I am a slave to the rails
Yesterday I was at work in Melville, NY and a rather large thunder storm rolled through early in the afternoon, I would say around 1pm. 1:30 I get an email from LIRR:
LIRR Service on the Ronkonkoma Br. is temporarily suspended between Deer Park and Ronkonkoma. The service east of Deer Park is suspended because of a power problem that is affecting our signals between Deer Park and Ronkonkoma. We are in the process of establishing bus service to operate between Deer Park and Ronkonkoma. Trains operating west of Deer Park on the Ronkonkoma Branch are currently 30-to-45 minutes late.
Alright, so there I was thinking, "My train is at 4:38, and I am west of Deer Park, so therefore, I am never getting home tonight" I had two options.
- Go to another station on another line (Huntington is close) and pay the extra cab and train fare.
- Go to Farmingdale station and hope the train will show up on time
The Huntington train schedule wasn't too great, so I thought I would just tough it out at Farmingdale. I get there at 4:15 usually, I'll just hang out and whatever happens happens.
Before I left work I got this from LIRR:
Train service is has been restored east of Deer Park on the Ronkonkoma Br. with residual eastbound delays of 10-to-15 minutes; and residual westbound delays of 45-to-60 minutes.
So off I went, in the cab ride the taxi driver said the trains were back on schedule. I had a feeling that was a total fabrication, but I went along with it. We show up at the station, there are 2 east-bound trains parked on the other side of the track. Not good. I told Sarah I would be home hopefully by 8:00, I was ready for a 4 hour commute home. I was needless to say a little upset.
Then, out of nowhere, a train shows up. My normal train is 4:38, it was 4:25...what train is this? It was the train before us, the 3:39 train to Penn Station, it was 45 minutes late. OF COURSE! Why didn't I realize?! The email alerts were telling me the trains were 45 minutes late. So, as it turned out, I showed up at Penn Station at around 5:20, I caught the 5:33 train to secaucus, then the 5:50 train to Park Ridge, I was home at 6:37, about a half hour early!
I got all worked up for nothing...although, if I was 10 minutes late to the station I would have watched that train pull away, then this would have been a much different story =)
I’m alive!
Hey I am still here. I got a break on a Friday afternoon so it was a good time to post. It's been so long!
What a busy summer, it goes so fast...We had our trip to Bermuda, a weekend of camping/space farms, and a last minute visit to Illinois to see family.
We had such a nice time cruising to Bermuda, it was so beautiful and everybody was friendly. We had fun on the beach and exploring on our own. The best memory was when we took a night cruise on a glass bottom boat, when we were sailing out to the reef, looking up at the sky and seeing all the stars. It is a shame that we never get to see a full night sky from all the light pollution the city causes. Sarah as usual took a ton of pictures, you can see them on our photo site (photos.parmnet.com). I definitely want to go back again, hopefully sooner than later =).
Everything else is pretty much the same, Sarah is back at school, I'm still going to Farmingdale 2 days a week (not used to the commute, never will be). Football season is back, season opener at the Meadowlands against the Pats...its on baby.
Well that's all for now, I might upgrade my computer to Vista soon, I'll keep you posted =)
Long Distance Commute
I was playing around with Google maps and I put together a map of the route I take to go to a client on Tuesday and Thursday.
My Mileage
I used the distance calculator tool that Google provides with the map controls and it is about 60 miles one way. 240 miles/6 hours for 2 days of commuting, that doesn't count the other days I go into the city. Enjoy
Riddikulus
Alright, so the new Harry Potter book is out. Sarah and I went to Barnes and Noble for the midnight release, it was cool, very disorganized but it was neat to see so many people that were into Potter. This post isn't about the release, it's about what happened a few days ago while I was happily listening to my Sirius radio.
There I was, working, with my headphones on, as I usually do. Then all of a sudden the DJ comes on and says, "Hey did you hear about so and so? They said (this) happened at the end of Harry Potter! I'm so upset!" It happened so fast I didn't have time to take off my headphones. I couldn't believe that the DJ gave away part of the ending like that! Even worse it was them complaining about somebody else giving away part of the ending. I wanted to stab them through the radio with a digital shank.
How could somebody give away part of the ending like that, honestly!
Rainbow
A few days ago Sarah snapped some awesome pictures of a rainbow over our house. She was able to see a full band and it was really bright! No gold was found...
Lazy Days
I've been lazy updating this blog with stuff thats going on.
I now commute two days to Long Island which takes about 3 hours each way. A pain in the neck, but it could be worse, it could be 5 days a week. On top of the long commute I've been really busy with a project, which is a good thing. So sorry if I have any fans out there and you've been waiting for an update.
Anyway, now that summer is here I know Sarah and I will be going on weekend trips with our camera. She has really got a knack for taking pictures, some of the pictures she takes look like a postcard. I especially enjoy this one. Its a fun picture, makes you wonder where those steps go. Most of the pictures on our photo site are taken by her, she likes to take pictures of our surroundings so we can remember what it was like to be there. Good stuff.
Also, I'm going to be building something this summer, not sure what, but I have to get back in the shop. Its tough to get started since the tools are 20 minutes away at my mothers house (its far when you're lazy on a weekend). Once I get going though, I usually stick with the project until it is finished. I have never abandon a project. Once Sarah is done with school we'll be out and about, and we'll post stories of our travels here, and pictures on our photo site. That's all for now.
Commuter observations
Now that I'm working at a new client I have to take the subway daily. I ride the V train to 53rd and Lex. No big deal, it adds 10 minutes to my commute. When I walk out of the subway station there are always people handing out newspapers, the Metro and the AM New York. I usually grab an AM New York. I thought about it this morning and I realized why I am inclined to grab the AM instead of the Metro. The person giving out AM New York is a nice woman and she answers "You're welcome" when I grab the paper. The person giving out the Metro is a large man that looks like he wants to hurt anyone that goes near his stack of papers. So this is to angry free newspaper guy, lighten up dude and I'll grab a Metro instead!
Also, I saw Elvis this morning I swear! I need a camera phone man
Lowe’s Motor Speedway
This past weekend we took a trip down to South Carolina. While we were down there we visited the Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina. I had been there before a while ago when it was Charlotte Motor Speedway, but I barely remembered the tour, basically all I knew was that we would ride around the track in a van. Well we were pleasantly surprised!
When we got there we headed towards the main entrance while hearing the roar of cars going around the track which got me all excited to see it up close. After purchasing tickets for the tour (5 bucks a person! =) ) we went into the stands to check it out. The cars that were racing around the track were part of the Richard Petty driving school. Basically for $ amount of dollars you can either ride a few laps around the track, and for $$$ amount of dollars you can drive one of the cars on your own! It was neat to see the cars go around the track up close. I think the guy said that they go about 170, which I don't think is full speed but its pretty darn close! They were plenty loud too! If you check out the pictures you'll see that we were able to go right up to the track...I can't imagine what a race is like there, it was a lot of fun, and we hadn't even done the tour yet!
The tour was even better, we loaded up in a 15 passenger econo-van..............
LIKE THIS, REMEMBER THAT
The tour guide told us all kinds of neat facts about the track as we headed inside, such as:
During the Coca-Cola 600 race weekend, the track becomes the third largest city in North Carolina(ooo--ahhh)
Once inside the complex he showed us all the garages and different sections of the infield, and then we went out on the track. He took us up on turn 1 and stopped in the middle of it, since that turn has a 25 degree bank we all had trouble not sliding in our seats. It was really cool to see exactly how banked the turns are. The something totally unexpected happened.
The dude pulls away and then jumps on it! He starts flying down the straightaway and goes "alright hang on we're going into the turn!" He took a 15 passenger van into turn 3 - 4 going about 80 - 90 miles an hour! Everybody in the van was laughing or screaming, it was so cool. When I heard him step on the gas in my head I was like, "GO MAN GO!!" He said that we were safe, but I swear I thought he was going to roll that thing. Fortunately we lived to tell the tale. I can honestly say I have never gone or and never will again go that fast in an econo-van. For 5 bucks we got an hour long tour, and the ride of a lifetime in a rather large van.
Arg Computer…
Sarah, Jill and I went on a trip to South Carolina to visit our Aunt Linda and Uncle Jeff this past weekend. The trip was great! (I have alot to write about tonight). When I got home, I walked into our room, flipped the surge protector back on and lo and behold, the computer wouldn't start up.
Now, know that before we left Sarah made sure to turn everything off, shut down the computer, turn off the power, so nothing will happen, as we always do when I'm not going to be around for more than a day. I was at work, so Sarah shut everything down.
Well something happened. Unfortunately, Sarah was thinking this was her fault, and of course I didn't blame her, she did what I had asked her to do, it just broke. I'm thinking that the old power supply just gave up, and when Sarah shut down the computer that was the last time it was going to work.
After flipping out and being upset I realized that the main board wasn't getting any power, so I sped over to Best Buy and picked up a power supply (expensive and not usually where I go for computer parts, but I wanted it to be working NOW). I tested the new power supply and the computer booted. In order to swap power supplies I had to pull everything out, so I gave the comp a good cleaning. I even cleaned out the heat sink, and now the computer is running much cooler, bonus! Heat sinks don't really work so well when they're blocks of dust.
Hopefully............this power supply lasts a little longer, the one before it lasted about 2 years, which sucks, but what do you want for a 40 dollar power supply? The new one I bought ended up being cheaper at Best buy then at Newegg so I didn't feel so bad...
A little present for when I got home!! o.O At least my fish wasn't dead, although that would have been cheaper! I'll post adventures from our trip tonight, we had a good time!
Water
This past weekend we had record amounts of rainfall in the area. It rained hard all day Sunday, Sunday night, Monday... Anyway the lake was getting pretty high, and I snapped a picture of the aftermath to give an idea of how much extra water there was.
The line in the grass is a general idea of how high the lake was. Also, if you can see across the lake there is a sidewalk, that was completely submerged. Needless to say I was a little nervous =). Fortunately once the rain stopped, the water level went back down rather quickly.