TRB RIP

I take a bus south on the 405, through the Sepulveda pass, to get to work. On the uphill portion of the pass, the ground surrounds the freeway as it occupies the lower portion between hills. I started noticing across the road, on the hill by the shoulder of the northbound side, a white cross. I saw numbers and letters, among which were "RIP."

It was always just a little bit too far for me to see clearly, plus the motion of the bus meant I only had a matter of seconds to see it at all. But it was in my mind whenever I noticed it that I should make note of the numbers (likely birth and death dates).

Eventually I would write the digits down. I got them slightly wrong the first time around, but took another look a day or two later, and fixed my error. When I was at work and thought about it, I punched the birth date and the death month (it didn't allow for exact death date entry) into a searchable Social Security death index online. It turned up several people, but only one whose death date matched the one from the cross. And he was the only one who had died in California.

I searched Google with this name, and found a news posting. He crashed his motorcycle into a truck one afternoon late last summer, and died on the northbound 405.

I'm posting about this because the cross has been removed; I first noticed its absence a few weeks ago. As I was writing this, I stopped to think if I could remember the numbers. As I brought them to the front of my mind, I realized that today is his birthday, the first since his death. The little marker by the 405 is gone, but I still remember Thomas Brough, although I never knew him.

Comeback

It's been a long time since my last appearance. Not that it particularly matters, since I still have yet to tell anyone about this, but 7 months of silence after 10 days of activity is pretty extreme.

I grew my facial hair through September and October, then shaved all but my beard off and put on some oversized Goodwill clothes so I could be Shaggy from Scooby-Doo for Halloween. I don't think I'll be growing out my face again. It was neat to look different for a while, but I prefer the bare-faced thing.

Still doing the night thing, still traveling by bus to get there, but I discovered that a specific set of routes, suggested by the city's public transit web site, which I dismissed as having too much extra distance, was actually the better choice for travel time. I'm learning not to think like a walker/bike rider in planning how I travel via non-foot/bike means. It turns out that a little bit of easterly movement at the start of my generally south-southwest travel helps me avoid my previously described frustration most of the time.

I had a big day outside of work last week. I can't talk about it much at the moment (it'll be months before I can; see you in the summer), but I exceeded my expectations in a challenging situation. Much like I've done with some karaoke or open mike performances, I look back and find it hard to imagine that it was me.

My mp3 player saves me

Riding on the bus (and generally being car-less and license-less in this town) requires a certain degree of letting go and allowing what will happen to happen. This is fine for me. I can sit there and watch people on the bus or in nearby cars, and I'm fine being alone in the crowd with my thoughts.

Unless I'm late.

All those annoyances I mentioned in last Tuesday's entry are ten times greater to me, and I start losing my mind at every little delay. Normally when I get to feeling this way, I end up being a jerk to my family until I realize that I'm being a jerk, at which point I try to shut up and take control of my emotions. In this case, I've only got total strangers around me, and I can't be a jerk to them, no matter how much they bother me with their unreasonable desire to get off at the stop most convenient for them. Therefore, I never impose it upon myself to not be so bothered. As a result, in the past I've gone silently nuts and then felt like hell upon disembarking.

Then sometime during the summer when I was going to be late again, I remembered my mp3 player in my backpack, and quickly got it out and put it to a song that I've found to be invigorating ("Aphelion" by Fridge. I've linked to their myspace page, where you can listen to it. Be warned: it's a ten-minute instrumental). Lo and behold, my mind relaxed its strangling grip on everything I'd have perceived moments earlier to be a slowdown, and I just listened to music and looked at people and let my mind wander again.

Because I tend to know I'm going to be late before I get on it, the last bus I ride is a pot in which I can potentially stew for at least twenty-five minutes. Once I realize my brain has begun its spiral of annoyance and impatience and frustration, I pop in my earphones and let it stretch out. I'm no less late than I was going to be, but at least I'm thinking straight when I get there.

Wouldn't you know it, sometimes things bug me!

I ride the bus to work. A cool deal with my job is that they offer bus passes to those who don't get parking passes, so non-drivers like me can take any buses necessary to get there, at no cost. And then I have the added perk of free bus rides even when I'm not going to work. It's a very pleasant arrangement.

Unfortunately, I'm not the most pleasant of people (though I generally make efforts against that). I sometimes let minor things annoy me (not just on the bus!), and it's usually stuff that other people do. Public transportation = plenty of other people. Someone is bound to annoy me at one point or another.

Exhibit A: People who wave for the bus to stop. Guess why it's called a bus stop, folks! And this isn't at stops served by multiple buses, where one would conceivably have to tell a driver, "Hey, you're running the one I'm looking for." (I've been passed by at such stops because I was distracted, didn't see the bus coming, and gave no indication I wanted on.) It could be absolutely clear that only one bus will ever stop there, and yet people will wave at the bus as though their mere presence at the bus stop isn't an indicator that they need the bus to stop.

Exhibit B: People who don't realize the "request stop" cord has already been pulled. The cord need only be pulled once between stops to indicate that someone wants to get off. As such, only the first pull of it causes the "ping" noise to sound and the obnoxious pre-recorded voice to announce a stop has been requested. The LED sign at the front of the bus will continually say "STOP REQUESTED" on it, and some buses also have a light come on behind a sign with the same text. Nevertheless, people will pull an already-pulled cord, then start yanking on it waiting for sounds to be produced (and occasionally, for good measure, get up and walk to the other side of the bus and yank the cord there. One inexperienced bus rider actually walked up to the driver and asked him to stop because she couldn't make the noise happen). I'm in no position to cast the first stone, since I've been distracted at the time the cord was pulled for the stop I needed, and unnecessarily pulled the cord myself. But once I did that fruitlessly, I looked up and saw that the signs were lit and realized the error of my ways. I don't understand how people can be unaware of their surroundings like that.

Exhibit C: Time interrupters. This relates to the LED sign mentioned above. When it doesn't display "STOP REQUESTED," it shows the date and the time. I like to stay abreast of the time, and until recently (I found a watch on the bus), the LED sign was my only way. However, it won't display the time if a stop is requested. I understand that people have to get off the bus, but it has happened that I've gone miles on the bus without seeing the time, because people would pull the cord for stop B the moment the doors closed at stop A. It's a minor inconvenience (especially now that I have a timepiece of my own), but it always makes me a little nuts when the sign is just about to show the time right when someone pulls the cord.

I don't get as bothered about this as these huge paragraphs might suggest. But when the little, slightly bothersome things happen often enough, it becomes easy to go on at length about them. I didn't intend to convey myself as a 25-year-old curmudgeon when I created this blog, but there you go. At least I'm not a curmudgeon out loud (about this, anyway).