MERRY CHRISTMAS! If you can.

Christmas Day, 2011






Here in Spain we have awakened to a simply lovely Christmas day. We are having our traditional Christmas Day high where the sun is out in all its glory, the wind is nil, there are no clouds in the sky, and all is right with the world.


If you have to go anywhere today, please drive carefully. On this day we are celebrating a birthday and most people are having a wonderful and very fragile experience.


So this is just to wish each and everyone, together with your families a truly glorious day. Let nothing spoil the mood, and the world over should be free from tragedies of any kind.


Merry Christmas to All!



Copyright (c) 2011 Eugene Carmichael

Christmas is a Terrible Time to Die!

Do you believe in Santa Claus?




If you, as a rational and wise person had complete control of your life, would you choose to die in the midst of Christmas, or Hanakah, or Kwanza celebrations?


I think the answer would be, "Certainly not!" These holiday times are for spreading peace, love, happiness and goodwill throughout the world. The same is the case for other religious celebrations and for things such as the American Thanksgiving Day, National holidays, family birthdays, family vacations, and all other times during the year that are intended for relaxing and having a good time. I don't think you would deliberatly make your family miserable during those times.


Consider the merits of the time to pay your taxes. Would that work for you?


There will be people who will get in or on their means of transportation this end of year celebrations, and they will leave their intelligence and responsibility behind and go and kill themselves and other people as well. I have never understood such insanity. The best I can do is attribute such actions to a very high level of stupidity. If a person is that stupid he should be consigned to walking as he will be manifestly too irresponsible to be in charge of something like a car.


For these coming celebrations when we are going to and fro to visit friends and family, and to dine in restaurants, one person must assume the role of designated driver, and he, or she must assume the responsibility of ensuring that the family will survive the holidays safely. That is a very serious task. The police cannot do this for us, we are in charge of this part of our destiny.


So, from me to you, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakuh, Happy Kwanza, Happy Holidays!


May the New Year give you and your family the golden gift of Good Health and Good Cheer!



Copyright (c) 2011 Eugene Carmichael

Car for Car the Most expensive crash in History

A Tsunami of Ferraris

I look at these pictures and I make a face like sucking lemons

I'm sure everyone reacted as I did when I heard of the crash in Japan of all those top flight cars. Involuntarily I went "WoW!" Followed by, "Oh my God!" The pictures were even more heartbreaking. To see eight Ferraris, three Mercedes a Lambourgini, a Nissan Skyline Gt-R, and a Toyoto Prius in such a state almost made my knees buckle. From my point of view I was seeing the incident as the worst nightmare of any and all aficianados from any club.

Imagine this: every person who has a top flight car or motorcycle will treasure it and treat it like nothing else. In my current case I have a black shiny Jaguar Sovereign that is sitting in my garage, under a cover. There was a time when I had a GoldWing motorcycle. I know of people who only bring their Goldwings, or Harleys outside if the sun is shining. Otherwise, they are parked in the house, under cover.

Once in a while we get together and go for a run. The mood is happy. We get all dressed up in our special gear, we spend even more time in polishing our motor, and we go off in strictly disciplined regimen. We observe all traffic laws; sometimes we even have police escorts. It's a day out, a time to be seen and for good camarderie. The absolutely worst thing that could happen is to have a crash that destroyed fourteen vehicles.

There was one time when I was on a run with the Essex GoldWing Club. We were over 250 bikes and riding under police supervision. As my section was passing one of the exits a car came out fulling expecting to merge. At the last moment, before he would have ploughed into us he came to a screeching halt. He missed me by inches.

In the crash in Japan ten of the drivers were taken to hospital, not, I suspect because they were hurt, but when the gravity of what had happened finally sunk in, it was better that they were in the hospital to have their heart attacks.

I know ladies, you are all shaking your heads and wondering out loud about Men! It's a guy thing and I know, we're so silly at times, but then, we're just guys.

Copyright (c) 2011 Eugene Carmichael

A Rock in the Road

I was driving along a two lane road, heading uphill just after the sun had set. Up ahead I could see that a car had pulled off to the side at an angle with part of the vehicle still in our lane. Cars ahead of me were pulling around him, but they seemed to be going well out of their way. I found out to my surprise why that was. There was a huge boulder sitting in the middle of the lane, and I was headed straight for it. I swerved violently to the left, striking the tapered end of it, and my car flew up in the air, causing a little damage to my undercarriage.

The car behind me saw what had happened and stopped in front of the stone and presumably secured the situation until the police arrived. That is what I would have done had I seen the rock in time. All this because some idiot trucker was proceeding along with an unsafe load. A motorcyclist would have been killed had he run into that rock.

That got me to thinking about being surprised by things in the road that we are not expecting. I wondered how often this sort of thing might happen, and perhaps there might be a website dedicated to these events. I found http://www.truckspills.com/. I also got far more than I expected.

There were sixty-three entries, and basically, anything that you can imagine that is carried by road, has ended up in the road. In my mind the most horryfying was a load of alligators that were thrown into the road because the truck crashed. As you can see from the above picture, how would you like to have been confronted by the image of several alligators facing you. On the light side, they were already dead and frozen.

A happy and exciting situation to suddenly drive into was the siht of bags of money lying all over the place, and people engaged in a free for all trying to scoop it all up. Or, there were all those scratch and claim lottery tickets flying about in the wind after the truck carrying them caught fire.

We know that something strange is happening in the Bee world that is causing a shortage of bees. That is making it necessary to transport bees from one location to another, and in two accidents twelve, and fourteen million bees were released onto the highway. That's a lot of very pissed off bees.

In Colombia, South America a truck rolled over on its side, spilling cocaine that had been nicely wrapped and stored in its side and roof. The report said that the driver was not injured, but we can bet he was still killed.

Beer, fruit, animals, both live and dead, molasses, vodka, a Tomahawk Missile, a massive ship engine that fell off the truck onto cars, and sunk into the road; and perhaps most peculiar of all, a modular house that was being carried on a flatbed, tipped over backwards on an uphill area that had the driver staring straight up into the sky.

What a fascinating visit that was to http://www.truckspills.com/ that was for me, and a wake up call to never let my guard down. Next time when something up ahead is happening that I am unable to be absolutely certain about, I will slow down.

You never know what it might be. It could turn out to be something that just sucks the breath out of you.

Copyright (c) 2011 Eugene Carmichael