Dear Mr Disgruntled Bus Rider

Dear Mr Disgruntled Bus Rider,

I see you get on the bus in the morning and also in the afternoon on the trek home. I must say, you do not look like a happy fellow. When I see you come on-board our mutual conveyance, I get the feeling that you are dreading the drive to your place of employment. I offer you a few suggestions to help you out.

First off, get an MP3 player and download some good humor podcasts. I recommend Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. I want to see a happy face on there at least once! This podcast will help you on your adventure to happiness.

OK, I see you still decrying the world around you. Let's not set our sights so high to get you all the way to happy, but lets at least go to neutral. Take a look around the bus, there are many masters of the neutral on-board. Not happy, not sad, but just there sitting on the bus waiting to get to where we are going in this confined little transport. You can even stare off into space, take a nap, or even shoot for the advanced I'm-not-looking-at-you-so-please-don't-sit-next-to-me look.

Maybe it's an issue with the ladies. I am not what a normal person would call fashionable. However, you don't need to be a fashion genius to see some pretty serious fashion police violations. First and foremost, lose the wind breaker. A bright, just about waist length wind breaker is not the best to wear over a dark suit jacket. You get bonus points for dressing up nice for work, but damn does that wind breaker dominate the realm of clash. Since you wear a suit almost every day, upgrade to a nice, dressy jacket or at least get a wind breaker longer than your suit jacket. I would recommend a different color too, bright blue is not you.

Here's to a happier, or at least neutral, bus rider!

Cheers.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

I'm back to being a bus commuter. The trip now is about 2-3 times longer than at my old job, but it is relaxing. The end result is more time traveling with the benefit now of having a fairly solid I-can't-work-any-later-than-this time.

With the extra time comes a need for something to do. I have a few podcasts I listen to, but they only run about an hour each. The podcasts only last for a single one way trip and I have only enough to last about half the week. I have 5 hours or so of time to fill up. Reading is a possibility, but reading on a moving vehicle can result in a sick feeling I would like to avoid.

So what I would like from my readers our there are some podcast or audiobook options. I am pondering getting an Audible subscription again, so anything off of Audible.com would be an option.

Crunching the Numbers: Bus vs Car

(Note: Apparently Blogger hates tables for some reason. I'll be back later to clean up the formatting. Damn that looks uuuuuuugly.)

Transportation. That's what I am thinking of. Would it be best for me to bus to work or drive to work? At my old job it was an easy decision with a free bus pass. Bus all the way. With my current job, it gets trickier. For one, there are two possible destinations: West & V.

Method

I am going to compare the two based on cost and total travel time. For the car, it will be simplified to gas cost. Even if I took the bus, I would still have to keep the car so the maintenance numbers would be roughly the same in both situations.

Assumptions

• Gas costs 3.899/Gallon


• Car mileage is 25 mpg


• West distance is 9.5 miles


• V distance is 18.1 miles


• For the 31 day period, there are 23 working days

The Numbers

West	Car Cost	Bus Cost	Cost Diff	Car Time	Bus Time	Time Diff
Day	$ 2.96	N/A	N/A	60 min	81 min	21 min
Month	$ 68.15	$ 47.00	$ 21.15	23 h	31.05 h	8.05 h
Year	$ 817.85	$ 564.00	$ 253.85	276 h	372.6 h	96.6 h

While the bus would take longer, I would save $21.15 a month at the cost of about 8 hours a month. Each hour I give up I save about $2.63.

The V location is a little different story. The 8.6 mile difference has a large impact on the car cost.

V	Car Cost	Bus Cost	Cost Diff	Car Time	Bus Time	Time Diff
Day	$ 5.65	N/A	N/A	80 min	128 min	41 min
Month	$ 129.85	$ 47.00	$ 82.85	30 2/3 h	49 h	18.4 h
Year	$ 1558.23	$ 564.00	$ 994.23	368 h	558.8 h	220.8 h

In this scenario, we see a lot more savings. I would save $82.85 a month at the cost of about 18.4 hours a month. Each hour I give up I save about $4.50.

Conclusion

The bus does cost less, but at the cost of more time. I could probably do more things to save the $2.62 per hour exchanged. The V location makes it a bit sweeter of a deal on the bus vs. car. Overall, I might start checking out the bus if gas costs get higher. This is only estimated at the current gas rates. If they go higher, the bus gets sweeter and sweeter. If the evilness of $5 per gallon comes near the end of the summer like some predict, the picture changes drastically. Under $5 a gallon gas, I save $40.40 a month (almost covering the cost of the 31 day bus pass) to West at $5.02 per extra travel hour and a whopping $119.52 a month going to V at $6.50 per extra travel hour. If I were to work at V (which I will be at some point in the distance future), it would cost me $7.24 a day just to get to work. Not a pretty picture.

So the bus will probably be coming into the picture soon. It would be good to get into the habit now when I am at West as the savings at V will be nice.

It would be even better if I could bike to West. Though that would just be a good weather thing and I would need to get my lazy ass in shape. I'll save that for another musing later.

Ulric Remakes There Will Be Blood

The dogs got a special treat today, a trip to doggy daycare! The wife was going to be gone all day and I was at work, so it's an nice treat for them to be able to play with other mutts all day long.

Ulric had a good time. Maybe a little too much of a good time. I got a call from the doggy day care that he was bleeding from his paws. Bleeding a lot. Since Ulric is still a bit scared of being touched by people, they were not able to check on what was wrong. They called me, but I couldn't do much due to work. (grumble grumble) The wife called them and got on the way and got Ulric to the vet. Turns out Ulric was playing so much, he wore his claws down to the quick and thus bled a lot. He left blood paw prints all over.

Don't fret though! He is a mighty trooper. He didn't seem to be in pain at all. In fact, he was his normal happy self around other dogs still.

The vet got him patched up with green gauze that makes him look like he has some booties on his back feet. Bleeding has stopped, but Ulric has to take it easy for a while so he couldn't partake in the fun of doggy day care. He was relegated to the world of day time boarding so he could rest up and recover.

All in all, an exciting day. On the plus side, the day care didn't charge us for the day due to the drama. They are a good bunch of people over there.

Dairy Free Day 2

A few temptations today. I normally have some breakfast with cheese on it. Today, I had to sadly peel the cheese off of em before eating.

Dairy free today, and breathing clear. Maybe there is a connection.

2 Week Trial #1: Dairy Free

In an attempt to be a bit healthier and to be able to breath better, I am starting my first 2 week trial. It will be a two week trial to see how it works. At the end of the test, I'll see if it's something I want to keep doing.

This one is going to be hard. No dairy. Here are my rules:

1. No direct dairy, cheese, milk, ice cream, etc


2. Butter is OK if it is part of the recipe, not spread on things

Not too complex. I've already got some soy milk to replace milk and it tastes pretty good. Day one has been smooth and dairy free. I don't feel majorly different, but I am able to breath a bit better today. There are some mixed reports that dairy can cause excess or thickened mucus production. Some folks say that is the case, some say it has no affect. This trial will see if it works for me.

The benefits for me if this works will be better sleep. I am having problems being able to breath clearly at night thus resulting in me not being able to sleep well. My wonderful nasal pathways did not follow the general plan to be an appropriate size for someone of my build/size. Even a little bit of nasal blockage makes it damn hard to breath, the passage is rather small. The goal is to reduce the mucus, make it easier to breath, and to hopefully be able to sleep better.

Now I could just try to use decongestants to get by to breath easier. I have tried that, and the side effects unfortunately are not worth it. Pseudoephedrine works to clear the nose, but it gives my face muscle spasms that just feel wrong. It also make me sleepless. The over-the-counter alternative phenylephrine doesn't work for me. Nasal sprays are not meant for long term use and make the blockage much much worse after it wears off. What is left is a quest to find the source and fix the issue. The dairy free test is an attempt to find the source.

More updates as they come!

Traveling In Seattle Part III

After having a damn fine meal at the icon with R yesterday, today I felt that a simple in house meal would be best. This hotel has some good pizza and hot coco. A weird, but tasty combination.

Today was a slow day lending a hand at ER reg, but the ladies there sure make it fun. Now just one more day to go and boy are my feet cheering at that!

So nothing really exciting today. Just a tired earthbane who is going to bed early. I can't wait to be able to sleep in past 4.30am on Saturday!

On that too, here's a self reminder to turn the alarm on after I set the wake up time. I forgot to do that yesterday, but luckily for me I woke up 5 mins before the time I set. Lucky break there.

Traveling In Seattle Part II

I left off my last post hoping for a good breakfast to start off the day. Then the time I marked on the door hanger breakfast order sheet came around, 5am. No Breakfast. A happy camper, I am not. Why? The kitchen does not open till 6am. A fact not noted anywhere on the order card, but buried deep in the hotel information manual. Why even bother putting an Other delivery option if the only times breakfast is available are the times slots listed? Don't get my hopes up for some eggs and bacon and dash them into the evil morning light.

So no breakfast for me. Though the hospital did have made-to-order sushi in the cafeteria for lunch. Custom, hand made as you order it, fresh sushi. Add that sushi with a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas and you have yourself a nice modified version of surf and turf. But going from 6pm the day before to 1pm today without food made me not a graceful person in the morning. But I left that at the door when I got to the hospital and was all smiles and good times.

My shift was fun, but long. The ER is an interesting place to hang out in. At the end of the day, my feet hurt, I had some good food recommendations from the staff, and my hands were sanitized many times over.

The topper of the day was dinner, the icon. Such. a. good. meal. I had the salmon main dish and chicken fried calamari as an appetizer. When the wife comes up this weekend, I am taking her there. I will save some space for the ice cream sundae in a cookie bowl and I know my wife will be excited about the sweet corn and cilantro mashed potatoes. I didn't have em, but damn they sound good. I'll have to make some reservations for Saturday.

For now, bed time. Another early day, and probably another day of ER reg fun.

Traveling In Seattle Part 1

On my trip to Seattle, nothing really happened of note. It was a good flight, and the only bad thing was I failed to check the price for a bag of gummie bears before buying them. These are some expensive gummies. Worth the price? Probably not, but still tasty.

Now the hotel is another story. In general, I am not a fan of this place. There is a disconnection between the high class nature of the staff on the ground floor from the quality of the rooms.

Since I need to connect to work to check my email and also to talk to the wife, good, reliable Internet is a must. This place fails in that regard. It's slow slow slow. It says it's "High Speed," but I am curious if they think 25 mph is also "High Speed." That's strike one.

Strike two is the shower. I am not a morning person, so the 12 hour shifts are going to be hard for me. A hot shower does loads to get me started for the day. Here's where they fail again. Like their flexibility in the definition of "High Speed," they also have flexibility in the definition of "Hot Water." When cranked all the way to as hot as you can go, the shower only a temperature achieved by leaving a bowl of water out in the sun on a hot day. Far far from the hot, relaxing goodness I was expecting.

I am hoping the breakfast makes up for it. We shall find out soon.

Here's hoping for faster Internet and hotter showers when I get back.

Work and the Art of Uncertainty

Sitting here at work pounding away on reports and code, I am questioning my decision to come back. No, that's not the right wording. In one way I am thankful to be back as the job is a stable one and with the wife being out of work for the foreseeable future, we need the extra cash. In a financial sense, it was a good move.

On the angle of being interested/motivated in my work, that is where the problem lies. Every day is a struggle to get the work done. Gone is the flare and interest I had in computers and coding that I had back in my previous incarnation of employment here. I don't feel a need/urge to excel and better myself. I don't feel that I am in control of my day-to-day tasks. I don't feel that I'm doing that bang up of a job. No surprise if I am slipping, I don't feel a need or desire to work over 40-45 hours a week. The more I work, the more time work is robbing me from my wife and my pets. They are paying me well, but not enough for me to take that time away. Historically I have felt that my pay has been lower than what I was producing, this time around I am adjusting my work to be in-line with that pay expectation. They want more work, then I should get more pay.

Though pay aside, the work is just not interesting. Maybe when we get along on the transition things will pick up, but that is a long time down the road. I don't feel I want to be doing this for a long time. I'm feeling I am not in this for the long haul. So that brings into light my current puzzle I am working out, what do I want to do for the long term. I liked the flexibility and control I had in my previous job, but the pay was not at a level that I could sustain my family. I feel locked and out of choices really. I have to provide and opportunities that provide what we need limit me in what I can do.

More random rants later, meeting time.

Sickness sucks...

It sucks being sick. It's nowhere near fun to have a migraine, fever, huge congestion, and general feelings of crappiness. But what really takes the cake for me, and makes no sense, is that what is most annoying right now is that my eyes hurt. If I move my eyes in any direction, they don't hurt. If I try to move my eyes to look far to the left, right, up, down, any direction, and it hurts like hell. It feels like I pulled my eye muscles somehow. It sucks.

Engineer's Guide to Cats

This is too funny to pass up for all cat lovers out there:

I've got an odd urge

to run down the cube halls of my office shouting the rocky theme while doing the victory pose with my arms raised up in the air.

Oddly enough, thinking of this causes me to grin like a mad man and increases the urge to do it.

Maybe it's just cause it's a slow day and nice outside and I would like to be home with the mutts.

Prices Going Up

Along with gas prices going up, looks like my health care costs are going up again by a loving 17%. Since our health programs don't have a employee/spouse plan, I have to go for the family plan at more than 6 times the cost of the personal plan. Now with the family price increase (I think the employee only price might have actually dropped nope, they did go up but by 8%), I am getting boned even more on that benefit. It's a good plan, but the folks who are just employee and spouse get the short end of the stick. If they did have a employee/spouse program at about 2.5 times the personal plan cost, it could save us almost $2k a year.

At least with rising gas prices, there are things I can do to offset that by driving conservatively or getting a more efficient vehicle if prices get out there. There's balls I can do about this price increase which just bugs me even more.

3 Years Today!

Today marks our 3 year anniversary! While our marriage has been anything from normal from how we met and married to the current health challenges we face today, it's been a fun ride. Here's to many more and good health to follow!

Need to Recharge

The high point of my week so far is that I was able to figure out a somewhat creative way to take a recursive part of a program and make it non recursive netting some nice performance gains. Kinda sad and geeky highlight of the week. I spent a few hours today working it out and am really happy I got it working. My worry is it might get shot down in later reviews of the program. Here's to hoping it gets through.

Since that rather pathetic event was the highlight of my week, you can guess it is not a banner week for me. The thing is though, nothing major has gone wrong this week. There has been a bit of stress from a deadline at work, but nothing unmanageable. I am finding myself being snappy, quick to be annoyed or angry at people, and completely physically and emotionally drained. I need a break, a really really long one. That unfortunately is not coming any time soon. Seattle is coming at the end of the month, but that's still a few weeks away. Plus it will have some long onsite time before I get to break for the weekend.

I've got to do something to get out of this funk.

Keyword Roundup

Looking at my logs, I've got some interesting search terms coming to this blog. Here's a selection some of the more frequent/interesting ones.

1. Spam Burrito


2. buzz lightyear halloween live


3. don't break it down for me (oddly going to my Pizza Tipping post)


4. pizza delivery sucks


5. adopt a husky


6. burrito windows service


7. various searches for pizza tipping amounts


8. paroxetine fucks you up


9. why loveline podcast 10 minutes

April Fool's Day 2008

For a listing of a ton of April Fool's Day jokes in the Internet, check out http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/

Here's some great, geeky examples via Think Geek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/edm/20080401.shtml

Sometimes the Internet Boggles me

I am a big fan of April fools day on the Internet. There are some great gags out there. One that really puzzles me is the idea of rick-rolling someone.

For those not in the know, and I don't blame you if you are not, rick-rolling someone is posting a link that leads to a video of "Never Going to Give You Up" by Rick Astley. The link is posted as being relevant to what ever the page/forum is about. Personally I think it's kinda funny. It's the randomness amuses me. :) It's kind of like yelling "I like puppies" in the middle of a conversation about nuclear physics.

Where it came from and why it's so wide spread is beyond me.

To get rick rolled, go visit YouTube today, April 1st, and watch any of the featured videos.

Find more rick-rolling know-how via Wikipedia.

Good News for Crazy Cat People

A new study says that people who own cats enjoy health benefits over those whom do not own cats. Now we have scientific reasoning for having cats!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/pets/stories/022208dnlivcats.23b81fd.html