This is Really Sad!!!!!

Kentucky Officials Investigating Amusement Ride After Girl's Feet Severed

State officials were investigating Friday how a 13-year-old girl's feet were severed while on an amusement ride in Louisville, Ky.

The girl was riding the Superman Tower of Power at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom when witnesses said a cable snapped.

"I seen the car go up. Then, like, the cable broke, I heard — pwchh — and I heard a lot of people screaming," Chris Stinette, who was on the ride when the accident occurred, told FOX 41.

A Six Flags spokeswoman sid the company has shut down similar rides at parks in St. Louis, Gurnee, Illinois, and near Washington, D.C., as a safety precaution.

Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. also shut down and inspected drop tower rides Kings Island near Cincinnati; Canada's Wonderland, in Toronto; Kings Dominion in Doswell, Va.; Carowinds, in Charlotte, N.C.; and Great America in Santa Clara, Calif., company spokeswoman Stacy Frole said.

Investigators returned to the park Friday to examine the ride, said Bill Clary, a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

The Agriculture Department is responsible for inspecting amusement park rides in Kentucky. "We don't know the cause and we may never know the cause, honestly," Clary said.

Part of a broke cable was visible on the ride, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Asked about the cable, McLean told the paper, "it would be speculation" to say how the ride malfunctioned or whether the cable contributed to the accident.

The girl, whose name was not released because she's a minor, was initially treated at University Hospital and her condition was unknown, according to park spokeswoman Carolyn McLean. Her condition was unavailable Friday morning.

The ride lifts passengers 177 feet straight up, then drops 154 feet, reaching a speed of 54 mph according to the park's Web site.

The ride has been shut down indefinitely while park and state officials investigate what caused the accident. The rest of the park remained open.

The ride opened in 1995 and was originally called the "Hellevator," the Courier-Journal reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The above news story is from Fox News.

This is really sad. I can't imagine this. What if it was you? You get up in the morning and are all excited about going to an amusement park, and then while riding a thrill ride your feet get cut off? I just feel really sad for the girl. Now I'm kind of scared to ever ride any roller coaster/thrill ride where my feet are hanging free from a car again.

Animals at the Library

Two days ago, we went with some of our friends out to the library in Rincon to see reptiles, amphibians, and large birds of prey. All of the animals were from the Lamar Q. Ball Jr. Raptor Center, which is part of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. It was really cool. I've been to the Raptor center several times, but all of the animals were in their displays, instead of being held by a woman and carried all over a room in the public library. We saw tree frogs, a blue tongued skink, a California King snake, a Georgia Indigo snake, a baby rat snake, a tortoise, a salamander, a rat, an owl, and a red tailed hawk.

Several times I had to resist the urge squeal or jump around in my seat. The weirdest thing to touch was probably the King snake. Actually, it was really fun.

VBS 2007 "Avalanche Ranch"

All of last week, I helped out with a VBS at Grace Community Church, where my aunt goes to church. It was fun in some ways. I was one of the leaders for Bobby's class (2nd grade), which I think helped him a lot. My aunt was the main second grade leader, so with the combination of his sister and his aunt, he wasn't so afraid that kids would make fun of him.

The theme that Grace was doing was Avalanche Ranch, by Group Publishing. It was a western theme which led to things like hay being strewn all around the church. We had about 25 kids in our class with about 15 of them being boys. Also, 4 of the 5 days the games were with water so Bobby couldn't play, because of his central line. All of it was pretty good, but like with every VBS it had its drawbacks. The biggest one that I saw was the fact that for three days in a row, the bible story was from the Old Testament. Then suddenly on Thursday they are doing the story of the resurrection and telling kids how important it is to be saved. The next day we are back to the Old Testament with the story of Naaman. The "Bible point" and Bible story for each day are as follows:

Day One: God is real! (Rahab hides the spies)
Day Two: God is with us! (The Jordan River crossing)
Day Three: God is strong! (Jericho)
Day Four: God is awesome! (Crucifixion & Resurrection)
Day Five: God is in charge! (Naaman is healed of leprosy)

Now, while all of these Bible points are true, I think that maybe we could find something better. How about:

Day One: God created the whole world, including us
Day Two: We are all sinners and are doomed to eternal life in Hell
Day Three: But we don't have to stay doomed because:
Day Four: God sent his son to die for us
Day Five: If you repent and believe, you can be saved.

So I guess that I am giving Vacation Bible School a little bit of a blast because I think that Lifeway and Group could make a little better VBS than the options that are available for 2007.

But I do have to say, doing Avalanche Ranch all week was worth it all just to see my dad stand up and do the "riding a horse" motions to the theme song in the final service on Friday night. It made my day, no rather, my week.

My New Blog

Okay, I realized that I don't have a blog where I can just write about absolutely whatever, so here it goes. If you see this please, please, please comment so that I know that you exist. Sometimes I think that every one has died or else no one uses the Internet anymore. Then I rethink that and realize that it's just that no one leaves comments! At least not on my blogs.

Lately with this whole thing of my brother having cancer, I have given a lot of my time to books. Pretty soon the public library system will run out of good books. From there I will proceed to re-read every book I've ever read. Oh, yeah, and then there is Little House on the Prairie on Hallmark Channel every day at 10, 11, 3, and 4. I do enjoy watching that but I usually only do it in the afternoons. In the morning I'm still wading through my Algebra 1. I figured out this morning that by doing two lessons for two days, and three lessons for two days, I can be finished with my math for this year by the end of the week! Wouldn't that be grand! Finally done with school so I can have a month off.