“Today I have to talk about the tragic accident that happened outside of Fruitvale Tuesday afternoon. Of course our thoughts, hearts and prayers are with everyone who has been affected by this accident. I knew it was bad by the sound of all the emergency vehicles heading out to the scene. I just have not […]

Don’t grieve for me, for now I am free. I’m following paths God made for me I took his hand, I heard him call… Then turned, and bid farewell to all. I could not stay another day To laugh, to love, to sing, to play. Tasks left undone must stay that way I found my […]

“My grandfather has been dying of terminal cancer for the past 5 years. Last week my mother said I needed to come down because Gido didn’t have much time, so I drove down with my girlfriend and visited with him for 2 full days. He seemed most alert in the mornings so I wanted to […]

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are in harmony. ~Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, Indian Political and Spiritual Leader Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend Read an excerpt now TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

When my son and I got ‘lost’ in the woods for the recent Search and Rescue exercise, we each took along some items in our own daypacks to make our adventure safe and fun. And when the whole exercise was over, I asked a search manager what advice he had for anyone heading on a […]

  Photos by John Piccolo In a previous Blog post I shared the SAREX 2008 storyline for my son and I. I should mention we had with us, at all times, a Search And Rescue radio on PEP 1 frequency (so we could hear what was going on between the SAR techs and IC—Incident Command). […]

After yesterday’s Blog post about our training exercise with search and rescue, I received this email from a friend: “So…I don’t mean to be disrespectful or anything and bring up tough emotions, but when you and your son were recently ‘lost’ in the woods, did you ever think about your sister, Cindy?” She knew Cindy’s […]

Recently, my almost 11-year-old son and I were subjects #1 and #2 in a live scenario for SAREX (Search and Rescue exercise) to help the search and rescue community develop rescue operation, test alerting and notification systems, and cross-train in rescue procedures and techniques in the event of a large-scale search and rescue operation. Our […]

“You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose.” […]