Videos

SCIENCE!

I wanted to see what happened if I poured water off the deck in -7° weather. The result wasn’t an instant steaming cloud, but it was pretty fun!

Remember – this was boiling water. It would have done some damage if it splashed back at me, so I chose my location carefully, and didn’t dump the whole thing at once, but did a slow pour.

Still really cool!

Witness to a car crash

We witnessed a crazy car crash tonight.

The gold car blew through a T-intersection and t-boned the pickup truck. The gold car’s front end was smashed, radiator fluid everywhere. The truck had some impact damage between the cab and the bed.

That isn’t the crazy part.

The silver Honda drove up at a high rate of speed and very decidedly boxed in the gold car (which wasn’t going anywhere) and the occupants got out and started yelling at the gold car’s driver about how she hit them and they’ve been following her for miles, honking their horn while she ignored them. She seemed to mostly ignore them and kept apologizing to the pickup truck’s driver, who finally said “I’m just an innocent bystander!”

I had stopped to see if anyone was hurt. Everyone ignored me – silver car, gold car, and pickup truck drivers.

I decided that things might go south. I had my family in the car and didn’t want to be involved so we split right after the end of this video.

Dashcam to the Rescue!

This shall come as no surprise to anyone that lives in or near Boston: my car got hit by another car while driving in downtown Boston.  This is an every day occurrence, and is why many people avoid driving downtown.

The downside:

  • my car got hit
  • it must be fixed
  • we didn’t make the appointment that I was picking up Alpha child for

The upside:

  • nobody was hurt (in either car)
  • the damage is relatively minor
  • it wasn’t my fault
  • I have a dashcam 🙂

youtube's closed-captioning symbol Turn on the closed captioning for additional viewing fun!

Note several so-very-Boston things that occur in this video:

  • a car crash in perfect driving conditions (shouldn’t happen)
  • the two guys on the sidewalk that briefly glance in our direction, then keep going (principal of don’t-get-involved)
  • the woman who takes advantage of the break in traffic to jaywalk (no fucks left to give)

Sadly, the other driver was scurrilous and claimed that I had swerved from the left lane into the right before stopping suddenly.  (That would also be a very Boston thing to do, if it had happened.)  Our insurance companies found in my favor after reviewing the dashcam footage, and my car’s damage is fully paid for – nothing out of pocket, no deductible.

I will not drive without a dashcam ever again.  I wish I could provide a review of my particular unit but, sadly, it’s not made anymore – a review would be pointless.

I do recommend that anyone and everyone get a dashcam, though.  Besides proving the details of driving incidents, you can accidentally capture some really cool stuff.

If you like watching dashcam footage, may I recommend dashcamgifs on reddit?

Alpha Earns Her Gold Belt in Karate

Alpha has officially taken her karate to the logical next step, and put herself on track for a black belt.  This puts her into ‘Doshi Kai’, which basically means she’s not trying karate out anymore – she’s a serious student.

Here’s a segment from the promotion ceremony:

Missing from the video is me giving her the gold belt, and a short kata demonstration.  Her kata are now crisp and confident.