(warning: contains language inappropriate for young ears)
Can I go riding ?
I'm training for an Iron Man
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Message Received
There are times when we all let life get to us. Personally, I get overwhelmed with stress and start getting impatient with people, my politically correct filters start to drop and I am generally irritated by the slightest things. I also get a bit more aggressive than usual when people are (what I deem to be) inconsiderate. I don't realize it's happening until I do or say something that gets me in trouble.
I realized last week that the stresses of the past couple of months (work, life etc) and the "joy of the season" had pushed me over that edge. It was a sunny Weds morning and since I didn't sleep well, I found myself heading south on 95 for a weekly management meeting in Virginia a little earlier than usual. Let me pause here to acknowledge that I am a bit of an aggressive driver - not obnoxious, but aggressive. A couple years of racing cars will do that to a girl.
Anyway, everything is rolling smoothly until we get right around the ICC construction zone - somewhere near Laurel. Now, I know that traffic always slows in that area. I have no idea why, there are no lane closures and aside from speed cameras, I can't figure it out. Speed cameras shouldn't STOP traffic, they should simply slow it down a tick.
So, I find myself behind a gray Chevy Impala in the left lane going UNDER the speed limit. He's pacing the car in the next lane so I'm boxed in and not very happy about it. I tend to show my unhappiness by borderline tailgating. He finally gets far enough ahead of the other car for me to slide through. Admittedly, I did come a little extra close on purpose to show my displeasure. I intended to pass him and get back in the left lane but now he was pacing me. He pulls up next to me and I look over and clearly ask "WHY?" through the window. It's a small blessing that I've grown out of flipping people off. I drop my car into manual shift and hit the gas to do a clean pass and switch back to the left lane. Looking in my rearview, half expecting this J-O to come up to tailgate me, my heart drops as I see him flip on his lights. EFF. I laughed to myself thinking - well, it was bound to happen.
Having pulled to the shoulder, I watch him get out of his car and literally do the cocky-cop strut to my car. As I rolled down the window the first words out of his mouth were "In answer to your question "Why"; because there are speed cameras in this area and if I get caught speeding, I have to pay the ticket. You sped up to 85mph to pass me and tailgated me to get through (I think he was being generous, I know I was going faster than that at one point). I started to argue with "I only sped up because you were pacing me ..." and then couched it with "but I understand what you're saying". By now I realized that this guy wasn't a traffic-type cop - probably a detective or something judging by his car. He hadn't asked for license or registration. I wasn't getting a ticket but I wasn't pushing my luck. I apologized for my transgressions and he mumbled a "slow it down" as he walked away.
I pull back into traffic, which was coming to a stop directly ahead. I saw in my rearview that as the cop pulled back in, someone nearly hit him and slammed on the horn. Cop pulls off to the side, lets the guy go ahead and proceeds to hit his lights to pull the guy over. This cop was having a tough morning !
I laughed at a rare stroke of good-luck and then laughed at myself for letting things get to me enough to push my normally aggressive but acceptable driving to a level slightly below obnoxious.
Message definitely received.
I realized last week that the stresses of the past couple of months (work, life etc) and the "joy of the season" had pushed me over that edge. It was a sunny Weds morning and since I didn't sleep well, I found myself heading south on 95 for a weekly management meeting in Virginia a little earlier than usual. Let me pause here to acknowledge that I am a bit of an aggressive driver - not obnoxious, but aggressive. A couple years of racing cars will do that to a girl.
Anyway, everything is rolling smoothly until we get right around the ICC construction zone - somewhere near Laurel. Now, I know that traffic always slows in that area. I have no idea why, there are no lane closures and aside from speed cameras, I can't figure it out. Speed cameras shouldn't STOP traffic, they should simply slow it down a tick.
So, I find myself behind a gray Chevy Impala in the left lane going UNDER the speed limit. He's pacing the car in the next lane so I'm boxed in and not very happy about it. I tend to show my unhappiness by borderline tailgating. He finally gets far enough ahead of the other car for me to slide through. Admittedly, I did come a little extra close on purpose to show my displeasure. I intended to pass him and get back in the left lane but now he was pacing me. He pulls up next to me and I look over and clearly ask "WHY?" through the window. It's a small blessing that I've grown out of flipping people off. I drop my car into manual shift and hit the gas to do a clean pass and switch back to the left lane. Looking in my rearview, half expecting this J-O to come up to tailgate me, my heart drops as I see him flip on his lights. EFF. I laughed to myself thinking - well, it was bound to happen.
Having pulled to the shoulder, I watch him get out of his car and literally do the cocky-cop strut to my car. As I rolled down the window the first words out of his mouth were "In answer to your question "Why"; because there are speed cameras in this area and if I get caught speeding, I have to pay the ticket. You sped up to 85mph to pass me and tailgated me to get through (I think he was being generous, I know I was going faster than that at one point). I started to argue with "I only sped up because you were pacing me ..." and then couched it with "but I understand what you're saying". By now I realized that this guy wasn't a traffic-type cop - probably a detective or something judging by his car. He hadn't asked for license or registration. I wasn't getting a ticket but I wasn't pushing my luck. I apologized for my transgressions and he mumbled a "slow it down" as he walked away.
I pull back into traffic, which was coming to a stop directly ahead. I saw in my rearview that as the cop pulled back in, someone nearly hit him and slammed on the horn. Cop pulls off to the side, lets the guy go ahead and proceeds to hit his lights to pull the guy over. This cop was having a tough morning !
I laughed at a rare stroke of good-luck and then laughed at myself for letting things get to me enough to push my normally aggressive but acceptable driving to a level slightly below obnoxious.
Message definitely received.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Simple Pleasures
Simple Pleasures from this weekend:
- Gorgeous weather made for an amazing ride with good friends on Saturday.
- Go Navy ! The game was fun and watching the 4th quarter on field on the 20-yard line was awesome !
- Intelligent, relevant interaction with intelligent, relevant people. Sharing good food, wine and experiences with a couple friends and a few people I just met reminded me that while bikes and training and racing are pretty cool, there are other interesting subjects and experiences in life. To supplement bikes, training and racing, of course.
- Integrated bluetooth in my car. It will change my life.
- Living in a place that doesn't roll up the sidewalks on Sundays ... I found someone to fix the flat tire on my car. Despite the fact that I missed my scheduled ride, I'm happy I didn't have to worry about starting my Monday morning with a flat.
- The Harry Potter movie was worth the price of admission.
- Re-discovering intelligent humor: Bill Maher is hysterical. I watched an episode re-run where he interviewed Bill O'Reily, who made for some interesting conversation (and was pretty funny himself). DC Mayor Fenty also made an appearance and made some good remarks about education and his administration's accomplishments.
- Running around on my Vespa for probably the last weekend of the year. Now I need to figure out how to get it into storage sometime this week.
- Knowing I have a short week of work - not a fan of the holidays but am looking forward to spending some time with Mitch and her equally fantastic family.
- Glimmers of hope. After a couple rough years and more than a couple traumatic events, I'm starting to see signs of good things to come. Sometimes that makes all the difference.
- Funny signs.
- Gorgeous weather made for an amazing ride with good friends on Saturday.
- Go Navy ! The game was fun and watching the 4th quarter on field on the 20-yard line was awesome !
- Intelligent, relevant interaction with intelligent, relevant people. Sharing good food, wine and experiences with a couple friends and a few people I just met reminded me that while bikes and training and racing are pretty cool, there are other interesting subjects and experiences in life. To supplement bikes, training and racing, of course.
- Integrated bluetooth in my car. It will change my life.
- Living in a place that doesn't roll up the sidewalks on Sundays ... I found someone to fix the flat tire on my car. Despite the fact that I missed my scheduled ride, I'm happy I didn't have to worry about starting my Monday morning with a flat.
- The Harry Potter movie was worth the price of admission.
- Re-discovering intelligent humor: Bill Maher is hysterical. I watched an episode re-run where he interviewed Bill O'Reily, who made for some interesting conversation (and was pretty funny himself). DC Mayor Fenty also made an appearance and made some good remarks about education and his administration's accomplishments.
- Running around on my Vespa for probably the last weekend of the year. Now I need to figure out how to get it into storage sometime this week.
- Knowing I have a short week of work - not a fan of the holidays but am looking forward to spending some time with Mitch and her equally fantastic family.
- Glimmers of hope. After a couple rough years and more than a couple traumatic events, I'm starting to see signs of good things to come. Sometimes that makes all the difference.
- Funny signs.
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