Aw
By adamg - 12/20/08 - 10:48 am
Don't you just love going outside to see that your neighbor just kept going with his snow blower and cleaned your sidewalk, too? Thanks, Marcos!
Hey, there! Log in / Register
Comments
The area I used to live in
The area I used to live in was semi suburaban (I think kind of like your street) so everyone had little yards but at least they had yards and for some reason 10 percent of the neighbors had snow blowers. The best part was they seemed to be on a rotation so when one snowblower got old another neighbor bought a brand new one, it was like keeping up with the Joneses. It was great because the sidewalks were always clear on both sides because everyone wanted to use their snowblowers, and since your own walk is only like 20 feet long they would go for a whole block.
Now I live in an area thats still nice, but much more urban and people dont really know each other. This is the land of if someone shovels or snowblows they go up until the edge of the property and leave a mound of snow there in the middle of the sidewalk.
When I buy a place I wanna live next to a Marcos
They do exist!
Our street's Marcos is actually Mario. He does his sidewalk, our sidewalk and his other-side neighbor's sidewalk.
On the other hand...
Neighbors on either side of me have snow blowers; I don't, but I'm considering getting one. Neighbor to the west: if his son runs the blower to clear the sidewalk, he stops at our driveway. If neighbor himself runs it, he keeps going. Last year he did the entire bottom of our driveway where the plows had pushed snow up over and over. That was great, I really appreciated it.
Neighbor to the east cleared my sidewalk once, but he also owns a vacant building on the other side of his house, and he NEVER clears the snow from the walk in front of it, which is just incredibly irresponsible, and inconsiderate for all of us who don't drive and have to walk to the bus stop.
Masshole Parking Master Class
I was fortunate this morning to attend a Master Class in Masshole Winter Parking. I will summarize this excellent method for scoring your perfect parking space so that others may benefit.
2. Watch your gullible neighbors across the street move their cars from their customary parking space in front of their house, to clear the snow emergency route.
3. Wheel your crappy SUV from its customary space in front of your house, across the street, in front of your gullible neighbors' house. Ha ha, suckers!
4. Let your crappy SUV get covered by snow, while the super-plows scrape ever vestige of slush from in front of your house.
5. Place wee orange cones all along the cleared street in front of your house.
6. Clear the snow off your crappy SUV and wheel it back around in front of your house, leaving its pile of snow in the street in front of your gullible neighbors' house.
7. Maintain at least 10 feet of cones behind and in front of your crappy SUV in its perfect, snow-free spot.
Dont you get towed in this
Dont you get towed in this scenario?
On my street
(Chestnut Hill Avenue) they towed EVERYONE yesterday. Easily 200 cars. IT was great though because for once the street is properly plowed all the way to the curb. I hope the city keeps this up.
Conversely, I got a ticket on High Street downtown for snow emergency that I plan to contest. There is not a single sign indicating that it is a snow emergency route and I was legally parked otherwise around 11 am. I should have a case since its not posted, right? I had no clue it was a snow emergency route.
If You Want to do the Evidence
As soon as possible, I would walk the length of the block and adjoining intersections with a video camera, covering each pole, audibly noting the date and time at the beginning and end of the video. Then print out frame grabs of each pole from the video, hand-number each, and be prepared to hand it to the judge/official when I assert that there were no signs/posting.
Well if you remember NYC
Well if you remember NYC layed off hundreds of city workers, but then the next day they hired 200 more meter maids. Tickets and tow jobs make money, these cities and towns are going to tow everything that moves (or doesnt move) because it produces pure cash. It will upset the citizens but it is better politically speaking then canceling music lessons in the more affluent areas and stopping school bus service other cities. When the economy gets better they will cut back on tickets and towing but until thenyou need to be careful, and yes there will be many many bad tickets given so make sure you double check where you park and if you get a ticket double check the ticket to make sure they were right (I think alot of people wouldnt even bother to contest it and check the signs all the way up and down the street so they probaly get away with it 80 percent of the time.)
Contest it
Boston wasn't on snow emergency until Noon. I know, because we checked all the snow emergency info for Boston and Cambridge, and we parked on Franklin Street from 6:45 to 7:00 am while I showed my husband where my office was. Unless they moved that back after I checked Thursday night, you shouldn't have gotten a ticket - posted or not. If you were parked under that weird building that is perched on it's first floor, that may be a snow emergency route because the express buses use it to get over to Federal St. All the same, the time matters.
I wish you were right
I looked it up, and it astarted at 9am. I'm still fighting it because I was legally parked (corner of High and Congress) in our buildings 10 minute limit zone where I was for less than 5 minutes. The hit all sorts of cars,commercial vans parked legally in the commercial zone, t-owned vehicles parked in the mbta-only area. Hopefully I'll win..
http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/?id=4067
Massholery on Hyde Park Ave and River St
I was heading to get my haircut and some asshat in a Toyota was attempting to backup as the walk light was going. My intent was to go in the diagonal direction towards Papa Gino's, but the driver blocked me off with their car. I shouted, "Where the hell am I supposed to go?" as I ended up walking around their car and straight across the street.
Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me to snap a picture of this Massholery, but on the whole, Cleary Square was pretty much quiet.