This post needs a small amount of setup. My wife and my home is on Country Homes Blvd, otherwise known as the Current North / South Freeway in our city. We live just past where the right lane disappears because it has become a turn lane. This frequently becomes the cause of screeching tires and broken glass.
On another front, one of the wonderful (hear the sarcasm?) rewards for my recent medical problems (take your pick) is that when I want to sleep I can't and when I want to do something productive, I fall asleep.
Last night I was watching Youtube when I got sick and tired of insomnia.
This morning, I was taking off in my car. As I started to pull out of my driveway, my phone chose that moment to complete it's connection to my stereo.
The Ford Fusion Hybrid stock stereo is wonderful and the car is completely silent, unless you have a lead foot. This morning was glorious, so I had my windows down, and the sun was shining. My stereo was turned up.
I FORGOT I was watching "Stupid Driving Mistakes" online last night, so I got to listen, in full stereo and wonderful lifelike quality, to the sounds of squealing tires and breaking glass!
The good news is my reflexes are still wonderful. And my brakes are in GREAT shape!
Comments
Three most important things
The three most important things in comedy are: Timing!
Timing!
And Liverwurst!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Reflexes are good
It's great you got that out of your system before you got on the street. The car behind you, the driver's reflexes might not be that great. Coming through OKC on the off ramp, I saw eight new or fairly new vehicles staked up, one behind the other. With plastic bodies and zero protection bumpers I figured it was a million dollar pile of broken plastic.
So want a new plastic vehicle. Strapped inside an egg shell, they give us seat belts to keep us safe. To top it all off, they charge two arms and two legs to sell us a large piece of blow molded plastic.
Daddy's brand new Ford pickup luxury cab cost him 1800 dollars and it was "all" steel.
Happy for you and your electric car, hon. If you're satisfied with it that is all that matters. It probably fits all your needs perfectly. Don't let the Debbie Downers like me rain on your parade.
Hugs
Barb
The smarter we get the more we understand how little we truly know.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I'm with You Barbie
All this motorcar nonsense has made us near useless.
Which of you has forked a winter's worth of horse manure into a spreader for twelve hours at a stretch? Probably a rare few have. Or could. Or, would want to.
Which of you knows how invigorating it is to chop the ice off a stock tank in -20 F weather, so the horses can drink? Any volunteers?
How many of you have enjoyed the gentle tickling of oats chaff down your neck while you grind feed? It's right up there with stepping on an ant pile.
How many of you have grown to love the anticipation of waiting for rain? And waiting? And waiting? While the alfalfa refuses to grow and you end up harvesting thistles and hope the horses aren't all that picky.
When we threw out all those horses we sure ruined a bunch of memory-creating moments.
Barbie - You've got to relax and allow the world to flow around you.
Here --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wqUdc9BGdI
Listen to some soothing music performed by a friend of mine.
He's a full-time farmer/rancher.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Wow
I'm just glad my four years on a farm were in California, not Minnesota. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I've had my share of climbing
I've had my share of climbing under a semi in freezing weather, throwing chains before I've challenged many mountains with 105,500 lbs of steel trailers and screaming diesel.
I've had to figure out how to teach kids to do it as well.
I have had to tie down sheets of steel, what we used to call "greased rods", lumber, you name it, in sweltering heat and blinding snow.
I've had the rare privilege of driving a semi through a tornado; twice!
I was never able to work with alfalfa and I only bucked hay bails once because of hay fever, but I worked in other areas.
I agree that there are many children these days that have no idea what work is. As I've always driven for a living (well... Most of the time), I bought my car for less overhead when I made a living driving Uber. I was self-employed as a truck driver, I figured I could handle it again. :-D
Treating it as a job, not a hobby, my wife and I were making a good living - until I was diagnosed with a tumor.
Hugs!
Rosemary
I've definitely seen people
I've definitely seen people who should have bought something a bit more robust. Several years ago I was a firefighter, and we did our share of extrications from vehicles. Not a fun thing.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Can't make em tough enough for some
Coming back from Canute on the farm to market road there was a big John Deere in the middle of the road at an intersection. It was in two pieces, a front half and a rear half. No idea how it got T boned or what happened to the other vehicle or people. Oil and water, plus a whole lot of pieces all over the pavement. The tractor was the only thing there.
Those big semis you drive, seen enough of them scattered up and down the interstate over time. I picked up a wheel out of the field, fixed the fence, called the trucking company I figured had lost it. Yes they had a truck come in missing a wheel. Didn't ask them to fix the fence. Figured they were truck drivers not fence builders. The semi turned over on the west end of the farm was hauling meat. The trailer was split open, meat was everywhere. The cement truck that turned over past the driveway. If he had just told me, I would have dropped some forms and had a cement driveway. No telling how much it cost for the state to pick up all the cement out of the grader ditch. The semi loaded with beer bottles and beer kegs south of the house caught fire. You damn betchu I was out there with a garden hose watering down the trees and grass. I don't guess they put pressure valves on beer kegs. Those things kept exploding like a stick of dynamite.
I've hauled my fair share of wheat, milo, and heavy equipment, including large cats. My CDL has no restrictions but I'd have to take more physicals, more training to haul hazardous chemicals or waste again. We time out if we don't keep up training. I'm lucky to hang onto the license itself without having to take a driving test every year. I'm sure our government can remedy that small matter in a few more years in order to time out more drivers who aren't full time. One of my friends had a heart flutter and they pulled his license. Fifteen years ago my son took his CDL test. Of fourteen there that day he was the only one who passed. Before he went I tested him and told him everything that was on the test.
God needs to recycle me. Sometimes we live too damn long.
Hugs people
Barb
Life is a gift, don't waste it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I understand. I don't drive
I understand. I don't drive truck anymore because I'm insulin dependent. I will NOT give up my CDL. I worked too hard for that. I've also been a school bus driver. I COULD still use that if I wouldn't kill the kids. ;-)
I hated what I saw out there, although I joined a volunteer fire department when I quit. We did extrications, and I will forever remember one in particular. The kid we pulled out was one I knew, and he died on the way to the hospital.
I understand what you are saying about weak vehicles, and I don't argue in the least. Part of my job in teaching kids was to keep them safe out there. I thought both regular over the road, and heavy haul, in the pacific northwest, where we could gross 105500 lbs. Once, I was teaching a kid how to sea and a mountain pass at Butte Montana, and as another driver passed us, he got on the radio and told me I could go faster. "I've got a trainee driving," I told him.
"Nevermind, " was his response. Lol. I was an owner operator, btw. I always told my trainees two things. 1. I don't care WHAT the manual says. It's my equipment, you'll do what I say. 2. You can go down a mountain too slow as many times as you want. You'll only do it too fast once.
The bad times will always be with me.
I remember going through the corner of Wyomingon highway 30. There is a bridge through there that turns a corner. A truck jackknifed on it one day as a Knight truck was going the other way. The only way you could tell it was a Knight trick was that was what the trailer has painted on it.
A husband and wife team was driving it. She was in critical condition, but as I waited to drive through, I watched as the authorities kept picking things up and putting them in a body bag. Her husband had been asleep and didnt make it.
So many tragic things, and some, thankfully averted before they became that way.
Once, a friend and I were going into a truck stop in Iowa in the middle of winter. A guy, new to trucking, stopped us as we we're walking in. He has set his trailer brakes, got, and they wouldn't release after freezing. He asked us how to get them released. We told him to tap on the shoes with a hammer. We went on in to pay for our fuel, and as we were walking to our trucks, we saw him underneath his trailer hitting his brake cans with a a sledge. My friend ran ahead, yelling to stop. We got up to the guy and explained that in rhar little can was a spring a couple of feet long that would go through his head if it broke free.
We showed him what to do, and left glad that we had stopped a tragedy from happening.
Hugs!
Rosemary