Friday February 27, 2004

Rode in the backseat of a white late model Ford Expedition with Don Imus going on about.... nothing in particular. Driving and weather conditions were good as was my timing.

The minute I stepped into my office, umbrellas were abloom outside as the rain starting coming down. ( Feb 27 2004, 09:00:34 AM PST ) Permalink

Thursday February 26, 2004

After yesterday's biblically proportioned downpour, it was nice to wait for a pickup in sunny (albeit partly cloudy) weather. Yesterday, the freeway was locked up with solid accidents and general bad-weather chaos; seemed it was a definitely a BART day as the carpool line was empty. So I was attentive this morning to the radio reports for weather and traffic conditions, everything sounded good.

Waited in line about 10 minutes before for the 8 people ahead of me to get picked up, and then the Durango arrived. The same radio station I'd been listening to earlier was prattling on with the usual morning blabber.

The going was slow through the Caldicott and to the 580 split but after that it was smooth sailing. KGO was abuzz about a backup "from the tollbooth out to the Grand Avenue exit" but there was no such thing; the approach to the tollbooth was light, the non-carpoolers weren't buried too deep at the metering lights. The incline up the bridge was slow but nothing horrible; total drive time was about 30 minutes. Grand, indeed. ( Feb 26 2004, 10:15:47 AM PST ) Permalink

Tuesday February 24, 2004

The line at the carpool was at least twenty five persons deep when I arrived. At that point, it becomes a dilemma: do I wait it out and ride in on the 'pool or do I just say "screw it" and jump on the train? There wasn't exactly a throng of cars chipping away at the line, it could be a long wait. When the rain started to come down and I realized that I didn't have an umbrella, I sez to meself: "screw it!"

I hustled into the station. From the platform, a clear view of the carpool pickup point is evident. Here it was, just moments later, there was no rain and the line looked to be about halved in size! Was it halved because others were following my example and bailing out on the line? A steady procession of cars were apparent as the BART sign flashed "11 minutes" for the next train. It now looked like those people who'd held fast were likely to get downtown before me and with more train fare left on their tickets.

Sometimes, the dice just come up snake eyes. ( Feb 24 2004, 09:37:44 AM PST ) Permalink