r - e - s - p - e - c - t

Regardless of who our next president is, I hope we can all show him or her more respect than either Bush or Clinton ever received, both of whom I consider to be well meaning men who tried their best to accomplish an impossible job in the face of gale force winds of contempt and ridicule.

Without some modicum of respect, brilliant capable people will continue to opt out, leaving us with increasingly meager choices for the highest office on Earth.

I usually find myself to be quite alone, perhaps even anachronistic, in this viewpoint.

This is a glass of iced tea. Isn't it great? It's beautiful. If you click on it, it will become a very large glass of tea.

It's way prettier than what you are about to see. Steel yourself for the ugliness!

This is Cielle, Logan and Phoebe, walking in Zilker park.

Cielle sometimes walks backwards. We don't know why.

This is Logan. He's wearing a shirt I bought for myself probably 15 years ago. It doesn't fit me anymore. He is truly a gorgeous hunk of manliness isn't he?

But there is a problem. He is slightly (ever so slightly) imperfect.

His confidence in physical activities could benefit from participating in more physical activities, and this extends to driving, where he is relatively inexperienced.

Next, the ugliness.

This is a truck driven by a man that Logan smashed his car into. It is a big truck. It is a diesel truck. It is a loud truck. It is a heavy truck. It is a big loud diesel heavy truck.

The fender has been dented in and is rubbing on the tire.

Logan smashed it. The guy who owns the truck seemed drunk to me. But he wasn't drunk, he just apparently is always like that. He talks in an odd manner and seems unsteady on his feet. But the police assured me he was sober just maybe 'slow' (policeman's words, not mine).

He drove his truck home real slow. His plan was to never turn right on the way home.

It sounded like a real dumb plan to me.

This is the other car Logan ran into. All the witnesses said he ran a red light. This car is an SUV of some sort. The lady driving it is an insurance agent. She seemed fine at the scene, and said she needed to leave in the morning at 7am on a plane to LA. Her boyfriend showed up. He's an insurance agent too. They both assured me she was fine. That evening after the accident sometime after 10pm they went to the ER and later claimed she was injured and had various spinal injuries. I think her and her boyfriend understand very well how insurance companies work. My understanding from the insurance people was that they still went to LA on their vacation.

Logan was very upset by all of this.

I probably should have cancelled my business dinner and rescued him when he got lost. Austin traffic on Friday night is no place to learn to navigate and drive alone. Austin traffic is very very bad. I learned to drive on empty country roads. I drive fast. Logan drives slow.

This is Logan's car. My Dad gave it to him. We drove it down from Virginia with a dead battery by filling up with the car running and never stopping the engine for 2000 miles. It was fun.

Now it is smashed.

To see it big and smashed, click on the picture.

The blue tarp on the ground next to the wheel was covering the car because we'd neglected to put the top up before they towed it. I was a little flustered. Logan was a lot flustered. This tarp was meant to protect the car from potential rain. They wanted to charge me an extra 30$ for that. They could have put the top up for me but instead they decided to charge me 30$. I hate tow truck people. Tow truck people suck.

Suck suck suck. Towing people suck.

The airbags did not go off. The body shop people say that that's a good thing. After all, Logan was uninjured and the seatbelt was sufficient. So the airbag was unnecessary. They said that airbags are flaky and often do not fire. It depends on where the sensors are, how the collision happened and many other factors.

The airbags may still be fine and perhaps Logan will get another opportunity to try them out. I will see if there is a way to test the sensors or something.

The A/C in the car is broken. Logan likes it hot. I probably won't fix the A/C. He might crash it again.

I took all these pictures with my cellphone and modified them in Picasa. This one I took while standing next to the passenger door and pointing down at the hood from just above the roof.

Poor poor sad car. It can probably be fixed. For about $3000 or so. I did not have collision on it under the theory that I would fix it myself when he crashed and the insurance people would never know and so they would not raise my rates. Whoops. Now they know anyway and I have to pay too. I feel dumb.

Dumb dumb Dad. Dad is very dumb.

Damn. Dumb. Those words are very similar.

This is the whiteboard brainstorming things about the next article I'm writing that we'll get published everywhere.

Yes, that's how I think and yes it makes perfect sense to me.