Peeves

Tine,

Did it ever occur to you that this gentleman is a working man on his way to make a living? He could have been a sales person closing on a deal that would put food on his employers table, his table, and your table through the high taxes that you require to observe such nonsense with all of the free time you seem to have.

I too get tired of Ma Kettle types driving too slow or simply lollygagging while I am trying to make a living.

In regard to the for-profit school downtown, they are no more a rip-off than the government schools who also get in line for the federal loans, MATC being one of the biggest rip-off joints in the area.

Wow! TosaTownie needs to 'chill' a little. Whether you're making a living or not is no reason to be a jerk.

And what a slam to Tine, who is doing her best to become gainfully employed in the most difficult economy in decades.

Maybe if more people drove in a reasonable fashion (are you paying attention, TT?) then there would be fewer of the types of accidents where one car drives through a red light, and a driver like you starts out quickly and gets slammed. You can have the right of way, and still be T-boned. I'd rather drive a little more cautiously and avoid the car repair hassle/injuries of your type of driving.

TT,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

Take a chill pill man, you are gonna give yourself a heart attack.

Why avoid being a Road-Rage-Jerk? True story relayed to me by a colleague . . . a very accomplished, prominent individual, and normally well-tempered, this man was enraged by a careless, dangerous driver in front of him. He was so enraged that he got out of his car at a stoplight and went to pound on the window of the horrible driver. When done yelling and pounding he got back into his car and went on his business. Later that week he had a meeting with an important client. Turns out the client was in a car behind him during the pounding and yelling incident. The client wasn't impressed. It hurt the business relationship. The man who told me the story is a Bible-quoting, peace-loving Christian - the kind who actually takes that stuff to heart - so I have no doubt that the story is true. Call it Karma or bad luck, but sometimes restraint is in order even though you might feel entitled to act up.

As for post-secondary schools: I have degrees from both a public and a private university in Milwaukee. They both provided me with an outstanding education. Many years back I was asked to speak to a class of web design students in one of those "low end" community colleges in town. That isn't my primary area of expertise, but I've done a lot of web creation and writing in past years. What I found was a horrible instructor who knew nothing about web design, but rather was following along a "basic HTML design" book with his students. Turns out this "college" knew that had to teach web design because it was a hot topic, and grabbed the first guy around willing to teach the class. I was asked to critique the student projects. Frankly, I would have expected more from high school students. There are so-so low-end colleges, and there are bad low-end colleges. Many, if not most, are profit-making entities whose administrators couldn't give a rip about the future of their students beyond phonied-up "placement" statistics that they can cite. It is the right and proper thing to do to question whether the addition of one of these schools is a good thing in our community.

So let me get this straight, Townie. You think I should have jumped the red light just in case the guy behind me was a salesman? That's a little out there, even for you.

I think you are wrong about MATC. However, being ripped off to the tune of $5,000 (MATC) a year is better than being ripped off to the tune of $18,000 (Everest).

No captain obvious, I am saying you should show some empathy for people trying to make a living, don't let his impatience ruin your day of leisure and lollygagging.

I am not wrong about MATC, Everest is not being subsidized by the taxpayers, MATC is and I am sure the true cost of all of those cosmotogists and other useless associate degrees is well over 18k.

As I said, I was not lollygagging. The light had not yet changed. And you are quite wrong about Everest lacking taxpayer support. One of its biggest sources of income is Pell grants. Who do you think pays for those?

But you raise a good point. What matters is the percentage of completers, and especially those who go on to be employed quickly in the field for which they got training. In that area, the for-profit schools lag.

This note from a reader who can't get through the byzantine login process here:

"The intelligent part of my brain knows for a fact that it usually takes about the same time for any trip excepting for rush hour traffic or weather. I know for a fact that waiting for the driver in front of me to start moving through an intersection and waiting a second or two is the only way to drive safely. There is nowhere I really need to be in a hurry. I’m nearly always early for everything. At times I just want to go faster. It makes no sense. It defies safety.

"What I’m saying is if I can easily become an idiot driver when I know it’s a bad idea and it only saves a minute or two, imagine the people who never even think of this. All you can do is ignore the insanity and drive the way you feel is safe. Learn to leave yourself room for idiots. If you’re like me, you may often be able to anticipate someone changing lanes without signaling or stopping suddenly. I’m a lot better at those instincts when I’m behaving. In December I narrowly missed two serious accidents when I was driving well."

Tine

It doesn't upset me to honk my horn behind some slow driving motorist.

What upsets me is the guy honking his horn when I am in front of him!

<g>. Nice to see you, Ray. Karen Waldkirch and I were just wondering about you!

Hi Tine

Thanks for the thought. And tell Karen I appreciate her concern also.

Ray

Those things happen to me once in a while. I'm mildy amused when I hear their wimpy horn urging me to move forward (presuming I'm not daydreaming). I respond with a few second blast of my very large and super-loud horn. Size matters.
Don't get me started on the people who stop at a red light IN THE RIGHT LANE thereby blocking everybody behind them from turning right on red. My horn gets a lot of work in these instances. ;)

Let me get this straight, SOM.
You're heading east on State, on the way to Walgreens. As you approach the red at 70th, there's a guy in the left lane with his blinker on, and no one in the right lane. If you get in the right lane and someone who wants to turn right on red gets behind you, should you brace yourself for the horn, or would you have gotten behind the left turn-er?

Is this one of those story problems from junior high math?

I recently had someone honking and yelling behind me in my alley when I was stopped to wait for my garage door to open so I could drive in.

People who can't share the road with other people shouldn't drive. That would include TT as well as anyone who feels that the only drivers who belong in the right lane at an intersection are people who are turning right.

The intersection of 70th and State is not the only one in town where drivers in the left lane may be stuck behind cars turning left. The northbound lanes of 68th at State and the northbound lanes of the intersection of Glenview/84th and Wisconsin come to mind. North Avenue was designed to keep all but left turning traffic on the right.

With regard to the for profit schools like Corinthian.....I've worked with a number of adults who were accepted at some of these places and led to believe they could become lawyers and social workers when they could barely add or write a coherent sentence. The schools took their grants or their financial aid for as long as they could keep it coming, and then cut them loose as soon as the well ran dry.

Graduation rates for MATC are about 45% with about 88% of graduates either working or continuing their educations within 6 months. About 60% of Marquette students graduate in four years. According to their records, it looks like most freshman have graduated by the six or seven year mark, but you really have to wonder whether it pays off in the long run.

izzie,

I am really talking about those idiots on 108th St who decide to go straight while stopped in the right lane (thereby blocking everybody behind them). But, to answer your question, yes, I always stay in the LEFT lane in situations such as your example, but I make sure that I leave enough space in front of me so that when the light turns green, I can veer a little to the right of that left-turning driver and continue on my way. I won't 'box myself in' under any circumstances. Does that make sense? I'm trying my best to be considerate to those drivers behind me who may be turning right on red. I'm not one of those idiot drivers who absolutely, positively has to be first off the line. If everybody drove like me, this world would be a much better place (I have a moderately high-performance car, by the way).

When I see traffic bottlenecks like this around town, I try to envision the why the traffic engineers at the WI-DOT or local government decided to design it the way they did. As of this moment, I have a fairly impressive record at being able to convince bureaucrats at many different levels to change things for the better. My latest accomplishment is on the Eastbound I-94 84th Street offramp. Watch for changes here this coming Spring. Y'all can thank me for those changes. I use logical arguments and real-world data to validate my viewpoints/suggestions to the traffic engineers, and that approach has proven effective at getting results.

You thought you were going to catch me being hypocritical, didn't you? Sorry to disappoint you, my liberal comrade. ;)

SOM,
Congratulations! Perfect answer. I think we may be twins, separated at birth, which also would account for the difference in politics. By the way, I should take this opportunity to inform you that it was I (probably among others) who convinced the DOT to remove the car pool lane designation from the entrance ramp to 45 southbound at North Ave. For reasons that must be obvious to you . . .

Yes, I did notice that removal of the carpool lane on that onramp within the last year or so. Well done. Maybe we can work together to speed up the metering lights on the NB45 onramp at Wisconsin Ave during rush hour.

See, we're not so different after all. If people would only realize how effective our actions are making their everyday lives better, they'd all give us a collective high-five, eh? ;)

Kiss-kiss, hug-hug. Puke-puke.

Sorry, CarpieD...

Three's a crowd.