Driving Rant - Driving Amnesia

As the first rant in the series, I would like to discuss something that I have a bit of experience with while driving. I like to call it driving amnesia. This is a situation where you are driving and you have several miles under your belt and you suddenly don't remember getting to where you are at. You can't remember all if any of the details of a segment of your trip.

I'm not saying that you forget everything about every the trip you are making, however, there are holes in your memory that cause you to say, "Wow, I didn't realize I was was this far along." An alternative statement might be, "Hmm, how did I get here?" Or my all time favorite from a passenger, "Where are you going?" and you realize that you are not going in the wrong direction because "auto-pilot" kicked in.

As soon as I had decided to leave the radio off, I consciously decided to not slam any brain cells against any of the projects that I am current working on. I have learned in plenty of previous situations that driving amnesia is much more frequent with these topics. Thinking of code and development concepts requires so much concentration that the events that transpire while flying down the road are discarded before they can be committed to memory.

I have not ever had an accident during one of these mental states, however, I'm pretty sure that it can't be safe. I have recently begun trying to actively avoid allowing the driving amnesia from occurring. In the past, the radio blaring with development project contemplation has almost certainly lead to the forgotten miles under my wheels. Lately, almost any time that I am on the road, it is for a distance. The last thing I need is to allow myself to be whisked into a state of mental occupation and disregard what is going on in front of me. With a monthly pilgrimage north to Greenville and the less frequent travel to Pittsburgh, my trips are far from short.

I have thus far in my life taken for granted that I can safely multitask while driving. Generally people like to blame external items like food, drink, cell phones, iPods, radios, flat panel displays, or even GPS units for taking a driver's attention off of the road. However, I will tell you that the internal distractions can be just as worrisome. Driving is not an act to be taken lightly. If you really think about it, it doesn't take much of a distraction to get into a bad situation that could result in the loss of life. If you take for example that my average driving speed from home to Greenville is often at or above 80 miles per hour, it wouldn't take much at that speed to get into that bad situation.

Something as simple as an inconsiderate driver cutting me off when I'm in my head could cause my reaction time to be impaired. How about something else that could be a little bit less out of my control. What if I were to blow a tire or encounter a suspension or steering assembly failure? What if it wasn't my car, but a car in my vicinity? Either situation would likely lead to a catastrophic ending. In an emergency, reaction time could be the difference between life and death when you're going that fast. Sure some of you may say that with that much speed, the worst can be assumed. You may be right, but do you want to take that risk? I don't think I want to.

Another thing to take into consideration is when you are driving on a trip to be considered interstate. One should generally have enough experience in the vehicle to readily identify what are normal sounds and what are sounds that should raise concern. Since I am always driving my own car when I drive solo interstate, I can easily recognize the good and potentially bad sounds in my car. However, if I were to allow myself to zone out in deep thought, any attempt of my car to give me warning signs about problems could easily be missed. For that matter, cruising down the highway blaring my radio could have the same effect.

So, in conclusion, I am admitting that I have a real tendency to not pay enough attention to what I'm doing when I'm driving. I am also saying that I am going to try to become better at applying enough focus on my driving that I don't end up forgetting how I got to where I am at. I would also like to challenge everyone else to pay more attention to what they are doing while behind the wheel. I know for certain that some people are worse at this than I am (I've never run a red light because I treated it like a stop sign, although, my record is far from perfect). With that, I shall close this first topic and await the responses from you, my reader.

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Driving Rant - Introduction

As I eluded to in my prior post, Pittsburgh - There and Back Again, I am going to start a series of rants. Most of the topics are about driving in one fashion or another, however, some of them began at driving and just happened to run from there. At this time, there appears there are going to be eight subsequent posts to this thread, although that is subject to change. I am already looking at two more round trips to Pittsburgh in the foreseeable future. There is a weekend trip planned on the last weekend of the next two months. Who knows where this topic can go with an additional 45+ hours pending in driving time.

So, you may be asking yourself, where did all of these driving topics originate from? Well there are a couple of simple decisions that result in quite a unique situation. The first of the decisions was to drop the roof in my convertible for the drive home. I like to have my roof down as much as possible. Thus, this wouldn't seem to be an unusual situation. Well, you are absolutely correct, however, what follows the roof being down is that the volume required for the music to be heard comfortably over the rush of wind is higher putting more strain on the amp. Additionally, I was driving during the day. Daylight driving is considerably hotter than nighttime driving. One last point is that this trip I transported my golf clubs. Therefore, they were chilling in my trunk in very close proximity of the 4-channel amp.

This amp is known for cutting out, so when it decided to shut down, it was no real surprise. However, the entire drive to Pittsburgh was done without the amp shutting down. But you need to keep in mind that the conditions were completely opposite. Roof was up, volume was lower, and ambient outside temperature was lower. Yes, the golf clubs were there also, but I'm not sure how much of an impact that they have on the whole equation.

Ok, so now you are thinking, why did the amp shutdown just because the temperature was higher during the day. Well, AB class amplifiers are much less efficient than say a class D amp used for driving sub class speakers. AB amps have to be much more sensitive to frequencies and volume changes in a much wider spectrum than a class D amp. So, since they are less efficient, they generate more heat. The more heat generated, the more potential damage that heat can do over time. Therefore, the manufacturer of the amp put in a temperature sensor to protect the amp from destroying itself or worse if it were to get too hot. Therefore, to protect my equipment and my car even, I am glad that it shuts itself down. However, when it does it, it is quite an annoyance.

I have also noticed when the amp shuts itself down, it has a tendency to only perform for as long as it has been shutdown once the cycle begins. Therefore, my intentions were to leave it down for about an hour. Well, after a while of having it down and spending a bit of time in my head, I decided to just leave it down and see where I end up while in my head.

One of the very first things that I notice is that with the radio off I was able to stay focused on a thought longer. Driving doesn't require a huge mental commitment and thus this trip gave me plenty of time to poke around inside the matrix of my mind. The question I am still asking myself is, "How scary is spending an extended period of time in my head without distraction?" I guess it is a question that really doesn't warrant an answer.

As posts are made as a part of this series, I will update this thread as an index.

Driving Rant Posts:

• Post #1: Introduction
• Post #2: Driving Amnesia
• Post #3: The Drivers Utopia

So, one thing that I would like to stress is that although these posts are going to be more of a personal rant, I would like them to be a catalyst to conversation. Please, feel free to comment if you have an opinion on the topic. Yes, these means even if you agree with me.

So, stay tuned, there is more to come.

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Pittsburgh - There and Back Again

I will try to make this as short as possible, however, I had a jam packed 3 day stay in Pittsburgh. The fun started on Wednesday when I left my home for Pittsburgh at approximately 10 PM. I reached my mom's house at roughly 8:45 AM. The drive was relatively uneventful. Which, when it comes to interstate driving is just about as much as you can ask for. The only complaint that I can make has nothing to do with the drive. My debit card decided to flake out on me. I don't use it very often, and when I do, it is typically in a POS (Point of Sale) machine. Unfortunately, I didn't know that it was not working in ATMs and when I was approaching WV where there are tolls on 77. I was concerned that I would not have enough cash on hand to pay them all since I couldn't remember the total. As fate would have it, it was about this time that I became convinced that my card was useless in an ATM. I tried a DIP reader, Swipe reader and neither one wanted to cooperate. The only thing I didn't try was a mechanical reader and that was only because I didn't find one. Finally, I found a Walmart in Wythville, VA. I made a $0.93 cent purchase to acquire cash for tolls.

As you can imagine, my Thursday was spent primarily sleeping. I crashed out from between 9:30 and 5:15. Once my mom got home, we left for Dana's apt. I got to spend some time with the boys, my dad, my mom, my nephews, and my brother-in-law. After chilling for a short while, dinner was on. After dinner it was a return trip to Dana's apt and spent some more time with my dad. Once my mom got tired enough, she had me take her back home. At this point it was after 10 PM. Therefore, I tossed on the Olympic games and caught Phelps' 7th gold medal win. Following Phelps' performance, I decided that it was time to do something else. Off to the Beehive I was with Tom. We dropped over $10 in quarters in the pinball machines and closed the place. We then played some ping-pong at Dee's and closed them down. From Dee's, we drove up to the West End Overlook and I ran my stereo through its paces for Tom. Well, once it got after 3:30, we called it a night.

Once back to my mom's house, I asked Dana to have me awake around 9:30 so we could go to the mall. Ironically, that didn't happen and it wasn't my fault. She decided to go to sleep after work and Dad had issues waking her up. I woke up on my own at 10:45 and by the time I was done shaving, Dana was present. I finished up my SSS routine and we headed to Dicks. I'm not going to recap the skate purchase debacle since I covered that in a prior post. However, once I was done getting my skates purchased, we headed to Scalley's to use the driving range and Par 3 course. Tom and Erin met us there. Dana's performance on the driving range was less than promising. However, once we got on to the Par 3 course, she kicked some ass. She actually shot better than I did after the 9 hole course. She'd never played anything harder than the Pitch 'N Putt before and she beat me. Well, never-the-less, I didn't care. I just needed the practice before hitting the links at Village Green on Saturday.

To round out the excitement for Friday, the night was planned to have a Munchkin free-for-all. We had a table of 5 to play, what we expected to be several games. To our surprise, a single hand of Cthulu Muchkin took us 3 hours to play. So much for an approximate 60-90 minute game play. I am starting to notice that the number of players is a more telling metric than the number of decks being played. The last time we played as a group in Pittsburgh, the game lasted forever and we were playing Bites and Star. This time we thought that a stand-alone deck would speed things along. Furthermore, I thought that with the alternate "Cult" rules that the game would more along faster. Well, we were surprised once again. After the game was over, Exile & Darkace headed home and the rest of us hung out for a few more hours before calling it a night.

Saturday started much too early. I headed out of Josh & Lisa's house by 7:40 to get the festivities started. I picked up Justin, he wasn't ready (not a big surprise, really), and then picked up Tom. I was surprised at how much trouble I had getting 3 sets of clubs in my trunk again. I figured that I already had done it before, doing it again wouldn't have been a huge deal. Man was I wrong. I don't know how much time I killed trying to get the trunk packed. Even then, we had to take some clubs out of Tom's bag because they were too long. Well, once we got the clubs in the trunk, we headed to Burgettstown. We got to Mike's place at about 9 AM and our tee time was at 9:30. I guess we took our buffer a little too much for granted. When we were supposed to be on the tees we got to the clubhouse.

Immediately following my entry into the clubhouse, a problem develops. My debit card for my primary checking account is MIA (yes, the same one that wasn't working in ATMs). Well, to make this part of the story short, at Scalley's, I put the contents of one of my pockets into my golf bag. Included in this pocket was my debit card. I didn't find my card until I dropped Tom at home much later. I was surprisingly calm about the situation. The way I looked at it, if I had lost it, the person that was going to try to use it was in for a challenge. Anyway, if it were lost, I could call it in before too much time elapsed. But that wasn't required since I did relocate it a bit later in the day.

Don't worry, I'm going to going to detail the outing hole by hole. I will say that my drives were on for as much as I can be on. On average, I would say that I was driving 230. I think my best drive peaked out at 270ish. Now, if I could get my drive to skip the slice, I think a straight flight could get me around the 300 mark. Unfortunately, I don't play enough and doubt I'll ever get that good. Conversely, my putting sucked as usual. It was very few and far between that I got away with less than 3 putts. For some reason, I just can't read the greens. Either I can't get the angle right or I hit the ball with the wrong power. I will say that for me I had a generally good day. I finished out the day with a 112 with only one hole at a 10 stroke. That hole was a really bad one where I just could not get my PW to get the ball on to the green. I was either short or I would fly the green. I guess I need to spend some more time working on my short game. Tom won the day with a 105 and Mike finished slightly ahead of me. I can't remember his score. However, Justin finished with a miserable 140.

Once I got Tom & Justin home, it was time to find out what I would be doing for my Saturday night, of which needed to be an early night. I ended up meeting up with Tyler and Randy for some bowling at Nobel Manor. Between Tyler and I, we put down 7 games. We both were using house equipment. Although, technically I had the advantage (Ty is still going thru physical therapy from his wrist surgery) I was still having a hard time beating him. My best score of the night was a 200 even. Randy met up with us later and put in 2 games with us. It was a good time. It was great to see them both again. For that matter, it was great seeing everyone while I was home. Well, after I completely obliterated any usefulness of my right hand we called it a night.

Using house equipment after throwing a fingertip hook for so long was an experience. I left there unable to put my right hand ring on. As of this writing, I am still unable to put it on. The hole span was too short and the finger holes were too large thus putting major pressure on the top middle knuckles of my middle two fingers. Also, using plastic balls on oily lanes required massive RPMs at a slow speed. After putting down 7 games, every muscle in my right forearm was screaming for mercy. Therefore, as I eluded to in the hockey post, my right arm and possibly some of my back pain was from bowling. The rest of my discomfort was from playing 27 holes of golf in 2 days. I already know that golf does a number on my back. Needless to say, the past couple of days since Saturday has been interesting with the amount of pain I've been in. Oh well, I had fun and life goes on.

Sunday started bright and early at 0630. Amazingly, my mom had no issues waking me up. By the time I got myself together and my car packed up, at 0700 I was on route to breakfast. There, I met up with Dana, Derrick, DJ, Camren, & my mom. We had a good breakfast and to my surprise, my mom didn't get all emotional when it came to me actually leaving. By the time everything was all said and done, I was on the road finally at 0900.

The drive home requires some discussion. Yes, I made it home safely and without incident. However, the drive home was drastically different from the drive north. With the higher ambient temperature and having my roof down meant more heat in my trunk. Therefore, before I could log 200 miles, one of my amps went into temperature protect mode and shut itself down. Well, my initial intention was to give the amp plenty of time to cool down before I fired it back up again. However, after an hour or more, I decided that I was enjoying the time in my head. Therefore, from early within the WV segment of my drive until I arrived at the rink for my hockey game, my radio was off and this left me to my own devices.

I'm not going to get into detail on the things that I spent thinking about during the drive here. I am going to put together a series of posts with the underlying concept of driving rants. I'm not sure how well I'll get to keeping the series out on a periodic basis, but they will all come out sooner or later.

Short of spending the trip in my head, the only things to note would be the traffic that I encountered in SC. As soon as I was thru the border into SC the entire highway came to a stand-still. It took us about 20 minutes to go 2 miles. That was about all I could take. I took exit 100 and found a way around the traffic. The traffic was being caused by an accident that happened at mile marker 93. Between the time I spent in traffic and the time spent in the detour, I had exhausted all of the buffer time I had allotted myself to get home in time for my hockey game. I literally made it to the rink with 20 minutes to get into uniform and suited up in my gear. It was just long enough. I was able to get all of that accomplished and left me with about 5 or so minutes to skate around for the first time on my new wheels.

Between the drive, traffic, and hockey, I ultimately got home at just after 10 PM. What a long day that turned out to be. I'm glad that I was able to do this trip solo before having to do it in tandem. I was able to find out why my baseline is for the trip during the day since I am typically a night driver and if I were to have run later, would have been able to push harder to get home faster without any "feedback" from a passenger. So, in the next 2 months when I am doing this same trip again, I know with relative certainty what I will have to do to get home for my other games.

All-in-all, it was a good trip. I had tons of fun and had a blast hanging out with everyone while I was home. It is weekends like this that really makes me think about what I'm missing since I've moved. It is a shame that I am so introverted. I should be able to create a network that is more local that would allow me to have similar weekends in a more local proximity. I guess time will eventually correct this. However, that would require that I get out of the house more often. I'm really hoping that sports will grant me this opportunity.

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Torhs at Bruins - Hockey Leage Week #5 - Game 6

Here we go with another hockey update. This week's game was a rematch with the declared best team in the league. We lost to this team in our very first game. As I learned this week, they were down their top scoring player that week. This game was very one sided for the first 2 periods of the game. We were not on our game and they were just dominating. I don't remember the period splits, but I think by the beginning of the third period, we were down 8-2.

I'm not sure what happened from the second period to the third, but something real changed. We brought our game out and mounted a rally to try to pull this one out. Unfortunately, it was not to be, but we did show to ourselves and others that we're not going to take a beating lying down. By the end of the game, we brought the score to 9-6. No, not enough to take the win in the game, but enough to show that we have what it takes to mount an offensive once we get ourselves organized. Unfortunately, this week, that organization was missing early and for much too long.

As for my performance this week, I was involved in a few plays that should have been more productive than they were. At least on two occasions, I was able to grab the puck at our blue line and tried to carry it forward. Unfortunately, I was unable to make useful passes. On one of those attempts, the puck was rolling on edge and my pass was too hard and found air. The intended recipient just could not bring it down. Another attempt was completely my fault where I was trying to poke check the puck up the boards to myself and put it out of my range and left me surrounded by three of the other team's players. If I could have passed that out, it would have been a wide rush for my team, but they were just way too fast for me.

Outside of my less than wonderful performance, I have to update you on my skate purchase. During the past week, I spent some time doing research as to which skates to purchase to replace my now defunct fitness skates. I was looking to get either a set of Mission CSX, Nike Bauer 50-90's, or Mission Soldier skates. With the exception of the last ones, they were entry level/recreational grade models. If you are interested in what each skate has to offer, you can hit up the links to Dick's to see. So, you would think that with some relative certainty, of all general sporting good stores, Dick's would have the highest likelihood of having what I want in stock. Well, this was not the case, not even close. When I got to Dick's, they were only carrying one manufacturer and only one model from that maker on hand. If I wanted to get what I was looking for, I would have to go elsewhere.

Therefore, Perani's, here I come. Well, short of being upset that I drove from Sheridan to Robinson to ultimately go to Greentree, things started to get better. When I get to Perani's, I'm thrilled to discover that they have a set of Soldiers on the wall. The Soldier skates are an intermediate level skate. It was the most expensive of the 3 models I was looking at, but I thought they were worth entertaining. Well, unfortunately, my elation was shattered when the closest size skate they had to my size was a 7. Ok, I have small feet, but not that small. I was looking for an 8 to buy. Since the 7 was not going to cut it, it was time to find a replacement skate that would suit my needs.

Outside of Mission, they were also carrying Tour, CCM, and Reebok. One of the first things that the employee told me was not to even look at the Tour skates. Apparently the Tour skate lines are suffering from a poor boot/truck design. They were telling me how many skates were being returned because the #2 wheel has a tendency to rub the bottom of the skate and stop spinning. I'm sure you can imagine how bad of a situation that is. Anyway, the employees referred me to the Reebok 5K Forsaken skate.

When I tried them on, I was immediately worried. The first question the sales guy asked me was how comfortable did I think they were. I was brutally honest with him, they felt horrible. It has been a very long time since I had ever worn anything so uncomfortable in my life. It had very weird contact points, it was stiff everywhere, and the boots were too short. They were quite surprised at my response. I guess I should have explained to them that my prior skates were in the fitness category. My K2 skates felt like slippers with wheels. They were that comfortable. Therefore, the change to a hockey style skate was a real adjustment for me.

Thankfully, despite the uncomfortable nature of the skates, they rode very well. Actually, due to the design of the truck to use 3 different size wheels, they turn very well. Almost too well. While I was puttering around in the shop, I did a spin stop and damn near fell on my head. Well, since this was the skate I was going to buy, they then informed me that it is possible to bake the boots to better mold to my foot. I was thankful for this. They pointed out that once they put the skates in the oven, I would have to purchase the skates. This was not a problem for me, I had already decided that I was going to buy them. Thankfully, the price tag was the same for these as for the Soldiers. I was surprised that they could be baked. I guess it was lack of exposure to this style of skate that led me to believe that only certain skates could be baked. I knew that certain Mission models could be heat fitted, but I also learned that all Mission skates have this option available. You learn something new every day.

So, I pay for the skates and they toss them into the oven. It didn't take long for them to bring them back out to me to fit. I had to keep my foot in the skate until the boot cooled down to room temperature, which took longer than would have expected. The only difficulty in doing this was trying to not fidget. Dana periodically would tell me to stop moving my feet because I would start to roll them around on the floor. I guess there is still that little kid in me that shows up every now and again.

Well, I can't tell you enough how night & day the skates fit since having them molded. When I arrived (finally) to the rink on Sunday for my game, my teammates certainly noticed my new wheels. I think they were surprised; I guess they don't know me well enough yet. Anyway, they took note of the features of the skates and wished me luck on Monday, since they expected me to be in serious pain. Well, after the game was over, my feet were still in good shape; unlike when I was at the store and my feet started barking in short order prior to the molding. Anyway, after playing a full game, I didn't have a single blister to show for my first time in my new setup. I did however, find out that apparently my right foot skate was not tight enough or I don't use my right foot properly. The outside of my leg at about 1" above my ankle, there was a brush burn. The boot rubbed vigorously there and has since scabbed over. It is tender, but is not brutally painful. All-in-all, I think that the switch from fitness to hockey skates was a relatively easy process.

As a result of the new skates, I only fell twice during the game. However, I think it was more my fault than my skates that I fell. Both times I was trying to maneuver in such a way that made me prone to fall. I have to say that I am very happy with my purchase. Props to the guys at Peranis for knowing their sport and how to hook-up a newbie with the correct product.

So, I can't go a week without injury, so the last topic will be regarding my new injuries. I've already mentioned the brush burn above my ankle, but that was far from being everything. One of my falls resulted in a bruise on my left butt cheek. That was short lived, it really only bothered me Sunday night. However, this team was also a bit on the physical side and I took a couple of hits toward my liver/kidney area again. However, no visible bruising this time. I think I hurt more from playing golf and bowling on Saturday than I hurt from hockey.

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