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Day 3
Miles: 6,356
Mood:

Confession #3- I kill trees for my own sick pleasure.

You have to love Friday. I ended up leaving early for work this morning, just by a few minutes you know, and traffic was light. As it turns out, I was nearly 20 minutes early. So, I decided to take a little ride around downtown for 20 minutes. It was either that, or get to work on time and start writing this blog 'off the clock'. That wasn't about to happen.

So for my own personal amusement, I cruised the streets of downtown waking up many a homeless sidewalk-sleeper (those with with hangovers were particularly upset), just for fun. I figure with the amount of gas I wasted and the pollution I caused during this little adventure, I somehow surely indirectly killed at least one extra tree today. Not to worry, since I am a conscious environmentalist. I shall be sure to eat a juicy burger for lunch today, so I calculate by killing one organism that releases oxygen and killing another that consumes it, I've done my part to balance the ecosystem. Greenpeace should give me an award or something.

Commuters are often confronted with a serious day-altering decision. Stick to your lane and try and stay calm (going 5 mph) or swerve in and out of traffic, possibly angering you to the point that your whole day is ruined.

I choose door number one. In fact, I always ride in the middle lane. Why? Because the middle lane is always, statistically, the fastest. One would suppose that the left lane would be faster, but those rules only apply to free-flowing traffic. In a jam, its a toss-up.

I have a theory why the center lane is, on average, fastest. Everyone merging onto or off the freeway is jamming into the right lane, slowing it down. Everyone else is jamming into the left lane, assuming it will be moving faster (it is the 'fast' lane after all, right?). This leaves my lane, Mr Middle Number Two, open for traffic.

Unfortunately this also makes it the most dangerous. Inevitably, my lane will begin moving faster than the others so noticably you'd think there was a million dollar prize for being on it. My lane buddies and I are cruising happily, and you couldn't make an accounting manager in a Ford Expedition any madder than by going faster than he is. So watch out, fellow middle-laners, because you're on prime real estate.

Seriously great writing.

Ian

I'm enjoying this blog can't wait for more.

Day 6
Miles: 6,382
Mood:

Confession #4- I'm desensitized to stupidity.

About 10 minutes into my morning commute I suddenly realized that I had been cut off, tailgated, and otherwise unnecessarily harassed by cages at least 3 times. Setting my groggy and coffee-craving mood aside, you will be happy to know that I did manage to execute the most basic of collision-avoidance techniques. What surprised me is that I suddenly realized I didn't care.

Sure, no one purposely came at me with their vehicle, so I didn't give their poor driving habits a second thought. I am desensitized to stupidity. Parents are so worried about desensitizing their children to violence, crime, sex, and other nasty little things they are not ready for, no one was keeping them from being overexposed to stupidity!

Here's the deal. A man wakes up, does his morning routine, dashes out for work. Now he's on the freeway and traffic is backed up as always. He's got one eye on the clock and one eye on his coffee (er, I mean, on the road). Something snaps. People aren't moving fast enough, they are in his way. Somewhere in the back of his mind a plan is forming, so brilliant that our little prodigy tactician roars as he slams on the gas, crams into the four foot gap in the lane next to him and begins weaving in and out through traffic.

Not going fast enough in the fast lane? Mr Late has a plan. He'll come right up to your bumper; the plan? To intimidate you into moving. "Ha ha!" he thinks to himself, "No one would be so stupid as to risk being rearended on the way to work, this guy will get out of my way for sure!"

He drives like a maniac while people slam on their brakes, swerve out of the way to avoid getting hit, and yell out "idiot!" every 20 seconds, all the while complimenting himself on his 'mad driving skills' as he expertly navigates the freeway lanes without crashing into anything.

Unfortunately for Mr Late he wasn't paying attention. If he had, he would have realized that if the person in front had hit the brakes, the accident would be his fault. He didn't notice that the car behind him was now passing him in the other lane while he fumed after the latest skilled 'swerve'. He didn't realize he only saved himself 3 minutes in the commute. He didn't realize he just wasted twice as much gas with his antics. He didn't realize that if he had only left home in enough time to account for traffic conditions, he would have made it to work early and happy.

He didn't stop to think, because he didn't realize that his car had been labelled ES by the Commuter Guidelines Monitoring Board for: Extremely Stupid.

Hence my proposal. Everyone who acquires a license and a car is required to be monitored in a lab for 1 year. At the end of the year, they get a sticker on their bumper indicating their rating, from NS (not stupid) to ESD (extremely stupid du...well, you know).

Then, when mom and pop are taking their impressionable young child to school and they see a car rated inappropriately, they can get out of the way, and shield the poor young things eyes from witnessing it.

We need this kind of regulation on our roads. Do it for your commute. Do it for your children, before they begin to mimic what they see on the roads, and stupidity ends up in our schools.

Day 7
Miles: 6,413
Mood:

Confession #5- I hate cellphones.

That's right. I hate cellphones. It shouldn't be a big surprise, and odds are you agree with me, because statistics show that most people also hate cellphones. They also show that most people also use their cellphones in manners consistent with what those who hate cellphones consider 'rude'. If you're not detecting the contradiction here, you might want to put down the phone and pay attention.

One of the 'annoyances' are people who use wild hand gestures while on the phone. To be honest, this doesn't really bother me. If they want to look like a monkey, good for them. But you know, this is one habit that should not be extended into the car. When, like the gold buick in front of me this morning, you have one hand holding a cellphone, 1/3 of your attention on the conversation, and you're waving the other hand in the air like an idiot in the middle of rush hour traffic, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is not a winning combination.

I tried to conduct a test this morning, by counting how many people were talking on their phones in traffic. I gave up. I should have been counting how many people weren't on their cellphones, and I realized I probably wasn't paying much attention to the road at this point.

What gets me boiling are these people who fight the anti-cellphone movement with "Cellphones save lives!"

No, cellphones do not save lives. Just because you were able to call AAA because you were too stupid to change your own flat tire and too fat and lazy to walk 2 miles to the nearest gas station doesn't mean the cellphone saved your life. If anything it made you a little less valuable to society by being a stupid, lazy leach who can't solve their own problems and needs call for help as soon as something goes wrong.

But hey, at least the cellphone companies are getting rich. I should have bought stock.

You, my friend, are a victim of the "immediate gratification" epidemic running rampant in this country. A policeman or tow truck would probably randomly pass by you on the freeway every 15 minutes if you're too useless to help yourself. But if you need something, you need it right now. If you wake up at 3am craving chocolate ice cream, the stores had sure better be open 24 hours a day to satisfy you.

And you know, dating used to be mysterious and fun. A blind date or getting to know someone for the first time (except for women, because they are shallow - disagree? Look up the DMV records for every man who owns a late model Ferarri and try to find one that can't get a date...good luck) could be an adventure in itself.

Not anymore, the gimmies have taken over. Now you date over the internet, and if you don't have 10 matches to choose from with full profile photos, complete medical and background records, and a life history essay, you don't even bother.

I would say we need a 'Say No to Cellphones' campaign, but the volunteer campaign manager would probably end up running the office out of his suburban on the way to work.

PS: I'm drinking a cup of coffee at work, and the whole pot cost the company about .25 cents to make. And mmm mmm...its good. Take that Starbucks!

Day 8
Miles: 6,441
Mood:

Confession #6- I'm easily fooled.

I should have known something was wrong this morning when I woke up five minutes late. My morning routine wasn't shaken however, since I'm always ten or fifteen minutes early to work, I wasn't worried. Besides, school (at least college) was out, which meant the freeways had less traffic to deal with. I calmly went about my business.

A mile and a half away from home, I stopped at the convenience store to fill my tires. They were a few pounds low. The front tire needs to be 29psi, it was 26. So I dropped in my 75 cents (I assume it is processed, refined air formulated exclusively for tires) and begin filling the front fire. I check it again. It's 24psi. How odd. I check the nozzle, everything's working fine. A fluke. So I begin filling again.

Now it's 18psi. This is certainly going bad fast. I throw down the nozzle and spend five minutes looking for my valve cap. Defeated, I limp home on a very soft front end. There, I use the emergency DC compressor in the SUV. I do not recommend using them unless you have a lot of time on your hands. The tires would have filled faster if I had just blown into them, I think.

But, all is well and I'm on my way. Plus, I get to the freeway and low and behold, there is barely a car on it. It's smooth sailing. What luck! How fate has been kind to me after such a frustrating tire disaster.

Alas, I am easily fooled. I hop onto the freeway, cruise at 65mph and briskly ride over the first overpass.

Screeeeeeech!

As I round the top of the overpass I see a sea of red lights. The freeway is completely jammed. I could hear the road laughing at me. The big electric display sign on my right clearly reads "HA!". I'm doomed.

Now if I had thought it through, I should have realized that the freeway wasn't clear. Everyone was on their morning commute, but I was late. Instead, I was just at the end of the line. Everyone going into the city was already ahead of me. I was just last.

It got me thinking that this was a perfect analogy for how the little disappointments in life can really irritate you. Its like when you go to McDonalds in the drivethru and order a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. You gather your food, pay the multi-billion-dollar corporation your due, and when you get home you open the bag to discover a six-pack of chicken nuggets.

And your coke is flat.

Or when the pizza man delivers your pizza. You ordered pepperoni with extra cheese, but they deliver Hawaiian style. Do they really think it matters that they give you the pizza for free? If I wanted a free pizza that tastes like garbage, I'd fish one out of the dumpster behind their restaurant. Who on earth decided to put pinneaple on a pizza anyway? If I wanted fruit, I'd go eat an apple. I want a greasy, cheesy, boiling hot pizza that will give me a heart attack when I smell it.

Pizza is one thing that should never be touched by the health-freaks. Vegetarian pizza...please! If at least one type of animal did not die to make your pizza, it's not a pizza. Before long, the only kind of pizza they will sell is pizza salad. And it will just be a giant piece of lettuce with a little artificial low-fat no-sugar zero-cal sauce smeared thinly on top.

So, in summary, I was late, the convenience store air compressor is broken, McDonald's can't do anything right and pizza is just going downhill. I just can't take much more disappointment.

Day 8
Miles: 6,468
Mood:

Confession #7- I think sportbikes are for sissys.

As I will not be riding to work Thursday, and as I will not be in town on Friday, I thought I'd bore you with a thought about my evening commute.

Suffice to say, my evening commute is the same as my morning commute, but in reverse. Yet after working all day and anticipating coming home to my loving wife for some much needed adult entertainment (that is, house chores followed by scotch), I often feel invigorated that I commute with a motorcycle. I'm probably the happiest person on the road travelling bumper to bumper at 5mph.

Well, today I passed a group of maybe half a dozen sportbikers. A few of them glanced my direction, and I waved quite noticably. Incredibly, not a single one of them waved back. Not one!

Oh yeah? Well I think your bikes are for sissys!

You should get off those kiddie bikes and ride like a real man. See me? I ride a mans bike. Its black and its dirty. It doesnt have any chrome, and what metal it does have is covered with rust. I dont need aftermarket sound because my rumble comes from the giant rust holes in my pipe. And when I get off my bike, people run because I stink of gas and rust. When I stop to gas up, I light up a big cigar and use my gas tank as an ash tray, then I wash my face with gasoline.

I dont ride with a helmet because I want you to see me snarling at you. I dont wear a shirt because I want you to see the giant tattoo on my back of a human skull biting the head off a snake. I ride under the speed limit because I dont want to spill my beer. I drink from a 40 bottle, and when I'm done I smash the bottle over my head and ride up next to a cage with the window rolled down and stab him in the eye with it. No one rides behind me because my bike spews smoke everywhere, and I like it.

I have a different woman riding on the back of my bike every day and she rides on the metal tail because I'm too manly to have a rear seat. If she doesnt hold on tight enough, I might turn around and pick her up if I think she beer she was holding for me didnt break.

I dont need a 150mph bike because then its too hard to aim for animals crossing the road. When a cop tries to pull me over, I give him one look and his gas tank explodes and the vehicle does flips off the road and hits a baby deer.

Ha...won't wave at me will you. Sissy boys.

Good lord... My brain shorted reading that.... you rock!

Haha, you're a great writer. You should considering taking all this entries and making them into a book when you've got a bunch of them done. I'd read it for sure. It'd sell.

Keep writing, and I'll keep reading.