I’d heard this term on the radio a lot on AM and I had no idea what it meant exactly. I asked a lof of friends, etc. and no one seemed to know. Finally today I read about a teenage girl jumping off a bridge onto the 101 in Palo Alto and it mentioned it again so I googled the term and found the official CalTrans definition:

“Sig-Alerts” are unique to Southern California. They came about in the 1940s when the L.A.P.D. got in the habit of alerting a local radio reporter, Loyd Sigmon, of bad car wrecks on city streets. These notifications became known as “Sig-Alerts.” Later Mr. Sigmon developed an electronic device that authorities could use to alert the media of disasters. Caltrans latched on to the term “Sig-Alert” and it has come to be known as any traffic incident that will tie up two or more lanes of a freeway for two or more hours.

Ah yes, I got my fix of Social Grace again, this time learning something new and useful. Did you know the etiquette for seating when you are with a guest/date varies from sitting in a booth vs. sitting at a table with chairs? As SG puts it herself:

“If you’re trying to create a ‘ladies first’ feeling, the women should have the better seats – for example, the two that offer a good view of the restaurant. Or if one pair are the guests of the other, you may choose to put the guests in the better seats. If, however, neither of these scenarios applies, ladies sit next to their gentlemen (in a booth, ladies enter first), a setup that makes conversation easier. (Each diner can make direct eye contact with everyone but his or her significant other – with whom, presumably, he or she can communicate without that aid.) At a four-person table with a chair on each side, ladies sit across from their gentlemen. It makes playing footsie under the table more interesting.”

In the CD player: my friend DJ Bali‘s demo CD that he gave me…

OK, was reading my weekly dose of Social Grace in the SF Weekly and learned another tid bit of mannerisms which I have this strange interest in (must be the Southern upraising).

Anyhow, I learned that when a man meets a woman, it is up to the woman to put out her hand for a handshake. So if you meet a woman, a guy shouldn’t automatically offer his hand, but rather wait for the woman. If she doesn’t offer, then you’re done. Seems simple enough. So I’ll be dispensing more social graces that I’ve learned throughout my life in subsequent issues… stay tuned!