Turkeys on the freeway

An update today from beautiful Davis, California, which I spent 7 1/2 hours on the road trying to reach yesterday.  I also spent 20 of the first 22 years of my life here.  Normally the trip takes closer to six hours, if not for a bit of early holiday traffic yesterday, as well as a lunch with my cousin in my new favorite town, Calabasas, adding a little to my freeway time.

The truth is, though the last couple of hours are always a bit tiring, I enjoy getting out on the open road.  It also allows me a nice opportunity to observe the “turkeys” on the road in California.  I’ll give you two examples.

Turkey type #1. The bored driver.  I-5 (or as it’s called in Southern California, the 5) stretches endlessly from one end of California to the other.  Particularly boring (or shall we say, scenically consistent) is the portion from the “Grapevine” exit at the bottom of the Central Valley up to Sacramento.  I usually clock in at around 4 1/2 hours to complete this part.

The majority of the time here, the speed limit is 70.  Thus, a good number of drivers end up in the fast lane and hit the cruise control button going precisely that: 70.  The thing is, when the speed limit is 70, most of us can go at least 77-80 mph and still fall well within the flow of traffic.  But then we run into those turkeys going 70 in the fast lane, passing a truck in the slow lane that’s going 69, and soon a line of 10 “eager” drivers forms behind that one turkey who STILL has no idea that everyone is waiting for him/her to get out of the way.

And then even when the turkey passes the truck, they don’t move over to the slow lane, and so we all have to pass him/her on the right.  *sigh*

Turkey type #2.  The aggressive driver.  We see these in Southern California all the time.  They wreak havoc in traffic on the 405, and they also wreak havoc in the middle of nowhere on I-5 between Buttonwillow and Lost Hills.

Case in point: I am following a safe distance behind the 5th car in line behind a turkey who is taking three hours to pass a truck.  Call me crazy, but I don’t like to tailgate.  The aggressive driver does, though, and doesn’t understand or care about what I’m doing.  He/she proceeds to pass me along the right, and slide in directly in front of me at close range, WITHOUT USING HIS/HER BLINKER.  I of course flash my lights at him/her, in a feeble attempt to send a message, to no avail.

What the aggressive turkey doesn’t understand is that I want to go 80 mph just like he/she does, and that once the truck and the bored turkey get out of the way, there will be no need to pass me because we will (usually) be going about the same speed.  Thus, his/her act of aggression has no point, other than to annoy me.  *sigh*

If any of you reading this are students and want to help me study the psychology of driving, LET ME KNOW.  What does our driving behavior say about us as people, and vice versa?

Finally, after 7 1/2 hours on the road yesterday, have I joined anyone in not being able to get “Whatcha Say” by Jason Derulo out of my head?  No, just me?  Okay.

Happy Thanksgiving.

An update from the other coast

Greetings today from Starbucks at 86th and Columbus on the upper west side of Manhattan.  I think that’s where I am, at least.  I’ve been here since Sunday night, when I was greeted by a ridiculous pouring rain along my bus ride in from La Guardia between 1 and 2 a.m.  Despite the late hour, this particular bus was still jam-packed with people of all ages and ethnicities, so I knew from the start this town was a bit different.

By now I’ve had a chance to experience a bit of the New York attitude.  There was the cross-looking woman who scolded me for putting my suitcase in a bad spot on that bus.  Then there was the downright angry-looking woman who moved my backpack to a different chair while I watched her take the seat I thought I had saved, during my apparently unacceptably long three-minute wait in line for my Starbucks frappuccino.  Does this attitude not exist in “laid-back” Southern California?  Perhaps.  Just don’t try to merge onto the 405 at rush hour on a Tuesday.  Or, pretty much any hour on any day.

People are the same everywhere.  It’s just that people are smushed together a little more tightly here in Manhattan, so you can’t help but be all in each other’s business.

On a side note, as I prepare to attend the Mets-Giants game tomorrow night at Citi Field, I had the chance to catch a few innings of the Giants-Dodgers game online yesterday, thanks to the beauty of technology (and my MLB.tv subscription).  A few innings was enough to witness three obvious blown calls by umpire Gary Darling’s crew, all in the Dodgers’ favor.  Looking into it a bit further, I noticed...

Gary Darling crew incident #1: 8.12.09

Gary Darling crew incident #2: 8.10.09

Gary Darling crew incident #3: 4.29.08

Clearly, the same umpire throwing the same manager (Bruce Bochy) out of the game three times in two years is not a coincidence.  Does Darling seem to have an issue with Bochy and the Giants?  Yes.  Has this affected his ability to umpire objectively?  He’s human, so probably.  Does the fact that Darling grew up in Northern California already affect his ability to umpire a Giants-Dodgers series objectively?  Probably.

Major League Baseball, can we keep Gary Darling away from the Giants the rest of this year, at least??  Thanks.

Manhattan Beach Open

Hey, everyone.  I played in the Manhattan Beach Open tennis tournament this past weekend.  I won my first round match, and then lost my second one.  If you look closely at the draw, you’ll notice that the guy I lost to, David Maxwell, went on to score an impressive win over the tournament’s #2 seed, Trevor Dobson, in his next match later that same day.

Different people have different theories on whether I should have hoped for David to win that next match.  I could have either 1) cheered for him, to make my own results look better, or 2) cheered against him, as a sort of retribution for beating me.  I’ll go with door #1, since David was a decent guy, and benefit from a brief boost in my own self-esteem.