Running through a solid red

I have to start this week with what may have been the most dangerous Blacktop Blockhead I have seen in some time.

On Tuesday evening, I was driving on Victoria Street. I came to the lights at Seventh Avenue. It was red, so I stopped, as did the vehicle next to me.

A few seconds later, the light turns green, and we both proceed. I can see the light at Sixth Avenue is red and is probably going to stay that way, so I start to ease off the gas well ahead of time.

The vehicle beside me, however, is picking up speed as we leave Seventh Avenue, and continues to do so as the driver approaches Sixth Avenue.

And then sails right through the red light at Sixth without even a hint of slowing down.

I can only assume the driver just flat-out didn’t see the red light at Sixth, although it is kind of hard to miss, being in the same location in the intersection at the light at Seventh the other driver apparently did see.

I was just happy there was nobody coming through on Sixth at the time, because it would have been an ugly situation.

• I happen to know the light at Sixth Avenue and Victoria Street because it’s one of my reference points for where I will be working out of (in theory) next week.

No, I’m not leaving the Free Press, so stop the party.

The paper is moving, however, to a new office at 1568 Sixth Ave. As I write this column, the move hasn’t begun, but the majority of it is supposed to be happening on Friday, quite possibly as you’re reading this.

This won’t be the first time I’ve been involved with a move as part of my newspaper career. When I was working at the Cariboo Observer in Quesnel, we moved kind of down the block at one point shortly before I left.

My next job was in Kamloops, at Kamloops This Week, and I found we were working out of a very cramped basement office downtown.

I didn’t mind too much, though, since I had been able to get an apartment about a block away.

Then, a few months after I got there, the word came down that we were moving – and not just down the block.

No, we were moving to a place up by what was then Cariboo College, now Thompson Rivers University, quite a ways from my downtown apartment.

It did serve for a few years as a good way to get some exercise, since at that time my job involved very little travelling, so I frequently walked back and forth each day.

It was about 45 minutes to get there and 35 minutes to get home, because the getting-home route involved going down some hills.

And yes, some people noted that my career has been going downhill ever since.

• Got another reminder about how quickly this month, and year, is going along.

I had to do a double-take last week when I looked at the calendar and realized this is our last issue of the Free Press for April.

Wasn’t it just a week or two ago we were getting set to host the Canada Winter Games?