I can remember when I was a teenager, how expensive auto insurance was for me. My parents made me get a part time job just to pay for them adding me to their auto insurance policy! I didn’t even want my driver’s license; my parents made me get it so I could drive my mother to work and pick her up again when my father was overseas. I thought it was profoundly unfair to have to pay for my own premium under those circumstances! And I thought that the rates were outrageous for young drivers! I understand the thought process behind it – young kids are more likely to take risks, but I think that the really old people are worse drivers and their premiums should be higher as well!
I’m glad that there are stricter guidelines now for the teenagers that drive, and I’m glad that so many of the states have seat belt laws. As much as I don’t like seat belts myself, I agree that they can reduce injuries and save lives. And I think all cars should be equipped with the breath analyzer that you have to blow into so the car won’t start if it senses alcohol on the driver’s breath! I think that should just be standard equipment! And for every twenty minutes driven, a new breath analyis takes place. That would save a lot of lives, too!
One of the things that I enjoy a lot about where we live is the fact that we have three acres of land, and live across from a large farm. On our land, about half of it is woods. We don’t really notice our neighbors very much, the landscaping has been nicely done so that their houses are not immediately visible out of most of our windows. I like the fact that at night there is no light pollution, so we can look up at the sky and see the stars. For the most part, the only sounds we hear are the sounds of the livestock from the farm across the street, or the birds singing.
One of the things that has surprised me about living out here is how many of my neighbors say that they can’t get high speed Internet at their homes. I can remember when we lived in New England we were stuck with slow dial-up, but technology has advanced considerably and now it seems that people can get high speed wild blue Internet service just about anywhere in the country!
The next time I meet someone who says that they can’t get high speed Internet at their place, I’m going to ask them if they’ve tried satellite internet. It’s worth a try!
Speaking of the rodeos, Andy tells me that he has been thinking about buying some National Finals Rodeo tickets for next December. He found a NFR Tickets plaza online that is already selling tickets for this big event! Andy loves to vacation in Las Vegas, and he loves going to Rodeos, so this is a double the pleasure type of vacation for him! He has invited us to join him, but he said it will have to be “Dutch Treat.”
Well, going online and seeing the price of the tickets to the rodeo was rather startling! I’m not sure we could afford to go! I’ll have to give Andy a phone call and see what price range he was thinking of! And then we’ll have to iron out if we are going to be renting and sharing a condo, or staying in separate places. We enjoy Andy’s company and all that, but his finances are in much better shape than ours are in right now and he can afford to take great fancy expensive vacations. Until my insurance settlement money comes in we have to watch our pennies pretty closely and I feel rather uncomfortable gambling that we’ll have the money by then!
Have you ever wondered where folks can buy a radar gun to measure how fast someone pitches a ball? My neighbor was telling me that he is thinking about signing on as a volunteer coach for some Parks and Recreation programs for the school kids. He thought it might be fun to buy one to show the kids how radar works to track more than speeding cars!
I went over to his house today to pick up the chain saw he had borrowed from me and he invited me in for coffee and fresh Krispy Kreme donuts. Well, I’m not one to pass up an offer of free coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts so I was in the door pretty quickly! He showed me a website that he was looking at where the company sells different radar equipment for different purposes. I never realized that there were so many different radar devices; some for baseball, some for tennis, even some for golf! I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to know how fast a tennis ball or golf ball was traveling! But this website had other interesting items for sale on it the piqued my interest – such as portable ice rinks. I’ve always wanted to set up an ice rink for the kids to ice skate on in the winter! Now I know where I can get one!
Many of my friends from New England still keep in touch on a regular basis. That sure helps me to get through the many long and lonely days of recovery from my accident! Jarod called me to wish me a Merry Christmas last night. He was telling me that Santa had been really good to him this year. He said that he found a Burton snowboard under the Christmas tree at his parent’s house when he went over there for dinner. Jarod says he’s not quite sure how to send Santa a notice of new address from when he moved out to his own place last year! In addition he got a new Burton beanie and a new Burton jacket to wear while he is out on the slopes trying out his new board.
I never learned to snowboard; I always enjoyed alpine skiing and snowmobiling. Snowboarding always seemed like a lot of fun that I’d like to try someday, but now with all of these back injuries I have I’ll probably never get the chance to try it. My wife says we’re too old for that anyway and it’s time we started acting more our age. To be honest I think she’s just worried that some of the other boarders might run into us and that could really hurt! Well, too old, or too injured, either way it looks like I’ll just have to be satisfied watching that sport from a distance!
