Highway 287

Lately, highways have begun to fascinate me. I think it started with the realization that highway 6, just outside my HOA, is the same highway that goes through Copper Breaks State Park and Quanah, TX, and just past one of the first caves I ever entered without paying an admission fee and following a paid tour guide. Here, it has six lanes of slow, busy traffic, but in Quanah, it's a two-lane that doesn't pose much of a threat to the occasional armadillo.

I often make a trip to or from Houston and Wichita Falls. About half the trip is on Interstate 45, which some consider to be one of the worst in the nation, but which I find easy compared to certain stretches of I-35 south of Dallas. The other half is done on hwy 287, which goes right through Wichita Falls, and to the northwest, intersects with hwy 6... in Quanah.

Hwy 287 goes south from Wichita Falls through Fort Worth, Grapeville, Palestine, and Port Arthur. It goes north to Memphis (TX), through the Oklahoma panhandle, on to Denver, and then on into Wyoming, Montana... and eventually on to the Canadian border, though it keeps getting less and less important on the way, so that Google maps doesn't even bother with the number after it leaves Choteau, MT.

It never got the respect that Route 66 got - songs, TV shows, T shirts - but the original R66 was a two lane with no shoulders crossing that romantic desert west, while 287 was a mighty four lane divided highway almost every inch between the gulf coast and Denver.

The lesson is that if you're near the writers in LA or New York, you get attention out the wazoo. Everybody else gets nada, regardless of merit. That's why they call us "fly-over country." Yet, for some reason, we let those overpaid stuffed shirts tell us what we're supposed to think, and how to vote.

It's worth remembering.

Putting the Punk in Punctuality

There are many things I like about living in the Houston area. There are also things I don't like, such as the common practice of leaving shopping carts where you empty them, even when the cart rack is only ten feet away. One thing I don't like at all around here is the complete lack of punctuality. Whether you're dealing with the cable company, the refrigerator repairman, the plumber, or the pest control company, they never keep their appointments. If they make the appointment for "in the morning," you can expect them at 5:15 pm. If they say 9:30, the earliest they offer, you won't see them before noon.

Is my time worth nothing? ARS called me yesterday and offered me a discount if they could come out and service my air conditioning system. I don't need them, mind you, I just thought it would be a good idea to get it done, so I took them up on their offer and let them give me a time they could come out. They're over an hour late (so far), and they haven't even bothered to call. So I have to put my own errands on hold because I don't know when they're going to show up.

This is the way it's done down here in the Houston area. When my POS Whirlpool refrigerator required repeated servicing (a dozen times or so), they never once showed up on time - or even in the same half-day window.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother staying past the first hour. Just let them show up and wonder where I went.