Sunday, June 27, 2010

I really am lucky to have had a box of Duro Flashes.

Wow another week another adventure. Our 3rd daughter turned 17 on Saturday and after spending a day at a swim meet at La Mirada and most the afternoon getting squirted by swimmers with latex tubes we finally got away and went to dinner. We had a nice dinner at the Spaghetti Factory and then we went home. Home was only about 10-15 miles away.

So we take off driving down Chapman with my wife and 3 of our daughters in the car and then we here a loud bang and the car pulls hard to the right. I thought we had blown out a tire and I pulled into the median and then when traffic was clear pulled over to the right hand side of the road and got out to inspect the damage. It looked like either a tie rod broke or more likely that and ball joints on the wheel broke. My tire was on it side underneath the car. Don't ask me how we got from the median to the other side of the road like that. Also don't ask me how we did not sustain more body damage etc. We also consider ourselves very lucky because 2 minutes later and we would have been on the 57 freeway going north at about 70 miles per hour. We were very lucky. The tow truck got their within 5 minutes of the call and we had some one come and pick us up. Good job to the tow truck driver James who was very good and did a great job. They took the Sequoia back to the body shop and I will get a quote tomorrow. In the mean time I went and rented a Suburban so I could take my booth to the National Sheriffs Show that starts tomorrow.

What a crazy weekend. Mostly I am just happy everyone is okay.

Here is a video of the Duro Flashes set up behind the Sequoia (the tow guys said it made it very easy to find us with these and also a pic of the tire laying under the car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utL0z2SWiNs

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A sad and touching tradedy happened to a friend of my daugther

I know I usually lighthearted and looking to poke fun at things but I had to write about this.

My daughter and son in law work for a company that sell security systems during the summer. They have people all over the country. One of their newer sales guys was driving out to Denver with a technician who would be working for the company installing the systems. They got almost to their apartment and they car stopped. The boy got out of the car and while he was looking under the car another car came by and clipped the boy and took off the door.

The boy lost his leg and was lucky to have not lost his life. Here is a video of him that tells about what happened and also shows his courage.

http://bit.ly/9G4F7m

I hope this works because it took my a long time to get this to open.

I just think it is very sad to know that there is a 18 year old out there that will now go the rest of his life with out the lower part of his leg because of the carelessness of someone else. This boy was not someone who worked on the road like a trucker, tow truck driver, police etc but it just shows you how things like this can happen to anyone who is out on the road not just the professionals who spend much of their life on the roads. I have lost friends to careless drivers and it was quite upsetting but for some reason this really bothers me. Maybe because it was a hit and run or maybe because I feel that it could have been prevented.

Good luck to Marvin Sandavol as he deals with this. May God Bless him in his recovery.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Traffic in China is different

I have been going to China since the early 80's. I lived in Hong Kong from 1980-82 and made my first trip to the mainland in 1982. I then moved back to China in 1987 and spent about half of the 90's there. I remember the days when there were no stop lights most cities in China and most people rode motorcycles as cars were to expensive. There were also no highways and everything was the rural driving and it took hours and hours to get anywhere. More on this another time.

Things have improved dramatically in China. They now have Super Highways everywhere. I went to China in the late 90's to do some consulting on the Hi Speed Rail Signals and learned that the technology they had was already ahead of what was being used here in the USA. All that being said I still see things that do not make sense.

Can someone explain to me how this traffic light makes sense. It has the outside lines going straight and the inside lanes with the turn indicators. There is also a count down so the guys at the red light can get ready to take off like a drag race. It seems to me that this is an accident waiting to happen. I was thinking that I could stand on the corner and wait for a couple of hours and I would for sure see someone crash but I didn't Here is the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIUAbHNfTOs

Monday, June 14, 2010

Look what I saw driving on the 605 Freeway

So I am driving back from the airport on the 605 Freeway and I look our the window and I see a Chevy Truck pulling a container. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIEEd10apF0

The first thing I think of is this the Long Beach Ports new get green program by using pick up trucks to take containers from ports to the local warehouses? Then I wonder if this guy is just hauling an empty container to some location to be used as a storage facility? Then I wonder what would happen if he had to break really hard or swerve to avoid someone in front of him. I wonder if the container would stay on the trailer. Then I wonder if this guy has to pass the same regulations at weigh stations that regular truckers have to pass.

The bottom line is that this just did not look safe to me. Could be a good commercial for Chevy but I can see that this would cause a big mess if this guy swerved or hit his breaks really hard.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Back from China

So I have a few things I want to write about but I think I will stretch it over a couple of weeks.

I have a bunch of pictures of trucks pulling stuff over there and even one interesting one of a Pick Up Truck pulling a container once I got back here to LA that we saw on the way home from the airport on Monday.

I will be looking to loading some of these on You Tube.

What I really wanted to say today was that I bought a couple of really cool tasers in China. I am not sure what they were going to be for. They looked like Cell Phones but they were tasers. I thought maybe I could give them to my daugthers for protection or maybe give them to the ladies in the office for protection or even give them away at the NSA show at the end of the month but when I got to the airport in Shanghai and checked in they scanned my checked bags and told me I had to do a special security check. What they did was go right for the tasers pull them out and confiscate them. I had a GPS tracking device, some traffic batons that are rechargeable with batteries in them and also 24 solar road studs that I was bringing back for customers in my bags but the only thing they went for was the tasers.

They took them and put them in a drawer and then dismissed me. I asked them if I could have a friend come and pick them up and they said "no". I asked US Customs about it when I arrived in the US and they said that is Chinese Customs and they do not know their rules. I guess it is illegal to take tasers out of China?

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

So Tomorrow I head to China

The traffic over there is crazy. I am hoping to get some excellent shots of people showing us not how to drive when I make my travels. I will be in a car from Shanghai to Ningbo going over the new bridge that crosses the harbour (it will take about 2 hours instead of 5-6 hours like in the past when you had to drive around the harbor. We used to fly there but we cannot fly direct from Shanghai to Ningbo right now.

Then we take another 2-3 hour drive a couple of days later to visit another factory. Then the next day we drive back to Shanghai. With all the time on the road I should be able to see some crazy things that I can post on you tube when I get back.

I will have to wait until I get back because you tube is not allowed in China and you cannot post to it. Should be pretty fun and if I cannot update while I am there I will make sure I update first thing when I get back.