Taylor Smith

Dallas ➡️ Wellington ➡️ Austin ➡️ Everywhere Healthcare professional 🩺 Keen weather enthusiast 🌪

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

Today marks T E N Y E A R S for me and my guy. I never thought this was in the cards for me as we didn’t meet until well after college graduation; and yet, here we are. Just wanted to share that you’re never too “old” to meet your person.

#anniversary #decade #love

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@BlankslateP @JoeTegtmeyer

[oatmeal influencer @acechhh]

My son had a complete meltdown at the pumpkin patch because I wouldn’t let him carry a 14 lb pumpkin. You are a year old in a couple weeks. Please be realistic about your current skill set

[FeelGoodThoughts @feelgoodtale]

A man was flying from Seattle to San Francisco. The plane had a layover in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in one hour.

Everybody got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind.
Another man had noticed him as he walked by and could tell the gentleman was blind because his Seeing Eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of him throughout the
entire flight. He could also tell he had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached him, and calling him by name, said, "Keith, we're in Sacramento for an hour, would you like to get off and stretch your legs? "
The blind man replied, "No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."

Picture this:
All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a Seeing Eye dog! The pilot was even wearing sunglasses. People scattered. They not only tried to change planes, but they were trying to change airlines!

True story....Have a great day and remember... Things aren't always as they appear

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@TMZ @MurderSmall James did you see this!? How many seasons did you yell at Jimmie for not watching The Wire? 🤣

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

🤣🤣🤣

[Aunty Kitty @wake_up_girl_3]

Car fire at the Wawa in Northampton, PA, yesterday. I’m genuinely not trying to be funny at all, but is it normal for a firefighter to have this much difficulty controlling the hose?

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

Samesies ♥️🥰

[Lilac @Lavenderlily__]

I won in this life.

I fell in love with a good man and I'll never stop being grateful for that.

A self made man. A hardworking man. A gentleman and safe man. A man who takes care of me in all the ways that matter.

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@DFWStormChasing I am definitely naming my first born ‘8’ so thank you for the suggestion 🙂

[Elisabeth Potter MD @EPotterMD]

My patient has breast cancer. I’m her doctor. I’m in network with her insurance. She wants me to perform her surgery.

And yet, after denying our request for me to operate at the facility where I believe she can receive the safest care, @redbudsurgerycenter, her insurance company contacted her and directed her to another doctor.

A patient navigating cancer already has enough decisions to make. She should not have to defend her choice of physician because of a disagreement over where that physician operates.

Trying to tell a doctor where they can operate is invasive enough.

But telling a patient with cancer that she should see a different surgeon, when she has already chosen the doctor she trusts to care for her?

That has gone way too far.

[DocumentingLibs @USADocumented]

A Nova Scotia woman had precancerous cells on her cervix.

That was two years ago.

Pap smear. Abnormal cells. Referral to a gynecologist so they could find out if it was cancer. The referral sat for nine months.

She finally gets an appointment. She shows up on time — 10 a.m., in her calendar. The office says it was at 9. Won’t see her. Won’t reschedule. Start over. New referral.

She leaves crying. Seven more months go by. They call about an appointment she was never told about. She can’t take it.

She’s on a TV contract. Miss it and they can sue her.

Next opening: next year.
They don’t even call her back. She has to chase them.

She said the quiet part out loud: imagine dying of cervical cancer while you wait just to see a gyno.

That is Canada’s “universal healthcare.”
Not free care. A government monopoly that loses your referral, punishes you for their scheduling error, and hands a possible cancer case a calendar date in another year.

Coverage on paper. Care on a waitlist. You pay the taxes either way. The state decides when you’re allowed to find out if you have cancer.

This is the model they want to import as Medicare for All.

Don’t.

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@DavidDack Does a natural birth and C-section not have the same end result? However a child is born doesn’t make the mom any less of a woman or any less of a mom…running inside or outside shouldn’t make less of a runner; you still get the benefits of running and the eventual knee probz. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@GOP_is_Gutless @jc_me_rollin_ Clearly not a girl’s girl…

[The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial]

Roselle, a yellow Labrador retriever, is still remembered as one of the most remarkable guide dogs of her time. On the morning of September 11, 2001, she quietly steered her blind handler, and a number of other people, down 78 floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, only minutes before the building came down.
Michael Hingson was at work that day on the 78th floor. Blind from birth, he had Roselle with him, as he did every day. When a sudden explosion slammed through the tower, the floor lurched and the windows filled with fire and falling debris. Evacuation could not wait.
Hingson already knew the building’s layout and emergency routes. He put his trust in Roselle and they started down.
The descent covered more than 1,460 steps through stairwells thick with smoke and the smell of jet fuel. Frightened coworkers fell in behind them. Some people froze. Near the 50th floor, panic began to spread. Hingson’s even voice and Roselle’s steady pace helped the group keep moving. Around here, Roselle would stop to give kisses to a lady having a panic attack.
At the lobby they were told wreckage and bodies were dropping outside. They cut through a neighboring building and took shelter in a subway station, where the air was clearer. Above them they could hear the towers collapsing. Roselle repeatedly stopped Hingson at unsafe spots and would not go forward until the path was clear. Those pauses protected the people with her.
In the days that followed, the two of them came to stand for more than survival. They became a public example of trust, composure, and resilience. In 2002 the American Kennel Club recognized Roselle for what she had done. She later developed health problems that were likely linked to the attacks, but she remained at Hingson’s side for another seven years.
Roselle was a very good girl.

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@EODHappyCaptain I was gonna say I think it’s from all the new stories of heroism that has me feeling more emotional 🥺

[Shabbos Kestenbaum @ShabbosK]

My taxi driver tonight, Gurvinder Singh, was at the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11.

For the next 40 days, he gave hundreds of rides to any New Yorker who needed, and refused all payment.

He showed me the letter he got from Mayor Giuliani thanking him for his service to our city.

Gurvinder emigrated from India 35 years ago and encourages all his riders to fly American flags.

He asked that I share this message on the eve of 9/11: "love all people, respect all people. God bless you all and god bless America!" 🇺🇸

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

A long, but incredible, story of the lengths a dad will go for his daughter. Hopefully we get more of these heroic stories as we come to mourn the 25th anniversary.

[Bob Ojeda @BobOjeda19]

This story has laid largely dormant in my mind for 25 years. Never gone, but very hard to think about the horror of that morning and I’d rather not. This is my morning of September 11, 2001.

At this point in my life, I am a pitching coach for The Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets’ minor league baseball team. I have a sponsor’s softball game at our ballpark at 10 AM. My house in Jersey is about an hour drive away. I’m at my kitchen table having coffee, getting ready to head in at around nine. I put on the news. The traffic report mentions it’s a little heavy so I decide I’ll leave early. Just as I’m heading out the door the news breaks that a small plane appears to have hit one of the Twin Towers. I stopped to listen. The news reporter looks concerned and confused, but not panicked. It’s an unfolding moment and she’s keeping her cool. The look of disbelief was unstable; no answers, just confusion. She was trying her best, in her own way, to not create a mass panic. Whoever she was, she deserves a ton of credit, along with the other reporters who did the same thing.

I head to my car and put on 1010 WINS. I decide to head up Route 36. There is a bridge that crosses the Shrewsbury River that allows a direct view to the city. When I get there, I’m in disbelief. There is smoke coming from the top of one of the towers, yet still no panic on the radio, just reporting of what is currently known.

I call my daughter, who works in the city. I asked her where she is. She tells me she’s coming up the escalator from the bottom floors of the World Trade Center, exiting the subway. We stay on the phone. I hear the strain in her voice. Whatever has happened is not good and she is witnessing it firsthand. The radio does not betray the gravity of what happened. They are in disbelief along with all of us.

I step on the gas, and race up 36. By now I figure I’ll turn left, head into the city, pick up my daughter, and then drive on to the ballpark in Coney Island. We get cut off on the phone. The confusion on the radio continues and escalates. She calls me back a few minutes later. “Dad, I just came up the escalator and there are people jumping out of the windows, there’s people jumping out of the windows.” I ask her how high they are jumping from, trying to get a feel for what is happening. I am not ready for what she’s about to say. “80 floors.” A second plane hits the other tower. This is a nightmare, and I begin to feel panic coming up within me.

I take the Staten Island exit off of the parkway and approach the Outerbridge. I see cars stopped. Then the news comes over the radio. All bridges and tunnels are closed to the city. At the last possible moment, I turned off to the right and circled back down, heading back to my house. I’m doing over 100 miles an hour. I highly doubt a cop is going to stop me. I’m thinking, “What now?” I call my friend Lenny and say “I need your boat!” He asked me,“Where are you going?” I said, “To the city to get my daughter.” He’s well aware of what’s going on, and says, “I’m going with you.” I said, “No you’re not. I don’t know what I’m getting into. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t even know if I can get there but I have to try. I appreciate your offer, but I got it.” We plan to meet at his boat within 20 minutes. I pause going over the bridge on 36, take a look back, and it is beyond horrific. There’s people in those buildings and I hope one is not my daughter.

I call my daughter back, thank God I get a hold of her, and let her know the plans. I tell her to stay at her office. “Stay there until I get there. Stay put!” I swing by my house real quick. I have an idea I’m probably gonna need my father's flag. He was an army veteran who spent time in Iwo Jima. I plan on hanging it off the side of the little boat. Hopefully that will let the authorities know I’m on the home team. I run in the house and remove it from the triangle box in which I keep it and head down to the marina. My friend’s there and insists on going. We jump in and off we go.

Within minutes, a little comic relief. We need gas. Thankfully, there’s a fueling marina at Bahr’s Landing. We pull in. The young man working the pump was curious about where we are going. We fill up, he says good luck, and on our way. The radio is on. The news is still confusing but becoming clearer. Both towers have been hit. Both towers are on fire. We look at it. We see it in front of us, knowing we’re heading in.

I call my daughter. I tell her I should be there within a half hour, if we lose contact, I tell her to make her way down to the ferries evacuating people off the island. “Get to the top deck and look out to the open water. I’ll be in a small boat with grandpa‘s flag hanging off the side. Get to the top deck and wave and wave. If I see you, I’ll turn around and follow the boat back. If not, I’ll keep going.”

We’re a few miles out from the Verrazano Bridge. At this point, I think it’s going to be a dead end. I can’t imagine there won’t be police and Coast Guard closing off from that point. Suddenly, a small biplane with wings painted red and white appears. It is flying towards us but very erratically. I have no idea what that was about.

I have my daughter back on the phone. She finally arrived at her office on Wall Street. I tell her our ETA and then she feels something. The building shakes. “Dad, what was that?” I hear on the radio, which has made this whole scenario surreal. The radio has one report, my daughter has the live report, and we’re in the middle, trying to make sense of the whole thing…it’s impossible. You cannot make sense of this moment. I hear on the radio that the building collapsed, but I tell my daughter not to worry about it. It’s probably just all the trucks and everything rumbling around. I make up some nonsensical answer, and she was not in the mood to analyze anything. She was terrified.

Still no Coast Guard or police boats. We keep going under the bridge. Smoke billowing in front of us. The smell is unimaginable. It just smells like burning everything. It’s an acidic, rancid smell. Heartbreaking. Because I know what it is. We’re beginning to approach Governors Island. I tell Lenny to stay to the right, we’ll go around and then go straight towards Pier 11. So far, everything is going according to plan, a plan that is being made up as I go.

I’m looking at the smoke, the haze and everything and I’m in disbelief. My mind makes up that the tower is still there. “I can see the tower Lenny, can you see the tower?” “I can’t see it.” “It’s right there.” But it wasn’t there. It was gone. It was a pile of rubble. Confirmed by the papers, worksheets and everything flying through the air over our heads. Literally, pieces of paper. Pieces of paper that somebody sitting at their desk was working on an hour ago are now floating through the air, as well as the poor soul who was doing the work.

We’re around Governors Island and then, the inevitable. A small Coast Guard boat, that looks like a red inflatable boat, makes a B-line right for us. Machine gun mounted on the bow. I stand up on our bow and I’m frantically waving my father's flag that I’ve tied to the side of the boat. They come racing up in a no nonsense mood, helmets, guns, everything pointing right at us. They come right up next to our boat. “Where are you going?” “I’m going to pick up my daughter.” They turn, have a short conversation, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, then they turn back to me and say “Go ahead.” I could’ve fallen over.

I call my daughter again and thankfully get through and tell her head to the water. I’m coming up to Wall Street now. We head for the pier and pull up. lt’s kind of bouncy because of all the tugboats loading people on and getting them off the island. It was organized chaos but it was organized. I have so much respect for the men and women who handled that without panic. We pull up next to the pier. It’s about a 5- or 6-foot reach to the railing. I grab it. I’m holding on, ready to let go, throw my leg over the railing, and Lenny yells, “Don’t let go!” “Why? What’s the matter?” The engine died. This is great, I’m this close and I’m gonna fall in the water. I’m holding on with one hand on the boat and the other on the railing, being stretched like I’m in a torture device. Between the current and the bouncing, I don’t know how I stayed up. The longest 30 seconds of my life when he goes, “OK, OK. I got it.” I let go of the boat and climb over the side. I tell him to circle around right here. I’ll be back.

I begin to run up Wall Street. Unbelievably the first police officer I see on shore is from my hometown. He is directing people to the massive tugboats and the ferry boats getting people off of the island. He sees me and asks what I’m doing there. I explained to him that I’m going to get my daughter. He says good luck, I’ll see you at home.

Seconds later, strangely, an older lady comes up to me and says, “Excuse me, aren’t you Bobby O?” “Yes I am.” “Oh, I just love you. You are so fun to watch.” Then her son, who understood the gravity of the situation, says, “OK mom, come on, we gotta go.” I thanked her and her son and went on my way. Can’t make that stuff up.

I continued making my way up Wall Street. Incredibly, there’s my daughter coming down. It’s like a miracle. It’s a miracle in front of my eyes. I grab and hug her. We head back down to the water. We get to the water’s edge where the railing is, she looks down. Lenny has pulled up by then and she looks down and I said “Look, you gotta jump. There’s no other way, you’ve gotta jump.” It’s probably at least a 5-foot jump down to the deck to a bouncing boat with a wet bow being pushed around by the current and choppy water. She looks at me one last time, looks at the boat, and jumps. She lands and rolls but she is fine. I look around one last time at the surreal scene of I don’t even know what to call it. I jump down, hug my daughter again, sitting in our seats. We turn and head back down home. No one deserves this to happen to them.

This weekend, I am reminded of and send nothing but respect to the individuals, first responders, ferry and tug boat captains beside me, who organized amongst the chaos to help one another on a horrific day.

[Scout, A Golden Retriever @Sharonleeprince]

In Loving Memory of Tucker

Dear Tucker,
You were the first.

The first dog we ever followed online. The first whose videos we waited for, quoted, replayed and sent to one another. Long before Scout came into our lives, there was Tucker Budzyn making us laugh and, without our quite realizing it, teaching us just how much joy one Golden Retriever could bring into a home.

We still laugh at “My Dog Reacts to a Giant Cockroach,” and I’m not sure anyone has ever waged a more determined or hilarious war against an inanimate object than Tucker versus the spring doorstop. Somewhere along the way, “Tree of Doom” and “I punch” simply became part of our family vocabulary. We don’t even have to explain them anymore. We all know.

But Tucker gave our family something much greater than a collection of wonderful memories. He gave us Scout.

In 2020, in no small part because we had fallen so completely in love with Tucker, we invited a Golden Retriever into our own home. Her name was Scout. We could never have known then what she would become to us, or how profoundly she would change our lives.

And so there is a golden thread that runs from Tucker to Scout and straight into the heart of our Prince family.

We never met you, Tucker, but because of you, we opened our home to a dog who became one of the great loves of our lives. That is an extraordinary legacy for a dog we knew only through a screen.

Thank you for the cockroach. Thank you for the doorstops and the Tree of Doom. Thank you for the taste tests. Thank you for the pool shenanigans. Thank you for “I punch.” Thank you for sharing the love between father and son. Thank you for that magnificent face, that enormous personality, and all those years of laughter.

Most of all, thank you for helping us find our way to Scout.

There is a Golden Retriever sleeping in our home tonight who is here, in part, because once upon a time we found Tucker Budzyn on the internet and fell hopelessly in love.

I know that millions of people loved Tucker, but behind the Tucker the world knew were Courtney and Mike - the people, the family who loved him first and best, and who were generous enough to share him and his voice with the rest of us.

Thank you for every laugh. Thank you for every ridiculous battle, every “heckin’” adventure.

You were the first, Tucker. We will never forget you. See you at the great reunion, our dear fren.

With love and forever gratitude,
Scout and her family in Colorado

(Below: Tucker and Scout)

[Dallas Texas TV @DallasTexasTV]

110 stories. Full gear. 343 names.

Dallas firefighters climbed in memory of the FDNY members lost on 9/11, each one carrying the name of someone who never came home

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

@nypost He got the rare 15/10 from WeRateDogs and now I’m crying all over again 😭

[Taylor Smith @ayyeeruckus]

I need to know the FCK has a 2026 voodoo doll. Can you please stop already????? My heart shattered for this one

[Tucker Budzyn @tuckerbudzyn]

I'm So Sorry...