yesterday a tree fell on me

Or rather, it fell and hit the front tip of my car while I was leaving work. At least I thought it did.

It was a dead pine tree trunk, no more than 5 or so inches in diameter, perhaps 10 to 15 feet tall. Whatever branches it had, had fallen off long ago. Part of the bark was gone too. It was a windy evening, dark clouds in the sky.

I was driving. In the edge of my vision, I saw the trunk falling, and slammed on the brakes. It hit the front of my car, breaking into a few pieces. My car drove over the fallen pieces. Amazed / awestruck, I turned to look out my rear window, and sure enough, the fallen tree was there in the street. But there were also 2 cars behind me so I didn't stop until the next parking lot. Then I got out to check for possible damage to my car.

Not a dent nor scratch. No noticeably new ones, anyway. Maybe it was so rotten and lightweight that it didn't do any damage. Or maybe it didn't actually hit my car?

I considered walking back to look at the fallen tree, but decided not to. It would have taken time; I was on my way home.

It had all happened so quickly. My memory of it was so faint, that I wondered if I would still remember any of it by the time I got home. I don't even remember any noise as it hit my car or the ground.

Today at lunchtime, I walked along the road where it had happened, hoping to get a better look at the fallen tree trunk. I expected it to have been moved out of the street by now. But there was no sign of it at all, other than a few pieces of debris that may or may not have been from the tree. All I found was a shallow hole of a tree trunk that had rotted away; maybe that was it.

I almost wonder if it could have been a hallucination. But I have no history of hallucinations.

If I hadn't slammed on the brakes, I wonder if it would have hit my windshield or the top of my car.

time time

I'm glad of the time change. I enjoy it still being light outside when I leave work.

Qiao dislikes Daylight Savings Time. He feels that 12 noon is supposed to be mid-day. That "high noon" is supposed to be when the sun is highest in the sky. That does make sense.

But I still prefer it being light outside when I leave work.

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Advice to self: Don't start a 20 minute compile 20 minutes before it's time for you to leave work. And especially don't start other processes too, while impatiently waiting for the compile to finish. Because it will surely end up taking at least 40 minutes to finish, even without the other processing.

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Why does it sometimes take 3 hours to copy 2 GB's worth of files from one location on my hard drive to another?

Is it safe to put a computer to sleep while it is in the middle of a large copy operation like that, or while it is in the middle of a long compile? Will it simply pause and continue when it wakes back up? I wouldn't want to risk having to start all over again. And yet if I leave the laptop on while carrying it home in the carrying case, I risk it overheating and crashing. Unless I awkwardly carry the case by one handle so that the vented side of the laptop can still get air.

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I am looking for a new washing machine. The old one keeps acting up, and trying to fix it would likely cost more than it would be worth.

From what I've read, a high-efficiency front-loader still sounds like the best type for me. Do any of you have experience with particular brands/models that have worked well, or which have had problems? I don't know which online reviews can be trusted.