Friday the 13th Lucky or Unlucky?

I usually dont buy the 13th thing....but my daughter's high school football team (she cheers) lost their 1st game of the season last night..........a big upset!!

soooooo....maybe it IS bad luck.....but it was GOOD luck for the other guys..... :?: :?: :?:

Luck, like almost everything, can best be understood in retrospect. Experience is the best teacher. There is often an unexplained element to some occurrences in life. Most honest humans will admit to this. I have disdain for philosophy which tries to explain the inexplicable.

I've heard that people can influence events by their beliefs in good or bad luck. I don't know. For me, Friday the 13th's have been uneventful, or unmemorable.

GR

I believe luck exists, but it is all probability and chance.

I was watching these Poker guys on TV. One guy was down to his last dollar and had to draw an 8 or something to win. He did. That was lucky. So luck is something highly unlikely that happens. It is not some supernatural thing though.

Here is a long story, but very interesting and absolutely true.

When I was 18 I owned a dirt bike. I was in my carport when my Dad arrived home from work. I told my Dad I was going to ride to the Motorcycle shop to get some oil for my bike. My Dad was very concerned, as I had to cross a bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway to get to the shop. The bridge was very high with strong winds and a very low concrete railing on the sides. He didn't want me crossing this bridge, so he said he would pick up the oil for me after work the next day.

That is the end of my involvement in this story.

The next day my Dad stopped by the shop to pick up the oil. Coming out he noticed a car with four occupants sitting in the parking lot of a business just down the street that had closed. Across the highway from this shop was a convenience store. My Dad got the impression that these occupants were "casing" the store to rob it later. He got up close enough to see the license plate and wrote it down and a description of the car on a matchbook cover. He came home and gave me the oil.

Later that night my younger brother asked if he could spend the night with a friend. The friend lived in another town about 2 miles away. My Dad said yes and my brother went over.

About 2 o'clock A.M. that night the doorbell rang. It was my brother and his friend. My Dad was surprised and asked what they were doing there. My brother's friend said his Mom had been in a robbery and called them and asked them to get out of the house and see if he could stay at our house. They had walked all the way to our house.

The Mom had gone to a convenience store (completely different store in another town) to pick up some milk. She was the only customer in the store when four men entered, approached the counter and said "this is a stick-up". The clerk opened the cash register and was cooperating. Suddenly, for no reason one of the robbers had a gun and shot the young man in the chest killing him instantly. They then went behind the counter to rob the register. In the meantime, my friend's Mom had ducked down behind a aisle counter, hoping they didn't see her. But the robbers did see her and grabbed her. She was sure they were going to kill her as she was a witness. They did take her purse and were dragging her to the front of the store when two bikers entered the store. When the robbers saw the bikers they ran out of the store into the darkness. Nobody saw the car they got in, so they got away. After calling the Police, the Mom called home and asked her son to get out of the house because the robbers had her license and she was afraid they would come to her home. And so they left and walked to our house.

When my Dad heard this story he remembered the car he had seen earlier and called the Police giving a description of the car and license number. The police pulled the car over just as it was crossing over the Florida border into Georgia (about 50 miles away). It was the robbers and they were caught with the gun and money.

It turns out these robbers had been coming down out of Georgia and robbing stores in north Florida. They were very good and the Police had been trying to catch them for some time without success. They did not even know the identity of the robbers.

So this is what I would call a lot of luck. It is so very improbable that this chain of events would happen, and that my whole family would be involved. But it did.

That is a true story. Those guys got something like 40 years in jail.

Those guys got something like 40 years in jail.They should've gotten to sit in Old Sparky.

Abit of a long story(s)

I think we've all had our fair share of lucky escapes.This happened a couple years ago, it was early morning i guess after 2 Am if i recall. We were parked in the road (not smart i know but it's a very quiet that time of night it that area) just having a good time and whatnot. So at one point i'm looking at something coming towards me while sitting on my bike ( it just looked like his park lights were on) but i was kinda frozen for a moment trying to work out what the hell was going on i mean it wasn't noisy (atleast i didn't notice it in my trance) and wasn't going very fast either - just these 2 little lights comming at me out of nowhere..

At the very last moment this girl sitting on the bike with me is just bangin me over the head Screaming "Move Move babes Move!!!" I dunno somehow..by the grace of god we got out of the way at the last moment cause it turned out to be a minibus.

That to me was helluva lucky cause we would have been mince meat if we stayed a second longer.

--------

I also remember going hunting with one of my best friends at the time, pigeons and stuff.... - sorry Arjen no pictures :) - he was standing with the shotgun loaded and ready to go. The butt of the gun resting on a steal railing of somekind . I guess i turned for like a second next moment i hear a shot going off ... This was bad he got half of his hand blown off and it still doesn;t work properly and he's still got some of the ?pellets? stuck in his face, one side of his face is like a rough rider if you will - LOL we laugh about it now .. it wasn't *^*&^ funny then man i'll tell you that now.

That's luck if i ever seen it .

Plus my sister won 10 G's at the casino last night !!!

Minus Human

Everyone gets lucky breaks and unlucky ones. Some of it (like the lottery) is completely beyond our control, but there are people who lead undeniably lucky - or unlucky - lives.

One of my favorite sayings is "chance favors the prepared". You do what you can, when you can, to live a decent life and do the right thing - and the results often tend to follow Wes' story... anybody could have seen the car casing the convenience store. But the one person who did prepared himself.

Maybe it was the wrong car, and Wes' dad simply wasted his time. Or maybe it was the right car, but they robbed a different convenient store, the dad never heard about it, and it was a waste of time.

Or maybe he was preparing himself in the event of chance.

Some preparation is pretty simple. So simple we don't even think about it - I was once at a party and a guy asked what I did. We talked about music for a while, and later he came up and asked me for my card.

I didn't have any with me. I hadn't thought about it - I was going to a social event with friends.

Who was that guy? Why ask for a musician's card later that night? Was he some promoter, or a booker for a club?

I'll never know if I was on the edge of a 'lucky break' - I wasn't prepared. But I learned from that, and now I check my pockets for cards every time I leave the house... even if I'm just going to the grocery store. I'll be better prepared next time.

I believe luck is that stistical anomaly - I have no control over it. But when luck does happen, I DO have control over the outcome; it depends on my preparation.

any of you ever take philosophy classes?

Yep - Life with your eyes open is a philosophy class...

So is this a Luck day or Unlucky Day?

Tomorrow's Friday the 13th. Let's revive this post from 2006 for all newcomers.

I got to remember to buy lottery tickets tomorrow to test this out.

Ghost Rider :idea:

I have it in the SS number so I have no choice.......I love 13.....

One of my sons was born on Good Friday, the 13th in '79. Ever since, I love the 13th.

Denny

Just another day in paradise.

I was born on Thursday, the 13th, had my 13th birthday on Friday the 13th (and several others, too!). No, not unlucky at all!

I'm another one those people. :lol:

Now if you're related to a Knights Templar...

I will tell you if I was lucky 13 years down the line.

Hi,

I read somewhere that Friday 13th is actually slightly statistically 'luckier' than other days. Presumably because of the well known superstition, many of us take a bit more care on that day than we normally do. My fellow motorists seemed just as dumb and erratic as usual yesterday, but there may have been a slight difference. :)

And talk about lucky.... every one of us are here because we won a race that had millions of competitors in it. The great race to be the first to fertilise the egg that eventually turned into you or me, instead of some other brother or sister. Run second and you go nowhere, but win and you get the biggest prize of all time - you get to be a live human being, with a chance of learning to play the guitar....