Saturday, December 12, 2009

Day 1018 -- More Minneapolis


For anyone who has spent time in Minnesota, this is a familiar sight. No, not me--the road construction. The Twin Cities Daily Photo has a little complaint about the construction on 35 W. Complaining about road construction is another Minnesota tradition.

Speaking of complaining....yesterday I complained that the treaded dreadmill wasn't really running, and today I went right back. I didn't have much choice. The gym at the university is closed today because of the commencement ceremonies. So it was the dreadmill or nothing. Well, it was the dreadmill or running outside in sub-freezing weather over packed snow and ice. So it was the dreadmill. And you know what? It didn't feel easy compared to yesterday. So yesterday might have been a matter of being tired, rather than the track really being harder than the dreadmill. Or maybe I'm just becoming a wimp.

2 comments:

John Romeo Alpha said...

USJ, great to see the City of Minneapolis has gone virtual with its construction zone signage. Perhaps they read my study, "Traffic Management in the Age of Social Networking: Virtual Construction Zone Implementations Via Bloggage / Twitter / Facebook," [JR Alpha, OneSpeedGo Institute, 2009]. Replacing actual signage with social media does present minor issues in terms of the infinitesimal subset of drivers who are not checking Facebook / Twitter / Blogs constantly while driving. These digitally barren souls would approach the 90 degree right hand turn onto I35W pictured above totally unaware of the lane narrowing and blacktopping they were about to plunge into, having missed the relevant tweets. This appears to be a short-term transitional issue, though, as most states that have gone social with their construction zone signage have also signed "collabo" deals which make dashboard Twitter consoles mandatory, and punish drivers who fail to keep up with the latest traffic tweets with fines and license suspension. The good news for them is that I've also put together online seminars [see OneSpeedGo Online Traffic University] to teach Luddites and naysayers how to tweet and drive at 65mph safely. As soon as Google's Twitter GPS RFID ubiquitous monitoring/indexing is implemented, though, this will all be moot, as driver/construction zone intersects will all be indexed in real time and centrally controlled to project relevant ads onto the HUD on your hybrid vehicles.

John Romeo Alpha said...

Please note that jogging the wrong way on I35W like this, although an incredible carbon-neutral statement of green-thinking, will result in either fresh lutefisk or an empty 12 pack being launched at you from passing pickups.