respublica

Tally up

Mattresses 103

Ladders 100

One of each has fallen in the past 12 hours

Week's tally start

We've had a jump in mattresses and ladders falling onto local highways since I last posted. The last report was mattresses 97 and ladders 93. Now it stands at:

Mattresses 100

Ladders 98

WHOOPS  A new ladder on the middle lane 44 at Antire.

Mattresses 100

Ladders 99

As if there wasn't enough to worry about

Now comes a suggestion from the New York Times to clean the remote in hotel rooms you stay in. "It's touched by everyone but rarely cleaned."

Those electric scooters

You've probably seen them sitting around sidewalks or next to curbs, electric scooters which more and more people are using to get around. You get yourself a code which will allow you to use any scooter sitting alone anywhere. I'm sure there's a fee involved. The issue for many people is how dangerous this is becoming at worst, and how annoying at the least.

When you use a scooter to get where you're going you can leave it anywhere. We've seen them left all over our neighborhood, including right in the middle of driveable alleys and on sidewalks. There has been a spate of these left on the campus, especially on the edges of campus. I don't have a particular problem with them except for the problematic places they're left, but most importantly, how dangerous they are. Several times I've started to back out of our driveway and there came someone zooming down the street on a scooter not paying any attention. And, when they are on busy local streets, like Demun you just don't see them.

Why this year has become so busy with these scooters when the lime green scooter of a couple of years ago were a bit of a flop, I don't know.

But, one man in Florida got so weary of the many scooters littering his neighborhood, lawns, sidewalks and streets that he took to going out in the middle of the night and disabling them. More than 140 were vandalized in the Fort Lauderdale area and police blame this man. Police set out surveillance cameras and caught Randall Williams walking around the neighborhood in a stealthy fashion, utilizing the shadows and the alleyways to conceal his movements. He would walk up to an electrical scooter on the street, slap a white sticker on its QR code, and cut its brake lines, essentially rendering it impossible to use.

He was arrested and booked on charges of criminal mischief, resisting officers, and loitering or prowling. He was released Monday after posting $500 in bond.

He must have really been upset by these scooters.

What you will need to fly

Beginning next October we'll have to have a Real ID drivers license in order to fly. If you have a passport, you won't need a Real ID but it would probably be good to get one. But, the issue in getting one is all the documents you must take with you to the drivers license office.

"A social security card, two documents that show your residency (such as a bank statement, a utility bill or a mortgage bill), proof of identity (such as a passport)."

What worries me about this is I have no idea where my social security card would be, it's so many years since I was given one. What if I can't find it, do I have to go to the SS office first and get a new one and what do I need to bring to prove who I am in that instance?

New week, new tally 2019

Near Wentzville on I-70 EB a mattress on the road. And, over the weekend, a bent up ladder on 364 at Highway K in O'Fallon.

Mattresses 97

Ladders 93

Looking for a day trip

You might want to consider heading east on 70 to the small town of Casey, Illinois, a few miles from the Indiana border. We stopped there a year ago when we took our grandsons out to DC and it was the most fun road stop ever. Now the Chicago Tribune travel writers have discovered this town which markets itself as having the "Worlds Biggest everything". And it's true.

The biggest things include: a mailbox you can actually climb into, the world’s largest pitchfork, world’s largest golf tee, world’s largest wooden shoes, world’s largest rocking chair, wind chime, pencil, and more.  Tomorrow officials from the Guinness Book of World Records will be in Casey to certify the world’s largest key, golf club, gavel, twizzle spoon, teeter-totter and barbershop pole.

Our boys got a real kick out of this town and really liked the old time candy store.

 

Food trucks...sort of

The tractor trailer sagas continue as we read about several of these overly big trucks flipping over and spilling their contents. It seems various food products are carried in them a lot of the time. In the past couple of weeks here in St. Louis: September 11-several tons of chocolate were spilled onto 255 during the evening rush, September 25-a load of hot dogs fell on I-70 requiring snow plows to clean up the mess, and this morning in Pennsylvania 130,000 eggs fell out of a tractor trailer when the load shifted. This is a huge mess today out there.

All of this to rant about again, is that these trucks are too tall, too wide and too long which makes them susceptible to falling over on curves or wet roads. Of course if they were able to slow down at those places they might not fall over. There are probably many more stories of food spillage on the highways, but this is just what I've found in the past couple of days.

Tally

It's been hard to concentrate recently so I've been off my game paying attention to things. So here is a catch up on the tally.

Mattresses 96

Ladders 92

Big tally jump

Mattresses 94

Ladders 86