Biking to Work/Santa Monica Pics

Oh. Hello. It's you again. It's me again.
Guess what??!! I biked to work two times! Once yesterday and once today. Lemme tell ya sumthin, it's delightful. It takes about the same time as if I drive. Hilarious. I guess that's because I can zig zag about and not have to allow time for parking. It was one of my goals in moving here, so that is simply fantastic.
I had a lovely day yesterday, Obama's inauguration was a feel-good, nice day at work, nice bike ride, then things took a turn for the worse! Got a ticket for street-sweeping day (oh, the pain and irony - bike to work to save money, get exercise, get rewarded with a ticket the price of parking for about 7 days). MLK Day threw me off - another nice thing being a state employee, more days off! So with the good comes the bad, I suppose. Such is life. Just have to get these little ditties worked out....
Here's a couple photos of where I live in Santa Monica. Notice the somewhat famous thingie I live across the street from?

Until the Sun Comes Up Over Santa Monica Boulevard....

I just realized I live a couple miles from Santa Monica Blvd....you know that Sheryl Crow song, right? It's entirely possible I'll sing the song repeatedly.

My last two hour commute this morning! I drove home after work, took me 10-15 minutes. This has made me delirious. You can't even imagine the joy. My right shin is thanking me. Also my ears, which have been hearing a lot of swearing for the last two weeks. Seems like a year.
Parking ticket, meter violation: $45 Only in large cities like LA can 5 minutes cost you $45.

OK! Enough! Geez, you'd think I had nothing better to talk about! Are you guys back home talking about the snow and cold like I'm talking about traffic??

My job seems wonderful. My boss seems about right. There are free yoga classes during lunch. I'll be sitting in on a class next week about post-Olympic Beijing. My new apt. seems to have hot water very quickly available from the taps. My room seems to be developing an Korean/Chinese/cheesy American theme. My closet is extremely large. I have free wireless access. My cup runneth over! Now, I just need to find another part-time job with ridiculously high wages.

Oh! Had a great morning last weekend...woke up at 6 on Saturday morning...why? I don't know. Couldn't get back to sleep so spontaneously decided to drive to the mountain and catch the sunrise. Also drove up to the snow, Big Bear Mtn. I wanted to hike, but unfortunately the Santa Ana's were going so I wasn't dressed warmly enough. It was nice, however! Mountain drive, crisp air, snow, pretty. OK, this is dull, but it was a peaceful morning and totally relaxing, so for me that was different and worth mentioning. :)

Traffic. Seriously.

Seriously. Left at 6:30 a.m. It took me 2.5, that's two and one-half, 2 1/2, hours, 150 minutes to get to work today. Like, totally. I almost cried. Crazy people do this every day. 50 miles. 2.5 hours. I think that means I averaged 20 miles per hour in the speed arena. Yeah. It sure does. Distance equals rate x time. That hasn't changed, right? Shoot. 20 on the freeway.

One day it could take 1.5 hrs, the next 2.5. It's amazing and horrendous. Plus, I had to pee. Lemme tell you why I'm sharing innappropriately....I have been drinking a lot because my throat is frequently sore and dry here, making a long commute somewhat of a challenge if it's more sore than normal and the drinking occurs. I didn't know where to pull over and not add another 1/2 hour to my commute just because I don't know where I'm going. I love that my old job makes me think of hotels as perfectly good places to stop and do bladder business. In your face, McDonalds!
Whew! Good to vent. Thanks. Thank goodness that's over for today. Only three more days of it....
By the way, took me 1.25 hours to get home, leaving at 2 p.m.
In a way, I feel like such a loser hick bitching about this, but seriously. Come on.

My First Earthquake!

Why don't they make earthquake greeting cards? There's so much potential, there. Think of the rhymes and wishes.....consider this a contest to come up with earthquake greeting cards...I'll expect your ideas soon. :)
OK, my first earthquake.
It was amazing! The earth moved back and forth for minutes! Things fell off the wall! I screamed and balled! I ran to my roommate to drag her out of the house! Oh, the drama!
Here's how it really went down. I was laying on my bed and it shook back and forth once, and by the time I bolted upright, it was over. No more than two seconds. Good way to break me in, don't you think? I walked quickly to Ms. Lee (my roommate), to verify that it was indeed, an earthquake, and she called a 5.0 somewhere in the valley. She was spot-on, it was a 5.0 about 30 miles away in Riverside. I did the superstar pose and declared "My first earthquake", and she smiled and looked at it through the eyes of a child...me. She probably didn't give much of a rip as she's used to it. I promptly called my sister and started spouting about my first and the end of the world on the winter solstice of 2012, etc. A little overexcited.

Hey, I finished my first week of work! My boss had mercy on my soul and let me work four days this week instead of five, such that I could sleep past 6 a.m. today and not drive for three hours to work for four. Next week I'll be in Santa Monica and will hopefully take my bike frequently. Only four more days of ridiculous commuting! Yee haw and all that.

Nuevo address

Does anyone have a better idea for the title of this blog? Seems so factual and dull.

My new address as of Jan. 15:

2336 34th St #2
Santa Monica, CA 90405

No stalkers, please.

Gleeful 2009

Not to sound like everyone else, but Happy New Year! I wish you the best in ze 09.

A little news....soon I will have a Santa Monica address! I am moving a mere 5 miles from my new job, very good news for the extremely-impatient-in-traffic Traci. I will have a roomie named Malou, and my own bathroom. Is it OK to say that in one sentence? My own bathroom was very important, but even more important is that I won't have to commute more than a few miles. My new roommate is about my age and we seem to be in relative synch with how we live. We shall see...
I'll provide my new address in a future post. My cell phone will still be my cell phone.
I punched in "Santa Monica" for the slideshow on the right margin, and I have no idea what most of it is. Besides obvious beach shots, I suppose they're just random photos taken by people labeled "Santa Monica" on flickr.com. funny.

Traffic, you ask? OK. I knew it would be bad, but holy hell. I actually have time at lights to put it in park, put my feet up, jam and sing along to half a song or more before I get the green. I've really really done this several times at intersections like Sepulveda and Manhattan Beach Blvd. I believe the lights actually double drive times...if you spend 2 minutes at every intersection, it adds up after a few miles. Don't even get me started on the highway. Many many speeders and weavers, who I usually end up catching up to anyway. Shortsighted selfish drivers. I think it's strange that I've rarely seen a CHP, also. You always see people pulled over in WI. There's actually so much traffic that you can't even pull people over! Or something. I'm still learning. People seem generally cooperative on the roads, mostly, so that's good. Could be worse with this many cars. If California wants to get out of the debt it's in, just pull over speeders for goldernsakes. Could get out of debt in a couple years. ;)

I started my new job today. Nuff said. Ok, really, what is there to report on a first day? They have computers, voicemail, nice people, old office furniture, and no reasonable parking. You know how first days go. You know nothing, and absorb a small percentage of what goes on (what's different from any other day, you say?), everyone welcomes you and it all feels good. Anyhow, I'm optimistic about it and like what I see and feel so far. I'll try to figure out ways to add to office drama and give people things to talk about.

Isn't it funny how, even if you don't particularly like where you are, when you're about to go to something new, suddenly you become sentimental? That's how I feel now. I don't have any particular love of Chino, CA, but am now looking around with a smile. Before I grumbled a lot. Now I think...aw! This is the last Mexican food at Las Brisas! This is the last time I'll watch Korean Drama with Ms. Lee! I have to go to the mountain for the sunset every day! Anyhow, just wondering if you've ever felt this lovely ironic feeling.

My new year's was brought in mellowly....I drove to the mountain to reflect, look at stars, look at city lights. Then, the cops flashed a bright light at me and scared me right out of there. They were inspecting all the pulled over cars....I can only assume for drinkers and mari-ja-wana smokers. Since that's what I was doing, I thought I'd better skedaddle! Then, I went home, watched Korean drama awards (maybe like the Golden Globes), watched the ball drop in New York, and watched a movie. Also took a walk to see where the darn party was. Someone was throwing an outdoor party with a DJ....a little obnoxious, but allowable for NY. I was going to crash, but the crowd looked too young. The music and yeah yeah yelling into the microphone only went on until 1:30 a.m. I was up anyway, but I felt badly for those that might not give a rat's patootie about NY, like my roomie. I think I heard her moving around in the wee hours. Anyhow, good times overall, and I enjoyed the evening. Oh, just kidding about the drinking and smoking of illegalness, geez. Don't you know me?