Not sure of the exact nature of it, but I have been extremely irritable the last couple of days. I do not really think it is me so much as it is the environment in which I find myself. I thought it worthy of sharing with you all and seeing if it was just me and some needless irrational aggravation on my part or if there really is some justification for my being so easily angered about these minor situations? So, here we go with raffle & giveaways, left-hand turners at stop signs into major traffic, and the truck and trailer who thinks parking in the street at rush hour is their right.
First up is my aggravation regarding raffles and free giveaways. Actually, it is with a specific giveaway/raffle that has my ire, as most such things online I find interesting and most often willing to give them a go. In most cases the intent is to both advertise the item or company that is supporting the giveaway as well as drive some additional traffic to the site that is hosting the drawing. I tend to only pursue such drawings that are supported by items or companies that offer something I am personally interested in, otherwise there are way to many such opportunities out there – and I have a day job.
In recent months, I have been reading and occasionally posting on a certain fishing forum. This particular site has a pretty good following and has therefore attracted some regional advertises with products aimed at the specific type of fishing. Some of these advertisers, in order to drive traffic and bring awareness to their offering, they sponsor a raffle/drawing give away. Often these have some requirement, like being a registered user on the site. Trust me, it works. One drawer on a specific rod brought it my attention and despite not winning, I plan to purchase one in the spring to try it out.
Recently though, one company is requiring a set number of posts prior to allowing entry into their drawing. I hate this to put it mildly. First, I do not know what the number of posts required is – I have forty-two, having only joined in the summer and do not qualify. It should at the least be a ratio of post to time on the site. Really though, this encourages people to post things that are useless messages, a lot of “me too’s” and similar that I do NOT want to have to wade through. Besides, the idea is to attract me to their product, right? By putting this limitation on their giveaway – at this point even if I wanted their products I would see a different alternative. In other words, Renegade Tackle has done the exact opposite of their intent.
Moving on… why is that some people just think the world belongs to them. Coming out of Lexington this evening, after picking up my lovely wife, we got in a backup of traffic as we went through UK area. As we got into it, I was thinking must be a wreck up ahead or something, given it was an atypical place for traffic to back up to that degree. After travelling nearly a mile in bumper to bumper traffic that took a much longer time then usual on an order of ten times what did we discover? in the middle of rush hour traffic, on one of the three or four busiest routes coming out of downtown Lexington – a pickup with a large boxed in trailer was setting in the right lane with its caution lights on forcing two lanes into one. Was the truck stalled? No, the trailer was open showing hoses and either vacuums or steam cleaning equipment. The hoses were rain from the trailer into the building in front of which it was parked. They blocked off traffic to clean something (I did not catch what they cleaned, but it was obvious that is what they were doing) and felt the backup in rush hour traffic was their obvious right.
One last one, and this one, probably not such a big deal if not for the above situation already having occurred. But the wife needed a beverage and so I stopped at a quick mart kind of place. Coming out of the place, there is a small side street that T’s into the main four lane road where the only traffic control is a single stop sign on the side street. Why in the world, at 5:35, pretty much peak rush hour traffic on the four lane road would someone pulling out of the gas station opt to try to turn left? Without the left hand turner folks coming out would find an easy enough pocket here and there to turn right into the flow of traffic but getting across to even the middle turn lane – nearly impossible. Also consider, easy way out to go left – down the side street the other direction and over either direction one block put you coming out at an intersection with a traffic light, both of which have specific controls for the left hand turn.
Okay, done venting…  for today…
