Bad Timing

It's time to interrupt the regularly scheduled program of month old events and tell you all about what happened yesterday.

Yesterday started out to be very good. At lunchtime, I went to the Visualization Forum in the Levine Science Research Center, for a talk on combining Macromedia Flash with XML. That was combined with a free lunch of chicken gyros and a lemon. I was worried that I was going to be late, because I got lost in the Hudson Engineering building. They've added a ramp to the front of the building, so I went in a different door from the one I used when I was a student. That was the building in which I took Algorithms and Operating Systems.

Later that afternoon, I went to a tutorial on the ViewsFlash surveying tool. It seems pretty cool, actually, and DF did a great job teaching us.

After work, I went over to practice guitar with JJ and EB. At first my chording hand seemed to not be cooperating at all and later it was clear that my timing was way off, particularly on John Denver's Country Roads. Playing faster and faster doesn't help if you're playing with other people. After carefully analyzing my playing and the songs, they suggested that I try practicing just downstrokes rather than a more complicated strumming patterns. Also it does seem like I need to learn the words of the songs well enough to get a better sense of the melody. Fortunately, Brown Eyed Girl is just four beats per chords. In any case, I had a really good time and I think JJ and Biscuit, did, too.

Afterwards, JJ, JA, EB, MP and I went to the new restaurant across from Nana's, Thai Cafe. LA had recommended it to me earlier in the day, so I suggested that we try it out. I tried their Pad Thai with shrimp and I was very pleased.

After dropping JJ and EB off at JJ and JA's house, I headed home. I was on 147 and about to merge with I-85 when a deer jumped out right in front of me. I braked and then I saw that there was another jumping between me and the first deer. It was so close that there was nothing I could do. It was horrible. The good thing is that I was ok. It made me thankful that I was in a full-sized van, because I'm betting it would have gone through the windshield of a sedan.

I immediately went into shock and was shaking uncontrollably. It is so sad and traumatic to hurt an animal involuntarily. It makes me wonder even more how anyone could do it intentionally.

My van was making odd noises and I pulled off to the side of the road. Fortunately, there is a really wide shoulder where 147 merges with 85. I put on my blinkers, called home and my parents headed for me. My mom suggested that I might want to call 911 and let them know. When I called, I didn't know how bad it was, so I said they didn't need to come by to write a report. It was about 10 minutes from our houses, but they had to go past me, exit and get back on in the other direction. Once they arrived and saw the damage, I called the police back and asked them to come after all. My van was a mess. That took quite a while.


As you can see, the grille is completely broken, the turn signal light is broken, my ham radio antenna is gone. The air conditioner condenser is pushed in, but it's hard to tell how bad that is inside. The driver's side door makes a noise when you open it, so the fender may need replacing. My dad has been working on trying to get it driveable so we can take it places to get estimates.