MarkTime 66

The “Get Your Kicks” issue of the long-running (vroom) zine

From Mark Strickert, PO Box 6753, Fullerton CA 92834 – zineland@yahoo.com

$2.00 cash, stamps, trade, etc.

Started 2/16/02

 Tonight I am trying to at least begin the process of getting an APAzine written in time for the APA Centauri mailing.  I had a few ideas floating around my mind at the start of today's all-too-rare long walk, and was already expecting to start on my zine next Tuesday.  I do not know if I will be able to write it all in one sitting, so here I am at Skinko's putting in an hour or so (minus time to check e-mail).  I had taken a break from sorting and filing stuff at home to have some chow at the alleged pizza place down the street, so of course I did not have my notes with me, d'oh!

 Also, I do not have any of my recent zines with me as I type this part.  So, will repeat some items, and repeat others…sorry!
 For instance, I forget if I had already brought up the story of how I came to have two big filing cabinets sitting in my new living room?  My professional paperwork-organizer friend had promised to get me one or two, should I ever move into a place that had room for any, as a way to organize my papers and other files.  She had even promised to help with some of the sorting, though is so busy with so many projects (a familiar story to me, and no doubt to many of you?) that I may well have most or all of my papers in order by then.  Or not.  The cabinets certainly do help limit the clutter, and their filled weight will also be a disincentive to move again any time soon ?.   Oh yeah, turned out some guy not far from my former Yorba Linda residence was giving away two metal 5-drawer cabinets one sunny Saturday.  She rented a truck, which I drove for us to pick up those, plus several for herself and a relative at stores down in Santa Ana.  They then all sat in her home-office area for about two months, creating quite a mess for someone who makes a living (of sorts) as a clutter-control consultant.  When I finally got into my new place, and enough work was done, the cabinets were rolled the three blocks to their new home, rumble rumble one at a time on what of course was an otherwise quiet night.

 The new place is working out well enough so far.  As of today, the living room was up to 70% usability, lacking one promised electrical outlet and needing work on another, and much of the floor space is still being wasted on kitchen cabinets and such.  The bathroom is up to about 80%, though all the basics are in working order.  The kitchen, now that's still a problem…only one outlet and the lights are working there.  The landlord is supposed to be in tomorrow or maybe Monday to put in the sink and cabinets.  Dunno when the stove or refrigerator will be hooked up and running?  I know he doesn't want to continue giving me a break on the rent, so I'm guessing all will be magically right by the close of business on February 28th…or just enough for the guy to insist on full rent for March, which I will in turn grumble about if I still have to be eating out every night (though the full rent is amazingly reasonable for the area, and hey how often am I home anyway? ?).

 Once all the above is settled, next step is to seek out a new home PC.  I need something with much more memory than the old (35 in dog years, 112 in computer years, ?).  One preferably with fully-functional word processing, spread-sheet and map-designing programs.  A friend was thinking about selling an old but still relatively robust iMac, as he's selling most or all of his several pieces of hardware for cash to buy a new Mac.  I'm not sure I could pay all cash yet, and anyway I'd rather go for new and robust too ?.  The old Black Box may wind up with one of the local Transit Advocate people, pending his return of my phone call this afternoon.  I'd still need to drag it home and set it up long enough to save a few files that I did not think to put on disk when I had the chance.

 The new job?  Well, it is going OK but not great.  I should have guessed that all the phone calls would lead to occasional bouts with burnout and/or muddled thought processes, and that the company is more oriented towards friendly and chatty than it is towards public transit.  I was going to say that they don't care about accuracy, but that's not entirely true…the company and the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) encourage reporting of any information glitches.  The trick is, since only 2½ of the people they hired for the call center came in with any transit experience or geographic smarts, glitches and errors are not always noticed until bad information gets given out several times.  Also, OCTA purchased new routing software in the hopes that few transit-savvy people would be needed, and both they and the call center company are ultimately relying on it all to take thinking right out of the picture.  Unfortunately, the occasional glitches both in information and in how it is processed by the software and presented by the operators in turn creates problems for callers.
 Another problem is that none of the transit-oriented people there have any authority there.  The two supervisors care a great deal about accurate information.  However, they don’t enough to have a clue what would and would not be accurate.  Never mind that, when it all comes down to it, they are ultimately Company People.  A "lead operator" position opened up, mostly to fill in gaps in the supervisory schedules and to help with other matters.  I went for it, knowing full well that my lack of call center experience and general neutral attitude on overt friendliness (I don't fake "It's a Great Day!" very well, and anyway do NOT want that sort of thing to detract from what the customers are really calling in for, that being accurate and timely routing and fare information) were going to weigh against me.  I would not be so bummed about that if only one of the candidates I knew to be intelligent and at least somewhat into the geography if not the transit would have gotten the nod, but instead it went to someone I know not at all.  Of course, they do value my knowledge and willingness to help, but I am NOT going to like them taking advantage of it all just so they get out of having to hand out the title and extra cash that should be going with it.  Oops, am beginning to talk like the other full-fledged transit expert there, a guy who also has years of previous transit call-center experience, and who was called on to lead two days of the training, but who turned them off by being even more insistent that his skills are actually important there.
 All this is not sitting well with the big guns at the Transit Advocates of Orange County, one of whom had played a big part in that company's getting the Customer Information Center contract, and two of the others also coincidentally being currently on the payroll of said company.  Maybe we're taking this all too seriously, but we look at the call center as being the equivalent of Technical Support.  This view has been shared by even the dimmest light-bulbs I've talked to at both the local group and at the regional Southern California Transit Advocates.
 More on this later, but I don't want to totally bore you, or get myself worked up during a rare full weekend off.  Let's just say I am still glad to have left Auto-byte-me, and to take a rare job doing something I actually believe in.  Even if it means answering 90-130 calls a day in an average time of 2 minutes-25 seconds…this low despite having to explain long routings, bus stop locations, constant interruptions to help other operators with nuggets of wisdom or to sort out why a routing came up that was so bad even an average operator noticed, and why we do not have information on the trains, or any non-OCTA buses.
 Oops, I know I left something out of the end of the first full paragraph on this page.  More than a few commutes and other trips do not stop at the county lines, and several callers a day expect to get information for the start or end of their adventure to/from Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino or San Diego counties.  OCTA has a few routes going into downtown Long Beach, Hawaiian Gardens, and Cerritos, and two commute-hour/direction routes to/from downtown Los Angeles, and the typical operator's lack of knowledge really shows when the caller's trip does not go to any of those few places…you have to know where they are going, and how the connecting transit works (or does NOT work) simply to get the person to the right connecting point. T'ain't pretty.

2/19/02

 New job, new apartment, but at present still the same old social life.  Had some interesting possibilities from the dating services, but none were convenient geographically.  Like I have time for that sort of thing anyway?  Only brought this up at all as a follow-up to last issue.  Will not mention again unless I have real news.

 An unusual couple months in one respect…I got to three movies "only in theaters" since mid-January, or equal to my movie-going for all of 2001.  Will give each a very brief mention, doing none of the films their due…next time maybe?
I was most looking forward to seeing Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring, though was delayed once by my landlord's bad timing, and another time by a last-second offer of a free ticket to a special screening up at the Egyptian in Hollyweird.
 A friend down here is on the "American Cinematheque" mailing list, and got a couple free to a showing of The Gleaners and I , a respectful and humorous semi-documentary on urban and rural scavenging in France.  Director Agnes Varda was in attendance, talking briefly before and after the film.  Was good to get inside the Egyptian Theater, too, though the remodeling took away a bit of the old look.
 Took a while, but Amelie made it to a theater in northern Orange County.  The Bay Theatre in Seal Beach also offers organ recitals prior to some of its showings, on a huge organ originally made for the Paramount Theater in New York.  The film was a cute, quirky little comedy.
 As noted in the mailing comments, this reporter got to Lord of the Rings at last, well worth the wait.  I had made the mistake of rushing off to see the Bakshi train-wreck opening day, instead of waiting for feedback from knowing pals.  Only heard from 3 friends who have seen it so far (counting Scott Marshall) and all were very positive.  Perhaps the most encouraging was from former ACer Bob Nelson…something to the effect of, “I had to go to the can about an hour into the film, but I stuck it out to the end."
 On the video side, my old pal in Chicago send me Snatch, a decent enough follow-up to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Unbreakable, of which I have so far seen only the first half…seems to be leaning dangerously towards live-action comic book fare ?.  Won't get to see the rest until maybe next Tuesday, from the looks of my schedule.

 Adding to my triple-life (work, transit advocacy, and a spot of gardening on the side), I'm taking a class on Transportation Planning.  Said class is part of the architecture track at East Los Angeles College, though is being taught at Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.  Despite the location and the majority of attendees (MTA employees, and a few other public transit people) , the topics lean more towards auto traffic planning, though is still very much of interest to me.

APAa and Oranges

 Selected Mailing Comments, from my part of APA Centauris #130 and 131:

 It happens, or doesn't happen, sometimes.  Have still not caught any Enterprise.  Your comments are in line with most of the most positive ones..."If nothing else, Bakula is good in it" seems to be the consensus.
 Thanks to winning a coffee shop gift card at the company holiday party last month, have done a bit of hanging around one of the local coffee shops myself.  Sometimes I'm engaged in answering letters, sometimes just vegetating in one of the Comfy Chairs (as Cardinal Fang pokes me with the business  end of a pillow, ?).  Not much time for that sort of thing, alas.  Pretty good music mixes at each of the 3 nearby coffee establishments, when they play pre-recorded stuff anyway.  The live tunes at McClains Coffeehouse and at The Hub can be more than a bit grating, especially the post-punk nights.
 "Hyper-femininity", have to remember that line.  One of the turn-offs to the present work-place, as opposed to my former employer the dotcom, is the slightly more formal atmosphere, and thus more dress-up with corresponding increase in make-up abuse, eek!
 Random responses to journal entries:  Tough to find good tamales in southern California!  You would think we were farther from Mexico than Chicago is??  If you're lucky, you run across homemade ones at a picnic or potluck, as the restaurant ones can be pretty lame or just plain odd...one spot over by the Anaheim ballpark serves a "tamale" that is a corn-meal roll with the filling stuff poured ON TOP!  Not bad, just bizarre.  A friend was up in the San Francisco are on business a couple months ago, and brought back some decent ones.  Now, horchata [cinnamon-rice drink] is easy to find, though I haven't gotten into it much as I'm avoiding sugared drinks in general.  Have really gotten into rice bowls since moving out here, both the Japanese and Mexican.
 I enjoyed Repo Man when it was first out, and it only lost a bit from my more recent viewing, thanks the VHS copy found a couple years ago at some garage sale.  Got to see the first installment of Lord of the Rings just last night as I type this (2/18/02), and I was given the impression that the "That's the end?" folks there were not familiar with the books.
 "Grand Theft Auto" itself would be too manic for my recreational preferences ("Quiet please!"), but  the wacky side-bits you mentioned are fun, especially the "radio".  A slightly tamer cab-driver game has been installed at my corner faux-pizza place, and I first saw it in action while having an informal meeting with another of the local transit advocates...distracted us long enough to see buses and trains included in the moving scenery.
 Clowes, from Chicago?  NO!  I say that quite sarcastically, or did I fail to mention our past connection?  When old  friend/frequent MarkTime reader/infrequent caller Charles Schneider was going in for the audition that won him the bit part as "Joey MacCobb" in Ghost World, Daniel Clowes himself pulls us aside for a quick chat.  Seems he remembered me by name through some past meeting at Schneider's place in Chicago, but I did not remember it myself?  Would've had to be between 1970 and 1976, before all three of us moved off elsewhere for school and/or other reasons.  Looking through some of Charles' zines from the mid-to-late 70s, some familiar looking cartoon art pops up!
 Obey Obor!
 Dreams are not for the timid.  Have been spooked a number of times the last couple years by weird little "deja vu" incidents I can only discern were by way of past dreams only.  I used to have a lot of "can't run away" and "nearly nekkid in public" dreams, but have had very few anymore?  Guess I'm nearer to being on the right path than I was in the past, or is this just wishful thinking?
 Yep, noticed the Yafoo personals are a potential minefield.  Was good that I did not pay to sign up, and at least the bogus porn-site e-mail lures were usually obvious.  On the other hand, the one serious contact I made did not work out, it being too much of a commute from Fullerton to Long Beach.  Unattached women in and near Fullerton either do not use online personals and dating services, or just do not exist, grumble.
 Glad I'm not the only guy who prefers women in their original packaging!  I dunno what's worse, the breast augmentation scarring, or how even the pricier minimal-scarring ones (twos?) wind up looking?  I keep expecting to see a tag stating, “In the event of a water landing, these phony breasts can be used as flotation devices.”
 Can't say I'm too surprised about your GHOST WORLD review.  I'm not much of a reviewer anyway, and obviously I chose to overlook a few details such as the occasional dead-end character.  One of my video-traders just sent me a tape of it, and I still enjoyed enough of the film the second time through.  He did ask if I knew why, every time he saw GHOST WORLD in the theatres, many in the audience laughed at the horse-head drawing in the first art class scene.  Guess the drawing was just too sickeningly sweet for a Clowes-oriented audience, ?!
 Also no surprise...have seen only 1½ of your "Top 10", not bad considering I saw only 5 or maybe 6 movies attributable to 2001 so far.  The ½ is O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, which the same friend just sent on video...from my viewing so far, my main thought was "Either this was done by the same folks who did RAISING ARIZONA, or they saw it too often while writing this film", ?.  I know I'll want to see JAY & SILENT BOB, BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, and MONSTERS INC. for sure soon, and the rest maybe eventually.
 Five of my last 7 office desks have been in cubicles.  The last two have been the noisiest, a bad thing especially in a call-in center (one customer I was talking to just today stopped in mid-sentence to comment, "Gee, the women in your office sure talk a lot!").
 I am NO fan of acronyms, but they are impossible to avoid both amongst transit agencies and amongst transit advocacy groups out here.  The "OCTA squishy bus" is a foam robber toy they gave away mostly to employees, and contractors (such as I) who asked real nice like.
 I was not happy with the '91 World Series at the time, so it doesn't rate better that maybe 4th or 5th in excitement here.  I was pulling for the Braves, if only because the Twins had already won a series (1987 vs. the Cardinals, an outcome I actually liked), the Braves had not won it since 1957, I did not know at the time how excruciatingly dominant the Braves would become in their division and league in the years since, and worst yet the only thing I hate about the Minnesota Twins (The Humptydome, a sorry excuse for a ballpark) had a direct effect on the outcome...the place is only worthy of a new "arena baseball" league.

Back to the Natter at Hand

Continuing 3/7/02

 Sorry, folks, if there is anything repeated from MarkTime 65 in the next page or two…just worked out this way!
[Note: this section is mostly just an updated reprint of Mini-MarkTime 65—ed.]
 Hello all!  Was doing a bit of paper filing tonight, but the paper wore out my nail-file ?.  However, seems I picked up a bit of a head cold at work, making bending and crouching less than comfortable.  The last stuff I worked on was a pile of old zines, so was suddenly in the mood to do at least a Headline News edition of MarkTime.
 The files of old zines are mostly sorted out, but the newer zines are still in an as-yet-unfound box.  For I know, there already was a MarkTime 65?  Newest one I found was #64, from late November 2001, so will base this on that.
 Since that issue, have been through a few changes.  On the home front, will make a long story short…wound up in a temporary apartment in west Anaheim for a month, long enough for the Malvern landlord to decide that rehabbing his open unit was less of a hassle than trying to evict the non-paying tenant.  Moved into the half-finished new place on December 29th.  As of tonight, the kitchen remains all but unusable, but the rest of the place is at 95%, that is the part not filled up with kitchen cabinets waiting to be installed.  Location is good, and rent is very good, though this eating out stuff is getting old.  Plus, would rather use the floor space for, say, a desk topped by my own PC and printer.
 Work changed a bit too…the new OCTA call-center contractor needed information operators after all, so I went in seeking a bit of part-time evening/weekend work.  After two interviews and a customer service test, none of which involved any sort of public transit knowledge I might add, I was hired on for FULL time.  A small first step into the world of public transportation employment, though at the same time a big leap away from the mail/shipping/supply grind.  Burnout potential is high, not helped by the company’s insistence on taking lots of calls, preferably kept to a maximum average length, though at the same time wanting shiny, happy chatter (accurate information optional), so the realist in me is already sticking out toes towards the next step.
 Speaking of toes…Hmmm, did I cover my latest test of the dating waters last time?  Can’t find it in #64, so must have only been covered in my January zine for APA Centauri?  Well, for the sake of my frayed nerves these days, the less said the better.  Some good nibbles, but none located anywhere within reach of Fullerton.  Might give this a bit of a write-up next time, but only by special request.
 I am currently taking a Transportation Planning class at East Los Angeles College.  It’s held at MTA headquarters in Los Angeles, near Union Station so I can almost get there on time by Metrolink, and home by Amtrak twice a week.  The main homework assignment so far has been to use public transit in an unfamiliar place.  A bit more of a challenge for me that for many other attendees.  My trip took me to Palmdale and Lancaster, including my first use of Antelope Valley Transit (AVTA), plus my first look at the Metrolink rail line between Lancaster and Newhall (the portion missed on the 11/23 SO.CA.TA trip…see MarkTime 64).  A report on that adventure, and also on my participation in a class trip taken by a friend/classmate, may appear in this issue or next, space/time permitting.
 The only other big transit tours I can remember since #64 would be another LA Owl excursion on 1/5-6, this mostly in west Los Angeles, and a Montclair-San Bernardino-Redlands trip on Omnitrans last Sunday.  I do need to check out some OCTA routes, especially some new and changed ones, so have penciled in next Sunday unless the call center realizes they will need extra people to cover all the schedule-change calls.  Even if I miss that, there will be tours shared with other transit pals later in March.
 Strange but true, this reporter has been to 5 films already this year, just 2 more than all of 2001.  As you might expect, I got to the first episode of LORD OF THE RINGS, though not as early as originally planned.  On one night I’d set aside, got a last-second call from a friend who had free tickets to a special screening at the Egyptian in Hollywood.  I’d never been to that classic old theater, so for that and other factors I said yes.  THE GLEANERS AND I was a pseudo-documentary from France, dealing with scavengers both rural and urban.  Pretty good film, and my friend really loved both the film and the subject matter.
 Chicago Phil gave AMELIE some good reviews, so when it finally made it to within bus range of Fullerton, I dashed off to see it.  Cute, funny French film, cute French actress ?  Added plus, the Bay Theatre in Seal Beach has an organ originally built for a movie house in New York, and this would be one night when they had an impromptu pre-movie recital.  They have regular concerts (also with a classic old film) on Sunday afternoons, so will have to go back.
 Finally managed to sneak a peek at LORD OF THE RINGS-FELLOWSHIP OF THE LONG TITLE about a month ago.  Well worth the wait.  In thinking back, guess I subconsciously waited after having been burned by having made sure to attend the opening day of the Ralph-my-lunch Bakshi train-wreck of an adaptation sometime back in the days of Lower-Middle Earth.
 Last Saturday, attended a double-bill at the Egyptian.  My friend really goes for music and films from Spain, so could not pass up the “Recent Spanish Cinema” series up there.  Alas, she was somewhat disappointed by both offerings.  BUÑUEL Y LA MESA DEL REY was sort of a double-flashback piece…not sure if fictional or even just slightly based on reality, with Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali and Fernando Garcia Lorca seeking King Solomon’s Table in Toledo (or was it Cincinnati?  “I haven’t made up my mind yet about Toledo!”).  Cool underground danger-everywhere walk, though too similar to the just-seen LORD OF ONION RINGS.  LA DAMA DEL PORTO PIM was a standard-issue doomed-love film, which I think was written by someone who saw CASABLANCA a few too many times…WWII, European exiles stuck in some gawd-forsakin’ waiting-room town until their transit visas came through, etc.
 To make a day of it, I first took a walking tour of Los Feliz and Silver Lake, including a stop at the Zinearama store.  A little light on zines, but just as well as my backpack was already heavy with tapes I needed to hear and papers to go through.  Am told there was/is a store with zines down in Costa Mesa, and I am planning a stop there during my OCTA adventuring this coming Sunday.

 May have more news after the long-neglected Letters files!

Letters, Oh We Get Letters….

From: "Lloyd Penney" <penneys@netcom.ca
To: zineland@yahoo.com
Subject: MarkTime 65
Date: Sun, 31 Mar
1706-24 Eva Rd., Etobicoke, ON, M9C 2B2
 Got the quick issue of MarkTime, issue 65, so I expect this letter will be just as quick. Here goes…
 You’ve been having a helluva time finding a decent place to live. I guess most landlords are jaded with tenants, so they expect the worst, and usually get it. Unfortunately, those who try to be good tenants (mostly because our parents have spent some time as landlords or superintendents themselves) are caught in the middle. Rents are very expensive here, but affordable housing for sale here doesn’t exist. For some, only a lottery win will ever get them the down payment they need to purchase a home.
 Transit news from this area…the Sheppard Avenue subway line of the TTC continues under
construction, and is one of those traditional transit lines to nowhere. We’ll see how it goes. GO Transit is building a new GO bus terminal east of Union Station. It’s on a sliver of land wedged between government buildings on Front St., and the Gardner Expressway. All transit authorities above Toronto from Vaughan to Markham have amalgamated into York Transit, and is now renumbering and rerouting some routes, and creating others so that one bus can take you 50 miles or more, much like a crosstown bus. Other transit authorities, from Niagara Falls to Hamilton, are looking into more cooperation to make public transit between the two localities and others in between a reality.
 Movies we’ve seen…Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and our favorite, Monsters, Inc., three times, in fact. It’s the most fun of the three, in our opinions.
 Time to fly. Today’s the last day of the three-day Easter holiday, so as depression sets in over having to go back to a crummy job, I hope your weekend was fun, and see you next issue.

From: "Lloyd Penney" <penneys@netcom.ca
Subject: MarkTime 64
Date: Wed, 2 Jan
  Welcome to a new year…hard to believe that the science fictional year of 2001 was last year. Welcome to the future we haven't thought too much about.  I am continuing with tackling every fanzine I get, and I now have in front of me issue 64 of MarkTime. Here's the first loc of the year….
 You sum up my current job…I'd like to be part of the process, not the dumping ground. I often hear myself referred to in the third person, sometimes when I'm no more than three feet away. Very tiresome, but at least I know where I stand. On January 11, I have an interview with an advertising agency in an office building quite literally across the street from where I live. I'll be doing similar work, but will be a production assistant as well.  The only thing I don't know about is salary…it's got to be more than I'm making now. It'll be a five-minute commute from my front door to the office…wish me luck! I work in a noisy area, same as you do, but finally, nagging got me out of a office with a loud, always-talking bimbo of a secretary, and a even louder 9-pin printer churning out reports almost all the time. In this room, they wanted me to concentrate and do my work properly.  Three years of asking about moving finally got me what I wanted…out of that office, and into a production area. It's still noisy, but not nearly as bad.  I got a Walkman AM-FM headset radio for Christmas, so any noise I stand is noise of my own choice, usually CBC Radio 1.
[How’s your job going?]
 When Yvonne and I were in San Diego in 1984, the Red Trolley was all there was as far as downtown transit went. You say there's a Blue Line…is that an automatic system like the trolley to Tijuana?
[The San Diego cars are all red, but the route “lines” are Blue (border to the ballpark now) and Orange (downtown to Santee).  Someone in my readership collects transit tokens, but can’t recall who?]
 I hate apartment-seeking and moving. We used to do this every four years or so, but with the costs of apartments here starting at a thousand dollars for a one-bedroom, staying put has its advantages.
 Harry Warner complains about the homogenization of radio in his area…same
goes for me. Ownership regulations are being eased by the CRTC, and so the usual small groups of corporations are buying up everything in sight. As a result, Rogers Broadcasting owns dozens of stations, but at least are keeping station formats intact. Another company, don't know its name, is buying more stations and calling each and every one of them EZRock. This started with CJEZ-FM in Toronto, and now, EZRocks are everywhere across Canada, with the same slow mix of MOR and soft rock.
 You commented on the Expos and on the Washington Senators. There is talk of shipping the Expos to Washington, and perhaps calling them the Senators again. There might be some confusion any time the NHL Ottawa Senators come to town to play the Washington Capitals in a battle of the national capitals….
[The potential return of Washington Senators got me to thinking, they could take “interleague play” one step further and  have the National League play the NHL or NBA teams for a few-weeks at mid-season…think of the drawing power of Senators v Senators, Rangers v Rangers, etc ?]
 My letter...that warm fall we had continued on for a while before the temperatures fell to normal values for the late fall and early winter.  However, we've had a green (or gray) Christmas and New Year, so we're pleased.
 The forced Montréal amalgamation went into effect yesterday, making the megacity of Montréal a city of 1.8 million people, most of whom are unhappy about the whole thing.
[Seems to be going the other direction in that megalopolis just to my north and west, as big chunks of Los Angeles would rather be their own cities.  If they all get their way, Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley (itself filled with little neighborhoods that have had their own city-like mailing addresses for years), and perhaps San Pedro will have their pleas for soverignty on the November ballot.  As an ex-Chicagoan, I have to be happy that Chicago would return to “Second City” status if the measures pass ?]
 Don't know if you've seen Royal Canadian Air Farce lately. John Morgan has retired, and left the group, which means no more Mike From Canmore, or Jock McBile, or Professor Llewellyn ap-Azard. There's now three left, Luba Goy, Roger Abbott and Don Ferguson, and they bring in a fourth as guest star from
time to time...I've only seen it a few times, but it's not as funny as it was. Morgan used to be one of the writers, and his absence is felt.
 I will wind this up, and say thank you, good luck on the job and apartment searches, and see you next issue.

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From: "Welch, Henry" welch@msoe.edu
http://www.msoe.edu/~welch/tkk.html
Date: Thu, 27 Dec
Subject: MarkTime 64
 Thanks for MarkTime 64. I cannot read your new address fully. Is it PO Box 5753 or 6753.
Please advise ASAP since the latest TKK goes out RSN.
 Your rant in response to Harry Warner Jr.'s comments brings to mind my not too uncommon commute homeward in the evening. It is not uncommon for me to be 10 minutes (half-way home) before I hear any content on the radio. I've taken to listening to books on tape as a response.
 You misinterpret my intentions in regard to McDonalds and brats. I do not go to McDonalds for brats. I go there for a quick meal and to appease the children. Being somewhat adventurous I tried the brats as an alternative and while they are OK they cannot
hold a candle to a real grilled brat with lumpy greasy bits. They are wonderful (confirming the preference of the human taste bud). Unfortunately McDonalds has chosen the lamer less controversial brat.

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From:  an UnID occasional MarkTime reader and smart-ass ?

Back to the Snooze Room

Re-Started 4/9/02

 You can tell I'm busy…two weeks into the baseball season, and I have not yet been to a game!  Might have gotten to opening night at Anaheim, but chose instead to take much-needed hike and short nap.
 Still computer-less at home, as I'm still kitchen-less, since the cabinets still fill up my living room, etc.  I would complain more about how this puts some of "normal life" on hold, but when I entered my landlord's office with checkbook in hand on February 28th, he said to wait until the kitchen was finished so we could properly negotiate what he hoped would be only a small discount on March's rent.  Little was done to the kitchen since, and it happens that our schedules have kept us from running into each other every time as well.  Well, I think if he wants the March (and April) rent, he knows where I live ?.  Anyway, I do a bit of typing at a friend's house, or at the cyber-gaming place across from my post office.  My use of the much more expensive, yet less user-friendly Stinko's is limited to detail work and printing.

Class Projects

 The Transportation Planning classes are going pretty well so far.  It is much more oriented towards car traffic-load planning than anything for public transit, but there is more than enough to keep my interest, on the nights when lack of sleep and/or too many calls at work haven't worn me out.
 Our one big homework assignment was to plan, take, and write about a transit adventure.  The instructor expected us to use unfamiliar routes, with extra credit for a multi-modal trip.  For me to use a transit system I had never tried, I had to travel a considerable distance.  The largest southern California transit district I had never used was the Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA), up in Lancaster and Palmdale.
My original plan was to wake up early enough Saturday to make the first Metrolink train to Lancaster, ride AVTA to at least the Antelope Valley Mall area, then back in time for the last Metrolink back. However, with so many late nights/early mornings in the previous week (in other words, a typical week this year so far), and the sudden desire for a night out of town, I opted instead for leaving after work Friday.
 By the way, Metrolink is southern California's regional commuter railroad.  For the initial ride from Fullerton to Union Station, there was the usual problem of not being able to buy a through ticket to Lancaster...had to buy a Fullerton-Los Angeles ticket, then get a separate one up there for Los Angeles to Lancaster. This annoyance (never mind the added expense) was compounded by schedule timing...when all trains are on-time, I would have just 3 minutes to run off the Orange County train, get a ticket from the machine there (at least there is one at the end of the platform), then dash for the Antelope Valley line. One of the few times I've been happy for a late train lately...the AV train would not even get to Union Station for 20 minutes. I happened to spot Charles Hobbs getting on the Moorpark train, and I had about 5 minutes to chat before his train left. Getting out, I then saw Frank Schroeder waiting for the same train I wanted, and we had a nice chat comparing notes on MTA and OCTA until he left the train at Sun Valley.
 This was one of those short-routed trains, but fortunately the connecting Santa Clarita bus waited for our train at Newhall before heading up to Palmdale. Since I caught this, I wound up at the Palmdale Motel 6, a little over a mile from the mall. A decent if windy walk there, and a quick ride north on the AVTA 1 the next morning. I should have taken the 9:10am departure for better connections, but I did not know that until after I boarded the 9:40 and got a look at their bus book. Instead, I stayed on to the transfer center in Lancaster City Park. I figured this would be good for a look around the center, and at the municipal batting cage next door (how many transit centers boast THAT sort of service?)
 Listening to some local station, I'd heard about a new Chinese buffet at the Lancaster Target, just a half-mile up the street from the City Park. The ad said the place opened at 10:30 every day, so I had time for a quick stop at the Target. Unfortunately, the sign on the restaurant door said 11:00, and indeed the business was still not open at 10:40am. I walked back to City Park in time for the next AVTA 12. I was going to take the complete 12/11 loop back to City Park, but I needed to stop for a restroom break. Got off the 12 on Sierra near the Metrolink tracks, and walked up to the Lancaster library. This also gave me a good look at their old downtown, including a tour of the Western Hotel museum, and took some photos of the airplane and NASA-oriented murals for a flight fan I know. I then walked back down to complete the loop. This 12 was running a bit late...the schedule gives them 4 minutes at the east end before heading east as an 11, but this guy just flew past the layover and changed the head-sign on the fly. Got back to City Park and hopped on the next northbound 1 to the end of the line. I'd seen some eats around there from the 11. Silly me chose the IHOP, if only to remind myself why I stopped going there a few years ago. Had to rush to get out of there for the eastbound 11 to the Metrolink. Was nice to finally get on the Lancaster-Newhall stretch, far from the 14 Freeway.
 The rest was uneventful, just Metrolink to Amtrak to Fullerton. I had also wanted to it in the MTA’s “Metro” Red, Blue and perhaps Green Lines, but was worn out by the winds and the heavy backpack.

 A couple weekends later, I would ride along on a classmate's adventure.  This tour was a one-day run to the south, down to San Diego and southern Orange counties.
 We began with an Amtrek from Fullerton to Solana Beach, in central coastal San Diego county.  She was initially worried about the long wait down there, but with so much new for us both to see down there, she should have known better. San Diego's equivalent to the Metrolink is called the Coaster vending machine people were there switching ticket card stock from March to April, so we got to hear about tickets, and how to use their machines (Metrolink's are easier to use by comparison?!). A little snack booth was just put in at the station, with a custom-made storage locker that looked like a train engine. There is a tourist info booth just outside the station, fairly useful and sold some transit-oriented postcards. With all that, and a few photos of the station trench, we did not have time to check out the bus connections before the day's first northbound Coaster showed up.
 Coaster uses the same Bombardier-built cars as Metrolink, but with a slightly different seat configuration...looked like all the seats are set up in groups of 4. Being the curious sort, my companion wanted to walk the entire length of the 4-car train. We wound up at the very back, where the conductor was sitting. He let us go into the back cab for a bit, then we talked trains and transit the rest of the way to Oceanside. He is actually an Amtrak employee (much like with Metrolink).
 The Coaster was delayed by a southbound Amtrak, so all the time we were to spend exploring the Oceanside Transit Center was eaten up. I didn't even get to take a photo of the PAL shuttle (Oceanside to the Legoland park in Carlsbad)!  The North County Transit District (NCTD) route #395 was a bit late, so I did get a couple photos of buses in their side of the transit center, one each of a pre-"Breeze" and their current logo.  They had just rolled out a new ad campaign and bus system name, using a number of semi-typical NCTD riders dressed like Clark Kent, and on the day of the new name they opened their shirts to reveal "Breeze" shirts underneath.  The logo and slogan is more befitting some sort of "soft lite" radio station, hooboy.
 Something they don't warn you about in advance...proper identification is required to ride any bus on the streets of Camp Pendleton. The driver told us they do occasionally have a non-IDd passenger, who has to get off there and wait for the next bus back to where they came from. Southbound 395s were mobbed, so later on some Marines were getting on the northbound to take the "scenic" route to Oceanside. And scenic it was...the back roads, built before they thought of running transit buses through marine bases, go up and down the hills and gullies a mile or so east of I-5 and the coast.
 Carl's Jr. in San Clemente is now just a stop on the northbound part of the route, though they do use the stop for layover/rest when time permits. In fact, we had time to run into the Carls/Green Burrito for to pick up a bit of lunch. Either I didn't notice before, or just forgot, but the 395 stops in San Diego County, while the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) routes 1 and 191 stop just ahead in Orange County. The easy way would have been to just transfer to the 191 there, but as the old song sort of goes, "We never, EVER do it nice and easy"...continued on the NCTD 395 to El Camino Real y Avenida Rosa. This gave us a chance to learn where else the 395 stops (just at Avenida Magdelena), where the San Clemente Greyhound "station" is (in front of a liquor store about 1½ miles up El Camino Real), what the 395 uses for its turnaround loop, and to learn where this is in relation to a dinner stop a fellow bus-fan was hoping to use on a coastal bus trip he had planned for a couple weekends later.
 We walked south to connect with the OCTA 191. My friend was hoping to get down to where the 191 is still on El Camino Real, but by the time we got back down to the Greyhound station for the briefest of picture-taking, we had to scurry down and around into the neighborhood to track down a bus stop. 191 is still a van-sized "little bus", the better to take the many sharp turns on steep, narrow streets. At San Clemente Pier, a couple young surfer dudes got on, wanting to head for Dana Point Harbor. They must have done more drinking than surfing, or they were just bored, as they broke out into song during the Avenida Pico loop…including "Beverly Hillbillies" and other TV theme songs from before they were born.
 We took the 191 to Kmart Plaza for a quick study of the stop, and of the U-turn the 1 and 91 "big buses" have to make down at Camino de Estrella and Calle Hermosa. Seems OCTA has run into NIMBY problems with every turnaround loop they have proposed. The U-ie has attracted fewer complaints, though a couple have been loud enough to appear in a local paper. The U-turn is best they know in terms of operations and minimum of vehicle service hours lost, but requires the bus to make a left turn from the right lane. The next 91 took us up to Dana Point Harbor, where my friend expected to do a bit of exploring, then an easy stroll to the Laguna Beach Transit stop near the Ritz Carlton. Alas, geography, time and bus schedules were not in our favor. Fortunately, a cabbie taking a break at the Jack-in-the-Box across PCH spotted us, so we got a ride up to the Ritz just ahead of the Laguna red line.
 Laguna Beach is an oddity in Orange County, as the small city has its own municipal bus system. Laguna Beach Public Transit operates 3 routes, in 6 sections, radiating out of Laguna Beach Bus Station. The way the operation is set up, one route interlines with another, so that we stayed on the same bus and covered every piece of the system in a about 2½ hours. It's a great system to take if you're into ocean and canyon views.
 The last route got us back to Laguna Beach Bus Station in time for the Amtrak Thruway bus to San Juan Capistrano. Somewhat more expensive than the OCTA 1-91 or 89-91 combos, but when the class project gives extra credit for a multi-modal trip, whatcha gonna do? Besides, the ride gave us a chance to contemplate the lack of riders (we were the driver's only passengers, and first people he picked up at Laguna Beach in 3 months on the route), and potential ideas for their upcoming promotional campaign. We also wondered if they were better off running the Thruway into Irvine Transportation Center?
 We took Amtrak back to Fullerton from San Juan, after a decent dinner at the Walnut Grove restaurant, just east of the mission de swallows.

The End Times

  Sorry about the age of all the above news!  I was expecting to have this stuff in zine form and in the mail almost 3 (!!) months ago, but there have been too many distractions since March.  Plenty more to tell on some of the above items, but I want to make sure to have whatevermess I have ready all printed and mailed while I have a bit of time and printer access tonight.  Am hoping to get you up to date with MarkTime #67 by no later than the last day before the postage increase (late June??).
 To fill, a couple of photos…let’s call them “teasers” for next issue ?.  Other news items that may or may not be covered in the next MarkTime include: All that, and less, next time.  Buh-bye for now!  -  Mark S., 5/29/02