The good the bad and the ugly

First of all I must not be very creative to call a post that. I mean has any title been more used then that but I wanted to talk about the SEMA show and that is the only way I can describe it.

First of all the good. The Show was great. More people then I expected and the buzz about our product was great. We had so many people stop by it was amazing. We met the national champion BBQ cook and also a 7 year old that drives monster trucks. My wife got his signiture and we took a picture of him with some of our collapsible cones and duroflash. He seemed like a really nice boy.

The bad was two fold. If you remember last year when I was at the SEMA show we had a break in at our home. The burgalars let the dogs out and one was hit by a car and killed. They also stole some valuables we had and upset my wife and kids so much that I drove home each night from Vegas to LA just so my family could sleep. This year it seemed like all was going well. The show ended and we got started to moving our truck around so we could pick up our booth. I made it almost to the front of the line and was sitting in my truck with the engine off and all of the sudden the guy in the truck infront of my decided he needed to back up. He backed right into me and really messed up the front left side of my Sequoia. I had several witnesses come down as it happened right in front of everyone and gave me their cards and asked if I needed a witness. The police came over and asked me if I was okay but because it was on private property they told me to work it out with the owner of the truck and they could not write a report. I went up got the owner and he said not to turn it into the insurance company that he would pay for the damage. I thought all was okay until today when I sent the guy the estimates and then he changed his tune and said I ran into him. My car was in Park and even though it is a Toyota I can tell you it was not moving when I got hit.

That is the ugly part of this whole thing. I trusted a guy and then he got me to a spot and took off. This is just like a hit and run. He would not give me his insurance information or the drivers, drivers license when we spoke. I had mine already pulled out to exchange information. I was trying to do the guy a favor by not turning it in to his insurance and then he pulled out this on me. I feel bad. I feel bad that I am so trusting. I also feel bad people cannot be trusted. The money is the money. I turn it into my insurance company pay my deductible and get it fixed. I give them all the witnesses etc and they investigate the guy. I just wonder when it became a bad thing to trust people?

A sad and touching tradedy happened to a friend of my daugther

I know I usually lighthearted and looking to poke fun at things but I had to write about this.

My daughter and son in law work for a company that sell security systems during the summer. They have people all over the country. One of their newer sales guys was driving out to Denver with a technician who would be working for the company installing the systems. They got almost to their apartment and they car stopped. The boy got out of the car and while he was looking under the car another car came by and clipped the boy and took off the door.

The boy lost his leg and was lucky to have not lost his life. Here is a video of him that tells about what happened and also shows his courage.

http://bit.ly/9G4F7m

I hope this works because it took my a long time to get this to open.

I just think it is very sad to know that there is a 18 year old out there that will now go the rest of his life with out the lower part of his leg because of the carelessness of someone else. This boy was not someone who worked on the road like a trucker, tow truck driver, police etc but it just shows you how things like this can happen to anyone who is out on the road not just the professionals who spend much of their life on the roads. I have lost friends to careless drivers and it was quite upsetting but for some reason this really bothers me. Maybe because it was a hit and run or maybe because I feel that it could have been prevented.

Good luck to Marvin Sandavol as he deals with this. May God Bless him in his recovery.

Traffic in China is different

I have been going to China since the early 80's. I lived in Hong Kong from 1980-82 and made my first trip to the mainland in 1982. I then moved back to China in 1987 and spent about half of the 90's there. I remember the days when there were no stop lights most cities in China and most people rode motorcycles as cars were to expensive. There were also no highways and everything was the rural driving and it took hours and hours to get anywhere. More on this another time.

Things have improved dramatically in China. They now have Super Highways everywhere. I went to China in the late 90's to do some consulting on the Hi Speed Rail Signals and learned that the technology they had was already ahead of what was being used here in the USA. All that being said I still see things that do not make sense.

Can someone explain to me how this traffic light makes sense. It has the outside lines going straight and the inside lanes with the turn indicators. There is also a count down so the guys at the red light can get ready to take off like a drag race. It seems to me that this is an accident waiting to happen. I was thinking that I could stand on the corner and wait for a couple of hours and I would for sure see someone crash but I didn't Here is the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIUAbHNfTOs