Something that is both a fail and a boo yah is that I wrote the top post in an /r/outoftheloop question with over 8000 upvotes, that also lead to my phone going off with a notification of a response for like 800 times over the course of the last day until I finally decided to just turn off inbox replies.
I straight-up T-boned a lady on a bike earlier this week. (Fail)
I wasnât going that fast and I had the light.
She ran a red light and emerged from between two stopped cars at speed completely perpendicular to the moving traffic in the next lane. (Fail)
She was invisible until she flew out in front of me.
Sheâs real lucky she came out directly in front of me and not all the cars. (Win)
Had she been a few seconds earlier or later, she would 100% have been hit by a car.
The car behind me braked in time and didnât hit us both (Win).
But the win Iâm here to talk about is that I discovered thanks to this incident that I can do a full mountain bike bail, without injury, completely automatically include declipping, from my daily use bike.
I basically bailed forward, caught myself on her back, and rolled to the other side. Zero damage to myself or my bike. Iâve never tried to bail from a non-mountain-bike before, and I was never quite sure if I could. I also havenât practiced a mountain bike bail in years, and Iâve never practiced bailing while clipped. So, win.
As for her, she fell over. I tried to ask her if she was OK, but she refused to look me in the eye and fled the scene as fast as possible.
I talked to someone who had a bike accident recently on the west side path. Another cyclist was riding on the wrong side of the path and they hit head on. They tried to talk to the other person, but they got themselves together and fled. Only later did they notice their bike was damaged, and now canât find the person.
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Same thing happened a while back when I witnessed a serious bike collision on 2nd Avenue.
Dude was coming the wrong way on the one-lane one-way path, wearing headphones. I swerved around him via the car lane, but someone biking behind me slammed straight into him. Massive wipeout. The guy who caused the accident was fine, but the other guy flipped and hit the pavement HARD.
The guy who wasnât at fault was pissed. He almost attacked the wrong-way guy after he got up and cleared his head.
Wrong-way guy wouldnât look him in the eye. Just kept his head down mumbling âsorryâ. I called cops/ambulance, since the dude was fairly injured.
The second the injured guy turned his back (he was checking out the damage to his bike), the other guy BOOKED it outta there.
I considered chasing him, but instead I just gave injured guy the photos and video I took and he waited for the police and ambulance. I waited until they were nearby and then I left after making sure he was OK.
Note that this is distinct from the OTHER time a dude wearing headphones riding the wrong way on 2nd Avenue caused an accident. But the person he hit wasnât as injured and did punch him square in the gut before leaving.
I think I tweeted some pics from the second one.
I think my new policy is going to be to try to physically prevent people from fleeing when possible and prudent.
Nothing has discouraged me from biking in the city more than all the physical altercations or near physical altercations that seem to happen post collision.
Iâm an adult therefore I donât like fighting.
Furthermore, as with anything with some level of risk, itâs simply a numbers game, at some point nearly everyone will be in an accident. I accept that, and when I was a young terminator I abused my indestructible body with accident after accident.
I remember really vividly what itâs like to have just broken your collarbone, itâs about the last time in the world I want someone trying to punch me.
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I think the reason for this is that nearly all collisions have one party who is clearly, unambiguously, and egregiously at-fault. And there are zero consequences to these people for the injuries and damages they cause.
The police donât care. Insurance companies donât care. No one cares that this other person harmed your body and your property due to their own gross negligence.
So itâs easy to see why someone who has suffered said-harm will be extremely angry.
I wouldnât assault such a person, but as Scott said, I would physically restrain them at the scene of the crime if the injuries sustained were serious enough.
Honestly Iâm leaning towards doing the same. I get where youâre coming from.
Still, thereâs a risk that I have to defend myself with a broken rib. Iâm not sure even my terminator body could have done that. Certainly not this old man body.
And before you say, if you donât do the stupid, youâll be fine:
My first read of that was:
He almost attacked the wrong guy after he got up and cleared his head.
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Itâs hard to cause an accident like that unless youâre doing something extremely stupid and dangerous.
Like biking the wrong way in a one-way bike line at speed wearing headphones. Like running a red light between two cars. Like biking on the sidewalk.
Iâve never caused a bike accident. Never been at-fault in one. The people who cause the accidents tend to flee rather than get aggressive. Itâs usually the not-at-fault injured parties who initiate violence.
That might or might not be unlawful arrest (aka kidnapping) depending on NYS law⌠I support the sentiment though.
Lot to cover in the last yearâŚ
Fail: I had a car accident and my grandmother passed away on the same day (no correlation or causation)
Boo yah: got a slightly higher paying job working at a group home for troubled and in-danger youths
Fail: âTroubledâ runs the gamut and several got physical.
Boo yah: I was trained to safely restrain the little shits if they deserved it.
Also booyah: got accepted to my cityâs EMS academy and got my certification as an EMT.
Triple booyah: got married
Fail: got let go since they felt I wasnât developing the confidence and assertiveness they wanted from me.
Booyah?: got hired back on by an old employer with my cert and am making almost as much as the EMS service.
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Fail: the call that I thought was private to a job agency was found out this morning due to someone connecting the dots in the office. Thankfully my birthday was cover enough to brush off any real issue.
Boo Ya: Later that day got a retention letter to stay with the company for a year, estimate payout if all goes according to plan is a nice 50k.
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Putting the finishing touches on new apartment. Doing laundry in my very own washing machine.
Fail: was going to make bread, but my yeast is dead.
F
RIP yeast you will be missed.
I go to setup my printer today. Itâs a Brother HL-2240D connected to the network via Synology NAS. I get all the print sharing setup, and that works, but when I go to print it errors. Apparently it works just fine with using the manual paper feed, just not the bulk paper tray. I Google and I actually find a solution! Itâs for a similar model, but itâs definitely the same problem.
I try to fix it with my pliers, no go. I try to go to the hardware store and buy the needliest nose pliers available, no go. So much fail. Lost money.
Then eventually I get the idea to try a wire coat hanger. Success! I just lost $6 buying a pliers that didnât solve my problem. I did kind of need them, though. Iâm sure they will be useful in the future.
Honestly, I think a good pair of needlenose pliers should be in every basic home toolkit, so yeah, I figure youâll definitely have a few uses for them in future.
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Yeah, there were already a few times I wish I had them in the past. Really, though. I gotta give it up to the person who wrote than answer on iFixit. They saved me from buying a new printer. No chance in hell I ever figure that out on my own, and they wrote really great instructions.
My experience with Brother printers is never touch 'em unless you have a service contract. The one time I bought one for domestic use it was terrible and had hard-coded firmware features that wasted ink. At work supporting them was always a PITA.
Maybe for big boys. This is a little consumer USB black and white laser printer, and it is a workhorse.
The attempts at creating a turkey shaped cake for Thanksgiving⌠Some have to be deliberate.