Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

We don't usually do Friday night movies, but this is at least the second one this year -- we saw Tomorrowland (DW) (LJ) back in May (and amusingly meatloaf sandwiches were in play then, too). Saturday the weather is not supposed to cooperate and we have company coming Sunday, so we really can't have a Saturday play day.

It's amazing how quickly you can be spoiled. The last two movies at the Holland 7 were in Theatre 5, which is the first to have the really nice recliners (DW) (LJ).

This morning, I heard a snippet on the radio that M-231, the new crossing of the Grand River halfway between Allendale and Grand Haven, was scheduled to open at 4pm Friday. Sure enough, as we drove west on M-45 towards Holland at 6:20pm, the new traffic lights were on, and there were a lot of cars heading north and south on the new road. So even though it was about 9:40pm and dark on the way home, we decided to take a side trip and run the seven mile length of M-231 from M-45 to M-104/I-96. For one thing, I wanted to see what exits they actually built. Originally there were supposed to be three. But after farbling around for over twenty years trying to decide to build this bypass, and after spending tons of money on the Detroit freeways, the state kept on getting cheap with M-231, just as they had with the promised South Beltline M-6. In the end there is one grade crossing intersection at Lincoln, which is convenient for us, and NO exits. I'll have to make the run in daylight and post some pictures. But it's a nice road. Just not the full US-31 bypass freeway originally envisioned.

Burnt [R]

Holland 7 Theatre 3, 7:00pm, 2×$9.50

Bradley Cooper is in all sorts of films, but it turns out I've never seen him in one. Sure, he voiced Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy and Mrs. Dr. Phil streamed Silver Linings Playlist Playbook once when I wasn't here -- so those don't count. No matter, he's got the look of a Rocco DiSpirito, who is a real life New York rock star chef.

We've kind of seen this movie before. Great chef has meltdown, suffers business failure and/or gets into drugs and alcohol and/or can't handle success, tries to put life together. Working on earning the elusive Michelin third star. Two movies which come to mind are Chef (DW) and The Hundred-Foot Journey (DW), the latter which also involved pursuit of Michelin stars. Or even Ratatouille (DW). (grin)

Never mind, we love chef/food movies. Goes along with all the cooking competition shows we watch. Burnt does a particularly decent job of showing the brigade in the kitchen -- what, you thought Chef actually made all the dishes he served? And also "the pass", where dishes are put together before being sent out for service. And this is a NICE kitchen.

As far as food goes, the Holland 7 has the best popcorn in town, but doesn't offer hot dogs or sandwiches or anything more substantial. It's after 7pm -- dinner time for us. So after popcorn, we had our smuggled in meatloaf sandwiches. Oh, yum. Yes, I like fine dining, but we eat pretty damn well at home, too, under the strict kitchen supervision of Chef Mrs. Dr. Phil. It amused me that just as a diner in the film was slicing through an egg laid across some entree, allowing the runny yolk to spread over everything, that bite of sandwich hit the hardboiled egg which had been embedded in the meatloaf. Mmm. Taste-o-vision...

The thing about Adam's Paris meltdown is that he hurt a lot of people he counted on. So there's plenty of agendas, plus one wicked application of that Klingon proverb, "bortaS bIr jablu'DI', reH QaQqu' nay'". (Revenge is a dish best served cold.) And Chef Adam's relationship with money is very casual -- broke one day with his credit cards canceled, the next day he's driving a really nice fancy motorcycle which he gives away. Huh? And there are a whole lot of the subplots of The Magnificent Seven Of The Kitchen which are barely explored or simply disappear. Even Adam's backstory is administered in fleeting little dibs and drabs. Oh wait, the running time is only 101 minutes. Yet another movie which could've done a lot more if they'd just added 20-30 minutes -- good minutes, not just padding.

You know, for example, that the really good young woman chef, played by Sienna Miller, who has a precocious daughter and loathes the self-important American chef... is going to fall for him. Though the best kiss in the movie isn't between them. Only the second best. (evil-grin)

Still, they managed a lot of restraint in the movie. It would've been easy to: (a) toss the chef and the girl into bed and/or (b) have a big lovers spat, (c) have chef fall completely off the wagon and fight like Rocky to get back up, etc. Instead there are a lot of plot areas left dangling -- Emma Thompson's role was kept low key, for example, as was the ex-girlfriend -- and I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is a better exhibition of life or the director left too many Chechov's guns littering the film. Me? I kind of liked it. The more I wanted was depth, not chaos for chaos' sake.

Wikipedia mentions the film went through several name changes -- originally it was going to be called Chef, but that ended up being used by another movie. Opening day reviews don't sound spectacular -- 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Much of the criticism is center on Adam, calling him an unlikable character. Gordon Ramsay, on the other hand, loved it -- but I should note we saw his name, as well as Mario Batalli, in the credits.

In the end, Burnt is a very pretty movie. And though it is billed as a comedy-drama, I was glad they didn't take the comedy too seriously and make the whole thing a caricature. I do worry that Adam's solutions to getting the multiple monkeys from Paris off his back are not particularly useful for addicts, though they might think so, and probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.

We had a lovely evening, but this is not high cinema.

RECOMMENDED for Foodies

Trailers: Joy -- Jennifer Lawrence, who is in everything these days, Robert DeNiro and, oh look, it's Bradley Cooper. Young woman goes out into the world and it sounds like maybe her family doesn't believe she can make it, I guess. Love The Coopers -- John Goodman and Diane Keaton head a dysfunctional family heading into the holidays. Hilarity ensues, I guess. The always lovely Olivia Wilde is in this one. The Hateful Eight -- billed as Quentin Tarantino's 8th movie. It's a western. He's got me with Samuel L. Jackson, but then Kurt Russell is playing a badass bounty hunter. By The Sea -- huh, Brangelina. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are having a tough time. I can't quite tell if she's trying to commit suicide or he's trying to kill her. Don't care yet, either.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Things I Did Not Know

There are Interstate highways in Alaska.

A friend of mine was off to get the old teeth cleaned -- and Facebook's location cheerfully provided a map:

Clearly, more investigation was required...

Now sometimes maps get things wrong. Or the labels aren't sufficient. I've seen Grand Rapids downtown maps marked with I-296 where US-131 goes between I-96 and I-196. But we've been down here since the early 90s and I've never seen an I-296 marker. Turns out -- both are right:

Interstate 296 (I-296) is a part of the Interstate Highway System in the US state of Michigan. It is a state trunkline highway that runs for 3.43 miles (5.52 km) entirely within the Grand Rapids area. Its termini are I-96 on the north side of Grand Rapids in Walker and I-196 near downtown Grand Rapids. For most of its length, the Interstate is concurrent with U.S. Highway 131 (US 131), which continues as a freeway built to Interstate Highway standards north and south of the shorter I-296. The highway was first proposed in the late 1950s and opened in December 1962, but the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has since eliminated all signage for I-296 and removed the designation from their official state map. The designation is therefore unsigned, but still listed on the Interstate Highway System route log maintained by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Nor did I know that I-196 was once US-16, or that I-196 and I-96 designations were flipped:

The US 131 freeway was officially opened at 10 a.m. on December 17, 1962, between Pearl Street and (at the time) the I-196/US 16 freeway north of downtown. This freeway section encompassed all of I-296, which would connect I-196 north of town with I-96 downtown.[1] (The I-96 and I-196 designations were later flipped west of Grand Rapids.[10]) M-37 was relocated in Grand Rapids to utilize I-96 around the northeast side of town instead of I-296/US 131 in 1969.

This was presumably during some of the realignments to route the major trunk lines out of downtowns in some area? Or maybe just so I-96 would become a Muskegon-Detroit corridor, while I-196 would be a bridge between I-96 and I-94. (The early maps of Michigan's Interstates look very different than what we've got today.)

Growing up as a student of maps (DW) (LJ), the Hawaiian Interstates (H1, H2, H3) all on the island of O'ahu were always special. I mean, it wasn't like there weren't Interstate highways wholly in a single state (I-4 in Florida) or ones with letters (35E, 35W, 80N, 80S and even 69E, 69C and 69W near the Mexican border -- Texas has always been special). But the Hawaiian roads were magical -- out of reach of the casual driver. And they are "real" Interstate freeways, with signage (see below) and everything. There was a plan for H4, but they were cancelled.



However, there is a fourth Hawaiian Interstate -- H201. The Moanalua Freeway has been known as Route 78, but while designated an Interstate in 1989, it didn't get the Interstate shield signs until 2004. Why? In part because of the "inability to render the new route number in a legible manner (it is necessary to use the thinnest font to render the number, and the shield is wider than the standard Interstate shield)". Gee, only two widths of signs for 1- and 2-character Interstates and 3-character Interstates? It would kill you to make a wider shield? (shaking-head-grin) There's a part of me who thinks they missed a great opportunity -- they could have designated this auxiliary Interstate as H20 instead of H201. "H-two-oh", get it? Cause Hawaii is surrounded by... Oh forget it. Never mind.

Ahem.

So, back to Alaska. Turns out that there are four Alaskan Interstates (A1, A2, A3, A4). 1,082.22 miles. Some are freeways, some are two-lane highways -- they do not have to be built to full Interstate standards. Now, I can sort of see the Fed's idea here. Interstate highways mean something. But... Hell, A-1 beats H-1 by meeting up with the Alcan Highway and the Canadian border. An international crossing is as good as a state crossing in my book.

And certainly out east there are some miserable roads grandfathered into the Interstates. I-70 squished into the tunnel into Wheeling WV. The old I-40 through Winston-Salem NC. Many of the freeways and even toll roads in NY, PA, etc. Some have gotten downgraded designations, especially after newer bypasses were built -- Business I-40 in Winston-Salem now, for example -- but other places there just isn't room in the old built-up areas.

And then there were the two-lane interstates. I-95 in northern Maine I've been on, where they built half the Interstate, except for the overpasses and some of the exits. And they had 24-hour headlight rules, wide lanes and much wider shoulders. You could even pass. (grin) Great fun. Best two-lane road I've ever been on. And the old West Virginia Turnpike, had sections of I-77 with two- and three-lanes through the mountains. The new I-77/WV Turnpike is arguably a MUCH faster and safer road, but the old one was FUN and had real charm. (And a tunnel... which shot out onto a bridge from the side of a mountain.) I loved it. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing other two-lane sections of Interstates out west as I pored over the Rand McNally atlases... (ah-hhh, youth)

So personally, I think that Alaskans would embrace their rugged, more manly, Interstate highways. They've earned their shields. Get those signs up!

For completeness, I will add that Alaska was brought into the Interstate Highway System along with Puerto Rico, which has three Interstates (PR1, PR2, PR3) which, like Alaska, are unsigned as such and are not required to meet Interstate highway standards in order to receive the Federal funding. No doubt they remain unsigned as much as to stave off consideration of Puerto Rico as a "state", if it had Interstate highways. (evil-grin) NOTE: I am not dissing Puerto Rico by using such a tiny PR1 shield marker here -- the Wikipedia article on Puerto Rican Interstate highways doesn't include the same sized shields at the others. I had to use a tiny .PNG from a table. And it looked terrible blown up 3x to a comparable size. Not enough pixels.


So there you have it. All these years I thought there were Interstates only in 49 states. Now it's 50 states and 1 territory. Though to be truthful, the two added areas are in name only. Even if Google Maps seems to think otherwise.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Yes, I've Been Very Quiet Here Lately

I just made it back from my third round-trip drive to Greensboro NC, after the ones on Thanksgiving and New Years. This one was less than scheduled, shall we say, but it was necessary. Thankfully I had good driving weather 3 of 4 days there and back. I'm sure I'll post more about my travels, because I took a lot of pictures along the way.

This Was Not Expected

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a workhorse. No question. The four-engine military cargo hauler is one tough sonofabitch. I know that they've made carrier landings and take-offs. And...

In 2007, the C-130 became the fifth aircraft—after the English Electric Canberra, B-52 Stratofortress, Tupolev Tu-95, and KC-135 Stratotanker—to mark 50 years of continuous use with its original primary customer, in this case, the United States Air Force. The C-130 is also the only military aircraft to remain in continuous production for 50 years with its original customer, as the updated C-130J Super Hercules.

I used to regularly see C-130s flying around Chicago -- along with Navy P2 Orions -- and used to see C-130s taxiing at Chicago's O'Hare field.

But I've never thought about the size of them before, or thought about putting one on a flatbed and driving it around. Good thing I had a 20mm ultra wide angle handy for the Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n so I could get it all in one shot. (grin)

Click on photo for high res.

This was at a rest stop in Ohio on I-75. I was going to drive around in front and get a cockpit on face view -- but I couldn't pull off the exit road because there was no shoulder and I didn't like the one foot hard drop-off. (evil grin)

Now for my idea for a kick-ass RV conversion van...

Dr. Phil

Welcome To Michigan -- Land Of Summer Road Construction

Michigan D.O.T. or MDOT has been busy for over a month with numerous construction projects. In West Michigan we've got a series of programs to add more of the center cable barriers along US-131, I-96 and other freeways. A massive project which has closed I-196 just east of downtown Grand Rapids to widen the road on the big hill and replace a bunch of bridges. And after two years of rebuilding a stretch of I-196 near the Kent/Ottawa County line, this spring there have been removing the paved crossover lanes and landscaping the median. And that's before I've even run into any of the more usual repaving zones. (grin)

But It Cheeses Me Off...

Sure, I hate the yahoos who invoke fallacy of composition to ignore signs to move over due to lane closures, but instead rush ahead in the emptying lane and then expect everyone to let them in at the head of the line. Goddamned special snowflakes, every damned one.

But this year it has gotten really bad on another front. MDOT's website says the following about construction zone speed limits:

During Michigan's busy road construction season, motorists are required to reduce their speed to 45 miles per hour in any freeway work zone where workers are present, UNLESS a concrete barrier wall exists between the workers and the vehicles.

FACT: The majority of injuries and fatalities in work zones each year involve drivers and their passengers.

Motorists should remember to drive the appropriate speed and pay close attention in work zones.

Protect Michigan families: Where Workers Present Drive 45 - the life you save could be your own!

What Could Be Simpler?

Well... take the speed limit sign in today's LJ icon. These are arranged right after Speed Limit 60 signs in many of the freeway construction zones. So... I'm driving with most of the traffic going 60 mph in a construction zone and spot the next cable barrier work crew on the left hand shoulder ahead. I slow down and most other people slow down to 45 mph. Except for the special snowflake crowd who is DETERMINED that the left lane is for Faster Traffic, no matter what the actual speed limit says.

So the special snowflakes leap into the left lane, driving 60-70 mph and THEY'RE the ones closest to the construction workers. The real problem is that the penalties really kick in AFTER some idiot has killed a construction worker.

Public Act 103, known as "Andy's Law" went into effect Oct. 1, 2001. The law creates penalties of up to one year in prison for injuring and up to 15 years in prison for killing a highway construction or maintenance worker. It also imposes a maximum penalty of $7,500. The law is named for Andrew Lefko, a 19-year-old who was left paralyzed after being hit while working on I-275 in Metro Detroit.

In 2003, Andy's Law was strengthened by the passage of Public Act 315. Now, work zones are marked with "Work Zone Begins" and "End Road Work" signs. "Begin Work Convoy" and "End Work Convoy" signs are used for mobile crews traveling along roads as workers paint lane lines or patch potholes. Speed limit signs are also required in work zones marked with "Work Zone Begins" signs.

P.A. 315 lowers the threshold at which driving offenses can trigger Andy's Law penalties. The law now includes penalties for driving offenses such as careless driving or speeding, which are considered civil offenses. The law also applies to criminal offenses such as reckless or drunken driving.

It bugs the crap out of me when I'm the only adult who seems to be driving a motor vehicle and following the rules. And I sure don't want to hear from any special snowflakes who think their right to the left GO FAST lane is something which cannot be abridged.

Dr. Phil