Driving on your side of the road.

While driving in to work today I was listening to "The Big Show" with Johnboy and Billy. Robert D. Raiford, the show's commentator, read a letter from a listener complaining about the "idiot drivers who cruise in the left lane". Mr Raiford concurs with the letter and he goes on to state that in most states it is in fact illegal to cruise in the left hand lane.

I will agree that slow traffic should stay in the right lane so as not to obstruct progress of those drivers going the speed limit. Mind you I define "slow" traffic as anyone traveling UNDER the speed limit. But it is not the responsibility of the law abiding driver to yield to those drivers who want to drive recklessly and travel significantly over the speed limit.

Here is a quote from the NCDOT Driver's handbook:

The law requires you to drive on the right side of the road. Driving on the left side is legal only in some cases, such as on one-way streets and while passing. When you are moving slower than the posted speed limit on a multi-lane highway, drive in the extreme right lane unless you are passing, turning left or avoiding an obstruction.

The first sentence obviously deals with 2 lane (one in each direction) roads. The second sentence specifically deals with the question at hand. It does not say you must drive in the right hand lane of a multi lane highway unless traveling under the speed limit.

Further support for my opinion can be found in the section on Passing:

Passing on the right is against the law except in areas where it is specifically permitted. Passing on the right places your vehicle on the blind side of the car you are passing. The car you are passing could unexpectedly make a right turn or pull over to the right side of the road. Exceptions where passing on the right is allowed:

• on highways having at least two lanes traveling in each direction;
• ...

So if you are in a hurry and don't want to drive behind someone traveling the speed limit, THEN PASS THEM!

I hear the complaints from all the folks I work with about people driving in the passing lane and they also state it is illegal. Well to that I reply "So is speeding." If the "idiot" in the left lane is going the speed limit or above and you want to pass them, it is YOU that is breaking the law not the driver traveling the speed limit.

I do for the most part travel in the right lane, probably 85% of the time because I usually travel the speed limit, give or take 5 miles per hour, an anomaly these days. However when I am driving in the left lane of a multi-lane highway, I do not feel I should be forced to weave in and out of right lane to maintain the legal speed limit. If there are slower cars scattered about in the right lane then I will stay in the left lane. Without fail a car, or more likely a pickup truck, will pull up behind me, tailgating me, his not so subtle signal for me to get out of his way. If I choose not to relinquish my position I am next graced with flashing high beams in my rear view mirror. A little after that then the middle fingers start flying.

Kids read the following carefully!

Mind I usually make it a point to not tick off other drivers, however wrong their actions are. Over the years I have learned to just get out of their way and let them speed by. It only took one incident of being literally pushed off the road by a maniac, who was displeased with my unwillingness to yield to his wishes, to realize I do no need to be a vigilante traffic cop. Instead I just take pleasure in the thought of, a couple of miles ahead, seeing the said driver sitting on the side of the road with red and blue flashing lights reflecting off his rear view mirror.

Happy Birthday Kyle

Okay, Kyle's birthday was more than a week ago, I just have not mentioned it yet in my blog postings.

His Birthday was Sunday November 7th. But we celebrated on Saturday. Like last year, Kyle wanted to take some friends and play paintball. He also wanted me to play. I was quite honored. His friends were a little skeptical at first. In fact they were arguing about who had to be on my team. But as the afternoon wore on, I was able to hold my own and by the end of the day they were giving me high fives.

The place we went to play was called "Predator Paint Ball" in Hillsborough NC. They have several courses to play on. When we first arrived, we checked in, paid our admission fees, filled up the CO2 tanks and purchased some paint. Then the five of us headed toward what I will call the "ready area". This is where you load your paint balls, clean the markers (the politically correct thing to call paint ball guns) and just plain rest between rounds. We staked out an area and readied the markers. Kyle and his friends all had their own equipment. I borrowed a marker from one of Bob's friends so I needed a little help getting things ready.

Before you play, I learned, you need to calibrate your marker. These weapons are capable of shooting a paint ball 350+ MPH. The folks you are playing with agree to what a reasonable velocity is then everyone calibrates there markers accordingly. Those things can hurt when they hit you so you have to balance being able to fire at things far away with how much it hurts when it hits you at closer range. We calibrated ours to around 270 MPH, suitable for a woods type course. This took some time, specially Kyle's new marker. After all was said and done; markers calibrated, loaded, gear stowed and such we were there probably 40 minutes before we were able to step out on the field.

The Saturday we went, Predator was rather busy; several parties and regular teams were there. Even still we really did not have to wait too long at any time to play. The first several games we played 3 v 2, in a woods setting. It was fun, scooting behind trees and laying behind logs, pinning people down with crossfire etc. I had my share of "kills". There was another group of five waiting for the field at one point and we agreed to play against them. They looked more like a team. They were all decked out in camouflage. Even their markers had camo on them. We managed to chase them, basically off the course, and finish them off leaving us with 2 active player. Not to shabby for a bunch of kids who play only occationally and an old man who has never played.

Towards the end of the day we played on what I think is called a "Speed Ball" course. That was a lot of fun too but much more challenging. The course is smaller, fenced off and, except for these inflated canvas obstacles, is wide open. I did pretty well not getting hurt by any of the many balls that hit me up to that point but in the speed ball course, because we were closer.... Well I still have 3 or 4 decent welts/bruises to show off. Perhaps we should have dialed down the markers. Honestly most of the welts were my fault. I made a suicide run at the dorito shaped bunker with 2 opposing players behind it. I managed to hit one in the mask before the other one pummeled me at close range.

A couple weeks before, Kyle had bought himself a single action marker. One shot, pump action that holds only 10 balls at a time. After that you have to reload with these little tubes. It is more challenging and you use A LOT fewer balls. The rest of us had semi automatic markers that could hold 200 balls at a time. It is easy to go through 200 balls in just a few minutes. That is one reason Kyle bought his marker; Paint balls are not cheap. The new marker put him at a disadvantage (Specially in speedball) but seemed to enjoy the challenge and he still managed to notch a few kills himself.

It was a successful birthday "party". I had a blast and Kyle and his friends seemed to as well. I am definitely going to have to play again.

An attempt at normalcy

Good Monday morning to you.

I woke this morning and decided to take back, if not just a little, control of my life. First things first; Today I am going to weed through the 700+ e-mails in my in-box, the 24 voicemails. Delete what is stale or already taken care of and prioritize what's left. I am going to take the first hour of each work day to organize and work through the more extraneous demands on my time then put them aside until the next day. Then work on the most important task at hand, whatever that may be on a given day. I am going to take at least 30 minutes at lunch to walk or read a novel or stand on my head; anything away from my desk. And unless there is a customer outage I am going to leave work no later than 6:00.

This weekend was relatively quite. I did not do a shred of work related activities. Friday night, Karen and I went to dinner with the Legges. It took about a half hour sitting and chatting before I could wind down from work. Good thing our waitress was slow as molasses. Otherwise I would have wolfed down my meal.

Saturday morning it was cranberry pecan pancakes and puttering around the house. I posted a blog entry then left for Michelle's soccer game. It was not our best effort. Team Israel lost 3-0. One of those goals was on a direct penalty kick; not allowed in our league. But the referee didn't know. He was a substitute ref from the older league. There were some good efforts but overall the team played a little flat. After the game the Girl Scouts had a picnic at the park. Mostly the girls played on the playground and the parent chit-chatted.

Saturday afternoon, besides driving kids around, I sat and watched some football and worked on my Christmas list. Duke actually won a game. So did UNC. FSU beat NC State but Sunday, the Panthers beat the 49ers. Plus, Jordan HS won their game in the first round of the state playoffs (more). So overall a good football weekend in Carolina.

Saturday Night, Tyler was out with Melodie and Kyle was at his friend Nathan's house. Karen, Michelle and I had dinner with Howard and Nancy and played some cards.

Sunday I spent much of the day helping Kyle with a school project. We built a trebuchet. The finished Counter balance trebuchet was about 13" tall with a throwing arm of around 16". It can hurl a small rock 20+ feet. After a little tweaking I am sure it will throw even further. Anyway it was fun helping him build it.

Sunday evening Tyler, Melodie, Michelle, Karen and I played a round of Carcassonne, Hunters and Gatherers. I came in dead last. Michelle won. After all the kids were in Bed Karen and I played a game of Carcassonne, The Castle. Karen won by just a couple of points. Our whole family has really enjoyed the Carcassonne series of games. Karen's Brother, Gary, got us started on them. I would highly recommend them as a gift for anyone who like board games. They take anywhere from 45 min to an hour to play. I would also recommend Funagain Games as a place to purchase them. They are a great online shop.

This morning I have my headphone on, Harry James playing on my MP3 Player and am ready to tackle the work week.

Ta

It's been a while

Hi,

My name is Tim. I new this guy once who use to write web logs a couple of times a week. This guy, he enjoyed writing logs but he has this crazy job. He got to working 20 hour days. Staying up all night, eating at his desk... Just crazy. He did not have time to update his web log. He did not have time to read e-mail His inbox got to more than 500 unread messages. His voicemail 21 unread messages.

Anyway. There is at least a temporary reprieve. So I thought I would try and catch folks up.

Michelle's soccer team had no game last week so we had a "Soccer Olympics" event. I planned out 7 events; Longest kick, Longest Throw-in, 1v1 competition .... The event went well I will hand out first, second and third place ribbons for every event. I will let you know if Michelle won anything after the awards banquet next Thursday.

We have our last game of the season this afternoon. Maybe we can end the season with a win. Even if we don't, It was a good season regardless. Michelle's girl scout troop is coming to watch the game (half the girls are on the team). Afterwards the scouts are going to have a picnic. It's gonna be cold so we will see how that goes.

Ooops, Gotta run. Time to go to the game. I'll update tomorrow.

There is always next year

Saturday was disappointing for the Jordan Marching band. Their field show performance was good but did not compare to the polish and flair of the performances of the larger bands in competition. They did win second place in the parade competition and they received a rating of "superior" on the performance of their field show but received no place awards. This is not something this band is use to. The sad part is that they were only 2 band members over the limit to compete in class 4A. Instead they competed in class 5A. The scores they received would have, I am pretty sure, have placed them in the top two of the 4A competition. After all was said and done, the band director was pleased with the performance. And the kids can be proud of their performance and efforts. Just wait till next year!

Michelle's soccer game ended in a tie, again, Saturday morning. It was an 8:30 AM game. We started out pretty slow and fell behind 2 - 0 in the first half. Their goals we results of sluggish play and mental mistakes early. We woke up 10 - 15 minutes into the game and stated to play our usual game. In the second half Michelle volunteered to play goal keeper. She had several impressive saves. I don't think I have seen another goal keeper in the league with as good a technique and awareness in the goal as Michelle had Saturday. She shut the other team out in the second half and we put together 2 picture perfect goals to tie the game up.

After the game Michelle and I played a round of Disk golf. The park were we play soccer also has a nice Disc Golf course. The holes are a little longer than we are use too. We had a good time and got some extra exercise in.

Sunday Michelle's Girl Scout troop did a nature hike through Duke Forrest. They collected leaves for a craft project; They made placemats for the Meals On Wheels by arranging the colorful leaves and sandwiching them between 2 pieces of clear contact paper. They also worked on their photography badge. They took pictures of each other, the leaves and trees, mushrooms etc. It was a nice relaxing event.

Sunday evening Michelle made a costume for me to wear when she and I went trick or treating later on. She said I was a fuddy duddy and I needed to dress up. So she whipped up a Halloween apron out of scrap cloth. We added a BBQ spatula, tongs and an oven mitt to complete the ensemble. So I went out as the "BBQ Boss".

The boys did not do the trick or treating thing this year. Though Kyle did go a friends house. I can't say for sure no 'tricking' went on. Tyler stayed home and did home work.