Faster Than A Sleeping Snail

But not by much. Since I had to lug yet another hefty Visual Basic .Net book to work yesterday in hopes that among the several I have I can find the answer to a homework assignment for a class I’m taking, I left my laptop back at my lodgings. This was unfortunate, because I’m finding the 35 minutes I spend on the train after work is a great time to work on this blog. Even more unfortunate because the 35 minutes last night stretched out to close to 3 hours.

After pulling into San Francisco 15 minutes late, about 4 miles south of the city the train lost ambition to keep going. After a half hour wait, a following train pulled up behind, and after some drama, was hooked up to mine. A half hour after that, we limped to the next station, where everyone offloaded and crammed into the following train to enter the station. Well, almost everyone. The crush of bodies was not appealing so I held out for a less crowded train. This one made the milk run instead of being an express, so bottom line was getting to my lodgings, and a very cranky cat, much later than usual.

If I had the laptop, the time would have passed more easily than by staring out the window at an empty field on one side and a truck fueling depot on the other. It probably would have been something like this:

Phone call to wife: “Well I just finished writing that second novel and am looking for ideas on the third. And no, trains will not be in it."

“Hmmm, battery getting low on laptop, and I’m not in a seat with an electric outlet so I can plug in the AC adapter. Seat in front of me has an adapter though it’s in use by another laptop user… this will take some sleight of hand, and yes! A Dell adapter does indeed work on my HP. Sucks that the owner of that Dell is about to lose Unreal Tournament because he’s going to run out of juice.”

Another phone call to wife: "No, you can’t collect on the life insurance policy on me because I haven’t been stuck on the train long enough yet to be declared legally dead. Just be patient."

And after cell phone battery started running low, there would have been just enough power to call my darling wife and ask her the all important question, "So just why did the Giants blow $126 million on Barry Zito?"