4 posts tagged “extended license”

I went to lunch, had pizza a great place called Papa Del's; and sold two extended licenses. One for my "Frankenstein with Sign" illustration and one for my "Halloween Gang" illustration.

Today is like any other day. Except on the way to work about 10 college students at the University of Illinois tried to commit suicide. No it will not make national headlines because it was not a religious cult ritual, or a case of students not being able to handle the stress of their classes tried to find an easy way out. It was yet again another attempt by students to get ran over by my car. I used to think that students would walk out into traffic in front of my car because I had a smaller vehicle; maybe they just didn't see my car. Now that I have a larger vehicle, I assumed I would be easier to see coming down the road. I assumed incorrectly.

It started just before I reached campus the light changed green, I looked to make sure the last of the people running the red light on the cross street had stopped zipping across, I had just started rolling forward and a woman talking on her cell phone stepped off the sidewalk right in front of my car. She walked about 5 feet further, looked up at the light to see it was red, gave me a dirty look and then walked back to the side walk. The light had just turned yellow before I was able to cross.

Now I am on campus. Driving on campus is always a strange situation. We have large groups of students that have never learned how to cross the street, because the only place they have every walked around cars in the past is from their parking space to the entrance of the shopping center.  It also doesn't help that the campus went around and told the students they have the right of way if they are in the crosswalk. No, not that cars need to yield to them if they are in the crosswalk already, but literally that they can stop traffic by running out into the street as long as they are in a crosswalk. You always have to assume if there is a chance of a student walking out in front of you at a crosswalk, they probably will, no matter if you are moving at 30 miles per hour and may not be able to stop your car in time, many students just walk right out in the road.

So I am no where near a crosswalk, I should be safe, except that 5 students decided they wanted to catch the bus on the other side of a busy 4 lane road, so they all sprinted out into traffic stopping all of the cars from both directions. The last student who looked amazed at what his friends did mouthed the words "I'm sorry" in my direction, but still blindly followed his friends across the road.

A few years ago the campus decided to add a mid-block crosswalk on a particularly long block. It lights up when a pedestrian walks between a couple of motion sensors, and most students have learned that once the crosswalk starts flashing you should still wait to make sure traffic is stopping before you step off the curb. Today a group of not so bright students zipped across the crosswalk right in front of me from one direction, and a bus coming from the other. Because apparently there is some unknown law of physics that allows cars and buses to stop faster when the people in the crosswalks are on bikes. The bus came close to causing an end game to the last two bike riders, who's eyes came very close to popping out of their heads. I am guessing they still didn't learn their lesson from that incident.

I figured I was close to my parking place I was probably safe from being involved in any more assisted suicides. I was wrong. I was just about to turn into my parking lot, when a guy listening to his iPod jumped out of his car he had just parked on a street side parking spot without looking. He seriously had a deer in the headlights look, as if he had no idea there was going to be a car on a highly used campus street. I actually had to motion for him to get out of the way as he stood in front of my car looking confused. He kind of smirked and half waved as he walked across the street an continued on his way.

People! Suicide is a serious act. Please stop trying to use other people to help you in your attempts. It is just not fair to us. *end of rant*

Also I have a few more new uploads on iStock since my last posting.

 

And another extended license on the image below just yesterday.