Well we finally had the big shotgun wedding/we’re having a baby celebration on Saturday. It turned out to be a nice day after the possibility of rain the whole week. It turned out sunny and hot. Lots of food and beer was served and I doubled my total beer consumption over the last 3 or 4 years to a total of 4 after having a whole 2 at the party. I better start going to AA meetings huh? We want to thank everyone who took the time and made the effort to come, some people came from quite far away and we are grateful. A big thank you to Jessica’s parents who coordinated getting everything set up and thank you to all the people who they enlisted to do a lot of the leg work. We are also grateful for all the baby gifts, cash money, and gift cards that people gave, we went into it not really expecting all that much but a lot of people really went over the top in that department and it will really help a lot to cover some of the things we will still need when Alexander arrives. On a related note if you were the person or people that gave a Walgreens gift card can you get in touch with myself or Jessica? There was no name on the card or envelope and we just want to make sure to properly thank everyone. Here’s the pictures that I have right now, there’s more but Jessica has the camera with her right now.
For me the long weekend is over and I’m back at work. Jessica is still out at the lake for a few more days while her sister is still in town from Pittsburgh. I’m encouraging her to really take it easy with what she does until the baby comes. The people we know who are and were pregnant who were due around the same time as she was are all either having their babies unexpectedly or are overdoing it and ending up in the hospital and I don’t want that happen with her. I want Alexander to stay in until he is fully cooked and then I want him home with no problems just in time to watch the first Husker game against Chattanooga with me. I’ll wear my jersey like always and he’ll need an appropriate Husker outfit as well. I’ve got a lot to do before then. It’s on!
I had a bit of excitement when I got home late on Sunday night. I got into town about 10:45 at night, let the dog out in the yard so he could go to the bathroom after the long drive, greeted all the cats, settled in and started watching some tv. After a little while I realized that the dog hadn’t barked at the door to be let in which was unusual so I went out to check on him. Turns out that I forgot to latch the front gate and the wind had popped it open and he was long gone. Rotten sonofa… It’s been a long time since he’s escaped and it’s almost pointless to go search for him when he does because he picks a direction and runs in a straight line until he gets about 4 or 5 miles away, at which point he stops and sits there like a dummy looking all confused because he doesn’t know how to get home. Someone then finds him and checks his tag and either calls me or brings him back. It’s the same thing every time and he usually crosses a couple major highways and does other dangerous things along the way like trying to pick fights with poorly secured pit bulls and rottweilers. There’s a reason most Jack Russells don’t make it to die of old age. I still grabbed the flashlight though and went out to look for him since it’s possible to find him as long as he hasn’t put too much distance between him and the house (or there is another dog close by that he wants to say hi to).
After walking around a couple blocks shining my flashlight around with no luck I ended up on the sidewalk in front of my house when I heard a car horn blaring out of sight around the bend where the highway crosses the railroad tracks and you enter town. The horn was getting louder and I saw the headlights coming when all of the sudden this guy in a newer jeep comes flying through at 80 or 90 miles an hour and has a spectacular crash right before my eyes. When I say he was flying I’m not kidding. He went down into the ditch then up over the railroad tracks, through the covered overhang on the door of the bar, clipped the corner of the building itself, hit the electric pole and broke it in half which promptly exploded in a shower of blue electric sparks and blacked out half the town, launched from the bent over pole and landscaping embankment and got the vehicle airborne 15-20 feet in the air, took out the overhanging sign on the bank and the front door of the bank, broke windows on the second floor, bounced off the building itself so there’s skid marks on the brick 15-20 feet up and then came down and nailed a large mature tree instead of plowing completely through the little antique shop building at which the horn stopped blaring. All this happened in the blink of an eye. It was an incredibly violent crash. I think he passed out at the wheel and was laying on the horn which is why he continued going straight when the road didn’t.
I went running to the scene and yelled to some neighbors across the street who came out to see what the noise was that there was a real bad crash and to call 911. I was almost sure that I wouldn’t find anyone alive after that but when we got there we found the guy standing outside the vehicle mostly incoherent but without a whole lot of visible injuries. He was drunk and was mumbling the name Michael over and over. We tried to get him to sit down while we waited for the ambulance and police to arrive but he wasn’t very cooperative. Finally the ambulance and police arrived and took over the situation while half the town gawked at the aftermath. It looked like a bomb went off because there was so much destruction over such a wide area. I was very popular since I was the only eyewitness to the crash and told my story to numerous neighbors and of course gave my statement to several police officers. A cameraman for 10-11 News came and tried to get me to an interview for the news but I declined. Everyone who gets interviewed for the news always ends up looking like a moron 100% of the time every time. “I seen it! He was like hoooooooonk and then crash! crunch! and then there was an asplosion and den it was dark, and I was like call the cops!” No thanks. I still got on tv though but only for a second and only my back. I did get to meet a lot of the neighbors though which I usually avoid but the ones I met were nice. One was concerned about my well being and that I might have post traumatic stress from the whole incident which of course I didn’t. What I was worried about was the fact that my dog was still missing. I called and woke up Jessica and told her the situation since I was chatting online with her when I discovered the dog escaped and then disappeared without explanation for quite a while. She was worried about the dog a lot more than I was since the dog hasn’t escaped since I have been with her and she didn’t know the normal spiel about what usually happened when he escaped. After I talked to her for a while another guy came up and wanted the whole story about what happened so I got off the phone with Jessica. When I got to the part where I said “I was out looking for my dog when…” he stopped me and said, “Little white dog with a brown spot on his back?” “Yea” “I got him in my truck right over there.” It turns out he did exactly what he always does and went in a straight line and made it 2 or 3 miles away and got over halfway to Hickman before he was picked up. Stupid dog… Anyway, after a while the people watching got bored and went to bed, power to the town was restored, and they got the wreckage hauled away. The next day they were busy like ants and a good portion of the damage has already been repaired and cleaned up. Here is a link to the news story on the 10-11 News website. The video is below. That’s all I’ve got for now, I’m pretty tired of writing for today.