12/21/2004 – Robert
Christmas Death Toll
The idea was swiped from matt, but I thought it was appropriate for
today.
Around noon, I realize that today was the day of my photogig with Kelly
for a city weekly assignment. So, I down my lunch and head home to pick
up the camera that I had forgotten. On the 33rd south freeway exit,
there was a completely smashed up truck and some guy being hauled away
on a stretcher.
Then, heading back up to work... if you heard on the news about the
collision on i-15 southbound that took out three lanes of traffic, I
narrowly avoided becoming part of that. Two cars behind me, a yellow
moving truck slammed into the back of someone's work pickup truck. The
truck was hit so hard, it was bumped into the lane next to me. I looked
in the rearview to see the front end of the moving truck. The front was
smashed, the axle was bent, and the tires were ruined. It's a miracle
that I didn't need a change of underwear. If that truck had smashed into
the back of my car, my altima would have been toast, possible me too.
After I made sure I wasn't going to be hit, I dialed 911, reported the
incident, and made it to work. Here's what the aftermath looked like:
I then get to work and wonder why matt hasn't responded to any of my
emails. Matt's car was stolen. Even crappier, the car was just paid off
a little while ago. I hope the thief rots a terrible, slow death in
hell.
Then, I just barely ate my dinner. On the way home from Gandalfo's, I
hit an ice patch and slid into a curb. The right side of my car hit at
about 10mph, and I think it may have fucked up my alignment. Great.
And to add to the list: Work has been hell lately. My two fellow
developers have been out all week. One, I feel incredibly bad for. It
was her first pregnancy, and she suffered a miscarriage over the
weekend. The other coworker's wife gave birth to their first child. At
least there's a shining point in the piles of shit, right?
Ugh, I fly out to VA tomorrow morning at 8. Let's just hope this bad
luck doesn't continue into tomorrow.
12/22/2004
Oy, the crap didn’t end with yesterday. After driving around this
morning, I realized that I definitely threw my car’s alignment out on
that curb last night. Crappy, that’s probably going to be an extra $70
or so when I get back. Stupid 4 wheel alignment jobs.
The airports are insane right now. I thought I arrived with plenty of
time, but it turns out that Delta now makes you carry your checked bags
over to a separate security scanner after they’ve been tagged (as
opposed to taking the bags at the counter). That added an extra 10-15
minutes onto my waiting time. Then, the security check line was insanely
long. At least I bumped into Matt’s sister, Charlotte, there.
The clock was ticking…. It was finally my turn at the security scanner.
After making it through multiple lines, I whip off my belt (it always
sets off the metal detector), I take my laptop out of the bag, and place
everything on the conveyor belt. “Sir, is this camera yours?” Yup, my
camera set off an alert. I guess the densely-packed bag with four
lenses, a camera, a couple of memory cards, and a flash made for a
difficult scan. So, the time is about 7:55 now, and my flight has an
8:10 departure. The TSA agent takes his sweet time in swabbing the bag
for explosives, checking out the flash, and opening the lens cap (front
and back) for each lens in my bag. He finishes at 7:59.
During this whole time; driving to the airport, check-in, waiting in the
security lines, I had a burning realization that something wasn’t
sitting right in my stomach. I am pretty sure the Naked citrus drink I
had for breakfast earlier was bad, as I felt pretty odd five minutes
after downing it. I sprint to my gate at speeds nobody has seen from me
since my childhood and make it to the gate right before they were
closing the door. The time, 8:02. I have never cut it that close and
actually made a flight.
I board the airplane and quickly realized that I was about to be sick. I
don’t think I’ll ever touch a Naked fruit drink again. Ugh… I drop my
bags off and head right for the bathroom. My body rejects the drink. I
get freshened up and take my seat, realizing that my stomach wasn’t
through with me. I make it through the takeoff climb and leveling, and
the instant the seat belt light goes off, I head towards the bathroom
again. I get sick again.
Lessons learned here: 1) Delta has officially declined to suck from a
bad status. 2) I should have woken up at 4:30 instead of 5:30. 3) Naked
fruit drinks are satan. 4) It could have been worse and I could have
missed the flight.
Oh well, 2.5 or so hours to go until I’m in Virginia and I’m on
vacation. Wahoo.