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The power of a web

Yesterday morning when I returned to the house from coffee (about 7:30), I noticed the garage door was up. Must have forgotten to push the down button when I looked for the eclipse, I thought. When I pulled in and pushed the down-button in the car, the door went down and right back up. Must have not pulled in far enough, I thought, and got out and looked. No, there was plenty of clearance. I went into the house and told my husband there was something wrong with the garage door. Later when I came back from running a few errands, the door was down. When I asked what the problem was, he told me there was a spider web on the bottom of the far side of the door with a leaf caught in the threads, and the leaf passed over the light beam that signals something is in the way of the door (which is very heavy and could crush a child or a bicycle). I'm amazed both at the power of the little spider (who probably rode back from the lake with us on the side mirror of the van), and the technology put in place due to injuries from garage doors.

This leads me to the thought that technology cannot always protect people, especially stupid risk takers. Within a 1/2 mile of our home yesterday, pitch black outside, I thought I saw something in the headlights of the car in front of me where the street splits to a Y, so I slowed down (I was already only at about 30 mph because of just having left the drive-way). Yes, there was a biker in dark clothing, including a hooded sweatshirt so not even his pale skin reflected light. There were no lights or reflective tape on the bike. He had apparently stopped because he'd taken the wrong leg of the Y and was waiting to change lanes. I just shook my head in disbelief. There must be an angel riding on his handle bars offering to light his way, because truly this man was a very dim bulb.