Assuming No wind Resistance or other External Factors...

I've had a great week... I got to hang out with tons of old friends, got guitared, work was mildly satisfying, and despite my best efforts, I'm still alive.

Saturday night, I was heading back into Elgin to Brian's house for game night. In Belvidere, the streets were clear so I figured my chances of getting chased around with a kitana (AGAIN) were pretty low, and worth the risk.
But the drive was a total theater of the absurd experience... I do this drive every weekday, yet on Saturday, all the unwritten codes that commuters follow are thrown out the window. Saturday, you have to stay awake while you're driving because the other road zombies are wisely staying at home while the young, old, and insane are out in force. I guess I fall into the last category...

So I'm not even out of Belvidere and I end up behind a foreigner (Iowa plates) who, though I've never met and don't know their destination, I can tell you that I had a better clue of how to get them where they needed to go than they did. How? Because people from Iowa that end up in Belvidere aren't trying to get to DeKalb. They're looking for the interstate, and that, they were doing poorly. Driving 35 in a 45, creeping up to lights (making me miss the arrow) and picking the wrong lane forcing them to do that creeping merge thing. It's like the car is apologizing... Anyway, I watched the last part in my mirror because I passed them while they were still in the 'This way to DeKalb' lane. So now I'm on the onramp, which has an East/West split about a quarter mile in, and there's some guy sitting in his car at the split with a map in his lap. Which I might add, is past all the signs so it was really going to be a coin toss anyway, no matter how long stared at his map. So instead of trying to fire up to Interstate merging speed, we're all gawking at this guy who should have put an extra 5 seconds of forethought into his trip.

At the tollbooth, was Mr. "I'll stop in the IPass lane until I get the green light" and then at the Marengo exit I ended up between not one, but TWO cars that were driving like they were comparison shopping for the best gas price or something. I don't know, but they did a total Shriner's minicycle maneuver, crisscrossing each other then choosing different directions. Kinda like the Blue Angels except, in super slow motion...

So I'm finally off the interstate and in the clear heading east on 20. The road is a little wet and cold, but nothing I haven't seen before, and so I'm now going the socially acceptable speed of 10 over, but it doesn't matter because there's nobody anywhere near me anyway... Unless you count the two deer that had just cleared the road 20 feet in front of my car.

So yeah, I figure if I had not been 'encumbered' by multiple slow drivers, that probably would have put me significantly closer to those deer. I'm thinking like windshield close, and at that point there was an oncoming car, so swerving probably would have made a bigger mess.

You can interpret this account as you like, but if deer are good for nothing else, they reminded me of my own mortality when I was generally feeling in charge of my own destiny.