Excitement and Adventure

Yesterday was interesting. Had a near death experience on my way to work. The guy in the truck in front of me wasn't paying attention and slid into the SUV he was following. I jammed on my brakes, then let go and swerved off to the side between him and the median where I came to a stop and fell over. The guy who was following me managed to stop before he hit the truck that I was following, but not before I would have been smashed between the two vehicles had I still been there. Guy behind me comes over and makes sure I'm OK then helps me stand the bike back up. Says "I'm glad you managed to get out of the way." I smile back and manage to get out "So am I, thanks." He slaps me on the back and goes back to his vehicle, and I continue on my journey. Of course about a mile down the road I'm shaking like a leaf in the throes of adrenaline withdrawal. That stuff will definitely wake you up quickly, but it's a pretty harsh come-down.

Of course unbeknownst to me at the time, one of the bungees holding my tailbag in place has come unhooked. So farther down the road it slides off to the right and comes to a rest against my rear wheel. Of course, about 20 or 30 miles later I notice something's amiss I reach back with my left hand (my right is on the throttle and you can't really let go with that one) and don't feel my bag at all. Great, now I think I lost my bag. Ok, nothing too important in there, except a bunch of new hire paperwork with more than enough information on it to steal my identity, and my checkbook for setting up automatic deposit. Oh well, we'll just have to call the bank when I get to work, and start looking for web pages on identity theft... The last 10 miles or so in wasn't very fun as I was going over this in my head. When I finally get to work however, Lo and Behold! it's there, just fell off to the right! Of course it was resting against my wheel so I now have a huge melted spot on one corner, (didn't quite breach to the interior of the bag) and one of my bungees is melted half through. Still, better than losing it completely. Plus, there were a bunch of hot air balloons taking off from the fields across from work, and it's still pretty cool out. Maybe today won't be so bad after all...

Actually had quite a bit of fun at work. Couple of interesting problems to work on. One of them actually made me miss lunch, but I was busy, so I didn't really notice. Cafeteria opens at 1100 and starts closing around 1400. We got the call at 1130, just about the time I'm starting to think of getting a snack, and then I'm up to my elbows in a mass of cabling, rebooting and logging on, helping one of the women on the build team, and updating SAs and the customer on a conference call. By them time we figure out enough to leave it for now and possibly come back later once they've got a fix for the problem, it's 1530. No food for me! Especially seeing as how now we've got to go work on a few other things that came up while we were busy. Not too bad though, got some Skittles from a vending machine and stopped on the way home to grab some real food.

Speaking of the ride home... I really despise traffic. Monday I left work Just before 1800 and got home a little bit after 1900. Not too bad seeing as how my morning drive (with very little traffic to speak of) takes about 50-60 minutes. But yesterday, I leave just a little after 1700, and get home... a little bit after 1900. Stop and go traffic for about 20 miles through the heart of downtown. My hands are cramping up from constantly working the clutch, brake, and throttle, and it's one of the hotter days of the year so far so I'm getting pretty worn out. After I get home I hear that it's probably due to the final American Idol tryouts being held downtown with lines wrapping all the way around the stadium and traffic being a huge mess with all the people coming in from out of state. Just one more reason for me to hate that show in particular and TV in general I suppose.