There's a new mullet in town. This one comes with mousse. I saw it on the train this morning.

The train schedules changed today. A woman got onto the train in Menlo Park and seemed dismayed as we skipped Palo Alto. I think she thought this was a local train, not the express Baby Bullet. Oops.

Well, she didn't mess up her hair. She had the mullet look (business up front, party in the back) but done with mousse instead of scissors. The front of her head was severely straight. The back was poofy.

On the way home, I once again waited in vain for the DASH shuttle. I think the shuttle doesn't follow the published route and the signs saying "DASH Shuttle" don't have any relationship to the shuttle's actual route. It's better to just walk.

This is the vicious dog at work who used to growl at me. I'm losing my touch. The dog no longer growls at me.

Sometimes, CalTrain can be amusing. This morning, I saw two fat men in business suits running up the ramp to try to catch their train. For some reason, they looked really funny to me.

This picture was taken out the window on my commute home.

Now if I could figure out which Light Rail stations are open and closed, my commute would be much more efficient. The published schedule doesn't match reality. At least I speak the language and know the area. The German tourists on Light Rail last week were quite confused when they saw the map on the train didn't match their printed schedule. The printed schedule and the map listed different stations for transferring to a different line. The tourists didn't know where they would have to transfer, because the published information didn't match. I think VTA needs to do some work on their communication strategy.

This is a hydrant near the CalTrain station.

When I'm commuting to work in the morning, I'm half asleep. I want to just sit on the train and drink my tea. I don't want to have to deal with some guy hitting on me. That's what I got this morning.

He started his pass with a complaint about CalTrain's timeliness. In my experience, CalTrain is almost always on time. In fact, the only time I've been significantly delayed has been when the train hit something. He went on to tell me how horrible CalTrain service is, based on his experience the previous day when the train had been late. I'd been on the same train the previous day. The train was, as usual, exactly on time. Eventually, I figured out that he had been on a different train that had some mechanical problems the previous day.

On the Light Rail segment of my trip home, I ran into the world's worst child guardian again. This woman is too young to have 6-8 year old children but she seems too old to be the babysitter. Well, today (as she did another day), she boarded the train with her two 6-8 year old hellions. They proceeded to scream, kick the seats and generally make a nuisance of themselves. The woman went to the other end of the train so she could make a cell phone call without having to try to hear over the noise the kids were making. Fortunately, they only stayed on the train for a few stops.

I've said before that if people are going to inflict their cell phone conversations on the captive audience on public transportation, they should at least have interesting conversations. I got my wish tonight. The woman behind me spent most of the trip on her cell phone. Her first few conversations weren't that interesting. Evidently, she's been temping and she needs to pick up a check. Then she called about a new job. She had had a job interview earlier in the day. She wanted to know how it went. She called her psychic for a reading.

I came home to an impromptu movie night. We got pizza and watched part of Amar, Akbar, and Anthony, one of my favorite Bollywood films.

This is the site where someone found mammoth bones poking out of the riverbed. We took a walk over to look at it.

Little light rail cars just have an annoying 'clang' sound. They don't get a full horn like CalTrain. I wonder if they have horn-envy?

I missed my daily photo today.

I went to see the Mime Troupe show today. Before and after the Mime Troupe, I got to experience some of U-Haul's special circle of hell. We will not ever be renting anything from U-Haul ever again. Just getting into the facility was difficult. We had to break through the army of day laborers at the gate before spending close to an hour in line. The whole ordeal was unpleasant. We will not go back.

These are some of the almost-ripe tomatoes in my garden. This time last year, I was making tomato sauce. This year, I have a few ripe tomatoes here and there but not many at one time. The tomatoes are taking their time this year.

Today's cooking: whole wheat herb (garlic, rosemary, oregano) bread, roasted pineapple salsa, bean & tomato bake thing, banana bread

I live and work in two different climates. I work in sunny San Jose. I live in foggy San Francisco. The contrast between the two can be quite striking. This is the view from my ride home on CalTrain. Only one building is illuminated by the light. That building is WalMart.com. I think this means that God must like WalMart.

Someone has to be really stupid to put graffiti on a a rail on an active railroad. Even though it's light rail, the train will still win.

My morning commute was delayed this morning when Caltrain had to stop for someone walking on the tracks. Somehow, the person jumped out of the way and the train didn't hit them. I don't understand why someone would walk along active railroad tracks...unless they were suicidal.

On Light Rail this morning, I saw another kind of mullet. This was a reverse-mullet: long in front & short in back. The back was very short and covered in some greasy hair product that made everything spiky. The front dramatically draped over her eyes. I guess that was some sort of angst.

The commute home was smelly. Why is it that people who wear cheap cologne feel compelled to wear so much of it? Then again, maybe I only notice the people wearing a lot of it. The man sitting behind me needed to learn that "more" isn't the same as "better" when it came to cologne. I guess he was extra-cool because, in addition to reeking of cheap cologne, he wore TWO pairs of sunglasses.

The next man who got onto the train also smelled but he smelled because he needed to wash.

This was quite the odoriferous commute.

When I try a shot like this, I should use a tripod or more light. This is a little bit blurry.

This is my commute knitting.

This is part of the office park near where I work.

This morning was one of those mornings. I was sitting on the train when I realized my sweater was on inside-out. In the mornings, I pretty much function on auto-pilot to get myself to the train. I don't really wake up in the morning until I'm on the train. This morning, auto-pilot didn't catch my sweater being inside out.

On the way home, there was another person who was caught by the stealth bullet train. The bullet train that I take doesn't look like a bullet. While this is a 'baby bullet' which only stops a handful of times between San Jose and San Francisco, they use the older cars for this train. Tonight, someone got onto this train expecting to stop somewhere in San Mateo County. They were surprised to skip most of that county and land in San Francisco.

Signs like this amuse me. .This is again from the office park near my work. I took a walk around the parking lots in order to warm up. The combination of ice cream at lunch and air condiitoning made for a chilly afternoon.

Why is it that everyone who hears about the length of my commute tries to find some way for me to drive instead of take the train? I like taking the train. Driving makes me crazy. If I had to work somewhere I had to drive...well, I wouldn't do it. I LIKE the train. Why would I want to put effort into finding a convoluted way to spend time in the parking lot known as Highway 101? Somehow, people seem compelled to try to convince me to drive to work. I keep saying "I like the train." and it doesn't sink in.

This time last year, I was making tomato sauce. This year, I have barely enough tomatoes for salsa. If this hadn't been a roasted pineapple salsa instead of a traditional tomato salsa, this wouldn't be enough tomatoes.

We did a BBQ in the evening to break in the new grill. I made a lemon pie, rye bread, roasted pineapple salsa and carrot cookies with a lime glaze.

My kitchen floor is a mess from all the people walking in and out of the house. It's bad enough I might mop before the Clean Team (biweekly cleaning service) arrives next week.

Tonight, I went to my Guns, Germs & Steel reading group. If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in joining, email me.

This is an emergency exit on a building near the coffeeshop where the reading group meets. I like the idea of a slide instead of stairs.

This is the cat.

This is one of the few ripe tomatoes in my garden.

I got to spend much of the day inside the juror assembly room in San Francisco's Superior Court. They showed us an instructional video which told us that being a juror is a great way to meet friends and boost self esteem. Oh, yeah, it's also a civic duty.

I could have done without the cheerful video.

I could also have done without the hours of waiting, although I did get some reading done. I never even saw the inside of a courtroom. We were all dismissed and sent home.

On the way home, we stopped by my favorite flower stand and found this sign. We also said hello to Frank Chu who was doing his rounds.

We went to dinner at Woodward's Gardens, hoping to learn something about San Francisco's first amusement park. While the food was quite good, they had next to no information on the original Woodward's Gardens.

August 18

This is one of the larger dogs at work. This dog doesn't bark at me. While the little dog felt a need to growl and bark, the big dog just wags his tail and is generally friendly.

There is construction at work. This is a hole in the wall to see what's going on with the construction next door.

This truck is art, not transportation.

This is a rescue dog with the bug eyes. This evening, this dog's older brother learned that opposable thumbs are not required to open the food container.

During the day, we went to Rainbow where I stocked up on esoteric flours and spices.

There is some construction at work.

Tonight, I toasted some of the fenugreek I'd picked up at Rainbow. Then I ground it in my new spice grinder. Now my kitchen smells like fenugreek. While it isn't an unpleasant smell, I think this could get old after a while.

I've had so many dog pictues lately that I had to balance it with some cat pictures.

The kitchen still smells like fenugreek.

This is another attempt to put the cat/dog balance back into proper proportion.

I figured if the kitchen were going to smell like fenugreek, I should at least cook something that uses fenugreek. I made a vegie curry that turned out quite well.

The people sitting in front of me on tonight's train were talking about their lives. They kept saying "it was like that movie..." I think they need to experience more life and spend less time at the movies. Movies are not real life.

The days are getting short enough that I almost get to watch the sunrise from the train during my morning commute.

I took an early train home tonight. When I arrived at the CalTrain platform, I realized I was surrounded by family groups dressed in orange, not commuters. When one of these orange people asked me which train went to San Francisco, I knew I'd made a mistake. There was a Giants home game. I was going to commute with Giants fans.

At least this time, they weren't drunk. I just had to listen to the 4 8-10 year old girls singing "Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give the dog a bone" complete with hand gestures. Everytime we went into a tunnel (ok, only twice) the girls screamed.

When I got home, I toasted coriander seeds for homemade baba ganoush. I also mixed (and left out to rise overnight) a loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread.

This is another of the dogs at work.

This is the inside of Philz Coffee. I'm not a coffee-person but this place could almost convince me to start.

The City is emptying out for Burning Man. I'll miss it this year but I think we will be back next year.

This is a cat in the sink, a follow-up to the 'stuffonmycat' series.

If I had a ten year old child, that child would know how to sleep through the night. Why can't a ten year old cat do the same thing?

The circus came to San Jose. the zebras and other animals got to stay in the parking lot of the San Jose Arena (aka HP Pavilion).

I'm trying to make up for all my recent dog photos by posting more cat photos.

This is The Cat with some catnip from the garden.

These are the public housing projects that overlook the 22nd Street CalTrain station.

There seems to be a lot of flirting on CalTrain. Several times a week, I find myself near a couple doing that dance.

I wonder...what happens to the commute when a relationship that started on CalTrain goes bad? When one person notices that someone else is being driven to the train by a third person?

After work, we stopped by The Caravan for a drink. This is a real dive bar.

VTA's mysterious schedule struck again tonight. There were four people on my LightRail train who were lost. Three just didn't realize a second train had been added to the schedule. They ended up at the wrong station because they got onto the wrong train.

The fourth person was trying to get to the Fruitdale station. She could see it on her map but what the map doesn't say is that the map lies. That station isn't actually open. She asked me if she was on the right train to get there. I told her she would be...if the station were open.

VTA usually has an employee posted at the San Jose station just to round up these lost people. Enough people get waylaid that it is worthwhile to have a dedicated person to try to explain the VTA schedule.

I like CalTrain. It runs. It's on time. The printed schedules match reality. VTA is a mystery.