It's been a long time since I have been so amazingly attacked on the Internet, I had forgotten what it's like to be attacked by a troll. Today's troll, Ruth Riegelhaupt-Herzig ruthrh@gmail.com is brought to you today by Yahoo Groups and the Sunnyvale Cafe mailing list.

Recently, Sunnyvale passed a law requiring retailers charge 10 cents for every plastic bag used by consumers, with the intent to eventually phase out plastic bags in the city. This is a fantastic law, as plastic bags contribute to significant waste and have a bad environmental impact.

Well, Ruth thinks this is a horrible idea. It's so bad that she is going to choose to shop outside of Sunnyvale. How dare the city force her to save money and help the environment!

However, that's not the issue for Ruth. For Ruth, the problem is the recycle bins (which are 30+ gallons big) are too small

I am VERY frustrated that my garbage bin is at least 3 times the size of the recycling bins when one considers the wasted space in the middle of the bins. They toss everything together so why are we wasting this space? I'm sure those bins are also more expensive as well. How about getting us some big recycling bins (and recycling more items through our service, like, say Plastic Bags).

I have to throw recyclable items into garbage almost every week (when I don't take the trouble to bring them to a friend's house). Instead of focusing so much effort on this bag issue and making it more inconvenient for people to shop in Sunnyvale, how about we put a bit of energy into making recycling MORE convenient for Sunnyvale residents? Seriously...it's been bugging me for years how tiny our recycling is while Saratoga has huge recycling bins and tiny garbage bins and they seem to work just fine for the residents.

This rather tells me that Ruth produces a LOT of trash.

She is also very mis-informed. The bins keep paper and plastics/can recycling separate when they are dumped into the dumptruck. She didn't bother to check, but Tom set her straight:

The truck that stops at my house does not dump everything together, although it certainly looks that way when viewed from a distance. Papers from the green side dump into one section of the truck and containers from the blue side dump into a different section.

As for the bin size, I pay the extra "lazy fee" for the biggest trash bin so I don't have to drag it out to the curb every week. My recycle bin fills up faster than the huge trash bin (and it's almost always the container side that fills up first) but I don't think I would want it to get any bigger.

My original response was this, which went to her directly, even though I meant to send it to the whole group:

> How about getting us some big recycling bins (and recycling more
> items through our service, like, say Plastic Bags).

My recycling container is as big as my trash can.  My neighbor's 
recycling can is twice as big as his trash can (he opted for the 
smaller trash can).  Where in Sunnyvale are you that you have a 
different size?
this is a valid question, because I thought Sunnyvale had one
plan, not several different ones


> I have to throw recyclable items into garbage almost every week

How about reducing what you buy that requires recycling?

Do you drink sodas?  How about water or tea instead?

Do you eat packaged foods?  How about more vegetables instead? 
We live in a wonderful climate, you can even grow your own.  How
about fewer processed foods?  Do you have a family?  Cooking with
the whole family can be a great experience.
this is my excitement for gardening, and my attempt to share
it with her

We put out our garbage and recycling every 2-3 weeks, so I guess
overflowing recycling or trash weekly surprises me a bit.
which is true, we don't have much trash or recycling, and I 
would love to understand how other households operate such that 
they have more

> (when I don't take the trouble to bring them to a friend's house).

This is great!  I'm glad you put this much effort into recycling.
Many people don't.


> Instead of focusing so much effort on this bag issue and making
> it more inconvenient for people to shop in Sunnyvale,

Is it really that inconvenient to bring your own bag?  I've been
bringing my own bags for a decade now, and I don't find it difficult.
What part is problematic for you?  Remembering to bring them?  Store
them in your car.  Having them in the first place?  Use the plastic
bags you already have.  I'll happily bring over a couple of my extra
ones for you, or buy you new ones if used bothers you.

It really isn't that inconvenient.  That people would prefer to 
contribute to the destruction of their environment in such a small 
way, to the helping it with one very very tiny step in the (eventual) 
banning of plastic bags is somewhat puzzling to me.

Reduce first.  There's a reason reduce is first.  ;)

Kitt.

Well, my email in an attempt to be helpful resulted in a non-stop barrage of emails from Ruth. She clearly wanted to express her frustration with having to carry her own bags. I do so enjoy when people fill up my inbox with rants. So, here are my second, third, and fourth hate mails, courtesy of Ruth (recall, that, as with my first hate mail, I haven't actually read these - once someone starts non-stop emails, without your responding at all, you know they aren't going to be good, so meh, you can read them for me):

I actually do bring my own bags most of the time...by my own choice (as I've already said). I don't like the city government dictating what I should do when they're not making recycling easy as it is.

My car is full of equipment that I use for the community service work I do. I have limited space to carry bags. I do carry what I can but every so often I don't have enough or I forget to put them back in my car after unloading, etc. I just won't shop in a city that doesn't do its own part.

This is only one of MANY different issues I have with Sunnyvale. I also have an issue with the Neighborhood Preservations group who will fine folks because a neighbor (who isn't even a neighbor) complains about the condition of a property where NO accidents have occurred while on the sidewalk in front of the same home there have been THREE...count them...THREE accidents as a result of a sidewalk coming up due to an overgrown tree.

Is it your place to judge how much recycling I have? I'm in the midst of a major cleanup, I run several youth groups out of my home...plus you don't even know how many people are in my family vs. yours. Who are you to judge? Really?

We all have our own ways to contribute. Yours is apparently to berate.

Wow!!!!

I can't wait to move out of Sunnyvale and into Saratoga where they have their heads on straight.

btw...my business also provides a great deal to be recycled and I have no choice as to its packaging. One of the ways I reuse the paper bags which I will no longer get is to put out additional recycling. I guess those items will just need to go in the garbage now...since Sunnyvale has made THAT a better option for me in so many ways.

Wow! Really! You know absolutely nothing about me or my life and you feel it's your place to judge. Amazing!

and, again, you know NOTHING about me. I don't drink soda nor do I serve it to others. I'm also vegetarian (I can't even have animal broth or fat) so I cook everything from scratch. I can't even have anything with corn in it because my daughter is allergic, so pre-made foods are pretty much out for our combined food limitations.

You know NOTHING about me...and your assumptions just prove that.

BTW...most of my neighbors are also overflowing into paper bags, so my issue is not alone.

To Ruth, when you google for your name and read this, please know that Sunnyvale can't wait for you to move out either. If you are incapable of offering solutions to problems instead of just complaining, well, please just leave already.

My car was hit by another car today.

I'm kinda annoyed at it.

Okay, that's not quite true. I'm more than annoyed by it. I'm pissed. However, being pissed doesn't seem to solve anything, so I'll just go back to being annoyed.

Right after I get the details down.

I went to San Jose today to drop off six boxes of books at 1dollarscan. I liked the quality of the scans, and wanted another bunch scanned. After having a relatively good experience dropping off the books, I made ready to leave.

My car was parked on East Santa Clara Street in San Jose, facing east, in the parking spot closest to South 3rd St. When I returned to my car, I pulled out my everyday notebook to write down the mileage of the car. I then started the car and looked in the rear view mirror to see about traffic.

There was a white truck in my rear view mirror, with a blonde woman driving. She was parked in the red zone behind my car, I presumed waiting for my parking spot. There was traffic still in the lane next to me, so I waited. After a few moments, I turned on my left turn signal to let the woman behind me know that, yes, I was going to pull out, but was waiting for traffic to clear before I did so.

I watched in my rear view mirror, and when all cars had passed, I checked my side mirror and did the lean-foward move that my Aunt Sonnie does to make sure no one is in her blind spot (wow, I hate that move, but understand the reasons for it). I then cranked the steering wheel left and started to pull out.

And stopped.

I was momentarily confused why I was stopped, then saw the white car next to me. Right next to me. As in, if I roll down the window, I could reach out and touch it.

Oh.

Car.

Accident.

Damn.

I looked back over my shoulder and saw a black woman in the driver's seat, and a black man in the passenger seat. I was unable to move my car until she backed up, so I sat there and looked at them until she pulled her car back. I wondered, as I sat there, if she would drive away, but she didn't. She drove her car backward and parked her car in the red zone behind my car.

I reached for my phone and camera, looked to verify traffic was still clear, opened my car door and stepped out of my car. I briefly wondered if I should turn on the voice recorder in my phone as I looked at the damage to my car. I then walked back to her car.

Here's the damage to her car:

Which is to say, none.

There was no broken glass on the ground next to my car, so the broken headlight could not have been caused by her hitting my car. The other spots on her car have rust spots on them so clearly could not have been caused by this incident.

As I approached the car, I thought it odd that the guy who was in the front seat had made a dive into the backseat of the car. He was now sitting in the back seat of the car behind her, where "sitting" is a misnomer, as he hadn't fully finished his dive.

As I took a picture of her car, I was approached by a number of people, several of them appeared to be street people, saying "Ooooooooooo! She got you goooood!" and "Oh, you had an accident." One guy approached me and said, "I don't think you hit me," which puzzled me a bit, until he continued, "I'm parked in front of you," and pointed at his truck in front of my car. "Oh, good, I'm glad I didn't," I responded, then asked for his business card, which he gave me.

I then turned back to the woman in the white car (a Mustang) who hit me. She had gotten out of the car. I asked if she had insurance, which she did. I handed her my book and asked for her name and phone number, which she gave me by writing down in my book, and handed me her insurance card. It was a temporary card, issued a week before (on the 26th), which made me wonder how legitimate it was. I took a picture of her card, and wrote down the key aspects of her insurance, the company, the policy number.

I handed her a business card of mine, which, in retrospect, I regret doing. It's not hard to find me on the internet, no, but there's a difference between having someone google my name to find me, and handing someone the keys to my front door. I know the woman's car insurance information, and her phone number, and, well, she know pretty much everything about my life. Seems like a really stupid trade. I'll be making cards with just my phone number on them.

She didn't have any paper nor anything to write with when I tried to give her my insurance information. I asked her several times if she had a phone and could take a picture of my card. She said she didn't. I tore a page out of the back of my book (something I hate doing), and wrote down my insurance information for her.

When I had started taking down her information, the guy who was in the car with her hovered around us, repeatedly asking, "Are you going to call the insurance company? Are you going to call?" I didn't say anything about the insurance company until after he walked off to look at my car. I then turned to the woman and said, "I'm not going to call my insurance company," thinking it's going to cost me less to fix it myself than it is to file a claim and watch my rates go up. "If you call your insurance company, I will tell them exactly what happened." She looked at me and said, "Well, you hit me," I looked at her and repeated, "If you file a claim, I will tell them what happened."

Which is to say, she hit me.

The only way my car has the damage it does at the angle she came in was if she had made a hard right from the second lane over, into my car. My turn signal was on. I was moving slowly. There were no cars in the lane immediately adjacent to me as I was pulling out.

I speculate that the guy with her cranked on the steering wheel or they were having a fight when she swerved into the lane. That is speculation on my part, but she wasn't fully in the right lane when she hit me.

After our talk and exchange of information, I left, and drove around the block and parked, somewhat relieved the damage wasn't bad enough to prevent the car from moving. I sat there for a bit, fairly calm, surprised at the situation, gathering my thoughts about what happened.

I wish I had taken more pictures of her car. I wish I had gotten the name of the guy in the car with her. I wish it hadn't happened, but, well, it did, and getting all upset about it won't change the fact that my car's worth just dropped.

Mostly unrelated, the woman had startling eyes.

So, three things annoy me most about this whole thing. The first and most obvious is that my car was hit (I keep wanting to say "I was hit," but I wasn't hit, the car was, so I keep rewording that). That's going to be annoying to anyone. I now need to deal with having my car fixed.

The second thing that annoys me, and this part annoys me the most actually, is that the woman in the truck behind me who had the best view of what happened, left. She witnessed what happened, was the perfect observer to the incident, and as soon as it happened and the other driver started backing up, she left. The guy parked IN FRONT OF ME who couldn't have had more than the view in his side mirror came back and gave me his card, but the one person who could say exactly what happened just up and left.

The third thing that annoys me about all of this is that through no action of my own, I am now out money and time. I checked my rear view mirror. I checked my side mirror. I had my turn signal on. The road was clear. I wasn't doing any of the things that are typically associated with accidents: I wasn't speeding; I wasn't texting while driving; I wasn't on the phone; I wasn't swerving; I wasn't slotting; I wasn't driving aggressively; I wasn't tired; I wasn't driving at night; I wasn't driving in the rain; I wasn't pick something else that is generally associated with accidents and I wasn't doing it. I was pulling out of a parking spot and another driver with a passenger in her car hit my car. THAT frustrates me to no end. I did everything right, and still had something bad happen to me.

Yeah.

So, who knows if the woman is smart enough to know she has no reason to file an insurance claim. There was no visible damage to her car from the accident. She hit my car. It's between $800 (if I go cheap) and $3000 (if I go dealship-fix, replace with new parts) worth of damage to my car, assuming there isn't any suspension or axle damage. I'll have my car repaired, but, yeah, if she's smart, she'll realize that she has no reason to file a claim, as she'll be paying for the repair to my car, and her rates will go up.

If she's not, well, I'm okay having the dealership replace the front quarter-panel.

This morning, I trained up to San Francisco for day two of the New Game Conference, dedicated to HTML5 games (or rather, browser games that don't use Flash). As yesterday, I left enough time to make it to the train without stressing too much, which was a good move, as there was no parking at the Mountain View Caltrain station when I arrived at 7:35. Last time I bothered to check, Mountain View had parking spaces that early, but things must have changed since that point.

Yes, that's right, my unscientific poll says Caltrain's ridership is up over a year ago. Anyone who quotes me on that is a crappy researcher.

Unlike yesterday morning, this morning I knew where I was walking and where my destination was, so I was able to walk quickly, which worked well.

Except it didn't.

People bunch up at the intersections when the light is red, and begin to move forward when it turns green, or sometimes a moment before if they're old hat at this walking in San Francisco thing. They tend to move in little herds from one light to the next, breaking off as some people catch a light or turn the corner as they disperse.

Except those little herds don't always walk at a decent pace. Worse, the slower people don't move to the right, as I would have expected. As near as I can tell, the slower walkers just wander across the whole sidewalk, taking up as much space as possible, blocking or hip checking anyone who wants to pass them.

Okay, not quite that bad, but pretty close. While some people just walked more slowly (usually the shorter people), most of the people walking slowly had their noses buried in a phone.

I was reminded of Scott's story about how at West Point, they made sure the guy with the shortest legs was in front of the pack during group runs. When the guys with the longer legs were in front, wow, it was a harder run for everyone.

Oddly enough, this morning, I kept thinking, "Put the guy with the longer legs out in front." I swear, I was stuck behind the slowest, most annoying pedestrians ever.

And I wasn't even in a hurry.

This morning, I woke up just much too much early to head to San Francisco for New Game Conference, which I'm expecting to be mostly about HTML5 games. I had checked the train schedule last night, and decided I needed to leave by 6:45 to make the 7:13 train without stress.

Because I can't really sleep when I'm worried I'll sleep through my alarm, I was awake too early and up too early and out of the house at 6:40, enough time to stop by Starbucks for breakfast, and still make the train. All part of my plan.

So, I arrived at the train station with what I thought was enough time to be okay. As I stepped out of my car, however, I saw all of these other people rushing out of the garage. Usually that happens when a train is approaching. I looked at my watch: no, still before 7:00, just before, but still before, I'm okay for the 7:13 train.

I walked my own pace, down the stairs and into the ticket line. As I am standing at the back of the line, watching other people also in line, all of us wondering about the second machine with no one in line for it, I hear a train appraoching.

No, no, I am okay, I tell myself. I am hear early enough, it must be the southbound train.

A few moments later, shoot, no, it is a northbound train. I am okay, I tell hmyself, it isn't my train, no worry, no worry. Without stressing, without trying to rush, I stayed in line without worry, bought my ticket, then walked over to the schedule. It is now 7:05, and reading the schedule in front of me, it says that the train that just went by me was the bullet train. It left at 7:03.

The train that just went by.

Bullet.

What. The. Heck?

I checked the schedule last night! I should be 8 minutes early right now! I planned this to be stress free!

I GOT UP EARLY TO NOT BE LATE!

*sob*

The next train is leaving in 20 minutes, and arrives in San Francisco at 8:48, instead of 8:02.

After a few more *sobs* I realize, oh wait, I was looking at the San Jose time row.

My train is arriving in 7 minutes.

So much for planning things to be stress free.

This posting was forwarded to me with the question, "What is this job offer looking for?"

I couldn't answer the question, actually. The odd thing was that there were three bids on the job. "I can do it! For cheap! Even though I don't know what the job is!"

Optimism at its finest.