John Welsh said:
Strange perk...
I was just talking to someone who lives near the Ohio Turnpike. They can not actually see the turnpike from their window but more like their neighborhood backs up to the turnpike.
She stated that while outside yesterday with her dog there was an eerie oddness. She could not quite put her finger on it but then realized it was the silence. General traffic on the turnpike is so down that the normal levels of some traffic noise is gone.
Thats the same around here , normally even in the middle of the night you can here a roar , now its pretty silent ,
EXCEPT the rice rocket bikers now sound 10x as loud !
Stay safe
mtn
MegaDork
3/23/20 11:08 a.m.
californiamilleghia said:
John Welsh said:
Strange perk...
I was just talking to someone who lives near the Ohio Turnpike. They can not actually see the turnpike from their window but more like their neighborhood backs up to the turnpike.
She stated that while outside yesterday with her dog there was an eerie oddness. She could not quite put her finger on it but then realized it was the silence. General traffic on the turnpike is so down that the normal levels of some traffic noise is gone.
Thats the same around here , normally even in the middle of the night you can here a roar , now its pretty silent ,
EXCEPT the rice rocket bikers now sound 10x as loud !
Stay safe
Noticed it here too. We have some road noise normally, but right now it is nearly silent. If I walk my dog at midnight, I'd normally still see about 20-50 cars on our route - we live near a small business district with 5 bars, 3 of which have restaurants, a 24 hour 7-11, as well as about 3 churches right there. Last night at 8PM, I saw 8 cars total. 1 was an ubereats driver waiting outside a restaurant, 3 of the cars were the same car that was a delivery driver for a different restaurant, and 1 was the owner of the bar that has been shut down.
The other thing I've noticed is that there must be a ton of cancelled flights. On certain days of the week, or maybe certain weeks, I'm not quite sure, we have air traffic overhead. Normally we do not notice it at all (see picture below). Now we notice every single plane, because there just aren't any and it surprises us.
Moonshiners have become valued community resources
Social distancing - New opportunities for mullahs and Catholic nuns
I just got a spam/telemarketer call about 'my vehicle's extended warranty'- likely about the E46 whose new title just came in from the state, and realized that this was the first time I'd gotten a telemarketer call in close to 2 weeks whereas before I'd get one at least every other day.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
And you were so stir crazy you kept him on the line just to hear a new voice?
Ordered new internet service. If you have children, 60 days no payment. WOOT. Since won't get the govt checks that everyone is getting $2400+, at least saving 2 months of internet is something
While doing the WFH thing, I may have poured myself an adult beverage to drink while one of our leaders gave us a briefing the state of things via conference/video call
In reply to bearmtnmartin :
Nah, it was an automated call and as soon as I realized what it was I hung up. I'm not going too stir crazy, I've got the Dancer around and have been getting out of the house for different things fairly regularly (yesterday it was taking the E46 in for the airbag recall work, today the Dancer's Colorado got an oil change, tire rotation, and alignment- and the plan is to go walk a bit at a nearby park that has a lot of trees in bloom later in the afternoon).
One nice thing I can say about having to WFH- at work I'm sitting in the middle of a mid-rise office building away from windows that cannot be opened.
Sitting at home at my desk, I have the windows on either side of the corner my desk sits in open to the fresh air and sounds of birds chirping outside (a minute ago there was a bluejay sitting on the telephone wire the runs to the side of the house next to the window).
Found the app Stop Motion, has kept my children occupied for two full days! Amazing!
Being an "essential employee" means my life is actually going very much like normal. Except traffic, traffic is berkeleying awesome right now! Whatever we need to do to thin the herd this much permanently needs to happen now.
I've lost 8 pounds because I'm not eating as much in an attempt to make what I have last as long as possible (my theory is that the stores will have a chance to restock some after the panic buying dies down a bit, and then I'll go).
In reply to slowride :
I need you to give the locusts (teenagers) in my house a lesson. They're putting away groceries like they're getting paid by the calorie consumed. The Freshman 15 can step aside for the Covid 19.
I haven't had good luck getting teenagers to do anything in the past... :)
However, my boss told me his kid ate 12 quarter pound turkey burgers over 4 days. So at least you're not the only one!
I just had the "pleasure" of driving from San Diego to Southern Oregon and back inside 4 days. I have done this drive many times in the past and was hoping to never have to do it again but then came our friend Covid-19. My father is 94, still living in his house (with help) and about to pass from natural causes. So I wanted to see him but not run the risk (to myself) of flying.
Historically this drive is 13 hours each way and involves scheduling - in the form of timing the departures on each end so as to avoid hitting LA basin traffic and adding more hours to the 13. So my "normal" strategy was leave the house between 3-4 am, endure about 30 minutes of slow on the 210, a little bit of noon congestion in Stockton/Sacramento and arrive at my dad's ready for a martini. For the return trip I'd intentionally not leave until 10am so as to not arrive on the Grapevine until 7-8pm and spend the final 3 hours of my trip white-knuckling my way home over the Grapevine, 210 East, 57, 72, 91, 15 and in bed around midnight.
But on this trip it was waaaaaaaay different.
First off more semi-trucks. This is good. It means our economy is not flat-lined yet. And more trucks than usual makes sense as everyone is both hoarding and also ordering on-line. So the entire I-5 corridor had about 10-20% more trucks in both directions than in years past. And I would guess that about 10% of the total trucks had Amazon logos.
Next was the air. Both the LA basin and the central valley were clear and clean. Maybe it was just from normal weather but maybe it was from significantly reduced human activities. In any event it was nice to be able to see off in the distance while driving.
And yes there was almost nobody else out on the freeways. Some workers in utility and box trucks and an occasional civilian like me. And we were all going 75-80 while the semis were doing 60-65. And the Po-pos were letting us shoot by without consequences. I saw a fair amount of CHP and they were just watching. I assume this is because they don't want to stop anyone and risk virus exposure. After the first few hours of driving I learned to suppress my life-long instinct of backing off the pedal when a cop was visible and just left it on 75 and kept going. As a result of this constant 75 for 98% of the entire drive I was able to shave 45 minutes off my trip up to Oregon and an astounding 1.5 hours off coming back to San Diego. I made it in a new world record of 11.5 hours.
And finally the best part. I intentionally planned my trip back to SoCal so as to do the insane - drive over the Grapevine and down the 210 at 6pm on a workday. Several times I looked at Google maps as I was approaching the 99/I5 "Y" and NEVER did I see the LA Basin freeway system turn any color other than green. By the time I hit the 210 I put the cruise on 70 and then did something I had never done. Drove the 210 during daylight. I got home at 8pm last night and made myself dinner, unpacked and had a nice sleep before going to work.
It was a surreal experience and I hope to never get to do it again. I would rather have the economy back on it's feet and everyone back out on the freeways causing a ruckus. And the Po-pos handing out speeding tickets again.
mtn
MegaDork
3/31/20 2:50 p.m.
Sparkydog said:
I just had the "pleasure" of driving from San Diego to Southern Oregon and back inside 4 days. I have done this drive many times in the past and was hoping to never have to do it again but then came our friend Covid-19. My father is 94, still living in his house (with help) and about to pass from natural causes. So I wanted to see him but not run the risk (to myself) of flying.
....
No traffic in LA
....
Sorry to hear about your dad, although happy to hear that he is 94 and natural causes are the issue.
We've been going once a week to the pediatricians office. The main office is about a 6 minute drive from our house, maybe a mile away, but they're sending us to an office that is about 30 miles away because the main office is in the hospital; this office we're going to is in what is now an abandoned office park with its own entrance. This 30 mile trip would normally take us about 45-60 minutes at the times we're going. Nope, we're flyin 80MPH the whole way, rarely seeing any vehicles other than a few trucks.