Caltans has failed me again

I had high hopes that the 85/101 Interchange Project would ease congestion in that area, which had a lofty goal of reducing the onramps and offramps in that area from like 8 to 3 in a 2 mile stretch. But alas, after completion of the project congestion really isn't much better, and it leaves me still amazed at how little Caltrans knows about traffic. Although the project did reduce the number of ramps in the area, I think it has some fatal flaws. First of all, from the non-carpool entry to 101 from 85, as traffic enters 101, the two lanes from 85 are merged into one and then about 1/4 mile ahead that lane merges into the lane next to it. If that weren't bad enough, that merged lane then merges with another onramp only perhaps 1/8 of a mile down. Now, one nice thing about the new interchange is that the carpool lane from 85 merges directly into the carpool lane on 101, however, first off, there is about a 1/4 mile where there are two commuter lanes, which then merge into one. And, the best part is that the merge happens around the same spot as all the non-carpool lane merges. So, essentially you have about 3 or 4 lanes all merging at the same spot on 101. How can that not be a recipe for a parking lot? And how did Caltrans even plan it this way in the first place? Do they not have computer models, and simulations and so on that didn't indicate this was going to be trouble? And the best part. They are now making preparations for enabling traffic metering lights from the non-carpool entry of 85 to 101. Why did they even redo the interchange if this were going to be the plan? It would have been a lot cheaper to just put the metering lights in the old interchange. Arg!

(2007-08-28 15:37:02.0) // Permalink

Spam Grammar

I think I have a little bit too much flash fiction in my head after picking up a copy of Flash Fiction Forward, cause this little one liner I received as SPAM today made me sit back and think for a while. It may very well qualify as a flash fiction. Hey man, check out these pics I took of my Ex-Wife. Man she was hot. Lets analyze this a bit. Its fairly ambiguous. So did this person take pictures of his wife before they separated? Or after they divorced? And why isn't she still hot? Is she diseased? Or did she let her weight go? Or does this person just have poor grammar and mean to say she is still hot? I guess some things will just be left as a mystery to me.

(2007-08-21 10:38:49.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

Cut Off

Catching up on Jed's blog reminded me of a biking incident i was involved in, a few months ago. At the end of my ride, I was waiting at a light for a green to cross. As I waited, some doofus who wanted to turn right, was honking at the old lady in the car in front of him, who was too nervous, or whatever, to make the leap and turn right on red. But she eventually did right before the green. Now, I was kind of in a bad mood because it was windy that day and it really wasn't a fun ride, and so I decided to assert my right of way into the crosswalk in front of the hothead driver as the light turned green. Which didn't work, he cut me off, but fortunately i'm not 225 lbs and going 20 mph like Jed was. At any rate, as he drove off, I flipped him the bird... and for a second there I envisioned life ahead as a grumpy old man... until something miraculous happened. Looking in through the rear window, up popped a bird back from the driver. And all of a sudden I felt vindicated. By flipping me the bird back, he acknowledged that he knowingly cut me off and that he's pissed that I actually called him on it. Ahh, that made the ride worth it.

(2007-08-10 13:59:27.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

Who said NASCAR is all Pixies and Unicorns?

via Yahoo - Robby Gordon suspended for Cup race at Pocono for misconduct in Canadian Busch race

(2007-08-05 14:10:33.0) // Permalink

NASCAR and "Le Tour"

Some people give me crap about being a NASCAR "fan" but as I have been watching Le Tour de France I've realized there are at least a couple similarities. Perhaps the biggest of which, is the abundant commercial sponsorship. Now, these NASCAR naysayers have even handed me Car And Driver articles about the blatant sponsorship in NASCAR, but just take a look at 5 minutes of Le Tour and you will see just as many company logos slapped on everything as you will in a NASCAR race. There is one difference though, NASCAR drivers do recognize their sponsors in interviews, but as far as I've seen, Le Tour competitors don't acknowledge them at all. Now, in my heart I do hate advertising, but I just wonder... if someone is giving you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars so you can pursue your dream, wouldn't you want to openly thank them as much as you could? Its also pretty clear that both a NASCAR driver and a Le Tour cyclists rely heavily on their pit/road crews. With NASCAR, just a matter of a few seconds more to make a pit can cost you several places, just as without backup equipment, a cyclist today probably wouldn't even finish one stage in Le Tour. As much as both seem like individual events, the driver and cyclist is in some ways the figurehead of a well oiled team.

(2007-07-29 09:21:45.0) Comments [7] // Permalink

Weight Check

Last December I wrote about my effort to lose some weight. Figured its about time for a status check. So, after something like 9 months after I began, today I am 138 lbs. Not bad, but a few pounds over what I have typically been. I would consider myself in "maintenance mode" now - not working out quite as much as when I initially began, but still watching what I eat. And what still sux is, now that we're heading into summer, none of my shorts fit either. A belt with shorts? That just ain't right.

(2007-07-05 08:23:12.0) // Permalink

Corner Garden '07

Just getting around to posting a couple of pics of our corner garden. The corn stalks are growing pretty huge, but there isn't much corn growing yet. In the middle we've got some broccoli. 'Cept the broccoli heads are looking a little weird. To the right in the back are some tomato plants, don't ask me the varieties, I'm just manual labor. In front of that are carrots, we've had a few of those. Pretty yummy. And of course, there are peppers in front of the corn. And then my wife decided she wanted some cherry tomatoes. So we planted a couple of those in pots. Those were from seeds. I didn't think we'd get anything this year out of those since we planted them late, but they have taken off so we'll see.

(2007-06-15 15:25:32.0) Comments [1] // Permalink

Kids
(2007-06-15 15:12:29.0) // Permalink

Polish Women

In case you might wonder what life will be like if you marry a Polish woman, my wife (of Polish descent) sent me this joke the other day... To borrow from Homer, "Its funny cause its true." An elderly Polish man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite pierogi with fried onions wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed.Gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs. Downstairs, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen, where if not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were hundreds of his favorite pierogi. Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of love from his wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man? He threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumpled posture. His parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the pierogi was already in his mouth. With a trembling hand he reached up to the edge of the table, when suddenly he was smacked with a wooden spoon by his wife. "Back off!" she said. "Those are for the funeral."

(2007-06-15 11:30:02.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

Its Called the Express Line for a reason

Just a reminder to everyone, when you are in the express line at the super market, keep your transaction simple, otherwise, move it over to another line will ya! Here's a few things to keep in mind... No "Oops this is the wrong product, hold on while I get the right one." No "Are you sure that is the right price? Can you double check?" Make sure you've tried out the credit-card/ATM-card scanner once before. Use plastic or cash if possible, checks take too long. If you must use a check, can you start filling it out before your stuff is all scanned? Thanks... We're All In It Together!

(2007-06-15 10:37:50.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

ReadyNAS Power Consumption

For anyone who might want to compare the power consumption of a ReadyNAS NV+ with a TeraStation, I've slapped the Kill-A-Watt on my ReadyNAS, and here are a couple of numbers. Unlike the TeraStation, the ReadyNAS can be set to spindown all the drives. With all drives spun down, The ReadyNAS draws only 26W. With four segate 500GB drives, configured for XRAID, all spun up, the box draws 50W. Not too bad. I haven't watched the peak draw at power up, but that's probably not such a big deal since its a temporal event. For comparison, check out Rama's numbers for the TeraStation.

(2007-06-15 10:27:50.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

Mac vs. Windows Campaign

Ok, so I have been enjoying using my MacBook Pro, but I gotta say, the "Mac vs. Windows" advertising campaign that Apple has been running for a while always makes me laugh. One of the recent commercials has "Mac" talking about how cryptic "Windows" error messages are. As far as I have encountered with Mac, that can't be farther from truth. Notice the message I received trying to connect to a network drive. How incredibly helpful.

(2007-05-06 08:41:03.0) // Permalink

Mountain Gears

So I got the second mountain bike ride in for the season. Well, as mountainous as it can get when I start out from home, which ends up being about 8 miles of road, 4-6 miles of dirt and another 8 miles of road. Anyways, its been quite some time since I hopped on the hold hard-tail, so before I attempted to hit some steep trails I took a few weeks to ride an easy bike path between Mountain View and Shoreline Park. The first ride up to one of the peaks at Steven's Creek park was surprisingly easier than I expected, however, I did near black out as I paused at the top for a while. Yeah, I probably pushed myself too hard there. I paced myself a bit better on the second ride and felt pretty good at the summit. Its all coming back to me. I remember how I used to categorize trails - the "up-and-back", and "balloon", a couple basic ones, representing the path for the whole ride. So for example, a balloon ride, is one where you start and end on the same section of trail, but somewhere in the middle, you take a fork which leads you back to it later on. And then there was how I would rate each ride. Mostly on my performance. Which included things like if I had to stop to rest (-1), if I had to put a foot down in a technical section (-1) or even worse, if i pitched it in a technical section (-.5) - that only a minor ding cause as long as I didn't get hurt, there is a story in it at least. Then theres the gearing during uphills, max speed through downhills. So many things to occupy your mind during that slow, agonizing uphill. Ah those were the days.

(2007-04-11 10:12:26.0) // Permalink

Deadliest Advert

Ok so I know television stations and programs make money through advertisers, but this is kinda getting ridiculous. As I was watching Deadliest Catch this evening, I noticed some very peculiar embedded advertisements. First off on the Dutch Harbor map, down in the corner, a Lexus logo. Seems a bit strange to have a logo of such a "refined" automobile on such a show as Deadliest Catch. And then, low and behold, guess whose sponsoring the Crab Count, well its none other than Yellow Book. Ahh it reminds me of all the sponsored tickers and scoreboards you always see on NFL coverage, only not done nearly as well.

(2007-04-10 22:34:21.0) // Permalink

The New Pill

Bravo! Now a pill for the disorder practically everyone suffers from - Havidol.

(2007-02-19 22:52:25.0) Comments [1] // Permalink