December The Onest
Wednesday, 1 December 2010 14:32![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsYeah, Yeah, I Know
I've not been blogging much lately. Will explain further soon. Meant to, but between having a bunch of deadlines to meet and having an infected thumb -- you'd be amazed not only how much that thumb gets in the way, even when you're using your index finger for the space bar, but that the bandage keeps rubbing on the touchpad of the laptop and moving the cursor on me. Curses! (grin)
And So It Begins
The snow, that is. We had a few flakeages in November -- nothing like last year as many comments on the radio have mentioned -- but it was relatively clear sailing. Balmy at times. Very un-November in Michigan-like. However December dawned with a bit of the snow. Not much, mind you. Maybe 2" overnight, and maybe a total of 4" for the day -- though I haven't looked outside in some time. But it had rained yesterday and with the temperatures just below freezing and the ground being warm, the real problem this morning was the ice.
No, scratch that. The real problem was the drivers. Michigan drivers who've forgotten totally how to drive on this stuff. First you get the geniuses who do not want to drive at anything slower than usual. So you get a lot of passing and weaving in and out of traffic and trying to do that pop-out drafting NASCAR kind of pass.
Saw a number of vehicles whipping around the Michigan Left Turn loops and then fishtailing as they tried to merge on M-45. Remind me how those things are safer? But mostly everyone was driving slower.
The Big Crash on I-196 was in the other direction -- originally listed as six vehicles including a semi, by 9am it had been updated to nine vehicles blocking all lanes eastbound -- they had the five mile backup clog.
In K-zoo the streets were quite icy. Howard Street on the way almost to campus was sheet ice. I had no problems and kept my winter intervals, but saw two cars miss whipping around the turns, one at each of the two new traffic circles (technically roundabouts). The second car didn't plow into the sign at the divider between two directions because the sign was already bent over. Remind me again how traffic circles are safer?
Well, people will either wreck or learn to drive in winter again. Hopefully that won't include myself in the mix.
Dr. Phil
PS - Yeah, it is winter now. It's 2:30pm EST and my office is freezing. Makes it really hard to do work. But I have to stay another 30 minutes, because I've got someone making up an exam. (sigh)
I've not been blogging much lately. Will explain further soon. Meant to, but between having a bunch of deadlines to meet and having an infected thumb -- you'd be amazed not only how much that thumb gets in the way, even when you're using your index finger for the space bar, but that the bandage keeps rubbing on the touchpad of the laptop and moving the cursor on me. Curses! (grin)
And So It Begins
The snow, that is. We had a few flakeages in November -- nothing like last year as many comments on the radio have mentioned -- but it was relatively clear sailing. Balmy at times. Very un-November in Michigan-like. However December dawned with a bit of the snow. Not much, mind you. Maybe 2" overnight, and maybe a total of 4" for the day -- though I haven't looked outside in some time. But it had rained yesterday and with the temperatures just below freezing and the ground being warm, the real problem this morning was the ice.
No, scratch that. The real problem was the drivers. Michigan drivers who've forgotten totally how to drive on this stuff. First you get the geniuses who do not want to drive at anything slower than usual. So you get a lot of passing and weaving in and out of traffic and trying to do that pop-out drafting NASCAR kind of pass.
Saw a number of vehicles whipping around the Michigan Left Turn loops and then fishtailing as they tried to merge on M-45. Remind me how those things are safer? But mostly everyone was driving slower.
The Big Crash on I-196 was in the other direction -- originally listed as six vehicles including a semi, by 9am it had been updated to nine vehicles blocking all lanes eastbound -- they had the five mile backup clog.
In K-zoo the streets were quite icy. Howard Street on the way almost to campus was sheet ice. I had no problems and kept my winter intervals, but saw two cars miss whipping around the turns, one at each of the two new traffic circles (technically roundabouts). The second car didn't plow into the sign at the divider between two directions because the sign was already bent over. Remind me again how traffic circles are safer?
Well, people will either wreck or learn to drive in winter again. Hopefully that won't include myself in the mix.
Dr. Phil
PS - Yeah, it is winter now. It's 2:30pm EST and my office is freezing. Makes it really hard to do work. But I have to stay another 30 minutes, because I've got someone making up an exam. (sigh)
