Data Dump

At the weekend, I happened to be further up the Clyde at the right time to see the bow of a new Naval frigate being transported up the river to the shipyard where the warships are assembled. I didn't know what kind of ship it was for at first, I learned that later online.

Glasgow has a great city center, rather walkable and with the subway for longer hops. Next to Central Station is a fancy building some decades older than the converted Victorian mill that I live in. At least, there was, until a vape store somehow caught fire. Now there are cordoned-off streets, the smell of smoke, and a considerable number of sad, shocked people and even more rather inconvenienced ones.

I have no love for vape stores in the first place, I tend to avoid patronizing establishments that expand their range to vapes. Given vapes' propensity to catch fire in waste processing centers, etc., goodness knows who thought it a good idea to allow a vape shop to locate next to a critical transit hub in a historic landmark whose construction substantially predates fire safety codes. Perhaps we shall find out, with luck when I am not feeling grumpy and vengeful.

My commute may be quite unaffected: when I pass close to the area of the fire, I'm in a subway tunnel on my way to Queen Street, the other main railway station; I hope that tomorrow's train to Edinburgh isn't overly crowded by passengers displaced from Central which won't be open yet.

I refueled our car this evening, I figured that gas prices aren't dropping anytime soon. In probably 2003 I tried holding off filling the car with gas, back when I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria (with around a seventy litre fuel tank), but eventually I had to give in and pay the higher prices. At least, with mostly just driving around the city in our hybrid in the near term, today's gas should last us for a good while.

Update: My morning train's quite full but I arrive comfortably early enough to have snagged a seat easily. A pox on the selfish passengers who use their coat and bag to occupy two seats while others are still boarding.