Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
All's well . . .
Hi. Yeah, it's me. Got back to KC a little bit ago. Uh-huh. Just left the airport. Should be home by 10:30. But I don't think we're going to make it. No. See, the windshield is covered with ice, and the driver doesn't want to pull over to get it fixed. No, I mean really covered. *Really covered.* I think the driver's driving by E.S.P. or something. Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm just laying down because I don't want to see it when we die.
That was from the idiot woman who sat behind us in the shuttle from Kansas City. Who felt it incumbent upon her to call several friends and family members and relay that particular narrative of our imminent demise.
Well, obviously we made it home. But the first 75 miles or so of the shuttle trip were more exciting than I care to have my life these days. No, the driver wasn't using ESP. He just scrunched down in his seat, looked through his steering wheel, through the roughly 1/3 lower part of the windshield which was staying sorta clear of ice, thanks to the combined efforts of the blasting defrosters and the abused windshield wipers. Which made a "SCHINK-schink" rasping sort of noise as they scraped over the growing continents of ice on the windshield. Seriously, that's what they looked like - there was a nice smear of Africa in front of the driver, with a nearly perfect Indian subcontinent over on the right, followed by a general vague outline of Asia as we all more or less remember it from grade school and news stories. What was particularly exciting was that the light of oncoming traffic would cause the whole Northern Hemisphere of ice to glare brightly, making it impossible to see the road through the thin strip of windshield warming below. But that was offset by the fact that during the dark periods the driver would *speed up* to make up for lost time. And there were a fair number of dark spells, since the weather had turned so bad that even the insane drivers of Kansas City were smart enough to get off the road.
Ah well. We made it. I gave him a tip for the extra excitement when he dropped us off at the house about an hour later than we should have gotten home.
More about my Northern California adventures later. After I've calmed down and recovered from the drive home.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to my blog.)
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Oh, great!
Another plain ol' blog post, nothing but personal and entertaining. Where's all the seriousness that should be going on?
Heh... just kidding.
I'm glad I wasn't on the shuttle, because then people would be blogging about the asshole that insisted the driver pull over and clean the FUCKING WINDSHIELD OR I'M GOING TO CALL THE COPS! Then they'd be blogging about the dumbass who got kicked off the bus, called the cops on the driver, and died of hypothermia (but succeeded in making everyone else even later than normal because the cops pulled him over and forced him to clean the windshield.)
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Bitch bitch bitch.
Man, Rob, there's just no pleasing you. ;)
You know, it really was kinda odd in the way you discuss, and a part of the reason I posted it over here. I sat there, wondering whether I had fallen into the trap of just "trusting authority" (the guy in the company uniform), and whether it made any sense at all to assert some personal authority along the lines you mention. It was a balancing act - not wanting to distract the guy in clearly dangerous conditions, wondering whether his level of competency to judge the situation was greater than mine, et cetera. And it really wasn't a bus - just a large van, the kind that can hold about a dozen people - there were five of us passengers and the driver.
He did stop a bit after the initial hit of freezing rain overwhelmed the windshield, and let it melt off. At that point he made some comment about how we might have to stop to do so again - but indicated that he thought it better to get out in front of the storm. Which told me that he was at least taking some consideration of the conflicting options into account. And when he stopped again later to let the ice melt off completely again, we were in front of the storm. A tough decision, and I'm not sure I would have made the same one - but I did get home. So . . .
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Nice!
It's just nice to see a plain ol' blog post, personal but entertaining. Sometimes I think there's too much seriousness going around.
Thanks, Jim.