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July 29, 2005

my stomach is still feeling pretty squirmy. this morning i was walking to bart, taking my now usual route down hayes. as i approached the intersection at franklin and hayes, i saw a woman running accross franklin, and thought to myself i wouldn't make that light anyway. this comment was automatically followed by my usual thoughts of how dangerous that intersection is. the thought pattern was almost instantly interrupted as, from seemingly out of nowhere, a green car, taking a right, hit said woman running accross the street. my stomach jumped up into my throat as i watched her disappear behind the green metal. when i looked up, i saw the red hand flashing on the signal, and the number 4 next to it. dude, i can still see the look on her face as she went down, and it's making me feel kinda sick.

i have close-calls with cars during my life as a pedestrian, even though i've really gotten in line with following the vast majority of pedestrian laws. it doesn't seem to matter though, cause city planning works with the commonly accepted preconceived notion that the rights of drivers supercede the rights of pedestrians, regardless of what may be the legistlated case. at this particular intersection, the true problem is the pedestrian never gets the right of way. during the entire time the crosswalk figure is white, the cars are simultaneously getting a green right arrow. as far as i know, this is supposed to indicate drivers can turn right without stopping. at no point does the pedestrian get the protection of being able to get to use the sidewalk without that green arrow telling cars to "go". it kinda makes me wonder what would motivate that kind of planning. seems kinda like never hinder the cars to me. it also seems to me that cars can inflict a whole lot more damage than a pedestrian. although the most direct application in this situation would be that two people running into each other would bump heads or maybe fall and skin a knee, this woman was really hurt/bleeding from being hit by this ONE TON PIECE OF METAL. seriously. i can also see how our current application of cars is causing a lot more damage than pedestrian in the world, what with the growing hole in the ozone, and the current war in iraq.

honestly, i can't totally commit to being anti-car, but i'm wondering why people feel so entitled by their cars, and the actual application/use of cars themselves. this guy was commuting by himself, as were the vast majority of people passing by in cars for the next 45min-hour i saw while i waited for the police to show up. (the ambulance showed up right away. oh, and a california highway patrol car randomly happened to pass during all this, and THEY JUST KEPT GOING. yes, precious, very nice....) maybe i'm way off here in my conceptualization of all of this, but if there were more peole in in each of the cars, there would be fewer cars, hence traffic would move easier, which would mean that people wouldn't have to be driving like maniacs with the possible reprecussion of hitting and perhaps killing pedestrians and/or bicyclists. this is just one minor example, and i'll spare you the ranting of others. however, i'm sure you're prolly able to come up with some yourself. or maybe you're more of the impression that this is a knee-jerk liberal reaction. i think that many times situations that exist at the more micro level are paralell and mirror situations that exist at a meta level.

Posted by Meagen at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2005

would this qualify as "art car"?

what kind of expoxy does a person use when fusing blue astroturf to their car?

oh, and for those of you who've been inquiring about potterworld; it's coming along nicely!

there are about half a dozen pieces left until it's as complete as i want it to be...although i do plan on building hogsmeade from a regular legos batch at some point...and there are more pieces by lego, it's just that i'm not interesting in having them.

Posted by Meagen at 05:37 AM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2005

easily amused

no, seriously, i am. i'm easily amused and endlessly entertained for long stretches of time by taking things like this:

and, with some playing around, turn it into this: it's for my aunt caroline, who lives in nyc. i talked to her briefly on the phone last week, and she mentioned something about "chunky jewelry". then i saw these green beads when i went to the bead show, here in sf on saturday. i don't know what kind of stone they are, and frankly i didn't care at the time i bought them, especially because i was so distracted by the crowd in attendance. i just thought, "oooooohhhhhh!!!! wouldn't those make a rad summer necklace for aunt caroline? they're TOTALLY chunky!" now, however, i wish i knew what they were. they kinda look like some of the green turquoise i've seen on some web sites (who knew there was such a thing?), but these stones are more serenely opaque. they're also pretty heavy, kinda like sporting a 2 pound weight all the time. aunt caroline will be getting her summertime-work-out-groove on, that's for sure. i can't wait to get this sucker in the mail!

oh, and just in case you didn't know...

tic tac toe ice enhances the flavor of ALL BEVERAGES, even your basic H2O. yup-yup

Posted by Meagen at 05:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2005

gold country

last weekend the mcgordroys made a family outing to GOLD COUNTRY! our primary destination was ANGELS CAMP, CA, with the idea that we would see their "historic district", and then check out any surrounding sights. the historic district had mostly antique stores, along with a couple of cafes, and a western gear store. they also had some weird frog thing going on....

i asked one of the shop keeps what the deal was with the frogs anyway. she said that back in the day, samuel clemens (aka mark twain), had been boozing it up in town(my words, not the shop keeps') and started a frog jumping contest. the town then just RAN WITH IT, and made the frog jumping contest the centerpiece of their annual fair. there were all these brass tiles embedded in the sidewalk side of the street(the other was more a boardwalk), listing the annual winner and owner. then the town took it one step further...

these frogs were dressed in different outfits throughout the historic district. i'm not sure why i only took this one, especially since i laughed so much at the one wearing "steel toad boots"...LOL!!! they remind me of those hearts that were in san francisco for a while, and the fish that were in boston, and those other kinds that were in other cities that i don't know too much about....

we also went to the moaning caverns. again, i don't know why i didn't take more than this picture of the cavern(s). when you take the tour, they take you down 165 feet into the ground. apparently this cavern is large enough to fit the statue of liberty. of course, i wouldn't know, i didn't go in. to begin with, i didn't know it was a situation where you had to descend into the cavern; i thought the entrance would be a bit more horizontal in nature. then i thought, well, i could prolly make it to the 65 foot platform, b/c those were of the regular stairs variety, and not the spiral-largest-arch-welded-structure-on-the-west-coast-when-it-was-built-in-1914 variety. however, when i started in on the stairs to the 65 foot platform, i got about 10 stairs into it and discovered i have issues with claustrophobia. WHO KNEW?!?!?! certainly not me, who sleeps in a friggin CLOSET!!! so, i went outside, sat on the benches, knit, and watched families buy bags of excavated "stuff" which they then panned for the gold bits included.....

Posted by Meagen at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

07.23.05

the very first thing i want to say is how rad Mr. Skirvin is for helping me set this sucker up.

Posted by Meagen at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)