Outer Monologue

Musings on a morning commute

So I live in Michigan now, as you already know; East Lansing to be specific (go Spartans!).

But I work for a rather large corporation just outside of Detroit, which is around a 75 mile commute each way. Due to the wonders of Michiganny speed limits (70mph pretty much everywhere outside of mall parking lots [it's 55mph there]), the commute would take less than an hour in a perfect world (everyone drives 80 when they can).

Of course, it isn't a perfect world.

My commute can take anywhere from 1 hour and 5 minutes up to 2 hours, depending on traffic, weather and lights. I shudder to think how long it will be when the snows start next week.

That leaves me alot of time to kill; around three hours of every weekday, for the math deficient.

Now I'm a fairly introspective person, so time alone isn't an out-and-out problem. To put it more bluntly, I can easily get lost in my own head, wandering through random thoughts, writing mental outlines for stories that will never progress to pen touching paper; heck, I came up with the idea for this post this morning on the commute in (I'm writing it while pasting configs into routers).

Having said the above though, I still find myself with more time on these drives than I know what to do with. I never would have thought it, but apparently I can eventually get bored with myself (there goes my theories on how self-involved I am).

"Why not listen to the radio?" you might ask (someone please ask!)

Well, the problem I've found is that the Detroit area has virtually no consistently good radio stations (and my tastes are fairly broad). And this is the case even though it contains one of the most densely-populated dials I've ever experienced (and I've lived near two large NE cities).

It's just a radio wasteland of blathering talk and commercials with no redeeming content. Whenever I get desperate enough to hit the "scan" button on my radio, I invariably break into Bruce Springsteen's 57 Channels (And Nothin' On) in my head; and I'm not even a huge Springsteen fan! (Please don't tell my Jersey girl wife that or she and her Jersey girl friend Christine will lynch my ass).

So I've become even more of an NPR junkie than I was before.

This works fine during the evening commute, as "All Things Considered", "Marketplace" and "The World" are fine programs that don't tend to repeat too much.

Heck, I could listen to Robert Siegel reading a phone book for the whole commute and spend the next day at the water cooler discussing the prevalence of people named "Jones" in the Detroit area with my colleagues in tones of deep fascination.

Well, I could if we had a water cooler, anyway.

I also take the time to catch up on phone calls to friends, relatives, tech support lines and the occasional random number.

The problem comes in the morning, as I find "Morning Edition" to be fairly repetitive and just not as interesting. Of course, in Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne's defense, the cognitive centers of my brain don't generally come fully online for several hours after I wake up, so it could just be me.

So to fill the mornings, I was often listening to podcasts of another great NPR show, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". I just love that show.

Sadly, it's only on once a week, so I quickly caught up with all the episodes I'd missed.

So this morning I once again found myself sans activity on the drive in (and more tired than normal, so desperately in need of external stimuli).

Add to that that I was in the wife's car, as she was thoughtfully taking mine in for an oil change (thanks sweetie!) and thus I didn't even have my iPod... well, I was at a loss.

I noticed she had a book on tape in the car, so I popped it in figuring, "what the hell"

Gotta say, that Bill Bryson is a pretty funny guy. "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" should keep me occupied for a few more days at least.

And then I'm without morning activity again.

I've had suggestions from friends on things to do ranging from getting Satellite Radio (too expensive for me, methinks) to further books on tape (if I can find the local library AND get to it when it's open, I might just do that one).

Anyone else have any other bright ideas? I'm getting bored...

Posted by Campbell at September 13, 2006 08:24 AM