A recent work trip found me on the road without my wife and daughter. Some of my coworkers found out that the hotel gave free visits to the local YMCA, so I went along with them to play some ball.
The gym was vintage YMCA. Four games on two courts. Running track on the second floor, surrounding the gym. The really big really sweaty guy. The wiry old guy who would shoot flatfooted 3 pointers from his chest, with it going in more than half the time. Your local big guy with a mohawk who lifts a lot and thinks he's a lot better than he is. Frankly, I was a little intimidated. I've played ball a few times in KY and not to much success. The last time I had played, I ended up with a huge elbow in my face that led to swelling and a black eye.
We wait for our turn and after ten minutes are so, we're on. Of course my team ends up being the smaller team.
So we start, and I get the ball on the first play. I decide to drive it past the guy guarding me. He recovers in time, but almost trips and says "dang, you're fast." Good start. The ball gets passed around a bit and I finally get it in the corner and decide to take a shot. BAM. It's in.
Next play, my guy gets the ball, and he tries to go past me. My arm flicks out, hits the ball away from him, and I go and pick it up, Jackson Emery style. I follow that up with another made shot from the corner. 2-2 with 4 points and a steal. Not a bad start! We followed some hot shooting and beat a team that had a ton of size on us by a couple. All in all, we ended up winning three games, than lost the next two due to going cold at the wrong time. I continued to make shots, play pretty good defense, and had a couple good drives as well. It went pretty much as well as it could have.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Road Rage!
Lexington is surrounded by New Circle Road. Near my work, it is a four-lane (two lanes each way) limited-access road, with on-ramps and off-ramps like your standard interstate freeway. However, near my home, it becomes a normal road with stoplights, businesses, etc. As you can imagine, the transition from freeway to road usually involves a lot of cars waiting at that first stoplight.
Oh, and the speed limit is 55 mph. So yesterday I'm driving home in the freeway section of New Circle, in the left lane, at my standard 58 mph. I'm slowly passing cars that are in the right lane. There is a lady - I'm sorry, that would be too complimentary - there is a woman behind me in a jeep. Well, I should say on top of me - she is probably six inches from the back of my car. I look in the rearview mirror and see her. Normally, I would immediately get over into the right lane. However, I'm a quarter mile from the end of the freeway, and due to an upcoming on-ramp it's much more advantageous for me to stay in the left lane. So I do, sorry Ms. Jeep Woman.
Well, after some waving frantically on her part, she steps on the gas, gets in the left lane, and passes me. That doesn't really bother me too much, but as she passed me, she almost hit me. So I honked ever so slightly (I didn't lay on it or anything. I actually don't know if a honk ever came out.) because it was a rather dangerous driving move. If you're going to pass me, please make sure you're ahead of me. Of course, by now we have both slowed down, as we are in the long line of cars at the light. I did give the car a "what were you thinking?" look with my hands up. (No profanity or obscene gestures or anything, which is more than I can say for her.)
Anyway, this sort of stuff happens. No big deal. The light turns green and slowly the cars begin to move. However, I notice the other lane is moving a lot quicker than mine - which is odd, because the right lane always moves slower. I can't see around the jeep woman, but I imagine that she's going slow to try to make me mad, which was a bad move because it wasn't really making me mad, and if she really was in a hurry, she should be going fast. Anyway she finally picks up speed, and I decide to take advantage of a spot and get in the other lane, because I will be turning right in a couple of lights, and I want to get away from this crazy person. Right as I begin to turn in the next lane, she slams on her brakes. (Plenty of space in front of her, she was literally trying to get me to rear-end her.) Unfortunately for her, I had made sure there was plenty of space between me and her and I had plenty of space to get into the other lane. Meanwhile, the truck that was behind me almost runs into her, but stops just in time.
I had moved on. Crazy people these days. However, it gets better. By the next light she has gotten into my lane, and then into the additional right-hand turn lane. She stops next to my car, and begins pointing and swearing at me. I was at a light, and had nothing else to do, so I rolled down my window and asked if there was a problem. She swore at me again and proceeded to tell me that I had been going 58 mph in the fast lane and should have moved over (Yes, she admitted to breaking the speed limit, which is a traffic violation.). She explained to me that not moving over when I could have was a law and that I had broke that law. This was all interlaced with profanity. Meanwhile, her 12 yr old son is sitting in the passenger seat with his feet up on the dash. I don't mean to judge, but it sure looked like it had been a few days since either of them had taken a shower. Anyway, so I asked the lady what there was to gain by going any faster, because we were coming up to a stoplight and everyone would just be in a line anyway. She didn't seem to understand that, because she brought up the passing lane law thing again. So I asked her again politely and asked her to answer my question, and I didn't understand why she wouldn't answer me. Meanwhile at this moment the couple in the aforementioned truck is in the lane to the left of me and they begin yelling at the jeep woman. They were a little more crude than I was, but they yelled at her and told her that she was a dangerous bad driver and almost caused an accident. The jeep woman responded that her brother was a cop (I know she had just been dying to throw that out there) and she didn't care if she caused any accidents, because she would be just fine. The truck responded that they were going to get her plates and call 911. The jeep woman used some profanity and then told the truck lady to go on weight watchers, which was ironic because I definitely wouldn't be calling the jeep woman a skinny minnie anytime soon.
This was all very entertaining, but by now the light had turned green and so I rolled up my window, waved and gave a thumbs-up to the truck, and continued on my merry way.
Oh, I was rear-ended with Torrie and Clara in the car a few weeks ago and still have a scratched/dented bumper (the parts finally came in today, so I'm glad that I'll finally be getting those fixed). I'm wondering if that somehow played into the jeep woman's crazy tirade? Did she cause her to think that I was a bad driver or I would get angry? It didn't, and if anything I'm glad that I've been in the habit of driving much more defensively than before. The couple minutes you get to someplace quicker is not worth the greater risk of getting into a car accident.
Oh, and the speed limit is 55 mph. So yesterday I'm driving home in the freeway section of New Circle, in the left lane, at my standard 58 mph. I'm slowly passing cars that are in the right lane. There is a lady - I'm sorry, that would be too complimentary - there is a woman behind me in a jeep. Well, I should say on top of me - she is probably six inches from the back of my car. I look in the rearview mirror and see her. Normally, I would immediately get over into the right lane. However, I'm a quarter mile from the end of the freeway, and due to an upcoming on-ramp it's much more advantageous for me to stay in the left lane. So I do, sorry Ms. Jeep Woman.
Well, after some waving frantically on her part, she steps on the gas, gets in the left lane, and passes me. That doesn't really bother me too much, but as she passed me, she almost hit me. So I honked ever so slightly (I didn't lay on it or anything. I actually don't know if a honk ever came out.) because it was a rather dangerous driving move. If you're going to pass me, please make sure you're ahead of me. Of course, by now we have both slowed down, as we are in the long line of cars at the light. I did give the car a "what were you thinking?" look with my hands up. (No profanity or obscene gestures or anything, which is more than I can say for her.)
Anyway, this sort of stuff happens. No big deal. The light turns green and slowly the cars begin to move. However, I notice the other lane is moving a lot quicker than mine - which is odd, because the right lane always moves slower. I can't see around the jeep woman, but I imagine that she's going slow to try to make me mad, which was a bad move because it wasn't really making me mad, and if she really was in a hurry, she should be going fast. Anyway she finally picks up speed, and I decide to take advantage of a spot and get in the other lane, because I will be turning right in a couple of lights, and I want to get away from this crazy person. Right as I begin to turn in the next lane, she slams on her brakes. (Plenty of space in front of her, she was literally trying to get me to rear-end her.) Unfortunately for her, I had made sure there was plenty of space between me and her and I had plenty of space to get into the other lane. Meanwhile, the truck that was behind me almost runs into her, but stops just in time.
I had moved on. Crazy people these days. However, it gets better. By the next light she has gotten into my lane, and then into the additional right-hand turn lane. She stops next to my car, and begins pointing and swearing at me. I was at a light, and had nothing else to do, so I rolled down my window and asked if there was a problem. She swore at me again and proceeded to tell me that I had been going 58 mph in the fast lane and should have moved over (Yes, she admitted to breaking the speed limit, which is a traffic violation.). She explained to me that not moving over when I could have was a law and that I had broke that law. This was all interlaced with profanity. Meanwhile, her 12 yr old son is sitting in the passenger seat with his feet up on the dash. I don't mean to judge, but it sure looked like it had been a few days since either of them had taken a shower. Anyway, so I asked the lady what there was to gain by going any faster, because we were coming up to a stoplight and everyone would just be in a line anyway. She didn't seem to understand that, because she brought up the passing lane law thing again. So I asked her again politely and asked her to answer my question, and I didn't understand why she wouldn't answer me. Meanwhile at this moment the couple in the aforementioned truck is in the lane to the left of me and they begin yelling at the jeep woman. They were a little more crude than I was, but they yelled at her and told her that she was a dangerous bad driver and almost caused an accident. The jeep woman responded that her brother was a cop (I know she had just been dying to throw that out there) and she didn't care if she caused any accidents, because she would be just fine. The truck responded that they were going to get her plates and call 911. The jeep woman used some profanity and then told the truck lady to go on weight watchers, which was ironic because I definitely wouldn't be calling the jeep woman a skinny minnie anytime soon.
This was all very entertaining, but by now the light had turned green and so I rolled up my window, waved and gave a thumbs-up to the truck, and continued on my merry way.
Oh, I was rear-ended with Torrie and Clara in the car a few weeks ago and still have a scratched/dented bumper (the parts finally came in today, so I'm glad that I'll finally be getting those fixed). I'm wondering if that somehow played into the jeep woman's crazy tirade? Did she cause her to think that I was a bad driver or I would get angry? It didn't, and if anything I'm glad that I've been in the habit of driving much more defensively than before. The couple minutes you get to someplace quicker is not worth the greater risk of getting into a car accident.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Federal Taxpayer Receipt
So some independent watchdog groups have been putting up taxpayer receipts - you put in how much money you spent in taxes, and the receipt will tell you where your tax money went.
Here's a link to one that the White House put up:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt
I put in my tax info, and what jumped out at me was how much of the taxes I pay go to other people.
It made me more motivated to spend wisely, save more, and take better care of myself - I want to be prepared and not depend on the government to force people to spend money so that I can have health care and retirement income.
Hopefully enough other people will think the same thing.
Here's a link to one that the White House put up:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt
I put in my tax info, and what jumped out at me was how much of the taxes I pay go to other people.
It made me more motivated to spend wisely, save more, and take better care of myself - I want to be prepared and not depend on the government to force people to spend money so that I can have health care and retirement income.
Hopefully enough other people will think the same thing.
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