Tale of Two Downtowns

I'm a little over a month into my new job now, and eventually I will look forward to my work-from-home days.

But for now, most days I'm commuting to our corporate office in Oakdale, a city east of St. Paul, for training. As much as I'm not loving the drive, it's easier to be there while training. Plus I get to know my new co-workers this way, see pictures of their kids and pets, put faces to names and email addresses.

Mapping my route to work.

Do not be deceived by the "35 minutes" estimate. That does not take into account the traffic into and out of two downtowns. While the drive is only actually 25 miles, it takes me an hour to get there in the morning, and more than an hour in the evening to get back.

On the way, I get to see this.

Downtown Minneapolis.

 And this.

Downtown St. Paul.

And eventually this.

How far am I going here?!

Which amuses me to no end. I'm used to seeing this sign only when we're actually leaving the state of Minnesota and going to Wisconsin to visit relatives. So to see this on my morning commute makes me laugh.

The days I'm driving in the girls take the bus home and Lindsey has the key to get into the house. I'm happy they are old enough to let themselves in and be home alone for a little while until I get home.

The drive through two downtowns is pretty cool. But I have to say, I look forward to the day when I don't have to do it.

To the lady in the Oldsmobile with the Mary Kay sign in the back

My apologies for being close on your tail this morning. I was headed to work and wanted to make it there close to on time. I typically take city streets, as you do, to avoid the traffic on 35W, and then pick up I-94 later on.

The challenge with going 20 mph in city streets, as you were this morning, is that the lights are timed so that if you go the speed limit, which is 30 mph by the way, you will hit every light green once you hit one light green. It's pretty neat that the city set things up that way. As a matter of fact, you can even go as fast as 32 mph and will still hit every light green.

But, when you are stuck behind someone going 20 mph as I was this morning, you tend to hit every light red. And with the number of lights between 36th Street and Portland, this meant that 10 minutes were added on to my commute today because I was stuck behind you.

I don't know if you knew this, but if you are coming up to a green light and you see that the pedestrian signs are blinking red, that means that the light is about to turn yellow. It's a neat little trick. As a matter of fact, sometimes you're even given an idea as to how soon the light will turn yellow when the pedestrian sign looks like this:

See, that little number counts down the number of seconds until you can no longer begin crossing and the light turns yellow. Isn't technology amazing?!

So if you see one of those, you might want to speed it up just a little bit, maybe to say, 25 mph, to make the light. But if you choose instead to continue on at your 20 mph speed, you are guaranteed that it will turn yellow on you and on the person stuck behind you, and once again you'll be sitting at a red.

Which is why I unintentionally tried to speed you up by riding your tail. I didn't mean to, it's just that I wished I'd been in your place and could have made you go just a titch faster so I could get to work on time. No matter, I lost you at one of those lovely red lights when you were able to sneak through at your snail's pace and I was still stuck at the red. So I hung out for a while and lost you, then made up my time on I-94.

Thanks for the lesson in patience.

Ever feel like you just can't leave work?

Me too.

Student Driving

Yesterday as I was driving in to work I saw a sorry sight. The photo here is not it, but is a good representation of what may have happened had I watched this person much longer.

A car with "STUDENT DRIVER" plastered all over it (roof top sign, doors and trunk) on the on-ramp, trying to merge into bumper-to-bumper traffic on a major artery in the Twin Cities. The person driving was clearly having issues trying to look for traffic behind while driving the car straight and not losing too much speed. They were at an almost complete stop, making merging nearly impossible and backing up everyone on the merge ramp behind the car.

At least everyone in the vicinity knows it's a student driver and hopefully cuts him or her a little slack. And it got me to thinking of my relatives who live in Tracy, MN, population 2,000, who go to other towns to take their driver's test where there are NO traffic lights, no traffic per se, except for the occasional tractor. Those who figure that backing in and out over and over again to parallel park is "good enough." (You know who you are!)

I am pretty sure they would have flunked the test in the Twin Cities. Then again, they are smart enough to not even try to take the test here!