The Burlingames

I narrowly escaped yet another accident in Fridley this week. I was driving my work truck on a city street, passing a gas station on my right. A woman coming from the opposite direction signalled a left turn, wanting to turn into the gas station I was approaching. She appeared to be slowing down like she was going to wait to turn until I had gone by. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, she did not wait; she turned in front of me very late. I layed on the horn and slammed on the brakes, skidding on the pavement. She then realized her error and hit the gas harder to get out of my way. She just made it; I couldn’t have missed her by more than a foot or two.

However, the story doesn’t end there. In her haste to get out of my way, she ran straight into the front of a car coming out of the gas station because she was too busy looking at me and not where she was going. Oops.

You may have noticed a lull in posting lately. It is due, for the most part, thanks to all the people trying to get their gifts to people at the last minute. Work has been nutty; I’ve been working 10- and 12-hour days for the last week. That tends to get in the way of other activities. Today is the last day of insanity for me as I’ll be going back to a more normal schedule.

As a testament to how busy FedEx Express has been, consider this: Monday of last week was the most single-day volume ever for the company (11.4 million packages), beating the previous record of about 9.8 million. This week, especially Tuesday, was projected to be even more volume. We’ll see how it shakes out when the numbers come in.

I’ve been back at work since Wednesday of last week. My ankle was a bit sketchy last week, but has been improving by leaps and bounds this week. Praise God for good progress.

I was sitting at a light today in the right-turn lane behind another car, waiting for my turn to go. Suddenly, a motorcycle passed me (and the next car) on the right. There was no gap in the traffic, but he pulled out and turned right anyway, racing up the shoulder until he matched speeds with the cars next to him. He cut in front of one car, causing them to brake, and then cut into the next lane as well.

After he had gone, I looked to see how much space I had left between the curb and my truck. The side was only about 2 feet from the curb. I don’t know how he made it through without rubbing the curb and eating it. What a moron. Perhaps even more amazing is that the guy wasn’t some young punk on a crotchrocket, but an old, ZZ Top-looking guy on a medium-size cruiser.