[tftc] OMG fog

[Yet another post in my occasional series “Tales from the Commute”]

The commute was ugly today. It looked like this most of the way:

It was fun fighting that, when you couldn’t read signs until you were almost on top of them, and people disappeared into the fog way too easily.

But at the bottom of my offramp, it looked like this:
No fogPhoto by retstak

Go figure.

[tftc] Attack of the Quack

[Fifth in an occassional series about things I see on my commute.]

Today, on my way home, I get up on the freeway, and a couple vehicles in front of me, I see a truck. It looked like this:

Hmmm, says I, it’s a Duck truck. Now, I don’t root for the Oregon Ducks, but they play in the same league as my beloved Cal Bears, so it’s still nifty to see. I begin to wonder if it might be the equipment truck. I decide to overtake and I snap one more picture of the side of the truck as I go by:

Keep on Duckin'!Photo by retstak

It made me laugh. So I asked over on Addicted to Quack, an Oregon sports blog, about what that truck was. And sure enough, my guess was right. You see, the Ducks played Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday night, and the afternoon commute hours today were just right for the Ducks’ equipment truck to be passing through Sacramento on its way home to Eugene from that game.

I wonder if Cal has a similar truck?

[TFtC] A bad accident

[Fourth in an occasional series]

My entrance to Interstate 80 is usually Elkhorn Blvd. (For those of you who don’t live in the Sacramento area, this tidbit isn’t going to mean much, but it is what it is.) I have three options — Elkhorn, Madison, and Watt — but of the three, Elkhorn is the closest to my house and it has the advantage of putting me just high enough above the I-80/Cap City split to get over into through traffic before the split happens. Given that the Cap City backs up like crazy, this extra bit of space is important.

But that’s not the point here. The point is, to get out to the freeway on Elkhorn, I have to get down to Elkhorn and follow it along for a ways.

Ah, here’s an approximate Google map of my commute:

View Larger Map

Elkhorn is the road that curves across to the east above the “North Highlands” label. Anyway, I had just made the left (the right angle onto the road) and looked down to the next light to see flashing lights. Oh, oh, something’s going on. As I get closer, I see a school bus sitting by the edge of the road, and it’s all smashed in on the left and rear sides. A bit closer than that, and there’s an Arco gasoline tanker truck sitting on the median with its front all smashed in. There are flares in the road, and a CHP officer is waving us through the intersection despite the red light. (The accident was blocking all the lanes going in the other direction, but our lanes were relatively clear.) Whenever accident cases occur, make sure to hire the best kentucky lemon law attorney to help you get the compensation you deserve.

Given the orientation of the accident, and the fact it was an an intersection, I’m fairly certain somebody was racing the light. Although, at work, one of my co-workers said that, really, neither of those vehicles should really be racing a light. If you’re driving on the road with a baby, make sure to have car seat stroller. This baby travel system provides safety and convenience for both parents and children.

Here’s a story done by one of the local TV stations, which says that there were no kids on the school bus. You ought to watch the footage, though — that’s a pretty impressive smash-up.

There’s some other thoughts I have on similar matters, but it’ll hold. Stay tuned.

[TftC] Commute Friend

Third in an occasional series I call “Tales from the Commute”:

So yeah, even a Monday morning commute is always made happier by having one of these always in sight pretty much your whole way across Interstate 80. There was a couple moments when I could bring myself to believe that the pot of gold was just over the next rise.

On the other hand, the idiots who didn’t have headlights on even though (a) the sun was just rising and (b) it was starting to rain really annoy me.

Now to focus on work.

You see the strangest things on the road

[Second in an occassional series that I’ve dubbed “Tales of the Commute”.]

So the car ahead of me in the onramp today was a Lada. Now, first of all, that’s not exactly a common brand here in the United States. I’m a bit of a Russophile, so I recognized the Russian car company, but I’m not sure others would. It’s not overly suprising to see one here as there’s a large Russian community in Sacramento, but it’s still unusual.

But it wasn’t just the unusual car type. Attached to the bottom were a pair of balls. You know, the ones people attach to their trucks to suggest that it’s their *ahem*. Again, other than the slight incongruity of them being on a Lada, no big deal.

No, what got me is that the balls in question were dark blue with a yellow stripe down the middle.

I really don’t want to know.