The Remains of the Week

Now that the Summer Irrationals are over with, crews were seen working this morning to remove the remains. At the beginning of MT Boulevard, at least we now have two of the three lanes back.

One particular type of remains will be with us for weeks to come, though. Back when I was prone to the excitement of making my tires spin, the police would cite us for "defacing the road surface" if they caught us. I guess it's not such a big deal if the town fathers think it's good for business, though. Peel-outs, scrub-outs, burn-outs, or whatever else you want to call them, the tire marks burnt into the streets, roads, avenues, and boulevards of Worcester are all over town, now.

I haven't had a chance to see how pock-marked the end of the tunnel is, yet. The beginning of the tunnel, however, is still blocked to traffic.

I hope they open it up soon. This route under Lincoln Square to Main Street is one I use quite often.

The thing of it is... last year I didn't see any evidence of the road surface at the end of the tunnel being fixed after the damage done by the event. It was a washboard. After all those screaming, tortured tires spun up to temperatures that ended up melting chunks out of the pavement, the "plan" I had heard about was that the city would be paid to fix it.

Maybe they found a better use for those funds last year, though... like salaries for five or six teachers?

At School and MT Boulevard, I saw the remains of one of those tent things that flea marketeers and other event goers use to make a temporary kiosk for themselves.

The remains of the cleverly designed folding tent poles, along with four or five cement blocks, tells a possible tale of some type of carnage. Maybe it was wind, maybe it was an errant jet blast, but whatever turned it into the twisted wreckage seen here, it was clearly rendered so useless to the owner that they couldn't bring themselves to clean up before they left.

I can sympathize, though. Over the years, I've attended an event for amateur radio operators where I've bought three Coleman folding camp chairs. After all the excitement, I just forget to bring them home. Sometimes I get them back the following year, though, just because someone was nice enough to take them home and then bring them back, all those months later. I still have two of them.

The crowd and traffic control fences still hadn't been completely removed by this morning.

It's such a great idea, being able to mark off areas of public property with these portable chain-link fences, and charge twelve bucks to anyone who wants to get "inside." In the early years of the Summer Irrationals, you could just walk over to the tunnel area at the beginning of Main Street and watch the "burn-outs" for free.

I wonder how much money the event is going to pay the city this year?