I try to get out of work a bit earlier Wednesdays because I have an evening class at 6:00pm. I like to make it home with a bit of time to spare. There no surprises on the road yesterday other than the usual slow spots. Then the loooong drag of sloooow spot from the airport and all the way through the Sepulveda Pass and onto the 101 freeway. But made it home in one piece … yipee!
Whenever we go anywhere, hubby drives! My excuse … 120 miles a day is enough. Got to draw the line somewhere. Well, he doesn’t like to be in the passenger seat anyway. That works out between us. But I did drive to class yesterday evening because his keys and wallet were upstairs and he didn’t feel like going up to get it and neither did I. It was only a few miles, so I drove. The class lasted 1.5 hours and by the time we say goodbyes and got out to the car, it was starting to get dark. It was too dark yet, but I was tired. So I opened my purse and reached for my glasses. I really only need them when I drive at night. To my horror, it wasn’t there. Not that I can’t drive home without my glasses. But I’ll need it in the morning when I do drive in the dark at 5:00am!
When we got home hubby suggested that I search around the house in case I took it out and had left it somewhere. I never have any reason to use my glasses at home. Like I said I only need them when I drive in the dark. I don’t even need them for the drive on the way home because it’s still light out. Well, except for the times when I had worked till 8:00, 9:00 pm …
Well, okay there is another occasion that I use my glasses. When I go to meetings I have to read whatever stupid power point, spreadsheet, or whatever crap gets projected in case there’s something I should be know about. Then I remembered that I had a meeting right before I left (Another meeting you said! Yes, story of my life!). I know I need my glasses every morning when I drive, I always put my glasses back into my purse as soon as I got back to my office. Well, the meeting was like a continuation of the last one that was dotted with unpleasant surprises. As soon as I got back to my office and even before I set my stuff down, my team mate, the same one asked if we can talk in private. He wanted to make sure he was understanding the implications of what went on in the meeting and he also had other things he needed to relay to me. I know he’s caught in the middle and have been a bit stressed out. So I set my note book, pencil and glasses (in it’s case) next to my keyboard and went off to the conference room with him. Since I wanted to get out “on time”, we had a short recap of events, then I hurried back to my office and grabbed my purse and lunch box and quickly got out. Well, I guess I should have stuck with my routine of putting my glasses away immediately like I always do and don’t rush even if you are in the hurry!
Well, I thought I could either leave later till it’s light out and have both ways of horrible drive. Or (a pleasant thought) I would have to call in sick. Oh so clever … then what am I going to do the next morning … hmmm … Of course I wasn’t going to call in sick for something like that! Good grief, boss! I was just kidding!
A while back I had asked the kids to gather all the old glasses (prescription and sun glasses) that were laying around the house so we could donate them to a charity called New Eyes for the Needy. See, I’ve read all about being organized … I know that if there are things that you have not used for six months to a year, you probably won’t use it. Or throw away the old one (whatever it may be that you are replacing) as soon as you buy a new one. But when it comes to practice, I am not as good about it! Mind you, I do have my moments. Every so often I would be very annoyed with all that old or extra stuff. I would swoop around the house like a hurricane, gathering and throwing all kinds of stuff out without giving it much thought. In this case I am glad I am a person with good intention but move like molasses. Lucky me, I found my old glasses and the prescription was still good enough. Makes me wonder why did I need a new pair of glasses. Those things are expensive!!!! Well, okay … good enough does not make them the correct prescription.
Needless to say, I made it into work and back home safely! I’ll still donate all the old glasses minus one pair. I guess having a spare pair of glasses is a good thing.
Got back to regular routine started yesterday. Monday’s drive was very easy. No problem on the way down (usually no problem in such early hour - 5 am) and no problem on the way home either. But then it was Monday. And Monday traffic is usually the best.
Tuesday is usually not bad either. But this morning there were quite a few maniacs on the road. Three times I had to break or slow down because some car/truck had to speed up on my right side (no, I was not driving in lane one) and cut in front of me or hit the car on his/her lane. Good thing I do pay attention while I drive so I could see and hear them zoom up. Knowing that between the choice of breaking hard to avoid rear ending the car in his own lane or cut in front of me, I know they always choose to cut in into my lane. I am not a mean driver either (remember the objective of being on the road - get to my destination without causing an accident or being in one) so I always let them in. Well, got to work in the usual time, so no big!
I had a mid-afternoon meeting and there were a few unpleasant surprises but it still ended around 4pm. So I wrapped things up and signed out right after the meeting. On my way out one of my team mates caught up with me and needed to talk. He wasn’t leaving yet, so he walked me out to my car while we talked. I totally understand his need to talk because a lot of the unpleasant surprises was directed to him as if it was his fault. It wasn’t! Anyway, I finally got on the road and it was traffic was moving ok. Then hit the usual slow down by the LAX airport but still inching along. As I go through the Sepulveda Pass, I make my move to the right lane right before we get to the down hill transition to the 101 freeway. There were a line of cars driving kind of close together that I wasn’t able to get over to the furthest right lane. I stayed in lane 5 as we crest and saw nothing but red tail lights. Not a good sign! Then I looked up and saw three helicopters above. Definitely not a good sign! Thought we were going slow by the airport, we were crwaling. Fire and paramedic trucks passed by the packed cars on the right shoulder. Luckily there is shoulder on this stretch of road. I couldn’t see what was ahead and didn’t know how far ahead the accident was. Finally saw the police and the flares. 4 right lanes were blocked off and I was on the 3rd lane from the right. So along with all the cars to my right I had to move one lane over. I was trying to merge carefully, so all I could see was a motorcycle down. The rest was blocked by some toll truck. I hate seeing motorcycles down because they had no protection. I reminded myself not to rubber neck and pay attention to traffic. As soon as the road is freed up, people goes crazy trying to catch up with loss time or something.
Since I didn’t see how bad the accident was, I logged on and hit Sigalert.com … The following was posted at the Sigalert site.
Mc in Lanes-Fell Under Truck 5:33 PM
Message/Item Delivered to LA Fire Department 5:34 PM
4 Vehicles to Right Shoulder 5:37 PM
Off Duty LASO On Scene, not Involved D, But Advise G Possible Fatality 5:43 PM
404-1, 2, 3, 4 Lanes Blocked Per 404 5:43 PM
North 405 Just South of Ventura Believes Possible Fatality Per Fsp} 5:43 PM
Sigalert Issued on the Blue 5:48 PM
404-1, 2, 3, 4 Lanes Blocked for Unknown Duration-Please Issue Sigalert
I am so glad I was being patient and didn’t swear under my breath about some idiot holding up the traffic. “Possible Fatality” … what’s an extra 45 minutes of being in traffic.
Driving is a unique activity and it’s interesting how a whole different person seems to emerged when he/she gets behind the wheel. I love George Carlin and this is one of his sayings:
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Can you relate to the following? I stayed at work longer than I really wanted to but there was always something at the last minute. It was a short distance of surface road driving to get to the freeway, so no problem there. I had to stop at the freeway on ramp because at 3:00pm the signal is on to regulate the rate of additional cars that get poured onto the freeway and it’s way passed that hour. Only a few cars in line (well, a few cars times two since every green light two cars are allowed to merge onto the freeway), and I can see that the traffic was moving. I was feeling soooo ready to get home, kick back, relax and leave work at work. So moving right along … nothing unusual! Just the expected slow downs as various freeways merge and split.
But now here’s the section of the drive where traffic usually flow smoothly. The cars in the lane to my right is passing me! And passing me! What the …? So who’s the idiot holding everyone up? Checking my rear view mirror and my right side mirror … got room … moving over to the lane to my right … where was the big gap in front of the car that was ahead of me. Instead I saw a whole lot of cars in line moving along the same speed in my old lane. Now this lane is moving the same speed as the one I was in. Crap … some idiot just moved in front of me and there was no room to move back to my old lane. One car, two car, three car … as I counted the number of cars from my old lane passed me! I could go one more lane to the right and zoom pass and around them all! Finally there was an opening in my old lane and I moved back into it! All that and I winded up loosing three cars length!!!!! I could just hear those drivers that passed me saying, “What an idiot!” Ghrrrr … I know … no one really cared except me!
Luckily most of the time I do not drive like an idiot or a maniac. It really depends on the road and the size of the car in front of you. A lot of times you really can’t see pass the car right in front of you. That’s another good reason not to follow too closely. What I talked about happens all the time. How frustrated do we want to be while we drive? What situation do we allow to frustrate us? I do notice how I drive does depend on my state of mind when I get in the car or by the time I get onto the freeway. Some days it takes a little reminder that my goal is to get home without causing an accident or be involved in one.
I was just going to close up shop (so to speak) when I saw this headline, “World’s Fastest Roadster?” and the photo of the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport on MSN.com’s front page. I am not a sport car fan but this is one sport’s car that even I think is beautiful!
Got back on Saturday after a week of family get together in Florida. Good thing we only planned to stay for one week and got out just before Fay arrives. While we were waiting for our flight home, it just started pouring so hard and everyone was thinking that Fay had arrived earlier than predicted. Lucky for us that was not true and we got out with no problem and the flight back was pretty smooth.
A bit about the driving around the Tampa area before I get into the vacation itself. Most of the roads we traveled were 3 lane freeways and traffic was not bad in terms of volume. Most drivers were driving pretty normally but some drivers were following a bit close to each other! Saturday on the way to the airport, a big pickup truck was trying to get around the other cars and at one point, cut in front of an SUV and the SUV driver had to break hard and swerved. The SUV almost went off the road. The car behind the SUV was following pretty close but was able to break fast enough and didn’t hit the SUV. I guess drivers are the same no matter which state you are in.
One other annoying thing that happened was that we had rented a GPS system when we got the van from Enterprise. The GPS that Enterprise used was Garmin. Whoever used it last had it set on some British voice. It was not so much because of the accent, but the sound was so bad that we could hardly understand the verbal direction and couldn’t tell if it was a male or female voice. So hubby changed it to something we could actually understood. But the day we went to Bush Gardens, the stupid Garmin GPS kept dying on us. It would lock up in less than 0.5 miles. It was getting really annoying but like idiot robots, we kept resetting it (plugging and unplugging the power) as if that would fix the problem. Good thing we went in two vans and the other van had a GPS that worked. So we were able to follow each other. Another thing was that it only had a couple of choices to select shortest distance or shortest time. So instead of directing us to take the freeway, it lead us on surface road. If you try to take a different route, it just keep recalculating. I know a lot of times it’s a personal preference, but we should have brought our Magellan which is a much better system in our opinion.
So here’s a brief recall of our vacation. We flew into Tampa International Airport and drove to Ruskin FL where we staying at the Little Harbor Resort. There were 16 of us and we split into 2 condo units. It was a really nice place with full kitchen and dishwasher, washer/dryer, the works. That made it easier on both the pocket book and body. Since it was not high season, it was not very crowded. Here’s one of many photos hubby took from the balcony.
We went to one of the world’s top ten whitest beach, Siesta Key Public Beach. The sand was really silky white and was surprisingly compacted which made walking quite effortless. The beach was clean and the water warm unlike our water at the Pacific coast.
Most of the group also went to the Bush Gardens at Tampa FL. It was so humid but fortunately it was over cast.
There was also the aquarium, tennis, swimming at the pool, fishing and a lot of eating (and cleaning) that I don’t have photos to show. A lot of times I wind up forgetting to take pictures on vacation. I had to really remind myself to take pictures. It was on the way to the airport that we remembered that we didn’t even take a group picture. So bad!
Hubby saw this article on a Jetpack. I watched the video and have to agree with some of the comments that this is not going to cut it. It’s loud and barely got off the ground. Check it out! But I think we have to keep waiting for a bit longer.
