Today’s big adventure
Posted on January 17, 2007
Filed Under All, My Brain, Dawn Community |
So, we realize our new life as a public transportation commuter will occasionally call on us to rise to new challenges. One challenge I’ve dealt with well up today, thanks to Adobe Connect web conferencing, a broadband connection (with a our new Gigabit LAN) and a revamped ‘World HQ’ (complete with a home edition of a Polycom conference phone) was an 8 AM meeting at work, timed to make it less onerous for colleagues in India to join in). I would Connect/phone in to the meeting, then catch a ride with spouse or a neighbor to Menlo or Palo Alto Caltrain stations, and be off to work in San Jose.
But today, a second standing meeting was added to my agenda, at 9:00 AM. So either I do both electronically, or both in person, and the second meeting is really better to attend non-virtually when possible. There was also the issue that leaving home at 10 means taking local trains, much slower than the early express Caltrain service with 26-minute times from Palo Alto to San Jose (faster than I can drive that distance by 15 minutes).
I feared the earliest Caltrain service might be local, too, but was pleasantly surprised to find 2 fast early trains, at 6:57 (that’s the 6:57 above, pulling in to Pally station) and 7:19, and, working backward, saw that I could walk the pleasant mile over to Stock Farm road and catch a free Marguerite shuttle (seen left, gearing up for the day at their Stock Farm yard) to Palo Alto, thus sparing my spouse yet another ‘taxi’ ride. Since this would be a first I rose a bit earlier than usual (I’m a morning guy, so no big deal) and was on the road by 6:00, cool new Oakley bag (of N-Judah-journey fame) on shoulder and cup of hot, fresh Peet’s coffee in hand. As usual I documented the journey, including rain-slicked Menlo streets and sunrise at the Pally train station, but, maddeningly left the SD disk in a balky card reader at work (rectified today, 1/18 as you can see).
I think I surprised a few colleagues by being there when they walked in - I was there almost first (only friend Steve Snell had beat me) and then moved through a full morning of meetings. Managed to hit most of my work goals for the day, in part by eating lunch at my desk, and didn’t feel bad heading off to Diridon station to meet the 4:05 express home, having been in the office at 7:30. Bit tired this PM, but a good and productive day…
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