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Happy Diwali Day
Yeah, my father always drove the family vehicle on whatever was left of a tire's shelf life. Until that incident, he always bought used tires. I thought it was normal for people to have a blowout on the side of the road. Watching him put a spare tire on a car, was a good learning experience. After that incident though, he bought a set of brand new tires. Funny! I don't seem to recall having a blowout after that incident.The truck I drive used to be my grandfather's. He blew a front tyre on it a decade or so ago, travelling around some difficult mountain roads. Rolled the truck onto its side, and ended up in hospital for a while getting skin grafts to his arm. Dodgy batch of tyres.
I was driving the same truck last year, and one tyre (probably still from the same dodgy batch), now on the same front wheel, developed a large bulge while I was travelling long distance. Fortunately I noticed in time and was able to change the tyre before it blew. But I nearly had the exact same accident in the exact same vehicle!
I have now changed every single tyre on the vehicle with brand new ones...
War is tough and often presents nothing but hard choices. It can be hard for those who have always been protected to see how that particular sausage is made sometimes.
In the moment it is. You can sort things out later but when men are dying you have to stand back and let them fight.Hard choices are still either moral or not. God did regulate warfare, so not all "sausages" are "kosher."
The fact that David had to compensate a people to make things right for what Saul did, means war is not an anything goes deal.
What Saul did, was not a part of any war. It was genocide.Hard choices are still either moral or not. God did regulate warfare, so not all "sausages" are "kosher."
The fact that David had to compensate a people to make things right for what Saul did, means war is not an anything goes deal.
Ugh! When I worked at my former place of employment, they had celebrations for Diwali every year. One year, I saw the meaning of the holiday displayed from a projector onto a screen. As I sat in the cafeteria, one of the Asian volunteers for the celebration, came to me and asked if I wanted to participate, I politely declined. When she insisted, asking if I was sure, I simply said, "I mean what I say, and I say what I mean", and I left it at that.Happy Diwali Day
Or the toys destroy the mower.It is the start of summer, and I haven't mowed the lawn all spring. It was essentially a hay crop. I had to cut it with a scythe today before I could get the lawnmower through it. On the bright side, with a scythe you don't destroy the toys hiding in the grass as much as you do with a lawnmower.
Whoa! They mow lawns in NZ? Who knew? I thought y'all just let the countless sheep run wild.It is the start of summer, and I haven't mowed the lawn all spring. It was essentially a hay crop. I had to cut it with a scythe today before I could get the lawnmower through it. On the bright side, with a scythe you don't destroy the toys hiding in the grass as much as you do with a lawnmower.
Our sheep in the yard are impressive leaf vacuums this time of year. We have big cottonwood trees that drop lots of leaves. They make a big impact given enough time out there.Whoa! They mow lawns in NZ? Who knew? I thought y'all just let the countless sheep run wild.
When we first moved here that's actually exactly what we did lol. It's all fun and games until a sheep gets stuck under the house and your toddlers keep getting sheep poo stuck in between their toes....Whoa! They mow lawns in NZ? Who knew? I thought y'all just let the countless sheep run wild.
Sometimes I miss my children more when they're with me.
Well, once the littles are gone....they are gone. Those precious stages pass quickly.That made me want to cry.
A trip to Walgreen's to get some medicated cream for my wife, is usually uneventful. Typically I throw on my mask, get whatever I need, and go to the counter, pay for it, and I am on my way. This time, the clerk wanted my email address. I tried to give it to her, but rather than spell out my last name, I showed her my DL. For some reason, she was unable to read it off my credit card.
So while she was trying to enter my email address, a lady barges into the store, and says something about a car hitting a vehicle in the parking lot, and when she described the vehicle, I knew it was our van that we just bought last month. OK, so cars have been known to bump into other cars in a parking lot, and people have been known to over-react, but it was my car...my (sort of) new car....the nicest thing I have ever owned (Chrysler Town and Country fully loaded)....and this dude didn't just bump into my car! I arrived in the parking lot to see the scratch he left on the bumper, and his car was messed up, well...sort of.
His air bag had deployed and he had blood running out of his nose, and there were some folks yelling at him, asking if he was OK. He just looked dazed and confused. So it turns out, he cut across four lanes of traffic, crossed over a ditch, and smacked into my car. He was asked if he was drunk and he said, "No", but his speech was slurred. As he got out of the car, he was clearly off-balance. When I tried to close his car door, his reaction was so slow, that his head went right into the corner of the door. Of course he blamed me for closing the door on his head.
This dude then, I think someone pointed out to him that his passenger front wheelhouse was messed up, as it was dragging on the ground. So he stumbled around to that side of his car, and began removing it, and the trim around the wheelhouse. He ended up breaking the trim, as part of it was still attached to the vehicle. Then he proceeded to carry the debris to the store. He got to where the Natural Gas cage was, looked around for a place to dispose of it, and then dropped it on the ground, as there was no garbage receptacle in sight, and began to make his way back to his car. He uttered a few F-bombs at me, and I responded by telling him that he was going to jail. "I'm not going to jail!", he exclaimed. I told him, "You are not getting back into that car!"
What ensued was probably the most comical shoving match I have ever been a part of. I have played pickup full-court and half-court basketball, and have had numerous times where I contested the paint with someone who outweighed me by 30 or 40 pounds, and this was no different. I blocked his path to the net, or in this case, the driver's side door, and he shoved me backwards. Realizing that if I didn't shove him back, he would succeed in getting into his car and taking off, I did what needed to be done. The police were on their way, so I knew that if I could hold him off long enough, they could get there and handcuff him. He persisted though in shoving me backwards.
I realized that as a sort of jujitsu move, if I just got out of his way while he was shoving me, he would keep going, and that is precisely what I did. What I did not anticipate, was that not only would he fall onto the ground, but that he did not have the ability to react fast enough to brace his fall with his hands. OUCH! That had to hurt! I have heard that when you are intoxicated or stoned, that you don't feel pain, and that is apparently what happened. He said, "You broke my nose!", as he started to get back up, to which the witnesses who were observing this scene responded, "NO HE DID NOT!" Well, as this dude wobbled in his attempt to get fully erect. He was so off-balance that he fell backward and the back of his head hit the concrete pavement. OH MY! <<<WINCE>>>
I never hung out at frat parties, so this is like totally new for me. Man! That HAD to hurt! "Stay down!". I told him. "You don't want to get hurt!" What do I know about people in this condition? Well, I guess that was a learning experience for me. So instead of trying to stand up, and falling over again, he crawled over to his vehicle, and hoisted himself up again! Seriously? More shoving ensued, until I shoved a little harder than I had been shoving, too hard for someone in his condition. He fell again, hitting the back of his head on the pavement once more.
I thought, "I gotta stop this." This dude was bleeding profusely, and getting his blood all over my arms and my clothes, and he continues to insist on getting into his car. Who knows! He might try to offer me a knuckle sandwich, and I am not too fond of him bleeding all over me. Besides, I am not trying to hurt him! I am just trying to prevent him from hurting someone else. I ordered him to stay down once again, but he refused. So after he got back up on his feet, I sort of danced around. Oddly enough, as I moved away from his car, he continued to go after me, rather than get into his car. I could see that his reaction time was so slow, that I could taunt him for a while.
Eventually, he figured out that the path to his car was unhindered, so I raced him back towards his car, to try to prevent him from opening the door and getting in, and I could hear the sirens wailing. I told him, "Here comes the police! Do you really want to get in your car so they can see you behind the wheel of a vehicle in your condition?" That was my lame attempt at reasoning with someone who has lost his sense of reasoning ability...not the first time, mind you, but..... So after he got into his car, I reached in, trying to pull the keys out of the ignition. Meanwhile, I am thinking, "All you witnesses here are just standing around letting me do al the dirty work!" Well, I couldn't free the keys from the ignition, but the officers were arriving at the scene, so I knew there was nothing he could do to get away. I knew I had done my part.
I gave my statement to the police, what I had personally observed, and let the other witnesses give their statements as well. One of them had caught the whole incident on video. I had to fill out a statement of what had transpired. The part about him walking into the door, had slipped my mind, since most of my attention was focused on preventing him from getting back into the car. My wife called to see what was taking me so long. Of course, the driver of the other car gave his statement to the police. They said that he claimed I had pulled him out of the car and started pounding him in the face, which was proved not to be true with what they saw on video. He said that he had not been drinking, and truthfully, I didn't smell alcohol on his breath, which leads me to believe that he was stoned, but in the moment, that didn't occur to me, not that it matters much in what way he was impaired.
This dude was cut up pretty bad. the socket above his right eye had swollen up to the size of a golf ball. Blood was trickling down from different wounds he had suffered in his encounter with the concrete. It's hard to feel sorry for someone like that though. I am not trying to be a hero. In a way I am. If I had the opportunity to rescue a child from a burning vehicle, I would do so, in a heartbeat. This was less dangerous, although you never know what you might face when you are dealing with someone whose body size has a bit of a proportional edge over your own, albeit most of that looked like excess weight. Nonetheless, you never know who might have gotten hurt, if I hadn't done what had to be done, to prevent this guy from taking control of a 2 and a half ton vehicle.
You know, there are few things that will take your mind off the negativity and things that can drag you down, and leave you feeling defeated and depressed, when circumstances don't go your way, and you feel like a loser. I guess I don't feel so much like a loser, all things considered. Things could be a lot worse. That guy's mother showed up on the scene later, as they were towing his vehicle off to be impounded. She apologized to me for her son's antics. I told her, "You do the best you can with your kids." Somehow, I feel like she is probably going to bail him out, get him a new car so he can drive on a suspended license, and that he probably was uninsured, so my insurance will have to pay for any repairs on our car, if I elect to have them do so. This dude will probably tell me they don't have enough money to pay for those damages, because of course they have their own priorities to take care of, like fines for DUI and such. I've been through that whole routine before. However, as I laid awake last night, thinking about all that had transpired earlier, it hit me, that with all the adrenaline rush, I am not dwelling on so much of what has gotten me down over the past month or so, so much as I had this feeling that I had done something good for my fellow man and woman, and that is a really good feeling to have.
LolHmm... It has only been two months since your last crazy encounter.
@Fiona38 was saying the same thing to me! I told her that I can expect another one in February, at this rate. She said that she hopes not! We have both been getting quite a bit of laughs out of that.Hmm... It has only been two months since your last crazy encounter.