Archives

Mar272008

The Mellow Years

While walking to my car in downtown Peoria today I was nearly ran over by a car.   To provide context, I came to a crosswalk downtown and initiated my crossing under the white lighted stick figure representing all clear.  As I made it one car length across the 4 lane (2 per direction) intersection Mr. Sticky changed to a flashing hand and began couting down from roughly 17 seconds.  I was in a leisurely stroll for a change and made it past the second lane in another 3-4 seconds leaving plenty of time to complete the traversal before the blinking hand turned to the forbidding solid talk to the hand gesture.  3 steps into the 3rd land I noticed out of of the corner of my right eye a silver/white quarter panel nearly hit the ground right next to the back of my right leg.  I completed the turn to see a vehicle essentially slamming on the brakes to keep from taking me out as he turned left through the intersection.  I turned around and started walking backwards while staring back at the car’s driver and taking note I still had 10 seconds to go on the countdown.

I continued walking backward in order to continue observing the driver of the vehicle yelling at me and pointing to the sign.  As soon as I was just clear enough away, he revs the car past me all the time yelling at me and pointing to the sign – now at 7 seconds.  As I completed the rest of the crossing I glanced at the license place but it was partially obscured, mentally checked off the distance to the next intersection, new from walking that intersection that the wait is at least 30 seconds, and took note that the light was going to turn before he made it there and then….. turned away and headed the opposite direction towards my car.  I must say, this was a little startling to me.  Not because of the physical danger that had passed, but my expected reaction to the situation had changed – absolutely no alarm, no change in facial expression, no increase in heartbeat and no adrenaline rush resulting from the plausible run to the other intersection to address the situation further.  I have changed, I mentally assessed the situation in the same manner, but for some reason I chose a different course of action – I decided it wasn’t worth it and instead spent my energy enjoying a nice spring day. 

I still know there is a silver/white vehicle out there with an Illiniois license plate beginning with MRF that owes me an apology, but I don’t really care.  Actually, I do care a little in a curious life observation manner.  I would speculate that being downtown at that specific location around that specific time is a common occurance for that invididual.  I see the same people every night heading to my car and have started noticing the same types of vehicles passing by around the same time. We humans are creatures of habit and it is amazing how common our weekday to weekday lives are.  I’ll keep my eyes open for MRF to see if I can validate this theory -if nothing else, because the idiot can’t drive and apparently doesn’t know anything about pedestrian law. 

Clearly I have mellowed to a degree based on similar events and outcomes experienced previously in my life.  It is somewhat alarming, but to be honest, the rest of the walk to my car was extremely relaxing.

spacer
Mar262008

The Longest Walk

I had to drop off our dogs at the groomer yesterday morning which requires me to traverse some additional side streets as opposed to the normal highway path to work.  This has the bad side effect of making me vulnerable to unplanned delays generally brought on by that large yellow vehicle that transports our future (sorry, I had to do it in honor of the crappy/cheesy Foreigner and Whitney Houston songs)  Anyway, generally I have to just fight through the stops every 100 feet to pick up another set of kids.  If this is our future, it looks like we might be in trouble since they are apparently too lazy to actually walk two driveways distance to group up in order to limit the stops the bus has to make.    Resigned to weight out the delays, I started taking notice of the children getting on the bus.  On the second stop, there was not anyone waiting and the bus just sat there…. and sat there… and sat there.   after literally 30 seconds (yes, that is an eternity when you are trying to get to work in the morning).  Then the storm door slowly creaked open and a young girl slowly shuffled out to the stoop, continued that pace down the driveway with her head pointed down, dragged herself to the bus door and reluctantly hauled herself into the bus.  It was a agonizingly long, but extremely depressing.  Obviously she didn’t have any desire to go to school, no thirst to learn, no energy to engage.  I began to think to myself just how sad this was from the perspective of the the state of education in the U.S.  Why can’t school be fun, what does it take to make a day full of learning fun and how much extra effort does it take a teacher to motivate their students.  Okay, there could be a lot of reasons she doesn’t want to go from the depression brought by the cruelties of peer pressure to outside influences like family issues.  But I could probably counter that with the school’s inability to foster a learning environment to the opportunity for children to escape for 7 or so hours from a less than perfect environment to a highly caring classroom.  I am no longer in school and I do not currently have children so I can’t really comment too much on this, but it seems logical to me that learning can be both fun and entertaining with a little bit of extra work.  As I write this I recall that my brother actually devoted time to helping out at an underprivileged school where he lived.  He was able to introduce them to new concepts and exciting math related things in a very creative and encouraging manner.  I know he spent a lot of time on that activity, but he was also working hard at his normal day job.  How hard can this be for someone who works at it full time?

Looking back, I can remember plenty of teachers that actually contributed to my education and prepared me for my adult years – I can only hope this girl comes across at least a few of them in her school career.

spacer
Feb072008

Thundersnow

Sorry for the delays between posts, work has made for some rather long days as of late.  In fact, I have some reports due tonight so I only have time for quick entry.  Last Sunday, I witnessed something I have never seen before.  No, it wasn’t the overconfident Patriots being overwhelmed by the 12 point underdogs.  At around 3:15pm central, thunder and lightening rolled in.  This seemed a bit odd, but panic soon set in because we were having people over to watch the “Big Game” – rain has the potential to disrupt our satellite signal and that is the very last thing I wanted to happen.  The good news is it did not rain… nope.  it starting snowing.. that’s right, I’ll let it sink in.  So the cloudy sky was lighting up, the thunderclaps were shaking the house and the snow was coming down so hard you literally could not see more than 50 ft.  – not to mention it was accumulating fast.  We ended up losing half our guests (some even had to turn back after half way here – we live in the country and the roads were blowing shut), but we luckily did not lose our HD signal the entire game (ended up using an antenna to pull in the local over air signal (Dish doesn’t carry local HD stations yet).

I am not sure how much we ended up getting that night (at least 3-4 inches), but we did learn by example from my nephew,  when added to the 5.5 inches already on the ground there is no way a rear-wheel mustang is making it through – ended up having to push him 300 feet out our neighbor’s driveway (long story, don’t ask 8^)

Anyway, it is the first time I’ve ever experienced Thundersnow – and do not bother commenting on Global Warming since it is currently freezing outside.

 Oh, and my vote for best “Big Game” commercial…. the stock trading baby who bought a clown…. the “understimating the weirdness” line killed me since I absolutey dislike clowns!

spacer
Jan202008

Yeah for Wal-Mart

Something incredible was happening to Peoria on December 4th 2007.  Were we welcoming home our military cargo/transport heroes home from Iraq.. nope.  Were we completing our multi-year revamp of one of the oldest sections of I-74 to enhance the driving experience for our visitors.. nope.  Hold on to your seats now…. Michigan State’s glorious basketball team was coming to play our Bradley Braves.  I know, I know you’re giddy just thinking about it.  So, Michigan State, representing their 46,045 students ,was coming to take on the Bradley Braves with a 2006 enrollment of 6,127.  Truly a David and Goliath moment.  It was so big that ESPN was going to carry it.  We’ve hit the big time now.  The big night came, the lucky ones got tickets to Carver Arena to witness the historic event in person, while others popped their popcorn, poured their drinks and settled into their favorite chairs.  It was a close game, but the Braves fell short of toppling the mighty Spartans 66-61. …. and then things started taking an ugly turn.

Continue Reading…

spacer
Jan172008

Etching Behaviors

I am closing out the last remaining hour of my birthday and figured I would go ahead and comment on something I witnessed yesterday.  As I was exiting my workplace I caught a lady out of the corner of my eye (loving the LASIK by the way) on the opposite side of the street.  She was holding onto a young child (probably around 5) and bending down to talk to him.   For an unknown reason, I quickly formulated what was going to happen and this discussion that was taking place was to make sure everyone knew the game plan.  They were actually standing between two parallel parked cars just off the curb in the street.  She pointed to my side of the street a couple of times and motioned her arms in an exaggerated running manner obviously trying to convey speed.  This she reiterated a couple of times until she felt the kid understood the mechanics of what was about to happen.  Keep in mind, that this is a three lane one way street in the middle of downtown and used pretty heavily (flowing from her right to left).  She looked to the right, looked to the left (probably a good thing since more than once I’ve seen someone coming the other way), looked back to the right, clinched the kids hand and they started to sprint across the street. 

Continue Reading…

spacer
Jan092008

I Trump the Soft Card

I woke up the other day, flipped on the TV and witnessed someone reaching deep inside themselves to reveal a sensitive, emotional, caring soul tortured by all that is wrong in the world.  As this person struggled to overcome the stress of the situation and hold back the tears of frustration, I found myself thinking about two things.  

The first of these centered upon public displays of emotions.   I do not consider myself a cold person,  but I was not raised to let emotions control my actions or influence my decisions.  My father is a role model for rock steady and always a voice of reason or support in any tough situation.  I am sure there were times when he felt scared, saddened or uncertain, but I do not remember a single time when he showed that side of the situation when my brothers and I needed guidance, a helping hand or calming in an uncomfortable situation.  Did he inherit this trait from his parents, is it a byproduct of tougher times, a necessary characteristic of being a soldier in the Korean War, a conscious decision to raise his children to meet the demands of life or a union of all of these?  I honestly don’t know the reason, but what I do know from past experience is to trust the calm, focused and confident individual who found the door out and not the person crying in the corner.  I have also spent many years in martial arts and competed against numerous opponents.  During the seconds we were touching gloves, I was focused on one and only one thing.   If he was looking down, he didn’t want to be there, if he was raging in my face he was likely to fall victim to every feint …. but the guy who locked on to your eyes and seemingly stared right past you had a mission and a confident plan to get there and therefore … a dangerous opponent…

 And then there was the second thing ….

Continue Reading…

spacer