busy week

On Saturday, I helped some friends move. Before I left, I looked over Andrea's shoulder and saw a picture of what looked like an explosion on the computer screen. By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about the really big accident late Friday night in our neck of the woods. Last I heard, three people were killed and some 30 vehicles were involved. When you think about it, it's really a demonstration of God's grace and kindness that only three people lost their lives. From what I've read, the situation was pretty intense. As I headed north on Interstate 5, I groaned at the line of traffic headed south and wondered if the traffic would affect John as he drove the moving truck south to his family's new home. Later, I wondered if it would affect my drive home.

It was a pretty tiring morning. My friends' old place was on the second floor and there was no elevator. For the most part, this just meant I was a lot more tired than when we moved. The kicker was their fridge, however. It was big... the biggest non-commercial fridge that I can remember seeing. The baseboard in the kitchen had to be removed before we could take it downstairs. It was convenient that the complex manager was one of the moving helpers. He didn't think twice about removing the baseboards or the apartment's front door. And taking the fridge downstairs... it was as heavy as it looked. Eventually, though, the U-Haul truck was loaded up and ready to go. Thankfully, the freeway traffic was only backed up halfway through Santa Clarita. It was no problem to get off a couple exits early. I was surprised at how quickly I arrived at their new place.

My parents were planning to come out that evening for my birthday dinner, but we decided to reschedule. Otherwise, who knows how long it would have taken them to arrive?

It seems like many Santa Clarita Valley residents were scared away from attending church on Sunday. That's funny... it didn't take us any longer than normal. And it was really nice to get a (fairly) good parking spot! As we walked through the lot, I noticed a bright green Scion xB with a flat tire in the parking lot (yes, I had to look up the model; I'm not a car guy). I left them a note to that effect on under their windshield wiper. As we were leaving church, I noticed that someone else had put a note there too. I wonder what it said and if the author saw my note before leaving theirs. If it was a similar note, perhaps it was more eloquent than my "YOUR REAR TIRE IS FLAT!" note.

Coming home was a different story traffic-wise, but was still not as bad as I expected. I hadn't been paying too close of attention as to exactly which truck route tunnel the accident took place in. I figured it was the short tunnel under Interstate 5 located south of the 5-14 interchange. Because of this, I was wondering why the news radio stations were telling people to use the 14 as an alternate—wouldn't that still mean driving over the tunnel? But I decided to follow everyone else by veering towards the 14 North. When we hit traffic, I took the 210 East to Roxford and then backtracked on Foothill Blvd. to Sierra Highway (you wanted to know exactly which streets I took, right?). Everything was great until the San Fernando Road/Sierra Highway intersection. Because the news stations were advising everyone to take San Fernando Road to drive across the valley, that street was pretty much at a standstill. The city must have adjusted the traffic signals—understandably so—because it took us more than a few cycles to make it through. I took Sierra Highway to Golden Valley Road to Soledad Canyon Road and so on. Soledad was a little busier than normal, but only for about two blocks. After that, it was smooth sailing. It took us about an hour to get home. We did decide to skip night church, however, as I'm sure traffic just got worse as the day progressed.

Since the radio estimated the 5 South would reopen no earlier than Tuesday, I opted to skip the freeway altogether for my drive to work on Monday. I figured traffic would be horrible so I left really early. As I drove over the freeway, it looked pretty empty... and there were even a few cars driving on it. Huh? As I drove down a street that parallels the freeway, I heard the radio traffic person talking about how Caltrans worked overtime and extra hard and that the 5 South was now open (except for the truck lanes). Great, I thought. No wonder this street isn't more crowded. Am I the only sucker who didn't take the freeway today? As I neared the site of the accident, however, I saw the freeway start to slow (even at that early hour). Ok, that's more like it. I'm not a sucker... I'm a genius! Unfortunately, the lack of traffic on my chosen route meant that I got to work at 6 AM. At least I was able to leave work early (3 PM) to beat traffic (of which there was none).

Even though the freeway is now open, I've been avoiding it all week because it always looks slower than the streets I'm taking. Furthermore, I don't like driving around tractor trailers. I try to be pretty accommodating to them (a big change from my younger years), but I have to be honest—I'm seeing more and more truck drivers who drive like jerks. I'm merging, so you'd better get out of the way! Most people don't help them out very much, so I can understand their frustration. But come on... truck drivers should expect others to be unaccommodating. It's a simple job hazard. If your skin is too thin (i.e. if your frustration makes you drive irresponsibly), I think it's time to look for a new job.

All this big rig talk reminds me of something I saw last week. Some guy in a little coupe merged in behind me, right in front of a big rig. The big rig driver must not have been paying attention because he rolled into the coupe before he could come to a complete stop. I didn't know who to criticize more... so I criticized both.

Other than that life has been pretty routine...

-We're still trying to get settled into our new place.

-Work has been pretty busy (tax season was finally over this week!).

-Last week I went to Peet's for the first time.

-We've had our hands full with our kids. They still like each other most of the time but are becoming more possessive as time goes on. Ava is getting bolder too, and doesn't really back down from Trevor as much as she used to. He's not used to that and doesn't really like it. Still, he's been really interested in trying to make her laugh lately, and they do have fun playing together (usually when the above is taking place).

-Clyde and Rick have recently written interesting political posts (I was going to link to Clyde's post too, but it seems his site is down for the moment... maybe he's updating right now). I'm still deciding if I want to follow suit. They've definitely given me things to think about. Let me also say that I'm not very excited about the '08 election. If it's Rudy vs. Hilary, who are the real winners?

-I've been reliving my youth and listening to a lot of early Tooth & Nail Records releases. The records they've been putting out recently sound better that the old ones, but there's just something special about the formative years of the label. Back then, Brandon released CDs by bands he liked and didn't seem to care about how marketable they were. I don't know how much has really changed... rumors abound, yet Brandon maintains that not much has changed. His interviews are always really interesting. If nothing else, he's a pretty smart guy and has come a long way from the days when he ran T&N out of his Orange County apartment bedroom. And honestly, Tooth & Nail records filled in a very big hole in the Christian music industry. I daresay it's tough to overstate the impact Tooth & Nail Records had on the Christian music scene. In the early years, Tooth & Nail Records also put out a lot of good compilation CDs (the ones in recent years have been garbage, in my opinion). I've been listening to two of them this week: Helpless Amongst Friends, volumes 1 & 2. In the early-to-mid-nineties, there was what became known as the Spirit-Filled Hardcore scene, made up of bands who played hardcore music and were passionate and bold about what they believed. Because of their integrity and legitimacy, these bands even gained respect in the traditionally closed-minded secular hardcore scene. Lots of those early SFHC bands are represented in the Helpless... series: Unashamed, Focused, Bloodshed, Overcome, Centerpoint, etc. I have random anecdotes to share about lots of these bands, about the SFHC scene in general, and about my personal history with Tooth & Nail Records. I hope to compile all of these thoughts into a post (or a few) soon. Specifically, I've been working on compiling all the various concert memories that I have. Suffice to say this week has been a fun trip down memory lane.