Tag: commute

Mounting Frustration

It’s the traffic again, of course.

It’s been a little more than two months since my work group moved from Framingham to Westwood and I am so fed up with it. To get to Framingham I was leaving home at 7:50. Westwood is closer, but if I am lucky I get to leave at 7:20. This morning my beloved wife Jen left home at 5:55. I shit you not, 5:55. She called me at 6:30. She’d made it one exit down route 93 South. Maybe a mile or two. I sped up my morning routine, skipped breakfast, and headed off to work at 6:58. I managed to avoid the traffic on route 93, but I hit some on route 495 and then somewhat heavier than usual traffic on both route 3 and route 128. I made it to work in a touch more than 90 minutes. It pains me to say this, but 90 minutes isn’t bad. 44 miles and I am pleased with 90 minutes. It’s ridiculous. It’s insulting. It’s affecting my personality.

By the time I get to work in the morning I am furious. By the time I get home, and I must admit that the drives home are not nearly as bad as the drives in although they are still pretty awful, I am just beaten down. I’m exhausted. Last week my step son asked me to help him hang a poster in his room. I was so beat I almost said no. Can you believe that? I was too worn out from the day to push four friggin’ thumb tacks into his wall. Yesterday the polls in Methuen were open from 7:00am to 7:00pm. I couldn’t go before work because the traffic was so bad. I had to go after work, and despite leaving work at 5:30 I almost didn’t make it in time. I got to the poll at about 6:45. How happy would I have been if the traffic was just a little worse and I missed my chance to vote? Not happy. Not happy at all.

I’m sorry to keep venting about this to you, internet. I just need to get it off my chest. Unloading should make me feel better. It doesn’t.

Nothing, as Usual

I’ve got nothing going on tonight. I had another painfully long drive to work this morning, followed by another surprisingly fast drive home. Weird.

I had a breakthrough on a project I’ve been working on forever and that is good. The Red Sox magic number is 10 and they have the lead against the team trailing them, Tampa Bay, at this very moment and that is good too. Might the magic number be 8 before I fall asleep tonight?

There is one thing though that is better than all other good things.

After a long, painful wait, my step daughter’s braces came off! That in itself is awesome news, but ever better than that…

SHE CAN EAT POPCORN AGAIN!

All hail her favorite food!

Kid Morning Commute

I haven’t checked the time and distance on a commute that follows dropping off the kids in the morning. It’s also September now, so the times are going to be drastically longer.

Case in point. On Friday evening I pulled out of my parking spot at about 5:40 and pulled up to the house at about 6:30. That’s 50 minutes, and is the best time I could possibly hope for.

How’d I do this morning?

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Four minutes shy of double the time from last Friday. This is my life now.

You Know it’s September When…

It’s definitely September. Last week my average commute time was about an hour. Both rides on Friday were more like 50 minutes. It was flat out glorious.

This morning, the first commute in September, was close to 90 minutes.

It is definitely September now.

New Office

Today is our first day in a new office. How far was the drive?

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42.9 miles.

How long did the drive take me?

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One hour and 18.6 seconds. That’s during the late summer though, I expect to add 20-30 minutes to that once school starts.

Yippee.

I Saw Something Cool

Yesterday on my drive home from work through the back roads of America, I saw something really cool that I’d never seen before.

I was in Wayland, MA (I think. I might have still been in Framingham) and a car did a really stupid U-turn in front of me. It left the westbound lane of route 126 and turned around into the eastbound lane, which was stopped at an intersection. It was a little car, I didn’t catch the make or model, and it had a very strange looking, very tall contraption rigged up on the roof.

My first thought was, what the hell is that? My second thought was, I wonder if… My third thought was, That’s gotta be a Google Street View camera car! As it took it’s U-Turn I could see Google Street View painted on the side. Cool! I had never seen one of those puppies before. I was on the phone with my wife at the time, so a picture was not practical. It didn’t matter though, it ducked down a side street as soon as the traffic started moving. It was only in front of me for about 10 seconds.

Now when folks marvel at how Google gets the street view images, I can tell them I know all about it. There’s a big tall rig with a 365 degree camera set up on top of it and it just drives up and down the street snapping pics as it goes.

An even more amazing traffic occurrence happened this morning. I took the shortest root available to me for my drive in to work and it took less than an hour. 93S to 128S to 90W. I don’t know what possessed me not to take the longer, yet generally faster, way in to the office, but it worked out for me today. Granted two weeks from now when school starts up again the root I took today will be gridlock all the way. Oh, and did I mention we’re moving to a new building soon and my long way around will no longer be possible, and I will be stuck with essentially the root I took today? Yippee.