Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A little perspective?

First thing - A BIG congrats to Dustin Pedroia for being named the American League MVP. He's an amazing player and had an outstanding season...and I have to say it - I think he's a cutie.



Beginning this week, the daily parking rates increased by $2 at all MBTA affiliated parking lots. In my case, I went from paying $2 a day, to paying $4 a day. In some places, it now costs $7 a day to park your car. I'm already paying $223 a month for my commuter rail pass, and now I'm being asked to pay $4 a day to leave my car in an unattended lot while I toil away at work? Excellent.

Clearly I'm going to pay it, because I really have no other options. Parking in Boston is WAY too expensive (not to mention paying for gas) and I'm not about to walk 45 minutes (if not longer) to the train station each morning.

So, my question is this. What's it like in other cities? Am I paying very little in comparison to other places? Keep in mind I live 45 minutes outside of Boston, and my current commute is just about 1 1/2 hours, door to door...so I'm wondering what a similar commute would cost in other cities. It would be nice to know that we're not alone in this situation and who knows? Maybe we have it good. That would make me feel better.

Again...I'm not totally complaining, I'm just curious. At least I have a job to commute to! :-)

Last night was fun...Jim and I had dinner and then pretty much didn't do a damn thing but watch TV (one load of laundry doesn't really count). After watching some Family Guy re-runs I watched House and Fringe. House is a long-time favorite of mine and it was a pretty good episode last night. Fringe is growing on me (don't I WISH!!) but I'm still not totally in love with it. It certainly has it's moments, but it also has it's flaws...don't we all. :-) Jim spent HOURS upstairs scanning old photos, so I'm sure his facebook profile with be chock full of memories within the next few days. I have to do that as well. I've got a lot of great pictures that I'm sure all my friends would LOVE to see, and my facebook profile is seriously lacking in the photo department.

OK....enough blabbering. I'm getting some coffee and getting back to work.

Have a lovely day!!!


2 comments:

JC said...

Crap! 1.5 hr commute.... I get testy when it takes me longer than 15-20 mins. I live 12 miles from work. I use to bicycle on nice days, but scheudle has gotten crazy and I don't wan tot be riding home after 8pm on a bike.
I have an Electric motorcycle and Honda hybrid, otherwise. I park free in the company parking garage.

...but then Austin doesn't really have a commutter option from the 'burbs. Austin busses don't come out that far. Although, we are suppose to get Rail sometime next year (finally) almost in time for me to retire.... but I will have to drive over half way to work to get to a station, so why bother...
maybe if I rode my bike to the station...
Our town, Round Rock, is looking to hook into the Austin rail. There are 3 different proposed rail inititives going on concurrently, that is one reason why they have not jumped in yet. One would put a station about 10 min walk from the house.

AJohnP said...

I know...it's a pretty long commute, but I'm fairly used to it at this point. I do get a LOT of reading done, which is nice...and people watching.
Which is a favorite 'hobby' of mine.
;-)