I was so happy to find a spot this morning, even though I had to ass wax a giant Escalade to get out of my car, that I completely forgot to check my stall number. I stared at the parking machine for at least 10 seconds, but no dice. I didn't want to miss my train, so I guessed based on where I parked yesterday. I took the receipt, hopefully it'll be close enough they'll accept it.

I signed up for the EZRider card today. I realized a few things that finally put me over the top to do it:

1. The glut of paper tickets in my bag has finally disappeared. I had leftovers from a few months where I traveled for several weeks but still got my benefit. Hopefully the card will arrive before I run out completely.

2. After the fare raise my benefit really only covers about half a month's commute, and the EZRider card only refills when it's depleted, so it doesn't matter if the balance stays on there for a few months before it refills.

I was sitting all comfy in my hard earned post-WC seat when the train got held up at Macarthur. We sat for a minute, and the next SF bound train pulls up. The expected few people get out to catch the other one. I'm never in a hurry to get to work so I decided to take my chances.

I got a hot tip from The Mayor of Claycord that BART is working on a contract for "magnetic stripe plastic tickets". This means one of two things:

1. They're switching over to something sturdier than the current paper tickets. If so I will jump with joy and rub it all over my cell phone (gasp!) as soon as they are rolled out.

Now that I'm no longer boarding at a pre-Walnut Creek station, it's a little more challenging to find a seat in the morning. Usually my second car from the end trick works, but this morning was pretty busy.

What bugs me is the guy who took two steps, looked around, and gave up, blocking the aisle with his bag. I bet he had a newspaper in there somewhere too. So I just turned around and headed out the other end of the train to go hunting,and there was a dude leaning on the doors so I couldn't open them. He moved when I knocked.

Apparently I am a 'skank ass bitch' for reclaiming the four square seats back from the homeless dude sleeping there this morning. I didn't realize that ' no apology or nothin' was ample excuse to 'kick my face in'.

Is it bad that I get a good amount of glee from waking this guy up? I just hope he doesn't get squirrley on me and make me call BPD.

After a very busy week at the office last week I was very happy to be on the train on the way home when these two guys came in and sat across from each other in the handicapped seats near the door. They were about 25 or so, pretty normal looking, and one had a case of Coronas in a black plastic bag under his chair. They settle into their seats and the guy proceeds to pull two cold ones out of the case. He hands one to his buddy, opens one himself, and they start their own private little happy hour right there on the train.

Today's musician was a steel drums guy playing calypso jingle bells along with a recording. He had a whole bunch of CDs neatly arranged around his boom box. Was he selling CDs? I hope not, he's way better than spastic violin guy, but he wasn't THAT good.

My boss was cool and let me out a bit early today, I was surprised at how many people were on a 3 pm train, it was SRO by Powell. And the car was full of chatty riders too.

This couple gets on the train, painfully obviously not regular riders and the man offers the woman a seat. She then whines 'But we can't sit together...' One of the seated folks directly in front of her offers the man a seat, and she then immediately pressures the dude next to her to swap seats with the man she's travelling with. Dude just wants to sleep like the rest of us, but moves anyway.

I finally got those demo car photos up on the BART RAGE Flickr site . The new bike space is particularly interesting.

This guy was sitting on the train with his guitar in the aisle. Not just blocking the aisle, but out of the case, on an instrument stand, ready to play.

Admittedly, the train I take is rarely SRO in the morning because it is so flippin early, but still. Apparently he does not value his property at all, because it only would have taken one hard bump with a bag or someone tripping over their feet on a hard stop to break this thing open. Not to mention he was taking up space in the handicapped area.

Photo on the BART RAGE Flickr site:

I did something for the first time ever on wednesday. I drove to work during rush hour.

It was pretty hairy navigating 24 with all those cars in the dark through the tunnel. It's a good thing the GPS told me what lane to be in to get out of the Maze. I never realized there were metering lights after the toll booth. That makes sense, and the three lane light cycle was cool.

But if I were inclined to any sort of road rage I would have killed myself or someone else. So many idiots! I just kept telling myself....

Breathe. Good. Be one with the traffic.

Holy crap.

I just had my first escalator related brush with major injury today. I was walking down the escalator to the platform at civic center when the stairs stopped moving. They didn't coast to a stop, they went from moving to stopped really fast.

I have started a BART Rage Flickr Group so we can post as many photos as we like without destroying admin's bandwidth, and also to allow discussion on individual photos.

Ok, ok and it's partially selfish, as Flickr has a mobile client for easier Treo browsing.

So get out there and take some photos, and post up on Flickr! I got us started with 12 photos I took at various times in August. You'll have to create an account with them to post, but anyone can view and anyone can join.

Today's the perfect day to practice taking pictures of dumbasses with your camera phones. I already got one, I'll post the results later.

Ooh! We should have a Transit Transients photo gallery!