School, Tornadoes, and Booze

It's been a very eventful week. Riley had his first obedience school training session on Monday. It was mostly a crash course for new dog owners. Riley did great and liked playing with the trainer. He knows how to sit and lie down, and we're working on stay and come. He won't have another session until he's six months old.

Tuesday was quite an adventure. A storm warning went into effect around 5pm, right as I was getting ready to bike home. The tornado warning sirens were going off, and being unsure of what to do, I went back inside to find someone who might know what to do. Instead, I found Dave (the guy we moved out here with), and neither of us knew what to do (we're both from the West! What do we know about tornadoes?!). So, we went around asking various people for a ride home, since Kevin was locked in the basement at his work, and we really wanted to go home (it was after 5pm!). We were told there was a tornado to the north of us, and we needed to stay put. After a while, the wind died down, and Dave and I were brave enough to venture outside. It didn't look too bad to us. There were a lot of fallen branches, some of them quite large, but it looked safe to us. We both got our bikes and tried to decide if we could make it home safely. We were warned by the janitors that a major downpour was headed our way fast. When Father Streit came out of the building, hopped on his bike, and took off, Dave and I decided we should make our move. We sped home, trying to beat the rain. At first, our bike ride wasn't too bad. There were fallen branches we had to dodge occasionally, but the storm didn't seem to have hit the area very hard. At least, until we came across a massive tree that had fallen across the road. We tried to cut across a parking lot, since the road was completely blocked but had to dodge an additional tree that had fallen in the parking lot. Along our route, there were two massive fallen marquees in parking lots and many rescue crews out trying to clean things up. I made it home just fine, seven minutes before the rain hit. Our house was still standing, although a large branch fell from our neighbor's tree. It's a miracle it didn't pull down the power line on its way down. Once home, I learned how bad the storm really had been. The winds blew at 60-70 mph and blew a spire off the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It was also enough to blow down 30 trees around campus. Nobody was hurt, but there was a lot of damage around town.

Later that night, we had another adventure. I was home with Riley when I heard a crash outside. I ran to the window in time to see our next door neighbor driving over the curb and sidewalk into her driveway, dragging a street sign underneath her car. I thought the storm must have blown the sign into her driveway, and she accidentally drove over it. But a few minutes later, another neighbor from across the street came running over to the car yelling, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" I went outside to see what was going on. I caught the neighbor from across the street as she left my next door neighbor's house. Apparently, my next door neighbor was dead drunk and had been driving. She pulled into the wrong driveway and backed up onto the sidewalk and curb and into a "pedestrian" warning sign. She dragged the sign with her as she pulled forward into her own driveway. She managed to pull the entire sign out of the ground (it was buried 4 feet deep), bent it to a 90 degree angle, and dragged the sign 30 feet. She stumbled out of her car and onto her porch where she collapsed. That's when our neighbor across the street ran over. She and her husband had seen the whole incident. Our drunk neighbor's pants also managed to fall off as she stumbled on the porch, and she ran inside to grab a towel. She slurred something to our other neighbor before shutting the door and collapsing in the entryway. We weren't really sure what to do. She was obviously drunk (you could smell her from across the yard), and we were worried she might need medical help (she lives alone). It turned out she was fine but must have had a major hangover the next day. Needless to say, we aren't happy with her behavior. There are lots of children in this neighborhood; she was lucky the storm kept people inside that night. There will likely be a talk with her sometime in the future.

That's it for now. Things are starting to wind down. I finished my GLOBES module this week and am now done with courses for the summer. I'll be focusing on lab work from now on. Kevin bought a new Canon Rebel and has enjoyed taking pictures of everything. Stay safe! There are lots of crazy people out there!