4053 Stuff --- Duh Stuff; Yeah Stuff; Other Stuff

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving.

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I read this and tucked it away some months ago, and then forgot about it, so I don't have the source or dates any more, but that really doesn't matter.  This is the output of professional writers, pro reporters.  They were PAID for this blather.  Duh.

Regarding the train derailment at O'Hare airport, "It appears as though the train would have been going faster than a train normally birthing at this station would be," he [the spokesman] said. "Normally a train pulls in at just a couple miles and hour and pulls into the station. Obviously this train did not stop so speed could be a factor here."

Further,

"... it was immediately unknown if the train's motorman had some sort of medical problem prior to the crash"

Immediately unknown?  Wow.  Birthing?  Trains have babies?  I suspect they meant "berth", but even then, berth applies to ships, not trains.   Speed could be a factor?  No kidding!  Typo - and/an.  Try proofreading.

Regarding the plane that disappeared:

"MH370 flew along the southern corridor and it’s last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean west of Perth," Prime Minister Rajak said at Putra World Trade Centre Monday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sights."

 It's/its.  Sights/sites.

Sigh.  Journalism schools ain't what they used to be.

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Go to http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexrees/37-over-the-top-evening-gowns-from-the-2013-miss-world-fashi to see the contestants in the 2013 Miss World pageant, modelling creations from "Indonesia's elite fashion designers".  We are told this is not a joke.  I don't believe that - those are some of the ugliest dresses ever!  Perhaps it was a test for the contestants, to see if they could walk down the runway in an embarrassing dress, and carry it off.

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I had to read this several times to figure out why it confused me:  "Most classes fill up quickly, but will be held only if the minimum number of students registers."  The problem is that the subject of the sentence is "most classes", so the "will be held" doesn't apply to the subject.

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This one I also found a long time ago.  My note on it says "lifehacker".   There is a Lifehacker.com, but I don't know for sure that's where I found it.  Whatever -- I don't want to lose it.

You don't get very far with silence. You won't always know the right thing to say, and if you say what you think or feel you might get it wrong. That doesn't mean the conversation that follows won't be for the best. Saying the wrong thing can often be the impetus for the right discussion. It's then that you find it's better to say something stupid than nothing at all.

Words to speak by.

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I found out a while ago that anyone under 4'10" is legally considered a "little person".  Wow.  If I were still working, I'd check into what that might mean.  Maybe I'd have been able to demand a chair that FIT me.

By the way, I find "little person" offensive.  It sounds demeaning, like I am of no consequence.  

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I scream inside every time I see or hear "orientate".  Paul Niquette has written an excellent short essay on the topic, at http://www.niquette.com/books/101words/orient.htm.

(If you have a little time for browsing and love words, wander around http://www.niquette.com/, click tabs under "Books".)

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"If the referee doesn't call a foul, it's not a foul." People say this about traffic violations. I strongly disagree! That's like saying that if someone wasn't arrested and charged with the murder, then there wasn't a murder.

A few years ago there was a big fuss about traffic tickets being issued based on traffic cameras in Arizona.  There were actual real people screaming bloody murder that if a policeman (referee) didn't see them running the stop sign, or the red light, or speeding, then there was no violation!

I call bullshit! 

This argument seems to be starting up again.  A lot of people seem to think that a camera catching them doing something illegal is a violation of their privacy, and that the only purpose of traffic cameras is to generate money in the form of fines.  Um, if you don't want to pay the fine, don't break the law.  And if you don't want the cameras, are you willing to pay taxes high enough to have a referee/cop on every street corner?  No?  You just want to be free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, as long as Daddy doesn't see you..

I'm all for traffic cameras.  Maybe it's the "mother gene" - mothers are all for eyes in the back of their heads.

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3966 They're after me?

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

I am not one of those people who stick a little finger out to catch the turn signal as I turn the steering wheel.  I mean, why bother, if you don't signal a turn until you are actually IN the turn?  I signal just before I slow down to make the turn, you know, like to let anyone behind me know what's coming up next.

Three times in the past two weeks I signaled a left turn, slowed down, started the turn, AND SOME IDIOT SCREAMED PAST ME ON THE LEFT!

This afternoon it was as I was turning into my own driveway.  This is a narrow residential dead-end.  I had signaled about four houses up. I pressed the button to open the garage door about that same time.  The speed limit is 25.  I had slowed down to make the tight turn into the driveway, had started the turn, and wham!  There was a car passing me.

Third time similar situation in just two weeks.  And every single time it was a huge SUV.  White one today.  End of last week it was a red one.

I left the car running after I pulled into the garage and checked the turn signals.  They're working.

I don't understand.
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1578 Traffic

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

I haven't the faintest idea what has happened to today. It's 8:15 pm, I'm already tired, and I have done NOTHING all day. I think maybe it has something to do with the weather. It's almost 10 degrees below freezing outside, and although my house is reasonably tight, I feel cold. The thermostat says it's 74 in here. How can I be cold? I don't understand.

Speaking of not understanding, something is going on with other drivers lately that I don't understand.

I mentioned to a friend a few days ago that I've noticed lately that if I am on a multi-lane highway, and decide to change lanes, and there's a decent space in the lane I want to move into, and traffic in both lanes seems to be maintaining position (ideal for changing lanes), the very instant that I put my signal on to indicate the lane change, the car behind me in the target lane speeds up!, closing up the space.

Why? We could go on in the same positions for miles, but the minute I want to move into that lane, the other person speeds up. Is it a game? Is it "Oh no you don't - you can't get in front of me!" Or maybe they speed up when they see the signal because they hope I'll turn into them and buy them a new car? I don't understand.

So anyway, after I had mentioned it, my friend started noticing it too. So it's not just my perception, and not just people reacting to my little car. It really is happening a lot more.

Driving to dinner last night (1.5 hour drive), I noticed other strangenesses. I was heading down route 9w, during rush hour. People weren't paying attention to the speed limit, but not in the way one would expect. There's a section north of Highland with two south-bound lanes. The speed limit is 55, but there were two people, one in each lane, about two car-lengths apart, who were doing 45. Everyone behind them who wanted to do 55 had to pass one on the right, then squeeze back to the left to get past the second. And the guy potting along in the left lane never seemed to notice.

So when we finally got past them, and the long line of cars was doing 55, we came to a car on the right that had been pulled over by the police, nothing interesting, just an ordinary stop with plenty of room, and amazingly, everyone slowed down to 45, and then stayed at 45! Wha...? I don't understand. I didn't understand slowing down, and I don't understand staying slow.

From Highland south, the speed limit is mostly 55, with a few 40 or 45 patches through hamlets, and one 30 mph section where the village cop's radar gun is on hair-trigger. We stayed at 45 the entire way to Newburgh, even through the 30 mph section. I don't understand.

(Yeah, I did 45 through the 30, too, but it was because there was a long line of cars ahead of and behind me, and if I'd slowed down, twenty cars would have climbed into my trunk.)

Another thing I noticed was that when we stopped at a traffic light, and the line of stopped cars extended to cross another intersection, people blithely blocked the intersection, so that oncoming cars could not make a left turn into the side road. That stopped traffic on the other side, too. How stupid is that? Do they really not notice? Is everyone completely self-absorbed?

What's going on? Do we have a new generation of drivers who've never taken driver ed? My friend, back in the first example, has noticed the speed-up-at-lane-change problem in several states, so it's not a local thing.

Well, I made it to the dinner later than I meant, but still in time. I had to stop in Newburgh to pick up a friend, and I called her as I entered Newburgh and told her to go to the end of her driveway, "and hold your purse strap out so my side mirror can hook it as I pass, and then hang on tight!"

There were 12 of us at dinner, and I did manage to sit in the middle of the table, as I wanted. It was a pretty good group. Roman gave me a birthday gift of Israeli body lotion after dinner, and a CD of photos from his trip. I hadn't realized that although we'd talked on the phone several times since late October and his trip, I hadn't seen him since mid-October. How odd.

Now we have to get together sometime so he can narrate the photos.
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1316 Dangerous Drivers

Friday, June 22, 2007

I've had several dangerous, frightening, or annoying experiences on the road lately.

Driving home from the village last Monday, a paramedic "fly car" came up behind me, covered in flashing lights, siren blaring. I don't know how it works in other areas, but around here, when someone isn't breathing, the fly car is sent out ahead of the ambulance, because every second counts. When Jay had his first seizure and we didn't know what it was yet, when I managed to force my way through the bathroom door to get to him, he was not breathing. The fly car made it here from Rhinebeck, normally an 18-minute drive in traffic, in seven minutes.

So when I saw the fly car, I immediately pulled over and stopped. I knew what it meant. (I was driving the handicap van - 4" of ground clearance - pulling off the road is dangerous to my undercarriage, but I risked it.)

The car ahead of me did not pull over! The speed limit was 40 mph in a no-passing zone with curves, and he/she continued potting along at 40. I couldn't believe it! He/she never did pull over, even when he/she passed a side road and several driveways. The fly car was unable to get past for more than a mile, until there was a clear passing spot.

I hope the medic radioed in the idiot's plate number. I was horrified.

Then, Wednesday, I had just parked on route 9, across from Piper's office, when I noticed the ambulance coming north on route 9, approaching the traffic light in the middle of the village. (The lights were flashing, but they're not allowed to use the siren in the village unless they have a patient on board and are headed to the hospital - which restriction I don't understand or agree with.)

It's an old village, narrow road, one lane north, one south. The light was red for north-south traffic, and the ambulance, lights flashing, was stopped behind several cars at the light.

I've heard that some places have some kind of radio doohicky whereby an emergency vehicle can push a button and turn traffic lights red both ways. Evidently we don't have it here . The east-west traffic continued to go through the intersection. Finally, the north-south traffic got the green.

Now, what should have happened is that the vehicles heading both north and south should have remained stopped. That would allow the ambulance to go around the cars ahead of it at the light and proceed north in an open lane.

That didn't happen. Not only did no one let the ambulance through, no one made any attempt to pull over, either! (No room to pull over in the village - which is more reason to let the ambulance through the light to an open road.) All the cars and trucks just went through the light like normal, and on up the road. Like normal.

I don't understand. What's wrong with people?

Then we get to yesterday. I was on route 9w just south of Port Ewen, heading north, at 3:25 pm, behind a long line of cars traveling at the speed limit. It was a passing zone. There was a line of oncoming south-bound cars.

The first of the oncoming cars was literally only a few yards ahead of me when I heard a whooshing sound to my left, and saw a car passing me at an extremely high rate of speed. My brain went into overdrive. There was no way she could get back into the north-bound lane in time. I was looking at a really bad head-on about to happen. She was going to hit the oncoming car, or, if she moved right, she was going to hit me. I slammed on the brakes and whipped to the right, off the road, and the woman also whipped right at the same instant, into the same spot my van would have been in had I not gone off the road. We're talking inches, here.

Let's just say I was pissed.

It was a black Nissan Sentra, NY plate number NXP2870. The driver was a youngish woman with streaked dark blond/light brown hair, sunglasses, and a mole or similar mark on the middle of her left cheek. I think it was a NY plate - the frame covered the words. Anyway, the plate was white.

I know from experience that reporting the incident to the police won't do any good because it's my word against hers, and there was no damage.

I heard somewhere that given the plate number, it's possible to locate the owner of the vehicle, with an online search. I'd like to write her a letter. Can't do it through the DMV (which actually is good - I wouldn't want weirdos getting my home address from seeing me pass on the street - I've had enough trouble with my address and phone number on checks - there are a lot of lonely shop clerks out there). There are several sites that promise, for $25, to find the owner given the plate, but I've had enough experience with that type of search site to know that the money is for a "membership", not for the information, so when they can't deliver, you can't complain.

I don't understand what made her do that. What's wrong with people?

I followed her through Port Ewen, and then passed her on the multi-lane section, where she potted along behind a large truck that had trouble getting up to speed after the lights. She didn't seem to be in such a big hurry then.
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