After that last post, this is gonna be kind of a let-down, but I figured since I actually took notes on some stuff while I had this blog, I may as well record it here too.
In April of this year, my office moved from Alameda to downtown Oakland. This didn't affect me too much, since I only drove in two days a week, but parking a Jeep Wrangler in Oakland? The hell with that. So I started researching other ways to get to work.
Initially, I was going to drive to Becky's parents' place in Berkeley and park there. Then I'd take BART the rest of the way to work and back, and either drive home that night and repeat the whole process the next day or stay overnight. But as it so happened, my work got a deal to write transportation expenses off on their taxes, so they gave us all the chance to get free travel vouchers through this program called CommuterCheck, and I decided to take Amtrak from Sacramento to Oakland instead.
My schedule goes like this now - get on the train in Old Sacramento around 7:40 AM Tuesday morning, get to Jack London Square in Oakland about 9:40-10:00. Sounds like a long haul, yeah, but considering it takes 1.75 hours by car it's not that much different time-wise....plus, I'm not stressed out by driving, I can sleep if I want, and oh yeah did I mention since work is paying for it it's FREE. Contrast that with the $80+ per week in gas and tolls I'd be paying now and it's definitely the smart choice. Even if I had to suddenly pay for my train tickets, it'd only work out to about $25 a week.
At any rate, once I get to JL Square, I walk the one mile to my office downtown. I've clocked myself, I do it in about 12-15 minutes, not bad for a chubster like myself. I can actually walk several miles now at a decent pace without my back or feet hurting, so this schedule is having added benefits. When I'm done with work, the BART train is right there outside the building underground (also funded by CommuterCheck). I grab that and go about 3 stops to Rockridge station in Berkeley. From there I can walk 15-20 minutes or so to Becky's parents' house and stay there overnight. The next day (Wednesday) I just take BART back to the office, leave around 5:00 PM to walk back to JL Square and hit the 5:30 PM train, which (if it runs on time) puts me back in Old Sacramento around 7:30 PM.
So...why tell you all that. Well, as it stands, two hours on Amtrak when you're not distracted by the job of driving somewhere is actually a pretty long stretch of time in which to occupy yourself. As I mentioned before I could sleep, but I've actually found that pretty impractical; although the seats on the train are vaguely comfortable and definitely more roomy than any coach airline seat, the train jostles around quite a bit and unless you've got a big-ass pillow it's pretty difficult to maneuver yourself into any position of comfort where you could actually fall asleep. Once I get my new laptop from work, I plan to plug in and work on the train (they do have 120-volt outlets at most seats, and either tables or tray-tables to work on as well). But for right now, mainly I just read, play around on my Sidekick or just stare out the window.
Having grown up in the Northeast U.S. and traveled the NJ Transit line between Trenton, New Brunswick and New York fairly frequently, I can honestly say that the scenery out the train window in northern California has the NY/NJ scene beat hands down. Between Sacramento and Fairfield, you see lush farms and marshland, and if you're sitting on the right side of the train between Fairfield and Richmond you have these incredible views of the SF Bay. Contrast that with the NJ Transit Atlantic corridor line which runs up through the armpit of NJ civilization parallel to the Turnpike, and it's no wonder why I actually like riding the train to work here.
So again...why all this. Well, when the usual distractions of reading, playing and staring get too much, I have no choice but to focus my attention on my fellow passengers. Most of them are fairly uninteresting types, but occasionally something pokes through that will pique my interest enough to eavesdrop or observe. Generally speaking I keep to myself on the train, preferring to converse with my wife over text messaging or IM if I get too lonely. I don't sit at the tables because those are pretty popular seating choices and I really don't want to sit face-to-face with someone else, it almost forces you to have to interact and well, dammit, I'm just anti-social enough that I really don't want to talk to anyone. And?
All that said, my train travel micro-impressions so far (I'm working off my notes here - displayed in italics - I'll have to explain as I go along) :
- The smell of coffee mixed with the smell of Amtrak is pretty harsh. - yeah, it is. Trains have a certain funky smell of their own, it's more or less a combination of diesel fumes, carbon monoxide, aluminum tin can train car, dusty fabric seats and cleaning solution. All in all, not a bad smell - it's actually kind of welcoming after a while, like ahhh yes I made the train on time and here's that old familiar smell - but it doesn't play well with others. So when someone in the next seat is drinking an espresso drink from the cafe car or eating some rather fragrant bacon-breakfast-extravaganza, it gets a little overwhelming. Especially at 7:30 - 8 in the morning when I'm barely awake.
- A man stands in front of me, talking to two old ladies about his prostate cancer. I'm actually ok with this, it's somewhat entertaining. I really feel sorry for the girl in the seat opposite the ladies who has his butt pointed directly at her face. He yips cheerfully along for 30 minutes, proving it IS possible to talk about nothing but your own ass for an entire half hour. - Can't really say it much better than that, other than to wonder what the girl was thinking. "Is that thing contagious? Is it loaded? It better not go off in my face..."
- Martinez stinks just as bad as it does in a car. - that's actually only somewhat true. The path the train takes through Martinez manages to spare the passengers the more fragrant oil refineries that line the bay there, but on occasion one of them is in full-on ASS mode and there's no escaping it no matter how you're traveling through the area. I often wonder what the cancer rate is in Martinez and Benicia, it can't be that good what with 3-4 major oil processors stationed right there.
- If this train derails between Martinez and Richmond, we're screwed. - as I mentioned before, there are some really gorgeous views of the bay from Fairfield on through (save for Martinez). But from Martinez to Richmond/Point Isobel (incidentally where Laci & Connor Peterson washed up), the train is no more than 20-30 yards from the shores of the bay itself. And if it derails there, kersplash, hope this tin can floats long enough for me to swim out. Ironically, one of those mornings I was taking BART from Berkeley to Oakland, I saw there was a system delay and later read in the news that some dude was ranting around Amtrak, leaving several suspicious-looking packages in varying cars and making a lot of noise about how he was going to blow the train into the sea. He got arrested off the train in Richmond and the bomb squad found that the packages contained nothing more than parts from Radio Shack, but....I don't really wanna think about it.
- The train is late getting home by 2 hours due to a derailment near Santa Clara. Apparently Amtrak has something against me getting home at a reasonable hour - I said that because it was the second week in a row that the train was delayed getting home. The first week was because a train walloped some homeless dude between Berkeley and Richmond, killing him. The trains were delayed for at least an hour while the coroner made his way there. This time around, it was a two hour delay because one of the freight trains that runs on the same lines as the passenger trains derailed somewhere near Santa Clara (that's about an hour south of Oakland for the non-CA people). Incidentally, that left me with 2 hours to kill, so I searched out a place for dinner and came up with "The House of Chicken and Waffles" on Broadway and Jefferson. No lie on the name. It turned out to be some sort of soul-food diner, I was the only white dude in the place and the menu was as advertised - all chicken or waffles on the main dishes, plus side dishes like grits, black-eyed peas, collared greens, all that. I had a damn good chicken sandwich though, and the people were really really nice - I sat at the counter and my waitress was one of those really big heavy-set black ladies with an apron that calls everyone "honey" and "suga". She had a vaguely Caribbean accent and I could have sworn she was trying to flirt with me, but I was probably just hungry and distracted cause my train was late so I can't trust my judgement. I tend to be mostly oblivious as to when women are hitting on me anyway, I'm just a weird guy like that. I don't really realize it until after they walk away most times, or someone else points it out. Good for Becky, I suppose :)
- The man behind me will not stop clearing his throat. Eh-eh-um. - I wrote that out of sheer irritation. Eh-eh-um.......Eh-eh-um.....in an otherwise dead silent train car.....Eh-eh-um.....I felt like saying "are you gonna say something or not?" I mean keerist, he keeps clearing his throat like he's gonna ask the professor a question in front of the whole lecture hall, and he hasn't said a damn thing in 30 minutes. He manages to escape off the train before I kill him.
- Some people are old at 22....there is a girl in front of me who has a turtle, excuse me, tortoise named Bill....yes I know not the most creative name but he is actually a gift for a friend in Davis that has a large terrarium and will most likely rename the tortoise Sahara. I know this not because I have spoken to this woman directly but because she is loudly discussing thw tur....dammit, tortoise with anyone within view. She claims the tortoise needs to be out since he has been on an 11-hour bus ride and now 2 or 3 hour train ordeal...yet her desperation glances in fishing for coversation opponents make her look like one of those old people who chat up the clerk in front of you at 7-11 - yeah, you know? La-hooo.....za-herrrr. Like I mentioned previously, I tend to keep to myself on the train (or the bus, etc). Same goes for standing in line. It's rare that I partake in the sort of small talk that causes Bil Engvall to load people up on signs. Unfortunately for me, over my long career of riding public transit alone or waiting on lines alone, my silence has somehow made me an unwitting target for missionaries, misfits, miscreants and general loner boneheads who just can NOT keep their damn mouths shut. "boy, hot out there isn't it?" "you like that kinda soda? me too" "man I hate riding on this damn train" SHUT... UP... AND... LEAVE.... ME... ALONE!!!! I especially reserve a special place on my pile of things to ball up and nuke for the ones who don't actually say anything, they just pull one of several stunts in order to draw attention to themselves and/or appear happening : (1) fake a cough, manly style; (2) look from side-to-side as if scoping the place out for their next move, or (the worst - 3) if they are directly in front of you in line, they turn completely around and pretend to look behind you, as if scanning the crowd for their (non-existant) gang of friends who are all coming to regale in their purchasing brilliance. Dammit, I hate that. Y'know, I've been told on occasion that I appear to have a scowl on my face even when I don't feel particularly scowly, so I wonder if the reason people are drawn to stare at me has anything to do with that. But really, what am I gonna do, smile like some fruity figure skater every time someone looks at me? This is the face, people. Sorry. I've just learned to blow it off but occasionally it gets a bit uncomfortable and annoying.
That's all I had for right now.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Travel Stories Vol. 1 - Planes
News update first - the floor went in fine, it looks great. Bootsy went down peacefully, and Kiley has adjusted. Macy can swim. Madeleine can walk. Everyone is moving on....
Now to a lighter subject...one of the original reasons I started this whole mess was to document stuff that happens to me as I'm either walking around in public, or when strange stuff happens. And the need for something like this pretty much started back in December...1998, if I'm piecing this together right (would have been nice to have this written down).
I was living in San Francisco at the time with Becky, Anna and Fu. Anna and Fu were in the midst of moving out, and Becky & I had been living together for a few months. Becky & I both went back to NJ together where I proposed to her in my old bedroom at my mom's house, and she accepted. She then flew back to SF and I stayed behind to spend a couple more days with my folks.
I was on the United Airlines night flight back from Newark to SFO when around 11:00 PM, about 45 minutes from touchdown, the pilot announced that due to foggy conditions in Oakland, SF and San Jose (and "stacked" conditions in Sacramento) that we were being turned back to Denver airport. On a Sunday, something like December 27th. Holiday season. Overbooking Central. Getting out of here was going to be near impossible. I was only half awake and swore I was dreaming it, it was just too surreal. Just to put it in full perspective, the flight had already been delayed taking off from Newark by about 2 hours, this was just insult to injury already.
After the plane drops us in Denver, pissed off and grumbling, there's really not much communication on the other end as to what happens next. I started off for the rental car counter, hoping to get a car to drive from Denver to SF. They pretty much laughed at that, so that was out. Had to take a 30-minute round trip shuttle ride just to figure that out too.
As it turns out, ours was not the only plane to get re-routed, apparently several others did as well, dumping what was said to be an extra 1000-2000 people inside Denver Int'l Airport. With all those extra bodies, I really had to wait to stake out a phone booth for use as a base of operations...got on the line with United, was on hold for literally 30-40 minutes, and finally got through to an agent who put me on a flight for SF leaving at 1 PM the next day.
Now I had about 12 hours to kill. After some searching I finally found a bench to pass out on and managed to go to sleep for a couple hours. Keep in mind my baggage is still on the plane (which they inexplicably allowed to continue on through to SFO....?!!!), and I am left with nothing but my carry-on in which I only had a few books and papers. Nothing for my contact lenses, no deodorant, no toothbrush, nada. I get some breakfast at Burger King or something like that and then head to the gate where my flight is going to be.
Here's the next wrinkle....around 12:45 PM I notice that no mention of the flight I'm supposed to be on has been made on or around the gate. The sign above the gate still reads for a flight that has already left, and looking at the screens I can't find the flight in the listings. So I walk up to the flight attendant at the gate desk, just about the same time as someone else apparently with the same set of problems, just in time to hear her say that flight has been cancelled due to mechanical problems. The other guy and I look at each other, speechless. He lights into her with "well, wouldn't that just be kinda IMPORTANT TO LET US KNOW...???" and I walk off to think it over on my own.
As I was walking, I saw the information booth for the airport and asked the dude behind the counter about buses. He said I was in luck, there was a Greyhound Bus terminal right there at the airport and told me where to find it. I decided to give United one last chance and waited 30 minutes on hold again, only to find that the next flight out of there was going to be on Wednesday to Oakland. This was Monday. I didn't have enough cash to stay in a hotel for two nights, and I didn't have a credit card so....Go Greyhound.
As it turns out, there is a bus to SF, and the next one leaves at 4:30 PM. Problem is, it goes to downtown Denver first (the airport is actually 45 minutes outside of town), then Las Vegas, then Fresno, THEN downtown San Francisco. Total travel time : 31 hours, which means I won't get home till Tuesday around midnight. But you know what? At least I'll be moving out of this hell-hole.
Let me take a second out of the narrative here to tell you something. Traveling long distance by bus is not for the faint of heart. Generally the people who are on the bus with you are either poorer, drunker or just plain too afraid to fly. In other words, you are entering a coach full of head cases. People who are on the bus for the long haul even go so far as to get defensive about where they are sitting (even though Greyhound does not assign seats), and should you get out of your seat you'd better leave something in it else it would be taken from you. Not to mention you are going to stop at every outhouse, henhouse and cowtown that has a bus stop to pick up the next set of head cases, and occasionally you're going to get forced off the bus so they can clean it. Damn good thing too cause it STINKS in there after a while...
Anyway, I didn't know the deal with the seats and my seat got hijacked twice - the first time in Grand Junction, CO by some old dude and his kids. I was forced to take someone else's seat, and this set off a chain reaction of seat-taking and pissed off a whole bunch people who all looked at the old dude in the worst way for f**king up the seating arrangement. Odd story here - the kid who was angry that I was in his seat got off somewhere in southern Utah to go smoke pot with these two skanky-lookin chicks and ended up missing the bus, his stuff still sitting in his new location. Karma, baby.
You would have figured that would teach me a lesson, but my seat got stolen again during one of the cleaning breaks somewhere between Las Vegas and Fresno, forcing me to sit in the very rear of the bus with the Mexican contingent. Not that I minded, they were hella funny and with my rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, I managed to amaze a couple of them by laughing at a joke they cracked. They spoke English after that, I guess they figured the jig was up.
One funny story here - the bathrooms in GH buses are very small, smaller than an airport bathroom even, and on this particular bus the door handle assembly was pretty flaky. Along comes this really enormous Mexican man - we're talking so big he could only walk down the aisle sideways - who gets up to use the can and locks the door behind him. My compadres in the rear are already snickering to themselves about "la vaca mejor esta alli" ("the biggest cow is in there") ; but resort to full-on guffaws when this man spends 20 minutes in there and then becomes stuck in the bathroom, a victim of the capricious lock which leaves him powerless, able only to jiggle the handle continuously in a vain attempt to free himself. After about 10-15 minutes of this guy desperately trying to get out and several attempts by passengers near the door to open it from the outside, the question starts to float around - should we tell the driver, get him to stop and get the guy out? For whatever reason, that idea goes over like a lead pinata, so the guy is in there until the lock decides to let him out. I'll never forget there was this one Mexican girl, about 19 or so, who was sitting near the door trying to give the outside handle one last shot by jiggling it while the man inside (no doubt choking on his own fumes) worked it from the other side. Her brother, who was sitting on the other side of the door, said "Stop eet...yor gee-ving heem hope....", and the back three rows (myself included) didn't stop laughing until the man managed to finally burst out of the door, the lock apparently having grown tired of imprisoning him.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, I didn't really sleep much except for one stretch between Denver and Las Vegas. But I got to see what central California around Fresno and Bakersfield looks like, and....man. Lemme tell ya. I can't believe it's the same state. I've seen northern CA all the way up to Mendocino, southern CA around LA/Beverly Hills/Santa Monica, and some of central CA from SF down to Carmel (where Becky & I got married). If you never saw anything but those three spots, you'd assume that CA was a fairly hegemonous collection of affluent suburban areas interspersed with some semi-rural sprawl and one or two major cities where the poorer contingents lived. But even if you managed to traverse the entire Pacific Coast Highway, you just don't understand that from San Jose on south used to belong to Mexico not more than 100 years or more ago...and some of it looks like it still does. We're talking towns after towns of migrant farm workers that look like they were built solely out of MDF and spray paint...often the only distinguishing feature about these places was the GH bus stop that got people the hell out of town.
31 hours later, I was happy to finally make it to SF, tired as hell and smelling like a landfill. When I got home, the airlines had called to say my bags were at SFO. I got Becky to drive me there so I could get my glasses and stuff, and finally get a change of clothes and a shower in peace.
There. I finally got to write that all down. I guess this thing is useful after all.
Now to a lighter subject...one of the original reasons I started this whole mess was to document stuff that happens to me as I'm either walking around in public, or when strange stuff happens. And the need for something like this pretty much started back in December...1998, if I'm piecing this together right (would have been nice to have this written down).
I was living in San Francisco at the time with Becky, Anna and Fu. Anna and Fu were in the midst of moving out, and Becky & I had been living together for a few months. Becky & I both went back to NJ together where I proposed to her in my old bedroom at my mom's house, and she accepted. She then flew back to SF and I stayed behind to spend a couple more days with my folks.
I was on the United Airlines night flight back from Newark to SFO when around 11:00 PM, about 45 minutes from touchdown, the pilot announced that due to foggy conditions in Oakland, SF and San Jose (and "stacked" conditions in Sacramento) that we were being turned back to Denver airport. On a Sunday, something like December 27th. Holiday season. Overbooking Central. Getting out of here was going to be near impossible. I was only half awake and swore I was dreaming it, it was just too surreal. Just to put it in full perspective, the flight had already been delayed taking off from Newark by about 2 hours, this was just insult to injury already.
After the plane drops us in Denver, pissed off and grumbling, there's really not much communication on the other end as to what happens next. I started off for the rental car counter, hoping to get a car to drive from Denver to SF. They pretty much laughed at that, so that was out. Had to take a 30-minute round trip shuttle ride just to figure that out too.
As it turns out, ours was not the only plane to get re-routed, apparently several others did as well, dumping what was said to be an extra 1000-2000 people inside Denver Int'l Airport. With all those extra bodies, I really had to wait to stake out a phone booth for use as a base of operations...got on the line with United, was on hold for literally 30-40 minutes, and finally got through to an agent who put me on a flight for SF leaving at 1 PM the next day.
Now I had about 12 hours to kill. After some searching I finally found a bench to pass out on and managed to go to sleep for a couple hours. Keep in mind my baggage is still on the plane (which they inexplicably allowed to continue on through to SFO....?!!!), and I am left with nothing but my carry-on in which I only had a few books and papers. Nothing for my contact lenses, no deodorant, no toothbrush, nada. I get some breakfast at Burger King or something like that and then head to the gate where my flight is going to be.
Here's the next wrinkle....around 12:45 PM I notice that no mention of the flight I'm supposed to be on has been made on or around the gate. The sign above the gate still reads for a flight that has already left, and looking at the screens I can't find the flight in the listings. So I walk up to the flight attendant at the gate desk, just about the same time as someone else apparently with the same set of problems, just in time to hear her say that flight has been cancelled due to mechanical problems. The other guy and I look at each other, speechless. He lights into her with "well, wouldn't that just be kinda IMPORTANT TO LET US KNOW...???" and I walk off to think it over on my own.
As I was walking, I saw the information booth for the airport and asked the dude behind the counter about buses. He said I was in luck, there was a Greyhound Bus terminal right there at the airport and told me where to find it. I decided to give United one last chance and waited 30 minutes on hold again, only to find that the next flight out of there was going to be on Wednesday to Oakland. This was Monday. I didn't have enough cash to stay in a hotel for two nights, and I didn't have a credit card so....Go Greyhound.
As it turns out, there is a bus to SF, and the next one leaves at 4:30 PM. Problem is, it goes to downtown Denver first (the airport is actually 45 minutes outside of town), then Las Vegas, then Fresno, THEN downtown San Francisco. Total travel time : 31 hours, which means I won't get home till Tuesday around midnight. But you know what? At least I'll be moving out of this hell-hole.
Let me take a second out of the narrative here to tell you something. Traveling long distance by bus is not for the faint of heart. Generally the people who are on the bus with you are either poorer, drunker or just plain too afraid to fly. In other words, you are entering a coach full of head cases. People who are on the bus for the long haul even go so far as to get defensive about where they are sitting (even though Greyhound does not assign seats), and should you get out of your seat you'd better leave something in it else it would be taken from you. Not to mention you are going to stop at every outhouse, henhouse and cowtown that has a bus stop to pick up the next set of head cases, and occasionally you're going to get forced off the bus so they can clean it. Damn good thing too cause it STINKS in there after a while...
Anyway, I didn't know the deal with the seats and my seat got hijacked twice - the first time in Grand Junction, CO by some old dude and his kids. I was forced to take someone else's seat, and this set off a chain reaction of seat-taking and pissed off a whole bunch people who all looked at the old dude in the worst way for f**king up the seating arrangement. Odd story here - the kid who was angry that I was in his seat got off somewhere in southern Utah to go smoke pot with these two skanky-lookin chicks and ended up missing the bus, his stuff still sitting in his new location. Karma, baby.
You would have figured that would teach me a lesson, but my seat got stolen again during one of the cleaning breaks somewhere between Las Vegas and Fresno, forcing me to sit in the very rear of the bus with the Mexican contingent. Not that I minded, they were hella funny and with my rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, I managed to amaze a couple of them by laughing at a joke they cracked. They spoke English after that, I guess they figured the jig was up.
One funny story here - the bathrooms in GH buses are very small, smaller than an airport bathroom even, and on this particular bus the door handle assembly was pretty flaky. Along comes this really enormous Mexican man - we're talking so big he could only walk down the aisle sideways - who gets up to use the can and locks the door behind him. My compadres in the rear are already snickering to themselves about "la vaca mejor esta alli" ("the biggest cow is in there") ; but resort to full-on guffaws when this man spends 20 minutes in there and then becomes stuck in the bathroom, a victim of the capricious lock which leaves him powerless, able only to jiggle the handle continuously in a vain attempt to free himself. After about 10-15 minutes of this guy desperately trying to get out and several attempts by passengers near the door to open it from the outside, the question starts to float around - should we tell the driver, get him to stop and get the guy out? For whatever reason, that idea goes over like a lead pinata, so the guy is in there until the lock decides to let him out. I'll never forget there was this one Mexican girl, about 19 or so, who was sitting near the door trying to give the outside handle one last shot by jiggling it while the man inside (no doubt choking on his own fumes) worked it from the other side. Her brother, who was sitting on the other side of the door, said "Stop eet...yor gee-ving heem hope....", and the back three rows (myself included) didn't stop laughing until the man managed to finally burst out of the door, the lock apparently having grown tired of imprisoning him.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, I didn't really sleep much except for one stretch between Denver and Las Vegas. But I got to see what central California around Fresno and Bakersfield looks like, and....man. Lemme tell ya. I can't believe it's the same state. I've seen northern CA all the way up to Mendocino, southern CA around LA/Beverly Hills/Santa Monica, and some of central CA from SF down to Carmel (where Becky & I got married). If you never saw anything but those three spots, you'd assume that CA was a fairly hegemonous collection of affluent suburban areas interspersed with some semi-rural sprawl and one or two major cities where the poorer contingents lived. But even if you managed to traverse the entire Pacific Coast Highway, you just don't understand that from San Jose on south used to belong to Mexico not more than 100 years or more ago...and some of it looks like it still does. We're talking towns after towns of migrant farm workers that look like they were built solely out of MDF and spray paint...often the only distinguishing feature about these places was the GH bus stop that got people the hell out of town.
31 hours later, I was happy to finally make it to SF, tired as hell and smelling like a landfill. When I got home, the airlines had called to say my bags were at SFO. I got Becky to drive me there so I could get my glasses and stuff, and finally get a change of clothes and a shower in peace.
There. I finally got to write that all down. I guess this thing is useful after all.
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