Tuesday, March 20, 2007

DRIVERS BEWARE!! SF is one big bumper car ride

What is it with drivers in this city? People get behind the wheels of their vehicles and instantly transform into demonically possessed crazies. I have driven in Boston (which is bad), New York (which is worse), L.A. and Chicago, but San Francisco is by far the worst place to drive a car in the United States. People tailgate, cut each other off, scream, shout and make obscene gestures, run stoplights and stop signs, speed in school zones and have absolutely no patience with pedestrians. It’s a constant peeve of mine, because it’s a societal problem that goes way beyond on how we drive. It has to do with how we treat our fellow man; how we relate to others in our community, and much more. It has to do with respect, compassion, courtesy and things like that. It has to do with treating other human beings with a modicum of kindness once in a while. This recent incident that happened here in town illustrates precisely what I’m talking about. This kind of thing happens every day here:
A man allegedly ran down and killed a pedestrian in the Mission District yesterday after the two got into an argument, police said. The suspect attempted to get away after the incident but was caught by police, said Sgt. Neville Gittens. The incident occurred around 2 a.m. when the suspect, whose name has not been released, was driving southbound on Valencia Street and attempted to make a left turn eastbound onto 16th Street, Gittens said.
Gittens said that the victim and his friend were crossing the street when words were exchanged, and the suspect stopped his car and got out. More words were exchanged and the suspect got back into his vehicle.
The suspect began driving toward the two pedestrians, Gittens said, at which point the victim began punching the car. The pedestrians took off walking northbound on Valencia Street, Gittens said, but the suspect drove his car up onto the sidewalk and hit the victim with the vehicle, throwing his body into the air.
The suspect drove away but tried to park nearby, Gittens said. Police set up a perimeter of the area and were able to detain the man, he said.
The incident is being investigated by the department's homicide division, Gittens said. The suspect's name will be released when he is formally booked on criminal charges, he said.

Isagenix Day Two: Humpty Dumpty is Hopeful


Well, I did it. I made it through the first day of the Isagenix 30-Day program. I’m like a rookie baseball player who has survived the first day of Spring Training without getting cut. The amazing thing is that I feel fine and when I weighed myself this morning I lost 4 pounds. Four pounds in 24 hours! And I know it’s not all water weight because I drank at least 8 glasses of purified water yesterday. Another thing that I noticed is that I slept better last night. I usually wake up 3-5 times and last night I only woke up once. I have a lot of weight to lose – I guess you’d call me obese (294 lbs. as of this morning), but Isagenix looks like it might be the way to go. Yesterday I had three of the chocolate shakes and they tasted remarkably good. All I ate was a handful of organic unsalted almonds. I’m going to do the same thing today and then tomorrow I start my first two cleansing days. After 48 years of living wrong, I imagine the toxins stored up in this body will start oozing out like volcanic lava! I’ll let you know how it goes. One of the great aspects of Isagenix is that they give you diet consultants to help you through the process and encourage you. The guy who is helping me is John Ettema. He’s really into it and you can tell he cares. He’s not doing it just for the $$! I don’t want to get too over confident about this program, because I’ve tried stuff like this before, gotten all excited after the first two days and then failed miserably. Let’s just say I’m hopeful. When I look at the Humpty Dumpty I am today (see photo above) I figure what do I have to lose?