UTAPS objects

Just because it's the cover of night doesn't mean you won't get a ticket. What I don't get about this one is that there was plenty of open parking in the staff/faculty lot.

The best part was when I asked the UTAPS worker who was writing the ticket if I could get a picture of his truck in the background. No, that was not acceptable. His supervisor had expressly told him to not let things like that happen. I'm guessing our post with the picture of the UTAPS truck is a definite violation. Continue Reading>>

Jog your commute?

The Sacramento Bee's Sam McManis ran an interesting article today on a rare commuting niche: the route runner.

Apparently, there's a small group of commuters in the region - mostly marathon enthusiasts - who run their commute home and back. Doesn't sound too bad, until you realize some of these folks are running 36-mile round trips five days a week.

Wait, what?


Surely not for everyone, but as a insouciant runner, the story made me perk up. The article caught my attention in the same way Japanese author Haruki Murakami's mini-memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running made me take note.

Admittedly, Murakami's book is still on my reading list and you won't see me jogging my way to campus any time soon. But I can agree the idea of the commute jog is novel. And as McManis coyly notes, cycling is soooo 2007.

You probably won't see the fixie kids giving up their bikes for a fresh pair of New Balances, but as the article observes, jogging subculture is as vibrant as any other fitness-oriented subculture. It just happens to be a little sweatier.

Who knows, maybe this will be more common at Sacramento State when they get that Recreation and Wellness Center up and running. Assuming of course, the center has public showers. Continue Reading>>

UTAPS' off-road parking squad

Sacramento State has to have the only parking enforcement squad (meter maids, essentially) that uses large pickup trucks, of all things.

This begs the obvious question: why?

It's hard to see how this makes it easier for them to navigate the rugged Sac State campus, not to mention the whole gas guzzling thing.

So what could these trucks prove useful for?

Well, UTAPS can drive off road and look for cars parked illegally in creeks. If someone parked a boat in Parking Structure II and didn't have a valid permit displayed, UTAPS could slap a $35 ticket on it and tow it away.

If a walrus swam up the American River from the bay and then wandered onto State University Drive East, UTAPS could swoop in and throw it in the back.

Does President Gonzalez need help moving?
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Faculty/staff parking disaster

We all know the feeling. It's five minutes before class and you're trying to squeeze your car into an impossibly tight space while an angry line of students honk at you to hurry up your delicate maneuver.

Yes, student parking can be a nightmare at Sac State, especially when you come out of class and find someone has completely scraped the side of your car while trying to park next to you. This example is taken from personal experience.

In the faculty/staff parking there are never instances of this. These are responsible and mature adults, highly skilled in the art of college parking. Right?

Wrong. This picture proves it.


This was not the case of the honking students and ridiculously tight space. I can understand parking a little crooked or crossing the line, but taking up two spaces? That is pushing it. Especially when the spaces are the width of a freeway lane. I wonder if this person got a call that the Hornet Bookstore was burning down. They were in quite a hurry.

I took this picture at 8 a.m. and then nosily checked back seven hours later. There was no ticket.

Don't we all wish we could risk the hefty fine and park in two parking slots for the day? Continue Reading>>

Air conditioning is awesome

Wikipedia tells me that people moved to Sacramento in large numbers because of Sutter's Fort and the discovery of gold. Since then, though, the most important amenity has clearly been the air conditioner.

Even light rail has it, and my apartment. My car, however, does not.

As a former Bay Area resident/out of state college student in Montana (where winter seems to last at least 8 months), this was never a problem before. As a resident of Sacramento for almost a month now, it's kind of irritating.

I'm pretty sure that a few years ago as a high school student, I actually said that driving a car with no air conditioning would be fine since "it's not like I live in Sacramento or anything." Who knew, right? Now I live in what I've thought for most of my life was basically the state's huge oven/furnace valley.

Luckily the warmest part of the year seems to be over. But still - warm weather is lame. Fresh air is way overrated.

Enter the Portable Air Conditioner. The stuff of dreams? No, apparently people actually sell these. Suggested uses include camping and picnics, as well as more practical ones like during hurricanes.

But seriously, throwing a picnic cloth across some grass and then blasting the battery powered air conditioner? What kind of a picnic is that?
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