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As you can tell, there was no DC for me today…

February 24, 2005, 11:34 AM

If 2005 is the year of bad luck in the DC category, I’m going to be really mad. Out of a total of five planned visits to Washington, I’ve made a total of three, and one of them had a problem.

For the first DC trip of 2005, I overslept. As a result, I was 90 minutes behind where I wanted to be. Somehow, though, I managed to shorten that from a 90-minute delay to a 60-minute delay, mostly through shortening and elimination of my pit stops on the way up. Other than that, it was a good day.

Then the next trip was J20. Except for encountering some snow on the way home (and I was expecting this), that trip was absolutely flawless beyond my wildest dreams.

My third trip, as I mentioned in this venue in late January, was supposed to be with my friend Katie from work. There is a good reason why I discussed it, the day of the event came, and then you never heard about it again. Reason is that we didn’t go. That trip was cancelled due to my having an emergency come up.

The next trip was February 9, one week after Katie and I were supposed to have gone. That trip ended up being a resounding success, as I got out on time, got into the Metro on time, had an absolutely wonderful day, and even made a new friend.

Then the next scheduled trip to Washington was supposed to be today. As you can tell, it didn’t happen. Why? Snow. It was snowing here pretty hard this morning as I was checking out the weather outside. Looking it up for DC, they were getting it even worse. So my entire trip would be hell from the time I left until the time I got back. So I cancelled it and went back to sleep. And based on the weather maps I’ve looked at, it seems that was the right thing to do.

But I did get to Charlottesville yesterday as planned and got those UTS photos. I got lots of photos from there, of a good amount of their buses. Most of their buses are Orion I’s and Gillig Phantoms. There is also a small amount of Thomas-Built buses. One thing I found out is that the drivers, who are mostly UVA students, either really like driving the Orion I buses, or they really like driving the Gillig Phantoms. The Thomas-Built buses are pretty much universally despised. And it seems that UTS management agreed, as there was only one shipment of Thomas-Built buses.

Speaking of those Thomas-Built buses, it’s amusing… stepping off of one of them, after talking with the driver about the system and such, I accidentally got the door closed on my arm. “Can I have my arm back, please?” The driver was apologetic. I was amused, since this was not the first time I’ve had a bus door closed on me. The last time was in 2002 or 2003 on a Harrisonburg Transit bus, when the driver inadvertently closed the rear doors on me, catching me in the shoulders.

And then after coming home from Charlottesville, I changed the backgrounds on my two monitors to something really cute. Since I showed you my two monitors before, I lifted one of them up so I could put my scanner back in. So now one is higher up than the other. And many of you may know that I have the Metro as my background – generally some station. Since March 2004, I’ve had Glenmont on there. From March to July, I had a platform view of it. Then from July to this month, I had a view from the mezzanine. When I got two monitors, I used both images together – one on each monitor.

Now, with one monitor being higher than the other, specifically the right one being higher up, I figured out a good station to use – Rosslyn! Rosslyn is a bi-level station, and, looking inbound, the upper level is on the right, and the lower level is on the left. So… I took a photo I have of the lower level and put it on the left monitor. I then took a photo of a Breda leaving the upper level and put it on the right monitor. It’s so clever, having upper and lower level photos like that.

And the common fashion what-the-heck at UVA is this… people wear a winter coat, gloves, hat, and long pants, but flip flops on the feet. I don’t get it. And the men as well as the women do this. Again, I don’t get it. Maybe I’m not supposed to. Who knows…

Web site: UTS's official Web site, as part of Parking and Transportation Services

Song: Original theme to Wheel of Fortune

Quote: Also, yes - UTS is separate from the city of Charlottesville's CTS system. I already have a page for CTS. That placeholder for UTS will get linked as soon as I get these images run through.