Here's the cop.

I know cops hate to direct traffic, but that has to be better than the airport mens room detail.
[The officer is Sgt. Dave Karsnia.]

Ignore that big truck headed right at you!

One of the goofier -- and deadly -- concepts in highway engineering was the three-lane highway. Not the three-lane roadways that most of us are used to, with the center lane for left-turns , but highways built with a middle lane for passing in both directions. You're correct, the very idea is mind-numbing. Long stretches of old US 66 west of St. Louis used to be three-lanes. This was not perfectly straight roadway but rather a concrete ribbon that curved, climbed, and descended with every fluctuation in the hilly terrain. There was also a long three-lane stretch south of Austin on old US 81.

Fortunately, the Interstate system removed most of the traffic from these three-lane highways and most were abondoned or repaved as two-lane roads.

You would think that would be the end of it, but you'd be wrong! Never underestimate the Missouri Highway department when it comes to goofy.

The image at the top of the post is not old, it's what MODOT plans to do to 18 miles of Missouri Highway 5 between Camdenton and Lebanon in central Missouri. And, this is my favorite part, rather than call it a three-lane road, MODOT calls this a Shared Four Lane highway. Now that's spin!

I didn't...

but I almost did!

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:P fuzzbox said...

Good thing it doesn't look like hand lotion.

Fuz, I have no idea of what you speak, and I didn't in junior high school either. Jim

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NOTE: Fuz posted the following on an earlier post:

:P fuzzbox said...

Speaking of McDonalds, I read that in Montana they are outsourcing the drive in window to somewhere in Texas. I guess that is better than India.

Fuz, didn't someone have a post about McDonald's outsourcing the order-taking to women's prisons, it might have been me. Jim

Are they 'baggy pants' or 'saggy pants'

Cities (Atlanta for one) and school districts (Dallas for example) are considering or have passed laws or rules against saggy or baggy pants -- guys wearing their pants just below their buttocks so most of their underwear shows. It may be the only fad ever to have started in nursing homes and spread to the Y Generation!

[Note: A city ordinance would probably be unconstitutional. School dress codes are usually upheld. A federal court recently ruled that a student could be suspended for wearing a cap with a Confederate flag. Conservatives and the ACLU, oddly enough, both supported the rights of the student.]
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Willow said...

This photo could have been taken at my job. I see this every day. I've seen the baggy pants thing with NO underwear, which is really really horrifying to confront while you're trying to have lunch. There are supposed to be rules, but they are never enforced. I also see the female version of this, mega boobage on display.

For those of you not familiar with Willow's career choices, she used to work in hell but has since got a better job in purgatory! :) Jim

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:P fuzzbox said...

Oddly enough, law enforcement officials are 100% in favor of the wearing of baggies. As apprehension of fleeing urban youth after a short foot chase has gone up exponentially.

Fuz clearly has had more experience fleeing from the fuzz that most of us!!!!!! Jim

Gazebo denied is gazebo delayed

[Oops! This was originally posted to the wrong blog.]

Meet with attorneys today about suing the Lake Board over the denial of the gazebo permit. I was very impressed. We have to give the Lake Board 14 days to reconsider, however. On the bright side, that should be about how long before the temperature gets above freezing again!

I will keep you posted.

Send your contributions to the defense fund to the Free Jim's Gazebo Fund, Box 666, Nassau, The Bahamas.
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Anonymous said...

Been wondering how that was going. How anyone could stop you building such an aesthetically pleasing structure on your own land is beyond me!

A, thanks for asking, the Board filed a motion with the Court to dismiss our Complaint (lawsuit), just today the Court ruled against their motion to dismiss. We now enter Discovery -- the gathering of documents and other information. The trial will probably not be until Spring because each side usually has 30 days to respond to everything that happens. Jim

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moni said...

Next time, run for the Board Jim. Remember when Clint Eastwood couldn't get an ice cream cone in Carmel?? He ran for Mayor, then made the cones legal. The previous Mayor and city council considered it "tacky" to eat ice cream while walking. They had restricted ice cream to "ice cream parlors" and no cones were offered.

11:42 PM

One and 1/2 degrees east of the 90th Meridian West

That's the location of the drive-up window at the local McDonald's. Oddly enough, the window is exactly 400 feet above mean sea level.

Useless facts. You bet! I finally bought a new car and most of the technology seems to be either useless, redundant, or unfathomable. Does anyone really need to know 24/7 what spot on the earth is exactly beneath their butt?

If you only buy a new car every ten years, the technology is bound to change, but give me a break. The new car not only talks to me, I can talk back to it -- then it either does something or asks another question. Rooty is very confused. He has no idea who's taking to us or whom I'm talking to. Just to mess with his mind, every now and then I switch it to Spanish.

So that's pretty much what I have been doing all week, reading the five main manuals that came with the car -- then I had to get a new cell phone that is Bluetooth enabled so the phone and the car can chat with each other -- then I had to wade through the mind-numbing labyrinth of Sirius radio menus ("cartas" in Spanish).

So, for a change of pace, today I cut the grass: pull cord, walk behind mower.

This is an odd bit of technology:

I ordered a new car. A 2008 model. About a month ago. They cannot tell me when it will be delivered. But they can tell me precisely when it will be built -- today. That's right, today is my car's birthday.

David Beckham made his long-awaited Major League Soccer debut Thursday

"The sellout crowd of more than 46,686 at RFK Stadium let out a thunderous roar as the 32-year-old English midfielder with the tender ankle stripped off his warmup jacket and T-shirt, displaying his bare chest in a steady rain." [Source: USA TODAY]

Did you really expect this guy to remain fully clothed?
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This today from soccertimes.com: "In the end, the 46,000 plus went home happy. They got to see Becks' debut, they got to see him take off his shirt not once, but twice (and then again when he swapped jerseys with United captain Ben Olsen), and they saw United get an important three points. Now the test will be whether United can get those fans -- the average attendance is around 17,000 -- to pay for a return visit when Beckham is not in the house."
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Pixie said...

EWWW nasty!

Pix here's a pix from the game just for you:

Your help is greatly anticipated.

Like many states, Missouri and Illinois have placed large reader boards above their urban Interstate highways. I past five today. The first said "Test Test Test." The second said "Right lane closed at Soccer Field Road." This appeared to be important news since the Soccer Field Road exit is just west of the complex I-44, I-270, and MO 366 (old US 66) interchange. Traffic exiting I-270 and 366 actually uses that lane to head west on 44. I immediately began planning alternative routes depending upon how far traffic was backed up. I did not need to bother, when I got there the lane was not closed and there was no evidence that if ever had been. The next three big reader boards were blank. Ain't technology great?
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The Phoenix said...

Technology is only as good as the people charged with using it. My favorite is the one on 270, just before the Chain of Rocks or Canal Bridge that reads "Congestion Ahead."

Gee, ya think??

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Road signs are put up for people who already know where they are going. Jim

Headline: "Death row inmate dies of cancer but lawyer wants to continue appeal"

From today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Kind'a says it all, doesn't it!