Greetings Guardians,
 
 Just some current events I wanted to fill you all in on.  It begins with
 a story....
 
 I was driving to work, same as always.  I was heading down the highway,
 same as always.  Seems like a rather uneventful drive until I saw an
 object in the road.  You know those retreads that come off of big trucks
 and wind up on the side of the road?  Well, this one wound up in my
 lane.  I looked to my left...guardrail.  I looked to my right...tractor
 trailer.  My options were narrowing, and my only choice was to slow down
 as much as I could and run the retread over, hoping for the best.  Well,
 run it over I did.  Unfortunately, it promptly got caught up in my left
 wheel well and almost wrapped around my tire.  I immediately lost
 steering and had just about zero control of the car.  I tried to avoid
 the guardrail (as a bridge was coming up shortly), bounced off of it,
 and wound up zooming into the center lane where the beforementioned
 tractor trailer was cruising along, minding his own business.  My little
 Probe got lodged underneath the trailer and the bottom of the trailer
 started to shave away the entire top of my vehicle as I was dragged
 further down the highway.  How much of the top did it shave?  Well, if I
 didn't duck when I did, I would've lost my head, as I observed from the
 wreckage later.  I managed to strain against the wheel and get the car
 out from under the trailer to force myself into a sideways skid down the
 highway.  This is rather surprising, because as I was pulling on the
 wheel, the steering column was rapidly being wrenched from the vehicle.
 I then remembered the rapidly approaching bridge, so I pulled my
 emergency brake (not sure what good it did, but I figured it couldn't
 hurt) as I slammed on the main brakes while still trying to turn the
 wheel.  I eventually came to a stop just shy of the bridge.  The man in
 a pickup behind me stopped (we were both grateful he wasn't tailgating
 me) and ran quickly towards my car.  My door was lodged shut, and I'll
 never forget the look on this guy's face as I kicked open my door and
 walked towards him from the wreckage.  He thought I was a goner.  As
 luck would have it, I got away with some minor burns (from the airbag),
 some broken glass cuts which are healing nicely, and a sore neck (that I
 actually hurt while playing frisbee, but got aggravated from the
 accident).  An ambulance arrived after I explained the incident to the
 State Troopers, and I was checked into the hospital (UMass Medical). 
 After taking some X-rays (to confirm there was no real neck damage),
 three hours later I was released.
 
 The end result is....I'm quite alright.
 
 Some somewhat funny points of the whole incident....
 
 1.  A passerby who stopped about 50 feet ahead of the incident walked
 towards me with a piece of black metal.  We discovered that it was my
 sunroof, and it was pretty much undamaged.  It must've popped right off
 the top of the car as soon as I hit the truck.  Note that this is just
 about the only piece of the car that escaped injury.
 
 2.  A co-worker friend of mine was driving by the scene and stopped.  He
 ran up to me somewhat panicked and asked if I was ok.  I was pretty much
 covered in blood from all the little cuts I had received (it looked a
 *LOT* worse that it actually was).  I said I was ok, and then he asked
 if there was anything he could do for me.  I thought and said, "Yeah,
 can you tell my manager that I don't think I'll be in today?"
 
 3.  Since I mentioned I had some minor neck problems, I was promptly
 fitted with a neck collar and strapped to a gurney (most against my
 wishes, I might add).  I was kept in this position for about two hours
 in the emergency room.  There was a woman on the other side of the
 curtain from me who was recovering from a bout of nausea.  Her and her
 fiancee were talking to each other about the show "King of the Hill".  I
 then, from my side of the curtain, started showing off my repitorie of
 voices from that show ("They will get you with darts...it is there way."
 and "But, Peggy, I'm the block captain...I have to have the best lawn in
 Arland.").  They were greatly amused and said I should go into show
 business.  I said I would think about it as soon as I was unstrapped
 from the gurney.
 
 So now, I've successfully cheated death and trashed a brand new $22,000
 automobile (I had the car made special at the factory two months ago). 
 I'll shortly put the polaroids the EMS took on my web site (which is
 soon to be coming) in case you're curious.  I'll probably have the site
 off of my sidehack account which would be http://www.gweep.net/~vanguard
 so watch for it.
 
 That's pretty much it.  Just thought I'd share a tale of my harrowing
 experience.  Am I worried about the car?  Not really.  It's just a car.
 I could give a rats ass what state it's in, becuase right now I should
 be dead and I'm not.  For some reason, even when I was getting mushed
 underneath the trailer, I knew I wasn't going to die.  Maimed, possibly
 (which I'm glad I avoided), but I just knew it wasn't my time.  This
 whole incident reminded me of things that are important and things that
 aren't so important.  A lesson hard learned, but sometimes life is funny
 that way.
 
 Well, I better get going.  I have a lot of work to get done today.  Take
 care guys, and watch out for big rig retreads on the highway.
 
 Joe
 
 PS - Besides, I really didn't want to miss Scott's wedding, right?  :-)