Cars

Actually this is only a half-hearted rant. I had a brainstorm on Wednesday while at work for what I wanted to shoot for Theme Thursday, of course my camera was at home. I brought it today, but didn’t get a chance to use it. I was going to take the picture at lunch as to not disturb the actual work process, unfortunately about 11:45 the fire alarm went off. I had just got my lunch plate, so I picked it up and headed for the door knowing I’d get an impromptu picnic on the front lawn during the drill. Bad news is it wasn’t a drill. One of the machines in the back of the plant ( a wheelabrator thing that deburrs our parts) had actually caught fire. We had four fire trucks, including the ladder truck drive around the back of the plant, along with 20, count ’em 20, police cars. I think that is the entire contingent of city cops (to be fair all our cops are trained as fireman and vice versa.)

I my haste to grab my lunch, I neglected to grab my new camera. The fire was quickly contained but not before smoke filled most of the plant. No one would be allowed back in until the smoke was cleared. The rest of first shift was canceled and if you had your keys, purses, etc. you could go home, if not have a seat in the shade of the pines and wait. I’m not sure when they let people back in, but by the time I went back at 4:30 to get my stuff, 2nd shift was at work (all except the one department where the machine was) and the place looked clear, but still stunk of smoke.

Tomorrow is a half day at work and Donna and I are off to the Gap for a little fun in the Miata. I will try and get my photo in the morning, but may not post it until Sunday when we get back. Don’t worry, you won’t miss a moment of my exciting life as I plan on analog blogging for transcription on Sunday night.

Today was mail the Master’s Miata Club newsletter day. Our sponsor pays for postage, so we headed over to Rader Mazda to run our 38 envelopes through their meter. Upon arrival the office manager told me their meter was down, smoked by lightning the other day. Parts were on order and it should be fixed by next week.

Plan B was to go to a post office, buy the stamps and then get the Club to reimburse us. Donna suggested we go up Washington Road to Evans where we used to have the P.O. Box. I said, “Let’s compromise and go to the Martinez one that is half as far away.” “Make it so,” she replied. We have driven by the entrance to this post office a bunch of times, but had never actually used it. I pulled in and park at a left hand building even though Donna said I should go to the hand one because there was a postal van out front. I countered that it was just delivering mail there as there wasn’t any sign out front say the post office was there. As we walked to the front door, I commented that it didn’t look like a post office. That is because it wasn’t, it was someplace called UniWay. Glad we didn’t go in and ask for stamps.

We got back in the car and continued down the street until we came to the real P.O. As we walked inside we knew we were in for a long wait as about a dozen people were in line with boxes and such. Not having to actually mail these things just yet, we u-turned out of there and headed 4 miles up the road to the Evans Post Office.

You can see the Evans P.O. from the road before you have to turn into their lot. As we got ready to make the turn I did some fast visual scanning and made a command decision, I u-turned the car and got going away from the masses that populated the parking lot. And the 68 cars waiting at the exit of the parking lot to return to the road I was already on.

After lunch as we headed home, I thought of another Post Office to try, the one where the Club’s current box is, North Augusta. As we approached this one, we both could see that we would pass right on by, as it’s lot was so full that people were causing a traffic jam on the side street to get in.

There are 2 Post Offices in Aiken and I flipped a coin and chose the southside one as it caused a more scenic route home. Even though it meant resigning myself to having a slightly longer wait.

We finally caught a break, as we left the valley to head towards Aiken I spied a tiny Post Office in the tiny town of Bath. Pulled right in as there were only two other cars in the lot. As we entered the building those 2 folks were checking their P.O. Boxes, we stepped right up to the counter.

There is an intersection on my way to work where a street with a 35-MPH limit turns onto a street with a limit of 30 and to make it “easier” for people to negotiate them they have rounded them off more. I can now take these turns and not have to slow down. This is OK in a Miata, but when bigger cars do it they still can’t keep it on the road. They either cut more off the turn and run over the persons lawn or they get their left side tires off the left side of the road. Traffic engineers will analyze this intersection and probably round the turn off more. This will encourage more speed and the cycle will repeat. What they need to do is sharpen up the radius and either put a curb on both sides of the road or better yet, a ditch.

They also need to narrow some of these streets down. The bigger road encourages bigger speeds. There is a section of road that I sometimes travel that goes from 2 lanes to four and the speed limit stays the same 35-MPH. Yet as soon as traffic hits the four lanes the speeds jump about 10 MPH over the 40-45 they were already traveling.

Wider lanes also mean less attention needs to be paid attention to lane discipline. Another bit of road I frequently travel passes through the horse/historical district of town and because of that it still has the same narrow lane width it had in the 40’s. When driving on this stretch people travel slower than they do when the road widens because they have to pay attention to whether they are on their side of the white line.

Then again if I had my way, they would only allow Miatas on the roads and all the lanes would be narrow and windy.

Donna and I are up in North Carolina visiting with my sister and her husband who are down on vacation. We hooked up this afternoon and have a couple of things planned. Friday night’s entertainment was to go out to eat and go see the Music On Main Street concert in Hendersonville, NC. We are staying at the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Hendersonville is a 30-mile trip. Donna likes for me to drive and my brother-in-law graciously agreed to let me drive his car (actually it is my sister’s Mazda Protege.) It was that or take two cars because the Miata can’t seat more than two.

I love the Blue Ridge Parkway, it winds along the crest of the mountains, dipping and dodging through some very beautiful country. Plus the best part is dropping of the ridge into the valleys on roads packed with switchbacks. 🙂 It was lightly raining as we took off for our trip and the windshield wipers were kinda old so they left ugly streaks. To top it all off the inside of the window had never seen a drop of Windex in it’s life (I think it is a 2000 model) making me drive a bit slower than I could have had the roads not been wet and you could see down the road.

My brother-in-law Allen said to go slow through the windy roads as this car didn’t handle as well as his Acura. Actually it did pretty darn good, so good that he wanted to drive back. I think I might have scared him a little with my driving. I didn’t even get any tire squeal or anything.

I was kind glad he volunteered to drive back even though it took twice as long. It was dark for the return trip and the glare from oncoming cars was tough stuff. Better him than me.