Snow and more snow, and catching some zzzzz's

Well, I don't know about you, but I generally get home from work at about 230 - 4 in the morning, and as a lot of you know, a lot of major streets become snow routes during the winter months and parking is banned on these routes from 3 am until 6 am.

For the most part it's an easy way for the city to make a few dollars every night during the winter months as they tow cars away, yeah, it's the law, blah blah blah.......

But anyway, almost every night, I see a Streets and Sanitation SUV parked off of Devon somewhere on Lakewood or Magnolia, in a no parking zone.....and the person is sleeping, with the car running.

Isn't this a blatant waste of city money, or rather our, the tax payers money? Sleeping on the job, I know if I was sleeping on the job, I would get fired, not questions asked, but a city employee is allowed to? and wasting gas that we the tax payer pay for, not to mention polluting the environment and wasting valuable resources just to sleep in his car when he should have been sleeping at home. It's a load of crap that our tax dollars have to go to support a free loading city worker like this one, and the next time I can I WILL get a picture of him.....

And beside this jerk who is sleeping, how much is the city actually making after the towing of a car - consider how many people's salaries have to be paid - tow truck driver, clerks at the lot, drivers at the lot, sleeping streets and sanitation workers salary, gas, repairs on tow trucks, and cars used in the work  of towing illegally parked cars, and this is all before we even get to paying the tickets, collection agents for the city for unpaid tickets, etc - it goes on and on, so how much does the city really make on it all, after all is said and done?

Crossing the Street Part 2

Yes, I am still bitching about it, well because, as usual I almost got hit crossing a street today, but this time, I had the right of way, as I as walking northbound on Sheridan road, a car kept trying to roll through the stop light to turn south on to Sheridan road, as she was talking on the phone, and not even looking to see me crossing the street, and if I didn't hit the hood of her car with my hand, odds are she would have just hit me - maybe I should have let her - for the insurance money people........

But she rolls down her window, and starts screaming at me, why you hitting on my car? and at this point, I just tear into her - and I think I say something to the effect of "If you got off your god damn phone and actually looked at where the fuck you were going you would have seen that your car was rolling into the fucking crosswalk while I was walking through it, and you would have also noticed the NO TURN ON RED SIGN from 7-7 pm, and that I had the fucking right of way"

Now, if I'm not mistaken, isn't talking on a hand held cell phone while driving illegal? and yet, you don't hear about many tickets being issued for assholes who could care less about anyone else but them selves talking on their cell phone while driving..... at least she wasn't texting.

And, in California, you see police issuing tickets for pedestrian crosswalk violations quite frequently, yet here in Rogers Park, Chicago, you almost never see it, and it happens in front of police a lot, and they seem not to care - does anyone care about pedestrians any longer? It's just out right rude how some drivers are so inconsiderate.

Crossing the Street

Ok, when did crossing the street get to be so hard?

I mean really, didn't the city pass a law that cars are supposed to STOP when a pedestrian is in an intersection trying to stop? I can't count how many times over the course of a week that I try to cross a street and can't because an asshole motorist won't let me cross.

I mean really, it's bad enough that we pedestrians have to try to walk over sidewalks and places that aren't even shoveled, to almost get hit by you Mr or Mrs or Miss or Ms ASSHOLE because you can't even obey the law. Not to mention, we the person standing outside in the cold, have to wait on you, who are probably pretty warm in your car, f'n up our air with your cars emissions, and we the pedestrian have to breath that shit, and by walking, we are being environmentally aware, and reducing our carbon footprint, and this is how we get repaid? By simply trying to cross the street and almost getting hit by you in your car?

And then there's the assholes who decide to run the red light right after it changes - a different kind of asshole all together - not only are you breaking the law by running a red light, you are also, saying to the world that I am more important than anyone, including you Mr. Pedestrian, who I almost hit because you were walking in the cross walk. Really speedy, will getting to your final destination a few seconds faster really make that much of a difference in the general order of your life? Or was your travel planning that bad that you feel you have to rush, regardless of the safety of other pedestrians or drivers?

I bet you are the same asshole that rolls through stop signs rather than stops - STOP means STOP, in case you were wondering. What would happen if you were to roll through the stop and hit a little child that you couldn't see? I cannot tell you how many times I've almost been hit by one of those assholes that roll through a stop sign - and then they look at me as if I'm in the wrong for crossing the street in front of their car - what the @#$%@~#%#%

Some people just need to actually use that thing between their ears for more that tuning out into the social network of the world, and consider others around them

Shovelling and Snow

Well, Yes, it is that time of year, when those of you who own your homes, have a civic duty (which even though it is a law, it is seldom enforced) to shovel your walkways.

I mean seriously, we, those of us who are pedestrians, have to actually try to walk down the sidewalk in front of your home, and would rather not fall over, because of the now icy, uneven, snow covered sidewalk you were too lazy to shovel - what if an elderly person fell over and seriously hurt themselves? how would you feel then? Just because you were too lazy to give a crap...............

Now you (lazy homeowner) might say something like, " well, walk in the street" well, that's just plain dangerous - if the average car can barely get down a street right now, how in the (insert colorful expletive here) can a car and a pedestrian get down that same street? That car is going to either have to wait til the person gets out of the way, or it's not going to see the pedestrian, and we all know what happens from there.




Now those of you who have retail or commercial establishments should know better, and should be shoveling, I mean really,if I can't get into your store who the fuck do you expect me to shop there? and if you are too lazy to give a crap now in the cold months, well, maybe I'll be to lazy to give a crap in the warmer months, and spend my hard earned money somewhere else.....

And this saving parking space thing.......well, I don't have a car, and in this weather, I am so glad, but, I walk home from work on the later side of the night, when people are sleeping, and all of that furniture that they've been using to save spaces, that they leave on the sides of the street, well, I've been getting my pick at my new lawn furniture! So Far, I've got two awesome lawn / beach chairs, a really nice table for my back porch, and I'm now on the hunt for a couple of nice lawn chairs for my pack porch.....maybe some one will leave a weber grill outside...... we'll just have to keep looking

Anyway, to those of you who did shovel, thanks, much appreciated, for those of you lazy jerks who didn't.... Kiss My Grits!