Episode Forty-Six: The Byte-Adam Halley

Adam builds drones. He's also a music producer, filmmaker and autistic. In this shorter episode Adam tells how, at the community college, while trying to break up a fight happening outside the classroom, he had his miracle.

Transcript

As I walk out the door,

There's a kid coming up,

Like basically perpendicular to our path,

But coming up from like the back of the building.

And he looks a little gruff and like kind of pissed off or something.

And he like has a big jacket on or something.

And he has like his hand in his pocket and stuff.

And I'm like,

Now just briefly see him.

Cause like,

I have to go the other way to go to get to my students.

And so like,

He's coming kind of towards us when we need to turn left and he's on my right.

And I look at him just briefly and I'm like,

Could the thought cross my mind,

Like,

Yo,

That kid's packing.

Like he's got a gun in his hand right now,

You know?

And I'm not making any sort of connection to like,

What's going on with my students around the corner.

And so I'm just like,

Okay,

I don't know.

I need to go break this up,

Break up this fight.

And so I go around,

I turn the corner,

See one of my students,

Like literally has another kid in his arms and he throws them on the ground.

And before I can get the words out of my mouth,

Hey,

Stop fighting or whatever.

I'm just like,

Hey,

Stop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Right behind me.

This one's kind of hard to top as far as like,

Like crazy experiences in my life.

But I still feel like there's things that I'm like,

Hmm,

There could be something else.

But this one is more recent so I can remember it like it happened yesterday.

Going back to my teaching,

Within the last two years or so,

I was teaching at the college,

The community college.

And I was late,

I was on my way and I was like running late that day.

And the way we had it set up was basically,

I had two other coworkers who also taught in the program and they would get our group of students for the first half of the day.

And they were teaching them things like Arduinos and like little microcontrollers,

Raspberry Pis,

That kind of stuff,

Like a little bit of coding and that kind of thing.

The second half of the day,

I would get them and we'd go and do the drone stuff.

And we'd build drones and have them playing on the drone simulators and all that sort of stuff.

I get to work this day and I go in to the other classroom,

Not my classroom,

Just to say,

Hey,

I'm here or whatever.

And the social worker,

Coworker lady,

Was actually in there kind of giving a little talk and I think something had happened recently.

And so she was just kind of telling people they needed to like tighten up and do better and that kind of thing.

And so I walk into the room and I'm holding one of my little drones and I hear like shouting outside,

Our classrooms were right on Killingsworth.

We're like right on the street.

So you can just like look outside my classroom window and there's a street right there.

I'm here like yelling outside.

I'm like,

What?

I look outside and I see one of my students and I'm like,

Wait,

What?

Why isn't he in this classroom right now?

And then I see one of my other students,

I'm like,

Why are they both outside right now?

You know,

And it looks like they're instigating something with somebody,

They're about to get in a fight or something.

And I'm like,

I'm in the back of the classroom.

I look to my coworker,

We'll just call her Jay,

In the front of the classroom.

And she,

You know,

I'm like,

Should we go outside and get them?

And she's like,

Yeah.

So like,

We just drop everything.

And we had other like teachers in there who could like watch the rest of kids or whatever.

And these,

You know,

All these kids are like 17 or older,

Probably like 17 to 24.

And so we walk out,

We go down the hall and walk out this side door and the front of where they're at,

Killingsworth is here and we walk out this door sideways.

And she's in front of me and she goes out and she turns the corner.

And as I walk out the door,

There's a kid coming up,

Like basically perpendicular to our path,

But coming up from like the back of the building.

And he looks a little gruff and like kind of pissed off or something.

And he like has a big jacket on or something.

And he has like his hands in his pocket and stuff.

And I'm like,

Now I just briefly see him.

Cause like,

I have to go the other way to go to get to my students.

And so like,

He's coming kind of towards us when we need to turn left and he's on my right.

And I look at him just briefly and I'm like,

Could the thought cross my mind,

Like,

Yo,

That kid's packing.

Like he's got a gun in his hand right now,

You know?

And I'm not like making any sort of connection to like what's going on,

Like with my students around the corner.

And so I'm just like,

Okay,

I don't know.

I need to go break this up,

Break up this fight.

And so I go around,

I turn the corner,

See one of my students,

Like literally has another kid like in his arms and he's like throws them on the ground.

And before I can get the words out of my mouth,

Like,

Hey,

Stop fighting or whatever.

I'm just like,

Hey,

Stop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Like right behind me.

And it's like gotta be five to like seven shots and maybe nine shots or something like,

And it's like right behind me.

And I still have the little drone in my hand actually at this time.

And I stumble over my own feet,

Fall on the ground,

Trying to save the drone from crashing.

So I'm still holding onto it.

I hit my head on the side of a car,

Jump up as fast as I can,

Hop around the side of the car and run into the side of the street side of the car where I find Jay,

My coworker,

She's hunched over beside on the side of the car and we're both just like,

What is going on?

Oh my God.

And then we look over and see the gunman running up the side of the street the other way or whatever.

And this is like right in front of the community college with tons of people around.

And when I turned that corner,

The gunman dude was basically,

Like I said,

I had saw him,

You know,

He was like a little kid in the corner of the car,

And he was like,

Oh,

I'm gonna be a little kid.

And I was like,

Oh,

I'm gonna be a little kid.

And the gunman dude was basically,

Like I said,

I had saw him,

You know,

When I was turning,

Coming out the door.

So he's basically right behind me,

Follows like basically right behind me when I'm going to try to stop my students from fighting.

He's trying to shoot at them because it's his friend that is in the air that's getting thrown onto the ground.

So the miracle here is that I don't know how I didn't get shot because I was right in between them.

Like my students are here,

The gunman's right behind me.

I'm trying to tell my students to stop before I get the words out.

There's just shots everywhere.

And at the time of it happening,

I thought he just like shot in the air or something just to like scare everybody.

And it wasn't until two weeks later where we had a staff meeting basically just kind of like decompressing from everything where they told me like,

Yeah,

There were bullet holes in cars.

There were bullet holes in the stop sign.

There are,

You know,

A lot of like,

It's crazy that nobody got hit because there had to be,

You know,

20,

30 people just outside around at the time.

Nobody got shot,

But there were bullets and all kinds of stuff.

And that's when I lost it.

Like I broke down.

Up until that point,

I was just like,

Wow,

I'm glad I'm alive.

That was crazy,

Whatever.

But then that's when I realized,

No,

I'm like,

I should be happy to be alive.

I could have not made this.

I still just don't understand how I didn't get shot,

I guess,

In that moment.

It doesn't mean I would have died necessarily,

But I definitely don't ever want to get shot.

That's not something I wish for.

It felt like a miracle.

You know,

It definitely felt like something special somebody was watching over me that day and or also somewhat reaffirming that I was where I should be,

You know,

Trying to make a difference in these kids' lives.

I also cussed out my students like right after that.

Like I ran as soon as like everything was over.

I ran inside and I cussed them out like,

Why am I outside getting shot at because of you?

This is,

You know,

Whatever,

Whatever,

Whatever.

But,

You know,

Everything was fine,

You know,

After that.

A couple weeks later,

I'm in my studio.

I lived in my studio at that time.

And there's a common space where they would have parties sometimes.

Like people would rent it out and they'd have big parties and stuff.

And I took a nap at the studio and woke up.

I woke up to gunfire.

Like I was sleeping and I woke up to gunfire and I was like,

Whoa,

Is this a dream?

Like what's happening?

You know,

I thought it was in my dream.

And this is literally like within a month or something of the other thing happening.

And I'm like,

Wait,

What?

And so I wake up to gunfire.

I hear people screaming and yelling and running around.

And it's all downstairs.

And I can't see anybody or anything because I have no windows to like see down there or anything like that.

So I'm just like in my studio,

No windows outside or anything like that with just just like hold up in there.

Like I'm just kind of staying here.

Some,

Yes,

Like five people got shot that night.

It was like some party,

It was gang violence stuff.

And like five people got shot.

It was crazy.

I remember going out in the morning to seeing blood on the floor and stuff all over the place.

And it was just it was nuts.

After figuring out the autism thing,

I basically reassess just life and understanding my limits of energy and being very conscious of how I use that energy.

You can't help people make a change and stuff unless you are OK yourself.

I wanted to just ask you,

I am sure,

But I don't want to project my own response onto you,

But I'm sure you had some PTSD after that incident outside of the school.

You know,

I'm sure I did.

I don't know.

You know,

I don't I don't I'm sure I didn't ever properly unpack it or anything,

To be honest.

You know,

I've always I've kind of always been just like a hold it in kind of person on a lot of things or get it.

You know,

I get stuff out by expressing myself.

I do like art and things like that.

It's not really been a thing where I've like sat and talked to somebody about like,

Oh,

This is how I felt or anything like that.

But also at the same time,

I don't feel I don't feel super traumatized by that whole thing at this point.

I really don't.

I feel more traumatized by like my student passing away.

You know,

That was really hard.

I learned that that was a that was a violence.

You know,

I was a shooting and stuff,

Too.

And that was like one of my last students that I had like right before COVID.

So it was like one of my recent,

Relatively recent students and one of my last in-person students that I had.

I think as far as the PTSD on that,

It was a thing for a while there,

For sure.

I definitely had an impact on mental health for a while and stuff,

Whether I knew it or not.

You building drones.

I'm so curious.

Do you do you sell them?

Do you rent them out?

Do you I'm so curious.

Is it like a little side gig you got going on?

Yeah.

So I am so far as building them,

I build them for myself initially,

Like all the ones that I fly.

I build them for myself initially,

But I also build them for people occasionally.

I've had a few people hit me up and asked,

You know,

Ask me to build them whatnot.

I have a I don't even know what to call them.

This is a dude.

I've never met him in person yet.

There's I was out flying one day and this couple saw me flying.

You're like,

Oh,

This is really interesting.

We have a 18 year old kid who we think would be interested in this.

Could you teach him or something?

And so I end up just like swapping numbers with him and whatnot.

And I've just been talking to this kid through just like phone calls.

We've got a couple of phone calls and I'm just telling him about it and told him what to buy and all this sort of stuff.

And he's getting it.

And then I'm going to coach him through like putting it all together.

It's so weird.

There's been so many random little drone things that have little gigs in ways.

I guess the money is coming out through drone stuff in ways that I didn't really think about it or expect or what have you.

Like I got initially got into drones on accident and then I started teaching.

I was like,

You know,

This is fun.

And then I realized I could do gigs and stuff.

So,

You know,

I was doing that stuff.

I was just thinking that I don't know if you know,

I'm a beekeeper.

I have 13 beehives.

Oh,

Wow.

No.

Yeah.

And so eternally,

Beekeepers are hearing about bees are dying all over the world.

And so it would be interesting to create a drone,

A very small drone that could be used to pollinate almond crops or all the other crops that need to be to ensure our food security.

So just something to think about.

Oh,

Wow.

Think about it.

I don't know how small that drone would have to be.

Think about it.

No,

That's I've never even that's one thing I've never thought of or heard anyone even talk about in the drone world of trying to like pollinate plants.

So that's that's awesome.

I really like that idea,

Actually.

Huh.

Now I'm going to have to look into like how pollination works and how feasible that is.

These little drones like big enough,

You know,

That size my hand.

You can go smaller than this by quite a bit,

Too.

It's just I'm just like throwing it out there because it just came to me.

So if you become a billionaire,

You have to give me some money.

Oh,

I got you.

I got you.

Definitely.

If I become a billionaire,

I'll give you some money so you can create a drone empire.

Deal,

Deal,

Deal.

Thanks so much for tuning in to episode 46 of Bite Sized Blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us.

If only we open our eyes to it.

And whether you choose to listen to our bite sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews,

We're grateful you're here.

I'm also grateful to those who have taken the time to go to Apple podcasts and leave a rating and leave a review.

Those ratings and reviews help others find us.

I have a lot of gratitude for those who have left a rating and a review.

We're nearing 55 star reviews.

So thank you to everyone who's taken the time and spent the energy to do that.

I also need to thank my guest today,

Adam Haley,

For sharing his story with me,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Chilled music,

Music,

Elle files,

Raphael Crux,

Class Appel,

Dream heaven and Frank Schroeder.

For complete attribution,

Please see the bite sized blessings website at bite sized blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other episodes,

Change makers,

Music and books I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening.

And instead of one request this episode,

I have two.

My first is that you consider going to Apple podcasts and leaving us a rating review.

And the second is this be like Adam,

No matter what challenges life throws at you,

Take time,

Step back and reassess.

Figure out what to keep from the experience and what to leave behind.

Then take what you keep and use that knowledge to change the world.

Empire of the drones.

Empire of the drones.

Yes.

That does sound like a Star Wars movie,

Doesn't it?

Yeah,

I think that's a mix of two Star Wars titles.

Fire Strikes Back and Attack on the Clones.

You're right,

You're right.

You mix those really?

Boom!