| Safety tips for cars, motorcycles
Safety tips for cars, motorcycles By the Times staff Published January 31, 2008 Safety tips for automobile drivers Look for motorcyclists. Use your eyes and mirrors to see what’s around you and check the blind spots when you’re changing lanes or turning at intersections. Look and look again. Because of its small size, a motorcycle can be easily hidden.Also, because of its size, a motorcycle can look farther away than it is. When turning at an intersection or into (or out of) a driveway, assume a motorcycle is closer than it looks.Keep your distance. Motorcyclists often slow by downshifting or merely rolling off the throttle, decelerating without activating a brake light. Allow more following distance, say 3 or 4 seconds. At intersections, predict a motorcyclist may slow down without visual warning.Focus on driving.
Ready, set, go-cart!
If you've never driven a go-cart before, the first thing to know is that you can't reverse. That in mind, you're going to want to take the first turn with caution so you don't end up nose-deep in a safety wall of tires, waiting for the men in the yellow jackets to drag you back onto the raceway. That was me, one of the triumphant first spinouts in the life of Grand Prix New York, the indoor go-cart racetrack in Mount Kisco, N.Y., that held its grand opening this past week. Grand Prix's two tracks run a half mile total, about as far as I, a pedestrian Manhattanite, have driven in the past year. Luckily, I didn't have much of an audience. The facilities won't open to the public until next month, leaving the initial test runs to corporate groups and the unsuspecting Speed Racer wanna-be.
Being treated like a dog isn't bad at all at upscale lodgings
ON AN overnight trip to visit family and friends in San Jose last month, Andrew and Laura Murray of Sacramento packed up the entire clan. There was Violet, their 2-year-old daughter. And Merry and Emile, their two Pomeranian dogs. And Gustavia, their calico cat. You think the Murrays had problems finding a hotel willing to accept their mobile Animal Planet? Not at all. The Cypress Hotel in Cupertino welcomed them with open paws. "We encourage it," said Aaron Menchada, the hotel's assistant general manager who oversees its pet program. "We want guests that have pets as part of their family to bring them. We want to take care of them." Pet-friendly hotels have been popular for several years, and the trend is showing no signs of abating. The Web site Pettravel.com has a database of more than 150 countries and 35,000 hotels and other accommodations that accept Fido and Fluffy.
Senate Democrats accuse attorney general of ducking questions on ...
I think failure to say something probably puts some of our people in more danger than not," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee's chairman. "It's like you're opposed to stealing but not quite sure that bank robbery would qualify," retorted Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Mukasey, in his trademark monotone, did not appear rattled. He said he has concluded that current methods used by the CIA to interrogate terror suspects are lawful and that the spy agency is not using waterboarding on its prisoners. Beyond that, Mukasey said he would not discuss whether he thinks waterboarding is illegal. "Given that waterboarding is not part of the current program, and may never be added to the program, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to pass definitive judgment on the technique's legality," Mukasey said in his first appearance before the committee since being sworn in Nov.
The Chronicle Sports Columnist Blog
It's tradition to name All-American teams at this time of the year, knowing full well that it's based on limited knowledge. Nobody sees enough of the Division I games to make a perfect assessment of who the best players are, and the amount of television exposure and a team's ranking play as big a part as the players' performances. A bigger problem is that a person's assessment of a player is based on what he sees of that player on TV. If he is on TV once and has a great game that day, then that player is seen as a great player in that viewer's eyes. If he happens to have his only bad game of the season while the nation is watching, he is seen as a mediocre player. Granting those shortcomings, and knowing that I'm bound to miss someone obvious, we forge ahead with are All-American teams, All-freshmen teams, and All-underpublicized teams.
More snow and rain on the way
Snow continued to blanket Ashland today, and more precipitation is on the way, according to local forecasters. Up to an inch of additional snow was expected for Wednesday, with chances scattered snow and rain showers throughout the evening, said Dan Weygand, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford. "Right now it's looking like we'll finally get a break from Monday and Tuesday," he said this morning. Another front is approaching the Valley, expected to hit late tonight, Weygand said, but the Valley floor will see mostly rain. By Thursday night, it could turn back into snow and continue into the weekend, he said. Ashland School District got back to its regular schedule today after a snow day Monday and a two-hour delay Tuesday.
Blog: Gadgets Sears Becomes First Major Retailer to Trial 2-D Barcodes
The humble barcode was first patented in 1952 and became widely used in supermarkets in the early 1970's. Barcodes are the ubiquitous little rectangles filled with lines of varying degrees of thickness and numbers that are used to track product stock levels at some stores and are used to ring up prices virtually everywhere we do business. The barcode has been around for decades now and some large retailers in the U.S. are looking at a new type of barcode system that will allow consumers to get more information on a product in an interactive way. The new barcodes are called 2-D barcodes and the first trial is currently underway with Sears. The unique aspect of these barcodes is that by using a compatible cellular phone with a camera and a downloadable application for the phone, a consumer can launch an applet to get more information on the product.
The Sinai Peninsula
This once-sleepy Bedouin village on the Gulf of Aqaba has grown up over the past 13 years into a haven for backpackers, desert trekkers, divers, shiftless layabouts and vacationers looking to escape the neon and noise of Sharm El-Sheikh. ItÂ’s a good 8-10 hour drive or bus ride from Cairo, but just two hours north of Sharm. .
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