Monday, October 30, 2006

Battlefields and Busted Tires


So a couple days ago I went to a Civil War battlefield near my house called Stones River. I had to go for a class I'm required to take about Tennessee history. I went to the visitor's center first where I got a pamphlet containing info about the self-guided tour from a guy who looked like he was at the battle. Everything was free, which was cool. There was a museum exhibit that had several artifacts from the battle, along with personal accounts from the soldiers and various descriptions of the soldiers and the battle itself. The old guy told me to see the video first because there was a schoolbus full of kids coming in 15 minutes. There was a small theatre with a big red button in front of a screen that you pressed to see the 9 minute film. The film wasn't bad. I watch a lot of the History Channel so I'm into this kind of stuff. The film's realism was most impressive. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of nightmares the kids would have after seeing all those soldiers cut down and their blood running like rivers onto the ground. Most impressive.
I liked the self-guided aspect of the tour because I could just read the info in the pamphlet and tour the site at my own pace. It was cold and raining which lent to the atmposphere because the soldiers themselves experienced similar weather. I had read that this site was supposed to be haunted and I was by myself so I kept expecting some confederate ghost to pop out of the woods and stab me with his ghostly bayonet. That would've made my year. Overall it was an interesting visit.
Coming back from the battlefield was just as exciting. The brakes on my car have been shot for a while now so I'm always careful when I drive. I don't know what happened that day, I think I was just excited about all the history I had witnessed, but I wasn't as careful as I should've been. I was driving on a wet road and had just come over the top of a hill. At the bottom there was a stoplight and it had just turned red. I've provided some astonishingly accurate artist's renditions about the events of this incident. Here is the scene I have just described. There were three cars stopped at the light, one in each lane, including the turning lane. No cars were coming from either side of the intersection that had the green light but there were cars stopped on the other side of the red light. I was coming too fast and tried to stop when my brakes locked up and I started to skid, seen Here.
At this point I had a decision to make. Either A:pick a car to rear-end or B:do something stupid. I chose B. I swerved all the way to my right, trying to get my car sideways so I would stop. Instead I jumped the median and hit the sidewalk on the other side of the road. My tire exploded and I had to limp to a nearby driveway to change my tire. There was a third option that would've saved my tire but I guess everything happened so fast that I didn't have time to react. That option is shown here. Clearly I should've gone with that option but now I have to buy a new tire and get my brakes fixed. The icing on the cake was that I had to get home and write a paper that was due later that day. I got it done, though. Plus I guess I was lucky that there were no cars coming from the opposite direction. So I got that going for me.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Slow Times


Not much going on right now, just work and school. The weather is starting to change and I'm not looking forward to it. I hate the cold. I'm an island boy, whaddaya want? 90 degree winters are what I like. Sure snow looks good every now and then but it's c-c-c-cold.

School is school and work is work. Occasionally something interesting will happen, like these three dudes who were shoplifting and forgot that there were cameras in the ceiling. That was funny. They leave the store and then are escorted back in two seconds later by a cop and our AP guys (Assets Protection). They had that look on their faces , the one were you can tell that they really screwed up. Sweet.

Anyway I'm pretty bored nowadays. Very few friends to occupy my time, which I guess is good for schoolwork. I had a friend tell me to buy something for her at my job a couple weeks ago and I still haven't gotten a call about that or anything else, for that matter. One of those people who are either busy all the time or just making excuses, you've all known people like that, I'm sure. I actually had some "friends" from work over for the Bears game this past Sunday. I put that in quotes because most of the people I talk to at work I wouldn't consider true friends. I see them all the time, yeah but I never interact with them anywhere else but work. At least my Bears are doing good. That's about the only thing providing a break in the monotony. It helps that they're kicking ass, too. Hope it continues. Well that's it for now. Update concluded.