TC the Terrible

Metro Math, It Doesn’t Add Up

Last Monday I was sucking fumes on the way home so I pulled in to the local Shell station and for the first time in my life paid four dollars a gallon for gas. At first it pissed me off, but then I thought about it and decided that I’m a rich white guy, so it’s not a big deal to pay high prices at the pump. Hell I can afford it with all the money I make oppressing minorities and dumb Democrats.

But part of me has always been curious about how the common man lives, so I thought I’d give this mass transit thing a try. Guess what? It actually cost me more to take Metro to work for one day than it does to drive my car. Here’s the math.

Parking at the Centreville Park and Ride was free. The 12C bus to the Vienna Metro station was $1.00 and took 25 minutes. The Orange Line train from Vienna to Ballston was $3.10 and took 20 minutes. The bus from Ballston to the office was free since I had transfered from the train, but took another 10 minutes. That’s $4.10 to ride the system for 55 minutes. Round trip that comes to $8.20 and two hours each day.

Driving from my house (a mile or so west of the Centreville Park and Ride) to the office is about 23 miles. My non-hybrid compact 5-speed averages 30 mph, so at $4 per gallon it costs me $2.93 to drive to the office. The drive is about a half hour in the morning because I leave at the butt crack of dawn. Afternoons when I’m forced to share I-66 with mere mortals takes about an hour. Round trip is $5.96 and90 minutes per day.

By driving my own car to the office I save $2.24 in cash and 30 minutes in time. Plus I don’t have to be around people I don’ t care to know. I get to listen to my radio as loud as I want. Driving by myself gives me the chance to make phone calls to catch up with people from the American Heartland. If it’s hot and I want to strip down to my boxers for the commute home, I can do that too.

Don’t try to bring up the cost of owning a car because that’s a non-issue.  Cost of ownership (car payment, insurance, etc.) are fixed costs that don’t change no matter how much or little I drive.  Oil changes and other routine service calls are part of the service package that I bought with the car.  Again, those won’t impact my caluclations.

So what’s the bottom line here?  It’s that I can save both time and money by using my own car instead of riding with the dregs of society on mass transit.  This I consider to be a good thing.

June 12th, 2008 Posted by TC the Terrible | DC Life, Random Non-sense | 3 comments

I Forgot

One of the other big events of last week was getting to eat at the Waffle House. For all of the class and culture that is available in the DC area we are way short on greasy spoon joints.

Take the meal pictured above. Where in this town can you get eggs covered in cheese, toast dripping in real butter, and hash browns that are scattered, smothered, chopped, diced, and peppered? For the Waffle House virgins out there that means my hash browns were loaded with cheese, tomatoes, ham and hot peppers. To top things off the coffee was the best I’ve had in months.

Granted, my waitress was short all of her front teeth and I could smell her before I saw her. But what the hell, you have to make some sacrifices to get real food.

January 22nd, 2008 Posted by TC the Terrible | DC Life, Random Non-sense | 5 comments

Office Grab Ass

I have a confession to make.  I make a living off of your tax dollars.  There I’ve said it, and I feel better now.  Sort of.

Anyway, I had to tell you that to tell you this.  My office is very uptight.  Very serious and has a shit load of rules that can get you canned.  Like the one about not blogging from a company workstation, or blogging about how up tight our office is.  People get fired around here for saying non-PC things.

So imagine my surprise earlier today when I felt a hand on my ass in the stairwell.  I was on the way up when I passed a guy on his way down and he said “Go Giants” and slapped me on the ass.  Only his hand stayed on my ass for about a nano-second too long.  Not that there was a squeeze mind you.  Just a slap.

There’s a couple of problems with this: 1) I hate being touched by people I don’t know well, 2) my ass is not the place for a man’s hand - under any non-medical circumstances 3)  this guy is not a friend of mine.  In fact, I’m not really sure what his name is.  I know that we’ve spoken to each other before and have had a couple of football related conversations in the hallway.  Said conversations being how he knows I’m a Giants fan.  Needless to say I felt dirty and violated (not in a good way) the rest of the day.

Of course I’m not going to report him.  Like I said, this office is way too uptight as it is.  The last thing I need is to be the cause of the entire fucking office having to endure another round of sensitivity and diversity training.

January 15th, 2008 Posted by TC the Terrible | Geek, DC Life | 5 comments

The Thing I Learned Last Night

Is that when a woman I’ve never met leaves a comment (and a clarification) on my blog, it can get me in trouble.  Fortunately for me, when we bought the new house this summer we also bought new furniture for the family room.  The couch sleeps very well, thank you.

November 8th, 2007 Posted by TC the Terrible | Blog, THE WOMAN, DC Life, Random Non-sense | no comments