xvINTRODUCTION
In 2004, and I was in downtown Los Angeles walking to my car after attend-
ing a meeting. It was a typical sunny, warm afternoon in Southern California.
My meeting went well and I was eager to get to my car and get some food.
I arrived on the corner of a busy intersection and waited for the pedestrian
signal. Although I was alone on my side of the intersection, there were a couple
of people on the opposite side. One was a businessman in a light-gray suit,
and the other was a student jamming out to music with his headphones on.
My car stereo had a detachable faceplate you could remove to prevent a
thief from stealing the stereo, and I had stuffed this plate into the outer pocket
of my meeting planner. After the light signaled me to go, I started across the
street. I remember that after taking several steps, I was still contemplating
where to get food. At that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large
object coming straight at me. It was a car, and it was coming fast!
My mind raced at lightning speed, assessing its survival options. The car
was coming at me way too quickly for me to jump forward. Jumping back
also wasn’t an option. Going to the side would have been even worse. The
bumper would nail me right at the knees, most likely buckling me over and
slamming my body and head into the pavement.
So, what do you do when all your options look pretty bleak? You jump! You
jump as fast as possible, because it’s do or die. So that’s what I did: My brain
issued its command, flooded me with a tsunami of adrenaline, and I jumped
straight up. About this time, the driver finally noticed me and slammed on
the brakes, but it was too late. As I started to float down from my Michael
Jordanesque jump, the car moved under me, and I crashed into the wind-
shield with a sound so loud that people blocks away heard the collision. All
of a sudden, I was coasting through the air for what seemed like an eternity.
I remember distinctly noticing the rich blue sky and the bright golden sun as
I rose into the air.
However, in an instant this poetic moment was shattered when I came
crashing down. The thing was, though, I magically came down hard on both
feet. There I was, miraculously standing in the middle of a busy intersec-
tion in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, thinking “What the hell just
happened?!” The driver was in total shock. In slow motion, I could see the
businessman and the student running over to me. My stereo faceplate was
somehow wedged under the car’s windshield wiper blade. And my meeting
planner had ended up inside the car. Some things even physics can’t explain.
As the witnesses helped me to the sidewalk, I heard sirens approaching.
Someone in an office building down the street had heard the crash and called
- After the paramedics checked me out, the police filed a report and reality