October 21, 2005 :: Cause and effect

I think I caused an auto accident today. OK, I don't think I caused it, but I may have been a contributing factor. That lady who rear-ended the guy in the Explorer, she caused it. But I probably had something to do with it.

The scenario: It's cool outside, and a bit drizzly today. I was driving in heavy traffic on a 6 lane road during the late morning commute. My lane had come to an abrupt stop, and the lane to my right was slowing but not stopped yet, so I quickly cut over in front of this Explorer. Those of you who have ridden with me and who have comments on my driving, keep them to yourselves! My record (no at-fault accidents, one time being rear-ended by an idiot, and 2 moving violations over almost 15 years of assertive, precise driving) speaks for itself. The Explorer managed to stop in plenty of time, as I wouldn't have cut in front of him if he had not been able. The lady behind him, however, clearly wasn't paying attention. A full second after he came to a stop, I heard that *crunch* that I've only heard once before, of a low-speed collision. I looked back in the mirror, and sure enough, the lady got out of her car almost immediately to look.

I took off. Yeah, I was a witness, but I didn't want anybody trying to blame me, either.

Now... was I at fault? Not in any legal sense of the word. Clearly the rear-ending woman will be dinged for the accident. What about the philosophical sense? Was she in a situation in which nothing she could have done differently would have led to a different outcome? Clearly not. Had she not been tailgating, there was no accident. Would there have been an accident had I not cut off the driver of the Explorer? Probably not. Should I feel guilty? Ehhh... I don't. But maybe I should.

posted by Rainmayun at 1:53 PM -

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October 19, 2005 :: The new gray layout

Most of you have already noticed and commented. Thanks for your compliments and feedback. I darkened up the two background pictures, so the text should be more legible now. Plus it's a little more obvious now that there's an imminent rainstorm in the background. Stupid wack Haloscan won't let me put HTML into my template without paying them (which I don't intend to do), so I can't make the comment boxes look exactly like the main page, but they'll have to do as is. I probably won't be keeping this layout for long, because I have an even more brilliant idea in the works.

posted by Rainmayun at 10:38 AM -

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The wheels of justice

Apparently, white women can do the impossible. On Oct. 12, the Washington Post wrote a story about a lawyer from Alexandria who got arrested for DUI in Georgetown, even though she only registered .03 blood alcohol content, and had only one glass of wine that evening. She says she wasn't exhibiting physical symptoms of drunkenness, but the arresting officer disagreed. She hired a lawyer and beat the case, although it took a while.

DC has had this law on its books since 1998 that any driver can be arrested for DUI with as little as .01 BAC, if in the judgment of the officer the driver appears intoxicated. Apparently, no one knew about it, except for the people who actually got arrested under its terms, and the officers doing the arresting. That is, until Debra Bolton came along, and the Post decided her story was worth telling.

On Oct. 18, the DC City Council passed a new law that establishes presumption of DUI at .08 and above, and presumption of sobriety at .05 and below. It took them all of six days to remedy this scourge of arrest plaguing single, affluent, one-glass-of-red-wine-tippling white women... well, at least that one. I don't think the City Council has ever done anything in six days before. They've been arguing about this ballpark for a year, and fighting over funding the very necessary renovation and reconstruction of DC schools for many years. It's amazing how quickly justice can be had for citizens who aren't even your constituents.

I wonder how many poor people would have had to have been arrested before they got a bill passed, or an article written, or even one of them had the cash to hire a lawyer and the balls to fight the case, instead of taking the revenue-boosting probationary plea deals that most DUI suspects in this city decide is the best choice of action.

posted by Rainmayun at 10:02 AM -

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October 14, 2005 :: Appearance isn't everything

... it's the only thing.

I just ran into a girl I went out with briefly about two years ago, in Ross. Let me set the scenario for you: I had just gotten out of the gym. I was sweaty. I haven't shaved my head & face in two days, and I haven't trimmed my goatee in a week. I was wearing my ratty 5 year old Old Navy fakey fleece warmup - it is very comfortable, but it makes me look vaguely homeless. Plus, she hasn't seen me in at least a year, so she probably also noticed the additional gray hairs on the chin and the few pounds I've gained since last year. Suffice it to say I probably looked like I had been sleeping on a grate on L St. for the last year, scraping and begging for enough change to buy the 3 packs of discounted underwear I had in my hands. She actually did a double take.

And I didn't care.

You see, she dissed me. Stopped returning my calls. Don't know why, don't care. Point is, she dissed me at my best. I had put my best foot forward, because I really liked her. Took her to places that were too expensive for early dates. Didn't pull all the stops out, but probably 80% of them. And with all that, and my magnificent persona to boot, she still dissed me. So if my best wasn't good enough for her, what difference does it make?

She still looked as good as ever, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that. Hopefully she'll be able to land that job with that cheap suit she was looking for.

posted by Rainmayun at 5:40 PM -

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October 13, 2005 :: Inscrutable math

I got my accounting exam back. And I'm even more confused now than I was when I took the exam. You see, the professor gave me a 50. Out of 50. I had to look again at the inside cover at his chickenscratch to see if that was really a 5 and a 0. Even though he marked up clearly in red pen where I had gone astray inside (and I had gone astray in several places), he gave me a 50 anyway.

So once that sank in, I decided that he must have been fairly lenient when grading. Maybe my expectations of his expectations were overestimated. Maybe I just set high standards for myself.

One of my classmates was having trouble finding his score, since the professor had chosen to write them in an odd place. He opened his book and said "is this it, here?" and pointed to it. 35. 35! And he actually WORKS in finance, and has taken accounting classes before. I almost wish I hadn't seen it. But then, it made it clear the professor wasn't all THAT lenient. So then I figure, maybe he just marked up arithmetic errors but gave credit for setting things up properly, even if the math was wrong.

Then, just like I was back in undergrad, people started asking "so what'd you get? How'd you do?" I didn't like sharing my scores then, and I don't like it now. I said "I did ok" and left it at that.

posted by Rainmayun at 10:17 AM -

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October 10, 2005 :: Family review time, part 2

You may recall that I went to a family wedding last May and wrote about my brothers bringing random girlfriends to the ceremony for review. Well, I had another family wedding this past weekend, in Philadelphia, this time on my dad's side. Whenever this side of the family gets together, there is always some drama. This time was no different.

My little sister decided to bring her boyfriend. Mind you, she's 21 and still in college. As far as we can tell, they aren't that serious, and she swears up and down they aren't that serious, and that she has no plans to get married, yet she brought him home (to LA) to meet the parents, and then brought him to this wedding. That in itself was enough to start people talking, but apparently to add icing to this cake, my father suggested she bring him. I can't imagine why on earth he thought that was a good idea, as he'd already met him. I know the family likes the boy; they've even gone to the trouble of renaming him. They decided his first name is too "ethnic" (i.e. ghetto-sounding), and therefore a professional liability, so they call him by his middle name. Never mind what his mama named him. Of course my sister got mad when the parents kicked her and the boyfriend out of their hotel room so they could have some privacy, and then mentioned that the family had procured an all-girls room and an all-boys room, so they wouldn't be able to sleep together. He doesn't want to sleep in a room with all strangers, she protested. Tough titty, I say... I saw that one coming. No way the parents pay for a room so the two of them can get it on.

As if all that wasn't enough, my other brother decides to quietly announce that he's gotten a divorce. As in final, kaput, completed. I guess it only takes six months in Virginia if you don't have kids, and he didn't want to tell anyone before it was final, in case they reconciled. My family doesn't do well with dropped bombs. They had already decided that his marriage was the only good thing going for him, when clearly it wasn't going all that well. I knew the older generation would have comments, even though every one of them has been divorced at least once, and some more than once. Silver lining, though... he'll be spending more time up in DC, so maybe we'll hang out more.

posted by Rainmayun at 12:33 PM -

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October 06, 2005 :: Joke of the day

Received in the mail today:

You've been prescreened
for a mortgage of up to
$80,000*
with no down payment!
Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx

$80,000, huh? Hmm, let's see what I can get for that around here. So I did a search on ziprealty.com to see what I could find, based on my zip code. Ooh, a property on stately Elm Street NE, not far from where I live! OK, so its $89,000, but I am sure I can come up with $9,000 on my own. Then I read a little bit more... 6033 square feet. Wow, that's huge... what am I getting, a warehouse? Then I read a little bit more.... oh, the LOT is 6,033 square feet. That's a little less than 1/7 of an acre... I've lived on less, so still doable.

But then there's a catch. There's always a catch.

There is no house on this property. It's just an empty lot. Dirt, grass, weeds, and if I'm lucky, some deeply buried archaeological artifact that will pay off the mortgage. Or, if I'm not so lucky, a not-so-deeply buried dead body.

Guess the joke is on me.

Oh yeah, the asterisk:

* Actual loan amount may be higher or lower than stated depending on documented income, debt, and property value. The maximum loan amount cannot exceed the lesser of a total debt-to-income ratio of 40% or 359,600; ratio will be calculated to include proposed monthly mortgage payment.

Thanks, Wells Fargo!

posted by Rainmayun at 4:19 PM -

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October 03, 2005 :: Caught

I got caught yesterday, doing something that was ghetto. I probably should be ashamed, but I really wasn't... and if I was, I probably wouldn't have been ghetto in the first place.

Yesterday, I decided to give my car its bi-annual rubdown. I gave it a good hand wash, then went back with the cleaner/polish/wax to get the deep road grime out and give it a good shine. I'm annoyed that people constantly find new ways to ding my car, and its never near an old ding, it's always in a completely new place, so the dings quickly surrounded the car. Just last week, somebody scraped up the ROOF and the top of the left rear panel by the trunk. Who the hell was putting stuff on TOP of my car, I do not know, but I was pissed. Anyway, I digress. The point is, my hands were good and dried out after I was done and had washed them off.

After I finished that, I needed to go to the grocery store, and I wanted to go before it got late. So I hopped in the car and went to the store. On the way there, I realized I badly needed lotion. My hands were so dry, the skin was actually starting to hurt. So once I was in the store, I weaved through a few aisles, and then when I got to the health and beauty aisle, I looked around to make sure no one was looking, grabbed a bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care for Extra Dry Skin, squirted some on my hand, and then started rubbing it in. Aahhhh.

As I walked back to my cart and turned the corner to go around a display, I ran into a brotha who was restocking another part of the aisle. He saw me rubbing lotion in, with no lotion bottles in my hand or in my cart, and just shook his head.

Now, I have seen many more ghetto things transpire in that particular Giant. It's the one on Rhode Island Ave, right next to some rather large projects, so you know who all is up in there. But I guess this is the first time I have directly contributed to its ghettoness.

I did go back and grab the bottle of lotion and put it in my cart, because I realized I needed to buy it anyway. So maybe that absolves me a little bit.

posted by Rainmayun at 11:32 AM -

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