As I was walking to work this morning, a late 20 year old guy was washing his cadillac, and I intently made eye contact with him, waved, and said hi to him.  Not entirely characteristic of me, but he was close enough to be my neighbor, so I wanted to be neighborly.  As I was past the Family Dollar in the Hill District a few blocks away, a gentleman said as he passed me, "How are you doing today, Sir?".  He said it quickly and in too close proximity for me to look at him and reply though.  I just looked up and smiled at him.  Then a block down a girl asked me for the time, which i promptly gave her.  Then a block down an elderly lady with a walker said good morning to me and offered me a track which I declined.  Then another block, this huge dump truck slowed down, stopped, turned off his engine, and the driver says, "Excuse me sir, do you know where Joshua Gibson ball field is?"  I then gave him directions to the field with joy.  Never have I had this much social interaction on my walk to work, and I was barely even half way there!  Then I’m at work riding the elevator up with a guy who is leaning his head back against the wall and says, "Is it Friday yet?"  I reply, "You’re in luck my friend, it is indeed Friday!"  He asked if I was sure and then said that it’s just been one of those weeks.  I said, "It’s only been a 4 day week!  Must have been pretty bad!" then wished him well as I got off on my floor and he continued his ascent to where ever he has to sit out the rest of the day.  Then the network went down, so people on the floor were wandering around aimless without having the internet to entertain them, and a guy that took my old job but has been around for a few weeks introduced himself to me.

What a talkative public I’ve encountered today!

Throughout my years of living in the Hill District, I’ve noticed a few cultural trends on pedestrian behavior.  One is just to stand around on the corners of Centre Avenue with nothing to do but watch people drive by or make obvious glances at women as they walk by.  This happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They just stand there.  Not at a bus stop, not smoking, not harrassing people or cars, just standing around.  It’s weird, but pleasant in some weird way too.   The second behavior is walking on the street.  The sidewalk can be the cleanest thing and wide open, but they’ll walk right on the street.  It’s very frustrating as a driver.  sometimes, I liken it to the country, as you wait for cattle to cross the street.  I’m not comparing residents to farm animals, more like showing that both the city and the country have their obstacles.

BUT TO THE POINT!  Thanks to some engineering students at Pitt, the Hill District has designated walking paths!  This is a pretty cool thing, in my opinion at least.  Hopefully people will make use of the paths, I know that Erik does already.  check out the post-gazette story and the official site.

Yesterday, someone sent me (and a bunch of others) an email saying that cell phone numbers were going public and they had to call some number to make sure they were added to a do not call list.  I got another email from someone else that said that there is a state wide speeding ticket blitz and to be careful.  That same email was flowing around the office twice today and both times I had to tell them it’s false.  Here are the emails:

and the two links on snopes that say they’re false:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp

http://www.snopes.com/politics/traffic/speeding.asp

So basically, if you are going to forward me something, CHECK YOUR SOURCES.  If you don’t have any, CHECK SNOPES.  This is textbook chain letter crap we’ve been dealing with since 1996.  When in doubt, snopes.

this is the most lucid dream i’ve had in a long time.  So i’m taking the bus somewhere.  The bus actually varies a few times from a 15 passenger van, to a charter bus, but this is a minor detail.  The seat layout was consistently like a 15 passenger van, bench seats, isle way on the side.  The drive was a big old guy, maybe 60, and those old style glasses with the double bar across the nose.  There’s a large fellow in the row behind me, and a black guy talking on his cell phone on the bench infront of me, and then the driver.  We’re cruising a long for a while, making stops, people getting off and such, and we get on this divided highway.  he pulls off the highway into this parking lot for a building, when i know the route calls for us to go a little further and then loop back.  He looks  the mirror and asks the three of us left on the bus if any of us want to get off at that last stop, because he’s running a little late and just wants to turn around in the parking lot, cut across the median, and head back on the highway so he can get back on track time-wise.  The cell phone guy ignores him, and the guy in the back just sits there too, so the bus driver turns around and looks at me and asks me if it’s ok.  I tell him that I don’t mind.

      So, do the loop in the parking lot, cross the 2 lanes of left coming traffic fine, off-road it a little bit on the grass median strip, which seems to be really wide.  We’re going at a good speed, he starts turning to the left, so that he can keep accelerating as we merge, and just before we can reach the road, we go over a large hill, and on the otherside of that hill…nothing.  This was a bridge section of the highway, and he had just driven us right off the cliff.  I had been looking out the front window this whole time and can still see the image of coming over that hill, and realizing that there was no ground on the other end, and seeing the bridges on either side.  The bus driver was shocked.  He calmly turned around and said, "Crash.  We’re going to crash, I’m sorry.  Best to hold on to something so you don’t flip around."   So i laid down on my back across the bench, left arm holding the lip of the bench, and right arm tucked between the back and seat holding on for dear life.  I started to pray.  I started to think "wow, so this is how it ends."  I started to think about how my mom would react.  I swear we fell for a good 30 seconds.  My eyes were closed the whole time; body stiff as a board, trying to prepare myself for the hardest impact i’d ever feel in my life. 

   And that sense is the last thing i felt or heard.  Until i started coming to.  A female EMT, short brown hair, in her 40s is reaching towards me to put an oxygen mask on me.  I start to struggle a little, wanting to get up and show her that I’m fine, I’m disoriented, I try to give her a thumbs up but my nerves can’t do it convincingly.  She tells me to calm down for a while, just sit tight.  she pushes against my upper lip and i scream in painful agony, it feels like my whole face is swollen.  She pushes on the bottom of the chest, where the rib cage stops, and again i scream in pain.  she comes back up to my face and pushes, and it’s fine now for some reason, i’m a little relaxed at that, then she pushes again on my chest and i scream for her to stop, i think about my snowboarding accident, and it’s the same pain.  I fear that i separated my sternum from my ribcage again.  I start to cry from the pain and tell her i have a history of chest pain and to stop pushing on it.  She tells me that my blood pressure is high and that she needs to find out why.  I tell her it’s because i’m scared she’s going to kill me by pushing on my chest, which is totally true.  She does an "oh" look, and stops.  they get me on a stretcher and get me in the back of an ambulance to take me to the hospital.  I don’t think the bus driver made it, but i saw the big guy behind me on a stretcher too.  on the ride there, I’m telling the EMT lady exactly what happened.  I remember that I always felt that my back was falling towards the ground, so it seemed that the bus didnt twist around at all, just straight down on it’s wheels.  I was thinking about how much time i’d get off work, but i couldnt remember what day it was.  I was thinking about how this would be on the news.  I was thinking about if rachel’s family would come and see me in the hospital.  I was laughing at how i survived.  I had no idea how far we fell, but i know it was far.

and i woke up on my back, with hands on my chest, in the same position as i was in the ambulance.  Actually, i really did transition out of the dream, like slowly things from inside the ambulance started to be replaced with things from my dark bedroom.  It just faded away.

Moral of the story:  Don’t eat a reese’s klondike right before bed OR never tell a bus driver to drive across a median.

When are roads going to start using technology?  Right now, they’re just poured concrete.  Technology could make them safer, better, easier.  They could make GPS navigation more efficient.  If sensors were place on the edges of roads, it could detect a car slowly getting off onto the shoulder to replace a tire, and maybe something in the car, like an onstar system could ask if the driver needs assistance.  Or, at least check that the driver hasn’t fallen asleep at the wheel.  If the car leaves the road at a high speed, ambulances and police could be alerted instantly of an accident, and those precious seconds and minutes before someone would pass by and call it in, and try and give a location could save lives.  When deer and such come onto the road, lights could flash or even just turn on to scare it away and make drivers aware of their presence sooner.  Statistics for traffic would be available telling real time congestion and which roads are traveled more frequently.  Speeding could be enforced easier.  once cars starting matching the technology of the road system, you could track stolen vehicles, or someone else could give directions to the driver by logging into a webpage and figuring out where the other person is.  Icy or wet road conditions would be able to be tracked.  and maybe even your car could guide itselt to it’s destination.

Things to do over my 12 day birthday weekend…

Personal Development

• Make at least 1 life altering decision
  • Became a organ donor
• Work out at least 3 times…1/3…FAIL!
• Become 24 years of age in mind, body, and soul…It was achieved a few times, feeling pretty good
• DO NOT SLEEP IN!…SUCCESS!
• Do something you’ve never had the guts to do, but always wanted to…Couldn’t think of anything, but I didn’t not do something by chickening out……RAIN CHECK!
• Do something generous… CHECK!
• Show someone you care and go out of your way to do something for them… CHECK!
• Expand your horizons, do something you’ve never done before… CHECK! (nothing spectacular though)
• Do something spontaneous… CHECK!
  • Registered to vote
• Read at least 1 entire book… FAIL!
• Record at least 1 song… ACCEPTABLE. When you’re sick, you can’t record. But I did record instruments for 3 songs…
• Go to a religious event… CHECK!
  • Kutless concert

Financial

• Invest in something… FOLLOW UP NEEDED! We’ll see how the Playstation 3 thing works out
• Take a risk… CHECK!
• Give to charity/Church… CHECK!

Social

• Go on at least 1 date… CHECK!
• Meet at least 1 new person… CHECK!
• Reconnect with a lost friend/person… CHECK!
• Get at least one single female phone number…CHECK!
• Go out with a group of friends… CHECK!
• Go out with 1 friend… CHECK!
• Have at least 1conversation for over an hour on the phone… FAIL!
• Get drunk…cultural?… FAIL!

Cultural

• See a movie, art exhibit, or other event
  • Death Cab for Cutie Concert
  • Penguins Game
  • Toured the whitehouse (lame)
• Eat at a restaurant you’ve never eaten at…CHECK!

Misc errands/chores

• Put in time working at the estate …CHECK!
• Deep clean house…FAIL!
• Change the truck’s oil…CHECK!
• Work on website(s)…FAIL!
• Get a new cell phone…CHECK! (Black Motorola KRZR)
• Get new driver’s license…CHECK!

Note: List is subject to change. Details have been withheld for privacy, security, lameness, and embarrassment reasons. Some items were achieved multiple times, but only required 1 instance for success classification. All rights reserved. Carpe Diem. Who’s your daddy.

So i am coming home on a 2 lane highway, going about 65 mph, and there is an ambulance in the right hand lane. It has all those crazy lights it has going wild, which is enhanced by it being 10:30 at night. So i am slowly approaching it, and i am hit with this sense of not knowing how to act to its presence. am i allowed to pass it? do i just get behind it? if i do pass it, am i allowed to get in the right hand lane infront of it? I am quickly approaching it, and everyone else that was infront of me passed it, so i did. at one point, i could see in the back windows, and i saw an EMT girl turning around getting something from the wall cabinet and turn back around to what i can guess is someone on a stretcher. I forget at what point, but some where between 10 feet behind and 10 feet infront of it, it gives out a loud “whoop” once. Why? was it trying to tell us it wants over? there are about 4 cars immediately infront of me. With all those lights going, it’s kind of hard to notice a turn signal. What does it want? What can i do to help this ambulance get to its destination? I felt dirty passing it. And really, if i can pass it, and it has someone in the back, why can’t they go faster? why have its lights on at all? or, if it is an emergency, why not it’s sirens too?

granted i never read my driver study book before i got my permit, so maybe i missed something, but dang, what a weird thing.

you should be able to look at weather archives. Like, there was a storm down in houston a few hours ago, and i looked at the images and the storm took up half the state, it was impressive. so a few hours later i wanted to show my friend, and i couldn’t because the images were all current.

maybe it would be that useful, but sometimes people would use it. if you came back from vacation and forgot what the weather was on a tuesday to figure out which day you went to disneyworld…or if someone you knew was flying out of a city, and you wanted to see what the weather was like when they took off because their flight was late…or someone got in a hit and run and got caught a month later, and the driver said it was raining, so you would have to verify it. I dunno, just trying to think of applications. I think there should atleast be SOME data for the previous weather.