Tag Driving

Seasonal affective disorder

Michael 5 Comments

It was a sad weekend. Sad because it was time to put Rosemary to bed. Sadder because this year’s unusual weather patterns left us with an autumn devoid of autumnal hues and the annual romp through the country lanes with the top down trying to catch a falling leaf or two.

Last year’s fall foliage was positively neon, a culmination of ever more brilliant colors year over year for the past five or six years. This year…bleh. I blame it on little orange men. They’ve screwed up everything else in the world that was good.

But back to nature. It was not a good year all the way around for topless driving. The spring was too wet, the summer too hot, and the fall was too dull. A dull fall is the worsts way to end convertible season.

There’s only one thing that can be done. Not end the year yet.

It’s been more than several years since I had the opportunity to run a snowflake rally through the Christmas lights, as comforting, if not quite as comfortable, as a leafy lope through the mountains. As much as there is something indescribable in driving along the mountain roads nearing the same heights as the tree tops themselves as they give up their colorful leaves, it is even more difficult to describe the feeling of driving along inside a snow globe. Both or either must be experienced.

Of course, the problem is there is no guarantee that the holliday lights season will overlap the falling fluffy flakes season. Fortunately, with a couple quick connectors it will be no problem to wake Rosemary and prepare her for a quick midwinter excursion if the opportunity arises.

I suppose you will just have to stay tuned for updates as the seasons change. Wish me luck.

Bright lights, little city

Michael 9 Comments

About a week ago I was on my one home an evening. It wasn’t very late but it was very dark. The weather was cold but clear, remarkably clear, and dark, remarkably dark. I was north of home in my little suburban hamlet heading south on a classic dark and windy country road.

It was dark enough I needed high beam lights to see what lurked ahead. It was clear enough I could easily see oncoming traffic as we both neared the many twists and curves in the road. And all concerned politely reduced their lights it low beam lights before making the bend and blinding the oncoming driver. You gotta love people who know driving involves more than “put it in gear and go.”

As I got closer to town, the road straightened and lights mounted high above nicely illuminated the roads, eliminating the need for the super bright high beams. Another mile or so brought some roadside businesses and their lights added to the general brightness. 

It was then I saw the blur of white some distance ahead, heading north on the now almost ruler straight road through a little town-let. The blur grew and grew in size and brightness until it became clear that it was ye olde basic pick ‘em up truck with mutilple headlights, fog lights, and even lights across the bully bar over the top of the cab blazing while barreling merrily along, presumably by a backward hat wearing, plaid shirted, scraggly bearded truckster.

There ought to be a law addressing night time driving particularly discussing lights and illumination. Oh wait, there is, actually are. There ought to be people enforcing them.

It’s almost become SOP, ignore the laws that are inconvenient, or the regulation. Throw out the “way it’s always been done,” “doesn’t hurt anyone,” “anyone with common sense would know that.” Do what is right. 

Have you ever wondered why I’m so hard on backward hat wearing, plaid shirted trucksters? Little Rosemary is not the first little sports car I’ve owned. I had once had a 1979 Mazda RX7, the second year it was offered. It was about the same size as the later to come Miata but rounder. The year was 1985 and it was stopped at a red light where a large, jacked up pickup truck driven by a (you guessed it) backward hat wearing, plaid shirted, scraggly bearded, beer bellied amateur truckster did not stop at a red light and literally ran up and over the back of the low-slung car. Oh yes, there are laws.

Blog Art 2

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It Seemed Like a Good Idea

Michael 3 Comments

How many times have you worked up what you were certain was a perfectly good plan, an acceptable idea, a jolly good show, only to find upon execution than what you really discovered was a newer, quicker, better than new and improved way to a folly good show? We all have failures in our back pockets. Some of us consider them learning experiences. Others may try to bury them. Or as one young man recently attempted, to drown his.

Good ideas are hard to come by. When we think we might be on to something the last thing we want to happen is to see somebody else beat us to the patent office with that better mousetrap because we took the time to think things through twice. Now make no mistake about it, the world is indeed still looking for the mousetrap to beat all mousetraps but it ain’t gonna hurt to stop and give that thought a second or third go ‘round through the old noggin.

There are times some of us share our ideas with others before acting on them. The prudent among us at least listen to the advice, consider the advice, perhaps rethink some or all of our thought and then seek again even more advice. And then there are times we don’t even have to consider the advice. If that advice is “heck yeah, that’s amazing!” we probably won’t question our logic. Likewise it the advice is “you’re on really thin ice” we return to the starting point and rethink that whole though. Usually.

Sometimes our plans are so outrageous we disown them. “No, I didn’t do/think/say that!” even coming up with an alternate “plan” when someone suspects we really did do/think/say that. Sometimes, very few times fortunately, we go ahead and do something particularly unthinkable and get caught for all the world to see. And then quite rarely we get caught with such a bad plan someone like me will come along and make sure as much of the world as I can reach gets to see it because, well, because sometimes stupid cries out to be heard or otherwise you just won’t believe people still come up bonehead ideas like this. Like what?

Like this: ↓

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If you like you can read the whole story here but the gist of it is that the young man, um, make that the old enough to know better man thought: a) it would be fun to drive across the lake or b) it was a parking lot. Or perhaps c) all the above? since he gave both reasons to the local police.

So remember boys and girls, when you think you have a really good idea, don’t believe everything you think! (Oh, where have I heard that before?)

Time Out!

Michael 4 Comments
“I have to go, I’m running late. Actually I’m running in time. You know what I mean.” And my daughter knew exactly. If you’re on time, you’re late. That was a snippet of a conversation before I set off for a doctor’s appointment this morning. Even in these days of reduced time and extra spacing in the waiting room, and for some doctors not even opening the waiting room but waiting in the parking lot, I tend to budget my travel time for a 15 minutes early arrival.
 
Unfortunately my drive time estimating skills are not that good. I plan with the help of four travel windows. Anything within the neighborhood is 15 minutes. If the destination is on my side of town it’s a 30 minute drive. Across town or into a neighboring county and I plan for 60 minutes on the road. Anything farther away than that I take a snack, several bottles of water, stop to fill up the gas tank, and in winter check that the tire chains are in the trunk. Most times this admittedly somewhat bizarre approach has served me well. I’m usually at my destination somewhere within those extra 15 minutes and when I’m outside the window it is almost always with more than 15 minutes to spare. That’s okay, I don’t mind waiting. Then are days like today.
 
The drive to the physician’s office for today’s visit is a legitimate 35 minute drive but it’s on this side of town and thus gets the 30 minute travel window. Hey, I don’t make the rules – well, okay, maybe, um, uh. 
 
StopwatchSo I set off on my 30 minute drive and everything was going fine. Just because I was only a quarter of the way there and I used up 20 of those minutes was no reason to panic. I hadn’t hit the 4 lane highways yet. I could make up that time. And I did. Sort of. I got onto the highway and with one eye on the dash clock, one on the speedometer, one on the road and another on the rear view mirror, I watched my way all the way to the parking lot only 10 minutes late which was still 5 minutes early so I wasn’t on time but I was doing fine. I pulled into a spot, strapped on my mask, tripped over the door sill thingy or whatever it’s called on a car, hit the lock button, rescued the keys from inside, hit the lock about again, and marched to the door. Whew! 
 
And there I read, “To minimize contact in the waiting area please do not enter until 5 minutes before your scheduled appointment time.” 
 
Ah…right on time!
 
 

Driven to Distraction

Michael 5 Comments
In the midst of chaos comes order. And in the midst of protests, name calling, escalating hospitalizations, and ongoing isolation comes a breath of fresh air. As long as you don’t mind being trapped in a car to get it!
 
Using the money he saved to buy a new car,  Sean Rothermel instead rented 27 billboards for a month and mounted a outside art exhibit and motor tour around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhoods. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rothermel said, “It’s very much about the experience and giving people something to do, even if it’s just for a few hours. Just giving people a way to get back into the present moment but in a way that you’re not stressed out about the virus or the economy.”
 
The April in Paris of Appalachia tour takes about 3 hours through 17 of the city’s neighborhoods. Rothermel posted a driving map and description of each billboard but did not post pictures of the boards to encourage people to get out and move around the city even if it has to be in the confines of a car. He also posted links to resources to help those struggling mentally and emotionally during the pandemic. 
 
If you need a break from isolation and you are in the Western Pennsylvania area it’s worth the gas to take a break for a few hours and navigate around the city making sure you don’t overshoot the board coming up next. But you have to hurry. The billboards are up only for July. If you can’t get to the city but really want a pandemic poster all your own you can see the website for details to bid on one or if you’re a U.S. resident you can enter on Twitter and Instagram to win a poster or jacket.
 
And you thought billboards went out with Mail Pouch tobacco.
 
 
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Working It Out

Michael 5 Comments

Every now and then I get it into my mind that I should go back to work. Most of the time that happens when I’m asleep in the form of a dream (or nightmare if you will). Some of the time it happens when my every so often disability recertification comes in the mail. In the past few days both of those things happened. And then I thought, if I had to, what would I do?

I couldn’t do what I used to do or I’d be doing it. Whatever it would be it should be something that I don’t have to think much while I’m doing it. I had a lifetime of thinking. I’d want something mostly brainless.

It shouldn’t be anything that requires a lot of sitting. I spend so much time sitting during dialysis (so I can “live a normal life” while I’m not on dialysis) and after dialysis (so I can recover from dialysis) that standing is actually refreshing. But it couldn’t be anything where I had to stand for more than a half hour at a time. I’m good on my feet in one place for around 30 minutes and then I fall over. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes a little less, but 30 minutes is a good starting point. Or more appropriately, stopping point. Limited standing would be good.

The local dollar store had a sign up for a part time cashier. I love dollar stores and it would be a financial plus for them since my little salary would certainly turn into dollars spent there. But I’m certain they don’t have half hour shifts and I’m just as certain they wouldn’t take kindly to me teetering, tottering, then toppling a few times each day, ADA regs notwithstanding.

HelpWantedA great standing job would be TV weather person. They only stand in front of the big screen for 2 or 3 minutes then it’s back to checking the weather app on the phone to prepare for the next segment. I can do that. I even already have the app on my phone. Two actually. The one that I wanted and downloaded myself and the one that magically showed up the last time my phone automatically updated itself from wherever it automatically updates itself. If I would be willing to move I can probably do it without either of those apps. I’m certain that in San Diego I can go on air and say “tomorrow will be warm and sunny,” and be right 362 days of the year, 363 on leap years.

A short period standing job would be good but would more likely still have to invented. What else is out there to do? Driving. I like to drive and I know my way around town. I could drive something, but not for a cab company, or worse, an app based ride hailing service. I wouldn’t even pick up a hitchhiker back in the last century when thumbing on the open road was right between VW bus and Greyhound as the most popular means of interstate travel. Depending on the kindness of strangers is not my idea of gainful employment.

Limo driver might work. Oh the people who climb into the back of a limousine are just as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi and then they aren’t nearly as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi. You can tell that by the way even though some limos have glass partitions between driver and passages they are rarely bullet proof. Car lot courtesy van driver is another stranger driver job I can get along with. Again, they are still strangers but the people I would be working for are holding the strangers’ cars hostage. The problem is that sometimes those drivers double as lot attendants and that means clearing cars of ice and snow in the winter and washing them year round. That makes it all much too much like a job.

What else? I thought I’d find out and check some ads. I was still interested in possible jobs but not that interested that I wanted to open up a browser and check a real job site. I discovered that there are still want ads in the paper. A lot of them are for security guards. That wouldn’t work for all kinds of reasons. Security guards either sit a lot (see above), stand a lot (see above), or walk a lot (not even considered enough to be included above). No to guarding.

But I found a job in the paper that seemed ideal. It was titled “staffing assistant” and the responsibilities included “reviewing and recommending job applicants, and making staffing recommendations.” I figured I could review my background, recommend they hire me, then further recommend my job to be home based and with no additional responsibilities.”

Now we’re talking dream. No nightmares need apply.

 

Getting Your Money’s Worth

Michael 6 Comments

I went to a hockey game yesterday. My daughter is my usual hockey partner for these games. Hockey is a good bonding experience because we get to experience first-hand that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree especially after a particularly well placed goal, hard fought penalty kill, or extraordinary save, not to mention a rousing Dance for a Dilly Bar competition (so I won’t mention it). It’s also a good bonding experience because we get a good hour or so to ourselves with discussion topics that don’t usually come up in general daily conversation while driving to then sitting in our seats waiting for the puck drop.

For example, last night as we were closing in on our parking lot we noticed several cars in front of us slowing down at each parking entrance, perhaps checking out the remaining offerings or the event rates for that lot, then swerve back into traffic. We get to see this traffic ballet at almost every game but don’t think much of it. Yesterday, though, Daughter mentioned that she and Boyfriend were visiting friends between the holidays and they got caught behind a vehicle doing a similar wagon waltz as they proceeded through a neighborhood behind a driver who would slow down at each intersection, turn enough so his or her headlights illuminated the street sign, then veer back in front of them for another block. We dubbed it the “holiday home party shuffle.”

Another thing we both noted while we were coughing and hacking our mutual germs into the car’s enclosed atmosphere is that if you show up anywhere on the 2nd through 5th of January feeling under the weather you are greeted with “still working out New Year’s Eve are you?” Apparently germs take a holiday during the holidays.

Throughout the game you can track the progress of the team’s charitable foundation’s fifty-fifty raffle. Anybody who has been a parent of a high school sports participant, band member, cheerleader, or theater group is familiar with fifty-fifty raffles. For $5 you get three chances (or maybe 20 chances for $20) on half of whatever the erstwhile organization brings in that night. Having a daughter who was band-centric during her middle and high school years I got to sell lots of tickets and count lots of dollar bills. On a good day at an all-day regional band competition we’d bring in close to $400 and the winner walked away with half of that. I noticed last night’s fifty-fifty take on the same 3 for $5 chance was over $38,000 and the winner got to walk through the parking lot after the game with a check for $19,340. I didn’t hit that one either.

But here is perhaps the most blogworthy thing from last night’s hockey game. I have a half-season season ticket package. That gives me a pair of seats to every other home game. That’s about 20 or 21 regular season games per year. Twenty games is a lot of hockey especially for someone who doesn’t move particularly well without a cane and who still insists on leaping up from his seat whenever anything marginally leapworthy happens. So I go to about half of my alloted games doling out the others to Daughter, Hockey Loving Sister, or the resell market. Here’s what was blogworthy about last night’s game. Over 2+ seasons of just regular season games (since I started tracking this) I’ve been to about 26 hockey games. On two occasions did those games end in regulation time. Last night marked the 24th game I’ve seen that went into overtime.

I might not be hitting the fifty-fifty but I am getting my money’s worth!

greatdayforhockey

Lots of Hockey!

On the Road – 2016 Style

Michael Leave a comment

I just got back form a little road trip. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the road for so long or so far. Things have changed – and some haven’t.

In general people still haven’t figured out the fine art of driving. Speed limits are optional, turn signals must be broken, brakes apparently don’t work nearly as well as horns, and lanes are merely a suggestion of vehicular placement. I recall when everybody went to driver’s ed in high school. Now nobody goes. And it shows! But no school will pay the cost of a car, a teacher’s extra time (for some reason it was always a gym teacher), and the outrageous insurance it must cost when the only authorized drivers are unlicensed teenagers and a gym teacher.

Rest stops have gotten dirtier, with less real food and more unreal people. And they are farther apart. When many highways were being built in the 1950s the cars were big but of suspect power. In the east and the west where mountains rule the terrain, all roads had stops at the peaks. This allowed the motoring public a chance to stretch their legs, enjoy the views, and allow their cars to cool down after doing their imitations of an asthmatic billy goat. And there the rest stops stayed. The ones that weren’t torn down.  Today’s cars are much more powerful and can easily make it up three or four thousand feet. And much too easily they then make it back down the other side. I feel sorry for the people who live in the flat middle of the country and don’t get to enjoy the experience of plummeting down a mountain around bends often only feet from all too real sheer drops, bending, twisting, turning, ducking into tunnels then back into the sunlight only to plunge into the new darkness of a companion tunnel then thrust back out for another few miles of downhill slaloming all at a speed for which breakneck is too mild an adjective. We don’t need rest stops at the top of the mountains; we need them at the bottom. With liquor licenses. And underwear changing stations.

Gas stations are being augmented by charging stations for electric cars. A great idea. I saw a half-dozen charging stations at each stop I visited.  Even at the smallest of the stops where I stopped there stood the usual six charging stands. For the entire four days on the road I encountered one electric car. Perhaps someday there will be lines for them also.

A new nicety at rest stops is the farmers’ market. I love farmers’ markets and have posted a few thoughts on them. But I don’t understand why they are there. Except for the few RVers still on the road, how many people pick up a peck of fresh veggies for dinner while on vacation?

In the 1970s everybody reduced the speed limit to 55mph to save gas since prices had skyrocketed to a whopping 59 cents per gallon. Even though gas today is cheap at $2.50 a gallon, speed limits keep getting higher. Except for whoever is driving in the left lane. For some reason as soon as I pull out to pass a slower vehicle the car that just sped past me discovers that his brakes indeed brake.

And perhaps someday somebody will be able to explain why there are handicap lanes at the toll plazas. I didn’t use them. But there they were, and that might be this week’s newest, greatest mystery.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Faster Than a Speeding Steam Shovel

Michael Leave a comment

Some years ago I posted a series of tales featuring the dubious driving abilities of those who had managed to plow their vehicles into unsuspecting, immovable buildings. (Enter “Cars” and “Building” into the site search window and you’ll find those contributions.) With the exception of one follow-up a year ago I stopped such posts not because I stopped finding them in the local news but that they had become so commonplace that I feared if I continued you’d develop a less than admirable perception of drivers from my part of the country. But even that can’t stop this installment.

Among last Monday morning’s news stories which included two separate car vs building scuffles and one report of a garbage truck assailing a house in an early morning sneak attack (apparently even the driver was unaware of it at the time) was a related incident. But first, we should take a moment and explore how one directs a vehicle under his or her control into a quite stationary, often multi-storied structure.

I don’t buy the excuse of “I thought I was hitting the brakes.” The pedal configuration in automobiles has been the same for roughly 110 years. That’s longer than anybody who has run into a building has been driving. It’s longer even than anybody who has run into a building has been breathing. No, you don’t suddenly “forget” which pedal is which. I also don’t buy the excuse that “I was distracted.” Distracted driving is indeed a real thing. Many accidents and unfortunately many accidental deaths have been caused by distracted drivers. That I am not disputing. But to hit a building you must leave the roadway, climb over curbs, drive through hedgerows and/or parking meters, flush quail and other small animals often including startled, screaming human beings before striking an object with force enough to propel your vehicle through it. I might buy operator death while driving but since all of the reports that I have seen end with “the driver claimed he (or she) thought he (or she) was hitting his (or her) brakes” and/or “the driver claims to have been distracted,” death clearly has been ruled out.

So now that we’ve explored how one directs a vehicle into a non-vehicle we know no more about the mental state of these drivers than we did before said exploration other than to say they are mental.

SS1And that brings us to my latest report. A man drove his back hoe into the living room of a house. He then drove off! Fortunately (that’s how the local police chief described it, “fortunately”) the homeowner got a good description of the vehicle and officers who were on patrol nearby were able to track down the alleged operator. Fortunately (yes, “fortunately”) they had that good description and they were able to stop the correct backhoe driving down the road. It would have been quite embarrassing to stop the wrong one with pieces of picture window frame hanging from it.

Thank God he didn’t drive around to window #2!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Stops Along Holiday Road

Michael Leave a comment

It’s not quite here but if you haven’t already, you’re probably at least in the planning stages for your summer vacation. Have you noticed how we change our vacations through the span of our life? You may be still on your great journey so let me use my life as an example of one who has already journeyed the various stages of vacationing.

I was a kid during the time that station wagons ruled the roads and roads ruled vacation travel. Our vacations typically were to places where branches from our own family tree reached. Which worked out since we became their destination on their vacations. Most summers we loaded up the family sedan and set out on a day’s drive east or west. (There were no relatives south and a day’s drive north would have taken us out of the country.) Major attractions were riding lawn mowers and shopping at department stores different from the ones at home.

The teen year vacations were pretty campy. You know- boy scout camp, baseball camp, band camp, football camp. The camp years. The locations changed but the group didn’t. Later in life these were the memories that would make you appreciate the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt.”

During the college years there were no vacations. With kids in college for a dozen years running, my parents claimed the school year to be their vacation while we would work through the summer so we could all do it again the next fall.

Adulthood finally brought the real vacations. We travelled to exotic places like Los Angeles and Boston. For us that was exotic. One was actually sunny for five days in a row and the other had people who spoke in some language that wasn’t what we were used to hearing at home. Upon the arrival of my daughter vacation spots once again resembled family gatherings. Fortunately staycations were becoming the in thing (even if we didn’t have that catchy name for them) right up until her camp years began.

There was a brief period after my daughter graduated and set out on her own that vacations became exotic again. Since I was actually working and had some discretionary income, exotic actually included locations that required air or sea travel to reach.

And that brings me to the cusp of my “golden years.” Retirement, no commitments, no worries, no work, no time clock, no shirt, no shoes, no income. Every day is a vacation. And as long as I don’t travel too far out of the city I should get to spend quite a few of them on Holiday Road.

So, plan wisely, enjoy your summer vacation, and remember… oh heck, I forgot.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?