The Commuter

Today I tried something new. The Phoenix metro bus service also offers an Express service. From several city centers to downtown, which is excellent. Tempe, unfortuantely, isn't one of them. However, the last stop on the Mesa Express before it hops on the freeway is about a mile and a half from my apartment. So I biked out this morning, locked my bike up near the bus stop, and waited about five minutes.

The driver told me that this was an express bus that went straight downtown. I'm surprised he felt compelled- I was dresssed like everyone else on the bus, collared shirts, slacks, nice shoes. It was an amazing contrast between the regular red line. People were predominantly white, many of them were reading (I never see people reading on the regular bus), and one guy was WORKING ON A LAPTOP. It was also silent as the tomb. It made me crack a smile as we all stared straight ahead, not speaking at all to one another. On the regular busses, there's always conversations going on, between random strangers, between groups of kids, and the infernal "we are approaching fifth street---with connections to---- line-- forty---seven" kicks on every few minutes.

Not that I'm complaining, I caught the express at 6:50 AM, it dropped me in front of the central library at 7:10, and I walked the rest of the way to work, another fifteen minutes up central. Next time, I'll bring my bike because these busses have the thing on the front you can load your bike on, and that will speed thing up even more.

Anyway, work is work. Picked up a dog at 7-11 and some chips for lunch. Still working on the ASU police presentation, but its all coming togather.

Going home, I'm too late to catch the outbound express, so I settle for the ol' bad line, straight, long, long, long shot back home. I actually get off early and take a different, smaller bus to get a stop right by the apartment. It's all free on my ASU bus pass. On the regualar bus in contrast to the more white collar class of the Express, I sat next to an absolutely appalling smelling couple with carts, and across from a man with an obvious mental disabilitiy who kept giggling and making faces at nobody in particular.

Picked up my bike in the minivan after I got home. Still there. Not thrilled to leave it out there on scottsdale road for so long, but if it was taken, $35 down the drain.

Also took another step towards the levittown house with the prefab family. I went in with Aldo to get the expanded cable, which is about a hundred channels including CNN, Nickelodeon, and a bunch of other stuff. With the $1o reduction in our internet bill for signing up for cable, we'll pay $40 a month each for high speed internet and cable TV, instead of just $25 each for the internet.