Is it a Bump or a Hump, Chump?

Being the road geek that I am, it is high time that I start a series of entries about roads. Specifically, this series of posts will be about road signs. I have always loved travel by automobile, and even as a small child, could navigate the highways by map. I also used to pass time by drawing street maps of non-existent cities (yeah, I was a weird kid I guess). Now I enjoy a somewhat similar passtime in the form of the computer city simulation, SimCity 4.

Anyway, here is the first picture we will talk about:



Now this looks like a typical suburban neighborhood, and it is definitely that. This is a street in my parents' subdivision. A quick glance will tell you that this is not a new street, as the sidewalk at the corner ends at the curb, rather than a ramp compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA. Also, the mature trees are an indicator that this neighborhood has been around for a few years. In fact, this subdivision was built in the mid-1970s.

Along this street, the city has installed a type of what traffic engineers call a traffic calming device. The one used here is usually known in the United States as a Speed Bump. Traffic calming is a way to divert or slow traffic in an area. Other traffic calming devices include the Traffic Circle (known in some places as a Roundabout), rumble strips, and curb extensions. Speed bumps are effective, but have a number of drawbacks, especially in that they can slow emergency response vehicles. Before one gets to a speed bump, there is typically a sign to warn about it, giving the driver the opportunity to slow down before hitting the bump.

Why is the sign above a bit of an anomaly? Let's take a closer look:

Notice, the sign says nothing about a "Speed Bump", but rather warns of "Road Humps". Now my readers from places like the United Kingdom and others may think, "So what"? That is the term that is used in many parts of the world. However, here in the United States, it usually isn't used.

It has always been a source of humor to me, as I think of "hump" as what a dog will do to your leg! I don't associate it with a road, so it just comes off as an odd way of wording it. Still, if one doesn't have the mental snap to figure it out, it will probably only take them one time hitting the "Road Hump" at full speed to get the idea!

Navy Pier

A while back, I traveled to one of America's great cities on business. Chicago, while not a place I would ever choose to live, is a terrific place to visit. It was unfortunate that I had very little free time during my stay.

One evening I was able to at least take in one sight. A colleague and I decided to have dinner at Navy Pier, which extends from a park out into Lake Michigan. We went out just a bit before it got dark, and walked out to the end of the pier. That is where I took the picture below of a lighthouse framed within the large anchor on display.



While enjoying some shrimp at Bubba Gump's, darkness set in, and that is when I took the pictures below. Here is the Ferris Wheel that is about halfway out on the pier.



I like this next one as well. It was taken from the south side of the pier looking back at the southern portion of the skyline. One thing I particularly like about this one is the reflections of the different colored lights in the water, probably caused by various bulb types, such as sodium or mercury.



Sometime I would like to go back to Chicago on a pleasure trip and enjoy more of the wonderful sights of this metropolis in the heart of North America.

Time & Culture

Technology changes culture. This is evident in many ways, but one comes to mind today; that being the advent of digital clocks.

First, many people no longer use terms like “a quarter till four”, or “half past”. Back when all clocks were analog, I don’t recall anyone saying something like “It’s seven fifty-five”. It was “Five minutes ‘til eight”. Once you got past the half-hour, you spoke in terms of time remaining until the next hour.

The second thing is our digital precision. People typically rounded off to the nearest 5 minutes or so. Now, it’s “1:52 PM”, where before, it would have been about “ten ‘til two”. We have all become more like Star Trek’s Mister Spock, since digital timekeeping has become commonplace.

The first digital clocks I remember coming into common usage were those alarm clock-radios that had digits on a Rolodex-like device that flipped down the next digit as each minute passed. Some of these still had a little analog wheel to scroll by seconds, but many were just the flip digits for hours and minutes. I think these came along in the early 1970s.

About that same time, or shortly thereafter, I also recall those LED (Light-Emitting Diode) watches that glowed bright red. The first one I saw was in the movies. I don’t know which movie it was, but it was a James Bond film, and one of Bond’s high-tech gadgets of the day was one of those LED watches. The problem with them was the fact that you had to push a button on the watch to see the time. The button caused a current to go through the LED, illuminating the display. If your other hand was busy, you couldn’t see what time it was. Coolness is not always easy! In this case, just like eating a Whopper, it took two hands to see what time it was. Now, the more practical LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology has superseded LEDs for watches, although analog displays have made a resurgence in this market as well.

In God We Trust, But We Still Need To See His I.D.

Well, it's been a while since we have taken a look at the wacky world of religious nuttiness. For all their inane antics, the gullibility of the pious is an unending source of humor. Really, you just cannot make this stuff up. Still, a couple of stories in the news caught my eye this week.

First, from the town of Hobart, Indiana, Kevin Russell has gotten worldwide attention after his arrest for trying to cash a check. What's unusual about that? Well, the check was from God, and was made out in the amount of $50,000. The 21-year-old took the check to the Chase Bank in Hobart, and the signature of "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant" made the teller think something was amiss. Could it be that God had overdrawn his account? Maybe he has been passing bad checks all over town...heck, all over the universe!

Poor Kevin not only could not cash his check, for which we assume God still owes him; but he was arrested and is being held in jail with a $1000 bond. You know, maybe God could at least cover the cost of bailing him out!

Then from my hometown of Houston, Texas, we have a controversy surrounding a magical pizza pan. Guadelupe Rodriguez, a cafeteria worker at Pugh Elementary School in the Houston Independent School District, was washing a pizza pan after lunch. She noticed an appearance by the blessed Virgin Mary in a grease spot on the pan. Mary has an affinity for cheese, I suppose. She has been known to appear on grilled cheese sandwiches. Now the pan that once baked a tasty, cheesy pizza is her home; and pilgrims are coming to the holy pan by the hundreds, to receive healing from the Mother of Chrust.

After some controversy in which Guadelupe had to give the pan back to the school, an arrangement has been worked out where she can keep the pan. Holy Cheezus Chrust!

Asian Culture in Texas

Every time this country gets involved in another military misadventure, it changes the nation. The current war in Iraq will undoubtedly do the same. One of our earlier interventions into the affairs of another country resulted in many Vietnamese refugees coming to the United States to escape the Viet Cong Communist regime. Over the years, as people have settled into life in the U.S. and had families, the Vietnamese community has grown.

Houston is one city that has large numbers of people from all over the world. Even though there is undoubtedly assimilation occurring, there are also sections of the city with large ethnic populations. This gives Houston one of the things I like about it; authentic food from all over the globe is available. Restaurants offering every type of cuisine you can imagine are there. This often results in humorous word usage to those of us native to the United States. Signs proclaiming "Doo Doo Cafe" or "Pupuseria", or "Hello to Rent This Sign" can be seen.

Last October when I was back in town, I was surprised to find another result of international culture in far southwest Houston. A large campus housing a Vietnamese Buddhist temple was there. Now, this seems rather out of place to me, since I moved away from the bayou city in 1992 (wow, has it really been 15 years?). Yet, it is a very beautiful oasis of water, flowers and ornate buildings that is a little bit of Asia in Texas.

I don't know a lot about Buddhism, however I do know that it is a peaceful outlook on life. There are several varieties of Buddhism, and some are more of a philosophy than a religion, in that they are basically a non-theistic belief. In general, Buddhists don't proselytize either, but seek to achieve Enlightenment and Nirvana.

These photos I took in Houston last October should give you an idea of how beautiful the grounds of this temple are.

Arched Bridges

It seems that arched suspension bridges over freeways are the latest thing. These bridges have large arches on each side of the bridge, anchored at the ends, and cables to suspend the surface of the span over the freeway. Here are some examples.



I took this first photo last October on northbound US 59, the Southwest Freeway in the museum district of Houston, not far from the downtown split. Even though the highway is northbound, it actually runs east and west here, so you are looking east. These bridges replaced older, standard bridges that used to cross the freeway at Hazard, Woodhead, Dunlavy, and Mandell. The old Hazard Street bridge was appropriately, though inadvertently named, since that bridge didn't have quite enough clearance for some 18-wheelers, and there were frequent trucks hitting the bridge and getting stuck under it. Part of the problem was that the freeway goes into a trench at Hazard, so the pavement was descending about where the bridge was.

This part of the Southwest Freeway is also a Texas rarity, as it is like freeways in most other places, in that it is lacking what Houstonians call "feeder streets", also known as frontage roads or service roads. The trench keeps the noise down for the residential community on the sides of the highway.

This stretch of the freeway was reconstructed in 2000-2001. For another view, CLICK HERE to see it on the texasfreeway.com web site.



Here is another example of a suspended arch overpass. This is in the Denver area. The big difference here is that despite the similarity to the design in Houston, these are pedestrian bridges rather than vehicular ones. They were recently completed as part of the TRex, or Transportation Expansion project that widened I-25 on the south side of the Denver metropolitan area, and added a light rail line. There is a series of these bridges south of I-225 to permit people to get across the freeway to the trains which run on the west side of the freeway; on the right side of this photo. The photo above is at the Belleview Station.

There is one of these bridges that is different than the others. That is the one near Park Meadows Mall. It is a double arch, and is in the photo below.

Given the similarity of the designs of the Denver and Houston bridges, it would be interesting to know if they had the same engineer, or if this is just a common design that is well known. Either way, I don't recall seeing this type of bridge over freeways anywhere else but in these two places.

Hope They Don't Share an Oven!!

Here is something that I have always wondered about. On Broadway at Union Ave. in Englewood, Colorado, there are two businesses that are side by side. One of them is Frank The Pizza King. The other one stands right beside it, and you can see it's sign in this picture. I am hoping they don't share an oven! YIKES!!

Denver Public Art

Overnight here in Douglas County, we got several inches of snow. On Interstate 70 just south of Denver International Airport, the roads were so bad that it caused a 35-car pileup, and the highway is closed in both directions from there to Kansas. Weirdly enough, downtown Denver apparently got no new snow at all. Once the skies started clearing late this morning, I decided to go take some pictures. Here are a few of them.

First of all, let's take a look at the big blue bear, who spends his time peering into the windows of the Colorado Convention Center.

Do you wonder what he is looking at? Just inside the windows was this sign giving directions to an event being held there this weekend.

Next, let's go over to the area near the Capitol and the Denver public buildings. The Denver Museum of Art is located there in its striking new building. There is a piece of sculpture there that every one will recognize from daily life. It looks like it is the right size for the blue bear to use when tidying up around the den. The picnic tables on the left, and the pedestrians on the right should give you an idea of the scale here.



Situated beside the main location of the Denver Public Library is a sculpture of a giant chair, again the right size for our friend, the Convention Center Blue Bear. However, the bear will have to chase its current occupant out of the way first. Standing watch over civic center park, atop the chair, is a horse. Actually, this sculpture is called "The Yearling" by artist Donald Lipski. It is meant to recall the days of childhood, when ordinary things looked monumental. It spent some time in New York's Central Park prior to coming to Denver. Here is what the library's website has to say about it:

The red chair is 21 feet tall and ten feet wide, and the pinto pony is six feet tall at the ears. The scale of this work is meant to recall that time in life when even everyday objects seemed monumental.

“The Yearling” was originally commissioned for an elementary school in upper Manhattan. Says Lipski about this work, “I wanted to give kids something that would really be a cause for wonder.” When the school district asked Lipski to omit the horse, he refused, saying, “It just lost all its magic.” The sculpture spent 1997 in New York City’s Central Park, where it was widely acclaimed before traveling to Denver in 1998 for permanent installation. “If it makes people stop and feel something they haven’t felt before, I’m happy,” commented the artist, shortly before “The Yearling” was moved.

This sculpture was generously donated to former Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb and the people of Denver by the NBT Foundation.

Finally today, here is an American Indian display located between the library and the art museum. There is a circle of these red objects, all decorated with text and symbols about various events significant to the native American community.

Command Line Spreadsheets

Here is a little trick I have known about since the days when MS-DOS was king. I figured, why not share this. Yes, it is geeky, and rarely needed, but what the heck?

If you ever need to put together a quick and dirty spreadsheet, but don't have any spreadsheet software on your computer, you can still create the file you need. While you can do this very easily in any text editor, such as Notepad, let's get real dirty and pretend you dont have a text editor either. Like Carl Maulden used to say in the old American Express commercials, "What will you do? What WILL you do?"

Here is what you do. In Windows, go to Start > Run and type in cmd in Windows NT, XP, or Vista. In DOS-based Windows, like Win95, 98, or ME, type in command. This will pop up a DOS or DOS-like command line with a C:\> prompt.

The first step is to type copy con filename.csv. Filename can be any valid file name. I used test2.csv for mine. Then hit Enter.

Next, type each row of your spreadsheet, one line at a time, dividing the columns with commas. End each row by hitting the Enter key. You can even use Excel forumulae by simply keeping track of which row and column correspond to the A1-style layout of Excel. My example here shows such formulae.

After you have typed the last row, hold down CTRL and while doing that, type the letter Z (Zee to us contrary Americans, Zed to the rest of the English-speaking world). This will put the end of file character on the last line (^Z), and return you to the C:\> prompt. You can now close the DOS environment by typing exit and hitting Enter. Be sure to notice which folder or directory you are in, so you can find your file back in Windows.

Now, you can send your spreadsheet to someone with Excel. They can either go find your file icon, and if CSV files are linked to Excel, just double click it. Otherwise, they just open Excel and select File > Open, and navigate to your file. Like magic, you have a spreadsheet. You can now format cells, create graphs, and do all of those wonderful spreadsheet things we all know and love.

Sore Loserman, Part II

Yesterday, I wrote about how Senator Allard visited this blog. While I am getting the attention of U.S. Senators, let’s talk for a minute about Connecticut’s own Joseph Lieberman. Joe has had a major fall since he was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. Remember those GOP stickers after the stolen election of 2000 that parodied the Gore Lieberman bumper stickers, that read “Sore Loserman”? Well Joe is proving them right!

Poor Joe. After he failed to win the nomination of his party to run for re-election, he decided to continue to run as an independent. His feelings were obviously hurt by his fellow Democratic colleagues, who endorsed Ned Lamont, the party’s nominee. After Lieberman’s re-election, he made the rounds of the TV talk shows, obviously with bitterness toward his fellow Democrats who didn’t back him against Lamont, but promising to caucus with them anyway.

Now Joe, being the media whore he is, loves to be on TV and the papers. With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, this whiny man is garnering lots of attention. If he doesn’t get his way, he will switch to the GOP, so take that! He’ll take his marbles and go play with somebody else, and you won’t be his best friend anymore! Boo hoo hoo!!!

Joe, I have a suggestion. Do it! Go! You belong with the Republicans anyway. The day you switch is the last day you have any power, and the last day you get any media attention. The Senate will only be in GOP hands in a tie vote, the Democrats will still control the committees, and the House of Representatives will block any stupid bill from getting to the President’s desk. So do us all a favor and switch already! It’s where you belong.

Of course, the honorable thing to do, would be to resign and rerun in a special election as a Republican. Phil Graham, as much as I detest his politics, did the honorable thing when he switched parties years ago back in Texas, and was re-elected. I won’t say re-elected to his seat, because it isn’t his…it belongs to the voters of his state, just like yours does. However, I suspect you would never risk that.

I’m betting this will be Lieberman’s sword hanging over the heads of the Democrats in the Senate. He loves attention way to much to carry out his threat. He also thrives on the power this gives him. Still Joe, please, go ahead and get it over with. And be sure not to let the proverbial door hit your behind as you turn against the party that has been behind you all those years.

Hello, Senator Allard!

Hi there, Senator Allard. I hope you are enjoying my blog. I am very glad that one of my United States Senators is interested in reading what I have to say. Even though Time magazine last year ranked you as one of the five worst senators, I am glad you care enough to search out my mention of you yesterday. Maybe that proves you have discriminating reading tastes, and you really don't belong on that list. Dang liberal media!! What did you expect, eh?

In any case, I am pretty certain it was you, or one of your staff, digging through the blogosphere to see how you are mentioned. I think this because I have never gotten a visit from the senate.gov domain until I mentioned your name yesterday, and then, this afternoon, there it is. Plus, you didn't enter the blog at the front page, but went directly to the post where you were mentioned.

I know you are a staunch Republican; and I an independently leaning liberal on social issues and more conservative on fiscal ones; but at least you are trying to find out what your constituents think. When I have written you directly, I invariably get a form letter back saying you disagree, but thanks for writing. So welcome to my blog, and please feel free to leave me comments anytime. We disagree on much, but undoubtedly we can agree that liberty is precious and should be protected. Once given away, it is next to impossible to regain.

I urge you to listen to your peers from the other side of the aisle. They didn't win the majority for no reason. The knee-jerk GOP rule our way or the highway doesn't work. Remember the so-called "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster? I bet you are glad that one didn't pass!

I will also commend you on keeping your promise to stay for no more than two terms. Sometimes power is addicting, so you have proven your integrity on that issue.

In any case, have a wonderful day, and remember you were sent to represent all of your constituency, not just the far right.

Randy

-----

Below is the record of the Senator's visit to this blog:

Domain Name		senate.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		156.33.11.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms)
ISP		U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : District of Columbia City : Washington Lat/Long : 38.8933, -77.0146 (Map)
Language		English (United States) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Feb 22 2007 4:36:25 pm
Visit Entry Page		http://rktoday.blogs...-what-coalition.html
Visit Exit Page		http://rktoday.blogs...-what-coalition.html

Coalition? What Coalition?

As the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" crumbles, guess who is left holding the bag in Iraq? Of course, it is the United States. Now that our staunchest ally, the United Kingdom begins to draw down their troops from Iraq, the American administration plows ahead with its troop surge, despite the will of the people and their representatives in Congress.

Tony Blair announced the force reduction today, which will bring U.K. troops strength in Iraq down to 5000 by the end of summer, with the rest to come out by next year. At their peak, the British forces had over 45,000 troops in that country.

And it is not only the Brits drawing down. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is pulling out his nation's 460 combat troops, and will replace them with 50 observers. The coalition as reported by the BBC currently looks like this:

COALITION FORCES
US	132,000
UK	7,100
South Korea	3,200
Poland	900
Georgia	800
Australia	900
Romania	600
Denmark	460
El Salvador	380
Bulgaria	150

Now if all this wasn't depressing enough, the GOP is in full, out of control, spin mode. The administration is gushing about how this is great news, that the Brits have stabilized southern Iraq to the point they can go home. Apparently, U.S. Senator, Wayne Allard, a Republican from Colorado, didn't get the talking points memo. He was just on the local news on KCNC-TV (CBS 4) in Denver, blaming the Democratic-led, non-binding vote against Bush's troop surge for sending the allies a wrong message that America is not committed to winning in Iraq. Wayne, didn't you hear? No blame needed. This is a good thing. Just ask the Decider-In-Chief.

I just have to ask . . . if southern Iraq is secure and can be handed off to Iraqi forces, why don't the British troops go to help with the surge in Baghdad? I guess Blair is finally listening to his constituents. I only wish our President would listen to his.