Thursday, April 17, 2014

Parking Note (aka The Incident)

When I left work today, I found two notes on my car. Now, before I get too far along, I feel the need to mention two things. The first is that I am fairly certain I work with the person who left the note, which will ultimately make things awkward if/when they read this. The second is that I knew when I parked that I was too close, but as you'll see, I didn't (and still don't) think it'd be an issue.

Let's look at the notes.
Double Trouble.
I find these fascinating for several reasons. The first is the phrase written IN ALL CAPS that says "EXTREMELY TOO CLOSE". It should either say "extremely close" or "too close", but "extremely too close" borders on hyperbole--as if parking too close would be fine, but extremely too close is just unacceptable. The second is the fact that there are two notes and both end with "next time". I picture the person writing the first note, placing it on my window, getting in their car, then thinking "you know what, I'm gonna leave a second note, just to be sure", get back out of their car and leaving the second note. Phew!

Normally, I would sympathize. But as you'll see, I might possibly have mildly inconvenienced a person for all of 20 seconds. Doesn't seem worthy of two (2) notes, in my opinion.

The first thing to understand is that the parking garage is rather unforgiving in regards to space and is generally awkward to navigate. This is a drawing of the space.
It's even worse in real life.

Next, the note-writer's car was already parked when I arrived. 
Already parked.
And, as I mentioned, I did park closer than normally expected.
I was backing in! Not always so easy to judge.
 But, as you can see, both cars were parked facing out.
Faces out!
Furthermore, neither car was British, so both driver's sides were on the left, not right.
Not a spot of bother.
The note writer had given themselves full and free access to their car by allowing themselves enough clearance between their car and the wall.
Patent pending.
I, however, had not given myself a lot of room and therefore had to do the wriggle-hold--where you hold the door with one hand, so you won't damage the other car, while subsequently wriggling through the remaining gap.
Like a greased Scotsman.
From all this, I surmise two theories.

1. The note writer (falsely) assumed that the proximity of our cars was such that it did not allow for the exiting of my car in a dent-free manner and therefore felt compelled to issue me a stern warning.

2. The note writer had a passenger, who was not confident in their wriggling skills. While this might have been a slight inconvenience, the ambient air temperature at the time of the note--assuming a reasonable post-work time of 5 p.m.--was approximately 65-degrees F. This temperature is not an uncomfortable temperature in which to wait an extra 20 seconds, which I estimate to be the time it would take for the note writer to get in their car, start it and pull forward enough for their passenger to enter in a free and unobstructed manner.

And now that I've made my case, I look forward to having my windows smashed out and my tires slashed. Yay.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Rams Challenge (other than being in the NFL’s toughest division)

Apparently the Rams are offering $100,000 to the person who perfectly picks their upcoming schedule. One glaring difference between this contest and the billion dollar bracket challenge is that I suppose we’re supposed to take it on faith that the Rams aren’t going to look at all of the submissions and then just pick a schedule that doesn’t match up with any of them. No mention of a suitcase locked away at the HQ of Price-Waterhouse-Coopers is what I’m saying.

That said, this article over at Slate says it’s practically impossible to do. Therefore, I submitted a guess.

Even though past performance is not an indicator of future success (as they say when buying stocks), I looked at schedules past. I noticed that, since 2002 (the year the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks joined the NFC West), the Rams have had five week-9 bye weeks, followed by three week-5 bye weeks. Last year the bye week was during week 11, so I went with week 9 again. I also noticed that they’ve played Philly week one, twice, and tend to play a fellow NFC West opponent week 4, as well as typically end the season against a divisional rival. Considering the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco feud, I figured the Rams would be playing Arizona. I also made sure not to have more than two away or two home games in a row.

And my biggest guess of all? Taking a chance that the Rams will play the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks on Monday night again in week 8. Probably should have made that a Sunday night game, now that I think of it. Oh well.