Pour us a road, we’ll both drink and drive

Sometimes, we’re so counterproductive in our society, it’s a wonder we get anything accomplished. Hell, look at government as a good example! Seriously though, if we used just a slice of common sense, we might actually get to the other side of the road and go, “Huh, if I had known it was that easy, I would’ve done that a long time ago!”

The reason I’m mentioning this is that last night, I took a friends brother who is in town for the week to my favorite hockey bar to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals while my friend was busy with a previous commitment. After I arrived home from work, changed and was heading out the door, my brother walked in and asked where I was headed, so I mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to join us. Now I know my brother is only 19 years old, but he has been in this bar before, not with me, but with some other people that know the owners, so I figured we’d be ok.

We get to the bar, find some seats and get ready to sit down, but the bartender spotted us as we were walking in and asked to see everyone’s ID. First off, um, hello? I have a beard and some grayish hair; I think I can pass for 21! Second, I mentioned that my brother wasn’t 21, but we brought him so he could be our designated driver, which I thought would be a logical excuse. It wasn’t likely that he’d be drinking; however, the law in Texas says that he can’t be in there, but then, it also says this:

In Houston, Texas, beer many not be purchased after midnight on Sunday, but can be purchased anytime on Monday...which happens to begin right after midnight on Sunday! So it's illegal to buy it when it’s legal to buy it?

I digress.

This left us with two options, pick up some beer, go back to the house and watch the game, or I drive my brother home and come back. He said it was ok if I took him home and I mentioned option 1, but he said he was cool with going home, so I drove him back there and headed back to the bar to hang out with my friends’ brother.

This brings about non-logical point number two: I know have to waste gas to drive my brother home. This is really not the time to be wasting energy resources! If we let him stay at the bar, I can drink a little more and have a safe, reliable driver waiting to take me home AND only use one trip’s worth of gas. This is opposed to the two trip’s worth of gas I had to use to take him home and then try not to drink too much so I could be a responsible driver for myself. Does that make sense to anyone? Sober driver and less gas used, or slightly intoxicated driver and more gas used, which sounds better?

On a side note, my brother is not a big hockey fan because he grew up in the south, whereas I grew up in the north. He has watched a number of games at home with me during the playoffs, but he’s just not a big fan in general. My friends’ brother on the other hand…anyway.

Needless to say, tomorrow night, we’re staying in to watch the game.

Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?

An excerpt from this article:

"It's snow. We get a lot of it. So what?" said Allan Babcock, a lifelong resident who owns a popular diner in this village of 650 people located about 38 miles northeast of Syracuse.

Roads were mostly cleared Sunday as workers turned their attention to removing the snow and trimming down 10- and 12-foot-high snow banks.

The intense blast of snow hasn't been blamed for any deaths in Oswego County. Elsewhere, however, more than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 25 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, seven in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.

So many people complain, or shiver at the thought of all that cold weather and snow, yet only 25 people have died and while that is tragic, it’s such a relatively small number when compared to say, a hurricane. Particularly, a hurricane that people were told could be the one that sinks their city.

You see, when natural disasters occur in the north, such as massive amounts of snow, people do what they’re told – stay inside and only drive on the roads if it’s an emergency. Northerners know that going outside, and specifically driving, is seriously putting your life at risk. 115 inches of snow have fallen in Central New York and not one person has died because of it. 36 hours in advance of a hurricane people were told to get out. They didn’t and a couple thousand people – and an entire city - died.

Drive in drive out, I'll come back again.

What is with people passing me because I am driving at or just slightly above the speed limit? I mean, I don’t need to go 10 mph above the speed limit to get to the next red light. Every time people pass me, I wind up sitting behind them at the red light, how has this been productive for you? Instead of being behind me, you wound up in front of me. Congratulations, you won the race.

This happened once yesterday on my way in to work and the lady driving the Jeep Commander who passed me didn’t even have her hands on the wheel! I know this because when I looked in my rear view mirror, her one hand was holding the cell phone to her ear, while the other was holding her coffee mug up to her face. Then she proceeded to pass me at the first stop sign, then run the second stop sign and still only made it as far as the red light at the end of the street where I slowly pulled up behind her and waited for it to change. I didn’t see any checkered flag waving when I got there, so I assume she got out and took it for her trophy case at home.

It happened again today on my way to work, this time by a snobby looking fellow in a Mercedes (I’m not saying everyone who drives a Mercedes is snobby looking, but this guy WAS!). He passed me at the stop sign again, DID stop for the second one and still wound up right there in front of me at the signal.

Then on my way to lunch, I also had to stop at Barnes & Noble (I had a gift card - nosey!) for the new Duncan Sheik CD. This guy creeps up on my tail, like that is going to make me go faster, then juts out into the right lane and passes me at probably about 35 mph. Oh yea, I was in a SCHOOL ZONE! Guess what? I pulled up behind him at the next red light.

See driving faster than me doesn’t get you anywhere quicker. I know this because I’ve had about 10 speeding tickets prove it to me.

Anyway, here is what I’m getting at: by passing me in a short distance situation, you’re not gaining any significant time and really, you’re just pissing me off!

I’m on the highway to hell

Some random notes while driving to work this morning:

A. The speed limit is 40 mph, you should try it sometime.

B. Don’t fly by me in the right lane at 60 mph and then cut me off and slam on the brakes so you can make a left turn because 1) it’s rude and 2) you could’ve very easily eased into the left lane BEHIND me where there were NO CARS and no potential for causing an accident!

C. Stop staring at the joggers and go when the light turns green. Oh wait, that was me.

D. When the three cars ran the red light, which was well within their limits of stopping for, why didn’t the motorcycle cop who made the left turn heading in their direction pull them over? If that had been me running the light, I would’ve been pulled over in a flash, but these three people apparently have “Don’t pull me over – I didn’t do anything wrong” written all over their cars and the cops believe it!

E. The white lines that define the parking spaces in the garage serve as a guide as to where you should park, might I suggest using them? If you choose not to, I will park next you, in between my lines, and don’t be surprised if you can’t get into your car because mine is right up against it. See, I’m of the firm belief that if you can’t even park the car, then you shouldn’t be driving it!

Leaving on a jet plane

Something about me and airports I guess!

We flew into Jacksonville International Airport today without problems, but when we had come back to pick S’s sister and her boyfriend up, I came upon the issue of the day: airport security.

Normally I wouldn’t worry about something of this nature since I am willing to give up some freedom if it means keeping me safe. However, in this particular instance, I feel we need to rethink things, even though I know it happens everywhere. We parked in front of the terminal to pick the two of them up and we waited for maybe 2 minutes before they arrived. Their luggage had not come out yet, so they brought their carry on bags to the car and went back inside. About 3 minutes later, security came over to tell us to “circle the lot if we weren’t loading anything.” I understand the reasoning for this; they don’t want people loitering around in front of the airport. It’s a reasonable idea – in New York, Washington, D.C., L.A., Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Toronto, you get the idea, the major airports. At Jacksonville International Airport, I can’t imagine too many terrorists hanging out in front of the terminal, waiting to blow it up. I also cannot imagine too many terrorists wanting to hijack a plane from that or any small market airport due to the nature of the size of the planes that fly in and out of them.

Terrorist: We have de plane.

FAA: You’re kidding right?

Terrorist: No. We are going to fly dis tirty-five seat Turboprop into de Des Moines Civic Center.

FAA: Ok buddy, you do that!

I know, I know, that’s mean, but I’m just playing a role here.

Seriously, are we worried about this? Maybe there is another reason I’m not thinking of or that no one has told me, but this is the reason I have been given and (insert hint of sarcasm here) I take the government’s word for everything, like a loyal citizen!

Again, I’m not opposed to giving up some freedom, but making me circle the lot when I know my party is inside waiting on their luggage to be brought out is a bit ridiculous.

Part II of this issue is the fact that I have to continuously circle the lot! With the price of gas these days, a potential energy shortage, the fact that I am driving a rental car and that 30 other cars are doing the same thing as well, causing a possible traffic accident, which then translates to my insurance rates going up; come on, let me stand by the curb for 5 minutes. Hell, you can run my drivers license through a background check if it makes this whole process easier.

The funny thing about this situation is that we were told to move not once, but twice and I thought about lying to get out of it the second time! After we came back around after the first couple laps, S had to use the restroom, so she parked and I was in the passenger seat. When the security officer came to my window and asked what I was doing I explained to him the situation and he asked me to move it…again. I wanted so bad to tell him that I didn’t have a drivers license and that I couldn’t move it, that we’d have to wait for either S, or the one of the others to come to the car, but I also did not want to know what the consequences would be if I said that. So I got out of the passenger seat and adjusted the driver seat and pulled away, made 4 laps, then stopped to finally pick up our party and head to our vacation destination.

A great start to this vacation.

You drive me crazy

I know I already ranted about poor driving skills, but seriously people, let’s get it together. Time is money and sitting behind these people is costing me a lot of money! If we could take the millions of crappy drivers out there and get them off the road, just think of how much more productive the rest of us could be because we aren’t stuck in traffic!

To the two SUV’s in front of me, that’s right, you in the Toyota Land Cruiser and you too in the tractor-trailer sized Ford Excursion; your vehicles are made for rough terrain, therefore, a few bumps in the road ARE NOT cause for slowing down! I know the speed limit was only 30mph, but doing 12 over a couple bumps in the road is completely unnecessary and slowing me down from getting back to work.

Maybe you don’t know why I have to get back to work so quickly, is that why you’re driving me insane – at 12 mph? Well, let me tell you why I have to get back to work…oh wait, I’ve already covered the fact we aren’t getting paid for hurricane time and I have to gather all the time on the clock that I can.

Don't believe the hype

24 hours later and I am at home, moving around my furniture so it is back in place and writing my blog for the day. Hurricane Rita turned out to be a wimpy storm for our area, although not so much for the east Texas/western Louisiana coast. We had a light drizzle of rain this morning and a nice breeze, but it was hardly a hurricane to us.

We left College Station at 10am and took some back roads home, fearing the same traffic jam as when we originally tried to head up there. We moved along quite nicely until some areas that did not have power, therefore having signals which were not operating. This caused intersections to be used as stop signs and instead of a flow of people from each side moving through, 30-40 cars would have to sit and wait their turn, which slowed us all down. Nonetheless, we arrived at the parking garage to pick up the girls' cars and each drove to our respective homes. I had power and water, but no cable. S & A had neither and P had power and cable, but no water. Between our three of homes, we'll survive.

The only damage that I have seen so far is a tree that has fallen into the gate which surrounds my parking lot. The gate is holding the tree from collapsing onto the hoods of two cars, although by the time I took the picture, one of the cars had been moved out of the way Otherwise, there are a lot of small tree branches that can be moved by hand or foot and a lot of leaves lying on the ground. Maybe as we see more pictures, we'll see more damage in and around the Houston area.
That's it for now though!

Looks like we made it

At 1102 am, we arrived in College Station, without a hitch. We drove 75mph the entire way without a slowdown except for exiting! We did see a couple hundred cars ditched on the sides of the road by people who ran out of gas. There was also a considerable amount of trash left by people who were stranded. Fortunately, we did not run out of gas and we just filled back up, at a reasonable price and without a line! Here, the first high clouds are starting to move in, although the sun is still shining though them. Now, there is a distinct line of clouds, so it's sort of cool to see the difference right in front of you. Anyway, there is nothing else new to report for now, so I will try to keep a good track of what is happening and when and report it here as soon as I can.

Running on empty

We received an email from a co-worker that headed to College Station at 5 am and arrived at 630 am which made us decide that it was a good idea to head out…immediately! Our one concern was running out of gas because I was down below half already from sitting yesterday. Nonetheless, I sent this email at 9:02 am to friends and family:

Traffic is clear, we are trying for College Station one more time. I’ll email when we get there. Leaving…now! Bye!

Damn this traffic jam...It hurts my motor to go so slow...Damn this taffic jam!

My next email, around 9 pm:

Hi everyone,

Well, as some of you noted in your emails to me, you hoped that the traffic was not as bad as seen on TV. Actually, it was worse. We went 2 miles in about 1 hour, then got off the freeway because we needed to use the bathroom, called some people who had been watching traffic on TV and they told us it wasn’t moving faster anytime soon. We then decided at that point to come home and try again later tonight after they figured out how to move a million cars off the freeways.

The secondary problem was that we had used a ¼ tank of gas while sitting in traffic because it was 100 degrees today and we needed to run the A/C. Even in the A/C, the cat was panting and we needed to wrap her in a cold towel to cool her down. There have been many, many people who have run out of gas while sitting on the freeways, which isn’t helping the traffic-jams any and we didn’t want to be four of those people (S, her sister & fiancé and me) and 2 animals ( in two separate cars)! Hence, as I said, we have come home and made a number of alternative plans. The one we are going with as of now is to stay with some friends here in Houston who have an older model, sturdy house that has hurricane shutters on the windows. They also have a generator and lots of food and supplies. We dropped off most of our stuff already and are going to stay at my apartment tonight and head over there in the morning around 8 or 9.

Another alternative is to wait a few more hours to see what happens with the traffic and then try again for College Station. I am not thrilled with either of these options, but at this point, I’d rather not be stuck in a car on the freeway…that was hell on a different scale than that of New Orleans. Of course, I will let everyone know something when we make a decision. In any event, it is still very muggy, about 85 degrees, but the stars and moon are out, the clouds will probably roll in overnight and the winds pick up tomorrow afternoon.

The positive news in all of this, well, for us at least, is that the hurricane is tracking more eastward, which means we will get weaker side of the storm, as of now anyway. Well, that’s the only update I can give for now, but I will try to keep everyone informed as best I can. I will tell you that we are trying to be as safe as possible, but again, it isn’t likely we are moving out of the city.

On the road again...

An email I sent to family & friends around 11 am Thursday:

Hi everyone,

In case you haven’t seen the news, Hurricane Rita is bearing down on Houston and we are leaving town in about 1 hour. We are going to College Station, Texas, which is about 90 miles northwest of here and it is also where Texas A&M Univ. is. We have a place to stay with some friends up there. Personally, I don’t think this is far enough away, but I can’t convince anyone to go elsewhere. I filled up with 33$ in gas this morning, we have lots of supplies/water and enough alcohol to stay pretty buzzed for a few days! I think we took a case of rum and hurricane mix off the shelf. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that we should be fine, the cat is coming with us and hopefully my apartment will stay dry. I will have my laptop with me and assuming we have power and a signal to the internet there, I should be able to check my email regularly. I’ll send an update as soon as I can.

Rock You Like a Hurricane.

This is from an email sent by my girlfriends father to her and her sister, both living here in Houston. Without this email, we would still be following these instructions because I don’t laugh in the face of danger, I get the hell out of its way! We will be leaving on Thursday night after we all get home from work around 8, pack up some clothes, laptops, iPods, food, water and important belongings and then load up the animals. No, we aren’t building an ark, but we are taking 2 dogs and a cat with at least 4, possibly 6-8 people. I’m sure this weekend will be interesting to say the least.

Bad things happen to people who do not take the force of nature seriously (arrogant people), and stupid people. Misfortune rarely has something to do with solely Black or White. With that aside, I as a weather guru extraordinaire would seriously encourage you to do the following:
Add the weather channel website to your list of favorites; so you can monitor this thing from work and home. THE THINGS TO MONITOR ARE:

It's path

It's strength

http://www.weather.com/maps/news/atlstorm18/projectedpath_large.html

Keep in contact with your respective employers, and understand their emergency plans and your responsibilities therein.

Ya'll get together and try to decide if you need to act aggregately or singly.

Assuming the projected path, which you will be constantly monitoring, keeps Houston in its Bull's Eye, or the path is to your south (which is really worse) and assuming it is a Category 2 or greater, make plans to get the hell out of Dodge (or Houston as the case may be) by no later than Thursday night.

It appears that your best path would be to go east. This thing looks like it will go right through Dallas after it makes landfall. The only problem with East is you would have to almost come home to Florida to avoid all the damage from Katrina. Going west will be okay. The West side of a hurricane is the weakest. The N.E. quadrant has the highest winds and storm surge. I know heading east seems to be a dichotomy, but do you know someone with whom you can stay somewhere significantly west of Houston? You probably do, and you would be closer to coming back home sooner. You know you are always welcome at home, but are at least 12 hours away.

"Bottom Dwellers" I would either move the furniture you care about upstairs or elevate it off the floor with blocks or something.

If you are being aggregate refugees (yes refugees exist in America), I would recommend moving residual autos to the 2nd or higher floor of a parking garage. A, remember Allison?

Ladies, please take this seriously if it does become a 3 or 4, if you are stuck there, hurricanes are pretty scary. S and A were just little girls in 1985, when Hurricane Kate came through here. It was only a Category 2, and the town looked like a war zone, and we didn't have power or water for a week. I know Houston's resources are better, but so will be the damage.

Last of all remember. Things are not worth protecting, lives are. Somehow your respective employers businesses will survive without you for a day or two. Keep me informed, and I will reciprocate.

Love,
Dad

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you.

Here we go again. Another hurricane has the potential to slam the Gulf Coast. In the meantime, Gov. Jeb Bush has already declared a state of emergency in Florida and the Keys and Miami are bracing for what is currently Tropical Storm Rita. The Florida national guard is readying itself and I would assume a team from FEMA will be heading down there quickly.

The real issue isn't Florida, it's the Gulf Coast. After this storm breezes through the lower 1/3 of Florida, it will then fester in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which is exactly what Katrina did before it wrecked the coastline and a major American city. Here in Houston, I am already thinking about my options if this storm heads our way. The cat and I may be taking another long road trip! In any case, I am in dire hope that whatever happens with this storm, it is handled 1000 times better than the aftermath of Katrina. I'll have to keep updated on the track and strength of this storm and it will surely be noted here every now and then.

Who's Gonna Drive You Home, Tonight?

6pm. Rush hour, people are jockeying for position, buses are stopping traffic at corners to pick up and drop off people and cars are jutting in and out of lanes. Does this sound familiar? Well, here is my opinion on rush hour. JUST DRIVE PEOPLE!! We go through these issues five days a week and everyday it’s the same thing.

Why, oh why, don’t you have a routine of getting into the lane where you’ll do the core of your driving and stay there!

I drive the same way home everyday. I exit my parking lot to the right, turning into the middle lane, driving about 2 miles before I reach a large intersection where cars are always turning right and I can move into the right lane because the middle lane turns into a left turn only lane. I know this because I drive this way everyday! I then stay in this lane for four more miles before I have to turn left. You see, it’s pretty easy for me to do this routine on a daily basis.

The problem, however, is when all the other people driving around me fuck this routine up! People are zipping in and out of lanes, figuring out they’re in that left turn only lane when they need to go straight and all of a sudden they try to cut in front of me! Or they cut in front of me at other times. I don’t mean they enter my lane because there is room, I mean they are cutting me off, no signals flash and no wave for not bumping their ass as they slice in between cars.

While I’m speaking of cutting in; just because there is some room between myself and the car in front of me, does not mean that you should make a right on red into that space! Space does not equal time. If there are a few car lengths between 2 cars, it is because tailgating is not a good practice when driving! It doesn’t mean you should attempt to jump out in front of me and slam on the gas. Obviously since you’re picking this space to try to enter traffic, you are not a NASCAR driver! You need to take at least 8 seconds to make a right turn and get up to the speed and flow of traffic as to not disrupt my flow in traffic!

With gas being the price per gallon that it is right now, I don’t want to be in stop and go traffic for 25 minutes on my way home and I’ll bet a lot of other people feel the same way.

Fortunately for other drivers, even though I am quickly losing patience, I know that in less than 30 minutes, I’ll be home and you won’t because you’ll be jutting in and out of lanes instead of driving straight to your destination.

Ok, so here’s the plan: pick a lane, don’t cut me off and don’t jump out in front of me.