a little bit of traffic

Whoever designed the one-lane, left-exit ramp from I-95 onto 695, the Baltimore Beltway, should be taken out and shot. The rest of 95 never seems to have any traffic to speak of, and by a mile after the ramp bottleneck 695 is, if not completely up to speed, at least comfortably into a steady 4th gear range. But that ramp! OK, 95 northbound has this one-lane left exit. Which, because of the volume that uses it, actually means that the left lane of 95 itself, before the exit-only lane even starts, is backed up for about 2 miles. Then, the exit ramp curves around to the left, and - does it merge with 695? No, it does not. It merges, instead, with the ramp from southbound I-95, with those two streams of traffic, one from left, one from right, each invisible to each other until they suddenly meet and need to merge into one lane in the space of a few yards - THEN they finally merge into 695 on the right. It really is a considerable bit of what-were-they-thinking design.

Other than that:

We're still on dial-up, so I'm not spending much time online.

The car engine is making funny noises.

The new bike is great, although the throttle was rubbing against the hand-protector sleeve and therefore not springing back to 0 when released; I went over to Bob's* this afternoon and they fixed it for me right away. We also had a great time talking about the FSM - between me and Colin in parts, we may yet convert the entire shop to Pastafarians. I got a really neat FSM window decal from EvolveFish.com, which fits nicely onto the bike's little
windscreen; I also put on a walking-fish-with-wrench emblem, which fits neatly on the gas tank in a spot that looks like it was made for it. Everybody admired them.
*That particular page is pictures of people picking up their new bikes, including me.

Unpacking is slowly happening. We can sit on the sofa, although the armchair has momentarily been buried again, because we had to move the entertainment center out from the wall in order for the cable guy to finally get our cable TV signal working. Mission accomplished, albeit the "12:30 to 4:30" window for his service call turned out to be 6:45.

I put together a new cage for the chinnies (pictures forthcoming once I have broadband; I am NOT uploading pics on this connection!) and moved Fern back into her cage, so everybun is now in their regular large cages. The basement floor is almost clear enough to let them out to play, too. Gizmo has gotten out on his own at least once, and one of the chins escaped while I was moving them to their new cage. It took a certain amount of effort to recapture him; luckily it was fat Chippy, who is a tad slower, and can't fit in quite as many hiding spots, as Chili can.

Next task in house: clearing off kitchen flat surfaces. That should take a whole day.

Any questions?