holliday

Three of the kids in my class got in a car accident last night.

I guess they were going about 50 mph and doing 180's in the car when they blew out one of their front tires which had gone bald, due to all the previous car stunts they'd pulled. The rim of the blown tire caught the curb and the car flipped over landing on the driver's side, crushing the entire thing.

I'm told that all the windows were broken out, meaning that they hadn't been wearing their seat belts.

Army guy had been driving behind them and saw it just as their car was finishing it's roll and landing up on it's tires.

He stopped to see if they were ok. One of them, a friend of mine, had put their seatbelts on maybe two minutes before this happened, and he's fine. Another friend of mine wasn't wearing his seatbelt. Army guy talked to him as he was laying flat out on his back on the grass. He's sustained a fractured shoulder but is otherwise fine. He describes the experience as being shaken up in a tin can.

The kid who was driving, one of the kids in my class who drives me nuts, is in the hospital now. He's got head, neck, and back injuries, although they say he'll be fine. I'm sure he'll not be able to return to class anytime soon and will have to start up with one of the classes coming up behind us.

Car accidents around here aren't unusual. I go to a school of 18 year old boys who drive street racing cars. Too much power and too much testosterone lead to these kinds of things. I'm told we lose at least 2 or 3 students a year to this kind of thing.

My friends try to laugh it off a bit, but you can tell they've learned a valuable lesson. Despite what they might think, they are not invincible and bad things CAN happen to them.

I suppose we all go through a moment like that in our lives, when we realize these things. Maybe it's the moment we leave our 'youth' behind and grow up a little.

***

Other than that...it was another beautiful day. Sunny, clear, and about 80 degrees.

After finishing some classwork we headed out into the lab where we got into our groups of four, picked out cars, and began ripping them apart.

What makes me happy is seeing not only how much easier it is for me to jump into these kinds of things than it was when I first got here. I used to panic when the instructor would say, 'ok, let's go to the lab!'

Now, what used to take me and a group two days to accomplish, takes us about 2 hours or so. That is, removing the entire interior of our cars.

In another two hours, we'd successfully removed both our rear glass and front windsheild.

Returned home and called Team Big Foot to discuss a show I can drive in. Left a message for Jim Kramer, head dude.

When he called back, I was relaxing by my pool in my bikini, dozing off in the sun.

I told him all about how much I'm loving school and what I'm learning. Unfortunately, he told me that there isn't enough time to arrange for me to drive in the New Jersey show So I'll keep looking. He said that they do another show in NJ in the spring...but I don't want to wait that long. I'll keep my eyes open for a show in Texas.

Anyway, that's it from me today. I'm motivating to head out to Wal-mart for a sweatshirt, long sleeve shirts, and a blanket. I left all my warm things behind in NYC...

Here's a (bad) pic of me from last Sunday as I was heading out to work to flirt with those bikers, wearing my school uniform entirely inappropriately


And a pic I took a little while ago of some classmates sleeping on the lifts before class. Hey! 6am is EARLY ok...we sneak in as much sleep as possible!

Sorry for the poor quality pics...I'm working on getting a digital camera...but I'm poor.