Commuting Traffic

Like many others, I commute to work. I have dreamed of the day that my commute would consist of walking down the stairs to my basement and going into a corner especially built for me, where computers, phone, darkness and music are in abundance - but it hasn't happened yet, and at the current rate it might happen just in time for my 104th birthday - so I'm not holding my breath.

Baltimore is reputed to be a tough commute, and it can get pretty ugly in the morning. I call ugly a morning when my 22-miles-of-freeway plus four traffic lights turns into an hour on my motorcycle or in my car. This morning was one of those mornings.

I've been driving for almost 50 years now, and have driven in Germany when there were no speed limits and survived, so I must've done something right. I have come to a few conclusions about just why traffic gets so sucky sometimes.

1. People check their manners when they leave their homes - the trip turns into international screw-your-buddy week, and some seem to take great joy in making certain that nobody can change lanes or pass them - and if there's someone on a ramp, they can wait until their vehicle turns into iron oxide.
2. Cell phones make everyone oblivious to the impolite folks that don't have cell phones, which in turns makes them even less polite and helpful.
3. NOBODY knows how to use mirrors any more.
   
4. NOBODY gives a ratzass about physics, reaction time, or the realities of modern brakes and tires, as good as they are, they still won't help when you run out of time.

This morning, for instance, I watched someone do the following -

1. Cut me off whilst talking on a phone, not looking in a mirror; just moved over to where I was. Luckily I was paying attention - my polite horn beep was greeted by a upraised middle finger, which meant there were no hands on the wheel as the other hand was occupied holding a cell phone.
2. Run down an on-ramp to the end, right past two others who purposely left a space large enough to fit three cars in safety - this arzl had to be FIRST and wasn't accepting largess on anyone's part. When he got to the end of his ramp, he bullied his way into the lane that was there and promptly bullied his way across another lane - because he was in an exit-only lane and he apparently didn't want to exit.
3. Pull in front of a car carrier only to discover that everything was stopped in that lane - he was talking on his phone and it had missed his notice that he was moving bu8t where he was headed nothing was moving. Happily the car carrier wasn't going fast - but he flatspotted a bunch of tires getting stopped - and the jerk in the car flipped him off for the noise of tires sliding.

Now, when I am in the right lane and coming up to an on-ramp I always leave space for at least one car to pull in in front of me - and I think if everyone did that it wouldn't cost much time and traffic would flow smoother. What I get for my thoughtfullness is horns and glares from the folks behind me - and the occcasional hand signal. If I happen to be on my motorcycle, sometimes they will try to pass me in my lane , or crawl up so close to my taillight that if I just get off the grass they'll be munchung my fender. I really do not like that sort of behavior. I know motorcycles typically stop much better than cars, and don't have a wish to become a hood ornament.

Particuklarly obnoxious folks drive jacked up pickups and expensive SUV's - they get right up close and personal, never even thinking of the danger in which they place me by being so close. I guess someone who has fewer than four wheels is classed as vermin by such drivers. I can always pour on the throttle and make some space since motorcycles do that better than most cars - but in traffix there's often no place to go. Sometimes I can pour on the power and the loud pipes will make them slow down, but not often - most folks are so insulated in their cage vehicles that they couldn't hear a freight train if it fell on them.

Courtesy is cheap, and simply by being courteous, ugly situations do not have the opportunity to form - and letting just one person in can change the whole day for that person. I wish that were better understood. Working for a police department, I see lots of accidents and reports thereof, and you'd be really surprised just how many accidents could have been caused not to happen with a little courtesy on someone's part - along with, of course, some awareness of what one is doing and where one is doing whatever it is.

I am occasionally tempted to carry a bag of large marbles to loft into the air when a following vehicle gets so close to my moorcycle that I feel endangered. Up to this point I haven't done this, but it gets more tempting every day. Even in the car I get tempted by this thought - particularly when the only thing I can see in any of my mirrors is a jacked up Dodge Ram pickup that looks like it is eating my trunk.

I wonder if I carried a bag of paintballs.... No, they probably need more force to burst than I could supply simply by throwwing one up into the air. Maybe a weed sprayer full of yellow paint? No, I don't think so - too hard on the environment.

I had a stock exhaust on my motorcycle for a while - I paid a bunch of money to buy it after buying the bike with Vance & Hines pipes on it. When I put the stock pipes on, it got quiet - and people stopped seeing me. I put the loud pipes back on and get menaced a whole lot less every day. I also have a nice lout air horn - when I blow it, folks pay attention, and by the time they fitgure out it is a biker and not a trucker, I am gone from that area.

I ride because I like to ride. My motorcycles use less gas than my cars (by half or more) and I know some guys that tell their wives that they want a motorcycle to save money, but I'm here to tell you that's crap. Riders have motorcycles because they want motorcycles - saving gas is a nice byproduct, but not the real reason to have one. If you don't ride, or if your only riding experience is as a fearful passenger being scared by some yahoo more interested in your fright than his safety, you are missing something - it is peaceful out there in no hurry wandering the counryside. Many of my favorite rides would average 40 mph or less - and I seem to see so much more than when in a car. I hear things I might not otherwise hear, smell new smells all the time, and see colors much brighter than when ensconced in my air-conditioned MP3-playing automobile. The only real plus for a car is that I can carry a log of stuff I probably do not need, and I've never stalled a car and had it fall over and needed to pick it up - which has happened with my motorcycles.

I think there'll be a motorcycle rant not too far in the future - as soon as mine gets out of the shop after being vandalized by s stupid homicide cop in the police garage.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Halloween

I got to work a few minutes early today, and while waiting for the elevator encountered a police sergeant.

Since I talk to everyone, I said something really clever, like "Howdy, Sarge!" as he walked by headed for the garage.

He responded "Howdy, and have a happy Halloween!" as he went out the door.

Just before the door closed, I heard him say "THIS year, I'm goin' as a cop!"

It's gotta be really great to have fun at work.

HD TV

We bought one - it's wonderful.

But.

There's always a but, it seems...

I spent several hours yesterday with a VCR/DVD Writer trying to get a TV show onto a disk for a friend, first putting it on tape. The Sony device supposedly will dub tape to DVD (I bought it for that purpose - too much tape taking up space at our house, and DVD's are so much easier to store, not to mention easier to find...) and thought I'd just dump the show onto tape at first, just for drill.

I tried, I really did - and learned a lot.

Our HD TV has one set of outputs. It's 3 RCA plugs - that's right, stereo sound and composite video.

What I learned was that if you recorded it in HD, there's no way to make it come out of the composite jack and onto a VCR.

You get great sound, just no picture.

Tonight I'll mess with the other holes on it to see if it has a component-in on the deck - and if it does, maybe I'll try to send it that way from the cable box, since the TeeVee is on the HDMI.

I'm glad I didn't start out using the media center PC and a Dazzle capture box - I'd've got really ticked!

Ain't technology grand! But the really amazing part is that I am old enough to remember transistor radios being expensive and flaky. I have a couple of radios around the house that use tubes, and I have worked on computers that had tubes - and ever time I say something like that out loud some smartass will ask "What's a tube, Grandpa?"

But what I do for a living was not even good science fiction when I was about deciding to be if I ever grew up.

So I decided never to grow up. To hear my wife and kids tell it, I've been a resounding success.

Wednesday, all day long

Wednesday is Choir Rehearsal day.

When you marry a choir director, unless you're hopelessly tone-deaf, you get to be a member of the choir. Try it sometime - it can be fun - I enjoy it still, and choir rehearsal is on motorcycle club meeting night, so I only get to club meetings in the summer when there's no choir.

But music is important, singing can be fun, it helps your respiratory health and makes you feel better - and it is free; all it costs is a little time. There are some pretty neat folks in choirs all over the place.

I found a wife there, and she's put up with me for more than 40 years.

Happy Wednesday, everyone.

WinAmp

I just downloaded a new version of WinAmp, which I have not used for more than a year.

It's a nice piece of work - particularly with the amount of internet-available content.

I remember reading a bit about SHOUTcast but did not until today realize just how much material is available out there as convenient as a radio broadcast, with quality that's at least pretty good.

I think I'll just have to load this onto the media center PC as soon as I get home. Some of the internet-available material is even video - wonder how it will look on that 37 inch hi-def TV when it is being used as a monitor....

Keys

I hate keys.

I'm no longer as young as I once was (nor, for that matter, dear reader, are you...) and I have too many keys. The house has two keys, one for each door, my Volvo has keys, my wife's Kia has keys, my daughter's Jeep has keys, my motorcycles have keys (The Kawasaki has two; the Honda has five!), and all in all if I have all the keys I might need on a given day there are many - and adding to the count of keys are the clickers for the remote door locks on my Volvo and on the Jeep (the Kia is bereft, although it cost plenty!)

Anyhow, I keep the keys to one motorcycle on a separate ring that clips on and off the ring that has everything else - and about a year ago I somehow lost the everything else part, including the clickers for the car doors. I did get home that night as I could still find the motorcycle keys, but I had to wait outside, sitting on the back porch all forlorn because my house keys went away with all the other keys.

So as soon as I got inside, I grabbed the spare set of everything-but-the-cruiser keys, thinking "Gee, I hve to get these duplicated sometime soon."

About two weeks ago, I lost everything but the cruiser keys while out riding the cruiser. I didn't realize it until I got home from a 100 mile ride. Now I had to get new keys made.

House keys were easy and cheap.

Kia keys were easy and not too expensive - maybe $42 or so for two of them.

Volvo keys, on the other hand, were more than $40 each and I had to wait three days for them - and that didn't include the door clicker. Happily the weather was good while I waited for Volvo keys, and I didn't need to use the car - the weather was great for riding, so ride I did.

I didn't bother with a Jeep key since there is still an extra for that and I don't drive it.

So finally I have all my keys and things are working and I decided that the Volvo needed a clicker for the doors. So far I have bought three off eBay - and failed miserably at getting them to work. You never know just how nice it is not to have to find a keyhold and insert something and turn it when you've had a little white button for so long that would do it all for you.

What I'd REALLY like is a clicker that could be taught to manage every lock I need to use. It would remove a pound or so from my pockets. It would be even better if it could be surgically implanted in my left wrist so I couldn't lose it.

Maybe next year....

Thoughts on Gastric Bypass....

A few years back, I had a gastric bypass (Roux en Y version, for those to whom it may be interesting) done by a very good surgeon. The procedure was done laporoscopically, so I was in and out of the hospital in less than 48 hours, and back to work within a week. The surgery was a success in that I never felt any pain, and never had any of the bad fallout that is typical with such surgery (nausea, etc.) It could be said that I might as well not have had it for all the trouble it did not cause, but It was done, and on several occasions I created situations which disturbed some of the physiological changes, and they let me know about it. Otherwise, I can eat whatever I want whenever I want and as long as I watch quantity (and heed internal pressure) there are no adverse aftereffects.

My postop success has been less than exemplary, and I suspect a lot of that had to do with the fact that no mater what I did there were no ill effects. My plan was to lose just over 200 pounds. After almost three years I still have one hundred to lose.

Those who would consider this, please be advised - a lifestyle alteration goes with it, and if your entire household is not committed to helping you, you will likely end up a lot like me - still fat and depressed.

More on damaged vehicles

With regard to a certain BMW large sedan driver that works where I work - previous post gives details....

I just learned that this little bit of foolishness has to be reported to Internal Affairs for their investigation. That is going to make life a lot harder on the BMW owner. See me grinning....

The very first page....

Well, I'm new at this, and tend to stream-of-consciousness writing, so you should consider yourself forewarned. As an information technology professional, I understand several languages, can curse fluently in several more, and have a regrettable tendency to say what I think, or what I thought I was thinking, since the blog is always after the fact of the thought.

This morning, I'm more than a little bit ticked off. Last Friday, when I arrived at work, my parking place was occupied by a large refrigerator which BMW 4-door sedan, at least a 6-series, probably a 7- or 8-series. Now, I work for a large police department, and wondered immediately who could afford such a vehicle (although I must confess to having been a bit envious...) that would work here - but there was no parking permission tag in the vehicle, so I did what is normally done around here - I parked my vehicle in front of his, blocking his exit capability. This is what Building Security always tells us to do when someone has occupied a reserved place.

Friday, I was on my motorcycle, so I parked it across the front bumper of this vehicle, very close, and went to work, secure in the knowledge that someone would call when the driver of the BMW needed to leave and have me move it.

When I went out around 8 PM, I was surprised to find my motorcycle blocking the vehicle next to my spot. I had left it with the steering locked deliberately so it could not be moved without either the key, or enough people to pick up 800 pounds of dead weight to move it. I soon learned that what had happened to arrange the move was far less thoughtful, malicious and dangerous.

Whoever was parked in my place had decided to avoid the embarrassment of finding out who owned the motorcycle and whose space was being occupied, and instead forced the locked steering far enough that the motorcycle could be moved. In the process, the locking mechanism was damaged to the point that the steering could not be unlocked, rendering it impossible to use the motorcycle to get home - so I had to find another way home and inconvenience several people in the process, also missing dinner with family and a meeting. As if that wasn't good enough, I had to have the motorcycle picked up and transported to a repair shop on Saturday Morning - rendering it impossible to do what I had had planned for Saturday morning, and costing me $174.00 that I had not planned to spend.

Sometime today I'll learn how much internal damage was done to the steering mechanism of the motorcycle, and how much it will cost to have that repaired to make it safe to operate again.

Meanwhile, Sunday was one of the best days this month for motorcycling - and I was stuck at home!

What is it about the ownership of such an enviable vehicle that confers upon its owner the right to disregard rules of civilized behavior, the right to damage property of others and cause danger to others? I am normally not inclined to stereotype, but have noticed that the owners of big BMW and Mercedes automobiles tend to think they are better than others, that traffic rules and rules of civilized behavior are for other people?

Yes, I am pissed off.

Yes I did file a police report about malicious destruction of property. However, I am a civilian employee of this agency, and I suspect that the BMW owner is a sworn officer. Right away I am at a disadvantage, since cops know that they are superior to normal people.

As a motorcyclist for more than 50 years, it really bugs me that someone could be so cavalier as to do something like this, and so ignorant as to believe that no harm was done.

Grrr!