accident

What is it?

I have a photo (actually 2 of them) to share from a recent experience.  First, I should warn you that the images may be disturbing to some people.

So, what is it?

Ha, ha.  I’ll bet you thought it was my choice of Halloween Costume for this year!  Not even close.  It’s also not photographic evidence of my wife beating me up.  Such a thing has never happened. Here is another view:

Okay, I’ll spill.  Actually, that’s what I did.  I spilled off my front porch Saturday morning at around 9:30 am Central USA time zone. This is an example of why multi-tasking is such a horrendous idea that it should be outlawed.  I was heading out to the front yard to trim some more tree branches, and instead of watching where I was walking, I was thinking about where I was going to make the cuts.  Turned out, I didn’t make any!  What I did instead was a beautiful swan dive off the porch, head first into the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs.

So, I did have to go to the ER – about 10 stitches in my right eyebrow, and a broken bone in my right wrist. Other than that, there is a lot of bruising that is keeping me uncomfortable, but I’m alright.

Eckhart Tolle wrote a whole book on the importance of “NOW”  Veterans of Scientology would call it “Being in present time”.  It all boils down to this lesson:  Whatever you’re doing, make it the ONLY thing you’re doing, do it well and completely, and only then move on to the next thing.

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Interesting weekend . . .

Weird.

Well, first off, we had a bitterly cold Canadian air mass move through the area starting Friday afternoon, which dropped the local temperatures to sub-freezing. Naturally, the extra strain caused the central heating unit to finally quit – completely.

We’re fine, though. The fireplace insert we put in last fall took over with no trouble, aside from a bit of extra bundling up to keep the setting lower.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon proved to be quite the adventure. It started just after lunch, when my wife took a bag of trash out to our dumpster. As she opened the lid, she discovered about a dozen (used? not sure) syringes in the bottom of the bin. She came running back in and told me – I went out and confirmed it, and then called the local police. They were amazed that someone would go to the trouble to put them in OUR dumpster – there are several houses around where they’d have been less likely to be seen. See, our dumpster sits direcly under that brand-new super-bright LED security light we just had installed about a week ago, making it a very visible location even in the middle of the night. Anyhow, they cheerfully removed the syringes, and said they would do some extra patrols through the neighborhood to see if they can find who put them there.

As soon as the officer left, I went to the kitchen and put a cup of coffee in the microwave to warm up. I’d just sat down at my computer to read the news when *BANG* – I heard something loud right out front that sounded sort of like a head-on collision. That turned out to be pretty close to describing what did happen. Somone’s vehicle jumped the curb just north of our driveway, and destroyed a traffic sign (on a metal pole!) which landed in the street. By the time I got out there, and I tried to respond pretty quickly, the vehicle that hit the sign was gone, but a pickup had stopped in traffic and was keeping other vehicles from hitting the sign. I had my phone in hand, and called the police again. There wasn’t much they could do about it, aside from filling out an accident report. None of the potential wittnesses waited around for the police, and all I could tell them was that I heard it happen and called right away.

SLOW DOWN – EVERYONE!

I’m just sitting here minding my own business, and suddenly hear a loud noise outside.  I instantly knew exactly what it was, and was dialing 9-1-1 before I even got to the door.

Yep – two pickup trucks had crashed on the slick wet road, almost directly in front of our house.

So, listen up!  NOBODY is ever in such a hurry that you can’t slow down and keep full control over your vehicle.  If you slow down 5 mph, it might take you an extra 1-3 minutes to get where you’re going.  If you loose control over your auto, you might not get there at all.

In this case, the driver who lost control of the truck managed to break the front driver-side axle on the truck.  It had to be towed away.  Now, how much of a hurry are you in?