*&$^#&*$!!!!!! (wave arm angrily)

as some of you know, i sold my car. this means to get places i either:
1. coordinate w/heather for the car
2. ride bike
3. ride bus
4. walk

some would say the timing of car sale was bad because of oncoming winter & spring. well, cold doesn't bother me much. shoot, i won't sweat as much. maybe. rain, that may be a problem.

so, i was riding the approxiamate 4 miles to school. cruising along. (sidenote: oh yeah, there was a chance of rain today. hadn't rained yet, that is, until i got my bike out of the garage and was putting a little air in the front tire. then it starts sprinkling. it did so about half my ride. not hard, just enough to make me put on my windbreaker to deflect it and keep my backpack dry. this, of course also maybe me hot and sweaty. since it was a bit cloudy and sprinkling i figured i'd turn on my headlight (visibility + i figure w/ca.'s law about having to have lights on in your car if it's raining). now back to the story.) i was cruising through downtown, on a 2way street. it's in business district, so speed limit is 30. the street i was on, has traffic flow broken up frequently by stop signs. basically, stop sign, street without one, stop sign. well, i was coming up to street without stop sign, not going very fast (21 of 24 speeds = big front crank and mid of back is lots of peddling for little speed) and was looking at this oncoming car that had just left street with stop sign. this person is not going very fast. they are making left hand turn. this is a problem, as i am going straight. i know they see me because they start turn, hesitate & correct, then proceed with turn. the other thing i try and do when riding is make eye contact with person who i am approaching and do that as much as i can until i pass them so that i'm sure they see me. so, i'm looking dead into their car, it's difficult for me to imagine that they don't see 250lb, 6 foot guy on bike coming right at them. uh oh. uh oh. uh oh! here's how those uh oh's break down. uh oh 1 = realize car is turning, stop peddling. uh oh two = apply breaks and try to get a foot on ground to further break. uh oh 3 = realize breaks are applied and tires are simply skidding along pavement because it's wet from rain.

fortunately, i didn't crash into this car. although mr. or mrs. dumas (that's french) was turning slowly they managed to get out of my lane just fast enough. i managed to get my foot on the ground to slow and stop myself before smacking their rear door or quarter panel. did person stop, wave, anything? nope, but i know they realized they were wrong because i could see it in their eyes as. yep, passenger mirror (very brief), rearview (longer eye contact), driver mirror (looking back but trying to look away). i also know that they know i was there because i was yelling pretty loudly. unfortunately, my mom would not be proud of one of the three words that came out of my mouth. my wife may not have liked the wildly flaily arm (but no fingers folks!). i didn't like almost dumping myself onto some fools car.

so, the hair on my legs was standing straight up like a cat's back for the next 1/2 mile. the rest of the ride was uneventful, the sprinkle let up, and i was able to ventilate slightly by opening up my windbreaker.

and, typing this out has almost allowed me to stop sweating completely. good times. now i've got a bike ride home to look forward to later.