Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

I did the bus-bike commute from Seattle to Redmond again today, this time heading to the Montlake “station”  near Husky Stadium to catch the 545 - the one that I took home the other night with on-board WiFi, the one that stops at the Microsoft campus.

When I got to Montlake, however, there were 5 other bikers there waiting for the 545.  Since the buses only have rack space for 3 bikes at a time, I’d have to wait for the second one (at least), and they’re spaced at half-hour intervals.  Damn Microsoft and its culture of earnest youth with free fitness club memberships.

There was an “out” if I wanted to take it: “deadheading” buses, empty and headed back to their base on the east side, pull through and will load a bicyclist.  This solution gets you across the bridge, but lets you off where 405 intersects 520.  Again, I’d have to do a bit of a climb, but most would be on a bike trail that parallels 520.

Better choice than waiting for perhaps an hour, so I grabbed the next deadheader along with another cyclist who had given up hope.  I found the climbing was a bit easier today, probably owing to my adventure Tuesday, so it’s all good.

So now, I’m on a 545 headed homeward, but no WiFi on this one.  At the Microsoft station, I picked up the signal from a different Sound Transit bus in the vicinity for a few minutes, but didn’t at that point have any business to transact.  But now I’m kind of fixated on hitting the “refresh network list” button every now and then as we crawl on 520 just to see what other vehicles might be packin’. The result is sort of a Yellow Pages of businesses along the corridor: Mercedes, Physical Medicine Group, 3Dental, ApexWAP, ActionEngine etc.

All seem to be security-enabled, which warms the cockles of my post-SarbanesOxley IT-auditin’ heart.  There might be a business opportunity in this - the drive-by IT security audit. I’d sub myself out to these entities’ CPA firms and charge a sweet little pop for my life-or-death “deliverable”.