The #@*%^&$# Tree And A $#*&@^%$ Ticket

We had a heck of a thunderstorm go through here this afternoon (it was red on the doppler radar map) with some real heavy winds. Not to my surprise, when I went to check "the tree", more had fallen and only three branches remained.



I'll have to cut these down pronto and use a rope to guide them as they all are likely to hurt something when they fall. I’m getting really close to believing the tree is not going to make it. I was hoping after all of the falling, there would be one branch left sticking straight up in the air - just for a cool picture. At least it's supposed to only be in the 60's the next couple of mornings.

We had some errands to run and since I knew the storm was coming, we decided to leave after it passed through, which we did. About half way down our little lane we discovered three pine trees had fallen across the road, so home we came. The silver lining is we got blocked in and not out with a carload of groceries. In my younger days, I’d have grabbed my chain saw and headed back to cut us a path. But this isn’t my younger days, and I have plenty of chain saw fun laying in my yard, so I called the county road folks to deal with this - which they did in surprisingly prompt fashion.

A while back Knoxville took the somewhat unpopular act of installing cameras at traffic lights to discourage running them on red. Back in June, Bev and I were heading down Kingston Pike and I had glanced away and when I looked back I was about to run a red light. I could have stopped but would have had to brake hard, so I proceeded on my merry way. Bev quickly reminded me of the cameras, but it was too late. I advised her that if they caught me, I’ll just mail them a check, which apparently many folks are not doing. Well, I received my little reward in the mail this week and a check will be forthcoming as will a change in driving behavior – I’ll get even more conservative. There's real nice shots of the car, the red light and the license plate, but not the driver - I'm pretty sure I can't convince Bev it was her. I considered not telling her, but she needs a good “I told you so” every now and then and something to tell our friends about – when I’m in attendance of course.

Ain’t life grand – have a good one and thanks for stopping by.

Larry