Michael Fogleman

My sister had her second child on Sunday around 6am. Now I have a nephew and a niece! Meet Jayda Elizabeth Marie Gainey... (the only picture I have so far!)

posted by Michael  # 3/13/2008 08:06:00 AM 0 Comments

How many times have you looked for the expiration date on a product only to spend 30 seconds trying to decipher it? Throw in poorly printed characters and a horrible font and it gets bad enough that I'm willing to blog about it. It wasn't until I typed this post that I finally figured out the expiration date by typing it. Okay, I'll go finish cooking now.

posted by Michael  # 3/03/2008 07:49:00 PM 2 Comments

Well, I finally got around to creating my very own "photoblog", Fogle's Fotos. Check it out... http://www.foglesfotos.com/

posted by Michael  # 9/24/2007 10:06:00 PM 1 Comments

Check out my Flickr account if you haven't already! http://www.flickr.com/photos/fogleman/

posted by Michael  # 7/17/2007 08:12:00 PM 1 Comments

Been taking lots and lots of pictures lately, and planning on starting a photoblog soon. (I need to hurry up and do that, because this page layout doesn't work well with large photos so I keep shrinking them way too small.) But until then here's just a random picture from yesterday... a view of lower Manhattan from Brooklyn. It was a crappy and hazy day so we didn't bother hanging around for the fireworks. Maybe next time.

posted by Michael  # 7/05/2007 09:19:00 PM 0 Comments

I took this picture tonight on the way back home from NYC. (Yes, I went out of my way to get off of the interstate, find a grocery store parking lot and snap this photo.) I've driven my 2003 Corolla 100,000 miles since March 2003. That puts me at a ridiculous average of 64 miles per day!

posted by Michael  # 7/01/2007 11:33:00 PM 0 Comments

Been wanting to get a digital SLR camera for quite some time. So, I used my $250 in Amazon points toward a new XTi. Expect to see more photos!

posted by Michael  # 6/26/2007 07:38:00 PM 0 Comments

Just wanted to post a photo of me and Sandra from this weekend. =)

posted by Michael  # 3/19/2007 09:59:00 PM 3 Comments

It's 11:30pm on a Sunday night and you're in your pajamas, walking toward your bedroom to go to sleep. Suddenly, there's a loud banging on your door. What goes through your mind?

If you're like me, you're annoyed. "Who in the world is knocking on my door at this hour?" You don't realize that your life is about to be turned upside down.

With a huff, you walk to the door and look out the peep hole. A girl is running around frantically with her dog on a leash, now knocking on the door across the hall. Suddenly, she's out of sight and you hear the word "fire". Still mostly calm (after all, everything looks normal here), you open the door for a confirmation.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"This guy's balcony is on fire!", as she runs out of the building.

A slight whiff of smoke from the hallway instills a sense of urgency as you turn back inside to grab the bare necessities. You run to the bedroom and throw a pair of pants on over your pajamas. You put your shoes on and throw on your coat and grab the three things sitting on the counter: your wallet, keys and camera. For only a split second you wonder what else you should bring but there is no time to waste in assigning value to anything else in the apartment. Still not having the slightest clue as to how bad the fire may or may not be, you leave the apartment and (in either stupidity or confusion) lock the door. You don't know it yet, but for all practical purposes, the place that you call "home" is gone.

No one else in the hallway, you head for the building exit. Approaching the final door to the exterior, you notice a strong orange glow on the ground and the cars in the parking lot. "Wow..." You open the door and very unexpectedly feel a wave of heat. That's when you start running. The fire is right above you.

You stop in the parking lot where it's safe and you see a man bleeding below the eye and on the phone reporting the fire to 911. You turn and see the blaze for the first time and it's definitely not in your plain-citizen ability to put it out even if you wanted to try. You realize that you never heard an alarm. You're definitely not going back in that door, so you run up the sidewalk to the next entrance to the same physical building. The fire alarm switch shows its age with the specks of paint on it and its washed-out look. You pull it and the alarm sounds in the hallway but isn't very loud. Not much else to do here, so you run back outside.

As you see someone moving their car, you recall where you parked. Directly in front of the fire. You run to the car and quickly get it out of there. There's no parking available in the immediate vicinity so you drive well enough away (not so stupid anymore, considering the imminent arrival of fire trucks) and just park it on the side of the road.

Running back to the scene, sirens can be heard in the distance. There are maybe 10 people outside but you haven't talked to any of them yet. Half a minute later, a police car comes zipping in. Not long after, you can hear the fire trucks coming. All you can do is stay out of the way and watch the fire. You realize that you forgot your phone and can't even make a call. You don't even know the numbers of the people you want to call because they're just stored in your phone. The first firemen arrive.

Is everyone out of the building? ... Does anyone know if anyone is in there?!

Obviously unsure, all you can say is "I don't know." More and more fire trucks are arriving but you really aren't watching them. Mostly, your eyes are on the fire, wondering how bad the damage is going to be.

Suddenly you notice about a dozen firemen walking around, but none of them seem to be in a rush. Seconds feel like minutes and you wonder why the water isn't spraying yet. The nearest firetruck has a "tower", a huge ladder on top of it with a bucket at the end. A fireman is walking up the ladder but hesitates. Someone yells and he turns back around and the ladder begins to lift into the air. A mist of water is sprayed from the bottom of the bucket, presumably to keep heat and fire away from the firefighters. Finally, after what seemed like 5 minutes since they had arrived, the firemen begin their attack on the fire.

In the meantime you've started talking with several of the neighbors. You know, the ones that you've been living next to for a year and a half and have never met. Together, you ponder what will happen next and share stories about how you found out about the fire and what you were doing when it started.

The firemen seem to get the fire at least mostly under control fairly quickly. It still takes quite a while to get out all the small flames here and there. Eventually firemen start entering the building. They break glass out of the stairwell window on the top floor, perhaps to release pressure from the building. You can see their flashlight beams piercing through the smoke in the dark apartments under and across from the fire. They're walking around in everyone's apartments, making sure the fire hadn't spread somewhere that they didn't know about.

You see a neighbor walking around with no shoes and a blanket around himself. It turns out that he was sound asleep and didn't get out of the building until well after you had. The firemen broke down his door and literally yanked him out of bed.

"Where are your shoes!?"

"Umm."

"Outside, now!"

Obviously, compared to some of these people you got out of the building early. A police officer comes around and takes your name and your apartment number. Someone says the Red Cross will be coming to take care of everyone. Otherwise, you're all left standing around and wondering what to do now.

You borrow someone's phone and call the one phone number you remember: your friend in NC. You know the number because you used to live there. He helps you communicate to your girlfriend that you're okay and there's a fire. She had been waiting on your call for nearly an hour now. You also call your family and leave a voice mail to let them know what happened.

It's getting cold and you've been shaking nearly all this time, maybe from both the temperature and nervousness. The fire fighters are still doing their job but the affected residents are asked to move to the clubhouse where it's warm. You walk to the clubhouse and walk in. It appears that the power to the entire neighborhood has been shut off and so there's a fire burning in the clubhouse fireplace and several candles lit. This is definitely not what you wanted to see.

"How appropriate," someone murmurs.

You sit in the clubhouse for over an hour. It's mostly quiet but every now and then you strike up a conversation with the others. The Red Cross arrives and asks if anyone has any immediate needs. Silence. Eventually, power is restored to the building. Everyone is told that hotel rooms will be provided.

Now, they are taking requests for retrieving any urgent items from the building. The firemen will go in and get the belongings as needed. You've been wearing your glasses all this time with an extremely old prescription, so everything is blurry. You ask for your contacts and your phone.

Another half hour passes. Finally, a man comes back with a box full of stuff. You peek in the box as the items are being handed out but don't see any of your things. Finally, the man looks to you and says:

"We couldn't go in your apartment, the water was coming down like a flood. Sorry."

With nothing else to do, you head for the hotel. You resign yourself to the fact that you've lost everything you own. All you have are jeans, a jacket, your car and your glasses. But you also realize that the most important thing that you have is your good health. You finally fall asleep around 4:30am.

Pictures of the Fire and the Aftermath

To be continued...

posted by Michael  # 12/20/2006 10:11:00 PM 2 Comments