Texting While Driving

Oh my god, seriously how is this an issue? Are people really surprised at how dangerous texting while driving is? First of all if you have a phone like in the picture you need two hands to do the texting, and if you only use one hand it will take you longer, which means more time your eyes are off the road. One hand off the wheel is bad, both eyes off the road is, for lack of a better word, DUMB.

I remember in drivers ed they told you not to mess with your mirrors and especially not your radio while driving. You also should keep both hands on the wheel and never take your eyes off the road. Hell I remember those things at the 5 hour course, and on the written test also.

So now we've got laws saying that you can't drink and drive. Really we can't drink and drive? I wonder why not? *Slugs down a beer, takes a step falls over* Nope I'm still good to drive *Goes to lean on you and misses your shoulder* Yup I'll be better once I'm sitting down behind the wheel... dumb law that never should have been needed. It's common sense.

And we can't talk on our cell phone's while driving because for some reason people can't watch the road and have a conversation at the same time. These people need a one seater car, because if they have any passengers they'll most likely get in an accident. I can understand if you have to dial the number, then you're not looking at the road when you're dialing and a kid, animal, another car, or some figment of your imagination could pop up right in front of you. Don't you hate when trees jump in the middle of where you're driving? I wish they'd stop doing that to people.

DO NOT PLAY WITH THE RADIO WHILE DRIVING. That was a huge thing when I was learning to drive. Pick what you want to hear before taking off, or pull over to adjust. Yeah, no one does this. Hell I don't even do this, but it's a good rule. I also don't look down at my radio when I am adjusting it.

Now with all those kinds of rules/laws in effect we get texting phones, and teenagers getting their licenses and thinking they can text while they're driving down a busy highway at 65mph. I'm not saying no one ever warned these kids. What I am saying is that these kids are, again lack of a better word, FRIGGIN DUMB!! Who the hell honestly gets in their car with their cell phone, straps on the seat belt, puts the car in drive, gets into traffic and decides "Hey I'm going to text my friend and let them know that I'm almost to their house," seriously? Since when is this a good idea to focus on typing a message to someone while your driving a vehicle?

Recently over in my neighboring state of VT, they actually set up a road course for teens to try and drive through while texting. Obviously they all failed miserably because they weren't looking where they were going. After running the course all the teens had said "It really opened my eyes to how dangerous it is to drive while texting." Again, are you serious? You had to run this course to notice the dangers of this act? You couldn't just use some logical thinking and come up with a conclusion like that? You had to actually do it and see it? Must be a see it to believe it type of person... a lot of people must be this way. Which scares the living CRAP out of me!

To me the fact that any state or any law maker or anyone in general had to pass the law of "No Texting While Driving" is just sad. Common sense, where the hell is it today? It's gone! That was a waste of time and money to pass such an obvious law.

Here are some laws I'd like to pass that shouldn't ever need to be. If we need one for texting and driving then we might as well have these laws:

• No Tying Shoes and Driving
• No Sleeping and Driving
• No Exercising and Driving
• No Looking At The Person In The Back Seat and Driving

I'm sure there could be many more but I think you get the point. Stupid law for stupid people.

RUSH Time Machine Tour

A week ago on July 23rd I attended the RUSH Time Machine Tour at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in Saratoga, NY. I saw RUSH at the same place 2 years ago for the Snakes and Arrows tour. These guys put on an amazing show. The lights, the large screens at SPAC to see close ups of the band playing if you are too far back to see them very well with the naked eye.

I had seats, if you want to call them seats, in the lawn section. Standing is what I prefer at a concert, I want to see the band, move to the music and enjoy it. If I wanted to sit down and watch the band I'd buy the Rush Live in Rio dvd and watch it in my living room from the comforts of my couch.

The sound at the show was simply amazing. Rush sounds even better live than they do on cd. Recording them playing live just doesn't do it justice. At the show they played 2 new songs that will be on their new album in 2011. They did the entire MOVING PICTURES album in it's entirety.

At SPAC they have a strict no alcohol rule in the parking lot to keep people from tailgating before the show. Of course if you play it safe you can still get a few beers in before the show. Prices on beer in the venue were really expensive, a cup of beer was $9-$12 depending on the size of the cup, or $11 for a tall boy can of beer (tall boy is 24oz. in case you were unaware.)

All week I was checking the weather for the show, it's 2.5 hours south of where I live so I had to keep checking, it kept saying rain and isolated thunder storms. I was getting scared that the lawn seats were going to be a wash out. I would have still enjoyed the show just as much I'm sure, but rain is never that fun to stand it for almost 3 hours, even if it is warm. I had brought a change of dry clothes to change into after the show. I even had an umbrella. The people I went to the show with brought ponchos and extra clothes to, just in case. We arrived in the parking lot 2 hours before the show started and from then until the end of the night we had avoided the rain all together. It was a dry show thankfully. Made the night with RUSH even more enjoyable.

Anyway, here are some pictures I got of the band, along with a video of them performing PRESTO and the famous drum solo that Neil Pert is known for at every live show they do. I'll say it again, it was AMAZING. Click thumbnails for a much larger image.






Getting the video was the hardest to do. I had to stand with the camera recording above my head for these videos, zoomed in optically and digitally up to I think it was 24x or 30x. So any shaking or moving was major. I had to release the camera with one hand to gain feeling back in one, then switch, then back to both hands. Sorry for any Blair Witch shakiness to the camera, but what else do you expect from amateur concert footage taken with arms straight up in the air.
To view these videos full screen or in HD, view them directly on youtube. ENJOY!


PRESTO:



The drum solo I let one of my friends, who was a bit drunk, hold the camera for a bit, you can tell where he held it, the video doesn't focus and he can't keep it still at all. Can't blame him, and I appreciate him giving my arms a break.

DRUM SOLO:

Geese Pose Problem For Air Travel

Well Government officials have a plan to wipe out 2/3rds of the Canada Geese in the states. This plan came in to effect after the Hudson River incident where a passenger jet had to force land into the Hudson River due to geese getting caught up in two of the turbines. City, state, and federal agencies want to trim the number of geese down to 85,000, from an estimated quarter million.
In New York City more than a thousand geese were trapped and killed last year.

Is it just me or does it seem like we shouldn't really mess with nature?
Geese pose a problem to air travel? How about we pose a problem for geese to air travel. It's natural for them to fly.

Trying to Capture a Beautiful Moment

Photographers are always trying to catch a beautiful moment on camera. Whether it's animals, water, the sun setting, the middle of the woods, or just another person. This lady must have been trying to capture a beautiful moment on her camera of a cute Kangaroo hopping around in a field. Moving in to get her shot, the right angle, the right lighting, the correct shutter speed. Everything must be perfect. Try to get in a little bit closer for the shot hoping not to scare away the cute animal. Just as she's about to take her picture, she gets sucker punched right to the face. Of course someone captured that beautiful moment from a safe distance. So who's the true photographer? The one getting a quick sucker punch by a cute lovable Kangaroo, or the one that captured the moment from a safe distance? Quite honestly I can't give a conclusive answer due to the fact that I can't see sucker punch lady's pictures. Although she does look to be taking it quite well. You think she fought back or grabbed her camera and ran away?

Zebra Spiders

Also known as Jumping Spiders, or their Latin name Salticus Scenicus. I've captured one in an old makeup container my girlfriend gave me. I decided to break out my Kodak Zi8 and the macro lens attachment I bought for it from http://usbfever.com/index_eproduct_view.php?products_id=789
These are probably the only spiders in existence that I actually like. They don't scare me like most spiders I've come in contact with, they're not creepy, they're actually kind of cute.
Well I just wanted to make a post about these cute little creepy crawlies and share a couple of the videos I've taken of it. So here they are, hope you enjoy. And if you'd like to view them in 720p HD, then go directly to the videos on youtube.

Working Blues

Well this past week has been one hell of a week! All week at work and even at home I felt highly depressed. I didn't feel suicidal just completely unhappy with things. Since my job allows me plenty of time to think and my work is all just muscle memory I get too much time to think and it's not necessarily a good thing. I felt unrested, which could be due to how little sleep I get on a work night. I also just felt unhappy with my job in general. I wake up go to work do the same exact thing throughout a 10 hour period. I work on an assembly line, in a spot that takes roughly 20 minutes to do the job, then I push it on and get started on the next one, doing EXACTLY the same thing again.
You think watching "How It's Made" is boring and monotonous looking, try actually doing something like it. Of course some of those episodes are interesting. That's the good thing about that show is it's not showing the same exact thing over and over again, like my job.

Anyway, with work being so boring and the fact that they just fired or laid off 2 people one of which I'm a good friend with, who also happened to be the supervisor, was laid off for restructuring of the work place. His position was no longer needed, so instead of putting him in a needed position they canned him, pretty crappy. The other guy was also needed, but I think there were other reasons that made him a good decision to let go, although we could have used him over the week. I don't think this was the major factor in what was causing my depression as I said I had plenty of time to think, 10 hours a day for 4 days. I think it was just the repetition of my job and me just feeling fed up with it, along with a worry I have about my dog's x-ray's. I haven't got the results yet, going to give the vet a call probably tomorrow.

Anyway the depression has cleared up a bit since work ended for the week yesterday at 4:30. As soon as the bell rang to go home I was instantly happy. I didn't bring my depression back home with me. Which is something I usually do, I forget about all the stress and anger at work as soon as I'm out. Not this week for some unknown reason.

As soon as I got home I sat down and played my guitar, such a great release for stress, I just couldn't bring myself to pick it up all week though. Anyway, I learned the acoustic version of the song Layla by Eric Clapton, think I've got it down pretty decently at the moment although I need to practice it a bit more.

I wasn't planning on ranting about this on here but then I was thinking, this is my blog, about me and things that interest me plus other random rambles and bits of made up humor and so on. So I figured why not post this, it'll help me just release the rest of the depressed mood and feelings and just get it out there. Luckily during this week I've had my very understanding and helpful girlfriend by my side to help cheer me up and to just understand what was going on. For that I'm thankful.