process – emphasizing the importance of understanding projects more holistically, as well as the butterfly effect that can happen by investing time and capital on initial concepts.  Later in the episode, Vincent shares how to create successful future developments by revisiting and observing past projects over multiple periods of time. He recognizes that architects contribute not only to the technical integration of assets but must also prioritize generating an emotional response and one's relationship with a space. Vincent talks about the importance of movement modeling when designing a space, which allow architects to understand intended paths of travel as well as ensure an adequate level of service with relation to people moving throughout an area. He states that spaces should have intuitive movement, while also allowing users to pause and observe their surroundings. Adrian and Vincent conclude the episode by speaking about the architectural legacy of the pandemic.  References: Penn Station Expansion – A commuter-first plan to transform Penn Station into a first-class transit hub that better serves passengers with more space, new retail and amenities, and improved accessibility options. Google Development in San Jose – Google's 80-acre Downtown West project, first proposed in 2019. Urban Design Forum – the Urban Design Forum convenes civic leaders to confront the defining issues in New York City's built environment. Fulton Center – a subway and retail complex centered at the intersection of Fulton Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science – a leading science museum dedicated to sharing the power of science, sparking wonder and investigation, and fueling innovation for the future.  Bio:Vincent Chang is Grimshaw's Deputy Chairman and Partner. He has been with Grimshaw since 1996 and has played an instrumental role in the expansion of the practice while maintaining a commitment to the quality, rigor and reputation for excellence that Grimshaw is known for. He established the firm's New York office in 2001 and was instrumental in securing the AIA New York Chapter's Medal of Honor Award in 2015 (the Chapter's highest honor that is conferred on an architect, or firm of architects, to recognize distinguished work and high professional standing). Vincent is a graduate of Cambridge University and is a registered member of both the Royal Institute of British Architects and the American Institute of Architects, and Living Future Accredited by the International Living Future Institute.

This week we welcome the great JD to the podcast as we talk kicks! He talks about growing up in Brooklyn, visiting the jewelry stores on Fulton Street. The debacle of the lost and found release, we also talk about sneaker content. Hass announces the guest for episode 100! Also he talks about his time at Complex-Con. Got a my kicks story? email us at myfirstkickspod@gmail.com our IG is @myfirstkickspod   Where to find JD: Socials: @designatedreport Linktree: https://linktr.ee/designatedreport    Podcast Linktree: https://linktr.ee/myfirstkicks   Music by Gordon Bombay: https://thegordonbombay.bandcamp.com/ (Cop something and tell him we sent ya!)

For Volume 32 of Tales From The Boom Room: Profiles of The NYPD's Arson & Explosion/Bomb Squad, Mike Colón along with frequent guests in retired NYPD Arson & Explosion Squad Detective Bill Ryan & NYPD Bomb Squad Detective Dan McNally revisit the response to & investigation of a fire bombing on Lower Manhattan's Fulton Street 4 Train at the hands of extortionist Edward Leary in December 1994. Connect With Mike Colón:Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikeinnewhavenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/original_mc1/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080791700186LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecol%C3%B3n/Business Line: 917-781-6189Business Email: thecolonreport@gmail.comConnect With Bill Ryan:The Ryan Investigative Group: https://www.ryaninvestigators.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RyanInvestigativeGroupInc/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryaninvestigativegroup/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-ryan-b69764aConnect With Dan McNally:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-mcnally-6984b628Listen To The Podcast:iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/micd-in-new-haven/id1347647537iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/966-micd-in-new-haven-74906026/Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/show/mike-colons-showSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7yth6tWkA7kPAse43eJnNn?si=5y8boJBlRXOqRkIylL-KXw&nd=1PlayerFM: http://front.player.fm/series/micd-in-new-haven-2095021Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/search/mic%27d%20in%20new%20havenYouTube (Video Version): https://youtu.be/0SFIhOhGEsUOutro Song: Anthrax - Only (1993)SONG DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THIS SONG. All Rights Reserved To Respective Owners.

The crew is back and Gene is in NYC for his anniversary.  This is his first time in the Big Apple and he plans on doing it BIG.  Queen Elizabeth has been laid to rest but did you know how rich she was?  Also The final season of the FX show Atlanta is here and Chill wants everyone to watch.  

Register for the panel, "What Really Happens in Shelter: Education & Mental Health" on: http://bit.ly/3csx8zf Housing Housing Connect (https://housingconnect.nyc.gov/PublicWeb/) Search Lottery (https://housingconnect.nyc.gov/PublicWeb/search-lotteries) Furniture Ashley Furniture program: twin mattress, a bedframe, bedding, and a pillow. https://www.ahopetodream.com/participating-homestores Find a furniture bank https://furniturebanks.org/furniture-banks/ Mental Health Talk It Out Mental Health Counseling PLLC Talkitoutcounselingservices@gmail.com Domestic Violence New Destiny Housing https://newdestinyhousing.org/ Resource Center: https://newdestinyhousing.org/housing-help/ Family Justice Centers: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/ocdv/programs/family-justice-centers.page (includes locations and phone numbers). 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-621-HOPE (4673) Safe Horizon Crime Victims Hotline: 1-866-689-HELP SafeChat offer information, advocacy and support: https://www.safehorizon.org/safechat/ Other resources: https://www.safehorizon.org/am-i-being-abused/ Homelessness Prevention, Housing Services, Legal Services HELP USA https://www.helpusa.org Phone: 212-779-3350 718-922-7980 Catholic Charities https://catholiccharitiesny.org/find-help 888-744-7900 Riseboro Housing (Mainly in Brooklyn communities) 718-366-3800 https://riseboro.org/ Hotline for Rental Assistance: 718-547-2800 Email: erap@riseboro.org Coalition for the Homeless https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/ CFTH Crisis Intervention Hotline: 1-888-358-2384 Get Help: https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/get-help/ CFTH Resource Guide: https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/resource-guide/ CAMBA https://camba.org/programs/ Homebase: CAMBAHomebase@camba.org or call the following Brooklyn and Staten Island locations: * 1117 Eastern Parkway, 718-622-7323 * 1958 Fulton Street, 718-408-5756 * 2244 Church Avenue, 718-408-5766 * 120 Stuyvesant Place, 718-282-6473 * 209 Bay Street, 718-226-0496 CAMBA Emergency Food and Shelter Program - 20 Snyder Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11226 (718) 287-0010 Nazareth Housing 519 East 11th Street, NY, NY 10009 info@nazarethhousingnyc.org (212) 777-1010 Education Advocates for Children Education specialist helpline, Monday - Thursday 10am-4pm 866-427-6033 or send a message: https://www.advocatesforchildren.org/get_help/helpline/send_us_a_message Students in Temporary Housing Tip Sheet: https://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/library/students_in_temporary_housing.pdf?pt=1 Spanish Version: https://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/library/students_in_temporary_housing_spanish.pdf?pt=1 Resources for Spanish-Speaking Families Committee for Hispanic Children and Families Programs for underserved, low- and moderate- income children and families throughout NYC and the home-based child care providers. 212-206-1090 Ext: 355 or Ext: 310 Coalition for Hispanic Family Services Preventive Family Support Services Franc Villalobos - fvillalobos@hispanicfamilyservicesny.org

All Local 12pm Update 5/30/2022

Welcome to Chapter 14 of the Okie Bookcast! April Read Oklahoma Challenge category - Read a Sequoyah Award winner from any yearMy guest is Onikah Asamoa-Ceasar, book lover and founder of Fulton Street Books and Coffee in Tulsa, OK. Fulton Street is a bookshop on a mission to increase intergenerational literacy and build better community by focusing on conversations and keeping people at the center of everything they do. The store carries a wide selection of fiction and nonfiction and  they also offer a drink menu that has something for everyone. Fulton Street is a passion project for Onikah who describes herself  as “Mom to Hadassah, enneagram 8, lover of history, daughter of the middle passage”. In our conversation we talk about the store and books, but we also talk about literacy, community, representation, book deserts, and all of the many ways Fulton Street is living out its mission in Tulsa.You can connect with Fulton Street at their website - fultonstreet918.com or on social media @fultonstreet918. Our review is by Tulsa emerging author Jace Hyman. Jace says She knows far too many things about video games, movies, and anime and wants desperately to tell stories like the ones that inspire her. Her favorite genres are sci-fi, cyberpunk, and horror, with an emphasis on stories that include trans representation. In fact those are the types of characters she wants to bring to the fore with her own writing. When not writing, she can be found over-analyzing her favorite (or least favorite) stories and petting her cat Eliza. Jace is reviewing Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landry.Mentioned on the show:Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie1921 Commemorative BoxBlack Wall Street TimesAlex TamahnLittle and Lit subscription boxesBlack History Collection - Tyler LockettSyllabus Book ClubThe 1619 Project: A New Origin Story - Nikole Hannah-JonesHow the Word Is Passed - Clint SmithOctavia ButlerAudre LordeCooking with Chef Tiff - Tiffany Tisdale-BraxtonThe Victory of Greenwood - Carlos MorenoA Kids Book about the Tulsa Race Massacre - Carlos MorenoLittle Man - Brian A. SmallwoodDiamonds from the Tisdale - Steph SimonPedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo FreireThe Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel WilkersonSkullduggery Pleasant - Derek LandyMusic by JuliusHConnect with J: website | Twitter | Instagram | FacebookShop the Bookcast on Bookshop.orgMusic by JuliusH

We're joined by Mr. Eon of The High & Mighty, who sits with the crew to discuss one of hip hop's greatest eras. We hear stories about how it started for them, the Masta Ace beef, working with Bobbito, The Alchemist, Rashida Jones, Beetlejuice, Kool Keith, Pharoahe Monch, Eminem and Cage. During the late 90s and early 00's, Eastern Conference Records was a staple in independent hip-hop. Who better to tell vivid tales of the indie hip-hop movement than one of the guys responsible for it? What made this era one of the greatest? The music was fresh, innovating, original, honest and most importantly fun. D-I-Y in full effect. Record stores in full effect. Online chat groups where you shared music was definitely in effect. That feeling of excitement while scarfing down a slice of pizza or Gray's Papaya because you couldn't wait to see what Fat Beats on 6th Ave had. When Fat Beats wasn't enough for your fix, you went to the LES to peep A-1 or took the iron horse to Fulton Street, to check out Beat Street and grab a treat from Juniors after. The days in New York during the indie hip-hop movement were magical. Now, let's re-live those memories and magic this era gave us. Enjoy the show! www.takeitpersonalradio.com www.patreon.com/TakeItPersonal Follow us on Instagram @takeitpersonalradio

Happy Friday everyone! Tune in for the greatest show ever with our friends The Hangovers. We have the news you love as well. Get ready for a great conversation. Here's today's news: - Wednesday Socials are taking place at 205 Fulton Street in Elgin, hosted by Senior Services Associates. These will take place from noon to 2 pm on March 30th & April 27th. Have fun playing loteria and learn about resources. These will be prizes and snacks! To participate call Minnie or Cat at 847-741-0404 and let them know you heard about it on Good Morning Aurora. - Tuesday April 19th there will be a great hiring event at the Aurora Public library downtown. This will take place from 4 to 7 pm and is sponsored by the Aurora Regional Chamber of Commerce, Quad County African American Chamber of Commerce and Talented Tenth Social Services. Free and open to the public, scan the QR code on the flier or register at this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kane-dupage-kendall-county-sheriffs-hiring-and-job-readiness-event-registration-257060213017 - Lastly, March 26th from 10 to 11:30 am, our friends of the Neighbor Project and BMO Harris Bank will be hosting a great Homebuyer Education Seminar in both english and spanish. The homebuyer team will walk you through the steps of the home buying process and learn about down payment assistance and other programs. This will take place at the Prisco Community Center, located at 150 W. Illinois ave. This event is free and open to the public! For more information contact Jerria at 331-300-3566. #neighborworks That's it for the news, and the weekend is here as well. Have a great day and thanks for watching the show. We will see you all Monday morning. Don't forget to subscribe to the show by clicking this link: https://www.youtube.com/c/GoodMorningAuroraPodcast The second largest city's first daily news podcast is here. Tune in everyday to our FB Live from 8 am to 9 am. Make sure to like and subscribe to stay updated on all things Aurora. Twitter: goodmorningaur1 Instagram: goodmorningaurorail Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6dVweK5Zc4uPVQQ0Fp1vEP... Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../good-morning.../id1513229463 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/goodmorningaurora #positivevibes #positiveenergy #downtownaurora #kanecountyil #bataviail #genevail #stcharlesil #saintcharlesil #elginil #northaurorail #auroraillinois #auroramedia #auroranews #goodmorning #goodmorningaurora #comedy #news #dailynews #subscribe #youtube #podcast #spotify #hangoversband #decaturillinois --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/goodmorningaurora/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/goodmorningaurora/support

Episode 103 is the 3rd installment of our indie hip-hop tribute series. This time, we're joined by Mr. Eon of The High & Mighty, who sits with the crew to discuss one of hip hop's greatest eras. We hear stories about how it started for them, the Masta Ace beef, working with Bobbito, The Alchemist, Rashida Jones, Beetlejuice, Kool Keith, Pharoahe Monch, Eminem and Cage. During the late 90s and early 00's, Eastern Conference Records was a staple in independent hip-hop. Who better to tell vivid tales of the indie hip-hop movement than one of the guys responsible for it? We've got joints by Non Phixion, Saukrates, Natural Elements, Jigmastas, J-Live, Arsonists, Company Flow, Cage, All Natural, Rascalz, Cannibal Ox, J.U.I.C.E., Sir Menelik, Kool Keith, Ill Advised, Choclair, Mr. Lif, Mike Zoot and of course, The High & Mighty. What made this era one of the greatest? The music was fresh, innovating, original, honest and most importantly fun. D-I-Y in full effect. Record stores in full effect. Online chat groups where you shared music was definitely in effect. That feeling of excitement while scarfing down a slice of pizza or Gray's Papaya because you couldn't wait to see what Fat Beats on 6th Ave had. When Fat Beats wasn't enough for your fix, you went to the LES to peep A-1 or took the iron horse to Fulton Street, to check out Beat Street and grab a treat from Juniors after. The days in New York during the indie hip-hop movement were magical. Now, let's re-live those memories and magic this era gave us. Enjoy the show! www.takeitpersonalradio.com www.patreon.com/TakeItPersonal Follow us on Instagram @takeitpersonalradio

From his youth in Brooklyn hunting for Barkleys and other coveted sneakers on Fulton Street and elsewhere, to selling baseball cards on eBay, and eventually making frequent trips to Japan, Alan, the co-founder of Sneaker Con @sneakercon, seemed destined to be in the business. On the latest episode of SneakerDads, he talks about what he found in Japan, organizing early sneaker events in New York, and how an eBay posting led to the creation of Sneaker Con. Alan also discusses why he values historically significant pairs as well as those with personal meaning, the importance of House of Hoops Harlem and hunting for PEs, the “Concord Moment” when sneakers and social media collided, some of his recent pickups, and how he ended up at Supreme on the first date with his wife. Host: Jon Ratner @headzaintredee jratner@gmail.com SneakerDads.com Beats: Chili Banks

Onikah Asamoa-Caesar's childhood dream of opening a bookstore became a reality when she opened Fulton Street Books and Coffee a little over a year ago. Fulton Street is purposely tucked inside a neighborhood making it conducive for building community and developing relationships. Its focus includes a strong mission and overall look at representation through diversity while also focusing on building literacy across generations. Fulton Street centers around the stories, narratives and lived experiences of Black people, People of Color, and marginalized communities. 

Michael Hingson, shares his Keynote speech created on October 3 2019 at an event sponsored by San Joaquin County Office of Education, CEDR Systems help in Monte Ray, CA. There were nearly 1,000 people in attendance at this keynote address delivered by Mr. Hingson to kick off the 2019 Inclusion Collaborative conference. In this presentation, Mike Hingson discussed his life experiences as a student who happened to be blind. He discussed some of the challenges he faced as well as how he prepared to overcome them. As a major part of this talk and our inaugural podcast episode, Mike tells his story of emergency preparation and how he was able to use his knowledge and his unstoppable mindset to survive the terrorist attack on Tower One of the World Trade Center. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit: https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:19 I really am honored to be here. I am, I guess in a sense, a product of special education in California. Let me tell you a little bit about me. In all seriousness, I was born in 1950, February 24 1950. You can do the math. Yes, I'm 69. People say I don't sound it. So I'm very happy about that. And I hope that that continues for a long time. But I was born sighted. But I was born two months premature. And the result of that was that I was put in an incubator with a pure oxygen environment. You've probably heard something about what today is called retinopathy of prematurity, which back in the day, I don't where that expression came from, but it was called retro dentro fibro pleasure. It was something that was discovered and named by Dr. Arnold Patz at the Wilmer Eye Institute. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago before he passed, and we discussed what was originally called rlf, which is now our LP, but the bottom line is, is I was put in an incubator, the retina malformed and I became blind after about two days. We didn't know that for a while. I certainly didn't know it, but my parents didn't know it. About four months after I was born, an aunt said to my mother, you know, he's not really reacting to sunlight. I wonder if there's something wrong with his eyes? Well, sure enough, we went to the hospital and the doctors eventually came out and said, PSC is blind, you can't see. And you should send him to a home because you shouldn't keep him with you. If you do, he will not be good for your family. He'll certainly make it harder for your older son who can see who was two years old, you should send him to home. My father had an eighth grade education. My mother had a high school diploma and they told the learning Medical Society in Chicago nuts, too, you were taking him home. The doctor said he'll never be able to contribute to society and they said sure he will. It doesn't matter if he's blind or not. What matters is what he learns. These people who certainly didn't have the the vast knowledge of the learned medical profession in Chicago, bucked the system, I did go home. I was born on the south side of Chicago. Michael Hingson 03:47 If we if we take geraldo rivera into account two blocks from Al Capone's private vault, but I was born in Chicago, I grew up there for five years, went to the candy store when I was old enough to do it with my brother and cousins, who lived next door every day and walked around the neighborhood and so on and did it just like anyone else. I never even thought about it because my parents didn't think about it. They were risk takers, although I'm sure they didn't think of it that way. But they were they let me go outside and be a part of the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and growing up. They although I didn't know it early on, were a part of a group of parents who fought for special education classes for blind kids see, there were a number of premature births. During the baby boomer era, it actually brought the average age of blind people down from 67 to 65. Because there were so many, but there were enough in Chicago, my parents fought with other parents for special education classes. Well, kindergarten starts at age of four in Chicago. And so at four years old, I went to Korea In the garden in a special class with a teacher who was going to teach me and a bunch of other blind kids something about school, I actually began to learn Braille in kindergarten. I remember I wish I still had it. I remember, she, in teaching me Braille said, the best way for you to learn Braille is to write something. I'm going to read you a story about nasturtiums. Anybody know how to spell illustrations, I don't remember. But I had to write the story down that was in what was called grade one or uncontracted Braille. I had learned grade two yet, but I learned the Braille alphabet in kindergarten, hello. And then my father was offered a job in Southern California and we moved to California, Palmdale, California. And the problem with moving to Palmdale, California was that there were no provisions at all for blind or any other kinds of kids with what we call today's disabilities, or special needs, or whatever you politically want to call it. I'm not really a great fan of political correctness. So let me be real blunt, I am blind, I'm not vision impaired, I don't have a visual handicap, I am blind. By the way, I am trying to help start a movement, what I am not is visually impaired. The last time I checked, being blind didn't have any effect on how you looked. So visually impaired really doesn't count. If you're going to do it, vision impaired is more accurate than visually impaired because I really probably would look the same. If I am blind or sighted. We'll deal with the glasses later. I normally don't wear glasses, but that's another story and we'll get to it. vision impaired I understand visually impaired really is ridiculous. But it's the term that people have used. So you need to help us change the habit. But in reality, I am blind. Let me define blind. A person is blind when they lose enough of their eyesight that they have to use. Let me rephrase that, that they will use alternative techniques to eyesight in order to accomplish tasks, whether it be reading or whatever, yes, you can get very thick lens glasses or CCTVs, and so on, to help a person use their eyesight to read, but they're blind by any standard of intelligence. If you think about it, they are blind, not that they don't have any eyesight, but they have to use alternative techniques. And they don't have to use eyesight. I have been in environments I've been involved in projects as an adult, where I've been in special education, schools where we've been discussing how to teach Braille reading and so on. And I've had teachers who would come up to me and talk about the fact that they have kids who are blind and kids who have some eyesight. They're legally blind, but not totally blind. Sally has some eyesight Johnny doesn't have any Sally gets to reprint Johnny has to read Braille. Michael Hingson 08:05 That attitude is so backward, or it should be considered backward. The problem is Sally may get to reprint, but she's going to have headaches, she's going to read very slow. And if Johnny gets to truly learn Braille, he's going to be reading at several 100 words a minute, while Sally is kind of poking along, and having headaches and not doing very well. I have no problem with children or adults using their eyes. If they have eyesight, I do have a problem with them not also having the opportunity to learn the techniques that blind people use. Because if they learn those techniques, then you they can use both worlds to live much more productive lives. And so for those of you who are special ed teachers, even if your children have some eyesight, and even if the parents resist, try to push back, they need to learn Braille. A lot of special education teachers have said to me well, but blind people don't need Braille anymore. It's passe. You can listen to books and so on. You've got recordings we've now got Of course, files and you can use synthetic speech to hear the books read. Yeah, listen to one of those books with synthetic speech and see how much you enjoy it. But But yes, it's available. But my question to any of those people is tell me why you still teach sighted kids to read print? My they could watch cartoons, they could watch TV? Why do they need to learn to read print? The bottom line is blindness isn't the problem that I face. The problem I face consists truly of the attitudes and misconceptions that people have about blindness and it still comes back down to the fact that in reality people think That blind people can't truly be as productive in society as people who can see. Ah, and I wanted to do something before we go on how many heroes special ed teachers? Let me just see. Alright, how many are HR people? All right, a few of you get it. So I'm going to stop right now and say for those of you who didn't clap, how many of you think it's bright when a lecturer asks you a question and they're blind that you raise your hands? And you prove my point. So the bottom line is blindness isn't the problem. There are so many people in the world who are blind who have accomplished every bit as much if not more than most people in society, because they've learned that eyesight isn't really the gating factor. The gating factor are our attitudes about blindness. Jacob Salatin was a cardiologist who didn't live a long life. I think he died at 36. He was in the early he lived in the early 1900s. He was blind. And he was one of the most famous heart doctors in the Chicago area. There's a book about him called the good doctor, you gotta try to find it and read it. It's fascinating read. There are so many others. Jacobus tenbroek, was the founder of the National Federation of the Blind. He was born in Canada, but lost his eyesight at the age of seven lived most of his life in the United States. Dr. Tim Brooke, was taught by Dr. Newell Perry in in Albany at the School for the Blind at that time, and learned that in fact, he could do whatever he chose to do blindness was the problem. Dr. Tim Brooke went through the standard education courses and eventually had I had taken lectureships in at the University of California at Berkeley, did his undergraduate work there, he wanted to go into law. But when he graduated, and expressed that interest, the school said, No, you can't because a blind person can't do that. You could get a degree in psychology, you can get your PhD in psychology. But you can't get a law degree because blind people can't do that way too much reading way too complicated. So Dr. Tim Britt bowed to the pressure and got his degree in psychology, and then was hired to teach at UC Berkeley. Michael Hingson 12:29 I don't remember the exact year but somewhere along the line, he was asked to chair the speech department at the University of California at Berkeley. Now Dr. Tim Brooke, who was by then married to his wife, Hazel was pretty bright guy and kind of guy. Dr. Hambrick, accepted the position and said to the entire university, I want faculty members to join my speech department. But if you're going to join this department, what you need to understand is that you have to undertake a discipline, different from your discipline of education. So if you're a physicist, for example, and you want to join my department, you got to do research on something other than physics, you can tie it back to physics, but you have to do something other than physics is your main effort of work in our department. Well, Dr. Turmeric was one of these guys who believed in practicing what he preached, what do you think that he decided to do his discipline on? Dr. temperate became one of the foremost constitutional law scholars of the 20th century. There are still many cases that use his treatise is on tort law. And many examples of his works on discrimination and so on, are used today. In 1940, he formed with others, the National Federation of the Blind, the largest organization of blind people, consumers in the United States. And we don't have time to go into a lot of his work. But the point is, it didn't matter that he was buying, he did get to law. And he did it in a roundabout way. But he did it in a way that the university had to accept. And they loved him for it, in fact that Dr. Tim Burke was one of the few people in California who has ever been asked by both political parties to run for the United States Senate. And that happened after senator Claire angle, had a stroke and and he obviously could not continue as a senator and passed away. Dr. Tamarack was asked by both parties to run and he refused. Because he was enjoying his work with the National Federation of the Blind. He was involved in forming the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley and so on and doing so much constitutional law work. He knew that's what he needed to do. blindness isn't the problem. And so the question that all of you need to consider is are you going to hold people back? Or are you going to truly embrace a positive philosophy That says bind people bind students can do whatever they choose. And we're going to challenge them just like we would challenge any other student. And we're going to challenge them to do the best that they can truly do. And we're going to help teach them what they need. And sometimes that's going to mean you need to do as much work to educate parents. Because parents are frightened. They don't know. They're victims. I won't say products. They're victims of the same society that has negative attitudes about blindness. And I know there's only so much you can do, but you can set the tone. All of you here, not just in special education, but all of you here can set the tone. To give you an example of the kinds of attitudes that I faced. We moved to Victorville California in 2014. Where do you live in Victorville? Where do you live? Okay, we live in Spring Valley lake. Yeah. Other side. We chose property and build a house on it. My wife happens to be in a wheelchair and it's been in a chair her whole life. So we, we knew that if you buy a house and modify it, it costs a lot of money. If you build a house, it doesn't cost anything to build in the accessibility. And we found a piece of property very close to the Victorville Spring Valley Lake Country Club. So we get to walk to breakfast, or to go to dinner when we want to go out to eat, which is great. Anyway, before we moved to Victorville, in 2013, my wife and I were in an IKEA store with a couple of other people. And this young 13 year old boy comes up to me and he says, I'm sorry. And I stood there for a second. I said, Well, what are you sorry about? Well, because you can't see. I didn't know this kid. But that was his attitude. And I probably didn't answer in the best way that I could. But I said, Well, I'm sorry that you can because you don't get what I get. Michael Hingson 17:05 And by that time, his mother saw that he was tying this blanket and called him away and told him that not bothered the blind man. But you know, the bottom line is, we're no different than anyone else. We don't have the disability that all of you house. You know, in the 1800s, Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. Why did he do that? Because as we now understand, with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people who can't function in the dark. Michael Hingson 17:39 You light dependent people I know there are more of you than there are of me. But we're gonna get you in a dark alley one night, and we'll see if we can read. You know, again, it isn't. It isn't a blindness issue. I did go to college, I graduated I had several jobs that eventually led me to be in the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. I was there as the Mid Atlantic region sales manager for quantum Corporation, which was a fortune 500 computer company. I had been hired two years before to open an office for quantum in New York City. I was living back there because I had been transferred by another company from California to sell in New York City because I had been doing it by phone. And I made the case for the fact that we needed to do it on site. So I was asked to open an office because I had been recruited by quantum to do that. We opened the office on the 78th floor of tower one of the World Trade Center. The 78th floor is what's called a skylounge a sky lobby. That meant that elevators would go straight from floor one to 78 without stopping the World Trade Center. The way it was structured was that you could take elevators to go from floor one up to some number of floors but there were also direct elevators to floor 44 and floor 78. The 44th floor was where the cafeteria was the Port Authority cafeteria that everyone use 78 was the next jumping off point. You would then go to other elevators to go to other floors are you take the stairs, or in our case we were fortunate to have our office right on the 78th floor and on September 11 we were going to be holding some sales seminars to teach some of our resellers how to teach how to sell our products. I Arctic con they are excuse me quantum the company that worked for then artic con move me to the east coast but quantum work through a two tier distribution and sales model. So typically most of our products were sold to a few very large distributors and they in turn sign the smaller resellers and the major distributor we worked with Ingram micro wanted to make sure that their resellers knew how to sell our products. So they asked if we do the seminar and we set it up for of course September 11. By that time, I Had my fifth guide dog Roselle was that was a yellow lab. Roselle was also a dog with a great sense of humor, she loved to steal socks. She wouldn't eat them, she hid them. And I was warned by her puppy raisers that she'd like to do that. And she did. She stole my wife slippers once and hid them. And we had to find them. So in any case, we we in, Roselle and I were matched in 1999. And in 2001, she was very used to working in the World Trade Center with me, I had spent a lot of time when we started the office and started preparing to open the office, I had spent a great deal of time learning where everything in the World Trade Center was that I could possibly want to know about, I knew what was on most every floor, especially that would be a place where we might want to reach out and, and try to sell. I knew how to get around. I spent a lot of time studying emergency evacuation procedures. And almost every day when I went into the office, I remember thinking, if there's an emergency today, how am I going to get out? What am I going to do? And I made sure I knew the answers to those things. Because many times I would be in the office alone, nobody else would be there. Because I had a staff working for me great sales guys. And their job was to go out and sell and support their manager, right. So that was me. And my job was to be inside supporting them going on sales calls with them from time to time. But a lot of times I would be in the office alone, fielding their questions, helping them in any way that I could, working to make sure that I knew everything that they might need to know so that I could enhance them out in the field. In fact, every salesperson I ever hired, I said, Look, I know you're working for me. But I want you to understand that I view myself as a second person on your sales team. And what you and I need to do is to learn how we work together so I can add value to you and enhance what you do. My favorite example of that was with a guy named Kevin, who I hired. Michael Hingson 22:14 I really liked Kevin, because when we were doing the interview, I said to him like I did to everyone, tell me what you're going to be selling for us and how you're going to do it. Now the typical answer for most people was, well, you're selling tape drives, we're going to be selling the tape drives, I'm going to learn all about those. And I'm going to go off and tell people how to do it. And what what they need to know so that they can buy it. That's the typical answer. Kevin's answer was the only person who ever gave it and it was the answer I wanted to hear. The only thing I have to sell is me and my reputation. And I need your support. I won't do anything without telling you. But when we agree on something, I'm going to go sell me and through them will and through that we'll sell the products. But if they don't believe me, they're not going to be interested in our products. And I have to rely on you. What an answer. But it was the right answer truly. So one day Kevin comes into my office and he says, Hey, we have sales opportunity at Salomon Brothers. I said, Okay. He said, they want me to come out and talk about our products for a project they have, I'm not sure that our products will really be what they want. But they want us to come and talk about it. And they wanted me to bring my manager along a decision maker. I said, Okay, he said, so they don't know you. So I didn't tell him you're blind. Michael Hingson 23:51 So we got to the meeting. We entered the building right at 10 o'clock. We I wanted to arrive a minute or so late. I knew what Kevin meant. When he said I didn't tell him you're blind. Because we were going to hit him right between the eyes with that. So about 1001 we're walking down the hallway here, a bunch of people talking a few and we're going where are these quantum people in all that we walk in the door and the room goes totally silent. We stand there for a moment. And I turned to Kevin, I said, So where are we going to do this? He says all right up here in the front. So we went up to the front I had a laptop projector in hand on my laptop also opened up the cases took things out and says where do we plug this stuff in? And he says I'll take it and he plugs it in. And meanwhile, I'm standing there facing this audience. And so I turn to my left. And I said to the person sitting right in the front row on the corner who I heard as we walked by, I said, Hi my name is Mike Kingston, who are you? Nothing. Really, who are you? Nothing. So I kind of walk over near him and I'm looking straight at him. And I said I heard you when I walked by, who are you? So finally he said, Oh, my name is Joe. I said, Good, glad to meet you. And when I shook his hand, I said, you know, doesn't matter whether I'm blind beside, I know you're there. I don't know a lot about you yet, but I'm gonna learn about you. So tell me, Joe, why are you interested in our tape drives? I didn't ask if he was interested. I asked him why? Because I knew from my Dale Carnegie sales course you don't answer ask yes or no questions unless you really know the answer. But you don't ask yes or no questions. That doesn't give you a lot of information. So Joe, kind of hemmed and hawed and finally gave me an answer to that. And then I said, So tell me a little bit more about the project, if you will. And he did. And then I went to the next person, and I went around the room. And I talked to those people, learning a lot, including our product wasn't gonna do anything to help these people. But we were there. So we did the presentation. I did the presentation, I had a script, I did the PowerPoint show. And on my script was in incredible detail. And it said, everything that I needed to know including even on the screen, what picture appeared where so I could point over my shoulder and say, on the left side of your screen, you'll see the A TLP 3000, which holds 16 tape drives and 326 tape cartridges, we use a special technology called prism technology, our system is very modular, we can actually connect five of those drives together five of those libraries together, so that you could have a total of 80, tape drives, and 16 120. Tape cartridges, all in one big library. And on the right side of your screen, you can see the ATL p 1000, which is a small single drive library with 30, tape drives, and some things like that, and talk on and on and on. And we went off and we talked and all that, and we did the whole show. And then I said at the end, and as you can see our product won't do what you want. But I wanted you to know about it, because I want you to understand what different systems can do. Now let me tell you a little bit about who has a product that will help you. My bosses would shoot me if they heard me say that. But it's the ethical thing to do. And so we talked about that a little bit. And then we ended the day and people will come up to me and we chatted some and a couple came up and they said we're really angry at you. And I said Why? He said Well, usually when people come in, they do these presentations, we just kind of fall asleep and vege out, you know, because they just keep talking and talking. But you never looked away and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, we forgot you were blind. We didn't dare fall asleep. And I said, Well, you could have fallen asleep. The dog was down here. You may think he's asleep, but he's taken notes. Anyway, we ended and we went out and Kevin said, How can you know so much about our products? And and you knew some of these later things that I don't know. And I said, Well, did you read the product bulletin that came out last week? Well, no, I really didn't have time. I said, there you go. message received and understood. But about two weeks later, the Solomon people called back and they said, We really do appreciate all that you did and coming out and talking with us. And we have something to tell you. And that is that there's another project. Because of everything that you taught us, we know that your product is perfect for it, we're not even putting it out for bid, just give us a price. That's the ethics of it. That's the way to sell. Michael Hingson 28:31 And that's what we did. So, in any case, I spent a lot of time learning what to do in the case of an emergency, so that I could get out when necessary, because I knew that people like Kevin and the rest of our sales and support staff would be out working a lot of times. And so I knew everything that I could possibly know about what to do in any kind of an unusual situation. On September 10, I went home as usual, I took my laptop, which is what I used in the office, I backed up my data at home. I'm a good Scout, I know how to be prepared, and sometimes I would work at home. So I always made sure I had my data backed up at home as well as on the job. By the way, speaking of scouts as long as I'm bragging, I happen to be an Eagle Scout with two palms and vigil in the order of the arrow. blindness isn't the issue. Michael Hingson 29:33 A lot of fun. I had some great scout leaders who accepted me for who I was and that made all the difference. In any case. I backed up my data later that night we went to bed and about 1230 Roselle started nudging me. Now Roselle was afraid of thunder. And of course we had rain storms in New Jersey. We lived in Westfield, great town. Again there we build our house that was a two story house. We put an elevator in So we could go to the two stories and the basement. So we had this nice elevator and nice house. But Roselle now was bugging me at 1230. And I knew that there must be a storm coming. She usually gave us about a half hour warning because she could sense it, as we know because the static charge would build up on her for as well as the fact that she probably heard the thunder before we do and so Rosa was shaking and shivering and panting and so I took Roselle Karen, my wife was awake by that time and we both agree there must be a storm coming. So we went downstairs to my basement to our basement. I put Roselle under my desk and I sat down and decided to try to do a little bit of work that I was going to do the next day before our sales seminars began. I turned on the stereos and had a pretty loud hopefully masking some of the thunder sounds. But God has a sense of humor. I guess. The storm literally came right over our house. It sounds like bombs going off outside and pours it Roselle was just shaking. At least she didn't see the lightning because she was under the desk. We were there until about two o'clock. Then the storm left. And so I went back up and we got three more hours asleep and then got up to go into the office. I didn't think it was a bad sign of things to come. Some people have said well, didn't you get the warning? No. So we got to the office at 740. And there was a guy there he just pulled up with a cart. He was from the Port Authority cafeteria, he was bringing the breakfast that we ordered for the early arrivals. And for the first group of seminar people we had 50 people scheduled during the day to come to one of four seminars. by eight o'clock. Some of our distribution people from Ingram micro arrived along with David Frank from our corporate office, David was in charge of the distribution sales, then he was there to help the Ingram micro people talk about pricing. I was there because of course I'm the technical contact the guy who would be on site in New York all the time. David was from New York, but he transplanted to California. And so so he was there and I was there we were the two quantum people, the Ingram micro people were there for about five Ingram micro people, six, actually, I guess. And then one of them decided about quarter after eight or 830, to go downstairs and to wait in the lobby, and a score our distribution people to where they needed to go. The last thing we needed to do before the seminars or to start was to create a list of all the people who would be attending that day, if you wanted to go to the World Trade Center and go up and see anyone at that time, because of the bombing in 1993, you either had to have your name on a previously prepared list that was created on stationery from the company where you were going. So they could check your name off after looking at your ID, or they would have to call us and say is so and so allowed to come up. We didn't want to have 50 phone calls. So it was easier to create the list. David and I finished the list and at 845 in the morning I was reaching for stationery to create the list and print it out when suddenly we felt a muffled thump. And the building sort of shuttered a little a minor kind of explosion not overly loud. And then the building began to tip. As I'm tipping my hand and it just kept tipping and tipping and tipping. We actually moved about 20 feet. Michael Hingson 33:37 The building kept tipping. David said What's going on? I said I don't know what do you think? I said do you think it was an explosion? You said it didn't sound like it? He said was it an earthquake? I said no. Because the building's not shaking from side to side or anything it's going in one direction. Now I knew that building the towers were made to buffet and winds although I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. But the building kept tipping and hey I grew up in Palmdale right building musco Santa doorway, so I went and stood in the doorway to my office. Yeah, a lot of good that's really going to do your 78 floors up but hey, there I was. David was just holding on to my desk. Roselle was asleep under my desk. And finally, David, I say goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor punch to the street. Then the building slowed down and it stopped. And it came back the other way. And I remember as soon as the building started to move back, I let out my breath. I didn't even realize I was holding it. The building eventually got to be vertical again. As soon as it did, I went into my office and I met my guide dog Roselle coming out from under my desk. I took her leash and told her to heal, which meant to come around on my left side just like Alamo did good boy, he gets a reward for sitting and Roselle came and sat and was just wagging your tail And about that time, the building Straight down about six feet. Because as we know, the expansion joints went back to their normal configuration. We didn't really think about that at the time, but that's what they were doing. As soon as that occurred, David let go of the desk, turned around and looked around outside and said, Oh my god, Mike, there's fire and smoke above us. There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the window. We got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. I said. Are you sure? Yeah, I can see the fire above us. And there millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our windows. I heard stuff, brushing the windows, but I didn't know what it was. Now I did. And our guests began to scream the ones that were in eating breakfast, waiting for the seminar to start, they started moving toward our exit and I kept saying slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here right now. The buildings on fire. Slow down. David will get out. Just be patient. No, we got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. For me, emergency preparedness training kicked in. Because I, as you know, kept thinking What do I do? Emergency Well, here it was. Then David said the big line Mike, we got to get out of here. And I said slow down. He says no, you don't understand you can't see it. The problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing. The problem was what David wasn't seeing when I tell you about Rozelle with thunderstorms. She wasn't doing any of that she was wagging her tail and Jani and going, who woke me up. She wasn't giving any fear indication at all. And so I knew that whatever was occurring, we weren't imminently immediately threatened. So I finally got David to focus and say, get our guests to the stairs and start them down. And he did. While he was doing that, I called Karen, my wife and said, there's been an emergency and something happened. We're going to be evacuating, I'll let you know later What's going on? And she said, what's, what is what is going on? I said, Oh, no. The airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. Afterward, when reporters started interviewing me. They said, Well, of course you didn't know what happened because you couldn't see it. I said, Wait a minute, helped me understand. The plane hit on the 96th floor roughly. On the other side of the building from us the last time I heard there really wasn't such a thing as x ray vision. None of us knew blindness had nothing to do with you can't justify that. None of us knew. And on the stairs, none of us knew. And we were with a whole bunch of people on the stairs. Anyway, David came back. I just disconnected with Karen. We swept the offices to make sure we didn't miss anyone. We tried to power down some equipment, didn't really have time to do a lot of that and we just left a went to the stairs and started down. Almost immediately I began smelling an odor and it took me a little while to recognize that what I was smelling was burning jet fuel. I traveled a lot through airports about 100,000 miles a year. So I knew that smell but I didn't associate it with the World Trade Center. Now suddenly, I smelled it and I recognize it finally after about four floors, and I observed it to others who said yeah, that's what it is. You're right. Michael Hingson 38:12 So we kept walking down the stairs. Got down about 10 floors and then from above us we heard Brian victim coming through move to the side let us by the stairs were wide enough that you could walk like two or three abreast but we moved to the outer wall stood facing in and a group of people passed us and David described how they were surrounding a woman who is very badly burned over the upper part of her body, probably from the little vapor droplets that can busted as she was standing in front of an elevator. We then started walking again and then we heard it again burned record coming through moving to the side, let us buy and another group pass us with someone who is burn. As David said even worse, we knew it had to be pretty bad above us. We kept walking down some conversation. We got to about the 50th floor David wasn't talking very much. And suddenly he said Mike we're gonna die. We're not going to make it out of here. And I just said stop it David if Roselle and I can go down the stairs. So can you see I took that secret teacher course that that all of you as teachers have never told anybody about because you're sworn to secrecy, right? voice 101 where you learn to yell at students, right? And so I literally very deliberately spoke very harshly to David. And he told me that that brought him out of his funk. But then David made a decision, which I think is still one of the most profound and incredible decisions and follow throughs that I experienced that day. David said, You know, I got to keep my mind on it on what's going on. But I don't I don't want to think about this. I want to think about something else. So I'm going to walk the floor below you and shout up to you everything that I see on the stairs, okay. And I said Sure, go ahead. Did I need David to do that? No. Right, you're going down the stairs, what can you do, but it was okay. And I'm glad to have more information. I love information. And so I thought it was fine. But the reason that I thought that what David did was so incredible will come up in a moment. So suddenly I'm on the 49th floor when I walked down the floor and David walked ahead of us and suddenly, Hey, Mike, I'm on the 48th floor, everything is good here going on down. I'm on 49 go into 48 get to 48 David 47th floor all clear. What David was doing, although he was shouting up to me, he was providing information that hundreds or 1000s of people on the stairwell could hear. He gave everyone a focus point. Anyone who could hear him knew that somewhere above them or below them on the stairs, someone was okay. And that it was clear and they could keep going. He gave everyone something to focus on. And I think that that was the one thing more than anything else. That had to keep more people from possibly panicking like he started to do on the stairs. We didn't have any other incidents that that after David started shouting 46 floor all clear. Hey, I'm on 45 everything is good here. 44th floor This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping going on down. Michael Hingson 41:31 And we continue down the stairs. We eventually got to the 30th floor. And when we did actually David did and I was at 31 he said I see I see firefighters coming up the stairs. We're going to have to let them by everybody moved to the side while I went down to where he was and they hadn't got there yet. I said what do you see? And he said, Well I just see him coming up the stairs they got heavy backpacks on and they're carrying shovels oxygen cylinders by our axes the first guy gets to us and he stops right in front of me and when let me bike goes hey buddy you okay? You know that's how you sound in New York right? Hey buddy. Yo, in New Jersey, it's yo and I said yeah I'm fine well that's really nice we're gonna send somebody down the stairs which should make sure you get out and I said you don't need to do that I'm good. What's really nice we're gonna send somebody which anyway I said Look, I just came down from the 78th floor here we are at 30 I came down 48 floors I'm really good. Wow, it's really nice. We're gonna send somebody down the stairs which I said Look, I got my guide dog Roselle here and and everything is good. We're doing fine. Now what a nice dog and he reaches out and he starts petting Roselle. It wasn't the time to give him a lecture don't pet a guide dog and harness. But I'll give you the lecture dump had a guide dog and harness, dog and harness do not come up Don't say name don't interact with even don't make eye contact dog in harness is working harness is symbol of work. Don't distract dog. If you do, I will first correct the dog before I deal with you. Because rose Alamo should know better. He is still a puppy though. And dogs love to interact. And so when you start trying to talk with them, they're going to talk to you, they're going to try and then I have to bring him back and focus him. I don't want to do that. So don't deal with a guide dog and harness. Now as I said before, when we're out selling books later harness will come off, and you're welcome to visit with him all you want. Of course, I'd love you to buy books too. And take business cards because if any of you know anyone who needs a public speaker, whether it's in your district or or their organizations, I would love you to to let me know or let them know, because this is what I do. And I really would love your help to do more of this to educate people. We can talk more about that later. Any case wasn't the time to give them that lecture and it wasn't the time to say to the fire person. blindness isn't the problem. It's your attitude, you know, so I finally just played the card. Look, I got my friend David over here David can see we're working together okay. And he turns to David here with him. David goes yeah, leave him alone. He's good. He says okay, and he goes, then he pets Roselle a few more times. She gives him a few more kisses. And he goes on up the stairs. Probably just having received the last unconditional love he ever gotten his life. Michael Hingson 44:21 And I remember that. Every time I say it. I don't know I never heard whether they survived or not. But don't know that he did. But he was gone. Other firefighters were coming up 50 men and women pastors going up the stairs to fight that fire. Several of us on one or more occasions said can we help you guys and they just said no Your job is to go down and get out ours is to go deal with this. We got it. David we assumed a scouting position and we kept going down the stairs. Finally David said well at about the 26th floor by the way Somebody started passing up water bottles. Roselle was panting I was getting pretty warm with all the the massive human bodies. So we we gave Roselle some water somebody passed up bottles and David brought one up and he took some drinks I took some drinks we gave Roselle some we made our hands into kind of cups and so everybody got some water and then we continued and finally he got to the first floor. I was on four second floor two and he said hey Mike, the water sprinklers are on here you're going to have to run through a curtain and water to get out of the stairwell. And the water was running to create a barrier so fire wouldn't get in or out depending on if it ever broke out. He was gone. I got to the first floor picked up the harness results forward hopper speed up, which is the command to give. we raced through this torrential downpour of water and came out the other end soaking. But we were in the lobby of tower one. Normally a very quiet building and quiet lobby office type environment. But now people were shouting dunk on that way. Don't go outside go this way. megaphones don't go over their gun this way. Go to the doors into the rain, main part of the complex don't go outside. They didn't want anyone going out because that would have put them right below where people were jumping. We didn't know that at the time. So this guy comes up to David and me. And he says, Hey, I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And I'm sitting there going the FBI. What did I do? I didn't do it. sighs I'm not talking to anybody about McGarrett from five Oh, I didn't think that. Anyway, I said What's going on? He said no time to tell you just come with us. So he ran us through the whole complex and out a door after going up an escalator by borders, books as far away from the towers as we could be. And we made it outside. And we were told to leave the area. But David looked around and said, Mike, I see fire in tower two. I said what? Yeah, there's fire in the second tower. Sure. Yeah. And I went, what's going on? We had no idea where that came from. We didn't feel thing in our building when we were going down the stairs. So we thought perhaps it was just fire that jumped across from our building when the building tipped it was mashing pointed toward tower to we didn't know. So we left the area we walked over to Broadway, we walk north on Broadway and eventually we got to Vesey street where we stopped because David says see the fire and tower to really well. We're only 100 yards away. I want to take pictures. So we stopped. He got out his camera. I got out my phone. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through the circuits were busy because as we now know everyone was everyone was saying goodbye to loved ones. But I couldn't get through to Karen. I had just put my phone away and David was putting his camera away when a police officer to get out of here it's coming down and we heard this rumble that quickly became this deafening roar I described the sound is kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass tinkling and breaking metal clattering in is white noise sound as tower to collapse it pancake straight down. David turned and ran. He was gone. Everyone was running different directions. I bodily lifted, Roselle turned 180 degrees and started running back the way we came. Come on was I'll keep going good girl keep going. We ran got to Fulton Street, turned right onto Fulton Street. And now we're going west. At least we had a building between us and the towers. I ran about maybe 100 feet or so. And suddenly there was David. It turns out we had both run in the same direction. And then he realized that he had just left me he was going to come back and try to find me. But I found him first and he started apologizing. I said David, don't worry about the buildings coming down. Let's keep going and we started to run. And then we were engulfed in the dust cloud all the dirt and debris in the fine particles of tower two that were collapsing that we're that we're coming down. And so David and I were now engulfed in this cloud. He said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face. I could feel with every breath I took stuff going through my mouth and through my nose into my throat and settling in my lungs. That's how thick it was. I could feel it settling in my lungs. Michael Hingson 49:19 So we kept running and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle right? Right with hand signals and voice I don't know whether she could hear me and because of the dust. I don't even know if she could see me. Right? Roselle right? But I was listening for an opening on my right and the first opening I heard I was gonna go into it. And obviously Roselle didn't know what I want because when that first opening appeared, I heard it but she immediately turned right she took one step and she stopped and she wouldn't move. Connor was I'll keep going, she wouldn't move. And I realized there must be a reason. So I stuck a handle on a wall and stuck out a foot and realized and discovered that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. She had done her job perfectly. We walked down two flights of stairs and found ourselves in little arcade, a lobby of a subway station. We continued to well, we just stayed there for a while. And then this guy comes up. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system. And he took us down to the lower levels of the subway station to an employee locker room. And when we got to the locker room, there were benches there were about eight or nine of us who were in the lobby at that point, that little arcade, there were other people that he had already escorted down. So we were all in this employee locker room, there was a water fountain, there were benches, there was a fan. We were all hacking and trying to get rid of stuff from our lungs, and not saying much what the heck was going on. None of us knew. We were there for a few minutes. And then a police officer came and he said, the air is clear up above you're gonna have to, to leave and and go out of here right now. So we followed him up the stairs, he went to that little arcade lobby where we had been, and then he went on up the stairs. He said the air is a little bit better up there. And we just followed him. And finally we went outside after getting to the top. David looked around, and he said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no tower to anymore. And I said, What do you see? And he said, All I see are pillars of smoke where the tower was it's gone. Pretty sure. Yeah, it's gone. We stood there for a moment. And then we just turn and continue to walk west on Fulton Street. We walked for about maybe a quarter of a mile. And we were in this little Plaza area. Just still trying to figure out what was happening when suddenly we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it was tower one collapsing, David looked back and saw it. And he saw a dust cloud coming toward us again, it was still pretty concentrated. So we kind of ran to the side to get out of most of it hunkered down behind a wall and just waited until everything passes by and the wind subsided, the noise stop. And then we stood up. Turn, David looked around and said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no World Trade Center anymore. I said what do you see? And he said, fingers of fire and flame hundreds of feet tall and pillars of smoke, the towers are gone. We're gone in three hours before less than three hours before just to do our job. But now in the blink of an eye, it was gone. No clue why we stood there for a moment. And then I decided I better try to call Karen and this time I got through. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she told us how to aircraft had been crashed into the towers went into the Pentagon and a fourth was still missing over Pennsylvania. We walked up toward Midtown and eventually got near Midtown Manhattan to the subway station and the train station at 33rd and sixth and seventh Avenue. And David and I set parted and went different ways. I wanted to get back home to Westfield he wanted to get up to the Upper East Side to his sister's house, which is where he was staying when I was back in New York. And so we went our separate ways. Michael Hingson 53:42 And never, never thinking that that was the end. And a lot of ways. We did try to reopen the office elsewhere, but didn't get a lot of support from the company and decided that, for me, it was time to do something different. The reason I decided that was that the day after September 11, the 12th. Karen said you want to call the folks from Guide Dogs for the Blind. That's where you've gotten all your guide dogs got to let them know that you were in the trade center and got out because eventually they would remember it a number of them had visited us in our office, because it's such a cool view. I don't know how to tell you about the view so much other than to say we were so high up that on the Fourth of July, people would go to our office to look down on the fireworks displays. So I called them and talked to a number of people including their public information officer, Joanne Ritter, who wanted to do a story and I said sure, and she said, You know, you're probably going to get request to be on TV. What TV show Do you want to start with? So yeah, I'm not really thinking about that sort of stuff, right? kind of still in shock. So I just said Larry King Live. Two days later on the 14th. We had the first of five interviews with Larry King. And so we started doing that and eventually Guide Dogs asked me to come and be a public spoke serve their public spokesperson. And I was being asked by that time to travel and speak and tell my story. And people said, we want to hire you. Being a sales guy, I'm sitting there going, you want to hire me just to come and talk. That sounds a whole lot more fun than working for quantum. And we wanted to move back to California anyway. So I accepted Guide Dogs position, and I've been speaking ever since. Other things have happened along the way very quickly, including I was asked in 2015, by a startup company, AIRA, a IRA to join their advisory board and AIRA makes a product called a visual interpreter. It consists of an app on a smartphone. And it may also include smart glasses with a high resolution video camera. And what I wrote allows me to do is to contact an agent who has been hired and vetted and trained to describe whatever the camera sees, and whatever information I need so they can help with an accessible websites. They helped me put together products when the instructions were all visual pictures, the Chinese have learned from IKEA, and in so many other ways that literally now, any visual information becomes available with AIRA. I just really want to quickly show you like hierro and we can we can talk more about AIRA this afternoon in the the session at 345. I want you to see what AIRA does. So hopefully AIRA 56:37 connecting to agent Kenyon starting video we're gonna wait. Oh, Michael, thanks for calling. I read this is Kenyon. What would you like to do today? Michael Hingson 56:48 I'd like you to tell me what you see. AIRA 56:50 I see a very large crowd, right? Michael Hingson 56:54 Yeah, what else? AIRA 56:56 podium to mic. And it looks like a very large auditorium, see some doors toward the back exit signs, and very captive crowds. Michael Hingson 57:09 Here's the real question. Do they look like they're awake? AIRA 57:16 They are now. So we're good. Michael Hingson 57:21 So tell them what you do. AIRA 57:26 I assist those who are sight challenged with independence on a daily basis. We allow them to be more independent in their daily lives to get around with minimal help. And we basically help them to see Michael Hingson 57:41 how do you do that? What do you do? 57:44 We use descriptives we use, we call in as we did now. And we ask them, What would you like to do and we assist them with whatever their task may be for that day, whether it be for reading, navigation, calling an Ubers, travel, descriptives, you name it, we can do it. We do that through either, believe you're using the glasses right now. We have horizon glasses we use and then or through technology in the phones, we use remote cameras, to help them to see the world around them and describe it to them. And to help them navigate through Michael Hingson 58:17 it to real quick stories. One, one IRA agent helped someone once while they were on an African safari to describe what was going on. But my favorite IRA story is that a father once wanted to find out if his daughter was really doing her homework. So he activated IRA. And he went in with the agent and said, How are things going? And she said, Oh great. I'm almost done with my homework. And the Irish said Irish and said, No, she's playing a game on her iPhone. AIRA 58:48 Yes, we also bust children whenever we need to. Michael Hingson 58:54 Kenny, I appreciate your time. I'm going to go ahead and finish chatting with these folks. But appreciate you taking the time to chat today. AIRA 59:02 You bet. Thanks for calling AIRA. Michael, we'll talk to you again soon. Michael Hingson 59:04 Thank you, sir. Bye. And that's what and that's what I read is all about. The whole the whole point is that I get access to all the information I otherwise don't have access to. Because ironically, in our modern technological world, sometimes it's actually becoming harder for me to get access to information. Too many websites are inaccessible and shouldn't be too many books may be scanned, but they're not put in a textual form that I have access to. There have been lawsuits over that. But the bottom line is that IRA creates access, or I should say it creates inclusion it gives me access to the information that I otherwise wouldn't have access to. So be glad to show that to any of you What I'd like to do is to end this now, with some words from Dr. Tim Brooke, that the person I mentioned earlier, this is part of a speech that he gave at the 1956 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in San Francisco. So it is a convention of blind people. But what I'm reading to you now could just as easily apply to any group. And I'm sure that Dr. Tim Burke intended it that way. And this is what he wrote. In the 16th century, john Bradford made a famous remark, which has ever since been held up to us as a model of Christian humility, and correct charity, and which you saw reflected in the agency quotations I presented earlier, seeing a beggar in his rags creeping along a wall through a flash of lightning in a stormy night, Bradford said, but for the grace of God, there go I compassion was shown. Pity was shown, charity was shown. Humility was shown. There was even an acknowledgment that the relative positions of the two could and might have been switched. Yet, despite the compassion, despite the pity, despite the charity, despite the humility, how insufferably arrogant there was still an unbridgeable gulf between Bradford and the beggar. They were not one but two, whatever might have been, Bradford thought himself Bradford, and the beggar a beggar one high, the other low one Why's the other misguided, one strong, the other weak, one virtuous, the other depraved. We do not and cannot take the Bradford approach. It is not just that beggary is the badge of our past, and is still all too often the present symbol of social attitudes toward us, although that is at least a part of it. But in the broader sense, we are that bigger, and he is, each of us, we are made in the same image. And out of the same ingredients, we have the same weaknesses and strengths, the same feelings, emotions, and drives. And we are the product of the same social, economic and other environmental forces. How much more constant with the facts of individual and social life, how much more a part of a true humanity to say, instead, there within the grace of God, do go I. And I want to leave you with that, because I think that sums it up as well as I can possibly do. We're all on the same world together. And you have the awesome responsibility to help children. And perhaps their parents grow, and truly become more included in society. So this afternoon, I'll be talking about the concept of moving from diversity to inclusion, and I'll tell you why choose that title. And I'll tell you now, when you watch television, you hear all about diversity. How often do you ever hear disabilities mentioned? You don't? Hollywood doesn't mention us. The candidates aren't mentioning us in all the political debates. Michael Hingson 1:03:46 Even though 20% of the population has some sort of a disability, not concluding politicians who have their own disabilities, but we want to go we need to demand and we ask your help to create a true inclusive society. I challenge you to do that. I hope we get to chat later. Come to the presentation this afternoon and come and see us. We'll be selling Thunder dog books, and you can visit with Alamo. And also again, if you know anyone else who needs a speaker, it's what I do, as you can tell, did you all feel you'll learn something today? vendors and everyone like Thanks very much, and I hope we get to chat some more. Thank you. Michael Hingson 1:04:43 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

On this episode of What Makes You Click, Kelvin welcomes Chris Sorensen, self-taught photographer of faces and places. Chris wasn't interested in photography until later in life, in fact, he worked in finance for 12 years. Listen in as he sheds light on the genesis of his creativity, beginning with a love for reading and writing, continuing with acting and modeling, and eventually leading to photography at the age of 40!Chris's willingness to uproot himself, travel, and immerse himself in unique subcultures has certainly influenced his success as a photographer. He explains why he is drawn to portraiture the most and shares his candid thoughts on some of his greatest projects, like Fulton Street and Wife During Quarantine.“Find what you love to shoot and shoot that. Don't shoot what other people want to see.”   - Chris SorensenTune in to learn the importance of portfolio reviews, who and what has influenced Chris's aesthetic, and to hear words of wisdom on authentically pursuing your art. Plus, Chris offers advice on strategically entering photography competitions and talks about how entering contests has impacted his career.Connect with Chris Sorensen:Visit his website: www.chris-sorensen.com Follow him on Instagram: www.instagram.com/_chris_sorensen Connect with What Makes You Click:Visit our website: www.whatmakesyouclick.com Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/whatmakesyouclickpodcast Connect with us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/whatmakesyouclick People + Resources Mentioned:Solve Sundsbo: www.solvesundsbo.comWalter Chin: www.ceruttiandco.com/photographers/walter-chinPhillip Toledano: http://mrtoledano.com Jake Chessum: www.jakechessum.comIn the American West: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2017/feb/25/richard-avedon-american-west-texas-in-picturesFulton Street Project: www.chris-sorensen.com/fulton-streetThe Mermaid Project: www.chris-sorensen.com/the-mermaid-projectNY Pride Project: www.thecut.com/2015/06/body-glitter-and-rainbow-eye-shadow-at-ny-pride.htmlWife During Quarantine Project: www.chris-sorensen.com/home/quarantine Strobist: https://strobist.blogspot.com/Mark Seliger: www.markseliger.com Dan Winters: www.danwintersphoto.comAmerican Photography: www.ai-ap.comCommunication Arts Photo Annual: www.commarts.com/competition/2021-photography Lens Culture: www.lensculture.comSony Awards: www.rewards.sony.com International Photography Awards: www.photoawards.com Kareem Black:

This week we toast it up and chat with the amazing Melissa Neptune of Josephine's Creme and the amazing Marvina Robinson of Stuyvesant Champagne. About Josephine's Creme My grandmother started making this Creme in her small Louisiana kitchen and began gifting it to the women in her family. I distinctly remember the day this family tradition was passed down to me. During a visit home from attending college in New Orleans, she called out to me, “MELISSA! Get in this kitchen and learn how to make this creme!” I guess she got tired of me always running out AND running to her for more! It never crossed my mind that our family tradition could become an entrepreneurial venture. I began making some of the Creme and gifting it to my friends. My friends loved it. They told others… and they loved it, too. And now Josephine's Creme has grown into a full line of skincare "secrets" that we know you will grow to love! About M. Robinson Growing up, M. Robinson's love affair with champagne began quite humbly as a college student. She and her friends would often pool their limited funds to purchase a bottle of Moet & Chandon, White Star. They frequented a liquor store on Fulton Street and St. James Place within the neighborhood she was raised. They would do the traditional toast, cheers, and proudly sip out of their plastic cups. Although this Bottle of Nostalgia was discontinued, it stoked a love for champagne in Marvina's heart that would burn brightly until this day. M. Robinson desired her own brand of champagne to serve as the private house label for her upcoming champagne bar. In order to achieve that goal, she worked with a vineyard in France to create Stuyvesant Champagne. The first tasting of Stuyvesant Champagne was hosted by Suite 607 located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This was the first official tasting in the United States with invited guests. After receiving great feedback from the carefully selected attendees, she was able to confirm the two selections that would become the primary offering of Stuyvesant Champagne; a Rose and a Grand Reserve Brut. One of M. Robinson's fondest memories of champagne occurred in January of 2019 when she visited the famous Les Deux Magots in Paris, France. She sat outside in the cold, under a heated lamp, chatted with a fellow patron, and sipped champagne as they did in the movies. M. Robinson has a zest for life and travels and hopes to bring a taste of home, spice, and culture to the Champagne community. She is one of the few African American women owning a Champagne brand. Her love for her hometown, Bedford-Stuyvesant (Brooklyn, NY), inspired the name of her brand, Stuyvesant Champagne.​ She invites you to raise a glass and toast to the freshness of family and beginnings of a strong and fruitful relationship. Rose Composition: Traditional blend of the 3 Champagne grape varieties from several harvests. Made up of approximately 60% Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier and 20% Chardonnay for the white wine. A Pinot Meunier-based red wine is added. Bottles: 750 ml To the Eye: The salmon-colored rose enhances the sparkling foam. Nose: The generous bouquet evolves towards notes of raspberry and redcurrant. Mouth: The mouth develops into a taste of fleshy cherry. ​ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/therosehourpodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/therosehourpodcast/support