Regarding one of my photos and Google searches

Evergreen pear tree (pyrus kawakamii) blooming
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

One of the benefits of purchasing a Pro account on Flickr (as I have) is that good statistics are provided. For instance, it shows what referrers result in viewings of specific photos.

So, my statistics show that several days per week I get at least one viewing of this photo via a Google search of any combination of words from the title of the photo ("Evergreen pear tree (pyrus kawakamii) blooming").

This has resulted in it being (so far) overwhelmingly my most viewed photo on Flickr.

Which is great, but I'm curious: Why the frequent searches on Google for those words?

Any thoughts?

Never Again

Yesterday, as I was leaving Balboa Park after a session of taking photos (results of which are here and here) I decided to take what should be the quickest route to northbound highway 163 and the start of the drive home.

I should have known better.

That route starts at this ramp off of Park Boulevard. The problem is the ramp almost immediately becomes one of five lanes that in a very short stretch funnel into one lane which in turn takes you onto northbound 163. An illustration and discussion of the problem is at this link.

As the son of a civil engineer who spent his entire professional career with Caltrans, I find myself somewhat more forgiving of the planning that went into this design than the writer of the blog linked to above, but only somewhat. I can easily imagine at the time this lane design was created, nobody was thinking that traffic volume would increase to the degree seen these days, thus creating the mess now seen there very frequently.

So, yesterday afternoon for some reason I thought the traffic into the the lane funnel wouldn't be bad, and made the turn into it. I couldn't have been more wrong; it was among the worst I've seen to date. (Sigh)

I made the decision there and then to never make that turn again if I can possibly help it. The alternative is to continue on Park Blvd. a relatively short and normally very quick distance and turn right onto this street; taking the next right puts one on a lane that is usually entirely clear and is a clean shot onto northbound 163.

Never seen that before

Image by Billy V via Flickr

While driving home from work today, I was passed by something I do not recall ever seeing in person before: a motorcycle with a sidecar, complete with somebody in the sidecar.

That was neat, but it occurs to me that personally I'd be hesitant about riding a sidecar. The thought of being that low to the ground at freeway speeds does not appeal, even if I were wearing a helmet. Of course I've never found the idea of driving a motorcycle attractive either.

(Photo included just as an example of motorcycle with sidecar.)

The PDF from hell

A little earlier this evening I had the most bizarre computer experience I've had in years.

What with my chronic allergies & hay fever, I'm thinking about giving Breathe Right strips a try.

I went to their web site, and after poking around a few pages, went to print this PDF, which includes a template one is supposed to cut out to use for determining the proper size Breathe Right strip for oneself.

After displaying the PDF, I turned on my printer, then selected the print option in Adobe Reader. That is when the weirdness started:

• The printer did nothing.
• I went to cancel the print job. It would not leave the queue.
• The computer's air circulation fan came on; this normally happens when the CPU is under strain.
• Did a restart of the computer, then before doing anything else tried printing a small text file.
• The printer still would do nothing.
• I opened up the print queue, and the PDF was still there, and still would not cancel out of the queue.
• The air circulation fan again came on in the computer's case.
• Displayed the task manager, selected the Performance tab, and it showed the CPU was running at 100% of capacity. This while no applications were running. HUH?
• Did a complete power down of the system.
• Powered up again and tried printing the small text file again. It printed just fine, and the print queue now showed no sign of the PDF.

So, I have no idea if the PDF or something else was causing the problems, but relieved I seem to have corrected the situation.