I'm walkin' here

Recognize the somewhat unpleasant looking gentleman in glasses? I think we can all agree from the look on his face that he's not happy about something.

That something is probably the damage the bodies of the 10 people he killed and 70 he injured did to his 1992 red Buick La Sabre as he was plowing through them at Santa Monica Farmer's Market on July 16, 2003.

His name is George Russell Weller, and he was 86 years old at the time of the accident.

The reason he comes to mind is because I heard about another senior involved accident yesterday. It seems a 79-year old woman hit a 74-year old pedestrian in Tustin.

But wait, there's more.

Any underachieving senior citizen can mow down someone. But not realizing she hit anything or any one, she took it the extra step by dragging the woman under her car for almost a mile until onlookers stopped her and pointed out the body under her car.

Years ago there was a 60 Minutes piece about senior drivers. In it, a 92-year old man in Florida had run into eight people waiting for a bus, killing five of them including two children. He didn't even remember the accident.

Just Googling "senior involved car accidents" for this post turned up thousands of articles.

I'm tired of arguments from organizations like AARP about seniors needing to drive to hang on to their independence. Really? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that innocent lives trump their independence.

The two highest accident/death prone age groups when it comes to driving are 16-25 and 60 - whatever. As unpopular as it may be, there should be mandatory annual driving tests for everyone in those age groups. The idea that licenses get renewed for four years at a time by mail when someone is in their 80's is a joke. How many people that age do you know with 20/20 vision, excellent hearing and cat-like reflexes? That's what I thought.

In case anyone forgot - and memory is one of the first things to go as you get older - driving in California is a privilege not a right.

Sorry this wasn't the usual humorous post with the snappy end line.

But there's nothing funny about people getting killed by senior drivers who can't remember hitting anybody.

Padding my story

 If you know me at all, you know there are some things I have absolutely no trouble stopping.

Like work, cleaning, work, reading, work, eating – okay, maybe not eating.

One thing I was having trouble stopping was that two-ton hunk o’ depreciating Japanese metal I drive everywhere (although I suppose in light of recent events, there are worse things the metal could be than depreciating). Seems my rear brake pads were worn down to almost nothing (I know the feeling). Not quite metal on metal, but nanoseconds away from it.

While I had my car at the dealer for a regular service, my service writer broke the news about the brakes. Then he told me how much it was going cost to replace the pads and turn the rotors. After I shook my head and asked if I’d heard him right, that’s when I put the brakes on.

Now, I’m all about easy. I like having a relationship with my dealership, as well as recourse should something go wrong. It’s not my first rodeo - I know I pay more for that, which up to now I’ve been willing to do. Maybe that’s because up to now it hasn’t been that much more.

But I found out on this last visit that there’s only so much I’m willing to fork over for someone to smile at me while they’re picking my pocket (not exactly the phrase I wanted to use, but it’s a family blog).

Let’s get right to it shall we? $459. That’s how much they wanted to lighten my wallet for the work. Seemed a little excessive to me, so I decided to do something I should’ve done a long time ago – take my business somewhere else. After all, my car’s out of warranty, and it’s not like other places don’t guarantee their work.

I searched Yelp for brake places near me, and much to my checkbook’s delight there was a great one only three blocks from my house. I went there, and explained the situation to Bob. I assume it was Bob. That’s what the patch on his industrial, grease-stained jumpsuit said.

Bob smiled the knowing smile of a man that lives in a very big house thanks to people who are mad as hell at their dealers and not going to take it any more. Bob checked out the rear brakes, and agreed I needed the work done. For $210.

Not that I’m counting, because I don’t want to seem petty or anything like OH GOOD LORD IT'S 54% LESS!

Bob ordered the pads that day and I brought the car in the next morning. While they worked on it I walked over to the donut shop across the street for coffee and a maple twist (I told you stopping eating wasn’t my strong suit). By the time I got back, twenty minutes later, the car was ready to go. And stop.

My neighbor always asks me, “How old do you have to be before you realize you’re getting screwed by the dealer.”

Now I know the answer. This old.

Got happy?

I thought it was a skill. Come to find out it's an art.

I was looking around Barnes & Noble the other day. It's not normally the bookstore I go to, but the Borders near me has gone away, so there I was.

I'll be the first to admit it - I wasn't feeling as happy as I could. But just as I was getting sadder about the fact I wasn't happy, I stumbled into this section. And really, if this couldn't make me happy then what could?

Apparently I should've been happier since there are a lot of things to be happy about. But then I started thinking - in a world this big, 14,000 didn't seem like very many things to be happy about. I couldn't help think there should've been more. And that made me sad. Because even with thousands of reasons in front of me, at that moment I couldn't think of one.

Fortunately, thanks to Marci Shimoff, I realized I didn't need one. I could just do it. I could just force myself to be happy for the sake of it. The problem with that approach was even if it felt like real happiness, how would I know if it was?

Here's how. Authentic Happiness would tell me by showing me how to put the New Positive Psychology to work. To realize my potential for lasting fulfillment. Truth be told, it didn't need to be that lasting. I'd settle for a couple hours. Or at least enough to last while I was browsing the store. But since I wasn't going to be there that much longer, would I have enough time to find out everything I needed to know to be happy?

Turns out I would, thanks to A Short Guide To A Happy Life. I liked the idea of this one, because first of all I really didn't want to spend a lot of time reading about a happy life - I wanted to get to it. The shorter the guide, the more time for me to get to work on my happiness project. But where should I start?

I'll start here. The Happiness Project will be like a go-to manual for my happiness project. I love it when life works out.

The one thing all this browsing of happiness books made me realize is how many freakin' depressed people there are walking around bookstores.

Frankly, I was happy to get out of there.

You have the right to remain in the car like a scared little girl

It's L.A. Money talks. And tonight it said I get to ride along with the L.A.P.D. on the night shift in South Los Angeles.

My kid's school has an annual fundraising auction. Every year, we spend a perfectly good Saturday night looking at baskets of shampoo and body washes, pictures of cabins in Mammoth, inflatable backyard movie screens and other items we can silently bid on. Usually there's not much I'm interested in.

Although don't get me wrong - I do love a nice body wash.

But this year, I saw this little item and for several reasons I knew I had to have it.

One is I grew up on the mean streets of West Los Angeles (north of Wilshire). The city is my beat (see what I did there?). Also, I love watching COPS. Every episode there's a drunk guy in a beer-stained, white tank top tripping over his tongue trying to explain to the incredibly patient officer why he's not the guy they're after.

Comedy at its finest.

I've always had tremendous respect and admiration for the job the police do. Sure, we all hear about the bad ones. But every day, in cities all over the country they're putting their lives on the line to protect us.

Over the years I've had a few occasions to call the police in our city in the middle of the night when we thought someone was on our property. They were here in less than 30 seconds. When it turned out to be nothing, I apologized for wasting their time, saying they probably had real crimes to solve. They insisted they'd rather I call and have it turn out to be nothing than not call and actually have some criminal to deal with.

While I'm sitting at my desk trying to think of some clever little tagline for a car or fast food company, they're on the streets wondering if the jacked up guy they're stopping for speeding is going to pull out a gun and make it their last day on the job. And on earth.

I think if I ever told a cop about how rough I thought my day was they'd double over laughing.

Besides being a fan of the police, I'm also a fan of high speed chases. If I catch one on the news, or if one of my friends calls me and tells me there's one on, I drop everything and sit glued to the television until it's over. Every time I ask the same question: how does this guy think it's going to end? Does he think the cops and helicopters will just get tired and let him go? My favorite part, besides when they stop and come out with their hands up, is when the cop car does that maneuver where they tap the bumper and the suspect's car goes spinning out of control. Very entertaining.

I'm sure my ride-along will be extremely interesting. And I'm sure since it's in one of the tougher parts of L.A. I'll see a few things I wouldn't normally get exposed to.

Right now I'm hoping we're in hot pursuit in a high speed chase.

But my guess is when I'm sitting in the police car, I'll be hoping for an uneventful night where we both return safely and I have a great story to tell my kids.

Blackhawk down

Sometimes you read a story that hits so hard the sadness is more than you can bear.

That's what happened to me today when I read about Wes Leonard.

Wes was a 16-year old high school student and star athlete at Fennville High in Michigan. He'd just scored the winning basket at a championship game, putting his team - the Fennville Blackhawks - at an undefeated 20 - 0 for the season.

Seconds after the winning shot and the ensuing celebration, the crowd watched in horror as Wes collapsed on the court and died. He'd gone into cardiac arrest from an enlarged heart, had a massive heart attack and was likely gone before he hit the floor.

I don't know any other way to see this except through the eyes of his parents. I have a son. I know how anxious I feel when he's not home. I can't even comprehend him never coming home again.

I never want to.

Anxiety is the by-product of having kids that they don't tell you about. It's the one you don't read about in "What To Expect When You're Expecting", or Dr. Spock.

It's not in the small print.

We want our kids to be safe in the world, and realize that for the most part they are. But there's always a soundtrack, a white noise playing in the background of your thoughts that something horrible will happen or is happening to them when they're out of your sight.

Of course, we all have to live with a certain amount of denial or we could never get through the day. We'd never be able to cross a street for fear of getting hit by a car, or plug in a toaster for fear of being electrocuted. We choose to ignore the noise because it's just a silly thought. And it'll never happen.

Until it does.

I used to enjoy movies like Ransom or Without A Trace. Now I can't even watch them, because when I do all I think about is how my kids could disappear that fast.

From all accounts, Wes Leonard was a great kid on and off the court. My heart goes out to his friends and family, but most of all his parents.

Tonight I'll be saying a prayer for all of them. While his life was cut tragically short, his memory will live on forever in the hearts of everyone who knew him.

And every parent who didn't.

Short story

Our house, like most homes, has one thing in common with Disneyland: It’ll never be finished. There’s always something to spend money on.

But for some strange reason I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact I live a freelance life instead of having a real job, the funds aren’t always there. Even though the opportunities to spend them are.

So by necessity we’ve always taken a triage approach to the house. Stop the bleeding first.

Oh yeah, and don’t let a short in a plug burn the house down.

If you follow this blog (and really, shouldn’t you have better things to do with your time?), you’ll remember my joy about our new garbage disposal.

That came to a screeching halt over the weekend when my wife informed me it’d stopped working. Knowing the shape the power source lurking under the sink was in, I was pretty sure it wasn't the disposal's fault.

As you can see, the plug under the sink is really the monster under the bed you don't want to think about. At least I didn't, until the plumber that installed the disposal came back two days later to install filters for the ice-maker, and bumped the outlet box which was hanging by a thread. The (live)wires barely holding it became disconnected, and power was lost.

By the way, just FYI, you're supposed to change those ice-maker filters every six months. Not every three years. Turns out "black ice" is actually a driving term.

Anyway, we all have our own special set of skills. For example, if you need someone to write about fixing things in the house, I'm your guy. But if you need someone to actually fix them, not so much.

Because of my complete lack of skill (interest?) in repairing things around the house, I have a go-to list of people who are my home support system. So I went to it. I called our electrician, who repaired the outlet in about 20 minutes. I thought it would be a much bigger operation, but then I always think that. I was fully expecting he'd be ripping out drywall, rerouting conduits and waiting for inspectors.

None of that happened.

Instead he stripped the wires, replaced the outlet and secured the square box to the round hole in an almost upright position (coincidentally the same one I'm in most of the day).

Now when we throw the switch, the disposal happily grinds away. And once again I'm free not to think about the seamy underbelly of the kitchen sink.

Until six months from now when it's time to change the ice-maker filters again.

 

Many happy returns

Where does the time go?

Seems like only yesterday I was asking my accountant to take enough deductions on my tax returns to walk me right up to the jailhouse door, but not actually take me inside.

Every year I promise myself I'll be better at keeping records, receipts and my story straight when it comes to tax deductions. And every year, I just throw everything in an extremely well organized file, then pull it all together about a week before I go see my tax guy.

I suppose by that measure I'm ahead of the game, since I'm already thinking about it and I'm not having my taxes done until the end of March.

Lots of well-meaning friends (aren't they all?) have told me to use Quicken or Excel to keep track of my expenses. Then when this time of year rears its ugly head, I could just press a key and print out everything all neatly categorized. The problem is to do that would require the discipline of inputting all the information on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

That's just crazy talk.

Why do that when I can have a perfectly good time procrastinating until the last minute.

It's both a blessing and a curse that because I'm on the creative side in advertising, I can write off a great many things the average taxpayer can't. It just makes record-keeping that much more complex.

And by complex I mean work for me.

It's a good thing this blog doesn't make any money or I'd have to write it off.

Something I think a lot of people are doing already.