25 Random Things About My Commute

1. It sucks. I went from walking to work in 5 minutes to driving for at least an hour each way.

2. There is a always a backup at the metering lights, no matter what time you go. But on the plus side, there is always one lane at the lights that moves much faster and has fewer cars. I think people think it might be asshole-y to suddenly switch lanes just as you're pulling up, kind of like when you're waiting to pay toll. So they stick with the lane they end up in, even if the one right next to them is much shorter. Because chances are, there's some one not that far behind you in that lane, and I guess it would be rude to swing out in front of them Fortunately for me, I have no qualms about it. So I always end up in the short lane.

3. Also on the plus side, I have lots of time to compose my blogs in my head, hence my frequent posts this week.

4. Sometimes, I like to play this game where I try to figure out where I would have ended up had I done the nice thing and waited. I look for that car that ended in what would have been my position and see how much longer it's taking them to make their way to the front of the line. Once, I got passed by that car a few seconds after we went through the lights, and I was pretty annoyed.

5. Before my unfortunate GPS incident, I used to play another game where I would try to beat the time it expected me to arrive. Now of course, my GPS had to be removed from my car for its own protection.

6. Clearly, its a boring commute.

7. To make matters worse, the radio stations I listen to play a grand total of 12 songs that they cycle through over and over again. Constantly switching between them and NPR seems to provide the highest chance of actually finding something decent to listen to.

8. The morning show on 97.3 is pretty entertaining most days. but they seem to take such long commercial breaks.

9. Is it just me or has NPR been doing way more "human interest" stories these days. Like really, that piece on that guy who built some statue with construction material and got arrested? I mean, sure it was fascinating, but did they need to interview him also? What I particularly loved about that story was that the guy had already been on probation for getting drunk and taking some random boat for a cruise (as in truly random -- it was just parked there, I guess, and he took it for a joyride and accidentally brought it back to some one else's dock). So of course the statute was causing him all kinds of problems cuz of this prior incident. A college kid, it turns out, go figure. Absolutely riveting.

10. Man 25 is a lot, how do people do this?

11. Oh so before this job, I couldn't remember the last time I woke up at 5:30, but now I do it regularly (cuz the commute sucks a little less when I'm barely awake).

12. Nowadays, I only snooze approximately 4 times before dragging myself out of bed. G doesn't seem to appreciate my progress nearly as much as I do. Even after I tried to explain to him how its not even 4 times everytime since I make every effort to turn off my alarm just before the 4th snooze. Its a little hard to gauge sometimes since I fall asleep between each snooze, but I am trying.

13. G's taken over the morning dog walks since I started commuting. But he's out of town now, so I've had to do it. And do you know how many people get up at 5:30 in the morning to walk their dogs? Zero! Go figure, right? I would have figured everyone would have been clamoring but apparently not. These people have no idea what they're missing out on. Actually very few people seem to be awake at all. But what's weird is that a little later, when I'm on the road at 6:30, they all seem to come out of the woodwork when its time to wait for the metering lights. I think they're doing it to screw with me.

14. The dogs are slower at 5:30, too. Either that or everyone's lawn smelled really good this morning.

15. Even my car is getting tired of the commute. Yesterday, as I was going home, the check engine light came on, which I think is my car protesting the early mornings. I jiggled the gas cap when I got home, thinking that fixed the problem and promptly forgot about the whole thing. About 10 years ago, I had a check engine light come on in a car, and it was because I lost the gas cap. And what was sneaky about it was that I had lost the cap for weeks before the light came on. So of course, I couldn't correlate the two and ended up paying like 100 bucks for some mechanic to "diagnose" the problem. So ha, this time, I knew exactly what to do. With this car, my gas cap is actually attached so I can't drive off and forget about it. But I did jiggle it around a bit and make sure it was on tight. And how cool would it be if I could say that I got in this morning and voila, no check engine light! How many bragging rights would that have won me? But no, not the case. So now the only thing left to do is wait for G to come home and take it into the shop. At least I'll be able to tell him that I tried though.

23. Oh, awesome, we're moving along much faster now.

24. So its weird. I would assume that the majority of the people that do this drive are also commuters who drive the same route every day. Otherwise, why would you be up so early. So then some one explain this to me. For the last week or so, there have been a couple of signs at various points stating that the freeway will be closed on such and such dates between such and such time. Both signs are announcing that it will be at night, from like 10 pm - 4 am or something like that. The signs haven't changed since I first saw them. I'm guessing they haven't changed for anyone else either. So why is it that EVERY time we pass them, people slow down to look at them AGAIN? Dude, you're fine, you're not going to be detoured anywhere. Nothing's changed since yesterday. If we're all going to have to this crappy commute together, the least we can do is keep it moving, right? I don't get it.

25. Whew, that actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.