Failure By Design

So I pretty much wrecked my car yesterday on the way back from Portland.

It's a long story but what I can say is that I thank God that none of us were hurt, and that has to do with a lot of strange coincidences.

Umm... about what happened, basically one car on I-5 stopped completely and suddenly therefore causing the truck to stop infront of me, and I tried to stop and my brakes locked up. Basically, I had at least 100 feet distance from my car to the truck and my car skid that whole way. We didn't end up hitting it that hard, but it cracked the top of my radiator where the tube connects to the engine, and the drive line in the front obviously got bent back or something because it "clunked" when I tried to drive it.

I got a ticket because the police officer was determined to say that I was following him too close even though he marked out himself that I was 100 ft away from it. Not to mention, he apparently couldn't find time in his schedule to check out if I left a skid mark, which we definately saw later, and it was definately, just the mark mind you, 100 ft or more. I didn't swerve at all, which was good, because there was a concrete meridian on one side, and a truck on the other. Either way, it's a pretty crappy deal I got a ticket, really nothing I would have done would have fixed it. My parents are being understanding because my brakes did the same to my mother when she was in a much worse accident in my car and my dad saw the skid marks it made. Plus my mother was thinking my transmition was going out, considering it would only go 40 up the mountains on the way there and all. We talked to some really cool people in Albany who said that my radiator cracked because the way the radiator intake was designed also. So don't drive neons I guess.

Here's some good things about the accident:

*I think it's kind of a harsh wake up call about worrying about material things because I was getting really sick of all the scratches and stuff that my car was collecting without my help...

*The night before Jaqualyn and I had been talking about how I wanted to be closer to all my brothers, but in particular, James, who just happened to live close and come to my rescue, and got my car towed.

* We met those really awesome families who stayed with us until my brother got there, and even prayed with us.

* My back rear tire was dangerously low, which caused us to all ready be going slower, and how much worse would it have been if I had a blow out going full speed as opposed to actually being able to tell something was about to happen.

* My parents understood

* The other person's truck was fine.

* I didn't swerve at all.

* Oh yeah, we were all uninjured.


Some not-so-good-I'm-Still-Looking-For-the-Lesson-In-Things:

* Having such a rude officer

* Getting a ticket

* Having my court date on my first day of college.