Am I More Important than a Fire Truck? Yeah, I Think So!

So I have a lot of pet peaves that center around driving. Not that I am the best driver in the world, I have had my fair share of "Crap, where did that guy come from " incidents...but there are a couple of driving habits on the road that irk me to n end.

Some of them have to do with not using turn signals, some are because I don't like to wait for slow drivers, but the one that has been bugging me the most is people who think that where ever they are going is more urgent than the screaming fire truck, police car and/or ambulance that is headed their way.

I was under the impression that when you hear an emergency vehicle you are supposed to stay stopped (assuming you are at a light, interestection, stop sign) identify where the vehicle is coming from and do the best you can the get the heck out of the friggin way. Over the last couple of days (years really) I have seen more and more people
1) ignoring the sirens and not getting out of the way
2)accelerating through the intersection before the emergency vehicle comes through the interstection so that they are not delayed an additional 10 SECONDS by the oncoming big red fire truck.

I mean come on people, what are you thinking?

Even if you don't like the police because they caught you with an expired inspection sticker, chances are pretty good that the fire truck or ambulance is out on a mission to help somebody. You may be late to work, or you may need your morning coffee and you're running late, but is that REALLY more important than stopping someone's house from burning down.

...and what if that was your mom in that ambulance?

Plague, Bikes and Ikea

Lots of stuff to report I guess. The first is that I somehow managed to pick up the plague that everyone on the east coast has. It started sometime around Friday. I felt like absolute crap by Saturday night, I managed to get out of the house once on Sunday and I have pretty much been cooped up yesterday and today. I really shouldn’t be surprised that I am sick. Literally 9 out of 10 people that I know have been sick over the last three months. Hey at least it’s not that avian flu thing.

My new bicicleta

In other news...I did end up getting that bike I told y’all about. I ordered it on Monday and it was scheduled to come in on Thursday. Well, I stopped by the bike shop on Thursday after work and it wasn’t there. They told me it should be there the next day. I stayed for a little while to shoot the breeze and at 5:45 the FedEx guy shows up with one small box and one BIG box. The big box just happened to contain said bicycle. By 6:05 Mike and I had the bike put together and I was riding it in the parking lot. I have already managed to log a couple of hours on it Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Nothing too big since I have been under the weather. But this thing is phenominal. I don’t know the exact numbers but I think it’s probably less than a pound heavier than my hardtail and for that single pound I get

1) 100mm fork on the front (up from 85mm)
2) 100mm shock on the rear (up from 0)
3) Tubeluss wheels
4) Hydraulic Disk brakes

And probably a couple of other things that I can’t think of right now.

Trip to IKEA

On Saturday (after a short ride) a group of recently or currently plagued people went to IKEA in Northern VA. This thing was huge. I never really knew where I was at any point while inside the building. All I know is that we wandered around for several hours popping in and out of these different “zones”. First we went upstairs where they had the displays. There were these small “rooms” decorating with…you guessed it…Ikea stuff. They had these huge posters that said “Everything in this room could be yours for $1068.” You would look in the room and see four bookshelves one couch a couple of chairs, a coffee table and a freakishly small computer desk. Then came the kitchens. All different types of counters, cabinets, ranges, sinks, islands…It was a little overwhelming! And that wasn’t even the beginning of it.

Once you were done upstairs, you could go downstairs where you can actually load products into your basket, cart, pallet, whatever. Now if you just wanted to get in and out of there, good luck. Again we wandered down the predetermined path through kitchen stuff, bedroom stuff, rugs, laundry stuff, picture frames, lamps (Ikea has cool lamps), glasses, candles, plates, knives, EVERYTHING. Once the excursion was over you were funneled into the larget bank of cashiers that I have ever seen.

I really wish I had taken some pictures. That would have been kind of weird though. I managed to keep my head above water though. I walked out with two trays and a small wooden folding Plant Stand.

I'm gonna go take a nap.

Wedding pics posted

Anyone who is sitting around waiting to see the pics from the wedding...you are in luck. Here is what I was able to fit. It's a little less than half of the pictures that we actually have.

Enjoy.