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random bits
Mar. 18th, 2007 05:44 pm( Read more... )
driving fun
Feb. 13th, 2007 10:30 am
Dear City of Pittsburgh,
I'm not unreasonable; I don't expect pristine roads while snow is actually falling. But you've known this was coming for days, and it's not off hours, and Forbes Avenue is kind of a major road (to say nothing of the lesser roads). I really expected to see some evidence of plowing or salting this morning.
No love,
Monica
Dear driver from Ohio,
You should be familiar with the white fluffy stuff from back home. No one else on the highway is having difficulty maintaining the posted minimum speed of 40mph. If you really think that's twice what's safe, could you at least have the decency to stop swerving between lanes and slamming on your brakes at every little twitter of fear? And maybe consider getting off at the next exit and taking local roads?
But hey, at least I know my horn works now.
What is the law (and etiquette, for that matter) concerning stopping for
accidents you witness but aren't in? Ever since I was run down by
someone speeding through a red light, and not one of the several
witnesses stopped to support my story (or see if I was ok -- I was
thrown several feet), I've tried to stop if I actually see the accident
and I can. I always stop if I see clear fault (and especially
if I think the underdog is going to take the hit unfairly, like when the
bicyclist or pedestrian really was being stupid), or if anyone seems to
be injured. (Well, unless police or an ambulance just happen to be
there...) But I didn't stop for either of the two fender-benders I saw
on my way to work today, because they looked minor and what would be the
point? It got me wondering about what my obligations are in all of
these cases, from fender-benders up to major squishings, in light of my
observation that no one else ever seems to stop. Does everyone just
assume that the insurance companies, police, and ambulance crew will
work it out, and your testimony or other help is irrelevant?
short takes
Feb. 8th, 2007 09:13 amA few days ago I got a check-out coupon for Coke Zero (which I'd
bought on that trip). The text on the coupon says "we noticed you
like it (not that we track that or anything)". I appreciate the
sense of humor on the coupon-writer's part. (Actually, I prefer
Pepsi One, but not when the price is half-again. And Pepsi One
didn't give me a coupon.)
On a whim I bought a few cans of the store-brand cat food, which was on sale. Erik loved the beef-flavored one I gave him last night. Must remember that.
How to wash a cat,
from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
osewalrus. You've probably laughed at the text version;
now laugh at the video. (Speaking of cat videos, I'm glad I don't have
this problem.)
This comic (forwarded to me by Dani) has a lot of truth to it.
Yesterday we finally got up into double-digit temperatures. Sure, the first digit was a "1", but I'll take it. (Monday was symmetrical: the high was 5, and the low was -5.)
Happy Tu B'Shevat, the new year for trees, which sometimes has connotations of spring.
(Tonight's low: 2. Tomorrow's high: 10.)
April showers
Apr. 3rd, 2006 01:02 pmIt's 67 degrees out and my dafodils are blooming gloriously. What do you mean, "snow showers likely after midnight"? And a tornado watch currently in force, too. Must be April.
weekend and short takes
Dec. 11th, 2005 07:12 pmBig fluffy snow! I wonder how long that will last. (It also seems
to be somewhat slippery, at least for cars. Maintaining traction
is mostly fine; acquiring it while turning (e.g. making a turn from
a stop) requires a bit more attention. Or did a few hours ago, anyway,
and the multiple noisy near-misses at the intersection in front of our
house seem to confirm.)
Dani's company's holiday party was this afternoon. They held it at the children's museum, which seemed an unusual venue for small gatherings (I don't think of museums as having party rooms), but on the way in we passed a sign directing people to a birthday party. Ok, that makes sense -- a child's birthday party at a children's museum makes sense, and they won't turn down adults. :-) (There are about a dozen people at the company, and we and one other couple are the only ones without children.) To clarify: it's a museum filled with stuff interesting to children, not a museum displaying children. I suppose the latter would be, properly speaking, the "child(ren) museum". :-)
Yesterday morning, alas, instead of enjoying Shabbat services, I was at the vet clinic with Erik. (Why yes, I do think health of a pet trumps Shabbat. For myself, for anything short of Major Injury or Impending Death, I'd wait.) Fortunately, the problem was only a pulled dressing and not, as I had feared, pulled stitches. They fixed him up with a bigger dressing with more adhesive, which seems to be holding up well so far. But not the most calming way to spend (part of) Shabbat.
Yesterday afternoon and evening we played another game of 7 Ages. This time we ran from the first age through the beginning of the fourth, but it took a long time. At 9:00, in the middle of the third age, it seemed reasonable to set that boundary. At midnight it was less obvious that it was correct. So, still some calibration to do, but it's a fun game (though I got thoroughly whumped this time).
Short takes:
Ah, that's why there were a bazillion messages waiting in the moderation queue for an SCA mailing list today. Someone posted a query about sewing machines. That's kind of like posting a query about editing tools to a software-developers' list. :-)
Interesting if true, but entertaining either way: legal complications of a bizarre death (link from Dani).
My sister has never read the Narnia books and would like a copy. Does anyone know if the ones currently in print have been altered (from the ones we read in childhood) other than to change the order? (I can solve the ordering problem if I buy individual volumes or a boxed set rather than one of the compedia that's out there.)
short takes
Jan. 26th, 2005 08:17 pmThe weather has been strange lately. Aside from a couple of very
minor glitches, the temperature began rising Monday morning and
continued doing so for 48 hours. Nights were warmer than the
previous days, twice. The temperature then dropped all day today
(and is still doing so). Weird!
We played D&D last night. Third edition is inconsistent in one way -- usually high die rolls are good, except when determining whether something goes wrong during teleports. Those were my only high rolls of the night. Bugger. Well, that's what healing spells are for and third time's a charm, I guess. (I have an in-character explanation for why this happened at this particular time, but the out-of-character explanation is "Monica's dice lice were in open revolt".)
I talked with our associate rabbi this morning. Our senior rabbi, who leads the informal Shabbat morning service, isn't going to be there this week or next, so I had to find out if the associate rabbi is planning to take over or if we're supposed to take care of it on our own. It turns out that he would be delighted to just be a congregant and have us lead things (he's not a regular so he doesn't know the routine very well). He views it as a good learning opportunity for some of the folks in the group. Ok, now I don't need to find a way to make that suggestion. :-) This will probably strike some people as weird ("wait, there's a rabbi here but he's not in charge?!"), but that's actually perfectly normal in Judaism. Any competent adult can lead. So we'll do that for a couple weeks and see what happens. (Fortunately, I have two people I can tap for torah reading on short notice.)
wind and stuff
Nov. 13th, 2003 01:44 pmImpressive winds last night. At one point I woke up
to the sound of the metal cover in the (decorative)
fireplace in the bedroom rattling around. In other
words, wind was coming down the chimney with enough
force to do that. I've never heard that sound in
my bedroom before.
Note to future self: when you buy your next car, make sure it weighs as much as your current one. (They make 'em out of plastic now, so it might not.) This morning's winds were still strong enough to push my car around. (Low-profile, but small.) And wow -- hail! In November! Little hailstones, but hail nonetheless. It was kind of neat, from an indoor vantage point.
This morning at services a couple of the guys asked me when I'm going to lead the service. I said I need to learn the service better (that is, the chazan's part), and that I'd actually tried to buy a copy of the siddur but Pinsker's doesn't carry it. So Joe told me to borrow one; I was concerned that they didn't have enough to lend one out, so he picked one up, turned to the "donor" plate in the front that has his name on it, and said it was ok. Gee, I guess they're serious. :-)
A bug in our infrastructure code is preventing me from effectively debugging my application. The relevant developer should appear any moment now with a workaround. I hope.
short takes (pretty random)
Oct. 3rd, 2003 06:19 pmI awoke today to frost. Apparently the temperature
got down into the upper 20s last night. I'm used to
light-sweater season, as opposed to jacket season, lasting
more than four days. Perhaps it will return. (In case
you're wondering, the four seasons are T-shirt season,
light-sweater season (also known as sweatshirt season),
jacket season, and mega-jacket season. They are not of
equal durations; T-shirt season usually lasts about 5-6
months.)
I found this rant
about Usenet interesting. And not solely applicable
to Usenet. Thanks to autographedcat for the link.
Template for a badly-written poll: "Does X change your opinion of Y?" Sure it can, but neither "yes" nor "no" actually tells you anything else useful. If what you mean is "does X make you less inclined toward Y?", say that. (A current instance of this is a CNN poll, where Y is Schwarzenegger and X is his comments about Hitler.)
We had a very good On the Mark practice Wednesday. Robert, Kathy, and I will be performing at Darkover (without Ray, who can't make it), so we've been juggling some things around to make them work with just three people. We've also added a couple new pieces that we can just plan for three from the start. Things are sounding good, and we've still got more than a month and a half to practice. Kathy's been taking voice lessons and that's paying off, too.
short takes during a long build
Jul. 8th, 2003 05:02 pmJava compilations are much, much faster than C++ ones were. I must remember this when I get impatient.
One lane of the Boulevard of the Allies has been closed for a couple weeks due to construction. It's only closed for a block, and generally it doesn't hinder traffic flow. Today, however, traffic was crawling there, and I have no idea why. What, did last night's spectacular storm cause drivers to be afraid of puddles or something? Sheesh.
The storm was quite loud and bright last night. I think I jolted awake from proximate thunderclaps at least three times. This made the cats who were sleeping on/near me unhappy, but it wasn't exactly under my control. This morning it seemed to have cooled things down and sucked some of the humidity out of the air, though the effect apparently didn't last. (I haven't been out since morning.)
Sharon and Elliott have a new cat. It's shaped like a Siamese, but it's all white. Elliott told me that because it has green eyes it is an "Oriental Shorthair"; if, instead, it had blue eyes, it would be an "Unpointed Siamese". Eye color is a defining characteristic of the breed but pointing is not? I didn't know that.
One lane of the Boulevard of the Allies has been closed for a couple weeks due to construction. It's only closed for a block, and generally it doesn't hinder traffic flow. Today, however, traffic was crawling there, and I have no idea why. What, did last night's spectacular storm cause drivers to be afraid of puddles or something? Sheesh.
The storm was quite loud and bright last night. I think I jolted awake from proximate thunderclaps at least three times. This made the cats who were sleeping on/near me unhappy, but it wasn't exactly under my control. This morning it seemed to have cooled things down and sucked some of the humidity out of the air, though the effect apparently didn't last. (I haven't been out since morning.)
Sharon and Elliott have a new cat. It's shaped like a Siamese, but it's all white. Elliott told me that because it has green eyes it is an "Oriental Shorthair"; if, instead, it had blue eyes, it would be an "Unpointed Siamese". Eye color is a defining characteristic of the breed but pointing is not? I didn't know that.
Not long ago, there was a very heavy, sustained rain outside. (Now there's just regular rain.)
There is a lake where the patio is supposed to be. It's draining, very slowly.
There is water oozing into the basement from many directions. There is a sustained gurgle as that water makes its way, slowly, to points of egress, leaving flowing tendrils all about. We've seen water in the basement before; we always assumed it was pipes backing up, not a water invasion. The various folks we've called to bring in snakes and stuff when that happens have never done anything to dissuade us of this idea.
Lovely. Just lovely.
On the positive side, this is probably the sort of thing that's covered by homeowners' insurance. (I am often amazed at what's covered by homeowners' insurance.)
On the negative side, it's going to be a pain to get this diagnosed and fixed, I don't know if they can fix patio drainage (if that's a source of problems) without ripping up huge amounts of our yard, and the guest room is in the basement (see previous entry about imminent guests). Obviously we'll come up with some other solution for the guests, but still...
And Shabbat starts in less than half an hour, so certainly we're not going to call anyone in for a quick fix tonight.
There is a lake where the patio is supposed to be. It's draining, very slowly.
There is water oozing into the basement from many directions. There is a sustained gurgle as that water makes its way, slowly, to points of egress, leaving flowing tendrils all about. We've seen water in the basement before; we always assumed it was pipes backing up, not a water invasion. The various folks we've called to bring in snakes and stuff when that happens have never done anything to dissuade us of this idea.
Lovely. Just lovely.
On the positive side, this is probably the sort of thing that's covered by homeowners' insurance. (I am often amazed at what's covered by homeowners' insurance.)
On the negative side, it's going to be a pain to get this diagnosed and fixed, I don't know if they can fix patio drainage (if that's a source of problems) without ripping up huge amounts of our yard, and the guest room is in the basement (see previous entry about imminent guests). Obviously we'll come up with some other solution for the guests, but still...
And Shabbat starts in less than half an hour, so certainly we're not going to call anyone in for a quick fix tonight.
weather weirdness
Mar. 28th, 2003 01:05 pmIt is currently 74 degrees (F) in Pittsburgh.
What do they mean, "chance of flurries Saturday night"?!
This is just wrong. :-)
What do they mean, "chance of flurries Saturday night"?!
This is just wrong. :-)
working from home
Feb. 18th, 2003 01:28 pmI'm working from home today, not because of the snow but because it's car-inspection time and public transit doesn't really serve the office's location very well even when buses aren't way off schedule due to weather. So last night I FTPed a bunch of stuff to an intermediate machine (and then retrieved it from home), because the CD burn crapped out a few minutes before finishing, after an hour (!), and I wasn't going to wait around to try again. The internet to the rescue. :-) (It was only about 200 meg; it shouldn't have taken an hour anyway.)
I took the car to the garage at about 8:30 and they gave the impression that they'd be looking at it soon (not many cars in the lot, either), but they haven't called yet. The last few years inspection has been an exercise in patching problems to eek out a few more years. Some year, the cost of repairs will exceed a reasonable annual fee for keeping the car, and I'll have to buy a new one. (That's why I'm doing this now, although the current inspection is good through March.) I'm hoping that's not for another few years, because I'm interested in the hybrids but don't want to be an early adopter. We'll see. (One of my requirements for a car, and this is harder now than it used to be, is being a hatchback. Nothing else I've driven comes close on visibility combined with carrying capacity. And no, I don't want a van; I want something small.)
This is the first car I bought new. I bought it 14 years ago. I guess I just can't wrap my brain around the mentality that says that you replace your car every 3-5 years. Car shopping is way too much trouble. And hey, my insurance costs are low, which I certainly factor into the "fix or dump?" evaluation every year at inspection time. And I've found a mechanic who understands my approach and doesn't try to sell me on unnecessary repairs (best I can tell, anyway).
Last night I shovelled a bunch more snow from the "driveway", but I was tired so I settled for producing something I could drive over, rather than completely clear. I had some trouble getting out this morning, though, so I shovelled a bunch more when I got back from dropping the car off. Last night I also shovelled a path from the road up to our front door, but didn't do the sidewalks along the rest of the property because I was tired and no one else on the block had either. Dani did a little shovelling but tired out quickly. I don't think of myself as being in particularly good shape, but judging from last night my endurance is much higher than his. Odd.
Still, I'm glad that someone came around this morning offering to exchange shovelling services for money. The sidewalk and walk in front are now clear. My back has been a little sore today, so I might not have been able to do it tonight.
And apropos of nothing, why must obfuscating a jar (Java) be such a royal pain? Hasn't anybody written a tool yet that'll crawl through your code looking for dynamic class references? We have spent way more time on this part of the release process than seems reasonable.
I took the car to the garage at about 8:30 and they gave the impression that they'd be looking at it soon (not many cars in the lot, either), but they haven't called yet. The last few years inspection has been an exercise in patching problems to eek out a few more years. Some year, the cost of repairs will exceed a reasonable annual fee for keeping the car, and I'll have to buy a new one. (That's why I'm doing this now, although the current inspection is good through March.) I'm hoping that's not for another few years, because I'm interested in the hybrids but don't want to be an early adopter. We'll see. (One of my requirements for a car, and this is harder now than it used to be, is being a hatchback. Nothing else I've driven comes close on visibility combined with carrying capacity. And no, I don't want a van; I want something small.)
This is the first car I bought new. I bought it 14 years ago. I guess I just can't wrap my brain around the mentality that says that you replace your car every 3-5 years. Car shopping is way too much trouble. And hey, my insurance costs are low, which I certainly factor into the "fix or dump?" evaluation every year at inspection time. And I've found a mechanic who understands my approach and doesn't try to sell me on unnecessary repairs (best I can tell, anyway).
Last night I shovelled a bunch more snow from the "driveway", but I was tired so I settled for producing something I could drive over, rather than completely clear. I had some trouble getting out this morning, though, so I shovelled a bunch more when I got back from dropping the car off. Last night I also shovelled a path from the road up to our front door, but didn't do the sidewalks along the rest of the property because I was tired and no one else on the block had either. Dani did a little shovelling but tired out quickly. I don't think of myself as being in particularly good shape, but judging from last night my endurance is much higher than his. Odd.
Still, I'm glad that someone came around this morning offering to exchange shovelling services for money. The sidewalk and walk in front are now clear. My back has been a little sore today, so I might not have been able to do it tonight.
And apropos of nothing, why must obfuscating a jar (Java) be such a royal pain? Hasn't anybody written a tool yet that'll crawl through your code looking for dynamic class references? We have spent way more time on this part of the release process than seems reasonable.
Whee. Snow. Lots of snow. Lots of drivers who aren't quite sure what to do about that, too. We went out this afternoon to visit a sick friend and encountered a bunch of vehicles we decided to stay well away from. The one that was pointed at a 45-degree angle off, but moving straight (more or less), was particularly curious.
I'm not sure how much snow we currently have, but I think it's more than a foot (based on inspection of the front yard). The afternoon shovelling did not solve the problem, because snow is still falling, but it will be better than nothing. I have seen no plowed or salted roads. I wonder how much of a challenge it will be to get to work in the morning.
I'm not sure how much snow we currently have, but I think it's more than a foot (based on inspection of the front yard). The afternoon shovelling did not solve the problem, because snow is still falling, but it will be better than nothing. I have seen no plowed or salted roads. I wonder how much of a challenge it will be to get to work in the morning.
short takes
Feb. 4th, 2003 11:09 pmfiannaharpar and lrstrobel had the baby today. (Well, she had the baby and he watched. :-) ) I'm an honorary guy when it comes to stuff like this, so you'll have to go elsewhere for all the stats and stuff.This weekend the local SCA group is having a Viking-themed event, so I got out my old Viking clothes and discovered a problem with the caftan I want to wear. But
lefkowitzga had announced that she was having people over for sewing tonight, so I went over and she not only showed me how to fix it, but did most of the work. Gail is a real sweetie!It began to snow while we were there. On the way home I was trying to figure out if the roads were much worse than they looked or if my car had developed a sudden malady. Based on some of the other traffic, I'm guessing the former (though it wasn't bad to walk on). This morning it was 45 degrees or so and now there's an inch of snow on the ground and more coming down. Wacky.
Several days ago I cancelled the digital cable, dropping back down to the $13/month ultra-basic service that doesn't use a converter box. I expected the signal from the box to go dead, but so far it hasn't. In fact, I'm still getting all the high-end channels, but the on-screen TV guide and the ability to punch a channel into the remote and go directly there are gone. (So I can get whatever's on, e.g., channel 237 if I want to go there stepwise.) So they've obviously made some change to the service, but not the change I expected. The signal is also better coming through the box than through the raw line (and a little worse on the raw line than it was with the digital cable service), so I'll leave the box hooked up until they come to get it on Sunday (or it goes dead). I wonder if this means that there is hardware that I can add to the line to simply enhance the signal, without violating the customer agreement. UPN seems to be especially bad without the box, for some odd reason.
The cable company has a nice little scam of sorts. When I called to change the service they wouldn't talk to me unless I supplied an account number, which I didn't have with me. They didn't need such confirmation to add services to the account, but they do to remove them -- and, of course, you pay for them until you successfully remove them. So they got an extra day out of me; oh well.
The sound of sleet hitting glass, the car roof, and even snow is kind of pretty, if you don't think too hard about being out in it. :-)
This morning the view from my windows did not match the litany of accidents coming from the radio. I wasn't sure whether to try to work from home (which I'm not really set up for -- got to get them to give me access and teach me about VPN and stuff) or just drive in and assume that the city roads would be ok. I opted for driving in.
My patio, which I have to cross to get to the garage, is a pretty good indicator of the state of the roads in Schenley Park: both are exposed and neither will ever see a plow or salt. The patio was quite slippery, so I decided to take the longer, safer, more-travelled route to work. It took 45 minutes, which is longer than it would in good weather but not as bad as I feared it might be.
The roads I travelled were basically fine. Everyone was being sane; no one was being reckless or over-cautious. I didn't witness any traction problems (or is that "gription"? :-) ).
The roads, sidewalks, and parking lots I had to cross at this end were pretty bad, though. I hope we get that high temperature near 40 like we're supposed to. Otherwise, coming to work may turn out to have been a mistake. There's a lot of water on the roads, and what's coming down is currently coming down in chunks, not drops.
This morning the view from my windows did not match the litany of accidents coming from the radio. I wasn't sure whether to try to work from home (which I'm not really set up for -- got to get them to give me access and teach me about VPN and stuff) or just drive in and assume that the city roads would be ok. I opted for driving in.
My patio, which I have to cross to get to the garage, is a pretty good indicator of the state of the roads in Schenley Park: both are exposed and neither will ever see a plow or salt. The patio was quite slippery, so I decided to take the longer, safer, more-travelled route to work. It took 45 minutes, which is longer than it would in good weather but not as bad as I feared it might be.
The roads I travelled were basically fine. Everyone was being sane; no one was being reckless or over-cautious. I didn't witness any traction problems (or is that "gription"? :-) ).
The roads, sidewalks, and parking lots I had to cross at this end were pretty bad, though. I hope we get that high temperature near 40 like we're supposed to. Otherwise, coming to work may turn out to have been a mistake. There's a lot of water on the roads, and what's coming down is currently coming down in chunks, not drops.
white stuff
Dec. 5th, 2002 10:56 amWhee. Snow. Looked like about 4 inches this morning and it's still coming down; I wonder what it'll be like for the evening commute. Gotta love the effect on the commute.... (I don't dislike snow in the abstract, but I'd rather admire it from the comfort of my living room, instead of being out on the roads.)
It appears that those out driving before 7:30am are a better class of snow-drivers than those out around 9am. (The latter is approximately when I left morning services/breakfast for work. Services were long because it's Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh, first of the new month. And we started late, because it took longer to get a minyan because of the snow.) At 7:30 people were sane and competent; at 9:00 I encountered the reckless, the over-cautious, and folks who were skidding all over the place.
Even the major roads like Boulevard of the Allies hadn't been plowed at 9am. The Birmingham Bridge was throughly encrusted with packed, slick snow. I would have thought that bridges would get priority, but I guess not.
I am pleased that by driving sensibly and knowing how to use a stick shift, I did not have problems stopping on the slippery roads (even though I was nervous about some of the people around me, including the one behind me who didn't understand following distance). I will remember this when Dani lobbies for me to get an automatic transmission in my next car so he can drive it. Bah. Manual transmission rocks! And I'm not especially skilled -- solidly average, I'd say. (It's certainly possible that brake technology has gotten good enough for this not to be a real issue, but I will test-drive an automatic in the worst of weather conditions before considering it.)
I really need to go grocery shopping this evening. I hope it's not a zoo.
It appears that those out driving before 7:30am are a better class of snow-drivers than those out around 9am. (The latter is approximately when I left morning services/breakfast for work. Services were long because it's Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh, first of the new month. And we started late, because it took longer to get a minyan because of the snow.) At 7:30 people were sane and competent; at 9:00 I encountered the reckless, the over-cautious, and folks who were skidding all over the place.
Even the major roads like Boulevard of the Allies hadn't been plowed at 9am. The Birmingham Bridge was throughly encrusted with packed, slick snow. I would have thought that bridges would get priority, but I guess not.
I am pleased that by driving sensibly and knowing how to use a stick shift, I did not have problems stopping on the slippery roads (even though I was nervous about some of the people around me, including the one behind me who didn't understand following distance). I will remember this when Dani lobbies for me to get an automatic transmission in my next car so he can drive it. Bah. Manual transmission rocks! And I'm not especially skilled -- solidly average, I'd say. (It's certainly possible that brake technology has gotten good enough for this not to be a real issue, but I will test-drive an automatic in the worst of weather conditions before considering it.)
I really need to go grocery shopping this evening. I hope it's not a zoo.
short takes
Nov. 27th, 2002 09:43 amAttention Pittsburgh drivers: It's snow. You saw it last year. You dealt with it last year. Remember?
It took almost three times as long as usual for me to get home yesterday, and that was before the snow started sticking to the roads. I also passed three minor accidents. Whee.
I don't object to cautious drivers. I do object to the ones who do stupid things like block intersections (making it worse for everyone) or occupy two lanes or -- I am not making this up -- try to back up the length of a block on a one-way street instead of going around.
Friday on the way home from work Dani's car was grazed by a bus. It took out the driver-side mirror but did no other apparent damage. Saturn wouldn't talk to Dani until Monday, so he's been driving around with the thing taped together so he won't lose any pieces (some of which are connected by wires).
On Monday he called and they asked him if the plastic casing is black or the same color as his car (which is, technically, blackberry -- it looks black except in sunlight, when it shows as dark purple). It's painted, so he has to wait for them to order the part. Black he could have had right away. Now usually guys complain that it's a "girl thing" to insist that such things match, but you know, I would have taken the black. We don't get that many sunny days in Pittsburgh anyway; who'd notice? :-)
Apparently bus drivers get into enough accidents that this is down to a routine. Dani said the driver got out, took out a shrink-wrapped camera, broke the seal, took two pictures (one of the mirror and one of Dani's license plate), handed over a sheet of paper with the driver's basic information, and left. This was a tour bus, not PAT, by the way, so there's no way Dani is ever going to collect anything from these guys.
We got a weird series of wrong-number calls last night. ( Read more... )
It took almost three times as long as usual for me to get home yesterday, and that was before the snow started sticking to the roads. I also passed three minor accidents. Whee.
I don't object to cautious drivers. I do object to the ones who do stupid things like block intersections (making it worse for everyone) or occupy two lanes or -- I am not making this up -- try to back up the length of a block on a one-way street instead of going around.
Friday on the way home from work Dani's car was grazed by a bus. It took out the driver-side mirror but did no other apparent damage. Saturn wouldn't talk to Dani until Monday, so he's been driving around with the thing taped together so he won't lose any pieces (some of which are connected by wires).
On Monday he called and they asked him if the plastic casing is black or the same color as his car (which is, technically, blackberry -- it looks black except in sunlight, when it shows as dark purple). It's painted, so he has to wait for them to order the part. Black he could have had right away. Now usually guys complain that it's a "girl thing" to insist that such things match, but you know, I would have taken the black. We don't get that many sunny days in Pittsburgh anyway; who'd notice? :-)
Apparently bus drivers get into enough accidents that this is down to a routine. Dani said the driver got out, took out a shrink-wrapped camera, broke the seal, took two pictures (one of the mirror and one of Dani's license plate), handed over a sheet of paper with the driver's basic information, and left. This was a tour bus, not PAT, by the way, so there's no way Dani is ever going to collect anything from these guys.
We got a weird series of wrong-number calls last night. ( Read more... )
