I am embarrassed to admit that I spent 45 minutes determining that Monte from US Cellular’s “Call Monte” ad is real. I’ve been tempted to call the phone number on the screen, 312-217-4183, to see if it actually goes to Monte or if it just connects to some prerecorded advertisement.  I decided to dig a little deeper to see if Monte is a real person or just a character created by USCC or their ad agency.

The premise of the ad is that Monte likes to videotape himself eating and posts the videos online.  He is on a quest to find the best sandwich in Chicago, and we are invited to call Monte and tell him our pick for best sandwich.  It is mentioned that every call Monte gets will cost him nothing, as incoming calls are free with US Cellular.

It looks like Monte is a real person.  I found his blog, “Off the Eatin’ Path with Monte.”  It started in 2007, but most of the food-related posts started in September.  How would a blogger get a commercial and appear on Channel 26 after only two months of food blogging?  That was the nagging question, so I kept digging.

Monte also has a website called Monteism.  I’ll spare the details, but the more stuff I found, the more it appeared Monte is a real person.  I’m a research machine; should’ve become a librarian or CIA analyst.  Anyway, Monte is actually a comedian.  I think that would explain how he ended up in an ad.

I might check out the Off the Eatin’ Path blog periodically, as it seems like a written, more down-to-earth version of Channel 11’s Check Please.  Sometimes Check Please gets too fancy for me.  I prefer to hear about food for regular people, not $60-a-head kind of stuff.

I suppose you could say USCC’s ad worked, by getting me to do so much research about it.  But I’m already a customer…

Next topic.  I got my new tires tonight.  Michelin Primacy MXV4.  They are rather pricey, but got good reviews fron Consumer Reports, and more importantly, other Prius owners.  When I ordered them last week, the guy at the tire place seemed surprised I was putting those tires on a Prius.  It’s a higher-end touring tire, but it has good traction and low rolling resistance.  I stuck my finger in the tread, and I have waaaay more tread depth now than I had on the OEM Goodyear Integrity tires that had 34,000 miles on them.  Hopefully my car will have an easier time going up hills than it did in last year’s snow.  When the Integrities were new, they did great in the snow.  Last year, they weren’t so hot.  Anyway, my next credit card bill is going to suck.

My first day back at work after my mini-vacation was OK.  Just two voicemails to reply to.  Surprisingly, no map requests or requests for data.  I figured out that I need to give myself GIS work to do instead of waiting for other people to tell me to do something.  I decided to delve into a few gigabytes of new data I received last week.  I need to ask myself what kind of map would be interesting to see, or what kind of analysis would be cool.  Give myself a project.  I used to give myself busywork all the time, but I kind of lost inspiration.  One of the curses of being skilled at a lot of things is that I get these feelings that I am working the wrong job.  Sometimes I want to be a photographer.  Sometimes I want to be a computer repair tech.  Sometimes I want to be a technology concierge.  Sometimes I want to be a graphic designer.  Sometimes I want to be a writer.  I do all these things, just not all the time, and not professionally.  I think I am having a hard time separating my hobbies from my work.  The soul searching will continue, but I think I will keep doing what I am doing.  I’ll toil away at my computer, messing with spreadsheets, databases, and maps.  All these other things I do will have to stay hobbies.  Once I try to make my hobbies my job, they won’t be fun anymore.

Enough putzing around on the computer.  Good night.  Or good morning, since it is 1AM.

I used some vacation time before and after the Thanksgiving holiday.  Today I go back to work for the first time in six days.  Nothing was accomplished during my time off, besides a little Christmas shopping online, ordering new tires for my car, and going for my weekly bike ride.  In other words, my time off really was time off from work.  I also had a break from all responsibilities for the first time in a while.  It was nice to stay up late and wake up late, with no worries about being late for something or feeling guilty about sleeping instead of doing stuff.  This was the first time in a long time, maybe the first time since I started working full-time, that I was truly on vacation.  Of course, with a work-issued BlackBerry, it is impossible to completely get away from work.  I checked my e-mail at least twice daily and forwarded a couple of messages today.  I am glad to say I never checked the voice mail on my office landline.  I’m sure I will spend some time tomorrow answering silly voice mails.

I’m not sure how I feel about going back to work.  Usually I am happy to go back to being productive, but since my duties at work have changed, I don’t feel any excitement about my job anymore.  I hardly do any GIS work anymore.  The stuff I do now can be done by a high school kid.  I used to bemoan the lack of advancement opportunities at my job, but at least I was doing GIS work.  Now, I still have nowhere to advance, but I am not doing what I was hired to do anymore.

I wonder if I am even in the right career.  I don’t have any consulting work anymore.  Consulting work kept me in touch with mapping and kept my skills sharp despite my full-time gig moving farther away from GIS.  I used to use ArcGIS every day.  Now I might open the program once a week.  And when I do use it, it is for maybe 30 minutes at the most.  I am worried that I am growing rusty and falling even farther behind my peers.

I think I am at a crossroads.  Do I start looking for more consulting work?  Darned near impossible to do in this economy.  How about looking for a new full-time job in mapping?  I hate programming, but GIS application developers are all employers look for these days.  They just want a code jockey, not someone who can do analyses, write reports, and give maps some meaning.

The thought of changing careers has entered my mind.  I enjoy writing and photography, but I don’t think my skills are up to snuff for me to do these things professionally yet.  I feel so stupid for not nuturing the nascent interest in journalism I had in high school.  I took a year’s worth of journalism classes in high school.  I enjoy doing research and sharing knowledge.  I am simplifying things, but reporters and photojournalists are in the business of sharing knowledge.  Conveying details of what happened, expressing what it was like to be somewhere a reader did not have the time or privilege to be.

These days, it is pretty difficult to change careers.  Supposedly, people are hired based on their credentials.  Usually they come in the form of a college diploma or work experience.  I have three degrees in geography and another in earth science.  If I applied to be a librarian or reporter, I would be turned away because my diplomas and work experience indicate I am likely unqualified.  In the old days, people would be hired with the expectation they learn on the job.  Now, employers expect you to know how to do your job the second you walk in the door.

Unfortunately for me, I think I belong in a different career.  I could go back to college for another two years to get yet another degree.  My alma mater, NIU, is offering a PhD in geography now.  Acquaintances want me to get a doctorate.  However, I don’t see any point in it.  I got a master’s degree in geography that I hardly use, and I only make $35k a year after five years in the workforce.  A PhD in geography won’t help me get a job anywhere except at a university.  I don’t want to teach (I am a terrible teacher), so that would leave research jobs for me.  I suspect those are rare and won’t pay much more than I make now.  I’m not going to spend two years of my life on something that won’t make me happier or wealthier.

Geography used to be a career path for me, but now it is more of a hobby.  I used to keep tabs on GPS hardware and GIS software for work purposes.  Now I follow those things on a sporadic basis just for fun.  I have even had thoughts about changing this blog’s title because I never discuss anything geographic.  I am more of a geography hobbyist who puts up maps of bike rides than I am a geography professional who composes useful maps and insightful analyses.

I’m sure that when I return to work this morning, I will have a few GIS-related requests.  Seriously.  That’s how it always happens.  People ask for maps and make geographic queries when I am out of the office.  It seems like people only need geographic info when I am not around.

So what am I to do?  I obviously have some decisions to make.  Do I stay where I am, at a good workplace with low pay doing work irrelevant to my training?  Or do I go somewhere that will challenge my skills but sap my spirit with a cold authoritarian environment?  Then there’s the scary prospect of going back to school to learn another trade, with the possibility of  finding myself longing for another career five years later.

My last two bike rides have proven to be good tours for getting a taste of an area.  Last week I rode through DeKalb and Sycamore, getting nice views of the river as well as seeing the university, newer subdivisions, DeKalb’s retailer row, and the farms along Peace Rd.  It was a snapshot of DeKalb in a three-hour bike ride.  About a month ago, my ride through Schaumburg put me in the middle of suburbia, taking me through subdivisions, business parks, and some of the highest grossing retail territory in the country.  For the last few weeks, I have thought about riding some of the trails in the Oak Brook area.  This week’s ride proved to be a good sampling of Oak Brook.  My ride took me past exclusive golf clubs, through forest preserves, business parks, ritzy neighborhoods, past Oakbrook Center, and along Salt Creek.

My starting point was York Woods FP.  I was glad to have GPS turn-by-turn guidance to get here.  All the ramps for routes 56, 83, and 38 can be confusing.  There are trail maps on display near the south parking lot at York Woods.  From the parking lot, I followed the Salt Creek Trail bridge over I-88 and along York Rd.  Not horribly picturesque, you just go past some office buildings.  You go past CLTV’s facilities, which I didn’t realize when I was on the trail.  The crossing at Cermak Rd is not particularly difficult, just exercise usual caution.  Between Cermak and 31st St, the trail skirts the boundary of the Oak Brook and Butler National golf courses.  The trail was made of waterlogged crushed stone.  They must have had a lot more rain in Oak Brook than we had in Elgin, or the trail suffers from poor drainage.  The trail looked dry, but the dark sheen on my front tire told me otherwise.  As I rode along the golf course, I couldn’t help but wonder which titans of industry and commerce were inside playing a round of golf.  What kind of deals were being made?  I’m sure there were people in there who make more money in one year than I will make during my whole lifetime.  About halfway between Cermak and 31st, the trail has a small chicane at the driveway to the clubhouse.  It was odd to be bicycling within a few feet of some practice greens that were in use.  Do watch for traffic as you cross the driveway, because I suspect these folks do not expect to see bicyclists crossing there.  I proceeded south along York Rd south to the crossing of Salt Creek at the Graue Mill.  The Salt Creek Trail turns east at Canterberry Dr and goes all the way to Brookfield Zoo.  I will have to ride that part of the trail someday.

The Salt Creek at the Graue Mill is quite picturesque.  Here are some pics I took in 2007.  I crossed York Rd at the stoplight then went north to cross the creek again before turning northwest to ride into the forest preserve.  I was unsure if bicycles were welcome, as the trail didn’t have that “bike trail” look, but I saw other cyclists and there were no signs prohibiting bike use.  I have to say, the terrain through Fullersburg Woods is rolling and steep in places.  I had to use the “granny gear” a few times.  One hill climb was the result of a missed turn.  I wanted to cut through Fullersburg to reach 31st St, but missed the turn for the trail that exits the preserve.  Instead, I looped southwest over some more rolling terrain, crossing Salt Creek, and riding up a very steep hill to Spring Rd.  The bike trail maps show Spring Rd as a bike route, but the shoulder and narrow width of the road did not appeal to me as a route back to 31st St.  I rode back through the preserve to where I missed the turn and headed north to 31st St.

The crossing of 31st St was somewhat difficult.  It is a four-lane road with an island in the middle.  The island makes the crossing easier, but if you can’t even get to it…  I had to wait a while for the traffic to subside before I could cross the eastbound lanes to get to the island.  Then I had to wait for westbound traffic to clear before crossing over to the east-west trail along 31st St.  It was here that I noticed that Oak Brook has excellent signage on their trails.  I love bike trail signage because it assures me I am on the trail and gives me guidance about where to turn.  The trail got a little muddy passing the Oak Brook library, [politicalrant] which was busy and appeared to be an integral part of the community contrary to what that ass Constantine Xinos says. [/politicalrant]  Heading west, the trail got quite steep after crossing Salt Creek.  This is where you cross a driveway leading into McDonald’s Corporate headquarters.  The topo map shows something along the lines of a 10% grade here.  After going through some trees, the trail dumps out on the Oak Brook PD’s parking lot.  To continue on the trail, you go south and cross 31st St again.  This was the hardest crossing of the day.  There is no island per se for safety in the intersection.  There is a turn lane, which is not the safest place to wait to cross the road.  I had to wait for the intersection to be completely free of traffic before I could cross.  If this were Schaumburg, I guarantee there would have been a stoplight at that intersection to make the intersection safer and easier for trail users and police station visitors to use.

At Jorie Blvd, I passed one of those gated communities sprinkled throughout Oak Brook.  As much as I despise the wealthy, I long to be wealthy myself and live in one of those gated communities to keep the riff-raff out.  The crossing of the ramps for IL83 was somewhat difficult.  Long waits for the lights to change, and it is hard to see the stoplights.  I wasn’t sure if the crosswalk lights accepted my touch of the cross button, so I was trying to watch the stoplights.  I may have crossed against the light here.  I was waiting to cross the southbound on-ramp.  Meanwhile, a line of cars was waiting to enter the on-ramp.  The first car was waiting for me to cross.  You know me – I’m careful and never cross against lights.  I continued to wait for the WALK light to come on.  Finally someone honked in that line of cars.  I had waited long enough and ignored the crossing signal.  As soon as I crossed the on-ramp, I looked over and saw an Oak Brook police car waiting behind some cars at the light.  I thought for sure I was going to get a ticket for jaywalking, but nothing happened.  After this intersection is a nice descent.

I had debated stopping at the Mayslake Peabody Estate while planning this ride.  It is a historic building, but didn’t look like much, IMHO.  I decided to peel off the I-88 Central DuPage Bikeway and check out the estate.  It wasn’t much to photograph, especially with the asphalt parking lots and driveways going right up to the building.  However, I did spy a chapel that is a replica of one in Assisi, Italy.

While riding through the parking lots back to 31st St, I saw an Oak Brook PD car pulling into the lot.  No ticket for me, forutnately.

Just west of the driveway to the estate is a trail that travels southwest through a well-to-do neighborhood.  Large homes with gorgeous terraces.  This was the part of the ride I was looking forward to the most.  I wanted to see how the other half lived.  I try to go through wealthy neighborhoods every once in a while.  It inspires and depresses me simultaneously.  I want to raise a family in a fancy house with a large lawn.  One of these homes could be mine if I work hard, have some luck, and meet the right people.  At the same time, reality hits me.  Unless I make some major changes, my career trajectory will not lead me to wealth like this.  One thing that surprised me was how “normal” this neighborhood was.  Yes, there were more BMWs and Range Rovers around than in Elgin, but not more than I see in St. Charles and Geneva.  I was also surprised to see a lot of Hondas, Nissans, Toyota Camrys, and even a Chevrolet Malibu in a driveway.  I was expecting everyone to have a luxury car.  The houses were much larger than you’d see in a middle class neighborhood, but everything else was surprisingly upper-middle class.  This neighborhood is not gated, so I guess it is a more bourgeois part of Oak Brook.

The trail through this neighborhood exits on 35th St.  I crossed Midwest Rd to continue west on 35th St.  Some shrubbery on the north side of the trail seals us cretins off from a gated community.  I wish the shrubbery was trimmed farther back from the trail so one doesn’t have to worry about scraping against it.  Just east of Meyers Rd I turned south on a neighborhood trail to add some mileage to my ride and get a further taste of the good life.  These homes were even more modest than the last neighborhood I rode through.  These homes were normal-sized, but surely still expensive.  Unfortunately, curb cuts were missing at the majority of street crossings in this neighborhood.  The curbs aren’t sharp, but you can’t take them at full speed either.

Back on the I-88 Central DuPage Bikeway, I rode north on Meyers Rd to Baybrook Ln.  The trail is nice and wide until 31st St, but between 31st and Baybrook, you ride on a sidewalk.  Riding on Baybrook Ln and Royal Vale Dr, I traveled northeast through a neighborhood.  I forget the name of this neighborhood, but every house has the same style mailbox.  Also of note is the construction of the street.  There are no curbs, but there is concrete level with the asphalt on both sides of the street.  I wasn’t sure if this was intended to be a bike lane or if it was supposed to be a sidewalk.  Regardless, I rode on the asphalt.  I was not passed by a car once.  At Midwest Rd, I joined a trail just south of the ramp to eastbound I-88.  The trail rises gently as you head east before descending to an underpass at IL83.  This underpass was the most disappointing part of the ride.  I had walked through it once before but didn’t remember it as being so dark and so wet.  I passed through the tunnel in the middle of the day, sometime around 1PM, and I couldn’t see a thing in there.  All I ask for are a couple of lights in the tunnel.  I’m sure a wealthy community could pay for a couple of fluorescent bulbs.

From the tunnel, I meandered through Oak Brook’s parks and recreation complex.  Lots of goose poop.  On top of the aformentioned light bulbs, Oak Brook needs to buy a few swans to keep the geese out of the ponds.  I was surprised to find varied terrain in the woods alongside IL83.  Eventually the trail turned east, passing another gated community.  Woot.  At Jorie Blvd and the main entrance to McDonald’s HQ, I turned north.

Once past the campus, the trail skirted the same golf courses I rode past earlier.  Again, the trail changed from asphalt to wet mushy crushed stone.  This part of the trail was wetter than the part on York Rd to the east.  My bike got pretty dirty from the splashing mud and bits of stone.  I interviewed for a job in this neck of the woods at Ace Hardware HQ after graduating from college.

I called the tunnel under IL83 the biggest disappointment of the ride.  It won because it was wet and gross.  The second biggest disapppointment of the ride was the construction of the intersection of Jorie Blvd and Cermak.  The intersection looks like it couldn’t have been built more than six months ago.  Can someone explain why the old islands on the east side of the intersection have curb cuts, but the newly constructed islands on the west side don’t have cuts?  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the SW island in the intersection had no cuts for bicycles or wheelchairs.  You are supposed to wait on that island to cross west or north.  I smell an ADA issue.  I should note there are bike trails on the north and south side of Cermak.  However, they are directional.  I saw a Do Not Enter sign on the southern trail as I looked west.  I therefore assumed I needed to use the northern trail to go west.  I crossed Cermak, went around the NW island, and was confronted by a sign that said the trail was closed.  Huh?  Instead of crossing the street again and riding the wrong way down the trail, I ignored the sign.  The asphalt looked pretty new.  I proceeded with caution in case the pavement stopped anywhere underneath I-88.  There were no obstacles, so I wonder if the construction crews simply forgot to take down the closure sign.

I discovered that McDonald’s has an office building on Cermak, off of their main campus.  After crossing McDonald’s Dr, I got a little confused.  The trail seemed to dead end, and a sidewalk went north.  From scouting out the route, I remembered that I needed to follow the sidewalk west, which is set a good 100ft off Cermak.  I was tempted to stop in the McDonald’s on the corner.  It is not your standard McDonald’s restaurant, and I suspect it is somewhat of a prototype location for the company.  The exterior is quite different, being two stories.  It also appears to have a separate McCafe appended to the north side of the building.  From the Yelp reviews, it seems to be cleaner than most McDo, has big flat panel TVs, and appears to be run by training managers.  I wonder if they test new products here.  If they did, I’d stop by every time I was in the area.  It would be neat to try out new stuff before a nationwide rollout.

But back to the bike ride.  The sidewalk kicks south in front of the restaurant a few feet around flagpoles to create an overlook by a retention pond.  At Spring Rd I turned north, riding along a sidewalk some more.  At Harger Rd, I turned east and was once again back on a proper asphalt bike path.  This trail passes behind some nondescript office buildings before ending at the Salt Creek bridge.  I waited for traffic to pass before riding on the street over the bridge.  On the east side of the bridge, the road widens and has an asphalt shoulder that I felt safe riding on.  Not sure if it is intended to be a bike lane, but it certainly works well as one.  At Yorkshire Woods, the housing developer built a bike path brings you back to York Woods.

I was having a good time and wanted to ride a little more, so I continued north through York Woods, following the Salt Creek Trail.  A new trail runs east-west along the IL38 frontage road.  This trail is not visible on Google’s aerial imagery.  A new ped bridge goes over Salt Creek and the trial does a loop to descend down to the level of the creek.  The trail then passes under the ped bridge, the frontage road, IL38, and Brush Hill Rd.  Salt Creek was only a few inches below the level of the trail, so I suspect this sort of viaduct floods often.  The dried mud on the pavement bears out my theory.

Like Oak Brook did for its municipal trails, the forest preserve district and local park districts spared no expense with signage for the Salt Creek Trail.  The trail actually passes through a parking lot of an office building before following Brush Hill Rd.  I felt uncomfortable here, as the bike route used a roadway that handles off-ramp traffic from IL38.  The signage guided me to Eldridge Park, which has many trails of its own and straddles Salt Creek.  I should note there is a very cool geological phenomenon in this park.  On the west shore of Salt Creek, at about this location, is an artesian spring.  Below is a pic from 2007.  The water will gush up for a few minutes, then stop.  Then you’ll hear some noises before the water suddenly gushes up again.

This spring is visible from the bike trail on the east side of the creek.  The spring was actually flowing as I rode by both north and south.  North of Harrison St, the trail appears very new and the asphalt appears fresh.  The ride is scenic as the trail parallels the creek, but unfortunately, the pavement ends at Madison St.  A woodchip trail continues north, but I don’t think bicyclists are welcome.  I cannot wait for the Salt Creek Trail to be completed.  It will be awesome to ride from Busse Woods all the way to Brookfield Zoo.

On the way back to my car in the York Woods south lot, I took a detour to get a peek at a large building being built along IL38 to the west of York Rd.  I couldn’t make out the sign.  I asked a fellow walking on the trail about the building, and he said it is the new Elmhurst Hospital.  That is one big building.

Below are the stats for this ride.  The hills took a toll on my average speed.  The 8.5mph is my lowest average speed since my old bike broke on the Great Western Trail and I had to walk 9mi back to my car.  Here’s the link for the Oak Brook ride on Everytrail.

Driving home, I felt pretty sad.  I think this may be my last bike ride of the year.  The weather really doesn’t look promising for next weekend, with high temps being in the 30s.  I don’t ride unless it is above 40.  I may be able to ride tomorrow, but the temperature will barely be adequate.  If I do ride tomorrow, it’ll just be a ride on the Fox River Trail or the Prairie Path somewhere.  I’m not sure what I will do when winter begins.  My weekend bike ride has been a regular part of my life since June, and I look forward to it every week.  Getting an exercise bike will help keep me in shape, but it won’t give me the fresh air and sense of adventure I get when riding outside.

I just saw some news coverage of Black Friday shoppers.  Since last night, I have been hearing about the lengths people have gone to get those doorbuster deals.  Generations of one family were shown huddled around the dining table poring over store ads last night.  They were strategizing about the order to visit each store.  Wal-Mart offered  store maps online, showing where each doorbuster deal was positioned in the store, as well as the various departments.  Rabid consumers would know exactly where to find their quarry of $59 GPS receivers.  I saw a scene of a mall food court where somebody brought their Acer Aspire netbook to do some shopping or research in the field.

Of course, how could I neglect to mention the people lined up in the freezing temperatures outside of a Sears in Chicago?  Or the miles of backed-up traffic on I-88  trying to reach the Chicago Premium Outlets mall in Aurora?

If only people would exert such effort for good things, instead of quests to spend money on electronics and toys.  Imagine how much gas we would save if people planned their Saturday errands as well as their Black Friday shopping itinerary.  Imagine if people had the same patience at the DMV as they did standing outside Best Buy.

Before telling me to get off my high horse, you should know I spent a little time looking at the deals online, and actually bought some DVDs I had been wanting for about 60% off.

Of course, not everyone is a dutiful planner or has the patience of Job on Black Friday.  Once again, police had to respond to emergencies at Wal-Mart.  Some nuts fought over GPS receivers in Wisconsin, and a fight broke out in a California.  At least nobody died this year in a stampede.

Ever since the national press devoured the story of a fellow in California whose Lexus accelerated off a roadway, triggering the recall of millions of Toyotas, I have expressed doubt about the risk of stuck accelerators in Toyotas.  I see parallels between this recall and the unfounded claims of unintended acceleration by the Audi 5000 in the 1980s.

First, let’s put some information out there that has been overlooked by the national press, who is eager for a doomsday story affecting millions of cars.  That Lexus that crashed in California was a dealership loaner car.  I did not know this until I did some further reading – the national press has never mentioned this.  The driver was likely unfamiliar with the car, and therefore panicked when the car exhibited odd behaviour.  Another thing that has gone unmentioned by the national press is that the dealership had the wrong floormats in the car.  Incorrectly-sized floormats from a different Lexus model were in place, which increased the risk of the floormat interfering with pedal operation.  And lastly, why wouldn’t a highway patrol officer know to shift into neutral to keep the engine from driving the wheels and accelerating?  I point to unfamiliarity with the loaner vehicle.  Perhaps the driver, in the fog of confusion and panic, could not find or operate the shifter.  As for turning off the car, confusion/unfamiliarity may have played a role there as well.  The crashed vehicle may have had the push-button start system, but I don’t know for sure.  The driver may not have known to hold the button down to turn the engine off.

This crash is what set the ball rolling with this madness, which is why I have taken the time to address it.  I think the fault of the crash rests more with the driver and a poor understanding of how to handle the situation than it does with a design problem.  So why do I think this recall is pure bunk?  Let me explain, from a Prius owner’s perspective.

First, you need to have some really jacked-up floormats for them to trap the accelerator.  In my 2007 Prius, there is a ton of room between the bottom of the accelerator and the floor.

I saw a video where a gas pedal was fully depressed and then it became stuck under the floormat.  I don’t know how this is possible.  I would expect the spring in the accelerator to offer more than enough force for the pedal to push back past the floormat, unless the floormat managed to cover up half the accelerator or the floormat was really heavy.  But again, how would this happen?  Who would have such heavy floormats, and who would be so sloppy as to allow their floormat to slide forward over the pedal?  For years, I have checked the position of the driver’s side floormat before driving.  It’s not out of concern about the accelerator, it’s a concern for cleanliness. I want to make sure the floormat is properly positioned so I don’t get the carpet dirty.  Additionally, if the factory mats are used with the hooks, you have nothing to worry about.  The mats won’t move.  If you look at the above photos of my mats, you will notice I am using aftermarket Wal-Mart all-weather floormats that don’t connect to the hooks.  If they are out of position, I just give the mats a little tug and move them back.  They are never out of position by more than an inch.

I pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor to see if it could get caught on my floormat.  My accelerator ended up pushing down onto the floormat.  Absolutely positively no way the pedal could get stuck under the mat since it was pushing down on the mat.  Could it get wedged against the mat?  Maybe, but not likely.  Even less likely considering it is rare to floor the throttle.

I took the factory floormat out of my trunk and installed it correctly, using the floor hooks.  I was dumbfounded that this recall is even taking place.  The floormat came nowhere near the gas pedal, and the floormat was securely anchored.  Below are pics of the factory floormat correctly installed, and how the pedal is positioned relative to the floormat when it is fully floored.  Apologies for flipping you the bird in one pic.

So to summarize point number one, I think it is really unlikely that your Toyota will get stuck accelerating unless you were silly enough to install the wrong-sized floormat or stacked your floormats.

Point number two – why don’t people know to put their car into neutral when it gets stuck accelerating?  It’s just common sense.  The [D]rive gear position means motive force is being sent to the wheels.  Put it in [N]eutral, and the engine will just rev.  The engine computer has a rev limiter and will not allow the engine to rev to the point of blowing up.  With the engine still on, you will have full power steering and power braking, essential for getting your car safely to a stop on the side of the road.  If you turn the engine off, steering and braking will be more difficult since you no longer have the power assist.

Point number three – people need to be educated about their car.  Related to point number one, people should be aware of proper care and placement of floormats.  The main jist of point three is that there is some unfamiliarity with the push-start buttons on newer cars.  The Prius is the most widespread push-button car, but some Nissan Altimas, Lexuses, and the new Buick LaCrosse also have start buttons.  There are probably more cars I am not aware of.  I knew that simply hitting the power button on my Prius wouldn’t turn the engine off while driving.  I knew I had to hold it down, but I didn’t know for how long.  I’ll fess up to that.  For the record, in a Prius you hold the button down for three seconds.

I don’t think there is a problem with these cars.  It is more of a driver education issue.  Make sure your floormats are installed properly, know how to put your car into neutral while it’s in motion, and know how to turn the car off if necessary.

Toyota is addressing the (unlikely, in my opinion) issue of floormats trapping the accelerator by trimming the bottom of the pedal to make it shorter.  This will give more clearance between the pedal and the floor, but I think there is already sufficient clearance and this modification is therefore unnecessary.

On some cars, Toyota is reprogramming the computer so the brake supersedes the accelerator.  If the brake is applied at the same time as the accelerator, the throttle will be cut off so the brake has maximum effect and doesn’t have to compete with simultaneous acceleration.  That makes total sense to me, and the cars should have been programmed this way to begin with.  However, the Prius is not among the cars getting this reprogramming.  In reading up about this recall, I found this video in a PriusChat forum topic:

Amazing.  With a floored accelerator, the Prius’ engine cut back to idle and the brakes brought the car to a stop.  With the car at a stop, brake and accelerator pedals depressed, the driver let off the brake and the car lurched forward toward the end of the video.  This confirmed the brakes were overriding the accelerator.  Is this evidence that the Prius’ computer is already programmed to override the throttle when the brake is depressed?  I don’t know, but it certainly looks that way.  I would like to try this exercise myself sometime.

It would be nice if Toyota would explain why the Prius is lumped in with all these cars for the recall, but is only getting the shortened (eventually replaced) pedal but not getting the computer update or the modified carpeting.  Does this mean the Prius’ engine computer is already smart enough to handle a stuck gas pedal?  Do the Prius owners only need to keep an eye on their floormats?

In that case, it is not necessary for a full-blown recall.  The drivers only need to be educated about their cars.  Properly install and maintain your floormats to eliminate the slim possibility of the accelerator getting trapped.  Know how to put your car into neutral while driving.  And lastly, know how to turn off your car.  In fact, Luscious Garage, the folks who made that earlier video, made two more videos about how to put a Prius into neutral and how to turn it off while driving.

Putting Prius in Neutral

Turning Prius Off

These are all driver education issues.  The Camry, Avalon, and Lexus ES/IS models should have their computers reprogrammed under the recall, but the Prius seems to already handle simultaneous gas/brake pedal action correctly.  Just have all the Prius owners watch the above videos, and tell us to check our floormats.  We’re big boys and girls, we can do this.  There is no need to trim or replace our accelerator pedals.

Personally, I will decline to have this recall work done on my Prius.  My car works fine.  I can maintain it and the floormats fine.  I don’t want the pedal feel of my car to be changed.  I know what to do in the highly unlikely event the accelerator gets stuck.  Of course, I’ll get the work done when it is time to sell the car.  If I trade it in, it’s the dealer’s job to make sure it has all recall work done.

In the end, I think Toyota will be vindicated like Audi.  In Audi’s case, it was found that the cars did not randomly accelerate on their own.  They simply had closely-positioned pedals.  Drivers were hitting the gas instead of the brake before shifting, and were basically doing neutral drops when putting the car into drive or reverse.  The press went to town digging up reports and interviewing people, and almost put Audi out of business.  Fast forward two decades and now we’re hearing stories from people who think their Toyota accelerated by itself.  All of these supposed cases of Toyota unintended acceleration are probably the result of driver negligence (improperly placed floormats) or driver ignorance (not knowing about neutral or shutting off the car).  I wonder if Toyota is including the Prius in the recall as a CYA kind of thing, to show they are doing something for their halo car.

Below are some blogs I read.  I check some daily and others weekly.

Ask the Pilot – Written by a real pilot, Patrick Smith.  He offers informed opinions and analyses of current aviation-related events.  Nice to get a peek at what really goes on at airlines and in the cockpit.  Much better than the aviation hacks who might appear on TV or in the newspaper.

Consumer Reports Cars Blog – Short easy-to-read entries.  No bias, the straight dope about cars and automotive news.

Food Network Humor – A humor site that holds no punches in poking fun at Food Network celebrities.  The site’s proprietor, Jillian Madison, blows me away with some of the stuff she comes up with.  The blog comments can be pretty funny.  Do note, it helps to be a viewer of Food Network to understand some of the jabs.

Labelscar – Caters to my morbid interest in dead or dying shopping malls.  Contributors offer memories, descriptions, and photos of malls from around the country.  Usually I pull up Bing maps and use the oblique aerial photography (Bird’s eye, colloquially) to check out the exterior of the mall when I read an entry.

Lamebook – Delivers silly Facebook posts and photos for all of us to mock and laugh at.  I don’t check this site as often as I used to, but it can still be good for a laugh at someone else’s expense.  Don’t bother reading the comments at Lamebook; they’re just profane and don’t add any value.

Say Hello to Jessica – Elgin blogger who covers all kinds of stuff, including local things.  I find her musings interesting.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks – I forgot to add this one.  I can’t stand unnecessary apostrophes or quotation marks.  This blogger cannot either.

I spent so much time last night trying to figure out where to ride my bike.  My criteria for a ride are simple – at least 20 miles and minimal riding on the street.  I looked at the Southern DuPage Regional Trail, which offered many options.  It connects with forest preserves and other bike routes.  However, I didn’t feel like driving down to Naperville for a bike ride.  I looked at Buffalo Grove, which appears to be on its way to having a great bikeway system.  The route I contemplated had too many turns to remember.  I settled on the trails connecting DeKalb and Sycamore (PDF map).  I had walked or geocached along those trails on numerous occasions.  I also went to college out there, so I was familiar with the area.  Below is my tracklog for the ride, and here’s the link for the EveryTrail upload if you want to zoom in on my track.

I overslept by an hour and was rather upset about it.  I turned on the TV to check The Weather Channel and saw the temperature was in the 30s.  Too cold for me to ride.  In a way, it was good I overslept, since I couldn’t ride anyway.  I putzed around for a little while and the temperature went up to 42, which meant by the time I got to DeKalb, the temperature would be even warmer.  Once I was on US20 on the west side of Elgin, I looked at my car’s outside temperature reading.  It said 46F.  I was pissed off again.  This was the second time that I could remember that The Weather Channel reported a temperature that was lower than it actually was, and caused me to leave later than necessary.

The starting point for my ride was Hopkins Park in DeKalb.  I parked in the lot closest to the bridge over the Kishwaukee River.  This was close to the halfway point on the trails I planned to ride.  I chose to go south from here first.  This took me past DeKalb’s wastewater treatment facility.  I took a tour of it during a class in college.  Fascinating place, and it doesn’t smell that bad, though bad smells don’t bother me much.  One note about the trail – it is quite close to the river here and there is only a steep mowed grass bank between you and the water.  I could see someone having a freak accident and ending up in the river.  No worries though; it is quite shallow.  Just south of the treatment plant is Hillcrest Dr.  The traffic on Hillcrest produced a surprisingly long wait to cross the street.  The trail then takes a turn north and uses the 1st St bridge to cross the Kish.  The trail on the bridge is just a sidewalk and not wide enough for two people to pass.  In fact, on my return trip I had to wait for another cyclist to pass before I could get on the bridge.  This narrowness continues on the west side of 1st St where you ride alongside the NIU Broadcast Center’s parking lot for a short distance.  As I continued southwest toward the NIU main campus, I passed a bench with a crocheted blanket it on it.  Index cards and a bag of markers are on the bench, and people have written notes to folks (and pets) they miss.

At Lucinda Ave there is a slight jog in the trail and a shortcut through a parking lot before the trial rejoins the river.  I saw “bike rally” painted on the trail in many locations; turns out Corn Fest has a bike rally utilizing the trails between DeKalb and Sycamore.  Maybe I should ride next year to get a free t-shirt.  But back to my narrative.  About halfway between Lucinda and College Ave is a large tree whose roots have pushed up the asphalt and created some large bumps.  Look out for those.  At Route 38, I used the sidewalk to cross the river and then went south on Pearl St.  Heading west on Gurler St leads to Prairie Park.  The trail passes through a disc golf course and some wooded areas.  The trail is bumpy in places.  While riding this trail, I discovered I can ride my bike and use my phone at the same time.  Definitely not something I will do on a regular basis.  I continued on this trail to its end at Taylor St.  Along the way I passed an apartment complex where a friend lived.  Good memories.  I also saw a pumpkin sitting in the river.  At the end of the trail, I backtracked and took a branch off the trail that led to Annie Glidden Rd.  The trail then runs parallel to Annie Glidden south to Taylor St.  This trail wasn’t on Google’s imagery and was a pleasant surprise.  At Taylor St/Malta Rd, I turned west to go ride some trails in a newer subdivision.  I spotted a bunch of geese in a pond and stopped to take a picture.  I put my kickstand down and went down to the shore to take the picture.  When I was only 6ft away from getting back on my bike, the wind blew it over.  I didn’t think to turn the bike around so the kickstand would keep it propped up against the wind.  The bike was unscathed, but as soon as I started riding, I noticed I had the handlebars turned while I was riding straight.  When the bike fell, things must have been pushed out of whack.  This was another moment I was thankful to have my little bike toolkit in my Camelbak.  After a couple of adjustments, I had the handlebars aligned correctly.  I rode the trail to its end at the edge of the subdivision then went back to the trail along Malta Rd.  There was one trail I wanted to explore that branched north along the shore of a retention pond.  The retention pond came right up to the edge of the trail.  A wee engineering problem I’d say.  Can’t imagine how badly this spot must flood after a rain shower.  I rode north to Larson Lake and made one loop around it before crossing Annie Glidden to pass through Prairie Park again.

Eventually I made it back to Hopkins Park.  I was pleased to see my car in the parking lot because this morning I had a dream/nightmare about it being stolen while I stopped to help car crash victims in St. Charles.  It was a weird enough dream that I wrote down the details after I woke up.  Anyway, I rode through the rest of Hopkins Park and then along Route 23.  Just northeast of the Castle Bank at Greenwood Acres Dr, I turned off to follow a trail north/northwest.  I forget if the trail was called the DeKalb Nature Trail or the DeKalb Kiwanis Trail.  The trails here have really generic names.  Either way, this section of trail was the busiest I encountered.  It only goes from Route 23 to 1st St, a distance of about 1.25mi.  It doesn’t pass near many houses, and it doesn’t really go anywhere, so I don’t know why the trail was busy.  I guess folks like it because it is kind of secluded.  One thing to note – the bridge over the Kishwaukee River is old.  The wooden planks have seen better days, so the bridge isn’t a smooth crossing.  I found I could really cook along this trail, about 17mph on level ground, but there were too many people for me to spend much time going fast.  I turned around and rode back to Greenwood Acres.  The DeKalb-Sycamore Trail (another name used for this trail) goes southeast alongside the roadway.  Like all the trails around here, this one was in mostly decent shape.  Asphalt, relatively smooth, with a few bumpy patches where plants are trying to grow through.  This part of the trail network isn’t very interesting.  You just see the back of a Lowe’s and some empty lots.  Just west of Peace Rd, the trial makes a northeast turn to follow an old railroad right of way.  I actually spotted an old stone or concrete bridge arch the railroad must have used.  Again, the scenery is boring.  Just the back of a cement factory, movie theater, and county highway department garage.  At Barber Greene Rd, the trail turns southeast.  The businesses here have changed since I was a student.  The Caterpillar facility is now 3M, and the animal shelter is getting a large addition.

Despite Peace Rd being a five-lane road with a 50mph speed limit, it was easy to cross with the stoplight.  At this point, I turned south to follow the Peace Road Trail.  At least I think that was its name.  There was one sign at the south end of the trail.  The trail is asphalt and follows Peace Rd.  In the first quarter-mile south of Barber Greene, there are some big bumps in the trail where it seems like the pavement settled on both sides of culverts that pass underneath.  One bump is a real doozy.  Cornfields are to the trail’s east except at the far southern and northern ends.  Because of these wide-open conditions, I had a hard time riding into the south-southeasterly winds.  The wind was only 7-10mph, but riding into a headwind is like riding up a hill that never ends until you turn around.  And turn around I did at Pleasant St by the airport.  There was even a sign marking the end of the bike route.  Oddly, there was a sign on the other side of the post that marked the beginning of the bike route.  Who would begin their bike ride here, I don’t know.  It’s the middle of a business park.  The ride north was easier with the tailwind.  I spotted a sign that called this the DeKalb/Sycamore Trail.  This six-mile section of trail was built in 1997 and 1998 for $425,000 using grants.  Eighty percent of the cost was paid by federal highway funds, 10 percent was paid the state Department of Natural Resources, and the last 10 percent was paid by county and local agencies.  The rest of the sign listed the land donors.  North of Barber Greene, I faced a uniquely rural obstacle.  Corn cobs.  Harvesting of feed corn resulted in pieces of corn cob littering the trail periodically for almost a half mile.  I chose to weave between the cobs because running them over was bumpy and sometimes made my front wheel kick off to the side if I didn’t hit the cob right.  At Bethany Rd, you turn east for a short distance to go around the DeKalb County Farm Bureau and then head north behind a business park.  There is then a 90-degree turn east and short distance later a 90-degree turn north at South Prairie School.  I must say, there was a wonderful smell in this area.  It smelled like candy.  The Geneva Branch of the Prairie Path smells like Popsicles or gummie candy on Geneva’s east side.  There was a caramel-chocolatey smell here.  I did some searching online and found that Tate & Lyle does some food ingredient processing here in Sycamore.  The trail ends at Borden Ave but the bike route continues east on the roadway.  I got passed by a few cars, but the road was wide enough that I felt comfortable.  There were still markings on the pavement from what I am guessing was a parade.  There were numbered spaces on the pavement.  Probably correspond with float numbers.  At Somonauk St, the bike route inexplicably follows the road north.  Somonauk is a busy street (at least by Cortland or Sycamore standards).  I think the route should have followed Somonauk for half a block then turn east on Vance St before going north on Locust.  This would be a safer route with less vehicular traffic.  Instead, the bike route uses Somonauk for two long blocks then turns east on Turner Pl.  The first block of Turner Pl is pockmarked concrete and not the best for riding on.  Things got better though.  I should note there was plenty of signage for the bike route, as a stranger would have no idea where to turn on these residential streets.  I rode comfortably along Locust, Lincoln St, and Kishwaukee Dr.  They were normal residential streets with commensurate traffic.  At Route 64, signs direct you east.  There was no way in hell I was going to ride on Route 64, so I used the sidewalk.  Another sign tells you to turn south to the driveway for Sycamore Golf Club.  You use the club’s driveways and follow plentiful signage (it would have been confusing without) to get to the city’s sports complex.  I didn’t go all the way into the complex.  I followed a loop around some ballfields and took a rest in a picnic shelter.  I had gone about 23mi and was feeling tired because of the headwinds I had been riding into.  I took probably a seven-minute break and got back onto the bike to return to DeKalb.  More riding south on Peace Rd into the wind, more riding around the corn cobs.  But once I got to Greenwood Acres Dr, the ride got really easy.  It was downhill all the way back to the car.  It was a nice cooldown for the ride.  In the end, I had traveled 31 miles.  That is a new distance record for me.

I am still having a hard time going past the 25 mile mark.  That’s where I approach three hours on the bike.  It’s not really hard to go 25 miles, it’s just that my body starts wearing out after that point.  I start feeling tired and sore in places.  I feel totally fine until I get around 25 miles.  Even 10 hours after the ride, I haven’t fully recovered.  I feel worn out, a little sore, want a massage, and want to go to sleep.  A 22-mile ride wouldn’t wear me out like this.  Amazing what another nine miles did to me.  Actually, I don’t think it’s the mileage.  It was all that wind I rode into.  I’m just really bad at riding into a headwind.  It poops me out.  I rode 31 miles, but probably spent the energy I would have used on a 35-mile ride without wind.  The headwind brought us some unseasonably warm weather, but it also made my bike ride more challenging.

Speaking of weather, I think this may have been my last bike ride of the year unless we get another warmup.  The forecast for the Thanksgiving holiday period (I have six days off!) doesn’t look good.  Highs in the lower 40s.  The high temperatures will be what I consider a minimum for me to go out riding.  I could go for a short hour-long ride in the afternoon, I guess.  I’m glad I bought my new bike.  I didn’t think the weather would be warm enough for anymore rides after my old bike broke, but I was able to go on another 172mi of bike rides.

The curmudgeon types have been bemoaning the “need it now” attitude of today’s society.  Thanks to computers and a general loss of patience, people expect stuff right away.  Three day delivery isn’t good enough, it has to be overnighted.  If someone doesn’t answer an e-mail within five minutes, they are lazy or an a-hole.  Girlfriend doesn’t answer a text message in one minute, she must be cheating.  Everyone expects immediate results, and people get downright surly when things don’t go their way.

This morning I heard a discussion of the New Moon movie on the radio.  That was the first I had ever heard of this series.  I had heard of Twilight, but didn’t know this was all based on a series of books.  I also had no idea it was so popular with tweens, and as I found out during World News Tonight, popular with moms.  They showed scenes of people waiting in line for the film.  Some folks had been waiting over 24 hours.

On Good Morning America, there were scenes of dozens (maybe hundreds) of people waiting in line at an Indiana Meijer store to get their books autographed by Sarah Palin.  CompUSA had pizza parties for people waiting until midnight for the release of Windows 7 a few weeks ago.  There were lines outside Apple Stores when the new iPhone 3GS came out.  Last year, I myself stood in line outside a TigerDirect store for a little while.  Next week, people will be camping outside of big box stores for Black Friday sales.

What gives?  I’m sure there is general agreement with me about my first paragraph.  People are just so gosh-darned impatient these days.  Yet they will stand in line for movies and electronics.

This article caught my eye tonight:

Couple Busted for Refusing to Pay Tip

So a couple was out with their friends and got lousy service at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, PA.  Of course, if service is lousy, you don’t tip.  Why reward bad behaviour?  When these folks didn’t pay the mandatory 18% gratuity ($16 in their case), they were arrested for theft.

Did you notice the wording of that last sentence?  The gratuity was mandatory.  A mandatory gratuity.  Isn’t that an oxymoron?  I know it isn’t the most official dictionary, but dictionary.com defines a gratuity as

1.	a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.

2.	something given without claim or demand.

 

Let’s start with Definition #1.  In this case, a gratuity is money over and above payment due for service.  The mandatory 18% gratuity was built into the bill, so this cost (I don’t want to call it a gratuity anymore because it isn’t one) is not over and above payment due, it is now part of the payment.  The restaurant should call it a service charge or something.  Gratuities are supposed to be optional; you pay them if service is good, you hold back if service is bad.

This brings us to Definition #2.  A gratuity is something given without claim or demand.  By this definition, a gratuity is optional and a restaurant cannot require it, let alone ask for it.  How can the 18% charge be called a gratuity?

This argument will probably come up in court.  If this charge was called a gratuity on the bill, I would say based on the common definition of the word, the couple has no obligation to pay it.  However, if the 18% charge is referred to as something else, then one would consider it a normal line item on the bill that would have to be paid.  The article says the charges will likely be thrown out, but I’m sure the judges and attorneys involved will look at the terminology used on the bill and interpret the definition of a gratuity.  By the way, I am not an attorney.  As if that wasn’t painfully obvious.

Out of curiosity, I pulled up the Yelp page for this pub in Pennsylvania.  It now has 304 reviews written and a one-star rating overall.  The number or reviews increased even as I wrote this entry.  There were 287 one-star reviews.  Will they go out of business?  Probably not.  But their reputation is definitely shot.  Witness the mob mentality of the internet.

a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.

 

2.	something given without claim or demand.

I saw another bad advertisement on TV tonight.  It was an ad for some sort of medication.  I wrote the name of the drug down but don’t have the piece of paper with me.  The ad shows a grandmother with her two grandchildren walking through a forest.  In one scene, they are shown walking on a boardwalk.  In a later scene, the children are shown off-trail horsing around.  From my experience, whenever there is a boardwalk through a natural area, you are supposed to stay on the boardwalk and leave it under no circumstances.  A boardwalk is often used in wetlands or among sensitive plants to keep people from wandering off-trail, trampling plants, or causing damage to the ground.  Since a boardwalk is shown in the commercial, I would suspect the grandmother and kids are in an ecologically sensitive location.  Why are the grandkids horsing around on sensitive grounds off-trail then?

These ad agencies  must think we are stupid.  So far I have managed to bust the creators of the Toyota long-distance relationship ad and the banking ad where someone is probably using an unsecured WiFi access point.  I’m sure more faulty ads will make it to the airwaves.

Elgin News

Just a brief comment about a fellow who was robbed of his tacos in Downtown Elgin by a guy with a machete.  The article says the victim was robbed of 16 tacos he had paid $41 for.  Am I cheap, or is that a lot of money for those tacos?  Do the math.  It comes out to $2.56 per taco.  I know some places charge a lot for fancy tacos.  However, at the Mexican restaurant where I get tacos for lunch in Geneva, they only cost $1.59 each.  I think the Volcano Tacos from Taco Bell cost $1.39 each.  For these tacos to cost $2.56 each, they must have been huge or had some expensive meat in them.

I have more to say about a bar that wants to open in Downtown Elgin.  This new bar wants to get a license to serve liquor until 4AM on weekends.  Seriously?  Part of my ire may be due to the prohibitionist in me, but why should a place be open until 4AM, let alone serving alcohol up to that time?  During the week, they want to serve alcohol until 3AM.  What the hell???  I don’t think any establishment should be allowed to stay open past 1AM.  If you can’t get your party on and off by 1AM, there is something wrong with your priorities.  So this new bar already has one strike against it because of their insane request to serve alcohol until 3 or 4AM.  The second strike is because of the type of events they want to host.  They want to host kickboxing and martial arts events.  These are not the kinds of events that belong in Downtown Elgin.  Fights and martial arts exhibitions can be tastefully done, but they can also degenerate easily.  Thankfully the proposal would prohibit amateur boxing, ultimate fighting, and wrestling events if it passes.  I think this bar could prove popular, but I would much rather have something classier in Downtown Elgin.  Why risk allowing a business that could further harm the reputation of Elgin?