think, write, share

When I’m driving in my car, I listen to the radio a lot of the time. Sometimes I’ll listen to a CD, but most of the time I listen to the radio. Most of the time I spend in my car is sadly enough stuck in traffic, either commuting to or commuting from my office. Whenever the traffic reports come on, I turn the radio up and listen carefully.

I place a lot of trust in the people reading the traffic reports. Yes, I know that they’re just reading off a script that was handed to them by other people monitoring whatever it is that they monitor. I trust them to tell me where potential problems may lie, so that I may choose another path home. Traffic real isn’t an issue on my way in, since I leave early enough to avoid a lot of the congestion and I get a preliminary report from the newscast I watch.

So when I’m told that there is an accident on 85 South at a certain part, I expect to see it. But lately that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, it seems to me that these people have no idea what they’re talking about.

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work and I heard that there was an accident on Highway 85, by the El Camino exit. I heard this right as I drove past the area and I saw two cars in the center divide and a Camaro on the right-hand shoulder. My first reaction was, “heh, I wish they told me that five minutes ago?” Then the report continued to say that it was involving a motorcycle and an SUV.

“What?!” I exclaimed. There wasn’t an SUV there and there certainly wasn’t a motorcycle anywhere. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, as maybe what I saw was something different and that the accident that they had reported was cleared. So I made my way home.

Things progressed normally for a good bit and I had quickly forgotten about the incident. That is, up until a week or two later.

I was just about home when I exited Highway 17. As I was exiting the freeway, the traffic report came on. They reported that there was a big accident on Highway 17 on the exit ramp that I had just taken. I was tempted to call up the radio station and tell them that they had no idea what the heck they were talking about and that there was no sign of an accident anywhere. But the more I thought about it, the more useless I realized it would have been.

So the question I have for all of you readers is, “where do these erroneous traffic reports come from?”

“What kind of a person spends $30 for a t-shirt?” I wondered as I was standing within a mass of people Friday night. As the crowd made its way forward and I forked over the cash to a young lady, I suddenly had my answer. People like me.

It was Friday night and I found myself sitting in traffic on my way into Oakland. I was amazed at how many cars were on the road, and even though I was driving in the carpool we were moving at a snail’s pace. I was really looking forward to this evening, which had promise of great music and just plenty of fun. It was a nice departure from the slow-paced couple of weeks I had while recovering from the cough/cold that I had. I feel much better, by the way.

We got into Oakland fairly early, about an hour and a half before show time. After passing the arena, we decided it was time to grab some grub. We figured we could just make a U-turn and head back to where we saw some places to eat. Well, apparently that wasn’t possible and we found ourselves driving deeper into the more industrial areas of Oakland. It was a little scary, but driving behind a police car made us feel a little safer. After about 15 more minutes of seemingly random driving, we found ourselves where we wanted to be. We ate and headed to the arena.

After handing over $15 for the privilege of parking my car, we found a nice spot near the exit of the lot. We got inside and after spending some money on t-shirts, we found our seats. The seats we had we actually pretty good seats, fairly centered and not too high up. We sat down and watched the incoming crowd. The stage set-up was interesting, with a heart shaped catwalk enclosing a small area. We wondered about who the lucky people were that got tickets for that area and lamented for those who were stuck up high behind the stage. 7.30pm quickly approached and we were surprised at how empty the crowd seemed. The arena floor wasn’t very packed and many of the seats were still empty.

No Doubt came on stage and played a set of all their hits. They played Spiderwebs, I’m Just a Girl, Don’t Speak, Sunday Morning, New, and their new song, Hey Baby. Gwen looked exquisite and the band was rocking. We were a little disappointed at the crowd’s reaction. While the people in the enclosed area were moving pretty well, the rest of the crowd was fairly motionless. They finished their set in about 45 minutes and we were eagerly awaiting U2.

By this time, more seats had been filled and empty space on the arena floor became scarcer. Security was tight, but not in the way I had expected. Getting into the arena was a piece of cake, with backpacks and purses lightly searched. No metal detectors, etc. But those people trying to improve their viewing positions by going down to the arena floor were quickly turned back by security.

About a half-hour passed before we heard the opening notes of Elevation as Bono and the rest of U2 made their way onto the stage. They played a very impressive set of newer tunes, playing Beautiful Day and Stuck in a Moment, and older songs, such as The End of the World, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, where the streets Have No Name, just to name a few.

The crowd was electric, the band was dynamic and Bono played the crowd as only Bono could. He brought up a few lovely ladies onto the catwalk and seemingly serenaded them. He also brought a guy on stage who wanted to play a song with them. Bono laughed at the back of his sign which read, “In America, it pays to advertise. The stage crew brought man a guitar and it was really amazing. The guy (whose name I sadly forget) was extremely talented and the song (which I did not remember) was well played. However, the moment of the evening (for me) came about halfway through the 2-hour set.

We had spotted a man down in the crowd earlier that evening, using a green, white and orange flag as a cape. I didn’t recognize it at first, but soon I realized that it was an Irish flag. The flag had made its way to the catwalk while Bono was standing at its front. He immediately took the flag and raised it up to the audience, which elicited a cheer. He then reached over to get an American flag which had made its way up to the stage. He took both of the flags and hugged them tightly. Then he laid down the Irish flag to his right on the catwalk and the same with the American flag on his left. He sat down in between both of the flags, lay down between them and wrapped himself with both. It was truly a great moment.

The show ended in a wonderful tribute to New York and those who died on September 11th. The second encore had U2 playing my favorite song, One while the screens behind the band displayed the names of all those who died on the 11th, including all the members of the NYPD and the FDNY. And before leaving the stage, Bono showed the crowd the inside of his leather coat, which contained the American flag as a lining. He turned the jacket inside-out and hung it over the microphone stand, and left.

Best show ever.

This site:

Girls Suck

cracks me up. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the insight these people have. Maybe it’s the running dialogue between these individuals.

Or maybe it’s because they’re right. Especially about meeting girls in bars.

One thing that I didn’t notice until today is that since I’ve been living here in the Bay Area, I’ve seen/been in more locational rain than ever.

The morning started off pretty quiet. Being Veteran’s Day, I was expecting a light commute on my way into work. I looked out the window and it was pretty grey, which did not surprise me, as the news people have been predicting a pretty rainy week. However, it was one of the most bizarre drives I’ve ever taken.

I looked over to the east, and saw blue skies and the sun beginning to rise. There was a good deal of cloud cover, but enough space to allow some light to get through. As I looked to the west however, I saw something completely different. It was blacker than night, with ugly storm clouds raining on the mountains.

As I continued to drive in, the contrast grew greater. In my rear view mirror I could see the sun, struggling to spread it’s life to the earth. Ahead of me was an angry sky, raining down on the hapless inhabitants. This lead to one of the most amazing rainbows I have ever seen. I’ve seen plenty of rainbows in my time, but most have been relatively thin, and usually I can only see about 1/3 of the arch. This rainbow was different. It was bright and vivid, thick and majestic, and I could see the entire arch of the rainbow, from ground to ground. As I turned north, I saw the beginning of another rainbow, right next to the existing one.

As I diverted my attention back to the road, the landscape in front of me was bathed in an eerie light. The low lying sun, combined with low lying clouds had combined to form a yellowish-grey glow. I could see the top of the trees enjoying the light, none of which ever hit the ground. The world had this surreal look to it, and by the time I arrived at my destination, the clouds had completely overtaken the skies, which left the world grey.

About an hour later it was pouring outside.

By the time I started home, it looked like there was some sunshine outside. By the time I reached my car, it was apparent to me that the clouds had lightened up, allowing the setting sun to say goodbye for today. As I drove along the freeway, I could see the rain in front of me. No, I didn’t mean that I could see the rain starting to fall. Not more than a couple of hundred of feet in front of me, and a few hundred feet away from my exit, I could see a wall of rain. Within seconds, I was driving through pouring rain, with my wipers trying to quickly remove the water from my windshield. After driving up the exit ramp, I merged onto another freeway and just as quickly as I drove into the rain, I drove out of it. Not only that, but the highway looked dry which left me wondering.

Is it raining in just that one spot?

I drove further south, pondering my question when I looked over to the east and I could clearly see an area a few miles away that was getting heavily rained upon. During the rest of my drive home, I would hit short patches of rain (a few hundred feet in radius). The rain zones looked pretty wet, as if it had been raining there for a bit, while the rainless areas looked fairly dry.

Is this normal?

I thought a little bit about this occurrence. Is this phenomenon specific to the Bay Area? Or am I noticing it more because it seems to rain more out here than anywhere I’ve lived?

My theory is that it’s a combination of both reasons. Out here, it only seems to ever rain in the winter, and the rain seems to be fairly calm. The rain I’m used to seeing on the East Coast is usually accompanied by a lot of wind. Probably due more to proximity to the coast than anything else, the wind seems to be enough to remove the illusion of localized rain. Also, since all the rain is confined to a few months of a year, the amount of rainfall is deceptive. It can rain every day for weeks, and that seems to be fairly normal. Back out East, it will rain in any month of the year, which makes the amount of rainfall deceptive.

I think the geography of the area has a lot to do with this. The weather patterns move west to east here, so the long coastline, the inlet to the bay along with the mountains only a few miles from the coast cause strange things to happen.

At least that’s my theory.

The worst part about this annoying cough and cold I have is the inability to maintain constant body temperature. Sometimes I’m cold, sometimes I’m hot, while other times I’m neither hot or cold, but just not comfortable. If I open the window, then within minutes I’m too cold. When I close it, then I’m too warm. Bah, it sucks majorly.

But I think that all of that will go away soon. I think I’m recovering from whatever it was that I caught. Seems like there’s a bug going around here, as my neighbor upstairs has a nasty cold/flu too. Other people I’ve talked to have complained about a cough or something. It can’t be the weather, unless 70 degree days in November are causes of illness.

So I spent the weekend pretty much not doing much of anything. I caught myself up on a whole batch of DVDs I had laying around unwatched. Didn’t sleep all too much, but I’ve never been much of a sleeper when I’ve been sick. I’ve been working on the site a little, as I put up the first of many pages of photos.

It’s been threatening to storm all weekend. High winds, grey skies and the like. I just wish it would decide one way or the other.