| 9/26 | |||
| I saw three decked-out Christmas trees in JCPenney this evening. They were right across the aisle from some Halloween stuff. | |||
| 9/26 | |||
| It's 9:00 in the morning and I'm done working for the day. I like that. But I need a nap. I got four hours of sleep. | |||
| I drove the 21 last night. It got a bit crazy. | |||
| As he was exiting the bus, a punk-ass kid smacked another passenger. For no reason. The victim was from eastern Africa somewhere and didn't speak much English. Welcome to the U.S., dude! | |||
| I drove by the scene of a drive-by shooting about an hour after it happened. There was a lot of blood on the sidewalk. It was rather unsettling. | |||
| Later, a guy got on the bus who'd been at the Minnesota Wild game. I asked him how they looked and he said, "Obvious." | |||
| Don't miss this story [link is gone]. I wrote a very nice email to the superintendent. Keep in mind that I'm operating on four hours of sleep. Here's what I sent him: | |||
| Dear Jerry, I am relieved that you and your crack administrative staff at Whitefish High School have taken up the fight against dreadlocks. Satan wears dreadlocks. No one else wears them. They are very outlandish. In fact, I had to search and search the Internet to find even a description of what dreadlocks are. I'd never heard of dreadlocks because they are so rare, exotic and - dare I say it again? - outlandish! They certainly disrupt the learning process! I mean, how can that girl even think straight when her hair isn't!?! Kudos to you and your staff. Satan is defeated again! And public education, which is very respected in this country to begin with, looks great in Montana! And that young woman sure is learning an important lesson! And what else is she learning? A lot. Hugs and kisses, CJ Camp Minneapolis p.s. That young woman must be the one in charge of proofreading your website! Look at this! Unbelievable! Get her! from the "More about our district" page: >>>>> Leadership The district is lead by Superintendent Jerry L. House and an excellent administrative staff. The Administrative team is very dedicated, respected, highly visible, and involved in all aspects of the school setting and within the community we serve. The success of all students is the paramount duty of each administrator and his/her staff >>>>> Anyway... |
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| I heard a commercial for Bethel College on B96 today! That's funny to me! | |||
| I'm going back to bed. | |||
| 9/24 | |||
| I got up Sunday morning and went to Wausau, WI. My grandparents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary. Most of the family was there, including my brother Corey. I missed some of the fun. Some of my cousins couldn't make it. A good time was had by most, I'd say. |  my grandparents |
 Corey and Jett |
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| My cousin Todd and his wife Sue, who live in Wausau, bought a house this summer and got a black lab puppy named Jett. Great house, great dog. | |||
 view from G&G's apt. |
 Van Der Geest Dairy |
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| My grandpa, two uncles and I went to the Van Der Geest Dairy, which is one of the largest if not the largest dairy operation in Wisconsin. They milk 3000 cows three times a day. | |||
| 9/21 | |||
| Well, it didn't take me long to schedule myself another visit with the safety supervisor (see 8/5). I was pulling into a parking spot in front of a parked bus and took out its mirror. | |||
| I watched two people move away from a guy on my bus today. With his large mirrored sunglasses, full beard, and camouflaged jacket, I thought he had kind of a Vietnam vet look about him. But he appeared to be too young to be one. I couldn't hear anything, but I thought he might be mumbling. I didn't see him interact with anyone on the bus. | |||
| When he came to the front of the bus to exit he shouted, "I don't appreciate getting f***ed with on your bus!" Then he put his finger on the bus number and said, "I'll remember this number!" | |||
| 9/21 | |||
| I drove ten hours yesterday. My day was thoroughly uneventful until I went out of service and was headed back to the garage. I was up in NE Minneapolis and the pull in route skirts downtown Minneapolis on I-94 and I-35W. To get to 94, I had to take NE 2nd, which is a major street on the 18 line. To avoid confusion, I turned off my interior lights and put Nicollet Garage on my destination sign. | |||
| I stopped at a red light next to a bus stop where there was a guy waiting for a bus. My visual cues were lost on him and he staggered over to the bus. I should note that technically, we are supposed to allow people to ride with us on our pull ins and pull outs, and I often do. But we follow our designated routes and don't make special stops. So I opened the door and he started to get on, telling me he just needed to get downtown. I explained to him that I wasn't going downtown. He didn't seem to hear me and I told him not to get on, that I wasn't going downtown. He stood in the door and said, "C'mon, I'm a brother!" (He appeared to be Cauc or Native American.) I asked him to get off the bus, repeated that I wasn't going downtown (which I don't think he ever figured out) and that a bus was probably close behind me. He said, "Oh, that's right, don't want to take his job away!" I repeated again that I was not going where he wanted to go and closed the door. But not before he yelled, "Bureaucrat!" | |||
| So it turns out I had an observer from the company on my bus a couple weeks ago. Basically a mystery shopper. The concept of mystery shoppers infuriates me. I had to deal with that crap in the restaurants where I've worked, even the one that wasn't corporate, when one of the largely-absent owners hired one (and I seem to remember my manager being ticked off, too). I see the phenomenon as a way for suspect management to bully their workers and cover up the fact that they aren't aware of what is going on in their places of business. In the case of my current employer, it seems to me that they ought to be spending the time and money on drivers who get complaints. I believe that in a workplace situation, the more that employees are trusted, the more trustworthy they will act. Will there be abuses? Sure. People suck, we know that. But when an employer stops trusting its workers, it breeds resentment and ultimately sabotage. People who might otherwise not be inclined to act out will do things to damage the company out of resentment and spite. | |||
| So how did my observation go? In spite of the fact that I had three hours of sleep that night (see 9/6) everything was fine. In fact, I even got a commendation. For calling streets. | |||
| And I'm riled up about that, too. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that we call streets. It isn't difficult, it's part of the job, I do it. And I get a commendation for it? It kind of devalues the commendation I got when a lady called in to praise me for handling a difficult situation well. What's next? Will I get a commendation for driving straight and keeping the bus on the street? | |||
| 9/19 | |||
| I put some new photos up today. | |||
| 9/18 | |||
| Eric's mom had company and he needed a break from SimCity 3000, so I met him for a beer at The Local. The Local is an Irish pub of sorts that generally attracts yuppie-types. | |||
| The first guy who was sitting to our right, immediately next to me, asked us why we decided on The Local that evening. After I gave him a lame answer, he said he might get to do their website and was trying to get an idea of the attraction so he'd know what to emphasize. After his explanation, I told him that one thing I like is the bar itself. It's carved from dark wood and features a girl on a swing (that I thought was some kind of sprite or something) and chameleons on pedestals, plus candles and stained glass. I find it rather interesting and pleasant to sit in front of while enjoying a beer. | |||
| The next guy to occupy the space next to us happened to be the guy who designed and built the bar. How's that for strange? His name is Nathan Stanley. He's quite the interesting guy. We were having a nice conversation until Amy the poet showed up. Apparently, he was with her and her friends and they wanted him back. Fair enough. | |||
| 9/17 p.s. | |||
| A couple months ago, my friend Brian told me that a guy who I went to high school with (I know, with whom I went to high school) was playing guitar around coffee shops and that it was interesting, good stuff. This is a guy who I was not friends with, but I never thought particularly ill of him, either. | |||
| I was looking for something to do this evening and noticed that he was playing at the Acadia Cafe, which I drive by when I drive the 18. It's at the most savory intersection of Nicollet and Franklin. | |||
| I went and I really liked it. I was a bit apprehensive. I often don't have patience for guy-and-his-guitar stuff, especially if I'm not familiar with the material. But his music is not clichéd and his lyrics are thoughtful and literate (if a bit literal on occasion). He was really entertaining. His name is Diedrich Weiss. If you are in the Twin Cities, consider looking for his name and going to see him. | |||
| I left when the guy who played after him proved to be a folkster in the cutesy tradition of, oh, I don't know, John Prine? You know, those folk guys with "clever" and "funny" songs? I don't know any because they usually send me running the other way. This guy did a song about cookies and another about how he and his loved one were opposites (filled with many cute, "humorous" examples of their mismatchedness- no, that isn't a word, I should just say incompatibility). | |||
| Eh, it's just not my thing. | |||
| 9/17 | |||
| The long hours pay off today (sort of). This is day one of a three day weekend for me. I get really lazy with three days off. I don't think it's worth the ten hour days of work. | |||
| I worked three hours of express routes yesterday. Bo-ring! Those people are polite and they all pay and they sit quietly until it's time to get off the bus and go to work. | |||
| I skipped the last few blocks of my first trip- something we were strongly advised against in training- because I had to use the restroom. It was downtown and I was dropping off, so everyone who was going to ride had ridden and disembarked. | |||
| I jumped off my bus at the Gateway Ramp to use the restroom and a street supervisor waved me over. I was pretty sure I was going to get reprimanded either for driving over 5 mph in the ramp, or worse, for skipping the last bit of my trip. | |||
| Instead, he asked me to run a few minutes down on my next trip. There are detours all over downtown and the signs are a bit confusing. He wanted to make sure that the folks who needed to taste my sweet driving got to Marquette from Nicollet to catch my bus. | |||
| Yeah, so the story wasn't really very good. It was that kind of day. Sometimes it's nice to have those days. | |||
| Later, I drove seven hours of the 9. The 9 is nice. Very easy. I could not, for the life of me, understand a thing one guy was saying. He talked to me quite a bit and I understood three things he said to me: "thank you," "Franklin" and "donkely dah." | |||
| 9/15 | |||
| Long day. 10½ hours in the bus. | |||
| The Vikings lost in overtime. I taped the game and I'll watch it in fast-forward. | |||
| I drove the 17 today. It's usually a pretty quiet route. And it was today. | |||
| My first trip was a bit questionable, though. | |||
| The 17 goes down the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. The speed limit is 10 mph and it's easy to get behind schedule by waiting for people when the light is green and getting caught at red lights for other reasons. Anyway, a group of kids decided to cross the street against the red light in front of me. I laid on the horn and kept moving. A couple of them scooted across and the others banged on the side of the bus. | |||
| About fifteen minutes later, I was pretty sure that my day to get hit had come. A guy and his girlfriend neglected to get out when they should have and the next stop apparently took them a couple blocks out of their way. "YOU BETTER STOP THIS MOTHERF****IN' BUS!" He was angry. I didn't care. Fifteen minutes earlier, we all had to wait for them as they moseyed to the bus on the Nicollet Mall. | |||
| Later, a family got on the bus. The youngest daughter and the mom looked pretty average. The teenage daughter had the black hair and clothes of a goth. The teen son had a KoRn t-shirt and a spiky bracelet. And the dad was wearing a Godsmack t-shirt. Sweet. | |||
| 9/14 | |||
| Another entry in the wrong shirt
sweepstakes: I HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME SINCE THAT HOUSE FELL ON MY SISTER, spotted on a 30s-ish, native-English-speaking male. |
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| I had a long day. I drove from 6:00 AM until 5:30 PM with an hour break. It wasn't too bad though. | |||
| I was really tired this morning. One of my layovers was close to a restaurant serving breakfast. I tried to take a ten minute nap when I was parked there. But the odor from the kitchen vents smelled just like pancakes for breakfast at Camp Ojibway. The nostalgia was almost suffocating. | |||
| A bit later a lady (sane, sober, maybe 60) told me a story about her Christmas Eve last year, or maybe the year before. She was leaving her kids' house and had her Bronco filled with gifts. When she started it and put it in drive, something stuck and it accelerated on its own. She went about four blocks with the truck accelerating very rapidly. She was scared (or too shocked or something) to brake. She ended up hitting a Porsche parked on the curb and her car bounced off and came to rest. She left the scene because she was nervous that the owner would come out of the nearby bar and shoot her. She claimed that the Porsche was unscathed. (I don't know how that happened, but she said she saw something on TV about Porsche bumpers.) She didn't ride with me very long, but I appreciated the story. | |||
| I saw Oz today. He was sleeping on a bench near a bus shelter on Nicollet Ave. He waved the first time I went by. The next time I stopped there, he was sound asleep. Until The Fuzz showed up. As I was sitting there, a transit cop woke him up. They were discussing the situation as I pulled away. I had my camera in hand, but decided that it might look strange to the passengers on my bus if I took a picture. I guess I just don't have whatever killer instinct it takes to be a hard-hitting photo-journalist. | |||
| 9/11 | |||
| 2:50 AM | |||
| Just so you know, "America and [the transit company I work for] are on a heightened state of awareness on this, the eve of September 11." That is according to the all call we got this afternoon (which, I guess is technically yesterday afternoon). We were urged to be militant. No, on a careful second listen he said "viligant [sic]." Eric pointed out to me that he probably said "diligent." Whatever. Eric suggested that I be a diligent viligant militant. So I was. | |||
| I had a most excellent day. I worked ten hours on the 21, five hours, then a break, then five hours. | |||
| My favorite part of the day was the guy who called me a "smartass c*cksucker." I almost refused to let him on the bus because he was being kind of a jerk to a woman who took some time to get on, then didn't have her fare ready. He rang the bell to get off and immediately started squawking about stopping. I explained to him in the most pleasant manner possible that I was going to drop him off at the next stop. The stop in question happened to be a couple blocks farther than he wanted it to be. When we got there, I helpfully pointed out the transit stop sign to him. So he walked to the front of the bus (and made his walk back the other way that much longer) simply so he could bitch me out. I told him that I hoped to see him later. | |||
| Then, on my break, I called to line up a date with the woman who I've been out with a couple times. She told me that she wasn't into the dating thing. I was actually kind of relieved. I mean, she's really cool and I like her, but I didn't think we were really clicking. I was going to give it one more date and see. Clearly, she is the more decisive of the two of us. | |||
| I had discussed the situation with my friend Teresa a few days ago and she asked me if I was getting butterflies. I said that I wasn't, but I wonder if I ever will. It's been a long time since I met a woman who gave me butterflies. Is that something one grows out of? | |||
| The second part of my night was as exciting as the very drunk, very loud guy who got on after grocery shopping with his wife (or girlfriend). When we finally got to their stop, I took a couple pictures of him as he stood on the steps, not getting off the bus, telling me not to bet on the Vikings, no, Viqueens! Viqueens! Viqueens! | |||
| 9/10 | |||
| I drove the 21 and the 28 last night on a ten-hour split shift. | |||
| A big twenty-something guy got on the 21 with what I think was a Rugrats doll (action figure?). He put it up on the farebox and moved it around while asking in a high, squeaky voice, "Can I pay the fare today? Can I pay the fare today?" | |||
| Later on, a guy, about 50, got on the 28 downtown headed to Uptown. He said he was going to clear out of downtown for a few days and hang out Uptown. He grew up here and has been in California for eight years. He came back a couple of weeks ago to see his old friends. | |||
| He had been drinking down by the river with some of his "Indian brothers." (He's a cauc.) They had polished off their beer and were working on a fifth of something else. A guy walked over to them and told them to give him their alcohol. | |||
| Our protagonist was in no mood to surrender his alcohol to a random tough guy, so he punched him in the face. The random tough guy turned out to be a cop. | |||
| I'm not sure why he didn't get arrested, but he claimed that the guy didn't initially identify himself as a cop and that apologies were made. The alcohol was poured out and Mr. California decided to get to Uptown for a while. | |||
| 9/8 | |||
| I went to Wyatt and Tina's house to watch the Vikings today. Yes, the Vikes lost, but they looked a lot better than I thought they might. I think the highlight of the day was probably Steve's keg stand. |  |
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| 9/7 | |||
| I drove a ten-hour shift today. That gets pretty long. It was relaxing, though. It didn't get too busy so it wasn't stressful at all. | |||
| In a surprising twist on the t-shirts that don't fit the wearer that I've seen, a late-twenties, English-as-her-first-language woman was wearing one that said BEST GRANDPA HANDS DOWN! | |||
| Later, as I was waiting to take a left turn, I watched a woman in a wheelchair to my left attempting to cross the street. I don't think she was a permanent resident of that chair as she wasn't very good at operating it and it was a hospital chair. Anyway, a young guy passing her stopped and pushed her the rest of the way, back to where he'd come from. So I thought that was cool. | |||
| She needed to ride my bus. (Actually, it turned out that she needed a different bus, but whatever...) So I put the lift down. On the way up to the bus, she got a bit panicky as the chair rolled backward and seemed to be tipping backwards as well. I got her in the bus and we took off. She went about a mile on the same street, then told me that she needed to get off. But she mentioned that as I was turning onto another street (in other words, about 45 seconds too late) and there wasn't a place to let her out until we reached the bottom of a hill. So I let her out and she had to climb the hill. I felt pretty bad about that. The flat street was a struggle, now she had to get up a hill. I hope she made it. (I had awful visions of her rolling backward down the hill.) | |||
| I shot some pool this evening with da Mons. I think it was clear to everyone that it had been quite a while since I last played. | |||
| 9/6 | |||
| I just had a couple days off. | |||
| I spent 2½ hours mowing lawns on Wednesday. It was a really nice day and it felt good to be outside doing something. But I've been feeling it in the ankle that I broke in March. | |||
| Yesterday I met my friend Kevin for lunch. We roomed together in Sioux Falls for a couple of years after college. It's always good to see him. He's a family guy with twins, and he's quite busy at normal-people hours. So we usually end up getting together for lunch. | |||
| I had another date last night. It was quite nice. It's been a long time since I had northern pike, and I had a delicious filet at W.A. Frost and Company. Check that link for what might be the worst-ever version of Spring from The Four Seasons. Painful. | |||
| Thunderstorms woke me up at 2:00 this morning. My alarm was set to go off at 3:00. Clearly I was doomed. I worked from 4:00 AM to noon:30 today. I really don't remember much of my morning at all. It's all a sleepy blur. | |||
| The mail carrier brought me Cotton Mather - The Big Picture today! Yippee! And UPS brought me a Sugarplastic 7". That meathead left it sitting out on the front porch in the sunlight in the almost-90º day, despite the large PROTECT FROM HEAT sticker on the front. The rekkid is fine, though. So really, I have nothing to be crying about. | |||
| 9/3 | |||
| I called the transit cops today. That's a first. | |||
| I was driving the 17 (normally a relatively quiet route) at about 1:30 this afternoon. A drunk guy jumped on behind some other folks. That's how it always goes. As he fumbled for his transfer, it became apparent that he was also a complete jackass. He slapped the stanchion behind me in anger at the guy behind him who was trying to get by. I told him he needed to settle down. He sat down, but not without hassling a woman, who moved. That's when I asked control to send police. He kept it up with the potty mouth, then tried to apologize to the woman that he'd harassed. Then he turned on the potty again. | |||
| The cops were on their way, but he got off the bus about five blocks after he got on. Lucky for him, I guess. | |||
| Joke, fresh out of Wisconsin, courtesy of Eric: | |||
| A man walking down the street sees two guys working. One guy is digging a hole and the other guy immediately fills it. The man watches a little while, then asks them why the one guy is digging the holes only to have the next guy fill it. "Oh," says one of the guys, "the guy who plants the trees is out sick today." |  Yarr!!! Eric, music pirate |
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| 9/2 | |||
| So. I get a breather. | |||
| I made some new friends today. Rosemary and Connie. Mostly Rosemary. | |||
| I drove a free State Fair shuttle to and from Roseville Area High School. Rosemary was in the lot at the school to help direct foot traffic, answer questions, etc. Every twenty minutes or so I sat down and visited with her. Connie was her relief, but loves the fair so much that she got there a couple hours early just to hang out. | |||
| It's the last day of the fair. As much as I, too, love the fair, I am glad it's over. It messed with my schedule. I put in a twelve-hour day yesterday and a ten-hour day today. I'm tired. | |||
| I drove by St. Christopher's Episcopal Church numerous times. St. Christopher kind of got downsized by the Vatican in 1969. From what I can tell, all that happened was that his feast-day was dropped from the calendar. But he is still a saint. So exactly where that leaves him, I don't know. Apparently he's still sanctioned by the Episcopalians. I wasn't named after St. Christopher, but it would be cool to have him hanging out with me on my bus dashboard. | |||
| Two people each gave me $1 today. The shuttle was free, but I wasn't. I was even on overtime for some of the day. But thanks just the same, folks. | |||
| Poison played the fair Saturday night. I was working a free shuttle that night, too. It's a good thing our paths didn't cross; there might've been a rumble. | |||
| The 2002 Depo-Provera
Poster Family rode my bus Sunday. At least, I'm pretty sure that was them. Let me
remember... five kids... screaming... hitting... crying... shouting... Yes, I'm quite sure it was them. |
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| And that same night, two young women got on board who looked like they'd been beaten with the glitter stick. That stuff was everywhere. Have fun on the Mighty Midway, girls! | |||