Not-So-Smart Car

I usually don't drive the beasts during an inversion, even in '72 "pollution control" meant flooring it for only one block after the light turns green. But today I was looking for some furniture and needed the room. So, I'm out in the BattleCruiser again, driving up 13th East when this guy in a blue Smart Car pulls out in front of me. Good thing I was paying attention, 'cause I wouldn't have even noticed when I ran right over the thing.

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Little Platy is no more. I hadn't seen the little lizard guy for a few days, figured he was up under the house gorging on spiders. But, alas, no, I went downstairs last night and found him sprawled out by the water softener. Poor guy, if I'd known what to do to save him, short of driving him down to Moab, I would have. But I'm sure he wouldn't have survived outside in the cold. R.I.P. Platy, you were a good pet for the week I had you.

Workin' at the car wash, yea!

I've been going to those self-serve car washes since, well, before I hit that bicyclist while pulling into one at around 3 AM (in my defense, the cop even commented that the guy was wearing dark clothes and every single reflector on his bike was busted out. And I didn't get a ticked for it). Musta been sometime in the early 80's, 'cause I was driving the Pinto home after getting off work from Free Wheeler.

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Anyway, I got the BattleCruiser out and about today because I wanted to pick up some stuff from Home Depot, and stopped at the car wash on the way. I pull into parking lot, and there's this white Subaru Forrester sitting there, blocking about 3 bays, waiting for the first one that opens up. As I pull in he moves over a couple bays, and I pull right behind the car in the first bay, waiting for them to get done, like I've always done. Well, my guy gets done before any of the other ones and I get into the car to pull into the bay. The white Subaru pulls up next to me, the window comes down and this 20-something skater says "Dude, you just snaked my place." Dumbfounded, I just look at him for a second. "Dude, I was in front of you." So, I look at him and go "Uh, no, 'cause then you'd be in the bay right now."

SKATER DUDE: "I was waitin' right over there (pointing to where he was when I pulled into the parking lot) and you just snaked ahead of me."

ME : "No, you'd pulled up over there (pointing to a spot on the other side of my bay, where he had his back to the bay), I figured you'd gone to another bay."

SKATER DUDE : "Man, I wuz here first."

ME: "I'll move, but you're not supposed to just come in here and hover over all the bays waiting for one to open up." I cranked up the car, backed up, threw it into 1st, goosed it and slammed his little Subaru into next week.

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Ok, the slamming his car into next week didn't happen, but I thought about it. But then I pictured the headline "Irate Teacher Pulls 'Fried Green Tomatoes' Move, Spends Night In Jail".

Strolling through the park one day......

If you don't know that I'm not a big fan of driving while on the phone, then you're either new or haven't been paying attention. I'm not sure why we, as a society, tolerate it any more than we tolerate drunk driving - studies have shown it's every bit as dangerous. Anyway, I'm taking my walk around Sugarhouse park today, walking opposite the direction of traffic because I like to look people in the face as I pass them. 3/4 of the way around the park I see this car coming towards me, and the driver is not only talking on the phone, but also reading at the same time. While driving through a park. Where a bunch of kids are running around, not to mention bikers, joggers, walkers and skaters. When are we going to put some teeth into our laws so that these people can be pulled over and told that this is just not OK? We have a distracted driving law on the books with two fatal flaws. It does not state any specific behavior as an example of distractred drivingand it's only enforcable as a secondary infraction. You cannot be pulled over for distracted driving, but if you cause an accident or are pulled over for speeding you can be cited for it. I thought laws were supposed to be preventative, not punitive. Secondary infraction laws are punitive, not preventative, because nobody thinks that they're going to cause an accident. It's like having drunk driving laws that are secondary to vehicular homicide. Don't kill anyone and you're OK, but if you run someone over we're really going to slap it to you for being drunk.

AARP, the finger and Olex Manufacturing....

First of all, I'm oficially old. Or at lease I will be in two years when I'm eligible for an AARP card (American Association of Retired Persons). Yeah, my older brother told me that he got us a good deal on our hotel room for our Boston trip by using his AARP discount. Nice! The really nice thing is that we get free walker rentals while we stay there.....

Today I spent the afternoon at a church camp for abused and neglected kids. It was the last full day of their summer camp for these kids, and they celebrate with kind of a carnival. I was in charge of the huge bouncy slide. It was a lot of fun, except for helping to set up and tear down the blow-up slide and obstacle course. Those things are heavy. I mean really heavy. It took 4 of us to roll the smaller one up onto the truck, we had at least 8 working on the slide. And I'm sore. But it's all worth it when a 9 year old whose life has not been the best looks at you and thanks you, by name, for being there so they could play on the slide.

Anyway, on my way to my brother's house to ride up to the camp with a group from church, this curly-haired witch in a white 4-door Nissan zips a right turn through a red light directly in front of me, causing me to slam on my brakes and come within inches of her bumper. Now, normally this wouldn't warrant even mentioning on here, even though there was absolutly nobody behind me, meaning this was to get one car ahead. No, this warrants mentioning because even though I did not blare my horn at her, even though I did not flash my lights or shake my fist or curse, swear or flip her the bird, she flipped me off when she turned right a block later and I passed her. Yeah, she flipped me off, like instead of coming close to her back bumper I should have slammed into a parked car rather than startle her. I don't know what her motivation was, but I swear I didn't honk, wave my hand at her or curse (other than under my breath - the window was up, she wouldn't have heard if I did). Again, it seems I have no right to drive on the roads getting in the way of these other, more important, people.

And finally, on the ride up to the camp we start talking about Opie, Obama and Oprah, and my older brother decides that to bercome a mover and a shaker, he's going to change his name to start with an "O" like the rest of these people. Olex. Well, as we're driving around the reservior we notice that someone is having a HUGE barbeque, it happens to be the Outdoor Retailers Convention. This is where the logo comes in, because bro wants to crash the barbeque, telling them that we're from Olex Manufacturing. Well, it was funny at the time, and I had fun making up the logo, so I just had to put it on here. And that's it for today, except REUNION TOMORROW!

Messy birds and impatient drivers

Messy, messy birds. They're spilling seeds out of the bird feeder, leaving a mess right under it. Bad, bad birds. The good thing is that the seeds attract squirrels, who do a little bit of cleaning up for me. they also startle me when I come out the check on the water and they scurry right past me like a bat out of hell. Of course I'm sure I startled him (or her), and at least I wasn't in the middle of eating. Probably gave the thing indigestion. He stuck around in the trees long enough for me to go get the camera and have a photo shoot. I'll have to go to the pet store and see if I can get some Purina Squirrel Chow.

I've started walking down at Liberty Park on a regular basis. I don't know why I like Liberty better than Sugarhouse. It could be that Liberty is level and Sugarhouse is all up and down hilly. Or, since I'm going to be teaching geometry next year, my mind is more in tuned with the symmetrical layout of Liberty as opposed to the wanderings of the road in Sugarhouse. Or maybe it's because of the police presence in Liberty which means that people don't try to take the short way out of the park and drive the wrong direction down the walking lane to get out. Who knows. But I did laugh at this moron who was so impatient that he tailgated and honked at the person in front of them because they weren't going fast enough, in the park. Yeah, kids playing, people riding bikes, rollerblading, running and walking, and 15 MPH isn't fast enough. Even funnier when I saw them parked in the handicapped spot. Something ironic about giving yourself so much stress on the way to an activity, or place, that is supposed to be relaxing. Reminded me of an incident which profoundly affected the way I vacation. We were out camping and had to run in to the store to grab some stuff. This store was immediately outside Canyonlands National Park, out in the middle of nowhere, catering solely to park visitors. As we were scurrying around the store trying to find, and remember, everything we needed, the clerk looks at us and says "Yeah, better hurry up. You're on vacation." Not the least bit offensively, just in an out in the middle of nowhere folksy wisdom kind of way. He's obviously said it so many times that he'd perfected his delivery. I take it a lot easier when I'm on vacation now, and that should include recreational events in the park also.

When did tailgating become a right?

I don't remember the Constitutional Amendment process, but it must have happened. I ran into another person, and I use that word lightly, that seems to believe he has a right to drive within inches of my back bumper. I was on 7th East about 80th South or so and this fairly new black Mustang gets whips into the lane behind me and thinks that driving close to my bumper will make the person in front of me go faster. So I do the usual, slow down in hopes it really annoys him and he'll change lanes, flash the brakes and at the next stoplight hit the back-up lights. To be honest, I don't know if he saw the brake lights flash or the back up lights, he was really close. It could have been that I stopped a full car lenght from the car in front of me, or maybe he did see the back up lights, but at the stop light he flipped me off. I didn't even flip the bird back at him, I just yelled "Then don't ride my ass". The light turned green, and I went on my merry way, the guy in the other lane was even slower that I was, so Mr. Mustang got around me, but he doesn't just gun it and get away from me. He has to swerve towards me as he passes. I don't even flinch because I'm sure he's a hell of a lot more concerned about wrecking his Mustang than I am of him wrecking my Subaru. But the question in my mind still remains "where do these people get the feeling they have the right to invade my vehicular personal space?"

Impose a "Stupid Tax" & retire the national debt.

I'm not a slow driver. I've gotten a ticket doing 100 in Montana, 85 in California (recently) and even going 85 in a loaded U-Haul in Wyoming (downhill with a tailwind). So, if I'm not exceeding the speed limit, there's a reason; cop nearby, too much traffic, I'm in a school zone, the road is covered with ice. Something like that. So, if someone is tailgating me, it's not because I should be going faster, usually I couldn't go faster even if I wanted to. So, I don't like being tailgated, there's no reason for it except to get personally involved with me when our vehicles collide because the moron behind me couldn't stop in time. One of the tricks I do to hint that maybe your car is a little too close (at stoplights when I'm stopped) is to put the car into reverse and flash my backup lights at them. I have never (before) had a response that wasn't one of two things 1-oblivious and continue to drive like they are oblivious or 2-they back off. Not the guy driving the Grand Wagoneer on 21st south tonight. He's driving with a coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other spending more time looking at what's going on on the sidewalks rather than in front of him and following me close all the way down 21st, almost touching my bumper when we come to stop lights. I try the old flash the back up lights a few times, and the first couple he's oblivious. At the intersection of State Street he finally notices and, no he doesn't back off, he starts waving his hands around yelling at me. So I roll down the window and start yelling "then back off buddy" back at him. The light turns green and, still screaming, he does the old jump the car at my back end trick, revs it up comes shooting towards me and then slams on the brakes before hitting me. Yeah. Nice. Well, I continued my yelling back, but it was no longer "buddy", and slow down to somewhere between snail and sloth. Yeah, I'm a little nervous, and I am planning out escape routes, but I refuse to let assholes intimidate me. We get to the light at Main Street (one block for those of you unfamiliar with Salt Lake) and he guns it, pulls into the left turn lane and starts to pass me. So, I figure, fine, let him, and I slam on my brakes to let him pass. Now here's the funny part. He was turning left there. He couldn't just back off for one block. I tell ya, I'm beginning to appreciate my UofU Transit pass more and more every day.