next pick

My schedule will look like this from 5/31 until 9/5:

Saturday, Sunday- off
Monday- 7:48 AM - 11:21 AM (r), 21 line; 2:22 PM - 7:56 PM, 11 line.
Tuesday- 8:24 AM (r) - 10:51 AM (r), 53/21 lines; 1:06 AM (r) - 7:40 PM, 2 line.
Wednesday- 5:52 AM - 8:30 AM, 11 line.
Thursday- see Tuesday
Friday- 5:03 AM - 1:57 PM (r), 18 line.

That Friday is really ugly. But my only other choice was to get done around 7:45 or 8:00 at night.

I'll really be getting done late. It's like I took two steps forward with the last couple of picks, and now I'll be taking a couple steps back again. I got the second-to-last Saturday off on the entire board. I think there were around eight or nine still open the last time I picked. And the work I'm doing now doesn't even exist on the 9-hour board. The scheduling department messed with everything again. Ah, well, such is life.

it's going to be me some day, and I hope someone waits with me until help arrives

My last trip of the day today was a southbound 4, starting downtown.

The Nicollet buses are detoured to Hennepin, where the 4 runs, so I can't get out of downtown on time. Too many buses.

I was about five minutes late when I turned the corner from 31st Street to Bryant Avenue. One woman got on, then an elderly woman stood in the door and asked me, "Do you go to where there's a bench?"

"Um, well, where exactly do you mean?"

"There's a bench and I can wait there until the bus comes and takes me home. At the end. Do you go there?"

I asked her if she meant the 82nd Street Station in Bloomington. She looked startled by that question. At one of my passenger's prompting, I asked her where she lived.

"Over there," she said, pointing in the general direction of a retirement home.

But I couldn't get any more worthwhile information out of her. She couldn't really say where she lived or where she wanted to go. It was clear that she was very confused.

At this point, another passenger asked her if she could look at her ID. The old lady was OK with that, but didn't have one.

I called Control and asked them to send someone.

Another passenger volunteered to stay with her until the police arrived. Awfully nice.

stupid hard drive

I have all our music on an external hard drive. Sometime last week, it started to make unusual noises.

whizz, click! ...then nothing for a little while... whizz, click! ...and on and on...

From what I've gathered reading MacWorld, we're not alone in our failure to properly back up our computers. But I've been meaning to get at least a second external drive to back up the music and our computers.

The odd noises were all the motivation I needed. I went to FirstTech and paid a little bit more than I should have for a 500GB LaCie d2 Quadra drive. I don't mind paying extra, though, because I got good help and information from the guy working there (as always) and it's a local business.

The first time I moved my music was when moved it from my computer's hard drive to the drive that's acting up. As I recall, it went pretty well. I followed some directions that I found online and got it right the first try.

Well, moving the music files from one external drive to another is easy enough, but making sure iTunes knows where they went is apparently almost beyond me. Two days later, I finally figured out the simple little thing I had to do to make everything work properly.

In the meantime, I lost a bunch of music that got deleted off the bad drive. In the process of trying to make iTunes aware of what I was doing, I moved the music around a few times. Every time I moved it, I lost more. Fortunately, we have almost all of it on CD. But it's a significant hassle to go back and rip it all again.

As soon as I back up my computer's hard drive, I guess that's what I'll do.

the 21

I had a pretty decent day on Lake Street. I can smell Thursday coming, though. It's the 1st.
_____

I kicked one guy, who happened to be wearing a bloody hoodie, off the bus after he sat down in the back very loudly, then I watched him take a swig out of his fifth of something clear.
_____

I talked to old guy who told me he was the first of ten siblings. He was a twin, but his brother didn't make it; he was underdeveloped. The old guy's dad didn't take his mother to the doctor while she was pregnant. He told me all kinds of things. He didn't stop talking from Fairview Avenue in St. Paul until we got to Hamline Avenue. Unfortunately, if it was all as interesting as that tidbit, I'll never know. I could barely understand a word he said.
_____

A very inebriated individual staggered up to my bus at the Chicago Lake Transit Center. As he got on, he said something about St. Paul. I was a 53E, which doesn't even get close to St. Paul. I told him that I didn't go to St. Paul. He assured me he knew where he was going and that he knew where to get out.

I was ahead of schedule at the Midtown Light Rail Station, and made an announcement that we'd have to wait a couple minutes. He told me that he was going to get out and pee. I pointed out that there was no place to pee. It was rush hour on Lake Street. There were people getting off the buses behind me and coming out to the street from the Light Rail Station.

Dude stood in front of the only thing on the sidewalk, a Star Tribune dispenser, and took a leak! Right in the middle of the sidewalk.

I didn't even bother to call anyone. I had one more stop before the terminal and I knew he'd be long gone before anyone showed up. Besides, not counting the very public urination, he wasn't terribly obnoxious and I didn't want him to get into real trouble.

When I got to my last stop on Lake Street, I made an announcement to the whole bus that I was only going as far as the transitway next to Wendy's. I waited for him to exit the bus. When he didn't, I left the stop. Sure enough, as soon as I moved into the left lane to make my left turn, he wanted to get off the bus. I let him out at Wendy's, and the lucky folks inside got to deal with him.

awareness

As part of Severe Weather Awareness Week, the National Weather Service issued simulated tornado watches and warnings Thursday. The warnings featured all the sirens. The bulletin in the garage at work said that we were not expected to physically respond to the sirens when we heard them, but that we should "think about what we would do" if there were a tornado. ha.

Since our instructions are pretty vague- "you and your passengers should take shelter if you think you are in danger," I usually just keep driving and hope for the best. I usually have little idea where we'd go. When I was part time, I got caught in Prestigious West Bloomington during a severe storm with nothing but trees around. I kept driving until I encountered a huge tree across the road.

On Thursday, one thing I thought about was how when I was in elementary school, I figured the Russians would be smart to attack us at 1:00 on a first Wednesday of the month when the air raid sirens were being tested.

last weekend

Kassie and I went to Sioux Falls last weekend to visit my brother Corey, his wife Tara, and their kids, Cayden and Kyah. We got there Friday afternoon, so we had a little time to kill before everyone got home from work and daycare. We made a stop at Falls Park, to see the falls of the Big Sioux River. The city has put a lot of work into that park since I lived there. It was really beautiful.

poop

the view from the observation tower, Kassie and Jeff- lower left

We had a really nice weekend. Corey threw some burgers on the grill for lunch Saturday afternoon. MinusCar Mike and his family joined us, as did KT. Corey, Tara, Kassie and I went out for sushi Saturday night at a place called Sushi Masa. It was really good, and relatively cheap!

After Corey and Tara got called out of church by the nursery and took Cayden to see a doctor, Kassie and I ducked out to go look around Sioux Falls.

After lunch, we all went into the back yard to play. We hoped to make sure Jeff was tired for the car ride home. He was already tired, but he wasn't too tired to completely level Cayden and give him a bloody nose! That was scary for a second, considering Jeff outweighs Cayden by about 2.5 to 1. Thankfully, Cayden is tough and made friends with Jeff before we left.

Jeff enjoyed the jungle gym.

dog taking a dump, international edition

Simon took this in the Netherlands. For me.

hellooooo....

Colorado Springs!

oh yeah...

I got a letter from the doctor. My guts are good.

yesterday

As I waited to make relief on the 21 yesterday, a cop pulled up to the bus stop. Almost immediately, another one stopped. The first one got out of her car and asked about a kid sitting at the stop. He was with his mother, so they were OK with that. I guess it's nice to see them making sure all the kids get to school.

The second cop left, but was quickly replaced by a third. A guy got out of the back of the new arrival's car and pointed at two fellows walking across the street. Two more cops arrived, including an unmarked car. They arrested the two guys, one of whom asked the pointer, "What I did to you, man?"

So, for those of you not keeping track, that's five cops, one possibly-truant kid, one victim and two perps in about five minutes.

Then my bus arrived.
_____

The 21 has settled down considerably since I drove it last. I was able to keep it on time. But I see the 1st is on a Thursday next month, so I'll be out there again.

An older African gentleman (Kenyan, maybe) got on my bus and asked me if I knew of any law in the United States that said a person can't stand on the sidewalk and ask people if they love the Lord.

I said that I was unaware of any law that said that.

He said a young woman was asking him and another person if they loved the Lord and a police officer issued her a ticket. He claimed that they were simply standing there talking, not shouting, not hassling anyone. The gentleman was pretty upset. Clearly, there's more to the story that he didn't know, right? I wonder why she got the ticket.
_____

My phone randomly dialed Val's phone number while it was in my pocket. Val dated Eric for a while, and we were roommates at Eric's house for a couple months while Eric was out of town. I got a text message:

Who is this

Then another:

Your phone just called me heard you were stopping at lyndale who are you

I noticed the messages and responded at my layover, asking Val how she's doing. I haven't seen or talked to her for at least a couple years, and I'd assumed she'd moved out of the Twin Cities.

CJ?

From aqua? Or whatever its called now dark hair?

I responded:

You're not Val, are you?

It wasn't.
_____

As I waited for the light to change at 17th Avenue, a young guy ran across the street and launched his Mountain Dew can into the curb in front of my bus.

When he got on, I said, "Aw, man! There's a trash can right there!"

And there was one, about five feet from his can.

When he made no move to go get it, I unbuckled my seatbelt and started to get up. "I'll go get it for you." I do that pretty often.

He said, "I'm not going to make you get off the bus!" and went outside and threw it away.

"I didn't want you to leave me!"

I assured him that I wouldn't have left him.