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Post by papaof2 on Sept 30, 2020 8:02:49 GMT -6
Having to backtrack on the current on-the-computer story. I've left Chapter 19 and gone back and re-written the Prologue and Chapter 1 TWICE. Good to have a muse inspiring me but a little more order in her inspriration would make things finish sooner...
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Post by 9idrr on Oct 1, 2020 8:26:31 GMT -6
I'll be glad to see more posted but not sure when I can find time to read. Gettin' way behind in readin' stuff here. Between startin' paper work for insurance claims, and still workin' six days a week, just seem to be too tired to do much. Probably doesn't help that we both came down with bad-ass colds and all the smoke in the air sure don't do us much good.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 1, 2020 9:57:04 GMT -6
"all the smoke" sounds like good reason to be wearing an organic vapor respirator or similar 24/7 :-( That stuff interferes with getting in the oxygen you need and I can see long-term exposure leaving you "tired" until you're back in clean air again.
None of us like doing insurance paperwork. We were the next to the back vehicle in a 6 or 7 vehicle chain rear-ender on a highway in South Carolina a few years ago. I saw the guy behind me wasn't going to be able to stop but I had nowhere to go as there was a dump truck off on the shoulder and against a tree exactly where I needed to go. We were stopped when the guy behind me hit us (told the wife "Brace yourself!" and Bang!). He knocked us into the line of vehicles stopped ahead of us - ABS brakes don't cause tires to leave rubber on the pavement unless you're stopped with your foot hard on the brakes and the vehicle slides forward and we had four patches of evidence. At least a Deputy going the other way saw it happen. He was headed there to control traffic while they got the dump truck back on the road - but just a couple of minutes too late to prevent to pile-up...
Two lane road, 55MPH speed limit. You can guess how quickly the traffic backed up for a l-o-n-g way.
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Post by willc453 on Oct 7, 2020 18:07:19 GMT -6
Coming back over Donner during the summers and more than once I'd see at LEAST 5 miles of traffic backed up to do several cars getting in an accident. Or when Caltran would be working on the road, with 2 lanes becoming 1. And I actually saw an accident happen, but I was lucky enough to get by before it actually occurred. A driver was driving a cement truck and it still had cement in its tube or whatever it's called, because the thing was slowly turning. As I pulled up to its left side, it actually starts to bounce?! Yeah, just like those cars Mexicans like altering so they can bounce up and down. I hit the gas to haul ass pass him asap and in my mirror, could see him bouncing 3-4 times and we're talking at least 6 inches into the air. With him laying his rig down on his left side and sliding on its side, blocking both east bound lanes. The good thing was he'd dropped everything just pass the Gold Ranch exit which is near the dividing line between Calif. and Nevada. Nevada's border is about 5 miles further east. So at least traffic could take the exit and get right back onto the freeway.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 16, 2020 3:29:20 GMT -6
My muse has gifted me with another 4000 words (over 3 days) but that doesn't make up for the dry spell of zero words for 2 days followed by 75 words the next day and 400 words the day after that :-( I'll take what she can deliver as both muses are upset that we attended a family wedding last Saturday (we were masked except when eating but not everyone was).
The bride is the granddaughter of one of my wife's first cousins and I've followed that girl with a camera at the family reuinions since she was 2 years old and making faces as she ate dill pickle slices from a paper plate - and then went back for more pickles ;-) She's definitely Disney "girl next door" pretty. The wedding was outdoors on the family farm and it had rained most of the day, stopping about 10 minutes before the ceremony and then starting again as the wedding party started down the aisle :-(
I discovered what a poor design the "Traction Control" on the better half's from-a-snowy-area Highlander is. This vehicle has drive-by-wire accelerator linkage and if the wheels spin, the Traction Control wants to take the engine to idle and then speed it up until the wheels just begin to slip. That might be fine for starting up on level ground in ice/snow but it does NOT work when you're trying to climb a slight but long incline covered with new grass over wet and slick Georgia mud and the wheels begin to lose traction part-way up. If you stop on the incline, you won't go forward again. I disabled Traction Control, backed up to get a running start, started a new path up the incline and kept the wheels just at the edge of spinning - but I got up that hundred feet of incline doing it my way and cussin' the ignorant "engineers" who've obviously never driven under those conditions. Helps to have learned to drive in a three-on-the-tree in an area with freezing rain and often black ice every year ;-) The benefits of Positraction axles and four wheel drive were things I then had only read about in car magazines :-(
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