Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A Ponder and a Burr Under My Saddle

Item #1
Why is it that people with money seem to produce more garbage? Every Wednesday as I drive to work I notice all the garbage cans alongside the road. Our garbage cans are huge things with wheels that can be pulled to the curb. The garbage truck has a contraption with arms. The truck will drive up alongside the can and these arms will reach out and grab it and hoist it into the air and dump the contents into the belly of the garbage truck beast before lowering the now empty can back onto the road. It’s all very automated and fast.
So every Wednesday, our garbage day, I happen to notice that the humongous houses all have 2 of these monstrous cans sitting out front. Even the humongous houses that only have 2 people living in them. What are they doing to create so much garbage? If they want to throw their money away, they can throw it my way.

Item #2
I really wish the university where I work would address the parking situation. Every day I have to circle the lot like a vulture, waiting to pounce. If you see someone walking toward the parking lot you have to follow them in your car, even if there is a string of cars behind you wanting to get past. Then you sit and wait while they unlock their door, climb inside, start the car and drive away. The trick is to squish into the spot as quickly as possible without hitting the exiting car and before the car coming in the opposite direction careens in ahead of you.
Yesterday I had a weak moment and parked in a service vehicle spot. Those things are all over the campus and they are always empty. I parked there. And I got a ticket. $25.00. It made me angry about the parking situation all over again. I waste time and money looking for a stupid parking spot. Today, once again, I could not find a spot in our lot, so I drove to the next lot over. No luck. So I drove to the next one over. There was one spot, which I took. Then I walked to my building.
And I counted my steps.
940 steps.
I measured my gait.
3 feet per step.
Then I did a little calculation.
2820 Feet = 0.5340909090909091 Miles
I had to walk over ½ mile to get to work. Another ½ mile to get back to my car when I want to go home.
Something’s not right.

2 comments:

meg said...

Oh, dear~ I vividly remember my parking-lot vulture days at college; my classes would get out around 9:00 to 10:00 pm & I wanted to park as close to the building since I'd be walking by myself :-P
Curious out the garbage situation- maybe they are so well off, they don't worry about recycling & simply dump everything.

Dave Mitchell said...

Don't be such a baby. Put a bike trailer on your explorer. Put a bike on it. Park .5 miles from where you work and there are plenty of spaces. Ride .5 miles in 2 minutes on the bike. It's not real hard. Either that, or just WALK THE .5 MILES BECAUSE IT IS GOOD FOR YOU and be happy about it =)