it's math...or not.

I've been meaning to bring this up for eons but I always forget. The morning traffic reports that I hear on WAMU in D.C. always report morning traffic in this manner: "I-95 from the Beltway to the 14th St. bridge is taking about 19 minutes; that's 14 minutes than normal." Normal what? I've driven that fur piece of road any number of times on weekends or late evenings and it's a good four or five miles. Is 'normal' what it would take me to get from one end t'other at 1am on Tuesday when I can drive 60mph? Methinks that is the case. If I'm some K St. lawyer sitting on I-95 every weekday morning at 8am there is never a time when I'd consider five minutes to be normal. Normal is 19 minutes. If it's more than that what I want to hear is this, "I-95 from the Beltway to the 14th St. bridge is taking about 75 minutes because some jackhole in a HUMMER rubbed the barrier, careened right, and crushed a fucking Prius. That's 59 minutes more than normal. Now back to Steve Inskeep."

Along with my banking issues we are in the midst of swap to AT&T since The Hilltop falls into the fair service area for our old service. Of course, there's no easy way to move from bank-to-bank or cell service-to-cell service without death-and-destruction crossing your mind. Maybe if you added in an attempt at sorting out amalgam vs. composite filling within my dental insurance you could make my head explode.

My pal Buzz was working out in Denver this week and realized, belatedly (as Buzz is), that the Caps are in Denver tonight but he's flying out today. You can't teach kids anything.

I'm on hold with AT&T since my (and L.'s) new phones will dial out but not accept calls. Wish me luck; I'm going in...

love to all,

t