At the end of a long day at work, I decided to get home, do the elliptical while dinner was cooking, and just unwind from the chaotic day I just had. Instead, I get in my car, start leaving the parking lot, realize I forgot my blackberry which is charging at my desk, had a debate with myself as to if I can leave it for one night without anything falling apart overnight, decided that something major would likely happen if I didn’t have it; so I go back into work, grab the blackberry, and sped out of the parking lot before someone corners me with an IT issue. The only good thing that transpired was that I ran up and down 4 flights of stairs – twice.

Before I go on, I should mention it is raining out. As you may recall, Portland is the land of rain in the winter. The white stuff we saw for several weeks in December is considered unusual.

I get on the freeway to go home, and almost immediately start seeing the commute is going to suck. It’s hard to tell how bad its going to be, but clearly, I won’t be getting home in my usual 25-30 minutes. And, really, I just want to go home.

I have this philosophy when I drive during rush hour. If there is an accident, by all means, delay me. Get the people safe and make sure the injuries are dealt with in a timely manner. I don’t mind….really, I don’t. It’s annoying, but accidents happen.

If the entire drive is simply “slow” traffic, if the traffic guy doesn’t mention anything about an “earlier accident”, then I’m annoyed. Like tonight, it means people are not sure how to drive in the rain (even though we will have this until July), so they are going much slower than necessary. Or, it means there is an accident going the other way, so people are “rubber necking” to see what happened….maybe catch the gore as they drive by.

So that’s what the commute was like – stop and go for no other reason than the rain. And, I snapped this picture while stopped – just to ensure everyone I was not moving while taking pictures. That would be dangerous. 🙂

And at the height of my frustration, the shuffle feature on my iPod started playing a song from the album Road Rage…which made me laugh. How appropriate! So, instead of getting angry, I sang along to Great Big Sea – some Irish song about a man who died and everyone having a party.

If you ever have a chance to listen to Great Big Sea, seize it. If you see they are playing locally, do not second guess, go. Their concerts are like giant parties where everyone is packed in the kitchen having a good ol’ time, drinking, and singing. They are a band from Newfoundland and play a combination of their own music and Celtic/Newfoundland inspired music. Great stuff.