Rick and I both have short commutes, only about 10 minutes , but even with that short distance we notice a lot more traffic than in the past.

"In the old days" kids took school busses to school, they didn't get a car at 16. That's no longer the case. Famlies used to have one MAYBE two cars, now it's four and five vehicles. These vehicle all seem to be on the road when I want to go somewhere. Saturday errands take a lot longer due to the traffic.

Every now and again, Rick and I talk about replacing my Jeep. A smaller more economical vehicle would be better, one with a stick shift would be even more economical. Yet, with all the traffic, driving a stick shift to work and to do errands just isn't enjoyable. We'll save the stick shift driving for time in the S.

Rob, you are right. Time spent in motion does go faster than time not in motion.

 

I gradually shifted my hours so that I now work from 7am to 3:30pm. My excuse is that I deal with our UK office all the time, so it gives me an extra couple of hours to deal with them.

Combined with a route that goes against the main flow of traffic, it makes for an easy commute.

I have 15 mins of local roads followed by a 10 min 80+mph blast on the highway, and then a 5 min cool down before I get to the office. With the top down, it wakes me up and I feel great when I get to work.

 

I truly enjoy Traffic. My favorite was "John Barleycorn Must Die". This was one of their earlier efforts when it was basiclaly a 4 man band. Very elemental and grass roots.....but truly genius and ground breaking IMO. I also enjoyed "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys". Steve Winwood is truly an artist.

 

The transition to a jazzy sound, back around John Barleycorn, was pretty ground-breaking. The sax player, especially, changed them from pop to something better. HPH

 

Well if you can shift your hours do it. I have been gettting into work from 5:30-6:30 and loving it. I work into the afternoon for meetings and the like and leave at 11:00 am on Friday (unless I really need to put in more hours) Not that there is really any traffic in Green Bay, but the semi-trucks bother me and you can't get around them with any traffic. I know 2 others in the department where I am consulting come in at 5:00am. The guy works 5 days a week and golfs almost every afternoon (in golf season of course). The woman has a long commute (from a corporate buy out) and only works 4 days a week.


There are more semi-trucks per capita up here than you can shake a stick at. As the national home of the largest trucking company in the world (Schnieder National Trucking) we have tons of trainees who litterally are not safe behind the handlebars of a moped. I see at least one a week I can identify. I spent 2 full light cycles behind a trainee driven semi. It is a 2m 30s light. The truck moved, and this is NOT an exageration, 40 feet in one 35s green light cycle, never going over 2 mph. Well as you can image, it was not a pretty sight, a full-grow-vintage man crying, with the top down for the world to see.

 

The increase in traffic during the day, nevermind the rush hour is one of the major factors in our decision to move off this island. You just can't get anywhere, at anytime without getting caught in miserable gridlock.

 

I spent almost 17 years commuting in and around the Wash DC area. I hated it passionately. It's not for me; life's too short. Imagine mid-winter and being the only customer at a Walmart Supercenter. I like it better this way.

 

+1 and I reminded each other why we like small-town living in some of our travels this summer. Our idea of a traffic jam is a 15 minute wait on the expressway if there's an accident. We have no interstate, we have almost no traffic and can generally avoid any type of heavily traveled areas by taking back streets. I agree with RC-Ryder. Life is too short to deal with gridlock and the like. The only time I dislike my area is when we do want to travel we have to drive an extra hour over several mountains just to get to an interstate.

 

And just think -- some day you'll have indoor plumbing, too! HPH

 

Do yah reckon??