I remember when I first learned how electromagnets work and built some of my own, some the experiments I conducted included the "levitation" by use of the magnetic field, one thing I ran into time and time again was, when the distance increased to a certain distance the levitating magnet would suddenly flip over and come crashing down on the bottom magnet with both gravity and magnetic attraction to accelerate it.... hmmm.... train on top of levitating magnet..... uh, no thanks!

I like to stream my local county sheriff and PD during the day, it's kind of a background noise (some people like music or TV)... everyday I hear personal information, a traffic stop I will hear the name and address from the driver's license and things similar. I have mixed feelings about the encrypted radios, it kind of reminds me of gun laws (the only people really impacted are the law abiding citizens). The criminal doesn't care about the law to begin with, if they are going to rob a bank they certainly have no problem breaking the law by decrypting the signal.... go ahead cryptos', flame me about all the super strength cryptology available, in reality the systems are usually quite simple. So the argument of taking scanners away from the bad guys doesn't fly. That being said, there's no reason they should not be able to encrypt their radio traffic (the public should be able to do the same, but FCC Part 97 prohibits that). I don't believe the media is automatically entitled to listen to the traffic any more than they can listen to the President's phone calls; but because they are a public service records should be maintained and made available upon request.

Unless they forget to pay their annual fee for fire dept. services.... http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/07/fire-dept-watches-home-burn-because-family-didnt/

With a graduating class of more than 1400 in the 90s (still growing at the school today) the number of people you actually know is pretty slim; even if people cared enough to have a reunion it would be quite impractical and nearly impossible to locate each other. FB offers plenty of opportunity to not care, but get the juicy details you want so you can feel better about yourself.