4 cheap
This morning, Sarah offered to take me to work when I told her I was riding the bus. I declined, telling her that I was going to the Illini Union to work. (I ended up watching Olympic womens’ soccer and working, but this is an aside.) “You must like riding the bus more than I do, ” she said. I don’t mind riding the bus most of the time. Most of the time, that is. The morning commute was smooth. I didn’t have to wait long for the bus and it whisked me to the doorstep of my office for the day, gratis.
Around 1:00, I got hungry and decided to go home for lunch and finishing my day’s work. The bus comes at 1:21, according to the schedule. I came out at 1:15. Today is freshman move-in day; so, kids and their parents are everywhere. Hence, traffic is a nightmare around campus. I was not disappointed, the StopWatch marquee was displaying a 35-minute wait. After I’d been standing there for a few minutes, it started to rain. Then, it started to downpour. Knowing that the StopWatch often gives you only 5-10 minutes warning when the 13 Silver line is coming, I elected to pull on my Gore-Tex and wait out the rain outside. Gore-Tex is brilliant, except if you aren’t completely sealed in it. After getting thoroughly drenched from the waist down, I went back into the Union hoping the A/C would dry me out a little bit. It did.
The 35-minute wait came and went and the StopWatch reported “DUE” next to 13 Silver for a while before changing again to 15 minutes. Gah! It had stopped raining; so, I jumped at the opportunity to take some pictures of interesting people. No sooner had I pulled out my camera than the gentleman in the photo above arrived at the bus stop. He paced around nervously and it was hard to catch him facing me. But, I was rewarded with an OK shot from the hip. Nevermind that I’d accidentally left the sensor on ISO 1600 from last night. Ooops. At least it was fast.
So, I’m a little annoyed with MTD that the StopWatch can’t provide more accurate information. I would have walked home had I known it was going to take an hour to ride the bus. But, on the other hand, it was good to be out and about…
