Okay, so driving would of been faster today. I usually wouldn't say anything remotely like that, but apparently because of the heavy rains, the trains can't go over 40 mph. Of course right now, we are currently not going over 4 mph since we are stopped. I left work at 4:40 and it's 6:35, and we are at least 20 minutes away from my station, if we start going right now  which we won't. So I am sitting on the train, listening to techno/celtic music (yes it does exist) and bloggin, what else is a poor commuter to do.

So, I've finally done it. I went out and bought a digital camera. Of course this feat didn't happen without lots of homework, research and agony. I am sure that I drove my Beautiful Wife up the wall with this one. But of course in her wonderful way she answered my barrage of questions with her sweet, your a silly man, but  I love you anyway. So what did I get? Well I got a Panasonic Lumix FZ20s. Okay, what's a Panasonic Lumix FZ20s. Well, it is a cool looking silver camera. (silver is what the s stands for). It is a 5.3 megapixel camera with a Lecia 12x optical zoom lense. The 35mm equivalent lense would be 36mm-432mm. Overall it is a really nice camera. Instead of writing a long review (which I am not very good at), here is one by steves-digicams.com

I do have to say so far I am really happy with it, and it lets me do almost everything that my old Pentax spotmatic does. Of course being a digital camera, it does have the whole instant gratification of seeing the photo right after it is taken thing going for it. So between the new camera, and the images I've been taking lately, I figured it was finally time to start a photoblog. We'll see if my hectic work schedule will allow me keep both my blog and it going.

This morning on the way out my Beautiful Wife told me she excepted to see some pretty pictures on my blog today. You see I just got my first digital camera. I am really excited about it. I spend a month shopping for it. And now it is here, so I think you can expect some more snap shots to be posted.

Yesterday, one of my co-workers took the train to work for the first time. Of course it didn't go smoothly there was a few snags.  This made me think about the first time that I rode the train for the first time. It didn't go smoothly for me either. In fact it was two months before  I wrote the train again. It was mostly because one of the conductors was a little intimidating. That being said, there was an amazing sense of accomplishment. You see I was born and raised in L.A. and that saying "Nobody walks in LA." is completely right. You see everything is an hour away. So you always have to drive. So the idea that I could get to work without a car was a liberating thought. Today, three years later, riding the train is second nature. I don't even think about it. However I won't soon forget that stepping off the train, just blocks from work, taking a deep breath and feeling like I accomplished something by getting to work without a car.

One thing about the internet, is you can always find something interesting out there. Well I found something interesting, that also made me smile. A Photo Essay of a Gentleman thinking about fatherhood, so he spends a morning with his sisters son.

So first thing, I have to say my Beautiful Wife is amazing. She gets that boys will be boys. That we aren't acting up to make her look bad, we are just playing. Tomorrow the Little Boy will be home from school, so we thought getting some videos to ease him into the weekend was a good idea. So the Little Boy and I were a little onery. We played in every isle of the video store (You know that one that starts with Bloc and ends with uster). I chased him down one isle and around the other. Met him in middle of the next. He grabbed my ankles, and I picked him up and held him on my shoulders and walked through the store. We check out and of course the Boy and I are still playing, he is on my shoulders and checker asks if we need a bag, and I says "sure, do you have one he will fit into?"

So this afternoon on the way home from my Folks' house, I had one of those near misses that make you have to change your drawers. I'm going south bound in the fast lane of a four lane street. Three cars are lined up to turn left in to the supermarket on the northbound side. Well, this person in third position doesn't see me and decides that he can just turn left in the the secondary driveway, and pass up the "hold up" (hold up being, good drivers waiting for it to be clear to turn left).  He pulls out, I see him, and stomp on the brakes (Toyota's awesome antilock brakes, but I still got them to lock up) and went to where he had been in the median. So I missed him by about two feet, and had to steer back in to my lane because of oncoming traffic. This all happened in a millisecond.  So how did I know what to do? Video Games, pure and simple! I credit video games for my evasive manuevering skills. The hours I've spend honing my driving and reactions on video games sure paid off this afternoon. So if you think your skills could use a little refinement, might I suggest Colin Mcrae Rally 2005.