http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/ en-us Copyright 2008 Sun, 11 May 2008 10:35:22 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss FREAK! As I passed in front of one door, a mother with a carriage was asking for help. So I bent over to grab the front of the carriage. Just as I grabbed hold and started to lift it down I heard "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING F@%*FACE!!" The FREAK was back. The poor mother was mortified as well as the two guys standing nearby. Best I could do at that point was smile at the bystanders and wave goodbye to the mother. The day didn't start particularly well and I really didn't need any more headaches. So with found cellphone in hand, I hunted down a conductor. When I finally found one I asked who should take it to Customer Service. After he looked at it and make a joke about calling Hawaii, he told me to take it up to Customer Service. As I was speed walking through the station (and I thought the place was crazy during weekday rush hour), a guy I was just about to come face-to-face with yelled out at me "GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU BLOND B!%$@". Apparently it was cranky people day. Fortunately I was able to drop the cellphone at Customer Service and told the woman that it looked like "Mom" was the last one to call that morning. She was going to try and call "Mom" to track down the owner. They got a laugh out of "Mom" comment. The rest of the day went better than expected. Coming home, we had to detrain from the low platform. That means maybe 4 doors for people to exit instead of 40+ doors. And we had to unload from the far end of the platform. Exercise! Massive track work starts today and it's going to take months. Tomorrow evening should prove interesting because my homebound track is the first one being worked on. Happy travels everyone and don't let the cranky people get to you! ]]> http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/05/cranky-people/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/05/cranky-people/ Story cranky people story travel Sun, 11 May 2008 10:35:22 -0500 From what I overheard one passenger say to another, once the temperature drops below 30 degrees, you have a 50/50 chance of the train being late. And once it gets over maybe 90 degrees, it seems the same rule applies. Is there a Goldielocks just right temperature in there somewhere? It was cold this morning, probably in the teens. The train was late and was not the expected equipment (aka single level train instead of the new double-deckers). The problem was that there were not enough cars to handle all the people so I ended up standing in the semi-open-air space between trains. I highly don't recommend it. My feet still did not feel right 14 hours later!!! From what I heard from the conductor, our usual train didn't start this morning so the train controler people pulled the next available cars and did a "load and go"! We arrived at my connecting station with minutes to spare. Another regular rider and I ran for it down one flight of stairs and up another. If I missed that connection this morning, I probably would have gone into a full blown three-year-old temper tantrum. We didn't miss the connection and the train had a few open seats and warm air. Did I mention my feet still don't feel right? To add a little more fun to the day, I had to stand in an over crowded train on the way home too - because that's the same train that I took in this morning. So much for trying to catch up on work on the train. Oh well. At least I made the train even if I had to run for it and was able to stand inside this time. Oh yeah. It's a full moon too, so should I really be surprised it was such a weird commuting today. Tomorrow is day three of the phase so... FINGERS CROSSED!!! http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/01/the-under-30-rule/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/01/the-under-30-rule/ Story connections full moon late running standing weather Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:24:48 -0500 So I've been little MIA lately. A big shout-out to my buddy "D" for prodding me to kick this back into gear. For the past bunch of months the commute has been crazy as usual. It really is a hole different experience heading north instead of south. It's like a different culture. Oh there is one funny story I really should share. Last week I had a particularly crazy morning. We were within 15 minutes of my connecting station when they let us know that a wire was down. It took us an extra 40 minutes to arrive at my connecting station. Hey, I really couldn't complain about the extra nap time. Given the cold weather (maybe 15 degrees at the most), I was extremely greatful for having power. Those poor people that were stuck for hours without electricty must have been frozen solid by the time the wires were fixed. Send out the diesels people, DUH!!! I considered taking the subway as an alternate route for the second leg of my daily commute but couldn't rouse anyone to trek it with me. The cold was particularly demotivating. I somehow ended up talking to a transit cop in the process because I thought I saw the wire sitting on top of a double-decker train. He confirmed it. Apparently the train exterior got a singed in the process too. When the say stay in the cars until you here otherwise remember that! Turns out it was a good idea that I "followed the crowd" and stayed put until my regular connection showed up. The subway was shutdown in several places for different, unrelated reasons. Had I actually gotten on the subway only to be tossed out at some random station... I would have been livid. So remember, don't let those down wires scare you, unless of course it's 20 degrees out. Happy commuting all! http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/01/dusting-off-the-cobwebs/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2008/01/dusting-off-the-cobwebs/ Story delay update wires down Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:45:11 -0500 Yesterday was my last day taking the same route I've traveled for the last two and a half years! Starting Monday, I will be riding the train north just as they start their new schedule. At least the full (blue) moon will have passed by then. Traveling with traffic (more people travel north than south in my area) will result in a better train schedule – with a lot more people. The express trains that I will now have access should save me a lot of commuting time. That in itself is exciting to the regular train rider. I also banked a few extra dollars in my commuter program to help pay for my new pass until the new employer’s program picks me up. Actually, if you have access to a debit card commuter program, it may worth considering banking a few extra dollars in there just in case you have a change a route. Just be aware there may be expiration dates on the dollars banked. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/05/changing-routes/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/05/changing-routes/ Story change full moon new route new schedule Thu, 31 May 2007 09:34:40 -0500 The nor'easter has come and gone but we're not quite back to normal yet. I worked from home Monday and it was a good thing that I did. Many local roads were closed, my connecting train station was under some water and the trains were running at least an hour late – if running at all. And a substantial sink-hole sunk in front of my parking lot. That should make things interesting for the next week or so. Between yesterday and today, there are still signal problems outside of my connecting station and the surrounds so trains are still running a bit behind schedule. For example I catch a 6:37 connection as we generally arrive at the station by 6:20. The 6:15 has been running late and we're taking that into the city instead. I can't complain really. The conductor this morning said it's going to be a few more days until the signals are worked out. It's funny because this storm dropped more rain than Hurricane Floyd did back in 1999, and in some cases the flooding seems worse and in others seems not as bad. I can't figure it out. I guess because the Delaware River didn’t overflow we missed out on the train tracks being submerged under 6 feet of water! I definitely can't complain. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/crazy-few-commuting-days/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/crazy-few-commuting-days/ Story Wed, 18 Apr 2007 08:45:15 -0500 I borrowed Mom's car Monday because mine was in the shop. She called me this morning as she got into her car to say that I left my parking permit in her car! By the time she got to the parking lot, I had already been ticketed and from what I hear they don't take stories. Basically I just accept that I messed up and pay the Piper. At least the ticket was less than I expected. Oh well these things happen sometimes. Now I just have fork over the funds. For some reason they don't say when I have to pay it by, but it looks like I can pay it online in about 10 days. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/parking-oops/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/parking-oops/ Story parking lot ticket Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:06:26 -0500 It's not everyday that I walk up to my train station only to see a bunch of big "government issue" type cars, state police cars, dogs and guys with very big guns. Before I saw the officers, I was already thinking something was up because of all the cars parked in the fire lane. Isn't that ironic or something? It's a little early to see that stuff before the sun comes up. The station was just crawling with officers and I'm fairly sure it was routine thing. They were just walking around, hanging around checking things out. I didn't think it was appropriate to strike up a conversation with them. It's definitely enough to wake you up without caffeine. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/dogs-and-big-guns/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/dogs-and-big-guns/ Story safety train station Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:17:35 -0500 It's time for another full moon cycle. After a day of some soul searching and barely restful main train ride, I settled into the back seat for the final leg. A guy sat across the isle from me and started playing with a deck of cards. I'm not particularly dexterous when it comes to shuffling. He then said he'd show me an optical illusion trick with rubber bands. He demonstrated it a couple of times. I couldn't figure it out, but by that time I'm a little brain dead anyway. He has another one and hands me a $100 bill. It looked real. He then stabbed poor Ben through the face with a pen. Yes, poor Ben had a pen through his face. The guy pulled out the pen and the hole was gone! And for the finally, a card trick. I picked a card. He did a few shuffling tricks. Pulled a card and it wasn't mine. He did some nifty hand movements and the card turned into mine. Impressive! With a lot of practice you too can be an illusionist. I'm guessing a bit of dexterity helps too. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/pick-a-card-any-card/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/04/pick-a-card-any-card/ Story character full moon Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:36:44 -0500 Apparently not only was I having a bad day today, but I was also more tired than I realized. I slept through my connecting stop. In theory this really shouldn't have been possible because it's the end of the line and someone should have poked me. Apparently not. I woke up just as the train was speeding away from the station to turn around and sit on a different platform. I ended up missing my connection on top of things. Adding more insult to injury I guess. The train was running late because the train ahead of us broke down temporarily. At one of the stops (or near it) something hit the window I was leaning against. The good news is that the window didn’t break. I just had a minor headache from the mix - or I should say it didn't help the headache any that I already had. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. At least it will be Friday! http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/slept-through-my-stop/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/slept-through-my-stop/ Story delay missing train sleeping Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:51:27 -0500 There is usually something about a full moon that brings out the strange behavior in people. Considering we’re mostly made of water and the moon affects the tides, I’m sure there’s a correlation. Even if you don’t buy into the hocus-pocus, just pay attention to the world around you during the next full moon. This round things were pretty quiet. Maybe that was because today was day 3 of the phase. The only really strange thing was the girl sitting next to me on the way home. When I woke up a few times I found her sleeping half bent over. Not that sleeping sitting up is particularly comfortable, but how anyone can sleep bent over at the waist is beyond me. Wouldn’t you end up with a stomach ache or heart burn? All I can say is that I did a massive double-take when I looked over. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/quiet-for-a-full-moon/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/quiet-for-a-full-moon/ Story full moon sleeping Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:49:05 -0500 Welcome welcome welcome! After a lot of time and thinking I realized it was time to take Stupid Train Run in a new direction to make this site more useful to my fellow train commuters. Welcome to Stupid Train Run version 2.0 which will focus on tips and tricks for train commuting that I’ve picked up over the last few years. Funny stories are great for a laugh but they don't really help figuring out how to commute more efficiently. I'll post funny stories as they come up. With a full moon on the rise, I'll probably have another one. Happy commuting. http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/stupid-train-run-version-20/ http://www.stupidtrainrun.com/inbound-outbound/2007/03/stupid-train-run-version-20/ Site News site news Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:41:36 -0500