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no good deed goes unpunished. i need to repeat this over and over until i stop saying "sure" everytime someone asks for a favor. so. i'm sitting at home yesterday, happily racking up mass amounts of overtime fixing a really huge problem at work when one of my buddies calls me and asks me if i'll drive him to salina kansas today. i've been up til 2-3 every night last week, then 5 friday night, so i was a little worried about lack of sleep but said "sure".

right now the fed government is really behind paying people's travel vouchers. when i go to a school, if i have enough advance notice, i can file for a travel advance. they'll pay me anywhere from 50-75% of the cost of the trip in advance, but it takes about 14 days to get that money. usually they'll buy the plane ticket in advance, but i end up putting the car and hotel and food on my credit card, and then i file a voucher after i get home. in theory that shouldn't take too long, but right now i'm still waiting on money from february's travels. and i'm paying the interest and won't get paid back for that.

this poor guy has maxed his credit cards traveling for schools, still hasn't been paid back yet and had to go to salina today for another school. they waited to the last minute to try to find him a flight. salina isn't a really happening place and he couldn't get a flight in until after his report date. if he didn't make it to the school on time, it'd look bad on him and the unit. they told him to just rent a car. great, but no money. so he asked if i could help out. no problem. 12 hr round trip. he's a friend and he's one of my soldiers so it's just what you do.

i make it to salina just fine. had a good time actually. good music, good company. start back. still having a good time. all of a sudden it gets REALLY windy. and starts lightening. then out of nowhere seriously scary driving rain. i see a semi with hazards blinking ahead. looks like it's on the shoulder but it might be a little in the right lane. so i go to get on the left hand lane and all of a sudden the car just kicks loose and goes into a serious spin. somehow or another i miss the front of the semi. i leave the road. still spinning. and sliding. really damned fast. going down the embankment. still freaking spinning. faster. holy crap. fence posts are flying by with every spin and getting closer. i'm pumping the brakes, i'm cranking the steering wheel, no one cares. the spinning stops but holy crap i'm still sliding fast sideways. oh crap here comes a fence post. whew! JUST missed the front fender/bumper. and i'm slowing down and stopping and holy crap, the engine is STILL running. i think i really, really just lived through that.

okay, so i blame this on doing a good deed. but in reality this might've been my stupidity. instead of sitting there for someone to come along and help me out, the car seemed to be working fine, i thought i could get back on the interstate. it was raining like crazy, i couldn't see too far ahead of me, not the brightest idea. i decide the grass is too wet for me to go straight up the embankment, the best idea is to go at an angle. i'm going, i'm going and all of a sudden the car is sideways. there was a culvert and i didn't see it because the grass was so tall. just hit the edge of it, the mud gave way and i slid right off the edge of it and fell six feet.

so i'm okay. dunno about the car yet. they looked at it tonight and thought they could get it out with little serious damage, just cosmetics. but they couldn't get their trucks down there because of the water and mud. so i'm in a hotel now waiting for the morning. keep your fingers crossed that it's okay.

i'm off to bed now. night.