Zone38 Presents...
Letters to the World

23-Aug-2005

Tales from Graduate School: Sic ‘Transit’ Gloria Mundi

Filed under: Car-Free,General,Grad School — codeman38 @ 5:44 pm

Argh. Yes, there may be a public transit system here, but rapid transit it is not.

I decided to take a little excursion this afternoon, while I had some free time, to go to the grocery store to pick up a couple things I needed— namely, orange juice and a box of blueberry Toaster Strudels™®©. (Mm, I love those things.)

Catching the bus to the grocery store wasn’t an issue, either. So I got there without a hitch, and found the orange juice I needed… but lo and behold, the store’s freezer wasn’t working properly, so the Toaster Strudels were more than a bit warm. I didn’t want to risk it, so I decided just not to bother with them.

So I came out with the grocery store and waited eight minutes for the bus, just like the schedule said.

And waited.

And waited.

By this point, it was already past time for the bus to be several stops past the one I was at, yet I hadn’t seen the slightest hint of it.

So I decided to walk back a bit… slow as it was.

Finally, after several minutes of walking— honestly, I had lost count of how long it had been by then— a bus showed up and I stepped on, to ride it all the way around the route. Naturally, there had been no buses that showed up on the other side of the street… and even if there had, there’s no way I’m playing a life-sized game of Frogger to get across that busy road. (Who in their right mind would design a major intersection and not put a crosswalk there, anyway?)

Total time spent? Over an hour. For a carton of orange juice. Now I have to go to some other store some other time to find the Toaster Strudels.

Maybe I should try my hand again at learning to ride a bike…

17-Aug-2005

Tales from Graduate School, entry the first…

Filed under: General,Grad School — codeman38 @ 3:56 pm

OK, I’m going to have to find somewhere else to do laundry. The place I’m supposed to go to is two blocks away… and not air conditioned. There’s no way I could spend several hours in there watching over my clothes— and there’s no way I’m walking back to my own apartment, where I can’t even hear the washer or dryer go off, not to mention that I’d have to walk back to start the next load. Even waiting outside the laundry room would be an issue; it’s just as hot outside as it is inside, at least during the summer and early fall.

I wonder if there are any laundry pickup/delivery services around… or even a public laundromat on one of the bus routes…

Actually, even better, it seems that the Housing department will let me use the air-conditioned laundry in the next apartment building over, if I can get a signed letter from Disability Services explaining the circumstances. And yes, before anyone asks, it is a disability issue; I’ve passed out because of my asthma and other medical conditions in similar circumstances in the past. So at least the outcome looks promising.

09-Aug-2005

Still more brain-dead spam

Filed under: Spam — codeman38 @ 8:05 pm

It may be hard to believe, but I have not altered one bit of this unsolicited e-mail I’m quoting here:

Subject: lacie
From: “earle oxford” <wesansgar@emailaccount.com>

sol

http://{%LOGWITHID:{%ROTF:E:\EveryDayDomain\all01.txt%}?{%RND:^%}={%ROT
F:E:\EveryDayDomain\CompanyTest\pharrotates.txt%}%}

later,

kenya

And to think that companies are actually paying for this— nice way to recoup your investments when the recipients can’t even get to the page…

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