Ten Years Later...

Obviously today is the tenth anniversary of September 11th. I will never forget that day, just a little more than a month into my first year of high school.

I remember sitting in Mrs. Hemmelgarn's A block history class, and the phone ringing in the classroom, over and over until she finally answered it. It was Mrs. McKelvey, another history/government teacher in the building. She told Hemmelgarn that a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. We all were thinking, "What kind of idiot flies a plane into a building?"

But then Mrs. Hemmelgarn turned on the news. Another plane had just hit. We were all immediately glued to the television for the rest of the period.

The hallways were buzzing in between periods about the World Trade Center. I rushed to my B block class with Miss Richardson to ask her to turn on the TV so we could follow what was going on.

The one moment that I began to break down was when the Pentagon was hit by Flight 77.

Just starting high school, the entire freshman class had just returned from our 8th grade trip to Washington DC. We didn't stop at the Pentagon, but the memory of driving by the Pentagon and seeing the landmarks around it was fresh in my mind.

My C block class was gym with Mr. Oswalt, and we were not allowed near the TVs, but we went outside and played Bocci ball instead. None of us wanted to play, we wanted to know what was going on in our nation.

I remember walking outside and simply looking up. The most eerie moment of the day to me was walking out the door and simply looking up. There was not a plane in the sky, and being just north of Dayton and west of Columbus, we had two airports and an Air Force Base that constantly had planes passing over us. It was the clearest blue I've ever seen.

I was so mad that the teacher had decided to go outside that day. But I realize now it was a way to get us kids, because that's what we were no matter how much we fought the statement, away from the turmoil and sadness.

We weren't allowed to watch what was going on at lunch either, and by this point United Airlines Flight 93 had crashed in rural Pennsylvania. We wouldn't know about that until we got home that night.

My last class of the day was choir with Mr. Kildow. He refused to turn on the televisions as well, and all of the students in the class were getting frustrated because they knew they were being shut out from a huge moment of our country's history.

I got on the bus to go home and learned that my younger brother, who was in elementary school at the time, had not heard a word about what had happened. I had to attempt to explain the attack to my 9-year-old brother. He was confused on why anyone would do that. I think I was too.

I truly think that 9/11 inspired me to be a journalist. I'd always been a fan of writing, but started giving serious thought to the career when I saw Ashleigh Banfield's coverage that day. It made me realize that as a journalist, you really can make a difference, not just become a tabloid paparazzi.

Now that I am 24, I realize at 14 I was completely oblivious of the real magnitude of the attacks. I didn't get to visit the site until I was almost 21, and the eerie quiet still lingered on. Experiencing that made me realize the actuality of what had happened. I had never set foot in New York before then.

Ten years later, I am a journalist now, and can't help but tear up at the coverage of that tragic day. At my alma mater's Patriot Day assembly on September 9th, I saw three of the four teachers I had on that day ten years ago. My gym teacher had retired a few years ago. But by an ironic twist of fate, I saw him that day as I was in the waiting room to get my hair done.

We all know now that America won't stand for something like that to happen again. We did lose our innocence that day, but we gained a sense of pride for our country.

May we all remember those who fell that day, the heroes that rushed in to help, and those lucky few who survived. September 11, 2001

It's Britney, bitch.

Seeing a performer that is considered a legend in our generation should be an epic experience right? It was quite the contrary Saturday night when I went to see the one and only Britney Spears.

I've always been a fan of Britney, nothing over the top, but I like listening to her music, no matter how overly produced it is.

It all started on Friday when I was offered a ticket from a friend who had a few extra in his stack of six. I was hesitant, but my best friend finally convinced me to go, and bring her along. Saturday I got off work, went on a brief shopping trip for a new shirt to wear to the concert, then my best friend and I began our trek to Nationwide Arena to watch Ms. Spears.

I had zero interest in watching any amount of DJ Pauly D's opening act so we stopped at Boston's across from the arena to have an appetizer and drinks. This may have been the biggest mistake of the night, because we could have gotten a free ticket upgrade. The show didn't sell out so the first 400 people were moved closer to the stage. Nicki Minaj was supposed to be the opener, but she decided not to make the Columbus tour stop, which is probably the biggest reason that the show didn't sell out.

I did have to suffer through about 20 minutes through Pauly's set, and what I saw was laughable. He's just a DJ, so it was him spinning random songs. I'm not exactly sure why it was an "opening act." When I heard the opening riff to Justin Bieber's "Baby," my head immediately went numb. I could handle the rap songs they were playing, but Bieber?! Ugh.

We were up in section 205, which is pretty far up into the rafters at the arena, but we weren't complaining because it was free.

The video screen had a countdown to Britney's headlining set, and people slowly started to file into their seats. Shrieks could be heard when the "Femme Fatale" sign was being lowered onto the stage, but that was the most action we got while waiting on Brit Brit.

We moved a little closer in our section because there was no one really monitoring the upper bowl. The seats were beyond vacant up there.

The countdown on the video board finally got down to about 20 seconds, and the lights fell. Screams were echoing through the arena, and a video setting up the "Femme Fatale" aspect of the show hit the screen. When the video went black, the audience roared and the stage opened up.

Britney showed up in a white, glittery, barely there number, nothing shocking for Britney anymore, and busted into her lip sync of "Hold it Against Me." 

My friends and I were  immediately underwhelmed by Britney's performance. Her lazy, half-@$$ed movements reminded me of when I was in middle school cheerleading and my coach would get on me about how my movements weren't sharp.

Up next was "3," the not-so-subtle song about a threesome, which was just as lackluster as the prior song. Whoever thought it was a good idea to record a version to make it sound like she was singing live needs to be punched in the face. I would have much rather heard the lip synced version, simply because she could not hit half the notes in her "live" version.

She had about 4 different costume changes in the show, the first went into an Asian dress/coat that had reminiscence of Sporty Spice going on. Then the next outfit that kicked off "...Baby One More Time," a studded leather jacket with cut off shorts and a rhinestone bra. That was not the most flattering because like it or not, Britney has never been the rail-thin type of girl. She was healthy when she was younger and that's why her stomach was good to mimic. But after two kids she does still have a little bit of a jiggle. At one point she did a pyramid move on top of two of her dancers, and her stomach was hanging down. I'll admit, just about every woman has that, but the rest of us aren't walking around in a bra.

The next was for the performance of "Boys," when the show shifted gears to an Egyptian style. It was a simple gold bra and bottoms, with some added accessories like a matching cape.

She then changed into a very short kimono for her performance of "Toxic," and my favorite had to be the black sequin dress for the finale of "Till the World Ends." The jagged drop neck, long sleeves and short skirt were unbelievable.

"Lackluster" was my favorite word of the night. The one move she did have down pretty well was the power walk from one side of the stage to the other and throwing her arms up to cross them. They were both moves that my friends and I were emulating for the rest of the night.

I'm not exactly sure why none of her choreographers or directors won't tell her that she needs to pick it up, but put me in front of Britney Spears herself and I will tell her that my high school cheerleading squad could've outperformed her. If she's going to deprive us of a singer by lip syncing, she could at least give us a dancer.

Britney's dancers were the highlight of the show. One even did an acrobatic routine on her swing during "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know." I stood up and clapped, but only for him.

So a word to the wise, do not go see Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" show unless Nicki is there because you actually want to pay for a show.

American Ghost Hunter at Waverly Hills!

Well I'm finally sitting down today and writing this. Yesterday was absolutely exhausting on so many levels, but let's just start from the beginning.

My mother bought tickets for my birthday to go see American Ghost Hunter in Louisville at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. For those of you who don't know, and I can't imagine that a lot of you do, AGH is a documentary about paranormal investigator Chad Calek's life. Ever since his youth in Persia, Iowa, he was plagued by a haunting that seemingly had an effect on his mother. He teamed up with Ryan Buell, who most people know from Paranormal State, who executive produced the film to help him get to the bottom of the haunting...but I don't want to give it all away.

I decided to take my best friend, Ashley, along. She's not 100% comfortable with the paranormal, but she deals with my insanity.

We took off from my house at 10 a.m. on the dot. My GPS had told us it would take 3 1/2 hours to get to Louisville, so I figured it would give us enough time to stop and get lunch on the way. Boy was I wrong.

Somehow we added an extra ten minutes on as we were going through the small towns on the way to the interstate. We got past Cincinnati just fine, with some slow drivers who didn't know how to change lanes, but who doesn't run into that?

As we cross the Kentucky border, I split off from I-75 onto I-71 and not 2 miles later, traffic is at a dead stop. Construction. I impatiently watch as the minutes keep adding on to the GPS's arrival time. Finally, after about 10 minutes of waiting, I whipped the wheel and got off the exit to my immediate right. This is where my GPS saved us, because it took us completely around the construction area and back into flowing traffic. But the down side, we had added about 25 minutes on to our journey.

We go on the rest of the trip without a hitch...that is until we actually get to the location. Waverly Hills' address says, "Paralee Ln, Louisville, KY," which was plugged into my GPS. We get to Paralee Lane and a sign there says, "Exit Only." At this point I start freaking out. I'm in a place I don't know and have no clue how to get somewhere. How people ever made it places without technology I have no idea. Ashley looked up Waverly Hills on her phone and sure enough there was a phone number. She got directions and we finally arrived.

We pull up to all 180,000 square feet of Waverly Hills Sanatorium. I had seen this place on so many TV shows and in so many pictures, I couldn't believe I was actually here. The building was amazing in itself. The former tuberculosis hospital had windows only on the bottom floor, which were brand new, I'm sure as part of restoration efforts. Tens of thousands of deaths happened at this place from the White Plague before a cure was found. So many emotions are held in this building, and I was standing mere feet from it. Unfortunately, I never took a step inside.

Now, I love when people turn to me about paranormal occurrences they've had. It makes me feel, special. But ironically as we were pulling in to the sanatorium, my phone goes off. It's my younger brother, who is currently in Wyoming playing baseball. He starts shouting something I can't make out because he's talking so fast. I told him, "Whoa, slow down. What happened?" "Ash!" he said, "you HAVE to bring your EMF detector out here!" I just snickered a little at the irony of the situation and said, "why?"

He proceeded to tell me that before he and his roommate went to practice that morning, they cleaned their room, but when they came back his roommate's bed was completely flipped over. "We couldn't have done it because we were at practice!" he shouted. He then proceeded to tell me about him trying to find out if something was there by provoking it (I blame this on the fact that I've made him watch too many episodes of Ghost Adventures). "If there is a f***ing ghost here do something! Don't be a f***ing p*ssy and just do sh*t while we're gone!" he shouted. "Ash, I'm not kidding," he said, finally calming down, "the door opened on its own." I was extremely excited to hear about this, but we were also still running late. So I said a quick good-bye to my brother and got out of the car.

I took one more glance at the sanatorium and I was ready to go. I take two steps towards the opposite end of the building, when I stop dead. Chad Calek and Ryan Buell are walking in themselves. I grab on to Ashley and go "Holy crap it's them!" She proceeded to tell me not to make an ass of myself by freaking out. I kept it mostly cool until we realized we had no idea where to go.

After embarrassing ourselves a little by just standing around, we finally figure out where to go and make our way in. The documentary viewing was inside of a sort of annex of the sanatorium, where there was little air flowing, but enough to make sure we didn't pass out. It was a total of 95 degrees in Louisville, so I tried to come prepared with a bottle of water, but that was gone within an hour.

Before we watched a second of the documentary we got to partake in a meet and greet with the cast. We lined up to meet Ryan, and for him to sign the book I had recently read of his, Paranormal State. I made it through smoother than I thought I would. Generally when I get nervous I make an idiot of myself. I made some small talk with him, he signed my book and we took a picture together. Then it was Ashley's turn. She just wanted a picture, so I took her phone from her to take it. Buuuut stupid me got nervous and couldn't remember how to take the picture. She finally told me, and after I took a picture of them both snickering at me, we thanked Ryan and walked away. I took a quick picture with Chad and we found a seat in the second row.

Chad surprised us all by announcing that we would be watching his documentary before American Ghost Hunter, that he made at Waverly Hills. But not everyone can see the whole thing. Part 1 is posted online for the public, but Part 2 has been seen by very little people.

We had a short break to walk around, because everyone needed to get up. Those chairs weren't exactly comfortable. Ash and I walked back out to the car to take a few pictures of the sanatorium, then took our seats again.

I won't say too much about the plot of the movie, because I think you should witness it for yourself. Chad's story is interesting in itself because he had just reconnected with his parents and brother. He had to make huge sacrifices in trying to resolve the issue of this spirit that had done so much damage to his family. I will tell you that a problem his mother had been having when he was younger, that he was told had been resolved when they moved, had not gone away.

I think what Chad went through was unbelievably hard. To face closure on something that had literally haunted him his entire life was indescribable. If the tour comes to your city I definitely recommend going to see it. They told us that it's more than just a paranormal movie, and it really is. I hope this comes out on DVD...even though I'm broke I will be putting money down for it.

I won't bore you with the lame details about our drive back...but I thought I'd share with you our wonderful adventure to Waverly Hills. I hope to investigate there one day!