Realizing that no one will visit my blog without my finding a central focus and writing frequent original content, as well as the fact that most hits this week have been for people searching for freeway carnage, I should just write for myself and the two people that may (but probably don’t) frequent this site.
Why should I worry about who is reading, when I can just post beautiful pictures from people I know… (I mean DAMN John!) and muse upon my interests.
My musings will still be vague, and someone might like what I write someday if I actually write.
Therefore I am writing for no one and whenever I feel… I feel liberated in my everyday life, as odd as this is…
Since I am using the inexpensive, but lame GoDaddy shared hosting, I jumped all over upgrading to the WordPress 2.6 beta in order to try Gears caching of the admin panel (by far the slowest part of the GoDaddy experience).
Thus far, the experience has been pretty similar to before; although, I have not had as many unexplained timeouts as the site ceaselessly tries to load a new page. There are a few other trick features for 2.6, although the image uploader seems to be broken for me (that may be due to uploading random files into Gears so that it would not get stuck on errors).
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Yesterday, my commute entered the realm of the ridiculous and unforgivable due to an auto accident on the 880 freeway. Two hours for a twenty minute drive should never happen.
I heard on the radio that it was a multi-vehicle accident and big rig fire, so I checked the internet for information about what happened…
Basically (according to this article in the Oakland Tribune), a Waste Management truck heading Southbound on 880 swerved across the center divider and hit a truck carrying caskets. Unfortunately, both of these drivers died in the pile-up.
Insensitively, I immediately began to laugh, observing the dark irony in dying while driving a vehicle carrying caskets. My question is whether or not the casket company will provide a free casket to the driver. This seems like a convenient job benefit that the driver never expected.
This horrible traffic event on the 880 contributes to my growing list of reasonable indications that this freeway is cursed:
- Two people have been found dead on the same overpass in San Leandro within the past year (one of the fatalities was a hitchhiker that fell to his grisly dismemberment, the other had a less memorable death).
- The 238 spur and all approaches to and from the San Mateo bridge are fundamentally flawed due to their poor planning and the fact they are natural bottlenecks at major traffic flow points; thus contributing to creating massive backups at all times of day.
- A 2 KM long section collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake killing 42 motorists.
- A fuel tanker truck overturned and exploded in 2007, closing the approach onto the freeway from I-80 for several weeks
- If one person brakes too hard at 5:30AM on a Monday, traffic patterns are irrevocably disturbed for the week and your commute takes twice as long.
- There is a scraped news tracker that goes over stories related to the 880 (probably to try to sell things that I have blocked, I imagine), and it shows considerably more frequent and severe traffic occurrences on this particular freeway than others in the region.
The Wikipedia article for the 880 states in its text that the freeway is nicknamed the “Nasty Nimitz,” unfortunately this nickname only suggests the terrors that await drivers upon its damned roadway…
This weekend, Carrie and I went on a hike with a guide and several llamas in the Redwood Regional Park in the hills above Oakland.
About two months back, I came across an intriguing listing in the East Bay Regional Park District’s newsletter of activities. Usually I would have relegated the newsletter as spam and thrown it into the recycle bin prior to going inside, but I gave it a look-see instead. The listing that had caught my eye was “Llama Day Hike” described as a jaunt through the forest to learn about pack llamas while guiding them.There will not be another trip until October, but you could monitor the East Bay Park’s Hiking page to see the next opportunity for this day trip.
The guide on this trip was George Caldwell, a llama enthusiast/advocate from Sonora, CA (he is on the left in the above picture). His website (which he sent prior to the hike) is Eyes of the Llama. His role on this hike was guide, teacher and ambassador of the llama’s cause.
Our llama was the unfortunately named Trail Boss, or Boss for short. He was a one-year-old male that was venturing into the wilderness for the first time on the trip. Although both the Boss and Carrie and myself were rookies, we quickly gained each other’s trust and had a successful and enjoyable hike.
Although it was unseasonably hot on this particular day, the hike through the Redwood Regional Park was quite pleasant as the area was shaded a significant portion of the time and there was a slight breeze serving to cool us on our ascent and descent through the tree-lined hills. I was quite impressed with the guidance and hike, and I would recommend this to anyone lucky enough to reside in the Bay Area.
