0 Days Without An Accident

What would we do without elderly people on the road.

It was Sunday night and my wife, Tasha, and I were having a relaxing evening together with our dog. We decided that we wanted to watch a documentary on dinosaurs (may sound odd, but it was part of a long term dino-strategy). What goes better with a great dino-doc-flick than an ice cream Snickers bar? That's right, nothing. So off we went to my work where we happened to have some. We live about four minutes away without traffic, so, really the order was not so tall. Something most people wouldn't think twice about. Especially at 10 o'clock at night.

We were leisurely making our way to my work and were approaching our freeway overpass (I work just on the other side). Keep in mind that it had been raining all day and was continuing to do so. On the far side of the freeway I was proceeding through the green light when a car darted out in front of me, running his red light.

This is basically what I saw, recreated (except darker...rainy-er):

In an instant, my brain calculated that I did not have room to maneuver to the right. I couldn't make it to the far lane on the left, else I would have rolled the Element. So, I ended up between both lanes and launched us into the middle "river" section. I say my 'brain calculated' because at the moment above, all my conscious was calculating was, "AHHHHHHHHH!!".

If I did not correct we would have plowed into the drivers door...to a very very bad end.

When we came to a violent stop in at the bottom of the median, I asked Tasha if she was okay, mentally checked myself, then exited the vehicle to survey the damage and make sure everything was safe.

I later found out that there was an employee of the deputies office that had been waiting with the other cars at the red light and was on the phone with 911 before we had "arrived". He was letting dispatch know that the red light was taking an abnormal amount of time and that people were being impatient and running the light. Just after that, we were on the rocks.

A few people, including the deputies office employee, stopped to assist. We told them what had happened and they then questioned the man from the other vehicle, who had stopped. I soon found out that he was denying that he was even a part of the accident...which was a little infuriating. Mostly since that would have meant that he was either calling me crazy or just a really...really...really bad driver. Either way...I had percolating blood.

In the end, he was cited for running a red light and will be held responsible, my vehicle towed out of the pit of despair (suprisingly intact [the underside got it the worst and the bumper popped back out]), and we made it home in one piece. 

Tasha is feeling some residual from the crash. Her neck, back and jaw are hurting. I am doing fine. We thankfully did not bring our dog, as that could have ended up bad. We are waiting to hear back from the claims adjuster. I am thankful for how this turned out, considering how bad it could have been. Pictures of the car found after the break.

Crash Photos

Doom With A View

I mean that in the best way possible. I finally got my HP camera working, so I was finally able to take a panoramic shot of the glorious view from my desk. The only format that would do it justice. This is what I get to stare at 8-10 hours a day. I really can't complain...except for the times when I find myself staring at the majesty of the mountains of mother nature, rather than the mountains of emails that have stacked up in the last 30 seconds. Therein lies the "Doom" definition. (nah. I really do love my job...for the most part). It is a much needed, in my face reminder of the insignificance of the mundane worries in life. We are part of something huge. That's for sure...

Robo Follow Up...

This is what Google Earth caught when viewing mom's house(A)...looks like a giant bot (B) from the last post is helping her move.....the moving truck. Uh oh!...yeah I'm dumb...:)

One Of The Coolest Things

This is more toy than tech...but that might depend on how you look at it. I read a post this morning on Engadget that I thought was pretty awesome/hilarious. It is about a generation of robots made by a company called Kondo. At one school in Japan, they are trying to gain a foundation interest level among teens. They do this by having the teens develop "fighting bots". Hilarity found here. (Watch the videos embedded into the post.) How they move is the funniest part...

Reservoir Dog

Recently, my wife and I went for a drive with our dog, Piper, up to a nearby reservoir. We we were admiring the scenery (click the photos to enlarge)...

when Piper saw a german shepherd. I had my phone out still, so I took a quick snap shot and got a vid.

Mainly I just wanted to share her cute little growl. She's an adorable dog that loves people...she likes to eat the faces off of other dogs though. At least she pretends to want to. She will usually end up just playing with them.

Silence...

I had a few minutes at work so I made this image that had been stuck in my head as a follow up to the last post. I hope it doesn't offend any lambchop fans out there... :)

Of Peace And Placidity

Since my wife, Tasha, and I have started dating, wool socks have been one of those things that just...I dunno...makes things better. I'm not just talking about "oh yay, my feet are warm" better. I'm talking about "I am now one with the universe" better. It really is an amazing thing. Our "Woolies", as we lovingly call them, have the uncanny ability to pacify and enlighten beyond the expected ability of any physical device. A tiff will turn into a philosophical snuggle fest. Silence of the Lambs becomes Lambchop and the Rainbow Kids. Wild bears seem to have the need to be "coochie coo'd" and absolutely require baby talk. It was when reflecting back on that situation that we realized the danger brought about by wearing the socks. We started to think they were part of a government conspiracy or the commies trying to wage some level of biological warfare...but then put the socks back on and all was forgotten. Ultimately, the socks are here to stay...and we're okay with that. ahhhhhhh Yup...we're really......really okay with that.

A Quick, More Detailed Example

Check out a more detailed form for our family reunion here.

(I made this in a few minutes and it will allow me to track all data submitted.)

One last go at technobabble...

...and only because we could all find a use for this. For anything from family get togethers to
weddings. If you want to have a convenient RSVP distribution and tracking setup or simply poll a group of people/readers.

We can accomplish this by leveraging the tools made available by our beloved pals at Google. Their Doc options allow you to not only create editable doc (Word) and xls (Excel) files, but create forms that you can email to friends or embed into a blog such as this.

Here is a demonstration of what I mean:
______________________________________________________


______________________________________________________

Above is a live field that anyone can submit their answer to. When someone makes a selection, they get the following confirmation:

At this point the information selected gets submitted to your Google Docs database. You can then review the information simply selecting the "Summary" or "Spreadsheet" options under the "See Responses" button. For this particular form, I get the following information for the "Spreadsheet":

Or the following for the "Summary":
This is just a brief (simplified) overview of what you can do with this GoogleDoc application. It has practically an infinite number of uses and be extremely complex/intuitive as you would like. You could make registration pages for a little league baseball team, see who's bringing what meal to a church potluck (and who hasn't responded yet), or simply take a more techy approach to seeing if these pants make me look fat.

There are so many options and possibilities for this application that you would think that it would be difficult to utilize, unless you were a computer genius. But Google, as always, excels at simplifying processes and putting a friendly, usable face on a complex situation.

Since this quasi tutorial barely scratched the surface of this tool, let me know if you have questions and I will help you out. Trust me, this is something you will want to know.