The Daily Commute

The only bad part about my new job is all the driving I have to do. I teach in Newport Beach in the mornings (a 20-30 minutes drive south from my house), then drive to Santa Ana to teach in the afternoon/evenings (a 20 minutes drive north from my house). This week has offered some interesting observations.....

On my way south, I drive past the UCI campus (Universit of California, Irvine). I've noticed the same blue station wagon parked on the side of the road everyday. In fact, I recall it being there three years ago when I taught there before. Now, in Irvine, cars don't just sit on the side of the roads for years to rot. You can get a ticket for leaving a car more than three days. Besides, it's not rotting, it's in pretty good shape. It's also not a streeet you'd park on. There's a field and drainage ditch next to it and a hill across the street leading up to a walled off apartment complex. My thoughts are that it's part of some university observation thing but I have no idea what the heck it could be observing. The car is always in the exact same place, but it doesn't look like it's been abandoned.

On my way home yesterday I noticed a screw-up that left me sitting in my car howling with laughter the rest of the way home. The major street by my house is Bryan. They've been doing construction on one of the other major roads that interesects it because of all the new housng developments going up. In Irvine, they like to post little signs telling you the name of the street you're approaching about 50 feet ahead of time or so. They just put up a new one for Bryan. However, the new sign says the street is Brian. Hehe. Well, I found it funny.

One last thng, and this part sucks. When I was in Oklahoma, even when I was working full time, I was filling my gas tank about every two weeks, sometimes even only once a month at about $1.40 a gal. or so. I stopped for gas on Monday morning on my way to work and paid $2.15 a gal. I had to fill it up again last night. This sucks.

But, I made it through my first week back at work. I'm tired and sore and I'm losing my voice but I love it and wouldn't trade my job for anything. Except maybe not working at all, but then I'd be bored. Maybe just teaching jazz...or maybe just...nevermind.