Slugs!

Guide to Life

New Category! Opposite of my previous new category Rants which is for bitching and moaning, this category Guide to Life is about solutions and lessons learned, forgotten, and re-learned in 40 years of living. Pay close attention to this category, there will be a test.

During the four years that I was self-employed and working at home my commute was basically from upstairs to downstairs. It was nice. But I have once again become a commuter, heading roughly 35 miles from my Northern Virginia home into Washington, DC. I’m fortunate to still be able to work from home a couple of days a week, but on the days that I do go in the commute has been worse than I can ever recall. Last Friday evening, it took me three hours to get home. Last week, heading into the city in the late afternoon, it took me two hours to cover a distance I should have done in 45 minutes. It sucks.

Happily, last week I re-discovered slug lines. Slugging is a term that describes informal, ad hoc car pools arranged for single trips into and out of Washington, DC so that the driver has the benefit of having enough occupants in their car that they can ride in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, and the passengers or “slugs” get a free ride to or from work. For a few years I regularly slugged my way into work.

Last week after crossing the Key Bridge and passing through Rosslyn, I spotted the tell-tale line of slugs, looking for a southbound ride. The HOV restrictions are lifted at 6pm, but grabbing two slugs by 5:20 found us entering the slug lanes by the Pentagon shortly after. In no time we were homebound at 70 mph, flying past the more slug-like traffic in the regular lanes. The next day, I picked up three slugs at 5:30, and dropped them off at the Potomac Mills Mall commuter lot at about 6:15. It was beautiful.

Thank you slugs, I’ll be looking for you on my way home.

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Tivo Wishlist Roulette

Diversions, Television

Rick Klau has shared a fun idea he found in The Onion, Tivo Wishlist Roulette. Pick a word and enter it as a Tivo WishList set to auto-record any matching programs. Then sit back and enjoy the anticipation while waiting to see what your Tivo will find.

Looking for a purely random experience, I didn’t want to pick my own word, so I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary: Word of the Day page to find mine. Today’s word: slant.

Stay tuned for the results! (I can hear you now, “Get a life Chris!”)

Update: Oh the irony! In looking for something random, I got what I already had. The only program that the keyword ‘slant’ added to my Tivo’s ‘To-Do’ list was The Daily Show with John Stewart, a program I already Tivo and watch religiously. The reason? The show’s description says it provides a ‘humorous slant’ on daily news. There you have it.

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At the track meet

Family, Track

It’s Rippon at Saunders in a middle school track smackdown on a wonderfully warm spring day. Will’s events are the 4×100 and the 4×400.

They lost the 4×100, but Will ran a great anchor leg. Wednesday track meets this spring are gonna be great fun.

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Test from mo:Blog

Mobile

ok, here’s one using mo:Blog. Can I get a picture added too? It seems not, I can’t get it to read a directory on my flash card. Still, it seem more full-featured than the previous program.

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Bredda Sayulita

Travel

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First, an explanation is in order. What’s this ‘bredda’ crap all about? On the 1983 Album, Special Beat Service by The Beat, you will find a song called Pato and Roger Ago Talk, in the lyric of which singer Ranking Roger sings, “We a bredda”. While there is plenty of room to wonder what the hell Pato and Roger are ago-talking about, we accept the definition of bredda as meaning “close male friend”.

Among my closest friends are a batch I met as far back as the first grade, and on into high school. We’ve enjoyed many adventures and memories, and remain close despite being scattered now across the country living very different lives. Two years ago, at our 20th High School reunion, we bemoaned the infrequency of our gatherings, and determined to use the year we all will turn 40 as occasion for an epic lost weekend. There were many months of planning, and a bit of uncertainty, but ultimately to our own surprise we actually pulled it off.

A destination was chosen, Sayulita, Mexico. A small fishing village 35 minutes north of Puerta Vallarta. Now, a week after returning, and with photos developed, I am ready to start telling the tale. But later, for now, just check out the photos.

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The Pullman Case

Books, Genealogy

When I discovered that my Great Great Uncle Edward Casey worked for the Pullman Company in Chicago for 42 years I became interested in learning more about life working for Pullman, living in his company town, and the landmark strike of 1894 and legal battle that followed. Searching on Amazon, I ordered The Pullman Case to read up on the subject. I was a bit disappointed when it arrived to see what a thin volume it was. I had hoped to find something that provided a real sense of what it was like to be a Pullman employee in Chicago in 1894, and this was not the book to fill that need.

It did, however, provide a bigger picture view of things. Where I was looking for a book about a single tree, I got a overview of the forest. The title of the book is ‘The Pullman Case’ after all, at it gave background on the Pullman Company, it’s founder George Pullman, his company town and the workers he employed. But this book also introduced the labor leaders, politicians, prosecutors and defenders who carried out the struggle in the courtrooms. Of particular interest to me was the amazing extent to which the government worked directly with and for the railroads. I was interested to learn that a young railroad attorney, Clarence Darrow, switched sides to defend the workers.

George Pullman died in 1897. So fearful was he that the hatred he had engendered among his workers would lead them to dig up and desecrate his body, that he was buried in one of his own train cars, under crisscrossed iron rails with cement poured on top.

My Great Great Uncle Edward Casey worked for Pullman’s company until 1927 and died a year later in 1928. I may never be able to uncover exactly how the turmoil of the time affected him personally, but in gaining a broader understanding of the time and place, I think I can at least get closer to understanding what it must have been like.

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13 Miles an Hour

Rants

I live about 40 miles from my job in Washington, DC. Yahoo Maps says it should take me an hour and six minutes to get home from there, while Google Maps offers a more optimistic 49 minute prediction. I wish.

Reality today was three hours from door to door. We had plans for a night out in Alexandria tonight, but after that ordeal in my car, getting back in it and heading back towards the city is at the bottom of my list of things to do.

I’m fortunate to have the flexibility to work from home a few days a week (thank you Nathaniel). A few more commutes like the one I suffered this evening would be enough to push me right over the edge into some serious road rage.

(note: this is the first post in a new category, ‘rants’, my outlet for bitching, moaning and whining. Hopefully I won’t have to use it too often.)

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