When my husband and I first were married, we made the decision to delay starting our family for several years. We were both working professionals who traveled frequently with our jobs and when we did have some spare time when we were both home together, we liked to go out and have a little fun.

We enjoyed nothing more than going to our favorite bar ‘n grill for some really fine tasting grub, great music, good booze and dancing. I’ve always been a shot of tequila and a beer babe myself, while hubby enjoys his whiskey. Give him enough whiskey and he will put the shrimp heads on his fingers and make them start dancing.

I was looking at the suggestions for stories we’ve gotten over the last few days, and let me tell you, it is not a job for the thin skinned. Some asshole killed his wife here in Connecticut because they were having financial problems. Four-year-old Ethan Stacey was beat and tortured to death by Nathan Sloop while mom stood by and did nothing. Some shit head child molester began harassing his 3-year-old victim after he was released for jail. They emails never end, and I read every one of them.

So you’ll have to forgive me if I seem to be overreacting to this story of what amounts to a pair of German Shepherds behaving like what they are – dogs – and an owner who has lived long enough to be called a man but doesn’t have a clue about how to act like one.

Rie Fujii told her 2004 parole hearing that she was naïve, immature and selfish back in May 2001 when she left her Calgary apartment to have a ten-day long party cum sex spree with her new boyfriend in nearby Cochrane. Now being naïve, immature and selfish isn’t a crime, and neither is a passion for pounding the pubes, or we’d all be serving time.

No, what makes Rie Fujii different from the rest of us humans and makes her a candidate for hell is what she left behind in her apartment.

Well, God was at it again folks. We’re all aware The Almighty’s famous sense of humor, and this past Saturday night, November 28th, 2009, right here in my home turf of the Connecticut River Valley, He’d showed us all that He’s still got it.

In East Hampton, Connecticut, a medium sized burg east of my hometown of Middletown, Cara L. Culbert drove her car off the side of the road. No big deal, you say, except according to the Middletown Press:

police had received a report of black Chevrolet Monte Carlo operating erratically on Route 66 at about 1:00 p.m. Saturday.

Police came upon the car off the right side of the road, the chief said. When the officer spoke to the driver, he said her speech was slurred and she appeared to be under the influence of some substance.

You would think that after the Diane Schuler tragedy people would have learned to a. not fill a vehicle up with children and drive while intoxicated and b. not stand by and let someone else fill up a car with children and drive while intoxicated. That’s what you would think, anyway.

Sadly, I have to report to you another case of a jackass doing just what I described in (a.) while several people, for reasons I will never understand, acted on (b.). One man in particular behaved in an especially outrageous manner in this regard, enough so that he almost earned himself a nomination to the PYSIH All-Star team. More on that later.

I don’t like hit and run drivers. They really aggravate me, especially the ones who injure or kill people and take off because they are cowards and just can’t face what they’ve done.

The jackass pictured on the left, Christopher Swiridowsky, age 30, of Providence RI, took hit and run driving to a whole new level early Sunday morning when he fled the scene of an accident with one of his victims impaled on the windshield of his car. How fortunate for us that before he did this he took this ridiculous picture of himself and posted it on his MySpace homepage. Very fortunate indeed.

I had a very hard time starting this story. When I first read about what Diane Schuler had done, I knew I had to write about her. Soon, it became more than just a story to me. It became almost an obsession, as I was driven to find out all I could about this 36-year-old woman, her family, and that fateful morning in late July.

By all accounts, Diane Schuler was a superb mom, doting on her daughter Erin, 2, and son Bryan, 5, and her husband Daniel was head over heels in love with her. It seemed that she had everything she could ever dream of, and the Schulers appeared to everyone to be a strong, happy family.

I like to think that being from Michigan and braving the harsh winters the state has to offer makes me somewhat of an expert on surviving the cold. I also like to think I am in a position to say freezing to death would be one of the most heinous ways to die.

I spent last winter on the border of North Dakota/Montana—and if facing a Michigan winter didn’t lead me to this conclusion, then North Dakota winters certainly would have. Being bitterly cold is by far one of the most dreadful positions I have ever been in.