A Bad Day

There were some unexpected changes in our neighborhood yesterday and I'd be hard pressed to say that I'm really all that sad about the more major of the changes. You see, our neighbor's maladjusted pit bull was playing a little too vigorously and accidentally broke the back of their old cat.

The old cat was close to 20 years old and was in declining health and had become less and less able to get out of the way. The other three dogs were pretty respectful of the old cat. But the pit bull had, well, it had attitude issues.

I learned last night that the pit had accidentally bitten one of the other dogs a couple of days prior. The bite was bad enough to need some surgery and a drainage tube installed.

The pit bull always creeped me out, it always looked at me with an expression of "Yeah, I could probably kill you if I wanted to" and would skulk around. I don't doubt that the dog was badly treated very, very early on its life and, as a result, had permanent issues. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed being around him. The pic there is of him as a puppy, already kind of spooked by much of his new world. But he was a pretty cute pup.

Oh yeah, side note, it probably didn't help that he hadn't been fixed and was swaggering around with a set of balls.

Anyway, the cat got its back broken and had to be taken to the vet to put him down and out of his misery. Already a really tough day. And then the mother next door made the decision that the pit had to go as well. Which, I think was the right thing to do.

But that doesn't make their hearts any lighter or their house any less emptier for the dual loss of both a long cherished cat and a dog that they had come to love but knew things were not going to improve and could get much, much worse.

I should also note now that the pit bull was not, as was first reported (and I posted here about) to me, responsible for the death of the other neighbor's chihuahua. The chi pup was accidentally stepped on by the largest of the four dogs next door and its back was accidentally broken. Which is a tragic accident for all concerned since the big black lab next door is just an over-sized sweetheart.

For my own part, I'm kind of relieved that this dangerous dog is no longer next door. That there will be no more battles through the fence with my dog. That I won't have to keep a close eye on my kids when we happened to be out front when the pit was around. I feel bad for my neighbors but I am happy that the maladjusted and unpleasant dog is no longer around.

An Update on the Drive a Hummer, Get a Ticket Thread

This is an update, with a chart, on my previous post about the most ticketed vehicles on the road along with some speculation as to why Hummers get the most tickets. What I find the most odd here is that other huge vehicles, like the Tahoe and Suburban on the far opposite side of the ticketing spectrum from rolling idiocy like the Hummer.

The addition of more of the bottom end of the spectrum pokes a great big hole in my theory about larger vehicles being more distanced from the road surface and thus having less of a sense of their speed, if this were true then Suburban and Tahoe drivers would be nearer the top end of the spectrum. So perhaps it really is about the kind of driver that is attracted to the Hummer?

Drive a Hummer, Get More Tickets

Study: Hummers get the most tickets

The San Francisco company Quality Planning studied moving violations issued to drivers of various models in the United States and found that drivers of the Hummer H2 and H3 were 4.63 times more likely than the average driver to be ticketed.

The two hypotheses suggested in the article:
Hypothesis #1: Hummers make people drive like jerks because their height, gun-slit windows, and tailgate-mounted spare tire making for large blind spots.
Hypothesis #2: Jerks are more likely to drive Hummers.

And my hypothesis:
Hypothesis #3: Studies have shown that, the more elevated a driving position is from the road, the less of a sense of speed one has and so a Hummer driver will tend to go faster and get more tickets. That and its pretty clear that someone who would buy a Hummer is kind of a jerk to begin with.
Here's the relevant part from that link above (emphasis mine): CONCLUSIONS: The two studies demonstrate that, when they are not able to reference a speedometer, drivers choose to drive faster when they view the road from an eye height that is representative of a large SUV compared to that of a small sports car.

Either way, I have no problem with self-absorbed people in Hummers getting more speeding tickets. A speeding Hummer represents a much higher risk to other drivers because of the amount of rolling mass and the higher center of gravity that makes them more likely to ride up on another vehicle in the event of a collision and to crush the passenger area. A sports car that is much lighter and smaller and lower to the road making it less likely to cause catastrophic damage.

Biker Loses Leg in Accident and Fails to Notice for a Mile

I don't know how this is possible. How does your leg get chopped off and you don't notice? Putting aside the agony of a chopped limb, how did he shift or brake (depending on which leg it was)?

I don't get it.

Rough Fifteen Minutes

In one short fifteen minute span last night, I split my eyebrow and stabbed my hand to the bone. Both sound much worse than they really are but both hurt like fargin' hell. The eyebrow came from the sliding glass door bouncing back to smack me in the face and, though the actual cut is quite small, the swelling is still pretty noticable.

That should teach me to not remove the lock from the track before trying to open it. Yes, my fault but that doesn't make the pain any less, if anything, it makes it worse because there's nobody to blame but oneself. And that does no good.

The hand was a stupid slip and is also both better and worse than it sounds. The tip of the box cutter blade jabbed into my knuckle (like an eighth of an inch) and stopped on/in the bone. And then it oozed for a long time. And now it is quite sore.

Oh yeah, on top of that, Grady decided to take the container of Touch-A-Bubbles and pour it out all over the floor. Unlike regular soap bubbles, these things have a persistent chemical in them that made cleanup not much fun at all. And the sore face did not help one tiny bit.

I put the accidents down to a chronic lack of decent sleep. Being unable to get to sleep and then being woken up butt-ass early is a rough combination. Do that for a few months and you can become like the walking dead.

So I went to bed a little early last night only to be awoken this morning by a screaming 3 year old who stopped screaming instantly when I picked him up and was back asleep a breath later. Only I wasn't and now I'm fully up and awake.

At least I took the opportunity to give my mom a call and wish her a Happy Birthday!