Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

BGSs (Big Green Signs) on the Gulf Freeway (Click photo for full size)

My upcoming road trip to Houston is still a little ways off, but since I am in a road trip mood, let's take a look at some of the photos I took last October during a visit there (yeah, I got there by air and rented a car). Here are a couple of sign banks on the Gulf Freeway (I-45) getting near Hobby Airport. There are a couple of things to note in this photo. First, there is a sign goof. Do you see it? The Interstate Highway shield for I-45 is not the right proportions. It is a wider version used for 3-digit Interstate loops and spurs. The 45 should have been on a narrower shield.

I snapped this while driving down the freeway and just pointed the camera in the general direction of the signs. The real reason I tried for this shot is in the signs in the background. I will extract and zoom in on that reason in the photo below.



Does it jump out at you like it does me? This sign features the new Clearview font that has been approved for highway signs. Clearview is supposedly easier to read while driving down the road than the older font seen in most of the signs in the first photo. Texas is starting to deploy Clearview signs, but it and Pennsylvania are making the move in the U.S. at this point. Colorado has not adopted the new typeface. After years of seeing the older font on road signs, Clearview jumps out at you just because it is different. I guess time will tell if it really is easier to read.

Below you can see a fairly new section of the Southwest Freeway, US 59 and future I-69, in Sugar Land. Even though this is a new stretch of freeway, the old Highway Gothic font is in use.


BGS in Sugar Land, Texas

This photo also shows a couple of things that you don't see here in Colorado. First, the frontage road, or as Houstonians call them, feeders, are rare outside of Texas. Almost every freeway in the state has them, and they are quite useful for access on and off. Also notice the lanes on the feeder are marked by "Botts' Dots", named after their inventor, a California highway engineer. They are raised dots glued onto the road surface to mark the lanes. They are more durable than paint, and also give you audio and tactile feedback when crossing lanes. The obvious reason you don't find them in Colorado is that we have snowplows here. During the winter, the plows would just pop them right off the road, leaving it unmarked. Botts' Dots are common in Houston and Southern California.

For more on Clearview see the following web sites:

US Department of Transportation
Samples of Clearview and Highway Gothic

Oh Estelline, Why Can'tcha Be True

Estelline, Texas - all six blocks of it

In a few weeks, I will be making at trip that I have long wanted to take. I will be hitting the road from Denver to Houston. My past visits to Texas' largest city from Colorado have been via the fine jet aircraft of Frontier, United, and (since their re-entry to Denver) Southwest Airlines. Flying is great, you get there quick, but you miss the sights of things along the way. You also must put up with the near full body cavity search at the airport. Of course, you also fly six miles high over all the local cops of every podunk town and speed trap.

This trip will take me through Texas' most notorious speed trap, the small and dwindling town of Estelline on US 287 located in the panhandle near the point where the southwest corner of Oklahoma protrudes into the Lone Star State. Dubbed the worst speed trap in Texas by the Dallas Morning News, Estelline apparently has closely spaced speed limit changes with no warning, and an overly aggressive cop. I have heard horror stories of people getting ticketed even when going under the speed limit, being tailgated through town by the cop in his gray Mustang, and ticket payment deadlines set within one week from the alleged infraction.

Texas has a law that any town of under 5000 population must send the state any traffic fines they collect in excess of 30% of their town budget. The trouble is, there is no automatic enforcement, and it is only if they are audited that a town has to pay up. This town of less than 200 people seems to use motorists on the highway as their main source of town funding.

So the question becomes, do I go miles out of my way to avoid the place altogether? I certainly won't take the full Interstate route of going to Salina, Kansas on I-70, then turning south through Dallas. That is many more miles. I also could take a state highway and another US highway and add an estimated 20 miles to go around Estelline. However, I think the only reason I would to that is if I get a ticket there on the way down, and decide to bypass on the way back home.

The truth is that I rarely get over the speed limit, and if I do, it is because of momentary inattention. I would rather relax and not worry about it, but it sounds like you may get a ticket regardless from Estelline's version of Buford T. Justice.

Still, I have not been on this stretch of highway between Amarillo and Wichita Falls, so I am looking forward to it. So, to the podunk cop of podunk Estelline, Texas, just try to get me! As the President likes to say, "Bring it on!".

Oh, so you'll know me, I'll be the guy in the red BMW with Florida license plates. NOT!

Snow Again!

Snowy commute - taken with the Motorola Q

Today we got several inches of snow, and its still coming down. This is April 24. See that big vehicle on the far right? That's a snow plow. It snowed all day long. I-25 is closed from Lincoln Avenue in Douglas County to Colorado Springs; Colorado 83 is closed from Franktown to Colorado Springs. This picture is southbound Pine Drive (Douglas County Road 45) approaching Lincoln Avenue (DC Road 36). Maybe I should see if I can get a transfer to Arizona. This is getting old.

Oh, and yes, I see the brake lights. I was as a full stop when I snapped this.

FCC - More Out of Control Bureaucrats

Thomas Jefferson said, "The government that governs least, governs best." Jefferson no doubt would take issue with the current government in Washington that wants to govern more and more, increasingly incroaching on the liberty of its citizens. President Bush is hellbent on tearing down Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state. Personal phone calls are monitored for signs of "terrorist" activity. Emails are scanned and catalogued. Now the FCC is even getting on board the "Destroy Freedom" bandwagon.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a new law to allow it the power to regulate violence content on cable and satellite television. As with most censorship programs, the excuse is protection of children. "For God's sake, think of the children!!"

Congress has already mandated a solution to protect the children. Every television sold in the country contains the V-Chip, which gives censorship power to the people in whose hands it belongs . . . parents. Not only that, but cable and satellite providers build in parental controls into their decoder boxes.

Every time a violent act shows up on the national news, the government uses it as an excuse to further get themselves into our personal lives. After the shootings at Columbine High School, there were cries from the neofascists to outlaw video games and music they didn't approve of. The attacks of September 2001 gave rise to the infamous USA PATRIOT Act. Now, with the senseless killings at Virginia Tech, we see a renewed effort to censor television.

Constitutional experts say it will be an uphill constitutional battle for the FCC, especially for cable and satellite. That is because people have to actively subscribe to get them, unlike over-the-air signals. Still, with the overstepping of government in the last few years into personal matters, I take nothing for granted. Otherwise, I fear for the possibility of my grandchildren living in a totalitarian fascist state by the time they are grown. Freedom is their legacy and their right; but the theocrats, neocons, dominionists, and John Birch Society types will not be satisfied until the jack boots are goosestepping down your street.

Ghosts of Freeways Past

I will be the first to admit it. I am a "road geek", someone who is fascinated by roads, highways, freeways. All the ins and outs, trivia, history, and design of highways are something I can very easily get caught up in. As a kid, I drew maps of cities I invented in my mind. Today, I play Sim City 4 on the computer. And while most people would rather fly than drive, I still have enjoyment by getting in the car and heading out on the open road.

One thing I have come across in my road geekiness is the phenomena of stub ramps, or "ghost ramps". These are ramps on or off of a freeway that seemingly have no reason to be there. Sometimes they were built as part of a future expansion that never happened. Others are the remains of an interchange that no longer exists.

I got thinking about these again today, as I was driving through the interchange from eastbound US 36 (Boulder-Denver Turnpike) onto southbound I-25 (North Valley Highway) in Denver. Off to the right, I was surprised to see a very wide entrance ramp coming up to the interchange ramp, but it had no beginning. The merge of this ramp to the main one was blocked by barricades. It apparently was supposed to be a ramp from North Broadway onto I-25, but was never connected. Below is an arial photo of this ghost ramp:


Ghost ramp merging into ramp from US 36 to I-25

That got me thinking about another Denver area ghost ramp, this one on the north side of the town of Castle Rock. There used to be an interchange where Black Feather Trail now crosses the I-25 freeway, a route where motorists once exited from I-25 North to US 85 North toward Littleton; and southbound US 85 traffic merged onto southbound I-25. About three years ago, the interchange was removed and a new bridge built over the freeway at that spot. I-85 traffic now must take the next exit at Founders Parkway / Meadows Parkway. When the old interchange was torn down, the ghost of the southbound merge lane was left, a forgotten reminder of an interchange that is gone.


Ghost ramp from old US 85 South to I-25 South. Dirt trail of old road can still be seen.

But the title of Granddaddy of All Ghost Ramps has a contender in my hometown of Houston. That city has a very interesting layout of freeways. Before getting to the big ghost ramp there, a little visualization of the freeway system of the Bayou City is in order. Main routes radiate from downtown, with a series of loop freeways surrounding the city. Think of a spoked wheel and you will get the idea. The center hub is a little loop around downtown formed by I-45, US 59, and I-10. The next major loop is the Interstate 610 loop, circling the city's center about 6 miles out. Then another 6 miles out is the Sam Houston Tollway / Beltway 8. Further still is a partial, non-freeway loop on the north and west side formed by FM 1960 and Texas 6 (FM roads are a Texas anomaly, meaning "Farm to Market" Road). Now, another partial loop has been started as Texas 99, also known as the Grand Parkway, which currently is partially built from about Sugar Land to Katy.

So anyway, the 610 Loop crosses two freeways that don't go downtown. One is the Northwest Freeway (US 290), and the other being Texas 225, the La Porte Freeway. This is the freeway that parallels the Houston Ship Channel on the south side of it, and passes by the industrial and refining operations in Pasadena, Deer Park, and La Porte. The freeway heading toward Houston crosses 610 on the southeast side of town, but doesn't extend to downtown. Here's the kicker. . .a major stack interchange was built at 610 and 225, and that works to go out to Pasadena. But it also has huge ramps going toward Houston, even though the freeway comes to an end just a few hundred feet inside the 610 Loop! What happened?

Well, as it turns out, Texas 225 was supposed to eventually be built into downtown Houston as the Harrisburg Freeway. But opposition caused the project to be canceled in the 1970s. So we have ended up with a major interchange that leads to nothing. Below is an aerial shot of the interchange, with I-610 the vertical freeway, and Texas 225 the horizontal one. Clearly you can see the end of the freeway just to the west (left) of 610.



To read more about this waste of money and freeway anomaly, you can read the Houston Chronicle article about it from 1999 by CLICKING HERE.

A ground-level photo of the abrupt freeway ending is at the bottom of the page by clicking on this link to the Texas Freeway site.

What a Lifestyle Change!

Today's Denver Post is reporting on what lies ahead for former Qwest CEO and convicted felon, Joe Nacchio. For a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars; someone who is used to giving the orders, not taking them; it will be a hard fall. Apparently, prison reform has gotten rid of the so-called "country club prisons", or "Club Fed". To quote one of my favorite movies, Office Space, it won't be a "pound me in the ass prison", but it won't be a vacation either.

If sentenced to serve time, it is estimated that Felon Joe will spend eight to fifteen years in the big house. While he could get 190 years based on 19 guilty counts, each carrying potential ten year terms, federal sentencing guidelines will likely give him a break there. Still, what an eight to ten years it will be. First, Felon Joe will be awakened promptly at six a.m. to begin his new job at some actual work, such as a painter, plumber, groundskeeper, or some similar trade. He will make somewhere between 12¢ to 45¢ an hour, which he can use at the commissary, or...this is too good...to pay for his phone bills! Former CEO of Qwest Communications International having to pay phone bills for his calls from prison! Plus, he will not be allowed to receive phone calls at all.

All of that is sweet justice, but it gets even better. As it turns out, once you are a convicted felon, your personal fortune gets pretty much taken away. Nacchio allegedly transferred $90-million to his wife's accounts, and then she went and purchased a $9.5-million dollar estate in Jupiter, Florida. Despite Florida's generous homestead exemption laws, the conviction means that the Florida mansion, the one in New Jersey, and all the money could be seized by the feds to payback Qwest shareholders duped by this criminal. And this is all before the civil suits against him ever begin.

As a human being, I do have some compassion for Felon Joe. I am sorry he was so crooked to ruin the lives of so many, including his own. His greed and lust for power blinded him to the evil he did, or perhaps made him feel entitled to play by rules the rest of us must abide by. Of course, in prison, Felon Joe will get something not yet available to many in this country...health care provided by the government.

When it gets down to it though, and this is purely my own opinion, is that Joe was passed over for the top spot at AT&T, so he jumped over to Qwest with the ultimate goal of showing them what a mistake they made at AT&T. I even think he could have been aspiring to have his old company bought out by the upstart Qwest. In the end, Felon Joe proved that AT&T judged correctly in selecting someone else to run that company.

I suppose he never learned that lesson of childhood; that if you get too big for your britches, you are gonna take a fall.

Blossoms

Trees in bloom!

Here in Colorado, we have four distinct seasons. However, our altitude and latitude mean that the warmer times are shorter than in many places. So it is great to finally see, almost a month after the equinox, some signs of Spring. The American Robin is appearing with greater regularity, and now the trees and flowers are starting to bloom from the buds.

Walking to my car to go to lunch today, I pointed my camera phone toward this white blossom on the trees outside the building where I work and snapped this shot. The blooming tree with the building nearby, and the backdrop of the deep blue Colorado sky made a nice image of the season here along the Front Range. The quality of the camera in my phone continues to amaze me at how good the pictures actually turn out.

Nacchio Guilty!

Joseph P. Nacchio, the arrogant SOB who was CEO of Qwest Communications until his fall from grace, was convicted today by a Denver jury. He is guilty of 19 of the 42 counts of insider trading brought against him.

I have blogged about this criminal earlier, so I won't belabor it here. Just let it be said that finally, justice is being done. Along with Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, and Jeff Skilling of Enron; Nacchio is now a convicted felon. He faces ten years on each count, as well as millions in fines and restitution.

Joe's constant mantra of "We have to make the numbers" will soon have a new number himself . . . the one on his prison uniform. I hope you find your cellmate attractive, Joe. You will be "buddies" for a long time. Oh yeah, one other thing. You might want to be careful picking up the soap in the shower! It couldn't happen to a more deserving crook.

Mass Killings

What is it about April and crazed mass killers. Twelve years ago today, Timothy McVeigh parked a truck filled with explosives under the day care center inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 innocent people. This cowardly act of domestic terrorism was somehow justified in the warped mind of McVeigh, based upon the BATF raid on the Branch Davidian cult and its leader, David Koresh, in Waco, Texas two years to the day earlier.

Then tomorrow is the eighth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where teacher Dave Sanders and twelve young students were killed in cold blood by the two misfits, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who somehow carried out their evil deeds upon their fellow students. Rather than being the "Columbine State" for the beautiful flower, Colorado was now known as that because of the horror that turned an ordinary spring day at an ordinary high school, into hours of horror and death.

Now, another twisted and warped person takes out his personal issues and turns them into an excuse to commit mass murder, this time at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. This horrible excuse of a human being takes the lives of those in his campus community with complete disregard for the sanctity of every human life.

In part, I blame our lack of adequate health care for the problem. Even when people have good insurance, mental illness is not afforded the same coverage as physical ailments. Thus, the people who could possibly be brought to some degree of normalcy through medication and treatment, are instead let loose to bring terror down on their fellow human beings.

My very deepest condolences go out to the families and friends of the victims, as well as to the entire Virginia Tech community.

Texas Injustice

There are many things I love about the state of Texas. The bluebonnets in springtime, the sandy beaches, the sights of the hill country, the work of nature in Palo Duro Canyon, the arid landscapes of West Texas, and the varied architecture of its cities and towns, all have a strong appeal to me. Even so, this state so rich in natural beauty, history, and culture, has a dark side when it comes to human rights.

It is somewhat ironic that Texas slogans developed for perfectly good purposes, can be seen in another light, given the state's record of justice. The Office of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism division has a slogan, "Texas, It's like a whole other country", and the anti-litter campaign, "Don't mess with Texas" take on another meaning when compared with the state's dismal record of executions and its system of indigent representation in the courts.

I have long been troubled by the sheer number of people put to death by the criminal justice system in the Lone Star State. Texas leads the nation in executions, and not by just a small amount. Take a look at this table, taken from www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, listing the number of executions in the U.S. since 1976, by state:

STATE	EXECUTIONS
TEXAS	391
VIRGINIA	98
OKLAHOMA	84
MISSOURI	66
FLORIDA	64
NORTH CAROLINA	43
GEORGIA	39
SOUTH CAROLINA	36
ALABAMA	35
LOUISIANA	27
ARKANSAS	27
ARIZONA	22
OHIO	24
INDIANA	17
DELAWARE	14
CALIFORNIA	13
ILLINOIS	12
NEVADA	12
MISSISSIPPI	8
UTAH	6
MARYLAND	5
WASHINGTON	4
NEBRASKA	3
MONTANA	3
PENNSYLVANIA	3
U. S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT	3
KENTUCKY	2
TENNESSEE	2
OREGON	2
COLORADO	1
CONNECTICUT	1
IDAHO	1
NEW MEXICO	1
WYOMING	1

It doesn't take a mathematician to see that Texas is putting its citizens to death at a rate much higher than any other. It is also readily apparent that the south as a whole performs most executions in this country. Is it a coincidence that this is also the region known as the "Bible Belt"?

Now one could say that perhaps the fact that Texas has a huge population compared to other states. Well, so does New York, which doesn't even appear on the table. There is obviously something else going on here. In reading up on the issue, I have found there are several things happening that drive the number of executions up

Yesterday, my son was telling me about the fact that Texas doesn't have a state system of public defenders. In most Texas counties, it turns out that judges appoint whatever attorney they want to defend indigent defendants. This leads to a couple of problems. One is that judges end up appointing attorneys they like, leading to a system based on patronization rather than justice. Even more troubling is the fact that ANY attorney can be appointed. So for example, an indigent person charged with a capital crime can have an attorney appointed to defend him who has absolutely zero experience in criminal cases. A person accused of murder could end up with an attorney who specializes in landlord-tenant disputes, or perhaps in child custody cases. How effective a defense do you think such an attorney could mount?

A second issue that drives executions in Texas is that the state's appellate judges are elected, which means to keep their jobs, they have to show the voters that they are tough on criminals.

Third, Texas lies in the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has historically been more conservative and aggressively pro-death penalty than other circuit courts.

Fourth, is that Texas' criminal justice system places most of the power of clemency in the hands of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, rather than the Governor. Unless the board votes to grant clemency, the Governor has no power to act. Of course, when Texas elects a governor like George W. Bush, it wouldn't matter much anyway. As Governor, Bush mocked the first woman put to death by Texas since the American Civil War, Carla Faye Tucker. In a 1999 interview with Tucker Carlson for Talk Magazine, Bush made fun of the condemned woman:

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.

So much for that famous "compassionate conservatism".

In any case, the time is long overdue for Texas, along with other states, to reform the way they handle capital cases. The ideal would be to eliminate the death penalty altogether. DNA evidence has proven that many innocent people have been condemned to die at the hand of the state. Even barring that, by fixing the problems I have outlined here, Texas could right terrible injustices, much as it did when it finally let mitigating circumstances, like mental retardation, be considered by juries.

It is also imperative that states be required to make it mandatory for DNA evidence to be considered. With this technology, we can improve the accuracy of our justice system. No innocent person should be facing execution, nor even wasting their life away in prison, if modern science can prove they did not commit the crime. The time for reform is now!

Like a whole other country? Indeed!

What Year is This?

I thought it was 2007, but I read a story this week that made me think perhaps it was 1950. Turner County High School in Ashburn, Georgia is changing. The senior class has taken it upon itself to overturn a shameful legacy. Earlier this year, they abandoned the school's practice of naming a black and a white homecoming queen.

Now they are planning the school's very first racially integrated senior prom. The school has long had separate proms for the black and white students. This year's seniors decided to make their class an instrument of change. I highly commend them, but wonder why it took until 2007 for a class to do something like this. I thought this kind of thing ended years ago. If this class of seniors have set the bar for successive classes, they will have moved their community out of the dark past of segregation and closer to a world envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, who said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Let Freedom Ring!

The Imus Fiasco

Radio personality Don Imus, as most of you probably know by now, has been fired from both MSNBC and CBS Radio. I am not sure if firing him was the right punishment, but what he said was in very poor taste. His comments were directed toward young women, just a year or two out of high school. He definitely went over the line, but this is nothing new. He has made less than flattering remarks about many people over the years. To use terms, even in passing, like "nappy headed hos" shows Imus opened his mouth without engaging his brain.

Yet he does tremendous good. He and his wife run the Imus Ranch in New Mexico, for children with cancer. He raised millions for charity. This one-time railroad brakeman who hit the big time in radio, has always been a controversial and iconoclastic figure. He certainly has freedom of speech, and CBS certainly has the right to dismiss him. What we don't have in a free society is the freedom from being offended by someone's comments.

While Imus' words that got him in trouble were not the right thing to say, there is much worse out there. Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage, and Dennis Prager have also made their stock and trade in vitriol. Then we have Ann Coulter, who said about the 9/11 widows, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."

I would venture to say that Don Imus has helped many more people than Coulter ever will. Yes, he deserves punishment, but I think firing was too severe. Apparently, it is okay to denigrate victims of terrorism in this country, but you'd better not piss off Al Sharpton.

My opinion of Imus, outside his philanthropic work, is that he is an egotistic and bombastic former shock jock. That said, unless some other talk show pundits get the boot as well, Imus is owed an apology himself.

My prediction? If he doesn't return to terrestrial radio, look for XM to pick him up. With his arch nemesis Howard Stern owning a huge chunk of Sirius, I doubt he will land there. But if he wants to get on XM, he'd better move quickly before the Sirius/XM merger happens.

Even if he gets back on the air, I won't be listening. I didn't before this mess, and I sure won't after!