May 04, 2008
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CB monitoring pays off
I don't usually monitor the squawky CB but this afternoon I had it on for a while and I got lucky. As I was approaching Dayton OH eastbound on I-70 conversation began to center on a tie-up just east of the I-75 interchange. When it began to dawn on me I could spend the next hour or so creeping through the mess or I could spend it in my livingroom (ah, the joys of having a home on your back) with a cup of coffee I pulled off at the next exit.
A little Googling turned up a couple of traffic cameras that showed traffic backed up. Bleck! It might take a while for traffic to get moving again and at 4:30 in the afternoon the alternate routes don't much appeal to me. Generally I don't like to backtrack but it's only 3 miles back to the Wal-Mart in Englewood, OH. It's time to call it a day.
A meijer hypermarket
By chance when I exited I-70 I ended up at the meijer hypermarket in Englewood. Put Wal-Mart Superstores in a design competition with this meijer hypermarket and the meijer wins hands down. This is one good looking design. While cut from the same hypermarket cloth this is a nice fresh store with nice fresh produce in a larger grocery section than Wal-Mart's. These stores are so similar in concept one might wonder which came first - who's borrowing from whom here?
Night camp:
Wal-Mart parking lot, Englewood, Ohio
Ask What Surprised Them
I was afraid of flying for a long time and could only travel vicariously. When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness that I asked what they saw. I really wanted to know. And I found the best way to get information out of them was to ask what surprised them. How was the place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful question. You can ask it of the most unobservant people, and it will extract information they didn't even know they were recording.
The Age of the Essay, Paul Graham, September 2004