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damontLink of the day: 50 nerdy pick-up lines (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nateprentice for the pointer)
Welcomestefsoap! And, as with my last update, thereby hangs a tale...
Last weekendstefsoap was having a party and we wanted to go; so montuos and I planned to travel to PA. Only she needed to do stuff near home on Friday night and I had stuff in PA on Saturday morning (the medieval conference at Moravian College). And with the weather threatening wintry precipitation for at least part of the drive home, montuos didn't want to drive home... so I decided I'd take transit up to PA on Friday and she'd come up later, so we would only have one car to drive home Sunday evening. I researched various options, and came up with a list of possible transit combinations that would get me where I wanted to go. Well... the various rides turned out to be just fine; getting from one to the next, however, was messy.
killernurd dropped me off at the Metrorail stop, and I took the Metro downtown. Walked to the bus terminal, had 20-30 minutes to spare... only Greyhound at the Washington terminal was being massively incompetent that morning. The ticket line was verrrrry loooooong, so I tried to use the automated ticket machines. 3 out of 4 were out of order; the fourth one refused to read my credit card. So I was forced to get in the line after all... behind about 20 people. There were only *two* people working behind the counter, and just after I got in the queue, one of them got up and left for ten minutes. It was 11:02 when I finally got to talk to someone behind the counter. She couldn't tell me if the 11:00 bus for Baltimore had left yet, nor even what gate it would have been at.
In the half hour I was at the bus terminal, *not* *once* did I hear any announcement that a bus was boarding, arriving or departing. (WARNING: Rant On) The technology to keep track of what buses are in the terminal, where each one is going, the time each is expected to depart, and each one's status is *not* rocket science! The railroads have been doing this for decades! (Rant Off)
So I walked to Union Station (about 5 blocks) to get breakfast, and decided to take the commuter train to Baltimore in hopes of catching a bus there. The train was fine. I sat on the top level of a double decker car, which was cool. However, I had miscalculated -- the bus terminal in Baltimore is not near the train station. It's not near any of the subway or light rail stations either. I know *now* that the #27 local bus goes fairly close to the train station and stops at the bus terminal. But I didn't know it *then*, and the bus system map at the train station didn't show the #27, and nobody at the train station knew enough about the local bus system... so I despaired of getting to the bus terminal and ended up taking the Amtrak from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
I got to 30th St Station in Philly, and there's no ticket counter for buses. I asked the main info desk where the bus to Allentown stopped, and the lady said "go outside to the Market St bridge, across the street to where the eagle statue is." OK, she's got a clue. She really needed two clues, though... there are identical eagle statues on *both* side of Market Street. I looked a little further, and it turns out there are *four* eagle statues, one on each corner of the bridge! Nor was there any sign marked "Bieber" (the appropriate bus line) anywhere. So I basically had to wait at one of the statues and hope I saw a bus that looked right. And eventually one did show up... on the other side of the street. I had a mild disagreement with someone trying to turn right on red -- his sideview mirror bumped my shoulder -- but I made it across, and discovered that to get on the Bieber bus at 30th St station you just pay the driver. The rest of the trip was without incident.
The rest of the weekend was actually pretty nice. Saw some interesting presentations at the conference, got into a conversation at the reception with an art history major about bookbinding (I'd missed her presentation about it earlier, to my dismay). Got to seestefsoap's new place and meet some of her friends. Gaming ensued. It was agreed that it would be nice to get together again and get in more gaming the next time. Ma Nature brought freezing rain to the party, so when we left we had to clear off cars. Luckily it changed to plain rain once we were south of the PA Turnpike, so the trip home was wet but not icy or slushy.
This weekend I'll probably be atgorgeousgary's Birthday Housefilk, but the rest of the time I'll likely be making holiday preparations. What's your weekend look like?
nateprentice for the pointer)Welcome
stefsoap! And, as with my last update, thereby hangs a tale...Last weekend
stefsoap was having a party and we wanted to go; so montuos and I planned to travel to PA. Only she needed to do stuff near home on Friday night and I had stuff in PA on Saturday morning (the medieval conference at Moravian College). And with the weather threatening wintry precipitation for at least part of the drive home, montuos didn't want to drive home... so I decided I'd take transit up to PA on Friday and she'd come up later, so we would only have one car to drive home Sunday evening. I researched various options, and came up with a list of possible transit combinations that would get me where I wanted to go. Well... the various rides turned out to be just fine; getting from one to the next, however, was messy.killernurd dropped me off at the Metrorail stop, and I took the Metro downtown. Walked to the bus terminal, had 20-30 minutes to spare... only Greyhound at the Washington terminal was being massively incompetent that morning. The ticket line was verrrrry loooooong, so I tried to use the automated ticket machines. 3 out of 4 were out of order; the fourth one refused to read my credit card. So I was forced to get in the line after all... behind about 20 people. There were only *two* people working behind the counter, and just after I got in the queue, one of them got up and left for ten minutes. It was 11:02 when I finally got to talk to someone behind the counter. She couldn't tell me if the 11:00 bus for Baltimore had left yet, nor even what gate it would have been at.In the half hour I was at the bus terminal, *not* *once* did I hear any announcement that a bus was boarding, arriving or departing. (WARNING: Rant On) The technology to keep track of what buses are in the terminal, where each one is going, the time each is expected to depart, and each one's status is *not* rocket science! The railroads have been doing this for decades! (Rant Off)
So I walked to Union Station (about 5 blocks) to get breakfast, and decided to take the commuter train to Baltimore in hopes of catching a bus there. The train was fine. I sat on the top level of a double decker car, which was cool. However, I had miscalculated -- the bus terminal in Baltimore is not near the train station. It's not near any of the subway or light rail stations either. I know *now* that the #27 local bus goes fairly close to the train station and stops at the bus terminal. But I didn't know it *then*, and the bus system map at the train station didn't show the #27, and nobody at the train station knew enough about the local bus system... so I despaired of getting to the bus terminal and ended up taking the Amtrak from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
I got to 30th St Station in Philly, and there's no ticket counter for buses. I asked the main info desk where the bus to Allentown stopped, and the lady said "go outside to the Market St bridge, across the street to where the eagle statue is." OK, she's got a clue. She really needed two clues, though... there are identical eagle statues on *both* side of Market Street. I looked a little further, and it turns out there are *four* eagle statues, one on each corner of the bridge! Nor was there any sign marked "Bieber" (the appropriate bus line) anywhere. So I basically had to wait at one of the statues and hope I saw a bus that looked right. And eventually one did show up... on the other side of the street. I had a mild disagreement with someone trying to turn right on red -- his sideview mirror bumped my shoulder -- but I made it across, and discovered that to get on the Bieber bus at 30th St station you just pay the driver. The rest of the trip was without incident.
The rest of the weekend was actually pretty nice. Saw some interesting presentations at the conference, got into a conversation at the reception with an art history major about bookbinding (I'd missed her presentation about it earlier, to my dismay). Got to see
stefsoap's new place and meet some of her friends. Gaming ensued. It was agreed that it would be nice to get together again and get in more gaming the next time. Ma Nature brought freezing rain to the party, so when we left we had to clear off cars. Luckily it changed to plain rain once we were south of the PA Turnpike, so the trip home was wet but not icy or slushy.This weekend I'll probably be at
gorgeousgary's Birthday Housefilk, but the rest of the time I'll likely be making holiday preparations. What's your weekend look like?
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 08:15 pm (UTC)I have discovered that I can get from Vienna to Philadelphia using nothing but *local commuter* mass transit:
Metrorail from Vienna to New Carrollton (or Union Station)
MARC commuter rail (Penn Line) from New Carrollton (or Union Station) to Perryville MD
Cecil County "The Bus" from Perryville to Elkton
DART bus from Elkton MD to Newark DE
SEPTA regional rail from Newark to Philly
(Alternative to the last two steps, take a Cecil Co. bus from Elkton to Glasgow DE, a DART bus from Glasgow to Wilmington, and catch the SEPTA train there.)
This only works to get to Philly (or up into NJ or NYC); if I'm going to the Lehigh Valley I'd have a 2-odd hour layover waiting for the 9:15 PM Bieber bus.
Oh, one other thing of possible note: Bieber has added service to Harrisburg, with stops in Wescosville (near my parents), Hellertown, and NYC. This just started this week; fares aren't posted online yet.