I had a feeling this would be an interesting thread. I didn’t expect so many shared experiences, tho. I wonder how many Dopers have crossed paths unknowingly within a few hundred yeards of each other. We need some kind of proximity alarms – like a little beeper built into a watch that goes off when another one is near.
Did I tell you the one about how I was working in the Chryler Building when the steampipe explosion occurred a few weeks ago, and about how, sometimes I stay around until 6:00pm or so to avoid crowding on the subway, but just missed the explosion and aftermath because I got on the subway and went home promptly at 5:30pm instead?
I’ll tell you about it sometime.
5-4-Fighting, I think it’s clear that you’re a jinx and should move out of my city 
So a couple of weeks ago I’m sitting in class. Our room was on the 7th floor, with a view of a parking garage’s top level across the street. Someone’s up front giving a presentation, and I’m zoning out. The window is on my left. I look to my right, and some of the other students (who I am mildly aquainted with) are trying to get my attention, whispering inaudibly, and making vaguely obscene gestures. I couldn’t figure what they were going on about, and not wanting to inturpt the class by signing back, I decided to just ignore them.
What was so important that I missed? There was a couple having sex in the back of a truck on the roof of the parking garage. (Ah, that explains the gestures)
Yeah, its prolly not that sad I missed it, but it would have been the first time I’d seen that IRL.
[Whine]But I haven’t had a chance to see anything yet![/Whine]
The Challenger explosion. I lived in Florida at the time and probably should have been able to see something as it blew up right around when I was getting out of school for midterm exams.
Me too. I wouldn’t have seen it, but I heard it and thought, “Wow. Gonna be some news when I get up!”
Also came back to my mom’s “mountain house” that I was painting from a lunch break and all the neighbors were milling about. There was a bear in the garage and he just ran off before I got there.
I’m on the Gulf Coast but occasionally you can see the contrails of the shuttle launches on the other coast if the weather is good. I was working when the Challenger exploded but when I left for lunch you could still see contrails from the explosion in the sky.
I watched the entire thing from the Gulf Coast. You could make out the fireball, contrails and everthing.
It was a very clear day. I was in school at the time. We watched the countdown on tv and then on liftoff we ran outside into the field to watch it in person.
Off Topic: Boyo Jim, how did you manage to get that custom title? You’re the only one I’ve ever seen on here that wasn’t a “Member,” “Charter Member,” “SDSAB,” “Moderator,” “Administrator,” or… well… “Perfect Master.” 
Boyo Jim won the internationl Bulwer-Lytton contest, for writing the worst opening sentence possible to a novel. He’s famous!!!
Many from the time of the Civil War in El Salvador, but I will go for the recent stuff in the USA:
There is an art supply store that I visit about once a month at Indian School road in Phoenix, that day I had to stay at work for one hour more that day, by the time I was on my way this had happen on the block next to the store:
In this next one, back in 2002, I entered the 202 freeway when suddenly I found the road almost empty (something very odd in Phoenix), besides a dump truck. I did notice in the rear view mirror police cars making a moving barrier preventing cars from going forward, realizing something was amiss and that the truck was not going too fast, I overtook it and I took the next exit out. I totally missed that the fuss was all about the truck until I got home:
KPHO - TV 5 - Phoenix ^ | 3/21/2002 | (AP)
My mother, daughter and I flew into London on the day of Princess Di’s funeral. My mom (as usual clueless) thought it would be a good idea to take one of the memorials left at the gates of (Buckingham palace???) because “who would know and it would be a great souvenir”. We convinced her this was not a good idea. :smack:
I missed partying with David Bowie and Peter Gabriel.
Yrs ago I worked in the art dept of a major Newspaper. I had just put in a long overtime shift, when the phone rang. A reporter I was dating had snagged two invites to a major media party at a swanky hotel. Did I want to go?
I begged off, as I was real tired, and the last thing I wanted to do was go home, put on formal wear, get to the hotel, and then spend the night partying with media types.
Turns out both Peter Gabriel and David Bowie showed up.
Damn!
FML
(PS _ I did, however, get a chance to meet and shake hands with David Bowie at a later date, also through bewspaper connections)
I just missed seeing a gang-related double murder in Washington, D.C. I was at a gallery, and just about to walk out the door to go get lunch when I heard a series of gunshots. I read in the paper the next day that two people had been shot in the head and killed. Probably a good thing I didn’t see it, as witnesses in D.C. gang crimes tend to fare poorly at the hands of gang members.
In 1965 I was in USAF med-tech school in Montgomery AL. One afternoon, some guys I knew drove up and asked if I would like to go with them down the road to Selma, where there was going to be a march of some sort.
I had to do laundry. :rolleyes:
I’m assuming that Wikipedia is referring to BoyoJim with this:
The 2006 overall winner was Jim Guigli, a retired mechanical designer for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, from Carmichael, California. “My motivation for entering the contest,” he joked, “was to find a constructive outlet for my dementia.” His entry was:
"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean."No, that is last year’s winner.
Sorry, there were two Jims in a row, which I didn’t notice. I liked yours better. Really.
"The 2007 overall winner was Jim Gleeson, a media technician from Madison, Wisconsin. His entry was:
"Gerald began -- but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash -- to pee." "Paging Vix.
My own contribution is minor: I was asleep when Buncefield blew. I remember that I was dreaming about something or other which was interrupted by a sort of ‘Wake the fuck up NOW!’ signal, so I woke up. By which time the noise of the explosion had passed so I was clueless until much later.
Edit: oh yes, I’m 10 miles from Buncefield.