First off, diet update. Yesterday was the first time I'd put my new diet to the test with intense workouts. I went mountain biking in the morning having only consumed 160 calories and 9 g of protein for breakfast in sausage form. I then rode 7.5 miles in Michaux State forest in about an hour and a half and 750' of elevation gain. Not the hardest ride. But I set several personal best times and at the end of the ride my legs have never felt better after a workout. Later that day I hiked/walked a little over a mile with the family. Then even later, I played full court basketball for an hour and a half. Even after that, I've never had so much energy after it was over. Legs felt great. It's pretty awesome. Today...yes. I'm a little sore. But I did crash 3 times while mountain biking. This is a result of going faster and tackling harder obstacles. I sleep like a rock too.
Second. We live in an awesome neighborhood. It's quiet and we have lots of kids. Great neighbors too. The street we live on is not heavily travelled at all, but it does provide a way to avoid a busy intersection. So during busy hours some people like to use our road as a shortcut. They speed down the street and roll right around the stop sign. Around 6:30am everyday a Red Ford Freestyle treats it like a race track. They have their 4 ways on so I assume it's a newspaper delivery person. I will find out who it is. This bothers me. So I called the township and asked what they could do about the people that speed through. Long story short, the stop signs were never supposed to be there. They aren't in the plans for the development. So they took them out. The theory is that people speed to compensate for slowing down for the stop sign. It makes sense. But I don't think it's really going to help at all. But maybe. We shall see.
Third. Coming into our town of Boiling Springs on Forge road, the speed limit is 50. A few hundred yards after it drops to 35 there is a street coming out on the right and an entrance to a small grocery store across from it. On Saturday I was on forge, traveling 35 or under. I'm a slow and consistent driver. I noticed a white sedan about to pull out from the road on the right. He never turned and looked. I get closer, there is another car coming the other direction. We will pass this white sedan at about the same time, a little later perhaps because I was slowing. As the other car passed, the white sedan began pulling out in front of me. NEVER looking to see me coming from his left. He pulled out, I swerved and laid on my horn. I saw the whole thing play out so I was ready for whatever happened. I noticed this jackwad turning into the grocery store. I had the kids in the car. I turned around to find him. Well...it was an old man, parked in the handicap spot. I pulled up and said "Excuse me sir, I'm the guy you pulled out in front of a minute ago." He was embarrassed and said "I'm sorry about that. What happened was...." And he began making excuses on his shitty driving. I basically just shut him down and said, "No, there is no excuse for what you did. You have a clear line of vision in all directions. You simply were not paying attention. You NEED to pay more attention. I have my kids in the car and if I wasn't an awesome driver, you'd be dead and we might be too." He still denied any fault of his spouting excuses. I wouldn't let him. I told him he needs to face the fact he's getting old and I caught him being a danger to those on the roads and that he needs to own that. Maybe I could have handled it better. But I wasn't rude, I was stating facts. I maybe should have given him a chance to explain, knowing he couldn't. And then he'd prove to himself his lapse of driving attention.
We all make mistakes driving. But guess what...if someone catches you. OWN IT. We have traffic patterns in place for good reason. You are driving a machine that can kill anyone at a moments notice. Pay attention.
Pretty sure that's all on my mind this morning.
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