wet commute
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 04:20:14 +0000
Twice this week the forecast said rain after midnight. And twice the "rain" was correct, but the "after" was not. Monday I managed to catch a gap in the rain, and rode home on wet roads, taking my completely-paved alternate route (i.e. not the Towpath). Tonight I noticed on the RADAR that the clouds looked closer "rain after midnight", and I decided to leave work early. About half way home the rain started; barely perceptible at first, but approaching the level of "light rain" by the time I got home. Leaving early was a good call. (So was picking up the dog poop in the yard before I left home.)
I'm sure I surprised a driver pulling out of a parking space. I went by him fast, and I'm sure he didn't see me coming, because he couldn't have seen anything (car, tour bus, 18-wheeler) coming; his view was blocked by a double-parked truck, and he should have been creeping out much more slowly until he got to where he could see. (Kinda like that woman a few weeks ago who was about to make a U-turn out of her parking space even though she couldn't possibly see the approaching traffic she might cut off with her view blocked by a(nother) double-parked truck. Actually, she shouldn't have been considering a U-turn at all. She would have had 1/3 of her car across the lane before she could have seen anything. A blind U-turn is just off-the-charts stupid.) If something is blocking the lane and blocking your view, you should expect that people will go around it, not wait indefinitely. Traffic from the other direction might prevent people going around. Or might not, for something the size of a motorcycle or bicycle. (In both these instances, there was no opposing traffic to delay/deter anyone who wanted to go around the truck.)
A few blocks later an oncoming driver apparently didn't want to wait for me to cross the intersection before he made his left turn. My presence could not have been a surprise, because we were all sitting there waiting through a red light. And turning across oncoming traffic, he obviously did not have the right of way. I just turned my light into his face.
Not many deer out along the canal tonight. This is the first time I've come home on the towpath this week, since the weather's been so wet. (And with tomorrow's forecast I'll be on the Metro again.)
And I still get drivers that don't want to get in the lane that goes where they want to go. On Glebe Rd, 2 lanes each way, there's a right turn lane added approaching an intersection. The right lane, the "slow" lane, becomes the middle lane, and I stay in it. I'm not in anybody's way there. But people keep coming up behind me, and crawling at my (uphill) pace, and then decide to use the right-turn lane to (wait for it ...) make a right turn. If I had wanted to turn right, I would have been in that lane as soon as it widened out. These people seem to think all bicycles should be in the outermost lane - even if it's a turn-only lane - regardless of what direction we're going. They seem to be waiting for me to move right, so they can pass me in the center lane and then cut me off as they turn right themselves, while I have left the right-turn lane empty and completely open for them. And if they don't want to turn right, the left lane is also empty. Using the empty passing lane to pass a slower vehicle doesn't seem to occur to many of them for quite a while when the vehicle is a bicycle, even though they wouldn't think twice about moving over to pass a slow car.When did "socialize" become a synonym for "distribute" or "announce and review"? As in "socialize a schedule"? Requesting feedback from my coworkers about the steps of a plan is now being called "socializing it". "Socialize" is not a transitive verb.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/713713.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Twice this week the forecast said rain after midnight. And twice the "rain" was correct, but the "after" was not. Monday I managed to catch a gap in the rain, and rode home on wet roads, taking my completely-paved alternate route (i.e. not the Towpath). Tonight I noticed on the RADAR that the clouds looked closer "rain after midnight", and I decided to leave work early. About half way home the rain started; barely perceptible at first, but approaching the level of "light rain" by the time I got home. Leaving early was a good call. (So was picking up the dog poop in the yard before I left home.)
I'm sure I surprised a driver pulling out of a parking space. I went by him fast, and I'm sure he didn't see me coming, because he couldn't have seen anything (car, tour bus, 18-wheeler) coming; his view was blocked by a double-parked truck, and he should have been creeping out much more slowly until he got to where he could see. (Kinda like that woman a few weeks ago who was about to make a U-turn out of her parking space even though she couldn't possibly see the approaching traffic she might cut off with her view blocked by a(nother) double-parked truck. Actually, she shouldn't have been considering a U-turn at all. She would have had 1/3 of her car across the lane before she could have seen anything. A blind U-turn is just off-the-charts stupid.) If something is blocking the lane and blocking your view, you should expect that people will go around it, not wait indefinitely. Traffic from the other direction might prevent people going around. Or might not, for something the size of a motorcycle or bicycle. (In both these instances, there was no opposing traffic to delay/deter anyone who wanted to go around the truck.)
A few blocks later an oncoming driver apparently didn't want to wait for me to cross the intersection before he made his left turn. My presence could not have been a surprise, because we were all sitting there waiting through a red light. And turning across oncoming traffic, he obviously did not have the right of way. I just turned my light into his face.
Not many deer out along the canal tonight. This is the first time I've come home on the towpath this week, since the weather's been so wet. (And with tomorrow's forecast I'll be on the Metro again.)
And I still get drivers that don't want to get in the lane that goes where they want to go. On Glebe Rd, 2 lanes each way, there's a right turn lane added approaching an intersection. The right lane, the "slow" lane, becomes the middle lane, and I stay in it. I'm not in anybody's way there. But people keep coming up behind me, and crawling at my (uphill) pace, and then decide to use the right-turn lane to (wait for it ...) make a right turn. If I had wanted to turn right, I would have been in that lane as soon as it widened out. These people seem to think all bicycles should be in the outermost lane - even if it's a turn-only lane - regardless of what direction we're going. They seem to be waiting for me to move right, so they can pass me in the center lane and then cut me off as they turn right themselves, while I have left the right-turn lane empty and completely open for them. And if they don't want to turn right, the left lane is also empty. Using the empty passing lane to pass a slower vehicle doesn't seem to occur to many of them for quite a while when the vehicle is a bicycle, even though they wouldn't think twice about moving over to pass a slow car.When did "socialize" become a synonym for "distribute" or "announce and review"? As in "socialize a schedule"? Requesting feedback from my coworkers about the steps of a plan is now being called "socializing it". "Socialize" is not a transitive verb.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/713713.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]