Week In Review – January 8th – 12th Part 3

Don’t you love when you get to talk about Friday? It’s like the greatest part of the week. It’s like you have 8hrs of work and then you are free to do whatever you want. You could build a bridge out of Popsicle sticks when you get off work and then see how much weight it will hold. Well not that anyone with a life would do that. But man the bragging rights would be incredible. But I must say Friday at work is awesome. We have this thing called Beer Friday. We got voted 3rd in Best Unusual Perk And Here is a quote from the article. “** ******* lets its tech workers relax once a week with “free beer and food every Friday.”

So it is a really nice way to end your week at work. I usually get a little happy after that time on my walk to the ferry and send out a text message to everyone in my phone book. But most find that annoying and at times I get back a “Who is This?” which then prompts a phone call and people are greeted with my voicemail. “Hello you have reached the cell phone of Tristan Pipo. Sorry I was not available to take your phone call I do apologize. But if you would leave your name and number I will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible. If you would like to send me an e-mail my address is tristan@tristanpipo.com. Thank you for calling and have a great day” Which the e-mail address has actually worked out to a benefit. People will call and then not leave a voicemail but then send an e-mail. But I gave up on the text to everyone wishing a great weekend. Most never responded and those that did well never anything witty. Just a “Thanks” But anyways Friday. It was nice evening a bit chilly prompted some cool cloud effects.

Ugh the crappy quality of a camera phone I should really get a digital camera. I should really come up with a scheme to do picture uploading from my phone to blog. I might actually want to put photos up then. Though I must say always find interesting that people post their lives on flickr. I been chatting with this one girl in Czech Republic who always has some interesting photos.

So anyways enough of the bullshit lets get down to Friday. So I walk down to the ferry nothing out of the ordinary. I must say I enjoy the winter for the fact there are less homeless people around. I have found the best way to avoid them is have the iPod Earbuds jammed in your ear they usually don’t say much to you then. Though I have had one grab my coat before. Now you have to have some serious balls to grab a guy who is 6’4” and could easily squash that maybe 5’5” bum. He quickly realized his mistake and stepped back. I have had one call me an asshole for ignoring him. Then there is that black uber religous bum who gives me crap for never talking to him.  Also there is that one that says she is trying to get Gas money and sits out on the street with her dog. This stupid woman keeps this dog around just for sympathy. Give the dog up to someone who will actually take care of it.

So anyways enough about Bum’s. I get on the ferry and do my normal sit on my bench corner. Now the commuter ferries everyone has their own spot. They sit in that same spot everyday. If someone sits in your spot you need to sit in somebody else’s spot and it throws off the entire ferry universe. But I always grab my little window spot. Then an older woman sits at the other end of the bench and we usually kick our feet up and I sleep most of the time. I have sat next to this woman nearly everyday for the past 8 months I have been doing this commute. Yet I know nothing about her. Other then I sit next to her almost everyday. If she is not sitting there I never find myself wondering. “Hey where is ummm, where is ummmm yeah I have no idea” I have never thought that until now.

I must say getting on the ferry is never a big deal. Getting off the ferry well that is a different story. Everyone wants to be off first. So the best way to achieve this method is to go stand outside in the cold for about 5 mins before the boat gets to the dock. But there are a few things that will slow you down. The biggest offenders are as follows.

1. The Wheeled Luggage People

• These people take up two lengths worth of people. They walk extra slow because they are to lazy to pick up the bag. They are usually on cell phones as well. The people that do this the most are old people, fat people and yuppies. I have a laptop bag I throw over my shoulder and just walk. They get in the way of long stride and I have no idea why these people think they need to be first off the boat.

2. People with Strollers

• Strollers I have yet to see anyone on the ferry with a jogging stroller that can actually move at a decent speed on the boat. They are always someone who has this Wal-Mart Junk-Co stroller that can hardly move. They are never trying to catch a bus or a cab. They are usually waiting for their Wife or Husband to come pick them up. Well they have a huge parking lane and you don’t need to be slowing down the entire bus crowd.

3. The Slow Walkers

• I walk everywhere pretty much during the day. I drive my car about 1.5 miles a day. Usually to the park and ride everyday. I have gotten the walking thing down. But these slow walkers want to get off the boat and they just walk slow because of a slight incline or whatever. I suggest you just get over to the side get in the slow lane and get out of our way. I need to get to my bus really early otherwise I end up standing or sitting next to someone I really don’t like so much and would much rather just grab my seat early.

But eh little complaints from slow people in my way. So I get on the bus and everything is always lite on Friday. I always catch the 4:40 out on Friday instead of the normal 5:30 boat. And since I was on the 4:40 boat it meant I got to rid the older replacement boat. I grabbed a bench that had a table and lobbed in the ear buds and busted out the book I am reading. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I must say I spend a great part of my day isolated and solo. Interesting to ponder that now. So get on the bus and life is grand. The bus is always an interesting experience. The ferry everyone has there spot. The bus it’s just chaos grab what seat you can. So we are driving across the island.

I am never sure what do exactly do on a bus. I can’t read on the bus because well the lighting setup is either way to bright or way to dark. There is no middle ground. So I either play the Nintendo DS Lite or Listen to my iPod. That day was a DS Lite Day. So playing some Yoshi’s Island DS. I must say World 5 is being a bitch. That forced movement lava level is just insane. So I hear this ambulance racing past the bus and just thought eh whatever. So we make all the normal stops with no issue and we get about an 1/8th of a mile from the Agate Pass Bridge. The only way off Bainbridge Island.

Picture from Google Earth. Right on the other side of the bridge is the park and ride I park at every morning. But getting there would not be such an easy task. Traffic is stopped. I figured the ambulance dealing with an accident or something. 35 mins passes. The bus gets a little full with irate people wondering what is going on. So one ambitious person decides to get off the bus to go investigate. Another 35 mins passes and he comes back breathing all heavy. He says “There is someone on the bridge threatening to jump off. They are not letting anyone cross the bridge” So we have been parked for over an hour now because some dumb ass is on the bridge threatening to jump?

According to the News Report I found a few days later. The bridge is 75ft above the water and they get a few jumpers a year and the fall is hardly ever fatal. So we continue to wait. So out of the cabin fever I am starting to collect I send out a text message letting people know of the situation developing at the bridge. Which prompted a “Who is this” and “That is terrible” in response. The who is this I responded “Such a sad day indeed to be removed from somebodies address book and forgotten” the other was a more detailed explanation and catching up. The response I got from the sad day was “That is a very rude message”.

I have yet to figure out that one. I was trying to wrap my brain around it. I was deleted made a comment about that being a sad thing then I get to being called Rude. Hmmm. My ex girlfriend once called me a pompous asshole after we had broken up and I had to send her an e-mail asking if she had a file on one of the computers I left out there.

So when you are stuck in one spot with nowhere to go you try to find things to keep your mind busy. So some ideas I had were trying to divide large numbers in my head. What is 249 divided by 36,487 I was working on it and got the answer of 146 and got lazy to figure out the remainder. But that is a process I do a lot when I am performing an action to generate longer stamina if necessary. But perhaps that is to much detail. Here is the word Virgin to distract you.

But that killed a few minutes so I tried calling some people to see if they had any information of what was going. Nobody did it was all news to them when I called. So I felt a bit like an inside reporter. Have you seen Die Hard 2 when that jerk is on the plane and figures out what is going on with everyone staying up in the air. Then he calls his news station with the story of the century. The only difference was that I was on a bus and I didn’t have some hot woman to punch me in the face.

So I began to ponder what was going on behind me being so focused on what was ahead of me. There were 2 ferries worth of cars in line. Getting to be about that time for a 3rd ferry. But that was a quick thought. So I busted out my iPod to watch some Heroes. I love that show if I haven’t mentioned it already. So I watched 43 mins and the bus had moved up about 3 car lengths from people that couldn’t handle waiting and turned around.

So we are sitting waiting for this moron to either jump off the bridge, get shot down or get talked down. I called the Russian and suggest he go diving under the bridge and take out this fine product of society with his spear gun. I was really hoping that Darwin could also take this genius out of active production. I really hope a genius like this doesn’t have kids.

So I have been sitting here on the bus for 2+hrs now. Wanting to go home. Finally I see cars start to move. We finally get going. So we drive across the bridge and stop. There are cop cars everywhere and then an ambulance that has 8 police officers standing around it not moving their eyes or saying a word.

So I get in my car and drive off. I flip open my laptop when I get home searching the news sites. Nothing not a word of this issue. A few days later I find this.

Agate Bridge-Jump Suspect Snarls Highway 305 Traffic 

So that was the highlights of my week. I did go see Children of Men with Jon on Friday Night. That was an interesting film I recommend checking it out. Catch a Matinee though.

I hope everyone is doing well. More to come as life happens stay tuned and reading. =)