gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Me - Drama)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2005-08-05 06:01 pm
Entry tags:

TGIF, and random observations.

Work continues apace, and my training period draws nearer to the end. Today, I did two entire jobs, beginning to end, with Chris only stepping in when I made an error in judgment that needed to be addressed immediately. Showing a warped sense of humor, the first job I was assigned was in Scotts Valley.

Check out the map. Scotts Valley is in the heart of the Coast Range. So my first extended trip at the wheel involved a narrow 2-lane highway that has tight curves and the occasional 100-foot drop to one side. It was actually easier than I thought it would be (doing it as a passenger in the truck is nerve-wracking.)

The nice thing about being the driver is I get to set the radio! 107.7 The Bone, baby!

The two jobs went well, and we actually had a fairly short day - only ten hours.

I thought it was a hot day, but evidently I was wrong. Because coming home, the diamond vision display on the Auto Row tower informed me it was actually -196 F. I was wondering about that liquid nitrogen rain we'd been getting recently...

Oh, this is my office. The building centered in the picture has three sections, we are the rightmost.

A note to the idiot drivers out there. Hi. My truck weighs about 5 tons empty. The pod I'm currently carrying tips the scales at 9 tons. That means I mass 14 tons. You mass about 2 tons. Guess who is going to win an argument between our vehicles? That's right, I might not even notice the collision. So why do you persist in cutting me off, trying to sneak past me on the right when our lanes are merging, and generally acting like I'm driving a rubber ball that will playfully bounce away when we hit, not turn your little piece of tin into a mangaled hunk?

Beer is good.

[identity profile] aurictech.livejournal.com 2005-08-06 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
M*V^2=R.

(Mass times velocity squared equals right-of-way.)

[identity profile] cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com 2005-08-06 11:29 am (UTC)(link)
An equation which, as an urban bicycle rider, I am well aware and properly respectful of.
kengr: (Default)

[personal profile] kengr 2005-08-06 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
As I frequently tell people:

"I make it a point to never argue the right of way with anything bigger than I am."

Good news on the job...

[identity profile] murbin.livejournal.com 2005-08-07 02:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm back in the workforce myself. I'm geeking again in the wireless ad-hoc sensor network field, so all my time is spend in a lab getting little bits of hardware to work and play well with each other in the same radio space.

It's amazing to see people do stupid things around trucks in traffic.