Becalmed

[mikailborg]

In a perfect world, I would have an e-book or three loaded on the Newton right now, or have an iPhone with web access. Instead, I am sitting on Rt. 664, as I have for the last hour, waiting for them to clear a major accident from the Monitor-Merrimac tunnel. The good news is that I've got a nice calming trance podcast on the iPod.

I tried first to write some notes for fiction projects, but while a thought or two leaked through, I'm generally blocked; so I am journaling on this Apple notepad instead. I need to scrawl less sloppily; the handwriting recognition on the final OS rev was pretty good, but there's only so much of my bad penmanship it can take. Lowercase 'f's keep coming out capital, for some reason. I'm adding more curve to the tops.

Car behind me just stalled out, guy asked for a jump start. No problem. Asked three times which terminals he had the jumper clamps on... after impressive display of sparks from my battery terminal, went and checked myself. Reversed them. Thank goodness that didn't kill the Hyundai.

Just remembered I could send email from my work Blackberry; updated everyone there on my status. It seems I'm not the only NASA employee trapped here. I wonder if the accident was mechanical failure, or one or more people being idiots? I've been cut off twice in the last 24 hours by rude drivers trying for a single-car position advantage; Hampton Roads drivers can be brutal. On the other hand, I certainly hope no one was seriously hurt... as the cliche goes, "been there, done that".

Whoops. We're moving. Will post this from work.

Comments

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

At least you're not sitting IN the tunnel waiting for the accident to be cleared?

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Even better, at least I wasn't part of the accident!

Luckily, my supervisors were very relaxed about my tardiness. I think it helped that one of them was stuck in the same traffic jam.

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

Despite all of the talk about LA traffic, I've never been stuck in unmoving traffic for all that long*: usually it at least crawls. It might take a while to get to and from some places, but you're moving even if slowly. This makes it more annoying than a full stop: at least you got to write. :)

Glad to see it posted (meaning that you moved on and got to work)!

*I have managed to live and work off of the traffic routes so amusingly enough, the worst traffic I have had to deal with was when I was up in LA and driving down to Disneyland. Nowadays in Orange County already I rarely have to deal with all that much, even when I visit Andy on the other side of Long Beach.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

See, that's a good plan, staying off the main routes. I don't get to do that plan, because I have to cross the James River somewhere, and all my choices are major arteries heavily traveled at 7am.