Sephy’s Platzish

While the tone of this week is predominantly sad, there have been a couple of occasions for me to laugh, generally at other people’s stupidity (or just silly things that had been said). So, here are 3 scenarios which I faced just in the course of this day (Tuesday, not Wednesday when this is being published ). However, one really isn’t totally funny, but involves me having a bit of a saving grace.

They Speak THAT there?

I was alerted to the fact that an episode of the PBS travel show Rick Steves’ Europe featuring London was on the Create channel today. During the show, he was explaining how the Tube works, and he actually uttered this line -

Lost? Don’t worry because most of the locals speak English.

Really? I always thought they spoke Swahili or Mandarin in Tube stations…this was a shocking revelation that I would have never expected. That being said, however, Rick Steves is really the best (American) authority there is when it comes to travelling in Europe. Normally he has rock-solid information, and if you look at it in this context, you don’t get much more rock solid than that.

Gee…I wonder why he got stopped?

After work tonight, I went out to the south from my place of work in search of some less-expensive gas for my car (details of that in my next snippet). When you go to the south, you have to cross the freeway, and that involves a series of three stoplights (one is for a service road that leads to a hotel and restaurant complex, along with some banks and other services, the other two are for the freeway).

At the first of the freeway stoplights, traffic going south was stopped for the red light, and then, as they work, the light for traffic coming off of the freeway from the east was green. The first car in the line was a police car, marked and in black. Apparently the bright spark in the left lane didn’t notice this minor fact.

So what does he do? Go. While the light is still red. He didn’t even make it halfway across the freeway bridge before the cop had his lights on and getting ready to stop him, which he did just after the other stoplights. Wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation? By the way, the fine for failing to obey a traffic signal is somewhere in the region of $150 and 3 points on your license.

Always pay attention to road signs, ok?

Yeah, I kinda didn’t… :blush:

As I was driving into the city that is past the gas station that I usually stop at (which was only 1 cent per gallon cheaper) in my search for cheap gas, I got to a point where I decided to turn around. This particular city is renowned for having confusing streets and you can get lost easily. I guess the good news is that I didn’t get lost, but the bad news could have been me either in a heap of trouble with the police or in a hospital.

That is, if it wasn’t for a guy in a truck yelling at me about the street. You see, I had gone to the end of what was a split set of one-way streets, and I had assumed that because it was a one-way street intersecting the other half of the one-way pair, that this street was also one-way. It didn’t click in my head that there were lights going both ways on the street, meaning that it is a 2-way street. And I wondered why there weren’t signs talking about left turns on red…

Anyway, the light turns green, and I do what I thought was right (and what would have been right if this were a one-way street) and turned into the lane closest to me. The guy behind me turns into the correct lane, which I thought was about 3 lanes too far over. He goes and passes me, yelling to me "This isn’t a one-way!" I promptly swerve into the correct lane behind him and his truck, and when we get to the next intersection that has lights, I went into the right lane and thanked him for letting me know. He said that he did it so that I didn’t get hurt. It goes to prove that there are good folks out there.

In fact, if it were one of those Miller commercials, he’d probably have been given a bottle of the product they’re selling because he was genuine.

Oh, and the gas? I wound up getting it at the station I went past in the first place after all - it was $4.169 per gallon (or $1.102 per liter) there - the highest I’ve paid so far. Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to come down appreciably at all, thanks to the speculators playing their games.

The week started out with not so great a bang with now walk on Sunday, but things did pick up with pictures being taken, albeit of some of the less interesting things in the world Let’s start with Monday, shall we?

Monday, 14th April

This has become a bit of a pain in my pocketbook as of late - while it may not be the most visible detail, the brakes on the car need replacing. In particular, the right front’s brakes are grinding, and whenever you step on the brakes, you have to be very careful, and even then you still get the grind. For that reason, I’ve started to use the other car (not to mention that that car gets slightly better gas mileage anyway…).

Distance - 3110 steps, 2.48km

Tuesday, 15th April

This is one of the trees that I go past on a regular basis on my walks - right now, since we’re just getting into spring, it doesn’t have any leaves on it just yet. Eventually, there will be leaves, flowers, and even fruit growing off of the tree.

Distance - 2663 steps, 2.13km

Wednesday, 16th April

This is another shot similar to the one that was posted last week, but on a different angle, and with a different focus. As I was walking along, I noticed this particular tree in the paddock area (still quite full with water as you can see here), and decided that it would make good fodder for a photo. I love the contrasting color of that tree.

Distance - 3946 steps, 3.15km

Thursday, 17th April

And, normal service has been restored. The face in the tree, often a portent of the way things are going (for what reason, I’m not sure, but it sounds cool, alright ), has been restored from its nadir a couple of weeks ago, with the disappearance of all of the snow that was surrounding it. Now, it can sit there and wait for the next snow to dislodge more of the pieces, I guess.

Distances - Before going to work (after walking) - 5612 steps, 4.48km; After work - 6569 steps, 5.25km

Friday, 18th April

I didn’t take any pictures - not that the inside of a mailroom would be that interesting (or that they’d appreciate me taking pictures of the inside of the building - something that I wouldn’t do anyway), but I did get a chance to do a bit of walking, including doing a little bit of a walk around the parking lot when I had my lunch outside on a nice grassy bank, though there were quite a few pine needles in in the way…

Distance - 3486 steps, 2.78km

Saturday, 19th April

I gotta fess up - it was a nice day, but I spent a lot of it sleeping…I’m still a bit of a vampire. The walking was held, for the most part, in the store where I went to buy groceries and other stuff that we needed for the house. The picture is of an area along the road I drive along to get to just about anywhere. Behind the trees is about a 10-meter (30-foot+) drop down into that grassy area. I’m not sure if a car’s gone off there, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone had a problem at the road that ends just up the hill and ran through the trees!

Distance - 3368 steps, 2.69km

In other news…outside of my issues with being the vampire once again, it’s remaining to be a good time for me. I’m still liking my job (and I definitely think that I’ve been accepted into the fray, since the folks I sit next to and I hold some banter while we’re working). As far as my confidence goes, I was involved in an interesting activity where a group of folks (from all age ranges, though I was the only person from my age range) discussing where the organization was headed. One of the strangest things is that I went into it thinking that I’d be bored out of my mind, but in the end, I think I was one of the most talkative people in the whole of the group.

And, one funny story before I hit publish on the post - on Saturday, as I was driving back from the store, I was approaching the turn off for the side road I need to take from the main highway. For some reason, the state didn’t put in a turn lane for the direction I was going in, so I had to signal and slow down while still in the main lanes of the road. As I was slowing down and getting ready to turn, I could see the driver in the car behind me get visibly aggravated at me for slowing down for the turn. So, I continue my action as I don’t want to fly around a 90° corner. As I go into the corner, the bright sparks in the car behind me finally realize that there is a second lane to use there, and they take advantage of it. Then, as they were passing me, the passenger made a punching like gesture (not the finger, but just kind of a shaken fist). How did I respond? I just waved and said hi, then turned off of the road.

For quite a long time now, Mario Andretti has been the face of the Bridgestone/Firestone company’s public awareness campaign to remind the public about the importance of ensuring that your tyres are properly inflated according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.

On Tuesday, I was out, and I’d been noticing that my tyres seemed a bit low, and I didn’t know if we had any pressure gauges available here, so I went to a local auto supply store, and picked up a basic one that goes from 5 to 50 PSI for $7.00 or so. Then I get home, and check the air pressure levels. For my car, the recommendation is 30 PSI cold.

The gauge said that they were at 15 PSI. Not good at all. So, I had a chance to go to a service station, and took advantage of their free air to put some back into the tyres, but I’ve been missing on the left rear - I need to go out and fix that tomorrow, probably at a different station, but now I know that I should probably back in at the one I went to on Tuesday, so I should just be able to do that.

Anyway, the reason that this should wind up saving me money in the long run is that one of the main advantages of having properly inflated tyres is that the car doesn’t have to work as hard to get moving, which means you’ll use less fuel every day. So far, the car’s trip computer seems to be in agreement with that theory, since I’ve gone from 20.8 or so MPG up to 22.5 for my last fill-up (though the calculated mileage was 20.something).

On one car-related note, I am really wanting to take care of it; I need to book an appointment to have an oil change (it’s been nearly 3700 miles, and almost 3 months since the last one; it’s hard to believe that you can drive that far in such a short amount of time, you know?), and to check the fluids and other fun stuff.

To think that I used to always say that every 3000 miles for an oil change was just a recommendation - now, it’s a guideline for me to start thinking about getting a change…

It’s not surprising that there is the occasional deer around in the area - in fact, I’ve posted pictures of them before. However, one of the biggest dangers out there on our roads is the high number of deer that go running around at will - and they have the right to, since they were here before we were, and to be honest, we’re encroaching quite heavily on their habitat. However, the strange thing is that since I drive every night in the dark, I’ve seen deer at least 4 times now - and they’ve always been in the same spot - which is good and bad for a couple of reasons.

It’s good because I then expect to see them there, however, it is bad because I’ve gotten kinda paranoid about it, so I go really slow through there now, which could mess things up for other traffic. That is, if there was other traffic on this road - I think I’ve only encountered one or two cars the whole time I’ve driven on that road (it’s not the most frequently travelled road, since it’s a mile to the east of a main road, and cut off at the freeway).

I know folks in Australia have to constantly be on the lookout for the different animals that are out there, and I gotta say that even though I know the damage deer can do to a car (thanks to having heard tons and tons of car v deer accidents on the radio), the though of hitting a kangaroo is one of those things that I would not want to experience when I go over there.

One last little riddle for y’all, which I don’t expect an answer for. I’ve been listening to radio broadcasts from World War II, and as a lot of you may know, the whole nation observed Daylight Saving Time year-round during the war. However, instead of referring to it as "Eastern Daylight Time", it was referred to as "Eastern War Time". What I’m curious about is why they chose to call it war time and not daylight time…

I had my first real near miss today while out driving. And it was quite scary, even if I wouldn’t have been at fault.

It all started with a trip to get gas from a station where we had a 4¢/gal coupon, and to go deposit my check - however, that part of the trip was called off when the mail came and no check came as a surprise.

Anyway, we go to the gas station, park next to the pump, and the first strange thing happens - a guy pulls up with his Jeep and trailer and goes very gingerly past the car in order to get to the next pump ahead. The only thing I noticed about the vehicle was that it was red and it had a dent in the rear panel.

I go around and do the usual stuff that you do while the car’s filling with gas - you know, cleaning the windows, cleaning the dirt off of the car, etc., using the wiper/squeegee that they have for you to use. The car fills up (we had an excellent run for this fillup - 22 miles per gallon {I didn’t note the L/100km, sorry y’all!) according to the trip computer), and then we go to pay for the gas, and I get back in the car.

Uh, yeah, that wasn’t supposed to happen - if you’re reading this after 11.19PM CDT Saturday, it makes no sense, but apparently Ctrl+Shift+S is a shortcut in w.bloggar to publish the post!

Now, back to the story, which so far is quite normal and, honestly, quite boring.

Because of the guy with the trailer, I had to back out from the pump, and instead of choosing to go up the 2-lane backroads, I decided that we’d go towards the freeway (mostly because it’s faster and more efficient if you ask me), which means that I left the store’s lot (the station I went to is one that is in the outlot of the store it’s attached to, the 4¢ coupons come with any purchase - so far, no minimums that I know of) through the exit with a stoplight.

As we’re sitting at the stoplight, I start to wonder if it will ever change, as I was first in line to go and make the left turn to head towards the freeway. Finally, it changed, and we got the green light. The last time I checked the rules of the road, when one road at a stoplight has the green light, the cross road has the red light.

Apparently, I was wrong.

As I was starting out of the lot, all of a sudden a van comes flying up on the left side of me, horn blaring, so my instinctual reaction was to slam the brakes, then hit the horn back at this complete nutter who ran the red light. Oh, but there was one more small element to the story.

I flipped the person off. Not a terribly shocking occurrance on the roads, but from me, a bit rare. I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for one thing that they did.

Yeah, this woman who (need I remind anyone) ran the red light flipped me off!

After that little incident, I moved off and was quite shaky - my heart was beating something fierce - and I was a bit of a basketcase. I also said something along the lines of f–king morons a couple of times (and, yes, I did use the F word in front of my mother - it didn’t bother me, mostly because she would have been doing the same thing!). My only thought was to get somewhere and get out of the car for a little while. So, where do you go in a case like that?

There really is only one place for someone like me - Best Buy. Thankfully, they’re only a little way down the road. We spent a bit of time faffing around in the store, and yes, we made purchases - nothing exciting; 2 iPod covers and a screen protector, a bottle of water for me, a bottle of Coke for my Mom and she also got a couple of mini note sets that they have at the checkout lane. The total cost - $25 $15 $10 $6.78 - the iPod covers were the most expensive item at $1.99 for the whole kit. Who says I can’t find a bargain?

We also did a bit of looking at TVs, I played around with the tuners, switching them to the race broadcast that was on over-the-air today (btw, Channel 12 - why in the name of all that is good in this world do you have to have your bloody logo on the HD feed? Like the SD feed, we know that if we’re watching ABC, we’re watching channel 12!)

We also looked at phones, as I’ve had my phone for well over 3 years now, and it’s getting time to upgrade phones. I haven’t decided which one I want, but I definitely want to stay with my current provider, as they’re the only one I know of that lets you have mobile phone service for $5.28 per month.

BTW, the advice given to me after the incident happened was that it would only be the first in a line of near misses…