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Yesterday on my carpool ride home, the already sluggish traffic slowed to a crawl on Highway 880 by McCarthy Ranch. Something was obviously hindering the two middle lanes from moving forward as I saw a vast expanse of space in front of the cars ahead. As we maneuvered around the bottleneck, I caught a glance of about eight ducklings waddling along lane number two. The mother duck was nowhere around.

This morning in the opposite direction on my way to work on an Amtrak motorcoach, we came upon an accident. The cops and paramedics were already at the scene. A scrunched-up sedan was pinned by a delivery truck against the center divide. I hope and pray nobody was seriously hurt.

Click on the image below to see a row of abandoned shacks along the train route I take everyday:

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The baby finally went home with us on Sunday. Yay! But woe to me I’m not used to waking up at night every two hours or so anymore. I was supposed to get back to work on Monday but I woke up that day with a migraine headache that wouldn’t go away.

By Tuesday, I felt better. That morning as I approached the train station on my bike, I saw a man waiting for the Amtrak motorcoach I was going to take. It’s usually just me waiting for the bus at this time. I asked him if he had been waiting long and he said he had been there since 9 a.m. I informed him the bus usually arrives about 15 minutes late. The bus, however, hadn’t arrived by 9:30 a.m. At this point we had had a pretty lengthy conversation going so he offered me a lift to Santa Clara where we both work. He had parked his car at the train station and had planned on taking the bus to work. I accepted. He seemed to be a pretty decent guy.

In our conversations, I found out he is Filipino-Chinese, is a Christian, works in the tech industry and has three children. I myself am part Chinese (my great grandfather was from Amoy, China). The similarities don’t end there. He migrated to the US at age fourteen, the same age I did, but a decade earlier. He is about ten years older than me and his children are in their teens. He gave me a glimpse of how I would possibly be like ten years from now.

It was drizzling as I was doing my usual one-man Critical Mass trek to work this morning. Thanks to my new bright yellow poncho, I kept myself and my backpack dry. I had to wipe down my bike, however, before bringing it in the office.

Obtaining the poncho in preparation for the rainy season was a smart thing for me to do. I’ve done a few inane things, however, when it comes to biking. A couple of weeks ago, I attempted to use my cell phone while on my bike. As soon as I hit a bump, the phone flew out of my hand and landed on the hard asphalt, rendering it useless for a couple of hours. Then last week, I rode my bike at night without the proper light beam attachment. Halfway to my destination, I incurred a flat tire. Upon close examination, thorns had pierced the back tire in two places. I’m giving up biking at night altogether, with or without proper beams.

Hey, a whole week without a blog entry. Lately I’ve been obsessing about my new mode of transportation. It has definitely made my commute easier. It’s compact, energy-efficient and convenient. It’s a…bike! A folding bike by Dahon, to be exact. I can take it on the train and on the bus with me. It’s a great conversation starter. When I took an Amtrak train this past Saturday, the conductor liked my bike and asked me where he could get one. He needed a means to get around Sacramento during his two hour layover. I referred him to Dahon’s website. He in turn let me have a free ride!

This bike also gives me a nice cardiovascular workout. I bike about 3 miles each way to and from the train station. On my last yearly check-up, my doctor asked me if I exercised regularly and I said no. But now I can confidently say that I do. And with gas prices rising past $2.00 a gallon, I feel I definitely made the right move (not that I had a choice). The only problem is the weather forecast for the next couple of days here in the Bay Area is rain! Yikes.