Sorry, Out of Towners

The article explains it all.
What was for one year a 'scenic parkway' through the woods was doubled in width into a hazardous "roller coaster"

The beltway was not widened to 8 lanes until the 1990's. Somehow, there is still a short 6 lane section and even a 1/4 mile 4-lane section abutted by 10 lane sections. What about the traffic jam? Non existent according to traffic patterns.

While the eastern half of the belt was always 6 lanes to serve as an I-95 bypass, the Western portion in Virginia opened with a quaint 4 lanes. I-95 through DC was never completed.

The exit numbering system is an ever-changing jumble, and is explained as clearly as possible by the article. Locals tend to refer to exits by crossroad.

The proper term is Capital Beltway (named by Maryland and Virginia together), not Capitol, to indicate that it served the area and not just the city or that big-domed building (the 'Capitol' beltway project was a totally different urban renewal effort).

www.capital-beltway.com

Naming Your Post-Apocalyptic Supercompany

Take a fancy number prefix, such as Tera, and add to name referring to planets or space in general or some technical term. This could be Farad, an unit for the capacitor.

So, Terafarad Evil Company

Now you can take over the world and make everyone submissive to you. I don't know how the big companies take over the world, I haven't read '1984', but the means is up to you.

Or, I like this one... large number, Googleplex, generic techy sounding name, Tron
Googleplextron

Well, there's already a Google that some say invades their privacy and is chewing up the internet as its own domain. So there you go.

Water and The Working Girl

Working Girl. A great movie about an aspiring secretary (Melanin Griffith-never heard of her name) from Staten Island (supposedly) who speaks with a Brooklyn accent. A ski scene, she becomes 'da boss', plays the Wall Street game, wins over the respect of men in the workplace, gets Harrison Ford and dumps Alec Baldwin. Then she gets a secretary, and they have coffee together. Which reminds me about how important proper hydration is.

Having gone all morning and afternoon without a drink. On a bridge while biking, my head hurt a lot for no reason. I thought I would faint--but soon, I found a water fountain that Little Brother noted. I pushed the little button, and nothing came out. I pushed harder, and ka-bam! Now if someone caught a video of me lapping the water (from a shiny, brand-new water fountain) like a dog...

Haiku Tournament

8am, Tuesday morning. 35 contestants vying for a prize. The typical winners fell fast, and even Ian fell in the round-robin to be in the semi-finals (alphabetical discrimination...and again...)*.
It came to Yaw and Chirs E. Chris played his cards well, and won 5 ec points.


*Mr. Sh. (full name withheld for identity protection) was an OK case; he had a by' from a previous round-robin. But Mr. Ri. was victimized, rising through the normal bracket for two rounds, then having to round robin. Now if they were minorities...)