Three things about Bay Area drivers that drive me nuts

1. The constant running of red lights. This is such a major hazzard I always pause a second or two before proceeding from a stoplight or crossing the street. Every day I see multiple instances of cars blowing through intersections when the cross-traffic light has already turned green. I amazed I haven’t seen any wrecks yet.

2. Habitual failure to use turn signals. Okay buddy, why are you going so slow? Why are you slowing down now? Did your car break down? Do you need some help Oh, you’re turning. Well, how about using your signal next time. This is extremely frustruating in Albany, where many intersections don’t have left-turn lanes or dedicated left-turn signals. When, approaching a line of cars stopped for a red light, I’ve learned to avoid the left lane even if nobody has their blinkers on. That’s because invariably, some idiot will crawl up to the middle of the intersection and stop, waiting to make the turn but not having bothered to use the turn signal switch two inches from his left hand.

3. Motorcycles driving between lanes on the freeway. This gives me absolute heart attacks because I’ll be driving along peacefully on the Bay Bridge listening to Megadeth, when suddenly a rrrrrrRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWWW drowns out the soft strains of Dave Mustane’s axe-shredding and some nutter zips by in the 4-foot space between me and the next car over. All it would take is me swerving one foot to the side to avoid something in the road, and that cycle jockey is going to be using his face as a boogie board on the asphalt surf.

Back

Today was the first day back at work after a long, sunny week of Spring Break. In other words, it was not a happy day.

It does mean that regular blogging should resume over the next couple days as I get back in the routine. Funny how when my day is filled with work, I somehow find time to blog, but when I have all this time off, writing never seems to get done.

It was a good vacation. Forests were hiked, beaches were walked, new bands were discovered, and beach parties were had.

Not five minutes ago, I finished Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and all I can say is, wow. It’s the first PS3 game I’ve played all the way through, and it was amazing. Think Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider meets Far Cry. Uncharted is simply an eloquent refutation of the idea that video games can’t compete with movies for story-telling, or that game writing isn’t important. 

I’ll probably write more later about Uncharted as it was, for me anyway, a pretty ground-breaking experience. Most importantly, it was just a hell of a lot of fun and captivated me for about four nights running (much to the chagrin of Tala and the delight of Harlan).

Kite is game

You know something? Kites rock. The past few weekends, Tala and I have taken Harlan to kite heaven, otherwise known as Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley marina.

The park is perfectly sited for flying kites. Check it out on Google Maps. Not only does it jut out into the bay for maximum wind exposure, but if you zoom out on the map, you’ll see that there’s only about a 2-mile finger of terra firma that lays between it and the entire Pacific Ocean. The wind today was rather mild but even so it had flags and banners snapping. Moreover, the park has several gentle hills and valleys, all carpeted in lush, shin-high green grass.

It really is a delight to walk, and we’ve gone over on several weekends to admire the squadrons of kites that always seem to be patrolling the park’s airspace. The place has such ideal conditions that it’s the site of the annual Berkeley Kite Festival, which features some amazing kites. So last weekend, Costco had a deal on big kites spanning 6′. We picked up one that looks like a dragon and today was our first chance to try it out. There’s Harlan, above, performing some corrective action.

At one point, Tala and Harlan had wandered off, leaving me in sole custody of the dragon. As I stood there, back to the setting sun, letting string out or taking it in, and occasionally jerking my hands from side to side, it struck me what a similar sensation it was to playing a video game. Gripped in my two hands, the kite reel felt not unlike a game controller of some sort (Wii kite peripheral, anyone?), and my mental state seemed similar to what I feel sometimes while playing — a sort of detached focus on the objective at hand, with hands and eyes working together sort of quasi-automatically while a portion of my brain thinks about other stuff.

In a way it’s not really surprising because both activities are a form of play. I’m sure there are many other pastimes have similar effects on people, but I’ve never before felt such a close association between two pretty different activities. I found kite-flying sort of hypnotically addictive, and Tala mentioned that maybe it’s what draws people to fishing as well. I can definitely see getting into kites, especially with this world-class proving ground just two miles down the highway from us.