rantlust

Posted by riyer on July 22nd 2007 in Health & Fitness, Outdoors, Roads, Sports, Trivia
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When I was studying for my BSc, undergrad to you ‘mericuns, my friends (a very colorful bunch - I must add) and I, had some hilarious - albeit crass, expressions. These were expressions you would dub as “poly” (i.e foul) in kannada and they indeed were, but I am convinced that we made some of these up on the fly. One that I had reason to remember yesterday is “niN tHeega karGathe” ( i.e. arse will dissolve or reduce). Another Hindi expression also came to mind yesterday- “gaanD phategi” less chemical than the Kannada expression and a tad more pathological, it simply means “arse will rip”.

Why was I remembering these yesterday? Actually I can Google map the exact spot at which I remembered these expressions..but I am getting ahead of my story. Over the last 10 years, every year, I have set myself a physically challenging goal to accomplish. There were a couple of trips up Mt. Whitney, a few up Half Dome, and a few backpacking trips etc. Most of these goals I successfully accomplished but there have been a few failures, the most notable one being Mt. Dana. A few frequently tell the story of my stupidity that cost me the mountain, but I attribute it to chivalry (yes, it is not dead, long live and all that rot). Turns out I gave my gloves to someone and as I continued my way up the summit, the wind-chill was so brutal it was dangerous to continue which forced me to turn around.

This year has been like none other. I started off in May by doing a 3 day backpacking trip along the Lost coast (will do it again, anytime). Ran a 10K and next week is the opportunity to go back to Mt Dana - (I have given adequate caution to my hiking partner about warm clothing and gloves). I have been telling my buddies that given my fitness this year I will whistle my way to the top of this 13,500 feet mountain. We start hiking at Tioga pass (which is at 9000+ ft). It looks simple but the wind-chill and the elements make it one of the toughest mountains I have hiked.
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Posted by papi on February 13th 2007 in Auto, Raves, Roads
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San Francisco is being invaded by Prius cars, and Noe Valley seems to be one of the frontlines of the invasion. A few days back, while walking around the neighborhood, I saw no less than 7 Priuses in one city block. I’m not kidding. Of the remaining half dozen, another two were Honda hybrids. Now, I’m as environmentally conscious as the next guy or gal, so I cannot see this proliferation of hybrid cars as anything but a good thing. Still, when I look at the plasticky, almost disposable looking exteriors of these cars of the future, I sometimes yearn for the iron monsters of the Detroit of yesteryear. Those were real cars, which looked every bit like metal spawn stamped out in the hellfire bowels of some smoke-belching factory behemoth. And then I think fondly of the first car I ever drove in America, the splendid Buick Skyhawk.

When I tell people I went to school in Detroit, they give me commiserating looks, as if I’d told them my dog just died. I could never figure out this response, because despite the muggings, the freezing weather, the chewed up roads, the shelled out abandoned buildings, and the freezing weather, I generally had a good time in the Motor City. Part of it was because I was too stupid to know any better. Then again, I had a good bunch of friends and even hell can be bearable in the right company. I should know. Alcohol helped too, and Mr. Daniels saw us through many a roach infestation.
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Posted by jcaldera on September 15th 2006 in Auto, Cars, Humor, Life, Nature, Politics, Random, Rants, Roads, Society, War
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A couple of days ago, in my daily commute to work, in the usual company of fellow San Francisco commuters, with the usual boredom, one of the favorite topics came to the plate: dumb people (which of course is everybody that drives except whomever is in the car at that moment - no pun intended to my fellow bloggers and (some) acquaintances).

Bear with me in this line of thought and (un)reasoning. While talking about bad drivers, we sort of link it to the Darwinian mechanisms of survival of the fittest. So bad driving is really a natural mechanism for getting rid of certain number of people, which is, we suppose, one of nature’s problems: how to keep these annoying humans for growing larger and more powerful than nature. So we tied that to the fact that nature was very clever and was savy enough to embed human kind with some “stupidity” property, which comes small or large depending on the subject, and the geographical location (don’t ask me why but I suspect it is very true). Then nature decided that is not good enough because stupidity by itself won’t get rid of many people. So nature kept trying and decided to embed the “power” property in these human subjects (or objects for the OOP geeks). And then nature came with the master plan and based on probabilities, IT thought that eventually you could have one subject with enough desire for power that would take advantage of the stupid people. Chi chin! big win for nature, mathematically speaking, and we all know nature is about zeros and ones, this would guarantee the possibility of yielding enough stupidity together to raise to power somebody stupid enough, managed by people that desire power, that would cause the destruction of a lot of people.

Of course I am not referring to anybody in particular, or any sbject in particular.

Ahh! the wonders of commuting.

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Posted by crewcut on August 03rd 2006 in Developing Nations, Disasters, India, Rants, Roads
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Till last weekend, I have never seen any place in India with roads that are consistently good everywhere. At best, you will find a few highway stretches on the Golden Quadrilateral that are of international quality. [Great NYT article on the Golden Quadrilateral.]

Over a 3-day sojourn in Goa, I was amazed by the consistent quality of the road surface everywhere I went. There were small things that together made a big difference. A smooth and even pothole-free surface, clear white lines down the middle and on both sides, and lastly small but very clear and standardised signboards at every junction.

Such a simple formula seemed to transform narrow 2-lane roads into a driver’s paradise. Bangalore roads are a nightmare at best. Most roads, even though they are 4-lanes wide, have pockmarked surfaces and unnerving undulations. The lines drawn down the middle look like they were done by Pablo Picasso.

I gave up looking at Bangalore signboards after I saw one that had three arrows pointing to K R Circle, K H Circle, and K G Road. In addition to the information being useless, the signs at each junction are of different sizes, colours, and formats making the process of finding a road sign among the sea of billboards, ads, and shop signs impossible when you have 5 seconds remaining to catch the green signal.

This is all of course if the roads exist after being dug up by various telephone companies running fibre optic cables, works department building sewers, water authorities installing pipes, electric companies laying cables, and locals tapping new water connections. Normally all this activity happens after a new road has been laid.

I travelled around quite a bit and didn’t see a single instance of road damage anywhere in Goa.

The government always blames the poor condition of Kerala’s roads on the monsoon. The monsoon rains in Goa are of no less intensity but the roads look straight out of America. So much for excuses.

When will our other states learn from Goa?

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