Today was just an absolutely perfect day to be outside in Sacramento. On the warm side but a breeze sure helped keep things manageable. There's something about the beginning of August around here where we somehow luck out year after year when it comes to avoiding the 100 plus degree days.
On Sundays, I like to get out and stretch my legs a little, and am lucky enough to be living in the middle of a couple of decent little parks and tree lined streets just about everywhere. This time I opted to go on my semi-regular route around Capitol Park by way of Capitol Avenue. This street in particular has so many shady areas for walking, it almost feels like you're indoors on some blocks, at least in the late spring and early to mid-summertime.
The Capitol building itself seemed pretty inactive, despite the reports that, according to the various media outlets, the "big 5" (which currently consists of Governor Schwarzenegger; Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles; Senate Speaker pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland; Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill, R-Fresno; and Assembly Minority Leader Michael Villines, R-Clovis) were having what may turn out to be a pretty meaningless powwow inside concerning the current state budget stalemate. At about 12:30ish in the afternoon, there was no sign of any disgruntled protesting state employees either. The most pressing duties of the CHP patrol at the time seemed to be answering tourists' questions.
(Look! A picture! Of the Capitol! That's so, like, Sacramentan!)
There wasn't any sign of the governor or the protesters at his crash pad across the street either. Just a few days ago the SEIU Local 1000 had shown up at 6:15 AM for a "wake-up call" for Arnie on his birthday to express their opinion that they thought that his decision to sign an executive order to cut a couple of hundred thousand state workers' pay to the Federal minimum of $6.55 an hour was fucked up (and probably illegal as well.) The Hyatt, as well as various online services like Travelocity, Expedia.com, Priceline etc. must have been having a rather rough time in their call centers that day. "Hey! You said I have a deal on a four star room and there's fuckin' people banging pots and pans at 6:30 in the morning! I want an upgrade, pronto!"
(Look! A picture of Arnie's hotel! That's like, so Hyatt!)
So, the walk was pretty nice overall, but of course, as the odds would have it, once again, just like yesterday, I encountered yet another train crossing.
There was a funny conicidence with this particular train. Yesterday, I had not reached my destination and the train was traveling north, but this time, as I was traveling home, on the opposite side of the track, the train was moving south.
It seemed to be a big longer than the one which crossed the day before, so I opted to tread back and take 19th Street parallel to the direction of the train, since I would eventually be headed down those blocks anyway.
Apparently, the train had been crossing for quite a while now, as N Street appeared to have vehicles waiting for what appeared to be several blocks down. At least one guy got out of his car and walked up to the crossing gate to see how much longer the train was running. Hey, buddy, what are you going to do, tell the other six cars behind you to back up so you could move your impatient ass out of there? As fate would have it, by the time that I had walked two blocks to P Street the train had finished passing through and the gates were open, and about ten dozen drivers in various places stopped cussing out the railroad.
(IMPORTANT NOTE OF GUIDANCE: This post is but one in a series called THE MUNDANE MONTH OF BLOGGING™. For those of you who are scratching your head right now and saying to yourselves, "What the fuck is he trying to prove?", Click Here, Pilgrim)
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