Maniacal Drivers Depend on the Time

Due to my large size, I've been driving to work every day.

The real reason why I drive is that sometimes I can't get a seat on the BART and it kills my feet and legs to stand for 40 minutes. I have lots of opinions about the really rude people who won't give up their seats to the pregnant lady on a subway train. Truthfully, most of the time folks would move when I asked, but there was an occasion when they would not. On that one occasion I sat on the floor, but it's pretty hard for me to get up off the floor these days, and if I stand the entire trip my feet will hurt all day long. And also pretty frequently I don't want to have to ask for a seat nor do I want to risk not getting one at this late stage. So I drive to avoid it all.

Lately, I've been going to bed around 8:30pm or so and getting up around 6am or sometimes earlier. It means I can be at work by 7:30am which has lots of cool side effects.

• The first one is that people don't drive like maniacs this early in the morning. There's still tons of traffic, but it's not jammed up yet, usually.
  
• The bridge isn't usually backed up yet, either. Or if it is, it's a small back up.
  
• There's tons of all day street parking near my work. (I used to have a parking spot in a lot, but our company recently decided to only pay for half of those parking permits. I think they thought we would just pay the other half of it ourselves, but lots of us just street park now and move our cars during the day. Oh, the struggles of becoming profitable.)
• I have hours to work without getting interrupted and asked questions. So, I actually get a lot done early in my day, before all the meetings typically start.
• I get to leave work early enough that businesses are still open, and there's many hours of daylight to do my walk. (I'm still walking about 3mls every day after work. It's getting harder and harder, but I'm trying to keep it up.)
  

The maniac driver thing is a very large, important thing for me. It really makes the difference between being slightly on edge and jumpy while driving to and from work and being pretty chill and relaxed.

When I drive later, say more towards 8 or 9am, you will have several experiences where people will change lanes without signaling into maybe 10 feet of empty space in front of you while the person who is already in front of you is braking. This situation will leave you maybe a couple feet behind them as they slam into your lane and brake hard. It's pretty scary, and annoying.

And it's only worst if you're the kind of mellow driver that I usually am where I leave space in front of me. Then you get these types diving in front of you the entire way to work. Or my favorite is those people who tail you more and more because you do leave that couple car length in front of you and get visibly frustrated when you let somebody in in front of you (which I usually do if they signal.) Like somehow you're making them personally late to get to work or something. It's pretty entertaining to watch and think about, but it's just so weird. If people were just a little nicer and mellower, all of traffic would move better.

I really am entertained by watching traffic. It's almost as interesting as going somewhere and watching a new culture (which I love!) I think I got more into traffic after reading this really surprising book about, well, traffic.

Snow, Travel and More Crafts

We were up at Squaw Valley this weekend playing in the snow. My company had its yearly planning session up there during the week and then we got to stay up there through the weekend. What an excellent fringe benefit! My honeypot came up on Thursday night and we skied on Saturday. It was the most perfect conditions because it basically snowed the entire time I was up there, but amazingly enough, it stopped snowing for the entire day of Saturday and was relatively warm. Perfect!

Something I realized on our way home from there is that I leave for India on Thursday. Whoa, I haven't even begun to plan for this trip at all. Besides not having prepared my materials for what I'm teaching while I'm there, I haven't even begun to research where I'll be going and what I'll be doing with my 5 days off at the end. I'll be back on Feb 19th.

My honeypot lost the last hat I made him, so I've been working on this new hat design. I've never crocheted a hat from the center out radially before. I'm following the pattern in this new book my mother-in-law gave me for xmas. It's been a pretty great gift. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Stormy Weather

Storm details here.

I can hear constant sirens as various spontaneous accidents occur. My favorite is the 18 wheel truck that got "blown over."

The California Highway Patrol closed the eastbound Richmond-San Rafael Bridge after a gust of wind blew over an 18-wheel truck around 8:30 a.m. Story here.

I suppose I should have known something was up when Stella began insistently meowing at around 6am. She wouldn't stop for hours. I tried to comfort her, but she wasn't having any of that. I think that she was thoroughly freaked out by the storm. Our house is shaking and twisting with the force of the wind and rain.

I drove to work across the bay bridge because there were some important meetings today, but when I got there (after thoroughly getting wet after walking the two blocks from the car parking lot) there was no power. There were several blocks where huge trees had come down, and most stop lights that I drove near were out. I stayed at work about an hour and finally came home.

The wind on the bridge was so strong that it was a struggle to stay in my lane. There is so much water everywhere (and accidents too). I hydroplaned a couple times while driving. Thankfully most people are driving really slow.

I'm glad to be home!

In other news I recently bought a new laptop battery on ebay. It arrived in a couple days and it's so amazing to have my laptop work without being plugged in! I love it. (Previously it couldn't last even a couple minutes without wall power.) I've had this laptop for 3 or 4 years now, so it's not so surprising that the battery lost it's ability to hold a charge. I wish I had bought a new one earlier.

Well, enjoy the stormy weather.