Sorry I’m late. I was supposed to write a post last night, and the plan was to write about the live real estate auction that I spent sixteen hours participating in on Sunday. But I had a little mishap on my way home and well, I’ve got a new post in mind.

I headed out of the office a little early yesterday. It is after all a holiday week, and I’m already in a holiday mood. We had a really good Monday Sales Meeting I thought - lots of good feedback on the discussions around social networking sites as well as an intense exchange around the auction that took the meeting a half hour past our regular stopping point. It was a small group (holiday week) but a really productive time together.

So I’m sneaking out early to get home to the Broncos on Monday Night Football.It’s dark already at 5:00pm as I head up Vasco Road towards Brentwood. Vasco is famous for deadly head-on crashes, although there have been relatively few in the past three years since I moved out here thanks to road improvements and speed enforcement by the CHP. In fact, just last night officer Joiner of the CHP was telling me that Marsh Creek Road between Clayton and Brentwood is the new hot spot for deadly head-on crashes.

Vasco Road still presents it dangers however, evidenced by the fact that I was having said conversation with Officer Joiner on the shoulder of that very highway last night.

You see, about halfway through the 19 mile stretch from Livermore to Bretwood, some guy who had failed to tie-down his overstuffed armchair was stopping right in the middle of traffic to make an illegal u-turn to retrieve his fallen furniture. (It’s a good thing he did, a Lazy Boy in the southbound lane isn’t a good thing for anyone.) So I, along with the three or four cars between me ant the pick-up truck came to a dead stop, right there in the single northbound lane, in the dark, on Vasco Road.

The car behind me, however, wasn’t close enough behind me to notice what was going on. He was probably a couple of hundred yards behind me, traveling at a healthy clip, obviously not anticipating the few of us stopped in the middle of the road.

Well the rest is history. You can see from the pictures exactly what happened.

The miracle is that only the two of us were involved, and neither of us was seriously injured. Sure, my neck is sore as all get-out and I’ve got a bump on my head, but I’m feeling very lucky. The guy who hit me rolled his truck across the oncoming lane and onto the shoulder. He walked away shaken, but without a scratch.

It’s quite an experience, being involved in a wreck like that. I know the fender benders and the around-town mishaps can be trying as well, but getting rear-ended at highway speed felt different (in a lot of ways). The strange part is that I am really encouraged by the whole thing.

I feel good about the way I reacted to the guy who hit me. I didn’t feel the least bit of anger towards him - I can imagine how he was feeling - and I’m really just glad that he’s OK. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, it was something that I very well could have been on the other end of. I know he feels terrible and I don’t need to make him feel any worse.

The guy who dropped the load - OK I’m a little ticked-off at this guy for causing the whole thing, but he stayed around and helped us through until the authorities arrived. And the good Samaritan - there was a Fremont firefighter and paramedic who pulled over to make sure we were all right, took our vitals and checked in with the local dispatch to find out when help would arrive. The paramedics were compassionate and professional. The CHP officer on the scene, the tow truck drivers - it was like I was getting great service from all these people. They were all real professionals.

By the way, I managed to rescue several open house signs from the trunk of the car - the signs in the photo are actually wedged in what’s left of the trunk in a way that they’re not coming out in one piece. And the worst part of it all is that my laptop was in that left-rear corner of my trunk. I got it out. But I’m writing this on C’s machine at the house.

So I’ll get back to the auction (it was an incredible experience). But for now I need another 800mg Ibuprophen and a soak in the hot tub. They’re telling me I’ll hurt even worse tomorrow.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 4:52 am and is filed under Experiences, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.