March 26, 2007
This will be short.
This morning I had an insight into my childhood. I was driving out of our complex with a freshly washed evo and on my right was an 8 to 10 year old that could not keep his eyes off it. As I drove passed I gave him a little rev and heard him give out a “woohoo yeah”. Thats exactly how I felt about crazy cars when I was a child, and as a matter of fact, how I still react to anything that grunts and roars down the street, on 2 or 4 wheels.
March 23, 2007
A couple months ago I finally registered my own domain name to host my portfolio. I’ve been updating the site with portfolios of events, but I have yet to update the front page with something nicely designed.
I’ve come up with many logo concepts and I think I’m getting closer to finalizing one of them. In the next couple weeks I should be set, but we’ll see I guess.
March 23, 2007
This week I’ve been taking 5 freeways and its been doing me a bit of good. Each day I’ve averaged between 45 and 60 minutes getting to work in Santa Ana from Corona.
I’ve added a new type of car to hate on my way in. Camry drivers have moved right up with Prius, BMW and Mercedes drivers. I tend to generalize of course, not all BMW and Mercedes drivers are horrible, but 2 days in a row I’ve seen Camry drivers going around people waiting at stop signs while reading the newspaper, and signaling right while merging left and then slamming on the brakes while the rest of traffic is moving.
Anyway, to sum up the week, I hate the SR91 freeway more than anything because of the 91Expresslane road work and the work on Ortega Highway, and I hate old Camry drivers.
March 21, 2007
Today was much like yesterday. I approached the SR91 to see gridlock. Today was no ordinary gridlock though. Mckinley St., off SR91 is approximately 1.5 miles from the 15 freeway. This wonderful junction is the beginning of my own, and many others, pain each and every day. It took me 1 hour to reach the interchange of the 15, and thats where I gave up and went home to work until 10:30.
People merge onto the 91 from all areas of Riverside. The 15 is heavy merging on to the 91 from North and South, especially with those putrid inconsiderate gravel trucks coming from South Corona off Magnolia. It is a major artery of traffic flow to Orange and LA Counties, yet it is only 3 lanes wide on either side before the 15 freeway. This creates a bottleneck going to Orange County and where the traffic slow begins coming back to Riverside and Corona. Typically the traffic flow is not alleviated until Greenriver Rd, which is the last exit in Corona.
The backup going West starts early, around 5:30 am. The backup Eastbound begins around 1 o’clock where the traffic begins to wig out at the 15 interchange and the SR91. The ripple affect builds and carries until its reached its potency at Weir Canyon in Yorba Linda. This is where most of the pain begins, and where traffic slows to a crawl all the way through Riverside passed Pierce St.
When I found myself confronted by the same volume of cars at 10:30 am I took the risk to try something different. And so, I went 15 North to the 60 West toward Los Angeles to the 57 South toward Santa Ana to the 5 South. I changed freeways 5 times and made it to my office in 45 minutes arriving at 11:15. It was unbelievable.
As I sat for the first hour listening to the traffic report for some fatality crash in Corona I didn’t hear a peep. They talked about the 405, 5, 605, 210, but never mentioned the poor souls rotting in the traffic on the SR91. Sigalert.com, a site I no longer recommend for accurate traffic information, showed 1 single red dot with cyan dots leading to it, indicating traffic was moving above 20 mphs. It was grossly inaccurate. What it should have displayed was solid red dots from La Sierra Blvd in Riverside through Serfas Club Drive in Corona.
Some day someone intelligent will get into a place of power thats actually there to make a difference, and when that happens, I hope the people in charge of traffic and roads who aren’t doing their jobs end up at backwater hole in the wall restaurants. As far as I am concerned, these individuals aren’t even qualified to operate the fry station at MacDonald’s restaurants.
March 19, 2007
Today I considered a small personal loan to buy an older motorcycle to alleviate the stress I endure every day from my 30 mile commute.
After doing that I tallied up the hours I spend on average a year in traffic on the SR91 West and East bound.
Calculating I work 260 days a year I came up with this:
650 avg hours spent in traffic every year (based on 2.5 hours per day.)
27.083 days spent in traffic at 5 mph or less.
Nearly a month. I can’t describe how much my heart sinks knowing I waste a month a year on that fucking freeway.
If I had a bike:
260 days of work a year
260 hours of traffic a year based on 1 hour total commute time per day.
If I drove the bike everyday.
10.83 days spent in traffic.
If I had a bike I would have 17 more days a year with you.
17 days would be 408 hours more a year at home.
People shouldn’t have to live like this, and I’m surrounded by thousands every day. Who is in charge of this mess, and who needs to be sewed over the hours of my life wasted in the prison labeled SR91?