Perhaps taking a cue from the Cellular Toad, a slug took up residence in one of Mary’s transplant trays:
Unlike the toad, this one didn’t live to tell the tale…
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Parking Advice: Avoid Drive-Through Spaces
After driving for five hours I’m never at my best, so I parked with atypical abandon at the motel: on the downhill side of a pull-though parking space. Usually I park off to one side of the lot, directly under a lamp that lights the car and shadows the interior, with the hatch backed against the pole. I claim the stupid excuse.
The next morning we hiked out for breakfast and returned to find emergency vehicles scattered all over the motel’s lot. Even from a distance, we knew this might not have a good outcome for us: that’s our van going nose-to-nose with the EMS Medic’s SUV:
EMS Medic parking – overview Up close, the situation turned out to be much much much better than I expected:
EMS Medic parking – bumper detail The siren was just kissing the front bumper of our van. I think the SUV rolled forward an inch when they released the brakes after slapping the tranny into Park and bailing out.
For what it’s worth, those fancy pusher bars on the front must be strictly for looks, because the siren & its control box really do stick out far beyond the bars. At the first serious contact they’ll crush back into the grille and do about a kilobuck worth of damage to the front end.
I think the driver wasn’t fully aware of how much snout that SUV has. It looks to be shiny-new, so perhaps this was the first close quarters parking experience:
EMS Medic parking – position detail I left a polite note on the driver’s side window pointing out that another two inches would mean we’d be filling out paperwork until noon.
They were gone by the time we left. The siren snagged the corner of the license plate and bent it out as they departed, but that’s not the first bend in that particular bit of sheet metal.
If any of you have a friend on the York PA Medic / EMS staff, give ’em a friendly heads-up for me, OK?
Memo to Self: Always park off to the side, dammit!
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Mind the Overhang!
Crane treads overhanging flatbed Spotted this one in a rest stop along I-84. I suppose it’s perfectly safe, but those anchoring hooks really don’t inspire much confidence, even if the only way you could jounce that crane sideways would involve flipping the flatbed. Right?
Yes, it was hanging over the other side just as far.
Come to think of it, the tractor that towed this assembly wasn’t present. Perhaps someone discovered / was informed it really isn’t a Good Idea / legal to haul an excavator at 65 mph in this configuration?
At least the driver didn’t do that…
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Peacock in Deployed Mode
I tagged along on a Master Gardener trip to Weathersfield and found this fellow confined to a cage:
Peacock – stowed view His companion was a pure white (leucistic, not albino) female:
Leucistic Peahen Shortly thereafter, he deployed for action. Part of the dance involves rattling all those quills:
Peacock – side view I had no idea peacocks have wooly white underwear!
Peacock – stern view The female remained utterly uninterested throughout the entire show; evidently, one can get used to anything if it happens often enough.
Raj, our correspondent from India, surely has these things like we have turkeys: enough to be a nuisance.
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Alarm Status Panel Clock: How Long Has This Been Going On?
Saw this at breakfast early one morning in DC on our April vacation:
Panera Bread alarm panel – bad clock Here’s the key part, amped up for readability:
Panera Bread alarm panel – clock detail I’m sure the manager’s three-ring binder has a whole section about the alarm system, its care & feeding, and the importance thereof. I’d guess there’s a dead battery in there somewhere and a power failure in the recent past.
This ooops obviously doesn’t matter, right up to the point where they have a break-in and the alarm system timestamps the event incorrectly.
The camera peered through a pair of window panes across the entranceway, as I didn’t want to get too conspicuous… we were, after all, in DC.
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Independence Day 2011
From our Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
We read the original document in DC a few months ago, while doing the touristy thing. These days, that means submitting to a search on the way into each museum; Mary lost her forgotten-in-the-bottom-of-her-purse Swiss Army Knife to the Smithsonian guards.
We left town feeling that something has gone badly wrong in the last decade or so.
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Personal Protective Equipment: Start ‘Em Young!
That comment prompted me to rummage around for one of my favorite photos: a much younger version of my Shop Assistant helping us shred leaves in the front yard.
Shop Assistant in Autumn leaf pile She thinks it’s entirely right & proper to:
- don safety goggles while doing anything even remotely eye-unsafe
- wear a dust mask to mow the lawn
- jam 30 dB foam plugs into her ears during thrash metal concerts
A parent can’t ask for more, methinks…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 