Confessions of a Commuter

[KarateChick]

Ye-ahhh... Starbucks... that place where customers all speak some foreign language that can't easily be interpreted...

"What do I want? Uhhh, okay, uhhh, hot water and that." *points to a teabag*

[NorthernPete]

mm..star bucks...here ya go...twill be appreciated I thinks.

http://www.scarysquirrel.org/special/mo ... /sml1.html

sorry to link in ya blog, look forward to reading more or the confessions!

[CNF2002]

Thursday
Miles: 9,723
Mood:
Confession #68- I will NOT have a safe trip.

Maybe this is something that only regular commuters encounter. Maybe its universal. Maybe no one notices but me. Maybe I'm a freak.

"Have a safe trip!"

"Be safe out there!"

"Be careful!"

If one more person tell me to "be safe" I'm going to scream. It's not that I don't appreciate the well-wishing, its just that its obvious that they disapprove of my method of transportation.

Seriously! You'd think I was taking off in a plane to go skydiving, or boating to Europe in a kayak. I think everyone I know has secretly been betting on when I'm going to die.

I don't say to SUV drivers "Try not to burn too much gas out there!" No one tells a driver of a convertible "Be safe!" at every available opportunity. There is a stereotype that motorcycles are unsafe. Well, they are, but not at the frequency that people seem to think.

Its like when you hear on the news that a dog bit some person. Suddenly every dog is dangerous. But puppies are cute and bikes are not, so here we are.

Well you know what? I have good reasons for riding a motorcycle. I want to be conscience of the environment and how I use our resources. I don't want to commute in a vehicle built to haul 5 people (or 10 people and tow a boat for that matter). I think bikes are friendly, practical, and useful in our overconsuming, free-for-all times.

Motorcycles used to even be cool. No longer. I think it has to do with the general mentality of our nation. If you haven't been paying attention, the game of Tag has now been banned from a school.

I'm not kidding. Tag. You're it. Whhaaaa! Mamma he touched me! Am I going to have a bruise?

This is worse than replacing all the playground equipment with plastic padded gym mats. No monkey bars over 2 feet high allowed. Dodge ball is no longer played. Of course, Americans are nothing without being complete hypocrits since football is not banned (lets ignore that it actually generates revenue for a school - that must not be the reason!). Heck, football is even more dangerous because the high school jocks are spending more time on the field than in the classroom, and getting A's on research papers with incoherent squiggly marks drawn on them. Then they go to college, join a frat, get a degree and a job because of their frat connections, and become the boss to an IT department and sits around playing Tetris in his office because he hasn't got a clue how to do anything except yell at his employees...just like good ol' coach!

Well guess what America, that boy that you were terrified might slip and fall and skin his knee while running on the grass? That boy that you banned from the playground so he wouldn't bump his head on the dangerous metal bars? He's going to be the one defending your country.

Me? I think I'm going to sign up for a course in Chinese. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

Note to readers: I love Foamy!

[noodlenoggin]

Oh, God, hear-HEAR!!

Yes, it grinds others. me, anyway. I have a selection of answers for that:

"Drive carefully." "No."
"Drive carefully." "I will not...but I will drive WELL." <- my fave
"Drive carefully." "Careful will get me killed."

[froldt]

"Drive carefully." - "I don't drive, I ride."

[sv-wolf]

CNF

Congrats for voicing that one. You too Noodle. Good to be able to share this one around. Yes, I get it all the time, too. And yes, motorcycling is dangerous (you are 35 times more likely to be seriously injured in the UK on a bike than in a car).

But please don't treat me like I have an un-fully formed brain and require parental guidance because I choose to take the risk!

And if I do things on my bike you wouldn't do in your car, maybe that's because I know my machine and because I have much better accelleration and braking power than you and have much better road handling. Phew! That one has been building up for several years!

Cheers guys.

P.S. So it is not only here in the U.K. that the nanny state is quietly weeping for our vulnerability and terrified we may all need sticking plasters.

P.P.S. Love reading your blog, CNF

[Joey Hellfish]

Hey I finally caught up with the blog! ive been reading a lot this last week... great job man...
Joey
PD: Im about one week from buying my first bike!

[CNF2002]

Monday
Miles: 9,754
Mood:
Confession #69- The jig is up.

Somewhere in my city there is a transportation planner making more money than he or she should. You know what would be a great idea, he said to his staff, Let's close down one of the 3 major arteries into the city for construction, only during overnight hours. But here's the brilliant part. Let's clean it up before daybreak, for the morning commute rush, and make the road perfectly drivable, but lets keep all the cones out and use tax dollars to pay our workers to stand around doing nothing.

I just registered my car with the state, and its reassuring to know that my hard earned money has paid for the guy in the yellow helmet to stare at me while I travel 5mph in ridiculous traffic in the cold on one lane of a perfectly good highway that's been barracaded for work that they don't even do during the day.

We need to rise up. If you ever meet a city planner, punch him in the face. Then help him to his feet and apologize that you were just venting your frustration because they tore up the road in front of your house, laid some pipe, repaved it, tore it up again 2 weeks later, laid some electrical wire, repaved half of it, left the construction vehicles sitting there for a month, repaved the other half, declared the job finished and left with the manhole cover still 1 inch above the level of the road.

I'm sure he'll understand.

The jig is up. I was driving along with my wife this weekend and casually mentioned that the tread on my rear tire has finally worn completely away. I absolutely have to get a new tire. How much will it cost? she asks. I tell her, and there's a moment of eerie silence that all husbands know signal something bad about to happen. And it did. Her usual sweet voice took on 'that' tone. "You know," she said, "it seems like this bike is costing us more than what we're saving in gas."

Uh-oh.

I try to pass it off with some complicated mathematical calculations. Tire cost times twice a year divided by twelve months minus savings in gas, sprinkle on a reminder of the horrible gas mileage my SUV as a little extra (mind you, when it comes to justifying the cost of my bike, my SUV actually gets 2 mpg less than it really does...when justifying my ownership of an SUV, it gets 2 mpg more than it really does - a curious phenomenon that I've yet to have time to thoroughly study).

It worked. She didn't say anything else. But it's getting dangerous. Certainly already the costs of motorcycle commuting is somewhat cheaper, in the long run of course, but will it offset the purchase of another bike when this one chugs its last gallon of 93? That could happen in as little as 3 years. Most certainly, a long term strategy is required here. I need to get to the drawing board.

[KarateChick]

CNF - your blog is a great partner to go with the morning coffee. Thanks for the updates.

[CNF2002]

Tuesday
Miles: 9,779
Mood:
Confession #70- I forgot why I stopped listening to the radio.

I have an mp3 player. No shmuck, not an ipod, there are other brands of mp3 players besides the ipod. The ipod isn't even a good mp3 player. The one redeeming quality of the ipod? A brain-dead epileptic monkey could use it. It is user friendly, I'll admit. Does the thing even come with a manual? Apple always shipped its computers with a foldout poster instead of a manual. It had big pictures with color coordinated wires that indicated where you plug things in to. It was really complicated back in the early 90's. You had to plug in your keyboard into the CPU, plug the monitor into the CPU (assuming you had a LC, the Classics had integrated monitors), plug in the power cord, the printer cord, the mouse into the keyboard, and then you had to locate your printer in the Chooser and set it all up.

Much to the confusion of the average user, there were different plugs for each item. Your printer couldn't plug into the same port as your keyboard. Your monitor was gray and all the plugs were silver, how was a consumer supposed to figure out where it went without clear color coordination? So they made it simpler.

Too simple. Now all you do is plug your computer into the wall and plug in all your accessories (mouse, keyboard, printer, monitor). It doesn't matter which plug you use, they all plug into any USB port. Once you plug it in, the computer loads everything and sets it all up. With the popularity of wireless and Bluetooth-type devices, I would not be at all surprised if computer wires went the way of the dinosaur. In a few years you are going to buy your computer, arrange it on your desk, and there will be a giant 11x12 foot poster that folds out showing a wall socket, your power cord and a big arrow that reads "PLUG THIS IN HERE!"

Followed by 5 yellow warnings about the hazards of electricity.

As I was saying, the ipod sucks. It can't even record, it has no microphone, and it can't even pick up FM. Thanks, I'll save $100 and get a better device that, heaven forbid, I have to read a manual to learn how to use. My 10 minutes is worth $100.

So I forgot why I stopped listening to FM. This is not really a problem for the motorcycle commuter, only a small portion of us who listen to music on the bike. It's a bit difficult, I learned, to get the earphones on and still slap on your full faced helmet without pulling the plugs down with it. Took a couple tries, and in the end it was so uncomfortable I gave up.

So I just took the car. But much to my dismay, my satellite radio was not working. Must have been a glitch, or perhaps a UFO momentarily hijacked the satellite to relay its invasion instructions to its ground forces, but nevertheless I had no digital radio.

Instead I switched to FM while I waited for my signal to come back. I must have surfed 10 different local stations, and not one of them was playing music. 2 had commercials. Okay, I grant them the commercials. They have to pay for the free radio somehow. But 8 of them just had people talking. 1 was talking about traffic, 1 was talking about news, and the other 6 were just talking.

I suddenly remembered why I pay for radio.

These radio jocks are idiots. Who on earth is entertained by listening to some shmuck talk about what happened at a bar last night? Or calling people and making fun of them, or making obscene noises? Who wants to listen to that? Why don't they just play music and commercials? Speaking of which, what is with the trendy teen-bopper stations mixing their music with crazy tracks and speeding it up? Britney sounds bad enough when she's not sped up like Alvin, or Simon, or Theodore for that matter. And the repetitive bumping track in the background? There's a reason why the song wasn't recorded that way in the first place: It sucks. Just play it normally.

My wife agrees. Everyone agrees. So I have to ask, how do they still get away with it?

Note to readers: Sirius can be had for $10 a month with the purchase of a $70 player that can relay the signal via short-range FM to your car stereo. There are more expensive and integrated options, but anyone can have satellite radio for under $100. Use they money you saved by not buying an ipod.

Note to ipod users: There is always one die-hard ipod fan that argues its good qualities. I know, don't bother. When you fill your 80GB disk with 2meg compressed music files, you let me know (at the going rate it would cost you many thousands and thousands of dollars to fill your ipod with music) and while you are squinting at your 2 inch screen watching the latest episode of LOST, shut it off and smell a flower because you are addicted to TV.