Writing challenge, Day 13: your commute to/from school/work/etc.

As I've pointed out a hundredy-twelve times, I am currently not employed. I'm also not going to school, so technically my commute is to etc., whatever that may be. That doesn't mean that I don't go anywhere or do anything all day, however. I get to do the things for which working people have to take time off to do---paying bills and fixing stuff around the house among them. But there is no daily commute to speak of.

That doesn't mean that I've never had a commute, however. In my Day 11 post, I mentioned moving to Camarillo from the Valley because I had a 52-mile commute between North Hollywood and Oxnard each day. And that was each way. In 2009, I had a job in Sun Valley which was 47 miles each way. I did technical illustrations of their product line and created catalog pages.

Another time (2007), I had a temporary assignment as a technical writer at a company in Panorama City where they manufactured wheelchair lifts for buses and trains. That was about 46 miles each way when I drove (which I sometimes did), but most days I was able to use Metrolink to get there. The station near home is a mile down the road, so I drove down each morning in time to catch the 6:30 train. On the other end, after a 50-minute ride, it was about a 15-minute walk (3/4 mile) to the office. For me, that was the first time that I was able to take a train from home to work. Some days I was able to catch a few Zs on the way, but I was careful not to sleep too deeply or I'd miss my stop and really be in trouble. Going to work by rail isn't so bad. Especially when you already like trains.

All of my other jobs were 20 miles or less from home, so getting to work was a fairly uneventful trip unless the weather was poor or an accident or other incident had taken place.

Perhaps the best commute of all is the one that Lori takes each morning. She gets up, walks a grueling 40 feet or so all the way to the front bedroom (what we call "the office"), sits down, and fires up her laptop computer. Some days she even gets dressed. I wouldn't mind that.

Tomorrow we'll take a trip seven years into my future to get a glimpse of what my life will be like then. Since that's only about a quarter of the 30 years into the future that Marty McFly went, I'll borrow my friend Ryan's DeLorean and drive it at 22 mph right into the year 2022.