| 12/30 | ||
| Corey, Tara, Tara's friend Angela, my cousin Lynn and I went to the Dodge Holiday Classic final Saturday night at Mariucci Arena at the University of Minnesota. Corey got us tickets (he's got the connections) in the club level seats, which was pretty cool. The #7 Gopher men's hockey team beat the #6 Boston College Eagles 2-1 in overtime. It was an exciting game. | ||
| It was nice to see Corey & Tara as much as I did. It worked out that the three days I had off were three days that they were around. | ||
| I drove the 17 for 10 hours and 39 minutes yesterday. | ||
| Every time I drive a long one like that, it reconfirms my thinking that I'll never pick ten-hour work. At least yesterday's work was a single piece. Ten-hour runs are often splits. | ||
| It was a typical Sunday on the 17. I got busy on a couple trips, but generally, it was pretty easy to keep it on time and the people were decent. | ||
| I started with a bus that had exhaust problems. It was leaking into the bus. I usually drive with my window open and I can't always tell what's inside and what's outside the bus. But midway through my first trip, I noticed the smell hadn't gone away, so I asked my passengers about it and they said it was pretty bad back there. So I got a new bus. Not coincidentally, I'm sure, I had started to feel a headache coming on. It went away when bus 510 went away. | ||
| The lives-in-Northeast-parties-in-North-shops-in-South lady who I cart around on the 17 almost every time I drive it rode my bus three times. Her first trip was to Irv's Bar for a spaghetti dinner. Her second trip was home from Irv's. Her third trip was to the hospital. I got a little concerned about that. She told me that she could've called the ambulance or her daughter to take her, but she didn't. So I spent that half-hour a little bit worried, hoping that she'd make it OK. I woke her up at 8th street where she was going to catch the 5 to the hospital. But she stayed on the bus for a couple more blocks because she was going to go to Target first. | ||
| 12/26 | ||
| Well, I managed to have a fairly low-key birthday, the sort I rarely get to have. Yep, I'm 34 today. I'm not too happy about that, as I can't delude myself that I'm in my early thirties anymore. I'm full-on mid-thirties guy now. | ||
| With one exception, I haven't been excited about celebrating my birthday since I was 20. That year, I invited some friends over and had a birthday party. We ate sloppy joes or something like that, played games outside and watched Labyrinth. But every year I've ended up celebrating because in the past, everyone was home from school and/or I was home from SD or IA, and/or I was in the company of family. (Nice sentence, I know.) It's just that time of year. | ||
| The exception was my one third of a century birthday/Eric ditching his house party. Anyway... | ||
| So it was nice to go over to my parents' house and hang out with my grandparents, parents and Corey & Tara. We sat around talking for much of the day, then had dinner and I opened my birthday gifts. I got some calls from friends and Eric stopped by to say hello and drop off a birthday gift (see the picture- his gift is the Belgian part). Then we watched some of Corey and Tara's home videos and a videotaped interview of my grandparents that my Aunt Jane and Uncle Mel made. Three hands of Uno (which I tolerate) and it was time to head home. All in all, it was pretty close to how I like my birthday. And it was a nice day. |  some b-day loot |
|
| 12/25 | ||
| Merry Xmas, etc. | ||
| I drove the 18 last night and today. I'd have to admit to making some pretty easy money. It just wasn't very busy. | ||
| I met a guy last night who had his bicycle with him. My bus didn't have a bike rack on the front, but since there were very few passengers, I let him bring it on the bus. He was a Native American guy and he'd been out in the 'hood with 60 pairs of gloves for homeless folks. A guy did that for him when he was drinking and he really appreciated it. He told me that he quit drinking when his uncle died from cirrhosis of the liver. He bought a half-gallon of his alcohol of choice and put it on his dresser. He said that every time he looks at it, he remembers his uncle and knows he'll never touch it again. He met a woman who was volunteering at a shelter and now she's his girlfriend. So he's off the street and not selling ammunition to the gangs anymore. He told me how to make a hollow-point bullet. And he told me a joke I'll probably not repeat, even if I do remember it at some point. | ||
| I don't think I'd ever seen him before, but I saw him again this evening. He was going the other way, but he said he had another joke for me. | ||
| When I was a valet at Cafe Havana, I often gave a ride home to Kleber (sp?), the dishwasher. He's from Ecuador. He knows about as much English as I do Spanish, so our conversations were pretty lame. His cousin Pablo rode my bus this evening. He asked me if I was from Minnesota (the second person to ask today). When I asked him where he was from, he told me, and I mentioned that I'd worked with some Ecuadorians at Cafe Havana. That's when we made the connection. He works at Jazzmine's with Billy, who was a manager/maitre d' at Cafe Havana when I was there. | ||
| I just got back from hanging out with with my mom and dad, grandparents, brother and sister-in-law. I got some dinner (leftover pheasant and rice) and then we opened gifts. I'd have to admit that Santa was pretty good to me this year. He only brought me one item and not surprisingly, it's from Nike. I'm not sure when he last checked on my size, though. I'm a little bigger than an M these days... Click on that thumbnail at your own risk. |  thanks, Santa! |
|
| 12/23 | ||
| Well, when I woke up this morning I felt pretty good, so I called to see if my work had been given away yet. It hadn't, so I drove the 17 today. I didn't feel good much of the day, but I wasn't miserable. | ||
| Mark just got home from Christmas shopping and he got something for himself: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, deluxe version. | ||
| That reminds me that Eric and I went to see LOTR: The Two Towers on opening day and it was most excellent. See it. Give Peter Jackson your money. | ||
| Not much excitement on the bus today. A guy with a crutch got on. He got hit by a car while crossing the street. And I'm not really sure what was going on with a MINIVAN that was in the lane next to me and creeping toward me as we were stopped at a stoplight. I honked when he got a couple inches away from me. | ||
| Eric and Nancy just stopped by and brought me a Merry Christmas/thanks for helping with the website gift. It's a Tibetan woodblock for making books, done in Sanskrit. It's really cool. | ||
| 12/23 12:08am | ||
| I threw up twice while out driving and came home early. I don't feel well at all... | ||
| 12/22 | ||
| 'Tis the season to get too busy to update the TL, I guess. | ||
| Corey, my dad, my grandpa, Corey's father-in-law Rich and I went to the Vikings game yesterday. Yeah, the Vikings beat the Dolphins and it was pretty great. | ||
| There are two ways to leave the Metrodome: the revolving doors and the regular doors next to the revolving doors. It takes a lot of air pressure to keep that dome up, and there's usually a nice gust of air that blows out the regular doors. I noticed that the gust was gustier than usual yesterday, and it blew my grandpa down. He's a little sore today, but he's OK. | ||
| That was the second time I've seen the Dolphins at the Dome. The first time was 1994 when Warren Moon beat Dan Marino in a shootout. | ||
| And on the bus... | ||
| A guy in a wheelchair got on my bus at my first stop the other day. He rode with me three hours until it was time for me to pull in to the garage. (I went back out later.) 'Tis also the season when homeless folks get on the bus and ride until they get kicked off. We're supposed to empty the bus at terminals, but if they're not bothering anyone, I (and many other drivers) don't get too picky about it. This guy just slept, so he wasn't a problem at all. | ||
| I watched as a MINIVAN from South Dakota (44 plates- so probably Canton or that part of Sioux Falls that isn't in Minnehaha County) whipped around me, started to take a right turn onto a one-way street, realized it was the wrong way, cut in front of me again, then dove into a parking space and came to a stop when he slid into the car in front of him. You know, when I first moved to Iowa, a state legendary for its poor drivers, I noticed that it has nothing on South Dakota in that department. | ||
| Oh yeah, thanks again, Judge Wapner: A real-life courtroom show called Texas Justice was on the TV at the garage. This one isn't all that interesting because you know how it will turn out: everyone gets sent to the electric chair. | ||
| Have a Merry Christmas, Sweet Saturnalia, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Jubilant Lenaea, whatever it is you do. | ||
| 12/16 | ||
| I just watched the Vikings beat the Saints on a last-second two-point conversion! I was driving yesterday, so I had to watch my tape. I had already seen the highlights on SportCenter, but I still like to watch the game. | ||
| I was on the 21 yesterday. I picked up the usual assortment of people. | ||
| The lady whose body odor made me gag a few weeks ago got on my bus again. Friday or Saturday must have been shower and shave day because she wasn't too bad. | ||
| One guy ran a block to my bus to ask me if I was the number 7. He asked me as he stood there looking at the 21 on the side of the bus. After I told him I was not the number 7 three times and told him where to catch it, I shut the door and left. He was drunk. | ||
| Another guy must have been in his own little world as he walked toward Lake Street. He would have walked into the side of my moving bus if I hadn't honked. The people waiting at the stop about 50 feet away thought it was pretty funny. | ||
| After work I met some folks in NE Mpls and we went Christmas caroling. It was fun. Aside from the people who came outside and really enjoyed our singing, I think the two best parts were when a little girl's siblings (?) locked her out of the house and when a lady in a nursing home walked over to the TV and turned it up while we were singing. | ||
| 12/14 | ||
| So have you Minnesotans seen the Bob Marley Footwear store on the Nicollet Mall? I have, and I'm still trying to figure out why two of his kids decided to name their footwear company after him. Yes, I know the obvious answer and it pains me. | ||
| Yesterday I saw a guy in a pickup who ain't got no boundaries, who doesn't compromise. I'm quite sure he'd rather walk ten miles and be down on his luck then to ride around the block in another kind of pickup truck. At least that's what the sticker on his back window would seem to indicate. | ||
| A lady got on my bus with a guide dog, a golden retriever. One of the dog's front legs was broken and she was wearing a cast. They got hit by a car that was making a left turn. The lady was OK. The dog was getting around pretty well, though I noticed the cast slipping out from under her a bit. | ||
| I drove the 23 today. It's a pretty tame route and the passengers are nice, but it's short. I made five round trips. But here's what I noticed. I would guess that 2 out of 5 riders on the 23 are unable to walk up the steps of the bus without putting the second foot at the level of the first one, either because they weigh too much or because they are elderly. I don't notice this phenomenon on the other routes I drive, at least to this degree. Once again, I better claim that I'm not trying to be a jerk. My point is that the riders' slowness getting on and off meant that I was behind schedule most of the day. I get tired more easily when I'm pushing to get back on time. And I often get a bit crabby, especially if I haven't eaten in several hours. Fortunately, and somewhat mysteriously, my mood improved over the course of the day. It might have been the big bowl of Cinnamon Life that I ate after my first trip. | ||
| It seems like there was something else... | ||
| 12/11 12:30am | ||
| I just got back from an evening out. | ||
| It turns out that I did get screwed at work. When I got in from driving at 6:00, there were four or five call drivers sitting around (who could've done the work I did). But that was yesterday. | ||
| I went to see Diedrich Weiss again this evening. My friend Brian was there. We suffered through the opening act (stage presence? none) and had to leave about twenty minutes into Diedrich's set. That was too bad. I was going to meet Wyatt, and Brian was going to Gluek's to see a couple of his bandmates play with some other folks in a '70s cover band. Wyatt was already home, so I went to Gluek's with Brian. It was pretty fun. Brian got up on stage to play a couple songs. The band played my favorite Desmond Dekker song. My old friend Scott was there. I haven't seen him for a while. His band has generated some major-label interest lately. And I also met a bassist whose band had their fifteen minutes with "Closing Time." | ||
| Possibly the greatest part of the evening was when the place started filling up with older people, like in their fifties. Mullets on the fellas, goofy, skanky clothes on the women, it was all there. And there was a reason. The Aerosmith concert had just let out of the Target Center across the street. Rock and roll for the geriatric set. | ||
| Oh yeah, Jamie has confirmed what I sort of felt: "Latino guy," though technically redundant, works as well as anything. | ||
| 12/10 | ||
| Hey, did I express my admiration for W's appointment of everyone's favorite liar and war criminal, Henry Kissinger, to lead the 911 Commission? I think I forgot to do that. If there's anything that needs to be covered up, I guess he'd be your man. Way to go, monkeyboy. | ||
| I drove the 6 for ten hours yesterday. That's a long day. I drove around in the dark for a while, watched the sun rise and got done about 45 minutes before it set. | ||
| A lady yelled for me just as I was going to pull away from the curb at Lake and Hennepin. When she got on, she told me that her 94-year-old father told her that there are two things she shouldn't chase: a bus and a man. Another one always comes around. | ||
| Fashion news: A Latino guy (is that redundant? seriously- someone tell me...) got on my bus wearing a hat with flames on it that said, "OVER THE HILL - STILL HOT." He might have been 20. | ||
| I'm in the middle of a split. I was the 6:00am call. Now I have to go back in from 1:30-6:00. Sometimes the dispatchers split us to cover evening work. There are five people coming in on call between 11:00 and 2:45 to do the same thing. It is possible that they have work for them to do. It's also possible that I got screwed today. | ||
| 12/07 | ||
| Pearl Harbor Day. Happy Birthday, Uncle Jon. (He's really what my J is for.) | ||
| I was on 5:00am call today. Two minutes into it, the dispatcher called me up to do eight hours on the 6. Southdale, 50th and France, Uptown, downtown, Dinkytown, Stadium Village and back again. It's really a nice route. | ||
| Unfortunately, I don't get any good stories driving it. And I've been driving it a lot lately. | ||
| 12/06 | ||
| I saw a burned-out bus today at Overhaul. Apparently the brakes caught fire. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. | ||
| Irony alert- I forgot to mention that I saw a street sign yesterday that said: | ||
| SCHOOL ZONE DRIVE SLOW |
||
| Well, I thought it was funny. | ||
| Did you hear about the spammer in Michigan who is upset that he's getting a lot of snail mail? You can read more about him at Slashdot or sign him up for some mail yourself. | ||
| Alan M. Ralsky 6747 Minnow Pond Dr. West Bloomfield, MI 48322 |
||
| 12/05 | ||
| Hey, it's my old friend Jon M.'s birthday! (And I do not speak of da Mons.) I can barely remember my parents' and brother's birthdays and I remember that. | ||
| You might have been wondering, now I'll tell you. The J in my name stands for quality. And here's why: | ||
| I was on call today, and I got a short piece of express work that started in downtown Minneapolis at around 5:00pm and went out to Bloomington. | ||
| I mentioned the Holidazzle Holidetour. Since it was after 4:30, I took my bus on the HH down Hennepin Avenue instead of the Nicollet Mall, where it usually goes. I was a bit puzzled at 4th Street when no one got on. By 7th Street I was rather concerned and by 10th Street I knew something was definitely wrong. So I pulled a flyer off a stanchion on the bus and noticed that, uh, the Holidazzle Holidetour starts at 5:30. | ||
| Since it was almost 5:30, I called Control to ask them what I should do. They exempted me from the HH and had me drive back down the Mall. I picked up about ten people. I assume everyone else who would've ridden with me gave up and went to Hennepin to wait for the next bus. | ||
| Quality. | ||
| 12/04 | ||
| I just put some basmati rice on the stove. It already smells great in here. | ||
| My stay with Steve was nice. He behaved quite well. No emptied wastebaskets this time. |  the newer, nicer Steve |
|
| Just as I got started here, Oz called. He's been in jail and he's out now. He wondered if I needed anything for my mom for Christmas, like maybe a leather jacket. They still have the tags on them... <sigh> I told him that I wasn't interested, that I'm not interested in stolen merchandise, and he was surprised. (Sorry Mom, you could've been stylin' this Christmas.) Then, about three minutes later, he's telling me about living his life for God and how all he can do is walk the streets and tell people about it. So yeah, he's a mess, but he was sober. | ||
| Oh, I passed a Critical Mass ride on Lake Street last Friday. You know, a pile of bicycles (approximately 30 in this case) taking up both lanes and moving slowly. Fortunately for me, they were going the other way. Predictably, I have mixed feelings about them. I think their message is most excellent. But I don't understand how anyone could think that someone else will be converted to their way of thinking - which, unless I'm terribly mistaken, is the idea - after they've done something that is clearly going to anger the other person. (See also: cheap Christians leaving gospel tracts in restaurants in lieu of a decent tip, crazy Muslims steering planes into buildings, PETA throwing paint on fur coats, etc.) | ||
| It's Holidazzle time! The annual parade on the Nicollet Mall was created by the City of Minneapolis to battle The Mall of the Universe for consumer $$$. It must be working, or working well enough. This is its eleventh year. | ||
| All it means for me is a lot of traffic and the Holidazzle Holidetour, which puts the Nicollet Mall buses on Hennepin Avenue. But I still like it. It's more fun when there are a lot of people downtown. | ||
| It's snowing. It's one of those really light, fluffy snows. And the temperature is around 20. According to me, it's a perfect December day. | ||
| 12/02 | ||
| I'll get caught up a bit tomorrow. But the big news of the evening is that, thanks to a mysterious benefactor (well, I know who it is; he told me his credit card number) this site is now found at transitlibrarian.com, and will be for several years. Sweet! Thanks, yo. |