That was the most amazing non-conversation ever

At the risk of appearing racist and probably just a big fat jerk, I'm gonna dedicate this post to certain women of Chinese descent. Now, I understand that English as a second language is clearly difficult to master and I'd like to go on the record as claiming that I'm usually pretty good at understanding what they're saying despite their accents (probably due to my parents' accents). I can understand English, English with a slight accent and even English with a wicked accent, but English with a wicked accent plus incessant laughter?BUT why in the world do you find it necessary to laugh so much mid sentence?!? No, now you're just testing my patience.

You're probably wondering how much of the Chinese thing all fits in... well, here goes. I constantly overhear two Chinese women attempt (word used loosely) to speak English, which is fine, they deserve an "A" for effort, but a string of laughter is ALWAYS inserted mid statement.

Yep, always. I kid you not, there is sometimes more laughter than words (by then, of course, any words that do come out seem like utter jibberish anyway). Case in point, this morning I had an entire conversation with an individual whom I couldn't understand because she was too busy laughing while speaking (yes, she could do both at the same time). Wasnt the first time, won't be the last...

Suffice it to say, I've learned to survive her mind melding trickery by refusing to listen but making it a prerogative to get my points across, ONLY. She's none the wiser and I've successfully avoided trying to decipher something as foreign to me as an intercepted German WW2 message. GO USA!

Dial "P" for Permissive... or was that Protected?

Protected Phase: typically shown with a separate traffic signal head that has a left-turn arrow to allow left turn movements to be separated from the thru movements. Hence, a protected phase will have 2 phases, a phases for the left turn movements and a phase for the thru movements. Since it has 2 phases, you can most definitely expect additional loss time at the intersection.

Permissive Phase: typically shown with a green ball on all the traffic signal heads. Contrary to the protective phase, the permissive phase requires the left turn movements to yield to oncoming thru traffic. A permissive phase will only have 1 phase and therefore, obviously less loss time than a protected phase.

Look, you cannot specify "P" on the field work notes to denote a signal phase as being Permissive or Protected. It defeats the purpose of doing the field work to survey the existing conditions. Have you any idea how long it takes for me to go back to view google earth or some other mapping software to check if the "P" you wrote means Protected or Permissive?! My intersections will BLOW UP if I set heavy left turn movements to be Permissive (while conflicting with heavy oncoming thru movements, of course) because you were too lazy to put the additional "R" to denote the actual Protected phase surveyed!! Confound it man, you're killing me!

So please remember, "P" for Permissive, "PR" for Protected and "PU" for your survey notes!