December 2008 - Posts
By Jack Chesnutt, NBC News Producer
BOULDER, Co. – As real estate agent Matt Kolb recently toured several properties he wore a helmet. It wasn’t a hard-hat fit for a construction site but a bicycle helmet. Kolb sells homes from the back of a two-wheeler.
"Boulder is in the top-five bicycle-friendly cities in the world," said Kolb. "On a bike, you can get anywhere in town in 20 minutes or less."
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| Jack Chesnutt / NBC News |
| Real estate agents Matt Kolb and Scott Sweeney of “Pedal to Properties” ride bikes to check out a property in Boulder, Co. |
Real estate firm Pedal to Properties has teamed up with a non-profit called Community Cycles, which supplies low-cost bikes and maintenance to local businesses as a way to encourage emission-free transportation.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News
Early on the morning of Dec. 8, 1941, nine Japanese fighter planes swooped down on Malalag Bay in the Philippines and strafed and sunk two U.S. Navy seaplanes at the very outset of World War II.
All of the Americans escaped unharmed except Ensign Robert G. Tills, 23, of Manitowoc, Wis., who was cut down by machine gun bullets.
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| Courtesy Tills family |
| Ensign Robert G. Tills seen in his Navy Whites before he was gunned down by Japanese fighter planes on Dec. 8, 1941. |
"Ensign Robert Tills died in the fusillade of bullets from the Japanese strafers, the first American naval officer killed in the defense of the Philippines," the Naval Historical Center wrote.
Tills' sister Jean was 11 years old at the time.
"Our minister heard over the radio that he was among the missing and called us," she said recently. "Then somebody came to the house a couple of weeks later and said he was killed."
But Tills' body was not recovered. Memories were all that Jean and her parents and sister had of their beloved Bob.
"Airplanes and flying, that was his passion," Jean Aplin, now 78, remembers. "He wanted to do that from the time he was little. I was just very proud of him and idolized him. He was my hero."
Tills, whom the Navy named a destroyer escort after in 1943, was one of 78,000 Americans still missing from World War II.
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By Stephanie Himango, NBC News Producer
MIAMI – "Here's some metal. Here's some rivets. Construct a plane."
That's how 16-year-old Deshorn King remembers hearing the initial instructions he and 59 other Miami-area teenagers received on Day 1 of their summer vacation. The students applied and were accepted to participate in an aviation program for teens provided by Experience Aviation.
Mission: Build an airplane.
Time allotted: 10 weeks.
Experience required: None.
Of course, all aspects of the plane construction were supervised, but the learning curve was steep.
"Electronics, avionics, basically the whole nine yards within one week," said King.
Novices in the world of aviation were soon talking about rivets, horizontal stabilizers, fuel tanks, engines. They were wearing safety glasses while handling drills, paints and rivet guns. As days turned into weeks, dreams became reality.
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