Thursday, June 13, 2013

FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  An update on the woman who was killed riding her bike in my town.  The driver reportedly passed the
car in front of him which had slowed down due to the couple on their bikes, found there was an oncoming car in the lane, swerved to right to get back in his lane and hit the couple.  No word to whether he knew they were there.  He has stopped cooperating with the police.

The 18 year old driver was recently boasting on Twitter about "beating" a speeding ticket on the same road - speed limit is 35, he brags he was going 85.  One can only imagine that his rich parents helped him out of that and other infractions he is said to have racked up.  Perhaps if someone in his life had given him consequences for his actions, that woman would be alive and playing with her grandchildren today.

2.)  Keep positive vibes out there for my son who has an interview for a position at UC Berkeley!  A great job and the benefit of reduced fees for a graduate degree at the university.

3.)  We have a nest with baby doves in the jasmine arbor outside our patio door.  I found an egg shell from a hatchling this weekend and can now hear the chirping of at least 1 baby coming from the nest.  The parents are very unhappy when I am in the yard and especially when I am grilling nearby. But so far they have chattered at me but not attacked!

4.)  I am torn about the hoopla over phone records being collected by the government.  On the one hand I hate even the appearance of intrusion by our government.  We are supposed to be better than that. 

On the other hand I think corporations know much too much about me and they actually use and sell the information in ways the government certainly doesn't.  They are, after all, the ones who supplied all the phone records in the first place.

That Google "reads" my e-mail and search information to determine what ads to put on my home page and sells the info to Facebook which now posts ads in my timeline is much more bothersome to me.

5.)  Can you believe we are halfway through June already?

5 comments:

smalltownme said...

I hope they "throw the book" at that stupid driver.

Good luck to your son!

Jenny Hart Boren said...

My forever friend Jim Brown is the Executive Director at the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates (SABA). I know it's not Pleasanton, but there is plenty of great information and news about laws, trends, and fun stuff. You might want to take a look.

Not long ago, a bike commuter on the highway just outside of town was killed when a young mother reaching for a baby bottle edged over the fog line and crashed into her.

And yet--the more bikes there are on the roads, the safer each one becomes, because then drivers are prepared to look for bikes. But in the meantime--be careful out there!

That kid was behaving like a serious jackass, and he deserves to be punished for his crime, but I'll bet he was just a boneheaded teenager who would never have murdered anyone on purpose. What an awful lesson--and what a unspeakable tragedy for that woman's family.

Here's the link: http://sacbike.org

If it doesn't work, just Google it. Or Bing. Have you tried Bing? I'm still deciding if I like it.

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

Just when I was going to rant about the young driver, I read Jenny's comment (above) and thought, I was known to drive and reach back for a lost pacifier in the baby seat...

Stupid mistakes and dumb choices... we all make them. We are lucky we don't all have to pay for them with someone else's life.

Tricia said...

Heard an interview with a guy from an anonymous search engine "DuckDuckGo" they do not collect data on where you have been on the web and what you have searched for. I plan to use it. The interviewer asked if people were using this service because they were doing something illegal and he said, no, he did not think so he thought people just don't like to be followed around and have all that data collected on what they do.
Re: the bike thing. Yeh it is really dangerous out there, I am surprised every time I come home in one piece! My husband commented on how dangerous it is to ride in traffic and how he doesn't want to do what I do. I do ride very defensively and watch all the traffic I can see. But what is coming up behind you is hard to see and be able to avoid when they are going fast.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

What a tragedy. That's why I really don't like to ride in traffic. I'm blessed to have some great bike paths here.

Fingers crossed for your son!