Know&Grow

328... and howdy

I miss your voice...hope to hear from you soon!

I'm not saying you *have* to call my number...but it was my birthday yesterday...lol :-)

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483

Woohoo!!!

I grew up in Seattle, and have done my fair share of runs south of the corridor & back. I still have family in the area - hell, my niece lives about a half-mile from the accident site! I was surprised to not be surprised when my wife & I drove back to Seattle about 2 and a half years ago...we pulled into the I-90/I-405 interchange on a Thursday afternoon, about 3PM. It wasn't a holiday weekend, or close to "quitting time", yet the interchange was jammed for about a mile back, and it took us longer to get through that mess and onto 405 than it took us to get from the summit of Snoqualmie Pass to Issaquah! I think the thing that makes me shake my head and want to weep was the whole reason the news said that Amtrak gave for making the route in the first place...to shave FIFTEEN MINUTES off of the passengers' time! And I'm sure they were charging them all handsomely for the "shortcut"! It's just not worth being unsafe! Now, I will confess to having driven "balls to the wall" before - there was a medical emergency with my daughter, who was working in Bellingham, back in 2000. I made it from the Des Moines exit on I-5 to St. Joseph's Hospital in B'ham in about an hour and 45 minutes...you do the math. However, a) it was an emergency, and b ) I have had professional training in being able to drive (okay, relatively) safely, at high speeds. Personally, I'll take my "home office" any day...no commute, no traffic, the most irate thing I run across is my dogs wanting out :-) If any of y'all need to get away, c'mon out...there's hot tea...old movies...puppies that won't leave you alone...and...and...things...lots of...things... : -)

Amtrak proves, yet again, that once you get anywhere near I-5 in the corridor between Olympia and Everett, there is no such thing as "high speed". All bad humor aside, the tracks were rated at a max. of 79MPH, the train was doing over 80, JUST SHY OF A SHARP BEND IN THE TRACKS!!. Not sure who is more to blame...the engineers, or the folks who thought that a high-speed run was actually a good idea...all to save 15 minute on a run from Seattle to Portland? A life is far more valuable than 15 minutes, IMHO.

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