A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Oh! Babies bounce! Watch the right side of your screen at second 0:07.
Muslims in western India have been observing a bizarre ritual – they’ve been throwing their young children off a tall building to improve their health. [Source, Reuters, Indian baby dropping ritual]
This makes the hand game look tame!
When you heard that "[a] court had recently found Deborah Jeane Palfrey guilty of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud in connection with a high-end prostitution ring operating in Washington D.C." [Source, Truemors], didn’t you just immediately wonder which senator was afraid of having his or her super kinky dungeon fantasies revealed?
Suicide notes were found near the body in a small storage shed next to a mobile home…Palfrey, 52, was reportedly staying at the home of her mother…Prosecutors estimated the sentence she would have likely received would have been…about six years…She argued it was a legitimate, legal escort service. [Source, CNN, ‘D.C. Madam’ found dead]
The low budget spy thriller writes itself.
I just got solicited by an honest to goodness ambulance chaser! They had their phone number as "private" and even introduced themselves in such a deceptive away as to imply that they might be with one of the insurance companies. I should have responded to her inquiry about my well being with "I’m dead! I saw the light and I just couldn’t go yet. Now I’m stuck! Help me! My family can’t hear me when I talk to them and they look right through me. I can’t touch them. Help me cross over! I don’t belong here!"
Gas is now more expensive than milk and I am tempted to see if my van runs better on whole or 2%.
That’s right! Interstate 40 is closed at downtown Knoxville for 14 months! This could be reason enough for me to stay at home. I highly encourage telecommuting and shopping from home
Traffic Cameras provided by TDOT SmartWay (per linking policy)
View the many other cameras.
I-40 runs the width of the United States starting in my birth town of Wilmington, North Carolina and running all the way to Barstow, California with the most miles of I-40 running through Tennessee. When I lived in Germantown, Tennessee (Memphis) I-40 had a peculiarity, it dead ended at the Memphis Zoo (specifically Overton Park). A roughened road would audibly warn you that the Interstate was coming to a stop and suddenly you were at a traffic light. You’d travel a few blocks on local roads then get back on the interstate again. I even remember discussion of running a tunnel under the zoo. Apparently the northern loop of I-240 (the Memphis bypass) has now been redesignated as I-40.
In Memphis, I-40 was originally intended to go through the city’s Overton Park toward downtown. Several miles of interstate were actually built within the I-240 loop; this portion of highway still exists and is in regular use as Sam Cooper Boulevard, reaching the eastern end of Chickasaw Country Club. Environmentalist opposition, combined with a victory in the United States Supreme Court by opponents of the Overton Park route … forced abandonment of the original plans, and the road never reached the park. For over 20 years, I-40 signage existed on the dead-end route toward Overton Park. Eventually, the northern portion of the I-240 loop was redesignated as I-40. [Source, Wikipedia]
I remember I-40 ending at Raleigh, North Carolina. It took 4 hours to drive a two lane road the rest of the way to Wilmington. In the 1980s, I-40 was extended all the way to Wilmington, that travel time is cut in half. I remember using those 2 extra hours as an excuse to not visit my grandparents.
Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. [Source, Wikipedia, Charles Kuralt]
Les Jones has wonderful pictures of I-40’s construction through Knoxville in the 60s! The photos are out west toward West Hills and Lovell but they are fascinating to see this monstrosity of concrete plowing through people’s farms. I found the pictures intriguing in considering what structures were at the junctions then and now. Redmondkr, in a Knoxviews comment, provided a wonderful areal photograph he took in the 70s which is in sharp comparison to how malfunction junction appears in today’s GoogleMaps.
This Saturday our family will experience the SmartFix as we have to travel out Strawberry Plains way for dog school. I am sure we will Twitter, Flickr, and Utterz our experience the whole way! Knoxviews calls this SmartFIX40: The Apocalypse. So far the TDOT traffic cameras don’t show traffic as that bad.
If you are interested in saving the latest wilderness of the Southeast, dislike seeing needless billions of dollars spent, and want to make a difference, please visit stopi-3.org!
Update: Read what others are saying about Smartfix40!
My life is written like a sitcom. Today is critically important that I be working on a client’s project so I am trying to get the children out of the house as quickly as possible and they are moving slower than ever! Amy likes the Dannables yogurts in her lunch. Yesterday we had about 6 of these in the fridge. This morning none! All the jellos and snacks I normally put in her lunch are raided and of course I’d already cooked her hot dog so telling her to buy lunch today really wasn’t an option. I suppose the dogs would have enjoyed the hot dog. I decide to send money so she can buy milk and I decide on raisins. Raisins, we all know, stick together in the box. So before opening the box I shake it vigorously. Apparently the previous raisin eater did not secure the cap so raisins went flying all over the kitchen. I suppose Murphy is trying to tell me to lighten up and not be so stressed over today.
