Random Rants LX: I wish to register a complaint

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People already said before that Asperger's is a mild form of autism, so that they could easier grasp it.
Now it's one big category with different levels of severity. Easier, IMHO.

It's the same "physical property" to a lesser degree, but the "symptoms" are very different.
That probably came out as crude
 
Rant: My mom did the worst job I've ever seen of trying to turn around a car today. Somehow the vehicle ended up perpendicular to the drive way and unable to move more than an inch either forward or backwards due to trees on either side. My dad and I had to cut down 3 trees (of about 5 to 8 inch diameters) to get just barely enough wiggle room to maneuver the vehicle out of there.


Rave: I contact I met through volunteering at Habitat for Humanity has offered me a paying job next week, leading a group of "Make a Wish Foundation" volunteers to build a tree house for a kid with cancer. I'm starting at $120 a day but will probably get a raise before the end of the week if he likes my work. He may have more jobs for me while I'm waiting for real engineering work.

Related Rant: The work site is further away than I'd like, so I have to wake up really early to get there on time.
 
Do not a lot of American cities have subway systems? I know NY obviously does, I think DC has a metro, doesn't LA have some subway system that isn't heavily used? And Chicago has a mixture of underground and sky trains? I imagine Philly must have a subway.
 
Do not a lot of American cities have subway systems? I know NY obviously does, I think DC has a metro, doesn't LA have some subway system that isn't heavily used? And Chicago has a mixture of underground and sky trains? I imagine Philly must have a subway.

Most do. Most of them are pretty garbage. Underfunded, not extensive enough, shut down too early. There's a reason that Uber was so successful in SF, and that's because the Muni is irritatingly unreliable. If you get stuck out on the west side of San Francisco at 11:50 and need to catch a BART across the bay or a CalTrain down the peninsula you're [boned].

LA had the best public transit system in the country in the 1930s. And then the freeways came...

Other people are free to correct me on this if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge a lot of the problems happened because of the white flight of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. The combination of political power/money moving to the suburbs and white folks being sold on cheap cars resulted in there suddenly being a ton of interest in building freeways and not a whole lot of interest in developing/funding/expanding public transit systems.
 
In the Bay Area there was a public train system that was faster and more extensive than BART + Caltrain combined. It was called the Key System (Key Route). Key Route, like many street car systems, got bought out in 1946 by a front company for a group of car, oil, and tire companies. The company then dismantled the entire system and sold off the pieces, so that the public would be incentivized to buy cars and build highways.
 
On the bright side, your Metro didn't take 20 years to build, and isn't getting flooded constantly.
 
Do not a lot of American cities have subway systems? I know NY obviously does, I think DC has a metro, doesn't LA have some subway system that isn't heavily used? And Chicago has a mixture of underground and sky trains? I imagine Philly must have a subway.

Boston's is still fairly good and was still expanding until Mittens came along.

Most do. Most of them are pretty garbage. Underfunded, not extensive enough, shut down too early. There's a reason that Uber was so successful in SF, and that's because the Muni is irritatingly unreliable. If you get stuck out on the west side of San Francisco at 11:50 and need to catch a BART across the bay or a CalTrain down the peninsula you're [boned].

LA had the best public transit system in the country in the 1930s. And then the freeways came...

Other people are free to correct me on this if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge a lot of the problems happened because of the white flight of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. The combination of political power/money moving to the suburbs and white folks being sold on cheap cars resulted in there suddenly being a ton of interest in building freeways and not a whole lot of interest in developing/funding/expanding public transit systems.
In the Bay Area there was a public train system that was faster and more extensive than BART + Caltrain combined. It was called the Key System (Key Route). Key Route, like many street car systems, got bought out in 1946 by a front company for a group of car, oil, and tire companies. The company then dismantled the entire system and sold off the pieces, so that the public would be incentivized to buy cars and build highways.

Those two factors were probably the most important in killing American mass transit. Related note: I have a fairly good book on the city of Atlanta that is packed away at the moment and I can't remember it's name, but it describes the end of Jim Crow in detail and how that impacted Atlanta's mass transit and other public services like hospitals and schools.
 
Rant: My mom did the worst job I've ever seen of trying to turn around a car today. Somehow the vehicle ended up perpendicular to the drive way and unable to move more than an inch either forward or backwards due to trees on either side. My dad and I had to cut down 3 trees (of about 5 to 8 inch diameters) to get just barely enough wiggle room to maneuver the vehicle out of there.

If the road surface isn't gravel it's easier to get a cheap garage jack and turn the car around its front axle a bit. Depending on the car 2-4 (wo)men can do that without jacking up the back of the car.

Rant part: Burglars aren't usually the sharpest tools in the box but entering a house with 2 cars in front of it, wearing high visibility jacket and on the same time burning a stolen car on a road 200m away probably isn't the wisest of procedures assuming they didn't want to get caught.
 
Rant: My mom did the worst job I've ever seen of trying to turn around a car today. Somehow the vehicle ended up perpendicular to the drive way and unable to move more than an inch either forward or backwards due to trees on either side. My dad and I had to cut down 3 trees (of about 5 to 8 inch diameters) to get just barely enough wiggle room to maneuver the vehicle out of there.

WTH?
Why were you not able to push the car far enough that it could move on its own?
Or does your mother drive a tank ^^?

Congrats on the job :).



Rant: Seems my house mate had a mental breakdown and left the country. Since I'll have to make up a reasonable story for tomorrow (due to various reasons), I should better figure out where she actually is (stupid me, should've asked that).
Or at least if she's still on track to her destination. Else I'll have to figure out how to get her back to here.
Fun.
 
WTH?
Why were you not able to push the car far enough that it could move on its own?
Or does your mother drive a tank ^^?

She was driving our 1999 Buick Park Avenue Ultra, a rather large and heavy sedan with a wheelbase longer than some pickup trucks.

She suggested that we try to push it, lift it, or jack it up to turn it, but my dad did not think we had the strength to do any of that.

There was a masonry wall just a few inches past the trees in front of the car and some concrete steps not far behind the the tree in the back. We could barely fit in there with a chainsaw to remove those trees.

Congrats on the job :).
I'm afraid that did not go so well either.

The boss seemed to get a bad first impression of me when he noticed I had not come wearing my own tool belt full of my own tools.

He had me up on walk boards with one of his men installing trim on the "treehouse" (really a 2 story gazebo, not connected to any trees). The trim boards slipped out of my grip a couple times, I my hand eye coordination was not good enough to catch several of the pieces of wood he tossed up me.

I think the final straw came when I was trying to move a ladder and it slipped, knocking over the sawhorses he was using.

(Right after that I stepped on a nail which went straight through by boot. I suspected my foot was bleeding but did not have time to check. It looks like I did break through the outer layer of skin but did not actually go deep enough to draw blood.)

During the lunch break the boss took me aside and said that I'm probably not suited for this line of work at all and am definitely not as experienced as he needs his men to be. He sent me home early with a $60 check.
 
I am, and according to wiki there are only 297 cities over 100,000 people. Anything smaller isn't a city, and frankly some of those low density 100k settlements aren't either.

Anything smaller isn't a city? You have some people to support you in this personal choice definition?

I will admit that looking for subways in smaller cities is a pointless exercise, so context is on your side.

There are over five hundred cities incorporated in California alone.
 
No way, bro. In Missouri, >500 inhabitants → City.
 
Ripon, in Yorkshire, has a population of less than 17,000 people, whereas St David's, in west Wales, hasn't even got 2,000 people. Both are cities.
 
Rant: Seems my house mate had a mental breakdown and left the country. Since I'll have to make up a reasonable story for tomorrow (due to various reasons), I should better figure out where she actually is (stupid me, should've asked that).
Or at least if she's still on track to her destination. Else I'll have to figure out how to get her back to here.
Fun.

****. Okay, she's were she wanted to be, with her cousin.
After this phone call, I think I'll definitely have to advice her to see a psychologist.
This is not fun in any way right now. Goddamnit :wallbash:.

[...]
During the lunch break the boss took me aside and said that I'm probably not suited for this line of work at all and am definitely not as experienced as he needs his men to be. He sent me home early with a $60 check.

Ouch :(, that hurts.
 
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