motomotoyama | (no subject)

My cat is totally fired. The other night, I was engaging in some heavy duty loafing and messaging with

vampgyrl, when I noticed a bug. Nikita was drinking water from her new fountain right next to it and she didn't even do anything. I pointed towards it just in case she hadn't noticed it, but she gave me a bored look and sauntered off to sit on her cat perch. Doesn't she know that she is supposed to kill and eat all bugs for me? That is her job. Do I have to go out and get a gecko now? She'd probably eat that, though.

I conducted a commuting experiment this morning. Instead of taking Aurora, like I normally do, I took the Express Lanes, since the entrance is so close to my new pad. It was successful, in that I arrived at my intended destination, but I don't know that it'll become my route of choice. I hear too many traffic reports about the Express Lanes being backed up, and once you're on them, it's difficult to get off. I'll stick with Aurora for now.

My company is going to start a pre-tax bus pass program. The cost of the bus pass would be deducted from my paycheck before taxes are computed, thus saving me a bit of money. I don't know if I'm going to enroll, though, since Metro's trip planner says that I have to catch a bus at around 7:30 in order to get to work at my usual time. I'm not usually dressed by 7:30, much less out the door. This needs more deliberation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think that the city of Seattle will give you money to take the bus... actually, on further review, you get $100 or so if you join a vanpool.

As far as the bus goes, if I were bussing, I'd get a lot more reading done.

My workplace isn't easily accessible by bus. I have to transfer at least once in order to get here, and the busses that run by aren't very frequent. If it were easier, I would have been catching the bus even without the new benefit.

I used their little calculator thing, and even with gas costing more than $3 a gallon, I still don't equal the amount of buying a monthly bus pass. Plus, 20-30 minutes driving vs. 1 hour waiting for or riding the bus is kind of retarded.

None of this, however, changes the fact that I am lame and drive to work every day.

Suggested: shop around for a vanpool. Depending on where you work, you may be able to get bribes on either end (for example, $100 for pooling FROM seattle, $35 for pooling TO redmond).

Cool. I'll look into it, but I seriously doubt many people vanpool to the "Duwamish Industrial Area." :) (I did fill out the form when I first started this job that tried to match riders/drivers. No luck so far.)

i've picked up the cats and carried them to bugs and they do nothing. NOTHING! they suck. they just ook at them and maaaybe tap them with a paw, but not enough to do any damage, then they walk away.

My old cat Kimi, used to kill and eat huge kamikaze cockroaches when we lived in Hawaii. It must be that Seattle cats are unused to bugs and just don't know what to do with them unless the bugs are spazzing out or look like particularly pretty bits of string.

Aurora has been seriously sucktastic this week, though. It's killing me!

I know! Yesterday it took me an hour to get to work, which is unacceptable. That's why I tried the Express Lanes today.

Yesterday! Oh, yesterday. I nearly stabbed myself in the head. It also took me an hour - and I only go seven miles! It was so horrible.

Traffic just seems to be getting worse in general around here. I used to take the freeway without too much difficulty, but then I started taking 99 because the 5 was getting so congested and slow... Soon there will be no alternate routes.

I know! I work south of downtown, so I don't have to deal with all of that mess, but it's actually Aurora itself where the slowdowns occur. I'm hoping that things will even out soon, otherwise, I might have to change my hours to try to avoid the worst of it all. The only problem is that the worst stuff lasts so long.

When we first move to Vancouver (the good one, in Canada, eh?) we lived in a 3rd floor walk-up, corner suite, and there was a wasps nest in the eaves on the corner of the building, so we'd get the occassional wasp flying into our living room.

Mulder, our big orange and white tabby, took great delight in chasing and catching these flying critters, and couldn't understand why his front paw would swell up, after he caught and squashed one. After awhile, he developed some kind of immunity and it never seemed to affect him when he got stung...silly cat.