Timber!
Had one of those "Oh that's not good" flashes on the freeway this afternoon.
Crews were out trimming the trees in the region of the northbound Harborne Street on-ramp this afternoon. I was in just the right position to witness a large piece of tree fall from the top of a very large tree. The bit of my brain that likes to keep me alive and has a reasonable working knowledge of physics told me that I was about to drive into the very spot that that large messy piece of wood was about to land.
Bad Thing!
That was exciting for a good fraction of a second until it registered that the branch was not obeying the laws of physics after all. One imagines that it was restrained by a clever system of ropes to prevent exactly such an incident, and on I drove.
I've never been particularly concerned about trees landing on me. The worst tree-car relationship I ever had involved my faithful first car Damien. For local reference it was on Winthrop Avenue during afternoon peak hour. Just after leaving uni I ran over a large stick which lodged somewhere in Damien's undercarriage. It made an interesting sound as it dragged along the ground. I wondered if perhaps Damien had sustained injuries, so I pulled into the nearest side street and climbed into the gutter to take a look. This was made more interesting because it was raining and windy (hence the debris on the road) and night was falling.
If memory serves I was also due to perform standup comedy that night too, so hello extra stress. I made an executive decision that everything would be fine, pulled out the stick and worked my way back into traffic.
I don't recall if that was before or after the incident where I ran over a large ball of gaffer tape that stuck to one of my wheels. Every time the ball contacted the road it made a squelching sound (that of gaffer tape being torn off bitumen), but it's tough stuff and remained stuck to the wheel. The faster I went, the higher the frequency. I wondered if I'd blown a head gasket and was hearing the sound of air bubbles coming through the radiator. It's the sort of thing you fear and expect when you drive a car of a certain age. That and plain old overheating.
I was really happy when I finally upgraded to a car that just went where it was told. Now the Catmobile is getting to the stage where I have to worry about things breaking it's not much fun having to return to that state of constant alertness :-(
Crews were out trimming the trees in the region of the northbound Harborne Street on-ramp this afternoon. I was in just the right position to witness a large piece of tree fall from the top of a very large tree. The bit of my brain that likes to keep me alive and has a reasonable working knowledge of physics told me that I was about to drive into the very spot that that large messy piece of wood was about to land.
Bad Thing!
That was exciting for a good fraction of a second until it registered that the branch was not obeying the laws of physics after all. One imagines that it was restrained by a clever system of ropes to prevent exactly such an incident, and on I drove.
I've never been particularly concerned about trees landing on me. The worst tree-car relationship I ever had involved my faithful first car Damien. For local reference it was on Winthrop Avenue during afternoon peak hour. Just after leaving uni I ran over a large stick which lodged somewhere in Damien's undercarriage. It made an interesting sound as it dragged along the ground. I wondered if perhaps Damien had sustained injuries, so I pulled into the nearest side street and climbed into the gutter to take a look. This was made more interesting because it was raining and windy (hence the debris on the road) and night was falling.
If memory serves I was also due to perform standup comedy that night too, so hello extra stress. I made an executive decision that everything would be fine, pulled out the stick and worked my way back into traffic.
I don't recall if that was before or after the incident where I ran over a large ball of gaffer tape that stuck to one of my wheels. Every time the ball contacted the road it made a squelching sound (that of gaffer tape being torn off bitumen), but it's tough stuff and remained stuck to the wheel. The faster I went, the higher the frequency. I wondered if I'd blown a head gasket and was hearing the sound of air bubbles coming through the radiator. It's the sort of thing you fear and expect when you drive a car of a certain age. That and plain old overheating.
I was really happy when I finally upgraded to a car that just went where it was told. Now the Catmobile is getting to the stage where I have to worry about things breaking it's not much fun having to return to that state of constant alertness :-(