Yes it is true i have not posted since December. But I have renewed interest and a bit of time so I will try and keep this up a bit for the 1 or 2 people who my view this blog.

This morning it was raining and the eastbound was fuller than usual. I got on and sat in a seat that I have been fancying. It is not the high seats in the back nor the low seats in the front but right in the middle. Yes this breaks bus riding rule #1 (always sit in the front or the back), but I just find it more comfortable to sleep against the window when i am tire on the ride in or out of town. today I did not sleep but rather plant my nose in a book I haven't touched in a couple of years. As the bus hit stop after stop I again read about Dresden and Billy Pilgrim managing to knock out 2 chapters before I started to get sleepy and rested my eyes for 5 minutes.


After resting my eyes, I slipped back into observation mode. A young African-American man got on the bus and was extremely well groomed and dressed sporting a fashionable suite and light grey trench coat. As he turned around to sit down I noticed he had a Super Mario Brothers go kart kids backpack that just completely looked wrong. I'm not judging I'm just saying. I could only wonder...this young business type with designer glasses, clean cut hair and diamond earrings in both ears was either out of money from spending it on his clothes and snagged his kids backpack or a complete Mario Cart fan. I chose to believe the prior.
Like I said I never judge, but somethings just don't look right....

Haven't posted in a while. Bus has been relatively uneventful. Plus i have been busy with other things.

Week of 11/5 - Present

So i have decided to cut back on my blogging since I have started another job writing for an online journal. I will most likely blog weekly here.

I am actually just finishing up my first article for the journal. I will blog more about this in the future. The focus of this blog today is on last weeks transportation ventures.

The week was relatively uneventful. Eastbound were mellow with many of the same kids and adults making their way to school and work. For some reason the Westbound were standing room only twice. I stood at the front of the bus when i got on and observed a young Hispanic couple board the bus with their son. He was maybe 5 and the young couple stood while the boy sat with a Motorola xoom and commenced to manipulate a game of sorts on the tablet. It made me think of my 4 year old daughter who has been manipulating my iphone since she was 3 and figured out what it was. Amazing really.

On another evening homeward bound a very young Black couple got on the bus with a little tyke who was probably one and very unhappy. I was standing in the front again and watching this very inexperienced couple try and deal with a very you child who was upset. The mom kept telling the passive dad to hold the baby and he did but the little one squirmed and was frustrated so the dad would pass him back to the mom.

this went on for a few stops and i saw some people getting frustrated.

 i don't normally take action, but decided what the heck. I look over at the child and made a couple of silly faces, which caught his attention. After a few back and forth with faces and smiles and such, others around him seemed less frustrated. Also, the little one figured out quickly that when he smiled and giggled people around him copied. It was maybe 2 minutes into the whole situation that he figured out he was the center of attention. No more crying and less stressed parents. Mission accomplishment.

On Friday  i took the bus early in the morning for a doctor appointment. After my appointment i hit up Panera and then road back to town to meet my wife for some xmass shopping. I actually took the smaller transit when i got to town. I was not impressed by the smaller bus system. they call it the red or blue line depending on where you want to go. I took the blue line before, but this was the first time i took the  red line. The bus was half the size of a regular bus and was fitted with older seats like a shuttle bus. The bus driver was 15 minutes late and there was no place i could swipe my pass. I asked the bus driver about it and she said, "just let me see the pass.We're not that sophisticated here". There was a jar like attachment that people put money in, which seemed very primitive. 

The town is relatively small, but not that small sporting about 130K people. However, they support that sleepy town mentality and the buses do not go past about 7:00pm which sucks for us working folk who could use transportation at about that time.  

Life in the fast lane......

Week of 11/28/2011

11/28-present

The week started off uneventful. I got a ride Monday morning but took the bus home that evening. Everything was normal Tuesday and Wednesday morning. People were getting on and off the bus like drones. The same people getting to the same places day by day.

I did catch my fellow marine on the ride home Tuesday evening and we talked a bit and swapped some stories.

Wednesday evening was a little different. I was waiting for the Westbound and low and behold the guy who was on drugs and racist showed up again. He was walking with a cane (barely) and I could tell he was lit like a candle. He almost fell to the ground when he tried to sit down but somehow miraculously did not. He was sitting there swaying and mumbling something I could not make out. Then he looked at me and said something which I could not make out. I thought he was asking me for money and almost gave him my standard reply (I don’t give out money). Instead, I said “excuse me?” And the man replied a little more wide eyed “you got any food?” I immediately went down on one knee and said “sure”. I had a small bag of pretzels with peanut butter in them and another small bag of trail mix. I asked the man which one he wanted or if he wanted them both. He told me he had to take the pretzels because he did not have very many teeth so I gave them to him and he thanked me.

I never hesitate when people are hungry. I will not give people money, but I will buy them or give them food if they ask.

The next morning I got on the bus and a bus driver I had never seen before was driving. He was a large Caucasian bald man with an old school ZZ top red/yellow beard with no mustache. I shot him a good morning and he acknowledged with “how’s it going?”

The tall mentally ill man that I see sometimes on the bus was behind me getting on the bus. He sat in the front and started to ramble about how something was a “waste of nail polish”. A couple of stops up the bus driver (who was flying down the street) halted at a stop for a few minutes most likely he was ahead of schedule. As we sat there the mentally ill tall man got off the bus and grabbed a jacket that did not seem to belong to anyone and was placed on a trash can. He then got back on the bus and stared at the jacket for a while. Wonder what was going on in that head.

The bus was relatively empty as I sat in the back and listened to morning news. I arrived at work 20 minutes early unscathed.

Last day of the commute this week

Eastbound 11/23/11

The alarm did not go off. It was set for 4:30 so i could get up with my wife and hit the gym. Only problem was the alarm was set to PM as opposed to AM. Hellllllooooooo!

Happy belated birthday to Grandma J if you are reading this.

Got to the bus on time and jumped on. Good morning! No response. I was a little tired so after I checked my email i rested my head on my backpack and dozed in and out of consciousness the whole way there. I kept wondering if I was snoring. I'm sure the bus driver would have let me know.


















My wife is to pick me up tonight so no commute.

Random thing for the day...

Couldn't agree more with this statement.

DAY...Heck i cant remember

Eastbound Today 11/22/11

So yesterday I did not go to work. Over the weekend I had a major personal setback so I was not up for work yesterday.

Got to the bus stop today on time and waited and waited and waited. Finally the bus came about 15 minuted later than it usually did. However as the bus approached it passed me by. It was my favorite bus driver who liked to give me a hard time. At first i thought, guess she did not want to deal with me today. Suddenly a bus pulled up right after she passed me by. The other bus driver said that the bus that just passed had broken down and that she was trying to make up time. He verified that he was on time. This would put me at about 10-15 minutes late for my 8am start time at work.

The bus was very empty. Some of the schools are off for the week for the holiday season. I lay my head on my backpack to rest a bit. A few stops later a couple got on the bus. They were obviously suffering from some severe mental health issues. The woman sat in one spot and the man sat in another. However, for the entire ride the were arguing with each other about frivolous things. The man would set the lady off and was repetitive which fueled the lady into hysterics. I believe she may have been developmentally delayed. At one point another bus rider yelled at the man "Can we ride in peace? Please be quite". He was responsive for a while, but his gradual mumbling eventually got to where he was arguing with his wife again. As the bus offloaded, the woman got up and sat next to me so she could talk with her husband. The exchange was an indicator of why i do not do therapy with people anymore. He would bait her and she would flow in and out of histrionics including relatively disingenuous 25 second crying fits.

I guess it would not have been so bad if i had not forgotten to charge my iphone and thus had little juice in it. I kind of like Mondays because it is the start of a brand new week. However, this day was starting to feel like an old Monday, which i disliked.

After I got off the bus, the arguing couple got off still complaining. As i gradually walked to my work, the lady kept getting louder and louder until by the time i got to my door to go into the building she was in hysterics and screaming and crying at the same time.

So glad I work with computers as opposed to people right now.

DAY 20.5 - present

Westbound Uneventful ride home. I guess the morning commute was enough excitement for one day.

No matter, it gave me time to start watching a movie about Point Pleasant and the Mothman. This movie was actually more of a documentary about happenings around the small Midwestern town over the last few centuries. It started off about the curse on the town from an old Indian tale. Then it moves into legend of a flying mysterious creature and finally culminates on one of the worst bridge collapses ever.

So far it is pretty good. Of coarse this is coming from a guy who is kind of boring and finds being an average person comfortable, even though I come into contact with above average things.

Eastbound DAY 21

Had to catch the bus and buy a day pass as I was tasked by my manager to stop and kind of audit a site on the way to work. This entailed getting off the bus about 1/2 way through my original route and catch the bus a few hours later to my site. It was no problem and the bus ride was uneventful. I did say a very loud "good morning I am having a blessed day" to the bus driver who ignored me. Sometimes I am a brat. Other times, I feel the need to confront attitude and nonsense like that.

I believe that people should be treated with respect from the homeless guy on the street to the executive who obviously is unhappy. It seems I have run into a lot of unhappy people this week. People who are angry about the world, people who are angry and disrespectful to whomever is around and young people who decide that society owes them something as opposed to them owing society. 

There are multiple generations out there that seems to feel a strong sense of entitlement to any and everything be it physical or psychological. I suppose at one point i was like that, but have sense renewed my sense of proportions and entitlement is not one of them. Maybe my soap box is too big for me and scratching my ears is a bigger task than my arms will allow. Its just my opinion and I am a firm believer that opinions can never be wrong, only different. I know I know, stay away from those absolutes, but I am just expressing my opinion, thus the logic flows.....

Influences in no particular order .............