Ever see someone driving down the road for miles with their brake lights on?

Last night I was out and about and saw no less than three different cars doing it. One even passed me, brake lights glaring back at me the whole way.

That can’t be good for the car. Or their fuel economy.

Do you suppose people who do this know they have their foot on the brake? Do they realize they are making things harder on their car and wasting energy?

It made me wonder how many times I go racing through life, fighting against unnecessary friction because I have my foot on the brake pedal.

I know one of the ways I slow myself down is with the constant stream of counterproductive thoughts. I have a tendency to look for all the reasons why something won’t work instead of focusing on how it could work. Or what good might come from it if it did work.

That thinking isn’t helping me.

The Bible says I should chuck those thought patterns. Check this out

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Everyone of us needs a mental enema from time to time to get rid of that stinking thinking that holds back from our full potential.

How are your thoughts holding you back?

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I got home from work fairly late last night. I finished up with the ship and walked down the gangway sometime around 1:30 AM this morning. Not a big deal, really. All part of the job and everything went smoothly for once.

I was driving home with the tunes blaring to help keep me alert. You need to be when you are driving around town at those hours to keep a safe distance from all the cars that weave back and forth or drift out of their lanes.

It is amazing to me the difference in drivers sometimes. I use the cruise control whenever I can when I’m on the highways and the by-pass and I pretty much set it to the same speed all the time. Sometimes I’ll be one of the slowest cars out there with everyone whizzing by. Other times everyone is going 15 MPH slower than I am on the same road. My speed didn’t change. Savannah is weird that way. And last night it seemed I was in a rocket ship because everyone was going slooooowwww.

I’ll tell Gorgeous sometimes if we’re heading home a little late from something, “Watch out for that one. He’s drunk.” She doesn’t understand how I can say that with such certainty. But there was a time in my life…

Anyway, I tuned into my neighborhood sometime around the 2 AM hour and it looked like there must have been a bad accident, flashing lights everywhere. Lots of blue lights mixed in with the amber from a tow truck.

My first thought was “Oowie! That doesn’t look good.” Then I did a quick mental check to see I knew of an easy way around by an alternate route because it had been a long day, I really just wanted to get to bed. And in my experience Savannah’s Finest isn’t particularly concerned with traffic flow around accident scenes. They’ll block major roads way longer than they need to in the interest of safety.

But hey, they’re allowed. They’ve got guns.

Well I saw they let a car go around what must have been the wreck so I decided to just suck it up and wait it out. It turns out that was a good call because I’d run smack into a DUI checkpoint, not an accident. And on a Thursday night even. Go figure.

I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I figured it out when I saw a line of police officers beside the road, each one talking to a driver. So after presenting my license and proof of insurance (and saying a quiet thank you for our secretary who’d just given us our new insurance cards) I was on my way home.

As the officer was handing my documents back he yelled to his team, “We’ve got another one trying to cut through!” I wondered to myself it that was someone trying to avoid talking to the police, or someone just trying to get past a traffic tie-up.

The whole thing got me thinking how nice it is not to be concerned about an encounter with the police. They say people who often drive drunk get to be experts at spotting cop cars. It is probably because of the rush of adrenalin that hits their system when they see one, knowing what could happen.

Paul explained this principle

For the authorities do not frighten people who are doing right, but they frighten those who do wrong. So do what they say, and you will get along well.

And it is true. When our conscience is clear and we know we’ve done nothing wrong we worry a whole lot less. I was completely unafraid of talking with a representative of the Savannah-Chatham Police Force, even when it was approaching the two o’clock hour. That lack of fear hasn’t always been the case…

Given a choice, I prefer no fear. Besides my bed at home sleeps better than any accommodations Chatham County would provide at that hour!

Enjoy! And stay safe this weekend.

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It’s time for another sleep deprivation experiement.

The time is now slightly after 2300 hours, or slightly before departure for work in Jacksonville, FL (approximatley 2.0 Hours driving time).

I’ll check in somtime in the morning. Gotta love being first on call when wierd stuff happens.

If you are going to be on I-95 in the next several hours, don’t forget to wave. I’ll be the one with the coffee IV drip…

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I’m on the road quite a bit with my job (hence the company car). There is a good chance one of you might see me on the road if you are out and about along the I-95 corridor here in the Southeast. For example I’m heading down to Jacksonville for a job today. Because there are such good odds that you might see me out there in your journeys at some point I wanted to give you a caution:

Do Not Be Alarmed.

If you happen upon me, say, waiting at an intersection for the light to change color, and you look over to see that I appear to be convulsing uncontrollably, shaking my head, flailing my arms around the car and screaming, maybe even to the point of tiny bit of spittle spraying about – Do Not Be Alarmed. I am neither demon possessed nor suffering from a medical condition. What is going on in my car is a little ritual I refer to as “singing.” Everything is really OK in the lane next to you. Just consider yourself blessed that my windows are rolled up.

If you see me approaching and you happen to notice that I am talking on my cell phone while eating a biscuit, drinking a cup of hot coffee, changing the CD in the dash as I merge into rush hour traffic from the 25 MPH entry ramp without taking my cruise control off of 65 – Do Not Be Alarmed. I know you are there and I promise that I will miss your car by at least 12” as I slide past you to merge directly into the left lane. You see I have undergone extensive training years ago by the US Navy during flight school to hone my skills at multitasking. Basically you could say I’m a trained professional. (Of course this skill doesn’t seem to apply to listening. I can only hear one thing at a time. Sorry Gorgeous. You are either going to have to turn that good song down or wait until it is over if you want me to hear what you are saying.)

If you happen to look in your rearview mirror and notice that you can’t see the hood of my car below your back window because I appear to be attempting to land my car inside your trunk – Do Not Be Alarmed. My eyes are fixated alternately on your brake lights an the traffic up ahead that I can see through your windshield while my brain is computing an improbably complex series of equations that involve such diverse and comprehensive variables as your vehicle’s velocity and acceleration, my foot position in relation to my accelerator/brake pedals, the current road surface moisture content, the proximity to the nearest rest stop, and the quantity of coffee remaining in my travel mug. Keep in mind that you could ease your own frustration significantly by simply sliding over into the right hand lane to let me pass. I assure you I’d get completely by you before you were even firmly established in the right lane. Besides, I’ve only ever rear-ended one person on I-95 and I wasn’t tailgating him.

That about sums it up for this morning. I’ve got to hit the road!

Tuesday I spent over 6 hours on the road. I was sent up to Florence, SC for a job that lasted about an hour and a half, drove three hours each way. Six hours is a fair amount of time to spend in the car by yourself at one clip. I do a bit of driving in the course of my job. That’s why they’ve seen fit to supply me with a company car. But most of my work is within about 2 hours, so a six hour driving day is a bit more than I am accustomed to.

I find there isn’t much to do when I am driving by myself like that other than listen to some tunes and think. I mean what else are you going to do when you are told at noon that you have to leave for Florence? It’s straight up I-95 from Savannah, just point the car north and set the cruise control. Since there was nothing to do but think, I found I actually learned some things out there on the highway.

• It is good now and then to go someplace different. I’m on I-95 fairly regularly. Our office generally covers the area from Savannah south through Brunswick and down to Jacksonville, FL. I’m back and forth down that stretch of road a couple times a week. I know where all the construction zones are and where they end. I know all the little spots where the cops tend to hang out to nab folks who just want to make it to Florida (or make it home) a little too quickly. And I know which exits the gas stations have cheap gas, clean restrooms and good coffee. But I-95 north is a bit more foreign to me, especially once you get past the Charleston exit. I mean, it’s like South Carolina. Two lane highway all the way, and the view is mostly either swamp or tobacco fields. You see the Palmetto Moon everywhere. But they do have clean rest stops, and lots of them.
• Sometimes it seems everyone is going your way, sometimes it seems no one is. Tuesday was one of those days when most of the traffic was heading northbound. And that meant for some slow going because once you get to the SC state line it closes down to two lanes. It can get a little frustrating for those of us who prefer to set the cruise control and never touch the brake. The good news was that coming home was a breeze because on Tuesday everyone was leaving Florida so it was cruise control all the way, baby.
• That big truck whose bumper is obnoxiously filling your rear window might just back off after you have to jam on your brakes because the traffic in front of you slows unexpectedly. Now I’m not an advocate of intentionally jamming the brakes for no reason other than to get a tailgater to back off. I did that a lot in a past life. (But that was evil Chris. We killed him.) However, I did feel vindicated when the traffic made me do it. And yes, I may have hit the pedal a little harder than I actually needed to. I have to admit that I was actually surprised when the truck backed off to a sane following distance.
• The cops in South Carolina have some really cool unmarked cars. I didn’t see any law enforcement on the road until I got right near Florence. There was your traditional cruiser sitting under a bridge. But I saw three working the north bound side when I was heading home. One was in an older, very plain looking black Suburban. Another was in your traditional dark blue Crown Victoria. But the third was in a bright blue Mustang Cobra, which was cool even if it was the older body style. He had a poor schlep in a Mitsubishi Eclipse pulled over. Oops.
• Finally, even if you are unexpectedly called to head out of town for a job at noon and you don’t get home until 8 PM or so, it is no excuse for not getting your Gorgeous Wife something special on your anniversary. ’Nuff Said.