Good Day… Tough Commute
Today was a mixed bag of goodies for me. The day started OK, a little slow getting going, but I had a decent run and the day was looking up. I was able to get some good work done, added a few things to the code, fixed a few bugs - a good day.
Then there was the commute home.
Yikes.
The Metra train left on time, and then less than half way through the ride the lights shut off, the A/C died, and we coasted for quite a while. After several minutes of coasting, we slowed to the point they decided to stop and restart the engine. Why they didn't do this while coasting, I have no idea, but they didn't.
After a restart, we got about 200 yds. down the track and the engine died again. This time, we didn't coast nearly as far. After a few more minutes they decided that this restart of the engine would be done without the lights and A/C - as that was causing the problem. So we starting moving in hot darkness.
About a mile from the Naperville train station we died again. We weren't going that fast, so the coasting was minimal, and this time we heard over the intercom: "Battery's dead". Yummy. We sat.
Finally, someone came over the intercom and said that the engine could not be restarted and we'd have to wait for the next train to come and push us the rest of the way to the train station. After about 15 mins of sitting in the hot, dark, train the next train arrived. They then manually connected the trains, and slowly we made our way to Naperville.
When we arrived they undershot the platform, so that folks with me in the last car on the train had to move up a car to exit the train. This placed us even further behind as we had to wait for the other car to empty before we could get out.
In the end, I arrived at my car about 50 mins late. Nearly an hour late. And today was one of Nina's softball games. I was already 25 mins late, and I hadn't even started the driving portion of my commute.
Since the effect of the train stoppage was to have three trains arrive at the same time at Naperville, the effect on the traffic was going to be especially hard. I did my best, and got in line. Nothing I could do about the delays I was going to experience now.
I finally got to the softball diamonds. I just didn't want to talk about it. No reason to, I'd only get mad about it. We watched a very uninspired game from the pitching staff of both teams. It was walk after walk after walk... the only saving grace was that Nina's Team walked fewer people and ended up with the win.
There are times when I can have a great day and the commute home can really put a damper on my evening. Today was one of those days. I really hate the commute.