A bad surprise on this past Wednesday was when I was driving down Amherst. I looked to the left and then forward and then slammed into the truck in front of me.

The nice surprise was that the neighbors in the area were so friendly and trying so hard to help I practically had to beat them off with a stick. Actually, replace "beat them off with a stick" with "assure them repeatedly that we were going to be alright".

I gratefully accepted all the bottles of water, but declined car rides and invitations into their homes. I knew the husband was coming very shortly to pick up the kids and the tow truck was coming very shortly to tow the car and I wanted to be waiting outside and be ready for as soon as they came.

I think I'm going to take a few seconds to write thank you notes this weekend and drop them off in their mailboxes.

I thought this way funny, so I'm going to share this intro to an article on small child morality from the NY Times magazine

[box]Not long ago, a team of researchers watched a 1-year-old boy take justice into his own hands. The boy had just seen a puppet show in which one puppet played with a ball while interacting with two other puppets. The center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the right, who would pass it back. And the center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the left . . . who would run away with it. Then the two puppets on the ends were brought down from the stage and set before the toddler. Each was placed next to a pile of treats. At this point, the toddler was asked to take a treat away from one puppet. Like most children in this situation, the boy took it from the pile of the “naughty” one. But this punishment wasn’t enough ��" he then leaned over and smacked the puppet in the head. [/box]

Buffalo news gives their endorsements for the school board candidate (almost exactly who art voice advises against):