Missed connection

[baiskeli]

@Nadine 191471 wrote:

Lol you guys! I’m in the 1% too, and you two guys both make it fun to be here!

I am married into the 1% and my kids both bat mitzvahed in, so I have heard the references before but still don’t know what most of them mean. I know what kvetching is though. Boy, do I know.

[rcannon100]

@lordofthemark 191219 wrote:

We kvetch because if we did not, it might appear that we thought the world is fine as it is –

“Might appear” to whom?? Bitching to each other does nothing. That is exactly my point. You want change – STOP KVETCHIHNG and when you have a problem with someone, stop them, talk to them. Waiting till you can post a whitty remark on the forum is just an ego game.

[accordioneur]

@lordofthemark 191479 wrote:

Clearly it refers to the person who will usher in the time when there are no cars on the streets of Crown Heights.

Love it!

@lordofthemark 191479 wrote:

Edit: My apologies. On closer inspection, they are on West 10th Street. The meshichist bike lobby appears to have spread from Crown Heights to Gravesend

The Velo Chevra has spread further still, Baruch Hashem! That’s W 10th & West Streets in Manhattan.

[lordofthemark]

@rcannon100 191481 wrote:

“Might appear” to whom?? Bitching to each other does nothing. That is exactly my point. You want change – STOP KVETCHIHNG and when you have a problem with someone, stop them, talk to them. Waiting till you can post a whitty remark on the forum is just an ego game.

…. Yiddish also allows considerable scope for complaining about the complaining of others, more often than not to the others who are doing the complaining. While answering one complaint with another is usually considered a little excessive in English, Yiddish tends to take a homeopathic approach to kvetching: like cures like and kvetch cures kvetch. The best response to a complaint is another complaint, an antiseptic counter-kvetch that makes further whining impossible for anybody but you.”
― Michael Wex, Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods

[lordofthemark]

@accordioneur 191482 wrote:

Love it!

The Velo Chevra has spread further still, Baruch Hashem! That’s W 10th & West Streets in Manhattan.

Where they just might run into this fanatical sect

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20162[/ATTACH]

[Brett L.]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20163[/ATTACH]

[dkel]

@rcannon100 191481 wrote:

“Might appear” to whom?? Bitching to each other does nothing. That is exactly my point. You want change – STOP KVETCHIHNG and when you have a problem with someone, stop them, talk to them. Waiting till you can post a whitty remark on the forum is just an ego game.

Point taken.

Man, you’re annoying!

[Drewdane]

@rcannon100 191481 wrote:

“Might appear” to whom?? Bitching to each other does nothing. That is exactly my point. You want change – STOP KVETCHIHNG and when you have a problem with someone, stop them, talk to them. Waiting till you can post a whitty remark on the forum is just an ego game.

I write this with all due respect and affection: get over yourself.

[scoot]

11am today

Me: cyclist northbound on Irving St, waiting for signal to cross US-50
Driver 1: Vehicle on EB 50, occupying left lane waiting for a gap to turn onto Irving St NB.
Driver 2: F-150? pickup behind Driver 1, angrily lays on horn when jumping into EB middle lane to get around Driver 1. Has to grab brakes again soon thereafter due to congestion just downstream. (Presumably due to the signal at Fillmore, but that intersection is not visible from Irving.)
Driver 3: young man driving light blue-gray crossover SUV on WB 50, DC plates. Occupying left lane to wait for an opportunity to turn onto Irving St SB. However, he only occasionally glances up at traffic. His attention is focused on a handheld electronic device.
Driver 4: Comes up behind Driver 3. Waits for an opportunity to pass Driver 3 in middle lane. Then honks horn while passing, albeit not quite as obnoxiously as Driver 2 had done previously.

By now the right-lane backup on EB 50 has reached beyond Irving. Driver 1 is in the left lane still waiting for an opportunity to turn. Middle lane is unimpeded at the intersection but is full of cars further ahead waiting to cross Fillmore.

Driver 3: Hearing horn, looks up from his phone and begins to make his turn without fully assessing the situation. I would bet that this driver has historically been on the receiving end of many “go, you idiot, the light is green now” honks.

Driver 5: Small sedan, middle lane EB 50. Slams on brakes squealing to a sudden stop, narrowly averting a collision with Driver 3. Fortunately traffic conditions had prevented this driver from approaching the scene at high speed.
Driver 3: Deer in headlights. Pauses suddenly, then continues through the intersection.

Traffic signal was changing during this interaction, and Irving St now has the green. Driver 5 remains stopped 20% of the way across the intersection. I roll through.

Hopefully Driver 3’s texting buddy wasn’t too inconvenienced by the brief interruption. 😡

[ChristoB50]

@scoot 191546 wrote:

Hopefully Driver 3’s texting buddy wasn’t too inconvenienced by the brief interruption. 😡

(*Not a biking story, but…*)
The one thing that has me hopeful / excited for autonomous driving cars — the seemingly ever-expanding need for drivers to electronically distract themselves from their obligated task of operating their vehicle safely while remaining alert.

I had to drive last night; was on the on-ramp to 395 S, the one fed by westbound Glebe Road drivers getting on 395 S (as well as 395 S drivers exiting for Shirlington, etc.) The 2 lanes of this exit ramp stretch are often bumper-to-bumper at rush hour, as you inch forward to take either the Shirlington Road exit or the Shirlington Village exit (or to reach Quaker Lane) or continue through these “pseudo local lanes” hoping you might pass some 395 congestion before rejoining the highway, or eventually taking King Street… all the while two feeder lanes add more cars into the chute…

Me: Driver C.
Ahead of me, Driver B; small sedan, continually head-down using a device, inching forward (without looking upward much at all) every now and then.
Ahead of him, Driver C, big SUV.

When folks are heads-down on a device, in this kind of slow crawl traffic (the kind which seems purpose-made to tempt people to pull out their devices; anything but having to remain observant while bored, for a few minutes of bad congestion!) the SUV’s vague shape ahead is large enough to still be sensed in periphery vision. Perhaps that leads to a subconscious sense of “I’m aware of the cars around me.”

So, the SUV rolled forward a bit more than had been usual up to that point (but obviously wasn’t going far — we were packed in) and Driver B registered this movement while still looking down, accelerating while not quite simultaneously looking up; definitely a lag there – and he runs immediately into the back of the SUV, which had in fact moved perhaps 15 feet before stopping. Fortunately all at pretty low speeds given the scenario — no airbags, likely no real injuries — but undoubtedly some thousands in total autobody work needed as a result. Gotta wonder if the prevention of boredom is worth the potential cash price, even at this “minor” level of accident?

[scoot]

Sometimes I wonder if the automobile repair lobby is who truly holds sway in this country. It would explain so many things…

[baiskeli]

@rcannon100 191481 wrote:

Bitching to each other does nothing. That is exactly my point. You want change – STOP KVETCHIHNG and when you have a problem with someone, stop them, talk to them.

“Area man kvetches about kvetching”

Waiting till you can post a whitty remark on the forum is just an ego game.

Well, shit, why didn’t you tell me that before I posted that last witty remark?

[baiskeli]

Hi, cyclist salmoning around cars stopped to allow me to cross as a pedestrian in Ballston, almost hitting me. Don’t do that.

If only Bob had been there, he would have chased you down and given you a stern talking-to, but alas.

[bentbike33]

@scoot 191550 wrote:

Sometimes I wonder if the automobile repair lobby is who truly holds sway in this country. It would explain so many things…

It certainly explains Virginia “State” vehicle inspection requirements. :rolleyes:

[huskerdont]

@bentbike33 191555 wrote:

It certainly explains Virginia “State” vehicle inspection requirements. :rolleyes:

“”State”” because we’re really a Commonwealth?

[Author]

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