Tag: mass transit

  • ODDS and ENDS: Fly the W, Baking Brownies, and The kid Hates the MTA

    ODDS and ENDS: Fly the W, Baking Brownies, and The kid Hates the MTA

    (Love and happiness…)

    The Cubs won! They beat the San Diego Padres and are moving on the NLDS! This season I was pretty hands off with the team. Followed them through the MLB app, mainly because baseball on TV is now behind a paywall, and due to flex pricing, the better the Cubs did, the more expensive the tickets cost when they played in NYC. (But a discussion on how MLB, clubs and players have made the game too expensive an elitist will have t happen on another day.) The CUBS are moving on to the next round in the playoffs!

    Brownies make me think of home and comfort. It won’t be cooler this weekend, as Summer has returned for the next four days. No bother! It’s October and the time of the year to start making this home nice warm and cozy. That means afternoon coffee, and brownies in the oven. Warm gooey chocolate seems to solve all problems, and I will be baking on that this weekend. Not that anything awful is happening. I feel like I should be prepared just in case.

    The kid hates the MTA now, and especially the randomness of the C train. This school year, she’s venturing out more on the subway, and gaining valuable mass transit experience. And what she is experiencing is that the MTA sucks. It costs too much and the train you need is never on time. And of all trains, the C is close to the worst. Like, two of them will arrive within three minutes of each other, then the next one is in twenty minutes. It makes no sense. Her anger at the MTA is a deep dark red seething cauldron of rage and disappointment, and never have I been more proud of what a great New Yorker she is becoming.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Super Bowl, Minimalist Cities, and Gig Work

    Hey, the Super Bowl is here… whoopie… I really don’t care that much this year. I’ll watch, but it will be a “hate-watch” as I despise the Philadelphia Eagles. Besides being the Dallas Cowboys arch rival, their fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus. Yes, that’s real, and I can’t respect a fan base that hates on Santa. Which means, I guess I want to see Kansas City win. Either way, it’s just a “happening” kind of event for me. We’ll make queso and watch the commercials. The kid and the wife want to see Rihanna, so the marketing plan for that aspect was successful.

    Turns out the second worst city in America to be a minimalist in is my hometown of Arlington, TX. From what I read, air pollution, reliance on cars, and the lack of bike paths make it awful for minimalists, which sadly, I can attest to when it comes to Arlington. But in the City’s defense, it is still the largest city in America without a form of mass transit. Oh, and Salt Lake City is the best place for minimalists. Go figure…

    I started looking for a job this month. Not sure what to expect and there is no pressure, but I need to find something in the next couple of months. The wife suggested that I look into gig work. I’m open to this idea, but is there gig work that doesn’t involve delivering things; such as people, food or packages? Just wondering.

  • Post-Covid NYC

    Yesterday, before I was so rudely interrupted, was my first day truly traveling around New York without a mask. Last week, Gov. Hochul ended the mask mandate for public transportation, thus making all of New York City, and State, mask free. Clearly, if you want to put on a mask, you still can, and from my observations, some people still are. Not many, but still enough.

    I ran errands yesterday, and to accomplish this, I needed to ride the subway. I chose to do this without a mask on. I have gone two and a half years of masking up when I took mass transit, cabs, and Ubers, and I wanted to see what my reaction would be non-masked.

    Oh, so long ago, when I got fully vaccinated, I stopped wearing a mask outside. Now, I followed mandate procedures for transportation, and if the business required a mask, I complied. But that first time walking the dog without a mask on felt very weird. I felt exposed, and very vulnerable, even though I knew I wasn’t. It took some time getting used to it.

    This go around, I didn’t feel any of that while I was down on the platform, or riding on the subway. Though I will add that the car on got on didn’t have many people on it, but on the far end was an old guy that kept coughing, which did make me feel a little uneasy. On the whole, it felt rather normal. Yet, I know I wasn’t on a subway at rush hour, and crammed with people. That situation might cause a different reaction from me.

    Covid isn’t over, but it feels like Covid is over. The kid’s school isn’t requiring masks, and we don’t have to do a health screening before class. All of the teachers are without masks, and just a handful of kids come to school with one on. Everything has now moved into the optional realm, so… It’s like we’re done.

    And I agree with that, to a point. From my perspective, all of these mandates and health rules were put in place to keep people healthy and safe, because there wasn’t a vaccine to stop Covid. Now that everyone has access to the vaccine and booster, I don’t see any reason why anyone should be forced to put a mask on, and I also believe in the reverse of that; no one should force someone to take their mask off. It’s personal choice time, do what you want.

    And having said that, I will continue to get my boosters, as will my wife, and as will my daughter. And, I will also continue to look at all the people who told me that masks do nothing, and that Covid wouldn’t be any worse than the flu as the idiots they are. Just because things have gotten better does give your stupidity a pass.

    (You know the drill. If you are enjoying this blog, then be kind and spread the appreciation with a like, a comment or a share. It will make the world a better place.)

  • Learning the Subway

    The kid is off from school today. A teacher in-service or something. She’s getting old enough now that I don’t have to keep an eye on her all the time, nor do I need to keep her entertained endlessly. But I don’t want her sitting around the apartment all day either.

    So, I made her run errands with me. Errands that took us out of the neighborhood. Errands that meant we were going to ride the subway together.

    New York City is not the best place for kids, I admit it. Kids see and hear things maybe they shouldn’t, and it can cause them to grow up a little too soon. But, when that happens, me and the kid have a conversation about what she saw and heard. I mean, that’s the job of being a parent sometimes; talking about uncomfortable stuff. And yes, the subway has lead to a great many conversations.

    And the subway is how the kid will primarily get around in this town. I feel it is my duty as a parent and a transplanted New Yorker, the teacher my child who is a natural born New Yorker, how to use this world famous example of mass transit.

    We started with learning the difference between local and express, followed by what uptown and downtown means. Then we talked about the difference between letter and number local and express trains. Now, we are trying to memorize the stops; 125, 116, 110, 103, 96, 86, 81, 72 and 59. Sure, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the MTA, but from the kid’s perspective, that’s her world when running around New York.

    I know for her, the City is vast, and these stops really don’t register as distances in relation to being away from home. It’s a little like magic for her. You go underground, get in a train, and come up in a different world, with different places and people. in that sense, NYC can be a pretty wonderful experience for a kid as well.

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