Bad Traffic

Wow… now HERE’S some bad traffic…was watching a Dateline about pedophiles/sexual predators (“To Catch a Predator”)… man, they set up a sting in five states, and they caught over 100 men who showed up under the auspices of meeting children for utterly heinous stuff… They arrested these guys over and over, many of whom had alcohol, condoms, and sometimes ropes and duct tape.

Commercial break rolls around and yep, there’s a Viagra ad.

I smell a makegood coming. No, I smell about 1000 makegoods and a very angry client.

***

Wow… watching some ISKA kickboxing on ESPN2. This little Irish gal just wailed on a tall French woman. I’d guess the Irish woman landed 20 blows (mostly punches) MINIMUM to every one landed by her opponent.

The French woman got soundly whupped, yet won by a decision.

I don’t get it.

***

Ah, and the commentators, who are in Belfast, just referred to the fights as being “in the U.K.”

That’s not the kind of comment likely to make you many friends among the locals, dude.

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There are a couple of “bad guy” houses in our neighborhood. That is, I’ve made it clear to THEBOY whenever we go past that bad things happen there. He knows the locations, comments on what he sees sometimes.

One of them’s what you’d probably be accurate in calling a crackhouse. The constant flow of diverse traffic in and out of the place, a remarkably run-down, busted up house near an apartment complex, is a dead giveaway. Many times we’ve driven past and just bristled. Many times we saw young children waiting in or around vehicles in the driveway.

Everyone knew what went on there, and we often found ourselves tempted to confront the people there about it.

That’s asking for trouble I suppose.

Couple months ago something happened. I don’t know what.

Several panels were knocked out of the front door, and most of the front windowpanes were broken. They had rock-sized holes in them, if they weren’t pretty much gone altogether. A place that was already beat-to-hell suddenly got much worse.

And then it went quiet. A junker Ford sat in the driveway. No lights were on inside, and the traffic was gone. Maybe someone went to jail. It’d be easy to speculate that something worse happened, but really, if there’d been a terrible, violent crime around here I think I’d have heard.

A month ago or so, contractors showed up. First they ripped out carpet, replaced the door and windows, put up new sheetrock. A lot of work has gone into the house, and it’s starting to look like it has real potential.

The junker Ford has been loaded onto a trailer.

Maybe we’re down to just one bad guy house now.

***

The other one I’ve mentioned before. An older fellow a block over from the crackhouse was arrested sometime back for cruising past a public school and trying to coerce a young teen (was she 14?) into his car. She did the right thing, made a big commotion and ran off. She had enough details to send cops to get him.

***

I don’t tell all the stories here. Sometimes things just bubble beneath the surface, things I won’t share here.

It’s been kind of a heavy day.

***

It hasn’t been bad per se. Heck, I had a job interview this morning that went really well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. And another place asked me to call today, and after a phone discussion asked for my resume. I’ll get it over there ASAP.

***

Had lunch with my boy Hood at a good restaurant… was it called Julia’s? Up in the Addison area. It was like La Madelaine without the floppy hats and bloated prices.

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Tomorrow is the second ethics test. I’m not awfully worried.

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Ya’ll take care, have a good one.