Author: kelson

Doom Closed For Repairs

With no warning (or at least none that I noticed), the Ramp of Doom was closed this morning. This led to a line of cars dropping from ~50 MPH to about, let’s see, zero in a short distance, which I suspect isn’t particularly conducive to traffic safety, but never mind that for now.

Anyway, as I crept past the bridge, I looked up to see if some automobile carcass was blocking the ramp entirely. It turned out there were two bright orange construction trucks parked on the shoulder of the bridge, a couple of guys in orange vests and construction helmets, and what looked like plywood in roughly the spot of Wednesday’s accident.

Presumably they were repairing damage to the railing. Though it seems to me that the whole ramp could use some re-engineering.

Flipped

The rain was intermittent this morning. It seemed to have cleared up by the time alenxa and I got up, but was sprinkling by the time we left for work. The first leg of the drive went from light rain to heavy downpour and back to light rain with large chunks of blue sky and even a couple of segments of rainbow.

The rain had mostly stopped by the time I dropped her off, so on the second leg of the drive I mainly had to deal with spray from the cars in front. When they were moving fast enough, anyway.

Had a bit of a shock at the now-infamous Ramp of Doom, though. There was a red pick-up truck, upside-down and backwards, pointed toward the edge and shoved up against the railing of the bridge. It was surrounded by two police cars and a bunch of traffic cones, with the police making observations. No sign of the driver, who I imagine wasn’t in the best shape, though there was a stopped car on the shoulder just before the ramp. The cab looked slightly crunched, but it’s possible the driver could have walked away. Maybe the other car was a friend or co-worker, coming to pick him/her up. Or he could have already been carried out by ambulance.

Moments of Revelation

While I was helping alenxa get stuff ready for dinner, the Cheesy Poofs song from South Park popped into my head. And then something hit me that I hadn’t noticed in the three years I’ve been listening to KCRW: The Cheesy Poofs song is set to the tune of the “All Things Considered” theme.

This has been another Useless FactTM.

Current Music: All Cheesy Poofs Considered

Rain stalks the Ramp of Doom!

A light pole was knocked down, lying inside the curve of the ramp. It may have been there already, but I hadn’t noticed it before.

Three cars were stopped along the side of the bridge. No obvious damage.

A tow truck sat in the left lane, surrounded by traffic cones.

People stood around on the side of the road, talking on cell phones (presumably calling insurance agents, police, or more tow trucks).

Two SUVs were in the middle of the bridge, one facing forward with its right front wheel assembly ripped off. It was leaning forward, resting on that corner, debris scattered around it. The other was facing backward in the far left lane, aimed slightly toward the center divider. This is an odd pattern: SUVs facing backward in the left lane on that bridge. I think there must be something about their balance that makes them likely to start spinning when drivers take them out of the turn and try to merge left.

Although in this case, the tow truck driver was stopping traffic so that the backwards SUV could turn around. As the driver swung the car around, I saw a huge dent in the rear passenger side door. It became clear that, whatever led into the accident, the other SUV had rammed it, losing its own wheel for the trouble. Now that I think of it, this isn’t the first SUV I’ve seen lose that wheel on this ramp.

Smoke

It’s not particularly smoky or even hazy in the Irvine Spectrum area. It does, however, smell like a campfire outside. Just slightly east of north, a huge plume of smoke is rising from the hills, drifting west in a band across the entire northwestern sky.

Last night on the way home we could just barely see the silhouette of those same hills, outlined by a faint orange glow almost invisible against the glare of street lights and traffic signals.

I took some photos at lunch. I’ll try to post them tonight, along with some that alenxa took yesterday morning. Yesterday was really strange, because it started out foggy. The fog had mostly lifted by the time we left for work, but the beginnings of the smoke from the hours-old fire seemed to blend with the remnants of the fog.

Meanwhile, the LA Times has posted some impressive photos of the smoke and, closer up, the efforts to contain the fire.

Edit: Photos are up at K2R.

WTF weather

It’s 82° outside. That, in itself, is not terribly bizarre for SoCal in January. What’s bizarre is the fact that it’s 15 degrees cooler inside.

Around 11:00 this morning I was seriously considering turning on the heater, until I decided to check the temperature outside. It was 65° in the living room and 78° on the balcony. So I opened all the windows I could. The living room has warmed up, but due to our floorplan, the back room with all the computers hasn’t much.

What makes absolutely no sense is the fact that our apartment has lousy insulation. We would never get this effect on a summer day that reached 78° by 11:00 and 82° by 2:00 when we might actually want it. (Although 65° is a bit extreme.)