Love is… getting up at 6am to count cars
That’s exactly what I did today (Thursday). I got up at 6am to sit in a car at the Kingfisher intersection in Yellowwood Park (by the Spar and civic centre) to count, and monitor the speed of cars. For two hours. Actually, I did it twice in one day, also counting cars from 12:00 to 1:30 at same spot. After that, Paul and I spent an hour driving around Yellowwood Park, checking distances, and car speeds, as well as marking a map with every speed bump in the suburb.
All this tedious work is for Paul’s Computer Science Honours Project. Think Sim Garbage Truck. He’s making a game / programme that is intended to simulate a municipal garbage truck’s movements on garbage collection day. The idea is that it can be used to optimise the collection process- avoiding traffic, reducing unnecessary back-tracking over the same routes, and minimising the number of times the truck has to return to the dump to offload the trash. (Anyway, it reminds me that I need to get the questions ready for my project, that I’ll be asking some of you Forum users out there to help me with soon).
Needless to say I now understand the boredom that is the reality of the police stakeout. Eventually it reached a point where I was alternating making ‘popping’ noises with my fingers in my mouth, and orgasmic woman sounds. It certainly got Paul’s attention, although that did include some strange looks.
Nonetheless, the stakeout experience was certainly revealing about your standard South African suburban community. Mostly I learnt that South Africans are natural law breakers.
The Drivers:
Numerous people ignored the fact that one road was a stop street, and shot through it at over 60km/hr. Another set of Einsteins, to avoid speed bumps, would veer into oncoming traffic. Drivers have no respect for children pedestrians dropped off on the wrong side of the road, a km away from their school by lazy parents.
The Pedestrians:
Then there were the truant schoolkids. Some were clearly already enjoying their week off a few days early, and cycling around in civvies. Another group, in uniform, had clearly walked out of the school grounds after less than an hour of education.
The Litterers:
Absolutely one of my pet peeves! At least 3 times I saw people throwing things out of their car windows, or, if they were pedestrians, dropping their rubbish on the floor. Nothing makes me quite as furious; particularly when 2 bins are right behind the litterers on foot. Don’t people care about their surroundings? It disgusts me that they are content to live like pigs, but to turn my world into their sty is unacceptable. Next to cinema seat-kickers, people who litter are my second strong case for a law that makes carrying a samurai sword mandatory.
As a P.S. to this post, I had one of my belated Anniversary gifts on Wednesday- a haircut. I avoided the many pleas for me to get highlights (so overdone), but my hair is now a much shorter, layered shoulder length cut. Although I can’t put it up in a ponytail anymore, its maintenance is minimal, which is fantastic for summer. Although it does mean I’ll have to resort to the use of some hairgel if I’m going to pull off the American McGee Alice look for Burn's Halloween party.
All this tedious work is for Paul’s Computer Science Honours Project. Think Sim Garbage Truck. He’s making a game / programme that is intended to simulate a municipal garbage truck’s movements on garbage collection day. The idea is that it can be used to optimise the collection process- avoiding traffic, reducing unnecessary back-tracking over the same routes, and minimising the number of times the truck has to return to the dump to offload the trash. (Anyway, it reminds me that I need to get the questions ready for my project, that I’ll be asking some of you Forum users out there to help me with soon).
Needless to say I now understand the boredom that is the reality of the police stakeout. Eventually it reached a point where I was alternating making ‘popping’ noises with my fingers in my mouth, and orgasmic woman sounds. It certainly got Paul’s attention, although that did include some strange looks.
Nonetheless, the stakeout experience was certainly revealing about your standard South African suburban community. Mostly I learnt that South Africans are natural law breakers.
The Drivers:
Numerous people ignored the fact that one road was a stop street, and shot through it at over 60km/hr. Another set of Einsteins, to avoid speed bumps, would veer into oncoming traffic. Drivers have no respect for children pedestrians dropped off on the wrong side of the road, a km away from their school by lazy parents.
The Pedestrians:
Then there were the truant schoolkids. Some were clearly already enjoying their week off a few days early, and cycling around in civvies. Another group, in uniform, had clearly walked out of the school grounds after less than an hour of education.
The Litterers:
Absolutely one of my pet peeves! At least 3 times I saw people throwing things out of their car windows, or, if they were pedestrians, dropping their rubbish on the floor. Nothing makes me quite as furious; particularly when 2 bins are right behind the litterers on foot. Don’t people care about their surroundings? It disgusts me that they are content to live like pigs, but to turn my world into their sty is unacceptable. Next to cinema seat-kickers, people who litter are my second strong case for a law that makes carrying a samurai sword mandatory.
As a P.S. to this post, I had one of my belated Anniversary gifts on Wednesday- a haircut. I avoided the many pleas for me to get highlights (so overdone), but my hair is now a much shorter, layered shoulder length cut. Although I can’t put it up in a ponytail anymore, its maintenance is minimal, which is fantastic for summer. Although it does mean I’ll have to resort to the use of some hairgel if I’m going to pull off the American McGee Alice look for Burn's Halloween party.
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