X-mas
Mon Dec 23 10:45:01 EST 2013
The next 2 weeks I'm working until 23:00 to cover the shift for someone who's out on vacation. When the office moved downtown I looked at the Metro schedules and thought getting home looked iffy after 23:00. I've just taken a closer look. The first train after 23:00 from Union Station to Ballston is at 23:12, arriving at 23:36, and the last bus home from Ballston is at 23:34. Buses often run late. Trains often run late. I don't think I can count on the train being on time and the bus being late.
According to Google Maps it's a 2.8 mile (4.5km) walk home and would take about an hour. I doubt most of you leave the house for work dressed to spend an hour outdoors. If I'm taking public transit (instead of biking) it usually means the weather is bad. It's about a 10-minute drive to Ballston, but I can't count on anniemal being able to come get me. She's not always fit to drive.
If I'm sure I'll miss that last bus, I could go one more stop on the train to East Falls Church, and the walk from there is 2.2 miles (3.54km), 47 minutes.
The train before that is at 22:43, arriving at 23:15. That should be a safe margin for catching the bus, but it means leaving work early. (Like 22:30, to get out of my building, all the way across Union Station, and down to the Metro platform.) I think it's what I'm going to have to do. It's been raining since last night (so the towpath will be mucky) and it will probably still be raining when it's time for me to leave, so I won't be biking today.
On the plus side, Wednesdays are holidays the next 2 weeks, so they're short weeks.
Tuesday 01:04
I just got home from work. I walked from Ballston. It took 50 minutes. I left work early, but the first train was either very early or very late. The 2nd train got me to Ballston right when the bus should have been there, but it must have been early. Next-Bus arrival information is supposed to be available from an automated phone system, but that wasn't working. I waited half an hour (in case it was late) and then I started walking. (Next-Bus saying there was no next bus would have been useful information. Even worse, the automated phone system failed over to an unstaffed office.) I wish I could have known to take the train to the next stop, where there was no bus, but a shorter walk home.
I phoned anniemal from Metro Center to tell her I might need to be picked up. She said OK, but she didn't sound sober. I phoned when I got to Ballston just to let her know where I was, but she didn't answer. I phoned again when I gave up on the bus, and she still didn't answer. She probably shouldn't have been driving anyway.
Since I left work early, there was something I didn't get done, and I need to log in from home to do that. And I'm also quite hungry.
I'm not complaining that anniemal didn't come to pick me up when she was drunk. I'm complaining that
Tuesday 13:00
This was the planned trip home:
Red Line RailDeparts UNION STATION at 22:43Arrive METRO CENTER at 22:48
Orange Line RailDeparts METRO CENTER at 23:01Arrive BALLSTON METRO at 23:15
23A BusDeparts BALLSTON STATION at 23:34Arrive WILLIAMSBURG BLVD & OLD DOMINION DR at 23:43
But the first train turned up after 23:00, and nothing worked after that. (Although it was close.)
I could have stayed at the office another 15-20 minutes and completed my work, and I wouldn't have needed to log in later from home.
Tuesday 13:10
My SmarTrip card-usage history says I left the Ballston station at 23:36 last night. My watch (which agrees with my computer, clock-sync'd with NTP) said I was at the bus stop at 23:34. I think METRO's clocks are early*. ☹ (But not early enough for me to have been late for the first train.)
*Why do we say a clock is "fast" when it is simply "ahead"? If it were fast, it would be drifting farther and farther off, and we generally don't have enough data points to know that.
Tuesday 19:00
I'm at work. There was light snow, coming in, on the bike. I got here at 16:00, and there was only one other person in the room; he left at 17:00. The Agency had early dismissal (for government employees, not for contractors) at 14:00, so most people were gone before I got there. I'll be here until 23:00.
"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians": a movie I've been wondering about for years. The DVR recorded it this morning. The only name I recognized in the credits was Pia Zadora, then 8 years old. Hmmm, Wikipedia says it's in the public domain. (Available for free download.)
Categories:
Tuesday 22:55
Time to bundle up for a cold bike ride home. 28°F/-2.2°C, 16°F/-8.9°C wind chill at 21:52 (an hour ago - web site probably won't update before I leave). And I'll be going into the wind as far as Chain Bridge, but the Capital Crescent Trail is wooded and will shield me from some of that. Brrr....
Wednesday 00:49
It was a long, cold bike ride home from work tonight. But I had sufficient gear - gloves, socks, booties, facemask, etc. Traffic was light.
The wind was pretty brutal on the wide avenues of downtown DC. Beyond Georgetown, the Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) was more sheltered, but the C&O Canal Towpath (after the CCT swings north at Arizona Ave) was exposed again. The wind was more with my direction of travel after I crossed the Potomac. The bike said it was 21°F/-6.1°C when I got home.
When I came up the driveway tonight I noticed that the running board has been ripped off the van. I'm wondering (a) when and where did it happen, (b) who was driving (anniemal or OkCupid buddy), and (c) did she/they notice at the time? Do we still have the running board, so it can be re-installed?
I know she drove the van Sunday to pick someone up at the Ballston Metro, and she took the car out Monday to get new tires. (But they are not aligned yet - she insisted on telling me that Monday night when I called about probably needing a ride home.)
I've inherited my Mom's nice Toyota Celica (?), and I'm loathe to let Anniemal drive it. She's done too much damage to my car and the van over the years. My car's got dents in the body and the bumper, and she's broken both external mirrors. The van has had various things ripped/knocked loose, probably from driving over rough ground at the hippy farm. (Still no mention of the lost license plate.)
The thing about something as big and heavy as the van is that it actually has a lot of power. It has to have, just to move its own bulk. And if misdirected, that's power to do a lot of damage.
Wednesday 13:41
Another drunken holiday.
anniemal is (drunk and) mad and slamming doors because she can't find things because I've moved them. She can't find the pizza cutter. It's in the drying rack, where I left it Monday night Tuesday morning after I washed it, after I walked home 3 miles because she was too drunk to answer the phone, let alone come pick me up; I was hungry enough to eat the whole pizza. (So she's mad because I washed something after I used it.) And she can't find the spatulas, which I moved - and she moved back - several weeks ago; I used several of them to pry out slabs of ice when I defrosted the freezer. (Which one might argue should be her job, not mine, in her role as keeper of the household.)
She probably hasn't even noticed that I cut up the 2nd (pre-cooked) turkey last night, so now it's edible, instead of being a semi-frozen mass double-wrapped in plastic and taking up a lot of space in the fridge. (So she could have turkey today, Xmas, instead of frozen pizza (which does smell good, but pizza does, doesn't it?).)
Wednesday 20:16
So I'm watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and there's a scene of Santa's new automated workshop on Mars. There's an apparent monitoring panel of interconnected gears on the wall. No that's not what it is at all, that bit of set dressing is a game from my childhood, Mattel's High Gear Game. There's 2 of them connected together, and parts from a couple more.
The movie's on the list of the worst films ever made, but it's got its moments.
The military hardware that got scrambled (in response to an unknown object in orbit) was another historical throwback. The fighters and bombers were the stars of the the cold war, from the period between the Korean war and the Viet Nam war. The background music for those scenes was terribly bombastic, but much of the other music drew references from the "Hooray for Santy Claus" theme song. (And I think a kid would be able to recognize it, if you wanted to teach that sort of thing....)
Friday 04:49
When I Got Home anniemal (Still Drunk?) Was Sleeping On My Bed. I Don't Know Why She Wanted To Do That.
The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Great_Train_Robbery and the novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(novel) on which it was based apparently took some liberties with the actual event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gold_Robbery_of_1855
I have found mention of the trashed running board in Anniemal's journal. I think that must have been last Sunday (or Saturday?).
I'm looking forward to another weekend of TV, not expecting anniemal to sober up.
Saturday 01:28
The forecast from weather.gov is 40% chance of ran Saturday night and 90% Sunday. accuweather.com says pouring rain Sunday. TV weather.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/645450.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
The next 2 weeks I'm working until 23:00 to cover the shift for someone who's out on vacation. When the office moved downtown I looked at the Metro schedules and thought getting home looked iffy after 23:00. I've just taken a closer look. The first train after 23:00 from Union Station to Ballston is at 23:12, arriving at 23:36, and the last bus home from Ballston is at 23:34. Buses often run late. Trains often run late. I don't think I can count on the train being on time and the bus being late.
According to Google Maps it's a 2.8 mile (4.5km) walk home and would take about an hour. I doubt most of you leave the house for work dressed to spend an hour outdoors. If I'm taking public transit (instead of biking) it usually means the weather is bad. It's about a 10-minute drive to Ballston, but I can't count on anniemal being able to come get me. She's not always fit to drive.
If I'm sure I'll miss that last bus, I could go one more stop on the train to East Falls Church, and the walk from there is 2.2 miles (3.54km), 47 minutes.
The train before that is at 22:43, arriving at 23:15. That should be a safe margin for catching the bus, but it means leaving work early. (Like 22:30, to get out of my building, all the way across Union Station, and down to the Metro platform.) I think it's what I'm going to have to do. It's been raining since last night (so the towpath will be mucky) and it will probably still be raining when it's time for me to leave, so I won't be biking today.
On the plus side, Wednesdays are holidays the next 2 weeks, so they're short weeks.
Tuesday 01:04
I just got home from work. I walked from Ballston. It took 50 minutes. I left work early, but the first train was either very early or very late. The 2nd train got me to Ballston right when the bus should have been there, but it must have been early. Next-Bus arrival information is supposed to be available from an automated phone system, but that wasn't working. I waited half an hour (in case it was late) and then I started walking. (Next-Bus saying there was no next bus would have been useful information. Even worse, the automated phone system failed over to an unstaffed office.) I wish I could have known to take the train to the next stop, where there was no bus, but a shorter walk home.
I phoned anniemal from Metro Center to tell her I might need to be picked up. She said OK, but she didn't sound sober. I phoned when I got to Ballston just to let her know where I was, but she didn't answer. I phoned again when I gave up on the bus, and she still didn't answer. She probably shouldn't have been driving anyway.
Since I left work early, there was something I didn't get done, and I need to log in from home to do that. And I'm also quite hungry.
I'm not complaining that anniemal didn't come to pick me up when she was drunk. I'm complaining that
- she was too drunk to come pick me up,
- she was too drunk to answer the phone, and
- she was too drunk/arrogant when she answered the phone the first time to realize/admit that she would not be able to pick me up (or even answer the phone).
Tuesday 13:00
This was the planned trip home:
Red Line RailDeparts UNION STATION at 22:43Arrive METRO CENTER at 22:48
Orange Line RailDeparts METRO CENTER at 23:01Arrive BALLSTON METRO at 23:15
23A BusDeparts BALLSTON STATION at 23:34Arrive WILLIAMSBURG BLVD & OLD DOMINION DR at 23:43
But the first train turned up after 23:00, and nothing worked after that. (Although it was close.)
I could have stayed at the office another 15-20 minutes and completed my work, and I wouldn't have needed to log in later from home.
Tuesday 13:10
My SmarTrip card-usage history says I left the Ballston station at 23:36 last night. My watch (which agrees with my computer, clock-sync'd with NTP) said I was at the bus stop at 23:34. I think METRO's clocks are early*. ☹ (But not early enough for me to have been late for the first train.)
*Why do we say a clock is "fast" when it is simply "ahead"? If it were fast, it would be drifting farther and farther off, and we generally don't have enough data points to know that.
Tuesday 19:00
I'm at work. There was light snow, coming in, on the bike. I got here at 16:00, and there was only one other person in the room; he left at 17:00. The Agency had early dismissal (for government employees, not for contractors) at 14:00, so most people were gone before I got there. I'll be here until 23:00.
"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians": a movie I've been wondering about for years. The DVR recorded it this morning. The only name I recognized in the credits was Pia Zadora, then 8 years old. Hmmm, Wikipedia says it's in the public domain. (Available for free download.)
Categories:
- 1964 films
- English-language films
- 1960s comedy films
- 1960s science fiction films
- American comedy science fiction films
- American independent films
- American Christmas films
- Films about extraterrestrial life
- Films featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes
- Mars in film
- Public domain films
- Robot films
- Santa Claus in film
- Alien abduction films
Tuesday 22:55
Time to bundle up for a cold bike ride home. 28°F/-2.2°C, 16°F/-8.9°C wind chill at 21:52 (an hour ago - web site probably won't update before I leave). And I'll be going into the wind as far as Chain Bridge, but the Capital Crescent Trail is wooded and will shield me from some of that. Brrr....
Wednesday 00:49
It was a long, cold bike ride home from work tonight. But I had sufficient gear - gloves, socks, booties, facemask, etc. Traffic was light.
The wind was pretty brutal on the wide avenues of downtown DC. Beyond Georgetown, the Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) was more sheltered, but the C&O Canal Towpath (after the CCT swings north at Arizona Ave) was exposed again. The wind was more with my direction of travel after I crossed the Potomac. The bike said it was 21°F/-6.1°C when I got home.
When I came up the driveway tonight I noticed that the running board has been ripped off the van. I'm wondering (a) when and where did it happen, (b) who was driving (anniemal or OkCupid buddy), and (c) did she/they notice at the time? Do we still have the running board, so it can be re-installed?
I know she drove the van Sunday to pick someone up at the Ballston Metro, and she took the car out Monday to get new tires. (But they are not aligned yet - she insisted on telling me that Monday night when I called about probably needing a ride home.)
I've inherited my Mom's nice Toyota Celica (?), and I'm loathe to let Anniemal drive it. She's done too much damage to my car and the van over the years. My car's got dents in the body and the bumper, and she's broken both external mirrors. The van has had various things ripped/knocked loose, probably from driving over rough ground at the hippy farm. (Still no mention of the lost license plate.)
The thing about something as big and heavy as the van is that it actually has a lot of power. It has to have, just to move its own bulk. And if misdirected, that's power to do a lot of damage.
Wednesday 13:41
Another drunken holiday.
anniemal is (drunk and) mad and slamming doors because she can't find things because I've moved them. She can't find the pizza cutter. It's in the drying rack, where I left it Monday night Tuesday morning after I washed it, after I walked home 3 miles because she was too drunk to answer the phone, let alone come pick me up; I was hungry enough to eat the whole pizza. (So she's mad because I washed something after I used it.) And she can't find the spatulas, which I moved - and she moved back - several weeks ago; I used several of them to pry out slabs of ice when I defrosted the freezer. (Which one might argue should be her job, not mine, in her role as keeper of the household.)
She probably hasn't even noticed that I cut up the 2nd (pre-cooked) turkey last night, so now it's edible, instead of being a semi-frozen mass double-wrapped in plastic and taking up a lot of space in the fridge. (So she could have turkey today, Xmas, instead of frozen pizza (which does smell good, but pizza does, doesn't it?).)
Wednesday 20:16
So I'm watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and there's a scene of Santa's new automated workshop on Mars. There's an apparent monitoring panel of interconnected gears on the wall. No that's not what it is at all, that bit of set dressing is a game from my childhood, Mattel's High Gear Game. There's 2 of them connected together, and parts from a couple more.
The movie's on the list of the worst films ever made, but it's got its moments.
The military hardware that got scrambled (in response to an unknown object in orbit) was another historical throwback. The fighters and bombers were the stars of the the cold war, from the period between the Korean war and the Viet Nam war. The background music for those scenes was terribly bombastic, but much of the other music drew references from the "Hooray for Santy Claus" theme song. (And I think a kid would be able to recognize it, if you wanted to teach that sort of thing....)
Friday 04:49
When I Got Home anniemal (Still Drunk?) Was Sleeping On My Bed. I Don't Know Why She Wanted To Do That.
- Togetherness? No, it's a twin (that's another story) so there's not room for two.
- Comfort? No. It's not that comfortable.
- Pheromones? Maybe.
- Simply wanting to know when I got home? Maybe, but she was asleep, so she didn't find out. (She could just ask.) I haven't told her I'm working a later shift this week and next, because she hasn't been sober since it started. I don't try to tell her much of anything when she's drunk.
The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Great_Train_Robbery and the novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(novel) on which it was based apparently took some liberties with the actual event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gold_Robbery_of_1855
I have found mention of the trashed running board in Anniemal's journal. I think that must have been last Sunday (or Saturday?).
I'm looking forward to another weekend of TV, not expecting anniemal to sober up.
Saturday 01:28
The forecast from weather.gov is 40% chance of ran Saturday night and 90% Sunday. accuweather.com says pouring rain Sunday. TV weather.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/645450.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]