carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

Ethan's Driving Tip of the Day:

Drive Right, Pass Left!

In Germany there is a generally accepted rule known as "drive right, pass left" which highlights the fact that it is against the law to pass another vehicle on the right. This driving method works when everyone stays as far to the right as possible and only moves to the left to pass a car moving slower than they are moving.

I wish this protocol was observed in the US. There are far too many people who park themselves in the left lane of a two or three lane road and force anyone who wants to go around them to pass them on the right. Staying to the right for your traveling makes for fewer speed changes (the primary cause of "rubber-banding" when traffic speeds up and slows down for no apparent reason) and few changes in speed make for less traffic congestion. I make it a practice to move as far to the right as I can as soon as I've passed whatever vehicle I want get around. That leaves room for anyone traveling faster than me to pass me if they wish and keeps me moving at as consistent a speed as possible.

Drive Right, Pass Left, please!

From reuters.co.uk:

SAINT-NAZAIRE, France...

Visitors on a sightseeing tour on Saturday plunged about 25 metres (80 feet) to the ground when a dockside gangway gave way.

Phillipe Bouquet-Nadaud, the head of human resources for shipyard owner Alstom Marine, told a news conference that 16 people had died in the fall and another 32 were injured.

Full article

What an action packed weekend it has been!

It all kind of started midweek since I got off from work on Wednesday morning. Early activities included everything from dinners out with old friends, drinks with new friends, and clashes with bar and club managements (don't ask). As the weekend rolled along there were late nights up talking, partying to celebrate birthdays (pajama party?!), sleeping in new beds, a Chili Cook-off competition party (tasty!), and even a "rock'n'roll" party with a long-lost cousin.

All together it has been an event-jammed weekend full of people, places and fun. And there is plenty more going on before I go back to work on Thursday!

For those who use a new aggregator to read my website and might want this feature, I've added new RSS 2.0 newsfeed which includes comments. I like being able to see new comments posted on the sites I read so I thought it would be nice to offer that here as well. Since comments are not included in the XML templates which MovableType offers, I found this template which set everything up nicely.

With the arrival of November starts birthday season. As far I can tell, everyone I know was born in November including myself. Well, nearly everyone. Happy Birthday to everyone!

I've been slacking on posting much information about my new job. It's been great in an interesting sort of way. For the first time in my life I have a job where I can really disconnect when I'm not at work. My time at work is so condensed and my time off is in such large blocks that when I go home I don't think about work at all. It's incredibly liberating.

I've posted some pics too. Below is the view from my "office" of sorts. Click on the photo to see a whole bunch more pictures from work.

I'm thinking about getting back into being serious about photography. I used to do all my own developing and printing but now I just want to concentrate on taking the photos. I love digital cameras but I feel held back by my several-year-old Canon Powershot S100. I'd like to have to ability to use different lenses which means getting a digital SLR like the Canon linked to above. Birthday gift for myself?

I see that a number of people have been coming to my website after searching for the Enormous Room, a bar in Central Square Cambridge. I've also searched for the website for this place but it's hard to find for some reason. It doesn't show up in Google. So here is my attempt to get it properly placed in Google. The Enormous Room's website can be found at www.enormous.tv.

Today's mail contained a collections letter from a law office in Rhode Island for past due motor vehicle excise taxes. During the six months I was living in a government owned (I was in the Coast Guard at the time) apartment in Middletown, RI during 1998 I owned a '92 Toyota 4Runner which I then sold after buying a '95 Chevy Caprice. Somehow they are holding me accountable for 459 days of ownership for the Toyota and 243 days of ownership for the Chevy and are assessing the value at "over $8000" for both cars. This brings my total amount due to over $750. How absurd is that?! I spoke to both the law office handling the collection as well as the Middletown Assessors Office in an effort to understand these charges and they both were unhelpful in explaining why the amount is so high, except to say that it seemed normal to them. How can it be so much when I paid $38.75 for 2002 excise taxes here in MA?