Ok, here we go...

Let's start with the title of this Blog.

I spend two hours a day in my car coming and going to work. Some people think it's completely insane, and in fact I mostly agree with them. There are two things that are currently saving my sanity - 1) I am allowed to have a fairly early shift, which means I miss most of the rush hour traffic in both directions, and 2) I have a little convertible that makes the drive almost bearable for about 4 months out of the year. If there is one thing I hate, it is sitting in my car, sitting in traffic. I would rather be going 75 miles per hour in the wrong direction than 15 miles per hour in the right one. I would have to quit if they ever changed my hours here. Seriously, If I had to drive in rush hour traffic every day, I would be forced to climb a cell phone tower and start shooting, beginning with the assknob in front of me on the way here this morning. He was going 40 in the fast lane, apparently paralyzed in fear by the cop who had someone stopped on the other side of the highway. I don't know if it's just that he was hypnotized by the flashing lights, or if he actually thinks the cop is going sprint across the 3 lanes of traffic, do some sort of olympic-quality pommel horse hand plant off the median divider and land on his hood, but he slows down to a crawl which almost causes me to accordion the ass end of his piece of shit car. I always wonder about these people going the exact speed limit. I figure either they've got a dead body in the trunk, or they're on their 4th DUI and trying like hell not to lose their license. Either way, I try not to fuck with them. I just go around, and if I glance over and see that it's an old lady instead of a twitchy addict on the edge, I lay on the horn and flip her off. Yeah, I'm brave that way.

OK, back to this 15 minute lunch thing. Given that I already spend two hours a day in my car, the edict that came down last year from management that we must work at least a 9 hour day was not received well by me, nor by anyone else I know who happens to work here. The thing is, if there's a big project with a short deadline, we'll all work our collective asses off no matter how many hours it takes to get it done. But if things are slow, let us go the hell home. Anyway, this announcement resulted in two things for me -- first, I quit the gym here in the building. I used to work out at lunch. My hour-long lunch, that I took without pay. I was here 9 hours a day - actually worked 8 of 'em, and stayed healthy for the other one. Now, in order to continue to work out, I'd have to be here 10 hours. That, plus 2 hours in the car, and you see where I'm coming from. My decision to quit saved me $27.50 a month too -- and the gym sucked ass anyway. Plus, there was this one guy who smelled so bad I used to have to time my workouts around avoiding him.

The second result of this policy is that I now eat lunch at my desk everyday. For 15 minutes, or as long as it takes me to inhale whatever it is I'm eating. Sometimes I browse the net, but now...well now there's this. Here's my logic: If I can get out of here at roughly the same time I did before, it doesn't seem as if I took a 10% pay cut. It's rationalization at its best, but it keeps me away from the grassy knoll.

So anyway, there's the inspiration for this blog. That, and reading Scott's blog made me realize that I have a lot of shit to complain about, so be prepared....that's all for now.