So, for the first time ever on this weblog, I’m posting something that is going into multiple categories. This is going to be a long one, so, bear with me.
Smokers.
I don’t dislike smokers because of cancer. If people want to kill themselves, fine. What I find distasteful is their impact on me.
1) Smoke stinks.
Even if you aren’t blowing it in my face, I can still smell it. And it is fairly putrid. You know that phrase “smells like a dirty ashtray”? There is a reason it is considered a bad thing. Along those same lines, smokers stink too. Most of them don’t realize that they trail a pungent odor around with them, that their clothes are dripping with stench, because they have become accustomed to the smell. The smoke gets in their clothes, the walls of their homes, the pulp pages of the paperback novels they own, and everything else. It permeates their very lives.
2) Cigarette butts.
The picture I have included with this tirade is of the grassy area just outside the Doraville Marta station. There is a good ten foot by fifty foot grass area with a couple of trees that parallels the kiss ride drop off. The entire area looks like that photo. There are probably quite easily a few thousand cigarette butts in the grass, and they clean this area when they mow the grass, which I think they do monthly, perhaps more often. All this despite there being at least four trash cans around the entrance to the station.
And this isn’t an isolated incident. It is the same just about everywhere. Ever looked at the side of just about any major road? Chances are it’ll be covered in butts from drivers flicking their’s out windows as opposed to actually using the ashtray in their car.
So, if you are a smoker, at least try to do your part… I won’t bitch at you for smoking if you promise not to be a jackass and litter.
And that leads into the next point about litter in general. Most people don’t want to live in a shithole. But they seem to have no problem with contributing to making the world a shithole.
I ride the bus and MARTA most days (some days I work from home, and some days I’ll drive to work because its faster), and the number of people who will leave behind trash is pathetic. Want to know how to shame an entire train car load of people? If you see some newspaper, plastic drink bottles, or fast food bags on the train rattling around on the floor as everyone pointedly ignores it, at a stop where a trash can will be relatively near your door, pick up the trash (be loud about it, crinkle the paper or bottles), ask someone to hold the door (using a loud voice, project from the diaphram to ensure people hear you), and step out to throw away the trash. When you come back, thank the person who held the door and say something like “Just couldn’t stand seeing that trash on the floor. People should throw out their own stuff.” Then enjoy as the entire car of people shift uncomfortably and avoid eye contact. Oh, there might be one or two who smile and even say something to you about how you did a good thing, but probably a good thirty percent of those people will have left trash on a train car before, and the rest of them have seen trash and never done anything about it. The best part about it, though, is that you will feel good. First off, it feels good to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Secondly, rubbing people’s noses in their own indifference is its own reward. Remember, they wouldn’t be shifting uncomfortably and avoiding eye contact if they weren’t guilty of leaving trash or ignoring trash.
Outside of making people feel like crap about themselves on MARTA, its generally a good idea to always try to leave any place better than you found it. If you go to a park, or camping, or even to a movie theater, be better than other people and throw out your trash. Yes, they have people they hire to do that, but where do you think the money comes to pay the people who clean up after you? Movies don’t cost $9 a ticket for shits and giggles. Federal and local funded parks, it comes from your taxes. So, like the title says, do your part, don’t litter and maybe pick up a piece of trash every now and then.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging…
Yesterday, not only did I get a new house, but I also got a new home at work. If you dig back through the Phone Photos you will find a dismal picture of my cramped old little cube, the one with a server on the desk. So now I have a new phone photo of my new cubicle. Just one cube over from my last home, but this one is much nicer. Its probably actually the same size, but with 3 less filing cabinets, no server and a better desk orientation, it is all around a much improved use of space. The only things it lacks is a window view of downtown Atlanta and a door.
See that picture? And yes, you are reading it right. The company I’m currently contracting for prints out a calendar for its employees every year. Its one of those things where they put pictures of some people who work there along with quotes about how great the company is, and generally looks like it was designed by a man who thinks that advertising graphics peaked somewhere in the mid to late 1970′s. One of my coworkers didn’t want his calender and I didn’t have one, so I took it. It’s been fairly reliable all year, days of the week in the right order, Saturday and Sunday next to each other making the weekend and Wednesday smack in the middle, all the holidays on the right days, the 4th of July actually on July 4th and so on.
… and I took a photo to show it off. I decided I needed an organizer, and a way to write stuff on the go, and a way to get around the firewall at work (bastards and their need to ban everything!)… so I went to Sprint and got myself an Audiovox 6600. Its a phone, and a PDA, and a camera, and its all kinds of neat.
I’m sure at least one person out there has wondered where it is that I spend most of my day. And it just so happens that this morning as I got into work I decided to snap a picture of my cubicle. When I was just working for ITCS, doing internal work and client support, I had an office. It was nice and big, I had two desks and a conference table. And I had a window. I arranged my desk to face the door so noone could sneak up on me, and I happily whiled away the hours coding and troubleshooting, and sometimes surfing the web. But those days are gone.
So I’m picking up a Creative Loafing as I do every Thursday, and while I’m standing there, a hawk lands on a near by phone wire hanging above the street.
No, I’m not celebrating 100,000 hits to the website or anything like that. Today my car crossed the 100,000 mile mark on the odometer. It seems a bit odd to think that I’ve driven that much when you take into account that I’ve only gone outside the Atlanta area in the car maybe a half dozen times at best. 5 years… that is 20,000 miles per year, and almost all of that is driving on highways 75, 85, 285 and 400, going to and from work. My Jeep Cherokee is pitiful… I love the car, mind you, and its never broken down or given me any trouble, but its guzzles gas like its going out of style. A hearty 18 miles per gallon… and at an average price of around $1.50 a gallon for gas over that time, I’ve spent over $8,300 dollars on gas in the last five years.
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