This Precious Life

 I find difficulty in beginning to write this because I have to be careful of the information shared. With that being said, allow me to say this: life is precious. I felt truly thankful of my life as I saw doctors and nurses trying to resuscitate a patient today.

 I was walking into a unit of the hospital only to be shocked to see doctors, nurses, and other personnel around a patient in hopes to bring them back to life. I felt the alarms going off in my head, but moved on because my job was only to maintain stock. Several steps later, I felt the sorrow of the family as they left the room in tears, but had to control my emotions because I had a job to do.

 I continued to think about that patient and their family for the rest of the day, even up to this point. However, lingering on this specific patient and family would do no good. One has to look at the bigger picture: life. As I think about all this, I feel blessed to be alive in this new year, new month, new day, new hour, etc.

 Some of my readers already know what happened with me and my scooter on Christmas Eve. It was a Wednesday and only the third day that I was able to ride it back and forth to work. I thoroughly enjoyed riding it by that time. For those that don't know what happened, I will tell you.

 I was riding home after work, around 3pm. I was travelling north on 34th Street. After passing through the intersection at Newberry Road (not University Boulevard), the black SUV in front of me hit the car in front of him. I had a little bit of distance between the SUV and myself, so I hit the brakes.

 I hit the brakes hard enough to apparently lose my balance. I fell onto the asphalt on my left side. I was going no more than 20 mph, so I ended up sliding right by the rear driver's side wheel and my scooter slid under the back end of the SUV. My injuries included four scrapes on my left knee, a small scrape on the left side of my hip, two scrapes on my left elbow, and a small scrape on each wrist.

 My scooter suffered minor damages. Part of the scooter body got scraped and broken, but that's not a major concern of mine. The headlights no longer work. The taillight does not brighten when I press the brakes, like it should. The only other thing wrong is that the front wheel is crooked.

 So other than my now healing woulds and minor damage to my scooter, all is well. I am alive and can thank God that He gave me another day to smile and sing and even write this blog. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog; it means a lot!

PS: I was wearing a helmet, jeans, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt. I highly recommend to anyone riding a scooter or motorcycle to be wearing at least a helmet, jeans, and good footwear. Unfortunately, I see too many people riding scooters with no helmet, shorts, and flip-flops. I do not recommend this kind of set-up while riding a scooter or motorcycle.

Something special

As opposed to "Someone special", this is about Something special: my scooter. Sure, I bought it used and it currently has a couple of minor issues, which I thought were fixed tonight. It's mine. And it's my newest friend. I'm not sure if I will be naming it like a friend of mine named hers. We'll see.

Okay, so I know I sound crazy. This is not a new concept for me, but I digress. Through some very kind suggestions from a friend, I just returned from a certain local scooter shop and was very pleased with every aspect of my service experience. Thank you, Alison, for your recommendation! (Oh and Collin says Hi!)

So, I had the headlight and brake-light replaced, along with the spark-plug boot, electric starter and horn, and had an oil change done. It cost a little bit of money, but it is worth it in the end. I also got a pair of protective glasses and a lock that locks onto the front disc brakes.

Here's one of the cool aspects of the whole deal: If I had procrastinated like I thought about doing, I would have had to go to another shop due to the fact that they are going on vacation for two weeks and won't be open again until January 5th. I called them at around 5:00 pm and they close at 6:00 pm. They asked me if I could come ASAP. No hesitation on my part.

So they took care of everything that I asked about and I got out to my scooter to get ready to go. I put the key into the ignition and noticed that the plastic piece around the key hole is loose. Apparently it was glued on before and stopped adhering to the surface. Anyway, the guy replaced that one and the second one eventually popped off too. I'll probably procrastinate in getting that part fixed.

Also, I noticed that the right headlight works all the time, but now the left one doesn't work. It was the other way before I had them replace the headlight. And the lights are supposed to work at ALL times, but the right one burned out (low-beam) as I was riding down the road on my way home. I switched it to high-beam to get it to shine some light forward. This is something that is making me a little nervous. I'll have to take it to another shop or just replace the bulbs myself if it's simply a problem with the bulbs. If not, it may be an electrical problem within.

However, despite these two issues, all seem to be working as expected. I'll go fill up on gas soon, which will just about drain... my... change jar? Hahaha. Yeah, it'll be pretty cheap to fill it up, so I'm not concerned with that. Despite the obvious pros of riding a scooter, it can still be dangerous to ride one, especially in a college town as this one. Trust me when I say that I will not ride the scooter with just flip-flops, shorts, no helmet (or any combination of these three).

If I get the chance to borrow a camera or get one of my own, I will be able to take pictures and post them for you to see. One thing I have to note about the scooter is that it says the following in big letters on the scooter: "VIP"... So make sure to honk at the VIP when you see me! Lol.

Sincerely,
The VIP

Nothing special

I am sitting here alone at home on a day off of work. Nothing exciting going on, but I do feel like a happier person to know that the temperature is warming up a bit since the past week or so has brought cold mornings and mild afternoons. And the temperature in the mornings definitely affects my daily bike ride to work. For those that don't know, I live about 5 miles away from work and ride a bike both ways daily. I also find it harder to keep a consistent speed if I sit on the bike seat as I go along, so I rely heavily on standing up on the pedals and keeping a good pace. This obviously means a good cardiovascular work-out twice a day, being that it takes me about 30 minutes to trek the 5-mile distance.

I used to have a car. About two months ago, it died on me from overheating. That's probably some lack of care on my part, but it's just something to learn from at this point. So, for the past two months, I have been riding my bike to work and I hated it for probably the first two weeks. I still kind of hate it now, but I am more used to it and feel more physically fit than I probably did two months ago. I have also been looking into getting a scooter being that EVERYONE here has one. Two or three weeks ago, I tried to get financed on a new 2009 Yamaha Zuma (~$2,000) and was denied. So, I have been saving money since then (about $300 every other week).

As of last Wednesday, December 10th, I am now the owner of a decent used scooter. That purchase has actually put me in a state of being broke and hungry. I will only need to last until Friday (pay-day!) and everything will be alright. Also, I will be doing a few things for the scooter on Friday (or later), such as getting a new helmet, replace one of the headlight bulbs, replace the brake light bulb, have a scooter shop check out some minor details with the scooter, and get a parking decal. I think I might be okay without a decal as the place I want to park may not require a decal. I'll be finding that out soon, of course.

So, for today, I am sitting here listening to music and starting a new blog here on Blogger. They say it's the coolest place to blog at, so I thought I would try it out. If you're dropping by my blog site, leave a comment and I'll check out your blog as well. Thanks for visiting!