I detest my commute. It is a combination of driving (15 minutes), train ride (50 minutes), and a fair bit of walking (15 minutes), that when combined with time spent waiting for the train ends up being a bit over 90 minutes EACH WAY.

What a delightful way to waste over three hours of my day.

Always been self emplyed, luckily at home or locally. currently I love my short drives in this beautiful island.

I hate my long highways drives to get materials. Especially when the engine cut out going 60 MPH. Not sure I'll ever get over that...

Lucky you BL!

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
Wow, I can't believe it's been 5.5 years. I remember when you were first thinking about taking the job. It doesn't seem like 5.5 years ago.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

No work=no commute

When I did, it was about 30 minutes for the last position. I did my commuting early in the morning and late in the evening to avoid gridlock. My worst commute about 20 years ago included 3 expressways - about a 90 minute commute each way. My best commute was a 10 minute in-town commute.

I was averaging about three hours a day the last few years before I retired, which was definitely a factor in my retirement. Public transportation, which I took about half the time, took a little longer but was a little less stressful.

I could cut the commute about in half if I left the house before 5:30 in the morning and got home after 8 PM, which I occasionally did. In many ways, this was also not ideal…

I had a few year interlude quite a while back where I was actually within walking distance of work. It was truly remarkable the number of hours but that added to my day.

We used to live about 3 miles from campus, then we moved, and now we live about 3 miles from campus (but start at a different spot). I will find out this week whether the traffic around here is worse or not (semester is getting started).

Either way, it takes about 7 minutes in no traffic, 10 minutes in traffic.

When I was in grad school I rode the campus bus all the time, it wasn't a very long ride and no transfers. I enjoyed the time listening to music and reading. But there aren't very many public transportation commutes that are so straight forward.

Also, Cindy, what everyone else said! How did 5.5 years pass, just like that??

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
Wow, I can't believe it's been 5.5 years. I remember when you were first thinking about taking the job. It doesn't seem like 5.5 years ago.

And still there are enormous elements of policing about which I know little.

Take Tasers. Until recently, I thought they worked really well and wondered why officers didn't use them more often.

Then I attended a training on Tasers and realized that they have a lot of draw-backs:

They often cannot penetrate heavy clothing. Good luck if the person is wearing a coat because it's winter.

They fire two darts, both of which have to penetrate the skin.

If the taser user is too close to the target, the darts will land too close to one another to deliver an incapacitating amount of electricity. They will just cause momentary pain until the person yanks them out.

They are too dangerous to use in many situations because of what might happen if the person is incapacitated (e.g. can't be used on someone in water, on elevated platform, holding a child, driving a car/motorcycle, riding a bike).

They can cause grave injury to the person tasered because they cannot protect themselves when they fall, e.g. knocked out teeth, concussions.

It's going to take me many more years to learn all the things. But it's been interesting, that's for sure.

Also surprised at 5.5 years.

Learned a lot about
Tasers. Thanks