Tag Archives: driving

Hazard Lights

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Kelson

Does it really accomplish anything to turn on your hazard lights when you stop your car in a no-parking zone for loading and unloading? It seems like it would have all the legal force of crossing your fingers on the witness stand.

Posted in Strange World | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Perspective

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Kelson
  • Having one of *those* mornings. On the plus side, I’m not the one who flipped his car on the freeway. #
  • Writing effective link text – an old article, but worth revisiting. #
  • Oops! Was so focused on figuring out WHY random Japanese characters were replacing letters in Twhirl that I forgot to take a screenshot! #

Posted in Strange World, Writing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Dodging Furniture on the Freeway (and other stuff)

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Kelson
  • Hmm, Dabel Bros. teaming up with IDW for Mercy Thompson. Maybe we can get that last New Spring issue soon? #
  • Reminder to self: bring a pen to the self-serve post office machine. #
  • Gee, that was “fun.” It’s not every day you get to dodge living room furniture on the freeway at 65 MPH. #

To clarify that last item: It was an easy chair, sitting in the middle of the road. The pickup in front of me slammed on its brakes to avoid it. I slowed down and tried to move into the next lane — around the car that was pacing me — so that I didn’t end up getting plowed into by the giant truck behind me. (It takes a long time for those things to stop!)

Posted in Annoyances, Comics, Strange World | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Restriping Fail

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Kelson

Caltrans (and other road crews), please remove the old lane lines COMPLETELY when you re-stripe the freeway. This morning I almost got sideswiped by a driver following the old ones in the glare. #

Posted in Annoyances | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hazards of Keyless Ignition and Office Chairs.

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Kelson
  • Today I learned that keyless ignition makes it easy to accidentally leave your car running. Good thing it was only 5 minutes. # The fact that it idles silently (no need to run the motor unless it’s charging the battery) was probably a necessary factor too. #
  • Amusing: Apple has released Safari 4.0.4. Seems appropriate for a web browser. #
  • By Fox “The Cancelator” standards, waiting 4 episodes to cancel Dollhouse Season 2 is generous. #
  • WTF? I just tweaked my *other* shoulder doing nothing more exciting than reaching for my mouse. Nowhere near as badly, at least! #
  • Right shoulder seems OK. Left shoulder still recovering from whatever the heck I did to it yesterday. The dangers of…office chairs? #

Posted in Annoyances, Browsers, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why?

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Kelson
  • Got a tech support question consisting of a single word: “Why?” #
  • What genius decided dark green on black was a good way to mark up parking spaces? # To make matters worse, some of the spaces actually are 20-minute spaces…only they’re labeled on the ground, in the same color green paint. I was almost into the space before I noticed.
  • Judging by the commercial, Ford’s hybrids are hippier than the Prius. # And I say this as the happy owner of a Prius. Seriously…the size of a tree indicates energy efficiency? The Prius has a bar graph.

Posted in Annoyances, Strange World | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Share the Road

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Kelson

Cyclists, “Share the Road” goes both ways. Unless you can go 40 MPH, please ride single file instead of blocking a whole lane. #

Posted in Annoyances | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Driving up the Vertical Horizon

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Kelson

Vertical Horizon: Burning the Days

  • Listening to new Vertical Horizon. Hope their tour makes it out to SoCal – the last concert we saw was really good. #MusicMonday #
  • Got honked at because I actually stopped before turning right at a red light & paused half a second to see if the pedestrian at the corner would step in front of me. #

Posted in Annoyances, Music | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Standing on the Freeway at Midnight

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Kelson

Here’s something funny that happened last weekend.

We were driving back from Los Angeles Saturday night around 11:30pm. You might think at that hour traffic would be relatively light. Not so: it was Saturday night, after all, and the route we were taking (101 south to 5 and onward) went straight through Downtown LA. By the time we merged onto the 5 we’d already been delayed by several slowdowns from accidents. It was a bit past midnight when traffic just…stopped.

We waited, figuring it was another round of stop-and-go traffic. And waited. A fire truck quietly worked its way along the right shoulder. After a few minutes, I put the parking brake on.

But the funny part was the driver of the car next to us.

He looked like he was probably around 20, and was driving an SUV with a sunroof. After a few minutes of dead stop, he opened the sun roof — this was midnight, remember — and climbed up on top of his car to see what was going on.

Then he got back down, opened the door, and walked around to the back of his truck so he could get his camera…and his guitar.

Next step: He handed the camera to his friend in the passenger seat, then walked out in the middle of the lane to pose by the car in front of him, giving a double thumbs-up sign and a goofy grin. As far as we could see, he didn’t actually end up playing the guitar.

I expect the photo is probably on Facebook or Myspace by now…somewhere.

All I’ve got are some blurry photos of the dashboard and the cars ahead.

Stopped Freeway

Oh, and the traffic break? Not surprisingly, it turned out to be an accident. Once we started moving again, we passed an area where several lanes were blocked off…and a car was propped up on its side.

Posted in Photos, Strange World | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Dead Stop at Midnight

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Kelson
  • Midnight. No movement on freeway. Note the parking brake is on. #

    Stopped Freeway

  • Home! That traffic break turned out to be for an overturned car that landed sideways. It’s 1am…time to slee #

Update: more about the weirdness of this trip.

Posted in Strange World | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment