Ruminating on (complaining about) My Commute

I live just about exactly one mile from the PG Plaza Metro station, and a bus stops across the street and two doors down from me to take me there in about 5 to 7 minutes. My work is right next door to the Suitland metro station - gmaps pedometer says it's 0.3 miles from the center of the platform to the elevator by my desk, as the commuter walks. This trip, from getting on the bus to butt-in-chair at work, vice-versa, takes about 1 hour 5 minutes and costs $9.50 a day.

My company provides a public transit benefit if one asks. So I asked, and I now have a SmarTrip card that gets automagically loaded with $110/month through the SmartBenefits program - which gives my company a tax break so it's win-win I guess. But $110 will only cover 11.5 days of this, so I still have half a month of commuting to cover by driving or paying my own way on metro.

I am liking the metro, a lot, actually. But, the original purpose of this was to save money, so I did the math.

In my car, my commute is 11.6 miles in the morning and takes about 20 minutes, and 17.5 miles in the evening which takes about 40 minutes. (I take the beltway home because driving north on the BW Parkway in the evening is absolutely horrific.) So, 29.1 miles. My car gets 25-27 mpg, but I went with 25. I get my gas for $3.99 a gallon at my local Shell station. This means it costs me about $4.65 a day to drive.

Metro: 2 hours 10 minutes; $9.50 per day
Drive: 1 hour; $4.65 per day

Metro is more than twice as expensive and takes more than twice as long.

That is downright lame. I suppose I could look at it over a month and tell myself that the metro benefit lowers my daily cost of metro transit to $4.25, but that's illusory. The fact is that the benefit makes my commute free half the month, and I need to choose the cheapest option for the other half - and that is driving, and that sucks bilge water.

Death of a Race War

There has been a microcosmic race war going on on the Verizon box a block up the street from me for a year or so. It started out with "[poopy] spics go home" or something, which got crossed out, then some slur of another flavor was added and crossed out, until it was a full-on three-way hate-fest, with contributions from and offerings for each of our three biggest ethnicities. I wish my pictures had come out better - some of it was really rich.



Perhaps Public Works should have taken care of it. Lord knows they had the Christmas wreaths up before Thanksgiving. Maybe they aren't allowed to clean up Verizon property or something, I don't know. I suppose that makes the most sense. Anyway, I got tired of it and today Maggie and I went to the hardware store.



In conclusion:



And that, as they say, is that.

The Town Bells

If, dear reader, you are from without the town, I should ask that you indulge me a moment of pride in revealing to you that we have a town clock, and bells which chime quite beautifully on the quarter hour. It is to my own particular advantage that this feature of our town is located a scant block from my home, and I am therefore among those that enjoy it the most - or the most often, at any rate.

I have described the bells as chiming on the quarter hour, and they do. However, I only just discovered that this is the case today, and upon this discovery I experienced a rapidly evolving emotional reaction, which I shall now describe.

For something over a year I suppose, while the bells have indeed tolled every fifteen minutes, they in fact did so four minutes after the quarter hours. This was always -- I had thought -- somewhat vexing to me, but not nearly enough so as to be bothered with mentioning it to anyone aside from my divine and long-suffering wife.

At some point, I now discover, it seems that I had grown accustomed to their tardiness; had come to find it endearing as one often does the quirks and idiosyncracies of an old friend. If, for example, I were still to be dawdling in my solarium when the bells chimed half past seven on a weekday morning, I knew very well that it was in fact 7:34 and that I really must hurry out the door!

This morning when they chimed their announcement of that time, my heart surged as usual, despite the fact that I had coincidentally just a moment before checked my own time-piece and knew very well that I needn't rush. In this first instant my reaction, amusingly enough, was annoyance! How dare the clock have startled me needlessly!

In the next instant, of course, I laughed at myself as I snatched up my personal effects and made my way to the door.

As I left the driveway, I experienced a feeling of warm gratitude for this sense of urgency conditioned in me by the chimes' now-corrected tardiness; this is an attitude and reflex I believe I will seek to retain. Springing to the driveway when the bell tolls half-past-seven will, I fancy, get me to work four minutes sooner, and thus add four welcome minutes onto my treasured evenings at home.

Alan, thank you for fixing the bells! Also, thank you for not having done so for so long. I suppose they must not be as easy to hear at your house as at mine. How long had they been corrected before I noticed? Who finally told you? Or did you happen to notice on your own, perhaps on a market day recently?

On Day Labor

Your proprietor, before he "made it," would go through occasional spells of doing day labor. I am a native son of this fine country; a tall white male with a nine-hundred year-old name and heraldry, and roots on this ground well-predating the Revolution.

It is absolutely vital that we remember the cause of Liberty and the importance of a Defiant People, as our founders intended we should.

A Day Laborer is a Human Being. We should not discuss him as though he is vermin or at best cattle. You do not "herd" human beings. You do not have a "problem" with Day Laborers. A Gang, or gangs, might be a problem. Day Labor is the opposite of gangsterism, and it is the hard, slow path to prosperity, in comparison. People of Riverdale Park; People of America, be grateful for Day Laborers. They work a lot harder than you do, and for less compensation. Their choice is the honorable path. And when they "make it," I'll bet you a dollar, they won't look down on their fellow man.

Fighting to Win

At the gateway to Riverdale Park is the venerable Calvert House Inn, a local treasure and the best restaurant in Prince Georges County. Guinness Stout, on tap, is an obvious mark of its excellence; the food itself is even better - stellar, in fact.

Next to it is an animal hospital, but next to that is a now-vacant lot, in a sad state of rubble-strewn disuse. Our previous mayor, whom we drove from office in a landslide this spring, had sold it to a developer whose objectionable plans for it were rejected by the state. This is a mixed blessing. The plan called for gross exceptions to our vision of pedestrian-friendly and attractive development, and it's good that they were stymied.

However, since that time the lot has remained an eyesore: an ugly tumbledown chainlink fence encloses a wasteland of weedy rubble - the remains of what was a gorgeous, century-old building - giving the appearance that there could be nothing of value or interest nearby. The Calvert House has languished under this burden. Today when I picked up my kebabs the atmosphere had the dreary slowness of lethargic despair.

I decided to write a letter to the new mayor, who we elected on basis of his successful history as a fighter, to urge him to fight hard, right now, before we lose this gem. Before I had done so, however, I received the following message:

Public Works has been directed to start weeding, fixing the fence, etc at the corner of 410 and Rt 1. The developer has been informed that the town will bill him for any labor and costs.

The developer has also promised to replace the fence with one that we can't see through.

This is not perfect, but it is quite timely and certainly displays the minerals I had hoped to galvanize, already in action. I am impressed and grateful.

The Law of the Land

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Open For Business

Coffee, Ale, Rum or Whiskey; Hearty Stew with Dumplings

The outhouse is atop yonder rise, please do not use the yard.

Talk among yourselves! Your drinks will be along directly.