Think of the Children

So today, after enduring 45 mins on the bus with a screaming child, a man at the bus station stopped me and asked me if I was interested in saving children. I told him "no thank you" It was only after walking away that I realized that I had said "no thank you" in the exact same tone I might have used if he had just asked me if I would like him to take a crap in my hand. Oops.

I am still alive

I have, alas, been very bad about blogging lately. And the funniest part about it is that it hasnt been because of a lack of things that I have wanted to write about. I swear, at least once a day I find myself thinking, "this would make a good blog post" and sometimes I even compose the whole post IN MY HEAD where it does no one any good.

I have wanted to tell the world about the people I see on the bus. Last week, I saw a mentally ill woman I used to know a long time ago. She didnt recognize me. But she was on the bus with a man who was clearly in love with her and with whom she apparently lived. I listened to their conversation for the entire TWO HOUR bus ride home (snow storm). It was funny because I found their words to each other very touching and very nice and it made me feel kind of good. But I was still stuck on the bus for TWO HOURS and I had a pee a little bit and I was hungry and frustrated and wanted to scream. Anyways, this woman was just so happy that she was, perhaps inappropriately, spreading it around by talking to people on the bus. There is, after all, bus etiquette that strangers only rarely speak to each other. As I got off the bus downtown, she said to me, "sweetie, if you need the eleven, you need to wait right by me" but I had to decline her offer since another bus which could get me home had just pulled into the transit station.

I wanted to tell everyone about my car which has now broken down twice in a week. I just spent five hundred bucks on it and now it is back in the shop and who knows how much else I will need to spend. The timing is bad because I need all the money I can get for my upcoming trip to Paris. I am going to do my taxes this weekend and I am going to hope that I get my refund before I leave. Still, on the money front, except for the car repairs, I am digging myself out of a financial hole that I am ashamed to have found myself in because I am smarter than that. Sometimes smart people do dumb things. But anyways, I have recovered from an earlier financial crisis and have enough money to live my life without the horrible budget I have been living with for the last several months. But, of course, I am going to still live with the horrible budget but just knowing that I dont HAVE to somehow makes it easier to do it. Weird I know. But there you go.



I wanted to tell everyone about last night. There was a lunar eclipse and everything worked out perfectly for it which as anyone who lives in Michigan can tell you, the chances of a clear night in Michigan in February arent especially high. But last night was crystal clear and the moon turned this cool orange color. I was at the lake where there are few city lights or at least fewer than here in Ypsilanti. So I stood on the deck there for a half an hour in the cold and looked at the beautiful moon and the stars which just seemed to get brighter as the moon got darker. I looked up at my favorite constellation, Orion for a long time and I thought about things I learned in my astronomy class about how Orion is in a part of space where new stars are being born and about how I'll be dead before any of the light from a star being born right now ever gets to earth. The nebulae in that part of space, such as the Orion Nebula, are just about the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

There has been more stuff too but I will have to save it for another time...

Hybrid Buses

Since Daylight Saving time ended, I've been getting up earlier which is saving me money again. I get a free bus pass from work so every day that I can get up in time, I save the cost of parking downtown and the cost of gasoline to drive downtown and the wear and tear on my car. It is an amount that I figure to be around $50/week.

I took the bus this morning and had the good fortune to ride one of those new hybrid buses. They are especially ugly buses but much nicer for riding in. They are quiet and less stinky. Well less stinky as in there seem to be less engine fumes but never fear, they may sport the odor of alcholic - cigarette addicted - non bathers. I sometimes wish we could go the way of SF and have all electric buses or even streetcars! Oh well, the hybrid buses are a move in the right direction and are a pleasure to ride. Ok, maybe not *pleasure* to ride but definitely an improvement.

Stuff

Well, my second week at the new job seems to be going well. Folks there seem to think I am doing a good job which is good. I have some ideas for making things more efficient that I hope they will like. The commute remains terrible. Today I dropped off my Dad's car at the body shop and took the bus into work. That wasnt too bad. But coming home was a NIGHTMARE. It took me an hour and a half door to door. Yuck. Oh well. I guess I know what to expect tomorrow though.

I got to thinking about the economics of public transportation though. In the past week and a half, I have ridden on several AATA routes. The buses always have plenty of riders. This morning the #4 was so crowded, I wasnt sure anyone else would be able to get onto it. Granted, I am only riding the bus at rush hour but still... Anyways, it seems to me that one of the biggest costs for the bus is labor so I started thinking about ways that AATA could reduce labor costs while making people's commutes better too.

The answer is technology. I know this is a pipe dream but I wonder if the technology exists to build some kind of elevated light rail/monorail that doesnt need a person driving the train. And if so, I wonder how much it would cost to build such a thing. I imagine that it must cost a lot. And by "a lot" I mean an amount where the AATA wouldnt be able to recoup the costs quickly enough with whatever labor savings they might have. Still, it would be nice to have such a thing running between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. It seems to me that if one could get from Ypsi to Ann Arbor in 20 mins or so without getting stuck in traffic, more people would become mass transit riders.

Well, enough with the bus I guess...

Labor Day Weekend was really nice. I had people up to the lake on Saturday and Sunday. We had a blast. Shannon brought me a birthday cake on Sunday which was really nice. The weather was great. We swam a lot. It was all good.

Adventures with AATA

The first week at my new job has been going well. The only thing about it that I dont like is the commute. It has been taking me between 45 minutes and an hour and a half EACH WAY. This is mostly because of traffic. I've been going to the Pioneer High school park and ride but the traffic getting there is bad and then the bus has to fight even worse traffic on Main Street. I am hoping that all of this traffic isnt normal and it is due to this being student move in week. We'll see.

AATA operates only one single express bus and it isnt one from Ypsi. It goes from the Plymouth Road Mall to Downtown. It might be faster for me to drive to the Plymouth Road Mall and park there and then take the Express bus downtown. I dont think I should catch too much traffic going over that way.

Or I might just take the bus all the way from Ypsilanti. I think spending that much time on the bus might make me go crazy though. I have always really hated riding the bus. I often get motion sickness from being on the bus which is kind of weird because I almost never get motion sickness in cars unless certain people are driving.

Another possibility at least when the weather is nice would be to catch the Washtenaw bus with my bike in the bike rack. I could get off at S. University and Washtenaw and then have a five-ten minute bike ride to work. I know I would be allowed to bring my bike into the office.

Anyways, transportation issues aside. I am really loving my new job. My work environment is really awesome and I am starting to do actual work now which is nice. It is really nice to be downtown too. Today I spent my lunch hour walking around and then I went and got a coffee at SweetWaters Cafe, which while expensive has really nice coffee. I am pretty sure that even though it is across the street, I might be able to connect to my new company's wireless connection from there which means that I'll probably be able to work from there sometimes once I am confident enough to do work without constantly asking questions.