Split second between life and death

I narrowly avoided a car accident where a split second difference would've meant serious injury or even death. By a stroke of luck, I was spared.

On the way back from lunch, I was stopped at a red light. I was the front most car in the left lane, ready to make a left turn. As luck would have it, I was a bit out of it and was distracted from paying attention to the stoplight. After the stoplight turned green, I didn't even notice. The person in the passenger seat mentioned it was green. Before proceeding, I checked the light to make sure it was green. At this point in time, I proceeded to step on the gas. I usually don't check my left to make sure it's safe, but I did since I was a bit out of it. I saw a car barreling down at me from the left at what seemed like 40mph or 50mph. It seemed like he didn't even know he had a redlight. I slammed the brakes as hard as I could and hoped for the best. I felt my breaks lock up and the tires squeal. The other vehicle just narrowly missed me.

If I had proceeded through the intersection when the stoplight turned green, I surely would've been t-boned on the driver side of the car. With the speed the other car was traveling, it would've been a pretty nasty, especially if he would've run into the driver side door.

Ever since then, I've been playing back this incident through my mind and how lucky I was. It was just a stroke of luck that I didn't proceed through the intersection immediately when it had turned green.

The iPad is fantastic

I've had my iPad for several weeks now and i absolutely love it (Fyi, I paid full retail price for it). i would recommend that everyone get one. It may not replace your main computer completely, but it gets close. The iPad is best described as a media/information consumption device. Its great for browsing the internet, reading books, watching video, etc. On the other hand, it's not so great for creation of information, such as long emails, data entry, programming, etc. Fortunately, most people's uses of computers fall into the former category.

Visualizing 1 Million gallons of oil

1 million gallons is equal to the following:
Area of a tennis court filled 48 feet high of oil
Area of a NBA tennis court filled 28.5 feet high of oil
Area of a NFL football field filled 2.3 feet high of oil

A million gallons takes up a lot less space than people think. I would
bet that the estimation of the oil in the gulf is much higher than
their estimates based on the visual images I see.