...and the first shall be last.

so because of an early meeting this morning, i didn't exercise. i was presenting at the meeting, so i caught the bus that would give me almost half an hour of buffer time to offset monday morning traffic.

i was glad i had planned for an extra fifteen minutes as we were at a crawl basically as soon as we hit the freeway. (i later learned of an accident in farmington). anyway, i was reading on the bus, as usual, oblivious to the world outside the bus. most of my reading this morning was in preparation for the meeting, but it still kept me fairly engrossed. (when i'm reading a novel, the ride flies by, even with heavy traffic).

the alarm on my recently recovered cell phone goes off letting me know i have twenty minutes until the meeting. (the alarm is early, because it's a good ten minute walk from my office to the meeting). i look up and notice we're in bountiful, but we're moving at close to freeway speeds. "no problem," i think. it's only about ten or fifteen minutes away. i've got time to spare.

well our bus driver decided that it was time for a change. the next time i look up to see where we are, it's because the driver has just come over the intercom to apologize that he had missed the exit.

that's right. a professional driver. this is what he does for a living. how many times a day does he drive this route?

-let me just take a quick moment to say, by and large, the utah transit authority does a great job. they can't be held responsible for traffic. (i'm really looking forward to the Front Runner commuter rail system!) but still, given the number of busses they operate, breakdowns are rare, and accidents are few. i mean, in the six or so years i've been commuting regularly on the bus, i've had a bus breakdown once, had busses not show up less than a dozen times, and until today, i've never had an unintentional detour.-

"ok," i think, "he'll just head back up 300 west and we'll just be a few minutes later. it will be tight, but i should still make it."

the driver then announces "300 west and 400 south," and the stop signal chimes. that's right, he decided just to run the route backwards! so instead of the third stop, i had to wait until like the eighth. i was still a few blocks away when my phone rang. not the alarm, but someone asking if i was coming.

yes! i am. the bus driver seems to have other plans, but i'll be there soon.

well, i finally walk in to hear the last part of a review of the fire-drill procedures. late, and probably not worth the wait, but i did show up!