Before I get to the maps I want to shed a little light on my weekend. Did you know that in Indiana is a military training facility that is the best in the world? Neither did I. Did you know that it's kept a secret and there are armed guards to this place that are heavily armed and you aren't allowed in without all kinds of documentation? Did you know that this place is kept off the GPS register (or however they do this) as I ask the guards the first night how in the world can I set a GPS to pick this place up and they replied "you can't".
The place is over 100 acres, it had been a mental hospital from the 1930's until the early 2000's when it was abandoned. At that time it was going to cost Indian 60 million to tear it down, then someone decided to turn it into a world class Military, Police, First Responders, Fire training center that these branches FROM ALL OVER the world come to train. The weekend I was there had K-9 dogs from all over the US there for the week, two officers in my hotel were from Maryland. This place is big deal, and very scary. Very scary. No lights at night, yet the place is covered by very high tech cameras that can follow anyone on the property and yet read the serial number on a dollar bill you pull out of your pocket. The place is the most filthy, debris laden place I have ever seen in my life. There is a subway underneath the entire place where training is conducted for a disaster that may happen in our subway systems. There is a section that is for earthquake training, where the buildings are falling apart and leaning from the quake. There is a section that has been hit with a Nuke, total unbelievable destruction that the military needs to train. There is an area where the homes and auto's have been flooded, this was added after Katrina. There is an American Embassy where they train to protect our Ambassador, there is an Arab radio station (internet radio) that is continually sending messages to the Arab world, in the beginning they didn't think this would be a good idea but turns out the Arabs will interact with a voice on the radio much more readily than face to face. I wish I could tell you what it's like, tons of destroyed cars, motor homes, boats, police cars, tons and tons of huge boulders of concrete and uprooted trees. Chairs, tables, tires chrome pieces,, T.V.'s Coke machines, etc. etc. etc. all over the place. And what we needed was the Arab street that the military uses to train. My son and the crew are making a movie, the beginning begins in an Arabian country and they are going door to door trying to eradicate the enemy. They place has Camels, goats, Arabic writing all over the walls, it's very impressive. So that's the background, now for the maps. The first night, Friday, we were there to learn the procedures for the weekend. There was a member of the base that was assigned to the movie crew the entire weekend. We worked 24 hrs straight from 6:00 a.m. Sat. to 6:00 a.m. Sunday and he stayed with us the entire time. But, on Friday night we left under a good bit of rain, and total darkness I had to find my way back to the guardhouse to get to the highway. Made a bad turn somewhere and I ended up on a road that must have been made for a tank, it was very scary for I had NO idea where I was and no way of finding my way out. Finally the iPhone picked up the AT&T tower and I ask it from my current location to my hotel in Seymour, and by golly after a few seconds (that seemed like an hour) Siri told me to head a certain direction and from then on she did her thing beautifully. Turn my turn, through subdivisions, down alleys (I am not kidding) on the darkest of nights. Finally I got back to the state highway and headed toward Seymour. After several miles I came to the intersection I would have come out had I found the guardhouse. Needless to say I was thankful, and relived that the "poor" map system on this thing had done it's magical work. I was so lost I am convinced they would have had to send the choppers and those dogs to find me. None of us had service on the base, not AT&T, not Verizon, not Sprint. They must have the place darn near blacked out but I was far enough away in that deep woods that I could get the tower. I fed the phone a cookie when we got back to the room and gave it the best charger I had for a job well done. John _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
