One of the nifty features of my new job is a subsidized public transit pass. I co-pay something like 10% of the total cost and my company picks up the rest. This is made extra awesome by the fact that I live close to a light rail station. Since having received the transit pass I have tried to take public transit every day this week. It has been a struggle. My first problem is that I can’t quite figure out how to get from my light rail stop to my office. I know I need to take a bus, but I can’t quite match up bus schedules, bus stops, light rail schedules and light rail stops.

So, I end up walking the half mile to my office.

I had kind of planned for this. I bought a golf shoe bag and use it to carry my dress shoes to work every day, which means I can wear my much more comfortable running shoes for the commute. I also liberated the iPod from my wife and loaded it up with lots of podcasts and music. Still, being ready to walk and actually walking in 90+ degree early morning heat are two different things. If I try and rush I just heat up more. If I go too slow I spend more time in the heat. Argh. I suppose the whole challenge of figuring out which stop to get off and and which bus to get on would be made easier if I were able to get to the light rail station at a consistent time. If I were able to get on the 7:32am train every morning then I could plan better. I haven’t been able to do that though, and honestly I need some flexibility in my morning schedule.

Today though was different. Today I think I figured it out.

I was poking around Google maps and realized that Google maps now has public transit information for several major cities, mine among them. So, on a lark I told Google maps to get me from my home to my work using public transit. Lo and behold it showed me a way I would have NEVER thought of. Not only that… it was an absolute joy compared to the commute of my previous days.  I feel so accomplished.

Some things I still need to figure out though. I think it’s some of those things that make public transit intimidating when you have a tight timetable. I know when the wife and I went up to NY for a lovely vacation we had a blast on the subways, but then we didn’t have anywhere pressing to be.

For example, I need to figure out which train car to ride in. I think it’s the first one right up in the front. The reason for that is that the exit at the stop I’m now going to take is right where the first car stops. If I ride in the back of the last car (where I had been sitting) then I have a long walk from the end of the train to the exit, which might mean I miss my connection. Another thing is: If you’re on a long escalator and you’re not sure how deep underground you are… don’t race up the escalator. I was worried I might not make my connection so I hurried, only to discover that there were more escalators and then stairs and then a little walk. I was really sweating in my work clothes by the time I got to the top. It’s a great workout, but not something I need to be doing 10 minutes before arriving at the office.

Also: While looking for train images to use in my post (which I then ended up not using after all) I came across this awesome project: Joshua Heineman is apparently going and scouring the NY Public Library for old stereographic pictures and then combining them into a single animated gif. The result, although jerky, is quite impressive:

Finally: While logging into Flickr today I got the best Flickr greeting ever. Hehehe: