American vs. Brittish Road Rules

Driving in England was pretty freaky at first because you need to learn to drive on the other side of the road. It takes about 2 weeks and then you pretty much get into the groove of it. I also learned that driving in England is so much different (and safer) than driving here in the states. Sometimes I just can't believe the differences. I'm going to bitch about it, well, because I can.




One of the first things I noticed when I returned from England was everyone was talking on their cell phones while driving, I can't get over how many people do this! I guess this is normal for you all - but in England you can only talk on your cell if you are using a hands free device. They basically enforced this so you couldn't take your hand off the wheel to hold your phone and in return the accident ratio decreased. So if your phone rings and you don't have the hands-free, you either dont answer or you have to pull over and then answer it. Which was actually pretty freaky when I first started driving there because you'll be driving along and cars will just pull over wherever so they can answer their cell phone. If you get caught 'talking and driving' you get a big hefty fine of like 1000 quid (about 1800 american dollars when converted). After a while you just learn to accept drivers doing this - you learn to just drive around them, bitch under your breath a bit, and keep moving along. And ya know what? It was a hell of a lot safer than driving here that's for sure! I wonder just how many accidents are caused because an idiot driver was on their cell not paying attention or because they dropped their phone and were fishing around the floor for it... I'm all for England's rule on this one.

Next we have said idiot drivers (more times than not on their CELL) driving in the lefthand lane going slower than the drivers in the right lane. Seems to me driver's ed taught me the left lane is the passing lane and should only be used for these instances. So why are these fuckwits in front of me going 10 miles under the speed limit and just sitting there? Hello!?! Open your eyes - I'm on your ass and I'm waiting for you to get the hell out of my way!! I think I got used to England actually following the road rules on this - (for this remember the opposite sides of the road come into play - the fast lane is the right lane there) = EVERYONE drives in the left lane and only uses the right when passing. If you happened to be in the right lane coming up on someone - they actually will move over to the left lane so that you can pass - WILLINGLY!! This means most of the traffic is constantly switching from lane to lane because you drive along, come up on someone, get over in the right lane to pass them and get right back over. And it works and can be alot of fun in the process :-) So I vote everyone has to go back to driver's ed and be taught the right way to drive!

My last is more of an opinion. I'm all for speed cameras. They use them all over in England and THEY WORK. Speed limits are different in England - they have three limits - 70mph on 2+ lane roads, 60mph on one lane roads and 50mph on back roads. Some villages will have slower posted limits of 30-40mph. The major roads have the cameras and they even have signs posted to warn you that a camera is coming up (for legal reasons I think). It still slows people down, so they still do the job and they don't need cops sitting all over the roads eating donuts waiting to catch someone on their radar so they can make their quota. I was talking to T about this - and he actually brought up a good point which nicks this out. People would probably spray paint the cameras so they wouldn't be any good. Didn't think about that one - the difference in crime is incredible between the two cultures and the Brits just don't do things like that.... but I'll save the crime comparison for another post. This chick is dont bitching and is ready for bed...

Friday - Wee Hours of the morn...

Wow I just dont have the time to post! Mids is running me down - I'm either sleeping or working and what time I do get free I got three kids and a pain in the ass gobbling up my time ;-) Lets see, what have I been up to... I survived my first Nascar race. Hour, after hour, of cars driving around in circles has a way of just making me wanna ride the bull (dont go gettin a woody T) and shout YEEHAW. I have to admit between the whole Stewart fiasco and watching for the next audible intake of breath over a crash I didn't find it as bad as I thought I would.

Today T and I went and redeemed the 1 hour massages I got him and I for Valentine's Day. They had a couples room and it was pretty cool and very relaxing. Although the way I was laying it threw my back out, so that kindof sucked but otherwise it felt really good - T was very relaxed and feeling much better than I LOL I will say I didnt like when she was doing my upper back and shoulders - she'd shove her thumbs in my shoulders and say ooo there's a knot right there and I swear she was just trying to shove my bones to inflict pain! The foot and leg massage was awesome though :-) All in all I would definitely recommend getting one!

Thats about all thats going on here - tomorrow I go for my Texas Drivers license - finally got the paperwork for my divorce so I get to go back to my maiden name. Weird! But cool... so now I leave you with a little funny that gave me a chuckle today...

Little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?" The father answers: "Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway. Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your
mother agreed to a Download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that! neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said:
"You've Got Male."

RedAnts, Putt-Putt and Sucky Superbowls

The weather this weekend has kicked ass here in San Antonio. Upper 70s to Low 80s, Sunny, Breezy, and just the way i love it. Perfect for a hammock - I'd so be out getting me one - that is if it weren't for those damn red-ants in my backyard! Damn but those little fuckers can do some serious hurting!!! Does anyone know their purpose in life?!? I think they need to become extinct real quick! And in case you are ever wondering - if you turn on one of those Six Flags blow-up circle sprinklers and it happens to be on top their house - they get REALLY pissed off!!

Ok so I get every other weekend off and I was lucky enough to have this one off. On my weekends off we also get to play the Brady Bunch with T's 3 boys visiting. I thought hey its so nice out we need to do something outside this weekend - lets go play Putt-Putt! Now considering I'm 39% yankee - you dixies might call it Miniature Golf here. You see there's this place I see every night I'm driving to work off of 151 and I got this crazy idea in my head that it would be really cool to take the kids there. Whatever made me have that crazy idea should just go incognito and keep itself and it's crazy notions far far away from this brain! Between the kids fighting to go first, the pouting and stomping when they weren't, the swinging of putters, the kids taking so many damn shots that we gave up keeping their scores at Hole 2, and we might as well throw in T's shot half-way across the fucking course WHICH thankfully ran itself into a big tree that was in the line of fire and mercifully stopped a man from howling in major pain at Hole 12 - I can say without a doubt it is something that I won't be doing again anytime in the near future! The only good this is I whooped T's ass **insert Simpsons laugh here** HAH-HAH!

Today before the superbowl we took the kids to the park - I didn't take my purse because well we were just going to the park. We decided to hit Sams Club after to pick up some pizzas (they have really good ready to cook pizzas there!) and snacks to have our own little superbowl party. So we get all our stuff and go to check out - T gives him the credit/debit card and it pulls up the debit part - but he doesnt know his pin - so he asks to cancel it and do credit. DID YOU KNOW SAM'S CLUB DOESN'T TAKE MASTERCARD OR VISA?! Only DISCOVER or WALMART credit cards. I was so pissed - what store doesnt take Mastercard or Visa?!?! As it was I was wondering why I paid $50 for that membership when everything is priced the same or more than things I can get at HEB. Now I'm really tempted to cancel my membership!
*SIGH* So since I didnt have my debit cards on me we had to leave without those delicious pizzas. So disappointing!! As for the superbowl - I was disappointed again. The past 6 years in England we didn't get any of the commercials during Superbowl and on top of that we had to stay up until like 5am to watch the whole game. This was my first Superbowl back in the states where I didn't have to stay up all hours of the night and also could see all the commercials - I was so excited!! I watched and watched and waited and waited for those really funny commercials and I saw one - ONE commercial where I laughed a bit - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COOL COMMERCIALS and WHY DID THEY PICK THIS YEAR TO STOP!?! *sigh* I guess it's not always greener on the other side.... as a trade-off the teams could have given me some good juice during the bowl - there wasn't too much excitement in this one. There was one dude who took this back-bending tackle - one of those "HolyShit he's gonna be hurting" kindof tackles - they went to commercial and never did come back and say how he was... hopefully he's ok... guess it could have been worse though - he could have been under attack by red ants...

Life, Death, & Reality

Ok so Today's post is going to be a little different and may get kindof long. But these stories have had a big impact on me over the past week and I wanted to share them with you... maybe they will for you too...

We were having a slow night at work a week or so ago and this guy at work (we'll call him J) was telling me how he was thinking of adopting his girlfriends daughter who is 13. I thought wow thats a big step and so sweet for him to care so much about her. A asked if she didnt have a Dad, and he said well its a long story but basically his girlfriend had been fooling around with a married man way back then and got pregnant. The father never acknowledged the baby, and didnt even pay child support. I thought hey well that will definitely make it easier to adopt the girl. Then he went into the long story somewhat and gave me a short version of it. I will try to make it even shorter here. Basically when his girlfriend gave birth she had been living with her parents, and she went into a coma for 8 months. They don't know why she was just in a coma. During that time the parents took care of the baby (not great evidently), and also decided to take care of about $30,000 she had in the bank to pay off all their bills. Which to me is a shit thing to do, but this guy said "Hey at least they used it to pay off bills and not blow it". That still sits ill with me though. So then he went on to tell me how shitty her parents are - she continued to support them and help pay their bills and yet they barely acknowledge her as their daughter. Then we talked about why he wanted to adopt this woman's daughter - did he plan on marrying her and he wanted them to be one big happy family? He dropped the bomb and told me that she is dying from Cancer. She is 31, she had breast cancer and it has spread throughout her body and she only has a couple of months to live. She can't go to her grandparents and there is no other family for her to go to so that's why they have been talking about him adopting her. I thought how sad - this woman has been through so much and I truly felt sorry for her. I had this family and the details of J's story on my mind for a couple of days - and with so much thought my mind seemed to turn it all around. J has known this girl for 5 months. How does he know all this is true? I mean this woman who was rich all these years is now living with him with no money to support herself, she has a daughter who she had with a man who was married yet never bothered to take him in for child support, now she is dying with a couple months to live yet she looks and acts perfectly fine and even goes out to the bars drinking with him all the time. So 5 mos before she is supposed to die she meets a man, moves in with him, lets him pay all the bills, even talks to him about adopting her daughter? I dont know something just isn't jiving with me on all that. And what's that saying about me? First I feel compassion for someone then try to bust the story down because something just sounds fishy. For his sake I sure hope the reality has me very wrong.

Sunday morning I was getting off my mid-shift and this talk show was on the radio. What makes this story unusual is I can't stand listening to talk shows, especially on Sunday mornings ;-) So for me to be listening is a miracle in itself - but I guess something kept me hanging on to listen. Don Piper, a minister from Texas was on talking about a book he wrote called "90 Minutes in Heaven" or something along those lines and he went on to tell about the book. He died in a car crash a few years ago - someone from a correctional facility was driving a truck and didn't really know how to drive. He wound up driving over top of this man's vehicle. He was pronounced dead by 4 paramedic units and after at almost 90 minutes he came back to life on his own. No brain damage, only the damage from the accident. There was alot to the story, and I gotta say after hearing him I was seriously amazed to hear his account of it. I might have to look around for his book.

Help Jacqui
Jacqueline Saburido was taking a break from college and industrial engineering classes when she came to the United States from Venezuela to study English. A drunk driving crash changed her life completely.