brief update: whew, I'm back

I'm back from my weekend in NY. I feel good about accomplishing a lot at Sally's, but somewhat depressed about how much more there is to do, and how difficult it is to do it. Getting a compulsive packrat to stop buying and saving stuff is probably a task that needs a psychologist as well as a friend, and I'm not a psychologist. I'm probably the only person Sally would consider letting do the throwing-out I did (8 garbage cans full and a few extra bags after we ran out of garbage cans, plus 12 paper sacks full of paper to be recycled, plus 9 bags full of aluminum cans; I'm pretty sure the garbage will make it out to the curb for Wednesday morning pickup, and I took the aluminum cans to the recycling center myself before I left Monday afternoon, but I'm not sure the paper stuff will actually make it out of the house to the curb Thursday night for Friday's pickup.) I spent a lot of time reassuring her, showing her the expiration dates on food I was throwing out, and that I was putting any charge card solicitations in the bag for the shredder, not in the recycling, and that I was actually saving anything that was a bill or receipt or personal mail... I lost the battle on some of the candy. She gets a lot of Christmas gifts of candy from her students/clients (she's a physical therapist who works for a couple of different schools on Long Island), and saves them all - and doesn't recognize that even candy goes stale after a couple of years; she's saving it all, even the stuff she doesn't like, because she can "bring it to school for the kids."

More details later; I'm glad to be home. Stay tuned for comparison of Greyhound vs. Amtrak!

Bus and train

So, going up to NY (it's up from Baltimore, although where I was going was Long Island, not upstate - which, if one grows up on LI, means anything north of Westchester...) I took the bus, good old Greyhound. Here's how I make such travel decisions:
Normally Amtrak, Penn to Penn, costs $86. But for some reason, all the fares for Friday afternoon were around $114, except for the Acela, which was even worse. So I went looking at bus fares, and the normal fare to NY-Port Authority is $32, and they were having a sale where if one pays for one's ticket online and prints out one's own copy, it was only $20. Plus the $2 subway fare to get from Port Authority to Penn Station to catch the LIRR, which I wouldn't have needed to take the subway if I had used Amtrak. So, $22 vs $114, for a 4.5 hour bus ride vs. a 2.5 hour train trip. $92 difference, 2 hours, that's $46 per hour. Now, the most I have ever earned in my working life is about $26 per hour. So, I count my time as being worth that. If I can save more than $26 by using up an hour of my time, it's worth it; if I can't save that much, then I'll pay money instead of spending time. This kind of calculation, incidentally, works for all sorts of things: deciding whether to pay for a hotel at a conference vs. stay at a relative's or friend's nearby; is it worth spending an hour searching the basement for something I can't find instead of just buying a replacement... If you ever have trouble deciding whether to spend money on having someone do something for you instead of doing it yourself, this is one possible tool. (Pay someone to clean the carpets, vs. renting a steamer from the store and do it yourself? Drive across country, vs. fly?)

So, Greyhound it was. The people on the bus were a couple blind people, some people who mumbled to themselves without a cell phone, and a bunch of college students. No one really obnoxious. The driver had another driver catching a ride with him, but despite their constant chatting, I was able to catch about an hour's nap in there, and spent the rest of the time crocheting. The bus seats are wider and recline more than an airplane seat, but less than the train, and the little light overhead is dimmer than either train or airline lights; I was able to read a magazine with glossy white paper, but I don't think I'd have been able to read a paperback book with smaller typeface and slightly yellowed paper. There was a lot of traffic in the last 10 miles of the trip - horrible backups at the toll booths, what a surprise. Lanes closed, sounds of jackhammers. Nonetheless, we got into Port Authority only a few minutes after scheduled time. Then it was downstairs to the downtown subway, buy a ticket from a vending machine - no more tokens! - and one stop down to Penn Station. The subways are cleaner than they were a decade ago, and this one wasn't crowded, but they are still as noisy as ever. Noise is one of the things I associate with NYC - the aforementioned jackhammers, the subways, the taxicab horns, the sirens, the sheer volume of that many people talking at once. Upstairs to the LIRR, buy a ticket out to Wantagh from the vending machine - I could have caught a 7:45 train out but would have had to pay peak fare, so I waited for the 8:06 and saved $4 or so. The LIRR is still the LIRR. No surprises there.

Coming back, I took the LIRR back to Penn Station, and by waiting for the 6:45 Amtrak back to Balto. instead of the 6:20, got the $86 fare instead of the $114 fare. It was worth paying the extra for train vs. bus for coming back, because I was paying not only for time saved, but for time to recover from exhaustion. The Amtrak seats are larger and recline more, and have seat-back trays, and the train station has decent food, so one can eat a small meal on the train and then recline and sleep quite comfortably, not the slightly neck-cricking nap I had on the bus. Got in at 9:15, where squirrel_magnet was waiting for me. (Cell phones make it SO much easier to take train trips!)

Overall, I think I would be willing to do the same again - take the bus and save money one way, take the train and save time the other. I wouldn't recommend it for the severely overweight nor for those who are especially spooked by mumbling schizophrenics. And at $20 each way, it would be worth going to NYC to a museum and coming back the same night, if I were with my sweetie and we could lean against each other to sleep on the way. Leave Balto. at 8 a.m. (and sleep on the bus), arrive in NYC a bit after noon, spend until 6 or 7 p.m. at a museum, catch a 7:30 or 8:00 bus back to Balto and be home around midnight. That would be tolerable.

Next up: what we did in our spare time on the weekend.