2 amusing sights...

i must report about two events i witnessed during a saturday afternoon trip into San Jose.  the first happened not far from the house, on the main road through town.  in the opposite lane of traffic there was a man riding a powered wheelchair.  he wasn't taking up the whole lane, by any means, but considering there was no shoulder on the side of the road (pretty much a standard around here) and the "sidewalk" was a choppy mess of driveway, pavement, gravel, dirt, grass, nothing, etc.  there wasn't the option of cruising along in his powered wheelchair.  i had often wondered what people with wheelchairs do to get around (it's challenging enough for those with strollers - probably why most people don't use them).  now i had my answer.  this guy was just puttering along as his maximum pace of maybe 5 mph, and with a huge string of cars following him.  i'm just glad we were going in the opposite direction!

occurence #2 - in the middle of downtown San Jose, on a Saturday afternoon with tons of cars, people, and pedestrians all around, we were stuck at a stoplight for quite awhile.  even when it turned green, our lane didn't move.  then back to red, then green again, and still we sat there.  soon we learned the reason why - the guy in the front of the line was doing some shopping.  yup, from right there in his car he was looking at soccer jerseys that a street vendor had.  the guy would show the driver the shirts, he would look at them, then the vendor would grab a different one.  and all this time we were just sitting in the line of cars behind him.  and even with people behind him starting to honk, the driver just took his time as if picking out an engagement ring or something.... looking at one jersey, then another.  and wouldn't you know it?  in the end he didn't even end up buying one!