Twilight Zone
Thanks to Qumana, I was able to type this up offline last night, while warming seat 11 in car 4 of the 18:09 Via Rail train from Kingston to Toronto. Bit of a value-free rant, I'm afraid, but there you go.
No great news or moments of epiphany to impart here. It just sucks to be sitting here breathing the stale, recirculated air with my laptop battery dying, so I'm seeking solace in the simple act of fingers flying across the keyboard. I've caught up with all my feed-reading, consumed three newspapers, scarfed down the free Pringles and pop from the long-suffering Via guard.
Running out of options.
Kicking myself now that I neglected to pack my book for this business trip. I have about 30 pages to go in The Time Traveler's Wife, which is utterly gripping. It's lying on the floor beside our bed at home, darn it.
Staring out across rural southern Ontario in the pitch dark - not a single sign of civilization to be seen out there. Not sure where we are, but it's sparsely populated, for sure. It's just possible the train actually took a wrong turn somewhere and fell off the face of the Earth into the void.
My day started at 04:30 - up in time to iron my shirt and trot out into the flurries towards our local Go Transit station. Caught the 05:56 downtown so that I'd be in Union Station early enough to get the 06:55 train back out eastwards to Kingston.
Battery light flashing. Laptop fading fast. Me too.
...
Next day...
Made it home (battling the crowds spilling out of The Who concert downtown). In bed by 12:10. Dangerously close to a 20-hour day. Apart from the traveling part, the rest of the day was absolutely excellent, though - so I mustn't grumble.
Later...
I finally found out the apparent cause of the delay. Seems some poor soul fell from a train heading in the opposite direction, bringing all traffic on the tracks to a halt.
Sitting in a warm, relatively comfortable train for - even for three hours longer than scheduled - is infinitely better than the lot of the OPP officers who were out in the cold, dark night; scouring the area around the tracks. To say nothing of the mental and physical pain the man who was the cause of their search must have endured. Now I feel bad.
May your soul rest in peace, whoever you were.
***
It's 20:43 right now. The train should have pulled in to Union Station half an hour ago, but we've been parked somewhere east of Coburg for something approaching two hours now. There's some kind of an accident up ahead on the line, and so we're stuck.No great news or moments of epiphany to impart here. It just sucks to be sitting here breathing the stale, recirculated air with my laptop battery dying, so I'm seeking solace in the simple act of fingers flying across the keyboard. I've caught up with all my feed-reading, consumed three newspapers, scarfed down the free Pringles and pop from the long-suffering Via guard.
Running out of options.
Kicking myself now that I neglected to pack my book for this business trip. I have about 30 pages to go in The Time Traveler's Wife, which is utterly gripping. It's lying on the floor beside our bed at home, darn it.
Staring out across rural southern Ontario in the pitch dark - not a single sign of civilization to be seen out there. Not sure where we are, but it's sparsely populated, for sure. It's just possible the train actually took a wrong turn somewhere and fell off the face of the Earth into the void.
My day started at 04:30 - up in time to iron my shirt and trot out into the flurries towards our local Go Transit station. Caught the 05:56 downtown so that I'd be in Union Station early enough to get the 06:55 train back out eastwards to Kingston.
Battery light flashing. Laptop fading fast. Me too.
...
Next day...
Made it home (battling the crowds spilling out of The Who concert downtown). In bed by 12:10. Dangerously close to a 20-hour day. Apart from the traveling part, the rest of the day was absolutely excellent, though - so I mustn't grumble.
Later...
I finally found out the apparent cause of the delay. Seems some poor soul fell from a train heading in the opposite direction, bringing all traffic on the tracks to a halt.
Sitting in a warm, relatively comfortable train for - even for three hours longer than scheduled - is infinitely better than the lot of the OPP officers who were out in the cold, dark night; scouring the area around the tracks. To say nothing of the mental and physical pain the man who was the cause of their search must have endured. Now I feel bad.
May your soul rest in peace, whoever you were.
