So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Hercule]

The term for a roadside memorial is descanso

 

[tonyb]

Montana is a favorite destination for the dewy-eyed bride and me. We’ve been several times.

She once observed that Montanans evidently preferred little white crosses alongside the road over guard rails.

 

[earl]

Montana is a favorite destination for the dewy-eyed bride and me. We’ve been several times.

She once observed that Montanans evidently preferred little white crosses alongside the road over guard rails.

Been to Montana once some 4 decades ago to go downhill skiing at Big Sky. Beautiful country but would never live there due to their winter temps. Was there in February and the days I skied it was -39F without the wind factored in. Looking back on it I marvel how I handled that temp as now I can't hack it where I live in Kansas whenever it fall below 45.

 

[Zombie_61]

The term for a roadside memorial is descanso

Around here it's "Memorial de los Pendejos".

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I take it that a “1 Euro shop” is pretty much the same thing as what we call a “dollar store” over this way?

These aren’t the same as the old 5 and dimes (or 5 and 10s), which proliferated as recently as my early years. Among the goods the dollar stores sell is lotsa “distressed” merchandise — the stuff other retailers don’t want, for various reasons.

 

[tonyb]

Another traffic fatality, yesterday evening, the sole occupant of a vehicle that collided with a light pole right by my “regular” supermarket, 2.2 miles from here via the leisurely, more roundabout route I typically take.

Excessive speed is thought to be a contributing factor.

 

[GHT]

Driving my wife's car today, I saw a motorist about to exit a garage, he looked as though he hadn't seen me, but I had the situation weighed up. At the last second the motorist saw me and instead of continuing as I had expected him to, he froze. Nothing was coming in the opposite direction so I took evasive action. The car's onboard computer absolutely freaked out. The noise from the alarm sounded like a ship's fog horn, the brakes came on, the seat belt locked up and the computer screen lit up with the message: "Risk of Collision." Risk of collision, seriously? More like risk of bowel evacuation.

 

[Zombie_61]

...The car's onboard computer absolutely freaked out. The noise from the alarm sounded like a ship's fog horn, the brakes came on, the seat belt locked up and the computer screen lit up with the message: "Risk of Collision." Risk of collision, seriously? More like risk of bowel evacuation.

This is the very reason I am so against the latest technologies in "auto safety", including the self-driving vehicles. Not because of the shock value when the alarms sound off, but because I don't want some p.o.s. computer program preventing me from controlling the vehicle.

 

[Haversack]

Back in the late '60s our family took a long vacation to visit family friends in western Montana. Driving there, we immediately noticed the small roadside crosses where traffic fatalities had occurred. (My dad, being a highway safety engineer, took a professional interest.) One I particularly remember was at a slight bend in the two-lane road with a large tree on the outside curve. There must have a dozen crosses of different vintages scattered about it.

In southern Germany stone roadside memorials, (some dating back centuries), are pretty common. They usually memorialize some fatality. In remote areas this was commonly murder by bandits. The ones on exposed hillsides were for usually for lightning strikes. The later continue to serve as a useful reminder to avoid such places during the rain.

 

[tonyb]

Back in the late '60s our family took a long vacation to visit family friends in western Montana. Driving there, we immediately noticed the small roadside crosses where traffic fatalities had occurred. (My dad, being a highway safety engineer, took a professional interest.) One I particularly remember was at a slight bend in the two-lane road with a large tree on the outside curve. There must have a dozen crosses of different vintages scattered about it.

In southern Germany stone roadside memorials, (some dating back centuries), are pretty common. They usually memorialize some fatality. In remote areas this was commonly murder by bandits. The ones on exposed hillsides were for usually for lightning strikes. The later continue to serve as a useful reminder to avoid such places during the rain.

I think I could listen for hours to a highway safety engineer riff on what makes for safer and less-safe roads. I suspect that their work over the decades has played no small part in the decline of traffic fatalities.

 

[Haversack]

My dad began working for the State Division of Highways here in California back before it became Caltrans and eventually had all the state highway fatal accident reports come across his desk. He didn't talk much about that but he had definite views on certain makes and models of cars. He always had his camera ready when the family went on vacation. I can't count the times he would pull over so he could take a photo of a different design of guardrail, especially when we went out of state. He took me with him a few times over to the Highway Patrol Academy in West Sacramento to watch a crash test of different types of impact barrier: Water tubes, sand barrels, expanded metal. He had a hand in their design. Water tubes I remember were expensive but reusable while sand barrels were cheap and expendable.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The good point on (you call it) pretzel sticks:
They're still GREAT and maybe the best snacky, you can get.

The bad point on pretzel sticks:
Your lap can look like Berlin '45.

 

[Nobert]

Why, oh why, I thought re-stretching chair canvass would be as straightforward as the article in Better Homes & Gardens made it look is one of those I-should-know-better-but-keep-hoping-anyway annoyances. For one thing, these D.I.Y. articles often suggest that you enlist the help of a friend, which I find wildly presumptuous on their part, and they assume that nothing unforeseen will spring up, or in this case, not spring down as much as one would like.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
Nothin’ to it (on the hundredth attempt).

 

[GHT]

Why, oh why, I thought re-stretching chair canvass would be as straightforward as the article in Better Homes & Gardens made it look is one of those I-should-know-better-but-keep-hoping-anyway annoyances. For one thing, these D.I.Y. articles often suggest that you enlist the help of a friend, which I find wildly presumptuous on their part, and they assume that nothing unforeseen will spring up, or in this case, not spring down as much as one would like.

That acronym DIY? You might believe it means Do It Yourself. No it doesn't as your chair canvass re-stretching clearly demonstrates. It means Don't Involve Yourself, which is why I use professionals.

 

[Hercule]

That acronym DIY? You might believe it means Do It Yourself. No it doesn't as your chair canvass re-stretching clearly demonstrates. It means Don't Involve Yourself, which is why I use professionals.

Aahh, now THAT makes perfect sense, and it's true in every conceivable way.

Actually with regard to do it yourself, stores like Home Depot, Lowes etc., are DIY stores in the truest sense, because that what you have to do when you shop there because there's NEVER anybody around to help you. The last time I went to Home depot it was amusingly obvious seeing the few employees I did see ealking around trying not to be noticed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I reupholstered an entire couch once from a magazine article. "Once" being the operative word.

The thing is, though, that "DIY" is very often the only possible way to get something done nowadays, especially if you are surrounded by old things that you want to keep using. American consumer society is built on the foundation of you not doing that, and if you can't afford to hire someone to fix your old couch, your old TV, your old stove, or your old whatever, and you live in a town where there is no one you can hire to do these things -- you have no choice but to do it yourself, and if you don't know how to do it yourself, you have no choice but to learn. The Boys are confident in their belief that most people either don't care enough to do that or don't think that they can.

Just remember, every time you pick up a screwdriver, it's an act of revolution.

 

[tonyb]

I’ve known a couple of people who learned how to upholster — my dear old Ma, who was forever repairing the cigarette burns the Old Man put in the furniture (it’s a wonder he didn’t burn the house down, always falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand, or mouth); and a car-restoring uncle, who figured, accurately, that he could, with practice, redo those auto interiors himself.

It’s not just the planned obsolescence of consumer goods that has so few of us repairing our stuff these days, and it’s not just marketing efforts that have us thinking we need the newest and greatest model long before the one we have has lived a life, although those are factors in this toss-it-don’t-fix-it world of ours.

We’re highly specialized these days. And we put in long hours at whatever specialized task we perform. (Somehow that increased leisure the advances in technology would bring us has yet to come to pass.)

I recall an old-school hardware store proprietor once telling me that his best employees were farm boys, because they knew how to address most every problem the customers threw at them. But that’s been some decades ago now. Farming as well is much more specialized than it was then.

 

[belfastboy]

I think I could listen for hours to a highway safety engineer riff on what makes for safer and less-safe roads. I suspect that their work over the decades has played no small part in the decline of traffic fatalities.

The reverse could also be true in some cases.....wasn't it in Denmark where they discovered eliminating 4 way stops radically decreased accidents at those intersections? People realized it was uncontrolled so became more alert rather than driving on human auto pilot. What other areas could this be applied to I wonder?

 

[Nobert]

As a usually working, currently unemployed, stiff, I can't generally afford to enlist the aid of professionals and, in any case, I like learning new skills. One thing I have learned is to not throw myself into undoing something rashly without being sure if I can put it back together. At least after tentatively messing around with the chair, I realized that I might have to replace the canvas altogether, or at the very least was going to have to back off and maybe come up with a way of tying the springs down rather than weighing them with a couple of boxes full of books and some chunks of cinder block. Life ain't much if you don't keep learning things, keep trying to know more than what you did yesterday, and when did I become Little Orphan Annie?