Category: Commuter Chronicles
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Commuter Chronicles #12: Extra Lighting
A few months back, in the height of the summer, I spotted this light rail passenger sitting at the stop with presumably a new purchase. From my vantage point across the street, it looked like a lamp. I was so glad to be taking the express bus home instead of the light rail that…
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Commuter Chronicles #11: Escape
This installment of Commuter Chronicles is an excerpt from a fiction piece I’ve been working on this summer. The scene below takes place primarily on a bus. I tried to use my observations from countless trips on buses to set the mood. The story itself is unfinished but I just felt like posting a piece…
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Commuter Chronicles #9: MetroBench
This installment of Commuter Chronicles is a little different in that it isn’t about an actual experience I’ve had using public transit. Rather, I wanted to share an interesting article I came across while reading my twitter feed over the weekend.
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Commuter Chronicles #8: License Plate Scrabble
Arizona and California both allow drivers, for a fee, to customize their license plate numbers. As a result, I can’t go more than 30 seconds without seeing a personalized license plate number on the road.
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Commuter Chronicles #7: Friday on the Light Rail
Boss kicked me out early, light rail is the easiest option outta there. Get to light rail station – shouldn’t be that crowded at this hour but students are one by one descending upon the platform. At least I think all these people are students. At least half the people on the platform appear to…
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Commuter Chronicles #5: Those Crazy Drivers
So far, my posts related to commuting have primarily dealt with public transportation. For this post, I’d like to highlight some of the bizarre things I’ve seen in the past year or so while either driving or carpooling to/from work. I’m not talking about crazy illegal lane changes, people flipping the bird at other drivers,…
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Commuter Chronicles #4: Plane Crash
Today’s commute was a bit more eventful than usual. While carpooling towards the freeway, I noticed about four aircraft circling above the vicinity of Falcon Field Airport. I thought it seemed odd that there would be a backup of air traffic as Falcon Field is a small airport. However, from about a 1/2 mile away,…
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Commuter Chronicles #3 Update: Rest in Peace Burt Sugar
Earlier this week I uploaded a “Commuter Chronicles” post about a how a fellow light rail passenger thought he spotted Bert Sugar waiting for the next train. I didn’t even know who Bert Sugar was until this encounter at the light rail in July 2011, and I thought it was an interesting enough encounter to…
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Commuter Chronicles #3: Bert Sugar
Sometime around mid- July, the All Star Major League Baseball event came to downtown Phoenix. Although the downtown area sees a good amount of people on any given day, an event such as this makes any given day look like a ghost town. People were everywhere, cars were everywhere and the light rail seemed to…
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Commuter Chronicles #2: Peril on the 532
The story below is a working draft of a personal narrative recounting a rather memorable trip to work one morning in 2007. This is my perspective of what happened that morning. I knew I should have stayed home today. Those were the only thoughts running through my head as the back tire of the 30,000…
nmnphx 