American Hero
January 7th, 2009
American Hero of the Day: Drew Heredia
Drew Heredia is a nine-year-old Californian who was walking along with a 12-year-old friend of his and her chihuahua when a pit pull attacked the little dog (good). The girl tried to save her dog and the pit bull turned on her (bad).
Heredia, who has been training in jiu-jitsu for 2 months thought about kicking the pit bull but didn’t want to get bit. So he put the dog in a chokehold and held on for 20 minutes until animal control arrived.
December 3rd, 2008
American Hero of the Day: Tom Farber
Tom Farber teaches calculus teacher at Rancho Bernardo, a high school in suburban San Diego. Over the course of a year, he gives a lot of quizzes and tests to better prepare his kiddies for the AP exam. After a massive reduction in his copying budget, Farber was left with a problem: he needed to make about $500 worth of copies over the course of the year, but his budget was only $316.
Rather than take money out of his own too-small salary, Farber got creative and sold advertising space on his quizzes and tests.
He’s already collected $350 after introducing the program just a week or two ago. Pure genius.
November 30th, 2008
American Hero of the Day: Chad Ocho Cinco
I’ve been a big fan of Chad Ocho Cinco (nee Johnson) ever since I watched him score two touchdowns against the Bears on September 25, 2005. It wasn’t so much the touchdowns, but the fact that he danced an Irish jig after one of them, and then did push-ups in the end zone after the other.
Anyhow, Chad is way too talented to be stuck on a crappy team like the Bengals and he got himself suspended because of an unidentified violation of some arbitrary team rule. He had played in the previous 113 consecutive games.
Anyhow, on Black Friday, when most professional athletes were in bed, Ocho Cinco awoke before the crack of dawn to get down to Best Buy to do some holiday shipping. He even bought a present for his coach who, Ocho Cinco says, is not taking his calls.
And of course, being the fan-friendly superstar that he is, Ocho Cinco took a couple of minutes to make a Best Buy employee’s day by talking to her.
November 13th, 2008
American Hero of the Day: Mary Bach
A couple of days ago, Wal-Mart was defeated. Mary Bach, who was overcharged by $2 (difference between price indicated at the display and actual price charged at the register, sued Wal-Mart after they failed to fix the problem even after she brought it to their attention. Wal-Mart knew they were beaten and did not fight the lawsuit.
Three facts that make Mary even more awesome. First, she only sued for the $2 plus the $100 minimum to get the case into court. Second, she successfully sued the same Wal-Mart in April for $2 plus $100. Third, she successfully sued a K-Mart last November for charging sales tax on items where there should have been none.
November 7th, 2008
American Hero of the Day: Michelle Felicepta
On Monday, Michelle Felicepta was out for an 8-mile run at the base of Granite Mountain in Arizona. She stopped when she saw a fox looking at her kind of funny. She backed up, but the fox, looking like Yeller at the end of the movie, attacked. It went for her leg and when she reached down to bat it away, it locked onto her arm.
Convinced that the fox was rabid, she realized that it would need to be tested to make sure. So rather than try to get rid of the fox she grabbed it around the throat and ran, with the animal’s teeth digging into her arm, all the way back to her car. Her car was a mile and a half away.
When she got to her car, she threw the fox into the trunk and drove herself to the hospital. Turns out that she was right about the rabies and is currently getting treated, as is the animal control officer who got the fox out of the trunk.
