GuestRandom posts:
couple o random things:
tollways- yup, central texas just opened their first batch o tollways. yippee. now what I want to see is someone suing the designer for completely botching the job. see, the problem for me is- none of them go anywhere that I need to go. anywhere. in fact, they made a nasty couple of intersections and roads worse. for example. 620, east of Parmer. used to be a nice straight shot, with the unfortunate addition of a new stop light every year or so (I find it odd that the hospital was actually the last to go in) ... but a straight shot none the less, in fact, on a good night, you could cruise at 55 straight through, if you hit the lights right. (I did last night in fact... with the upcoming exception). See they took a straight, unobstructed section and made it merge with the new I45 tollway. Now, coming from Parmer you are defaulted to driving straight onto 45. and if that's not where you wanted to go, you have to make two 90 degree, right angle 15 mile and hour turns- which the speed limit is only an issue if you miss the two lights they've added!
To be fair, I can see how mentally deficient (or morally corrupt with financial kickbacks from the tolls) might think that it's the only way to merge the east bound traffic. I can ALMOST comprehend that. BUT for the west bound traffic, there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that persons heading west bound could not have continued straight and uninterrupted. In fact, thats exactly how the traffic used to flow! they had to tear it up and back fill it even though the path they destroyed went cleanly from where there current mess starts, to where the current mess actually merges 620 and 45.
Some times, when I'm feeling really really really angry, I realize that its going to take not just one death, but multiple deaths at this intersection for action to be taken... I begin to wonder if I could just get the designers/architects/engineers of this cluster to volunteer for the sacrifice out of sheer guilt of how bad it is.
b) I hate stupid stop lights too. the one at the driveway out of where I work- late at night. it stays red for those of us trying to leave. I'm talking about 15-20 minutes of red. I'm talking about instances of if I'm trying to make a left turn, but can't... I have actually have had people get out of the car behind me and yell at me because I'm blocking them. So I have to make a right turn and go through the grotesque display of ignorance mentioned above. Now, I will admit.. this light in question has a sensor on it. but it will on turn the signal for no less than 3 cars in line, OR two 3/4 ton trucks. And the city of austin? they're real good and passing me around on the telephone with no one really taking responsibility for fixing a damn problem.
Murals!
my dear sister, Dawn Cleaves, has just installed this mural in our den. She painted it at her place in New Jersey on muslin, in two pieces, rolled them up and flew them down here. Then after her husband and I disassembled the fan- my wife and a friend of the family applied it kind of like you would wallpaper.
If you're interested in what she does, seeing more examples, or contacting her- go to si-murals.com
the only hitch and point of debate was around the question of whether the west-east orientation should be true to "real life" or should it "read right" when you looked up at it.
we evidently went with it being relatively true to reality (as true as you can without actually pulling out a compass or trying to orientate it against the counties plot)
Songs for Daughters
looking for suggestions on songs I should learn to play on guitar for my 4 & 5 year old daughters. for singing to them, with them, for them to dance to, and lullabies.
feel free to submit links to tablatures or sheet music. (hint hint)
How sad am I?
I am soooo sad that I actually have internal debates about leaving comment/link spammers in the user database, just to pad my numbers and to give the illusion that there is ANY real user traffic here.
of course, the flip side is how sad is it that they keep signing up and posting spam, when there is NO real viewings by anyone!!
Dean's Biloxi report- Wed afternoon. August 23rd
I've tried starting to type this many times, but this old laptop keeps crashing. so the following is completely disjointed, and lacks a clear chronological order, please bear with me.