YOU PARK LIKE YOU'RE BLIND, TOO

Seriously?

I get that the guy who works next door to us parks like he's visually impaired, I mean, he's been parking badly, next to me, for the past four years.

What amazes me is that everybody else who parks in that spot ALSO parks like they have visual issues.

I have to wonder if there is something gravitational going on in regards to my car. Perhaps it just sucks people and their vehicles into some kind of Toyota Echo-y vortex of closeness?

And it doesn't just happen at work, though it does seem to happen there quite frequently, and as I have a window that looks out on the parking lot, I have the opportunity to catch these terrible parkers more than in other places. I mean, when I park at the mall, I go into the mall, I don't just hang out waiting to take photos of the idiots who park too close to me (though I have pictures from the mall, too).

I don't have a clever closing, other than a rather large number of people appear to be stupid and park too close to me.

YOU PARK LIKE YOU'RE BLIND

Dude in the office next to mine - seriously? How did you get out of your van? If you tried just a little harder, you might actually get closer to my car. Heck, if you tried just a little harder, you might actually get INTO my car.

Your complete lack of ability to park without appearing to be brain damaged continues to fascinate me.

If you stare at the photo, the contents of my desk, reflected in the window, will appear to you. That's just a little bonus from me to you. Enjoy.

DITCHED STILL

I am still obsessed by the digger in the ditch (see previous blog entries). It's still there. I've learned that the owners can't afford to get it out and that they did all the right stuff when it fell into the ditch - they removed any fuel, etc., called the city, they even tried to get a crane in, but due to the narrow farm roads, the crane was not able to maneuverer a rescue. The city has been giving them advice in how to best rescue their 20,000 tonne machine (this weight is noted in a local newspaper article, though I suspect they meant pounds, not tonnes).

Driving home yesterday, I noticed the crane was now an odd neon green. It had either been vandalized or the owners were blowing off some steam. I stopped my car for a picture, but there were men on the property (and in the ditch) working and I wussied out. I did notice one fellow was moving chunks of broken concrete to the property from a truck down the road. Was he dumping it in the ditch? No idea. Maybe they were trying to strengthen the dirt bridge that was built up from the road, through the ditch and to the property. I gather they did they to keep the machine from sinking further into the ditch, and perhaps to aid in getting other machines to the land to attempt rescue (and apparently provide easy access for some people with neon green spray-paint).

Since I am obsessed and a wussy and didn't get my photo, I somehow convinced my husband, upon his return home from work, to drive us past the site so I could snap a photo via the passenger window. A couple of hours had passed by, maybe all the guys that had previously been there were gone. My husband is very cool. And patient. And tolerant of my strange hobbies.

The photo did not exactly turn out.

We went and had dinner and tried again, but the photo just looked like a crane in a ditch in the dark. Nothing new, nothing funny, nothing neon.

This morning I passed by again, on my way to work. Nobody was there. So I parked my car at a nearby winery (my thanks to them) and walked the edge of the ditch to snap a picture. The lesson I have learned is this: If you are going to sneaky take a picture of a digger in a ditch, make sure your stupid camera's stupid battery is charged. No bother, I did get this shot. And then I laughed all the way to work.

Now again, I stress how tolerant my husband is of my insanity. Before he kindly took our daughter on a school field trip, he grabbed his camera and snapped a few good photos of the submerged, graffitied excavator.

The city has obviously come in between the time I took my photo this morning and the time my husband took his photos because in his shots there are more traffic cones and a city saw-horse announcing that yes, it's Richmond. You don't see stuff like this just anywhere and Richmond drivers are quite famous for being the worst in the world, excavator drivers included, it seems.

I will say, if I ever found out that my kid had pulled a graffiti stunt, I'd give them a good swift boot to the backside, but I can't help but find this funny. In case you cannot read the writing, the roof of the digger says STUDENT DRIVER and the arm of the digger says GET ME OUT. I am ashamed that I find this funny, but I do. And the neon green traffic cone on top makes me laugh even harder.

That there are now two more machines on the property, working to free this giant machine from the ditch, is even funnier still, visually. I am not proud, but I think it's hilarious.

I can't imagine how many more updates there will be in regards to this little accident. Eventually I suppose I'll have to post a picture of an empty ditch. I'll be a little bit sad on that day, though I'm certain it won't take long to find something else just as stupid to amuse me.

DITCHED AGAIN

So what's funnier, an excavator stuck in a ditch, a plan to get it out by piling sand into the ditch or the woman who stops her car a block away and dodges traffic to get pictures of said ditch oddity?

About a week ago, people from, what I assume must be the city, came out in droves to do some work. I figured with that many people, they'd certainly have that machine out of the ditch by the time I headed home from work.

Nope.

They seemed to fill in the ditch with a ton of gravel / dirt stuff that, at first glance, suggests they are going to try and pull this thing out from the road. Since nothing else has happened for a week, I suspect it's just there to keep the digger from sliding further into the ditch.

It isn't getting out this way. And it doesn't seem anyone is in a hurry to pull that sucker out of the ditch. I would LOVE to be there to see them remove this thing, when they finally get around to doing it. Heck, I'd just love to hear the story behind how it got there and how they're planning on getting it out.

Ah well, knowing THIS city, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone steals the thing.

See my original post on the excavator stuck in the ditch here.

DITCHED

Ditch = 1, Excavator = 0

This thing has been in this ditch for several weeks now. I'm sure there is a brilliant reason why they'd just leave it there to continue sinking, but darned if I can imagine what that reason might be.

BAD PARKING 3 FOR 1

What I love most about grocery shopping on Saturdays is that it seems to bring out the bad parkers. These three are all from the same day, same trip, same lot, same walk from our car to the grocery store doors.

A lovely display of bad parking. Apparently I'm not the only one with Bad Parker Attractant.

A fabulous example of really bad parking in a Small Car spot. Granted, the car is not particularly large, but I'll bet the driver thinks he is.This is my favorite. Not only is it bad parking, but it's bad parking by a truck in a small car spot. And though I hate to judge a book by its cover (oh who am I kidding, I judge, especially if the cover is stupid looking), this guy deserved a grand Boot to the Head.I have more photos from today. However, this triad of stupid was all in one trip, one walk, so I wanted to honor them all in one post.

MORE BAD PARKING

I drive a Toyota Echo. It is a small car. Since it is a small car, I do not feel the least bit guilty parking in the sports marked SMALL CAR.

I have learned that driving a small car and parking it in a SMALL CAR spot means that when I come back to my small car, I will find it surrounded by SUVs. These SUV drivers don't seem to realise that they are NOT small cars and should consider driving the one or two more feet to find a spot in the NOT small car spots.

This is not a small car.

This is not a small car either.

Remember the bank? I'm not quite sure what this guy was doing. He was actually handicapped - had the sticker and everything. Why he didn't consider parking in the handicapped spot is a mystery to me. Well, I guess he kinda did. A bit. Ten points for the creative parking angel there, bud! Even my four year old daughter thought you needed a boot to the head for this parking disaster.

This is my Toyota Echo, on the left. When I came back to my car, I found this SUV demonstrating, like many others before him, parking close to my car induces euphoria. I have hundreds - yes, hundreds - of pictures of bad parking. I need a new hobby. Until then, I'm going to keep using up these bad parkers' 15 minutes of fame here.

BAD PARKING AT THE BANK

Here I am at the bank. This BMW was not beside me when I went in. When I came out, I was annoyed and decided to wait so I could see how this twit was going to get into their car.

I am stubborn. I waited for half an hour. HALF AN HOUR! Whoever the offending dipwad is must have known that I was waiting and chickened out of coming back to their car because I watched everyone come in and go out of that bank and for half an hour nobody returned to this stupid BMW.

As I had to back up to the right with cars parked behind me and a car parked on the other side of me (and me being horrid at backing up), it took me ages to get out of this spot. I couldn't see around the back of the moron's car and was nervous about cars coming from the drive-thru part of the bank which would be to the right, in this photo. People don't just stop when they see someone backing out of a parking space in this city because that would suggest politeness on their part and who needs to be polite when they can afford to drive a BMW?

My Bad Parker Attractant was mighty powerful on this day. I'm not sure if the picture does this justice. Clearly the BMW driver aka Bad Parker was a stick figure otherwise they'd never have gotten out of their car in the first place.

PEOPLE WHO CAN'T PARK

I seem to have some kind of Bad Parker Attractant. People will go out of their way to park as close as possible to my car. I have ranted about this in the past and have, for the past several years, taken great delight in taking photographic evidence of these too-close-for-comfort encounters.

This photo was taken in March, 2007. It's my office parking lot. The fellow in the unit next to us is the worst parker on record and my favorite Bad Parker photo subject.

As people in my personal space (vehicularly or otherwise) is one of my hugest pet peeves, prepare for the repeated posting in regards to this topic.

NEW DRIVERS

Why is it that people who drive around with the N (new) sticker on their car always seem to be driving a Lexus? Where do these young drivers, new to the road, get money to buy a Lexus? I could save my salary for a year, or more and not be able to afford a Lexus!

And why, at red lights, are these new drivers the ones who are always dashing into the right lane so they can overtake the rest of the traffic in the center lane upon the light change to green? It ticks me off when I'm in the center lane. It ticks me off when I'm in the right lane (because they either are in front of me and not turning when I want to turn right or they are behind me, riding my butt).

I'll bet the majority of incidents of Road Rage occur as a result of something that some Lexus driving 'N'ew driver has done. And I just don't see why it should be a crime when I go out of my way to hit them with my non-Lexus car.