Wishing I'd have been a better bystander

I've mentioned before the troubles I have with cell phone reception at my home. So, while on my way home last night I pulled into the parking lot of the Kenwood Super One shopping center - one of the last, best places to get a clear signal - to place a few calls.

I pulled into a parking space all by myself at the far end of the parking lot, near Arrowhead Road. On my third call, I was leaving a voice mail message when I looked up and saw a motorcycle - a super sports bike, a substantial, pretty nice one - driving in the lot toward Arrowhead, going very slow but weaving all over. And I saw a blue car in a designated driving lane coming generally in my direction - perpendicular to the motorcycle. Again, going very slow.

They got closer and closer - again, going like 5 mph - the cycle weaved sharply a couple times, and the rider - a college-aged guy with no helmet - laid it down and crashed into the front driver's side wheel of the passing car, maybe 30 feet from me. "Laid it down" is too strong a word - "fell over" might be a more apt description. Then the motorcycle rider got up and glared at the car. I thought to myself right away how that was just totally the motorcycle rider's fault.

So at this point I was still leaving my message. It was for a family friend I haven't talked to in a long time, whose mom is sick, and I was trying hard to maintain my composure and stay on-message as the surreal scene unfolded.

I was kind of bewildered and wrapped up the call as over maybe the next 10-15 seconds, the motorcycle rider went around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door and started saying / yelling something at the male passenger and female driver. My initial thought was that the two parties knew each other. In a momentary burst of extreme naivete, I actually thought, "well, that's not something a total stranger would do."

So I sat there, staring, jaw dropped. Then the motorcycle rider went back around, picked up his bike, wobbled on and started heading toward Kenwood Avenue. I snapped back into reality, got out and jogged to the still-stationary car. The driver got out. "Did you get his license plate?," she asked. Shoot! I could have, but I didn't. Now, in retrospect I don't totally regret not running out right away after the collision and getting it. The guy had just flung open that car door... had I run out and got his plate, he very well may have decked me. And I didn't know he was going to run until he was back up on his bike. But still, the whole thing happened so slow that I could have gotten it, and that bugged me.

Kind of charged with adrenaline and always ready for an exciting adventure, I said, "I'm going to go after him. I'll come back. Wait here." And I took off in my car toward Kenwood. The guy had a big head start, but I thought he might have pulled into a lot somewhere nearby to check his bike. No luck. I circled down Kenwood to Central Entrance, down Ninth/Eighth streets, around to College Avenue, through the UMD campus and back to the shopping center via Arrowhead - nothing. A few times I saw sports bikes parked in driveways, and circled back to get a better look, but they were not the one.

Back in the parking lot I left my name and number with the driver, and said I'd be willing to give a statement. We walked around to where the crash occurred, and I spotted a really nice, expensive Citizen watch on the ground - watch separated from wrist band, but still working - it had to be the bike rider's. I looked it over, thinking how awesome it would be if it were engraved, but it wasn't.

I left the watch with the car driver, then went off again for one more search. "Where would a college-age kid on a sports bike go after a hit-and-run accident?," I thought. For some reason, my mind returned an answer of: "Taco John's." So that's where I headed, to the strip of fast-food joints on London Road. I circled through there, back through the UMD campus and a few college neighborhoods - again, nothing. I went back home.

Later in the evening, I got a call from the police and gave a witness statement. I described what I saw, apologized for not being a better witness and closed by emphasizing again that this was totally the motorcycle's fault, and that the driver of the car was totally in the right. So I guess I was of some use. But I'm still wondering what might have been had I been a better bystander.

Making a phone call: A travelogue

Phone calls can be a bit of an adventure at my house.

I have no land line - just my Verizon cell phone. Verizon's service was fine for the first two years I had it, so in September 2007 I signed up for another two-year contract. In December 2007 I moved into my new house. Problem.

Apparently I'm on the very fringe of Verizon's service area, and reception varies from day to day, or even minute to minute. Over time, I've established a progression of where I can go to get a signal.

Tonight, though, topped all previous calls in that it took seven tries (I think it was seven) to complete the conversation with a friend.

As with all calls, I started here:

Standing by the kitchen sink (sorry for the blurry photo). The old standby. For some reason - my guess is that topography allows a kind-of-clear shot from my kitchen sink a few miles to a distant cell tower - this one spot works about 75 percent of the time. Movement must be kept to a minimum, to avoid angering the cell phone reception gods into dropping the call. Step a few feet, and you're done for.

But the kitchen sink spot didn't work tonight, so I took the phone upstairs into the soon-to-be-finished bedroom:



It's high up in the air, and lags behind the kitchen sink only slightly in cell phone reception. It lagged again tonight, as the second attempt got dropped.

So, to the back door:


The third stop is to step out the back door. Get out of the confining walls of the house, and let the cell phone wave particles roam free, or do whatever it is they do. But tonight, another no-go. Third strike.

I closed the dog in the downstairs bedroom to keep her from getting into the kitchen garbage, and headed out to the big basswood tree in the middle of the yard:

This is another usually reliable spot, but gets bumped down the list for being outdoors and a good 50 feet from the house. Last summer I leapfrogged the first three spots and headed out to this tree when I got chased by a pit bull and called the sheriff to report it. I didn't want to get cut off while on the phone with 911 operators. But tonight? No-go.

Next stop: the kind-of-dying walnut tree:

This big tree stands at just about the highest point in the yard - by yard, I mean the grassy area of my property; getting to this tree doesn't require going "in the woods." This walnut is way out of its natural range; it was planted by the previous owners about 50 years ago. It's having some troubles now, maybe due to some drought conditions the past few years. In any case, it's another good place to try making a call. Before tonight, this was as far as I ever had to go to complete a call. Before tonight. The fifth try failed.

On to the back driveway:

The back driveway is kind of self-explanatory. It leads from the yard to the little town road at the back of the property. It's at about the same elevation as the walnut tree, and it provides easy walking to try to find a signal. I broke new ground in having to go there tonight for my sixth try. No good: I could never get a call to go through.

I was kind of running out of property at this point, and was in uncharted territory for finding a signal to tie up the loose ends of this call. I headed down the back driveway, turned left into the woods, went about 25 feet and walked up a short rise to this:


A fallen tree, suspended about three feet in the air. I grabbed some neighboring, still-alive trees to balance myself, and climbed up. It sort of wobbled a bit, but I dialed again and... success! The best signal yet. The conversation was completed, and I jumped back down and headed back to the house.

I'm thinking of switching to another carrier when my Verizon contract expires later this year.

Historians = bad money managers

Between taxes and other life events, I've had occasion to sit down and really assess my finances the past few weeks.

One part of my "portfolio" is U.S. Savings Bonds, which were my grandparents' financial gift of choice. When I was growing up, every birthday and holiday brought a $25 or $50 savings bond, with occasional larger denominations. My grandmother could buy a bond for half its face value, and if you let is sit long enough (I think 10 years or so), it would earn enough interest to surpass the face value - a nice return, though taxes ate a big chunk out of it.

The bonds helped pay portions (far from all, but some) of my college tuition, my first used car, my first new car, my computer and my house down payment.

Each purchase required assessing which bonds to use out of the ones I had left. There were two that I never wanted to touch, for history's sake - they were the oldest of the bunch, issued on the day I was born; my late great-grandfather's name was on them; and the issuing bank had changed names twice - the "Marine Bank" stamp made me nostalgic.

So now, after all these years, they are two of the last three bonds I have left (the other was issued a month after I was born, and was kept for some of the same reasons).

When I checked on their value today, I learned that they have matured and are no longer earning interest; the cutoff was 30 years. So now I'm left to wonder why I didn't cash them sooner, and instead keep some newer bonds that would have kept earning 3-4% interest for a few more years. I guess a love of history and proper money management might not go together all that well.

But what's done is done, and given that earning nothing is better than most investments these days, I'm going to salt them away for later. Some day, I'll pull them out, look at that day-I-was-born, old-bank-name stamp one more time, and sign them away.

Playing by the rules

My dad likes the hard candy called "Nips." The chocolate parfait kind. Little, individually wrapped candies that come in a cellophane-wrapped box.

Walgreens is the go-to place to buy Nips. It's not that they are cheaper there every day, but Walgreens offers the best sale prices on the candy, by far. Nips usually are about 99 cents a box; this week's Walgreens ad had a three boxes for $2 coupon - at 67 cents a box, that's just about as good as it gets.

When I see such sales, I'll check in with my dad to see how his supply is. If he's running low, I'll go out to buy some to bring the next time I'm home.

It can be tricky to find them. Chocolate parfait Nips are a hot commodity when they go on sale; more often than not, I'll go to a Walgreens and find the shelves cleared (there always are coffee Nips left, though. I like them, but my dad does not). Clearly, I'm not the only one in Duluth on the lookout for these sales.

In the past, Walgreens has had such deals with no limit on quantity. One time, at the old Miller Hill Mall Walgreens, I scored the jackpot - a super sale, and a freshly-stocked shelf of maybe 40 boxes of chocolate parfait Nips.

I bought them all. I stacked them in a shopping basket and dumped them out at the checkout. I think the cashier said something along the lines of "Somebody likes this candy." I replied, "Yeah, my dad is a big fan." I know she totally thought I was lying, and that I was in fact the Nips glutton. It troubled me for a bit.

This time, the coupon said limit six. I stopped by the West Duluth Walgreens. Cleared out. Then I went to the new Walgreens up by the mall. Tons - maybe a couple dozen boxes. But that coupon limit. Rats!

I should have just asked the cashier if she could just ring up four different transactions, or if there was some other way to get around the "rule." But, slave to obeying rules that I am, I rather sheepishly just brought my six boxes to the counter and left.

I ran a couple more errands. It was an hour later, I was in the area... oh, what the heck, I'll go back. I'm sure there will be a different cashier. Just in case, I put on my winter hat. I hadn't worn it the first time I went in. I thought it might make me harder to remember. Honestly, that's what I thought. I'm nuts.

The "disguise"

I walked in. The same cashier. Rats again! Well, it had been an hour... she probably had had 30 or 40 customers since then. I got six more boxes and took them to the counter.

"Back for more?" she asked.

Caught!

"Yeah. It's a good price."

As anyone could have predicted, she clearly did not care about the six-box limit. She rang up the candy, and I headed home with 12 boxes of Nestle Nips.

OK, I could have prevented this. But...

Driving home tonight, as I made the transition from city to country, an SUV zoomed up behind me and tailgated me for a bit. I was going at or maybe a shade over the speed limit (55), which anyone who knows the area would know is, if anything, too fast to drive at night with so many deer around.

After a very short while, the driver zipped out into the other lane and gunned it, passing me as we rounded a curve - gentle curve, but still a curve. Idiot, I thought. Now, when I'm driving out at night and somebody passes me, I generally wait maybe 10 seconds before turning my high beams back on, to give them some distance. If they tailgate me and drive like morons, I might wait only 5 seconds - I'll give them a little distance, but I won't go the extra mile. That's what I did tonight. In retrospect, kind of a mistake.

As soon as I put the high beams on, the SUV - by now maybe a tenth of a mile ahead - braked. Big time. I hit the brakes. The SUV started going. I slowly started going. Then he braked again and came to a dead stop. I wasn't going fast, but I had to brake hard and swerve onto the shoulder. He swerved onto the shoulder in front of me. I swerved back on to the road. He swerved back on to the road. At some point in this, he had a shot at bashing me on the passenger side and I thought he was going to (his SUV was an old beater; I say "he" but I didn't get a look at the driver), but it didn't happen. Also at some point in this, I did turn off my brights. The SUV started going down the road again.

I followed - giving plenty of distance. OK, this was really dumb, but after giving that driver the normal amount of time - he was way down the road - I turned my brights back on. The SUV's brake lights went on again. I pulled over and called 911. The SUV kept going, passing someone up ahead while going up a hill.

I had his plate number, and I gave it to the dispatcher along with a description of the SUV and its direction of travel. She said if any squads were in the area, they'd look for it. About a mile down the road, I saw a sheriff's SUV in a bar parking lot. As I passed, its lights (regular, not emergency) went on and it started pulling out. I turned and kept going on my way down a different road. I'd like to think they tracked the guy down.

I'm fine. My car's fine. As the title of this post says, I could have prevented this. But...

Lesson learned, Vol. 1

Do not create a Facebook page for your dog, and absent-mindedly type the same e-mail address and password as your personal Facebook account. It will overwrite and eliminate your personal Facebook account. Then you will have to sign up again, try to remember all your Facebook friends and re-create your page from scratch. And you will lose your cherished high status in Scramble (college president, I think?).

Lesson learned.