I am hot. But when I’m not; I’m cold as ice.

Okay, not that, this:

My morning commute. I leave my house with fifteen minutes to get to work, which is pushing it a bit but I live on the edge. As I approach the intersection to the highway which leads to my work, traffic is backed up past four lights. It looks like at least a fifteen minute wait. There is also a train crossing at one of those lights but I can’t see a train. I assume traffic is simply heavily backed up.

I pull a u-turn and take a side road which winds its way through the countryside and eventually spits you out at the bridge crossing the Pitt River. Problem is everyone else had the same plan and traffic here is backed up even further; at least two kilometres. I wait in this traffic for a bit but it’s absolutely crawling. I phone work to let them know I’ll be late and it’s then I learn that traffic is backed up to due someone’s decision to not open the counterflow lane and on top of that, an accident.

This traffic lineup really blows so I pull another u-turn and head back the way I came. This time the traffic on Harris Road (the first road I mentioned leading to the highway) looks pretty clear. Yay! I make my left turn and it still looks good. As I approach the train crossing, the lights start flashing and the arms drop. Perfect. I’m holding my breath that the train will be the West Coast Express commuter train but of course it’s a slow-ass freight train. Ten more minutes. As I’m waiting, two emergency vehicles pull up in the opposite lane waiting for the train to pass too. Finally the train passes and the intersection clears. Traffic is flowing reasonably well. Until I reach the Pitt River Bridge where a car has just slid into the ditch and the emergency vehicles have just arrived. I finally get to work fifty minutes late.

Top that.

P.S. The second half of our vacation we had no Internet access. A lovely time was had by all in Carmel and Big Sur. Details and photos to follow.

Heeeee!

I’m not sure I need to say much more.

We’re doing great for time. We decided to leave Friday night after work rather than Saturday morning as originally planned. The idea was to get over the border and clear Seattle. We managed to make it as far as Kelso, about 30 minutes outside of Portland, OR. I’d say we cleared Seattle. We took a chance and called Jerry and Lise at 11:40PM. Turned out Jerry was in North Carolina at the races so we arranged to meet up with Lise for breakfast the next morning. We left Portland around 10:30AM. We had originally planned to spend Saturday and Sunday travelling, arriving in Napa either late Sunday or even Monday morning. Well, we made it Saturday night. We’re staying in a Marriott in Richmond, CA, about 20 minutes outside of San Francisco.

The plan is to spend the day and perhaps tomorrow morning in San Francisco. Monday through Wednesday and maybe Thursday morning in Napa Valley. After that it’s up in the air but Monterey Bay and Carmel is the goal.

I forgot to bring my card reader so I’ll have to grab one from the Circuit City across the road. I’ll get some pictures up shortly thereafter. I’m anxious to see how some of the photos turned out using my new circular polarizing filter.

I’m free! All my spare time was consumed by this carpentry masterpiece and now I’m done.