Good Deed Of The Day

[Ceremonius]

[houtex]

That was good stuff.  Thanks for sharing that!

I wish I had one today.. I've had other days where I was "yep, I did good", but today? I was kinda happy to have survived work.. some was outside, and it's cold today.. brr.. still chilled...

[blackjak]

Funny. I found a galaxy phone sitting on a shelf of kid's clothes in a store last week and turned it in. Guess phones are easily lost.

[TonyV]

This past weekend I passed an SUV on the side of I-20 while I was going out of town to visit family.  I was already running way late, but as I passed the SUV, I saw a woman sitting inside.  As I got to the next exit, I couldn't help but think that it's the weekend before Christmas, and some poor lady was stuck out on the Interstate, possibly without a cell phone (or if she's like me, possibly with a cell phone that has a dead battery).  So I pulled off at the exit, drove about five miles back the other way to the previous exit I had passed, got off the interstate, circled around to get back on in the original direction but one exit back.  Now, I don't want to sound like I had to drive a hundred miles or anything, but it was around 15 minutes in all out of my way.  By the time I had gotten back to her, though, a police officer had stopped (I'm guessing someone else called and reported it) and the officer was in the process of changing her flat tire.  So while I didn't exactly get to be a hero, I am chalking it up in the "it's the thought that counts" department in that had there not been a police officer that stopped, that would have been me changing the tire.

For what it's worth, it's not without precedent.  Around 1990 or so, I was driving home from Atlanta (which at the time was out of town to me) and around the Alabama-Georgia state line, I passed a car.  As I passed, I could make out a woman inside.  Concerned, I did the same thing--got off at the next exit, circled around, and came back.  When I got back to her car and walked up to find out what was going on, I saw that she was inside the car bawling her eyes out, and she was very pregnant.  She had also had a flat tire, didn't have a cell phone (this was 1990... I didn't either), and was scared because she had no idea what to do.  She obviously couldn't change a tire.

So I took a few minutes to calm her down, changed her tire for her, and rode behind her to the next exit so that she could find a pay phone and let her husband know what had happened in case something happened to her spare on the way home so that if she didn't get there after a while he could come looking.  As I recall, she was very grateful, and I like to think that the karma from that incident lasted me through at least a few years of doing stupid stuff.  (I was only 18...)

Having four sisters and growing up with a single mother, I guess I'm just a sucker for people broken down on the side of the road.  All of my sisters and mom have been in that situation, some more than once, and I'd like to think that if one of them or Belle had car problems like that, some kind person would stop and help them.  Now, thankfully, it's a lot easier since everyone has cell phones and even if someone doesn't stop, they'll hopefully call 511 and let the highway patrol know that someone is broken down.  Plus here in Georgia, we have what are called HERO units (I know, right?) that regularly patrol the interstates looking for people who are broken down to help.  Like the lady this past weekend, it's kind of odd for you to go very long now without someone responding.

But still, I can't help stopping.  I just have to know that the person will be okay.

[Electric-Knight]

I haven't done much of anything recently (as there didn't seem to be anything to do), but I did have a weird situation the other night...

I was driving home, some time after midnight, and there was a young lady walking along the side of the street. She was just starting to walk across the entrance to a diner parking lot as another car came, passing me on the right, and drove very slowly, yet deliberately, into the diner parking lot RIGHT while she was crossing the entrance - nearly hitting her (very slight contact was made, as the car was driving very slowly).
It was so slow, there was no question that the person in the car saw her... So, I stopped and was looking... "WTF?!".
She kept walking... The car then backed out and started following her... Some yelling began... She kept walking and the car kept following her.
So, I followed as well... asked out the window if she wanted help, to which she, very angrily said, "NO!!".

The car followed her and stopped. A guy got out and they yelled at each other... Oh boy.
So, it was clearly (based on her reactions, as I watched very closely) some young, angry, fighting couple of some sort.
He was yelling at her to get into the car and she was yelling back "No" and walking away.
He grabbed her and led her to the car...
At that point... I really wasn't sure what I felt I should do.
Honestly, it seemed like she was most likely drunk... Then again... that guy was driving and acting like a complete ass.
So, I decided I'd just stay there, watch, wait and see if she showed any real sign of resistance to him and then I would simply have to come forward...
He opened the passenger door and guided her in... She got back out... he yelled at her... she yelled back... he guided her back in the car... she stayed in and they drove off...
It was so weirdly on the border for me.
If I had to paint the picture... he was definitely an asshole (no good guy is going to do what he did with his car to her, no matter how much she may have pissed you off)... But she very well may have been starting stuff or simply looking to make a big dramatic fight between them (I say this because she wasn't really trying to get away from him... the body language was a lot about that she was communicating to him that he did something wrong earlier and this was her drunken payback).
Mind you, I don't have to paint a picture, hehe... but just my reading of it told me that they both were getting something out of this lame display...

So, I just offered help initially, sat and watched, made sure I wasn't witnessing anything that called for intervention... and then drove home after seeing that they were mostly just another young, immature couple, heh.

Oh... I also saved the universe last Friday, but that was no big deal...

[Electric-Knight]

Somewhat of a side note...
Since I haven't been playing my heroes, especially Electric-Knight... I've found myself thinking about them outside of the game... and somewhat asking myself, a few times, what would Electric-Knight do (without his super powers, of course)?

This is somewhat weird... but I was checking out this abandoned lot for a possible location site for a video (there are a bunch of large mounds of rock and rubble... where they planned to do construction work but either haven't yet or it has been canceled)... and some guy was just coming out of a wooded area and going to his parked pickup truck, before driving off.
No big deal... But I just found myself thinking: "It is extremely unlikely... but what IF he just dumped someone, living or dead, down that wooded slope and into that stream... I simply have to check just to be sure".
Now, I only walked to the edge of the valley, looked around, listened and even called out... just to see. I honestly had NO expectations that any such thing had just taken place, but the simple idea of... if that did just happen... they could still be alive and they might need help just made me have to spend a bit of time to check.
The only reason I mention this is because (I think it was the day or so after the server shutdown) it was one of the first times I noticed myself thinking about what Electric-Knight would think I should do in that situation, heh.

[mikoroshi]

My dog found a phone on the ground in the snow the other day, dead.  I took it home and found I did, in fact, have a compatible charger for it.  So I powered it up, and went through the address book in hopes of finding an entry for Mom, Dad, Home, etc. (most people in my neighborhood are 20s-30s) but had no luck.  I did verify that they lived in my complex (they had entries for the management office and the super-secret number for the after-hours maintenance guy).

I did find "work," looked up the number and found it was a private school a mile away.  I called them--not expecting anyone to answer--and got a person.  I said, "I found this phone.  Do you have caller ID?  Can you tell me if it belongs to someone that works there?"

The person verified the name and number, and told me the owner had lost their phone--and described it to me--but was away for X-Mas.  I offered to drop it off, which I did.  Today, I got a text from the phone's owner thanking me for finding it and dropping it at his work.  He lives a few buildings down from me.

[dwturducken]

Thanks to the holidays and my first ever (at age 40) case of bronchitis, I haven't been out for a little over a week, but I did have one the weekend before Christmas. The woman ahead of me in the checkout at the grocery store didn't have enough credit on her food stamp card for the few things that she had on the counter. Of what she did have, she picked the fresh meat and produce to put back, over the processed, canned, and boxed items. It really wasn't much, but it still struck me as a terrible thing to have to sacrifice the healthy food over the stuff that would "stretch" and last longer. Anyway, I had the cashier put the meat and produce on my "bill."

To me, it was a small thing, but it just about brought her to tears.

[Aggelakis]

I live in an apartment building on the edge of one of the less-nice (not ghetto but I wouldn't walk at night alone) places in Seattle. One of the delivery services Amazon.com uses put a package outside on the front doorstep of my apartment building. Most times this happens, they have gotten stolen 9 times out of 10 (UPS put someone else's brand new computer and my brand new monitor outside there last year and someone got a new computer setup for Christmas - not me or that other guy - sooooooo pissed!).

So I took it up to my apartment and put a sticky-note on the owner's door saying to come get it at my apartment.

Deed done.

[Samuel Tow]

About the only thing I know that's of any use to anyone, really, is computers. I have a neighbour and a friend who works on my car, and my mother is always bugging me to "charge him" whenever he asks me for computer troubles, but I never do. This isn't a Christmas story since it takes place a couple of weeks ago, but still.

One day, he calls me because his son couldn't play League of Legends. So, yeah, right out the door, not a huge problem. But it's a weird problem because the installer keeps getting interrupted, it's not just a case of he didn't know what to do. I spent a good hour or two there, fixing a whole bunch of things on his PC, like he had at least two toolbars AND Flextype... Ugh... I thought I'd gotten the game running, but it turns out I was wrong. So I had to go back the next day and I spent maybe six hours scouring his computer, looking for reasons and sorting out all the crap he installed without ever thinking what it was.

I looked on the 'Net high and low, and was eventually advised to uninstall, restart in Safe Mode and reinstall. So it worked. League of Legends downloaded itself - that took over an hour - and installed properly. But then it couldn't run in Safe Mode because, of course, there is no DirectX support there and the Launcher needs this to run. I restarted and tried to run the Launcher, same error. All throughout, forum posts on the subject had been suggesting I turn off the computer's anti-virus software, which I was diligently doing, but it wasn't helping. And yet after doing anything I could think of, the only difference I could think might exist is Safe Mode never loads the Komodo Anti-Virus, while regular startup does. So I took Komodo out of the machine's startup via msconfig and lo and behold! The game ran!

I hate it when security software does this. It blocks legitimate stuff, fine. I get it, it happens. But this blocked it, never alerted me that anything was being blocked DESPITE me specifically ordering it to ignore the folder of the installation AND gave me no way to permit it AND gave me no way to suppress the programme short of overriding it via Windows tampering. So I uninstalled the thing entirely and got the guy a new anti-virus software - Avast! in this case, as it's free and I'm trying to teach him to stop using pirated software, pretty please. It's not nice. I even promised him to go to his bank with him so we can get him a decent Debit card so he can make online purchases so his son can get stuff for League of Legends and use Steam and such. Because really - he's gonna' get his games one way or the other, and if I have a choice, I'd rather teach the kid to buy them and value what he owns, not just torrent his games and be like "Why would I pay for it if I can get it for free?" Because it's not right.

Well, it feels like my neighbour felt guilty, because my car had been sitting idle for a while and in need of repairs, and he basically fixed it for me without charging me for his own labour. And he doesn't do that very often. But it's a 20-year-old car, so it has a lot to fix.

So... Yeah, I don't know if that was a good deed or not, but it made me feel good, at least, and if it pays off, I may have even taught a father and a son the value of owning software legitimately.