Storm, Firecrackers, and Time Wasted

This weekend, I was down in South Jersey working on my house again. I couldn't do much work on Saturday because of the storm. So this morning I got up early to work to make up for lost time.



While I was painting the house, some young men from across the street set off two big firecrackers, actually more like bombs. They were really loud and generated quite a bit of smoke. The firecrackers were so loud that most of the neighbors came out to have a look. Someone apparently got pissed off and called the police, and two blue and white came in record time. As I was working on my house outside, a police officer came over and asked me what I saw. I gave a narrative description and informed the officer that we all got a scare but no harm was done. The officers went around and did some further investigation, and then left. The young men were of college-age and seemed to be summer vacationers from Nebraska and it was their last day in town. So, they decided to be jerks and set off two firecrackers. They all left for good in mid-afternoon. Later in the afternoon an ambulance and a police car came to one of the neighbor's house. It was the one with an older gentleman who has a medical condition. I hope the firecrackers had nothing to do with this.



By three o'clock, I finished with most of the things I planned to do and I headed back to New York. The New Jersey Transist bus ride was 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not bad on a Sunday afternoon. It could be worse. However, I forgot to factor-in the terrible New York subway. Their services are terrible and they dare to ask for a fare raise time and again. Today, the N train was running on the local line and it stopped for a 5-minute wait at every major junction such as 14th Street in Manhattan, Pacific, 36th Street, and 59th Street in Brooklyn. Then, it took another 15 mintues to switch over to the R train. By the time I got off at 86th Street I was about to scream. It was too late to cook dinner. So I went to a restaurant and I was so hungry that I ordered straight away without even looking at the menu.



Has anyone conducted a study as to how much time and thus money we have wasted inside the New York subway. Time we could have spent doing something else more worthwhile or enjoyable than to get trapped inside the subway system waiting and waiting for the train to arrive and get us to our destinations. The time spent on the subway system is an economic waste that is lost forever.



I could have used that time to paint figures.






Another weekend gone. I am exhausted.