Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

As for "things could be worse, I could have had the virus"...  My dad got the virus a few weeks ago, and he described it as being the lightest case of the flu he's ever had.  Staying home was the hardest part for him.  Obviously, there are others who haven't had such an easy time as that:  all I'm saying is that getting the virus isn't necessarily worse than __________ fill in the blank.

I had it back in October, and it wasn't really that bad at the time–I had a couple days of fever and a lot of coughing. It sucked, but I've had worse colds. The really bad thing about covid is the lingering effects–everything still tastes different than it did before, my sense of smell is shot (to the point that I have no idea that the meat in my fridge has gone bad without physically opening the drawer and checking it visually), any time I do any sort of physical labor I feel lightheaded and sore for the rest of the day, and my joints are sore all the time now. And I'm only 30. So although it's nice knowing I had it and survived and have some degree of immunity, I wish I hadn't ever caught it.

The guy I caught it from died from it, though. So it could be worse.

The after-effect my dad had was that, for about two weeks, he could take half a dozen naps during the day and then still sleep all night long after that.

[hbelkins]

The after-effect my dad had was that, for about two weeks, he could take half a dozen naps during the day and then still sleep all night long after that.

That's a feature, not a bug.

[qguy]

I should say, though, that I know a lot of teachers, and their lives really have been a heck of a roller-coaster this past year.  And that roller-coaster hasn't stopped running yet either.

Imagine trying to teach grade school music on Zoom.  Imagine trying to teach students with special needs online.  Yuck...

I'm a substitute teacher in my local area and I can vouch for the stress teachers are under right now. In my area, on alternating days half their students are in class and the other half is home; the next day it's the other way around. Their workload has tripled, their uncertainty has exploded, and their stress is off the chart. I know more than a few who will be finding other lines of work if this continues beyond the end of this school year.

I had it back in October, and it wasn't really that bad at the time–I had a couple days of fever and a lot of coughing. It sucked, but I've had worse colds. The really bad thing about covid is the lingering effects–everything still tastes different than it did before, my sense of smell is shot (to the point that I have no idea that the meat in my fridge has gone bad without physically opening the drawer and checking it visually), any time I do any sort of physical labor I feel lightheaded and sore for the rest of the day, and my joints are sore all the time now. And I'm only 30. So although it's nice knowing I had it and survived and have some degree of immunity, I wish I hadn't ever caught it.

The guy I caught it from died from it, though. So it could be worse.

I had a similar experience. I contracted COVID, most likely from a student at school, just prior to Thanksgiving. (Mask or no, I probably inadvertantly walked through someone's sneeze cloud.) Fortunately, my symptoms were very mild. Like you, I've had worse colds. I didn't even know I was sick until my wife caught it from me and her symptoms were slightly worse than mine. I didn't even realize I had an elevated temperature until I measured it. My wife and son caught it from me. So did my mid-80s parents before I knew I was sick. They had very mild symptoms as well. We all basically shrugged it off.

I did have a stiff neck and my sense of taste disappeared for two days. None of could taste anything over Thanksgiving, so we went outside the box, canceled our usual turkey, and ordered Indian takeout. It was the only thing that we figured would register on our palates. It was a memorable Thanksgiving.

All in all, we were very fortunate and cannot complain.

[Scott5114]

People leaving off "Interstate", "US" or "SH" prefixes when it's not at all clear what road (or even what state) they're talking about.

[CapeCodder]

St. Louis having more streets "Not Thru"

[1995hoo]

Thought of this when I was out for a walk: People who don't pay attention to where the legal area for parallel parking begins or ends and who pull up too far, or not far enough, when parking at either end of the row. As an example of the sort of thing I mean, see this Street View image. The guy with the SUV did a good job of parking–he made his vehicle snug to the line at the "back" of the parallel parking area. It maximizes the space for other vehicles to be parked in the rest of the available space, provided of course people don't leave too much room (they almost all leave too much room since parallel parking isn't part of the road test here and so is often omitted from behind-the-wheel classes).

But the guy who's currently parked at that spot did a crappy job. He parked his Nissan Rogue half a carlength further up from the line, so he's effectively taking up two spots. It reduces the available space for other people by at least one space (and it's currently by two because the guy at the other end parked half a carlength short of the line).

I suppose in a city where everyone has to park on the street, that would be more than a "minor" concern.

A related pet peeve of mine when I go for a walk is people who park like this: https://goo.gl/maps/FLK8QapwksmGiWnf7


Edited to clarify: I'm not necessarily referring to mid-block spots where one car leaves and then a smaller one comes and it winds up looking like there's too much space. That's a fact of life, although I do recall the time when a guy up the street would deliberately parallel park right in the middle of two available spots. If we lived in New York or Chicago, someone would have keyed his car for doing that all the time.

Edited again: From a prior thread, here is the picture of the guy who took up two spots. In the case of the picture below, I knew it was deliberate–I had been parked in front of the Honda to the right and when I left to go somewhere, so did the guy who was parked behind the Toyota to the left. I came back about 15 minutes later to find the minivan parked like this. Asshole. It was also a day when our street was closed for sealcoating work such that we all had to park around the corner, making it that much worse to take up two spaces.

(Edited Monday using a PC to fix the iPad-generated Street View links that weren't working properly)

[SSOWorld]

he's protecting his car from damage.

[J N Winkler]

When I must park at the curb in an area with scarce parking, I try to maintain surface compliance (e.g., keeping bumpers within transverse markings delimiting separate spaces), but am choosy so as to avoid ending up in a situation where someone else comes along and kisses my bumper, or I can't leave without trading paint with another vehicle.  I'll even park an extra block or two away from my destination if it will allow me to take advantage of a block of multiple contiguous empty spaces.

I personally won't park in the throat of a tee intersection, nor would I buy a house that had curb frontage or a driveway opening there.  Legality is one thing; accident prevention is another.

[kphoger]

A related pet peeve of mine when I go for a walk is people who park like this: https://goo.gl/maps/FLK8QapwksmGiWnf7

Me too.  Although I do feel for people who live in a house where they have to choose between [1] parking across a sidewalk (illegal), [2] parallel-parking on the street against parking restrictions (illegal), or [3] parking on their lawn (illegal).  Yeah, I suppose they could park their car a few blocks away somewhere, but still...

[webny99]

I believe we've been down this rabbit hole not too long ago, and I come down on the side of... yeah, it's annoying, but it's the result of poor neighborhood design/planning, and not something the individual driver should be blamed for.

[kphoger]

I believe we've been down this rabbit hole not too long ago, and I come down on the side of... yeah, it's annoying, but it's the result of poor neighborhood design/planning, and not something the individual driver should be blamed for.

The wheelchair-bound person on the sidewalk, now blocked from crossing the driveway, might disagree about that last point, though.

[webny99]

I believe we've been down this rabbit hole not too long ago, and I come down on the side of... yeah, it's annoying, but it's the result of poor neighborhood design/planning, and not something the individual driver should be blamed for.

The wheelchair-bound person on the sidewalk, now blocked from crossing the driveway, might disagree about that last point, though.

Oh, the driver is still responsible... but you just can't be too mad at them about it when the layout of the driveways leaves them with a bunch of less-than-ideal options. Ultimately, the people using the sidewalk have to go less distance out of their way (especially with driveways that close together) than the driver would to park somewhere else. And the presence of a sidewalk in the first place shouldn't be considered a given; many suburban streets don't even have that.

[kphoger]

I believe we've been down this rabbit hole not too long ago, and I come down on the side of... yeah, it's annoying, but it's the result of poor neighborhood design/planning, and not something the individual driver should be blamed for.

The wheelchair-bound person on the sidewalk, now blocked from crossing the driveway, might disagree about that last point, though.

Oh, the driver is still responsible... but you just can't be too mad at them about it when the layout of the driveways leaves them with a bunch of less-than-ideal options. Ultimately, the people using the sidewalk have to go less distance out of their way (especially with driveways that close together) than the driver would to park somewhere else. And the presence of a sidewalk in the first place shouldn't be considered a given; many suburban streets don't even have that.

Except that, in my neighborhood at least, the pedestrian is frequently left with little recourse but to walk in the mud around the car.

Here's an example very near my house (didn't even have to move the GSV pegman from where I dropped him to find a good example).  The street is an arterial with no shoulder.  The large trees impede grass growth, meaning a lot of lawns are half mud.  So you either tramp through the mud or walk in a traffic lane.

[webny99]

Except that, in my neighborhood at least, the pedestrian is frequently left with little recourse but to walk in the mud around the car.

Here's an example very near my house (didn't even have to move the GSV pegman from where I dropped him to find a good example).  The street is an arterial with no shoulder.  The large trees impede grass growth, meaning a lot of lawns are half mud.  So you either tramp through the mud or walk in a traffic lane.

That's a particularly grisly example, partly because that truck has no good reason to be blocking the sidewalk, and partly because, well... walking in a traffic lane isn't feasible on an arterial. I was picturing residential streets, but it's a different on a main road.

At least those driveways are wide enough for two cars. Around here, in the inner city, many garages were built behind the house to allow a longer queue if needed. In the suburbs, meanwhile, most driveways could fit at least four cars without blocking the sidewalk (if there is one).

[kphoger]

That's a particularly grisly example, partly because that truck has no good reason to be blocking the sidewalk, and partly because, well... walking in a traffic lane isn't feasible on an arterial. I was picturing residential streets, but it's a different on a main road.

The pickup has a trailer behind it, and I'm assuming the other half of the driveway is used for other vehicles.  But the very next driveway up the street has room for one vehicle legally parked, then there's another blocking the driveway behind it, plus a third parked in the grass.  Yes, they could park around the corner, but I assume the chances of having your car broken into go up when it isn't directly in front of a house.

It's so common along that road, that I've stopped taking my family that way during walks.  Too much hassle.

[noelbotevera]

Except that, in my neighborhood at least, the pedestrian is frequently left with little recourse but to walk in the mud around the car.

Here's an example very near my house (didn't even have to move the GSV pegman from where I dropped him to find a good example).  The street is an arterial with no shoulder.  The large trees impede grass growth, meaning a lot of lawns are half mud.  So you either tramp through the mud or walk in a traffic lane.

Couldn't you walk into the lawn around the car?

[kphoger]

Except that, in my neighborhood at least, the pedestrian is frequently left with little recourse but to walk in the mud around the car.

Here's an example very near my house (didn't even have to move the GSV pegman from where I dropped him to find a good example).  The street is an arterial with no shoulder.  The large trees impede grass growth, meaning a lot of lawns are half mud.  So you either tramp through the mud or walk in a traffic lane.

Couldn't you walk into the lawn around the car?

The bolded sentence is the answer to your question.  Yes we can, but then our shoes are filthy.  Here is a closeup of the mud.  And here is the one up the street.  Those shots actually look pretty good compared to some on some days.  It's often impossible to hop from grass clump to grass clump without ending up in the mud.

Also, we're able-bodied.  Not so easy in a motorized wheelchair.  The neighbor across the street uses one of those, and he likes to go for 'walks' every so often.  Hopefully he doesn't get halfway down that street with nowhere to maneuver.

[noelbotevera]

Except that, in my neighborhood at least, the pedestrian is frequently left with little recourse but to walk in the mud around the car.

Here's an example very near my house (didn't even have to move the GSV pegman from where I dropped him to find a good example).  The street is an arterial with no shoulder.  The large trees impede grass growth, meaning a lot of lawns are half mud.  So you either tramp through the mud or walk in a traffic lane.

Couldn't you walk into the lawn around the car?

The bolded sentence is the answer to your question.  Yes we can, but then our shoes are filthy.  Here is a closeup of the mud.  And here is the one up the street.  Those shots actually look pretty good compared to some on some days.  It's often impossible to hop from grass clump to grass clump without ending up in the mud.

Also, we're able-bodied.  Not so easy in a motorized wheelchair.  The neighbor across the street uses one of those, and he likes to go for 'walks' every so often.  Hopefully he doesn't get halfway down that street with nowhere to maneuver.

Ah, I see. I thought you meant the grass between the street curb and sidewalk was muddy; something must've eclipsed my mind. Considering how narrow some of these driveways are, there definitely isn't room to slip a wheelchair between the curb and a car.

[J N Winkler]

At least those driveways are wide enough for two cars. Around here, in the inner city, many garages were built behind the house to allow a longer queue if needed. In the suburbs, meanwhile, most driveways could fit at least four cars without blocking the sidewalk (if there is one).

Wichita has examples of both:

In Riverside--house with detached garage

In Indian Hills--attached garage with copious driveway parking

Ultimately it is a question of money.  Property websites (Zillow, etc.) tend to quote estimates of around $60,000 for smaller houses with about 1000 SF and a garage that can accommodate only one car, and about double that for houses with 1500-2000 SF and a two-car garage.

I have some experience of Kphoger's neighborhood since I used to have a great-aunt who lived in it, and graduated from Southeast High School when it was still at the southwest corner of Lincoln and Edgemoor.  (The high school was relocated several years ago and its former building now serves as headquarters for the Wichita Public Schools.)  Most of the houses were built soon after World War II for factory and clerical workers.

[jakeroot]

To the question of parking across a sidewalk:

In Seattle, and sometimes in Tacoma too (though less often), it's quite normal to park your car so it's half in the street, half in the buffer zone.

This example (the white Volvo V70 XC) I found almost immediately. It's quite common if you zoom around Seattle on street view.

If there are rules against it (I can't find any), they're not enforced. The only rule is that you don't do it along a street that doesn't allow parking, unless you want an accident.

It's also quite normal to park facing the wrong-way, but that's another thing entirely. Also not enforced, although I don't know why it should be along neighborhood streets.

[webny99]

The pickup has a trailer behind it, and I'm assuming the other half of the driveway is used for other vehicles.

Ah, I missed that. Whoops.

It's so common along that road, that I've stopped taking my family that way during walks.  Too much hassle.

To a larger point, why wouldn't on-street parking be allowed? I suspect it's something that wasn't much of an issue in earlier decades, as multi-vehicle households only became more common after the neighborhood was built.

Here's an example of a four-lane arterial in my area where parking is allowed on the southbound side except from 4-6 PM on weekdays. Drive past on a weekend and there could be as many as two dozen cars parked in the travel lane. Other roads have a rotation system - left side parking one day, right side the next.

At least those driveways are wide enough for two cars. Around here, in the inner city, many garages were built behind the house to allow a longer queue if needed. In the suburbs, meanwhile, most driveways could fit at least four cars without blocking the sidewalk (if there is one).

Wichita has examples of both:
...

Indeed, I found a detached garage on the very street kphoger linked to, although, when comparing it to nearby houses, it appears to have been improvised rather than something that was originally built that way.

Most of the houses were built soon after World War II for factory and clerical workers.

For some reason, the Rochester area doesn't have many small, one-story homes of this style. Almost all homes within the city limits have multiple stories, while homes in the suburbs are generally larger and sit on larger properties. The neighboring Buffalo area, however, has plenty of similar neighborhoods, including much of Cheektowaga. I wonder if it's partly because Rochester is traditionally a white-collar city while Buffalo is traditionally blue-collar.

Or looking at it another way, maybe Buffalo followed more traditional Midwestern development patterns (such neighborhoods are also common in Cleveland and Chicago, for example) while Rochester followed more traditional Northeastern ones.

[webny99]

To the question of parking across a sidewalk:

In Seattle, and sometimes in Tacoma too (though less often), it's quite normal to park your car so it's half in the street, half in the buffer zone.

This example (the white Volvo V70 XC) I found almost immediately. It's quite common if you zoom around Seattle on street view.

If there are rules against it (I can't find any), they're not enforced. The only rule is that you don't do it along a street that doesn't allow parking, unless you want an accident.

Well, of course, not doing it along streets that don't allow parking is the catch. It makes perfect sense in the situation you linked to, but not in the Wichita example, which is on a four-lane arterial.

There are also cases where the sidewalk is so close to the road that there isn't a full car length between the sidewalk and the travel lane.

[1995hoo]

A related pet peeve of mine when I go for a walk is people who park like this: https://goo.gl/maps/FLK8QapwksmGiWnf7

Me too.  Although I do feel for people who live in a house where they have to choose between [1] parking across a sidewalk (illegal), [2] parallel-parking on the street against parking restrictions (illegal), or [3] parking on their lawn (illegal).  Yeah, I suppose they could park their car a few blocks away somewhere, but still...

I'm not entirely sympathetic because I feel like people knew what the parking situation was when they moved in. To give an example, I have a one-car garage. One car will fit in the driveway; if we tried to fit two, the second one would block the sidewalk and protrude into the street, so we don't park a second car in the driveway other than occasionally for brief loading or unloading if there is a heavy object. When I moved into this house, I was single and I had just the one car, so that arrangement was fine. I later got a second car and I parked it around the corner on the curb so as not to block my daily driver into the garage (my street is all yellow curbs, so I can't park out front on the street). I later got married and my wife had a car, so she sometimes blocked me in and sometimes parked around the corner. She later got a second car (we now have four), so one of hers is usually around the corner and one is in the driveway.

It seems to me that people who have two or more cars who move into a neighborhood like ours and fill their garages with household detritus so as to make it impossible to park there don't deserve a lot of sympathy for their self-caused parking "problems." They knew when they moved in that if they didn't park in the garage, they'd have an issue with where to put the second car (or additional cars beyond that), other than the people who live in the end units that have two-car garages and two-car driveways.

[kphoger]

To a larger point, why wouldn't on-street parking be allowed? I suspect it's something that wasn't much of an issue in earlier decades, as multi-vehicle households only became more common after the neighborhood was built.

Nighttime parking is permitted, but not from 7am to 7pm.  It's a busy enough arterial that it wouldn't be good to allow daytime parking.

Note that I've never once seen anyone parallel-parked on that street, even overnight, except perhaps to pick up a passenger or load tree limbs or something.

[J N Winkler]

To a larger point, why wouldn't on-street parking be allowed? I suspect it's something that wasn't much of an issue in earlier decades, as multi-vehicle households only became more common after the neighborhood was built.

Here's an example of a four-lane arterial in my area where parking is allowed on the southbound side except from 4-6 PM on weekdays. Drive past on a weekend and there could be as many as two dozen cars parked in the travel lane. Other roads have a rotation system - left side parking one day, right side the next.

I'm not aware of any places in Wichita where this is done.  Drivers here expect any street striped for four or more lanes to be a clearway, with no vehicles parked or stopped in the traveled way regardless of whether no-parking signs are actually posted (sometimes they are, sometimes they are not).

I don't know if this portion of Edgemoor was striped for four lanes back in the 1950's when the houses along it were built (choosing one house at random for Zillow lookup gives a construction date of 1951; Southeast opened at the Lincoln and Edgemoor building in 1958).  It has been striped for four for as long as I can remember, going back to the early 1980's, but unit lane width is substandard (I would say about 10 ft), and there are segments north of Kellogg that are about the same width curb-to-curb but are striped for two lanes and have parking bans only in the immediate vicinity of signalized intersections.

Indeed, I found a detached garage on the very street kphoger linked to, although, when comparing it to nearby houses, it appears to have been improvised rather than something that was originally built that way.

It is not at all uncommon for these older, smaller houses to have had one-car garages converted into indoor living space (such as an additional bedroom).  The owners then either erect a detached garage in the backyard if the sideway is wide enough for a car, or do without covered parking altogether.  Further north on Edgemoor, you can see houses within the no-parking envelopes around signals that have had the driveway widened or part of the front yard paved over, apparently to augment off-street parking.

I don't know how common this is among US cities, but in Wichita, city ordinance sets a (never signposted) 72-hour limit on curb parking.  It is not at all uncommon for people to call the police when the curb is used to store nuisance vehicles such as spare cars that are never driven, trailers and campers that block sightlines, etc.

As a result, car hoarders and people who buy and sell cars out of their private residences often look to improvise off-street parking, sometimes in rather strange ways.  There is a guy a few streets away from me who recently replaced a board fence and had a movable segment installed so that he can drive cars up the wide and shallow grassed ditch next to an arterial and through the fence to park in his backyard.

For some reason, the Rochester area doesn't have many small, one-story homes of this style. Almost all homes within the city limits have multiple stories, while homes in the suburbs are generally larger and sit on larger properties. The neighboring Buffalo area, however, has plenty of similar neighborhoods, including much of Cheektowaga. I wonder if it's partly because Rochester is traditionally a white-collar city while Buffalo is traditionally blue-collar.

I suspect the relative prevalence of blue- and white-collar jobs is a key factor.  Another is the preferences of builders who were active in subdivisions that developed over a period of decades.  For example, the subdivision immediately to the east of me--bounded by West, 13th, Meridian, and 21st--has a mixture of houses with the following:  (1) wide eaves, hipped roofs, two-car garages; (2) narrow eaves, gabled roofs, one- or two-car garages (or a carport if no garage is provided); and (3) gabled roofs without eaves (similar to the houses along Edgemoor).