lucas-photo.com

(Originally published on the Shelley Berman site.)

I sometimes visit my old houses.

Sadly, no one famous once lived there.

Sadly, no one famous is hankering to move in, either.

The site of my first home, of the mobile type, is now covered by the tarmac of the south runway at Indianapolis International. Shelley probably flew over me more than once.

I may have waved. I was five at most, so I can’t remember if he waved back.

Probably he did.

My second home, not far away, has grown frighteningly small but otherwise has weathered sturdily.

My third, far away in South Florida, I saw weekend before last. One of the hurricanes of last season had walloped it soundly. Blue plastic sheeting covers a good quarter of the roof and something heavy appears to have dented the midsection.

But Dad’s bracing on the gables held, and the house stands, a somewhat battered but defiant prizefighter awaiting whatever swirling roundhouse the summer season chooses to bring.

Most of the world’s conflict arises from two people vigorously espousing the least-badly-broken answer to what invariably turns out to have been the wrong question.

Hang on to this concept as it’s going to appear in future posts.

Shots from the 2006 Sunshine Classic and Wheelchair Nationals are up on the site.

This was one of the shows I was going to pass on this year, because of the distance– Dwyer’s about a five-hour drive from home.

We can see how long that resolve lasted. ;)

But I had a couple of errands to run in the former hometown of Fort Lauderdale anyway, and besides the late April show in Lake City, there’s really nothing going on until mid-June (!)

So I figured, what the heck. And I got to talk to a couple of people that I might not have seen this year otherwise, so that’s always good.

Is it even possible to quote yourself?

Look in the archives and you’ll find a rant concerning sites that rely entirely on Flash.

Then take a quick gander at this entry on the US-CERT vulnerbilities page.

Guess what? Flash is busted.

To recap: too many big sites are just completely unusable without Flash.

In this case the vendor’s already supplied a patch.

Next time: who knows?

(and just how long have we been sitting here vulnerable?).

New shots from October 2005 are up on the site. Carla was just a few weeks out from Nationals and is looking plenty big and as cute as ever.

Well at last the gridlock starts to make sense.

From yesterday’s newspaper:

Don Nozzi, senior planner for the city of Gainesville and author of a book on sprawl, said smaller roads actually reduce gridlock by encouraging bike and bus riding.

“We simply cannot build (or) widen our way out of congestion,” he said.
Gainesville Sun, March 1, 2006

Ooooookaayyyyy.

As Dr. Phil might say at this juncture, “How’s that working out for you?”

So to counteract such wonderful thinking, here are some inexpensive ideas that will alleviate the traffic problem right now.

1. Before we spend a bundle timing all the lights, take some of them down.

   On 13th Street, do we really need lights at University Avenue, SW 2nd Ave, 4th Ave, 5th Ave, 8th Ave, 9th Ave, 9th Road, Archer Road, and 16th?

   SW 4th Avenue opens west onto a no-entry service drive for UF, so that can come down.

   SW 5th Ave opens west onto a exit-only one-way road from UF, that one can go into “blink mode” outside of afternoon rush hour.

2. Test all the lights to be sure they’re sensing traffic properly.

   A motor vehicle is least efficient when it is stopped with the engine running. It is also inefficient to change states between moving and stopping.

   I average about five minutes a week sitting at lights with no traffic moving in any direction. That’s about four hours a year of idling away gas– for one person who doesn’t drive that much in the first place. Multiply that times all the vehicles on the road and you are wasting a major chunk of petroleum with no benefit whatsoever– not to mention causing additional pollution.

   Want some examples of broken lights? How about the SW 16th Avenue by the VA hospital? Williston Road at SW 23rd Terrace? Depot Avenue and SW 6th Street? These signals are apparently responding to signals directly from space rather than anything pertaining to actual traffic.

3. Take down the “No Turn On Red” signs.

   Except for limited-sight intersections, there really isn’t any point to having them.

4. Shorten the interval at the big intersections.

   This concept is the simplest, but also the most influential. Shorter intervals keep the traffic flowing, instead of releasing large clumps of frustrated motorists into smaller intersections that don’t have the capacity to deal with them.

   I think the DOT knows this, because when SW 13th went one-lane for construction, the traffic backup was so bad that they had no choice but to reduce the interval at the SW 16th Avenue light– and even with one lane, the traffic flowed.

Before closing, I must point out one more extremely important aspect. Overlooked in all this mess is egregious financial abuse that our elected representatives have allowed to persist.

As I understand it, a considerable chunk of my tax dollars was allocated to fund roadways. Some city planner with a point to prove has decided, without mandate or authority, that the roadways will not be built.

All well and good. But if the roadways I paid for will not be built, I would like to know how soon I can expect my refund.