Vacuum-Cleaner's Blog

There are two Rescue 911 multi-part videos on YouTube about the dangers of leaving children in your car unattended!

This is part one of the video!  And the name of the video is called "Sinking Sisters"

This is part 2 of the same video.

Station wagons, SUVs and vans are heavier than most sedans and they sink a wee bit faster.

Ringing in the new year can be fun, but it isn't fun when you choose to drink and drive!  In the past, the city of St. Louis would pay the cab fare to have the cab company take you home and you end up with the free ride.  And you only pay the cab to go to pick up your car the next day.  Metro used to even offer free rides to everybody after 9:00 PM.  Watch this video on YouTube and you would be amazed that even paying the newer fare for Metro is much, much better than drunk driving! 

By watching this video, you can see the results of when stupidity takes control.  Please! 

WATCH THE VIDEO!

It can save your life and could save you some money!

Check out this bus!!!  It is the Galloping goose #5.  No school bus has ever built entrance doors on both sides!

But just like MetroLink, they wanted to have easy access for the passengers from either side.  This thing runs only on narrow gauge tracks.

I have found some info on the opening of the new section of highway 40.  However the exact schedule of what entrance ramps and exits are being kept secret because of the war on terrorism.  However they are doing they did post the closure schedule of the streets from the Innerbelt to Kingshighway.

http://www.thenewi64.org/GetTrafficUpdates.do

But remember, just so you get used to the new section, stay off your cell phones while navigating the new highway.  If you have to get info about the latest news via your cell phone, PULL OVER AND STOP!!  Plus, if you have a song playing on your CD player in your car, that tune will have to wait.  With the storm, it's best to keep your stereo turned down at a low level, headlights on, brain ON, and your cell phone either off or resting in the console!  If it rings, let the phone's onboard voicemail get it.  I rather you arrive at your job in one piece!

I was coming home on the bus Tuesday and could not believe the way people drive!  I saw one girl in a silver Buick not watching what she was going, and the bus driver blew at her.  Then as soon as she got to the left lane to let the bus gain some speed, she tried to get back at the bus.  And another gal driving a black SUV was on a cell phone while driving and not watching what she was doing.  I was so tempted to get up out of my seat and yell at the motorist to get off the phone.  But I did feel better in not doing it because if I did, she would have gotten down the number on the bus, and the bus driver would have wound up with a write-up.  At least I was next to a solid domelight backstop that is used to help cut down windshield glare.  And I have found out that the board is a really big safety board.  Not only does it cut down domelight glare behind the bus driver but it also protects handicapped riders that are sitting in that seat from being thrown thru the windshield.  People!!  If you feel you need to use the cell phone while in motion, RIDE THE BUS!  If you feel you have to have your tunes with you as you travel, buy a walkman and RIDE THE BUS!  You can listen to your walkman on the bus.  The websites are;

Metro's is;

http://www.metrostlouis.org.

Madison County Transit's is;

http://www.mct.org.

Carpooling/Vanpooling;

http://www.ridefinders.org

For going to Washington, Missouri for shopping or sightseeing there is Amtrak.  You can log onto;

http://www.amtrak.com

For most other destinations, there is Greyhound at;

http://www.greyhound.com

Now since the nasty weather is here, the best thing to do is to shift your transmission to your lower gears rather than direct drive due to that you should have better traction.  And remember, use your lights each time you use your wipers.  See and be seen!  Driving in incliment weather with your brain off is a very dangerous thing to do and can be deadly!  Stay off your cell phone, and keep your stereo at a low level.  Driving in incliment weather is never a good time to have distractions going on while driving.  If your car has an electric defroster built in, let your car sit idle until the defroster does it's job!

The sectioin of highway 40 opens up between Ballas Road and Brentwood Blvd. on December 15th of this year.  The eastern half shuts down on January 2nd.  Metro to no avail has chosen to keep lots of stuff secret when it comes to posting service changes.  And stuff like this was one of the things that cost them the tax increase proposal.  On Sunday, MODOT is opening the highway to bicycles and pedestrians before they let cars take over.  The two things I think that MODOT did that was stupid was that they lied about possible pedestiran/bicycle access to the highway in some spots such as bike lanes, and they also had the opening date to be set on a Sunday when people use that day to go to church.  MODOT could have picked a Saturday.

There are some things that Metro has done that got the public mad at them.  When it comes to building a line, you have to hire a firm that WILL do the work such as design of the route, finding out utility lines and how they are routed, know your environmental areas such as former landfills, etc.  The company that you hire cannot be one that sits on their can and does nothing.  Plus with the Call-a-Ride, you have to look at the vans to see what kind of weight they can handle before you go out and buy them.  And the Fords didn't have the weight requirement is needed to meet today's standards.  I told Metro about this before and they didn't listen until Elliot Davis' 'You Paid for It" saga got them to change.  There were times that I had to put up with sheer nonsence in my 16 years of volunteerism at Metro.  I did see in a set of slides on Metro's "2009-The Road ahead" page that some top officials will be getting cut.  Well, for cramming lots of cash into their pockets and not using the extra sales tax dollars for future expansions, well now those top officals are going to learn their fate, effective this spring.  Same with some of the planning and scheduling department's employees.  Those employees blew it for everybody!

Well, there are some service cutting options that Metro has put into place because the voters choose to vote it down.  They are even talking of cutting weekend service.  People said that there were to be no service cuts if Prop M failed.  Well the truth stands on this website;

http://www.metrostlouis.org/ImportantInfo/important
Info.asp?recNum=2

Those senior citizens that I wanted to have service available will be short changed because of the voter turning out in a negative way.  Those people who voted it down sure have ruined it for people with disabilties!  They listened to the lies of the people that were against MetroLink.