Saturday, December 20, 2014

Scenes from my commute

Just for fun the other week, I used my car's trip feature to record the exact mileage from garage to parking lot at the office, taking each of the alternative options I have -- I really don't have that many choices.  I take the Kennedy to 294 to 88 on the way in.  I can either get off at 22nd or go all the way to Highland Avenue and double back on Butterfield Rd.  This option adds three more miles but can often be faster than dealing with the road zombies on 22nd/Butterfield who just are not in a hurry to make the next light least they get to work faster.

On the way home I can either take the Kennedy to Lawrence or Austin, depending on what level of a parking lot the traffic is flowing.  Alternatively I could get off 294 at Balmoral and trackback to Irving Park Rd and take that home.  No matter which route I take, my trip is essentially 23 miles door-to-door in one direction. 

When I get off at Austin, I usually take Higgins home and I often notice this stretch of shops that apparently throwback to a more vibrant time. 

One of the shops even has a free piano.  It just apparently needs minor repairs and 3 people to cart it away.  I was able to capture these photos during daylight hours because I'm on paternity leave this week, which will be followed by some PTO, holidays and some extra Appreciation Days off. My company decided to give four Appreciation Days to everyone so that they could supplement the days between Christmas and New Year's without burning through their PTO.  In fact we were encouraged to use enough PTO in order to be off from the 22nd to the 4th.  Speculation at the virtual water cooler is that since most everyone will likely take this time off anyway, it is a good move on behalf of TopFive to get the morale boasting points by giving those four Appreciation Days.

When I was single, I would work days like those because most people were going to take those days off and my workload would be so light, it would be a virtual paid vacation.  If I was feeling like a model employee, I could use the time to catch up on the little things that get tossed aside during the regular day-to-day grind.

These days I opt to take the time off.  My free time is more valuable than ever and there is more that I can do around the house than I can from within the confines of a corporate cubicle.  Especially since right before the babies were born, my boss decided to withdraw my work from home (WFH) privilege.  I didn't get a really good answer why he did it but said we could revisit the decision at mid-year review.  Since he gave his notice a couple weeks ago I have decided if I will request it again or just keep my head down.



Some more Scott Adams thoughts for filler

And even more interesting is the question of whether humans will someday prefer machine-based government over human control. I don't want some human telling me how to live my life based on his belief in magic. But I don't get angry at my ATM for only giving me the amount of money that I have in my own account. The machines will follow agreed rules and be predictable. I want a machine overlord, not some corrupt, drunken, horny, tired human that had a bad childhood.
-- Source

By magic, he of course means religion.  And by corrupt, drunken, horny tired human he can only be referring to politicians and Corporate Bigwigs like CEOs and Directors.

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