Rough day, Happy Pearl Harbor Day, and I found some pictures

First of all, wishing all WWII vets and interred Japanese Americans a “good” Pearl Harbor Day. I remember one PHD where we did a “sneak attack” on the local Japanese restaurant and bought teriyaki everything because the owner was one of those put in the camps as a child, then we celebrated that we were all free because we “won” WWII, and he wasn’t in the camp anymore, and that what the Japanese government did had nothing to do with him until some idiot made it to do with him.

Second, rough day today because I had to deposit that check and get money at the bank, then I had to get some cat food so the cats didn’t try to eat us in our sleep. Lots of walking in temperatures in the mid-40s F (7° C) and drizzling rain and slight breeze making being wet and cold even wetter and colder. And I need to get a new rain coat that doesn’t leak and covers my head so the runoff from my hat doesn’t run down the back of my neck. That was plus uncomfortable. Not even close to being doubleplus, but still ungood. And yes I’m still a giant nerd that still lapses into Orwellian Newspeak at times.

And getting to the pictures, I found my old senior high school yearbook picture that my parents framed way back then.

And to do a compare and contrast, this is just over 43 years later.

Now quick, which side of my face was partially detached in the wreck, just from looking that those pictures?

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Happy Samhain (SOW-when)

I hope everyone got an adequate amount of candy this evening, and had a pleasant communion with those who have passed before.

I had another trip to the Lab Rat Keeper today. No candy but I did get 2 bandaids to cover the three holes in my arm from when they tried to raw some blood for testing. Apparently my vitamin K levels are just fine as my blood was clotting in the needle while they were trying to get enough for the various tests I have to take. At least I had time to study for my blood test (ba-dunk-KISH).

Happy Halloween!

Still functional (barely) and the Feed

Yee haw! You would think that plants had better places to have sex than in my sinuses, but nooo. Actually they’re having sex in my ears too, but that isn’t as funny a joke. If I had any money left I would be buying stock in companies that make diphenhydramine, but I spent all my money buying the drug instead… I can tell when my bedtime pill wears off because I have dreams of being suffocated. I’ll be here all week, try the brisket… pollen jokes, I’m channelling Henny Youngman.

Up first because it’s so rare that killing a cyclist results in prison time, a cyclist’s killer gets 9 years and a $5000 fine. Motorist sentenced to prison in bicyclist’s death Aww, he was soooo sorry he was crying. Guilty of phoney theatrics, additional year served consecutively. He was drunk when he hit the cyclist from behind and left the scene, he was danged lucky he didn’t get life. In TX if you kill someone in the course of committing a felony you can get the death penalty, and hit-and-run is a felony in TX. That law went into effect September 1 2001, the day after I was almost killed by a hit-and-run driver. Personally I would have just left him to rot, like any other drunk driver that kills.

In western PA a Ghost Bike for a recently fallen rider. ‘Ghost Bike’ Honors Cyclist Killed In Accident I wish the media would stop calling wrecks “accidents”. This was no accident, the driver of a large piece of heavy machinery didn’t pay attention to where he was going and hit somebody from behind on the road. This would be like shooting down a major highway with a large caliber rifle. Eventually you will hit someone. The supporting ride is covered here. ‘Ride Of Silence’ Remembers Bicyclist Killed In Indiana Twp.

Seattle cyclists are unhappy about streetcar tracks in the bike lanes. Lawsuit: Streetcar tracks unsafe for cyclists To the person that commented on the article about this not being a problem in Amsterdam, they don’t put the tracks in the bike lanes, and their tracks are required by their laws to have a device that excludes bicycle tires from getting trapped between the rail and the street, which is not the case in Seattle. I think the price difference is something like $1k per mile of track for the track that is bicycle-friendly more than for the other track. The difference would be about 1/4 the amount of just the first lawsuit, then after that it’s just gravy. I’m not sure about what it would cost to retrofit the excluders after the rails are installed in the street, but it’s a lot more than $1K/Mile and the streetcar has to be taken out of service until the work is done.

A mode-of-wreck study in the Great White North. In Vancouver, beware of cars; in Toronto, watch for streetcar tracks Again we find that the tracks for streetcars is a hazard to cyclists because it requires looking at the wheels of the bike rather than the traffic around the cyclist, which devolves to Hobsen’s Choice: Get caught in the tracks, or get hit by the cars. Since getting caught in the tracks is seldom fatal, where getting hit by(with) a car is frequently fatal, most cyclists choose to watch the cars instead of the tracks, and hope they don’t wander into the tracks.

Still in Canuckistan, the media is hyping the conflict between cyclists and drivers over space on the roads. Cyclists’ passions running high And yes that’s the same picture they used for the other article.

In the UK another report on the taxi driver that hit and killed a cyclist. Hackney cab driver arrested and bailed after cyclist killed in Huyton collision

And that’s all there is for today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus