Lately when the weather has been good I've going out for a walk rather than just do everything on the treadmill[1]. Today was nice day and so I went for a walk. I was walking along when I heard the Screeech! Hooonk! *CRASH* behind me. I didn't see anything, but one car attempted a left turn and was hit by another.

I turned around to see two cars that had just been in better condition coming to stops. The car with less damage pulled over to a curb though rather close to a corner.

Everyone was out of the cars, or was by the time I got back to the scene. They all appeared to be fine, if shaken. There was concern, but no injuries and no arguments. I was the only person with a phone, so I wound up calling the police. I also lent the phone to a guy so he could call his wife to explain that he'd be a bit late.

The less damaged car had a busted headlight lens (the light itself looked like it survived) and the sheet metal was bent just enough that opening and closing the hood might be more interesting that it should be. That was it. No real creases in anything and no liquid leaking anywhere.

The other vehicle did not fare so well. The front end was a big mess, it looked like the cooling system had leak somewhere, and the airbags had gone off. After the officer got his information and photographed the scene, that car wouldn't start again. The officer blocked one street of the intersection and a few of us pushed the disabled car to a nearby driveway belong to friend of that driver.

Once all that had been done and the debris swept up, I resumed my walk. Fortunately it did not get that exciting again.

Current Mood: relieved

I've seen comments of that nature for the powering of televisions or laptops and it is a neat idea - while you're burning calories you get to Do Something else. Or while you're Doing Something that usually Isn't Exercise you get exercise. I'm not sure it's entirely practical, but I can see the appeal. But there's something even simpler than that.

When visiting sistaur I used her stationary bike for exercise, but the batteries had run down so I didn't get any indication of speed or distance or calories burned. As I had not much else to do I started pondering that. There I was, burning calories (the whole point of the... exercise, yes) and generating motion which was then... thrown away. Okkay, the front "wheel" is a sort of fan so there is some self-cooling involved. But it seems that a small (even tiny) generator, a regulator, and maybe a rechargeable battery, would be the right way to go. Gadget not displaying? Throw some calories at it, it'll come right up! It's not as if you were going to be conserving those calories. They might as well be made useful even if only in a small way.

Hazy morning, but already nearly +40 F and might just hit +60 F today - and the weekend is supposed to get warmer still. Nice, to have fair temperatures. Of course the downside is that Summer is coming. Summer, the season of obnoxiously miserable hot weather.

Did the treadmill thing an hour earlier last night and watched New Detectives, which wasn't bad. But I can see getting tired of that in not too much time. A check of TV Guide (on the web, of course) shows that I should probably set a VCR to record an hour at 1 PM. I have a choice of Tiny Toons, Acme Hour, and Perry Mason then. Maybe I'll set that this noon. It's been some years since I saw Perry Mason (I'm hoping it's the old black and white show).

A couple nights ago Storm Stories was interesting. It was about the blizzard of January 1997 and how it affected an eastern state. What was interesting was that I can remember that one, before it went that far east. It was enough here that the town pretty much closed down, the two open 24 hour grocery stores closed, and there were warnings that said something like "If you try to leave town, we will NOT come out to rescue you. Stay home." The snow itself wasn't too bad, but there quite a bit of it - and with high winds it made for poor visibility and large drifts.

Jay has been watching Ranma quite a bit. Thankfully, with headphones if I'm around. I find the voices grating. Perhaps I shouldn't put it that way. The voices are okkay, the dialog is grating. I'm amazed he can stand it, myself.

Current Mood: good

The hard drive I ordered arrived yesterday. I now have an unusual, for me, situation: I have a huge hdd but the box it goes in isn't here yet. Wal-Mart still only says "scheduled for delivery on March 20" and nothing like whether it even shipped or where it is sitting now.

Had a sample of Spring yesterday as the temperature climbed to 52 F. Today the high will only be in the 30s, and then it'll warm up again. Yep, it's March. At least this temperature swing isn't too bad. I'm hoping the ice on Hall Lake stays long enough for me to get a few pictures of it as it melts.

Weight control is not going so well. The good part is that I'm still under 220 lbs. The bad news is that I'm still over 215 lbs. Hopefully that can be taken care of this month. Current target: Get under 215 lbs, stay under 215 lbs.

The treadmill is nice, but TV isn't. So far the best thing one has been Storm Stories on the Weather channel, but that repeats after a while and how many tornadoes can you watch before they all seem the same? NOVA can be good, but that's only weekly. Maybe I need to find something to tape for treadmill time. Ideally it'd be about one hour long and commercial-free. However, watchable and an hour long are the important things. There's fast forward and mute for commercials.

The "Freedom Fries" thing? Remarkably silly, yes. What's even more amusing is watching the reaction to it. Where was this reaction when other inanities of Political Correctness were being committed? Oh, wait, I shouldn't mention things like that, it's okkay when one group renames things in inane ways, but not okkay if another group does. Uh huh. I'm laughing at both sides on this one. You just can't make this stuff up. Either side. Reality is terribly funny and funnily terrible all at once. I'm also amused (and bewildered) by how UN-related things are counted. Evidently 18 and 2 are the same number there - and these are supposedly well-educated folks?

Team leader at work didn't get a speakerphone right away but uses such. He got asked if color mattered. He said he didn't care. So they got him a cheap (75% off) speakerphone. Why cheap? Not many want a red phone. Not red, red. Bat-phone red. No, he doesn't keep it under a clear cover.

Current Mood: amused

Jay and I decided to look at treadmills yesterday, something we'd been planning on for a while. We figured we'd look, maybe pick something out, and buy later, since the prices would likely put immediate purchase beyond what we cared to spend just now.

( It went a little differently. )

Current Mood: determined

Stopped by the local Radio Shack last night to get some LEDs so eventually I could shine rather monochrome light around the house and see what happens. They only had, in anything reasonably bright, red and blue. I already have blue. And red, being the longest wavelength and lowest energy of the visible spectrum isn't likely to reveal all that much. All the same, I did get a red LED, and an IR LED just to have something more to play with. They were out of bright green and seem not to even carry bright yellow/amber or orange. That's disappointing. I should've tried snagging some LEDs at the hamfest Saturday. Oh well, there's always Digi-Key, if I can come up with the minimum order.

Got away from the computer(s) for a bit last night and watched, or rather listened to, a couple Twilight Zone episodes while sorting through some things. I need to do more of that - the sorting and such anyway. It's now smaller more organized mini-messes rather than one big one. It's some progress, at least. We moved into the house in January and some things still aren't sorted out, and that's not even counting the stuff just stowed in the attic. Maybe I should pick one room and try to deal with it one day this weekend.

Also need to eat less, and exercise more. With the cooling weather (and seemingly constant rainy forecasts) and early darkness, that gets a bit more difficult. I'm not sure if the park I'd walk in is even open now. Sure, I could do the mall walking thing, but something is just off-putting about spending much time that way. At least my knee is feeling better. I still feel a bit of mild soreness time to time, but nothing really bad. That would also make things difficult.

Current Mood: feeling fat