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1. It was a beautiful morning in Sacramento this morning. It hasn’t started raining yet, but over the last hour, the clouds have rolled in, so it’s coming
2. I heart fortune:
   Your fortune for the day
   Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb?

   A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb inthe Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promptly killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission.

[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.)

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.

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.

[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.

God, has it been nearly two weeks since I bothered to update my blog?

Ah, here, have a picture:

I took this at the Rivercats game last night. It’s the first time I’ve been out to Raley Field, and, while the Cats sucked rocks through a bendy straw last night, it was a perfect night for baseball, especially as the sun started to set. For those of you who don’t know, the Rivercats are the Triple-A affiliate of the Oakland A’s, and the stadium is just across the river from downtown Sacramento. (That gold bridge on the left? That’s the Tower Bridge, which crosses the Sacramento River, and is generally one of the two things used to as icons to identify Sacramento. The other is, of course, the State Capitol building.

Anyway, just letting folks know I live. I’ll have more to say later.

Yesterday, on my walk between the parking garage and work, I found the following juxtaposition of signage:

The chalked message up close, so you can read it:

It was one of those moments where I just had to pause for a moment and laugh (and of course, take a picture). Somebody has a sense of humor in this town, and it’s those sort of wonderful serendipitous moments that I love very dearly. So yesterday, I walked past the message, head held high, as I obviously was a superhero. Only superheroes may pass. The sign said so. Thus, by passing it, I must have been a superhero, no?

I wasn’t a superhero today. We had a spectacular light show and plenty of rain last night, and the chalk was washed away. Mundanity returns. So sad.

It was very strange this morning after I dropped my mom off at her work in Rancho Cordova. Instead of doubling back to Folsom Blvd and following it all the way back down to the office at the corner of Watt and Folsom, I instead got on Highway 50 and headed for downtown. Yeah, the office moved downtown, very close to the corner of 5th and Capitol here in downtown Sacramento. Today’s the first day for the company at the new office. It’s going to take some getting used to.

I’ve already had to move cubes once today as the first cube I chose was driving me absolutely crazy — I’ve found out that I really don’t like sitting exposed with my back to the rest of the office. I’m not sure if it’s involuntary reactions to the times my mother sat quietly behind me watching me do things when I didn’t know she was there or if it’s just the occassional bout of paranoia that I’m prone to. Anyway, I’m much happier in my new cube, where I can see most of the office and don’t feel like everybody’s staring at me when I’m not looking.

Another thing that keeps striking my brain as wrong is the cubicals. Instead of the old full-high cubes, our new cubes are half-height, so if I lift my head, I can see across the office. (This also may have played into the involuntary twitch reaction.) They’re also beige instead of the blue-grey our prior cubicals are. For the most part I like it, as it’s nice to have line of sight to the far end of the office, but I miss the storage space up above the desk that our old cubes had.

But anyway, some normality is returning to my world as Luigi and the bad dudes are now adorning the top of my cube again, the binders with my ESX guides are sitting on my desk, and the only thing I’m waiting on to make my cube fully my own again is to hang up some important papers on the walls. It’s still a bit bare, though. I should find a good Cal picture (or maybe a pennant) to hang in the corner and make this cube even more my own.