The World Of Jadeey

Today as I was driving into town to meet some friends from school I saw a girl riding a bike. She was about 10 years old and wasn't wearing a helmet. I was disgusted enough by that. So imagine my total disgust when a second later I spotted the girl's mum 50 feet behind her CARRYING THE HELMET. What does the mum think she's going to do? Put it on her daughter after her daughter's brains have already been splattered across the road?

It just shocks me that the mother is clearly condoning the girl not wearing a helmet. Who the hell knows why she bothered even bringing it with her. She certainly wasn't running to catch her daughter and remind her that she'd forgotten her helmet, so I think I have the right to assume she doesn't have a problem with her daughter not wearing it. I can understand that a 10 year old might not fully grasp why it is so important to wear a helmet when riding a bike. But her mum should grasp it and ensure that her daughter complies with such an obvious safety step. Hell, it's the law, if nothing else her mother should be making her wear it for that reason.

I remember back at primary school they made a huge deal about helmets. I think the law that you had to wear them was just coming into effect. We saw videos of the results of not wearing one and having a crash, we had guest speakers talking about loved ones they'd lost to cycle accidents - where a helmet would most probably have saved a life, we had some weird puppet show about it and we had the police come to talk to us. I guess they don't make such a big deal about it these days, but maybe they should.

Labels: cycling, rant, stupid people, the past

I'm working on a cycling book for class. Editing and typesetting it has meant I have read it probably about 30 times. I now know an awful lot about cycling. It's making the Olympics even more exciting - the cycling is really holding my attention. It's cool that we're actually doing so well.

Today, for the book, my group was working on designing an index. This involves reading the entire text (again!) and pulling out words that you think people would be interested in looking up. There is no way to do it automatically - it has to be done manually. It's pretty boring. But it's also the last step of our book and that's bloody exciting.

Okay. The mens cycling madison is about to start so I'm going to pay attention to the tv now.

Labels: cycling, Olympics, school

Even when I know you're wrong.

It's true too. They do. No matter what I do. They are on my side. Cos that's what friends are for. I love that I can tell my friends anything and they'll just support me. Even if we all know I am totally in the wrong. They'll tell me I'm wrong but they will be on my side anyway. That's neat. I hope I do the same for them.

My cat is being very cute but very annoying right now. He is lying across my hands as I try and type. He loves me lots. :)

So, I was on the bus today for an hour on my way into town for work. I used to read on the bus but now I find it so much more fun to just watch people and make up stories for them. I got some good ones today!

Story 1
I was standing waiting at the bus stop. I could see the bus coming, in front of it there was a van and a blue car. The blue car (with a woman driving) was in the front and it suddenly pulled over to the kerb right before the bus stop. (and I mean suddenly, no indicating or anything.) The van (with a man driving) swerved in front of the blue car and pulled to a stop right in front. As soon as the van swerved in the blue car pulled back into the traffic (again without indicating and DIRECTLY in front of the bus). The van followed suit and the bus had to slam on its breaks due to all of this stupidity.

What I think happened
Van Man is actually a drug runner. This morning he had a very early morning meeting with Blue Car Woman, a desperate woman who needed something to keep her going. She has so much going on in her life with her high-powered job and taking care of the kids. Not only that but her husband is a tosser who believes the cooking and cleaning is womens work, so Blue Car Woman has to keep the house clean and have dinner on the table by 7pm every night.

Blue Car Woman told herself she just needed a fix to get her through the day. She had a huge meeting that she had been up all night preparing for. Then this evening it's little Timmy and Tommy's school play so she won't even be able to get an early night. So Blue Car Woman called Van Man, she got his number from a friend on the internet.

When Blue Car Woman got there she suddenly realised she had left the cash she got ready to pay with at home. She knew she needed the stuff, she couldn't get through this damn day without it, so she panicked. She took the drugs and ran, jumped in her car and started to drive.

Van Man was faster than she had expected and leapt into his van to pursue her. After driving around for a while she realised she wasn't getting any further in front of him and she needed to do something else. She decided to pull to the kerb, hoping he would have to keep going and that traffic would stop Van Man from being able to turn around and come back after her. Again Van Man thwarted her plan and was too fast, pulling in right in front of her.

Blue Car Woman pulled in front of the bus, once again hoping someone out there would give her a helping hand and create enough traffic that Van Man wouldn't be able to pull in after her. But no-one was on her side, because who would be on the side of a drug-taking mother? So, instead of traffic stopping Van Man, he was quick off the blocks and kept up the pursuit. This was clearly not going to end until one of them ran out of petrol. So who does fate prefer? A drug-taking mother or a drug runner? Well, we may never know.

Story 2
There was a woman, she must have been in her mid to late fortys. She was riding a scooter down the road, not down the footpath but down the road. On a road where the cars were easily doing 50kph. And I don't mean on a motorised scooter either. It was one of those scooters where you have to push yourself along with your leg. One of those scooters that you generally only see kids on.

What I think happened
Scooter Woman has been single a long time. Every time she meets a guy and thinks he is 'the one' he turns out to be a loser who hurts her in some way. She's dated two druggies, an in-the-closet gay guy who then came out of the closet right before their wedding day, a guy who hit her, three cheaters and a narcissistic man-child who actually really does suffer from the Oedipus Complex.

Finally, on her forty-third birthday she met the perfect man. Her friends had talked her into trying speed-dating and there he was, the perfect guy. Perfect Guy actually really was perfect and they dated for two years before he finally proposed.

Scooter Woman, like every woman, panicked as her wedding drew closer and decided she desperately needed to lose weight. She tried the gym but found that she hated it and didn't often go. She still wanted to lose the weight so needed to find some other exercise to get the weight off. Swimming was out, she didn't want to get into togs, and running was out because she would run for 30 seconds and then just walk.

One Saturday, just as Scooter Woman was beginning to give up on ever losing weight, she was at Perfect Guy's sister's house for brunch and was watching her future nephew-in-law playing with his scooter. That was it, she thought, here was the answer.

So Scooter Woman went out and bought herself a scooter. She then took it to the road and got scooting. This was it - she did it every day and loved it.

Unfortunately, this story does not have a truly happy ending. Oh yes, she kept it up right up until the wedding and lost all the weight she wanted to. The unfortunate part? Rather than changing which leg pushes her along, Scooter Woman kept using her left leg. So, at her wedding she was beautiful and skinny but with abnormally developed muscles in her left leg and totally under-developed muscles in her right leg.


There was a third story but I've forgotten what happened cos too much time has passed. I'm very sorry about that.

On my bike ride today I almost crashed into a poor woman. She was under the bridge, facing away from me and standing with her arms in the air. I couldn't figure out what she was doing but she wasn't in my way so I wasn't overly bothered. I was speeding down the hill and suddenly she started to dance. She still wasn't facing me and spun herself right into my way. Thankfully I managed to brake and swerve out of the way and didn't crash into her. But man, it gave me a fright and a half!

I went to the supermarket to get the vegetables for dinner (wearing my shorts and movie t-shirt cos I biked there). In the supermarket I saw my ex. Gutted that I wasn't exactly looking good when I saw him, what with the shorts (revealing hideously white legs) and baggy, geeky t-shirt. Not to mention the helmet hair!

Now, we all know I've had a million and one terrible relationhips. I seem to invite people who treat me badly (Oh - kinda like Scooter Woman, well not as bad as her guys though). This guy was one of the bad ones. He cheated on me. I forgave him. He cheated on me again 3 weeks later with someone else.

I would have preferred to have been looking sensational (well as sensational as I can) so that he was upset about what he lost. Haha instead he probably thought he had a lucky break!

That's it for today. I have plenty more to write but I've just realised how long this is getting. I bet no-one bothers to read this far!

Labels: cycling, random, writing