The Put-Put

I used to drive a 1993 Honda Prelude. Nice little car, very quick for a four cylinder. I bought it in 1996, and it finally gave up on me near the end of 2004. I have to admit, I drove it hard.

C. drove a 1995 Dodge Neon. We sold that shortly after we got married. We upgraded that car to a 2002 Chevy Malibu. "The Boo"

The Prelude was exchanged for the Put-Put.

The other day at work, a guy was telling me a story. Apparently, he was driving down the road with his father, and he saw a car like mine. "Oh look, there's a Put-Put!" His father turns to him and asks, "someone actually called a car model a Put-Put?"

It amazes me that other around you may catch on to (and start using) your nick-names for others. Even H1 will ask "are we going in Mommies car, or the Put-Put?"

Quiet Town?

Last night, at around 1:23am, C heard a "metal crunch, followed by revving engines". I am a sound sleeper so I didn't hear a thing.

This morning I let C sleep in a bit. The kids and I went downstairs so we could play quietly for Mom. About an hour later I came upstairs to start breakfast. I noticed some Hydro
trucks with lights flashing, and our street just west of us closed off. By this time C was up to take over making pancakes. I went outside for some fresh air.

I noticed some tire tracks on our neighbours front lawn.
Being very inquisitive (nosey) I thought I would check out
the whole scene. At this point my next door neighbour came
outside. He wanted a "daytime" view of what he saw last
night.

Pictures from top to bottom:

1. looking east at the intersection the truck came from
2. the truck nicked a phone box, drove up onto the neighbours yard
3. looking at the trajectory, the truck COULD have hit our house and or cars.
   
4. he got hung up on the guide wire on the telephone post after grazing it with his truck. This is when C heard the revving engine. The guy just forced his truck to break through the guide wire.
5. When he broke free, the vehicle was no where near under control. He launched onto the street and fish-tailed a while.
6. his next stop was about six houses west of us. I mean seven posts west of us. He severed this post. By the time I got here, the post had been replaced.
7. the trucks final resting place was on the front lawn of my friends neighbour.

There are a whole lot of things about this incident that rub me the wrong way.
First of all the driver was very intoxicated. Double the limit.
Secondly, according to my neighbour, his wife/girlfriend said "I should have drove". Chances are she wasn't in any better condition.
Thirdly, there were two little kids in the truck. What are they doing out at 1:00 am? Why would the parents not have a babysitter or stay overnight?
This could have been a devastation. They were fortunate enough to have been in a big truck. They were also lucky they didn't hit the big 'ol maple tree in our front yard.

I believe it wasn't the parents guardian angels, but the childrens.

A little late for Christmas

But I still would have preferred snow over ice! Yes, ice encrusted trees and plants are beautiful to look at, but snow would be better. It would have been nice to have seen the Christmas lights glowing through the frozen prisms, but everyone around took down their lights during our "warm" spell we just came through.
There were a few power outages in our area due
to cracking limbs over hydro lines. I felt a few pictures
of the beauty instead of the damage was best.