Lexus parallel parking

I always wondered about about the new Lexus that self parallel parks. Having lived for three years in a city apartment with no off street parking I perfected the skill of parallel parking in a spot only inches larger than my four door Honda Civic. I thought it was a sham so when I read the NY Times article by Calvin Trillin I was redeemed.

"Then I got behind the wheel and we set out to find a beautiful spot. Well, not exactly a beautiful spot. A spot that is worthy of that name — a truly satisfying spot, a spot good enough to spin yarns about in bars where parkers gather — requires some skill to get into. The Advanced Parking Guidance System works only if the spot is six and a half feet longer than the car — the sort of spot, in other words, that the average Manhattan parker comes upon about once every 14 or 15 years. The only parker who might need help from a guidance system to get into such a spot is a parker who is driving himself home from rotator cuff surgery. For Lexus to offer a self-parking system for a spot that size is the equivalent of some high-end kitchen-equipment manufacturer offering a self-carving system that only works on meatloaf."

via kottke

Now I am in L.A. and I am so happy I have a place to park my car. Though the lot is so small I spent the first 3 months scraping the side of my car against the house trying to manuever out of the driveway. Its 2007, still no flying cars.

3 reasons why I am happy to no longer be in Ohio

1. 6:30 am phone call 513 area code (when I called the west coast --or for that matter anywhere out of my time zone I did some quick math. EST --> PST = -3 hours, dumbass) I scramble around and find my phone ringing in my bag from the beach yesterday ( the beach, woo hoo I went to the beach) moving on.
2. ME-recognize Cinci area code in haze of sleep answer the phone formally, "Hello, this is formal first name I never actually use, (but I was expecting this woman to return my phone call yesterday)" HER "This is _____ from U of C. You are one of those special ed people." ME-"?" "um, no, I don't think..." "You were in a special program" ME-again "?" "No, I was in the master's in special ed..." HER-"Whatever, Doesn't matter." ME thinking (then why did you ask?) HER-"Anyway, you want this sent to this address?"
3. um my 6:30 am physic abilities must be subpar..."I would like the certificate sent to my NEW address at 123 SPANISH name (pronounced phonetically in English) STREET in LA" HER-"Is that how you say that name?" Me-(thinking)-no, actually, that's how I say that name but anyone else would roll an R or an N or something like that.

It is still so early in the morning I can't believe I had this conversation. I wanted to ask her to expedite the damn papers that she should have mailed to my old address (and which would have been forwarded by the post office with all of my other mail to my new address), but I feared change to what already seemed like her unsettling job of mailing out teaching certificates might send her over the edge and then I would never see the document.

UPDATE --I finally received the certificate it only took 12 DAYS!!! 12 days is that like 3rd class mail or a really lazy university adminstrator.

Depressing highway statistics forced into my brain (its not like I can choose not to read them)

Everyday I drive to Kentucky to go to school in Ohio. Over the bridge and around and over the bridge again. In the mornings, once I get on the highway in Kentucky the drive is beautiful. The best part is driving over the bridge back into Ohio, it is very country still and the trees are changing now. Each morning is different. On some days the fog is so thick I can't see the river or even most of the bridge as I drive back over. On other days the mist is thin and the river and surrounding trees look set for a film. It is a gorgeous way to begin the morning and if I didn't stay in bed so late each morning I would be more tempted to pull over and take photographs to document the changes I see each day.
Unfortunately, the drive back in the afternoon is bleh. The sun is bright and bleaches out the landscape and the worst thing is the electronic signs in Kentucky. Most days they proclaim the 2004 Highway deaths in Kentucky compared to the 2005 deaths. This seemed interesting in September, maybe gave me something to think about...then the 2005 numbers began to climb. It started out in September as something like this
2004-976 2005-630
this didn't bother me too much I kind of figured that it would work out to be statistically about the same for 2005 as it was in 2004.
As of today I think the 2005 number has climbed into the mid 800's. Now I know that this year is not going to end on the low side what with all the drinking holidays coming up. So each day I drive past and wonder what the Kentucky Highway people are thinking about when they program these huge electronic signs. Do these depressing statistics make people slow down and start using turn singles or something? Because I certainly haven't seen that around here. In fact I feel that I get passed by speeding SUV's that are swerving from the left and right lanes indiscriminately with no signal while I am speeding along at a good pace or I am moving along and I get stuck behind a decrepit car without a muffler that is chugging along about 10 miles below the speed limit oblivious to other traffic in the far left lane. I don't want any stupid "have a nice day" sign, but I could use some more optimistic statistics. So far the only break I get is for Amber Alerts and that certainly doesn't help my mood.

beer pong and the nytimes

Joshua sent this link to the NY times article on BEER PONG. He seems to think the Bloomsburg folks are trendsetters, and who knows this may be true. I have been living in Ohio for a little over two years. When we first moved here Michael and I would sit on the stoop with a drink. Michael would lament the lack of organized drinking games in Cincinnati. Then we would watch people play corn hole and shake our heads sadly. Yet, just this fall Michael has had the opportunity to play several games of beer pong. Was it always right here in sad fraternity parties just blocks from our apartment? Or is the trend spreading thanks to a snazzy new bud marketing campaign to promote binge (water) drinking?
Oh and about the article, I thought it was funny that the author didn't mention one state university. I also thought that Edward 40-hands was some sort of OSU joke. And finally I have never played "flippy cup" only flip cup, and maybe that is regional thing, but there is no need to make drinking all cutesy-like and start adding -y's, makes me think of sippy cups.

I don't like living in Ohio because of the language barrier

People here say pop instead of soda,
and on the news today I heard a hit and run described as,
a hit and skip
now that's just wrong.

the worst is the word "Please?"
not used in a pleasant exchange, Please and thank you and your are so welcome but instead as a local "Huh?" with the expectation that people from other parts of the country are supposed to understand that this means "Excuse me?" or "Pardon me?" or "Could you please repeat that?"

....all I really want is a wooderice.

Here are some other language links:
http://www.slanguage.com/cincinnati.html
and here you can listen to language samples of people from Ohio.

out there

while I still compose mini blog entries in my head, I felt that they were silly and mundane and disrespectful to that fact that I am still torn apart about ashley's death. and more so about my fear and unhappiness for angelique. be well sweet girl. I want to be near you to hold your hand but instead I am in ohio.

on ohio
I am still in my winter funk. and not fun funk like michael's tunes, just sad wet dreary snowfilled cold ohio school ick. I am a passionate person, but I am tired of everything about school and most things about work. However I still come home from my good classes with my energy high, talking a mile a minute (in mom terms), freaking out about the state of education today and politics and the details of human development on a species level. I love school.

on loving school and hating winter
school is annoying and wonderful. I am completely behind and will need to literally hibernate for the rest of the quarter in order to get all of my papers finished. The only thing that makes me think I may get this done is the slow increase in daylight hours. The shortest day of the year has passed and now the sun is starting to rise on the way to work and still in the sky when I leave my early classes. funny how motivating that can be.