Where is the love?

Right here. I actually saw this at the SDA Teacher’s Convention of all places. It’s all I remember from that presentation.

Jammin’

Since my wife goes to school in Buffalo and I work in Rochester, we decided to compromise by living in the middle. Unfortunately, this means that both of us must endure a 45-50 minute commute(one way).

But if you take away the horrible damage we’re doing to the environment and the evil gasoline bill of death, it really hasn’t been too bad. NPR, AC in the summer, toasty warmth in the winter, it’s a chamber which I find highly de-stressing…

…except when there’s traffic, and for the last two commutes it’s been miserable. On Friday, Dick Cheney was in town fundraising for Republican Randy Kuhl. Of course, I didn’t hear about this until after I had naively started down I-490. Suddenly, I was being forced to drive into Downtown Rochester. Since my commute involves two traffic lights in Batavia and highways the rest of the way, I know virtually nothing about navigating through Downtown. Luckily, I had an atlas in the backseat. Double luckily, the map of New York had a map of Rochester. Unluckily, that map was most likely taken from the space shuttle Atlantis and lacked the detail I needed. I eventually worked my way back up north, in effect making a 45-minute by 20 mile U-turn, and linked back up with blessed ol’ Interstate.

It should be noted, that all through this ordeal I was muttering “Dick Cheney” along with a few other words. It also appears that I’m not the only one who is a bit miffed by our “V”P and his visits. It’s kind of a sad statement, but I wonder what will influence the voters more: Congressman Kuhl’s voting record or this traffic jam.

What’s that the “V”P is holding up? Traffic.

Today, was a different story. Before I even had time to get nostalgic about Cheney Traffic Jam ‘06, I saw the flashing yellow lights of the “Tune to 910 AM for important traffic information” sign. So I dutifully tuned, only to find that 490 westbound was closed yet again, this time for an accident (not to take away anything from the Cheney/Bush administration). This message was posted at 4:05 pm. The message said that the highway would be closed until further notice. I glanced at my clock and it was 4:40 pm. Traffic was moving slowly, so I put my blinker on and headed into town once again.

Every once in awhile, I could get glimpses of I-490 and it didn’t look like it was terribly backlogged. I continued to check AM 910 only to hear the same voice report the exact same message. After crawling through traffic for a few miles, I got a really good glimpse of I-490 and saw that the cars were now zooming down the road. Although NPR and 910 AM were still insisting on road closure, I decided to get on 490 anyway. What do you know, the road was as clear as Jessica Simpson’s face after she used ProActiv.

So this made me wonder. If the point of 910 AM is to help the traffic situation, why don’t they turn off their freakin’ yellow lights and notify us when the road actually opens? I wouldn’t even mind if it was Dick Cheney’s voice telling me that.