Rants

We’re Sorry Rudy & Patti

Charleston AquariumAlternate title: We Drove All The Way Here For That?

We have the week off and the plan is to go see Donna’s sister and family in Palm City, FL for Thanksgiving. Originally we were going to leave on Saturday and take the real slow way down, but then friends from the MMC decided to hold their wedding reception on Sunday (they got hitched in Vegas a couple weeks ago), so we postponed leaving until Monday morning to take the just plain slow way down.

Well, we did OK on Saturday, but by this morning the call of the road was too great. At 7:30AM we got out of bed, by 8:45 we were packed and on our way. Sorry Rudy & Patti, we’ll give you our wedding gifts next week at the MMC Holiday Party, hopefully you’ll be able to end up with them after the swaperoo gift exchange.

Breakfast at the New Moon and then US78 East, destination Charleston and it’s aquarium which opened in 2000 and we have yet to visit. I had checked the SC Aquarium’s web page for times and ticket prices, but neglected to get directions. How hard can it be? Bound to be signs directing visitors to it when coming into town, right? Wrong. After driving around town in frustration we decided to head out of town on I-26 and see if we could find a sign for it or a visitor’s center. Nope. After about 10 miles we got off at an exit and turned back around towards Charleston. Guess what? There are signs directing you to the aquarium if you come into the city on the Interstate.

Of the half dozen or so major aquariums Donna and I have visited this one ranks at the bottom. It was nice and all, but the big tank wasn’t that interesting and all the side exhibits didn’t really flow right. Everything seemed small, except for the gift shop, and some of the best things about the aquarium were the outside overlooks facing the new Cooper River bridge and the USS Yorktown at Patriot’s Point.

After our aquarium visit we walked the 6-8 blocks down to Market St and the main touristy section of town for a late lunch. The first place we came to was the Noisy Oyster and in we went. The food was good and it might b worth another visit if we ever get back this way just to see if they can get the food uniformly hot.

Our drive out of town was similar to the drive in as we made several wrong turns before finding our was back to I-26. I could have sworn Donna said she wanted to see the Citadel…

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 469

10 Tangible Things Each Of YOU Can Do Do Make Traffic Better

All of these fit a theme. Which is: It’s not all about YOU out there. You are part of a collective. If everyone did these unselfish things, traffic would be much better:

1. Don’t tailgate. When you tailgate, you have to tap your brakes at the slightest speed change. You tap for a second, the guy behind you taps for two, the guy behind him for four, and so forth. Ripple effect that equals slowdown.

2. Use on ramps correctly. ACCELERATE! Get up to a speed that matches overall traffic, then merge seamlessly. Too many people here merge into 60 mph traffic at 40 mph. People hit their brakes, and again you get a ripple effect.

3. Honor the left lane. Move over when not overtaking cars. Yes, we’ve talked this one to death. Just do it.

4. Pick a lane and try to stick with it. Incessant lane changes for little real gain can cause slowdowns for much the same reason as the on ramp example above. Think ahead: Will the lane you’re in peter out soon, or turn into an exit-only lane? Get yourself in one that will see you through to your destination.

5. At stoplights, pay attention. If you’re first in line waiting at a light, be sure you’re pulled up far enough, as someone here already noted. Then PAY ATTENTION! Watch the light. When it changes, go! Driving is war, and you’ve got the point — so stay alert! That goes for everyone in the back of the line too, but we have way too many people at the front who use stoplight time to apply makeup, read the paper, change the radio station or eat french fries off their car’s floor.

6. Step on it. If traffic’s going 60 in your lane, why aren’t you keeping up with the guy ahead of you? Why do you feel the need to go 57? Again, you’re part of a collective out there. Join in, please.

7. Don’t go so fast you get pulled over. Because every time someone gets pulled over, it gums up traffic for the rest of us. People rubberneck and irrationally brake (like the trooper’s gonna drop you to go after them), and the aforementioned ripple effect ensues. So drive briskly, but don’t risk a ticket. If you’re going over 70 in a 60 mph zone, you’re risking it.

8. Look way down the road. I get on I-5 northbound everyday from Fairview at Mercer. Two lanes from Fairview are on ramp only. Invariably someone is sitting in the middle, on ramp only lane who wants to go straight. And he just sits there, and people are stuck behind him. It happens at every signal, because the mope didn’t READ THE SIGNS. Look ahead. Look far ahead. Look way past that big hurkin’ SUV you’re behind, if you can. The sooner you see signs and the sooner you see trouble, the sooner you can avoid messing up in a way that affects the rest of us.

9. Live the golden rule. Let people in. Wave when someone lets you in. I wish I had a buck for every time I’ve signaled to enter a gap in a lane, and the car that’s far back in that lane guns it to try to keep me from moving over. No wait, I don’t wish I had a buck, I wish I had his head on a pike. But you’ve gotta check that impulse too. Do unto others … you know.

10. Devote yourself to the task. This is covered in many of the points above, but driving is not simply something you do to pass the time while listening to the radio. Driving is the all-consuming task at hand.

So DO it — briskly, efficiently and competently. So that we can all get out of each other’s way.

Thank you.

The Prodigal Sign Returns

Dunbarton Oaks signWe live in a little subdivision called “Dunbarton Oaks” that is one of the first ones built in Aiken when the bomb plant went in down the road in the mid-fifties. I’m not sure if the sign has been there since then, but it was there when we moved in in 1989.

About 5 or 6 years ago the sign disappeared. Pranksters, college initiation, giant oak leaf haters, no one knows, but Police Chief Clancy Wiggum was stumped. After a month or so when it was apparent the sign would not return, the neighborhood took up a collection to buy a new one. The original sign was painted brown with white lettering, but when we got the new one, the lady with the nicest yard for miles and resident subdivision entrance-way gardener painted the leaf green with cream lettering.

About a year ago, sometime after the bars closed, a drunk ran the stop sign on the other side of the intersection and plowed into the sign, smashing it into little pieces. There were no skid marks, but the little dip at the edge of the road in front of the sign was scraped pretty good from the bumper or whatever. The residents of the two houses at the corner heard nothing. Police Sergeant Lou is baffled as to who the perpetrator might be. A friend of a friend of the gardener lady fixes the sign and it is hung back up after a couple weeks.

About a month and a half ago, poof, the sign is gone again. Stolen. Police Officer Eddie has no leads or suspects. For a while there it looks like this is the straw that breaks the gardener lady’s back. When we ask about the sign she just says, “Thieves and drunks can get away with anything.” A couple weeks later when we ask if she is going to take up donations for a new sign, she tells us that a retired gentleman in the neighborhood is going to make a replacement and wants no money. Yesterday afternoon when we turned onto Boardman Road on the way home from work, the new sign is there.

Tonight when I went rollerblading I took my camera. No telling how long this on is going to last…

Congratulations Lou

I was rooting for you to get the Yankee job back when rumor had it that Joe Torre was on his way out after they lost the divisions series against Detroit. Now you’ve taken the job as the manger of the Cubs and it’ll be great to get you back in the dugout…

…and OUT OF THE BROADCAST BOOTH ON FOX because you really sucked at that.

Why?

At ASCO both 1st shift assembly and fabrication workers starts work at 7:00 AM. One manager also starts his business day at 7:00 AM. When he comes in a little before the hour he parks where ever he can, along with the bulk of the other employees. Our small 3rd shift gets off work at seven and after about 15 minutes they’ve cleared out of the front couple of rows in the parking lot.

Donna and I start our work day at 7:30 and we always get there around 7:15-7:20. This means on most days as we pull into the lot we see said manager as he walks back out of the building, goes over to his car and moves it to a parking spot in the front row as close to the door as possible.

Why?

So at the end of the day he can get out faster? Nope. When he leaves work there are maybe a half dozen other office types leaving at the same time, no crowd. Plus the close to the door spots have a longer route out of the lot because they have to travel the whole length of a row before turning towards the exit.

So he doesn’t have to walk so far to get into his car? Nope. Maybe that is true for that final trip, but what about the whole *extra* trip out and back to move the car?

So why?

Doesn’t he know that every time he starts his car he is causing extra engine wear? By some estimates those cold starts account for 60% of all engine wear. What about the extra gas burned? the wear and tear on the door locks, ignition switch, gear lever, etc.

He is not the only one who pulls these kinds of parking lot stunts either. There are probably a half dozen hourly employees that rush to their cars at breaks and lunch so they can move up closer to the door if one of their fellow employees has left a spot open because they had to leave the building for some reason. Even if it is 20 feet because the spot is in front of them one row.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 420

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)

Went for a “Bike to Breakfast” ride this morning and ended up at the Atlanta Bread Company. Mileage for the ride was somewhere between 10 and 15. I could get a more accurate figure for you, but I’m too lazy to walk all the way out into the garage and look. Besides, do you really care? My right backside from Thursday’s rollerblade crash landing didn’t bother me too much. It is just sore enough to make me put my wallet in the back pocket on the other side. Still no bright purple bruise.

My inability to contact anyone at ssWebHost or HappySupport to cancel my web hosting for mr-miata.com led me to 2CO who actually does the billing for them (I don’t know why I keep saying them, when I’m sure it is one nerdy little guy in a rundown apartment somewhere) and I left a message on their site.

I have tried without success to contact ssWebHost, but I have two open help tickets open since at least 3 weeks ago that have gone unanswered. The credit card used for this reoccurring bill has been canceled after some fraudulent charges were detected. Since they have been unresponsive I have purchased another domain and webhosting with another provider and wish to cancel my services with ssWebHost. My hope is that this will get some one’s attention over there so I can cancel as other methods of communications have not been successful. I have no intention of using their web hosting anymore, but if they would like to sell me the domain, mr-miata.com, that they purchased for me I would gladly pay a fair price for it.

I killed the brian@mr-miata.com email address and emptied out directories on their server. The only things I left behind were the custom 404 page and the index.php file that redirects the dot com address to the dot net one. This way if they close my account and forget about the files it leave behind the cookie crumb trail to the new me. This is what happened with the Barndoor Fan Club site. I canceled there nearly two years ago and my error file is still out there. of course those redirects lead to the soon to be defunct mr-miata.com…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 400

Wandering DNS Settings

Yesterday the laptop stopped being able to access the internet. Neither IE or Firefox would reliably pull up a webpage. When it was able to connect to some it was slow or it would never show the images. Moving from one part of the house didn’t seem to help much. One time sitting just a couple feet from the router it worked OK.

Today it still didn’t work on the internet. It saw the home network OK and I could FTP to the net just fine. Winamp played shoutcast streams just fine and Google Earth worked fine. I turned off the firewall. I emptied both browsers cache files. I ran Ad-Aware, Ewido Spyware & AVG Anti-virus. I plugged it directly into the router with a Cat5 cable. Still no internet, so I started poking around in the settings.

Under “network Settings” on the Control Panel, I right clicked for properties on Local Area Connection, selected Internet Protocol and clicked on the Properties button. “Use the following DNS server addresses” was selected and they were set to 85.255.xxx.xxx on the laptop while the desktop had “Obtain DNS server address automatically” selected. Changed the setting to automatic, repeated the process for the Wireless Network Connection and we were back in business surfing the web.

I don’t understand all I know about home networking, but how did those settings change? Malicious hackers? I put those addresses in there when I set up the wireless network and something changed Saturday?

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 399