In the last 6 months of my working in the Emergency Department at Fairview Southdale, I started to take the bus to and from work. This meant getting home after 1 a.m., but hey, I like riding the bus. I quit my job at Southdale when Jon started Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, and I tried taking the bus to work there. There was a problem though. From door to door, it took an hour and a half each way. Too long. When I worked at the hospital, it didn't really matter how long I spent on the bus because I was getting home when everyone was in bed. At my new job, I was leaving before the girls left the house for school and got home at about 6:30, which is too late most days. I started riding my bike again in August 2006. In late August or early September of that year, I started riding my bike to the express bus stop, taking that bus to downtown St. Paul and then biking from downtown to work in Maplewood. That cut some time off my commute. Soon there after I started biking the whole way and eventually got my commute down to 55 minutes or better. During nice weather, I tried to bike to work at least half the time every month. What does this have to do with being a nerd? Well, I saved all my SuperSaver bus passes. In February of 2006 I started keeping track of how many miles I was riding my bike, including commutes. So I can say with a high degree of confidence that since Thanksgiving 2005 I've saved myself 4200 miles on the car by not driving. It's gotten to the point where I've started to keep track of the miles not driven when I take the girls to karate on the bus. With my bike GPS unit (yes nerds have those things), I can very accurately keep track of all the miles I'm riding. With Google Maps I can map out the the miscellaneous car trips that were replaced by bus rides. Believe me, I'll be doing it. Is that nerdy or what?
Speaking of nerdy, I figured out how to add links on the side of the page so you can easily click through to read them. One of the links is a family related blog, by my nephew Caleb. The other link is to the one person outside of my family who reads and comments on this garbage, and who also claims to be a nerd, Neil. He thinks he is a nerd. Pffft. You just wait, brother. One does not reach the ranks of Nerddom until one's children are embarrassed by your nerdiness and tell you so, often. Mission accomplished for me. Just ask my kids. As far as links go, I'm going to be pretty circumspect. I would add the blogs that I read regularly, but I doubt any of you would be interested in what I spend my time doing at work. If I find something of general interest, I'll put a link in the body of this crappy blog since I figured out how to embed links without making you cut and paste urls. (I did it in the previous post)
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3 comments:
I made the Old Man Blog!!! Super cool stats on your commuting! That is totally awesome! Nerds rule!
Neil
Francis—We’ve been sunning our fleshy pastey bodies in and around Daytona and Orlando and haven’t had internet access until today. I just caught up on all the blog entries and wanted to let you in on our family shame.
On Thanksgiving night, Daniel was banned from the WalMart for a year. I should probably have Daniel give you all the details, but I doubt I’ll be able to get him to do any extra writing these days, so I will try to fill you in on all the sad and sorry details.
Daniel and five of his friends who were home from college were hanging out at Perkins late on Thanksgiving nite. Perkins was closing, so they decided to go to WM to find something to do. When they got to WM, Daniel and one friend went into the bathroom, while the others went to electronics and then on to the toy section. According to Daniel, (who was in the bathroom when this all transpired) the four others (who are all “cream of the crop” type kids) were asked if they were planning to do any shopping. One of the boys said they were waiting for McDonalds to open. Apparently, it took a few seconds for the woman to realize McDonalds didn’t open until 7 a.m. and that’s when she decided to escort them out, threatening bodily harm. (She asked them if they were familiar with pain, because she was, and she would inflict some pain on them if they didn’t cooperate) That’s when the mulleted man came to assist, telling the woman “I’ve got your back covered” as he helped escort the guys out. The boys weren’t resisting, or lipping off, or doing anything other than getting themselves out of the building. As they were approaching the exit, Daniel and his friend walked out of the bathroom while at the same time another friend, who was getting groceries for his mom, walked into WM. They all converged at the entrance to the store at the same time. The friend who just walked in started high fiving and hugging his friends that he hadn’t seen since school started. Daniel and the guy who had been in the bathroom asked what was going on. That’s when one of the employees started yelling “You three, get out, you’re guilty by association” and more nonsense about inflicting pain and calling the cops. As the ranting continued, one of the guys said to the woman “Ma’am, you’re making this more entertaining than it really needs to be”. That’s when they were BANNED FROM WALMART for a year. As they guys were reliving the adventure from the safety of the parking lot, they considered going in to clarify if they were banned from ALL Walmarts, or just the Cambridge WM.
That’s the story, more or less. If we had a Best Buy in Cambridge, I’m sure the guys would shop there and, unfortunately, Target isn’t open late and WM is open all nite. Besides, what teenage boy could pass up an experience like this?
Hmmmmmm?
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