Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Path of least insanity

San Francisco is experiencing its typical Summer weather, right as we are heading into the beginning of autumn. It’s been warm and humid for the past two weeks, and the next two weeks look to be much of the same. So far, so tropical. (Our family immigrated from southeast China to move away from this sort of weather!)

I now greatly regret weightlifting and getting buff because in this muggy weather, there’s too much chafing going on. The inner thighs rubbing on each other. The latissimus dorsi interacting constantly with the triceps. (Very not humble bragging.) The perfect body shape for this weather is an emaciated 130 pounds soaking wet.

BART - our area’s subway system - having a complete system shutdown last Friday morning is a fond reminder how fortunate I am to not have a commute. It remains a superpower to live within a 10 minute walk to work. That is, until they need someone in an emergency. My proximity at that time is not an advantage if I want to skip out of assisting.

To be at the whims of public transportation operating normally - can’t be me! This isn’t Japan where trains and buses are frequent and always on time. And if any one is ever late by one second, the driver has to commute seppuku as penance (very much joking, if you cannot tell.) Here in America, schedules are merely suggestions. There’s no telling when the next train will come, should you just missed one.

No wonder people will chose commuting by personal vehicle if the option exists. Even if you were stuck in traffic, at least you are in the private airspace of your own car. No bad smells, no rowdy passengers. It’s the path of least insanity.

That’s one form of transportation.

Took the midnight train

San Francisco Bay Area folks: did you attend the Taylor Swift concert at Levi’s Stadium? I sure didn’t, because who can afford the thousand dollar get-in price on the secondary market? You’d have a better chance of hitting the billion dollar Mega Millions jackpot than acquiring tickets through official channels.

Nevertheless, a friend of my friend did manage to score Taylor Swift tickets, and my friend got invited to join. The logistics of getting down to Santa Clara from San Francisco is, in a word, challenging. Nobody in their right mind would drive, unless you plan to get there super early. So public transport it is. My friend rode the BART train to Milpitas, then took the local VTA light rail to the stadium. So far, so straight forward.

Leaving the stadium, however, was apparently quite the nightmare. The concert did not end until 11:40 PM (Taylor really gives your money’s worth: a three hour plus jam-packed show). VTA trains were running after hour to ferry folks to either the Milpitas BART station, or the Mountain View Caltrain station. BART was not an option for my friend, as the special late-night train did not go all the way to San Francisco. So Caltrain it is.

Unfortunately, there’s but one special train heading northbound to San Francisco. It was scheduled to depart 75 minutes after the concert ends. That proved to be hugely optimistic. Due to the sheer number of people, my friend didn’t even get to Mountain View station until 1:45 AM - two hours after the show ended. At that point, the lone train was still there, looking less than half full, awaiting more passengers before departed. Our guess is it wouldn’t depart until after 3:00 PM at the earliest.

Lucky for my friend, I was there at the station to pick her up. What the heck did people do before the invention of cellphones? The peace of mind afforded by modern communication is really appreciated in situations like this.

A decision was made.