A long weekend... a longer blog

"That's another Hokie firrrrrst down"
The Hokies are back. I am mad/sad that they were only ranked 17th in the preseason polls. I am glad/ecstatic that they won on Saturday (as if they would lose to Northeastern, seriously?) and happy to see they are moving up in the polls. I am very much in withdrawal of cable since I am realizing that without it I may never get to watch my beloved team play. Until I go to Blacksburg or until the ACC Championship, that is.

"U-Pick"
On Sunday I went apple picking for the first time ever. It was fun. The trees were smaller than I had imagined they would be and most of the fruit was on the ground so I had to hunt harder than I expected. But, I walked away with a bag full of apples and at 99 cents per pound I paid less than I would have at the grocery store ($1.99 per pound... I'm frugal, I had to check to make sure I beat the system.)
I have decided that if I ever need a new profession and happen to own a lot of land it would be a great idea to have my own "U-Pick" farm. The geniuses who own these places have figured out a way to get other people to pay them to do their work! Brilliant!
"Put the brakes on Tab Theft"
It's a slogan on the Missouri DMV's website. I had never heard of such a thing until I moved to St. Louis. A common crime in the city is for people to steal the year tabs off of license plates to sell or use on their personal cars to avoid paying fees for getting the tabs legally.
This has become such a problem that the state changed the placement of the stickers to make it harder to steal the tabs. In fact, they even modified the way the plates are made. Smart city-dwellers will go ever further to avoid being the victim of this crime by scoring the tabs with a razor blade once they are applied and by purchasing clear license plate covers and frames to make it harder for theives to access their plates.
I registered my car in Missouri 5 weeks ago. Since I am a smart city dweller, I took the above precautionary steps.
I live with Gil and Linda and last night they slept with their window open. Around 12:45 am Gil heard noises coming from the street below. He looked out and saw a man messing with my car. He yelled, the man ran, and Gil went downstairs to investigate. The man had smashed through my clear cover (I was less than impressed with it's quality) and attempted to scrape my stickers off of my license plates. HA! Since I had scored them with the razor blade he only managed to peel off a small corner of the tab. (I feel a small victory in my heart over his failure.)
The good news is that since we called the police and reported the crime I can get a new sticker by paying $5 for a copy of the police report and $3.50 for a processing fee for the stickers.
The bad news is that my car wasn't the only target. The man seemed to have targeted our ministry van first and chose to simply steal the entire plate from it, rather than bother scraping the stickers off.
I am debating whether or not it is worth it for me to buy new plate covers since they are so easily broken. I have heard that they sell better ones at AutoZone and plan to look into investing the extra money in those (the ones I had were the $5 WalMart type.)
Lessons learned.

My *new* reason for hating motorcycles
I was sitting in my office in the basement when I heard the crash. It was really loud. I ran upstairs to the street to see what had happened. A man was laying in the road, about 20 feet from his motorcycle. He was not moving.
Nothing seems to draw a crowd like an accident, and suddenly there were people everywhere. Some were tending to the man, others calling 911, and one woman was in her car following the van who had hit this man and sped away. I was on the sidewalk feeling helpless, with that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I saw the man move his leg a little and sort of roll to one side. I breathed a sigh of relief that he was alive.
Soon the police arrived, then the ambulance and fire truck. They went right to work: aiding the man, directing traffic, gathering eye-witness accounts. I suddenly had a new respect for these emergency workers. I could not do their jobs. Scraping people off the asphault day after day, tracking down the hit-and-run drivers, maintaining control in the midst of chaos. They are amazing.
I had never seen so many accidents until I lived here. I don't know why that is. It makes me serious about wearing seat belts. It also makes me look twice before I pull out. And I know most people in my neighborhood don't have insurance. They can't afford it. That makes it worth it to me to pay a little extra for better coverage.
I don't know the end of that man's story. I don't know how bad his injuries were. I don't know if they will ever catch the driver who hit him, or whose fault it was in the first place. I do know that this incident made me think twice about the fragility of life. Sirens speed past my building all day and night long. I hardly hear them anymore, they have just become part of the background noise. But this was a good reminder that life is precious and I should not take this day for granted.